The Unicorn Peace by John Lee

Author:John Lee [Lee, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fantasy, Fiction
ISBN: 9780812519815
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
Published: 1993-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

chapteR 17

^1 arrod's impersonation was declared an unqualified success, but the cost was higher than he had expected.

His return to his own form left him weak, and all his joints ached. His ride back to the Outpost was slow and painful. He was fortunate in that no bullyboys lurked in his path: he would have been easy pickings. He spent the next two days in bed, and the aches and pains took a good sennight before they entirely disappeared. One thing was obvious to him: good as the disguise was, he could not afford to assume it too often.

Accordingly, he sent word to Moresby Yarrow to collect and hold the materials that he was acquiring and to assemble the means to transport them beyond the Upper Causeway all at one time- He did not know what he would face when it came to building his monument, but he knew that he could not afford to get there and find that his body could not handle the power needed.

On the appointed day, Jarrod rode into the town in the predawn dark and tethered his horse outside Greygor's house. Half an hour later, the architect came down and strapped on a saddlebag. He disappeared into the house again and when he reappeared he was carrying a large, white cat. He spoke soothingly to the horse and then draped the cat carefully across the spot where the neck emerged from the shoulders.

"Now you just stay limp while I get into the saddle,"

THE UNICORN PEACE + 177

he said. "You'll be quite safe as long as the horse stays still."

Jarrod-the-cat wasn't convinced- He could smell the horse's nervousness. If the animal turned skittish, he had no way of hanging on except by digging in his claws and that, he knew, was a prescription for disaster. He felt and heard Greygor clamber into place. The horse, mercifully, held its stance. It was a good thing, Jarrod thought, that the yard was only half a mile away.

Greygor's hand stroked his back. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay where you are," the architect said. "There isn't as much room back here as I thought there would be."

Jarrod braced himself as the uncomfortable and un-

dignified ride began. The one good thing was that, with

Gregor keeping the reins short there wasn't much like-

lihood that the horse would drop its head and dump him onto the cobbled street. He prayed that they would not break into a trot. The swaying of the cobblestones beneath him was bad enough. He shut his eyes and resigned himself, It might have been only half a mile, but the trip seemed to take half a lifetime.

The yard, when they fi-

nally reached it, was a lamplit bustle. It would have been very large to the full-sized Jarrod, but to Jarrod-the-cat it was vast and dangerous. It was filled with stamping draft horses harnessed to long Page 95

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.