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"Unluckily, I am. Isn't it a nuisance?"
Cork grinned. "Till we meet again."
Tanaquil sat near the perfume-makers' booths and thought of Cork riding out to her red-haired mother's
fort in all his grandeur. What would happen? Anything might.
The peeve began to eat some perfumed soap, and Tanaquil removed it.
The letter would perhaps only annoy Jaive. It told of the resolution of the adventure, and of the perfect
world. It asked a respectful question, witch to sorceress: "Do you believe the unicorn will have any
trouble there from the additions I had to make to its bones, the copper and other metal I added? Will it
always now, because of them, keep some link to this earth?" Tanaquil did not mention the gift of
invulnerability Jaive might grow hysterical. In any case, Tanaquil did not yet quite believe in it. Nor did
she speak of the two creamy fossils fashioned to be two earrings at a jeweller's on Palm Tree Avenue,
and worn in her ears. Not vanity, but the ultimate in common sense. Who would recognize them now?
"Mother, I must see this world. Later, one day, I'll come back. I promise that. I'm not my father, not
Zorander. I won't leave you& that is, I won't let you renounce me. When we meet again, we'll have
things to talk about. It will be exciting and new. You'll have to trust me, please."
"Leave that soap alone!"
With her own map of the oases and the wells, and the towns of the eastern desert, Tanaquil set out near
sunset on the stern old camel she had bought three days before. Learning to ride him had been
interesting, but unlike most of his tribe, he had a scathing patience. He did not seem to loathe the peeve.
But the peeve sat on him, above the provisions, staring in horror at the lurching ground.
"Lumpy. Bumpy. Want get off."
"Hush."
They left the city by a huge blue gate, enameled with a unicorn that soldiers with picks were busy
demolishing.
The road was lined with obelisks and statues, tall trees, and fountains with chained iron cups. A few carts
and donkeys were being hastened to the gate before day's end.
The fume on the plain was golden. The hills bloomed. There would be cedar trees and the lights of the
villages, and then, beyond, the desert offering its beggar's bowl of dusts.
Bred for the cold as for the heat, the woolly, cynical old camel could journey by night, while the thin
snow fell from the stars.
Somewhere between the city and the desert, sunset began.
The sky was apple-red in the west, and in the east the coolness of lilac raised the ceiling of the air to an
impossible height. Stars broke out like windows opening. The land below turned purple, sable, and its
eastern heights were roses on the stem of shadow.
"It's beautiful," said Tanaquil.
It was beautiful. As beautiful as any beauty of the perfect world.
"Oh, peeve. It wasn't our fault we weren't given the best, but this, and all the things that are wrong. But
can't we improve it? Make it better? I don't know how, the odds are all against us. And yet just to
think of it, just to try that's a start."
But the peeve had climbed down the patient, scornful foreleg of the camel, and was digging in the dusty
earth. It lifted up its pointed face from the darkness and announced in victory: "Found it. Found a bone."
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