Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [10]
Still, it didn’t keep Ivan from trying.
This was, in its way, a very sacred place. The air was thick with the scent of cedar and age, the woods weighed down with years.
Then, in the distance, a shaft of golden light as broad as a courtyard and bright enough, in the gloom beneath the branches, to dazzle the eye lanced down through the trees, illuminating a very special place indeed.
He hurried his steps, beginning to feel the press of magic around him. He couldn’t see, taste, or smell it, as a real magician might, but he got the sense of it closing in on him. He needed to discharge it before it found some other outlet. The last thing he needed right now was for The Tradition to decide to “reward” his persecution in its own way. He could just imagine what sort of “way” that would be. With his luck, his brother’s intended bride would come wandering in here to pick berries, discover him, and fall in love.
And if that happened, he thought with ironic amusement, Father would have every reason to be quite angry. And rightfully so. After all, it was also his job to know The Tradition well enough to keep things like that from happening.
He stepped out of darkness and into the light. The sun poured down on him like warm honey as he stood beside the spring-fed pool of clear water that was the Heart of Led Belarus.
This pool of water never froze over, not even in the depth of winter. It was as pure and sweet as water could be, which was hardly a surprise since unicorns drank at it twice a day. And in general—
“Oh! It is the prince!” The voice was not familiar, but it didn’t need to be. He knew what it was, if not who.
The words carried an overtone of whinnying, and Sasha braced himself. In a moment, he was overwhelmed by five doe-eyed, adoring female unicorns.
“Prince Sasha, would you comb my mane?”
“Prince Sasha, I have this dreadful itch behind my ears.”
“Oh, Prince, could you please—”
They pressed in around him, nostrils quivering, horns glowing with magic, all trying to touch him at once.
Predictably, getting in the way of what he actually needed to do.
“Ladies, please!” he said, after a moment of being softly jostled and inundated with pleading. “I need to let some magic free! If I don’t, something might happen that you wouldn’t like!”
They giggled, but backed up. Trotting around to the opposite side of the pool, they lined up, watching him expectantly. He didn’t know what male unicorns were like, but the female ones seemed to have the same intelligence and good sense as any empty-headed young human in the presence of his or her first love. Which was to say, none at all. In fact, he’d seen toddlers with more sense than the unicorns.
And it made him wonder, how on earth did they reproduce if they were besotted with humans and not their own kind?
Maybe they didn’t. Maybe new unicorns were spontaneously generated out of something. Nectar and dandelion floss. Honey and milkweed seeds. Spiderwebs and leftover magic. Or maybe the forest spirits created them; some of them were quite mischievous enough to do so.
Now that he was free of attention, he pulled his flute out of the front of his tunic, made sure that it hadn’t been damaged in his falls, and put it to his lips. Music was how he called on the magic that The Tradition packed around him, And while he couldn’t say that he controlled it, he certainly guided it.
He sensed the magic flowing from the first note. Using him as a conduit, and the music as direction, it poured out over this place that was somehow integral to all of his Kingdom.
Bring us Luck, he urged the magic. Give us the reddest cherries, the juiciest apples, the sweetest berries. Make all the nuts sound and savory. Let the cattle and sheep, the goats and the horses, the donkeys and swine and fowl of all sorts bring forth their young in ease and