Albishadewe: Quest for the Unicorn (Book 5)

By Laraine Anne Barker

In the centre of the bier lay Ignarius in a simple white robe. ... A silver coronet was his only adornment. No king could have looked more regal or dignified. ... It was hard to believe so much evil existed within him.
“Touch him!” Mirabell hissed into Esmé’s ear. ... The contact sent shudders of revulsion right through her. ... She found it impossible to believe living flesh could be so cold.
Mirabell whispered again: “We’re going to drain the warmth from your body to warm him—transfer the beat of your heart to his—drive the breath from your lungs to make him breathe again.”
Esmé felt her heart lurch in shock. Did Mirabell mean what she thought? She turned to look at the sorceress—and the glint of relish in Mirabell’s eyes told her the answer. Horror flooded through her. Its frigid touch seemed to turn her blood to ice.

Mirabell has captured the white unicorn and all thirteen dragons and also stolen the Godking’s treasure. Now she has snatched the Princess of Lazaronia. For it seems that only the life in Esmé’s body can bring the wizard out of his eternal sleep. But the sorceress’s evil experiment means certain death for the Princess ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laraine Anne Barker
• Release date: May 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9780987665041

Laraine Anne Barker

Laraine Anne Barker has always enjoyed telling stories. As a child, when playing with dolls with her younger sisters became boring, she would make up stories featuring the dolls. She also remembers how she and her sisters wrote stories into exercise books and even illustrated them, using crayons to colour them because they found that rubbing on the crayon pictures gave them a shine similar to that of glossy colour pictures in magazines. Laraine submitted her first book (for adults) to a publisher at about the age of 21 and received a very kind rejection letter in which the editor suggested the story could be rewritten for young readers. She regrets she didn't keep the rejection and follow up on the advice. She didn't start writing fantasy for young readers until 1986. After many rewritings the book started then became The Obsidian Quest (published under the Hard Shell imprint of Mundania Press). The Obsidian Quest was a finalist in The Dream Realm Awards 2001 and was followed by Lord of Obsidian and The Third Age of Obsidian, also published under the Hard Shell imprint of Mundania Press. The Mark Willoughby series was started in 1992. Silvranja of the Silver Forest was short-listed (one of three) in 1998 for a major New Zealand prize, The Tom Fitzgibbon Memorial Award.

Book preview

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hardwork of this author.

About Albishadewe, Quest for the Unicorn

In the centre of the bier lay Ignarius in a simple white robe. … A silver coronet was his only adornment. No king could have looked more regal or dignified. … It was hard to believe so much evil existed within him.

Touch him! Mirabell hissed into Esmé’s ear. … The contact sent shudders of revulsion right through her. … She found it impossible to believe living flesh could be so cold.

Mirabell whispered again: We’re going to drain the warmth from your body to warm him—transfer the beat of your heart to his—drive the breath from your lungs to make him breathe again.

Esmé felt her heart lurch in shock. Did Mirabell mean what she thought? She turned to look at the sorceress—and the glint of relish in Mirabell’s eyes told her the answer. Horror flooded through her. Its frigid touch seemed to turn her blood to ice.

Mirabell has captured the white unicorn and all thirteen dragons and also stolen the Godking’s treasure. Now she has snatched the Princess of Lazaronia. For it seems that only the life in Esmé’s body can bring the wizard out of his eternal sleep. But the sorceress’s evil experiment means certain death for the Princess …

Chapter 1: Claiming the Godking’s Treasure

Esmé brought Albishadewe to a halt with a gentle pull on his mane and turned her head to look back at the forest from which she and the white unicorn had just emerged. She could hardly see the beauty of spring that mantled the trees and dappled the forest floor for the tears filling her eyes. It was hard to believe she entered the woodland so joyously a few hours before—a young girl enjoying the company of her lover, light-hearted for the first time in what seemed many years. Both she and Mark had determinedly ignored the enforced separation looming ahead now they had returned the golden key to the Tower of Kaleidoscopic Light.

It’s not fair, Albishadewe, she confided to the unicorn, her voice little more than a whisper. Why does Mark always have to go home as soon as we defeat the wizard Ignarius?

But she knew the answer to her question even before she asked it: Mark was only sixteen—far too young to get married—and needed to finish his education. Even she had a lot to learn before she was ready to take up her inheritance as Sovereign Queen of Lazaronia.

Albishadewe twisted his head round as far as he could and rolled his left eye at her in sympathy. She smiled at him and reached out her hand to touch his silvery horn, now grown to its original length of sixty centimetres since he had lost it in killing a wyvern some six months before. Under her fingers it felt like warm, polished marble and she found herself almost understanding why people of the past had coveted the sheer beauty of a unicorn’s horn, even if she was unable to imagine how anyone could kill such a magnificent creature.

I’m sorry, Albishadewe. I’m selfish and have forgotten to thank you for allowing Mark on your back when you didn’t have to. You gave us a lovely ride. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.

Albishadewe replied in his strange picture language, which sometimes took a while to interpret. But his meaning was instantly clear to Esmé: it’s absurd, the unicorn was telling her, to hold a grudge against a young man for something not his fault—especially as it wasn’t even Mark’s ancestors who had driven unicorns to extinction.

No, Esmé said sadly. Perhaps it’s myself you should refuse to let on your back. It was my ancestors who hunted unicorns to extinction.

Albishadewe didn’t answer this observation. Instead he suggested Esmé might like to go for daily rides with him now the weather was getting warmer. Joyfully she accepted his offer and turned his head in the direction of the castle, setting him into a canter.

When they arrived at the castle she slid off the unicorn’s back onto a mounting block specially erected for her use—for Albishadewe was fully twenty hands high and Esmé insisted on riding him bareback, which made mounting and dismounting very difficult. As she stood by the mounting block and watched him canter back down Emerald Hill, she heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and glanced over her shoulder to see a servant girl coming down the castle steps.

When Esmé turned, the girl stopped and gave her much-loved Princess a brief curtsey. Highness! Her Majesty would like to see you straight away, please—in her study. Esmé looked down in dismay at her riding clothes. She said you needn’t bother changing, the girl added before Esmé could object.

Esmé sighed, thanked the girl with a rather forced smile and hurried up the stairs. Some five minutes later she sat facing her mother, the Queen Regent Esmeralda, across a huge, elaborate desk. Also present were two others—Ilsamere, the powerful sorceress known to most only as the Princess’s tutor or governess, and a man dressed in the sombre robes of a Crown Counsellor.

The man rose and bowed gravely as Esmé entered. His heavy chain of office, which proclaimed him Minister of the Treasury, clanked as he moved. Esmeralda started pouring the tea they had started serving at the castle since Mark had become Prince of Lazaronia. Esmé gratefully accepted a cup but refused the crumpets, sandwiches and cake that reminded her too much of the earthling youth from whom she had so recently been parted. Everyone else helped themselves with obvious enjoyment.

If Esmeralda noticed the quiver of her daughter’s lips as she refused something to eat, she gave no sign but came straight to the point of the meeting.

We’ve been discussing how best to carry out your idea of distributing the wealth of the Godking’s treasury among the families who’ve been caused hardship and suffering by the civil war, she said.

Esmé blinked in surprise: she hadn’t given the matter of distribution much thought because it hadn’t seemed a very complicated process at the time.

Esmeralda patiently explained. It isn’t simply a matter of giving a jewelled cup to one family and a gold plate to another—which wouldn’t be a fair sharing out anyway. The families would either have to sell the treasure given to them or melt down the gold—and Ilsamere says the treasure is protected against being melted down, which would destroy most of its value anyway. Minister Golfinja here has suggested we have an auction where all wealthy Lazaronians can bid for the privilege of owning any of the treasures for the lifetime of the bidder. The proceeds of the auction will be distributed to families who have suffered the loss of a breadwinner, and ownership of each treasure will revert to the Crown upon the bidder’s death. Ilsamere says spells can be woven around the treasures to protect them from being stolen from their rightful guardians.

Esmé looked from one to the other of the adults, puzzled.

It sounds like a great idea to me, she said. But you don’t really need me to put such plans into action. Ilsamere is more qualified than I am.

The Queen’s answer made her blink in surprise. As the rightful heir to the treasure it’s your job to bring it back to the castle. The dragons will be needed and the unicorn is also a perfect form of transport—but you’re the only one who can control him. The Piksenvolk will help you load Flame and Flare—for they’ll always be able to handle the dragons.

Oh! was all Esmé could say. Now she thought about it, she realised she had expected Ilsamere would use some type of spell to transport the Godking’s treasury to the castle.

As though reading her pupil’s mind, Ilsamere broke in. It’s not just that the unicorn and the dragons are the only suitable transport in Lazaronia for the Godking’s treasures. You see, the treasures are protected against being taken from the caves by anyone but the Godking’s rightful heir, who is yourself. That’s why the treasure hasn’t already been plundered—and why we haven’t found it necessary to remove it to a more seemly place. She continued in mind-speech: Besides, the task will help take your mind off the separation from Mark.

* * *

At first Esmé found this last statement far from true. When Albishadewe came for her next morning at dawn, bringing the dragons Flame the Tame and Flare the Fearless with him, the sight of all three creatures together only served to remind her more strongly of Mark’s absence.

Because Albishadewe was with the dragons, whose cumbrous size didn’t encourage them to walk if they could fly, the unicorn used his strange flying gift, which was more akin to the levitation skill of the Piksenvolk of Geheimberg than to flying since, like all unicorns before him, he had no wings. He waited until the dragons were aloft before galloping madly down Emerald Hill with Esmé on his back. Halfway down the hill the sound of hooves abruptly stopped as the unicorn started to move through the air, rising rapidly until he caught up with the dragons.

Then, flanked on either side by creatures who made even Albishadewe look small, Esmé began her journey to Geheimberg, the Secret Mountain—also known as the Sacred Mountain—to officially claim her inheritance of the Godking’s treasury.

Albishadewe set her down beside a cave mouth from which boulders had obviously been cleared away, for they lay all over the place. Esmé lit a lamp that stood at the entrance and went into the cave alone. To her surprise she found somebody already waiting. From the way the soft colours of their robes shimmered and changed she knew immediately they were the Council of Piksenlords—all nine of them. They were gathered in the dimness at the rear of the cave where a deep pit led down to Piksenville.

Although less than fifty centimetres in height like all their race, the Lords of the Piksenvolk of Geheimberg were some of the most dignified-looking people Esmé had ever met. Albinon the White, their leader, dressed in glistening white robes, stepped forward and bowed low to Esmé, who curtsied in return.

The formalities were hardly over when the sound of wings and a lot of excited chirruping came from the pit behind the Piksenlords. They all turned with indulgent smiles as five dragonlings, two of them larger than the other three, and six Piksendragons, flew over the Piksenlords’ heads and landed near Esmé.

The Piksendragons were all varying shades of green. Mark had named them. The three females were Chartreuse (the queen), Olive and Seafoam. The males were Koru (Chartreuse’s mate), Pinus and Verdant. The two larger dragonlings, Flame and Flare’s first babies, were Ebony, who