The Unicorns of Lazaronia (Book 7)

By Laraine Anne Barker

Within moments Esmé felt the full force of a refusal that could break even the strongest mind—a refusal that turned her power against her with a towering, almost unbelievable rage. The twisting rainbows from her fingertips bent like hairpins, aiming their might at her head. For long moments Esmé had to put all her concentration into forcing them back. But it was no good: she had to drop her hands and command the light to go out.

Mark and Esmé are about to face their final battle against the forces of evil swamping Lazaronia, and Esmé needs to consult The Voice of Judgement. To do this she must command the power of the Tower of Kaleidoscopic Light. But the tower tries to turn her power against her. And the Voice of Judgement rightly refuses to admit her, because for someone still living to enter the presence of the Voice of Judgement is strictly forbidden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laraine Anne Barker
• Release date: May 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9780987665065

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.

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About The Unicorns of Lazaronia

Within moments Esmé felt the full force of a refusal that could break even the strongest mind—a refusal that turned her power against her with a towering, almost unbelievable rage. The twisting rainbows from her fingertips bent like hairpins, aiming their might at her head. For long moments Esmé had to put all her concentration into forcing them back. But it was no good: she had to drop her hands and command the light to go out.

Mark and Esmé are about to face their final battle against the forces of evil swamping Lazaronia, and Esmé needs to consult The Voice of Judgement. To do this she must command the power of the Tower of Kaleidoscopic Light. But the tower tries to turn her power against her. And the Voice of Judgement rightly refuses to admit her, because for someone still living to enter the presence of the Voice of Judgement is strictly forbidden.

Prologues 1 and 2

1

In her dream it seemed to Ilsamere, tutor in sorcery to the Princess of Lazaronia, that she was no longer herself. Sometimes she was on the outside looking down on the scene; mostly she seemed to become in turn both the man and the woman she was watching—feeling everything they felt, saying everything they said, doing everything they did.

… And not liking it at all.

* * *

I’ve done it! They’re coming! Look!

The woman, seated in a garden chair like an exotic queen on her throne, turned to the man watching intently at her side. As always, her incredible beauty caught at his chest as though trying to squeeze the very life from his heart. He knew he couldn’t live without her. However, he couldn’t be happy even when she played at being a loving wife, for the fear of losing her was as tangible as an evil angel constantly at his shoulder, spreading black wings through his mind.

But the woman was apparently unaware of his feelings. With face aglow, she held the huge chunk of crystal out to him. Its polished facets sent rays of rainbow light dancing all over the large enclosed garden. Reluctantly the man stared into its depths with eyes registering none of his companion’s excitement.

Instead, as he turned his gaze back to her face, and her lip curled slightly in scorn, he realised she could now see his desperate fear, mixed with longing.

He tried one last frantic attempt to plead with her, using the only tool he thought would have any effect. If you don’t let him go they’ll find you. And they will kill you this time. Even your son isn’t worth the sacrifice of your life. Nobody is.

She sprang up, her lovely face a picture of outrage and fury. Fully expecting her to strike him with the crystal she had spent many years perfecting, her companion backed away. Then, without warning, a mask of cold, rigid determination replaced the fury. She reseated herself and twisted the crystal until its main facet was back in line with one of the satellites planted in space by the inhabitants of this dreadful planet on which they were exiled. Then she peered deep into the opposite facet, moving her face gradually closer to its surface.

What she saw now made her breath catch in her throat, where it formed a hard lump. And, as the image captured within the crystal became steadily larger, tears sprang to her eyes. Furious with her weakness, she blinked them back. She mustn’t miss one moment of this, her private triumph.

They’ll all pay dearly for robbing me of those crucial years, she whispered fiercely, more to herself than the man at her side. But I, Mirabell of Mirakklon and the Far Isles of Raldyss, am about to achieve my wildest dream—the result of more than three long years of hard work. My son will grow up to be King. I’ll undo the harm they’ve done and destroy every one of them. And if it means I too must die it will not be too high a price to pay.

* * *

Ilsamere jerked back in horror, just as the man did. But she knew this time her horror and his were not the same. It couldn’t be! It couldn’t!

The scene abruptly changed. She was now looking at a small child running towards her in a swirling halo of red, blue and purple light. A sense of triumph—deadly, self-seeking and destructive—swamped her. Then, before she could recover from the force of this emotion, it was as though she switched from being the woman to the child and she was running with outstretched arms, calling Pwetty lady; pwetty lady.

The dream faded.

Ilsamere slept on long enough to forget all but a vague impression of dreaming about a brilliant crystal and of Iggie’s cries for a non-existent woman. Wondering why she had fallen asleep so easily in the middle of the day, she awoke to sounds telling her Iggie’s after-lunch nap was over and it was time for his afternoon outing.

* * *

Pwetty lady—Iggie want pwetty lady.

Ilsamere sighed. She was fast beginning to find Iggie’s obsession with this strange imaginary friend exceedingly irksome. The child insisted he could see his pretty lady in the most unlikely places: among the rushes on the far side of the castle lake; in the canopy of Emerald Forest, though never, strangely, within the castle or its grounds. As if this wasn’t enough, the ghost of Iggie’s vivid imagination must have haunted his dreams. Ilsamere was often woken by his distressed cries for the pwetty lady.

Ilsamere reflected with vivid uneasiness how Iggie’s first intelligible utterance after losing his mother to the executioner’s axe had been not Ilsamere—although he had quickly grown attached to her—but pwetty lady. She’d always known he wasn’t referring to her. Where, she asked herself now—as she had so many times before—could he have first heard the words? He had been pointing then, as now, not at her but at the far bank of the castle lake—a distance too great for her to distinguish the features of anyone there without using sorcery. And why did she always feel too tired to bother making the necessary spells, especially as she was sure no one was there? She gave a mental shrug. Oh, well, perhaps it was normal for lonely children to have imaginary friends. After all, even the Princess Esmé had invented some very odd companions.

However, she would humour her nephew as she usually did rather than flatly tell him there was no one there. Ilsamere’s eyes aren’t strong enough to see. Is the pretty lady still there?

Iggie tried desperately to wriggle out of the pushchair into which Ilsamere had firmly strapped him. Although he was really too old to be pushed around, he enjoyed it so much she hadn’t the heart to deny him the pleasure.

Yeth! Yeth! he lisped now. Take Iggie to pwetty lady. Iggie want pwetty lady.

Ilsamere stared intently across the lake. There was definitely no one there. Suddenly her tiredness became bone-weariness. It’s a long walk, Iggie. By the time we get there she’ll be gone.

No! No! Pwetty lady wait for Iggie. Iggie want pwetty lady.

But Ilsamere’s too tired to push you that far.

Iggie walk! Iggie walk! Iggie want pwetty lady. He looked up at her with a slightly unnerving expression in his eyes. Only later did Ilsamere work out what it was—a remarkably adult slyness that sat so oddly on the face of a child not quite five years old. It was, perhaps, one of the things about Iggie that made her find him not wholly lovable, in spite of the tragic circumstances of his orphan status. But Iggie’s next words changed her sense of uneasiness to a chill of premonition that ran right down her spine. Pwetty lady want Iggie.

Ilsamere pushed the illogical feeling of uneasiness away and sighed in exasperation. In that case the pretty lady will have to come to Iggie.

Iggie shook his head vigorously. Another child in his position might have thrown a tantrum. But Ilsamere knew that was not Iggie’s way. He had remarkable reasoning powers for his age. No! No! Pwetty lady can’t come. Iggie go to pwetty lady.

Well, once he’d tired himself out again he’d soon forget his peculiar make-believe friend, Ilsamere told herself. It was certainly time he learned he couldn’t have everything he wanted without making any effort to get it. He was really too old to be wheeled around like a baby. She’d make him work to reach this non-existent stranger.

She bent down and undid the buckle on the pushchair’s leather harness. In that case Iggie can walk.

No sooner was Iggie on his feet than he moved off with surprising speed. In no time at all he was out of her reach, and still widening the gap. Ilsamere frantically tried forcing her unaccountably sluggish legs to walk faster. How, she wondered irritably, could a small child run so quickly?

That was when she knew something was hideously wrong. She abandoned the pushchair in a rush of panic that made her shriek like a fishwife, Iggie, stop! Come back!

But Iggie ran on, hands outstretched like a toddler racing to the comfort and safety of a mother’s arms. At any second Ilsamere expected him to fall flat on his face.

And he did.

There was a moment when the world seemed to stop and all sound ceased. However, Iggie quickly recovered the breath knocked from his body. The instant of eerie silence was immediately shattered by his ear-splitting screams. At the same time Ilsamere became aware of an extraordinary phenomenon: at the edge of her vision a whirlwind began forming. Visible not because of any dust and leaves within, it appeared to consist of