Beyond Horatio's Philosophy: The Fantasy of Peter S. Beagle. David Stevens
that it was Molly with the cat—he remembered the cat, didn’t he? Schmendrick told Molly that she would often forget herself like that, and then Molly would always have to remind him that she was a unicorn.
At the word the king changed. All at once his eyes were clear and shining with feeling, like Molly’s eyes. He recognized them, and stood to embrace his friends. Sooz saw then that he had been a hero, that he was still a hero, and that maybe everything was going to be all right after all. She told him about the griffin eating children, and when she told him the name of her village he surprised her by saying he knew it, and he had been there. Now he would have the pleasure of returning.
They were interrupted by a small, dark woman who introduced herself as Lisene, the king’s secretary, translator, and protector. Schmendrick had never known him to need any of those things, especially a protector, but she told him: “Time sets its claw in us all, my lord, sooner or later. We are none of us that which we were.” The king sat down obediently in his chair and closed his eyes.
Schmendrick was angry, and growing angrier, but did not show it. Sooz knew it because that is how her father gets angry. He told Lisene that the king had agreed to return to the girl’s village with her to rid her people of a marauding griffin. They would leave the next day.
Lisene, however, would not hear of it. The king was in no fit condition for such a journey, let alone such a deed. They came seeking the peerless warrior they remembered, but found instead a spent, senile old man.
Schmendrick cut her off, eyes flashing. He pointed his finger at the woman, and Sooz expected her to catch fire. He said, “Hear me now, I am Schmendrick the magician, and I see my old friend Lír, as I have always seen him, wise and powerful and good, beloved of a unicorn.”
And with that word, a second time, the king woke up, blinked, and grasped the arms of the chair. He looked at Lisene, and told her he would go with them. It was his task and his gift; she would see to it that he was ready. When she begged him to reconsider, he reached out tenderly and took her head between his big hands; Sooz saw there was love between them. He said, “It is what I am for. You know that as well as he does. See to it, Lisene, and keep all well for me while I am gone.”
Lisene looked so sad, and so lost, that Sooz didn’t know what to think, about her, about the king, about anything. Lisene told the king that she would see to it. As she left the room, she turned and said to Schmendrick, “His death be on your head, magician.” Sooz thought she was crying, only not in the way that grownups do.
Schmendrick replied, with a voice so cold Sooz wouldn’t have recognized it if she hadn’t known it was him speaking, “He had died before. Better that death—better this, better any death—than the one he was dying in that chair. If the griffin kills him, it will yet have saved his life.” Sooz heard the door shut as Lisene left the room.
Sooz asked Molly what Schmendrick meant about the king having died before, but rather than answer Molly knelt at the king’s feet, took one of his hands between hers, and begged him to remember. The old man was swaying on his feet, but he placed his other hand on Molly’s head and assured Sooz that he would come to her village.
“The griffin was never hatched that dares harm King Lír’s people. But you must remind me, little one. When I…when I lose myself…when I lose her…you must remind me that I am still searching, still waiting…that I have never forgotten her, never turned from all she taught me. I sit in this place…I sit…because a king has to sit, you see…but in my mind, in my poor mind, I am always with her.…”
Sooz had no idea what he was talking about then. Later, when she told the story, she did.
Lír fell asleep again, then, holding Molly’s hand. Sooz tried to write a letter home, but she fell asleep, too, and slept the rest of the day and all night, too. When she awoke Schmendrick was at her bedside, urging her to rise. They would start by noon, anyway, if he could get Lisene and the others to realize they were not coming along. When he said he might have to turn the lot of them to stone Sooz thought he was joking, but with Schmendrick you never knew. He told her King Lír was not mad, or senile; he was Lír still. She noticed the change in him when Schmendrick spoke of one unicorn who loved him. He had not seen her since he became king, Schmendrick told Sooz, but he is what he is because of her. When they spoke of her, or said her name, which they had not yet done, then he was recalled to himself, as they often had to do for her, so long ago. Sooz did not know that unicorns had names, or that they loved people, and Schmendrick explained that they did not, except this one. Her name was Amalthea.
When Sooz next saw the king he was so changed that she froze in the doorway and held her breath. Three men were bustling around him like tailors, dressing him with his armor. He looked like a giant. When he saw her he smiled, and it was a warm, happy smile but it was a little frightening, too. It was a hero’s smile; she had never seen one before. He asked her to come and buckle his sword. She managed to do so, and he swore to her that the next time that blade was drawn it would be to save her village.
When Schmendrick complained that it was four days’ ride, and that there was no need for armor until he faced the griffin, the king reminded him that he went forth as he intended to return; it was his way. Molly, seeing him in his armor, could only exclaim how grand and beautiful he was. Molly wished she could see him. The three of them stood there for a long time, then the king looked at Sooz and said, “The child is waiting.” And that was how they started off for Sooz’s home, the king, Schmendrick, Molly, and Sooz.
Sooz rode with the king most of the time. Lír assured her that his skittery black mare would be at her best when the griffin swooped down on her; it was only peaceful times that made her nervous. Sooz still didn’t like the mare much, but she did like the king. He didn’t sing to her, but he told her stories, real, true stories about things that happened to him. She knew she would never hear such stories again.
Lír told her many things, but when she asked him why the castle fell down, he wouldn’t exactly say. His voice became very quiet and faraway. “I forget things, little one.… I try to hold on, but I do forget.” She could never get him to say a word about the unicorn.
Lír’s mind kept moving in and out. Frequently at night he would wander away, and often Schmendrick or Sooz would bring his mind back in focus by mentioning the unicorn. One day he charged at a rutting stag that was pursuing them, and that night he sang an entire long song about the adventures of an outlaw named Captain Cully. Sooz had never heard of him, but it was a really good song. Lír apologized for putting her in danger; he had forgotten she was with him. Then he smiled that hero’s smile of his, and said, “But oh, little one, the remembering!”
They reached the village on the fourteenth day, and Schmendrick told Sooz it would be better to tell the people that this was just the king’s greatest knight, and not the king himself. She had to trust him; he always knew what he was doing. That was his trouble.
Sooz did as she was told, but her father was not happy about it. Just another knight would be dessert for the griffin; you could be sure the king would never come there himself. He might have cared once, but now he was an old man, and old kings only care about who is to be king after them.
The next morning when Sooz came to the camp, Molly was helping the king put on his armor and Schmendrick was burying the remains of the last night’s dinner. Sooz ran up to Lír and threw her arms around him, like Lisene, begging him not to go. The king kept trying to pet her with one hand and push her aside with the other. He said,
“No, no little one, you don’t understand. There are some monsters only a king can kill. I have always known that—I should never, never have sent those poor men to die in my place. No one else in all the land can do this for you, and for your village. Most truly now, it is my job.”
And he kissed her hand, just like he had kissed the hand of so many queens.
Molly came to her then and took her from him, telling her that there was no turning back for him now, or for her either. It was her fate to bring this last cause to him, and his fate to take it up. Neither of them could have done differently, being who they were. She must be as brave as he is, and see it all play out. Or rather she must learn