The Last Unicorn

By Peter S. Beagle

So there's this unicorn and one day she realizes that it has been yonks since she has seen another unicorn. She decides to investigate and she shortly discovers that all the other unicorns are gone. She then decides that she must find out what happened to them and where they are. So she sets out on her quest.
Well, she doesn't get far before she is captured by an unscrupulous witch who puts the unicorn into her carnival as an exhibit and there the unicorn stays until she talks the witch's inept magician into helping her escape. And escape is vital because the witch has also captured a harpy and the magic holding the harpy captive is weakening and it will soon burst free and destroy anything in its path. Fortunately the unicorn manages to slip away when the harpy gets free and goes after the witch.
The harpy & the magician resume the unicorn's quest and the magician has a quest too. He wants to find his true power and become a real magician instead of a fake, carnival magician.
The unicorn found out that the other unicorns were driven away by the Red Bull and that the Red Bull serves King Haggard, a blighted king who rules a blighted kingdom. So the unicorn, the magician and a thief's moll they acquire along the way set off for Haggard's kingdom to confront him and his fearsome Red Bull. And in the process each will grow and discover things about themselves they never realized and the unicorn will find out what it is like to be vulnerable.

This is a take on your standard fairy tale, with monsters, magic, a handsome prince, an ensorcelled kingdom, a fair maiden (and a not-so-fair maiden), a wizard and a not-so-happy ending. It was a really good read, engrossing and often fun, and not really your standard fairy tale.

New Words

Theorbo: a larger type of lute typical of Renaissance music. "Their seven servants had set up a scarlet canopy beneath a tree, and the royal young couple ate a box lunch to the accompaniment of lutes and theorbos."

Lamia: a monster with the head and breasts of a woman and the lower half of a serpent, which ate children and sucked the blood from men. "'Unicorn, mermaid, lamia, sorceress, Gorgon - no name you give her would surprise me, or frighten me.'"

Afreet: a cunning demon or spirit from the djinn world. "Long years later, when Schmendrick's name had become a greater name than Nikos's and worse than afreets surrendered at the sound of it, he was never able to work the smallest magic without seeing Prince Lír before him, his eyes squinted up because of the brightness and his tongue sticking out."