This story first appeared in Antipodean SF in 2003.
“Are you ready?” Master Thearris asked. “We cannot try this twice.”
“I am,” Augustine said.
“Good luck.”
Augustine nodded thanks. “I will succeed.” He activated his staff and the world shimmered. Light blazed painfully; when it cleared Augustine stood before a cave mouth — four-thousand years in the past. He gripped his staff and moved into the magic-hewn granite labyrinth, searching memory for the turns leading to the unicorn’s cell.
If Augustine failed, a handful of people would control almost all magic for the remainder of this world’s existence. What power he possessed now had been scraped together over thirty years. The power in his staff had taken generations to accumulate.
To Augustine fell the task of freeing the last unicorn.
He walked stealthily, cloaked under a stone illusion, blending with the walls. He hoped he had energy enough to see him to the unicorn’s prison.
Perspiring with the effort of silence, Augustine slipped past several guardians holding hefty bronze-tipped spears. He moved close enough to one man to smell his halitosis.
Outside the unicorn’s cell lay her mate’s carcass, horn removed, body decomposing. Augustine turned away and swore a heated oath of vengeance, walking around the carcass to the wooden door.
His illusion gave out. Fully visible now, he slid the bar from the door and pulled it open quietly.
The unicorn cowered in the corner, its back whipped and bleeding. Her broken horn would grow back in time, but if she remained here it would be removed again and again to control the magic it passed into the world.
The unicorn trembled, backing further into the corner. Augustine moved in, forcing her out with his presence. She stopped when she saw her mate’s body. As he followed her into the antechamber, a voice boomed: “What are you doing?”
Despite a lifetime of study, Augustine barely understood the question. He looked up.
A huge spade-bearded warrior approached, spear lowered. Augustine spoke a cantrip, heart hammering. His staff tingled with activated power.
The warrior closed. Augustine swung his staff, but the man dodged. The momentum carried his staff into the unicorn’s ribs. A cascade of sparks showered the room, blistering Augustine’s hands. He dropped the staff.
The unicorn screamed and fell, dead, her fur blackened where the staff struck. Augustine stared, horrified. His staff’s glow faded. The world blazed.
Augustine staggered as his master’s office re-formed around him — all hint of arcane knowledge and apparatus gone from the shelves and bench. In their place, unusual devices hummed, and coloured lights blinked.
“Are you listening?” Thearris asked. The master’s robes were gone, replaced by a drab short coat. Augustine’s own robes had changed to similar garb.
“What?”
“I said, we lost the O’Brien contract. The notice just arrived on the fax.”
Augustine put his hands over his face. “Oh no,” he said.
© Chris Andrews