I don't remember much about the next few days: ten, to be precise, as I was told afterwards. During that time I drifted in and out of consciousness, never quite sure what was reality and what was dream—or nightmare.
Once there seemed to be an interminable, jolting journey; I was either burning hot or freezing cold; there were bitter brews to drink. Sometimes there were voices whispering in my ear, words I could not understand; at other times it sounded as though a crowd was shouting somewhere in the distance, and always, always there was the struggle to breathe, as if I were running a perpetual race I couldn't win.
Whenever I opened my eyes there were shadows: the sun chased them across the white walls, the candlelight made them rear and sway like demented devil-dancers. Then there were the dreams. Once, when I was so cold I couldn't bear it, I went for a walk and found myself at the back door of the little cottage I used to share with my parents and they were there at a wicker table under the apple tree, just as I remembered them.
My mother looked up and smiled. "Come and join us," she called. "We've been waiting for you!" But then my father put his hand on her arm and shook his head. It was all in slow motion, as it sometimes is in dreams. His voice, when it came was oddly distorted. "It's not time yet," he said. "Go and check the clock." I started to move towards them, but he held up his hand, palm forward. "Go and check the clock!" I turned back into the cottage and there beside the door was a clock I didn't remember having seen before. I looked at the face, but instead of the usual hours and minutes and numbers of one to twelve there were figures of one to seventy-five and a single hand, which pointed to twenty-two, just my age.
Was this supposed to measure my life-span? I turned back to ask my parents, but they were gone, just a few petals falling from the apple tree, to remind me of what I had once known. . . .
That was the only dream I remembered clearly, but there were others, less pleasant.
Once I awoke, or thought I did, to hear Claude and Danny arguing outside. I didn't know what it was all about, but I thought I heard Danny say: "If you won't tell her, then I will! You can't go on letting her believe she's won!" To which the reply was: "You're not to tell her! If it's anybody's task, then it's mine!" and "But you know how much it means to her—"
I don't recall any more, but I do remember wondering who the "she" was they referred to.
I didn't "come to" apparently for a few more days, but one morning, after a particularly restless, sweat-soaked night, I awoke to diffused moonlight on white-washed walls, a clear head and the ability to breathe without wheezing and choking. A woman was bending over me and I indicated that I was thirsty, and a couple of minutes later I was gulping the best drink in the world: a cupful of ice-cold, clear, pure, mountain water. Five minutes later I was chair-lifted by two of them to the bathroom, where I relieved myself, and was then given a warm bath and hair-wash and dressed in a clean shift. My bed had been changed and re-made as well, and the women fussed and twittered around me in their own language, until I pointed to my mouth and rubbed my tummy, indicating that I was hungry.
Five minutes later there arrived a bowl of warm gruel; it tasted of nuts and honey and I spooned it down eagerly, not realising just how hungry I had been. I tried to ask where the others were, but it wasn't until I repeated the name "Ky-Lin" a couple of times and they nodded, and one of them spread her fingers a couple of times to indicate twenty minutes, that I knew she had understood.
I fell asleep again while I was waiting, to wake to the dissonance of bells and the sound of distant chanting, to find Beau at my side, purring.
"You awake? Feel better?"
I yawned. "I think so—to both questions . . . Where am I? How long have I been ill?"
"We are being cared for in a Buddhist monastery some ten miles from the Blue Mountain. It is high up on a hill, and it is where Ky-Lin normally lives. And yes, you have been ill, very ill for quite a long time. They said it was pneumonia. At one stage we thought—even Ky-Lin thought—that you wouldn't make it."
I felt very uncomfortable. It doesn't help to be told that one had been near death. "I suppose it was getting wet in the caves?"
He nodded. "Apparently." He padded up the bed towards my pillow. "But now you're better!"
I hugged him. "Much better! Where are the others?"
"They'll be here in a minute." He pushed his wet nose against my cheek. "Give us a kiss . . ."
I pushed him away, laughing. "I told you, I don't kiss cats!" He was even bigger than I remembered.
"You have done already—"
But he was interrupted. The door was flung open and in came Claude and Danny, the latter clutching a bunch of wild chrysanthemums. I was embraced, congratulated on my recovery, told how much they had missed me, and then subjected to a detailed account of the monastery, where they had been, what they had done.
"For six days we weren't even allowed to tip-toe in to see you," said Danny, "and when we did you looked half-dead already! And now here you are, sitting up and taking notice, just as if nothing had happened at all, at all!" He had gone Irish. "Ten days it was since you went up the mountain and you were all but lost to us!"
Lying back in bed I tried to calculate. "Then it must be the eleventh of November . . . We missed Bonfire Night, boys!"
There was a sort of uneasy silence, and then Claude blurted out: "Actually, it's the twelfth."
I stared at him. It couldn't be. Even I could count. There was another even more uncomfortable sort of silence, broken eventually by a crimson-faced, embarrassed, uncomfortable Danny.
"What he's trying to tell you," he said heavily, "is that you were one day late depositing the Eg."
"And I'm telling you I'm willing to lie and change my notebooks," protested Claude. "You won't lose out, Sophy. I'll tell the solicitors—"
I burst into angry, frustrated, hopeless tears.
"Hey, what's all this?" Ky-Lin came bouncing into the room, his antennae as pink as raspberries. "Welcome back to us, Miss Sophy! But why the tears?"
There was a flurry of explanations.
"Well, well, well. Just sit back and think before you all jump to conclusions. Don't you have some sort of nursery rhyme about how many days there are in every month?"
In a sort of ragged chorus Danny, Claude and I recited the following:
"Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except for February alone,
Which hath but twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year."
"Excellent!" said Ky-Lin. "Now then, what year is it in your Western counting? Well, Master Claude?"
"Er . . . Eighteen-eighty-four." He ventured.
"And is that number divisible by four?"
He nodded.
"Then this year was a leap year, wasn't it? So, Miss Sophy was in time after all!"
"I was? I am? I did it after all?" In spite of my weakness I bounced up and down on the bed.
Claude went red, then white, then red again. "Apparently yes, Sophy. All my fault," and then he disappeared, presumably to alter all the dates in his little black books, from the twenty-ninth of February onwards . . .
Danny raised his clasped hands above his head. "Glory be!"
"Knew it would be all right!" purred Beau.
Completely forgetting my previous vows I leant forward and on impulse gave him an exuberant hug and a kiss, to feel a strange constriction in my stomach, a sort of breathlessness that had nothing to do with my recent illness. His lovely blue eyes dilated, then he let out a sigh more human then feline.
"Two down," he said clearly. "One to go . . ."
After that it should have been easy, and home again before Easter, but Ky-Lin, the nurses who had been tending me and the monk who made up the noxious potions I had drunk, all insisted that I convalesce for a while longer, until all traces of congestion were gone. So I twiddled my thumbs through the rest of November and into December, when of course the snow and the icing up of the rivers made travelling impossible until the spring thaw.
During my extended stay at the monastery I spent a great deal of time on the balcony-garden outside my room. A set of steps led down to a tiny paved garden, full of button-chrysanthemums and bonsai plants, protected at night by straw matting. When the sun shone it was pleasantly warm out there during the day, but at night I was only too glad to snuggle down under my feather-filled coverlet.
On one such day I was sitting outside with Ky-Lin and Beau; Claude and Danny had walked down to the village that nestled at the foot of the steep hill on which the monastery stood, because it was market day.
I shaded my eyes against the strong sunlight. "Ky-Lin, what's that lump?"
"Lump? What lump?" He had shrunk a good deal because, as he explained, being larger was hard work; he was now about the size of a small terrier. "I don't see any lump . . ."
I laughed. "Perhaps it isn't a lump then." I pointed. "Over there: that piece of stone on the rail of the balcony."
He leapt up to the two-foot rim and nosed what I had referred to. "You mean this?"
I nodded. "What is it?"
"This—this lump you referred to—this is a memorial to my friend, my dear friend Growch, Mistress Summer's travelling companion."
"I remember! In the translation my uncle made he was meant to stay behind when she went to the mountain. Did he disobey?"
"He did, and he got badly burnt when the mountain blew. I nursed him back to health, but the damage to his emotions I could not cure. He loved Mistress Summer and served her well, and could never forgive himself for not being there when she—disappeared."
"The account never mentioned what happened to her afterwards . . ." I hesitated. "Did she—did she die with her lover?"
"No-one knows. Some say they both escaped and flew away to a far-away island, but I must admit I did not sense her presence later. But then, of course, I was busy caring for the dog."
"You loved him?"
"Ky-Lins do not `love,' as you understand it. We are capable of affection and respect, and for Growch I had a great deal of this. He was an amiable companion and we talked much of many things. When he passed away to another plane I was very sorry, but one of the monks, a devoted admirer of his, carved a stone statue of a dog asleep in the sun. This is what you see, but hundreds of years have softened the stone and rounded the statue."
I reached out and touched it, warm from the sun.
"I wish I had known him . . . And Summer."
Ky-Lin seemed to have recovered his composure. "I was glad to know them both. He was a real `character' as I think you would put it. He taught me a great many words that I am sure my Master would not approve of, but with him they just seemed natural."
I moved forward to lean over the parapet: to my left was the Blue Mountain, ahead the valley stretched away towards the river we should take on the first part of our journey, and towering above us to the right were the mountains.
"What will you do when we are gone?"
"Wait here for my Master. He will decide whether I have expiated all my sins, or whether I have to stay here a little longer, to be of use to someone else."
I tried to question him about his "sins," but he shook his head, only murmuring something about "carelessness" and "pride." It seemed it was very difficult for a Ky-Lin to become, and stay, perfect. . . .
The proposals came a few days after that. I had noticed both Danny and Claude behaving oddly during the last few days—arguing in fierce whispers, going into corners with pieces of rice paper, brush and ink, nudging each other and looking at me and then away again. The first time this latter happened I thought I was blemished in some way because of my illness, but a mirror reassured me. Thinner-faced perhaps, but otherwise unchanged. So, when I came across them tossing best-of-three, then best-of five, then best-of-seven, I decided to leave well alone. If they wished to behave like a pair of overgrown schoolboys, that was up to them.
So, one afternoon when Claude tapped on the door of my room and asked if he could have a word, I thought it was some kind of advice he needed about his acne, perhaps, or a request to mend his combinations, which he still insisted on wearing. Whatever it was, it was clear he was highly embarrassed, red as a turkey-cock's wattle and perspiring profusely. I offered him a cup of water and led him out onto the balcony, where there was a welcome breeze and we could stare out over the scenery instead of having to look at each other eye to eye.
"How can I help, Claude dear?"
At first he hemmed and hawed, then all at once the words came tumbling out like a string of broken beads, and as difficult to match together. Apparently I would never be fulfilled until I had known the joys of married life with all it entailed. I needed a husband to care for and protect me. Money was no object, because two could live as cheaply as one. He said, obliquely, how much he had always admired me etc. etc., that I was the only one, true, suitable mate to share his life with, so would I accept his hand in marriage? He was sure his mother would find me acceptable, he added, only I must never reveal I had ever worn, er, trousers. . . .
"No, I won't," I said firmly, "because the situation will not arise. I am both grateful and honoured by your proposal, but I have to tell you that marriage plays no part in my future plans, at least for the forseeable future." I stifled my giggles with a fit of coughing. During his declaration I had veered between surprise, repulsion and amusement. The latter was winning, but I was glad to see he looked relieved, not tear-stricken.
"Well, if you're sure . . . ?"
"Absolutely." I felt an imp of mischief ready to jump out from the corner. "Did you toss for who should be first?"
He half-rose from his chair. "How did—how did you know?"
"It didn't take much! Don't tell him I know, just say you failed in your endeavour." I relented, rose and kissed him on both cheeks. "Claude, this doesn't mean I'm not immensely fond of you, and will never forget your company during our expedition. Go and find a girl more worthy of you—and your mother—and be happy!"
After that I didn't have to wait too long for Danny. Perhaps encouraged by Claude's failure, he appeared on the scene only a few minutes later.
This time it was quite different. He came armed with a bunch of flowers and a mouthful of Irish exaggerations, his tongue making the words flow like a lively stream over rolling pebbles (and as near unstoppable). Apparently I was the most beautiful, talented, desirable creature on earth, and the best prospect a man like him could hope to find. He even went down on his knees to propose, but this time the amusement couldn't be held back.
He sprang to his feet. "You're laughing at me!"
I shook my head, tried to stifle my giggles. "No, my dear, not at you, just the methods you use! I'm very flattered that you asked me, but I'll tell you what I told Claude: I've no plans to marry for quite a while."
At first he looked cross, then as relieved as Claude, then finally he laughed too. "Worth a try, girl!"
After they had both gone I turned to Beau, a silent and hidden witness to both proposals.
"Did I deal with them properly?"
He yawned and straightened luxuriously. "Of course. Neither was right for you."
I laughed again. "And I suppose the prince-you-are is?"
"Of course. Wait and see."
When I had fully recovered we left the monastery, after a well-deserved donation of a couple of pink pearls, and rented a small house in the valley below until the spring. It was really one large room with niches for sleeping, a primitive stove and a large brazier. There was a well outside in a little square, a woman to do our washing, an annex that served as a bathroom, and a market twice a week, so we did pretty well, with frequent visits from Ky-Lin.
Of course we couldn't celebrate Christmas as we would have wished, but we did the best we could, with paper streamers, chicken stuffed with what we could get—rice, nuts and dried fruit—and we let off some firecrackers. Afterwards we decided to sing a couple of carols, so the boys stood outside and serenaded me through the the open door. A heavenly choir it was not, although it awakened in me all sorts of nostalgia. Some of the villagers came out of their houses to listen, and the dogs loved it, joining in with enthusiasm. . . .
Once we heard that the ice was breaking up on the river, we knew it was time to go. Ky-Lin accompanied us. He was back to figurine size and I carried him either in my pocket or on my shoulder. We decided to walk rather than ride: walking was the way Summer had done it, though in the opposite direction. As we left I took a last look at the Blue Mountain; in the daylight it looked like a harmless, bluish lump rising from the plain, and I found it hard to remember that terrible trip to restore the Eg. I hoped it was all right.
On the way I looked in vain for the deadly swamp that had nearly ended Summer's expedition. We were walking along a paved causeway at the time, with neat fields of rice, vegetables and fruit on either side.
Ky-Lin anticipated my question
"This is it," he told me. "A lot can happen in a few hundred years. Gradually it was drained, the land was fertile, the population grew, and now it is as you see it today. There are still some outlying patches that remain to be treated, but they will be done, in time."
Ky-Lin acted as translator when we arranged for our passage downriver, also when we sold off a few more pearls to see us on the first part of our long journey. I would have dearly loved him to come with us, but as he explained his part of the story was over and he had to return to the monastery to await his Master, the Buddha.
"How will you get back from here?"
"A pocket here, a pouch there. I shall wait till someone goes in the right direction."
He bumped his knobby forehead against mine, a sort of goodbye, I supposed. "Don't worry about me. Good luck attend you and your Prince of Purloiners." But before I could ask what on earth he was talking about, he was nodding at the middle finger of my right hand. "I don't believe you will be needing that any more."
I looked down at my finger where the little ring of horn, the Unicorn Ring, had been getting looser and looser over the past few days. In fact I now had to screw up my fist or trap it with my thumb to keep it from falling off.
"It is a bit loose . . ."
"Which means you no longer need it. When you relied on it to help you with this expedition you couldn't take it off. Now it is ready to await its next wearer, one who will need its magical powers to help them on another worthwhile adventure. The Ring chooses its own wearer, you know that. Why don't you take it off and put it round my neck? I have been involved with it before and we trust each other. What do you say?"
I hesitated; it had been so much a part of me for nearly eighteen months . . . But I knew I had no permanent right to it. "But—but how will I understand animals, how will I know when danger threatens?"
"Your own common sense and the new life you will lead makes both these needs superfluous."
"What about understanding Beau?"
"He will make his feelings known to you, with or without the Ring. You two have grown close enough not to need words. Trust me . . ."
Slowly, reluctantly, I drew the Ring from my finger. Once off, it seemed to have a life of its own, for in an instant there it was nestling round Ky-Lin's neck. All at once the world seemed a duller, greyer place, birdsong muted, the bales of silk waiting to be loaded a paler colour, the sun behind a cloud. Momentarily I closed my eyes on the disappointment, something brushed against my eyelids and when I opened them again everything was back to normal. Everything that is, but one. Ky-Lin had gone. . . .