"Eureka! Darten, come quickly! I've found it!"

Darten was battling a suspiciously animated dustball with his broomstick when he heard the shout. His heart leapt at the words, and he finished off the skirmish with a wild thrust that scattered the dustball in all directions. He sprinted eagerly up the worn tower stairs, skipping over the crumbling risers. This was it! The call he'd spent a year of drudgery waiting to hear. The old wizard Holbar was finally going to teach him some magic!

Stumbling to a stop before the wizard's door, Darten took a deep, steadying breath. As he moved to wipe suddenly sweaty palms on the frayed hem of his tunic, he realized he was still holding the broom. He tossed it aside with a satisfying clatter and grinned. No more cleaning for him! He was going to learn magic, and the next stick he carried would be the staff of a wizard!

The door banged open without warning, and Darten jumped back, eyes round. The wizard stood there, silhouetted against the room's only window. His snowy hair glowed in the fading sunlight, giving him an almost saintly aura.

He waved an aged and dusty parchment in front of Darten's nose, then sneezed loudly, destroying the effect.

"I've found it, boy! The formula for Solomon's Potion of Increased Wisdom!" A frown crossed the old man's face as he read through the scroll, squinting at the tiny, foreign script. "But I don't have these…a maiden's lost youth, the heart of a hag…ahh, a substitution! The horn of a live unicorn! Hmm…."

The wizard eyed Darten thoughtfully for a long moment, then nodded to himself. "Rumor places a unicorn in a grove to the west of here."

As Darten tried to comprehend the possible exciting implications of that statement, Holbar gestured nonchalantly with his hand. The discarded broomstick rose and floated back into Darten's startled grasp.

"Here's a staff, and I'll get you some supplies," the wizard announced decisively. "You'll leave at first light."

*

Stick to the path, Darten reminded himself sternly, clutching his broom and jumping at every rustle and twitter that echoed through the brightening forest. No harm befalls him who stays on the path. Never mind that the muddy track seemed oddly determined to twist away from his every step.

"Another trick of the old wizard's," Darten muttered in disgust. The thought bolstered him unexpectedly. His magic lessons were sure to begin after he completed this quest. Then he would be an equal instead of a servant; a powerful wielder of magic instead of a lowly wielder of brooms. Then he would be able to enchant an entire gloomy forest to do his bidding, helping or hindering unsuspecting passers-by as he chose. And much, much more.

Just as soon as he found this silly unicorn.

But there was no hurry, Darten decided, his feet easily navigating the path now that his mind was too busy elsewhere to distract them. He'd waited this long; a few more days couldn't hurt. Besides, he'd been cooped up in that awful tower for a year now, waging a futile campaign against dirt and clutter. Surely Holbar wouldn't begrudge him a short stop in Springdale? The village was only a few miles south of the forest's edge, wasn't it? Hardly out of his way. And maybe he'd find the maiden's misplaced youth and hag's heart old Holbar had mentioned. Then he wouldn't have to hunt the unicorn at all.

Darten's musings brought him into a wide clearing and the splendor of a new morning. The path disappeared into a medley of orange and purple wildflowers that overlaid the grass like some garish patchwork quilt. He wondered idly if any of them could be used as spell components. Then he spied the path's extension beyond the meadow and hurried forward, crushing the vibrant blooms under heedless feet.

*

Darten reached Springdale a score of mornings later. He strode jauntily into town, waiting for the masses to swoon in awe at the appearance of a real live wizard's apprentice.

"Over here, lad!" Darten turned to see a portly woman standing on a wooden porch. Above her hung a sign emblazoned with a frothy mug. "A copper for the porch, another two for the common room," she said as she tied an apron about her ample waist.

Darten goggled at her, flabbergasted. Surely she wasn't trying to hire him to sweep?

"I'm no simple laborer!" he spluttered indignantly. Fixing her with his most fearsome glare, its effect somewhat lessened by his flaming cheeks, he declared, "I am apprenticed to the Great and Mighty Holbar!"

The woman looked at him blankly for a moment, then shrugged. "Five coppers, then. And breakfast," she added as she turned and headed back into the building.

Darten stared after her dubiously, considering. His supplies were running low, and Holbar hadn't given him any money. A quick perusal of his limp pack decided him. He supposed he could swallow his pride if she served a decent meal along with it. Shrugging pragmatically, he followed her inside.

The common room was smaller than he'd expected, but rather quaint, in a rustic way. A few plain tables huddled around an empty hearth and the moth-eaten head of a deer stared down glassily from its place above the mantel. The woman stood behind a long bar, wiping its scarred top with a rag.

"Breakfast first, then," she said when she saw him. Waving him towards a seat, she drew a mug of ale from the tap and set it before him. “Wizard’s apprentice, aye?”

"Yes’m,” Darten replied, taking a cautious sip of the ale and nearly choking on the bitter taste. “I'm on a quest for some ingredients for a potion. Maybe you can help me. I need a maiden's lost youth—”

The woman snorted. “Don’t we all.”

“—and the heart of a hag."

“Huh. Well, Hilde’s the closest thing we’ve got to a maiden ‘round here.” She gestured as a thin, tired-looking blonde girl hurried out of the back room carrying a tray. Dark lines of kohl gave the girl’s eyes an elven tilt and helped to hide the circles of fatigue that pooled beneath them. Even in patched skirts and a stained apron, Darten thought she was lovely.

“’Course, it'd take a real wizard to find her youth again.”

Darten turned as the girl set the tray down in front of him, eyes averted. What was the innkeeper talking about? Despite her weariness, Hilde couldn’t be much older than he himself was.

His musings were cut short by the entrance of a young boy, wild blonde slenderness a mirror of Hilde's.

"Hilde! Hilde, Momma's worse! The healing stuff's all gone, an' she's all hot, an' you have to get more or – or she'll die!" Hilde bent to enfold the boy and his sobs in her arms.

"It'll be all right, Jord," she promised, stroking his hair with a tender hand. "I won't let anything bad happen, to you or to the babies or to any of us. I'll get more of the healing draught. Somehow."

As Darten watched her lead the boy away, he suddenly understood – she hadn’t lost her youth, she’d given it up to care for her younger siblings. When she was gone, he realized that his appetite had left with her. Suddenly the inn didn't seem quite so charming. Tossing the warm chunk of bread – the innkeeper's idea of breakfast, apparently – into his pack, he set about sweeping with a vigor that would have astounded Holbar and his dustballs.

The woman followed him outside. "Maybe you'll have better luck with the hag, lad!" she said as she counted out his coppers. "Ole Magda lives on the edge of town, though how you'll find a heart in someone that hideous is beyond me."

At that, Darten rounded on the woman. Hilde’s plight might not be her fault, but her lack of sympathy and superior attitude angered him. Baring his teeth in a grimace he hoped was menacing, he thrust the coppers back into her fleshy palm.

"See that Hilde and her family get those – every one of them – or I'll –" he hesitated, not quite certain what would constitute a believable threat. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I'll turn you into a dustball!"

Darten was as shocked as the woman at the ridiculous utterance, and he hastened to amend it. "A very fat dustball," he added in an ominous tone, glowering and brandishing his broom.

Then he whirled and stalked away from the porch, not waiting to see her reaction. He'd barely reached the street when the innkeeper began to laugh in great, amused guffaws that echoed off the surrounding buildings.

Darten quickened his pace, but he couldn't escape the mocking sound. Her laughter dogged his steps down the village lanes, followed closely by an image of kohl-lined eyes in a proud, thin face.

*

Magda's house, little more than a lean-to held together as much by will power as by mortar, was set apart from the rest of Springdale by a lonely stretch of unused road and a thorny copse. The hag herself knelt in a tiny garden plot, carefully pulling weeds. The noontide sun had bleached her wispy hair and weathered her features to the color and texture of bark. From Darten's vantage point amid the trees, she looked like some aged nature spirit – a dryad, perhaps, though he had never seen one.

He watched as a fat crow landed beside her.

"Hungry, are you?" Magda asked the bird, her voice carrying clearly to Darten's hiding place. She drew some crumbs from an inner pocket and held out her hand. "You'd not like these herbs, I'm afraid. They're for healing human ails and would only make you ill, little one. But you're welcome to this bread." The crow cocked its head as if listening, then hopped over to peck its lunch from her palm.

Darten shook his head, bemused. Ole Magda plainly did have a heart, despite the innkeeper's malicious words to the contrary. Well, she was welcome to it. He hadn't particularly relished the thought of removing it, anyway.

With a resigned sigh, he took up his broomstick and pointed his feet towards the sunset. This stop at Springdale had been a mistake. He should have gone straight to the unicorn's grove in the first place, as Holbar had no doubt intended. Then he wouldn't have met Hilde, and wouldn't be worried now about her sick mother. He wouldn't be spying on some innocent old woman as she culled her healing herbs and fed her feathered friends.

Her healing herbs.

Darten began to grin uncontrollably as an idea blossomed in his head. Her healing herbs. Of course!

He stepped out of the trees and strode purposefully towards Magda, calling out an amicable greeting as he did. She looked up from her work and waved.

"Good afternoon, young man," she said pleasantly, a smile creasing her wizened face. "What brings you to Ole Magda's home?"

"Are you a healer?" Darten asked, already sure of the answer.

"Well, now. I do know a bit of herb lore, at that," she admitted readily. She lifted a wrinkled hand to shade her eyes as she looked him over curiously. "You seem healthy enough to me, lad."

Darten could feel his cheeks redden. "No, ma'am, it’s not for me!" he assured her quickly. "There's a girl in Springdale. Her name's Hilde. She works at the inn and has to take care of her family because her mother's sick with some kind of fever, and I…I…I was hoping you could help."

Only after he'd finished in a winded rush did he recall that he had nothing to pay her with, his last five coppers having already gone to his adopted cause.

"Uh…I don't have any money, but I'm a wizard's apprentice, and I could maybe get my master to pay you, or cast a spell for you, or on you, or something. Or I could work it off." He glanced distastefully at his broom. "I'm pretty good with this," he said, lifting the wooden handle slightly and secretly hoping she'd find one of the other offers more appealing.

"Sick with fever, you say? Well, of course I'll help, lad." She threw a few more crumbs down for the crow, then wiped her hands before slowly rising. "Just let me get my things."

She returned a few moments later with a satchel strapped to her back. "Now, don't you worry about that girl, or her mother. Ole Magda will fix her right up, if it's possible, or ease the poor woman's pain, if it's not. You don't worry about a thing, hear?"

Darten nodded obediently, amazed at the old woman's efficiency and calm authority. He watched as she departed for the village, walking briskly without the need for a crutch or cane. When she reached the copse of trees, Darten waved. She returned the gesture, then disappeared down the path.

And then he realized.

She'd never asked him for any payment.

*

Darten's broom earned him enough to fend off starvation as he journeyed west, but it was a subdued and haggard apprentice that finally wandered into the unicorn's grove several weeks later.

He did not, in fact, realize where he was. Exhausted and dispirited, his small part in helping Hilde all but forgotten, he knew only that he felt at peace amongst these quiet trees. The ground was soft and springy, and beckoned to him enticingly. The wind crooned a tranquil lullaby through the canopy of summer leaves.

He would rest for a little while, he decided. His eyelids drooped shut as he lay back against the bole of a giant oak. Just a little while.

Darten slept.

*

A stray moonbeam woke him hours later. The grove was bathed in an eerie argent light, but he was not frightened. He felt peaceful still, yet strangely impatient. Somehow he knew tonight would see the end of his quest, for good or ill.

He had only to wait.

Night birds whistled cheerful greetings to the stars. Darten heard the harmony of their disparate voices and smiled. He'd never noticed how lovely the woodland sounds could be. How lovely the forest itself could be if he truly bothered to look.

As he listened, a wolf howled out a haunting melody and crickets chirped in counterpoint. He imagined the song swelling beyond the boundaries of mortal music, becoming a joyful chorus whose very volume would raise it to the heavens.

And then it stopped.

For she had come, called by the music that was the essence of her being.

The unicorn.

Her coat gleamed in the silvery moonlight, every rippling muscle highlighted by shooting stars. Her mane fell about her noble head like a meteor shower; her tail blazed as brightly as any comet's.

And her horn! Iridescent colors danced up and down the length of the pearly spiral in dizzying patterns, like living liquid rainbows.

She took his breath away.

Then she turned her gentle eyes upon him, and read his very soul. He did not breathe as she approached, head lowered. He wondered vaguely if she planned to skewer him, and found he did not care.

His eyes closed in reverence as her horn brushed lightly across his cheek, and her thoughts touched his.

A storm of visions raged through his head, whirling faster than his mind could follow. Here she was, dying in the mud, a blackened, bloody wound where her horn should have been. There she was, caged, her once-proud head hanging listlessly while peasants gawked. And now there was no sign of her at all, just a silent forest grove filled with dead and barren trees.

When the chimerical tempest subsided, Darten opened his eyes to look for the unicorn. His last sight of her was the brilliant flash of her hooves as she vanished behind a shimmering curtain of tears.

*

It was nearing daybreak when Darten returned to the wizard's tower, after weeks of travel and a nightlong trek through Holbar's lively backwoods. He was not surprised to find Holbar waiting.

"I don't have the horn," Darten announced unhappily, before the wizard could ask. "I don't have anything.”

Holbar crossed his arms patiently, knowing there was more.

Darten was reluctant to begin, knowing the story would doom him to eternal apprenticeship. This quest had been his chance to prove himself worthy of Holbar's secrets. And he had failed miserably, returning without a single ingredient. Now he'd be lucky if Holbar still trusted him to do the sweeping.

Still, he thought, he had seen a unicorn. And he'd been able get help for Hilde's mother. So maybe the journey hadn't been a total loss. Keeping that firmly in mind, he began his tale.

"First I tried to find a maiden's lost youth, but she didn’t lose it, really – she gave it up for something more important. And if the healing herbs work, she might still get what’s left of it back. Then I could have gotten a hag's heart, but she was making perfectly good use of it herself. So I had to go after the unicorn."

Darten's weariness slipped away as he described the meeting in a breathless voice. "She was beautiful, Master Holbar! Her horn was like the most precious jewel in all the world. She even touched me with it."

Then he frowned, remembering the visions. "But the horn's beauty came from being part of her. And I couldn't ask her to leave the grove. It's where she belongs."

Holbar hid a smile at Darten's woebegone expression and placed a comforting arm about his shoulders.

"So I failed. I'll never be a wizard, and Solomon's Potion of Increased Wisdom will never work."

"Oh, I don't know. I think it worked just fine," Holbar replied, leading the fledgling wizard back into their tower. Behind them, the sunrise erupted over the treetops in a golden burst of glory.

The End

Marsheila Rockwell has made previous sales to such publications as Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Space & Time, Star*Line, NFG, Aoife's Kiss and numerous Cyber-Pulp and Sam's Dot Publishing anthologies. In addition to writing, She is an engineer, Navy wife and the mother of two, currently living in sunny Southern California.

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