He started at the top of his stairs and worked his way down, working from an old ring that had seen better days and was in fact about to rust through in places. It wasn't as though there was anything left to steal or to see. But it was the principle of the thing, and he had learned from his father

(adopted father)

as much as from Molly to do a thing right if he was going to do it.

Now, the thing to do was to leave. And lock up behind him.

The doorway out to the Red Bull and, ultimately, to the sea. That was closed for good. And better that way, better that no one ever find their way through the clock again to the place where magic had almost died forever. It still gave him a bit of a shudder to think about it.

His father had been wrong. As wrong as anyone had ever been, could ever be. Magic could not be shut out from the world forever, even for one man's pleasure. Unicorns could go unrescued for a long time but they could never vanish. The stories never went that way. And it was all about the story, wasn't it? Not the story, but Story. It was all muddled together in his mind. The story, Story. There had been legends but that was just something that men told to each other around campfires or rickety inn tables at night.

This, here. His hand along the still-damp stones of the walls between which he had grown up. This was real, and this was the story.

He turned the key in the lock of his bedroom, not that it was much of a bedroom. No memories there that he wanted to keep, although none that he wanted to forget either. He would simply let it slip away, as memories were meant to do.

Come to think of it, and he was thinking of it as he wandered through, occasionally locking doors but more often than not finding that the locks had rusted away or the keys didn't work. Come to think of it, he didn't have too many memories of this place that he wanted to keep. A first time here or there. Mostly they were of the unicorn.

Lady Amalthea. The unicorn.

They seemed two different people. There was the unicorn, who he had first met. Then one day she had become Lady Amalthea, and he had courted her, clumsily. She was still something strange and unique in his experience, but something he could relate to. Something he could understand. Not like the unicorn.

Not, he realized as he stood on one of the balconies and looked back out over the sea, that there had been a difference at the end. No, that wasn't what he meant.

At the end it was almost as though there had been a translation. As though the Lady Amalthea had taught him the unicorn's language, and now he could understand her. Now they could communicate, however briefly, even if it was only to explain what he was doing. And then, when he woke up

(resurrected)

to hear and understand what she had done to him and for him. The words she spoke were made up of the same syllables and in the same voice, but they were different, now. He understood them, now.

They were waiting for him. He shouldn't take much longer.

He made sure the fire was out in the kitchen first, and all the lamps were doused, before locking that door. And that one was well-oiled and had seen a great deal of use, especially with Molly's tenure in the kitchen. He smiled, just a small one. Hadn't been much use in there himself, but at least he'd learned a lot. And about more than just potatoes.

There was an armory with a clean lock, but the only good weapons in it were gone, loaded onto the horses already. He waited for the click anyway. Might as well do it properly.

And then there was just the last two heavy doors left, the smaller one at the servant's entrance and the big ones at the front gate.

He closed the servant's entrance first, barring and locking it with a padlock over the door lock that he'd found beneath a sack of moldy flour. Old stores. He went around to the front door and saw Molly standing there with the horses, a pointed and faded blue hat poking up from between the packs. There was muttering. Of course there was, there was always muttering. He smiled again, still, just a little smile.

But there were only horses at the front entrance, no sound of smaller hooves. No glint of white. He looked around.

"She's over by the sea," Schmendrick said, without having to look around or even guess at what he was thinking. Uncanny, that.

He wanted to go to her. To bring her back from the edge of the sea and protect her, but the Red Bull was long gone and there was no danger now if she wanted to stand by the coast and look out at her fellows' prison. No longer a prison. He had to remember that, and the bit about the Red Bull. Even if it was hard.

The big oak doors took time to close, and by the time he had twisted the old metal around in the lock with both hands she was standing behind him. Close enough that she had to step aside when he stumbled back after the click of the lock, graceful. Of course she was. No danger of spearing himself on her horn, although for one second he thought he was going to. And he thought, with detached amazement, that he wouldn't mind.

"It's time to go home, now," he said, and it was something like a question without being a question at all.

"Yes," she agreed. "It's time to go."

But not home. Lir understood.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.