Beside the bearded male, his assistant, a smooth-cheeked halfgrown, stood bundling himself into a thick falseskin. Carefully, his elder handed him the wet mud jar, and the half-grown ducked with it through an egress to the outside. Tai-shan let the wooden shutter swing softly shut. He trotted to the edge of the building and peered around.

The young half-grown stood in a small yard before a conical structure of stone. Heat rippled the air above. Another firechamber, the dark unicorn guessed. The young two-foot opened a port in the chamber’s side, placed the soft vessel of mud within and slammed the port. More vessels stood alongside the chamber, Tai-shan noticed. Stamping his feet against the cold, the halfgrown bent to catch up a pair, then turned and hastened back toward shelter. The jars clinked solidly against one another as he did so, the sound sharply musical.

Once again the dark unicorn’s mind raced. Had these hard vessels already been in the chamber of fire? Had flame somehow transformed the yielding clay as it had the grain paste? Were the firechambers themselves—indeed, the very streets of the two-foots’ city—made of stone at all, or of blocks of heat-hardened clay? Tai-shan shook his head, marveling at the vast and complicated city around him. Had fire been the tool to create it all?

The sky above him was lightening, the moon nearly down. Strange tracks in the snow beside him caught the dark unicorn’s eye. One set was clearly that of a da, the other, that of a two-foot. But two deep, narrow ruts scored the snow alongside, one on either side of the paired tracks. Tai-shan cocked his head. Frowning, he studied the parallel grooves, unable to make out what could have made them.

Dawn came swiftly. The stars above paled and began to fade. The dark unicorn followed the strange tracks as they turned off the main thoroughfare onto a narrow, winding side-path. His ears pricked to the sound of foot-traffic somewhere nearby. Rounding a curve, he found himself in a great open space, crowded with stalls. Stacks of painted tile and heaps of sweet hay, bolts of brilliant falseskin and fat brown sacks of grain, rows of fire-clay vessels and strings of pungent, edible bulbs filled the air with richly varied scents. Tai-shan’s nostrils flared. Before him, two-foots milled, the odd tracks he had been following obliterated beneath their trampling heels.

Intent upon their own tasks, the two-foots spared scarcely a glance for the dark unicorn. Wandering speechless between the stalls, he beheld a two-foot male, flushed and sweating over a red-hot rod of skystuff. With a heavy implement, the two-foot pounded the rod, reshaping it into a flattened skewer. The dark unicorn beheld other wonders, all engendered by fire: fresh herbs withered and preserved by parching on heated stones, brittle honeycomb softened and fashioned into burning tapers, muddied falseskins stirred clean in steaming cauldrons, and stinking, bubbling vats in which pale hanks of seed fibers steeped to vivid shades of vermilion, golden, bronze-green, and midnight blue.

The sun broke over the hills. More and more two-foots crowded into the square, surveying the contents of the stalls and conversing with their overseers. Goods and little disks of silvery skystuff changed hands. An oddly familiar scent reached the dark unicorn. Smoky and sweet, it clung to his nostrils. Turning, hunting it, he nearly stumbled over a very old two-foot who crouched upon a patterned falseskin spread upon the paving stones. Baskets of spicewood shavings and dried flower petals surrounded her, and figurines of blackened skystuff.

Tai-shan recognized their form: the body of a two-foot with the incongruous, flatbrowed head of a da. Fragrant smoke rose from the red-rimmed nostrils. A crescent moon blazoned the breast of each figure, most of which stood fiercely poised, brandishing in one forepaw a long, flattened skewer and in the other a tuft-ended vine. Tai-shan noticed, however, that a few of the figures were different. The skewer had become a horn upon the da head’s brow, the vine a unicorn’s tail sprouting from the base of the two-foot torso’s back. The crescent moon-shape appeared not upon the chests of these different figurines, but upon their brows.

Selecting a curl of spicewood from one of the baskets, the elderly two-foot cupped it in one forepaw and struck a sliver of skystuff against a stone. Sparks flew up, bright as fireflies. The dark unicorn stared, incredulous, as the spicewood curl began to burn, sending up a fragrant, smoky plume. The two-foot unfastened a hinge in the belly of the unicorn-headed figure before her and thrust the crackling curl inside. Smoke rose through the figure’s nostrils.

Tai-shan stood dumbstruck, staring. The two-foots could make fire! For all his hosts’ mastery of the sorcerous stuff, it had never once occurred to him that they held the secret of its creation. Fire was the greatest mystery his people knew: it glanced through storm-tossed heavens; its substance formed the sacred sun and stars. Generations of unicorns lived and died without ever glimpsing an earthly flame. Yet these two-foots could summon such at will. Tai-shan stood trembling—for it was a power he knew his kind could never share. Lacking nimble forepaws, no hoofed creature such as himself could even hope to manipulate skystuff and flint into striking a spark. No unicorn could ever kindle fire.

“Dai’chon!” The exclamation brought Tai-shan back to the wintry square. The two-foot firesmith had caught sight of him. Her eyes widened. She started up. “Dai’chon!”

“Emwe,” Tai-shan replied haltingly, pronouncing the difficult inflections with the greatest care. He bowed courteously. “Emwe ki Tai-shan.”

Greetings from Moonbrow–with Ryhenna’s help, he had deciphered enough of the two-foots’ tongue to attempt a simple phrase. Fervently, he hoped he had spoken clearly. A rush of triumph overtook him as he saw comprehension light the other’s eyes. Dropping her flint and the sliver of skystuff, she sank to her knees, pressing her forehead to the patterned falseskin. Tai-shan frowned, puzzled by her response. Muffled sounds came from the elderly two-foot, like moans.

“Pella! Pell’!” Look, behold. He heard gasps all around him suddenly, shouts of dismay and cries of what sounded at first to be his name. Yet when he pricked his ears, he discovered that many of the two-foots were calling out “Dai’chon” instead of “Tai-shan.”

That baffled him. He had no idea still what the word could mean.

“Emwe!” he cried out boldly as two-foots began to cluster around him. “Tai-shan nau shopucha!” Moonbrow greets you. To his consternation, many fell back at the sound of his voice and, like the old female, crumpled to the ground. Were they so surprised to hear him speak? Others, by contrast, pressed forward eagerly, forelimbs extended as to caress him. The dark unicorn sidled.

“Tash,” he cried out quickly. “Homat!“ No, stop.

Mercifully, they seemed to understand. Others were sinking to their knees now. An onlooker tossed one of the tiny disks of silvery skystuff at him. It clattered onto the cobbles near his hooves. Tai-shan danced away, half shying in surprise. More disks of skystuff followed, along with bits of spicewood, dried flower petals, berries, and nuts.

“Homat!” the dark unicorn cried again: stop. “Apnor!” Enough. Instantly, the shower of offerings ceased. The dark unicorn cavaled. Before him, two-foots melted back, allowing him passage. Almost all had fallen to their knees by this time. The rest stood gaping. Tai-shan bowed his long neck to them all and hurried on. None followed. Relieved, Tai-shan slipped through the crowd. The possibility of admirers swarming after him, pelting him with gifts, made his skin twitch.

Dodging around a stall, he nearly collided with a da standing before a massive wooden bin heaped with tubers. They smelled musty of starch and earth. A webbing of vines lashed the da to the bin, which creaked and swayed atop a pair of great wooden disks caked with muddy snow. The dark unicorn stared. Dragging such a strange contraption, Tai-shan wondered, could this da–or another similarly burdened—have cut the odd ruts which had first led him to the square?