"I don't understand."

"Maybe things run differently in your world, Marie," Essarnë said quietly. She stirred, and the afternoon sun caught the ripple of colours deep in her silky robe. "Perhaps I should tell you the whole tale as we tell it to our little ones... the tale of the People, the race who have no name. You are humans; we are only the People, called thus not in honour but in shame. For we brought about the death of a god; and yet we have more in common with the gods than other mortals, and the reason for both is the same."

Her beautiful voice had deepened, taken on the story-teller's lilt, and I slipped down to sit at her knee, like the daughter she had so long desired. All about the Lady, the chamber drowsed in the sun, filled with strange beauty in a world that was not mine.

"You know that the world has not always been as we know it; but now is not the time to tell of how it came to be. This tale begins when the world was new-created, and the gods looked on it for the first time, and saw that for all its fairness, it was barren without living things to dwell there. At that time, in the youth of the world, the gods were more akin than they are now; but this was their first quarrel, for they could not agree on the form that the creatures they created should take.

"So it was that the world was first divided into the Fifty Lands in which we still dwell. For the gods were fifty in number, who now are forty-nine, and land and sea they shared out between them, for each to populate as they saw fit. Shisti of the Winds chose no land for her part, but the open sea, and there she made many swift fish, and the bright sea-horses, and stranger creatures yet that are found in dark places and the cold depths of the ocean. But the other gods chose each a portion of the land amid the waters, and according to their desires and to their skills they created creatures to fill land and sea and sky.

"In rivalry and yet in friendship they worked, for even to gods it was a great task to devise so many different forms in such a way that there should be food and shelter for all. Many a time it would happen that one would fashion an animal and make a gift of that shaping to the rest, and they likewise would do the same, and thus they shared the burden. And this is why the common beasts of the Fifty Lands differ so little, for you will find a mouse in Djirt much like a mouse anywhere; because they were created all in the same likeness.

"But also each of the Fifty Lands (for we count among that number that which we call Bwllt, the Kingdom of the Sea), each, I say, of the Fifty has its own unique and wonderful beasts. Even in working together the gods had not forgotten their dispute, and each rejoiced in creatures of their own devising, like no others in the world.

"Some wished their creatures to be steadfast as the rocks, some gifted them with rich hides or fine fur, and some of the gods gave to their creations fearsome teeth and stranger weapons, for defence or hunting. Cunassin, who had our own land of Manalt-Arrhimè, did all these things; but above all the creatures of Cunassin were beautiful, possessed of a grace and beauty beyond all others. All acknowledged Cunassin the most gifted of gods, and he was loved. It was he who conceived the beasts of our land that are a marvel and a wonder to others, the phoenix, the gryphon, the unicorn. The flame-hearted dragon's deadly grace and the stoop of the falcon are his; and the horse was his, a gift to all the Lands.

"And thus the Fifty Lands were filled with living things, and they became more fair than ever. And dissent sprang up anew among the gods, for they wished to make their creatures aware so that they might recognise beauty, and to give them speech so that they might praise it, and to bestow upon them their own gift of creation so that the Lands might abound with their work. The dispute raged long, for all wished these gifts to be given to the beasts of their own devising, and none could agree to how many they should be given.

"At last they determined to choose one race apiece, one from each of the Fifty Lands, and to these kinds alone would be given the gift of self-knowledge. Shisti of the winds chose her dolphin-people to rule over the sea-kindreds, and Bellaire, the golden-eyed Feline kind. In the Twin Kingdoms that were then separate, Calantha and Ardan who loved one another chose both alike your human race, though the race the goddess had made was small and dark, and that of the god was tall and fair.

"For Cunassin also it was necessary to choose, and at the last he chose the unicorns to be honoured above his other creatures. More than all the other beasts they were noble and gentle, and they, who have more cause than any other to hate us, have always stood to us as friends.

"When all had chosen their favoured race, the gods came all together for the first time since the beginning of the world, and the Fifty Peoples were gathered on Eldeen Isle that is now reckoned a holy place. None know what was done then; but it is told that the sun rose and set three times while the gods strove on Eldeen, and that ever after the immortals have been weaker than of old. But it is told also that whatever the cost, they rejoiced and counted it as nothing when the long labour was over, and the Fifty Peoples first gazed on the world with wondering new-awaked eyes, and knew themselves for what they were.

"Then the gods revealed themselves to their creatures, and the Fifty Peoples were carried back, each race to its own land, and the gods dwelt among them, immortals among mortals, and instructed them in speech and magic and in the history of the world. And at this time was first devised the Common tongue, though in truth barbarous in form, such that all the races might speak it, from the bronze-feathered Airlords to the laughing Dolphin-folk. And the Mortals began to rule themselves, and the gods wandered the world and took pride in their creation."

"Which race was yours?" I interrupted eagerly. "Not that of Cunassin, surely, of whom you speak so often -- that was the unicorns, wasn't it--?"

Essarnë said nothing, but she was suddenly very still, bitter lines showing on her face. I was sorry I had spoken.

"Lady Essarnë?"

"Don't call me that!" Essarnë said sharply. "Not even if it is a title of honour in your world -- or I shall call you 'Girl Marie'."

But she relented, laying a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, child. It is hard for you to remember... but you need give me no title of honour, of your world or of my own. Perhaps we should hate each other -- but I cannot find it in me to do it. We are companions in adversity, and there is no rank between us."

The Lady was silent again for a long time, while birds called in the creeper outside the window.

"If I speak often of Cunassin, it is no wonder, for it is of Cunassin our creator that my tale chiefly tells. And yet you speak truly, for it is the Unicorn race who were his true children, the true lords of Manalt-Arrhimè. We are the last-born, the illegitimate, and we are not reckoned among the Fifty Peoples, for we were not with the rest in Eldeen Isle. Indeed, even at the time of which my story now tells, the People did not yet walk the earth.

"It was still in the youth of the world, when all things were new, that a fateful meeting took place. For Cunassin, deeming his work finished like that of the others, roamed the world even as they did, and in his wandering he chanced to meet with Ardan on the coast of the Great Sea. And Ardan praised greatly to him the human kind, that Calantha his lover had first devised; and for a time they dwelt together in human form among the people of that coast.

"Then it was that Cunassin first took note of Men and Women, and, inspired, he conceived anew the desire to create. Returning to his own land again, he sought in secret himself to make creatures after that form, yet in his own style. In this way were the first Lord and Lady created, in form like Humans but taller, and as perfect as Cunassin's skill could make them -- and I do not say this in vanity, but according to what I am told; for among our own people neither Lamarne nor I are reckoned as possessing any great beauty of form."

Looking up at the glorious face beneath the coronet of golden hair, I marvelled. Yet she spoke simply and without any trace of false modesty. A shadow of pain had touched her eyes at the mention of Lamarne whom she loved, whose place in this world I had taken, though no-one yet knew why. I wondered how he was faring in my own world, whether we could ever change back -- and insidiously, disquietingly, whether I any longer wished to do so.

Hastily, as if to banish the thought, I cried out "He'll come back -- I know we'll find a way, Lady Essarnë -- "

Too late, I broke off.

But Essarnë laughed. "Poor Marie, how I must have frightened you. I know that they speak of 'the Lady', but it is no compliment but an insult to speak of me by race and not by name, and as such they mean it. You caught me at a bad moment, that was all; for I know that to you 'Lady Essarnë' means 'Great Essarnë', as they say it here in the Twin Kingdoms. But in truth, in this tongue 'Lord' and 'Lady' mean only male and female of our kind, as 'man' and 'woman' do to you, and your ways are strange to me, as ours to you. And there is not so much difference between us, save in those ways by which we differ from all other mortals; that we do not know old age, and need no spells to use the magic within us, and use the gods' own tongue between ourselves, having no native speech of our own.

"Let me tell you of how this came to be, for I come now to the darkest part of my tale. Know then, that though Cunassin made the first Lord and Lady late and in secret, when the gods had judged the world already full, one more race would have made but little difference. But he became enamoured of his work and at last could not bear it that such fair and dexterous creatures should be mere unreasoning beasts.

"Now I have told you of the dispute among the gods over the gift of reason to their creation; and for this reason, before they began their work on Eldeen, they swore an oath that there would be Fifty Peoples and fifty only, thinking that none would dare to break it. But Cunassin believed his last work to be his greatest, and he determined to break the oath, and yet alone he did not have the power to do so.

"Then, knowing what it would mean, but out of love and pity for her and for her kind, he took one of the daughters of the People, and she bore children to him. In body they were like their mother, save only that they were wise, and could reason and speak. Yet in fathering them, as he had known it must be, Cunassin had given them not only self- knowledge but also a lifespan near to that of the gods. Magic they had also from him, greater than that of any other race, for all others have only a little power to use, and they must learn to channel it; humans chant spells in the tongue of the gods, Felines dance their charms and unicorns must use horn-runes. But for the People magic and strength are one and the same thing, and while one lasts so does the other. We need no spells, but have only to use power to will a thing, and it is so, even as it is for the gods."

I shrank back a little, hating myself for doing so. Essarnë smiled sadly. "Now do you see why the gods were so angry when they found out what Cunassin had done?"

"What happened?" I asked at last, when she did not go on.

"To Cunassin? They would have punished him, I think, and the gods can be very cruel amongst themselves -- but he told them the truth, that nothing they could do could be worse than the punishment that he had taken upon himself. For he had given part of himself to his mortal children, and in siring them he had himself become mortal, and must die. The gods were aghast, and forgot the broken oath, and remembered only that he had been much loved. But Cunassin went back to Manalt-Arrhimè and there died, and his skill in crafting beauty was forever lost to the world."

She sighed. "And the tale ends there, for we do not tell of the long years of wandering before we found acceptance, nor of the envy of those who grow old and see us unchanged by time, nor of the hatred that lingers on; for Cunassin is dead who should never have died, and thus the world is the poorer for the manner of our birth. We are not so different, little stranger from a strange world. Now do you understand why the old women who make the sign of the Evil Eye against you make it also against me?"