One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology Read online

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Rhubarb and Beets

  Purple Is the New Black

  A Single Spark

  Best of All Possible Worlds

  Korgak’s Daily Schedule

  Dead Friends and New Horses

  The Godfairy

  The Faerie Journal

  The Greggs Family Zoo of Odd and Marvelous Creatures

  Ménagerie Violette

  The Unicorn Prince

  The Girl with the Artist’s Eyes

  Conner Bright and the Case of the Purple Unicorn

  My Hero

  Of Unicorns and Pie

  Gateway Blood

  The Monoceros

  The Last Dregs of Winter

  Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros

  Red Roses

  About the Authors

  Edited by Lisa Mangum

  Book Description

  Unicorns, with their single ivory horn, are elusive and magical creatures of myth. Yet even more elusive are the purple unicorns.

  First sighted at the Superstars Writing Seminar, their legend has grown year after year until it could only be contained in this anthology. Nineteen storytellers, including Peter S. Beagle, Todd McCaffrey, and Jody Lynn Nye, as well as new and rising authors, invite us into worlds both near and far, across a desert oasis, a pet shop, a Comic-Con exhibition floor, and more, and show us the many variations of purple unicorns, from the imaginary to the actual—and one very memorable half-unicorn, half-potato.

  One Horn to Rule Them All is an unforgettable collection of imagination and creativity. So, saddle up, and take a ride beyond the rainbow.

  All profits benefit the Superstars Writing Seminar Scholarship Fund.

  ***

  Smashwords Edition – 2014

  WordFire Press

  wordfirepress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61475-191-5

  Copyright © 2014 WordFire Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by James A. Owen

  and

  Art Director Kevin J. Anderson

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

  Published by

  WordFire Press, an imprint of

  WordFire, Inc.

  PO Box 1840

  Monument, CO 80132

  ***

  Additional Copyright Info

  “Rhubarb and Beets” and “Red Roses”

  Copyright © 2014 Todd McCaffrey

  “Purple is the New Black”

  Copyright © 2014 Jody Lynn Nye

  “A Single Spark”

  Copyright © 2014 Mary Pletsch

  “Best of all Possible Worlds”

  Copyright © 2014 John D. Payne

  “Korgak’s Daily Schedule”

  Copyright © 2014 Jeanette Gonzalez

  “Dead Friends and New Horses”

  Copyright © 2014 Sharon Dodge

  “The God Fairy”

  Copyright © 2014 Quincy J. Allen

  “The Faerie Journal”

  Copyright © 2014 Megan Grey

  “The Greggs Family Zoo of Odd and Marvelous Creatures”

  Copyright © 2014 Kristin Luna

  “Ménagerie Violette”

  Copyright © 2014 Colette Black

  “The Unicorn Prince”

  Copyright © 2014 Gama Ray Martinez

  “The Girl with the Artist’s Eyes”

  Copyright © 2014 Nathan Barra

  “Connor Bright and the Case of the Purple Unicorn”

  Copyright © 2014 Robert J. McCarter

  “My Hero”

  Copyright © 2014 Mark Ryan

  “Of Unicorns and Pie”

  Copyright © 2014 Nathan Dodge and Sharon Dodge

  “Gateway Blood”

  Copyright © 2014 Ezekiel James Boston

  “The Monoceros”

  Copyright © 2014 Lou J Berger

  “The Last Dregs of Winter”

  Copyright © 2014 Scott Eder

  “Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros”

  Copyright © 2014 Peter S. Beagle

  ***

  Introduction

  Purple Unicorns? Really?

  Bookstores are filled with theme anthologies, some of them with terrific concepts, while others fall under the “What were they thinking?” category.

  Purple unicorns? Really?

  What were they thinking?

  For almost twenty years now, my wife, Rebecca Moesta, and I have given classes and lectures on professionalism and building a writing career. We tell both established and aspiring writers that they must always deliver their best work, no matter what the project is. Whether it’s an obscure story, an article, an interview, that piece will be some reader’s introduction to your work, and you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Don’t phone it in—put 100% into the story, and if you can’t do that, don’t accept the job in the first place.

  For instance, if you agree to contribute a story to an anthology about purple unicorns, don’t just roll your eyes and whip off something mediocre because, well, who cares about purple unicorns? Maybe the theme of the anthology makes you roll your eyes, but don’t think that gives you an excuse to deliver a bad story. The people who buy an anthology about purple unicorns really want to read about purple unicorns, and if you accept the assignment then you are obligated to deliver your best possible story about a purple unicorn. And if you do write a terrific purple unicorn story, the readers of that anthology may well remember your name and seek out your other work.

  It’s one of our most important lessons. But it’s become more than that, too.

  Over the years, various writers have come up to me after we give that lecture. “You know, Kevin, I’m going to write a purple unicorn story for you. I accept the challenge.” It was always a joke, but then it got more and more serious.

  In 2010, Rebecca and I launched our intensive business-related Superstars Writing Seminars with fellow writers Brandon Sanderson, David Farland, and Eric Flint. Every year, Rebecca would give our professionalism talk, using the purple unicorn example. And more and more students would offer to write stories for the now-legendary Purple Unicorn Anthology.

  At the 2014 Superstars Writing Seminar, one of our guest lecturers was Lisa Mangum, an editor for Shadow Mountain Publishing, and she heard our professionalism talk. A few weeks after the seminar, she wrote me to say she couldn’t get the idea out of her head—and she proposed that we do the anthology. For real. Something that would be open to submissions from all the past Superstars attendees. She offered her services as editor if WordFire Press would be i
nterested in publishing the book.

  Hmmm.

  We continued discussions and realized that we could do the volume as a benefit for Superstars, with all profits going toward a new scholarship fund that would allow a disadvantaged person to attend the writing seminar. Bestselling YA author and artist James Artimus Owen, one of our Superstar instructors, offered to do an original cover for the anthology. The WordFire team would publish it—and our Superstars tribe would get behind it.

  Lisa developed the guidelines, opened herself to a flood of submissions, and our students got to work. But word leaked out, too.

  Todd J. McCaffrey, well known for the Dragonriders of Pern novels coauthored with Anne McCaffrey, sent me a story out of the blue, which we were delighted to include. Delighted that we were so delighted, Todd sent us a second story, with which we could bracket the anthology.

  I told him, “You know we’re not paying anything for this, right?”

  “Yes, but it’s for a good cause.”

  Then New York Times bestselling author Jody Lynn Nye offered to write us a new story.

  Then the legendary Peter S. Beagle, author of the classic The Last Unicorn, gave us a story. Free. For the scholarship.

  Cool.

  None of these big names took slots away from the students; with well-known authors in the table of contents, I just added extra pages to the book. (As WordFire Press publisher, I can do that!)

  The submissions came in, and Lisa received about four times as many stories as she could use, and the Superstars students cheered each other on, knowing that most of them wouldn’t make the cut.

  And now you have in your hands One Horn to Rule Them All: A Purple Unicorn Anthology, and I venture to say that these are the very best purple unicorn stories ever written.

  Until the next volume.

  Kevin J. Anderson, publisher

  WordFire Press

  ***

  Rhubarb and Beets

  Todd McCaffrey

  The elvish girl walked spritely up the path.

  “Gran!” she called, stopping for a moment to peer ahead and then starting forward with a skip in her step. “Gran, where are you?”

  There was no sign of him in the front of the stone cottage.

  “Eilin?” an old voice called in surprise. The doddering old man, steps quick but wobbly, rounded the corner from the back of the cottage. He had a guarded look on his face and then smiled as he spotted the girl. “Eilin, what brings you here?”

  “My lady was worried,” Eilin replied, peering up at the silver-haired man. “She didn’t see you in the garden.”

  “Oh, I was around back, just pottering.”

  “Pottering?” Eilin repeated. It was a strange word, like so many of the other words he used.

  “Aye, nothing more,” Gran replied, gesturing toward the front door. “Come in and I’ll put on some tea for ye.”

  Eilin nodded, not trusting her face. Gran was forever going on about “tea,” but it was always hot water poured over strange roots and never quite the amazing brew he made it seem. She glanced back over her shoulder down the path she’d taken. Finding no respite—no signs of her lady mother beckoning her back imperiously—Eilin knew she had no choice but to accept her Gran’s offer.

  “And what brings you here on such a fair day?” Gran asked as he opened the door to his cottage and bowed her in.

  “My lady mother—”

  “Ach, lass, that’s what ye said,” Gran interrupted. “I meant the real reason.”

  The silver-haired man followed her into the cottage, waved her to her favorite seat, bustled about near the stove and came back, beckoning for her to stand again, while he settled in the one plush chair and settled her on his lap.

  “Was it the spiders?” Gran asked softly as she lay her head on his warm shoulder.

  “No,” Eilin said in a half-drowsy voice. Her lady mother said that they kept Gran because he was so good with children. Perhaps it was true: Eilin could never listen to his singsong voice for long before falling asleep on his lap. “Not spiders.”

  “The prince, then,” Gran decided.

  “The baby, actually,” Eilin allowed. Her brother, the prince, was no longer a pest after she’d discovered that he was more afraid of spiders than she—one night harvesting the worst of them and laying them over him as he slept cured the Prince of any desire to annoy her—which was as it should be.

  A whistle from the kettle on the stove disturbed them, and Eilin allowed herself to be manhandled as Gran stood, deposited her gently back on the warm chair, sauntered over to the stove and poured steaming water into a clay pot.

  Eilin’s nose crinkled as the strange smell came to her. Another of Gran’s terrible brews, she thought.

  How long had it been now? Twenty years? Forty? More? Once his hair had been red, his eyes keen, his face fresh like a new apple. Now it was lined, his eyes were dimming, his hair all white and lanky. Even his body seemed smaller than once it had been, as though time had forced it to curl in obeisance.

  Changelings never lasted very long. She’d only just gotten him properly broken in and now he was all worn out and creaky.

  The smell shifted and Eilin sniffed again, her eyes open and senses curious. This time Gran’s brew did not smell so bad.

  Gran came back with two mugs on a tray and set them near the sofa. He scooped Eilin back up, settled himself, and pulled a mug over in one hand.

  “If you’d care to try …” Gran offered.

  “Of course,” Eilin said, never one to refuse a graciousness. She sniffed, took a quick, thin sip and—amazed—her eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise. She took another sip, a bit deeper but only just; the liquid was piping hot.

  Gran chuckled at her evident pleasure.

  “Rhubarb and beet,” Gran said. He took the second mug for himself.

  “What’s it for?”

  “It’s for the unicorns,” Gran said.

  Eilin took another sip. It was always unicorns with Gran. Always the same joke.

  “Do you think they’ll like it?” Eilin asked, deciding this time to play along.

  “We’ll see,” Gran said, taking another sip. “We’ll see.”

  “Tell me about the unicorns,” Eilin said as she’d said most every day she came to the cottage. She sipped her tea and wondered why in the Elvenworld Gran could ever come to the notion that unicorns might drink such brew.

  “What’s to tell?” Gran teased her.

  “No one can see them,” Eilin said, repeating his old story. Days and years he’d told her, put her to sleep with his singsong, sad, sorry voice telling her about the unicorns.

  “No one can see them,” Gran agreed. “Their horns take them from Elvenworld to our world and back.”

  “They brought you here.”

  “When I was just a lad,” Gran said in agreement.

  “And now you’re here and you’ll never leave,” Eilin finished. She leaned back, resting her head on his warm shoulder companionably. “You belong here, with us.”

  “Forever in Faerie.”

  “With the Elves and the unicorns, my lady mother, lord father, and the prince, my brother,” Eilin concluded. “This is your home and we love you.”

  “I had a home,” Gran reminded her, his voice going soft and a bit hoarse, “and those who loved me.”

  “Long gone, time slips differently here,” Eilin reminded him.

  “Drink your tea,” Gran said, raising his mug to his lips and draining it impatiently.

  For once, Eilin did as he said.

  “No one can ever see a unicorn,” Gran said to her as she drifted off into pleasant slumber.

  * * *

  It was weeks later when Eilin came again. The prince, her brother, had discovered the thorny roses and had tormented her by presenting them to her as a gift, then hiding them in her bed as she slept.

  The pricks and pains of the thorns had sent her, crying, to the comfort of Gran’s cottage in the distance.

 
“Gran!” she cried. He had the greatest cures and poultices, perhaps he could pull the sting out of her. “Gran!”

  No answer, no movement from the cottage. Alarmed, Eilin picked up her pace.

  No sign.

  She ran around the cottage to the back, crying, “Gran!”

  “Shh!” Gran called from the far end of the garden. “I’m here, no need to shout!”

  “What are you doing?” Eilin asked, eyeing the green growth and dirty ground in surprise.

  “Just tending my garden, princess,” Gran told her, rising from his knees to stand and then bow in front of her.

  “My brother, the prince, used thorns!” Eilin cried, raising her pricked palms toward him and then pointed to the gash in her neck and the others on her arms. “He put roses in my bed.”

  “I can help you,” Gran said, nodding toward his cottage. “A bit of brew, some cold water, and you’ll be right as rain.”

  “And how is rain right?”

  “It’s right when there’s a rainbow and the air is clear of dirt and full of freshness.”

  Eilin nodded. Rainbows were expensive outside of Faerie; her father had the drudges work until they expired to find the treasure required for each rainbow. Gran had once called him too vain for his own good, but Eilin could only think of the pride of the kingdom and the bounty of the Elvenworld. The drudges were only human, lured by the same gold they died to provide, and of no matter to her father, the king, nor even to Eilin herself.