LARS THOMAS: The Horn (Part Two)

At first glance it did in fact look like a small narwhal tusk. It was about 50 cm long and tightly twisted. On the other hand it was also quite clear, that it had to be something entirely different. First of all it was needle sharp, something you never see in a narwhal tusk, and secondly it was blue with a red tip.

”I take it the colour is not paint?”

”Oh no, it is the real stuff, I’ve had it tested. Why? Do you know what it is?”

”Yes, as a matter of fact, I think I do, but I have to ask you a question first. Have you had any trouble transporting it?”

Claire looked at me like I had finally lost my mind.

”I am not wasting your time,” I said impatiently. ”Just answer me!”

”Well, now that you mention it, this is in fact the sixth box we have made for it. We had to make a padded box, where it couldn’t slide around, since even at the slightest vibration it would poke a hole in the box and fall out. It even made a hole in my bag at one stage. I know it’s very pointed, but it’s still rather strange.”

”Not at all,” I said, and breathed deeply trying to still my heart, that had taken to beat a rather boisterous drum solo, like I was in the middle of a major mountain climb. ”Wait a second I just have to find a book.”

I went over to one of my bookshelves, and returned a fem minutes later with a big heavy book bound in dark brown leather.

”This is actually one of the books I inherited from the old duke. It was published in 1862, and it is nothing special in it self, but it’s a translation of a much older Portuguese travelbook from 1501. It’s written by a monk who for some reason have only signed his work with the initials P.P. Hold on...”

I had to leaf through most of the book, before I found the piece I was looking for.

”Listen to this...”



In this area there lives a beast, the natives fear more than anything. It is strong, fearless, and almost impossible to slay. For a hunter, there is no greater sign of courage, than to face one of these beasts. I was shown the village’s biggest treasure, a horn of one of these beast, caught more than 100 years ago. It was almost a yard in length, shaped like a spiral and very pointed. The strangest thing of all was the shiny blue colour and the red tip. It is said, that this horn will penetrate anything.

”From here he goes on to describing several other animal, but it is clearly the same horn.”

”I quite agree,” Claire said. ” I have to admit, that I’m impressed. But what species are we talking about – an antelope of some kind?”

”Oh no,” I said, ”it’s much worse than that, and you’ll probably hate me for what I am about to read.”

I started reading again, a few pages further along in the book.

I have read about this beast in the writings of Marco Polo the Venetian. Master Leonardo has written, that he knew of this creature, and a drawing from his hand seems to show, that he has studied a dead one. The natives have many names for it, but I shall call it Unicornis, the onehorned.

”What you have,” I said, and slammed the book shut with a suitable dramatic gesture, at least in my own opinion, ”is the horn of a unicorn.”

”And,” I added, rather quickly, and raised a hand to stop the explosion I knew was coming “ before you start one of your usual stories about imagining things, superstition and lack of evidence, I have something to show you. Follow me!”

I grabbed the horn from the box, and marched out of the library without bothering to see if Claire was following me.

I turned right, and went down towards my uncle’s old bedroom. I have tried to renovate it for several years, but had never gotten very far. For one thing, I had never gotten around to removing my uncles old safe. I paid a couple of people to remove it from the wall, but it was still sitting on the floor of the room.

”It is, as I said, the horn of a unicorn. With those colours, incredible as it might seem, it can be nothing else. And I can prove it. If you try to recall what you know about these kinds of creatures – perhaps you have even read one of my books, or you paid attention when I read from the old book a few minutes ago, you know, that the horn of a unicorn can penetrate everything.”

Saying this, I straightened my arm holding the horn, so the tip was pointing downwards towards the 50 cm high safe on the floor, and then let go.

The sound was rather strange, kind of loud, crunchy and wet, like the sound of a splitting watermelon. At first I couldn’t look, but judging from the look in Claire’s eyes, things had gone just as I had expected. The horn had speared the massive safe as easily as a hot knife going trough butter.

To my great surprise it was no problem pulling the horn back out again. It was as if it was standing in a specially designed holder for it. And the hole in the safe would probably keep a metallurgist working for months. The metal wasn’t bent, blown away or ripped aside, like a grenade or some other kind of projectile would do. It was just gone. It looked like the horn had melted a precisely fitting hole in the thick side of the safe.

”But that’s...” was all Claire managed in the next minutes, as we both just stared at the safe.

”Amazing, incredible, unique – most definitely, but do you know what the worst part of it all is?”

”No.”

”It proves I was right all along!”

And then it came – the smile!

”Imagine – you and I almost ended up as lovers at one time.”

”Oh well,” I said, ”we all make mistakes.”

”But the question – the very important question now is – what are we going to do??”

”I think you should go home, or back to the institute – take the horn, and stick in the biggest and safest safe you have at the place. I’ll start digging in the old dukes journals and notebooks, most of which are sitting in a box in the basement, and see if I can dig anything interesting up, and then we’ll talk tomorrow.”

We went back to the library, and I watched Claire putting the horn back in the box with shaking hands. This was probably the biggest zoological discovery ever – I couldn’t wait to start reading the dukes papers.

I walked Claire to the door, and then I almost ran to the basement, where I knew, that two big boxes full of papers were waiting. It was all the old duke’s journals and notebooks from his many travels. If there was any chance of finding any information about the unicorn horn, it would be in there somewhere.