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winter grasses with silver. The woods behind the rock were a dark shadow. Charles Wallace looked across the valley, across the dark ridge of pines, to the shadows of the hills beyond. Then he threw back his head and called,
    “In this fateful hour I call on all
Heaven with its power!”
    The brilliance of the stars increased. Charles Wallace continued to gaze upward. He focused on one star whichthrobbed with peculiar intensity. A beam of light as strong as a ladder but clear as water flowed between the star and Charles Wallace, and it was impossible to tell whether the light came from the piercing silver-blue of the star or the light blue eyes of the boy. The beam became stronger and firmer and then all the light resolved itself in a flash of radiance beside the boy. Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light. It was a creature of utter and absolute perfection.
    The boy put his hand against the great white flanks, which heaved as though the creature had been racing. He could feel the warm blood coursing through the veins as the light had coursed between star and boy. “Are you real?” he asked in a wondering voice.
    The creature gave a silver neigh which translated itself into the boy’s mind as “I am not real. And yet in a sense I am that which is the only reality.”
    “Why have you come?” The boy’s own breath was rapid, not so much with apprehension as with excitement and anticipation.
    “You called on me.”
    “The rune—” Charles Wallace whispered. He looked with loving appreciation at the glorious creature standing beside him on the star-watching rock. One silvershodhoof pawed lightly, and the rock rang with clarion sound. “A unicorn. A real unicorn.”
    “That is what you call me. Yes.”
    “What are you, really?”
    “What are
you
, really?” the unicorn countered. “You called me, and because there is great need, I am here.”
    “You know the need?”
    “I have seen it in your mind.”
    “How is it that you speak my language?”
    The unicorn neighed again, the sound translucent as silver bubbles. “I do not. I speak the ancient harmony.”
    “Then how is it that I understand?”
    “You are very young, but you belong to the Old Music.”
    “Do you know my name?”
    “Here, in this When and Where, you are called Charles Wallace. It is a brave name. It will do.”
    Charles Wallace stretched up on tiptoe to reach his arms about the beautiful beast’s neck. “What am I to call you?”
    “You may call me Gaudior.” The words dropped on the rock like small bells.
    Charles Wallace looked thoughtfully at the radiance of the horn. “Gaudior. That’s Latin for
more joyful
.”
    The unicorn neighed in acquiescence.
    “That joy in existence without which …”
    Gaudior struck his hoof lightly on the rock, with the sound of a silver trumpet. “Do not push your understanding too far.”
    “But I’m not wrong about Gaudior?”
    “In a sense, yes; in a sense, no.”
    “You’re real and you’re not real; I’m wrong and I’m right.”
    “What is real?” Gaudior’s voice was as crystal as the horn.
    “What am I supposed to do, now that I’ve called on all Heaven with its power and you’ve come?”
    Gaudior neighed. “Heaven may have sent me, but my powers are closely defined and narrowly limited. And I’ve never been sent to your planet before. It’s considered a hardship assignment.” He looked down in apology.
    Charles Wallace studied the snow-dusted rock at his feet. “We haven’t done all that well by our planet, have we?”
    “There are many who would like to let you wipe yourselves out, except it would affect us all; who knows what might happen? And as long as there are even a few who belong to the Old Music, you are still our brothers and sisters.”
    Charles Wallace stroked Gaudior’s long, aristocratic