ren’s Reviews > The Last Unicorn > Status Update

"But whether he reached some other shore, or whether the water drew even his great bulk down at last, none of them knew until long after; and he was never seen again in that kingdom.
'The Red Bull never fights,' Schmendrick said. 'He conquers, but never fights.'
He turned to Prince Lír and put a hand on his shoulder, 'Now you are the king,' he said."

"'If you had not tried to save the unicorn, she would have never have turned on the Red Bull and driven him into the sea. It was the Red Bull who made the overflow, and so set the other unicorns free, and it was they who destroyed the caste. Would you have it otherwise, knowing this?'
Prince Lír shook his head, but he said nothing. Molly asked, 'But why did to Bull run from her? Why didn't he stand and fight?'"

"He glanced up then and drew in his breath. It was the only sound of grief for King Haggard that any living thing ever made."

"The unicorn touched him a second time, over the heart, letting her horn rest there for a little space. They were both trembling. Prince Lír began, but she was away. She went lightly as the shadow a bird; and when she looked back, with one cloven foot poised, and the sunlight on her sides, with her head and neck absurdly fragile for the burden of the horn--"

"There was a weariness in the way she held herself, and a sadness in her beauty that Molly had never seen. It suddenly seemed to her that the unicorn's sorrow was not for Lír but for the lost girl who could not be brought back; for the Lady Amalthea, who might have lived happily ever after with the prince. The unicorn bowed her head, and her horn glanced across Lír's chin as clumsy as a first kiss."

"'She can restore him,' Schmendrick said softly. 'A unicorn's horn is proof against death itself.' Molly looked closely at him, and she saw that he had come at last to his power and his beginning. She could now say how she knew, for no wild glory burned about him, and no recognizable omens occurred in his honor, just at that moment. He was Schmendrick the Magician--as ever, and yet somehow it was for the first time."

"'It's good that she went without saying good-bye,' she said to herself. 'I would have been stupid. I'm going to be stupid in a minute, anyway, but it really is better like this.'
Then a warmth moved over her cheek and into her hair, like sunlight, and she turned and put her arms around the unicorn's neck."

"Once the sea had taken back their diamond-shaped footprints, there was no sign that they had ever been there, any more than King Haggard's castle had been."

"But King Haggard, who was quite real, fell down through the wreckage of his disenchanted castle like a knife dropped through clouds. Molly heard him laugh once, as though he had expected it. Very little ever surprised King Haggard."

"The unicorns sprang up the cliff and flowed around them, exactly as though they had been made out of sand. The castle came down in great cold chunks that turned thin and waxen as they swirled in the air, until they disappeared. It crumbled and vanished without a sound, and it left no ruins, either on land or in the memories of the two who watched it fall. A minute later, they could not remember where it had stood."