A Paladin's Unicorn


         He came swaggering in and sat down next to me at the bar.  “A beer and a bump,”
he ordered, even though no one had asked him what he wanted.  I first noticed that he
was dressed funny.  All flamboyant, as if that meant something.
         “What you looking at?” he asked me pointedly.
         “Well, you, if you must know,” I guess I’d been staring.  Staring was something
honest folks weren’t supposed to do.  “Don’t see too many people in a getup like yours.
You aren’t from around here, are you?”
         “I’m not,” he readily admitted.  “There aren’t many of us who spread good around
these days.  Makes it hard to stay put too long.”  The beer and bump came, and he threw
back the whiskey just as a baby takes to milk.  “Damn, that’s good,” he said before taking
a swig of his beer.
         “Who’s got the horse?” Ol’ Amos came in.  Trust Ol’ Amos to poke his nose in
where it don’t belong.
         “That would be me,” the stranger turned to face him.  “You got a problem with
that?”
         “Not me,” Ol’ Amos smiled wickedly, “but the cop out there’s writin’ a ticket
‘cause it pooped on the street.”
         “Oh, hell!” he said, slamming down the beer before getting up and going outside.
         “Horse ain’t a bad idea,” Rufus said from around the corner of the bar.  “Beats
trying to get a taxi these days.”
         “I reckon,” Ol’ Amos agreed, taking the man’s place at the bar.  “You’d need a big
pooper scoop, though.  Not like it were a dog.”
         “What’s it tied to?” Rufus asked.  “Not the newspaper stand, I hope.  I haven’t got
mine yet.”
         “It’s just standing there,” Ol’ Amos replied, “as if it don’t got to be tied to
anything.”
         This was too much for me.  I needed to get back to looking for work anyway, so I
dropped a ten spot on the counter for my burger and beer, and headed outside.  Some
things one just has to see for one’s self.
         The man lay face down on the street behind his horse.  Except it wasn’t a horse.
The pool of blood around the man was growing bigger as the cop finished writing out the
ticket.  He stuck it to the back of the man, shaking his head as he looked up at me.  “Is
this your horse?” he asked.
         “Not that I know of,” I answered.  The horse turned his head and looked at me,
intelligence shining in its eyes.
         “Someone’s got to own this horse,” the cop said as he walked down the street.
         I looked around.  People were moving up and down the street, ignoring both the
horse and me.  That was a good thing.
         “Unicorn,” the horse thing said softly.  “I’m a unicorn.  You were wondering that,
weren’t you?”
         “Sort of,” I admitted.  “What happened to him?” I pointed at the man on the
ground.
         “He’s a paladin gone bad,” the unicorn replied.  “It happens, now and then.”
         “You don’t say,” I was surprised at the notion.  “He is a paladin?” I continued
after I realized what a paladin was.
         “Was a paladin,” the unicorn corrected me.  “Not a popular occupation these
days, but heaven still needs them.  It seems the world is about as screwed up now as it’s
ever been.”
         “You got that darn right,” I agreed.
         “So, do you think you’re up to it?” the unicorn asked.
         “Up to what?” I was surprised.
         “Being the next paladin,” the unicorn said.  “It isn’t a hard job.”
         “Does it pay well?” I asked.  I’d been out of work for several weeks, and the bills
were starting to pile up.
         “That depends,” the unicorn smiled as much as a unicorn could smile.  “Some
people might not think so.  I guess it depends on what you value in this world.”
         “I really hadn’t considered it,” I struggled for something to say.  Obviously the
consequences when a paladin failed were pretty severe.
         “You ought to,” the unicorn told me.  “All you have to do is to go around, doing
good.  It used to be righting wrongs, but the lines between right and wrong seem to get
blurred quite a bit these days.  Doing good suffices until you get so that you can tell right
from wrong.”
         “I’d still get to go into a bar, wouldn’t I?” I asked.  I’ve never been a man of great
means, but a beer or two at the end of a hard day’s work was one of the few pleasures I’d
come to enjoy.
         “Now and then,” the unicorn allowed.  “A lot of bad happens in bars.  Some good,
too, but not as often.”
         “What do I got to do to be a paladin?” I asked.  “Do I have to see a priest first, or
is there some application or something to fill out?”
         “You just have to get on and ride,” the unicorn assured me.  “It used to be that
you had to have shiny armor draped in white and bring your own sword, but that’s gone
out of vogue these days.”
         “Sort of a come as you are thing, then,” I surmised.  “And all I have to do is to do
good?”
         “More like spread good around,” the unicorn temporized.  “Seriously, you don’t
have anything better to do, do you?”
         “Not really,” I had to admit.
         “And the world could definitely use someone who went around, spreading good
among people, could it not?” the unicorn pressed the issue.
         “That it could,” I agreed, at least in principle.
         “So what are you waiting for?” the unicorn asked.  “An engraved invitation from
God?  You either want a better world our you don’t.”
         “I don’t have to be a paladin to spread good,” I told the unicorn.
         “True,” the unicorn agreed, “but you don’t get to ride the likes of me if you aren’t
one.”
         That was too tempting.  I climbed onto the unicorn’s back.  Just how hard could
being a paladin be anyway?


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