A mysterious Red Bull has made all the unicorns in the land disappear. She is the last one left, and sets out from her enchanted forest to learn the fate of the others of her kind. She is captured by a travelling circus run by a witch Mommy Fortuna, who uses spells to make regular animals enchanted. The unicorn escapes with the help of Schmendrick, an inept magician, and the two head towards the castle of cruel King Haggard, keeper of the Red Bull. The encounter some bandits along the way, and are joined by Molly Grue, the mistress of the bandit leader.
They reach Haggard’s castle near the ocean, when Schmendrick turns the unicorn into a young woman he dubs Lady Amalthea. They become part of the King’s household, and learn as much as they can about the Bull, the unicorns and the castle itself, while Amalthea is courted by Prince Lir. When they find the Red Bull’s lair, Amalthea changes back to the unicorn and defeats the bull. This frees the other unicorns, who have been trapped in the ocean, and in their rage, they bring down the whole castle. Lir is now king, and sets about ruling much more responsibly than Haggard.
This is an older book, and many contemporary fantasy fiction authors highlight this book as their inspiration. But for all that, I did not particularly enjoy this book. There is no character growth of the central protagonist; the unicorn doesn’t use her smarts to outwit the adversaries, nor does she prepare before charging headlong against the Red Bull. Often she is helped out of sticky situations by the others, and even manages to defeat the Bull at the end only because of her anger and sorrow at the death of her love Prince Lir.
She brings the prince back to life too, in a sorry plot development. Molly and Schmendrick fall in love, and even that is not the most tedious angle… the unicorn declares that she is unique among unicorns, as she has loved and lost. Thus negating the life experiences of the other unicorns, who have fought the Red Bull, lost, and were trapped in the ocean for years. Read if you will, but be prepared for disappointment.