The Black Unicorn

The Black Unicorn is the second of Terry Brooks's Magic Kingdom of Landover novels, published in 1987 and following Magic Kingdom for Sale, Sold! It opens with three dreams, which is the sort of thing that happens in Landover: Ben Holiday dreams that his former law partner in Chicago is in trouble, his court magician dreams of two lost books of magic, and the sylph Willow dreams of a black unicorn and a golden bridle.

The dreams are bait. Ben returns to his old world, finds his partner perfectly fine and comes back too late, having carried the wizard Meeks with him across the barrier. Meeks casts a glamour that gives him Ben's face and leaves the real High Lord looking like a peasant, and the castle staff throw Ben out on the orders of his double.

The rest of the novel is a quest through a kingdom whose inhabitants know Ben's enemies rather than Ben, with help arriving from unlikely directions: a talking prism cat from the fairy world, the River Master, the Earth Mother and a pair of ghomes. Brooks keeps the tone light and the plotting brisk, and this is a middle volume that widens the kingdom rather than settling it. The Landover books are gentler and sillier than his Shannara novels, and they are written for readers who like a joke with their magic.