Ariel (24 page)

* * *

We were marched through the silent pathways of Battery Park and onto the desolate streets, where we headed north, walking in the middle of the road. Piles of olive-drab plastic garbage bags slouched on some street corners, twist-tied and lumpy. Occasionally a breeze wafted down the corridors of streets. There wasn't a store without a broken window. Some had been smashed from inside, and glass had sprayed onto the sidewalk.

I kept glancing to the World Trade Center as we walked. I'd always expected something  .  .  . huge, massive, you know. These were merely tall. The twin towers—again I thought of Tolkien—with the pinstriping effect of alternating light and dark blue-gray lines, played tricks on my eyes the way a
moiré
pattern does. causing the perception of motion where none was.

And then we had passed Trinity Church, and the Trade Center was even with us, and we were heading north on Broadway.

I glanced at Ariel, who walked silently beside me, head up and noble, both of us surrounded by men with their weapons at ready or drawn. I looked down at the asphalt moving beneath my feet, trying to keep the images of heroic hindsight from coming, the "I shoulda dones." Maybe I should bolt for it now—go for the rider and kill him. That'd be enough.

I laughed aloud. Right—I no longer had Fred, and he had a broadsword and fifty men—and, most important, I would be forcing myself to perform an act that would result in my losing Ariel. Or, more likely, her losing me. And I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Time had become so valuable. The time I was spending with her now might be the last.

One of Ariel's rear hooves trailed along the street, scattering sparks. The men around us clenched their weapons tighter and muttered among themselves. The rider, who had been walking just ahead of us, turned back curiously. He questioned one of his men briefly and frowned. "Don't do that again," he said to Ariel. She stared blankly at him, blinked, and very deliberately extended her left front hoof and raked it across the asphalt. Red-gold sparks flew. There was a disturbed mumbling among the men.

The rider said one word. "Smith." A tall, burly man separated himself from the rest. He carried my crossbow in his right hand. He nodded to the rider and got behind me, not quite bringing it to bear, but holding it level at the hip. "If you do that again," said the rider with a forced smile, "we'll kill your friend, here." He jerked his head toward me.

She looked as if she were going to say something and apparently thought the better of it. I tried to walk without looking behind me, but it wasn't easy. Five kinds of warning bells were going off in my head and the small of my back, where I'd been hit before, was nearly screaming.

The rider turned around and we resumed walking. I tried to puzzle it out—why would Ariel striking sparks upset them like that?

The men walking with us were mostly silent and wary. Some glanced at Ariel with a strange mixture of wonder, curiosity, and fear.

We were in the outskirts of Chinatown, amid shops which had sold clothes and martial arts equipment—the latter no doubt looted. The rider slowed to walk with us, rubbing his left eye socket with an index finger. He saw me trying not to look and his other eye narrowed. He wiped the finger on his pants. "The bird who did this to me," he said. "That was its owner we killed?"

I mumbled something.

"What?"

"I said yes, you son of a bitch." I glanced around self-consciously. The men looked almost amused - yeah, brave little fuck, so what—we're gonna kill him anyhow. The rider half-smiled. There was something cold in his single eye, as if he were pleasuring himself by picturing me cut to dogmeat. Except for the eye he had that German
übermenschlich
look about him—he could have been a figure on a Hitler Youth poster, but the broadsword at his hip and the ruin of his eye gave him a vaguely piratical look that jarred with his Aryan features. I smiled inwardly as I regarded his eye. Give me half a chance, bastard. I'll do the rest of you, too.

He just nodded at my attempt at bravado, that same half-smile on his pale face. "Good, good. The falcon was his buddy; that means it died, too." The glint in his eye grew stronger.

"No," I said, glad at being able to contradict him, "we killed the falcon. Malachi Lee did. It didn't feel a thing."

"Malachi Lee." The smile thinned but the eye remained cold. I looked away from him.

They must have seen us coming in by sea—but how? I looked at the skyscrapers all around. The streets looked like deserted hallways with the ceilings somehow ripped away, leaving behind jagged walls. If not for our present situation I'd have been impressed by the grandeur of the city's architecture.

I asked where we were going, but the rider said nothing.

"Where do you think, Pete?" said Ariel. "He's taking us to his employer, his liege lord, the one he bows to. The necromancer." I could see Ariel was trying to irritate him. Nobody with power likes to be reminded that they have superiors, too.

Very distinctly, he hawked, turned his head, and spat at her. My hand went for Fred at my side and clasped air. The phlegm looked as if it were deflected by the wind and it curved left, splattering on the street ahead of her.

The men muttered to each other. I thought I was beginning to understand.

"
Nobody
spits on a unicorn," said Ariel proudly. One day her pride will be her downfall, I thought.

The rider glared and turned away. "We'll see what good being a unicorn will do you soon enough," he said to the empty street ahead of him. "You can protect yourself for now—but you can't protect him."

I knew the "him" was me and felt the pang of adrenaline shooting into my heart. It had just hit me that I was the only thing holding Ariel back. Her fear for my life had caused her to be captured and kept her from trying to escape. She'd have been able to get away easily if not for me.

I caught some of the men who surrounded us eyeing Ariel speculatively. They looked away quickly if Ariel looked at them. They were afraid of magic. It was what kept them in check, I felt sure. Most of them had the look of long-time loners about them—the wary eyes and mistrustful glances, the conservation of movement, the constant checking of terrain in all directions. Most loners don't trust magical ability, fearing it for the unknown that it is. These loners guarding us associated magical ability with people in authority, with their superiors—people with the power to make them do things. Now an enemy was in their midst—two enemies, actually, but I didn't count—an alien thing. And it performed magic.

"How much farther?" I asked.

"A few miles," he said grudgingly. "You can see it from here." He pointed at a building ahead. My eyes followed the line of his finger to the Empire State Building.

Empire State Building.

Yeah, I could see it, all right. We'd turned onto Fifth Avenue. An absurd thought kept running through my head like an annoying jingle. Gee, I've always wanted to see New York! Gee, I've always wanted to see New York! Gee—I walked like an old man, shoulders slumped, head hanging, feeling beaten. I
was
beaten. I was tired. I'd given up.

Off to see the Wizard. The worm in the Big Apple. I walked like an automaton.
Welcome to the Machine, Mr. Garey.
Why, thank you, nurse, I'll take a double—left biceps this time, please. Free Will, my ass—Fate led me here, that malicious bitch.

Dozens of armed men walked the streets in front of the Empire State Building. They became alert when they saw us, gesturing to one another and pointing to Ariel. The double revolving doors of the Fifth Avenue entrance were guarded by two armed men dressed in a hodgepodge of collected homemade armor. One even had a hockey goalie's mask pushed back on top of his head. They looked vaguely like English knights.

How many men could you fit into a building one hundred two stories tall? Thousands, at least. Tens of thousands, probably. I couldn't be certain the entire building was occupied—it posed too many practical problems, such as how to get from the bottom to the top. Elevators wouldn't work anymore.

Magic? Ariel had once said that magic was a resource like any other and shouldn't be wasted. Employing magic for routine elevator-type operations seemed a bit extravagant. What else, then? Pulleys and ropes in the elevator shafts? No way—the amount of rope necessary would be too heavy for any group of workers to pull. It never occurred to me that the necromancer would set his quarters, his "sanctum sanctorum," as Dr. Strange used to say, at the bottom of the building. Anybody utilizing this skyscraper would instantly recognize the military and psychological advantages of being master of all he surveyed. No, I never doubted for a second that we were going to the top.

The answer was so obvious I missed it.

Seeing the broken windows of a McDonald's on the other side of Fifth Avenue made me realize I was hungry. The last time I'd eaten was a small dinner at sea on the
Lady
.

We passed a restaurant called Leo Lindy's at the base of the building and turned left onto Thirty-fourth Street. A sign above the revolving doors ahead read: TO OBSERVATION DECKS. Orbach's was right across the street, Macy's a little farther down. Preening itself in the middle of the road was a griffin. Shai-tan.

I hesitated, glancing at Ariel. She remained silent. Our guards pressed closer around us, probably thinking that if there was any one time we were likely to make a break for it, this was it.

They were right—Ariel reared. Men backed away unthinkingly, all but one who pulled a hand axe and drew it back. Ariel twitched her head and the man fell with his skull caved in.

This is it
, I thought, and I side-stepped the crossbow bolt I pictured heading my way at any second. Turning around quickly, I saw that "Smith" had turned the Barnett toward Ariel, whose back was to him. His hand was going for the trigger when I leapt, kicked it to the side, and gave him a right to the temple. He sagged to the street and the crossbow went sailing. I went for it—and found my way blocked by a bloody broadsword an inch in front of my face as I knelt on the street. I tried to look past it at the rider, but I couldn't. There was nothing else in the universe but that point, two inches from my eyes. I couldn't breathe, couldn't even think. My ears told me the shouting had died down, that Ariel obviously wasn't fighting anymore because she'd seen me, but it didn't register, nothing registered but the blade,
the blade
. The rider's voice was a world away, made throaty by his heavy breathing. "All right," he said. "I may not have your power—I'll give you that. But if you say another word, make a wrong move, do anything other than walk to that building, I'll kill him." The blade shook before my eyes. I flinched. "Get up!" I stood, not taking my eyes from the end of the sword, and it followed me up. "Move."

I moved. I stepped over a body. The remaining men had their weapons drawn. I felt them on all sides, at my back, ready.

We left three bodies behind. Blood covered Ariel's horn. It was all too much for me and I cried.

The rider strode ahead of us, heavy broadsword bobbing in time with his swagger. He stopped at the huge, leonine bird, reached up, and stroked the feathers at the bottom of its throat. He stroked down, ruffling at the place on Shai-tan's breast where feathers became golden-brown fur. The beast arched its powerful neck and blinked its eyes, a sleepy killer. It saw Ariel and spread its huge wings, hissing from deep in its throat. The rider calmed the griffin, stepped forward, and untied the long reins from around the right stirrup, standing on tiptoe to reach them. He held both reins in his right hand and turned to face us. The reins grew taut as he stepped forward. The griffin stood reluctantly and stepped forward slowly, not being pulled, but not exactly following. Our guard looked nervous as the beast approached, but they merely exchanged glances and kept a watchful eye on us. The rider stopped in front of me and lowered the hand clenching the leather reins. I smelled hot brass. "What's your name?"

I looked him in the eye and said nothing.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter." He gestured with the reins. "Get on."

I glanced at Ariel.

"She'll follow you up," he said.

"How do I know that?"

He smiled. "You don't. But you don't have much choice, either."

I looked at the griffin's molten gold eyes. Why didn't the cavalry ever come over the hill in real life?

The griffin settled itself down on the street, bringing the stirrups level with the top of my chest. "Get on," he said again.

I grabbed the stirrup and the bottom of the saddle, jumped, and pulled myself up. I swung my right leg around and settled onto the saddle. It creaked beneath me.

"Hold on to the saddlehorn," said the rider. "Use both hands. Don't pull on the reins or you'll get thrown—it's a long way down." He turned to Ariel. "We're going to hold him on top while Shai-tan comes back for you. I know you can probably keep yourself from being lifted if you want to, but if you do we'll throw him off. Understand?"

"I understand." She looked over to me. I tried to nod confidently but I knew she wasn't fooled. She nodded back slowly and looked to the rider. "If you do anything to him, I'll kill you. Griffin or not, men or not, you know you won't be able to stop me."

"We don't care about him."