Ariel

by Steven R. Boyett

  “Love you, too, Pete.”

  Chaffney leaned forward. “That’s all that thing did? It didn’t hurt you?”

  “It sure as hell tried. Oh, Ariel was perfectly all right, and I was okay, except for being jelly-kneed and dry-throated, and wanting very much to go to the bathroom.” I looked up at Ariel. “You sure know how to pick your spells.”

  She said nothing.

  “You ever try anything else?” he asked.

  “No. I kind of stayed away from spells after that.”

  He smiled. “Don’t blame you.”

  “Hey, where’s your buddy, anyway?” I asked. “What’s its name?”

  “Asmodeus. I left her home. I didn’t want to bring her after what happened this afternoon.”

  “It won’t happen again,” said Ariel.

  “Tell me,” he said, “what else can you do?”

  Ariel shot me a warning look. “She can make peppermint appear and make cigarettes disappear,” I said.

  He scowled. “And she can read Latin.”

  “No, I already told you I can’t. I read magic. There was something about the way the spell was put together that made me know what it was about. I don’t understand it, I just do it.”

  “I’ve got a friend,” Chaffney said carefully. “The guy who cast the loyalty spell on Asmodeus. He reads a lot about magic. He wants to know what caused the Change.”

  “Don’t we all,” I said. “You have any ideas?”

  He tossed his head to the side, his version of a shrug. “Only what I’ve heard. A lot of people I know think we’re in a place in space where old laws don’t work anymore.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t throw the idea away, but I’m not sure it holds water, either. Laws are laws.”

  I nodded. “‘God doesn’t shoot dice.’ Einstein said that.”

  “Why don’t you ask Ariel about it?” he said. “Since she knows about magic.”

  “I have. Tell him, you Salvador Dalí version of an Appaloosa.”

  “Hairless monkey.” She looked at Chaffney. “I haven’t the slightest.”

  “She couldn’t have been around until after the Change took place,” I said. “She wouldn’t remember any of it.”

  “God, I do.” He rolled his eyes. “Everything just stopped, all at once. I was watching Dallas at L.A. It was the third quarter. Dallas was on top, twenty-one to nothing. The power cut out and the TV went dead. I waited for the electricity to come back on but there was nothing. When I picked up the phone to report a power failure after about ten minutes, the phone was dead. Nothing, not even static. Then I noticed how quiet it was. Really quiet. I could hear birds chirping, but no traffic—that wasn’t right for Decatur. I walked outside with my wife and it was spooky. Cars stopped dead in the middle of the street. People stood up and down the block, seeing the same thing I did—something different.” He leaned back. “Sometimes I wonder what happened to the people in airplanes or on ships in the middle of the ocean. What happened to people on cross-country car trips who were in the middle of Utah or Arizona? Christ, we even had a Shuttle up!” He shook his head and laughed. “You know the funniest thing about it? The thing that really burned me the most?” He paused, waiting for me to ask him what, but I said nothing. “I had a hundred bucks riding on the game, and I never did find out who won it. All those people stuck in elevators, everywhere, and all I could do is wonder whether or not L.A. at least beat the spread.”

  “What were you saying about your friend?” I prompted. “The one who reads on magic.” I was afraid he’d start talking about his wife, and I wasn’t sure I needed to hear about it. I doubted he needed to remember it.

  “Oh, yeah. His name’s Malachi. Weird name, huh? It’s from the Bible.”

  “Last book of the Old Testament,” said Ariel. “It means ‘my messenger.’”

  “She reads a lot,” I explained to his blank look. “It’s a pain in the ass—I have to turn the pages for her.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. But he’s a strange guy. Lives like he’s Japanese, like one of those samurai.” He mispronounced it. “Swords and all. Sometimes even one of those dress things, a kimono. He lives alone in a pretty nice house not too far from here.” He frowned. “Well, not quite alone—he has a buddy, sort of. A big black Chow. That’s a dog.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh. It’s a mean bastard. Damn near chewed my leg off once when I got too close to Malachi. That dog goes wherever he does. Malachi’s real private—he leaves everybody alone, they leave him alone, mostly. You’d like him; like I said, he’s really weird. You could talk to him about the Change. I know he’d want to see Ariel. He’s interested in magic.”

  “Is he a sorcerer?” Ariel asked.

  Chaffney shrugged. “He messes around. Tell you what—I’ll take you to meet him tomorrow, if you want. I really think he’d be interested in both of you.” He looked hopeful.

  Ariel and I exchanged glances. “Why not?” she said.

  I looked back to Chaffney. “Sure. I’d be interested in seeing how he defends a house by himself, anyway. That’s hard enough for a group of people.”

  “You’ll understand when you meet him.”

  “Oh. All right.”

  “Well,” he said suddenly, getting up, “it’s getting late. I ought to be getting back.”

  I stood also. “What time should we expect you tomorrow?”

  “Around noon, I guess. It’s about two, two and a half hours’ walk from here.”

  “We’ll be here.”

  He nodded. “I’ll find my own way out. It was definitely a pleasure meeting you two, to say the least.” He grinned at Ariel. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Halfway down the stairs he paused. “Hey,” he called up. “Remember the guy on the overpass with me? The one with all the knives?”

  “The jerk who talked about grinding up my horn?” Ariel asked.

  “He may be a jerk, but he’s got friends. I’d watch out for him. I think he was serious about your horn. He’d try to take anything he thought he could get a good price for.”

  “I thought he was a friend of yours,” I said.

  He shook his head, looking up at me. “No friend of mine. I just stood a border watch with him. His name’s Emilio.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out for him. Thanks.”

  “Sure.” He turned and walked the rest of the way down the stairs. His shoes scuffed the carpet until he reached the front door and the sound changed to the crunch of glass underfoot, then silence.

  “Well,” said Ariel when he was gone, “he seems nice enough.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think he’s about to go out and reinvent calculus, though.” I looked away from the staircase. “So it seems there’s a man after your own horn.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  I grunted. “Do you think we should block off the entranceway you so delicately smashed in, so no one cuts my throat tonight?”

  She snorted. “If I hadn’t done it you’d have used a brick and done the same thing.”

  “Irrelevant and immaterial, but never mind. I’ll slide a card catalog in front of it so I can hear if somebody comes in. They’ll have to slide it out of the way.”

  “So I can hear, you mean. You sleep like a dragon.”

  “Whatever.”

  Four

  That night somebody stole my radio and I had to do my own singing.

  —Duane Locke, Man’s Relationship to his Self: “SELF RELIANCE,” BASED ON AN ESSAY BY EMERSON

  Next day I read A Book of Five Rings, a book on Japanese swordplay by Miyamoto Musashi. It wasn’t easy. The thing was kind of vague, and Ariel’s complaining didn’t help any.

  “Will you hurry up and finish that thing?” she whined. I sat on the front steps of the library while she paced restlessly. The day was bright and clear; nobody on the streets, no sound save the occasional echo of a bird cry.

&nb
sp; “Be quiet. Besides, when I finish this I’ll just start another.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Look, you refugee from a Disney flick, some of this stuff keeps me alive.”

  “I can’t wait until noon.”

  An hour later I finished the book. I frowned at the cover, opened it again, and started over.

  “Oh, shit,” muttered Ariel.

  I finished it again two hours later. I scratched my head. Either the translation was bad or I was missing something here.

  “Why do you care?” asked Ariel, irritated at my perplexity. “You don’t have a sword.”

  “A lot of other people do. The more I know about sword tactics the better I’ll be able to handle myself against one if I have to. Besides, I get the feeling there’s more going on in this book than I realize.”

  “Okay, okay—I didn’t ask for a lecture. What time is it?”

  I shrugged. “How would I know? Ten-thirty, eleven. You’re the one with the clock inside her head.” I looked up from the book. “You’re really anxious to meet this Malachi character, aren’t you?”

  She cocked her head to the side, looking past me. “I have a feeling about him.”

  “Good feeling or bad?”

  “I’m not sure. He feels … important.”

  I frowned. “What’s that mean?”

  “Nothing more than that. I just have a hunch about him.”

  I’d learned to trust her hunches; they tended to pay off. I left her alone about it, though, and continued reading until Chaffney came for us at noon. He wore the same leather jacket he’d worn yesterday, with no shirt underneath. Even without a shirt it must have been hot. It was unzipped most of the way, only a few inches holding it closed about his waist. Thick, black chest hair looked as if it were trying to grow its way out through the V-shaped opening. Perched on his right shoulder was Asmodeus, wearing a black hood. The letter “A” had been embroidered on it in red; he should have named her Hester Prynne.

  Chaffney gently removed the hood and waited for a reaction when she saw Ariel, but the falcon merely cocked its head quizzically, blinking.

  I put on my backpack and slung the Aero-mag.

  “You don’t have to take that,” said Chaffney.

  “Sorry. I go, it goes.”

  He shrugged.

  I set Ariel’s pack on her back, dangling one end of the nunchakus from an open pocket. I cocked the crossbow across my knee and set it in its strap on the side of the pack.

  “Are you always this cautious?” asked Chaffney.

  “Paranoid, you mean. Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Pete thinks of everything in terms of survival value,” Ariel interjected.

  “Keeps me alive.”

  “See?”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” said Chaffney, “as long as you don’t get too carried away.”

  “I don’t think I do. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  He smiled. “You’re young.”

  We left. On the way out, Ariel passed close by Chaffney and he reached up to pat her on the neck.

  “Aah, shit!” He stomped around, flapping his hand.

  “What’s the matter?” I demanded.

  He wrung his hand for about half a minute, wincing and biting his bottom lip. Ariel stood a good distance away from him, eyes blazing. I couldn’t tell if she was angry, hurt, or both.

  “Shit!” repeated Chaffney. He said it another dozen times.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked again when he’d calmed down.

  “My hand.”

  No shit. I waited for him to go on.

  “It feels like I shoved it into a fire. Christ, all I did was try to pat her on the neck!”

  “You’re not a virgin.” I turned to Ariel. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.” She sounded shaken. “So cold … like an icicle through my neck.” Chaffney still nursed his hand. Whatever had happened to it, it looked all right. “Keep your hands off her,” I said. “You aren’t pure; you aren’t fit to touch her. She’s my Familiar.

  Asmodeus, sensing the threat in my voice, screeched and spread her wings.

  “Ease off, Pete,” said Ariel. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Chaffney reached up and stroked Asmodeus to calm her. “Look, I’m sorry. Really. All I did was try to give her a friendly pat, the way anybody would if they were standing by a horse.”

  “She’s not a horse.”

  “I know that. I forgot for a minute, okay? I won’t do it again.” He paused. I avoided his gaze. “Okay?” he repeated.

  “Sure.”

  Ariel pawed at the library steps, striking sparks. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  We walked, Chaffney leading. None of us spoke. Every so often Chaffney reached up to stroke Asmodeus reassuringly. He didn’t look back at us.

  Ariel, walking on my right, kept her head inclined, watching the pavement flow beneath her. I heard her hooves as they touched the asphalt. Every now and then she looked up and gave me a curious, sideways glance. I frowned and looked away.

  After twenty minutes of this I’d had enough. I caught up to Chaffney. He didn’t say anything as I walked beside him. I checked a sudden desire to stroke Asmodeus’ feathers—I realized my urge to touch his buddy was the same as his had been to touch Ariel. “I’m sorry,” I said, adjusting the waistband on the backpack frame just to have something to do with my hands.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “All you did was try to pet her. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I don’t know why I did.”

  He leaned his head forward so he could squint at me past Asmodeus. “No big deal. I understand.”

  I tried to apologize further but he interrupted. “It’s all right,” he said, glancing back at Ariel. “I understand.”

  *

  We reached Malachi Lee’s house around two-thirty. It was a medium-sized, wooden, two-story house in the middle of a residential block. The yard was small and well-kept—unusual in an age where power mowers wouldn’t work. A black iron fence surrounded the yard. The vertical bars ended in sharp pikes. On six of the pikes at the left side of the fence were six human heads.

  I tried to smile. “Intimidating.”

  “People who tried to take the house,” said Chaffney.

  “Cute,” said Ariel. “Makes people think twice about trying the same thing.”

  “Doesn’t that attract buzzards?” I asked.

  “Maybe he thinks the deterrent value is worth it.” Ariel glanced at me, black eyes soft. “Chin up, Pete.”

  The first three heads had been there long enough to be nothing more than clean-picked skulls. They reminded me of those statues on Easter Island, maybe because their empty eyes looked toward something I couldn’t see. The fourth and fifth skulls were eaten half away, and the sixth had been put up recently. I guessed it had been there three or four days. Most of the features were still recognizable. I swallowed a lump in my throat.

  Chaffney struck a bell on a post beside the gate.

  “Look, he’s probably busy,” I said. “We really don’t need to see him, anyway. It’s not that important.”

  “Sure it is. He’ll want to meet Ariel. You can talk to him about the Change.”

  “But what if he doesn’t want to meet us?” I whispered to Ariel. She looked pointedly at the skulls on the fence. Great.

  Chaffney rang the bell again. The front door opened and a man walked out, followed by an enormous black Chow. As they neared I saw the intelligent sparkle in the dog’s eyes. It seemed to grin sloppily as its black tongue tolled.

  Malachi Lee was tall and had black hair. He wore a black silk kimono. A samurai sword in a black lacquered sheath was thrust into the left side of the wide belt about his middle, blade up. It was a long, curved, two-handed sword with a dark green, twined grip. He dialed the padlock on the gate, opened it, and stepped through. The dog followed.

  He stopped when he saw Ariel.
I think I know some of what he felt. He was seeing her and nothing else. He walked around her, just looking her over. His face was impassive.

  He stopped in front of her. “Well,” he said.

  I stood straighter, proud to be associated with something that took your breath away to see. And today Ariel was particularly breathtaking. Her coat glowed in the bright afternoon sun with a white almost painful to look at. Her horn shimmered like a fire opal in soft but fiery colors: greens, yellows, blues, reds, and oranges buried deep within the horn, fighting furiously to escape.

  “Hello,” Ariel said after a while.

  Chaffney shifted. Malachi didn’t notice. Chaffney cleared his throat. “Malachi, this is—”

  “Quiet.”

  Chaffney shut up. Malachi Lee drew his sword. I jumped and started toward him, but a stern look from Ariel halted me.

  “I am Malachi Lee,” he said, holding up the sword. It flashed in the sun. He lay it carefully on the ground before Ariel’s bright mirror hooves. “And I would consider it an honor to be at your service.”

  She looked carefully into his eyes. I felt a pang in the pit of my stomach—jealousy?

  “I am Ariel,” she said after a minute, and she touched the tip of her horn to the sword. “And I thank you.”

  Malachi Lee nodded. He retrieved the blade and sheathed it. It found its way back into the scabbard as though it had eyes of its own. He just looked at Ariel and she gazed quietly back, tail swishing, sending rainbow dots everywhere.

  I coughed into my hand. Malachi Lee seemed to break from a pleasant daydream. “She’s yours?” he asked, looking me up and down. Big Man On Campus sizes up wimpy date of prom queen.

  “Uh, yes. That is, we’re each other’s. I’m Pete—”

  He bowed a short bow and stepped forward with his hand extended. I shook it. Strong grip. Calluses like leather. The expression on his face was unreadable. “You’re a very lucky person.

  I felt my face turning red. “Why, thank you.” I felt genuinely flattered and wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. I looked at Ariel. Her eyes smiled back.

  The falcon screeched and spread its wings. Malachi turned to her. “I hear you, Asmodeus.” He looked at Chaffney for the first time. Both men had a distant, guarded look in their eyes. “She’s living up to her name, I hope?”