Ariel

by Steven R. Boyett

  The room had been a large office. The carpet beneath my feet was plush. I tried to make out the figure behind the desk, but he was lost in the blackness of the chair. I stood my ground and said nothing.

  “So you’re Pete,” he said. Telling me, not asking.

  I took it as a question. “Who wants to know?” I asked, trying not to sound afraid. My voice cracked on the second word like a boy hitting puberty.

  There was the impression of motion as hands were clasped together on the desk. “Please. I’m not impressed.” His voice was low and mild. It had a persuasive, soothing quality to it, sounding faintly like a priest on a late night TV sign-off. He stood. Yellow candlelight from both sides highlighted his pale button-up shirt and dark pants. He was thin. He wasn’t tall. His hair was light brown and caught gold on the ends from the candle flame. He was clean shaven. I’d walked almost nine hundred miles to confront him, and here he was.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting. A tall, pointed hat, maybe, festooned with stars and crescent moons. A long, flowing robe and beard. Saruman the White.

  “What have you done with Ariel?” My voice shook.

  “I talked to her. That’s all.” He smiled. It looked genuine, unlike the rider’s false cat-with-a-mouse smile. “The first thing she asked me was what I’d done with you. Obviously you both mean a great deal to each other.”

  “We’re Familiars.”

  He nodded. “If you were anything else, if she were anything else, I might try to bargain with you.”

  “What kind of bargain?”

  “Your life for her horn.”

  “Eat shit.”

  He shrugged. “It never hurts to offer. I don’t have a vendetta against you. I don’t care about you, or your unicorn. All I want is her horn. If I could take it and leave her alive, I would.”

  “What do you want it for?”

  He ignored me. “She’s strong, though, and she has abilities I hadn’t expected.” He slowly walked around to the front of the desk and leaned back against it. “But her defenses will weaken now that I have her. She’s beginning to die.” He paused to let that sink in.

  “I’d like to make a deal,” he continued. “But not with her.”

  “With me.”

  “Yes. I can’t deal with her, but I can with you.” He scratched his head. “I can take her horn and leave her alive, but only if she’s willing.”

  “Why don’t you ask her, then?”

  “Because she wouldn’t agree, of course.”

  “And you think I will. You want me to talk her into it.”

  “Think about it. You could have her, she could have you. Both of you would be alive. As I said, all I want is her horn.”

  “Why should I agree to that? You can’t take it while she’s alive. And you’re not powerful enough to kill her.”

  “True,” he acknowledged. “But, as I said, she’s a captive now, and she’s dying. I could wait until she’s too weak to defend herself, but I don’t know how long it would take. I’d rather she let me take it and have it now.”

  I looked down at the floor. He seemed to delight in twisting the knife.

  “So I’m prepared to bargain,” he continued.

  “Not with me you won’t.” My voice quavered. “She’s told me she’d die without her horn.”

  “I can promise you she wouldn’t. If it were taken from her, yes, but not if she gave it willingly.”

  “I don’t believe you. She wouldn’t be a unicorn without her horn. No deal.”

  “I guess I will have to bargain with her, then.”

  “She’ll never do it.”

  “I think she will. I’ll offer a trade I think she’ll go for, the same one I offered you—your life for her horn.” There was no trace of uncertainty in his voice. “As I said, when she and I talked it was evident that you are her prime concern. I could have had you killed at any time, you know. It would have been easy to lie to her and tell her we’d kill you if she didn’t cooperate.”

  I said nothing.

  “But I think she would have known if you were dead. Or if I lied. I think she’d be able to tell that.”

  “I don’t care what you do to me,” I said, meaning it.

  “That may be true, but it doesn’t change anything. I’m going to put you in front of her so there’ll be no mistaking my intent. If she gives in I’ll have her horn and you can go. If she remains stubborn she’ll die anyhow, eventually—and I’ll still have her horn.”

  “Fat chance you’re going to let me go.”

  “I might. You’ll never be able to harm me. And after I have her horn, nothing will be able to harm me. Nothing in the world.”

  I went for him. I’d decided the second I realized where they were taking me that I was going to kill him regardless of the cost. Ariel would be able to get away; I would no longer be holding her back. I took two running steps and leapt for his face. He didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as bat an eye. Instead, he waved his right hand nonchalantly and I ran face-first into an invisible brick wall. My feet kept going and I pivoted in midair and landed on my back. He waved again and an unseen something sent me sprawling. I tried to pick myself up. My arms gave beneath me.

  Behind me came a knock on the door. I was still trying to focus my eyes when it opened and a man walked in. My vision didn’t need to be clear to recognize him, though: a dark discoloration over one eye made his face skull-like. He glanced at me on my hands and knees on the side of the room and looked away. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, I did.” He had sat back down in the depths of the black executive chair. “I understand you discovered a loner in the city yesterday.”

  “Nothing special about that,” he replied carefully. “There are loners all over this city.” The pale candleglow mannequinned his Germanic features.

  A creak in the chair, a suggestion of leaning forward. “Captured loners are supposed to be brought here for questioning. You know that.”

  “He was a forager, half-starved. He was hunting for food.”

  “I don’t care. There’s been an increase in loner activity in the city these last few weeks and I want to find out why.” He paused. “We can’t find out anything if captured loners have their throats cut before they’re interrogated.”

  The rider said nothing.

  The dark shape of the chair leaned back, squeaking. “You’re getting a touch too smug to suit me. A little too greedy. You can do what you want with prisoners after I question them, not before.”

  “I’m not trying to overstep any bounds,” the rider protested. “I don’t want your power. I’m happy where I am, thanks. With Shai-tan.”

  “Whom I gave you.”

  The rider nodded. He looked at me as if I were a piece of bad meat he’d just chewed and spat out. “What about him?”

  “I’m taking care of him now. You can stay and watch, if you want.”

  I still fought waves of dizziness. My throat constricted at the metallic tang in my mouth. I swallowed. I didn’t want to stay hunched over in front of them the way I was; I loathed the thought of the satisfaction it gave them. I struggled to my knees. Flashbulbs went off in my head. My jaw was swollen and tender where I’d been punched.

  I think I passed out. My next recollection was of seeing several men carrying in a large, round table of thick, heavy wood. I was on my back, looking up, and the room was a carnival ride gone haywire, revolving around an ever-changing axis.

  The rider had my samurai sword in hand. He saw me looking at him and grinned, then pulled the blade six inches from the scabbard and spat on it. I got mad enough to stand up, ignoring the headache piercing behind my eyes. I staggered a step toward him, intent on doing my level and wholly inadequate best to kill him. Two things stopped me. The first was Ariel. She stood in front of the door, flanked by armed men. She looked bad. Her hide caught the pale candle flame reluctantly, reflected it as a flat, rusty orange; her mane hung limply and dried blood stained her horn, but in that dim light he
r eyes were dominant. Her space-black gaze was still prideful and vitality still burned there. Those eyes went soft with hurt when they saw me, and I was conscious of what I must have looked like.

  “Oh, Pete.” A weight Atlas had never felt was in her voice; that, and the contained rage and pain of a chained Prometheus. The second thing I noticed was the table. It was made of some dark wood—ebony, perhaps—and was directly between Ariel and me. It was round, about seven feet in diameter, and three and a half feet high. A pentagram had been drawn across it in blood. A candle burned at each point. Ropes were secured in the wood at four of the five points. At a word from the necromancer three guards lowered their weapons and took hold of me. I struggled and cursed, but was too weak to do anything more than writhe feebly against them. Not that I could have done much had I got loose. I was dragged to the table and tied to the pentagram. Once I was secured, the guards returned to stand beside Ariel. I felt the candles burning by each hand. I was bound spread-eagled, hands and feet tied at four of the five points of the star within the circle. I lifted my head and saw the rider looking on in satisfaction, face half shadowed.

  The office chair creaked as the necromancer stood. He held a black book in one thin hand. Those were surgeon’s hands, pianist’s hands. He walked around the desk and stopped before me. I looked up at his calm face, wishing I could work up spit.

  The book was bound in old leather. He opened it and looked at Ariel, then shifted back to the book and began reciting, tilting the book forward until it was lit by the glow from the pentagram candles. The words he spoke were vaguely Latin-sounding and all too familiar:

  “I summon thee, O Dweller in the Darkness, O Spirit of the Pit. I command thee To make thy Most evil appearance.”

  It took a moment for the shock of recognition to wear off, and when it did I began struggling against the ropes cutting into my wrists and ankles, renewed strength flowing from my pounding heart, but the ropes were tied too tight.

  “In the name of Our mutual benefactor, In the name of Lucifer the Fallen I conjure thee.”

  “No!” It was Ariel, eyes smoldering. She sent one of her guards sprawling with a toss of her head. The necromancer looked to the rider, who came forward, drawing his broadsword. Ariel stepped purposefully toward him, almost casually batting aside the spear that was aimed for her side. The rider kept me between himself and Ariel. He brought the broadsword up and held it poised over my head, staring evenly at Ariel.

  “By his blood-lettered sacraments, By Hell and by Earth, To come to me now, In your own guise To do your will.”

  Coldness began spreading deep within me, as if I’d swallowed an ice cube whole. I felt isolated within the pentagram. A hurricane’s-eye stillness settled around the table. I struggled harder but the bonds held. I jerked my right wrist; it had been burned by candle flame.

  Candle flame?

  I looked around quickly. Nobody was paying any attention to me, not even Ariel. She and the rider were absorbed in each other, a test of will. One guard was unconscious or dead, a second was picking himself up from the floor with the help of one of his mates, and the last watched the silent game of cat and mouse played by the rider and Ariel. The necromancer was immersed in the conjuration.

  “I adjure thee In the name of The foulest of masters … .”

  I looked at the candle ahead of my bound right hand. A steady, even glow. My stomach was numb with cold. My lungs breathed Arctic air. The space a foot above my midsection pulsated, and a swirling gray mist slowly took form. I strained my hand past the candle flame. It seared my wrist. I turned my arm so that the rope was against the flame.

  ” …By his loins, By his blood, By his damned soul, To come forth.”

  Burn, damn you, burn! The skin began to blister along the inside of my wrist. I smelled burning hemp. Disturbing movements began coalescing within the stormy gray above me. Once the spell was complete the pentagram would be sealed and the demon would appear.

  “I order thee By all the unholy names: Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub—”

  The mist began to solidify into something resembling ink in water. The rope was burned through! I pulled it but the twists of the knot held fast. I worked my hand quickly from side to side and finally it pulled free. My fingers trembled as I untied the knot from around my left hand. A glance up at the rider. He still eyed Ariel, waiting for her to make her move. She had to have noticed me untying myself, but would have been careful not to register it.

  “Belial, Shai-tan, Mephistopheles—”

  The air was freezing. I twisted beneath the inky mass and began untying my ankle bonds. My movement caught the eye of both the rider and the necromancer. The latter looked quickly back to the black book and intoned evenly:

  “Thy hair, thy heart, Thy lungs, thy blood, To be here To work your will Upon me.”

  With the last word the temperature plummeted. I breathed mist and trembled from more than the cold as I untied the last rope. The thing in the pentagram with me began to assume a smoky, humanoid shape, massive and dark.

  The stand-off between Ariel and the rider reached a head when I leaned forward to free my legs. I saw him about to swing the sword for my head and jumped away. I should have landed on the floor. Instead I ran into an invisible wall. The conjuration was finished; the pentagram was sealed.

  *

  I must have seemed to defy gravity as I leaned at an impossible angle with my back against the edge of the pentagram. The rider’s sword stopped jarringly midway through its arc. A flash of sparks screaming from grating metals illuminated the room, and suddenly I was falling backward to the floor. The sword had breached the integrity of the pentagram, and I landed at the necromancer’s feet. Before he could react I knocked the book from his hands and sent him flying over his desk.

  An enraged bellow came from within the pentagram, then faded away.

  Ariel had bolted for the rider the instant he began to swing. Through the haze of smoke I saw the rider jerk the sword from the wooden edge of the pentagram. He pulled back and swung, and sword met horn.

  I stumbled over something in front of the office desk. Fred! I drew the sword from its sheath and intercepted a guard heading toward Ariel with his blade held ready to thrust. I deflected it, reversed my blade, and slashed, cutting through half his neck.

  Ariel backed toward the door. She used her horn as a counterpart to the rider’s sword: block, slash, thrust. She must have already started to grow weak; she was much slower than usual. I had to help her.

  I grabbed the edge of the office desk and lifted. It toppled over onto the necromancer. I had to keep him too distracted, enraged, and busy to be able to cast a spell, or we were lost. Ignoring the curses—profane rather than arcane—from beneath the desk, I turned and ran to Ariel. The three remaining guards were behind the rider, trying to fan out and outflank Ariel but having a hard time of it because of the large table in the middle of the floor.

  Fuck honorable combat. I dove to the floor beneath Ariel, rolled onto my back, and slashed straight up. The rider stopped in mid-swing, gasping as my sword brushed his thigh. Blood flowed down his leg. I’d been aiming for his groin. I thrust up and back, toward the soft part beneath his chin, but he jumped clear. Blood spattered my face. I rolled out from beneath Ariel and stood. The rider stepped toward me, skidded in his own blood, and fell. I stepped forward to deliver the coup de grace and stopped. Three guards were on us and the necromancer was struggling to stand upright.

  Ariel twitched her head. A deflected spear scraped along the wall. I risked a glance and saw the necromancer standing, arms raised above his head. Using her body as a shield against the guards, Ariel backed up quickly, crowding me against the door. It flew open as the doorguards burst in, and I fell backward, rolled, and came up slashing, catching the right-hand guard in the stomach. Fred cut through his mail and he dropped his cutlass.

  Ariel kicked straight back while engaging the remaining guards ahead of her. She caught the left-hand door guard in the ribs. Bone
snapped and blood ran out of his mouth.

  “Run, Pete!”

  I had time to glimpse the rider, on his feet again, eye blazing, sword swinging, and Ariel’s horn coming up to meet it, when the necromancer spoke a foreign word and the door slammed shut.

  *

  I was on the eighty-fifth floor. The elevator shafts and stairs were my only way down. No alarm had been spread and I made it to the elevator doors with no trouble. I pried open the doors with Fred, silently apologizing to Malachi Lee for demeaning the blade. I felt sure he’d understand.

  The shaft was dark. Looking up, I could barely make out the bottom of the elevator, forever stuck on the eighty-sixth floor. A narrow peg ladder ran the length of the shaft; I grabbed it and swung inside. The door proved difficult to re-close but I managed somehow, holding onto the peg ladder with one arm. I’d slung Fred through the familiar and worn belt-loop.

  I descended in total darkness. I found it was easier if I closed my eyes. The shaft only went down to the eightieth floor, so I climbed up to eighty-one, open the doors just wide enough to pass through, and stepped into the corridor.

  Nothing.

  I walked to the stairs, trying not to appear hurried. Women’s voices came down the corridor as I reached the stairs. I opened the door quickly and stepped into the stairwell. The voices passed. I counted to thirty, then began walking down flights of stairs slowly to keep my footsteps from echoing in the stairwell. I expected at any moment to hear them thundering down on me from above. Surely they’d be scouring the elevator shafts and stairwells by now. Maybe word hadn’t got around yet and there hadn’t been time to send parties into elevator shafts and stairwells.

  I crept on cat feet—maybe frightened mouse feet is closer—when I passed the eightieth floor. Men’s voices came from the corridor beyond the stairwell door. I hugged the wall and went slowly down the stairs, expecting the door to open at any second. Nothing happened. I’d made it all the way down to the sixty-fifth floor when I heard voices and footsteps above me. They were perhaps four floors up and descending fast. I couldn’t afford a confrontation. I was fatigued, had been beat up twice within the last twelve hours, and didn’t want the sound of a fight tipping off others in any case, so I pushed open the door that led to the sixty-fifth floor and closed it quietly behind me. The floor was deserted. I kept my right hand firmly on Fred as I walked past office doors. Ignoring the first set of elevator doors, I walked around a bit instead, eyes peeled for movement among the dark shapes. There was none. I found another elevator on the opposite side of the building. I shook my head wearily and used Fred to pry open the elevator doors, sheathed the blade, and stepped in.