Does the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.—Christina Rossetti, "Up-Hill"
According to the road atlas, New York was eight hundred sixty-three miles away. If we did well we'd average about thirty miles a day. That meant New York was almost a full month away. I thought about riding Ariel, but no. She wasn't meant for it and I could never ask it of her.
So, backpack shouldered, blowgun slung, sword tucked neatly into the left side of my belt, Ariel and I walked along Interstate 85. We were on an overpass; I walked along the outside edge and looked out upon the quiet city. We'd passed no one along the road and I'd seen no more than a dozen people or so in the distance. I don't believe anybody paid any attention to us.
Ariel was silent most of the day. My comments and questions were answered by short, tight replies.
It had grown completely dark by the time we were ten miles outside Atlanta. I made camp beside the road, a process consisting mostly of propping up my backpack, unrolling the sleeping bag, and setting weapons at ready. I untied the tan-colored canvas pack from Ariel and propped the cocked crossbow against a guardrail. I'd made her wear her pack just so I could have the crossbow; I wanted it readily available in case I needed to stop something from a distance. I decided not to light a fire, as I didn't want to attract attention, human or otherwise. Dinner was a light meal of crackers, dried meat, and warm grape KoolAid. Afterward I lay with my head propped on a bundled section of sleeping bag, shifting uncomfortably on gravel biting into my back. The moon was a bright disk, often muted; silver light outlined the gray scarves of clouds.
Ariel stood by the edge of the highway, immobile, looking in the direction of a dark billboard. She'd been that way a while now.
"Ariel?"
No answer.
"Ariel, I'm sorry. But I've got to go there. Not just to help Malachi because he's our friend, but because if I don't, we'll be hiding as long as you're alive. Being on the road's fine, but being on the run stinks. It's not living, it's . . . . I don't know. Existing by reflex, maybe."
Still nothing from her, even though she turned her spectral head toward me. The clouds passed in front of the moon so fast that she shimmered: gray, pale silver, gray, pale silver for a full minute, brief gray, silver again.
"I just wanted you to understand. I have to go there—but you don't. You could wait someplace for me—"
"No, I couldn't. And I won't."
"All right, then. But this sulking isn't like you. Once you make a decision you usually go along with it, no regrets. I can understand why you're scared, but you seem . . . resigned."
She twitched her shimmering head and walked over to me. A small comet's tail flared from her right front leg as it scraped pavement. Damn, I thought, looking at the play of gray and silver on her graceful form, those clouds really are moving.
She lay down a few feet from me. I turned on my right side to face her. She lay head up, legs folded beneath her. Her horn pulsed with intermittent moonlight and a tiny spark winked in her eyes. I remembered a line from Romeo and Juliet about the inconstant moon.
"Pete," she began. "That man, the one we fought today."
"The griffin rider?"
"Yes. I think I ran into him once before."
"Once before? But you were hardly more than a baby when I found you."
"Yes. I'd been wandering, looking for others of my kind. Those few I saw were timid, oddly frightened of me. I didn't know how to talk to them and they ran from me. One day—I don't even know where I was—I woke up and something was holding me. I remember feathers and fur, and that smell I smelled today for the first time since then. Like hot metal, stifling—"
"Hot brass. The griffin."
"Yes. It's all so dim. I was so young, and I've tried so hard to forget it since. I remember a man's voice, but not what he said. I didn't know what any of it meant back then." She said nothing for a few minutes. "I remember he tried to take me somewhere. I struggled. A unicorn isn't meant to be taken, Pete, not ever. The same thing happens that happens to a buddy when its human partner dies. We die. In captivity, we die. It takes a long time. I remember the pain of being captured. But the rest of it is so joggled, so dim . . . . I remember it was colder than it is now—I think it was winter."
"It was October when I found you."
"I don't even remember how I was being held, or anything, but—I was being taken somewhere and I didn't want to be, so I twisted . . . and kicked out . . . . Whatever I hit went flying, and I heard my leg crack. I ran miles and miles before I even began to feel the pain."
Realization hit with a surge of adrenaline. "Your broken leg . . . ."
The wind had been building as we talked. Now it gusted a little stronger, ruffling her mane. "I think I got it from the rider and the griffin, Pete. I think they were trying to take me to New York. And the necromancer there—he's powerful."
The growing wind was cold. The left side of my army shirt collar kept beating against my jaw. "And he wants you."
"He wants my horn. Even with me dead it has value to him. Properties that would give him a good deal more power."
The wind began to howl a sad dog's song. Ariel stood, facing into the wind. "Something's wrong. It doesn't feel right."
I stood also. The wind sent stinging hair into my eyes until I turned left. My hair blew back. It tugged lightly but insistently at my forehead, tickled my ears. "What doesn't feel right? The wind?"
"The wind, the weather—the night."
"Well, sure, it came up suddenly, but—"
"I feel it."
The wind's howl strengthened to a wail, then grew stronger still. The billboard Ariel had been facing vibrated from the force. Mercilessly the wind rampaged, flattening the grass of the wide median. It hurled itself in building gusts, hit like bricks, and bent the trees across the highway, spreading their leaves aside to reveal skeletal branches beneath. One swaying tree threatened to knock down useless power lines. Clouds skimmed in brief silver across the full moon's face. The road signs beat a rapid tattoo, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. The wind screamed across the corners of the road signs and cried into their hollow posts, mournful and lost. Ariel glanced my way and I managed a smile. Still, I couldn't hide my trembling, though the raging wind wasn't that cold. It whistled off the tip of Ariel's softly glowing horn. I stood my ground, leaning into the invisible howling. Ariel backed off a few steps as the buffeting grew stronger. Her hooves were darkly silver. "It's got to stop, Pete." Her voice was thin in the howl of the wind.
"It's a hurricane. Or the beginning of one. A tropical storm—"
"No. This was spell-cast. There's an intent behind it. Can't you feel it?"
I closed my eyes. Yes, I could. The wind had raised an unearthly insect buzz, eerie, angry, and insistent, but there was something else—a menacing something, as if the wind were somehow spiteful and searching.
I opened my mouth to speak but Ariel walked to the road. She struck sparks and lowered her head, muttering. Reflecting sparks flashed orange along her coat, then vanished. Her horn seemed to collect the moonlight with a steady, bright silver glow and she reared up with an uncharacteristically horse-like neigh. As quickly as it had arisen the howling ceased. All was silent and still, but when I looked about I saw that the tree branches were still being whipped about and the grass still rippled. Somehow, though, it wasn't affecting us.
"Something's searching for us," she said in the midst of the odd quiet. "Something powerful, stronger than me." Her voice sounded as if we were in a small room.
"What do you mean, stronger? You stopped the wind."
"No. I was only able to calm a sphere around us."
"Same thing."
"No." The wind began to die down. The trees and signs shook less, the clouds slowed and the stroboscopic moonlight steadied. In two minutes it had dwindled to a light gale. "It was too powerful for me to stop; I could only ward it away for a small distance. And when I warded it off I could feel the power that had created it." She turned from the road, talking as she came toward me. "I'm not sure what it meant. It felt like something was looking for me, or for something, but I don't know why. Was it a warning? A show of force? I don't know. But I know I felt the power."
"But if our friend in New York did this, if he's that powerful, then why are we still alive?"
"I don't know. Maybe his power is weaker over this much distance. Maybe he needs to know exactly where we are for anything to work. It's even possible that wind was meant for Malachi and the necromancer doesn't even know we're headed his way." She lay down, folding her legs beneath her. No spot she picked ever had gravel to annoy her, rocks to dig into her ribs, or ants to use her for a midnight snack. "Or," she added, "maybe he does know we're coming and he's letting us. It would save him a lot of trouble. Maybe the wind was a dare. The question now is: do we keep going?"
"I—you know I have to."
"Then we go."
"But you don't want to."
"No, I don't want to. But you need to. So we go."
I zipped myself into my sleeping bag, perplexed. My sleep wasn't good when it finally came.