Ariel Read Online Free PDF Page A

kidney-shaped wine flask with a nipple end. I lit two small candles, retrieved from the nether regions of my backpack.
    I leaned the crossbow against the banister alter cocking it and readying a bolt. It was a Barnett Commando, self-cocking, one hundred seventy-five pound pull, scope, three hundred yard range. I won't say how I got it; it cost me dearly.
    The nunchakus—two tapered, foot-long pieces of wood joined at the smaller end by a short length of rope allowing it to be used as a flail—were on my left side; the Aero-mag blowgun was on my right, a dart half-loaded.
    Ariel watched me quietly, tail swishing rhythmically. She knew I was still mad at her, and damned if I didn't have good cause to be. Trying to act like some superhero just because she's a unicorn. That horn of hers must have been embedded deep into her skull, for all she—
    "Talk to me," she said.
    "What about?"
    "Oh, come on. You're acting like a little kid."
    "I am not. And besides, how would you know what a little kid acts like?"
    She cocked her head curiously. "Now, isn't that odd? How would I know that?"
    Despite my sullenness I was interested. "Listening to me, maybe." I took another drink of water. "Can you remember what it was like where you came from, before you came here?"
    "I—I don't remember any place but this one."
    "Well, what's your earliest memory? When did you first become aware of yourself?" I'd asked her this before, but it was before she'd learned to speak well and she hadn't understood.
    "That's odd—I've never really thought about it before." She sounded distressed. "The earliest thing I can remember is  .  .  . waking up one day. That's all, really. I felt warmth on one side and it was the sun, and I stood up—I remember my legs were wobbly—and I looked around. I was beside a railroad track, and even though I didn't know what it was, somehow—I don't know—it didn't seem right , it looked like it didn't belong. Same for the roads and road signs, and later for houses and buildings and cars stopped on the streets. They didn't fit." She looked at me with a strange, half-fearful look in her eyes. "You know, nothing I saw—except for the magical animals I encountered and the things that were, I don't know, natural, like forests and lakes and the sky—nothing else seemed right. Until I met you."
    "Me?" I hadn't expected that.
    "Yes. You were  .  .  .  ." She stopped for half a minute. "It's hard to put the feelings into words. I guess you were pure, a virgin, I mean, and you fit in with the kind of creature that I am."
    "How do you know so much about being a unicorn?"
    "How do you know so much about being a human? You learn about yourself as you grow. I certainly had enough other things to compare myself to."
    "You were a baby, that day you woke up by the railroad track?"
    "Of course. I was still pretty much a baby when I met you, wasn't I?"
    "Yeah. Those were the good old days, before you knew more than about two words." She'd also grown a lot. My eyes now came to just above the level of her shoulder.
    She snorted. "If I hadn't come along you'd still be talking to yourself."
    I looked to my left. "You hear that?" I asked, jerking a thumb at Ariel.
    "Cute." She walked to my open pack and nosed it. "Hey—no peppermint!"
    "You're slipping, you horse with a horn. Why don't you just zap some into existence the way you used to, instead of making me scrounge deep, dark, and dangerous candy stores to satisfy your sweet tooth. Teeth."
    "What little power I have was ill spent when I was younger. Spells shouldn't be wasted."
    "Easy for you to say. You aren't dying for a cigarette."
    "Suffer."
    I started to make a retort but froze when a thump and a scuffling came from downstairs. I blew out the candles and whispered to Ariel. "Stay up here. He'll see your glow if you go down." Sure, she was quiet as snowfall, but a huge, ghostly white unicorn sneaking around inside a dark library is not inconspicuous. I wiped my fingers on my pants