A Knight Of The Word

The afternoon was lengthening. Already the sun was sliding rapidly toward the horizon, its light tinting the clouds that masked it in myriad colours of purple and rose. It would be dark soon. She glanced at her watch. Four-fifteen. She wondered what she should do. She had already decided to meet John Ross for dinner, to tell him of her conversation with O’olish Amaneh, to try again to persuade him of the danger he was in. But it was too early yet to go hack to the hotel and call him.

She walked out of the park and through the market, ambling along through the stalls of fruits and vegetables, fish and meats, and flowers and crafts, pausing now and again to look, to listen to the itinerant musicians, and to talk with the vendors. Everyone was friendly, willing to spend a few minutes with a visitor to the city. She bought a jar of honey and a fish pin, and she tasted a cup of apple cider and a slice of fresh melon. She reached the brass pig that marked the far end of the market, turned around, and walked back again.

When she had made the circuit, she went back into the park and looked around. The park was almost empty, dappled with shadows anal splashed with light from the street lamps. Even the Indians had moved on, all but one who was asleep on the grass, wrapped head to foot in an old green blanket, long black hair spilling out of the top like silk from an ear of corn.

Nest looked around. She kept thinking that Ariel would reappear, but so far there was no sign of her. She checked her watch again. It was five o’clock. Maybe she should call Ross. She had the phone number of Fresh Start written on a slip of paper in her pocket. She could probably reach him there. She looked around for a phone and didn’t see one. But there were several restaurants close at hand, and there would be phones inside.

Then she heard her name called in an excited whisper. “Nest Come quickly!,

Ariel was right next to her, hovering in the fading light, a pale shimmer of movement,

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

The tatterdemalion’s face brushed against her own, and she could feel the other’s urgency. “Out looking. There are sylvans everywhere, and sometimes they can tell you things. I went to find the ones who live here. There are three in the city, and all of them make their homes in its parks. One is east in the Arboretum, one is north in Discovery, and one is west in Lincoln.”

She paused, and then the words exploded out of her in a rush. “The one in Lincoln,” she hissed, “has seen the demon!”



“Some kids set fire to a homeless man under the viaduct last night,” Simon Lawrence announced, looking into his tonic and lime as if it were a crystal ball. “They doused him with gasoline and lit him up. Then they sat around and watched him burn. That’s how the police caught them, they were so busy watching, they forgot to run.” He shook his head. “Just when you think some measure of sanity has been restored to the world, people find a way to prove you wrong.”

Andrew Wren sipped at his scotch and water and nodded. ‘l thought that sort of thing only happened in New York. I thought Seattle was still relatively civilised. Goes to show.”

They were sitting across from each other in easy chairs on the upper level of the lobby bar in the Westin. It was five o’clock, and the hotel was bustling with activity. Participants from a handful of conferences the hotel was hosting were streaming in, identified by plastic badges that announced their company name in abbreviated block letters, one tag indistinguishable from another. With the day’s meetings and seminars concluded, drinks and dinner and evening entertainment were next on the agenda, and the attendees were ready to rock and roll. But the corner of the bar in which Simon Lawrence and Andrew Wren sat was an island of calm.

Wren watched the Wiz check his watch. He seemed distracted. He had seemed so since his arrival, as if other things commanded his attention and he was just putting in his time here until he could get to them. They had agreed to meet for drinks after Simon had been detained earlier in the day at a meeting with the mayor and been unable to keep their noon appointment. When he was done here, the Wiz had a TV interview scheduled. Maybe that was what he was thinking about. No rest for the wicked, Wren thought sourly, then immediately regretted it. He was being perverse because he hadn’t found anything bad to write about Simon Lawrence. No skeletons had emerged from the closet. No secrets had revealed themselves. The anonymous tips had not panned out. His instincts had failed him. He sipped at his drink some more.

“I appreciate your meeting me, Andrew,” Simon said, smiling now. He was dressed in a dark shirt, slacks, and sport coat, and he looked casually elegant and very much at ease amid the convention suits. Wren, in his familiar rumpled journalist’s garb, looked like something the cat had dragged in. “I know I haven’t been able to give you as much time as you would like, but I want to make sure you feel you’ve been given full access to our records.”

Wren nodded. “I’ve got no complaints. Everyone has been very co-operative. And you were right. I didn’t find so much as a decimal point out of place.”