Tales of an Equestrian Mare

by Durandal

Chapter 21

It turned out to be a lot of steps. The highest of the five viaducts soared almost three hundred meters above street level, reached by an endless switchback staircase that climbed steeply up the centre of the column.

At each landing, corridors stretched radially outwards. Hearthfire explored a few, and they proved to each connect to a circumferential walkway, lined with doorways. Most seemed to be residential, simple painted oblongs with perhaps a brass or carved number that seemed to include one digit for floor and another for the residence’s clockwise position around the pillar. Each door presumably hid a tapering space taking up a segment of the available floor, usually eight to a level.

Aside from the apartments, some of the doors had generous glass viewing windows set into them, and hung wooden or wrought iron signs beside them, though for obvious reasons none of these shops seemed to be offering bulky or heavy goods. Getting them up or down the stairs would be a nightmare.

The stairwell terminated directly into the pavement at the side of the viaduct, rising in the middle of the walkway with stone guard rails on three sides to prevent hapless pedestrians from falling into the hole. Hearthfire was about ready to fall over as she cleared the last few steps, and stepped aside to let others pass as she got her breath back. The air was comparatively thin all over Spire due to its extreme elevation, but Hearthfire was convinced that even the few extra hundred meters made a difference, too.

The viaduct was essentially one enormous street, with multiple lanes for traffic in each direction, and full blown buildings constructed along each edge, although the construction was more based upon timber than stone, in deference to the lack of solid ground beneath its foundations.

In order to look out over the city below, or in fact to have any real perception that her hooves were hundreds of meters above the city’s real street level, it was necessary to get through one of the lines of buildings. Access was possible through occasional alleyways, which cut between wooden walls towards the lip of the viaduct and terminated in viewing spaces. The one Hearthfire found herself in was hemispherical, and elegantly crenelated along its outer edge. Here the city’s gothic motif reared its head once more, the stonework imprinted with dramatic scenes of martial prowess and friezes of wise-looking griffons presiding over the creation of great works.

Standing on her back legs and resting her forehooves between the merlons allowed Hearthfire to see over the edge. It was a long, long way down. In the foreground, wisps of cloud scudded across the field of vision, partially obscuring the arches of two lower, more modest viaducts that cut lines across the city below. Aside from the bridges and clouds, there was nothing to impede her view in the crisp, clear mountain air. It seemed that every street was etched in perfect detail on a scale model, close enough that she could reach out and run a hoof across it to feel every expertly laid block of masonry.

The melee of the three central streets ran directly away from her, seeming to converge at the far off walls of the city, matchstick model carts slogging along at a snail’s pace as tiny creatures swarmed around them. Across it all, as if mocking those toiling below, griffons and even a smattering of pegasi - easily differentiated by the griffon’s superior wing span - swooped and soared on the wind, bypassing the crowded streets entirely and cutting straight lines to their destinations.

Hearthfire and Cas bought lunch at a sidewalk cafe, and took a table on a raised veranda that gave patrons an elevated view over the crowds. They ate leisurely, watching the comings and goings of the city’s citizens and visitors, wondering at the sheer variety of creatures that could pass through a single city. As metropolitan as her home city of Manehatten might be, it was still at the end of the day an Equestrian city, and seeing anything aside from ponies was an oddity. Perhaps it was the fact that the griffons had only minimal use for walking along their own thoroughfares, but it seemed at times that there were less griffons than there were miscellaneous other races walking past.

When they had finished, Hearthfire decided that they should follow the viaduct all the way to the cliff face at the edge of the city, and work their way down, back towards the floor of the basin. The sunlight was strong this high up, despite the cool wind, and soon the two of them were getting too warm for comfort. They paused at a merchant’s stall so that Hearthfire could buy bottles of fruit juice for herself and water for Cas. It was expensive - the fruit had to be transported all the way up from the lowlands, after all - but sweet and amazingly cold. The griffon let them peek behind the counter, to reveal the coolbox stacked with his merchandise. If there was one thing that Spire had easy access to, it was ice. A scarce few minutes flight on the updraft that raced perpetually up the sides of the mountains would bring a griffon to the snowline, and with the use of a cleverly designed container, the frozen harvest would keep the contents pleasantly chilled for the entire day.

Hearthfire sucked juice through her straw as she trickled water over Cas, who lapped it up and gulped it down until she was satisfied, then danced under the stream to cool off. The cat shook herself happily, creating an instant damp patch of pavement, and started smoothing her fur back down.

“Much better, huh? Maybe I should get another couple of bottles for later...” She turned to the merchant with a smile, reaching again for her bit pouch.

Cas was gone. The damp patch of pavement was empty as Hearthfire turned back. That was odd, Cas was normally so good at not wandering off. She lowered her head and looked around, expecting to see a flash of Cas’ dark grey fur between the hooves of the passers by. Nothing. Looked up, anywhere she might have leapt up to. Nowhere to be seen.

She could feel unease rising. Why would she run off? Had someone grabbed her? No, no, that was ridiculous.

“Cas? Come on, don’t scare me like this. Cas!”

She hopped up and down, trying to get a better view in the crowded street. There! A grey streak rose from the press of the crowd to land on the running board of a passing cart, up into the cart’s bed where Hearthfire momentarily lost track of her, but then she found it again, alighting on the head of the donkey at the cart’s traces before leaping to the tail of the next cart and onwards.

“Cas!” Hearthfire unfroze, and began floundering her way through the crowds, pushing her way to the edge of the street and galloping as fast as she could in the direction her friend had vanished.

It was no use. She had barely run fifty meters before Cas was too far ahead to see, and Hearthfire was left to surge blindly ahead, hoping to catch another glimpse, until she was forced to admit defeat.

Now what do I do?

Should she wait nearby, and hope Cas came back? Or return to her rented room? Or the airstrip? Should she just keep wandering, and trust to luck? Cas had looked like she was heading towards something. Following a scent, or an object that had caught her attention. Maybe she should keep going in the same direction Cas had vanished in...?

Comotion up ahead. Shouts, the shrill note of whistles being blown. From behind her, answering whistles, and before she knew it, burly griffons in the well-polished bronze breastplates of the Spire guards were swooping overhead, grim determination in the set of their beaks.

Oh, sugar, what next?

She shoved her way forward, taking advantage of the brief halt as the crowd stopped and craned to see what was going on, muttering, “excuse me, coming through, mind, thank you...”

Up ahead, where the guards were converging, another figure burst into the air as if fired from a cannon. It was a griffon, judging from the size and the wingspan, but shrouded in a voluminous green-grey cloak. On its back, a large wicker basket perched, secured by heavy leather bands that wrapped the creature’s chest. Four of the city guards rose swiftly in its wake, beating the air with their wings and menacing with their hardwood batons.

And there was Cas. Clinging determinedly to the cloaked figure’s hind leg as it tried to simultaneously take to the air and kick her off. Hearthfire watched open-mouthed as the five griffons drifted away from the street, holding their altitude as the four guards closed in on their target.

Putting her brain back in gear, Hearthfire looked about for the nearest way to the edge of the viaduct and forced her way through. The five were over open air now, Cas clinging on for dear life as she dangled over the vast yawning drop to the city streets below. Glancing down, Hearthfire could see more griffons rising, the sun glinting off their breastplates. In moments the cloaked griffon would be surrounded on all sides, and from the looks of it, he knew it too.

The last clear image she had of Cas was a single frozen snapshot of the cat’s terrified face as the griffon rolled and folded its wings, plummeting beak first straight down in a desperate, near-suicidal dive.

* * *

“Yes, I am absolutely sure that I didn’t get a good look at his face.”

Sergeant Gloria’s fierce golden eyes stared her down. It had been intimidating an hour ago, but by now Hearthfire was too tired and angry to care. She traced meaningless patterns on the desk with her hoof, and didn’t meet the griffon’s gaze.

“So it wasn’t someone you knew?”

“I am acquainted a sum total of two griffons, and they both live a few thousand miles away. Cas and I landed in Spire this morning, for pony’s sake! We don’t know anyone here!”

“All right, all right. No need to get shirty with me, Ms. Hearthfire. We’re not currently treating you as a suspect, but we do need your full co-operation.” The slight edge the griffon put on ‘currently’ was about all Hearthfire was prepared to put up with.

“I’m just about done here.” She stood up, resisted the urge to buck the chair across the room. “I came here because my friend is missing, Sergeant. I came because I needed help. I did not come here because I wanted to be interrogated over and over again about the identity of a suspect that your constables failed to catch.”

Gloria rose too, making conciliatory motions.

“Please, I apologise. Sit down, just hear me out.”

Hearthfire paused, still fuming, but didn’t make a move to return to her chair. The sergeant raised a clawed foreleg, and ran it awkwardly through the glossy white feathers that covered her eagle head.

“Look. I know I can’t stop you leaving if you want to. I really don’t have any grounds to arrest you, so that’s that. My troops are doing everything they can, we want to catch this guy just as much as you do.”

“So? I want to be out there looking, too, but instead I’m sitting on my tail up here.”

“So, there’s more at stake here than just your blasted cat! I can’t... tell you any of the details, but, I’m telling you straight up: let us deal with this. I swear we’ll find her. For now, consider this a warning. If you go looking for this guy on your own, I will throw your flank in jail so fast it will make your head spin.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Sergeant,” Hearthfire snapped. “I’ll be leaving now, if you don’t mind.”

“So long as we know where to find you. Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t really need to tell you this, but, don’t leave the city, Ms. Hearthfire.”

* * *

Naturally, she had no intention of following Gloria’s instruction to leave well enough alone, although she had a niggling suspicion that Gloria had expected as much.

...even so, she hardly had a place to start. Spire was not the largest city she had ever visited, but it was easily immense enough that she could wander all day without going down the same street twice. She had no friends who knew the city, and only the tiny, vague map printed in the back pages of her guidebook to direct her steps.

All right. Thinking time. She’d wasted an hour trying to deal with the city guards. Cas could be anywhere by now.

Well, maybe not wasted. Maybe Gloria was just concerned for Hearthfire’s safety, or didn’t want a foreigner blundering about making a mess of things, but it had seemed an awful lot like she’d stumbled into something larger than it appeared. She wished she’d managed to convince Gloria to tell her why they had been after the cloaked griffon in the first place, but the sergeant had been tight-beaked on every line of inquiry.

...why the hay had Cas decided to run off like that? Presumably, something about the griffon had caught her attention, but what? The obvious solution was that he’d had something in his wicker basket that she had been after. Hmph. That was no help. What in the world could possibly have been in there to make Cas act up?

Too many questions. Not enough information. It all swirled around in her head as she drifted aimlessly through the streets. It was long past noon. With no better plan, she let her hooves carry her east, the direction the fleeing griffon had headed before juking between buildings and vanishing from view. Tried to picture the city once more from above. There were the city gates, of course, if you went that far, but there would be no chance for an escapee to pass the walls while the city guard were in hot pursuit: Hearthfire had seen the patrols that constantly circled the city, keeping folk from slipping in without the proper checks, or leaving without authorisation. Moving out from the centre, the three main thoroughfares passed through shopping districts, which gave way to residential areas more or less all the way to the city walls. However, turning away, to the north or south, would lead outwards to modest manufacturing districts (though Spire was no great creator of goods), and finally regions mostly given over to warehousing and air-docks full of mooring spires.