The Golem's Eye

the roc as it swoops down upon the elephants to snatch away their young. [2]

    [2] Indian elephants, usually. The rocs lived on remote isles in the Indian Ocean, appearing inland infrequently in search of prey. Their nests were an acre across, their eggs vast white domes visible far out across the sea. The adults were formidable opponents, and sank most ships sent out to pillage the nesting sites by dropping rocks from great heights. The caliphs paid huge sums for rocs' feathers, cut by stealth from the breasts of sleeping birds.
     
    All this had the appropriate effect. One of the wolves leaped meter backward, its brindled fur fluffed in fright, and disappeared with a howl over the edge of the parapet. Another reared up on its hind legs and received a blow in the midriff from the roc's clenched talons: it shot into the air like a fluffy football and vanished with a clatter behind a chimney.
    The third, which was standing upright in parody of a man, was more nimble, quicker thinking. The roc's arrival had caught the girl by surprise, too: gawping up in wonder at the splendor of my plumage, she lowered her knives. Without a sound, the wolf leaped at her throat.
    Its teeth clashed together, sending bitter sparks flying into the night.
    The girl was already several feet up and rising, suspended from my claws. Her hair streamed in front of her face, her legs dangled above the rapidly diminishing rooftop, the street and all its scurrying inhabitants. The noises of fury and disappointment receded and we were suddenly alone, suspended high above the infinite lights of the city, drawn upward by my protective wings into a place of calm tranquillity.
    "Ow! That's my leg! Ow! Ah! Curse you, that's silver! Stop it!"
    The girl was stabbing a knife repeatedly into the scaly flesh just above my talons. Can you credit it? This same leg, remember, was preventing her from falling to a sooty destruction amid the smokestacks of east London. I ask you. I pointed this out to her with my usual elegance.
    "There's no need to swear, demon," she said, desisting for a moment. Her voice was high and faint upon the wind. "And anyway, I don't care. I want to die."
    "Believe me, if I could only help you out... Stop that!" Another prick of pain, another woozy sensation in my head. Silver does that to you; much more of it and we'd both be falling. I shook her vigorously, until her teeth rattled and her knives plummeted from her hand. But even that wasn't the end of it: now she began twisting and wrenching back and forth in a fevered effort to loose my grip. The roc tightened its hold. "Will you stop wriggling, girl? I'm not going to drop you, but I will hold you headfirst over a tanner's chimney."
    "I don't care!"
    "Or dunk you in the Thames."
    "I don't care!"
    "Or take you to Rotherhithe Sewage Works and—"
    "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!" She seemed apoplectic with rage and grief, and even with my roc's strength it was all I could do to prevent her from prying herself free.
    "Kitty Jones," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the lights of north London—we were nearing our destination now—"do you not want to see Jakob Hyrnek again?"
    She went quiet then, all limp and thoughtful, and we flew on for a while in a state of blessed silence. I used the respite to circle for a time, keeping a weather eye out for pursuing spheres. But all was still. We flew on.
    A voice sounded from somewhere below my wishbone. It was more measured than before, but the fire had not gone out of it. "Demon," it said, "why didn't you let the wolves devour me? I know that you and your masters plan to kill me in any case."
    "I can't comment on that," the roc said. "But feel free to thank me, if you wish."
    "Are you taking me to see Jakob now?"
    "Yes. If all goes as planned."
    "And then?"
    I was silent. I had a fairly good idea.
    "Well? Speak up! And speak truthfully—if you can."
    In an attempt to change the subject, the roc affected disdain. "I'd be careful, love. It's unwise to make catty remarks when suspended at high altitude." [3]

    [3] As exemplified by Icarus, an early pioneer of flight. According to Faquarl, who admittedly wasn't the most reliable of sources, the Greek magician Daedalus constructed a pair of magical wings, each one housing a short-tempered foliot. These wings were tested by Icarus, a fey and facetious youth, who made cheap remarks at the foliots' expense while at several thousand feet above the Aegean. In protest, they loosed their