Of Machines & Magics (14 page)

Leaving the fallen food for the lizard to scavenge, Calistrope rushed back down to the dead moth and looked at it as closely as he had examined the lizard. A minute or so later, he strode back to the fire and took the prepared wood and twigs back to the moth.

Calistrope worked like one demented. Over the next several hours he cut away parts of the dead moth’s body, he opened up the great veins which in life, stiffened the wings and worked the willow poles into the vessels. He improvised fastenings and slings, guy ropes, steering surfaces. At the end, he had a winged apparatus which he then fastened to his shoulders.

Without further pause to consider, Calistrope climbed to an outcrop of rock and leapt. If not instant flight, it was certainly not ignoble descent. Calistrope adjusted and fiddled and tried again. A glide: a dozen paces from his launch point.

The problems became fascinations. Experiment after experiment drove him on. Longer and longer glides rewarded him. At one point the wind caught him and almost without thought, Calistrope reacted to it, turning into the breeze, using it, climbing, extending his flight path. The river passed by below, bushes and trees like balls of green fuzz, bare rocks—the knees and elbows of the world’s skeleton, then he was losing height, skimming a bush, running, catching his toe in a hole, falling forwards.

Calistrope whooped like a youngster. He had flown, maybe two chains: three, four minutes’ trudge over the puckered ground squeezed down to a few long seconds’ flying time.

The moment was significant.

He was also on the wrong side of the river. He could ford the flow or… Calistrope found a suitable pile of rocks and climbed to the top. He launched himself, glided carefully across the stream and alighted. He did not wish to exhaust his good fortune too soon, he took of his apparatus and carried it up to the campsite where exhausted by both hard work and elation, he sat down next to the dead embers of the fire.

Calistrope was hungry and thirsty too. He picked through what remained of his larder—a cache of stones on a three legged platform of woven branches—it was empty. He stood up, sat down again and stood up once more, walked back and forth a few paces. Calistrope was tired but the exhilaration he felt over his success would not let him rest. Eventually, he took up his scoop net and went fishing.

In a shadowed pool at the side of the river, eels performed their never-ending dance—coiling and circling, interweaving their patterns. If he moved fast enough, Calistrope could catch one every three or four tries. He persevered long enough to catch three—a good meal and a change from the taste of the more easily caught crustaceans. The Mage picked a handful of crisp watercress from the shallows and he dug a pair of tubers from the muddy bank. Earlier experimentation had proved them to be tart of flavor and crisp if not overcooked.

The forced change in pace provided Calistrope with time to consider his new machine; small changes in design would improve certain handling difficulties, others would make it more robust. Too, there was the immediate future to think of: how far had Ponderos and Roli traveled over the past—Calistrope estimated—six or seven days? Suppose they had covered thirty or more leagues, how did such a distance appear from above? How fast might he himself cover such a distance through the air?

Calistrope awoke with a start, the fact that he had fallen asleep unintentionally told him how tired he had been. The fire was no more than a few glowing coals and nosing around was the lizard—somehow aware it had been elevated to the rank of
talisman
and therefore safe from harm.

With a smile at the creature which had shown him the way out, Calistrope stood up and stretched. He walked across to his flying apparatus and began those modifications he had envisaged. He saw places where the bindings had chafed, he reinforced these to reduce movement and then he made more training flights until it was clear he was as ready as he ever would be.

The place which Calistrope had chosen for the final launch was a spur of rock where alternate freezing and thawing had eroded a series of steps down one side. He carried his equipment to the top and stared down the length of the valley, he was certain the vantage was high enough to give a flight path which would take him to the end.

Calistrope donned his cloak and wrapped it around him—thankful it had not been necessary to cut it up. He took up the gliding apparatus which he attached to his shoulders and looked for the last time around the now familiar contours of the valley.

A great breath of anticipation. Three, four, five steps and a jump. Calistrope was airborne, a slight cross wind to adjust for, a cloud across the sun, darkening the light a little. A cloud? Up here? A solid thump as something collided with him and clung tightly.

Whatever it was bore him steadily to the ground, too much weight for his wings to lift. Calistrope swung himself to left and right in an effort to dislodge whatever was there. He looked up, a second pair of dusty brown wings stretched above his own. It took a few moments to realize what he was seeing: another moth—probably the original insect and mate to the one whose wings he had usurped.

There was nothing he could do, no way to beat off the insect, no way to avoid the ground which was rising towards him at a great rate. As his feet touched down, Calistrope released the knots which secured his wings and ducked. The moth and the remains of her mate continued on until it came to ground. The upper insect was certainly attacking Calistrope’s apparatus, pulling at the wing roots and tearing great holes in the flying surfaces.

With no weapon, Calistrope dared not try to drive the female off, he was doomed to watch the destruction of his creation. At length the creature flew off and Calistrope, free to look at the damage, knew it was beyond repair.
Why?
He wondered gloomily.
What had caused such behavior? Had the moth considered his flight to be an invasion of its territory? Perhaps it believed its mate to have been unfaithful or lax in its care for their young
.

Not that it mattered. Calistrope clenched his fists. The female had ruined his flying machine and the female would have to be stalked and taken as a replacement. Calistrope was determined, alternatives did not merit consideration.

He visited the cave where the moth’s young were hatching, it was the first time he had been close to it since escaping. The place was larger than he remembered and far more noisome, the reek of decomposing meat was overpowering. There were disquieting sounds and repulsive movements among the living hatcheries which hung from the roof along the right hand wall.

There was room for no more debate. Calistrope’s first thought—of taking up quarters here to wait for the moth’s return—was untenable. The thought of sharing this space with rotting carcasses and ravenous grubs revolted him beyond all reason.

Instead, Calistrope cut wood from nearby bushes and wedged them loosely across the entrance. He knotted a long length of twine to the branches and brought the other end down and along to where his camp was established. The Mage tied it to a sapling which he wedged between two stones and sat down to wait patiently. The lizard climbed on his knee and he tickled its chin.

Presently, the sapling was disturbed and Calistrope put the lizard down. A sharpened pole in one hand, a sword in the other, he went back to the moth’s lair. The barrier was gone, its remains were a loose pile of sticks below the opening; there was a sense of movement within.

He approached the entrance, climbed the mound of debris below and crept inside. With his weapons stretched out protectively in front of him, Calistrope waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. At the same time the insect became aware of the intruder and turned away from the task of spinning a cocoon.

Calistrope had no idea what the moth might bring to bear against him, he tried to be ready to rebuff stings from the tail end as well as bites from the head. It was the latter he had to contend with, a pair of massive mandibles with wickedly serrated cutting edges sharp enough to snip a human limb.

However, the moth was unused to combat, and Calistrope’s spear sank into an eye. While the creature was slowed down by nervous shock, he cut through the mouth parts to render it more or less harmless. It suddenly came to Calistrope’s mind that this was not purely a revenge killing, the insect was to furnish him with spare parts; the Mage stepped to one side and deftly decapitated it. The moth fell to one side, its limbs trembled and then were still.

The vile odors of the cave came back to him with renewed force and before the stench made him gag, Calistrope folded the wings back and pulled the dead insect out into the open. Then, breathing through his mouth, he returned and cut down the carcasses and ensured every one was dead before he finally left the cave.

Calistrope dragged the moth nearer to his campsite and began work immediately. With the benefit of hindsight, the job went swiftly, even to working in changes as he went.

One improvement which became obvious as he worked on the new version was the piloting arrangement. Rather than swinging from the shoulders so his body would act as a pendulum, Calistrope now added a seat of woven wicker suspended beneath the moth’s body. Two poles fashioned from naturally bent branches became levers bound to the wing struts which he could push or pull to alter the attitude of his new machine.

The fact, too, that the female was significantly larger than the male allowed Calistrope to increase the reinforcement of wings and body. As a last late addition, he included a small tail plane to the rear segment which he hoped would improve stability.

Finally, there was testing which proved so successful that Calistrope was tempted to fly straight out over the rift. Common sense prevailed and the impulse was conquered; Calistrope landed, collected his cooking equipment, wrapped his cloak about him and doused the fire’s last glowing coals.

Then
, he flew.

Chapter 12

The new craft was responsive to his every move, he gained a little height with every warm updraft from below and shot out of the hanging valley like the plug from a bottle of over-fermented wine. This was exhilarating, intoxicating. The rift valley laid out on either side of him like a hugely detailed map with the river, a chalk mark scrawled by an unsteady hand along its length. Calistrope banked and headed eastward.

There was no possibility of his seeing Ponderos and Roli from this altitude and in fact, this was his only real anxiety. How far must he fly before descending to a height where he might see them without compromising his range? Calistrope was tempted to take out his map but one false move and not only would it be gone forever, so might his life as well. Its loss was too much to hazard so he compared the terrain below with his memory of the map and gauged distances between landmarks.

He would descend, he decided in five or six hours. Meanwhile, he could settle to enjoying this new experience.

The five or six hours came and went. Despite the slipstream which made his eyes water and chilled him to the marrow, Calistrope’s speed over the ground was not as great as he had estimated. Now, rather than enjoying the flight, he began to wonder if he could survive the cold long enough to catch up with his friends.

Another half hour passed, another six or seven leagues. Ice, he noticed suddenly, was beginning to build up on his muffled hands and on his face. Sadly, Calistrope decided he would have to descend, losing what flying time he had left and the only real chance of catching up.

While he still dithered, Calistrope saw a possible compromise a league or so ahead of him. A great spur of rock jutted from the northern wall, its crown was green with bushes or moss and inclined at a slight angle. If he could land there, then he would recuperate and fly on having lost perhaps a half league or a little more in the way of altitude. There was a continuous cross-breeze from south to north, it had been there since he had joined the greater valley and he had been angling into it in order to fly along the rift’s center line. Now, he let it drift him towards the north wall and with a feeling of gratitude, the Mage watched the upland come closer. He lost some height, turned around into the wind and prepared to land. Calistrope knew he was too cold and that his legs were too numb to take the landing at a run. With equal parts of self-confidence, practice and good fortune, he raised the nose of his machine and killed the speed.

It was almost perfect; his feet touched the ground and his legs, numbed and stiff, collapsed. The fall brought the front of the craft sharply downward and the wind pressed it down into the ground until Calistrope could crawl forward and secure it with a pair of large stones.

Movement after being immobile for so long came as a glorious pain. Calistrope hobbled into the lee of some rocks and lost no time in building a fire from whatever twigs he could reach. Then he sat and shivered and grimaced at the aches and pains of returning circulation. As his temperature rose, so too, did Calistrope’s spirits. The sheer elation of gliding more than a league up in the sky was difficult to contain. With a grin pasted to his face, the Mage went to find water for tea and to boil a strip of the iron rations he had brought with him from distant Sachavesku.

When he was warmed and rested, Calistrope wandered about the plateau, working his arms and legs until they were supple once more and responsive. A shadow came between him and the sun and alert now, he jumped to one side and rolled into the relative shelter of a large boulder before looking up. The shadow, black and menacing as it was, was not threatening him directly. Rather, it was making a tight circle above Calistrope’s flying machine—clearly taking it for some intruder.

The creature was a bird!

Here was another surprise, birds were thought to have been extinct for millennia yet obviously, in the high passes and desolate places of the world, they still lived. Killing the creature seemed iniquitous yet Calistrope had to fight it off, for his own survival depended on it. He rushed forward, pulling his sword from its scabbard as he went to threaten the bird. It was remarkably like the only other bird he knew of—a
roc
which he had grown in his own experimental vats. Both had the same cruel beak, the supercilious eye and both were clothed in the same black and pale gold plumage. This one however, was injured, blood from a deep wound staining its breast feathers a rusty red.

Despite its injury, the bird half-spread its wings and leapt at him. The belligerence took Calistrope by surprise and he was forced to defend himself. Deft as he was, the creature evaded his blade time and again, scratching at Calistrope with its taloned feet and ripping at him with the hooked beak. Calistrope backed away several times but the bird pursued him single-mindedly until the Mage was bleeding from a half dozen wounds. Tiring rapidly, Calistrope started a long series of feints and finally inflicted a deep wound close to the one it had already received.

The shock of the second injury slowed the bird and Calistrope managed another telling blow to the side of the neck. His assailant backed off then and sidled warily to the edge of the plateau. Calistrope ran at it, threatening it with his sword and the bird took off, circling the upland for several minutes and then dropping below the edge to glide away and down to the distant valley floor.

Breathing heavily, Calistrope stumbled unsteadily back to his temporary camp.

He sat down next to the ashes of his fire and set out salves and bandages from his ditty bag. Most of the lacerations were superficial despite the pain they gave him but one or two—across the back of his left hand and a cut which had opened his right forearm from elbow to wrist—were deep and would have benefited from needle and thread. Calistrope had needle and thread but doubted his ability to do even a makeshift job with one hand and his teeth. In the end, he bound both wounds tightly and left it to his own healing abilities to mend.

His stay on the mesa was far longer than he had intended it to be: more than a day before he felt able to launch himself into space once again.

The wind took him close to the great northern cliffs before he straightened out and to his astonishment, he found himself rising in a powerful updraft. Circling above the plateau he gained altitude steadily and within minutes he was soaring above the rift, able to see the endless snow and ice fields which covered the continental plains. Seconds later, he was wafted into the damp embrace of a line of clouds which hung along the northern rim.

Panicking a little, Calistrope turned away towards the center of the valley into clear air and descended.
Why was there such an updraft?
He wondered. A few minutes’ rumination supplied the answer. The northern side of the valley was bathed in sunlight while the rock face on the south was forever in shade. The difference in temperature might well be small but the walls were often over a league in height and the air in contact with the warmer rock would heat continuously as it rose. The sheet of air rising along the north wall would draw air across the rift which, on rising, would condense to form the line of clouds he had been lifted into.

The phenomenon gave Calistrope unlimited range. Provided he did not fall too low, below the beginning of this effect, he could regain as much altitude as he wished, whenever he wished.

Laughing at such good luck, Calistrope sent his machine sliding down a series of invisible switch backs until he could see the white water of rapids in the river and faults in the rock like giant steps across the valley. It was difficult, he found, to gauge the height of tall features. Foreshortened as they were, pillars and rock buttresses seemed suddenly to leap up at him as they sped by and Calistrope kept as close to the center of the rift as was possible.

Twice, Calistrope cautiously approached the north wall to gain height before continuing on. He swung round an immense column of rock which had succeeded in staying upright although quite separated from the valley sides; then, back on course again, he spied Ponderos and Roli for surely, there was no one else trudging along this interminable valley.

He circled around again, flying up the valley and shouting as loudly as he could. They neither saw nor heard him. Again, he circled, dropping lower and lower, shouting for all he was worth. Eventually he saw Ponderos look around and then up.

Calistrope waved. Ponderos jumped up and down and waved back. Roli threw his bag into the air and caught it again. The Mage overtook them and looked for a safe landing place. The terrain below was littered with rocks of all sizes, all looking very sharp and jagged. A clearer space appeared just ahead and Calistrope lifted the front to reduce his speed still further.

There was a ridge ahead, an obstacle he hadn’t noticed until he was level with it. Urgently, Calistrope thrust forward on the struts, raising the nose still further until only momentum was taking the craft onward. Calistrope cleared the ridge, his boots actually clipping some of the stones at the top.

A crash was inevitable.
Just a little further
, he willed and brought the nose down again. The craft glided onward just a bit more and Calistrope saw the pool just where he needed it to be—a softer landing than the boulder strewn hillside. Perhaps he even found a minuscule trickle of magic that enabled him to reach it. Still an ell above the surface, forward motion ceased and Calistrope and machine dropped like a stone.

There was no splash, no welcoming watery embrace.
A mirage?
He had time to think and then with an excess of creaks and snaps and cracks, Calistrope’s flying machine settled about him in a ruin of broken spars and streamers of torn membrane, jagged fragments of chitin.

“Shades,” he said aloud and fainted beneath the pile of debris.

“Shades,” echoed a small voice. “Hello?”

Ponderos and Roli trotted after the flying machine, up the incline and when they reached the top and saw the crash, they ran. Calistrope was lying a little to one side of the heap of wreckage, stretched out. He had crawled thus far and collapsed, they surmised.

Ponderos reached him first and put an anxious ear against the Mage’s chest. “There’s no heartbeat,” he said and reached to check for a pulse. “No pulse. Oh my poor friend,” Ponderos kneeled back and tears began to fall. “My friend.”

“He’s breathing now,” said Roli joining Ponderos on his knees. “Look.”

Ponderos lifted the wrist again and touched a finger to the pressure point. “And a pulse,” he said doubtfully.

“Simple mistake,” Said Roli laconically. “Heat of the moment.”

“I don’t make mistakes like that. Even in the heat of the moment.”

Roli shrugged. “I guess just once in a while is allowed. Shall I get some water to bathe his face, bring him round?”

At that moment, Calistrope opened his eyes and looked from one to the other. “Shades,” he said. “Hello? Calistrope?”

“Shock,” Ponderos said. “We must make him comfortable and let him rest.”

“Tea is good for shock.”

“Certainly,” Ponderos agreed. “Make a fire and make the tea hot and strong and sweet. Calistrope…”

Ponderos turned back to the Mage and gasped in horror. Calistrope had half melted into a silvery looking liquid. When Roli touched it with the toe of his boot, it recoiled, lifting up and away—a miniature wave, breaking in reverse. “What is it?” asked Roli, revolted by the thing.

There was the sound of debris being pushed aside. They looked round to see another Calistrope standing up in the middle of the wrecked flying machine. “I thought you might have looked for me,” he said, sounding a little forlorn. “You might have given me a hand.”

Ponderos’ eyes switched from the new Calistrope back to the rapidly disappearing version and then back to the one which was laboriously picking his way out of the debris.

“But…”

“We thought…”

Neither one nor the other seemed capable of coherent speech. “Whatever is the matter?” Calistrope asked and then noticed the almost vanished body on the ground and the odd appearance of water.

“Is the poor fellow drowned?”

The substance which seemed from a distance to be water, was an illusion. It reflected rocks at its edge, the valley sides beyond and the sky. The surface even trembled like wind driven ripples. Calistrope recalled the pool he had attempted to land in.

“Hmm,” Calistrope touched the toe of his boot to the edge and watched in fascination as it curled up and away. He touched a finger to the surface and was rewarded by an almost instant reaction.

The head, almost all that was left of the body which had lain there, opened its eyes and looked at him. “Hello,” said the mouth. “Calistrope?” The eyes moved to Ponderos and to Roli. “Roli, Ponderos. My friends.”

The head lifted a little. The surrounding pseudo-liquid humped up into the vague suggestion of a body though it still retained its reflective properties. The body gained definition; limbs separated, flexed and the last of the “pool’ of responsive material gathered itself together. Where the substance had rested, the rock was—dusty, dull, denatured in some way.

A quicksilver figure rose to its feet; a half-size copy of Calistrope which quickly darkened and assumed more natural colors. The face wore a slightly perplexed expression as it lifted its hands and spread the fingers. It moved the arms carefully, then the legs, taking several tentative steps which left real, solid impressions in the sandy ground.

“How… very… marvelous,” it said, trying out words as if each was a piece of jewelry to be picked to fit with the others. Then, pausing often: “Thoughts, perceptions, movement, volition.” The expression changed to amazement. “I.” Then came delight. “Others. Not alone.”

The humans watched as this metamorphic creature walked to and fro, waved its arms, turned about and began a jig of delight. This was too much, the lower legs became tangled, lost cohesion and dissolved into a shining pool, as though the creature was standing knee-deep in the stuff.

“Too… complicated.” And it gave them a grin, rose as the legs reformed. “Do I seem right to you?”