Wings Over Talera

by Charles Allen Gramlich

  The open space in the tree’s center widened toward the bottom and there were more tris there, clawed feet clicking on and over each other as they moved ceaselessly. I let my boots down on a musty, friable soil, saw before me in the earth the stone Ahrethane had spoken of. It was rounded, gray and smooth, and I thought it not stone at all but some kind of metal. There were no obvious handles or grips so I drew my dagger and dug around the outside edge until I could hook my fingers beneath.

  I pulled. Pain slashed through my right arm but my grip held.

  The stone didn’t budge.

  I tried the lift again. Again nothing moved.

  I stood, frowning as I studied the closed portal through which I had to pass and could not. And then Ahrethane’s words came back to me. “This lifts. If you have the strength.”

  I had assumed she’d meant those words literally. But I was a strong man and clearly my muscles alone did not seem enough. I doubted even Kreeg, the strongest man I knew, could have hefted this stone by himself. I looked around for something to use as a pry bar, but all I had was my sword and it was far too flexible for this task.

  Then I heard the words, like a whisper out of the air: “If you have the strength.”

  An electric shiver coursed my spine as gooseflesh rose. That sound had been only the brittle shells of the candle-bugs rubbing together, I told myself. I knew I lied.

  My gaze turned back to the gray stone. This barrier, I had to pass. There was no other choice. The lives of those I loved depended on it. And if I could not do it with muscles alone, then I’d have to find something more inside. Was that what the softly murmuring voice had meant? That I could find something more?

  Again I squatted, hooked my fingers under the stone’s edge. I closed my eyes.

  “You have the strength,” I told myself...out loud.

  I locked my arms, pushed down hard against the dirt with my legs. Muscles tensed, drew tight over bones. Tendons creaked. My healing leg ached, my right arm throbbed. I pressed harder with my boots, driving them against the soft soil, feeling them sink in half an inch. An inch. The stone grated. Dust puffed up. I grunted with the strain, feeling my spine curve. The stone fought me, and from somewhere inside a growl bubbled to my lips.

  “You will move,” I snarled.

  Heat flashed through me, along every sinew, within every cell. Then I stood, slowly, every inch a war, and the stone seemed to tear itself out of the ground to reveal its true shape as a long, gray cylinder.

  When my legs were fully extended, the base of the cylinder just cleared the lip of the hole in which it had rested. Dropping the heavy thing to one side, I stood with trembling limbs, sweat soaked and breathing like a bellows. Pain was alive in my body, but the way into “Below” was open. That way was not dark but bloomed with the lurid blue-green of massed tris. Even as I watched, a horde of the small insects began to pour through the hole and spread out over the ground.

  Ignoring the bugs that scurried over my boots, trying to ignore the agony of my overextended body, I bent and looked through the hole. There was a fall of seven or eight feet to what looked like solid earth. I stepped through the opening and dropped, landing in a crouch with the scrunch of candle-bugs under my feet. Tris swarmed all around, their light delineating a tunnel some seven feet high by four across.

  It was hot here below ground, very hot, and as my skin grew clammy with sweat I wondered if it was this unusual heat that fed the growth of the jungle above. It didn’t matter really.

  The bandages on my arm began to itch horribly and, unable to stand it longer, I peeled them off to gaze at fresh, pink scars where bloody gouges had existed only a few days before. My leg was the same underneath its wrapping of cloth. I wondered how much of it was truly the moths, and how much the magic of Ahrethane the efrinore.

  For the first time, then, I became aware that there had been a friendly...presence accompanying me through the forest. It was gone now, the voice in the tree above having been its last and most powerful manifestation. Ahrethane had told me, she could not go “below.” Even in spirit, it seemed. But if I was on my own again now, it had been she who had gotten me here. She and her moths.

  “Thank you,” I whispered into the air, though I had no idea if she would ever hear or know what I had said. Then I turned back to the task at hand.

  There was only one way to go along the tunnel where I stood, and within fifty paces I began to pick out the gleam of brighter lights ahead that could not have been made by any number of tris. For some reason that fact made my heart pound. I slowed, dropping a hand to my sword for comfort, and in another twenty steps reached a turn in the passageway and rounded it to see that the brightness did indeed provide a reason for fear.

  I found myself on a ledge overlooking a cavern beneath the earth that was several hundred yards across and perhaps a third of that in height. Most of it was shadowed, with the dark mouths of tunnels leading off in every direction. Above each tunnel I saw a glyph painted in white on the stone, each different, their twisted shapes flickering in the light of torches that gleamed beside them in brackets of iron.

  But it was not the glyphs or the weak glow of the torches that held my attention. In the center of the cavern, wreathed in a pale gray mist and limned by a brilliant fluorescent light that shone from some kind of hanging globes, there loomed a monstrous thing. By its design, it was clearly an airship—one unlike any that had been seen before in Taleran skies. It was huge.

  The biggest battleship in the Nyshphalian navy was about two hundred feet long. This beast added another fifty feet to that length. The great vessel’s hull was armored with plate that would block any trebuchet stone, turn any ballista arrow. And there were no masts or sails, only giant screws, propellers really, jutting from the ship’s aft end. Through gaps in the armor at the stern I saw what could be none other than massive steam engines, and worst of all was the row of ports along the side from which protruded the mouths of cannon.

  Engines! Cannon!

  Immediately my thoughts went to...Bryce.

  Gunpowder had been unknown on Talera until recently. I was convinced of that from my readings in the planet’s history. It had been unknown. Until Bryce and I arrived.

  I remembered the gunpowder-filled crossbow quarrels that Diken Graye had used against Rannon’s flyer—had it been barely a week ago? I had not thought of it before now, but Bryce knew the formula for gunpowder. So did I. You mixed three-quarters saltpetre with a bit of charcoal and sulphur. As boys we’d made our own firecrackers. And “I” hadn’t shared the formula with anyone. Had Bryce? I began to think so.

  As if cannon weren’t bad enough, my experiences with sea vessels on earth had shown me that steam-powered ships were faster and more maneuverable than sail-powered ones. This giant craft would not only be able to outshoot any comparable airship on Talera, it would be able to outfly it as well.

  Though Bryce had been no expert on steam engines, some of my old ship’s crew from earth had been. According to Eric Ryall, Vohanna had taken members of that crew as prisoners. Below me was evidence that the would-be goddess had milked the information on steam from their minds. For a moment, I wondered just how hard Vohanna had to work to get gunpowder from Bryce. Then I forced that thought aside.*

  [* Although Ruenn didn’t seem to think of it, I wondered why Vohanna, if she were a product of an advanced civilization, would need to steal technological knowledge from a group of early-twentieth-century humans. Then it occurred to me that I, who live in the twenty-first century, don’t have the faintest idea how to build an airplane or computer.—CAG]

  By now, Valyan would have reached Timmuzz with Kreeg. He would have spoken to Rannon about Vohanna and a Nyshphalian battle fleet would be on the way to the jungle of Vohan. It was what I’d hoped for. If I knew Rannon and her father, it was exactly what was happening. And when that fleet arrived I would have led them into a trap. This o
ne ship and its cannons would be devastating enough. If there were others like it then the air fleet of my adopted homeland would be pulverized. Rannon with it, perhaps. I doubted she’d stay behind in Timmuzz.

  I had to do something. But what?

  Finding a way down from the ledge was easy enough, and there were outcroppings of stone and clumps of a desiccated, mesquite-like brush that offered ample concealment as I worked my way across the cavern. I had no idea how plants were growing here where no sunlight penetrated, and there was certainly nothing of green about them. But I was thankful for the cover, especially as the brilliant shine from the light globes grew stronger near the ship. Soon, I had to crawl from one hiding place to another to remain undetected. I sweated more.

  At fifty yards distance, from behind a detritus pile of scrap metal, I raised my head to study the scene around the ship. The vessel seemed largely finished. Much of the scaffolding had been removed and the catwalks strung high above the decks were empty of laborers. I saw a lot of guards, which suggested that Vohanna did not trust her own workers much. I liked that idea.

  I noted one officer in particular, an arrogant and strutting fellow who wore a gold-chased helm and a scarlet cloak while the others wore helmets and cloaks of simple gray. There was something about him I did not care for—perhaps it was just that he seemed too aware of his duties while his men looked lax and bored—and I waited until he had gone around the far side of the ship before acting on the vague plan forming in my mind.

  A few yards off from my position there drifted one of the light globes. I’d assumed at first that these were some sort of hanging lantern, but had soon realized my mistake. They floated...freely, glass spheres that burned bluish-white without fire. Sorcery? Or some scientific principle that I had no name for? No matter.

  I’d already noted that, twenty yards beyond the globe, a lone sentry stood relieving himself against a bush. Stacked timber hid him from any direct view from the ship, and in my creeping across the cave I’d seen others come to that place for the same purpose. As I’d gotten closer, the smell had let me know that the spot was in regular use. That regularity was why I’d chosen this particular scrap heap.

  The man finished his task and turned to go. I picked up a rock, hurled it. The light globe smashed in a shower of sparks and the startled guard spun around. He’d half pulled his blade in the jolt of the moment, but now he pushed the weapon back into its sheath and muttered curses as he stalked to investigate.

  I smiled grimly. The laxity I thought I’d seen in the guards was real apparently. It was as if this man couldn’t conceive of a true threat to his mistress’s power. I circled the debris pile as he came closer to my position, then rose behind him silently and locked an arm around his throat, the needle point of my dagger pressed to his heart.

  “Be quiet or die,” I whispered in his ear.

  He chose quiet.

  I dragged him to the far side of the scrap heap and shoved him to his belly, then bound his hands behind him with strips of his own shirt. Jerking him back to a sitting position, I took my dagger and pressed the blade crossways to his throat.

  “How many ships like this does Vohanna have?” I asked him.

  “I’ll tell you nothing,” he growled.

  I slapped him. “How many?”

  He set his face grimly. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. I chuckled. He looked at me. Deep from within his eyes came a red flicker, like heat lightning, and nestled amid tattooed lines on his forehead was a glittering dot that marked a piece of milkstone. He was controlled. Like Eric Ryall had been. Again I chuckled, and lifted the dagger to press the point just below his speck of toir’in-or stone.

  “If I cut this thing out...,” I mused.

  The man’s face paled.

  “Yes,” I continued, as if contemplating some deeply philosophical question. “I wonder how long it would be before Vohanna noticed? And what she’d do when she realized?”

  The man shook his head. His eyes were wide. I leaned closer until my face was barely an inch from his. I pressed the tip of the dagger hard enough against his forehead to bring a tiny spot of blood that wicked in red lines around the border of the toir’in-or.

  “Have you seen how Vohanna gives death to those she thinks have failed her?” I asked in a whisper. “Have you heard them scream? How many ships like this are there?”

  “Four,” the fellow blurted. “There are four. Please don’t!”

  I relaxed a little of the pressure that I held on the dagger.

  “What other forces does she have?” I demanded.

  There was no resistance left in the man now. Thoughts of his goddess’s punishments terrified him. He licked dry lips as he answered.

  “A few smaller flyers. Mostly she has bird riders, though. Thousands of them.”

  “And the new weapons?” He knew what I meant.

  “Only the big ships carry the cannon,” he said. “The blast quarrels are common. Many warriors will have them when the time comes.”

  I sighed. By using the English terms “cannon” and “blast” the man had proven to me where the secret of gunpowder had come from.

  Then something else he’d said registered. “Will have them?” I asked. “Where are the quarrels now?”

  His gaze flicked down from mine. His shoulders slumped. “Stored in the ships,” he said. “With the loads for the cannon.”

  “All right,” I said. “Now, I’m assuming the white glyphs that mark the exits from this cavern are some kind of map grid. Which ones will take me to the other ships? And which will take me to Vohanna?”

  He described the pictographs I wanted and I drew them in the dirt for him to verify. Then I committed them to memory. I stripped off his helmet and placed it on my own head, and took his cloak and slung it about me. I tied him by his wrists to a block of rusted metal behind him. Before I gagged him I asked him one last question.

  “Have you seen a man who travels with Vohanna? With white hair and a false hand? His name is Bryce Maclang.”

  The man shuddered. His voice cracked as he answered.

  “Yes. All have seen him. None have wished to. He is always with the goddess. ’Tis said he is a demon that she conjured to aid her.”

  I growled. “He is only a man,” I said. “Just a man.”

  The fellow started to protest and angrily I stuffed a gag made from the remnants of his shirt into his mouth and tied it off. I rose then, pulling his helmet down to shadow my face and drawing his cloak about me. Turning, I strode toward the airship where it crouched like a metallic dragon ready to leap into the sky.

  Only once did I glance back, to see the bound guard’s eyes wide and glistening above his gag. One thing was clear. He did not believe my brother to be, “just a man.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  WHEN BATTLE IS JOINED

  Wearing the helmet and cloak of a guard, I strode without a challenge through the slack defenses around the massive airship. Only once did I even have to pause, when the scarlet-cloaked officer that I’d seen before made his rounds past me. I stood at attention, as I’d seen others do before, and he gave me scarcely a glance as he stalked on his way. I then turned and entered the ship through the stern where the steam engines were located. It was almost frighteningly easy.

  A few light globes floated lazily within the ship, throwing rococo shadows off the multi-faceted surfaces of the engines onto the inside wall of the hull. The engines themselves looked powerful enough to drive a mountain into the air. They were spanking new, all polished-bright steel and black iron. But they had been tested. Fresh oil—which I judged from the odor and color to have been made from a source other than petroleum—gleamed on exposed surfaces and turned the wooden floors beneath into iridescent landscapes. There were no guards here, no workers.

  An oaken bulkhead separated the engine room from the rest of the ship, and cent
ered in it was an open portal that beckoned me. I stepped through, silently, into a broad corridor with half a dozen closed doors to either side. There were light globes fixed to the ceiling here. An engineer—at least I judged him so by the sheaf of papers that he studied as he walked—came toward me, head down and oblivious.

  “Greetings,” I said.

  The man jumped, nearly dropping his papers, and looked up at me with eyes wide. Then he sputtered:

  “See here! What are you doing in here? You are not—”

  I punched him in the forehead and he wilted like a lily under the sun. Dragging his unconscious form back through the door I’d just passed, I stuffed him and his papers behind an engine where he wouldn’t be seen. I left him unbound. I had my reasons. For one, he had not been “controlled,” had worn no speck of toir’in-or stone. I wondered if, by necessity, most of Vohanna’s machinists were given the same relative freedom.

  Returning to the corridor, I padded swiftly along it, moving always toward the center of the ship. I met no guards, but from the attitude of the engineer I knew that being seen would mean a fight now. Some part of me rather hoped to be seen. I wasn’t. Not yet. Then I reached the heart of the ship and stood gazing up a tightly spiraled stairwell into the belly of the beast.

  Most Taleran airships have large open holds between, at most, two or three layers of decks. This one was different. Above me I counted six decks, and there were many more bulkheads and it looked like enough cabins to comfortably house a large crew. Perhaps because steam can push heavier weights than sails can pull, Vohanna’s shipwrights had built with metal and heavy woods that would take an incredible pounding just to dent. But I wasn’t here to admire the thing. I started up the stairwell, moving on quiet feet.

  On deck three I found what I was seeking.

  Here at last was an open space that could be called a hold. And in it there were cannon—twenty-five guns to a side—with ugly iron mouths that jutted through portholes in the hull. In the center of the room, stacked high within frames constructed for that purpose, were rows of shot—stone and lead balls, short lengths of chain, nails. Neither the cannon nor the shot were pretty, but I was sure they would be effective. If the powder worked.