The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

Jeb Feydamor stood looking up at the sky with Serjon and fueler guildsman Bellaroy on the part of the wingfield assigned to the Yarronese.

  “A stupid and dangerous gesture,” Bellaroy said yet again. “Flying from Median to here would have been enough in itself, but Warden Jannian just had to fly directly from Forian. After what happened this morning, too.”

  “It’s more than a gesture,” said Feydamor with resigned understanding. “It declares superiority. This says that his wealth is such that he can rail in his own complete crews and not depend on Bartolicans, while his gunwings have such a range that no Bartolican gunwing can touch.”

  The droning of compression engines became distinct above the background bustle of the wingfield tents and stalls, and through his field glasses Feydamor resolved three triwings approaching from the south. The gunwing and two T-class sailwings circled the palace once, then landed in quick succession. Warden Jannian’s gunwing taxied to the maintenance tents between its two less powerful companions. The Bartolican officials who had come to greet him gathered around the gunwing as the canopy was raised. The flyer within removed a flight cap, but the head that emerged was that of a girl, no more than eighteen years of age. Her thin, alert face was framed by dark brown, shoulder-length hair, and wary brown eyes regarded them through the twin oval marks left on her face by her goggles.

  “Warden Jannian is in the starboard T-class,” she said as they stared at her speechlessly.

  She hurriedly ducked down out of sight within the cockpit. The outraged officials strode off to Jannian’s T-class sailwing just as Serjon arrived to collect the logbooks. He stopped in astonishment when the head of Jemarial’s daughter Bronlar reappeared.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I’m pleased to see you too, Serjon.”

  “But you’re in the warden’s gunwing!”

  “Sair Serjon, I weigh ninety-one pounds, the warden weighs twice that. An extra tank was rigged just behind my head with a twelve extra gallons of compression spirit for the journey. I landed with nearly a gallon to spare.”

  “You flew this thing all the way from Forian?” he exclaimed.

  “Shush, the warden will hear.”

  The warden did not hear. There was a loud exchange going on between him and the Bartolican officials as they walked back past the gunwing.

  “It is the greatest possible insult to the Airlord of Bartolica to let a mere child, and a girl, fly the very symbol of wardenly authority and chivalry,” the wingfield adjunct was insisting loudly.

  “Bronlar is the daughter of my airframe guildmaster and is an accredited flyer,” retorted Jannian. “She is permitted to have flyer status in order to test gunwings after maintenance or alterations.”

  “That rule applies to apprentices!” cried the current duty warden.

  “The letter of the rule says ‘child’: age and sex are not mentioned,” Warden Jannian countered.

  The adjunct’s composure weakened. “That cannot be true,” he spluttered.

  “It is true,” said the wingfield herald reluctantly. “The word is ‘child’ rather than ‘son’, so that adopted sons and stepsons can be included for guildsmen without sons.”

  “Why were girls not specifically excluded?” demanded the duty warden.

  “‘Son, adopted son, stepson, or any other male deemed to be the son by law and in line of succession of a guildsman’ is twenty-three words, ‘child’ is but a single word,” the herald explained while counting out words on his fingers. “When the Guild Charter was simplified last century such abbreviations became common.”

  “But nobody dreamed that the intent of the reformers would be abused like this!” interjected the adjunct.

  “Meaning that Bronlar is permitted by law to make any initial test flight,” added Jannian.

  “A three-hundred-mile test flight?” scoffed the wingfield adjunct.

  “It was the first flight after the addition of the extra tank,” Jannian assured him.

  Bronlar’s status as a flyer was know in courtly circles as a matter of debate rather than fact. Occasionally women would ascend to the throne as airlords of dominions, and one could not be an airlord without being able to fly. When this happened the airlord designate was given sufficient flight training to ascend solo and fire a practice volley at a target kite. This done, they would be accredited as a warden but never ascend again, except as a passenger. A governor’s wife had learned to fly with the issue of female accreditation still unresolved among Yarronese wardenry, but she had died in a training accident. The rank of flyer had been conferred upon her as a gesture of sympathy to the very popular Governor Sartov—and because she was safely dead.

  On the other hand Bronlar was female, alive, young, from the artisan class, and superior to most youths with comparable flight experience. Governor Sartov himself had pointed out to Jannian the loophole in the inter-dominion regulations that had allowed Bronlar’s accreditation to be passed, but now debate was raging on whether the loophole should be closed or whether the talented Bronlar should be allowed to progress to the squires’ lists. The Bartolicans had thought that the girl had been lucky enough to survive one or two solo flights in a sailwing, and was just a pawn in some Yarronese political dispute. Now she had arrived in a gunwing, having set a record for gunwing endurance that would probably have to be entered in the inter-dominion Annals of Honor.

  The wingfield adjunct looked back to the Yarronese gunwing in time to see the diminutive Yarronese girl climb out of the cockpit. She stood on a wing, hurriedly combing her hair in the chase mirror, then brushed strands from the glittering embroidery of her flight jacket. That slight touch of feminine grooming was too much for the adjunct. His face flushed with anger again, and he threw up his hands in frustration. This was a clear abuse of the intent of the Guild Charter, even though no specific breach had taken place. He strode away in the direction of his tower while Jannian and the duty warden walked off toward the pennant pole, still arguing.

  Bronlar jumped to the ground, then gazed after them as their voices faded in the distance. Serjon began an assessment check on the gunwing that she had been flying. He was a year older than she, also lightly built but taller—in fact at an inch below six feet tall, he was a giant among flyers. Wavy black hair covered his ears and collar, while his protuberant green eyes gave him a somewhat manic aspect. His attitude did little to dispel this impression. As Bronlar sat on the grass writing her flight report, Serjon withdrew his head from the access hatch and glared at her, his fists on his hips.

  “There’s no spare gallon in these tanks, Bronlar,” he said firmly. “Your indicator float was ill calibrated. You landed with only the fuel in the feedlines. Thirteen perits of compression spirit, to be exact.”

  “Yet here I am, alive and—”

  “By the grace of fortune alone!” he snapped. “Only this morning some Bartolican idiot managed to kill himself and his two passengers while trying to do less than you just did. Thirteen perits! That’s very unlucky.”

  “Then where is my bad luck?”

  Serjon glared at her, then held up the measuring glass.

  “Bad luck is bad luck. Today you collected some, tomorrow it will poison you.”

  “Warden Jannian’s judgment was good,” said Bronlar. “I do whatever he says. He’s always right.”

  “The warden’s luck was good, not his judgment,” insisted Serjon through clenched teeth. “Had he been flying this gunwing it would have come down before he’d even crossed the Bartolican border. Besides, I’m the neophyte flyer on the estate. I should have flown this gunwing here.”

  “I know,” replied Bronlar. “But you weigh more than me and would have run out of compression spirit over the mountains.”

  Serjon was annoyed to catch himself practically admitting his jealousy, but a fight was a fight whether the cause was just or not.

  “You are just a symbol for Jannian’s reforms,” said Serjon, gesturing up to the gunwing. Bronlar slapped his hand
down.

  “You and everyone assume that I’m allowed to do what I do because I am a girl and a symbol. Well I’m a skilled flyer too! I’m good at nursing a wing along and traveling great distances. I can hang just above stall speed—”

  “I’m better at shooting target kites—”

  “Aye, but this was about distance.”

  “You flew here without colors,” Serjon now declared. “That’s very bad luck, ascending in service or anger without colors.”

  “Luck is what you make of opportunities, Serjon. Besides, I do have colors, see here.”

  Serjon peered at the bunch of ribbons fastened to a tag on the right arm of Bronlar’s red and green leaf pattern flight jacket. One had the embroidered crest of the Jannian estate, another was for the engineers guild, another for an unmarried girl, a three was embroidered on the next for the girl was a third daughter, and on the next was a very familiar family crest. Ramsdel, of the flight fabric division of the airframe guild, sauntered up while Serjon was making his examination.

  “Kallien!” exclaimed Serjon as he put the embroidered codes together. “My own sister!”

  “She helped me make my jacket. I wear her colors out of thanks.”

  “Nice needlework on the jacket,” said Ramsdel approvingly, “but there should be more and smaller leaves—and in gilt thread. Gilt is definitely you.”

  “But I should wear Kallien’s colors,” cried Serjon.

  “You have another four sisters, you wear their colors in rotation,” retorted Bronlar.

  “But, but I’m her brother, she should care for me first.”

  “Would you want me to have ascended in service with no colors, Sair Serjon? That’s bad luck, you know.”

  At a total loss for words, Serjon scanned both Bronlar and the gunwing for thirteen of anything, but to no avail. His shoulders sagged and he scuffed the grass at his feet.

  “Perhaps I’d better prepare colors for myself,” he said at last, suddenly gloomy with resignation.

  “It should be the same as Kallien’s,” said Ramsdel, missing the sarcasm intended, “except that the maroon ribbon with three will have to be one and … what color? No man has ever prepared colors before, there is no precedent in heraldry—not officially at any rate.”

  “The airlord flies over his estate burning a violet flare on the night a son is born, and maroon for a daughter,” suggested Bronlar.

  “Oh, congratulations, it’s a boy,” said Serjon.

  “I’ll do you a set of colors for another half hour of flight time in the trainer sailwing,” offered Ramsdel.

  Serjon rolled his eyes. “Why not? If more girls keep ascending it may be the only way I’ll get one to notice me.”

  They were interrupted by the appearance of Bronlar’s father, Pel Jemarial, who was striding over and smiling broadly. Serjon thrust his head back into the engine’s access hatch.

  “Bronlar, darling, what a girl you are!” he cried, hugging her and whirling her around. “Three hundred miles.”

  “The weather helped, Papa, it was calm nearly all the way.”

  “Pah, even a raging mountain storm would not have stopped you. Come along now, your mother has your trunk. A flying jacket is hardly suitable for your first coronation.”

  Serjon withdrew his head from the engine and stared after them as they walked away toward the accommodation tents. Ramsdel was tracing out the current Bartolican ladies’ fashion for high, wide cleavages on his own chest, a fashion for which Bronlar was not particularly well endowed. Ramsdel had no invitation to the coronation, but had somehow secured work as a standard-bearer so that he could note the fashions and tailoring at the great ceremony. His small, wiry frame, curly black hair, and olive skin allowed him to pass as someone much younger, although he was actually older than Serjon.

  Serjon had no invitation to the coronation; he was just a flyer of the lowest rank. He began pumping compression spirit into the reserve tanks to recalibrate the indicator float of the gunwing, all the while holding his mind in a painless blank.

  6 May 3960: Condelor

  The coronation of Leovor VII of Greater Bartolica was as successful as a court herald’s wildest dreams might conjure. The day had begun overcast. The Airlord Designate arrived in a compression-engine barge and did a circuit of the six-mile canal moat that surrounded the inner gardens of the palace. Children on the banks flung rose petals into the water before him, and chosen Bartolican wardens circled overhead in their gunwings trailing smoke in the Leovor colors. By the end of Leovor’s circuit, the overcast had broken to show patches of blue, but the weather still seemed unwilling to provide its blessing. The barge stopped at the outer bank near the Grand Bridge of Ascension, and the young heir went ashore, called his name to the sentries, and demanded that the bridge be lowered.

  Fifty thousand citizens watched as the huge ashwood bridge rumbled down to rest gently on the stone bank of the canal. Midway across the bridge the Airlord Designate was challenged by the court herald, who barred his path with a gilt-handled silk whip. The heir proved his lineage by a genealogical scroll that he was carrying. The herald then gave his whip to Leovor, stripped his own court finery and regalia to the waist, and knelt for nine ceremonial strokes of the silk whip.

  The citizens cheered their approval while the Airlord Designate symbolically asserted his authority over his own court with each stroke. Leovor noted with satisfaction that by a slight flick on the downward stroke he could leave impressive red marks on the herald’s skin without seeming to be brutal. The ceremonial flogging over, an adjunct stepped forward with an inlaid, lacquered box, into which Leovor placed the whip and closed the lid. With an odd little pang he realized that the next time the lid was raised he would be dead and his own heir would be about to whip a herald.

  The Airlord Designate walked the rest of the way across the bridge, through the gates to the palace gardens and along the promenade between the stone watersteps to the open doors of the reception plaza. Not once did the sun break through to shine upon him. He crossed the mosaic of ninety-five thousand separate stone squares in a full-color rendering of the gunwing flown four hundred years earlier by Delvrian II at the Battle of Green River. Antiphonal choirs sang a hymn to Leovor’s authority and justice, and at last he emerged through the ironbound oak doors of the throne room. Not one stumble, Leovor thought with relief.

  The assembled nobles of Bartolica and the foreign dignitaries and officials all bowed, prostrated, saluted, curtsied, or covered their faces with their hands with a sound as if a strong wind were rushing through the throne room. Leovor then walked to the throne, seated himself, and waited for the Bishop of Greater Bartolica to approach with the crown. A choir of sons and daughters of Bartolican wardens began to sing to his health and wished him an improbably long reign while the Bishop approached. Just then the sun broke through the clouds and shone through the glass facets and tinted mirrors in the roof and southern walls, concentrating its rays so that Leovor gleamed with multicolored lights as he sat on the throne. The courtiers gasped at the sudden spectacle. The choir stopped in mid-bar with shock, then quickly resumed. Even the bishop took a step back and nearly let the crown drop. Seconds later trumpets blared and choirs all through the palace sang the anthem of Greater Bartolica as Leovor was crowned in a blaze of light that the auspiciously lucky break in the clouds had bestowed.

  The Bishop ascended a stone dias bound with strips of gold. He cleared his throat.

  “Your Majesty, nobles of Bartolica, worthy guests from other dominions, look about you at the splendor of this palace, and of the mighty yet beautiful city of Condelor. Stop and consider for a moment how such a magnificent capital can be maintained in the face of the three scourges.

  “The Call sweeps across our land every few days and seeks to lure us away in a mindless reverie, yet we are still here when the Call has passed, three hours later. Why are we here in the face of the mighty, the irresistible Call? The streets are built to gently guide folk allured by the Call
into curved haven walls, the Call towers ring out a warning of at least ten minutes as the invisible allure stalks over from the east, and there are many public tethers and tether rails. Those in trams or barges are safely tethered, and deadhand brakes and anchors stop them safely. Overhead at least one warden is always flying, watching over this city and above the Call’s accursed reach. For all of this you must thank the Airlord.

  “The Sentinels are the second scourge. Should anyone be so full of pride and confidence to build a barge, tram, regal, or gunwing of greater length or breadth than twenty-nine feet six inches, what would be its fate? When next a Sentinel Star passed overhead by day or by night, and if that vehicle was moving, it would be seared to ash with such speed that the blink of an eye could well mask its passing. Nevertheless, nobles may fly in safety, steam trams carry merchants and their goods across mountains and deserts on rails of wood shod with steel, barges ply our rivers and canals, and pushdrays rumble along our country roads behind teams of free, hearty laborers. The inspectors, the standardeers, the guildsmen, and the artisans that keep our civilization flourishing within that confinement of twenty-nine feet six inches, all of those men are under the direct patronage of the Airlord of Bartolica.

  “And the third scourge, that which kills electrical essence devices: how can it be that we have flourished without the electrical engines and lamps for two thousand years? It is because our Airlord is the patron of workshops, artisan halls, and other such places of research, and these develop ways to climb back to the ancient achievements without electrical essence. Such research gave us the compression engine many centuries ago, and moved war into the sky where it is harmless.

  “In the twenty years past that Airlord Parttral the Fourth reigned, there have been less than a thousand Bartolicans lost to the Call. In that same time not a single vehicle has been burned by the Sentinels. Surely this is Divine blessing on both his rule and the Bartolican way. Today the clouds parted to enshrine Airlord Leovor in light as he was crowned, and who can deny that this is a sign of better things to come? Warden noblemen will patrol the skies to keep Greater Bartolica safe from foreign invasion and warned against the Call. Squires, guildsmen, and artisans will keep the wings, compression engines, and guns maintained as they have for uncounted centuries. Inspectors, clerks, and merchants will travel the vastness of Bartolica and preserve its unity, and the estatiers and their tenants will keep our tables laden and our wardrobes full.