by Adele Abbot
The task would be a daunting one even when his ankle was strong again but he continued to plan the attempt until the lizard landed in his dinner.
The lizard appeared to be fat and baked in clay, would provide a succulent meal. Calistrope’s impression was wrong, however. When he caught it, the lizard was as thin as a snake, the appearance of plumpness coming from the large flaps of skin stretched between fore and hind legs. Calistrope tossed it away and was surprised to see it take flight or, to be more exact, to glide away and land on an outcrop where it spread its pseudo wings to soak up the sun’s meager warmth.
The Mage sat by his fire for a long time after that, feeding sticks to the blaze and looking from his cloak to the basking lizard. At length, he got to his feet and hobbled over to one of the numerous streamlets to collect several large leathery leaves and a handful of thin pliable willow twigs. He sat down again and began to fashion a model.
That first one did not work well; not at all, in fact. But as his ankle healed, Calistrope persevered and by the time he could walk without limping, he had constructed seven experimental models; each one more successful than the last.
Satisfied with his progress, Calistrope went down to the river and walked along its bank, searching each patch of trees for poles which were long enough and straight enough for his purposes. There was enough line in his bag and—probably—enough material in his cloak to make a gliding machine.
Aha! A willow tree with tall, straight growth springing up from its roots. Calistrope used his fighting knife to cut five or six lengths and a bundle of springy withes which could be woven into a framework. He set off back to his camp with vigorous step.
Perhaps, with the thought of escaping this eyrie, his mind was less cautious than usual. He was alerted by the flap of membranous wings above him but too late to avoid being seized by the coat in exactly the same way as before.
This time, the outcome was different. This time it was less of a shock and he had a weapon: the willow poles. Calistrope dropped everything except for one pole and with this he delivered a series of crushing blows to the insect’s thorax. The chitinous cage which protected the wing muscles split. More blows damaged the creature’s vitals and insect body fluids leaked from the casing as Calistrope continued his attack. The moth eventually dropped him and flew on, its wing beats no more than reflexive spasms until it came to the ground, wings outspread, ten or twelve ells from where Calistrope had tumbled to earth. It twitched and struggled for some time before expiring completely.
Calistrope went back down to the river to wash himself and his clothes free of the bitter and sticky fluids which had escaped from the moth’s viscera. Shivering violently but cheerful after the defeat of the insect, he went back to his fire and used most of his stock of firewood to build up a warming blaze.
Once warmed and dried, Calistrope went back to gather up the poles and withes he had dropped. He stopped at the side of the insect and studied it and realized this one was male. It possessed remarkably complicated procreative organs at the rear end and it was noticeably smaller than the moth which had abducted him. Perhaps this was another reason for his successful escape from its clutches.
As he stood there, looking at the creature and at the breadth of its spread wings, Calistrope had the distinct impression that his inner, subconscious mind was struggling to make itself heard. What did these tantalizing half images mean?
A slight wind was tugging at the moth’s stiffening carcass and rather than seeing it blown away, Calistrope placed stones on the tips of the wings and on the thorax to anchor it down in case he wished to study it later.
He collected up his materials and returned to the sheltered niche and his fire. He set out the poles and trimmed away the stubs of branches, he measured and marked where the great semicircle of his cloak would have to be cut. The final stage lay before him and Calistrope decided to see to renewing his wood pile and collecting for his larder so he could work on undisturbed by bodily needs. Later, when he had cooked his meal and the air was redolent with the odors of food, the flying lizard returned. It nosed about, searching out fragments of food and ignoring Calistrope’s presence entirely.
Calistrope observed the animal closely, this would be his last chance to learn the art of flying from nature. He noted how the thin folds of skin were attached close to the creature’s feet and how the long muscular tail had a raised ridge of cartilage along its length. This, surmised Calistrope would steer the reptile in flight. He had assumed that steering would be controlled by posture while flying but this way might be easier, he wondered how to emulate the feature in his own design.
The Mage suddenly stood, his cooking pan rattling off the hearth stones and frightening the lizard off. His forebrain had just caught up with what his unconscious had been trying to tell it for hours.
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 c
over 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.