Of Machines & Magics

by Adele Abbot

  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 th
ought…”

  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?”

  Ponderos nodded.

  “Right as nine coppers in a row,” said Roli.

  “And is that very right?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’d prefer it if you looked less like me,” said Calistrope.

  “Ah, yes. Differentiation.” The visage filled out a little, the axe-blade nose broadened, the complexion turned lighter, the hair—fairer. “This is better?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Um,” said Roli, his head to one side. “The clothes look as though they’re a part of him—it.”

  “So they are,” replied the creature. “Perhaps…” Some sort of rearrangement occurred and the garments which had had the appearance of being painted on, seemed now to be made from a thin layer of colored clay. “It will get better.”

  The creature looked at each of the others, silvery eyes shining brightly. “This is all most exciting. To think, to reason. To converse with others. It has never happened before.”

  “Where have you come from?” asked Calistrope.

  “I don’t know. I am just… here.”

  “What are you, then?” Ponderos asked.

  “I can’t answer that either,” it replied. “Oh, I know I have existed—there is a sense of time having passed. I woke before, a little time ago and then I stopped again. Not for long. I woke once more, I am here. It is all I know.”

  “So—no name?” asked Roli.

  “Name? Identification? None was needed before now.”

  “Let us call you Polymorph,” Calistrope suggested. “Many shaped.”

  Polymorph was happy with his new name. Indeed, he was happy with everything. They went on slowly enough for it to practice walking and very soon had mastered the art. The creature’s speech lost its hesitancy; even its clothes looked less and less artificial.

  “How do you know how to speak?” asked Ponderos during one of the rare gaps in Polymorph’s chatter.

  “I think it soaks into me from your minds. I am gaining a lot of information all the time, sometimes it makes no sense to me and I have to forget it; otherwise I would be overcome.”

  “Calistrope, you have not told us what happened to you,” Ponderos complained.

  “Well, that’s so,” he replied. “But meeting our new acquaintance here, has made my adventure seem a little inconsequential.”

  “Nonsense, Calistrope. Polymorph will be as interested as we are,” Ponderos seemed curiously eager to hear about the other’s adventures.

  “Indeed I will,” said their new friend.

  “Well. It’s time we stopped for a rest anyway. I have just escaped with my life from a crash landing, a pause would do me good.”

  The four of them found a sheltered spot to sit. Polymorph seemed to melt into the rocks slightly. When he shifted, the rock had crumbled to a powder; it seemed this was how the creature drew its sustenance. Calistrope talked about his experiences, explained the principles of flight which he had discovered and how the ground looked like an intricate map when viewed from so far above.

  “Very interesting, my friend. I had no idea you were going to recount things in such detail.” There was a slight tone of remonstration in Ponderos’ voice.

  “Ponderos, I have trod on tender toes, I can tell. I thought you were interested. Aha, I know. You have something to tell me too.”

  “No, no. Nothing of any consequence at all. Shall we go on?”

  “Ponderos. Tell me, before you burst.”

  “Well, it was nothing, really. Roli and I encountered a small village back there. We were delayed, in fact. But for that, we would have been several leagues further along.”

  Ponderos fell silent. Calistrope refused to use any more cajolery. Polymorph waited patiently. Roli looked from one to the other in frustration.”

  “We found this village,” said Roli into the silence. “It was huddled under a great overhang at a bend in the river. The rock was like a tall column, still attached to the cliffs but jutting out like… like a…”

  “Like a buttress, Roli,” Ponderos took up the thread again. “The houses, there were about twenty, were built from driftwood and water worn slates for roofs. We didn’t see the place at first, we found this bed of river oysters…” And Ponderos recounted their adventure.

  “Look at these, Roli! Oysters! Now these are good eating—good enough to eat raw. Ponderos picked up a handful and with his knife prized one open, scooped out the meat and popped it in his mouth. He swallowed and quickly followed the first with two more. “Excellent. Try one.”

  Roli turned the corners of his mouth downward. “They’re alive, Ponderos. Drop them in boiling water for a minute and I might try them then but not raw, not alive.”

  “I tell you Roli, there’s nothing finer. Some black pepper, a dash of sour wine as well; truly a dish from the gods.”

  “When they’re cooked. Let’s collect enough for a good meal and then eat.”

  Ponderos shrugged and bent to help his companion. When they straightened up again, each with an armful of silver white shells, they found five or six men regarding them from the shore.

  “You’d best put them back,” said one. “Then we needn’t add thievery to trespass.”

  “Thievery! Collecting shellfish from the river? Come now, let’s be sensible.”

  Three crossbows appeared as if by magic. Their silent argument was effective.

  “Well, let’s be reasonable about this,” Ponderos bent and laid the oysters back in the water. “I mean how were we to know this was a, er, a farm? Is there a sign?”

  “A crime isn’t cancelled by ignorance, young man. Come along now.” The spokesman waved the point of his crossbow to indicate they should come out of the river. “This way and we’ll see what First has to say.”

  Pon
deros and Roli were persuaded to walk along the shore until a few hundred paces further on they suddenly saw what had been there all the time: a small village built of driftwood. The ancient timber, bleached as grey as the weather-worn granite, was virtually invisible until the eye knew it was there. Doorways were built from rounded river stones and roofs laid with split slates from the river bed. Even the grey smoke from the grey chimney stacks was largely invisible against the valley wall.

  The column halted in front of a particularly ancient house, so tumble-down that it seemed more like a heap of storm tossed branches than a dwelling.

  “Ho there, First. We have a pair of filchers here for you to judge.”

  Nothing happened for several seconds, then planks were pushed aside and a head appeared, it was almost bald on top with a straggly beard beneath. “What?” he asked. “What they been after?”

  “Pilfering our best oysters. That’s what they’ve been after.”

  “Oysters, eh?” First grinned a wide but gap-toothed grin, the teeth which were left were interesting shades of yellow and green. He climbed all the way out of his ramshackle home, a tall emaciated figure wrapped in course grey cloth and strode across into the space enclosed by the houses. “Filchers, eh? Tie their hands.”

  “People!” He shouted. “Everyone. Young girls, go to where such things grow and gather onions and leeks, potatoes and sour cabbage and crisp water lettuce. Women, gather oysters. Men, go to the brew house and broach a barrel of sweet ale. Young boys, gather enough wood for a fire to burn half a day. Old women, bring back the great fish we set out today and take out its guts, stuff it with herbs. Old men, cover it in clay so we can bake it in the fire pit.”