by Elsa, Sandra
Sometime in the middle of the night the wind ceased, but the eerie calm still made sleep impossible. With the batwings rested we chose to spend the night in flight rather than wait for the dust and wind to begin again. The batwings seemed to agree with the decision. They scarcely waited for us to roll our blankets and mount before bounding into the air. They flew high, hoping to get above the dust should it start again but the air at the greater heights was even thinner than the standard allotment and they labored. Before long great drops of lather marked our trail below. We sent them down, choosing to risk the rising dust rather than let them kill themselves.
“Who goes there?” The question reverberated around in my skull and by the way Harrison whipped his head around I decided he heard it too.
I searched the ground below. Nobody in sight.
“Who goes there?”
“Who’s asking?” I yelled into the rising wind. The batwings didn’t slow for one wingstroke. If anything, they seemed to pick up speed.
“I own this planet.”
I laughed out loud and quietly said to Harrison. “Your father has competition besides us, and frankly whoever this is, speaks with considerably more authority. Because I don’t see anybody. Shouldn’t be able to hear anybody, especially not in my own head.”
“Who goes there? Answer, or be obliterated.”
I shuddered. What does one say when one meets God? A particularly daunting question when one has never believed in God. For starters I guess you answer his question. Obliteration didn’t seem like a fun option. I tossed my head back and shouted, “I’m, Francesca Kendrel. My partner, is my husband, Harrison Kendrel. We live on the earth.”
“And yet you fly above it. What are these creatures?” Now that he’d been answered the tone wasn’t quite so deafening or demanding. Mostly curious.
“My husband made them. We call them batwings.”
“He made them?”
I stopped speaking, my attention caught by twin points of red light above us.
When I didn’t answer, Harrison said, “Through genetic manipulation.”
“Yes, I see it. They are creatures of science then?”
“Not altogether. Magic gives them the ability to fly. To carry us.”
“So mankind has decided to crawl from their holes? Why should I allow it?”
“Because we plan to do things right this time,” I responded, carefully watching the red lights.
They blinked. Gone then back “How do you plan to control the others?”
“The batwings aren’t the only new creatures we plan to introduce. Unicorns to keep the forests and waters healthy and pure. Dragons, to control mankind’s desire to use machines to do it the easy way. We’re still working out the details.” I had the feeling a wrong answer could be our death. No matter who…or what we were talking to, the truth appeared to be my best option.
“Unicorns and dragons? They have not been seen on this planet for thousands of years. Mankind killed them once, what makes you think they won’t do it again?”
Harrison and I glanced at each other, his expression reflected the surprise I felt. “You’re saying they were real?”
“Quite real. I created them. Other wizards decided they must contain magical properties and slew them out of greed. For nothing more than to use their horns, claws and fangs in potions which were no more effective for containing bits of my creations. So I took the magic from the world. They replaced it with their science and killed the planet. I allowed the planet to kill them in return. In failure I thought my task done and lay down to rest on a barren world. Only to awaken five hundred years later to find I’d taken my rest too soon. Mankind still thrived, rebounded. And the magic I’d allowed to escape while hibernating had found hosts. That was what awakened me.”
“We intend to marry the talents of our beasts with people who care what happens to the world.”
The wind sighed gustily around us. The red lights blinked off and on again. “There always were a few I thought worth saving, they were why I intervened over and over. Their voices never rose to the top.”
“We’re trying. So far as we know we’re the only ones to move outside the domes. We haven’t brought the first dragon to life yet, but it’s only a matter of time. The methods of living without creating planet-killing pollution, have been perfected while we pulled ourselves back up in the past thousand years. It shouldn’t be so hard to make people realize what is needed.”
“And you intend to use dragons for enforcement?
“We do.”
“What will you feed them? How will you make them invulnerable to magical attacks?
We explained our plans as the batwings inched closer to home. The being we spoke to kept us in a calm spot, but all around us the dust and the winds raged. Daylight arrived as we flew over the desolate land. The batwings landed and we fed them carrots and dried grass. All grown on the Crystal Colony. Harrison drew upon the water I carried in null and created a tiny rainstorm. Just enough to fill the canvas bag we carried along to water the animals. The stop brought a whole new round of questions from the being who hovered, waiting while the winds swirled around us impatiently.
Back in the air we talked ourselves hoarse. “Shouldn’t you know all this? Aren’t you omnipotent?”
Laughter boomed, sounding like thunder. “Hardly. Thousands of years ago I was just a wizard. Now I don’t even have a body.”
“A wizard powerful enough to steal magic from the world?”
“If I understand the theory of your genetically altered abilities, you too can steal magic.”
“But the mage’s talent will return when I take it.”
“I suspect that’s only because you do not yet know how to prevent it. If I’m to permit you to attempt to rebuild the world, it will need magic, so I do not believe I will teach you how to seal a wizard from his talent.”
“Didn’t ask you to.”
“No, you didn’t, which speaks well of you. I wish I’d looked at strengthening my beasts against attack rather than allowing my anger to stir me to such lengths.”
“Are the storms yours? Do you cause the scouring at the end of summer?”
“I started them to cleanse the planet. Hoped the plants and animals would return once the poisons were gone, but again I misjudged. I was too late to save any of it.”
“The oceans are coming back by themselves.”
“Truly? I rarely bother to look any longer. When I awoke and found humans and mages huddled in their domes I thought perhaps some seeds would escape and I could start the world again. But they’ve sealed themselves away.”
“Until a few years ago, walking outside was a death sentence. We sealed ourselves away to survive. Even now, we don’t know what to expect when the rains strike. Sent everybody in the domes.”
“Not sure I can offer reassurance. I started the scouring and took a five-hundred-year long nap. The spell is out of my control.”
“The rains are weather magic?” Harrison’s voice was incredulous.
“They were. Now they’re simply weather. I had all the magic of the ancient world at my fingertips when I went to sleep. Now it is no longer mine and without my body I am not the wizard I used to be.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
“I travel the winds. I watch. I hope.”
“Did you see our colony in the cliffside? To the west?”
“I cannot survey the entire world. Especially not when the dust swirls so.”
“We have about twenty people living there normally, but we sent them inside, to wait out the storms. After the season we’ll begin populating the animal life. Our East Coast effort has some insects living there. We took the deer and unicorns and the other batwings back inside the domes for fear they’d turn to crystal, get covered in a sandstorm, or get struck by lightning.”
“As long as the pollutants do not grow strong, nothing should crystallize. I offer no promises about the sand and lightning though.”
&nbs
p; “We figured lightning is a risk we will learn to live with. The dust and sand should decrease if we plant enough grass, and if the storms truly started as magic perhaps we can tame them.”
A dome passed underneath us. Normally we avoided overflying inhabited areas but the wind was driving us where it would. What would those people down in Eight-One-Five think if they looked up.
At least I hoped it was Eight-One-Five. If it was, the southern end of the Appalachia Mountains should be fifty miles north and we were on a direct course with Two-Three-Seven.
An hour later we passed over Nine-Three-Six, the remnants of Atlanta, and since the timing was right I let myself hope. We talked to the wizard who was no longer a wizard until he knew our plans better than we. He added some hints and suggestions but mostly he seemed mired in his failures.
The batwings ears perked forward and with considerable joy they angled downward. We thanked our companion for a safe journey as their hooves touched the road. To his credit the picket barely blinked as we raced through the gate. Three vehicles were parked just inside the gate and a dozen people spun from what looked like a heated debate with Captain Jarvis and two other members of the watch.
Silence swept over the crowd. Two of our animal caretakers raced forward to care for the batwings, scarcely waiting for us to dismount before stripping saddles and packs and tossing them carelessly on the ground. A third member of the animal care team swaddled them in blankets to cool them down slowly. Animal husbandry had been a difficult lesson when we lost our pony at the end of a long flight. With a pat on the necks and whispered promises of carrots to come when they were properly cooled out we thanked them for performing above and beyond expectations and watched as our team loaded them in the waiting trailer.
With the animals taken care of we looked around at our audience. Captain Jarvis and the other members of the watch were struggling to seal the entrance side of the domes gate. We waved Leo, Greg, Jerry, and Nate over to assist. With that task finished, Captain Jarvis said, “Glad you made it. Thought I was going to have to arrest these fools to keep them here.”
We looked at the faces surrounding us. Everybody crowded close. It was our core group. Our original colonists and they all looked at a loss for words. Finally for lack of a better place to start, Greg asked, “How’s Cactus?”
“Empty as Crystal,” Harrison replied.
“Cut it a little close,” Dee said.
“Storms are early. And it was a valuable learning experience.”
“Did you learn how to breathe dust and debris?” My father asked as he brushed dirt from my shoulder.
“We met someone.”
“Someone?” Greg’s need to know made his voice gruff at our stalling.
“We’re going to get showers. There is no short way to tell this tale. If someone wants to cook supper we can sit at home and tell it, or we can meet down at Florendine’s.”
They voted on Florendine’s so we had them bring as many of our colonists as could be rounded up and an hour later, dust free, with pizza for everyone, we told the tale Merlin had told us of the end of the world.
--END--