“See you tomorrow,” she said.
“What do you mean you’re not testing it today?”
“I think the statement speaks for itself, Nur,” Clarita said, before her eyes were drawn to a circular saw, its handle inscribed with jewel-like beads. “Oooh! How much?”
The Fleet had docked at the coastal town of Baras that morning for one of its periodic mail and resupply runs. A docked Fleet meant a free day for the students. Clarita, like most of her peers, had decided to spend the free day browsing the wares at the portside tiangue, just beyond the town walls. While most of the vendors still displayed their wares on nothing more advanced than old carpets, the various clockwork mechanisms on sale—not to mention the new watchtower, twice as tall as the old bantayan—were a testament to the impact of commerce with the Fleet. Students were always welcome at the tiangue, and that was where Nur found her.
“For a pretty young girl like you, only two Lujine,” said the old woman. Clarita gagged.
“There are towns in the Visayas where I could buy you for that much!”
“Well, you’re not in the hinterlands, girl.” The vendor bit down hard on her betel chew and spat; a black smear appeared on the grass. “You’re in the Qudarat Sultanate, and if you’re not willing to pay for quality, then back to the ship with you!”
Before Clarita could muster a retort, Nur dragged her away. “Clarita, you’ve got bigger problems than a mouthy vendor.”
Clarita shook off the taller girl’s grip. “Nur, I told you, the Auto-bird is done, but Dom says the model isn’t ready yet—so no, I won’t be conducting a field test today. How many times are you going to ask me the same question?”
“Let me try another one then,” Nur said. “When did you stop taking your deal with your father seriously?”
Clarita went still. “Nur…you of all people should know better”
“No, you should know better,” Nur said. She held up a hand to forestall Clarita’s objections. “It’s just the facts. You used to spend all your free time tinkering with that machine, double checking your calculations, stealing supplies…now, you’re a permanent resident of the Tagalog’s room.”
“His name is Domingo,” Clarita said, scowling at her friend, but Nur simply raised an eyebrow. Domingo’s name wasn’t the real issue here, and Clarita knew it.
It was true that she’s been spending a lot of time with Domingo in the past few… Had it really been months since she’d asked for Domingo’s help? The days seemed a blur.
“I know what I’m doing.” Clarita wished Domingo were here—he’d be able to tell Nur just how committed Clarita still was to her goal. But the Çelebi had been keeping Domingo’s family updated as to his progress, and an aunt in Baras had insisted on having him visit while the Fleet was here. “We’ve still got two months before I meet my father, so there’s plenty of—”
She stopped when she saw the look on Nur’s face.
“No wonder you’ve been taking your sweet time.” Nur gripped Clarita by the shoulders. “There was a Spanish raid on Dapitan a few weeks ago. If you’d been spending more time in the common areas you’d have heard. The Çelebi changed our route—we’ll be docking at Jolo in ten days.”
Clarita’s body went rigid. She heard Nur continue to speak, but her friend’s voice seemed like it came from far away. Clarita was already running the calculations in her mind, doling out the little time she suddenly had left amidst all the things that she now remembered had yet to be done, the little details that needed to be taken care of, the tests…
“Come on,” she said, grabbing Nur’s arm and pulling the taller girl along behind her. “No time to lose!”
They made it to the Da Vinci—the Khaliya Safin where most of the kafir resided—in less than an hour. Domingo had fallen out of the habit of locking his door ever since Clarita’s modeling sessions began. Nur pushed the door open, then let out a low whistle, coming to a stop just as she stepped over the threshold.
“You didn’t tell me he was this good.”
Clarita couldn’t remember the last time she had looked, really looked at the wooden figure. It had almost become part of the scenery, just another piece of a room that had become so familiar. Now, in the mid-afternoon light slanting through the sole window, the wooden figure took on an almost luminous quality, every chiseled line and smoothened contour thrown into stark relief. Clarita had asked Domingo to re-create her in wood, and he’d done so with exacting accuracy.
“It looks finished to me,” Nur said, leaning in to take a closer look at the horsehair wig they’d glued into place on the wooden head. Her eyes flicked down to the carving’s chest before slanting toward Clarita. “My, my, he really did play close attention, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Clarita said, but avoided looking at her friend as she took a firm hold of one of the carving’s legs. “A little help here?”
By the time that Clarita and Nur had retrieved their equipment from the workshop and returned to Baras, the sun had begun to set, its colors muted behind a gathering of dark clouds, forming a heavy line across the horizon. Fortunately, it didn’t take them long to find the perfect location for the flight test.
“Perhaps next time…you’d consider using small scale models for your tests,” Nur said, breathing heavily, the tall girl still not fully recovered from the ordeal of carrying the wooden carving to the top of the abandoned bantayan. Clarita ignored her implied complaint, intent on making sure that the carving was fastened tight.
“All set,” Clarita said, taking a step back to survey her work. The carving, dressed in tight clothes similar to what Clarita would wear on her own flight, was tied to a simple winged harness—no sense in risking the actual Auto-bird. This streamlined iteration, its flapping motion powered by basic clockwork— would be enough to discover whether her wing design could provide enough lift to keep a body with her weight and dimensions aloft.
Nur had a hand on her head to keep her kombong from being caught by the wind. “The weather’s deteriorating, Clarita. Are you certain you want to do this today?”
“You’re the one who told me to take this seriously,” Clarita snapped. She shook her head. “The Fleet leaves tomorrow. I’m out of time.” With two quick key twists, she set into motion the clockwork mechanism in the wings. “On three: one, two—”
With the girls standing on either side of the carving, they pushed it off the roof of the bantayan. It began to drop almost immediately, the whirr and clickclack of the mechanical frame almost drowned out by the wind, which howled as if to reject the trespass to its domain. But after a two-foot freefall (which Clarita’s stomach mimicked) the wooden frame shuddered, and its wings began to move in a steady rhythm. In the span of a few seconds, the downward spiral tapered off, and the mechanical frame and its human-shaped cargo began to rise.
“It works!” Clarita laughed, digging her fingers into Nur’s arm, heedless of the wind ripping her kombong from her head. “I told you Nur! I told you it—”
That was when she heard the screech of protesting machinery. In the almost darkness, Clarita had only a moment to stare in horror at the two wings of the frame—tangled perversely in the cloth of her kombong—before there was a fractured crack, and frame and carving both hurtled to the ground.
There was absolute silence at the top of the bantayan as Clarita and Nur gazed down at the wreckage, a good fifty feet below them. Perhaps it was the distance that allowed Clarita to view the disaster with a strange detachment, her mind already working on foreign object counter-measures even as she saw a wooden replica of her head break off and roll across the packed earth.
“Another strap might work,” Clarita mumbled to herself, “up and under the chin and around the neck…”
“Clarita…”
“…can use that frictionless substance, maybe trade a few workshop hours to…”
“Clarita!”
Nur was pointing urgently down to the ground. A figure knelt at the foot of the b
antayan, cradling the detached head. A moment later it stood, let the head drop to the ground, and looked straight up at Clarita. Distance was no protection from the fury that seemed to emanate from Domingo in waves.
Clarita and Nur rushed down the bantayan, but by the time they reached the wreckage, Domingo was almost out of sight, running straight for the docked ships of the Fleet. The girls reached the dock in time to see Domingo reach a ship and duck below decks—but it wasn’t the Da Vinci.
“What could he want in Jazari?”
Clarita didn’t answer, but desperation lent her flagging leg muscles new strength, and soon she left Nur behind. Clarita was afraid that she knew exactly what he wanted. Down the stairs and through the almost empty halls she ran, but as she neared the workshop she could hear Domingo’s inarticulate screams, and the sounds of splintering wood.
Clarita entered the workshop, then let out a strangled cry when she saw what he had done.
Pieces of the Auto-bird littered the floor of the workroom, some still spinning in place from the force with which Domingo had slammed the machine against the reinforced hull of the ship. Pieces of the wings, broken at the joints, hung from fume pipes and notched gears, torn canvas fluttering disconsolately… And in the center of it all stood Domingo, tears streaking his cheeks as he wrenched one last lever from its socket.
Nur surged past Clarita, crashing against Domingo and bending him backwards over a table. Her auto-kris was at his neck before he could react, but Domingo ignored the blade, his eyes locked on Clarita’s.
“Nur…” Clarita whispered.
“You spineless bastard! Do you know what you’ve done?” Nur thumbed the exposed cog and the kris began to hum, its blade vibrating as if in anticipation. “In ten days, we dock at Jolo!”
Domingo blinked. “Ten…days?” he asked, but Nur ignored him.
“Her father is going to withdraw his support,” she hissed. “The best of us, sent home—and for what? A pig-eating, no-good Christian?”
“Nur,” Clarita said, and pulled her away. “Enough.”
Nur stared at her in shock. “Are you telling me that he walks away from this?”
“A wrong for a wrong,” Clarita whispered. She gazed into Domingo’s eyes and did not flinch. “We’re even.”
Domingo picked himself up from the table. He averted his gaze, ever so slightly. Was that remorse that she saw flicker across his face before he turned away?
Too late now.
Now:
It took less than two seconds for Domingo’s wings to deploy and his trajectory to level out. The stretched canvas flapped down-and-up in a rapid motion, faster than Clarita’s original design—and it was Clarita’s design, or at least appeared to be at this distance.
“He replicated the Auto-bird,” Nur said, a grudging admiration coloring her tone. She came to a stop beside Clarita and clucked her tongue. “In ten days too…looks like your Tagalog can work quickly when he wants to. I’m having trouble even believing this is possible.”
But Clarita was watching Domingo’s flight path with growing concern. “It isn’t,” she whispered, then whirled on Nur. “Get me strapped in, quickly!”
“What—”
“He’s going to fall!” she shouted, just as the first gasps drifted up from the crowd. Clarita resisted the urge to look up, as Nur helped Clarita buckle herself into the repaired Auto-bird. “The wings don’t have enough twist or fold to their movement, just up-and-down up-and—”
“The fool replicated the form, not the science.” Nur cursed as she tightened the chin strap which secured Clarita’s kombong to her head. “But we’re not high enough for take-off and we don’t have time to—”
“Excuse me!” Clarita shouted, as she lumbered toward the older student, Udtong, but he was transfixed by the spectacle in the sky. Without further preamble she aligned his sled with the ramp, then stepped atop it.
“Hey!” Udtong protested, as the sound of her heavy feet brought him back to earth. “What are you—”
“Ignite the rockets!”
“You’re out of your mind!” Udtong said, but then Nur pushed him to the ground, taking the fire strikers from him. Nur twisted the keys on the Auto-bird’s flanks, then handed Clarita her auto-kris, before stooping down to light both sets of rockets.
“Good lu—”
The roar of the gunpowder igniting beneath Clarita’s feet drowned out the rest of Nur’s words. Clarita swayed, struggling to keep her balance as the sled thundered forward, then up the prepared incline. At the height of the upward arc, the sled fell away from beneath her and Clarita was standing on nothing but air, working the levers desperately as she prayed: Let it be enough, let it be enough…!
She let out a shout of victory when her wings deployed, but that turned into a scream when the first gust of wind threatened to break apart her improvised repairs. But she was airborne, if unsteadily so, and she quickly scanned the skies for Domingo. He was almost directly above her, wrestling with his controls, the movements of his wings jerky and desperate. Clarita climbed up in little bursts, her hobbled Auto-bird sputtering and stalling every ten seconds, but soon she was close enough to reach out to him.
“Grab hold!” she said, one hand reaching toward Domingo while her other clutched the auto-kris. He was panicking, his eyes wide and his teeth chattering, and the hand which closed around hers was ice cold. Clarita began to slice the straps which bound Domingo to his machine. They were at least five stories up in the air. She managed to cut all but one tether before she heard an ominous screech. She looked up in time to see the wings of her Auto-bird entangled with his before her jury-rigged stitching came undone, both of her wings tearing themselves away as she and Domingo plummeted to the ground.
“Pull the cord pull the cord!” Clarita screamed, as she stabbed desperately at the last remaining tether with one hand, the other wrapped around Domingo’s waist. The leather gave out just as Domingo grabbed the bit of rope streaming out from over her left shoulder, and pulled it with all his might.
Domingo’s harness fell away from them as the Homo Valens unfurled behind them, catching the air in its bulging canvas as it arrested their fall, the harness straps digging painfully into Clarita’s body. But the ground was still rushing toward them at an alarming rate, and the last thing Clarita felt before the shock of impact was Domingo moving beneath her and enfolding her body in his.
When Clarita came to, she found herself buried beneath the billowing cloth of the Homo Valens. She’d lost the auto-kris at some point after she hit the earth, so she laboriously unfastened each buckle and crawled out from beneath the suffocating canvas, her right side throbbing as if it had been flayed.
“Domingo?” she called out, her voice a rasp. She cleared her throat. “Domingo!”
“Here,” came a small voice, followed by a moan. Domingo was a few feet away from her. For a horrifying second, it seemed as if he lay in a pool of blood, but then she realized it was fruit pulp—he lay against the remains of an overturned produce cart. But his cough was liquid, and Clarita rushed to his side.
“I guess I didn’t quite get the wings right, huh?”
She stared at him. “That’s what you have to say to me?” It was as if a dam had broken within her, and the words spilled out. “You destroy a year’s worth of work, then, instead of apologizing, you decide in your wisdom that what you really need to do is make a flying machine on your own, tell everyone it’s mine, and throw yourself off a tower?”
“I—”
“Did it not even occur to you that I’d try to repair the Auto-bird? Did you think I’d just give up?” Clarita shook her head. “When I think about how much progress we would have made if we’d just combined efforts… Argh!”
“I—”
Clarita forced herself to her feet, ignoring the pain in her side, and jabbed her finger at the boy. “Domingo Malong, from now on, you work with me, understood?”
Domingo stared at her, incredulous. Then he began to laugh.
“What about your father?” he asked, after she had helped him to his feet. “If you don’t pass the Trial…”
“Domingo,” she said, in a patient tone, “I just demonstrated a heavier than air flying machine in front of the richest men in the Sultanate. I don’t think I need to depend on my father for funding anymore.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Domingo licked his lips. “I’m sorry, ’rita.”
“I know.” She beamed at him. “But it’s good to hear it.”
The Elephant Tower tolled the passing of the half-hour from high above the city. Clarita closed her eyes, and let her triumph seep down into her bones. For the first time in her life, the future that lay before her was subject to no grand design. She opened her eyes then, and locked them on to the boy that stood beside her.
Well…none but her own, anyway.
Still smiling, Clarita linked arms with Domingo and the pair began the painful journey back to the square.
SIR RANULPH WYKEHAM-RACKHAM was born in 1877. As heir to the legendary Wykeham-Rackham wainscoting fortune he was assured a life of leisure and privilege, if not any particular utility. But no one suspected that his life would still be going on 130 years later, after a fashion.
A brilliant student, he went up to Oxford at the age of 16 and was sent down again almost immediately for drunkenness, card-playing and lewdness. Given the popularity of these pastimes among the undergraduate body one can only imagine the energy and initiative with which young Ranulph pursued them.
Although he had no artistic talent himself, Wykeham-Rackham preferred the company of artists, who appreciated his caustic wit, his exquisite wardrobe and his significant annual allowance. He moved to London and rapidly descended into dissipation in the company of the members of the Aesthetes, chief among them Oscar Wilde. Wykeham-Rackham was a regular presence in the gallery during Wilde’s trial for gross indecency, and after Wilde’s release from prison it is strongly suspected that wainscoting money bankrolled the elaborate ruse surrounding Wilde’s supposed death, and his actual relocation to a comfortable island in the remote West Indies where such advanced Victorian ideas as “gross indecency” did not exist.
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