“I can’t do this.” Eric paced back and forth. Ralbor had put them up in second-floor rooms off the temple’s living quarters, a cloth-draped door opened to a rickety balcony. In the courtyard below, several sky pirate slept off their drunkenness.
“Is there something you still need help with?” Felden sat on the rug, wings draped like a tent, holding a model gryphon he’d fashioned from sticks, parchment, and glue.
“No, it’s not that.” Eric looked around, making sure none of the Meridian natives were listening in. The room held only Professor Temerin, Felden, and himself. “I’ve had it with this place. It sucks! This whole planet is awful, riddled with disease and sewage, the people are violent and kill their own children! I can’t wait until I get back home. Never should’ve left.”
“So you rather we’d leave and let Dulane take over?” asked Temerin.
“I just have trouble seeing much good in anyone here, finding anything worthy of redemption. Even in the Freeholds, they talk about liberty but all the landsmen have a bunch of serfs digging in the dirt. That’s not too much different from what we saw in Arztilla.”
Felden added, “I think history bears it out that the usual form of human society is exploitation of the masses by the ruling class.”
“Earth thousands of years ago was similar to this,” Temerin replied. “Do you think the same of human history?”
“Yes,” said Felden.
Temerin shot him a glare. “You’re not helping.”
Eric continued, “Maybe I’m just having trouble dealing with how terrible it all is: kids dying of disease, yearly famines, the Bellodrome...”
“Perhaps you are looking at it the wrong way.” Temerin adjusted his glasses. “If these thoughts are a motivation to help better the condition of this world, then they are good. But do not let them become a reason to despise these people. We were like them, once.”
The gryphon which awaited Eric outside the roost sported golden-brown fur, with its great big wings folded up and back past its arms. A long tail tipped with a steering vane swished in the air as he approached, and above its beak a pair of large eyes fixed on him with what he took to be curiosity.
Ezhiri stood nearby, as did Rachel and the avens. She said, “This is Ediharitlan, he just matured this year.” She patted the gryphon on the head, it let out a contented rumble. “We’ve trained him but until now he’s had no permanent rider.”
“I’ve seen smaller airplanes,” Eric said. “You really think I’m ready for this?”
Rachel replied, “Gryphons are smart, he won’t let you do anything too stupid.”
“We’ll begin by gliding down the hill.” Ezhiri adjusted the gear on Editharitlan’s back. Overall, Eric guessed the gryphon massed several hundred kilos, comparable to the largest prehistoric pteranodons, though of course no humans were around to ride those. She led him out to where the grass sloped down to a wide meadow, above which Eric saw other gryphons, perhaps more students out training. “Climb on.”
“Uh, sure.” Eric tightened the straps of the parachute backpack he wore over his tunic and approached...Ed, he’d call him. Ed’s sternum was like a boat’s keel, his thin build disguising powerful flight muscles, just like with avens. With hesitation, he reached out and ran his fingers through the fur atop Ed’s head. On his back was a long, padded saddle of sorts secured with straps ran through slits between the wing membranes and body, no doubt a deliberate design choice by Keeper bioengineers.
In its basics it was simple, and Eric repeated what he’d seen demonstrated. The rider lay with padding supporting his belly and legs, sitting upright would induce excessive drag. A safety hook fastened his belt to the saddle, and his hands took the rein-like control handles connecting to the bridle on Ed’s long-necked head.
“Here.” Felden tossed him a spare pair of flight goggles, Eric pulled them on and took a deep breath. “Yah! Go!” He snapped the reins.
Nothing happened. Ed worked his mouth and pawed with a four-taloned foot.
“He knows you’re nervous, just try again,” Rachel said, climbing on her own gryphon.
Felden ran forward, spread his wings, and leapt into the air. Eric leaned down and urged his steed again. This time, he felt Ed’s body tense and then shoot forward like a pouncing cat.
His great thirty-foot wings, seemingly too large to have folded up so nicely, unfurled and cupped as they caught air. Ed’s feet left the ground, Eric felt a gust of wind sway them both, then the huge wings pumped through a beat and hauled skyward.
“This is not gliding, this is not gliding!” Eric protested, gripping the handles and reins with white knuckles as wind whipped through his hair. Ed screeched and swept into a turn, off in the distance Eric spotted Highwater Mountain nestled into the base of the rocky peaks. He saw the ground below, rolling fields and thatch-roofed huts, and then, in an instant, the fear melted away.
This was intoxicating. He saw the world as birds did, as avens did, a natural experience. Not the sterile, computer-guided cruising of an aircar, but true flying, by the seat of his pants. Not a digital waypoint or traffic controller in sight.
Raising a fist, he cheered. Sunlight glinted off a lake, he felt Ed slow and take up a slow leftward bank. A thermal, maybe? Eric glanced across the green readouts displayed on the flight goggle glass; Felden had told him which one to check. On the right, a vario-altimeter. Its indicator marker was tilted up, signaling a climb. He stared a moment, then reached up and tapped atop the glass. The instrumentation vanished, leaving only open sky.
Now time to steer, he thought. This couldn’t be too hard. After all, birds did it, and he doubted a tiny sparrow brain held much smarts.
“Okay. Left.” He pulled the leftward reins closer, Ed’s bank intensified. “Right. Good. Let’s go that way.” He turned to put the city dead ahead. “How to go down?”
He pushed the handles forward, applying pressure behind Ed’s neck. He obliged and increased his sink rate. Eric let the reins go limp, his steed could fly himself.
Another screech caught Eric’s attention, he turned and looked back to see Rachel on her black and white gryphon, flanked by Ezhiri on hers and Zandra following above and behind. Felden had taken up position on Eric’s other side, drafting off Ed’s wake. Eric gave him a thumbs-up.
Rachel pulled out ahead, then had her steed wobble its wings before banking right. Follow. Eric did so; they descended from a few hundred to a few dozen meters, zooming over the city’s outlying fields. Down below he saw a little house with two people behind it, tending a row of crops. A man and a boy. The man paid no attention as the wide black shadows passed overhead, but the boy looked up, face filled with wonder. In the brief moment he saw him, Eric hoped he’d have a better future than farming in the dirt, and for the first time in a while felt determined to make that happen.
In minutes they completed what had been at least two hours’ worth of horseback riding from the city to the Beastspeaker temple, Eric laughed at his new-found speed and liberation from that plodding mode of transport. Then the meadow lay ahead, and the fear returned. Time to land.
Felden had said that was harder than taking off, and described in detail how avens did it: tilt your wings up for a combination of extra drag and lift to slow from normal speeds without stalling, then put your legs forward and bend your knees when you hit. No way was he getting all that across to Ed.
Rachel seemed trying to guide him again, he fell in behind her like planes stacked for approach, lining up for the long axis of the meadow. He eased the control handles forward, urging Ed down. He seemed to get the picture, Eric felt their descent slow as they skimmed in ground effect above the grass. Ed flared for touchdown, pitching up to near-forty-five degrees in a motion which almost threw Eric from his saddle, then fell into a quadrupedal run and braked to a halt.
Eric tried to dismount, then remembered the safety hook and succeeded on the second try. “That. Was. Awesome!”
“Well, you’re doing better than me.” Rachel hopped down as Ezhiri and the avens came in for a landing. “First time I tried that, I was so nervous I puked.”
Gryphons, as Eric learned, did not like being holed up inside too long. Thus, he could expect two or three flights a day as part of his training, plus other ancillary tasks he found far less enjoyable, such as grooming. It grew on him, though, when he realized he’d rather be doing that than whatever other chores Temerin might suggest—the Professor had no intent of letting them loaf about while they planned their next move. They’d earn their keep.
And so, he felt a brief respite from the craziness of these past few months. Until a messenger came through the temple gates, bearing a letter for Sir Wotoc. Eric stood over a pot, stirring stew, as Wotoc held it up and read it. Then with a roar of rage, he leaned down and pitched the table over on its side with a thundering crash.
Eric leapt to his feet. Wotoc shouted:
“They have kidnapped my beloved!”
