Then they were no longer in the cabin of an ornithopter. Wind howled and plucked at them as they lay flat on the back of a giant metal bird.
'Hold on!' Aubrey shouted – unnecessarily – and scrabbled to grab something himself.
He grinned, excited even in the middle of all the tumult. The spell had worked. The ornithopter had been encouraged to assert its similarity to a real bird, to become more than a machine. Exposed to the elements, a long neck thrust out in front of them while a fan-like tail spread behind. Great brass wings feathered in the shifting turbulence. Aubrey could see that the glass of the windscreen had become the glinting eyes of the creature, while the hydraulic pipes and electrical wiring conduits had merged into the body of the bird, making tendons and muscles.
Aubrey looked down and gulped. The ground was a long way away. He narrowed his eyes against the whipping wind, the heat of the flames and the smoke of the stricken dirigible alongside them. His fingers dug into the metal feathers and he was thankful the bird's back was broad.
George stared at him and down at the metal bird, then grinned and gave a nod of approval. 'Don't worry! I'm not letting go!'
The metal bird clashed its way toward the observation cockpit. Aubrey urged it on.
The dirigible had finally given up the struggle. Huge rents ran across the metallic skin, exposing the interior fabric and ruined aluminium skeleton. A gasbag ripped free and, intact, shot up through the clouds. Deprived of this lift, the dirigible sank even more swiftly.
The metal bird slid sideways, then banked right in a turn that had both Aubrey and George scrambling to stop themselves sliding off its back. Just when Aubrey had jammed his left foot against what he suspected had once been a fuel line, the metal bird plummeted and his stomach tried to find its way out of his ears.
As the bird dived, it screeched, a wild clanging cry that joined the din of the thunderstorm and the burning dirigible.
Aubrey hung on, desperately, fingers whitening with effort. Suddenly the metal bird lunged and struck the observation cockpit with its talons. Aubrey cried out as the glass shattered and the crewman fell, flailing, through the air.
Aubrey hammered at the bird's metal skin, shouting wordless oaths of anger and disbelief. What had he done? Created a monster and loosed it on the world?
The metal bird folded its wings and dived after the falling Gallian, and Aubrey was forced to cling with both hands. He squinted and tried to think of a spell to stop the creature's madness.
Then Aubrey's grip was tested again. With a crack like a giant's whip, the bird thrust out its wings and stopped its dreadful descent. The jolt threw him aside and, for a desperate moment, he had nothing to hold onto. He slid, his back scraping on bolts and ridges, until his head hung over the bird's flank. Far below, the dark and hard ground beckoned. Above was the blazing immensity of the dirigible. Neither fate appealed to him. Of course, there now also existed the possibility of being pecked to death by a rampaging metal avian.
Another jolt sent him head first over the bird's flank, and he only stopped himself tumbling into the empty air by grabbing a feathered ridge. While his heart raced and fear turned his insides to ice, the world wheeled around below, a great, flat dish waiting to catch him.
Wind ripped at his clothes and gleefully tried to dislodge him. Desperately trying to think of a way out of his predicament, he saw the great talons of the metal bird a few feet below him. They were clutching the Gallian crewman. His uniform was scorched, his eyes were closed. Aubrey couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.
Aubrey's collar jerked and, for an awful instant, he thought he was about to fall. He looked up to see George grimacing and holding onto his jacket. With his friend's timely help, Aubrey managed to clamber up until he was again flat on the back of the bird, panting with exertion and exhilaration at his rescue. His fingers ached from clinging to his handholds, but he was alive!
He put his mouth close to George's ear. 'The Gallian! The bird has him! He's safe!'
'Like we are?' George shouted. Aubrey waved a hand. Safety, he now realised, was a relative thing.
Blinding white light peeled the sky apart and the metal bird was flung across the heavens. Its wings flapped in wild, jerky sweeps. Aubrey, blinked, dazzled and deafened, alarmed at the smell of hot metal and ozone. Through black spots that wandered in his vision, he looked over his shoulder to see that half the bird's tail was missing – melted, with black charred streaks.
It had been struck by lightning.
The creature almost tumbled, then righted itself and began a descent that was a combination of vertigoinducing drops and a controlled tight spiral. Aubrey peered over the side. The flames of the still-descending dirigible reflected in the ponds of the sewage treatment works bordering the airfield.
Their descent continued to slow. Aubrey cheered on the plucky bird, but the rasping tickle that signalled the presence of magic made him alert. The feathers beneath his fingers rippled and flowed, rearranging themselves, shifting shape. The creature heaved, plunging a little, then Aubrey was in the battered cabin of the ornithopter again. The windscreen was cracked and the smell of scorched metal was thick in the enclosed space. Aubrey had time to see that George was next to him and that the unconscious Gallian airman was in the seat behind. George was hastily strapping on his seat belt and Aubrey managed to do the same before the ornithopter splashed into the sewage works.
Aubrey was thrown forward and hit his head on the steering column. He jerked back, half-stunned, as water cascaded on the cabin roof. He gasped for air and was rewarded by the rich fragrance of the settling ponds. Through the window he saw, in the distance, the tattered remains of the dirigible sinking with relative dignity into the swampy morass. A cloud of steam and smoke rose to the heavens.
A dense, ponderous feeling settled on Aubrey's shoulders, making them sag. It took him some time to identify it as relief. Then he spent a moment wondering about the flawed spell, and how he could have made the ornithopter's change last longer, but he gave up, pleased that such a quickly cobbled-together effort had worked at all.
George coughed and cleared his throat. 'Good landing.'
'What?'
'WingCo Jeffries said any landing you walk away from is a good landing.' George peered out of the window. 'Or in our case, swim away from.'
'Oh.'
The ornithopter wobbled, slipped, paused and then began to sink.
Aubrey shrugged. Just when things couldn't get any worse, they did. He glanced over his shoulder to see that the Gallian was still unconscious, but breathing. He was sprawled across the back seats like a rag doll.
Aubrey rubbed his forehead. He felt weary to the bone. The magical exertion had drained him and he knew he'd pay for it later. 'You know, George, I was just wondering why you jumped into the ornithopter with me. What were you going to do? You don't know the first thing about flying.'
'Just habit, old man. You go off on a hare-brained expedition, I tag along to try to stop you from killing yourself. Or, at least, to minimise the damage to innocent bystanders. It's a hobby, I suppose.'
'Couldn't you have taken up stamp collecting?'