Dardash nodded. “All of Bhitsala will see their king up there in the sky, far beyond the reach of ordinary men, and when he falls to his death—who but the gods could be responsible? Even Marcurades cannot aspire to the status of a deity and hope to go unpunished.”
“I bow to you, Dardash,” Urtarra said. “You have earned my undying gratitude.”
“Keep it,” Dardash said coldly. “I’m doing a specified job for a specified fee—and there is no more to it than that.”
The days that followed required him to make a number of carefully-weighed decisions. On the one hand, he did not want to spend much time in the palace workshops for fear of becoming associated with the flying machine in people’s minds, and thus attracting some blame for the final disaster; on the other hand, he needed to see what was happening so that he could work the appropriate magic. There was a plentiful supply of mana in the vicinity of Bhitsala—he could sense it in his enhanced youthful-ness and vigour—but he had no wish to waste it with an ill-conceived spell. If mana was again returning to the world at large, perhaps sifting down from the stars, it behoved him to conserve it, especially as he aspired to live as a magician for a very long time, perhaps forever.
He was intrigued to see that Marcurades had divided the work of building his flying machine into two entirely separate parts. One team of carpenters was concerned with fashioning four wings of the lightest possible construction. The frameworks over which silk was to be stretched were so flimsy that strong cords had been used instead of wood in places where the members they joined always tended to move apart. Nevertheless, Dardash noted, the resulting structures were surprisingly stiff and his respect for Marcurades’ capabilities increased, although he knew that all the work of the artisans was futile.
The king had exercised even more ingenuity in the device which was intended to spin the wings. At its heart was a large, well-reinforced copper container beneath which was a miniature furnace. The latter incorporated a bellows and was fired by coals and pitch. The invisible force which springs from boiling water travelled vertically upwards through a rigid pipe at the top of which was a slip ring. Four lesser pipes, all bent in the same direction, projected horizontally from the ring in the form of a swastika. When the furnace was lit the steam expelled from the end of the pipes caused the swastika to rotate at a considerable speed, and by decreasing pressure losses and improving lubrication and balance Marcurades was making it go faster every day.
Dardash watched the work without comment. He knew from his reading, and a certain amount of experimentation, that all should come to naught when the wings were attached to the pipes of the swastika. For no reason he could explain, the faster that wing-shaped objects travelled the more difficult they became to urge forward, and the resistance increased much more rapidly than one would have expected. Under normal conditions Marcurades’ machine would have been able to produce no more than a feeble and faltering rotation of the wings, far short of the speed needed to create the inexplicable lightness required for flight, but the circumstances were far from normal.
Dardash prepared a simple kinetic sorcery and directed its power into the four newly-completed wings, altering their unseen physical nature in such a way that the faster they moved the less effort it took to increase their speed even further. He prudently remained in a distant part of the palace when Marcurades assembled his machine for the first time, but he knew precisely when the first test was carried out. An ornate ring he wore on his left hand began to vibrate slightly, letting him know that a certain amount of mana was being used up—the wings of the flying machine were spinning in a satisfactory manner.
Dardash visualised the hissing contraption beginning to stir and shiver, to exhibit the desire to leave the ground, and he strained his ears for evidence of one possible consequence. He knew that the king was reckless when in the grip of an enthusiasm, and if he were foolhardy enough to go aloft in the machine in its present form he would almost certainly be killed, and Dardash would be able to claim his reward earlier than planned. There came no cries of alarm, however, and he deduced that Marcurades had foreseen the need to control the machine once it soared up from the still air of the courtyard and into the turbulent breezes that forever danced above the cliffs.
I can wait, he thought, nodding his appreciation of the young king’s engineering talent. What are a few more days when measured against eternity?
The news that the king had constructed a machine with which he intended to fly into the heavens spread through Bhitsala and the surrounding regions of Koldana in a very short time. There was to be no public ceremony connected with the first flight—indeed Marcurades was too engrossed in his new activity even to be aware of his subjects’ feverish interest in it—but as stories spread further and became more lurid there was a general drift of population towards Bhitsala.
The city filled with travellers who had come to see the ruler borne aloft on the back of a mechanical dragon, eagle or bat, depending on which variation of the rumour they had encountered. Bhitsala’s lodging houses and taverns experienced a profitable upsurge of trade and the atmosphere of excitement and celebration intensified daily, with runners coming down from the palace at frequent intervals to barter the latest scraps of information. People going about their routine business kept glancing up towards the white-columned royal residence, and such was the pitch of expectancy that every time a flock of seabirds rose from the cliffs an audible ripple of near-hysteria sped through the streets.
Dardash, while keeping himself closely informed of Marcurades’ progress, made a show of being disinterested almost to the point of aloofness. He spent much of his time on the balcony of Urtarra’s apartment, ostensibly engaged in astrological work, but in fact keeping watch on the western ramparts of the palace, behind which the flying machine was receiving finishing touches. During this period of idleness and waiting he would have appreciated the company of Nirrineen, but she had taken to associating a great deal with certain of the courtesans who attended the king. Urtarra had expressed the opinion that her absence was all to the good, as it meant she had less chance to become an embarrassment and Dardash had voiced his agreement. But he waxed more moody and surly, and ever more impatient, and as he scanned the foreshortened silhouette of the palace his eyes seemed, occasionally, to betray his true age.
“And not before time,” was his sole comment when Urtarra arrived one day, in the trembling purple heat of noon, with the intelligence that Marcurades was on the point of making a trial flight. Dardash had already known that a significant event was about to occur, because the sensor ring on his left hand had been vibrating strongly for some time—evidence that the machine’s wings were rotating at speed. He had also seen and heard the growing excitement in the city below. The population of Bhitsala appeared to have migrated like so many birds to rooftops and high window ledges, any place from which they could get a good view of the forthcoming miracle.
“This is a wonderful thing you are doing for the people of Koldana,” Urtarra said as they stood together on the balcony, with the blue curvatures of the bay stretching away beneath them. His voice was low and earnest, as though he had begun to suffer last-minute doubts and was trying to drive them away.
“Just have my payment ready,” Dardash said, giving him a disdainful glance.
“You have no need to worry on that …” Urtarra’s speech faltered as the air was disturbed by a strange sound, a powerful and sustained fluttering which seemed to resonate inside the chest.
A moment later the king’s flying machine lifted itself into view above the palace’s western extremity.