Chapter 39
Dressed in cold weather gear and fresh leathers, we waited patiently on the parade ground as the Klese Rangers were given instructions and they in turn, checked their birds. One coached Blackfin on his bird’s use and only then did I realize he was going to fly them across without their pilots. The Klese protested but a sharp word from Blackfin settled the issue. He used a Valesch word that carried the weight of noble authority from Connacher and the rumbling ceased.
He told me to mount my own bird and it leapt into the air from a running walk just as he settled his rump in his own saddle. Neither of us spoke. I was sore, tired and hungry. He looked – preoccupied yet not enough to distract him from flying. We skimmed low over the harbor and followed a fleet of departing ships out to sea. I watched the coastline in interest for I was seeing it in a way no Newlander or Oldlander had ever seen it before. From a bird’s eye view, the ships and the harbor were impressive. The city of Albans itself was magnificent with its high-rise buildings, old-world style architecture and the sheer size of it. The governor’s mansion on the edge of town was the largest building that I recognized.
I wondered idly what they thought of us – if they thought us just overly large hawks or realized the condorlas were ridden by men. We didn’t remain in their view for long; we were soon out over the vast expanse of open water. It stretched out like a hundred-year-old manicured lawn broken only by an occasional ripple of whitewater. No shorebirds and no islands to break up the monotony. I aimed my bird close to Blackfin but underneath his, so that our wings could not hit his bird by mistake and send us both tumbling into the water.
“How do we find our way?” I asked meekly, a faint curiosity overpowering my fear of angering him.
“We follow a spell that I activated before I left. That is the errand I went on,” he answered briefly. “The birds know the way.” He spoke no more but concentrated on keeping the birds flying east. The sun came up and burned off the haze that marked the sky low on the horizon it yet did little to warm the air. I knew we were high by the diminutive size of the waves and the occasional leaping whales that I spotted. Then, there were the giant icebergs that drifted slowly below us, children spawned off the great Caladienne Glacier to the west.
I was curious whether the old lands of Ehrenberg had glaciers. From my memories I gleaned a history lesson on the topography – the famous Aahran Mountains were said to touch the sky and were always snow-covered, never been successfully climbed although many had perished trying.
The birds seemed to be tireless especially when they climbed into the clouds and caught the thermals. Like regular condorlas, they could soar on the hot air drafts for hours only occasionally flapping their wings. Sometimes, my bird led and then would fall back to allow Blackfin’s to lead. In this way, one bird broke the wind resistance for the other and let it rest ‘on the wing’.
I wasn’t sure, if he was going to fly across in one go or whether there was a stopping point somewhere. Since I had been born in Caladia and never been east to my grandfather’s, I had no idea what the Great Sea looked like. I knew it took two months to cross by schooner but had no clue how far these birds could travel in one day. I asked the wizard and he answered which surprised me.
“We will stop to rest on an island near the center of the expanse. It is called Arrigo and it is uninhabited as there is no freshwater save for what falls as rain. There is, however food – fruits and fish, lizards and turtles that abound in the waters around the island. Ships often stop there to provision for the lemons and limes.”
“Master, will you remove the collar?” I asked timidly. “I swear I will always obey you. I only want to please you.”
“You want a cessation of pain,” he sneered. “Without the threat of it, you would not obey me.”
“No, master. That is not true,” I protested.
“Tobias, do not argue with me. I already know that your friends tried to remove the chain and the collar,” he snapped. “I told you what would happen if you tried to escape.”
“Did you kill them, master? I begged them both to let me be, that only you could remove my bonds.”
“They died screaming, Tobias,” he said cruelly. “I used the acid from your chains to eat holes through his belly and ribs until he resembled Swiss cheese. We counted – he took only fourteen eyedroppers before he died.”
“He?”
“The Viscount Armitage. The doctor, I made him drink it. Do you know it burned its way right through his asshole?” I shuddered and my fear made him smile. “When you are afraid of me, Tobias is when I find you the most attractive.”
“Master, you terrify me,” I returned frankly, as my bird flew on the miles underneath us accumulating. Occasionally, the clouds broke but the only thing I could see were icebergs on the far-off horizon. I was grateful for the heavy winter coat as the air was thin, chilly and especially damp in the clouds.
Funny, from the ground they appeared to be solid, substantial structures yet inside they were no more than wisps of vapor. There were no cities built among the clouds, those were dreams of my imagination.