faded clothing, and mouse nests. Nothing to covet, so far, but the rumors said that a large room had an outside door He found it. In a room like a boathouse, wide and airy, there hung from the rafters gliders like giant butterflies. They were fashioned from welded tubes of some mystery metal he couldn't identify. For once, there was little ornate about them, only the mildest curves and filigree imparted to the pipes and joints. Each glider had three sets of wings: one forward of where a person could sit, another high over the seat, and the third in the rear. The seats were baskets of woven cane. Two seats, usually, though one model sported nine seats with the pilot in front. Flitters, people called them, or gliders, or wind-riders. There had been a craze for soaring years ago, he'd been told, and every household had boasted one or two down at the docks. But careless, drunken flying sent too many crashing a mile to the ground, shields and levitation spells notwithstanding. And the thrill crazy Netherese grew bored quickly. The only flying they did now was on gold plated dragons, enchanted discs, and giant birds, to hunt humans to death.
Candlemas scratched the itchy spot on the back of his head. Now what in the name of Selune would power them? A simple flight spell? Could he remember one…?
Sunbright whirled, poised at the edge of the roof, and kicked viciously. The guard dog yelped and tumbled backward onto the lower roof, bowling its handler back too.
The barbarian ducked a crossbow bolt and dashed across the low roof to where Knucklebones perched behind a chimney. Sunbright peeked and saw guards' helmets shining in the morning sun, just below the rampart.
'We've got the advantage,' he puffed. 'They're just doing a job for money. We're fleeing for our lives.'
'Not much farther, we aren't,' gasped Knucklebones. She studied the next wall, gazed at the roof. 'Those are slates up there. Slippery. I've got a traction cantra, but you-why did your friend insist we get up high?'
'Don't know.'
Crouched behind the chimney, Sunbright honed nicks from his sword blade while he waited for the guards to rush. 'What are they waiting for?'
'Reinforcements. A dozen slingers and archers will fix their problem, which is us.'
Sunbright nodded gloomily. Fatigue was catching up with him, too. He couldn't remember when he'd slept properly, what with nonstop threats and apocalyptic dreams. He heard dogs growling and snapping, hot to kill something, then shouts of joy as reinforcements arrived.
He tightened his sweaty grip on Harvester. For only the second time in his life, his sword dragged in his hands. The other time had been in hell, where he might return any moment.
'What's that?' Knucklebones whispered as she peered at the roof behind him.
'What's what?'
Sunbright only heard barking.
'That whirring noise…'
Even the guards heard it now. Dogs whined. Sunbright glanced up and saw a giant dragonfly flutter over the roof. Trapped inside it, as if half digested, was a bald, pudgy man.
'Candlemas?'
'Come on!' the thief called.
Energized, Knucklebones scrambled for a handhold, vaulted up to the slate roof, and over. Cursing, but curious, Sunbright bounded after her, slipping and sliding in his worn moosehide boots. He rolled over a section of coping and found himself on a flat, black roof warmed by the morning sun.
The giant insect had released Candlemas, Sunbright saw. Vomited him out as too fat, perhaps. The mage was waving them on, calling out, 'Hurry up!'
To Sunbright's wonder, Knucklebones hopped into a wicker seat in the beast's belly. Candlemas began shoving the barbarian, who asked, 'What are you doing?'
'Get in!' Candlemas ordered, 'I'll see you off!'
'Off what? In what?'
'Shades of Shar, it's a flying machine! Like those golden winged things the Huntsmen use. Get in!'
'What?' the barbarian asked incredulously. 'Where are we going?' Sunbright had planted his feet like a mule, and Candlemas couldn't budge him.
'You're going to fly to the surface. It's what you-'
'Fly?'
Candlemas grunted as he shoved. In her seat, Knucklebones fiddled with two sticks that tilted the wings in two directions.
'It's what you wanted!'
'But… I thought…' Sunbright was speechless. 'I thought you'd just… wiggle your fingers and shift us! Like you did back at Castle Delia.'
'Have you got bugs in your brain? The whole enclave is warded against casual magic. You think they'd let people just shift in and shift out when everyone's terrified of assassination? You'd have to go through a transgate, and that's not possible! So, get-in!'
With the mage pushing and the thief pulling, somehow they got tall Sunbright folded into the seat. Candlemas began to shove the machine off the roof. Slowly it picked up speed, sliding on thin metal runners.
'I changed my mind!' Sunbright wailed.
'Too late! Good luck! Just steer the… whatever-they're-called and you'll spiral down like a maple seed!'
The barbarian tried to climb out, but Knucklebones clung to his vest.
'I'll take my chances with the dogs!' Sunbright screamed.
'What dogs?' Candlemas asked, then, 'Aiieee!'
A pack of slavering guard dogs had bounded another way and been loosed onto the flat roof. Howling, barking, growling, they dived for the two refugees in the glider. Candlemas had fallen on his face, and it was just as well, for a dozen dogs trampled over his back in a frenzy.
Sunbright reared back, crashed on his bottom in the wicker seat, knocking the flying machine so it tilted, then fell off the roof.
Everyone screamed at once, including a dog that had leaped into Sunbright's face. Knucklebones hauled back frantically on both sticks while Sunbright grappled the savage biting, kicking dog. With a tangled kick, he booted the animal straight up into the air.
A rattling glassy tingle sounded as the upper middle set of wings crumpled. The dog tumbled free to crash in the bushes of a garden below. The glider kept falling, soaring outward, skimming treetops, scraping a rocky slope.
Then it sailed off the edge of the floating mountain that was the Karsus enclave and soared into the free, naked, untrammeled air.
Sunbright screamed all the way down.
Chapter 14
The barbarian couldn't see, but he could feel them dropping like a shot duck. He'd tumbled backward onto his rump into the woven seat, so his huge boots stuck out of the side of the tiny vehicle, almost as high as the crumpled wings. He was screaming that he didn't want to fly.
Knucklebones was shouting too. 'Turn around, you idiot! Lean out there and grab that wing!'
'Lean out?'
Sunbright could barely hear her for the rush of air. The flitter hummed like a bowstring in the punishing wind. But it wobbled, too, and waffled and sideslipped and spun and shuddered. They were falling, as Candlemas had said, in a spiral, like a maple seed, but the tubes and struts and flimsy wings vibrated so badly
Sunbright's teeth clattered. Or perhaps that was fear.
'The damned wings got crumpled!' the thief shrilled. 'Grab them before they break off and we fall!'
'We are falling!'
Sunbright scrambled to drag his boots in and get his rump in the seat rather than his shoulders. But the wild bucking made the task as difficult as mounting a running horse.
