Wings Over Talera

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

COMING HOME

Where before it had been dark, it now was light, the sharp-edged light of the Taleran dawn. I stepped down from the stone upon which I stood, and behind me a whisper died as a door into void closed. The prickling on my skin was gone as well. I was wholly of this world now, wholly of Talera. I breathed deeply, mouth open to taste the sweetness in the chill morning. The first sound of home that I heard was the wakening cry of the kryshawk, the second, the soft crunch of snow beneath a shifting boot.

Four figures stood before me, hooded and cloaked against the cold. All were human, though one bore the yellow eyes and green skin of a Llurn, of that people who call themselves Nakscherii. One was bearded; one was tall; one was broad; one was a woman. It was the last that I watched.

Rannon Jystral came forward across the snow and put herself into my arms. I held her tightly for a moment before kissing her. Valyan Tiersal—the Llurn—joined us, coming up to place a firm hand on my shoulder. I smiled at him as I clasped Rannon’s slender form. The broad figure was Kreeg, once a gladiator, a rahnvin slave of the Klar. He nodded, shaved head bobbing once on a bull neck, but did not speak. His presence said enough.

The last of the four, with a face heavy and bearded, was a man named Tovaris. It was he who had opened the gate between Earth and Talera. From the stone wheel where I had stood he took up the toir’in-or, the milky jewel that held the power of the sphere gates inside it. He then turned and left the rest of us alone.

“Heril?” I asked, somewhat worried. I had expected the Koro warrior, perhaps my closest friend on Talera, to be here.

“His father,” Valyan replied, knowing my unspoken concerns.

“I am sorry,” I said.

“Heril swore he would return when matters were settled. That may not be soon, though. The Rolvfsherns are an important family among the Koro. His father was a leader among them.”

“If word can be sent then I would like to send it,” I said.

“I will see it done,” Rannon said. “Our ships trade with Korosphal regularly now.”

“And my brother?” I asked. “Bryce?”

“Nothing has been heard,” Rannon answered. “But the word is spread and many are searching. For your cousin, Eric, as well. Or any sign of others from your Earth.”

“Good,” I said.

“And now we drink, yes?” Kreeg asked.

“And now we drink,” I agreed.

It was only a short walk to the hunting lodge of Hurnan Jystral, father of Rannon and Emperor of Nyshphal. Other friends awaited us there, and for refreshments there were wines of Thresh and the Starkayan Islands, cheeses and meats from Pangala and northern Nyshphal, and—as always—rich verhlis tea by the flagon.

I drank and ate heartily. It seemed long that I had been away from decent food after the processed chicken and processed beef of the new Earth. It was good to bite into a terval steak and feel the juices bursting ripe into the mouth. It was good to have wine in brass goblets. And after the food there was good talk of many things, with Rannon always there beside me.

In the evening I forced my muscles to recall the sword while fencing with Valyan. After that I slept, as if that, too, I had been long without. I awoke refreshed in the very early morning, well before the dawn, and dressed myself in the clothes of two worlds. I pulled on the jeans I’d worn from Earth, and gray wool socks that were covered with soft boots of stugah hide. I slid on a shirt of green Starkayan silk that lay open at the throat, and tucked it into the jeans.

A heavy belt of Taleran make went around my waist, and stitched to it were the heavy steel hooks upon which I hung my scabbarded sword, the same sword I’d left behind on Talera so many days before. I drew the blade out and held it to the ceiling where the glassine light of the night lanterns burst along it. The glistening died when again the sword was sheathed.

It was early enough so that only the cook was awake, and he busy at laying a fire for the heating of the morning tea. I nodded to him and went out, striding through the chill and the low drifts of snow that lay on the ground. The sky was graying.

About a hundred tahng from the door of the lodge there ran a majestic gorge through which the morning mists flowed like rivers. I leaned against a boulder there and watched those mists. Dawn birds were just beginning to hunt, wheeling about me in search of early rising insects. There was little wind.

I was still there half a dhaur* later when Rannon came up and took my hand. She was dressed in trousers of tanned leather, rust-colored boots, and a white silk shirt beneath a brocaded vest of yellow and green. I loved the heart shape of her face, and the brilliant violet-blue of her eyes against her dark hair, and the clean scent of her skin. The two of us stood quietly for a time, feeling comfortable there together, and at last I turned to her as if to speak. She hushed me with a hand over my mouth.

[* The common Taleran measures of distance and time are: Distance—1 Heka = 9.18 in.; 4 Hekas is 1 Tahng = 1.02 yards; 2500 Tahngs is 1 Verlang = 1.449 miles. Time—1 Shri = 2.34 sec.; 100 Shri is 1 Dhaurin = 3.9 min.; 20 Dhaurin is 1 Dhaur = 78 min.—Ruenn Maclang.]

“Wait a bit,” she whispered.

A moment later the rising sun touched the great atmospheric shield that envelops Talera, and jade and purple streamers of light burst outward like wagon spokes from a central rotating core of gold. The display lasted only seconds and was gone. It is called the dawn lights by most cultures and occurs only in northern areas. Rannon had told me of them before, and of the belief in some religions that the lights are a sign of the sky menstruating. Knowing of them was not the same as seeing them, however. I stood in awe of their beauty.

Even after nearly two years on Talera, it was still hard for me to believe that this was an artificial world condensed from the heart of a gas-giant planet. The advanced race who built it—the Asadhie—may have been cruel, but they were skilled at creation.

The atmospheric shield that surrounds the planet protects the living world from the poisonous gases above. And somehow the sun and moons have been placed inside that shield, though I suspect some kind of optical illusion gives those orbs the appearance of rising and setting naturally. Rumors have it that Taleran adventurers have even tried to reach the moons aboard powerful flyers. There are some who claim to have succeeded, though I do not know the truth of such tales.

Only with the ending of the dawn display did Rannon turn and kiss me. She told me that she loved me, and I said the same as I gave her the present I had brought her from Earth. She gasped in surprise, then clapped her hands and laughed as she kissed me again.

She thought it only a clever necklace at first, till I showed her how the hands moved and what they represented. That left her even more enthralled. Hers was the only watch on Talera, though there are timekeeping devices such as sundials and water clocks. I’d had the devil’s own time persuading a watchmaker on Earth to make me a chronometer that measured twenty, extra long hours instead of the usual twenty-four. It was worth it to see Rannon smile.

Soon, we heard the cook shout for breakfast and went in to eat among friends. After that we loaded our gear aboard Rannon’s airship for a trip to the south, to Timmuzz, the capital of Nyshphal and Rannon’s home. The ship we boarded was called the Aestor, named for a quicksilver little beast that haunts high mountain valleys. The Aestor is winged and fox-like, arctic colored. It hunts dangerous prey and its name seemed aptly applied to the swift and white ship of Rannon Jystral.

The airships of Talera are not like the airplanes of Earth. They are slower for one thing, and open to the sky—more like a sea going yacht than a pressurized jet. Their power source comes from the same toir’in-or stones that opened the world gate—the sphere gate—for me. These are mind-amplifying crystals that can be used by adepts to work “sorcery,” and by the pilot caste of Talera to guide airships of inanimate wood and metal. Smaller craft, like the Aestor, get both lift and drive from crystalline wands that have been charged from a toir’in-or and attached to rotors that run propellers. Larger ships get only lift and must use sails to move their bulk through the air. Both types of craft need pilots to initiate and manipulate the wands’ energy flow, however

The open nature of Taleran airships invites attack and most all are armed. Rannon’s ship was no exception. At fore and aft were ballista that could hurl four pound arrows upwards of four hundred yards. Amidships was a trebuchet for throwing stones. Also aboard were two dozen gray-cloaked guards of the Princess’s Own Elite, among them the massively thewed figure of Rhandh the Vlih.

Rhandh and I had fought side by side in the lava mines of the Klar and I knew him as a professional, worth as much on his own as any dozen other guards. With steel strapped to both his prehensile tail and to the glistening dark tentacles that writhed below his arms, Rhandh made a formidable opponent. I regretted that I could not count him a great friend of mine, as I did Heril and Valyan, but we did share a mutual respect, not least of which came from our love of Rannon.

It was Rhandh’s love for Rannon, for his Jhesana, that kept him by us as we lifted into the blue-white Taleran sky and turned our prow to the south. It was love that kept his huge, dark fist on a sword. And I believe that it was love that sent him away from us when Rannon moved closer under my arm and lifted her face to be kissed.

So much time had passed since we’d seen each other that I wanted the kissing to last forever. But Rannon was too excited by something she had to show me on the way to Timmuzz. As it turned out, I was not to find out that day what she meant. For even as the torpedo shape of the Aestor cut swiftly through the wind, our enemies stalked upon us. And even as I stood there with Rannon and felt a moment of incredible peace, I should have known better. This was, after all, Talera.

Ten verlangs north of the capital, nearly a mile above a river called the Shauval, the reivers struck from out of the sun’s glare.