Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

Which he prayed would not occur soon. His men needed time to rest and repair themselves; and he hoped also for additional troops to join his cause. Encouraging messages had reached him from Alaisor on the western coast, which was the port through which the family of Muldemar shipped its wine to Zimroel, and where he had many close connections both of business and of family: the leading folk of Alaisor, he was told, favored the rebel cause over Korsibar’s, and were raising an army to fight for him. Good news came from elsewhere in western Alhanroel too: all up and down the coast, in Steenorp and Kikil, in Klai, in Kimoise, in other cities too, people were debating the merits of the two claimants to the throne and more and more of them were giving the nod to Prestimion, for they had had time now to consider the means by which Korsibar had come to be Coronal, and that did not sit well with them.

All this was fine indeed; but those cities of the western provinces were very far away, and the armies of Mandrykarn and Farholt and Navigorn were close behind. What Prestimion needed now to do was head swiftly to the north and west, to the land of his supporters along the coast, and make rendezvous with them before the enemies to his rear could fall upon him and bring an end to his whole rebellion. Withal possible haste, then, he took himself upward and outward across the continent, moving farther away from Castle Mount, and the throne he desired, with every passing day.

They were approaching the valley of the River Iyann, which flowed out of the north country and made a westward turn here that took itto the sea at Alaisor, when Duke Svor came to Prestimion and said, “I have found certain persons who can do some useful scouting on our behalf, I think. They claim to have learned certain information already that may be valuable for us to know about.”

“Do we have some shortage of scouts, Svor, that we need to hire strangers?”

“We have none like these,” Svor said. And beckoned forward a bony-faced man of extraordinary height, at least a head taller than any man in the camp, but so lean and long-limbed that he seemed as frail as a wand that could be snapped in two by a good heavy shove. His hair was very dark and cropped short, and his aspect was a dark one too, swarthy skin almost like Svor’s own, and a coarse thick beard blackening his heavy-jawed face. He gave his name as Gornoth Gehayn and said he was a man of the nearby town of Thaipnir on the tributary river of the same name. Behind him stood three more men almost identical to him in their great height and gauntness and dark aspects, but they seemed no more than half his age; and behind them was a long cart drawn by a pair of mounts. Four large square boxes covered by leather shrouds rested on the cart’s bed.

“What is this?” Prestimion asked brusquely, for he was in an uneasy mood and short of patience just then.

“Your lordship,” said Gornoth Gehayn in a thin, high reedy voice, “we be trainers of hieraxes, my sons and I, who make them fly where we will, and ride clinging to their backs. It is a secret art private to our family, which we have been a long while in mastering. We go far and wide, and see many strange things.”

“Hieraxes?” Prestimion said, taken aback. “You fly on hieraxes?”

Gornoth Gehayn made a grand sweeping gesture; and one of his sons leaped up on the cart and pulled back the shroud that covered the hindmost box. Which stood revealed as a steel cage that held a huge bird, one with vast gray wings folded over its body like a cloak, and big glittering blue eyes that gleamed outward between the bars of the cage like angry sapphires.

Prestimion caught his breath in surprise. He had seen hieraxes before, on many occasions, when traveling between Castle Mount and the Labyrinth. They were gigantic predatory creatures of the upper air, which glided lazily on the warm atmospheric currents high above the Glayge Valley, scarcely flapping their wings as they coasted from place to place and now and again snapping some unfortunate smaller bird out of the sky with a swift movement of their long beaks. In their way they were graceful and very beautiful, at least aloft, though they seemed nothing more than bony monsters huddled here in their cages. But he had never known a hierax to be taken captive, and the thought of men riding on their backs as though they were tame well-bred mounts was beyond belief.

“These are somewhat different from the hieraxes of the east,” Gornoth Gehayn explained as his son raised the portcullis of the bird’s great cage. “These are the black-bellied ones of the Iyann region, which are bigger and much stronger than the pink ones of the Glayge, and so intelligent that they can be trained to obey. We take their eggs from the nest, and raise them and train them to our will, all for the pleasure of going aloft. Shall I demonstrate, my lord?”

“Go on.”

At a cue from Gornoth Gehayn’s son, the huge bird came waddling awkwardly from its cage. It seemed barely to know how to unfurl the enormous wings that were wrapped tight about its body, and its long thin legs were plainly unaccustomed to movement on the ground. But after a moment it got its wings to open, and Prestimion emitted an astonished hiss as he saw those long and arching pinions unfold and unfold and unfold until they were spread out for an unthinkable distance on either side of the bird’s substantial elongated body.

Immediately the son of Gornoth Gehayn, a boy so long and lean and light that he seemed almost to be the bird’s own kin himself, sprang lithely forward and seized the hierax delicately but firmly just at the place where the powerful wings sprouted from the bird’s muscular shoulders, and lay himself down sprawling along its back with his head just beside its own. Then there was a flapping of wings, a wild thumping beating of them on the ground, and after a moment’s seeming struggle the hierax leaped up a short way above the ground, and then two instants later was coursing upward through the air, with Gornoth Gehayn’s son still clinging to it.

It swept strongly higher almost at a straight line, and circled once overhead far above them, and shot off northward with phenomenal speed so that bird and rider soon were lost to view.

Gialaurys, who had joined Prestimion and Svor just as the boy had let the bird from its cage, laughed and said to Gornoth Gehayn, “Will you ever see either of them again? For I think the bird will fly off to the Great Moon with him.”

“There is no danger,” the man replied. “He’s been flying these hieraxes of ours since he was six years old.” Gornoth Gehayn gestured toward the cart and said to Gialaurys, “We have three other birds, my good lord. Would you care to go aloft yourself?”

“Gladly would I, and I thank you for the invitation,” said Gialaurys with a bright gleeful grin that was far from typical of his wintry nature. “But I suspect I might be somewhat too heavy for the creature to bear.” And he tapped his bull-like chest and each of his powerful shoulders. “A smaller man, perhaps, would be better. Such as you, my lord Duke Svor.”

Prestimion joined in also: “Yes, Svor! Go up there, tell us what you see!”

“Some other day, I think,” said Svor. “But look—look—is that the boy returning?” He pointed toward the sky; and indeed it was possible now to see a dark spot high above, which resolved itself against the brightness of the air into the widespread curving wings and long black-feathered body of the hierax; then, as it descended, the son of Gornoth Gehayn could be seen still clinging to the bird’s back. They landed a few moments later, bird and boy, and the boy jumped off, flushed, beaming with pleasure, exhilarated by his flight.

“What have you seen?” his father asked him.