Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

Shaa had once described to him the results of a rare necropsy on one of the giant birds. Although Shaa had not actually been present for the event but had instead heard the story from a medical acquaintance, he had illuminated the scene as though he had been the one manning the saw, mentioning the hydrogen-filled buoyancy spaces in the hollow bones, tendons with the tensile strength of old-world bridge cables, and a supercharger affair on the high-efficiency heart. Max had nodded sagely at the last point; he was the only one of them who seemed to have the slightest clue of what a supercharger actually might be, but typically enough he hadn’t been talking. Sinking into his reverie, which had looked to be a clear sight more comfortable than his current situation, Karlini’s innards suddenly all leapt at once toward his left shoulder, revolved around his chest until they were plastered against his right side, and then caromed smartly off his backbone. “Blech,” said Karlini.

“Grouse you not,” Haddo snapped.

“You can’t tell me you actually enjoy this?” asked Karlini. “Can you?”

“Not to enjoy for me is,” said Haddo. “Is for me only command of Karlini. ‘Fly bird’ is of Karlini the word, and of Karlini are both the servants, I and bird both, so choice have we what?” The bird might indeed have been listening: no one who might legitimately know had been willing to say how smart the birds really were. It executed a particularly vicious side-slip, nosed over, and launched itself in a tight spiral toward the ground. Haddo squawked at the bird and hauled on the reins; the bird hollered back and reluctantly flattened out into a long glide, and then a slow smooth climb. “‘Always with bird is Haddo,” he continued. “Did sign up not to manager of aviary be. Not -”

“Not is in your contract, yes, Haddo, I know,” said Karlini with half a mind, “and I assure you we all appreciate the sacrifice you’re making.”

“Also not job is to run of operation air the freight,” Haddo added, but that was just his mouth slowing from its momentum, Karlini figured; Haddo knew he’d made his point. For only the first time in over half an hour.

“Quite an outstanding job you’re doing with the bird, too,” Karlini commented. “I don’t know where you’ve been keeping it, but I hadn’t seen it around since before we left Roosing Oolvaya. Was it out foraging? How did it know when to show up?”

“Arrangement have we.” The bird whooped once in agreement.

Karlini cracked one eye cautiously open and looked around. Their altitude still let them look down across the broken-mirror glitter of the moonlit Oolvaan off to the left, snaking back and forth in its sullen meanderings and gradually spilling open on both banks as it entered its delta out toward the horizon far ahead. Much closer, though, the urban center of Oolsmouth was clearly apparent. The bird banked right again and began to lose altitude, at a much more civilized rate this time.

Haddo and the bird had obviously worked out a deal that gave the bird a certain amount of autonomy over its own schedule; frankly, Karlini figured that was just as well, since the problem of where to house the bird otherwise never seemed to go away. As it was, letting the bird hang out on its own avoided a lot of hassles, especially since the bird seemed willing enough to make itself available when needed. If you could reliably reason from the scant evidence, it would appear that the bird liked its job with Karlini much more than its old one, working for the Death who’d ended up in the ring, and was willing to compromise to keep its employers happy. “Do you think you’ve got enough of a rapport with this thing,” Karlini said in a low voice, “that it’ll let you know in advance before it decides to take its leave of absence to visit the ancestral breeding grounds?”

“It better,” Haddo said, “if knows for itself good what is.”

Well, what more could you want from a bird, anyway ? Karlini thought. Their decision to use the bird to ferry him to Oolsmouth had been reached early enough in the day that Karlini had actually had enough time to force himself to skip two meals. As a result, his visceral warfare hadn’t taken the same toll on his stomach that it otherwise would certainly have done; in fact, he’d even managed to keep himself from retching outright. That was something to be thankful for, sure enough. The bird was willing to drag them around, but it did this under some sufferance, and Karlini didn’t want to test its level of forbearance by throwing up all over its pinfeathers. He kept his teeth firmly gritted as they dropped lower; then, all at once, the landscape below was no longer an abstract picture disconnected from them, but an expanse of rushing trees almost close enough to touch, their crowns and branches monochromatic under the white-splashed moon.

Actually, they weren’t really close enough to touch, not yet, but the bird was coming in steadily as Haddo looked for a space big enough to use for a landing-strip. A road ran through the trees – surely it was too narrow? … yes, Haddo had let it pass. The trees abruptly ended in a neat line and yielded to fields, the torchlit sprawl of Oolsmouth conspicuous on the left. The ground skimmed past, they hopped a fence, and then the bird reared up, stalled, and settled gently with a fluff of wings.

“Whoof!” said Karlini, letting himself slide to the ground. One foot landed on soil, but the other leg embedded itself in a brambly shrub. Certainly that wasn’t the only plant around? No, the entire field was filled with even rows of them. He disentangled his foot, glad that he’d worn his heavy pants for the ride on the bird-saddle … but now his entire leg was covered by bits of fluffy white, almost glowing in the moonlight. They’d landed in a cotton field.

Haddo had tossed down Karlini’s pack. Karlini hefted it and turned back to the bird to have a final word with him before his departure, but the pilot seat was empty. “Come,” hissed Haddo. His glowing eyes were already some distance down the row of cotton plants.

Karlini weaved toward him. Just as he reached Haddo, he heard a flap and a whuff behind him, and a gust of air blew against his back. He turned around just in time to see the bird take a final step off the ground and soar off over the field, flap its wings again, and fade gracefully into the night. “I thought you were just dropping me off,” said Karlini,

“Thought apparently you wrong.” Haddo turned and headed purposefully across the field.

Now, wait a minute , Karlini thought. The plan was for him to sneak into Oolsmouth, try to find out exactly what was happening with Groot, and with luck resolve the situation - but what did Haddo intend to do? Karlini caught up with him. “Where do you think you’re going?” Karlini said. “You’re not just doing this to go shopping, are you?”

“Business have you. Business have I, too,” Haddo told him mysteriously but in a tone of definite purpose; a tone that made it sound like Haddo knew more about what he wanted to accomplish and how he intended to do it than Karlini did himself.

Maybe I should try to talk him into taking me along on his errand first, Karlini thought.

“Coming you are?” Haddo said impatiently.

Karlini got himself moving again and trailed Haddo to the edge of the field and over a split-log fence onto a dirt road. Without the merest hesitation, Haddo turned left and scuttled off down the lane with the air of a being who knew exactly where he was going and what he was about.

For some time, Karlini’s curiosity about Haddo had been growing. If he watched closely, this might be a useful opportunity to find out something worthwhile. Haddo’s recalcitrance and cryptic nature easily outpaced even Max’s level of cussedness, though. The fact that he was not only letting Karlini accompany him on his “business” without being harangued for half-a-week first, or being wheedled into it, but had out-and-out told Karlini to hurry along with him, was enough to give even a normally impetuous person pause. Karlini didn’t think of himself as impetuous in the least but really rather more the stay-at-home type, so the situation was all the more glaring in its stark contrast to their usual routine.