Gene Wolfe - Lake of the Long Sun

Musk was sitting on the battlement, practically hidden by the kite. "Show a little life. I've been waiting for an hour. Are you going to have to run with it?"

"I'll hold the spool," the kite builder said. "Hare can run with it. But it won't fly without a wind."

"There's wind," Musk told him.

The kite builder moistened his forefinger and held it up; there was indeed some slight stir here, fifty cubits above the ground. "Not enough," he said.

"I could feel it," Musk told him. "Feel it trying to go up."

"Naturally it wants to." The kite builder could not and would not conceal his pride in his craft. "Mine all do, but there's not enough wind."

Hare asked, "You want me to tie the rabbit on?"

"Let me see him." Musk, too, lifted the rabbit by its ears, and it squealed in protest. "This is the little one. You putt, you brought the little one."

"I weighed 'em. There's two lighter than this, I swear."

"I ought to drop it off. Maybe I ought to drop you off, too."

"You want me to get them? I'll show them to you. It'll only take a minute."

"What if it gets threshed and goes off? We haven't got any more this little. What'll we use in the morning?" Musk returned the rabbit to Hare.

"Two of them, by Scylla's slime. By any shaggy gods you want to name. I wouldn't lie to you."

"That's not a rabbit, it's a shaggy rat."

A passing breeze ruffled the kite builder's hair, like the fingers of an unseen goddess. He felt that if he were to turn quickly he might glimpse her: Moipe, goddess of the winds and all light things, Moipe, whose suitor he had been all his life. Moipe, make your winds blow for me. Don't shame me, Moipe, who have always honoredyou. A brace of finches for you, I swear.

Musk snapped, "Tie it on," and Hare knelt on the sun-soft tar, whipping the first cord around the unfortunate rabbit and tying it cruelly tight.

"Split along!"

"Cooler. I can't see a shaggy thing I'm doing here. We should've brought a lantern." "So it can't fall out."

Hare rose. "All right. It won't." He took the kite from Musk. "Should I hold it over my head?" The kite builder nodded. He had picked up the reel of wire; now he moistened his finger again. "Want me to run down that way?" "No. Listen to me. You have to run toward me, into the wind-into whatever wind there is, anyway. You're running so that the wind will feel stronger to the kite than it really is. If we're lucky, that false wind will lift it enough to get it up to where the wind really is stronger. Go down that way, all the way to the comer. I'll reel out as you walk down, and reel in as you run back. Any time the kite wants to lift out of your hands, toss it up. If it starts to fall, catch it." "He's from the city," Musk explained. "They don't fly them there."

The kite builder nodded absently, watching Hare.

"Hold it by the feet, as high as you can get it. Don't run until I tell you to."

"It looks real now," Musk said, "but I don't know if it looks real enough. It'll be daylight and sunshine, and they can see a shaggy scut better than we can. Only they don't always know real from fake. They don't think about it like we do."

"All right," the kite builder called. "Now!"

Hare ran, long-legged and fast, the kite's wings moving, stroking the air a trifle at every stride as though it would fly like a bird if it could. Halfway along the long roof he released it, and it rose.

Moipe! O Moipe!

At twice Hare's height it stalled, hung motionless for an instant, dipped until it nearly touched the roof, lifted again to head height, and fell lifeless to the tar. "Catch it!" Musk screamed. "You're supposed to catch it! You want to bust its shaggy neck?"

"You're worried about your rabbit," the kite builder told him, "but you've got more, and you could buy a dozen tomorrow morning. I'm worried about the kite. If it's broken it could take two days to mend it. If it's broken badly, I'll have to start over."

Hare had picked up the kite. "The rabbit's all right," he called across the roof. "Want to try again?"

The kite builder shook his head. "That bowstring's not tight enough. Bring it here."

Hare did.

"Hold it up." The kite builder knelt. "I don't want to put it down on this tar."

"Maybe we could tow it behind one of the floaters," Hare suggested.

"That would be riskier even than this. If it went down, it would be dragged to rags before we could stop." By touch alone, he loosened the knot. "I wanted to put a tumbuckle in this," he told Musk. "Maybe I should have." "We'll try it again when you've got it right," Musk said. "There might be a wind in the morning." "I'm going to fly Aquila in the morning. I don't want to be wondering about this."

"All right." The kite builder stood, wet his forefinger again, and nodded to Hare, pointing.

This time the enormous kite lifted confidently, though it seemed to the kite builder that there was no wind at all. Fifteen, twenty, thirty cubits it soared-then dipped - swooped abruptly with a terrified squeal from its passenger, and struggled to climb again, nearly stalling.

"If it gets down below the roof, the house'll kill the wind."

"Exactly right." The kite builder nodded patiently. "The very same thought had occurred to me earlier."

"You're pulling it down! What are you doing that for? It was going to fly that time."

"I need to slack off the lower bridle line," the kite builder explained. "That's the string going from the feet to the yoke."

To Hare he called, "Coming down! Catch it!" "All right, that's enough!" Musk's needler was in his hand. "We'll try again in the morning. We'll try it again when there's more wind, and it had better fly and fly good when we do. Are you listening to me, old man?"

Hare had the kite now; the kite builder released the reel crank. "About that much." He indicated the distance with his fingers. "Didn't you see it dive? If it dove like that into this roof, or into the ground, it could be completely wrecked."

While Hare held the kite up, the kite builder loosened the lower bridle siring and let it out the distance he had indicated. "I thought that I might have to do this," he explained, "so I left a little extra here."

Musk told Hare, "We won't risk it again tonight."

"Be quiet." The kite builder's fingers had stopped, the bridle string half-retied. Far away he had heard the murmur of the dry forest, the shaking of raddled old leaves and the rubbing a million dry twigs upon a million more. He turned his head blindly, questing.

"What is it?" Hare wanted to know.

The kite builder straightened up. "Go to the other comer this time," he said.

"It had better not break." Musk slipped his needler beneath his tunic.

"If it breaks, I'll be safe," the kite builder remarked. "You couldn't repair it, and neither could he."

"If it flies you'll be safer," Musk told him grimly.

Two chains and more away, Hare could hear their voices. "All right?"

Automatically the kite builder glanced down at his reel. The trees had fallen silent now, but he felt Moipe's phantom ringers in his hair. His beard stirred. "NOW!"

Hare held onto the huge kite until he was halfway across the roof, and loosed it with an upward toss. Immediately it shot up fifty, then sixty cubits; there it paused, as though gathering strength.

"Up," Musk muttered. "Away hawk!"

For a full two minutes, the kite soared no higher, its transparent wings almost invisible against the skylands, its human body as black as the shade, the rabbit a writhing dot upon its chest. At last the kite builder smiled and let out more wire. It climbed confidently, higher and higher, until it seemed that it would be lost among tessellated fields and sparkling rivers on the other side of the whorl. "Is that enough?" the kite builder asked. "Shall I bring it down?" Musk shook his head.