The Luck of Brin's Five (15 page)

Diver laughed and shook his head. “
Tildee
will be hard to beat!”

“That one?” I asked, “but it is ill-made, of patched fabric.”

“This merchant . . . is his name Mattroyan?. . . has been dabbling in fire-metal-magic.”

“True Excellence,” put in Ablo, “you are a good judge of machines. For I have seen this ugly
Tildee
on the ground; it rings when a hand hits the panels, and it gives off a hot stink. White air comes in puffs through wooden pipes behind the pilot's chair.”

“What merchandise does Mattroyan sell?” asked Diver. He was fishing for information but could not ask more plainly in front of Ablo.

“Excellence, he is a tanning-factor who runs horrid hide-boats up and down the coast of the great ocean sea.” Ablo grimaced as he told it. “He visits Itsik.”

As soon as I had a chance, I explained about Itsik to Diver. It is a strange place, barely respectable, between Rintoul and the Fire-Town, on the coast. “Go to Itsik” or “Go back to Itsik” is a common insult meaning, “You have not washed . . . you stink.” All the burning, the tanning of hides, the curing of fish, the rendering of fat and lamp oil necessary for the great city of Rintoul is done at Itsik. Lawbreakers are sometimes sent to Itsik for a term, or if their offence is less serious, to Gavan in the east, on the salt marshes.

As I told this, we were wandering around the edges of the ground, between the tents and hangars, a pilot and his young escort. We came to Mattroyan's hangar, where
Tildee
was housed out of sight, guarded by an escort of monstrous omor. Mattroyan himself came out presently: a burly brute who put me in mind of no one so much as Hunter Geer, although he wore very fine garments of silk and wool floss. The pilot was with him, a young, dark-skinned, blood-haired flier, with a strong likeness to Mattroyan.

“Must be the merchant's child,” whispered Diver.

“Yes, but don't say so if you speak to him.”

“I'll remember my manners,” said Diver. “I must not say ‘your child' to a male person. Only ‘a child of your family.'” We stayed at a discreet distance, however, and did not approach the merchant.

“I wonder how this custom came about?” asked Diver. “Is it because a person's family tree is reckoned from mother to mother?”

“Partly. And partly because the child belongs to the family, not to any person. To say ‘your child' to a pouch-mother does not mean that she owns the child. But if the child has, well, a father singled out . . . Do you understand?”

“Partly,” said Diver.

A splendid craft lit down: a double tier of scalloped wings, the upper span set forward and both activated in a flapping motion. We went through the tents and saw the pilot being lifted out by the escort; the Wentroy crest, a bird's head, was on their tunics. They had hardly time to set their highness upright before the clappers were sounded all around the field and three more entrants began their exercises. Two were set in the blocks attached to the launching catapults and the third had chosen the tower.

The Launcher stood on his platform, far away across the field, but when he shouted through his gourd, the sound seemed to echo around the world.

“U-va-ban!” The vassals hauled the lever and stood from the drums on the first catapult and a yellow Antho sailed off, straight and light.

“Uto-va-ban!” A black glider with an enormous wingspan went up and twisted from the second catapult.

“Yo-va-ban!” All eyes were on the tower. It was taller than the tallest tree, and flimsy, with crazy ladders and a ramp for the flying machines. More points were allotted for a tower take off; it made me feel dizzy just to see the vassals crawling on the upper beams, and I was mountain-bred.

Diver and I stood near the tower's base, and we could see through the maze of bentwood poles and flax ropes to the very runners of the machine. It was squarish, rather ugly, like a child's kite, with the pilot spread in its rigging. There was a twang, and the thing was launched, soaring down from the tower in a long curving arc, lower and lower over the field. Just as we felt sure it must ground, the blunt nose turned upward and the “Kite” rose gracefully. The pilot caught one of the mapped currents over the field, “stole the wind” of the black glider and went into the qualifying turns. The black glider, called
Hadeel
, staggered in the air and shook, then the pilot, who was very skillful, bore straight upward, in the only current near enough, and reeled into the turns. The yellow Antho, meanwhile, flew carefully in circles further down the field. Its turns were in fact oval . . . not true circles; all gliders had this difficulty on circular turns.

This was not a speed test; when the three machines had done the turns and performed any simple maneuvers that the pilot felt the marshals must see, they lit out, one after the other, to the First Mark, inland to the east. Another tower was there, and to complete these first exercises the machines must round it and come back to land. These three easily completed their exercises, but later that day two machines were not so lucky. A pedal fan that had come upriver from Linlor on a barge tipped the First Mark and blundered into a strange craft, one of Diver's favorites, a dirigible balloon that everyone had christened “The Pod.” The wretched pedal fan twisted away and came down in the sandy plain beyond the First Mark, which is called Gwervanin or Bird Bone Place, because so many fine machines have fallen there.

When this happens, according to the threads, the pilot should climb out and walk away from the wreck “without looking back.” The machine must lie where it has fallen, struck down by the winds' bane, unless another can send it into the air again, proving that the winds have been appeased. So Diver soon came to understand that we had acted correctly in “refloating” the
Tomarvan
. This judgement of the winds could be harsh; in old times it had been a subject of debate at the Bird Clan and throughout Torin as to whether an injured pilot could be dragged out of a wrecked machine. There had been quarrels between the clans on the one hand and the weavers and townspeople on the other, for the common folk would not leave a pilot to suffer. They rushed straight in, chanting to avert the winds' bane, and rescued a fallen flier.

This day the pilot of the pedal fan did climb out unharmed and limped back, shame-faced, to the enclosure. “The Pod,” poor creature, struggled round the First Mark and flew back leaking. It touched down with a loud, sad, hissing sound, like a giant tree-bear, and the beautiful striped casing crumpled slowly before our eyes. The two pilots, a pair of young town grandees from Otolor, stood and wept. The third machine to exercise at this time was
Peer-lo-vagoba
, and Jebbal was in fine form. She made a perfect tower takeoff, exquisite circular turns and a quick, clear run to the First Mark. She was given a special ovation as the only one of this group to survive the test, for clearly she had “averted the winds' bane” or proved her superior skill.

I was determined to stay awake for a full thirty hours or more until the lists closed at the next rising of Esto. At about the third hour past midday the marshals came and told Diver to get ready for his first exercises. He had inspected the launching catapults carefully, with Ablo, and decided to use one, rather than the tower. The weather was perfect, with a great head of white cloud coming in from the east to provide a wild current besides the ones that lived over the field. There were only two machines exercising at the time:
Tomarvan
and
Utofarl
, or Double Hope, the splendid Wentroy flap-wing. The Wentroy pilot and a numerous escort took the field proudly. Too proudly, I thought, knees knocking as I shaped up with Brin and Diver for the formal salute. I had the luck skein in my hand, ready to exchange, but we stood there, emptily waiting, and the Wentroy contingent went straight to their catapult without a glance in our direction. I heard Ablo, the mechanic, muttering angrily behind me and turned to Brin, questioning.

“We've been insulted?” whispered Diver.

“The Wentroy insults itself!” she replied. “Dorn? You know the next part?”

My knees knocked so that I could hardly run, but I did it; and the piece of ritual was unexpected: Bird Clan formality had fallen away of late. I ran out into the field and threw the luck skein, which the Wentroy had ignored, high into the air. I expected it to come back down again and lie discarded in the field, but there was a gasp from those watching: Wentroy's rudeness had already swelled the crowd. The long silken skein was caught in a current and whirled upwards in a broad spiral. The winds had accepted my offering, and the Wentroy's luck was tossing round and round above the ground like a seed. The Wentroy escort, young and old, could hardly restrain themselves; they must catch the skein, the most foolhardy pilot could not allow it to be carried off or dashed to the ground once the wind had taken it. I saw the old Wentroy scribe speak to the pilot, and at last the word was given. The escort swarmed over the field, jostling, eyes on the sky, hands uplifted. Brin nodded, and we three walked off to the
Tomarvan
. The crowd laughed and cheered and clapped palms against their buttocks; I realized they were applauding us.

Now we thought our first trial was really at hand; Diver was in the pilot's chair, the catapult was attached, Brin and I stood to one wing, Ablo to the other. Diver had already given a few runs to his spin-toys, which made the vassals duck their heads. But suddenly the clappers sounded; there was a confusion of marshals and a loud chopping buzz in the air above our heads. A large winged shadow dipped and zoomed across the field, and its buzzing was echoed by the crowd. The Launcher on his platform was speaking to a large escort of more than twenty persons in black and white quartering. Now he spoke on the hailing gourd.

“Diver!” Brin reached up, trying to pat his arm in the chair, “he is addressing you directly . . .”

“
Tomarvan
pilot . . . how say you? Will you give leave for a new entrant to make a display?”

A marshal had come up with another hailing gourd; he gave it to Diver, who looked down at Brin with raised eyebrows.

“It is a shame!” cried Ablo. “You need not give leave, Garl Brinroyan; you need not! He asks because you are in the blocks.”

Brin said: “See who it is. Say, ‘Noble Launcher, who asks this leave?'”

So Diver spoke into the gourd, and his voice echoed sharply across the field. “Noble Launcher, who asks this leave?”

“Truly it is Murno Peran Pentroy up there, who asks leave.”

Diver hesitated, the crowd was still; he looked at me and saw how I gaped with excitement. “I give my leave. I give my leave freely to this noble contestant!” said Diver.

There was another spatter of applause as the Launcher boomed his thanks. Diver climbed down, and we went back behind the barrier.

A hand plucked at Brin's sleeve, and there was Jebbal Luntroy's officer, a tall ancient, who bade us follow around the enclosure to Jebbal's viewing stand, a little row of raised seats outside her tent. There was Jebbal, lounging and smiling, in her red gear.

“Take a seat, gentle friends,” she said. “Let's see what flaming marvel Blacklock has to offer!”

So I sat down at Brin's feet on the grass and watched the black and white escort march onto the field. My friends Valdin and Thanar came and sat beside me, chattering excitedly, but I could hardly speak. I was in a dream state, about to see Blacklock for the first time, and my excitement was tempered with a strange dreaming sadness. I ranged in a moment from the here and now at the Bird Clan in Otolor far, far back to our tent on Hingstull. The warmth of the spring sun on my arms became the scratching cold of winter, and I saw Odd-Eye's face. “I have dreams for you, as fine as Blacklock's mantle.”

The incoming machine swooped and circled; Diver stood up, flinging back his helmed head to observe it. It was sleek but short-winged with a large whirling vane, a giant spin-toy, mounted centrally; we could see wing-flaps and a dirigible tail. It caught the currents and used them, but it had a curious thrusting motion as well, and suddenly it hovered, like a water-fly. The escort had formed a circle in the middle of the field; now they ran in together like dancers and quickly drew back again. I heard myself squeak with excitement. They had unfurled a huge net. The machine hovered, increased height, and at last I thought I could see movement by the pilot's chair. Then separating, falling, a bundle of cloth, but moving, surely . . . a body, struggling, flapping arms in the air. I stood up with all the others and screamed like them, and a great bubble of silken cloth stretched and blossomed over the falling body. A tall Moruian in a shiny green flying suit floated down calmly under the green canopy, bounced deliberately in the net two or three times, then skillfully stood still and drew the folds of the silk together. Blacklock had come to the Bird Clan.

Everyone laughed and cheered; I had never heard such a slapping of buttocks. Even in this very first exploit that I had witnessed, there was some of that special magic that made Blacklock's audience laugh, even in sheer relief. Diver was laughing too; Brin leaned down and touched my shoulder. I saw that the flying machine was moving away to land at the end of the field, with a second pilot, of course, whom no one remarked greatly. The crowd was streaming onto the field to cheer Blacklock, so I took the clan children by the hand and ran with them. We managed to wriggle in fairly close, followed by Jebbal's officer. Between the shoulders of two vassals holding the net we saw him: tall as a tree, broad as an omor, his helm was off now, and he seemed to be beaming straight at us. Blacklock is the handsomest Moruian anyone can imagine; he has a rather broad, jolly face and his skin is tanned, like a bush weavers', with no trace of grandee pallor. His eyes are wide as a baby's and set well into his temples; they are a clear yellow brown. He has an enormous shock of light brown, almost blonde hair, and from his brow there flows back a broad black streak of dye . . . his black lock.