Spell of Catastrophe | Page 3

said the featureless black hood. "Karlini will tell."
"Where is Karlini?"
"Days by foot. Trackless are wastes."
Max sighed. More time stomping through the desert. "In the old days, they had machines, Haddo, machines that could have -"
"Old days gone. Matter not. Still now, things not bad."
"I wouldn't exactly call walking for days through trackless wastes 'not bad'."
Haddo sounded smug. "Said I only distance by foot. Did not say by foot we go. Brought I bird."
THEY REACHED THE BIRD before dawn. Max and Haddo climbed yet another hard-packed rise in the false light, watching for more of the thorny succulents that had already snagged the strap off the pack Max was toting in his hand. At the bottom of the down slope below the rise was a dark rounded sand dune. Haddo scampered down the slope and whistled a low trilling whistle. The dune stirred and rose. It was the bird.
Only major cities and other big-time operators usually kept the big buzzards, which might mean that Karlini had come up substantially in life since Max had seen him last. The buzzards ate a lot, but not being especially concerned about their menus, each one could serve quite adequately as a refuse disposal department for a metropolitan area. Among the species of giant birds, they were also about the dumbest. No one needed much intelligence from a bird, of course, but it was helpful if the bird had the attention span to remember what it was doing through to the end of its current task. The buzzards were particularly notorious for getting distracted during official state visits or large pageants and unexpectedly taking off for their ancestral breeding grounds, often bearing with them several surprised dignitaries. Farthrax the Munificent had been crowned Emperor, in fact, after returning, the better part of a year later, from the mountains where the breeding took place. He had always refused to talk about it, but the general amazement over his return was enough to cement him as a favorite of the gods.
"Is this thing safe?" Max said.
"Through trackless wastes rather walk you?" Haddo said.
He resumed whispering in the bird's ear slit. Max grabbed a dangling rope and climbed aboard. Haddo scratched behind a feather, patted the bird on the side of the head, and came back. Max helped him swing into the saddle in front of him, forward on the body between the wing roots. The bird stood, hopped up and down tentatively a few times, flared its neck feathers, and flopped down again.
"Nothing say you," Haddo muttered. He screeched at the bird. The bird screeched back, then lurched to its feet. Max checked the belt holding him in the saddle. The buzzard fanned its wings, broke into a run, strode up the ridge, and hopped into the air.
The sun rose as the bird circled, gliding and gradually gaining altitude. Thermals and whirling dust devils sprouted from the desert floor. The bird began to move in earnest, gaining speed with precise flicks of its wingtips, spiraling up one thermal and launching itself across the desert to the next.
Around noon a line of craggy hills appeared in the northwest, and later in the afternoon the hills were rolling in a picturesque but jagged scroll beneath the broad wings. The hills were as barren as the desert, but the exposed rocks displayed colorful strata of red and purple and bright yellow. The shadows lengthened and the colors of the rock had begun to glow with deeper hues when Max suddenly thought he smelled damp salt. "Haddo," Max said.
"Not to bother," Haddo snapped. "Landing procedure complex is." A salt lake grew underneath, tucked into the folds of the hills, silent and smooth in the still air. The buzzard banked around a peak and headed for an island. The island was covered with buildings - no, a castle.
Then Max took a closer look. The castle was not on an island, the castle was the island. Walls and towers dropped smoothly into the lake and the upper part of one ring of crenellations protruded from the water like a reef of stepping stones, the top of each rectangular block barely awash. The bird circled once around the central cluster of towers, gauging the air currents, abruptly nosed over, and dived. It pulled up just above a flagpole, sideslipped onto a walled field, ran a few steps, and settled to the ground.
Max helped Haddo down and followed him to the front of the bird, feeling like the flagstones of the courtyard were executing sharp banks beneath his feet. Haddo whistled something at the bird, letting Max scratch under its neck. After a moment, Max gingerly straightened. "Okay, Haddo," he said. "Thanks for the flight. Now what about Karlini?"
Haddo gave a final remark to the bird. "Here wait," he said to Max, and staggered off