Spell of Catastrophe | Page 3

... So how is everything, Haddo?"
"Problems. Always are problems."
" ... Are you going to tell me what's up, or do I have to wiggle your
tongue myself?"
"To wiggle, first must find," 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