Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [5]
About a hundred tahng from the door of the lodge there ran a majestic gorge through which the morning mists flowed like rivers. I leaned against a boulder there and watched those mists. Dawn birds were just beginning to hunt, wheeling about me in search of early rising insects. There was little wind.
I was still there half a dhaur* later when Rannon came up and took my hand. She was dressed in trousers of tanned leather, rust-colored boots, and a white silk shirt beneath a brocaded vest of yellow and green. I loved the heart shape of her face, and the brilliant violet-blue of her eyes against her dark hair, and the clean scent of her skin. The two of us stood quietly for a time, feeling comfortable there together, and at last I turned to her as if to speak. She hushed me with a hand over my mouth.
[* The common Taleran measures of distance and time are: Distance—1 Heka = 9.18 in.; 4 Hekas is 1 Tahng = 1.02 yards; 2500 Tahngs is 1 Verlang = 1.449 miles. Time—1 Shri = 2.34 sec.; 100 Shri is 1 Dhaurin = 3.9 min.; 20 Dhaurin is 1 Dhaur = 78 min.—Ruenn Maclang.]
“Wait a bit,” she whispered.
A moment later the rising sun touched the great atmospheric shield that envelops Talera, and jade and purple streamers of light burst outward like wagon spokes from a central rotating core of gold. The display lasted only seconds and was gone. It is called the dawn lights by most cultures and occurs only in northern areas. Rannon had told me of them before, and of the belief in some religions that the lights are a sign of the sky menstruating. Knowing of them was not the same as seeing them, however. I stood in awe of their beauty.
Even after nearly two years on Talera, it was still hard for me to believe that this was an artificial world condensed from the heart of a gas-giant planet. The advanced race who built it—the Asadhie—may have been cruel, but they were skilled at creation.
The atmospheric shield that surrounds the planet protects the living world from the poisonous gases above. And somehow the sun and moons have been placed inside that shield, though I suspect some kind of optical illusion gives those orbs the appearance of rising and setting naturally. Rumors have it that Taleran adventurers have even tried to reach the moons aboard powerful flyers. There are some who claim to have succeeded, though I do not know the truth of such tales.
Only with the ending of the dawn display did Rannon turn and kiss me. She told me that she loved me, and I said the same as I gave her the present I had brought her from Earth. She gasped in surprise, then clapped her hands and laughed as she kissed me again.
She thought it only a clever necklace at first, till I showed her how the hands moved and what they represented. That left her even more enthralled. Hers was the only watch on Talera, though there are timekeeping devices such as sundials and water clocks. I’d had the devil’s own time persuading a watchmaker on Earth to make me a chronometer that measured twenty, extra long hours instead of the usual twenty-four. It was worth it to see Rannon smile.
Soon, we heard the cook shout for breakfast and went in to eat among friends. After that we loaded our gear aboard Rannon’s airship for a trip to the south, to Timmuzz, the capital of Nyshphal and Rannon’s home. The ship we boarded was called the Aestor, named for a quicksilver little beast that haunts high mountain valleys. The Aestor is winged and fox-like, arctic colored. It hunts dangerous prey and its name seemed aptly applied to the swift and white ship of Rannon Jystral.
The airships of Talera are not like the airplanes of Earth. They are slower for one thing, and open to the sky—more like a sea going yacht than a pressurized jet. Their power source comes from the same toir’in-or stones that opened the world gate—the sphere gate—for me. These are mind-amplifying crystals that can be used by adepts to work “sorcery,” and by the pilot caste of Talera to guide airships of inanimate wood and metal. Smaller craft, like the Aestor, get both lift and drive from crystalline