Himself more than a little nervous, Brazil tried not to let it creep over into that part of the body that was still the pegasus. He had flown everything man had ever invented that would fly, and he loved it—but he had never tried it on his own before. He felt the weight on his back now, then the shock of the rider mounting and seating himself in the specially designed saddle, taking the reins, and digging slightly in the sides.
“All right,” Prola told him hoarsely. “Let’s trot out to the clearing and see if all this is for nothing.”
He tried to relax and let the horse do all the work, but managed only partly to succeed. Closing his eyes wouldn’t help a bit, but if he could not, then it was hard to relax and let reflex and alien genes take over. He found the wind more obtrusive than he ever remembered it; the creatures obviously could feel the slightest gusts and turbulences and sense what to do about them. He trotted out and around until he stood, facing the wind. Almost before he could think, he felt the gentle prod of the rider, heard the call “Hie!” and he was off, galloping across the plain. He felt the great wings unfold, stretch, adjust themselves to catch the wind, realizing suddenly that much of what was going on organically was similar to his own experiences as an airplane pilot.
And, amazingly, he could see the wind! Very opaque, of course, and not obscuring other vision, but there was a different quality to the air moving at different rates that presented clear boundaries to him.
He felt himself lifting up and suppressed his discomfort; the legs continued to kick for a short while, then folded up like some sort of landing gear, into cavities invisible on the ground, which minimized drag and wind resistance. Once up, it was both heady and easy. There was an almost intoxicating feeling to it, to soar and move with the winds and even against them, to whirl and move around freely, without a machine of any sort between him and the elements.
The Agitar gave a few soft kicks and nudges indicating that it was time to go back down. He didn’t want to do it, to relinquish this incredible feeling of freedom, but the sun was almost above the horizon now and time was running short.
He had more unease as the ground rushed up at him. The legs came out and were used somewhat as air brakes, but it was mostly the incredibly maneuverable wings that allowed him to slow to a sufficient speed for the landing. The legs pumped in a fast gallop now, and, suddenly, first the forelegs and then the hind legs touched and the wings turned almost sideways, bringing him to an easy stop. Though the heady feeling continued for a while, he was amazed to discover that he had never even breathed hard.
Then it was Mavra’s turn, and she showed some of the same hesitation and nervousness that he had felt. He could sense some of the wrong things in her stride and position and prayed that she would relax and have no more problems than he.
He held his breath until she was off the ground and going upward, folding into an amazingly streamlined shape and rising into the sky. Only then did he let out a long sigh and nod his equine head approvingly. She was a pilot and pilots were born to fly.
Finally he allowed the Gedomondan to board and found the extra height and weight a real handicap. It worried him, and for a moment he feared that the combination might prove impossible. The Gedemondan, too, was scared to death at the idea and took a lot of time balancing and rebalancing himself. Brazil thought he probably wished he had helped with the transference at this point.
It took a long, long gallop to get off the ground this time, and he was starting to breathe hard, the wings doing far more beating to carry almost double the Agitarian weight, he was relieved when the Gedemondan, probably more from fright than common sense, leaned forward, resting his head and upper torso on the saddle and the back of Brazil’s neck.
It was equally tricky landing, and he almost lost his balance doing it, but he made it, finally, shortly after Mavra had come down. Now he felt more like he had had some exercise, though, and he realized that he and Mavra would probably have to switch off every hour or two to equalize the burden.
Now they were ready to go on this last leg of the journey. There were a few good-byes, mostly between the Gedemondan and his fellows who would stay behind—wordless in that case, at least as far as could be determined. They steadied themselves and, one after the other, made their way again into the skies. Brazil decided to carry the Gedemondan as long as possible, both to test his endurance and to make sure they could make it the whole way.
Up they climbed, until they were almost a thousand meters in the air, then they circled once, taking a look at the scene to the north, then whirled and headed away to the southwest. Both armies were visible now, no more than a kilometer apart, but both were on the move. He wished he could see Gunit Sangh’s face when the troops came over that last rise and found the camp abandoned—but, of course, his aerial scouts were even now reporting that fact to him. He wondered what the Dahbi would make of it, and what he would do to try and counter it all.
They headed south for a while, not only because the land was flatter and they could maintain the lower, easier altitude, but also because it was away from the forces and they were unlikely to be chased even if noticed. From a distance they would more than likely be seen as couriers, hardly worth a chase. About an hour out, when they felt sufficiently removed from the turmoil below, they made slow, cautious turns, first due west for a while, then toward the north.
A number of times they were intercepted by curious creatures, some sentient, others just wild birds and other flying animals curious or upset about these odd-looking shapes invading their skies. Once they feared attack by a giant hawklike bird with nasty talons and beak and a better than three-meter wingspan, but after a lot of screeching and mock attack runs, it had broken off, possibly because they had gone out of its territory, possibly because it decided these newcomers were just too damned big to deal with.
With his experienced eye Brazil estimated their airspeed at roughly forty-five to fifty kilometers per hour. At that rate they would not reach their goal by this route in less than three and a half to four days.
He hoped he was up to it.
After a fitful sleep the first night and some ravenous grass-munching by both of them, they were aloft again. This time Mavra carried the Gedemondan, and Brazil felt a great deal of relief tempered only by sympathy for her greater load. She was taking it well, though, and the Gedemondan, too, was more experienced in the best way to ride. She seemed to be slightly stronger and slightly larger than he, and he didn’t resent it a bit.
The second day out passed much like the first, although he had the feeling that perhaps he had been optimistic in the ground they were covering. Highlands were rising below them, forcing them into the upper air. That meant more work to do the same thing, and it meant heavy breathing now.
Suddenly, late in the day, they were challenged. The creatures were enormous elongated disks with popeyes and countless snakelike tentacles rising from the top of their bodies. They had no heads as such, and it was quickly obvious that most of their gray underside was mouth. They showed no means of propulsion and he couldn’t even guess what kept them up, let alone allowed them to make such abrupt turns, rises, and falls.
They flanked the two winged horses, nine of the creatures, each two meters across or more and drooling ugliness, and forced them down onto a mesa below. The creatures themselves did not land, but sat, suspended, two meters in the air and looked them over.
“In the name of the council we stop you and challenge you to explain your presence,” the lead creature said. It did not have a translator and sounded to them much like cooing and clucking, but the Gedemondan seemed to understand it all perfectly, responding in a similar language.
Brazil and Mavra Chang both stood there, along with the Agitar Prola, unable to do anything at all or even guess at what was going on. Finally the Gedemondan nodded and the creatures rose up into the sky and were quickly gone.
“A patrol from Khutir’s forces,” the white creature told them. “I had to do some fancy talking to convince them we were on the level, I’m afraid. You were fortunate to have brought me; had I not been able to speak to them in their own Akkokek tongue, we would have been taken in for interrogation. Let us be off before they have second thoughts.”
They took off once more, all three of the others wondering just what the hell the Gedemondan had told those things to make them leave them alone. Brazil made a mental note not to play poker with a Gedemondan communicator.
Cutting across Quilst they saw little sign of a major force, which worried them a little. Where was General Khutir? Had he, in fact, gotten diverted and lured so far away? Was it going to be this easy?
Other creatures occasionally rose from hidden outposts to check them out, but each time the Gedemondan was able to either talk them out of doing anything or give some sort of sign or password that allowed them to continue. The Gedemondan only chuckled when they asked about this ability and stated, that, no, he could not read minds, but he could make weaker minds conversationally tell him what he needed to know. That was all they got from him.
The land had gone down again as they flew over Quilst, a swampy place thick with foliage and vegetation overlaid with stagnant water and huge muddy pools. Here and there could be seen the huge creatures that reminded Brazil of humanoid hippopotamuses doing this thing or that, but the place was remarkably devoid of structures or any real signs of industry. It must be elsewhere, he decided, hidden in the swamps or under the ground. Certainly there was a clearly defined network of broad roads and paths connecting just about every point in the hex with every other.
They passed over the driest spot in the hex, where the land started to rise again in a series of steppes, each rough plateau giving rise to the land. Here had been Khutir’s camp and headquarters, it was clear; the scars—and the equipment—were all too visible, and there were still several hundred creatures of various types there, minding the store or helping maintain at least a tripwire guard to the gateway to the Avenue to their north.
They veered to the south of the camp, hoping to avoid notice, and were soon out of the area and to the west of the great Avenue that could almost be seen in the distance.
They had no intention of approaching from the south or from the east, across hostile Verion, but around and through Ellerbanta, keeping well to the west of the Avenue if at all possible.
It was not the best of Avenues to use, and the closer to it they got the more Brazil realized its disadvantages. The land was mountainous, more like Gedemondas than anything else, and while it wasn’t particularly cold, the elevation was steadily rising, and with that the problems in continuing to fly.
Mavra realized the problem more quickly than he had. She knew that the winged horses had been unable to function in the upper regions of Gedemondas; they had a definite upper limit, aggravated even more by any significant weight, and there was definitely that.
They had to land more frequently now, and landing spaces were becoming harder and harder to find. They wove above the snow line, where footing was more difficult, and still the mountains rose higher to the north and east of them, the distant ones almost totally obscured by clouds.
They got out the maps of the region and, for the first time, Mavra as well as the others could examine them. She couldn’t read the script, but when the relief markings were explained to her it became clear that they could not fly up to the Equatorial Barrier at the Avenue. Not this Avenue.
Using the Gedemondan communicator, whose voice served for both Mavra and Brazil as well as himself in these circumstances, she pointed this out somewhat accusingly to Brazil.
“Well, how was I to know the upper limits of these things?” he grumped. “Hell, I don’t remember them as real creatures at all. They survived on Earth only as parts of the racial memory, mythological beasties and no more. Still, there’s no real choice. We could have gone east, but that would have brought us over Lamotien and Yaxa—and we wouldn’t have stood a chance there. To the west the next hex is completely underwater, which is fine if you’re the underwater type but not otherwise—and we’d have a hell of a fight through there, anyway. Same farther east—the Avenue’s under the Sea of Storms. So this was the only one we could use and we’ll just have to live with it.”
“But we can’t fly much longer or higher,” she objected.
He nodded his equine head. “True, we can’t. So we have to head to the Avenue. I figure it’s over the next range, there, about thirty or forty kilometers at most. It’s the only real pass we’re gonna get. We’ll walk where we have to, fly when we can. Let’s do it.”
There was no other way to go, but all of them could only think that the Avenue, even two thirds of the way up, would be the last place they should go and the first place to meet any determined opposition. No one had any doubt that, between Gunit Sangh and General Khutir, orders for whatever patrols were stationed there would be firm: Kill everything that tried to get up the Avenue. Everything, without exception—and Ellerbanta was a high-tech hex. Anything would work here.
Even the Gedemondan, who felt almost at home in the high, white, and cold environment, shared the apprehension, but there was now no choice.
They came to the Avenue abruptly; a solid mountain wall stood before them, and they decided to make for the top and over in expectation that they would at least sight the Avenue from the summit.
They did more than that. Brazil heaved his large pegasus body over and almost fell into empty space. He looked down, forelegs dangling over the edge, on an almost sheer cliff with a drop of over four kilometers straight down to the Avenue.
He gave a horselike whinny of fear, which brought the others up quickly but cautiously, and together they managed to haul him back from the edge and look out on the sight.
You could hardly see the Avenue at all; clouds, mist, and rock tended to block the view and perspective, but it was there all right, in a couple of tiny clear patches, way, way down. It could be spotted only because it was the one thing nature never seemed to be— straight: A tiny, light-colored straight hairline that was discernible only by the pegasus’s exceptional eyes.
But far off to the north, perhaps peeking up beyond the horizon, they could see a black band stretching east to west as far as vision would take them. The Equatorial Barrier, the access to the Well at the Avenues and the very solid and impenetrable wall that kept the alien North from the equally alien South.
“Can you fly in that gap?” the Agitar asked them.
Brazil and Mavra both looked out, saw the wind and the currents, measured the narrowest points of the gap with the unerring sense of the flying horses, and shook their heads practically in unison.
“No way,” Brazil told them through the communicator. “The air currents are treacherous through there, the valley too narrow in spots. We’re going to have to walk up here as much as possible and try and find a way down there when we can.”
Mavra nodded agreement. “I doubt if any flying creatures could do much in that pass.”
“But it’ll make us sitting ducks for anybody up here,” Brazil said gloomily. “And it’s curtains if somebody’s around who can fly in this altitude.”
They started walking.
The journey wasn’t easy and involved many roundabout diversions and switchbacks just to keep roughly even with the Avenue itself. They made poor time, and spent a cold, hungry night on the mountain.
In the morning, it was little better. The temperature was far below zero and they were faced with a breath-takingly beautiful but hazardous sight as clouds closed in almost all views below them, even of the slight dips, valleys, and cirques, leaving only the points of the highest peaks popping up into a brilliant, almost blinding sun. Had flying not been prohibited by the lack of oxygen at that extreme altitude, it would still be impossible now. Once up, there would literally be no safe place to land.
The Gedemondan continued to lead the way on foot, the Agitar, bundled in heavy clothing, rode atop Brazil. The white creature seemed less bothered by the conditions and totally unaffected by altitude and cold, and navigated the tricky range with unerring precision.
Still, such precision was not at the expense of over-caution, for anything less would destroy you up here above the clouds, and it was even slower going than before. At midday, Mavra guessed they had made only a couple of kilometers; the black barrier to the north looked no closer and they had made barely the next set of peaks popping up out of the clouds, Brazil was even more pessimistic; he began to wonder if they could make it at all. There was nothing to eat up here, and he was feeling starved as it was. The trouble was, all directions looked the same to him—lousy. There might not, he reflected uneasily, be any way to abort the plan at this point.
Nearing dusk, they were all feeling down, defeated, and more than a little cheated by it all. They linked to talk, but there was very little to say, really. They all were sharing the same dark thoughts.
I’ve failed, each one seemed to say to itself or to the others; we’ve failed. We’ve managed to out-think, out-trick, or out-fight every force the Well World has thrown in our way, but now we are dying, victims not of army or plan but of geography.
Darkness fell, and they camped for another lonely, windy, cold night without food and, now, without much hope.
“We tried our best,” Brazil tried to console them, although he felt more in need of it than in the mood to give it. “We’ll continue to try as long as possible, until we just can’t any more.”
“I can see only one way out,” Mavra told them.
“Tomorrow, early, while we still have strength, we must try and fly down into the canyon.”
“How wide is an Avenue?” Prola asked apprehensively.
Brazil thought about it. “Thirty meters, more or less,” he replied. “The chasm is a bit wider, of course, but we don’t know how far we’d have to glide and what narrow spots we might have to dodge.”
“Fully extended,” Mavra noted, “my wingspan and yours is roughly eight or nine meters. It doesn’t give us very much maneuverability—and with those wicked updrafts and downdrafts, and those clouds . . .”
“It was your idea to fly,” he came back. “Don’t try talking me out of it at this stage. It’s the only thing we can do—and I want to do it so little it wouldn’t take very much to let me freeze and starve up here.”
“Near midday tomorrow, then,” she agreed ruefully, “when whatever sun gets down in there is available to us.”