Closer still, and he saw the people staring up at his winged dragonship, its body and head painted so cunningly that it might appear to those below to be a real dragon. He noted that many people were refusing to venture into the open area where it must by now be obvious that Haplo was going to land. They huddled in the shelter of trees, curious, but too prudent to move any closer.
Haplo was, in fact, rather astonished to note that all the people weren’t fleeing in panic at his approach. But several of them, two in particular, stood right underneath him, heads tilted upward, hands lifted to shield their eyes from the rays of the blazing sun. He could see one of them-a figure clad in flowing, mouse-colored robes-making gestures with his arms, pointing out a cleared area. If it hadn’t been too impossible to even consider, Haplo might have supposed he was expected!
“I’ve been up here too long,” he said to the dog. Feet planted firmly, the animal was staring out the ship’s large windows, barking frantically at the people below.
Haplo had no time to continue watching. Hands on the steering stone, he called upon the runes to slow Dragon Wing, keep the ship steady, and bring it safely to rest. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, the robed figure hopping up and down, waving a disreputable old hat in the air.
The ship touched ground and, to Haplo’s alarm, kept going! It was sinking! He saw then, that he wasn’t on firm ground but had landed on a bed of moss that was giving way beneath the ship’s weight. He was just about to act to halt the ship’s descent when it settled itself with an almost cradling motion, burrowing into the moss like the dog into a thick blanket. At last, after perhaps eons of traveling, Haplo had arrived.
He glanced out the windows, but they were buried beneath the moss. He could see nothing but a gray-green leafy mass pressed up against the glass. He would have to leave by the top deck.
Faint voices were coming from up above, but Haplo figured they would be so awed by his ship that they wouldn’t come near. If they did, they would get a shock. Literally. He had activated a magical shield around the ship. Anyone touching it would think, for a split instant, that they’d been struck by lightning.
Now that he had reached his destination, Haplo was himself again. His brain was thinking, guiding, directing. He dressed himself so that every part of his rune-tattooed body was covered by cloth. Soft, supple boots fit over leather trousers. A long-sleeved shirt, gathered tightly at the wrists and at the neck, was covered by a leather doublet. He tied a scarf around his neck, tucking the ends into the shirt.
The sigla did not extend up over the head or onto the face- their magic might interfere with the thought process. Starting from a point on the breast above the heart, the nines traced over the body, running down the trunk to the loins, the thighs, the legs, the tops of the feet but not the soles. Whirls and whorls and intricate designs done in red and blue wrapped around the neck, spread across the shoulder blades, entwined the arms and traveled over the tops and palms of the hands, but left bare the fingers. The brain was left free of magic so that it could guide the magic, the eyes and ears and mouth were left free to sense the world around, the fingers and soles of the feet were left free to touch.
Haplo’s last precaution, once his ship was landed and he no longer needed the runes to guide it, was to wrap thick bandages around his hands. He wound the linen around the wrist, covering the palm, lacing it through the bottoms of the fingers; the fingers and thumb he left bare.
A skin disease, he’d told the mensch on Arianus. It is not painful, but the red, puss-filled pustules the disease forms are a sickening sight. Everyone on Arianus, after hearing that story, had taken care to avoid Haplo’s bandaged hands.