On (GollanczF.)

by Adam Roberts

  Several kite-pilots napped, curled on the floor. Others went out on to the ledge to see what they could see, but it was no vantage point.

  Waldea returned, clearly annoyed. The sun went over the wall and the dusk gale began. There was no door for the dugout hole, so the kite-pilots huddled together at the far end of the hollowed space. The wind sucked the torch out, sang and shrieked, threw clods of earth through the door and tugged eagerly at clothes and hair. But it died down eventually.

  The following morning, immediately after breakfast, Waldea departed again. This time he was gone for about half an hour, and came hurrying back in a state of great excitement.

  ‘Now, my children! Assemble your kites! You are to fly! The Cardinelle requires you to fly out and take an overview of the battlefield – report back with tactical information.’

  The pilots assembled their kites on the sunlit ledge outside. Nobody spoke. Tighe unpacked his bundle and spread the fabric out; then he fitted the main kite-spar into its crossbeam. The usual sounds of distant booms and crumples made their strange music.

  It felt odd to Tighe to strap himself to the kite once more; it had been so many days since he had flown. He was anxious too; uncertain what was required of him and keen not to incur Waldea’s displeasure. But the thrum and smell of war was all about him now and distracted him from the usual terror. Ati stepped forward off the world and Tighe followed him quickly, pushing away from the ledge into the burly morning wind.

  He dropped until an updraught caught him and hauled him high. He realised he was drifting westwards, the wrong direction, and angled up and over to fall, gathering speed in the descent and sweeping east in the process. He pulled quite a long way awaywall, banked, climbed and turned again. The wall came round into view. Catching a little eddy of rising air, he wobbled his way back in.

  The scene that grew before him was chaotic and, in the first instance, unimpressive. The wall was patched and scorched with small areas of black and grey, but was otherwise mostly green and purple with its grasses. Ledges were set at gentle angles to one another and a large shelf was thronged with blue coats. But as he swept in Tighe could see that the grey-coated Otre soldiers were occupying the upper ledges. Occasional glints of light, like a silver surface turning to bounce the sunlight, glittered on the lower ledges. Tighe flew closer still and saw that these bursts of light flew out of the end of the riflemen’s weapons, aimed upwards at the grey soldiers above them. He was a little above the central ledge.

  Something shiny hurtled past Tighe’s kite. For an instant he thought it was some large shiny-skinned insect, but when he turned a little he could see that it was a fireball, arcing downwards now. It narrowly missed another kite – Tighe could not see whose – and fell away.

  It took a heartbeat for Tighe to register the significance of this.

  He was evidently too close to the wall now. He tried turning, zigzagging to find lift, but there were no updraughts. He drifted closer still to the wall, on a level with the Otre-occupied areas. Gasping with fear, he swung in close enough to make out enemy faces, pale and helmeted. One tall soldier pointed out at him with an outstretched arm; his colleague lowered a rifle and there was a flicker.

  The noise of the wind was so huge in Tighe’s ears as to drown out most of the sounds, but he certainly heard a breathy whistling sound and a ploc that made his kite shudder. He wobbled, turned and fell away, picking up speed that enabled him to swerve away from the wall. When he pulled out of the dive and swept upwards again he had time to look over his shoulder. There was a fist-sized hole in his kite.

  His mind still did not register that he was in danger. The adrenalin of flying blotted out more refined appreciation of his situation. He circled round and tried to make a more concerted survey of the battlefield. The Otre occupied all the higher ledges and seemed to have built some sort of fortification along the overhung ledges further east. The Imperial army was concentrated on the central shelf; but Otre soldiers directly above were throwing things down on them. These objects flew out and then – improbably – swerved back in. As he flew lower to gauge their strength there was a spectacular explosion of red and orange and a wash of heat over Tighe’s face. The kite shuddered and lifted, and without controlling it Tighe was carried up and away from the wall.

  He circled again, but the kite was awkward and stubborn, difficult to steer with a hole in its fabric. He pulled westward and flew in a trembling downward trajectory back to the launch ledge.

  He landed awkwardly. Waldea was hurrying over to him as he picked himself up. ‘Well?’ he was calling. ‘Well? Is there something important?’

  ‘My kite, Master!’ said Tighe, breathless, unhitching himself from it. ‘Look at my kite.’

  ‘What? Kite? That’s no damage, hardly any damage. Report, Tig-he!’

  ‘Master, the Otre command the upper ledges. They are throwing fire upon our soldiers.’

  ‘And?’

  Tighe couldn’t think of anything to say. Waldea pressed his hands into fists in frustration, and repeated himself: ‘And? And?’

  ‘And nothing, Master.’

  ‘Idiot! We know the Otre have the upper ledges. But what about further east? Did you not fly further east?’

  ‘My kite was damaged, Master.’

  ‘Repair your kite and go out again,’ snapped Waldea. ‘Fly east! We must know about the fortifications further east.’

  *

  Tighe, bewildered and scared at feeling so uncertain, rooted out a patch of leather, needle and thread from platon supplies in the dugout. He made his way back to the launch ledge to sit and repair the kite as best he could. He had never learned to sew, but was too ashamed to tell anybody.

  He sat cross-legged and poked uselessly at the torn cloth with the needle. It was difficult making the plastic needle push through the leather and he hurt his thumb trying to force it. There was a rush of air and Ravielre landed a few yards from him.

  ‘My kite caught fire!’ he gasped, unbuckling himself. ‘I was struck by fire from the wall and the material caught. But I beat it out with my arm. Look at my kite!’ The material was singed and ragged on the left side.

  ‘Ravielre?’ shouted Waldea, hurrying over. ‘What have you to report?’

  ‘Nothing Master, only that my kite was on fire.’

  ‘Repair it,’ yelled Waldea in frustration. ‘Fetch materials from the dugout like Tig-he – repair it and go out again. Don’t return until you have something to report.’

  Ravielre hurried away, leaving his still smoking kite lying on the ledge. Feeling increasingly awkward, Tighe poked ineffectually at the material he was trying to patch over the hole. When Ravielre returned, he was glad to have somebody to have a conversation with rather than work at the stitching. ‘You were on fire!’ he said.

  ‘It was a dizzy-bomb,’ said Ravielre, brushing the charred pieces free from the wing of his kite. He was in a state of excitement.

  ‘What is dizzy-bomb?’

  ‘You are an ignorant barbarian,’ said Ravielre automatically. ‘They are bombs, with metal blades attached by a cord. Throw them away from the world and the blades spin and pull the bomb back in towards the world downwall.’

  ‘Bombs!’ said Tighe, amazed and impressed.

  ‘They are bags of leather really,’ Ravielre confided. ‘They have a fuse and are full of powder. But they explode with a mass of fire!’

  Deftly, Ravielre patched over a stretch of leather, stretching it taut and stitching with dextrous fiddling motions of one hand. Tighe watched in amazement. He was ready to go out again in minutes.

  Waldea had come back. ‘Tig-he! You are still waiting? Fly again, go out and fly again.’

  ‘I have not yet patched the hole in my kite,’ Tighe murmured, ashamed.

  ‘What? I cannot hear you if you speak so small. There’s no time to waste – I have to report your intelligence directly to Cardinelle Elanne. Get out again!’

  ‘My kite …’

  ‘You can fly perf
ectly well with only a small hole – that is only a small hole.’

  He manhandled Tighe upright and would have physically inserted him into his kite if he had not been distracted by the arrival of another kite-pilot at the ledge, a girl called Stel. Tighe had time to overhear the beginning of their conversation as he strapped himself in. ‘What will you report?’ snapped Waldea. ‘My shoulder,’ whimpered Stel. ‘It is hurt, popped I think.’ ‘Shoulder?’ bellowed Waldea. ‘Shoulder?’ shouting in an enormous voice – and that was the sound Tighe had in his ears as he stepped off the world again and flew away.

  The kite was wobbly and unpredictable, but could be flown. Tighe circled and circled, and made his way very slowly eastwards against what were now difficult contrary winds. The battlefield was clearer to him now because he was more used to the logic of the vista. He could see the soldiers crammed along their ledges, trying to kill and dislodge their enemies above or below. He could see where one stairway, which had evidently once been used to link the central shelf and the higher ledges, had been destroyed – the actual steps kicked and blasted featureless on the wall. Sappers, from which army Tighe could not tell, had attempted to build another stairway to provide access either up or down: spars poked out of the wall, some of them still burning, most blackened and cracked.

  The pattern of lines and diagonals was emphasised by the flurrying action of men moving back and forth, and picked out with sparkling flashes and occasional belches of smoke. Grey puffs, like tiny clouds, swept across and upwards, dragging their shadows over the undulating surface of the wall.

  Tighe struggled for several hours, making slow progress eastwards, his repeated circles drawing the attention of snipers from the upper ledges. Several projectiles whispered past him, one catching the sole of his shoe and unzipping the leather so that the cold grabbed his right foot. He was straining to look east, to look carefully at the fortifications of the Otre, but eventually the sun rose too high and the updraughts began to die. There was nothing for it now but to fly back to the base ledge: if he stayed out too long he would lose lift altogether.

  The ride back was a great deal easier than the ride out had been; Tighe coasted all the way, the air whistling a pure note of music through the hole in his kite.

  15

  That evening, in an angry tirade, Waldea berated the entire platon. They were useless; they had given him no information that was of any benefit to the War Pope – it had been humiliating for him to have to trot back and forth between the base ledge and the Cardinelle’s eyrie like a pet monkey with nothing to say, nothing to report. As soon as the dawn gale died down the platon would go all out, would all fly east, and would fly so close to the enemy ledges that they could count the teeth of the Otre soldiers – and if anybody did not, then he, Waldea, would personally eject them from the world and they could fall all the way to the rubble at the foot of the wall.

  The platon sat, heads down, in aching silence. Tighe felt devastated; he felt has if he had personally betrayed Waldea, the Popes, the Empire itself. But he was so exhausted that he fell asleep almost at once.

  The next morning, they all expected to be sent out flying straight away, as soon as the updraughts started. But instead Waldea disappeared and came back an hour later to tell them to stay where they were.

  It was a warm day, with the sun climbing slowly and pushing light and heat at the wall in generous heaps. The usual sounds of battle were stilled; and a plump silence edged the occasional gust of wind.

  The platon lounged about their little ledge, chattering nervously. When would the order come? The hours advanced, fifty, to sixty, to seventy, and it began to look as though they would not fly at all that day. Tighe was restless. When Waldea left, as he did from time to time to hurry upwall and check on the latest orders from the higher command, Tighe itched to go roaming about, to see what was happening. But he was afraid of leaving the ledge, afraid that if he stepped upwall for even a few minutes it would be at the time that Waldea came barreling back down and ordered them all into the air. Other boys were not so inhibited, particularly as the sun rose and the air cooled and it became clear that there would be no flying that day. Mulvaine and a few others darted away and scrambled upwall, returning breathlessly after a short while.

  ‘There are whole lines of men, riflemen and other soldiers,’ Mulvaine reported to the kite-pilots, who gathered eagerly around him. ‘They’re queuing up there, preparing to go forward.’

  ‘It’s a big push,’ said somebody. ‘They’re going to push through and capture the Otre fortifications.’

  ‘They’re going to use darkness to get into position, I think,’ said Mulvaine. ‘Tomorrow will be the day of victory.’

  The excitement of this intelligence buoyed Tighe up for a while, and there was a certain amount of high-spirited darting about and boys grappling and wrestling. But this died down and soon enough Tighe was bored again.

  He curled up on the purple grass of the ledge and fell asleep, napping for no longer than ten minutes; but it was sleep filled with the most vivid dream-sense of flying, of pulling back away from the wall as full battle raged. The Imperial soldiers pushed forward, sweeping away the Otre, and Tighe caught a glimpse of the Door, the Door through the wall that was the purpose of the whole campaign – an enormous door like the front door to a house in his old village, complete with latch and storm-covering. People swarmed up and down it like ants, and then, impossibly, Tighe could see the top of the wall – could see the cloud-snaggled upper rim of the world. An enormous head, a head as big as the world, rose above it like the belly of a calabash. The head of an old man, and Tighe realised it was God, and at the same time realised that it was Grandhe, his old Grandhe. Grandhe opened his titanic mouth and bright light began spilling out.

  He woke up, gasping, a sweat on his face.

  Next to him a couple of boys were sitting opposite one another, playing a game with pebbles. Each boy had a pile of awkwardly shaped pebbles in a pile in front of them. Each took turns and put a pebble in a circle drawn in the turf: a pebble could be placed anywhere, so long as it touched another pebble. If it touched only one other pebble it could not be moved by the opponent, but if it touched two or more it could be nudged sideways by the other player’s move so long as it stayed in contact with at least one stone. If any pebbles strayed outside the circle the player concerned lost the game. This game was called jazua. It was sometimes played as a passtime by the kite-pilots.

  Tighe watched the gameplay for a while until his pulse calmed and the sweat dried from his skin. Then he grew bored and sought out Ati.

  ‘Ati,’ he said, ‘will you help me stitch the hole in my kite? I do not know how to stitch the hole.’

  ‘You are an ignorant barbarian,’ said Ati automatically.

  Together they fetched Tighe’s kite and Ati showed him how to work the needle through with pressure from the thumbnail and how to do a rough lock-stitch. As he worked he talked.

  ‘It is most exciting,’ he was saying. ‘They say tomorrow will be the big push. Tomorrow we can fly free and watch the Otre being pushed off the ledges. By the next day we will have the Door and we will have won the war.’

  ‘Ati?’ asked Tighe. ‘Do you ever look at the wall when you fly; and think it small?’

  ‘How do you mean, small?’

  ‘You know you see ants on a patch of earth? What if the wall is small and we are ants? The whole worldwall small and we are ants.’

  ‘What a philosopher you are,’ said Ati, grinning. ‘Would it matter if we were ants? We are still bigger than our ants, bigger than other bugs. We are big enough, I think.’

  Tighe shook his head. It was hard for him to convey the hollow sense of falling away within his breast that this concept produced. It was as if the entire world had been trivialised, as if the epic conflict between the two mighty nations were nothing but insects bickering over a blade of grass. It diminished existence, corroded the sense of meaning in being. ‘Bigger than ants,’ he said, mournfull
y, ‘but not bigger than claw-caterpils.’

  Ati made a chch sound in the back of his throat. ‘There,’ he said, ‘your kite is made whole, I think.’

  Later that day Waldea gathered up three of the boys, Mulvaine, Oldievre and Mocghe, and took them upwall. When this little party returned, the boys were swinging grass-weave sacks full of something.

  ‘Now,’ said Waldea, ‘we fly tomorrow. And each of you, my children, will carry a wax-bomb. You must carry it inside your trousers, at the top of your trousers, children, and hold your thighs tight and cradle them in your lap not to drop them. They are lit, with a grass fuse that will smoulder – the fuses are tarred, so they will smoulder even when you fly and the wind will not put them out. And you will fly up and release the bombs at the soldiers on the upper ledges. Do you understand?’

  The pilots eagerly gathered around the three boys as the wax-bombs were brought out. Fist-sized spheres of wax, they were hollow. ‘Filled with mushroom powder,’ explained Mulvaine, cocky and knowledgeable. ‘You throw them and when they strike the wall the wax breaks and the fuse here flames up the powder and boum.’

  ‘Handle them carefully!’ fussed Waldea. ‘You are only to look at them today and we shall pack them away tonight. Tomorrow morning is a big push and you will assist.’

  Tighe, almost trembling with the excitement of the thing, cradled a bomb in his open palms. The wax had been mixed with grass filaments, drawn out of the finer blades, to form a rough circle. The wax was dark red, almost black, and there was a little tar-covered nipple at the top. A weapon! Explosives!

  Waldea gathered every one of the precious bombs and stocked them at the rear of the dugout. Then he had the platon spend an hour practising throwing stones. Since one of the favourite passtimes of most of the boys and some of the girls was precisely this, the platon proved adept. Waldea set up a target by scrawling the shape of a man into the mud of the wall and everybody took turns hurling pebbles at it.