"Pardon me!" Kitiara rolled her eyes.
"You are p-pardoned." He spooned the last of his beans swiftly into his mouth. "But if you insist."
Stutts slipped from his swinging seat and walked down the row of eating gnomes. He gave a yawningly elaborate profile of each of his colleagues, including the name by which "those not of the gnomish race" could call each one. Sturm distilled all of this into a short mental list: Birdcall, chief mechanic in charge of the engine, Wingover, Stutts's right-hand gnome; in charge of actually flying the machine, Sighter, astronomer and celestial navigator, Roperig, expert with rope, cord, wire, cloth, and so forth, Fitter, Roperig's apprentice, Flash, collector and storer of lightning, Bellcrank, chief metal worker and chemist, Cutwood, in charge of carpentry, woodwork, and all non-metal parts, Rainspot, weather seer and physician by designation.
"How did you come to build this, uh, machine?" asked Sturm.
"It is part of my Life Quest," said Wingover, a taller-thanaverage gnome with a hawklike nose. "Complete and successful aerial navigation, that's my goal. After years of experimenting with kites, I met our friend Bellcrank, who has discovered a very rarefied air, which, when enclosed in a suitable bag, will float and support other objects of weight."
"Preposterous," said Sighter. "This so-called ethereal air is humbug!"
"Listen to the stargazer," the tubby Bellcrank said with a sneer. "How do you think we were able to fly to this point from Caergoth, eh? Magic?"
"The wings supported us," Sighter replied with heat. "The lift ratios clearly show — "
"It was the ethereal air!" retorted Rainspot, who sat by Bellcrank.
"Wings!" shouted Sighter's side of the table.
"Air!" cried Bellcrank's allies.
"Colleagues! C-colleagues!" Stutts said, holding up his hands for quiet. "The p-purpose of our expedition is to establish with scientific accuracy the c-capabilities of the Cloudmaster. Let us not argue needlessly about theories until the d-data is available."
The gnomes lapsed into sullen silence. Rain drummed on the skylight over the table. The hostile silence lingered for an embarrassing length of time. Then Rainspot lifted his eyes to the dark panes and said, "The rain is stopping."
A few seconds later, the steady thrumming ceased completely.
"How did he know that!" asked Kitiara.
"Theories differ," said Wingover. "A committee is meeting even now on Sancrist Isle to study our colleague's talent."
"How can they study him when he's up here?" Sturm wondered. He was ignored.
"It's his nose," Cutwood said.
"His nose?" Kitiara asked.
"Because of the size and relative angle of Rainspot's nostrils, he can detect changes in relative air pressure and humidity just by breathing." "Hogwash!" Roperig said.
"Hogwash," echoed Fitter, the smallest and youngest of the gnomes, from his place by Roperig.
"It's his ears," continued Roperig. "He can hear the rain stop falling from the clouds before it reaches the ground."
"Unmitigated tommyrot!"
That was Sighter again. "Any fool can see it's his hair that does it. He can feel the roots uncurl when the moisture in the air falls — "
Bellcrank, sitting opposite Sighter, snatched up a muffin from the table and bounced it off his rival's chin. Flash and Fitter pounced on the fallen muffin and broke it open.
"Twelve, thirteen, fourteen," Flash counted.
"What's he doing?" Sturm asked.
"C-counting raisins," answered Stutts. "That's his current project: to determine the world average density of raisins in muffins."
Kitiara dropped her face into her hands and moaned. The dinner debacle over, the gnomes left the flying ship to dismantle their equipment in the meadow. Kitiara and Sturm, now dry, dressed in enough clothing to hike back to their campsite in the fig orchard and pick up their gear. The storm had blown itself out, and stars showed in the ragged holes between the clouds.
"Are we doing the right thing?" asked Kitiara.
"These gnomes haven't got all their bootlaces tied." Sturm glanced back at the queer machine lying cockeyed in the muddy field. "They are lacking in common sense, but they're tireless and creative. If they can get us to the high Plains of Solamnia in a day, then I, for one, don't mind helping to dig them out of the mud."
"I don't believe that thing can fly," she said.
"We never saw it fly. For all we know, the storm blew it here."
They reached the sodden remains of their camp and packed up their scattered belongings. Kitiara hoisted Pira's saddle on her shoulder.
"Blast that horse," she said. "Raised her from a filly, I did, and she never looked back once she got loose. I'll bet she's halfway to Garnet by now."
"Tallfox was a bad influence, I fear. Tirien warned me that he was skittish." "It may be that Tallfox had the right idea," Kitiara said.
"How so?" said Sturm.
She slung the damp bedroll over the saddle. "If the gnomes can do half the things they claim, we may end up wishing we'd run away in the storm, too."
Chaptea 6
1,081 Hours, 29 Minutes
"Higgher! Higher! Get that balk in place! — Sturm grunted against the massive weight of the gnomes' flying ship. He and Kitiara strained against a rough-hewn lever they'd made over the gnomes' protests. Crude levers! the gnomes protested. Bellcrank claimed that any gnome could invent a device ten times better for lifting heavy objects. Of course, it would take a committee to study the stress analysis of the local wood, as well as to calculate the proper pivot point for raising the ship.
"No," Kitiara had insisted. "If you want us to help get your ship out of the mud, then we'll do it our own way."
The gnomes had shrugged and rubbed their bare pates. Trust humans to do things the crudest way. The gnomes rolled several large rocks up to the hull. These would be the fulcrums. After Sturm and Kitiara had made the ship level, the gnomes shoved short, thick timber balks into place to brace it upright. It was slow, sweaty labor, but by noon of the day after the storm, the flying ship was finally on an even keel.
"A problem," Wingover announced.
"Now what?" Kitiara asked.
"The landing gear must have a firm surface on which to roll. Therefore, it will be necessary to construct a roadbed. Here; I've made calculations as to how much crushed stone and mortar we'll need — "
Kitiara plucked the paper from his hand and tore it in two.
"I've gotten wagons out of mud before," she said, "by putting straw or twigs in the ruts." "Might work," Sturm said. "But this thing is very heavy." He spoke to Stutts, who promptly removed the protesting gnomes from their important (though completely useless) 'improvement' work and set them to gathering windfall branches and brushwood. They all turned out except Bellcrank, who was busy with his pots of powders and vials of noxious liquids.
"I must attend to my first task, generating the ethereal air, he said, pouring iron filings from a keg. "When the air bag is filled, it will help lighten the ship."
"You do that," said Kitiara. She leaned against the hull to watch. She didn't like strenuous work. Work was for dullards and peasants, not warriors. The gnomes returned with a scant armful of brush.
"Nine of you, and that's all you have?" Sturm said incredulously.
"Roperig and Sighter disagreed on which kind of sticks to bring, so in the spirit of cooperation, we didn't pick up either of their choices," Wingover said. "Wingover," Sturm said pleadingly, "please tell Roperig and Sighter that the kind of wood doesn't matter in the least. We just want something dry for the wheels to run over."
The tallish gnome dropped his bundle of sticks and led his fellows back to the woods. Meanwhile, Bellcrank had managed to enlist Kitiara's aid in inflating the Cloudmaster's air bag. On the ground beside the ship he'd set up a big clay tub, five feet wide." He poured powdered iron and other bits of scrap metal in the tub and smoothed the pile out around the edges.
"Lower away!" he told Kitiara, and she set a d
omed wooden lid, like the top half of a beer barrel, on top of the ceramic tub. Bellcrank worked around the outside, poking a long strip of greased leather into the joint. "It must be tight," he explained, "or the ethereal air will seep out and not fill the bag."
She hoisted the gnome up and set him on top of the barrel. With a corkscrew, Bellcrank popped a large cork in the top of the barrel. "Hand me the hose," he said.
"This?" asked Kitiara, holding up a limp tube of canvas.
"The very thing."
She gave it to him, and he tied it over the neck of a wooden turncock.
"Now," said Bellcrank, "for the vitriol!"
There were three very large demijohns sitting in the tall grass. Kitiara stooped to pick one up.
"Oof!" she gasped. "Feels like a keg of ale!"
"It's concentrated vitriol. Be careful not to spill it; it can burn you very badly."
She set the heavy jug down by the tub. 'You don't expect me to pour that stuff in there, do you?"
Bellcrank said, "No indeed! I have a most efficacious invention that will circumvent such tiresome duty. Hand me the Excellent Mouthless Siphon, would you?"
Kitiara cast about but saw nothing that resembled an Excellent Mouthless Siphon. Bellcrank pointed with his stubby finger.
"That, there; the bellows-looking item. Yes."
She gave him the mouthless siphon. Bellcrank put the beak of the bellows into the demijohn and pulled the handles apart. The sinister brown liquid in the jug sank by an inch.
"There!" the gnome said triumphantly. "No sucking on tubes. No spillage."
He pushed the beak into the hole in the barrel where the cork had been, and emptied the vitriol. "Ha, ha! Gnomish science overcomes ignorance again!" Bellcrank repeated the siphoning four more times before Kitiara noticed vapor escaping from the leather hinges of the Excellent Mouthless Siphon. "Bellcrank," she said hesitantly.
"Not now! The process has begun, and it must be kept going at a steady pace!"
"But the siphon — " A drop of vitriol seeped through a hole that it had eaten in the hinge of the siphon, and splashed on Bellcrank's shoe. He carelessly flung the siphon away and began hopping around on one foot, trying desperately to pry the shoe off his foot. The vitriol ate the buckle strap in two, and with a mighty kick, Bellcrank flung the shoe away. It missed the returning Fitter's nose by a whisker.
"Oh, Reorx!" said Bellcrank sadly. The Excellent Mouthless Siphon was a pile of steaming fragments.
"Never mind," Kitiara said. Whe wrapped her arms around the vitriol jug and planted her feet firmly. "Hai-yup!" she grunted, and raised the demijohn to Bellcrank's level. He guided the jug's mouth, and soon a steady stream of the acrid fluid was spilling into the ethereal air generator. The hose from the keg to the air bag swelled. The sagging bag itself began to fill out and grow firmer inside its web of netting. Soon all the rope rigging and tackle was taut. The bag strained against the confining ropes. At Bellcrank's signal, Kitiara lowered the heavy demijohn. Sturm came around the bow with the other gnomes. "The ruts are full of brush," he said.
"The bag is full of ethereal air," said Bellcrank.
"My back is killing me," said Kitiara. "What next?"
"We f-fly," said Stutts. "All colleagues to their flying ststations!"
Stutts, Wingover, and the two humans went into the forward end of the deck house. The other gnomes lined the rail.
"Release ballast!" cried Wingover.
"Release b-ballast!" Stutts called out an open porthole.
The gnomes took up long, sausage-shaped bags that lined the rail. The ends opened, and sand poured out. The gnomes flung sand over the side, getting as much in their own eyes as they did out of the ship. This went on until Sturm felt the deck shift under his feet. Kitiara, wide-eyed, grabbed the brass rail that ran around the wheelhouse at the gnomes' shoulder height.
"Open front wings!" cried Wingover.
"Opening f-front wings!" Stutts replied. He leaned against a lever as tall as he was and shoved it forward. A rattle, a screech, and the leather 'sails' that Kitiara and Sturm had noticed on the hull unfolded into long, graceful batlike wings. The goatskin covering the bony ribs was pale brown and translucent. "F-front wings open," Stutts reported.
Wind caught in them, and the ship lifted an inch or two at the bow.
"Open rear wings!" "Opening rear w-wings!" A slightly wider and longer pair of leather-clad wings blossomed aft of the deckhouse.
"Set tail!" The gnomes on deck ran out a long spar and clamped it to the stern. Roperig and Fitter clambered over the spar, attaching lines to pulleys to hooks. They unfolded a fanshaped set of ribs, also covered in goatskin. By the time they finished, the Cloudmaster was swaying and bucking off the ground. Wingover flipped the cover off a speaking tube. "Hello, Birdcall, are you there? A shrill whistled answered. "Tell Flash to start the engine."
There was a sizzle and a loud crack, and the deck quivered beneath their feet. Wingover twirled a brass ring handle and threw another tall lever. The great wings rose slowly in unison. The Cloudmaster lost contact with the ground. Down came the wings, folding inward as they came. The flying ship lurched forward, its wheels sucking free of the mud and bouncing over the scattered brush. The wings beat again, faster. Wingover grasped the steering wheel in both his small hands and pulled. The wheel swung toward him, the bow pitched up, the wings flapped crazily, and the Cloudmaster was borne aloft into the blue afternoon sky.
"Hurray! H-Hurray!" Stutts said, jumping up and down. The Cloudmaster climbed steadily.
Wingover eased the wheel forward, and the bow dropped. Kitiara yelled and lost her footing. Sturm let go of the handrail to try to catch her, and he fell, too. He rolled against one of the levers, knocking it out of place, and the wings instantly stopped moving. The Cloudmaster wobbled and plunged toward the ground. There were several seconds of stark terror. Sturm disen tangled himself from the lever and hauled back on it. The wings sang as the taut skin bit the air. Stutts and Kitiara, in a knot, rolled to the rear of the room.
Shakily, Wingover steadied the ship.
"I think passengers ought to leave the wheelhouse," Wingover said. His voice shook with fear. "At least until you get your air legs."
"I agree," said Sturm. From his hands and knees he grabbed the handle of the door and crept out on deck.
Kitiara and Stutts crawled out behind him. The rushing wind was strong on deck, but by taking firm hold of the rail and leaning into it, Kitiara found it tolerable. The wings flexed up and down in close harmony. Kitiara slowly straightened her legs. She looked over the side.
"Great Lord of Battle!" she exclaimed. "We must be miles and miles straight up!"
Stutts boosted himself to the rail and hung his head over the side. "N-not as high as all that," he remarked. "You can st-still see our shadow on the ground."
It was true. A dark oval sped across the treetops. Sighter appeared with his spyglass, and he promptly announced their altitude as 6,437.5 feet.
"Are you certain?" Kitiara asked.
"Please," said Sturm, "take his word for it."
"Where are we headed, Sighter?" asked Kitiara.
"Due east. That's the Lemish forest below. In a few minutes, we should be over the Newsea."
"But that's seventy miles from where we were," Sturm said. He was sitting on the deck. "Are we truly flying that fast?"
"Indeed we are, and we shall go faster still," Sighter said. He strolled forward, his spyglass stuck to one eye as he surveyed the world below.
"It's wonderful!" Kitiara said. She laughed into the wind. "I never believed you could do it; but you did. I love it! Tell the whistler to go as fast as he can!"
Stutts was almost as excited, and he agreed. He turned to re-enter the wheelhouse. Sturm called to him, and he paused.
"Why are we heading east?" Sturm asked. "Why not north and east — toward the Plains of Solamnia?"
Stutts replied, "Rainspot s-says he feels turbulence in that direction. He f-felt it wouldn't
be prudent to fly through it." He disappeared into the wheelhouse.
"Sturm, look at that!" Kitiara said. "It's a village! You can see the housetops and chimney smoke — and cattle! I wonder, can the people down there see us? Wouldn't that be funny, to swoop down on their heads and blow a trumpet — ta-ta! Scare them out of ten years' growth!"
Sturm was still sitting on the deck.
"I'm not ready to stand up yet," he said sheepishly. "I was never afraid of heights, you know. Trees, towers, mountaintops never disturbed me. But this…"
"It's wonderful, Sturm. Hold the rail and look down."
I must stand up, thought Sturm. The Measure demanded that a knight face danger with honor and courage. The Knights of Solamnia had never considered aerial travel in their code of conduct. I must show Kit that I am not afraid. Sturm grasped the rail. My father, Lord Angriff Brightblade, would not be afraid, he told himself as he faced the low wall and rose to his haunches. Blood pounded in Sturm's ears. The power of the sword, the discipline of battle, were of little help here. This was a stronger test. This was the unknown. Sturm stood. The world spun beneath him like a ribbon unspooling. Already the blue waters of the Newsea glittered on the horizon. Kitiara was raving about the boats she could see. Sturm took a deep breath and let the fear fall from him like a soiled garment.
"Wonderful!" she exclaimed again. "I tell you, Sturm, I take back all the things I said about the gnomes. This flying ship is tremendous! We can go anywhere in the world with this. Anywhere! And think of what a general could do with his army in a fleet of these devices. No wall would be high. enough. No arrows could reach you up here. There's no spot in the whole of Krynn that could be defended against a fleet of flying ships."
"It would be the end of the world," Sturm said. "Cities looted and burned, farms ravaged, people slaughtered — it would be as bad as the Cataclysm." "Trust you to see the dark side of everything," she said. "It happened before, you know. Twice the dragons of Krynn tried to subjugate the world from the sky, until the great Huma used the Dragonlance and defeated them." Kitiara said,
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