"None at all, my dear Kit. When the structure was bro ken, so was its protective spell." Cupelix inhaled deeply, sucking in the tepid air in dragon-sized gulps. "It is sweet is it not, the first breath of freedom?
No one was sure what to do next. "I suppose," said Stutts reflectively, "we ought to prepare to depart ourselves." He folded his hands over his round belly. "That is, assuming the
Cloudmaster can rise on its ethereal air alone."
"I'm confident," Kitiara said. Sturm shot her a question ing look. She winked and smiled just like the old Kit, then moved away, toward the top end of the wreckage.
Without warning, Cupelix unfurled his wings to their fullest extent. Never in the close confines of the obelisk had he been able to spread his wings in all their glory. Now he groaned with pleasure at the stretching of his leathery wings. Cupelix launched himself in the air with one spring, and flapped leisurely, luxuriously, gaining height with each pass over the site of his deliverance. He rolled, stalled, hov ered, wings bellying full and emptying in rapid sweeps. He climbed so high that he was a golden dot in the sky, and dived with such wild abandon that it seemed certain he would crash into the obelisk's ruins.
Sturm turned his gaze from the joyous dragon and real ized that everyone had left him. Kitiara had nearly reached the top of the ruins and the gnomes were scattered through out the debris, measuring, arguing, and enjoying their tri umph immensely.
Kitiara found, amidst the rubble, the wonderful tapes tries she had seen in Cupelix's private aerie. They were tom to shreds, but here and there whole portions were identifi able. Cupelix hadn't bothered to save the moldering tapes tries, and she wondered why. She found a patch from the
Assembly of the Gods tapestry, the patch with the face of the Dark Queen on it. The woven face was nearly as wide as
Kitiara was tall, but she rolled the fragment up and tied it around her waist as a belt. She felt she had to save it.
"Care for a ride?" said Cupelix.
Kitiara looked up. The dragon hovered above her, the sweep of his wings sending dust swirling around the ruins.
Kitiara thought a brief moment, then said warily, "Yes.
But no acrobatics."
"Certainly not." Cupelix's mouth was wide in one of his unnerving grins.
He landed and Kitiara mounted his neck. She took hold of the brass plates and said, "Ready."
He launched them straight up, and Kitiara felt the breath snatched from her body. With slow, lazy sweeps of his wings, Cupelix circled the ruins and the flying ship. Kitiara again felt the exhilaration she'd experienced those first few minutes on the Cloudmaster, when the whole of Krynn had been spread out below her. With the wind whipping her short hair, Kitiara grinned down at Sturm's astonished face.
"Hai, Sturm Brightblade! Hai-yah!" She waved one hand at him. "You should try this!"
The gnomes set up a cheer as Cupelix banked into a steep climb. Sturm watched the dragon soar away with Kitiara.
He felt a strange uneasiness. He wasn't afraid for Kit. There was something about the image of a human riding on the back of a dragon that chilled him deep inside.
"Well, I'm glad they're enjoying themselves," Sighter said sourly. "But can we get underway, ourselves?"
Sturm waved to Kitiara and called for her to come down.
After several mock diving attacks at the rubble, the gnomes, and Sturm, Cupelix landed and Kitiara jumped to the ground.
"Thank you, dragon," she said. Her face was flushed. She pounded Sturm on the shoulder and said, "Well, let's get going. No need to stand around here all day."
The humans and the gnomes trekked to the tethered fly ing ship. In a moment of creative vandalism, Flash and Bird call had agreed to sever the useless wings and tail, so the ship presented an austere, clipped appearance. Kitiara was smiling and humming a marching song.
"Pick up your feet, soldier," she said, linking an arm in
Sturm s.
"What are you so pleased about?" he said. "The ship may not take flight."
"Believe that we will fly, and we will."
"I'll think lightheaded if it will help." She laughed at his morose tone.
The ship was reloaded with what food and water the gnomes collected, and a few items for emergency use — spare lumber, tools, nails, and so forth. Sturm bent down and saw that the keel was firmly set in the red dirt.
The gnomes filed up the ramp. Sturm and Kitiara paused, each with one foot at the ramp, the other on the soil of the red moon.
"Will anyone ever believe we were here?" he asked, tak ing in the panorama."It all seems like a wild dream."
"What difference does it make?" Kiiiara replied. "We know what we've done and where we've been; even if we never tell another soul, we'll know."
They walked up the ramp and hauled it up behind them.
When the hatch was secure, Sturm went up to the main deck. Kitiara disappeared into the hold.
Cupelix swooped in, beat his wings hard and alighted gently beside the Cloudmaster. "Glorious, my friends! I am reborn — no, born for the first time! Freed of the stone sar cophagus in which I dwelt, I am a new dragon.
"Henceforth, I am no longer Cupelix, but Pteriol, the Fly er!"
"Pleased to meet you, Pteriol," said Fitter.
"We'd best be off," interrupted Sturm. "While it's still light."
'Yes, yes," said Stutts. "Listen, all of you; each fellow is to stand by the mooring ropes. When I give the word, slip the knots and let us rise."
"Tell them to pull in the ropes. They're all we've got," advised Roperig.
"And pull in the ropes!" Stutts said. "Everyone ready?"
The gnomes piped their readiness. "Very good. All hands, slip your ropes!"
They managed to get most of the lines loose at the same time, though Rainspot at the stern had a hard knot and lagged behind. The ship rolled sideways, the hull planks groaning.
"We're too heavy!" Wingover shouted.
The distinct sound of splitting wood erupted below their feet. The starboard side rose, throwing everyone to port.
Sturm banged the back of his head against the deck house.
Then, with an ear-piercing crack, the Cloudmaster righted itself and lifted into the air.
"Halloo!" called Pteriol. "You've lost something!"
Sturm and the gnomes filled the rail. They were rising very slowly, but from a height of fifty feet, they could see a wide section of the hull planking and a mass of dark metal on the ground.
"The engine!" Flash cried. Birdcall uttered a hawkish scream of dismay.
They rushed from the ladder down to the hold. Near the deck hatch, Flash fell into the arms of Kitiara. She was whis tling a Solacian dance tune.
"Quickly!" said the excited gnome. "We've lost the engine! We must go back and get it!"
Kitiara stopped whistling. "No," she said.
"No? No?"
"I don't know anything about aerial navigation, but I do know this ship was too heavy to get off the ground. So I arranged for the extra weight to stay behind."
"How'd you do that?" Sturm asked.
"Sawed through the hull around the engine," she said.
"It's not fair! It's not right!" Flash said, blinking through angry tears. Birdcall made similar noises.
Sturm patted the two on their shoulders. "It may not be fair, but it was the only thing to do," he said gently. "You can always build another engine once you get back to Sancrist."
Stutts and Wingover squeezed past Kitiara and started down the ladder. "We'd better inspect the hole," said Stutts.
"The hull may be seriously weakened. Not to mention drafty."
Drafty was an understatement. A yawning hole, twelve feet by eight feet, showed where the lightning-powered engine had been.
"My," said Stutts, peering down at the receding ground.
They were already a hundred feet up. "This is rather inter esting. We should have built a window into the bottom of the ship from the first."