"Let go of the ropes," Benjario shouted, lifting his wide-brimmed hat with a showman's flourish. The brawny servants holding the ropes anchoring the balloon let go. Some of them stumbled and fell. More of the crowd shrieked. The balloon lifted off. The basket followed it. Before he had quite realised it, with a sensation something akin to being in a dream, Rik was airborne. He could see people looking up at him. Some waved, some stood open mouthed. Weasel and the Barbarian made obscene gestures and roared their enthusiasm. The basket lurched again, and so did Rik's stomach. He knew there was now just a thin layer of woven straw beneath his feet. He measured the distance. They were only about ten feet in the air. He could still jump if he wanted to. Their height doubled. He noticed they were moving, blown by the wind. The crowd rolled by beneath them even as the ground dropped away.
They were as high as a bridgeback's head now. Rik knew this exactly since they had just passed one. The massive creature stared at them in seeming astonishment, then opened its mouth in a great bellow. Asea's laughter held as much excitement as merriment. Benjario waved his hat at the thing as if shooing away an inquisitive dog. Rik held the side of the basket and wondered at his fear and excitement.
He had a head for heights. No one could be a successful burglar in Sorrow without one. He had fled over the roofs of tenements while armed guards pursued him and slates broke off and slid away under his feet. He had leapt the distance between two buildings over alleys where the drop would have killed him if he had missed his step. He had hung from his sweat slippery fingers from windowsills while the householders prowled inside. Nothing had ever made his heart race the way this did. He tried to work out why, concentrating on the sensations of flight as he did so.
He could feel hot air rising from the athenor behind him, even as the cold breeze stroked his cheeks and stirred his hair. The prickly wickerwork bit into his fingers where he clutched it, and the whole basket swayed gently in motion. He could hear the crackle of flame and the shifting fabric of the balloon.
Perhaps it was the novelty of the sensation, he thought, or perhaps it was that so much could go wrong. Whatever else had happened the buildings had always been solid beneath his feet — even if he fell, they would still be there. On the balloon there was the appalling sensation of having nothing beneath him but empty air. If the ropes gave way or the floating mountain of fabric above them caught fire, they would fall to their deaths. He did some swift calculations. If the wicker basket looked as if it was about to fall he would leap up and grab the ropes. Perhaps he could hold onto them for long enough to let the balloon reach the earth again. That would be a slim chance, he thought, and then it struck him exactly what was wrong.
His fate was out of his hands. There was almost nothing he could do if something went wrong. He could not save himself by skill, or speed of reflex or by main strength. Up here he was entirely in the hands of God. It was not a sensation he enjoyed, but there was no way he could alter the facts. As that struck him, he began to relax slightly and pay more attention to what lay below them.
They were high up now. People were tiny and the outlines of fields were visible. Trees looked small and strange seen from this odd angle. Ahead of them lay the spires and rooftops of the town. Asea pointed out the Temple and Parliament Square and the Royal Palace. He could see the layout of the Imperial City as clearly as on a map, the great radial roads that ran like the spokes of a great wheel from Parliament Square to the gates, and the buildings that lined them. This city had been built to a plan, and it was an awesome one.
He saw the river running south from the western docks. He felt that if they got high enough he could follow its progress all the way to the Sea of Dragons. As it was, the gigantic trading barges and the great wyrms that towed them looked like child’s toys in the distance.
People looked up as they passed overhead. Some of them waved. Some of them ran indoors as if they had seen a huge demon pass by and were afraid it would swoop down and devour them. A few soldiers even raised their rifles and appeared about to take a shot at them.
"Idiots! Idiots! Idiots!" cursed Benjario, turning the knob and feeding the fire elemental more marsh gas.
As they did so Asea muttered a charm. Rik felt a tingling sensation pass over him. Whether because of the range or Asea's magic the shooters missed. Rik was glad that Weasel was not among the marksmen firing at them. He would have put a hole in the balloon.
Soon they were so high that was no longer a problem. The town stretched below them. Now the streets were filled as they passed overhead, and Rik thought he heard the shrieks and shouts of the crowds, all blending together like the roar of the sea or water passing over a fall.
"…artillery spotting," he heard Benjario say, and it hit him then that this was not entirely a pleasure vehicle they were riding in, whatever Asea might claim. It could be used to spot for armies and artillery batteries and draw maps of the insides of cities under siege. The alchemist looked almost demonic, so filled with triumph was he. A lifetime's work was being vindicated. Asea looked scarcely less thrilled.
Of course, he thought, there were weaknesses in the scheme. The balloons would be vulnerable to sorcery and dragons. There appeared to be no way you could control their flight, although he supposed they could be anchored with ropes. Of course, they could be used in the winter when dragons were dormant and most likely they could be protected from magic by wards. But who fought wars in the winter? As far as Rik could tell their utility would be limited.
They kept rising and Rik noticed it was getting colder. He moved closer to the athenor to get some heat, and then looked back. Wisps of cloud surrounded them now and he could see nothing. Water condensed on his face.
"I think we should go down now," he heard Asea say, although she was now just a ghostly outline in the cloud mist.
"Benjario is your servant," the alchemist replied. Rik heard him fiddling with the athenor and slowly the balloon began to descend. They emerged from the clouds and he saw fields and the river below them, and the city behind. A troop of cavalry raced along the roads below, apparently determined to keep pace, and intercept them when they reached the ground. Rik was very glad that Asea was with them. She was a Lady of the First and a friend of the Queen. He would have hated to have had to explain to a Terrarch cavalry captain exactly what he and Benjario had been up to if they had been on their own.
A glance over his shoulder showed him something else. There was a rapidly expanding dot on the horizon, and even at this distance he could see it was far too large to be a bird. It closed the distance rapidly, greenish red scales and the polished silver armour of its rider glittering in the sun.
"A dragon," he said, praying to God that its rider did not take them for an enemy. With one burst of its breath a dragon could set fire to the balloon, with a slash of its claws it could knock them from the sky. As he watched it came ever closer.
“We are lucky to see one,” said Asea. “They normally begin to hibernate at this time of year.”
Even as dread filled it, Rik knew this was a sight he would never forget. How many mortals ever got this close to a dragon in flight and lived? On the ground the great beasts were beautiful but here they were as much in their element as birds or devilwings. With its great pinions outstretched and its long tail snaking out behind it, the dragon was larger than their balloon and far more graceful. It swept past them so close Rik could see the rider's crystalline goggles glittering in the sunlight, and see the patterns of scales along its flanks. As he swept by the Dragon Rider raised his fist in salute, and it came to Rik then that all of this had been planned, that of course Asea would have notified the proper authorities of what they were up to, and that the dragon and the cavalrymen below were most likely present to ensure her safety or to recover her body in case of accident. Rik looked at Benjario. In the unlikely event of the Mazarean having any plans of kidnapping them, they were safe, and he knew it.