Wandering Spark - Part 51
Wingam was old and apparently weak. On its back laid a triple saddle - Varan had noticed that the guards always patrol in groups of three. There was no stirrup, Varan's heels rested on the feathered sides and slid all the time.
A circle of curious people diverged, some of them crouched on the off-chance, covering their heads with their hands. The bird took a run in the direction of the sea; Varan was so shaking and throwing in the saddle that he, having forgotten his decorum, clung to the magician's shoulders. Having reached the edge, the bird didn’t stop and continued dispersal over the watery surface. At the same time it strongly and with irritation hit the sea with wings and sprays of the sea mixed with the rain. Then the wings stopped touching the water. Wingam flew, with each stroke rising. Varana was squeezed into the saddle, then he suddenly lost weight, and he nauseated.
Wingam suddenly took it abruptly. Its right wing pointed downward, and its left wing pointed to the sky. It seemed to Varan that he would now fall. Feeling convulsively with his feet, he saw a village, a scattering of people on the shore, a smooth sea in specks of rain, boats, houses, and streets, catchments... And immediately everything disappeared behind the thick fog.
Varan held his breath.
In complete silence, neither the roar of the wind nor the noise of propeller - the wingam emerged from the clouds, and Varan shut his eyes. The glasses lay in a breast pocket, but there was no way to reach them as his both hands were needed to hold onto the mage.
The sun pierced through the skin, biting out his eyes from under the eyelids. Varan inclined his head; what a pity that he is so blind. The wingams rise immeasurably higher than the propeller is capable of.
It became difficult to breathe. Head is spinning. The mage shouted something - Varan didn’t understand.
The saddle tilted again. He realized that he would now fall and that this time his death was inevitable. Wingam screamed - it roared with an executive bass, and from the bottom, it received the same voices...
A sharp thrust threw Varan on the hard back of the mage who was sitting in front. The hot light was on his face, like a red-hot palm.
"We have arrived," said the magician. "You can unclench your fingers."
Varan thought how humiliating it would be if his fingers had to be unclenched with the help of others. Gathered with strength and freed himself from the magician, he even slightly pushed him away. Then he reached into his breast pocket and took his glasses.
He was able to see very badly. In the middle of everything stood a black and red circle; only a corner of his eye could distinguish a stone platform under the feet of the wingam and the edge of this platform, and beyond the edge sky and new rocks, rocks far below.
"It's a tower," said the magician, coming down the saddle by a small ladder. "If possible, look under your feet."
"There's nothing to breathe here," Varan said through force.
"Gorni also have difficulties when it comes to breathing in the bottomlands..."
Varan felt that his ladder was on a side of the wingam. He climbed down and sat on a hot stone. The wind that touched his cheeks turned out to be icy.
"Home," the magician told the bird. Varan covered his ears with his hands, because the flapping of the wings was deafening, and the hurricane rose absolutely impossible.
"Follow me," the mage told Varan. "There's a hatch here."
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