The White Bull by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2012-03-20T22:10:04+00:00

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GRADUATE STUDY

Realizing that to locate my traveling friend by night would be virtually impossible, I decided to find some secure tree and roost in it until dawn. To manage this in darkness proved more difficult than I had thought, but at last I was successful. My final choice was a tall pine, leaning inward from an almost inaccessible rocky ledge. With my wings unbuckled I slept curled at its foot—not in its branches, which proved impractical.

Taking to the air again as soon as dawn gave light enough to see, I found little difficulty in identifying the particular series of roads by which my friend the captain and I had ascended to King Cocalus's domain. Skimming downhill close above these sinuous thoroughfares, I began in earnest my search for Kena'ani. My appearance in the sky created some wild confusion among some slaves and peasants who were early in beginning their day's labors, and also in a party of hunters who had spent the night in camp.

But with the speed of a bird I soon left these perturbed folk behind me. My flight was much faster than the progress of any man who was forced to follow the switchbacked roads on foot, and I caught up with Kenaani long before he had reached the harbor.

My friend was traveling alone, hiking along briskly with staff in hand. Recognizing him at a distance and from behind, I flew low over some trees to get ahead of him, and landed in the road so that as he rounded the next turn he came upon me as I stood waiting for him.

Kenaani stopped in his tracks, staring as if I were a ghost. "Daedalus. How did you get here?"

I was standing with my wings down at my sides, so that the fringes of soft leather that imitated great feathers trailed in the dust, and the effect must have been of a silvery cape rather than wings. For a moment or two more I might have deceived my companion. But, I reflected, I would hardly be able to do so any longer than that.

"With these," I answered, and spread my pinions wide.

The eyes of the Phoenician trader widened; I had concealed from Kenaani my secret project for the Sicilian princesses, and he had never before seen any wings of my making in an unbroken state.

"Then it is true—but let me see you fly!"

Considering that I owed him my life, I could hardly refuse this modest request. But almost as soon as I was airborne, my friend became fearful that I would be seen by someone else, and that the secret of my invention would somehow be lost for nothing. So after completing one brief flight, up to treetop level and back, I landed in response to his urgent gestures.

"Then it is true," he muttered when I once more stood beside him on the ground. "Really true."

"You still had doubts?" I did not know whether to feel amused or wounded.

"I had—but never mind. My friend, can you begin to realize what an invention like this is worth?"

I sighed.

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