Kiteman of Karanga Read online

  "By the Lizard!" exclaimed Zanzu jubilantly. "This is the way it ought to be—riding on the open roads, no hiding, no unloading or picking up cargoes at midnight, no running for our lives. A man could grow old and happy doing business this way."

  "You still have the Karangan council to deal with," Karl reminded him.

  "Ah, yes," said the former smuggler, "but I've already lined up a couple of good contacts there. I shouldn't have any problems."

  "You mean you were doing business while we were there before?" Karl asked in amazement.

  "Of course I was," said Zanzu with a grin. "Business is business, and if you want to stay in business, you've got to be thinking ahead."

  The Karangans set up their wings, and Karl gave his brother a farewell embrace.

  "Lars, take care of yourself. Tell the council that I will live in Eftah, but that I am a Karangan always."

  Lars grinned at his brother, then turned and started down the slope. Within a few steps he was airborne. He skimmed across the field and soared out over the valley. One, two, then three at a time, the other Karangans launched and soon the whole force was circling together in a large thermal. They grew smaller until they were like colorful leaves in the autumn sky. Then they turned eastward and disappeared over the horizon.

  Late in the day they would land on the desert and wait for Zanzu's column to catch up with them. From there the lizard caravan and the force of kitemen would travel together in the same way they had crossed the desert before.

  Zanzu got back in his saddle, and on his command his men mounted their lizards. Bidding Karl and Rika farewell, Zanzu turned his column around, and they started on their journey with the Karangans.

  Karl looked up at the gathering white cumulus clouds, clouds that grew from small thermals in the morning and developed into fierce updrafts by afternoon and thunderstorms by evening. Already a few of the flat bottoms were beginning to darken.

  "I think we should go flying," he told Rika.

  A few minutes later they were flying over the village and then began circling in a powerful thermal beneath one of the flat-bottomed clouds. Higher and higher they rose until the air became chilled and bumpy and they were brushing the mist at the bottom. Karl moved out toward the edge of the cloud and then let the thermal draw him up into it, and Rika followed. Circling inside the cloud, but staying close enough to the edge so they could see the disk of the sun, they climbed higher still. The air grew colder; the swirling, rising mists of the growing cloud wet their faces. A moment later they turned out and burst into the sunshine.

  All around them was a blinding white landscape more mountainous than Eftah. With a joyful whoop of abandon, Karl banked away and dove down across the fluffy slope, speeding straight through a large white hump. On the other side he pulled up, up, and up into what was to be a loop, but at the top he rolled upright and dropped into another dive, coming straight back to rejoin Rika. Wingtip to wingtip they flew between two towering giant cumulus clouds, following a great canyon that turned into a mist-shrouded cavern. They explored this until it closed in behind them. Then, aiming for the brightest spot, they flew into the white wall, breaking out into the sunshine again.

  For nearly an hour Karl and Rika dove and whirled and climbed into the blinding white landscape. But finally Rika caught Karl's attention and gestured earthward.

  For a moment Karl hesitated. At this great height he could see the edge of the desert. Beyond that was Karanga. The events of the past months whisked through his mind like wisps of cloud mist. From cowardice and banishment and the threat of death he had gone on to discover courage, friendship, and a new life.

  Below him Rika swooped into a puffy cloud and emerged on the other side. Karl laughed. Setting his course so that it would intersect Rika's, Karl put his wing into a speedy descent. There was much to do at his new home.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALFRED REYNOLDS was bom in Concord, Massachusetts, and is a graduate of the University of Colorado. For five years he was a teacher of English as a foreign language in West Germany; he now works as a charter pilot and flight instructor. He lives with his wife and daughter in a log house that he built himself deep in the woods in Maine.