Chapter 34
Construction of the Aircraft
With the decision made to remain in the abandoned village for the duration of the winter snows, the party settled in to build crude roofs over two of the small, stone cottages, one for the men and one for the women. They used spells to cut logs from the forest. After the wood had fallen, it was an easy matter to slide and the logs down the mountain slope and into the village. The first winter blizzard hit just as they completed work on the second roof. The party stayed relatively warm and safe inside the cottages while the wind howled relentlessly outside the cottage.
The blizzard lasted for nearly three days. Connie spent most of this time alone, sitting with the party only to eat those meals she did not skip. During this time, no one brought up the subject of the plane.
On the morning the blizzard ended, they opened the front door of the cottage to find a swath of snow up to their knees. Rahl and Snow went out and brought back for Connie samples of the wood they found in the forest around the village. From these, she was able to gauge the weight and strength of the different varieties. Undisturbed in the second cottage, Connie worked tirelessly during the blizzard on the design of the aircraft. She estimated the weight of the party and the density of the air. From this, she calculated the necessary wing surface and the push that would be needed to push the plane over the chasm. When she had finished her calculations, she used her quill pen and sheets of blank parchment from Alyndia’s partially written spell books to create a mosaic drawing of the aircraft. Afterward, she took a walk around the slope of the mountain to figure out how to best launch the craft. The morning of the fifth day, after a long night, Connie brought with her to breakfast the drawings she’d created. She did not present them to the party until after the meal was over.
Now she laid out the blueprints for the craft for the party to view. There were a few gasps from the group when they saw the intricate details of the drawing.
“This is the craft we shall build,” Connie said to them. “It will have a wingspan of twenty-eight paces, a length of fifteen paces, and enough room to seat all of us in relative comfort.” Connie went on to describe the features of the aircraft and the methods for steering the plane using a rudder and flaps. “If we work diligently, I estimate we could finish it in a little over a month or so.”
“What will make it move?” Rahl asked.
“We will use a combination of Push and Lightness spell enchantments.”
“What good will the enchantments be if they do not work when we sail over the chasm?” Theo asked.
“We won’t need them to sail over it. We need them only to launch the craft. After that, the laws of physics take over.”
Connie pulled out another drawing, this one of the mountain slope near where the village was located. “This is what I propose. We will cut a path through the forest and up the slope. We will then launch the craft by running it up the slope at high speed using a powerful Push enchantment. By the time the Push enchantment stops working at the cliff, we will have gained enough momentum and altitude that we should be able to easily sail over the chasm. After we cross the chasm, the Push enchantment should resume. From there, we can fly to the valley, where the Heptakon and the Kn’all-ba-tasalb await us.”
Low mutters came from the party on hearing this. Connie was uncertain how this was going over, but from the consensus of expressions, there was a great deal of skepticism. Snow spoke up first.
“What about these Push enchantments? What about their node power?”
“That’s a good question. I’ve been tinkering with my wind nodes and the Push enchantment. Due to the logarithmic loss in effectiveness of the enchantment at high node powers, I estimate a minimum power of about three hundred. Five hundred would be optimal. This will give us some leeway in case we run into a strong headwind.”
“Three hundred?” Snow said, incredulous. “You want a three-hundred node enchantment?”
“Yes—three hundred. Is that a problem?”
“Why so much?”
“The plane will need to leave the cliff at very high speed in order to gain enough altitude to reach the other side of the chasm. And that’s not taking into account the lightness enchantment of the craft.”
“Three hundred power will make a very unstable enchantment. Besides, where are we going to get three hundred nodes worth of Air? It’s not like we can merely walk over to the Element Bazaar, toss over a few Rezni pieces, and buy three hundred power in Air nodes.”
Theo laughed at this. He got the joke. Most of the others only frowned at Connie, mystified.
Connie smiled. “We just need to pool our nodes together. I have Alyndia’s nodes, plus those I’ve acquired on our quest. I have seventy-eight power in Air, total. We also have Fandia’s Air nodes, and whatever nodes you brought.”
Snow shook her head. “Still, even with Fandia’s nodes, we won’t have enough. Not before spring.”
“We will just have to hunt for them. One of us can sit on the top of the ridge where the wind blows. Many are bound to appear.”
“You do that!” Snow said abrasively. “I will freeze while standing on top of the ridge waiting for Air nodes.”
“We can take turns.” Connie looked to the others. “We can even teach some of you how to contact Air nodes.”
“I don’t want to stay up on the ridge,” Maltokken said.
“And I don’t want to learn how to detect nodes,” Yalden added.
“Building that contraption looks like a lot of work. I’d rather sit on the ridge waiting for nodes than drag logs down the mountain,” Jalban said.
“I have no experience working with wood,” Theo said. “I’d be useless.”
Connie took a deep breath, then exhaled forcefully through her clenched teeth. This group was a hard sell. She stared intently into each party member’s eyes. “I hear a lot of reasons why we can’t build this thing. Does anyone have a better idea? Does anyone even want to complete this quest?”
Snow spoke up. “So what if we don’t find enough Air power? What shall we do?”
“I found a spell for cross-node enchantment in one of Alyndia’s books. The spell is called Meld. With this spell, we can borrow the power of incompatible nodes to power an Air spell enchantment. If we can combine the power of all our elements, we should have no trouble reaching twelve hundred.”
On hearing this, Snow brought her hand to her eyes and shook her head. Connie did not expect this reaction from Snow. To the contrary, she thought Snow would be impressed with her resourcefulness.
“What’s wrong?” Rahl asked Snow before Connie could ask the same question.
“Connie wants to use a Meld on a three-hundred node enchantment,” Snow replied without looking up. “That is what’s wrong.”
“Is there something I don’t know about?” Connie asked, suddenly feeling unsure.
“Meld is an unstable spell. The chance for perversion is high, even if you cast it correctly. It is very seldom used for that reason. I’m surprised Alyndia even had it in her book. You should have ripped out the page when you saw it.”
“We should at least try the spell if we cannot acquire the node power.”
Snow looked up at Connie. She narrowed her eyes. “Creating a three-hundred node enchantment is dangerous enough without using a Meld spell. Didn’t you read in your books that the difficulty of the enchantment increases with the amount of power induced into the item?”
“Yes, I read that.”
“Then you must also know that a mistake will most likely result in a violent reaction, an explosion. I guarantee there won’t be anything left of you if a three-hundred node enchantment explodes in your face.”
“I’m willing to take the risk.”
“Very well, then. You will be the one to create the enchantment. We will watch you from a safe distance.”
Connie smiled at this. “So, you will release Fandia’s nodes to me?”
“Certainly. You may have all of mine, too, though I don’t bear many.”
“Wait a minute,” Yalden said. “How is it you expect us to sit in this thing if it has a chance of exploding?”
Snow scowled at Yalden. “It can’t explode after the enchantment is done, you bonehead. The risk is only during the enchantment process.”
At this point, a squabble began between the sorceress and the fighter over Yalden’s complete ignorance of magic and her snobbish attitude toward him over it. The party paused the discussion momentarily while threats and rancorous insults were traded between the two.
“How will you stop the activation of the enchantment?” Rahl asked, finally cutting through the bickering.
“That will be part of the enchantment. It will push the craft only for as long as it is needed. I can make it duration-based. I haven’t decided yet.”
Connie scanned the party. All eyes were on her. No one said anything.
“No questions?”
Jalban spoke up. “I do not have a question, but I admit I do not trust it. I think perhaps we should return to Roggentine.”
Connie looked into Jalban’s eyes. “That has already been decided, Jalban. We will not be returning to Roggentine—not until the quest is fulfilled.”
“I do not have a good feeling about this. I do not believe that craft of this size can fly by physics alone.”
“I’ll just have to make a believer out of you, won’t I?”
“When do we begin construction of this aircraft?” Maltokken asked.
Connie looked to Rahl. “With the swordbearer’s permission, I say we start today. First, however, we must build a roof for the meeting hall so that we have a place to work.”
A few moans and guffaws issued from the party. “We have to build another roof?” Theo asked.
“Not if you don’t mind working in the cold and the snow. I’d prefer shelter if I’m going to be shaving and joining wood for the next month or so.”
In response to Theo’s question, Yalden turned to his brother. “What do you say, Rahl? Shall we build another roof?”
About ten minutes later, the party was out on the slope, tromping through the snow. They selected some trees for the roof of the cottage along with some stout, strong, straight trees that they would later use for the fuselage of the plane. After all the trees were selected and marked, Connie cast an octa-node Chop spell at the trunk of the first tree. The tree crashed noisily to the snowy slope of the mountainside. Fortuitously, she found a six-power node of Wood within its trunk. This will come in hand for building the craft, she thought. She then removed the branches with this node, cast a Lightness spell on the trunk, and then four of them dragged the tree down the slope to the village. Within the next hour, they harvested several trees. They stacked them like so many logs just outside the ancient hall where the other party members were making slow but steady progress building the roof for the old building.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After two days, they had harvested enough trees for the plane. The roof was completed five days later. After this, they settled in for the winter and earnestly began building the craft under Rahl’s careful eye. To Connie’s delight, Rahl was an excellent carpenter, almost to the level of his brother, and with his patient guidance and leadership, he was able to extract a higher quality of work from the party members than she had otherwise expected.
Connie spent a greater part of her days up on the mountain slope collecting nodes of Air. She found this to be trickier than expected due to the wickedly changeable wind that blew there. But her perseverance paid off, and in only a week she was able to amass a sizable number of air nodes.
A few weeks passed. The skeleton of the fuselage had already taken shape inside the makeshift hangar. Jalban created effective flap control lines with a hemp-like vine he found a short distance away while foraging autumn nuts beneath the snow to add variety to the meals. Snow and Yalden created a sturdy windshield from Jalban’s old shield they found at the bottom of the Threshibian bag. First, Yalden pounded the metal to the desired shape, then Snow enchanted the metal with a Clarity spell. Now, effectively, it would become a windshield with the transparency of glass and the strength of steel.
On some dark winter nights, Connie furtively withdrew some of Snow’s celestial spell books from the Threshibian bag. Unlike the elemental spell books, Connie could only speculate on the meaning of the symbols that composed these spells. They were written in an entirely different magical shorthand than those of the elemental discipline. Many of the spells had a simple number instead of a name. This did not matter much, as she could not understand the names anyway. Connie surmised that Alyndia was not a very competent celestial mage, or else Connie would have received her innate ability to read the spells. How Alyndia had managed to cast the powerful spells that brought her to Earth was anyone’s guess.
Connie had politely asked Snow a few times when her own training on casting celestial spells would begin, now that she was the sorceress’s apprentice. Snow told her to be patient, because the current priorities were building the aircraft and finding enough to eat while living on the mountainside, and that she would teach Connie in good time when these tasks did not exhaust her so much.
One night, Snow unexpectedly awoke and caught Connie flipping through one of her spell books. To Connie’s surprise, the sorceress said nothing to her but only gave her a smug smile and turned over in her cot. The next morning, when Connie asked Snow for some instruction, the sorceress politely declined. She told Connie she was welcome to look at the celestial spell books any time she wanted to, as long as she didn’t mark up the pages. Connie took her up on this. However, after a while, she became bored with the books and went back to memorizing her elemental spells.
Inside the Threshibian bag, Connie discovered a mysterious miniature chest made of metal and wood. Inscribed into the underside of the chest held the words, Elenglea Vanexay, so she knew the chest belonged to Snow. The chest did not have a lock or a latch to hold it shut, but it did not readily open either. When the chest was shaken, it made a thunka-thunka sound. From this, Connie gathered that the little chest contained a single object, somewhat heavy, wrapped in padding. Other than that, the chest gave no clue as to what it contained. The night Connie chanced upon this container, she spent a good while trying to pry it open. No matter what her method, the box remained firmly shut. With her natural curiosity ablaze, she made a personal challenge to herself to discover the contents of the box without asking the sorceress.
The second month was fraught with problems. One of the large wood struts that held the tail assembly together had split unexpectedly. This meant the tail end of the fuselage had to be disassembled and reworked. This discovery was followed by curses and fixation of blame. Meanwhile, Connie spent several hours each day up on the ridge collecting nodes. Sometimes, Theo would fill in for her. Snow even put in a few hours, although she’d taken more of an interest in helping Jalban with the meal preparation. With the men in the party preoccupied with building the aircraft, she sometimes took it upon herself to do some of the foraging, once even bringing in a jule. By the end of the month, Connie and the others had thus far collected a remarkable two hundred node power of Air.
By the fourth week, the fuselage was nearly complete. Work now began on the wings to be attached later after the fuselage was moved out of the hangar. Instead of canvas for the wings, which they didn’t have, they used narrow slats of wood fitted seamlessly together to aerodynamic smoothness by Rahl’s careful knife. His work here was nothing short of remarkable. Connie likewise collected another forty in node power, including a rare, ten-power node gem. This brought their total Air enchantment to over two hundred. Late in the month, Connie began coming down with a congestive respiratory illness due to the cold she endured on the mountain each day. Theo cast curative spells on her on three separate occasions. After this, he warned her to cut back her time on the mountain or else he would let her suffer with the illness for a while to teach her a lesson. Connie grudgingly responded by reducing her time on the mountain by about three hours a day.
The end of the month was a terrible month for snowstorms. Nearly a story of snow fell on the mountainside. Due to the inclement weather, Connie and the others did not spend much time on the windy ridge collecting nodes.
After six weeks, the fuselage and the wings were now complete and stacked neatly in the hangar. Now they were working on a wood sled that would sit underneath the fuselage for takeoff. This was a change from the original plan to build wheels for the craft when it was found that the slope of the mountain was too rocky and uneven. Later in the month, they coated the wings and fuselage with a resinous substance derived from boiling the bark of a local tree. This gave the wood a frosted blue appearance when it dried. Rahl explained that this would seal the wood and prevent it from warping when the air warmed up.
The end of the second month brought warmer air from the south. Several days of sunny weather melted the heavy accumulation of ice and snow. Connie went back up the mountain. That week, she managed to collect another thirty power in nodes. This brought the accumulated total power up to 250. She now had enough power for the enchantment with a little extra to spare.
On one clear morning, Connie melted away most of the snow in the courtyard with spells cast from their dwindling supply of fire nodes. In a group effort, they moved the sled and fuselage wings from the wide doorways of their stopgap hangar to the courtyard. They set the fuselage on top of the sled with the nose of the craft facing up the mountain slope. With the aid of a few spells, the party was able to hoist the wings onto the fuselage. They propped them up with a few sawhorses until they could be fastened to the fuselage later. For the first time, the party and a group stood around the plane, gazing at it. Its wood looked frosty blue in the sun. No one said much, but Connie could tell by the expressions of her most vociferous detractors that even they were awestruck by their creation.
Rahl spent the remainder of the day carefully fitting the contoured metal plate on the tail of the fuselage. This plate would hold the mighty Push enchantment that would propel the plane forward up the mountain toward the chasm.
The plane was now principally complete. All that remained was for Connie to enchant the metal. Meanwhile, the party methodically cleared away a swath of trees from the slope to be used as a ramp for launching the plane.
The next morning, Connie brought out the metal box containing the Air nodes. Slowly and carefully, she began the intense concentration and tongue-twisting incantation needed to enchant the metal plate with the Air spell. Many times, the noise the party made while clearing the path up the mountains broke Connie’s concentration. She shouted at them to keep quiet. After a few days of this, she began performing the enchantment during the evening hours when work was not being performed on the plane. After the first week, Connie had successfully enchanted the plate with eighty-five node power. This accumulated magic was so strong that the metal took on a pale, yellow glow that was visible in darkness.
Caught up in the thrall of the completion of the project, Snow was visibly impressed with Connie. Perhaps wanting to be a part of this momentous occasion, she volunteered to perform more of the enchantments. Though Connie’s head ached for the intense daily concentration and her fingertips were worn raw from caressing the metal, she refused Snow’s help. A few days later, the enchantment breached two hundred node strength. Now for all the node strength assumed by the metal plate, the magical glow was visible in daylight. Connie was beginning to find that when her concentration lapsed during the enchantment, the brightness of the magical glow would suddenly intensify, and the metal would become very warm. Snow explained to her that this avalanche effect occurred whenever a hyper-enchantment was being performed on an artifact. She said that if this avalanche effect went unchecked, the item would eventually destroy itself and everything around it. In the last few days, the avalanches were becoming more frequent and requiring more concentration to stop when they occurred. Snow took to watching Connie from a safe distance when she wasn’t helping out with the party chores. Snow’s proximity made Connie uncomfortable. A few days later, the level of enchantments had nearly reached 250 in strength.
Snow came to Connie one night after the party had turned in for the evening. “You’ve been at this for many days now,” she said. “You should stop the enchantments for a while.”
“This has to be done. And I will see it though,” she said with determination.
“Connie, the enchantment is very strong. You don’t want to do this while you are weary. To make a mistake now would be dangerous.”
“I’m all right, Snow, but thank you for offering.”
“But I’ve been watching you. The enchantment almost got out of control a few times. You should let me do my part. Allow me to take over so that you can rest.”
Connie drew a sigh of vexation. “No. Now leave me be.”
“I am concerned.”
She backed away from the metal enchantment. “Snow, leave me alone. Will you please?”
“You are foolish, Connie. You cannot do this yourself. Who do you think you are? You think you’re an arch sorceress just because you can cast a few simple elemental spells. Your pride shall be your downfall.”
“You should talk, Snow!”
Connie bit her lip and returned her gaze to the enchantment while Snow stared at her, fuming. Outside of Snow’s ridicule, she secretly admitted to herself that Snow had a point. This enchantment was becoming very difficult to control. It might benefit her to allow Snow to take over. Her experience would be a great benefit to the project. But she did not like Snow’s arrogance toward her and her abilities. She would prove Snow wrong.
“Leave me be,” she said to Snow.
The sorceress spun around and walked away from her without another word. Good riddance, Connie thought. She took a pause in the enchantment to recompose her emotions. Wearily, she contacted another Air node from the container and gently willed it into the metal. This one was a two-node, or a four-node. She just wasn’t sure. She just wanted to complete the enchantment. At that moment, the magical glow of the metal began to intensify. The avalanche effect was occurring again. Feeling slightly foolish, she glanced up to see if Snow was watching her. The sorceress had gone back to the cottage and was nowhere in sight.
She returned her concentration to the metal. The yellow glow intensified to where the light was becoming white. She reached out to touch the metal to cool the effect. Suddenly, a spark jumped out of the metal. It burned her hand. She let out a yell and jumped back a few paces. The magical light that emanated from the metal suddenly doubled intensity, followed by wicked snapping sounds like the sound of ten madmen cracking whips. The magical light from the plate lit up the whole courtyard like a 10,000-watt flood lamp. Fear took hold of her, but she felt she had to get the enchantment back under control. She moved close toward the angry artifact, one hand outstretched, the other shielding her eyes from the intense light. The crackling sounds intensified as she drew closer. She smelled burning wood.
Connie turned around to see Snow standing at the doorway of the cottage. A few of the other party members stood behind her.
“Leave me alone!” Connie called out. “I need to get it under control!”
“No!” Snow yelled. “It’s too late! Run!”
Connie ignored Snow. Snow was playing tricks with her mind again. Connie advanced toward the artifact. Suddenly, a spark from the artifact lashed out at her. It struck her with the intensity of a lightning bolt. Her legs buckled. She collapsed to the ground semi-conscious. Someone called out to her from the cottage. For all the crackling sounds from the artifact, she wasn’t sure if it was male or female voice. All at once, someone grabbed her robe from the nape and began dragging roughly her along the ground. She tried to fight, but her body was still stunned by the bolt of electricity that shot through her body.
Suddenly, there came a bright flash, followed immediately by a loud explosion. To Connie, it sounded as if a bomb had gone off. She felt the concussion on her face and belly. Wood, rocks, and metal pelted her hard. She felt herself drop to the ground. She closed her eyes tightly as she lapsed into near incoherence.
Then all she heard was silence. Silence except for a loud ringing in her ears as if she’d just left a rock concert. She gradually sensed her head rested in the crux of a muscular pair of legs. She opened her eyes. It was Rahl. He had grasped her and pulled her to safety in the last few seconds before the artifact went into an avalanche mode and destroyed itself. He had saved her life. Connie gazed into his face. His face and exposed arms were cut and bleeding from the debris.
“Are you all right?” Rahl asked her.
“Yes, I think so.”
Theo and Snow had already rushed up to the two. Snow helped Rahl to his feet while Theo helped up Connie.
“Thank the gods that you two are all right,” Snow said.
Connie felt quite disoriented from the experience. She felt a stinging on her right cheekbone just below her eye. She wiped it and found her hand covered with blood. Coming to her senses, she looked toward the plane. She could not see it well in the moonless night.
“The aircraft. How is it?” she asked.
“Hold still. You are bleeding,” Theo said as he maintained a firm grasp on her. “Let me fix that.”
“Let go of me,” she shook off Theo’s grasp.
Connie staggered across the village courtyard, where the rest of the party stood looking somber, as though they were attending a graveside eulogy. She tripped and fell over twice on the pieces of wood from the plane that were scattered all over the ground. Although the light was low, it was not difficult to see the plane was in ruins. The brief second of the explosion reduced it to splinters. She put her bloody hands to her head.
“By the gods! What have I done?”
None of the party members present said a word to her—they only stared.
Connie fell to her knees before the wrecked plane, anguished. She looked over at the party members. Mostly, she saw blank looks, except for Yalden, whose expression laid bare his contempt for her. In his hands, he held a fragment of the wooden frame. After glowering at her for a moment, he tossed the piece of wood down to the ground and then stormed back to the cottage. Jalban shuffled along behind him.
Maltokken let out a short laugh. “I guess we’ll finally be going back to Roggentine tomorrow.”
He reentered the cottage, followed by Theo. Now only Tristana remained. She gazed at Connie with a blank expression for a few seconds before following the others.
Now Connie sat alone on the cold ground amidst the wreckage of the plane. She cursed herself for not listening to Snow. The sorceress was right again. She could not do it on her own. She was pushing herself too hard. She needed help, yet she refused it out of the same kind of hubris she hated in Snow.
It was over now. Connie drew a deep, contrite sigh. Her feelings were a turbulent mixture of regret and self-loathing. How could I let this happen? She covered her face and wept inconsolably. It was not like her to feel this way, but never before in her memory had she failed at anything so spectacularly.