SKY DANCER

An Ancient Tale Of Human FlightBy The Scribe

Thomas Of William

(As Told By The Crews Of Trading Galleses Calling At Albion)

!! In a swirl of purple robes, Lord Tiberius caught up with Sibelius coming out of the temple repository. Throughout the month of Poseidon, the palace priest had been collecting reports of a near-mythical figure whom, it was said, soared with ravens, aurks and kites.

CHAPTER 1

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Birdman

! Soon Sibelius would have enough scrolls to commission an illuminated manuscript. Carved into woodblocks by fanatical artisans whose patience was exceeded only by their skill, the priest and his backers did not doubt their first printing would become an instant best seller. Everyone loves an action hero. Especially if he's a regular bloke lacking superhuman powers.

! “Hold,” commanded Tiberius. Then, realizing such an imperious tone ran counter to his connivance, he appended, “If you please.”

! Sibelius stood and waited. It was clear he was not pleased.

! “Ah, my friend,” Tiberius assayed as he drew near. “You are looking well.”

! “What do you want?” Sibelius said in a voice devoid of delight.

! “One gold drachma if you tell me the whereabouts of Lady Luck,” Tiberius of-fered.

! When Sibelius remained silent, the local bigwig quickly added, “Make it two.”

! “Her blessed name, may the Goddess find delight in it, is spelt L-U-C,” Sibelius corrected. “And pronounced, 'Luke'. As to such an unfamiliar moniker, she claims to hail from the Pleiades. If so, her Earthly aspect is most pleasing.”

! “Whatever,” said Tiberius.

! The priest appeared to consider the bribe. “Make your donation not to me, but to Athena’s flame and the Acropolis,” he said at length.

! “Done,” said Tiberius. Upon hearing nothing further, he barked, “So where is she? Lady Luke will bring me luck, leading my loyal retainers to the birdman. His unique flying skills, combined with my Mark III incendiaries, will allow me to conquer all of Thrace. And beyond.”

! “He will spit in your eye,” parlayed the priest.

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! “On the contrary, that randy upstart will be only too glad to cooperate,” Tiberius retorted with a hearty chuckle. He did not add, with a gleaming blade held to his woman's pale bosom.“Now, per our agreement, where and in what circumstances did you see her last?”

! Sibelius beckoned Tiberius closer. Placing his lips close to the hairy royal ear, he whispered, “The lady Luc is halfway to their secret rendezvous, beneath the sky and beside the sea. A reunion I fear Aeolus will be missing.”

! Tiberius recoiled from the jape. “So now you are a poet? This address encompasses the entire Aegean.”

! “No poesy intended, my friend. As everyone knows, her lover is indeed the fabled Sky Dancer. Earlier this day, with your sheriffs' lances pressing him at the brink of capture, Aeolus leapt from the Raven's Beak. Alas, he lacked his bulky wing. He plunged toward certain death clutching only a long artist's canvas rolled thickly around a wooden rod.”

! “The fool,” Tiberius snorted. “I suppose he meant to paint a picture of his own bone-rending demise.”

! “As he fell,” Sibelius continued unperturbed, “Aeolus unrolled the canvas. Lying upon it and clutching the staff that formed its lead-ing edge, he entered a controlled descent.

! “Alas, the breeze gusted stronger than a Drakon's breath. His equilibrium soon upset. As your men jeered like barbarians from the heights above, the makeshift wing tilted up on one side and tumbled into the clouds.”

! Tiberius frowned. “He's dead then. Too bad. For me.”

! “Aeolus did not resist the winds for which he is named,” Sibelius went on. “Instead, he embraced each blast, rolling, spinning, flipping like a fledgling forced from the nest. But he was no novice. Nor an-other Icarus. Less than thirty sandal-lengths above jagged rocks, this flying fox righted his improvised levitation. Swooping low across the beach, he released his grip and dropped laughing into the sea.”

! “Where he became a seal, I suppose.”

! “Of course. He dived beneath the waves, where he is as at home as in the sky.”

! Tiberius clapped slowly, with a droll lack of enthusiasm. “A most imaginative yarn. Does he live then? If so, where is this Aeolus?”

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! “He lives. But for how long? The Sky Dancer has ceased his merriment and is drifting rapidly away from land.” Closing his eyes, the neuromancer pressed one hand to his forehead and tilted his face toward the Aegean sky. When he resumed, his voice came distant and hushed...

! “Even cast adrift, he is planning an entertainment that will feature your comeuppance. Apparently... ”

! The wizened wizard once again paused to consult his invisible sources. “Apparently, Aeolus is blaming you for his latest excursion. And he continues to take exception to your ordering his mother's murder.”

! “That whore is a rebel and a traitor!”

! “She is none of those things, as you know very well. But she did spurn your advances in front of your officers. Who refused to carry out your order.”

! “The bitch claimed allegiance to her dead husband and would not grace my bed.”

! “Be glad of it, my lord. Because she knows whose hand lies behind her beloved's violent and untimely end. If you had attempted to force her compliance, you would have bedded a she-tiger. Carnage not copulation would have been your fate.”

! “You lie!”

! “The oracles I consult tell only truths.”

! “You arrogant wretch! I should have you killed!”

! “Save your arrows and sheath your threats. I am the high priest Sibelius, chosen of Athena. I cannot die before my time. And that is for no man to decide.”

! “So you say, old man. Tell me why I should not terminate you now.”

! “Lay a hand on me and your manhood will turn inward and become a devouring worm.”

! “Gross! That is so gross,” piped up a tremulous falsetto. Neither man had glimpsed the young lad's approach. “Can I watch?”

! “Silence, nephew!” Without looking 'round, Tiberius backhanded the boy across his face.

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! “Ow!” The kid stumbled backwards clutching his reddening cheek. “Bastard! Cunny! Fook!”

! Tiberius turned. Withdrawing a pipe-shaped object from his tunic, he levelled it at the sputtering annoyance. “Unforgivable,” he said. The lord's hand twitched. A puff of black smoke, a loud report and the child flew backwards. A ragged hole in his chest fountained blood and gristle. He was dead before he tobogganed into the ground.

! Even Sibelius stumbled back. “What manner of sorcery is this?” he exclaimed.

! “It's called a 'gun' my dear priest,” Tiberius replied. “One of the spices my ships carried back from the Celestial Kingdom is a rough-grained powder called salt peter. Besides dampening a man's ardency, my scientists have discovered how to refine it into something that rebukes passion with a bang. As you've seen, the concomitant gust propels a ball. Not even Aeolus can fly with a hole in his head. As for his soon-to-be-hostage maiden, she, too, will be unable to resist the threat of such a virile... eruption.” Tiberius smirked wickedly. “What say your oracles now?”

! “They say, bite me,” said the priest. Before the stunned sovereign could react, Sibelius reached into the folds of his robe and produced his own gun. But this updated version featured four gleaming bronze tubes bound with stout copper straps.

! “Four pipes!” tut-tutted Tiberius. “Where... how... what... ?”

! “They're more properly termed, 'barrels',” Sibelius instructed. “Do you really think your boffins' work stays hidden? My mind's eyes and ears hover everywhere, invisible as the small-est motes.”

! Tiberius ducked as the priest waved the proto-shotgun in risky arcs. “The crossed pairs of lightning bolts on the graven grip are especially evocative, don't you think? As you can see where my thumb rests, a single lever selects each barrel. Or... ” The priest grinned and clicked the selector. “All four together.”

! “You crazy coot!” Tiberius shouted. “That thing is illegal! It is forbidden for anyone but me to own and operate a firestick. I mean, gun.”

! “Here, then. Have it,” said Sibelius, tossing the diabolical device to the panicky potentate. “I have taken vows of reasonable chastity, relative poverty and nearly total non-violence. More to the point, vested with Athena's powers I do not need such a cowardly contrivance.”

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! “Enough!” Tiberius cried. Juggling the unexpected firepower like a fanged serpent, he clumsily steered the weapon toward the priest's unquavering guts. Even locked-on, fingers palsied by rage refused to obey. Sibelius was considering suggesting lunch when the tyrant-in-training found the firing stud. At point-blank range, the quad-barreled hand-cannon spoke with a crash louder than Thor's thunder.

! “Haides and damnation!” Tiberius screamed. “This cursed machine has broken my wrist!”

! “Never fear. It is only sprained,” Sibelius said calmly.

! “Whaaa??” Tiberius trilled as if a shade had whispered from the grave. “You should be dead. How could I have missed?”

! “You didn't,” Sibelius assured him. The priest pointed to four tightly grouped smudges imprinted on the midsection of his robe. Then he directed his liege lord's attention to the ground.

! Tiberius goggled like a grouper at the four iron balls smoking in the dirt. “Triton's teeth! You really are a witch.”

! “Wizard,” amended Sibelius. “FYI: Your latest attempted murder has been recorded.”

! Tiberius glanced wildly around. “A geezer's bluff. I see no scribe.”

! “Look close,” bade Sibelius. “Those specks you see glittering in the beneficent rays of Helios are actually miniature winged drones.”

! “Drones?” Tiberius ran his tongue around the spooky word. As the implications swelled, he coughed, choking on it.

! “Atlantean tech,” Sibelius said. “Mechanical flying insects that remember everything they see. And hear.”

! Tiberius blanched. “Everything?”

! Sibelius nodded. “Now you owe me, fat man. Also, Aeolus and Luc. Big time.”

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TO BE CONTINUED...

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WHO IS WILLIAM THOMAS?

A lifelong air geek, I soloed a Cessna at the age of 16. Two years later came five para-chute jumps. In 1984, captaining a 31' trimaran, I completed an eight-year Pacific circum-navigation, making the first non-stop North Pacific crossing by multihull from Japan to North America. This homage to human flight is inspired by Rocketman, “How To Train Your Dragon 2”, “DaVinci’s Demons”, The Black Condor comix, MM Buckner's The Gravity Pilot, the online writings of The Wanderling, and Jeb Corliss and the wingsuit community. Also, jumping off a mountaintop with Canada's national hang-gliding champion.

! My writing and photography have appeared in more than 50 magazines in eight countries, with transla-tions into French, Dutch and Japanese. An award-winning investigative reporter and filmmaker, my pub-lished books include: Scorched Earth, Bringing The War Home, Chemtrails Confirmed, All Fall Down, and Days of Deception. Co-founder and editor of the underground magazine, PITH, I later won a coveted berth at the US Navy's flight school, only to resign my commission over the slaughter in Vietnam. In the mid-70s, I co-founded the Mind's Eye, Vancouver's first photo-graphic gallery, before being accepted as a “photog” with Canada's premier photo-featuring newspaper, the Vancouver Sun.!

! Following my Pacific voyage, I made a vision quest into the Coast Mountains. Told to speak for the voiceless ones, I co-founded Green Islands and the Save Georgia Strait Alliance to help stop destructive forest clear-cutting and mutagenic pulp mill pollution. During and immediately following Desert Storm, I co-founded the Gulf Environmental Emergency Response Team, a three-man response to the biggest ecological disaster in modern times. My award-winning documentary “Eco War” was excerpted by CNN and the CBC.

! I next wrote the first fully-documented books on Gulf War Illness, the aerosol geoengineering program called chemtrails, and 9/11. More recently, I have written and spoken out on the dangers of wireless gadgets and grids, and helped rally local smart meter opposition. I wrote this for fun. -William Thomas

!

Thank you for downloading my ebooks and supporting my work at: willthomasonline.net

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WHAT ABOUT CAPTAIN NEMO AND HIS SUBMARINE?

I totally confess to submarine movie dependency. Many classic sub films have torpedoed my neurons: Run Silent Run Deep, The Enemy Below, On The Beach, U-571, Crimson Tide, The Hunt For Red October, We Dive At Dawn... (Lamentably, Das Boot deletes the fanatical Nazism among all elite U-boat crews, excusing instead duped sailors driven solely by shipboard solidarity to kill and die for the Reich.)

A child of TV’s takeover, I was hooked by the first Technicolor 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Happily, I never recovered from repeated exposures to the book, the comic, and that live epic CinemaScope extravaganza – the Star Trek of its time. Taking the name “Nemo” in vain is not to be done lightly!

OK, I did take certain liberties: mashing up technologies, geography, eras, lingo and sampled web art to riff on a mythic Med. Like the wine and other Greek terms, the aeronautics and sea jargon are accurate. Everything else my muse and I made up. Always, of course, out of love and appreciation for the genre. And my own sense of wonder.

I can’t wait to see how this yarn plays out.

Thank you all! !

William Thomas

(undisclosed Pacific island, Nov. 27, 2014)

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