The great table-top mountain which dwarfed the city of Heyl was bordered not only in the north by a great lake, but also in the south. The eastern seashore continued past the southern reaches of Heyl, which created a second isthmus between the ocean and the southern lake. This southern isthmus was never incorporated into the city of Heyl and, indeed, the old-growth forests remained almost untouched, save for the hills where ancient Taisians had constructed their famed Palace-Forts.

  The largest and highest of these forts was the Castle of Saint Klara the Founder, who was said to have funded the expedition to expand beyond mainland Taisia. The structure had been constructed of stone and brick brought to the site on ships from Southern Taisia, from quarries in the desert north of the ancient delta-city of Jelka. The wood had been sourced locally. Military engineers had constructed the Palace-Fort for the purpose of protecting Heyl from incursions by the Azacago people in the south. The invaders had not understood that the Azacago people had been mostly-docile at the time, having busied themselves for a thousand years with the construction of elaborate monuments to their gods.

  Everything in the castle was decorated with elaborate geometric motifs, both in the paintings on the ceilings and in the elaborate tilework mosaics. The Shrine of Light and Dark was the most elaborate and breathtaking of the rooms in the structure. At least that was how Glenice felt about it. The tiles were actually long rectangular prisms which allowed the sunlight into the structure during the day, but the room had no sources of light otherwise. The mortar had been mixed with shining obsidian, which was a motif for the Queen of Darkness, sister-self to the Queen of Light. During the day the chamber's walls resembled a harlequin opal, tessellations of never-repeating colors, a kaleidoscope in stasis.

  The shrine prominently featured two huge statues. One of them depicted the Queen of Light rendered in white marble laced with gold. The other depicted the Queen of Darkness rendered in black marble and laced with bloodstone. It was before this latter statue that Glenice prostrated herself.

  "Great Queen of Darkness," she said. "Not long now. I promise. Not long now."

  When she turned to leave, Algot Gunn was waiting for her by the door. He smiled at her.

  "Not long now," he said.

  It was no secret at the castle that both Algot Gunn and Glenice worshipped the Queen of Darkness. In the nine months that she had been working with the man they had succeeded in converting many of the soldiers and engineers to their religion. A religion of reverence for freedom, including the freedom to choose to be evil.

  Algot Gunn gave his prayers and then they left. Through the square villa-style courtyard and around a great square fountain-pool which shimmered the color of tropical waters. The castle's battlements rose above the orange trees, though they were dwarfed by the towering palms. Across the courtyard was the entrance to the Great Stables, a castle wing that had once been used to house the horses of the officers and lords that called the castle home. The space had since been converted to a workshop for the development of flying machines.

  Dozens of carpenters worked on lathes and mills to craft the spars and ribs required for the wings. Weavers toiled at their looms to craft the lightweight fabric that would cover the wings. Engineers and mathematicians stood at their drawing boards attempting to rediscover the relationship between thrust and drag. Hammers thumped and saws buzzed and the room smelled of sawdust and tree sap and acrid chemicals.

  In her past life Glenice had gone to college and learned about differential equations, however she had forgotten all of that information during her long career as a pilot. She could easily describe to the engineers what it was like to pilot an airplane, and this helped them design the three-axis control scheme, however the exact angle of the horizontal stabilizer still eluded them. Until they figured out the correct equations, they were forced to experiment with different angles under the airflow from a Wind Elemental. A tunnel-shaped structure had been constructed along the far wall of the Grand Stable and it was toward this structure that Algot Gunn and Glenice went.

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  The latest prototype was resting on the workshop floor. It was just a pair of wings with a boom on the back and a second, smaller pair of wings at the end. Each pair of wings was angled up slightly at the tip, which provided passive roll stability. A cable through the boom connected the rear wings to a set of bicycle gears in the center of the forward wing, which were connected to a scrolling wheel which jutted above the wing slightly.

  "What's this rig for again?" Algot Gunn asked. "It seems like a lot of space has been devoted to this little project of yours."

  "The engine is very heavy and it tends to pull the nose down," Glenice explained. "You don't want to nose-dive out of the sky."

  "Could you put the engine in the middle?"

  "That's not important right now. Listen, when the nose-dive starts, more of the cambered wing will be exposed to the air, and therefore the dive motion accelerates. It's a vicious circle. But you can have this smaller wing on the back that will nose-dive first, if the angle is just right. That rear 'nose-dive' will create a rotation around the center of gravity, causing the nose to pitch up before the nose-dive develops in the forward wing. This causes an oscillation, but if the angle is exactly right, then the oscillation is convergent and the pilot won't feel anything."

  She grabbed the scroll wheel and twisted it several times. This caused the bicycle gears to rotate and the leading edge of the small wing on the back moved imperceptibly downward.

  "We'll try this one. Go get the Wind Elemental."

  Algot Gunn summoned the Wind Elemental and blasted the craft's nose. The craft was fixed by a cable at the nose and the tips of the wings were fixed to the walls of the cylinder with elastic cables to prevent rolling. The tail wings were not connected to anything. The effect of the stream of wind was to lift the wings and relax the elastic cables to either side. The tail rose up and oscillated violently, so Glenice pulled back on the scroll wheel until the motion became convergent, and then stopped altogether. She took a paintbrush and marked the spot on the scroll wheel.

  "It's just magic to me," Algot Gunn said.

  "It will have to do for now," she said. "Until our mathematicians come up with the right differential equations. Have your subordinates acquired a book on the topic yet?"

  The spy shook his head. "Unfortunately no. The banks kept textbooks on differential equations very well-hidden. Especially ones which might help us."

  "It will be hard to come up with a generalized solution without doing the math first. The center of gravity can change just because one pilot is heavier than another, or because ammunition is expended. The airplanes will need to be quite large at first, so that these variables are a smaller percentage of the total mass. With these materials, we may need to start with a more robust design. Maybe a biplane."

  When Glenice was satisfied with the design, they loaded it up onto a hose-drawn cart and hauled it to the edge of the cliffs outside. Down below the cliffs a long, flat stretch of forest had been cleared. Stone Elementals had been used to pave a long muddy runway for the craft to land on, and a Life Elemental had been used to accelerate the growth of tall grasses to make the landing softer.

  They rigged the craft onto a rail with a weight connected to rope on a pulley. They attached the vertical tail fin while the craft was sitting on the rail. Glenice connected the rope to a hook that was angled to slip off once the craft passed the pulley. With half a dozen engineers watching she gave the signal.

  Algot Gunn pulled the lever on the pulley to drop the weight off the cliff. The craft lurched forward and then it was slingshot up off the rail into the sky. Very gently, with a slight nose-down curve, it floated and bobbed down toward the landing site in the forest below. When it landed it slid a little ways and then stopped.

  "Excellent," the captain said. "Now make one that I can fly in."

  "Not yet," Glenice said. "You are too valuable. Prince Adrian told me not to let you take such risks. We will make a craft for one of your subordinates. A disposable subordinate."

  "Hell no. History is being made here."

  "Remade," Glenice corrected him.

  "History is being remade right here. I want to be the one the history books mention."

  "You'll fall out of the sky and die horribly."

  "We have Life Elementals," he said helpfully.