Grounded

Forrest Aguirre's work will appear in future issues of Pegasus Online, Eraserhead Press' The Earwig Flesh Factory, and Flesh and Blood. "Grounded" is not a horror story ... well, unless you happen to be afraid of heights.

     Everything was going smoothly, years of study and preparation finally paying off. The sorcerer confidently chanted Crowley's "Augm" while spreading the unblemished goat's blood around the circumference of an inlaid silver pentacle. A tattoo of the Tetragrammaton on his back protected him from rear attacks, thaumaturgic triangles embroidered on either shoulder of his silk white robe guarded him from demonic attacks to the flanks and the Seal of Solomon engraved in amber on his ring's signet served as a ward against possession and the evil eye - always a danger in these circumstances.
     He reached out with bloodstained fingers and ceremoniously picked up the long, thin pterodactyl fossil carved into a proboscic beaker especially for this occasion. This was the most difficult acquisition of all. The bribe the museum curator finally accepted had reached six figures. He paid a paleontologist at the university half again as much to test the artifact for authenticity. No matter, he thought to himself. After the initial flight he would sell his secret to wealthy thrill seekers and make millions. His confidence in the scheme had grown strong enough that he had quit his job at the law firm three days before.
     The bottom of the hollowed-out fossil stabbed upward as he tipped his head back to drink the fresh kestrel blood. The crimson stream flooded his mouth and dribbled out at the corners of his mouth. Spots of red stained the prayer rug beneath him as he hugged his legs, face to knees, waiting with shut eyes for the desired effect.
     The wendigo spun around him, weaving their web of rarefied air in a vortex around the pentagram. Djiin clawed and raked at him from all directions determined to keep him earthbound, but the holy sigils provided him with a protective bubble through which they could not pass. Even the wind demons of Irkutsk, whose touch had driven many a Siberian shaman mad, could not reach him for all their screeching and ranting. After the appointed and expected forty minutes of tempest the gale ceased. A calm, cool breeze touched his face.
      He opened his eyes slowly, holding his arm in front of his face to block the anticipated gleam of sunlight. He looked up and saw a sea of green punctuated by masses of leaves and rooftops; smoke spewing towards him from square chimneys. Gray ribbons of asphalt divided the Earth into patches of vegetation while simultaneously connecting the large concrete splotches which he recognized as cities. This was it, he thought. Success! He was airborne; taking wing without the aid of machine or mechanical device. The archaic magic of Urzeit had proven superior to modern engineering. Man could now fly unfettered by steel and plastic, Icarus's legacy now moot.
     He turned to bank and was shocked as he stumbled, tripping over a piece of cloud. The vapor was tangible and hard, unyielding to his flesh. He broke free a piece of cloud and let it go, expecting it to dissipate. Instead it fell back (upward? It was difficult to tell) to the main body of the cloud with a sharp clunk. He sat down perplexed, orbiting the Earth on an island of nebulized water that had somehow become hard as stone.
     He looked to see several finches bearing down on him from the planet above. They danced beneath the canopy of white, searching for insects to fill their gizzards. One of the birds chittered in alarm as it noticed him protruding from the bottom of the clouds. It dodged him, diving into the puffy white near his feet. It emerged several yards away from him and headed off with its companions to continue hunting for the afternoon meal.
     Panic struck him as he thought of his predicament. Vertigo gripped and spun him as he tried in vain to comprehend what had become of gravity. This was not what he had saved, spent, toiled and sacrificed for. No, he should be levitating, flying, free as an albatross to roam where he wished. All the pain, the bribes, the study and effort told him he should now be soaring above the ground. His head swam with dizziness and despair as he watched the Earth drift by beneath him. He was helpless to steer or navigate, subject to the whims of the weather.
     His thoughts were cut short as the firmament flexed beneath him. The air was becoming cooler as dark shadows coalesced on the fields and hills above. The air grew damp as mist enveloped him and the surrounding air in a veil of water vapor. The distant rumbling of thunder bounced along the heavens, causing his knees to shake and bend.
     There was no shelter from the swelling storm. He ran in ever-widening circles vainly trying to suppress the fear that choked his breathing. He finally pitched forward, exhausted from his efforts.
     The barometric pressure dropped suddenly and an artificial sense of euphoria overtook his body as the weight of the air on his body lessened. The lightness was sharply interrupted as the clouds burst beneath him, a deluge shooting water up under his robes and past his hair. Lightning illuminated the sky all about him, but he was powerless to move, buffeted by the falling rain and filled with awe and dread at the electrical storm all around him. He felt small and helpless in the grip of the cold, merciless storm, thunder snapping so loudly that he could not hear his own desperate gasping.
     He sensed rotation, a broiling of the air as cascading clouds forced his weakened legs to work against the reversed gravity lest he be crushed in the ever-folding mix. He strained his leaden calves in an uphill march against convection, hoping that the storm would pass quickly. He was so tired … so tired and so cold. The fatigue wore on both his body and his psyche.
     The sky was unrelenting. It spun in a circular motion, Zeus' wheel turning over the face of Gaia. The erstwhile attorney sought the rim of the wheel, sensing that a whirlpool was forming in the midst of the elements. His horror was confirmed when he spotted a rising column of black some distance to his left. The wind whipped sideways as the sky went green with light diffracted by churned-up dust particles in the upper atmosphere, far beneath him.
     The funnel cloud pushed up, fell down, then pushed up again, knotting the cumulonimbus around itself in a Saint Vitus dance of aerial ecstasy. The creases in the mage's robe flattened out against his skin, wet material plastering to his frame as the linen caressed and slowly pulled him toward the vortex. The flapping sound ceased as the cloth became taut, extending towards the center of the storm cell like a sidelong parachute filled with air.
     He dropped to his knees then lay prone, using his elbows and knees to edge away from the downward-thrusting tornado. His face and hands stung as ice incised knuckles and cheekbones, tiny droplets of blood hurtling headlong into the whirlwind. He thought he could hear the Djiin laugh above the roar as they tasted his essence.
     He redoubled his efforts, digging his lacerated fingers into the sky's ceiling to gain a better hold. His arms and chest burned with effort. Saliva sprayed out and away from between his clenched teeth, his lips going dry in the midst of so much water. Slowly, agonizingly, he crawled out away from the maelstrom as the universe reeled, circumambulating the spiral. The winds abated slightly as he found a point where his weight reached equilibrium with the force of the wind. The clouds slowed their spinning and he collapsed, fainting from the excruciating effort that his will had exacted of his body. He dreamt an agoraphobic nightmare of floating through the cosmos, always floating, never landing.

     Dmitri ran into the shed, telescope in hand. "Papa! Papa! I saw a man lying down on the clouds!" he exclaimed.
     His father continued to work on the tractor engine, metal clacking against metal. "Yes, Dmitri. This morning after milking the goats, I too saw some shapes in the clouds. A big white whale, a turtle. Very pretty, da?"
     The boy was visibly disappointed. "Da, Papa. But I really did see a man on the cloud."
     The father smiled down at his son. "You have your mother's imagination. This is good. Go ask her when lunch will be ready. I am hungry, what about you?"
     Dmitri appeared flustered. "But Papa! Please come look. The man on the cloud, he was sleeping, then he woke up and walked around on the cloud. Please see, Papa."
     "Alright, son," the gnarled hands set down the tools in a tray as he smiled at the boy. "Let's go see your man, then we eat."
     They exited the shack and gazed upward. Dmitri scanned the sky, then pointed. "That one. But..."
     Father and son looked up at the dissipating white cloud. A stream of vapor turned upward from one edge, but quickly dispersed into the bright blue sky. Dmitri stood staring as his father turned back to the house. In a matter of minutes the remainder of the cloud disappeared. It would be a beautiful sunny day, Dmitri's father thought.

     The magician descended slowly from the sky. He was bitter cold, the stratospheric ice just beginning to melt from his robes and hair as he spotted the farmer's field below. Finally, I will again touch the Earth, he thought, too cold to speak. As he floated down he spotted two figures as they entered a ragged cottage. He wondered what their names might be, what language they spoke, if they could help him find his way home or if they would at least let him borrow the phone. He thrust out his legs, extending his feet down, eager to once again touch the dirt.

     Dmitri and his parents heard a loud popping noise outside in the potato field, as if someone had stuffed a pig with a stick of dynamite. They looked out only to see dirt clods raining down on the edges of the plowed rows.

     A crisp breeze blew through the apartment's open window. The pages of an ancient tome jittered and flipped, flashing a white reflection over the bloodstained magic circle. The air stilled as the pages stopped their restless fluttering. The browned parchment read: Chapter the Thirteenthe on The Incompatibl Natures of Aire and Oerth.

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