Higher Mythology Read Online Free PDF

basket’s lip was a crank-powered AM/FM radio.
    In spite of its high-tech accoutrements, the balloon basket resembled a relic of a past century. It was made of woven rattan with a padded bumper and curved base of leather, a fragile-seeming craft in comparison with the metal-and-plastic jets and small aircraft Keith was used to seeing.
    As expected, the air was colder the higher they went. Keith shrugged into his thin jacket, zipping it hastily up to his chin, and wrapped his arms around his ribs. The pilot grinned at him and fastened down the flaps of his aerialist’s helmet.
    “Need a blanket? There’s one under the cooler.”
    “N—no, thanks,” Keith said. In a few moments, he was acclimated, and his muscles relaxed. He nodded to Frank.
    “Fine and dandy,” Frank said. “Enjoy the ride!” The pilot perched on the basket’s edge with his long legs up on the other side, and shifted his close-fitting helmet rearwards to reveal his forehead. “Ahhh.”
    Keith, less daring, stayed by the metal frame and gazed at the scenery. It was still a long way down. Frank was completely at home in the air. Nothing seemed to faze him, not even floating around in a craft as fragile as an eggshell. In just a short time, Keith himself had relaxed, and was enjoying the sensation of effortless floating. He leaned back and looked around.
    The day was fine and clear. For some this might have been a mere pleasure trip. For Keith, it was business. Emptying his mind of fear, excitement, and any extraneous thoughts that might interfere with his concentration, Keith closed his eyes. Somewhere out there, he was certain, were air sprites, Little People of the air. He tried to visualize what he thought would be out there in the sky. Did they look like dragons? Pixies? Airplanes? In such a formless environment, would they be able to take any shape they chose? He let his mind drift to catch the trail of any elusive magical creature that might happen by within range.
    Notwithstanding the occasional strong-smelling fume from feed lots they passed over, the air tasted cleaner up there than it did nearer the ground. Keith reasoned that if he were a creature of the air, he wouldn’t hang out so close to the ground, not with the whole sky to range. Holl and the Elf Master had scoffed at his theory, but they’d never checked, had they? The only one of the Little Folk to attain any altitude had been Holl, on his flights with Keith to and from Europe, but he’d been too preoccupied to sense anything outside his own concerns. Tiron, as a stowaway on that same flight, had been bent double in a suitcase, and would have remembered nothing but the difficulties he’d had in breathing and finding some measure of comfort among Keith’s dirty clothes and souvenirs of Scotland and Ireland.
    Still, even if there had been any air sprites around when the two of them had been traveling, they’d have fled screaming from the jet, which Keith felt was too noisy to get close to the sensitive creatures he pictured. He wanted not only to sense the air sprites, but to see them. To do that, he needed to achieve altitude, but in a quiet, non-disruptive fashion. Barring finding wings of his own somewhere, there had to be some conveyance that approximated skyhooks. Gliders were unpowered, and therefore silent, but uncontrollable and too dangerous for an amateur. Helicopters set up too much of a racket. None of the craft with which he was familiar simply allowed him to hang in the air and listen.
    When Frank Winslow, a competition balloonist, came to speak at Midwestern, Keith felt a light bulb go on over his head. The balloon was the perfect vehicle to test out his theories. It was almost completely silent, flew slowly and smoothly, hovering in the very wind currents sprites might live in. Keith was in a fever for the rest of the lecture, wondering how he would convince Winslow to go along with him. After the pilot’s talk, Keith took him to a quiet corner of the Student