The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

family?”
    A long pause.  “No sir.  By myself.”
    “Bok, how old are you?”
    “Nineteen, sir.”
    “You don't look nineteen.”
    “I am, sir.”
    “Well.  As if I couldn't guess, why did you come here?”
    “I saw the airship fly over the coast many weeks ago, and when I learned that it was kept at a place called Ravencall, and I came to see it.”  Bok gazed longingly at the hangar.  “But they won't let me inside.”
    Archimedes pushed up from the table.  “Then let's take a tour.  I'll be your escort.”
    “You'll do that for me, sir?  If you're not too busy?”
    “Turns out an appointment was canceled.”
    They were intercepted at the door, but then the worker saw that Bok was in the company of Archimedes.  Upon entry to the hangar, Archimedes noted that the expression of his charge was as rapturous as any religious devotee admitted into the highest shrine.  Archimedes imagined seeing the airship with the eyes of Bok:  as a magical machine of immense proportions and exotic configuration, that did the impossible.
    “What's your first impression, Bok?”
    “It's the biggest thing I've ever seen, sir.”
    “Not quite true.  The building is bigger, is it not?” 
    Bok blinked.  “I see, sir.  Humor.”
    The boy went immediately to an engine housing.  He gaped through the open cowling at the piston cylinders with their tangle of tubes and wires, then rushed to the propeller blade and stroked it delicately, admiring its air-sculling curvature.
    “These were spinning when I saw the ship flying above the trees that time,” he said.  “Faster than windmills, they were.  The document said they are caused to turn by 'power plants,' but I don't see any plants.”
    “The word 'plant' has a different meaning in the document.  It refers to the engines.”
    “Those are the machines that turn the naval rum into power, and then use the power to turn the propellers”
    “More or less.” Archimedes was impressed, though.  The boy surely was far short of nineteen years physically, but intellectually his speech indicated that he was well ahead of many adults.  
    “It appears they are being worked on.  Are they damaged and being repaired?”
    “They were working fine.  But the 'Wizard' wants them modified to boost power output.  Apparently, fifty kilometers an hour is not fast enough.”
    Bok wandered over to the work table and pored over the drawings.  “Ailerons.  Hmm.”
    “What about the ailerons?”
    “On these plans they're called 'ailerons,' but they were called 'elevators' in the document.”
    “I don't recall seeing that.”
    “Well, I figured it out from the description, sir.  The fins of the ancient airship had bending parts that were called 'elevators,' not 'ailerons.'  So why do you call them 'ailerons?'”
    “I based my design of the airship on written descriptions of ancient flying machines that I found in a book that came from the mentors.  The 'bending parts' – as you refer to them – are called 'ailerons,' and they are located on the 'wings,' so to speak.”
    Bok pointed to the airship's tail.  “But those are fins.  Wouldn't wings be forward more?”
    “Yes, I suppose coming from a fishing village, you would know the difference between fins and wings.  But then . . . now you've got me wondering . . . why did the book I read refer to a flying machine as having wings?”
    “I don't know, sir.  Can I see the book?”
    “Alas, it was destroyed in a fire, along with all my other books, by an ignorant, knowledge-hating monster of a man.”
    “That's horrible, sir.  Books are so important.”  Bok tilted his head, a gesture that Archimedes found almost dog-like in its expression of voracious curiosity.  “Maybe the book said a flying machine had wings, because it meant a different kind of flying machine.”
    Archimedes stood unmoving.  He was still in Britan, the sun was still shining, the rhythm of the hammers was still the same.  But to Archimedes, it