Wishes of Flying


Random was the first of the three kids with wishes left to approach me as a master to a djinn. He understood when the Regent explained to him that I was a family member and not some magical creature, but had interpreted it to mean I was hiding my true powers so no one else would be suspicious of me. Why else would I insinuate myself into the court than to be near my masters and my lamp? Why indeed.

Little more than a week had pased and he just turned up outside my door with a breakfast tray. "I want to learn to fly.", he said.

"Yes?", I queried.

"You don't understand, Genie.", then he uncovered the lamp on the tray. "I Wish to learn flying... Not the carpet stuff, but real flying."

"Oh. Flying, huh? Young master, your wish is my desire, but now you will be 'young pupil'. Come to the tower, dressed warmly in twenty minutes..."

It started simply, with me showing him the art of understanding the wind currents at first one my back, and later in other shadows in flying contraptions we "borrowed". We'd fly in close to one and board it, find the pilot and talk to him. After two or three tries we learned to carry money from that shadow and "buy" his services and sometimes the plane itself. Although the "engines" never worked here in Amber, the basic principles of gliding did, so we gravitated that direction. Random never begrudged that I learned as much as he on these trips. I even picked up on better ways to shadow shift --in the air, of course-- for it.

I started experimenting as well with the idea of parachuting. Delwin came along several times once we explained that idea to him. He got to be very good at shifting back to Amber before he even touched ground, as he disliked the long hikes back if we got separated. He picked up the aerial shadowshifting much faster than Random, being more interested in that than Random in the flying itself. He became so good at it that he'd simply take over the shifting, bring us in pretty close to Amber and then pitch out when he tired of Random's looping and such.

I will say that my conjuration got a hell of a workout to enchant new props daily that would spin by themselves to drive the engine near Amber. Delwin eventually tired of the skydiving, or rather of Random's stuntflying, and turned to other pursuits while Random got really into the gliders. He got so good that I would tow his glider into the air off Kolvir and let him fly off for hours. Then he'd trump me to his position and I'd go through and make sure he got home. I had other duties to perform as well.


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