49

Hawk’s View

Lottica was struck by Heiden’s eyes. Hawk eyes. Sharp eyes, deep green in the center, radiating an emerald luminescence that gave Lottica a feeling she was gazing into the heart of some distant nebula. The birthplace of a star.

Spellbound by his eyes, she almost forgot her excitement about the observatory. But she quickly recovered, pointing to the silver dome behind them. “May we see the observatory?”

“Of course.” Heidein answered. He set his kite and lines down and led them up the spiral staircase to the domed chamber. He paused at the door. His lanky form and snowy hair set against the rich blue November sky, he dug into a pocket of his tweed jacket and produced a key. It flashed silver in the sunlight, and Lottica saw the key handle’s trademark shape: a hawk.

“I welcome the heirs of le Breima to my aerie,” he said pushing on the thick oaken door. Heidein made no flourish, but when he stepped back from the door that swung reluctantly in, Lottica felt as if she’d been accorded a great honor. Like a glass slipper fitted on her foot, or a bejeweled crown placed on her head. The room she entered was nothing like a palace, though. It was sparse and cold. Yet, in the center was the priceless treasure: a magnificent brass telescope mounted onto a large revolving platform.

Overhead the dome with its retractable opening moved by the same gears as the platform on which the telescope was pinioned. On the wall were two iron wheels. When Lottica asked how they worked, Heidein demonstrated by turning the upper one and the roof began to retract; he turned the lower wheel and both the telescope and dome rotated in unison.

Nick nudged Lottica. "Pretty slick, huh?"

Lottica nodded in reply. All kinds of questions were percolating in her mind but the one that bubbled out was a childish, "May I, please?"

Heidein smiled, his angular features softening a bit. "Of course." He spun the upper wheel and the aperture on the dome slid slowly aside.

"I know there is nothing to observe during the daylight, but I just want to see how it works," Lottica trailed off apologetically.

"Ah, but there is as much to see now as at any time. I constructed this telescope not just for stars and planets. It is meant to be watchful of Lebreima as well. That is why your bopei calls me Hawk."

"Other reasons, too," Grandfather Breima added with the hint of a smile.

"Yes, but this is the best reason." He moved to the pedestal that the telescope revolved upon and began to crank on two side-by-side hand gears. The entire platform rose, allowing the telescope to look down upon the village of Kreistia and anywhere within the 360 degrees that the dome rotated. Heidein crossed back to the wall. With the lower control wheel, he positioned the telescope so that it faced the imposing fortress of mountains in the distant west.

He moved back to the telescope, whistling a crisp tune, making adjustments through the sighting scope. Then he looked briefly through the large telescope's eyepiece and waved Lottica over.

Without hesitation, she placed her foot on the edge of the raised platform and clasped Heidein's outstretched hand. He gave her a little pull. Giddy over the gleaming equipment, Lottica indulged in the immensity of the moment.

In such a place as this, she felt like she was piggybacking on the shoulders of early astronomers like Copernicus and Galileo, even Ptolemy. As she stepped to the telescope with a thumping heart, she wondered what amazing new thing in Lebreima Heidein had sighted for her?

Slowly, she settled in to the eyepiece, relaxing and allowing the image to come into focus. Little by little it did. But what she saw was oddly familiar. Not something new. Twice that morning she had seen the same thing.

First in the fountain. Second when Weirhamatt had taken them to the Breima library. Here it was a third time, but not carved in stone or set in stained glass. Here was le Breima lying among the precipitous peaks to the west, his granite hands jutting thousands of feet into the thin blue sky.

Lottica gasped. "Am I dreaming?"

"Perhaps," Heidein chuckled. "But if you see the figure of Lebreima’s great forefather, then you are most awake. What you see is where Lebreima began. That is Mount Breima."