Zendegi

The first bird whose sight Martin restored paced the floor irritably for a few seconds, then feinted towards his hand as if to bite it, but once it noticed the meat dangling above its head it flapped its wings and rose into the air as far as the harness would allow it.

When the ropes grew taut, though, it seemed to grasp the nature of its situation perfectly, because it gave up struggling and returned to the floor. It knew it couldn’t reach the meat; there was nothing to be done but wait for the humans’ next bizarre, capricious action.

Alarmed, Martin looked to Shahin. His bird was on the floor too, but he was encouraging it with a series of nods and grunts; perhaps these were signals used in hunting. After a few seconds, Shahin’s bird heeded the cues and flew up towards the lure.

Martin turned to see what Javeed was doing; he was already mimicking Shahin. Martin felt weirdly self-conscious; the noises were embarrassing enough coming from Shahin, and his own attempts would surely sound sillier: all this, in the presence of royalty. But the Lord of the World would be even less pleased if his precious sky-pavilion toppled over on the grass, unbalanced by one tardy peasant.

Martin faced the eagle again and tipped his head skyward, grunting and snorting. The eagle blinked at him bemusedly. What was it waiting for – should he mime taking flight himself? If it had been a seagull he might have flailed at it with his hands to drive it off the ground, but his instincts warned against trying that on a raptor. He looked back at Javeed, whose bird was airborne now; it was straining against the harness as if the hunk of rabbit flesh just beyond its reach were a pigeon fleeing across the skies. Now there was an idea for Kavus’s next version: harness some actual living prey, and maybe take-off would proceed more smoothly.

Javeed made a guttural noise. ‘Like that, Baba!’

Martin imitated him. Nothing. He tried again, deeper in the throat, while flicking his head up encouragingly; finally, his eagle took flight, and when it reached the end of its tether it remained aloft. Maybe you had to be a native Farsi speaker for the right sound to come easily.

The three of them moved around the pavilion, unhooding the eagles and encouraging them to persist in their futile attempts to reach the lures. Martin still had the most trouble persuading his birds that they should mush like sled dogs, but Shahin and Javeed waited for him; if they’d raced ahead at their own pace that would have risked unbalancing the whole structure.

When Martin set his tenth bird in motion, the pavilion lurched and began to weave across the grass like a hovercraft with broken steering. Apparently the combined effort of thirty golden eagles – according to the game’s fanciful notion of their power – was enough to overcome the weight of the craft and its passengers; with friction all but banished, the imperfect cancellation between the horizontal thrust from the variously inclined tug-ropes was enough to send the pavilion skittering in all directions. The field was wide and there were no obstacles nearby, but the earthbound observers wisely mounted their horses and retreated further from the action.

Javeed was beaming with delight. ‘Hold on to the rods!’ Martin warned him; Javeed nodded and took hold. Martin wasn’t sure if it was entirely logical – nothing Javeed did could actually support him in his ghal’e; holding thin air wouldn’t help him stay upright when the real floor beneath his feet tilted – but it was a good habit to cultivate regardless, and it could certainly affect what the game did to his icon. Martin was feeling slightly queasy from the visual cues alone; if anything, the fact that he could feel himself lying flat on his back, motionless in the scanner, exacerbated his discomfort as his eyes told him he was zigzagging across the grass. But it was worth it just to see Javeed so happy. If the worst happened, Martin decided, Bernard would probably manage to stop him choking on his own vomit.

Kavus was standing in front of his tent, trying to appear regally composed even as he swayed like a sailor on a storm-tossed deck. His adviser, who’d wisely gripped the side of the tent, looked as sickly as Martin felt.

Shahin called out, ‘Come on, get to work! The next three together!’

Martin unhooded his eleventh eagle; it regarded the mad, sliding world around it with a look of doleful avian stoicism. ‘On the count of three,’ Shahin shouted. ‘One. Two. Three!’

Martin grunted at the bird and flicked his head. It rose from the platform, and when its tether snapped tight the pavilion’s motion suddenly became smoother. Martin peered over the edge. Before, they’d been scraping the grass, brushing against every second tussock; now they were clear of the vegetation, half a metre or so above the ground and still rising.

‘Again!’ Shahin urged them. Martin hurried to unhood the next bird. ‘One. Two. Three!’