Numair brushed the leaves and mulch aside with his hands to expose a small open area of dirt, and placed the disk-shaped object down flat on it. There was a shallow spiral well carved into the surface of the disk; Numair produced a spool of shining coppery wire, which he began to lay into the well, sparks shooting around his fingers to heat the wire enough to make it malleable. When the well had been inlaid with the wire, he let it cool for a moment--it was now hissing softly with steam--and produced a small greenish stone pyramid, which was already marked on every surface with a lot of delicate, circuit-like patterns. He did something to it which caused a little flash of green lightning around his knuckles, and the patterns on the pyramid lit with a white light. He placed the pyramid at the center of the disk, on top of the wire, and the whole thing began to hum and throw little rivulets of lightning off.

He sat back and dusted off his palms; for a moment he and Hawk studied the setup mutely. Finally he looked at Hawk, and Hawk looked at him with a slightly crooked smile.

"I swear I won't drop you," he said, and Numair sighed.

They left the spell, the bag, and the basket under the tree with a quickly-scrawled warning not to touch it beside it, and moved into the open.

"I can't believe I am doing this," Numair muttered. He'd tied the bird-like thing to his back with the cloth it had been wrapped in, and was now looking down at Hawk, who had crouched low on the grass and half-spread his wings. "How am I meant to...?"

"I think you wanna sit with your legs up under my wings," Hawk said helpfully. Numair hesitated.

"People will see us," he said, taking a reluctant look around.

"So?"

Numair didn't follow that up with anything. He stepped forward over Hawk's tailfeathers and half-sat on Hawk's back, sliding his knees up underneath the lower edge of Hawk's wing.

"Yeah, like that," Hawk said. "Okay, I'm gonna stand up."

Numair felt a lurch. "W-wait--"