ALSO BY LARRY NIVEN AVAILABLE
NOW FROM BALLANTINE BOOKS:
World of Ptavvs
A Gift from Earth
Neutron Star
All the Myriad Ways
Ringworld
The Shape of Space
The Protector
The Flight of the Horse
Tales of Known Space: " E
The Universe of lorry Niven
ALSO BY DAVID GERROLD AVAILABLE (
NOW FROM BALLANTINE BOOKS; '
When Harlie Was One I The Trouble with Tribbles
The World of Star Trek
THE
flying sorcerers
David Gerrold
and
Larry Niven
A Del Rey Book
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
^a
Dedicated to the men of NASA;
We understand their problems
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1971 by David Gerrold and Larry Niven
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of Canada, Ltd.,
Toronto, Canada.
A shorter version of this novel was first published as a serial
titled "The Misspelled Magishun," in // Magazine, copyright
© 1970 by Universal Publishing & Distributing Corporation.
ISBN 0345253078175
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: August 1971
Second Printing: March 1977
Cover art by Boris Vallejo
I was awakened by Pilg the Crier pounding excitedly on
the wall of my nest and crying, "Lant! Lant! It's happened!
Come quickly!"
I stuck my head out. "What's happened?"
"The disaster! The disaster!" Pilg was jumping up and
down in excitement. "I told you it would happen."
I pulled my head in and dressed. Pilg's joy was a frightening
thing. I felt my fur rising, fluffing out in fear as I
wondered ...
Pilg the Crier had been predicting disaster for weeks--as
was his habit. He predicted his disasters twice a year, at the
times of the equinox. The fact that we were leaving the
influence of one sun and entering that of the other would
make the local spells completely unstable. As we approached
conjunction--the time when the blue sun would cross the face
of the red--Pilg had increased the intensity of his warnings.
This was disaster weather: something dire would certainly
happen.
Usually it did, of course. Afterward--and after we of the
village had somehow picked up the pieces--Pilg would shake
his heavy head and moan, "Wait until next year. Wait. It'll
be even worse."
Sometimes we joked about it, predicting the end of the
world if Pilg's "next year" ever arrived .. .
I lowered the ladder and joined Pilg on the ground. "What's
the trouble?"
"Oh, I warned you, Lant. I warned you. Now maybe you'll
believe me. I warned you though--you can't say I didn't
warn you. The omens were there, written across the sky.
What more proof did you need?"
He meant the moons. They were starting to pile up on one
side of the sky. Shoogar the Magician had predicted that we I
2 " THE FLYING SORCERERS
were due for a time of total darkness soon--perhaps even
tonight--and Pilg had seized on this as just one more omen
of disaster.
As we hurried through the village I tried to get Pilg to tell
me what had happened. Had the river changed its course?
Had someone's nest fallen from its tree? Had the flocks all
died mysteriously? But Pilg was so excited at having finally
been proven correct that he himself was not sure what exactly
had happened.
One of the hill shepherds, it seemed, had come running
into town, panic-stricken and shouting something about a new
magician. By the time I got this information out of Pilg, we
were already at the village clearing where the frightened
shepherd was leaning against one of the great housetrees,
gasping out his story to a nervous group of men. They pressed
in close to him, badgering him with questions. Even the
women had paused in their work, and hanging back at a
respectful distance, listened fearfully to the shepherd's words.
"A new magician," he gasped. "A red one! I saw him!"
Someone handed him a skin; he sucked the Quaff from it
noisily, then panted, "Near the cairn of the wind-god. He was throwing red fire across the mountains."
"Red fire. Red fire." The villagemen murmured excitedly
among themselves. "If he throws red fire, he must be a red
magician." Almost immediately, I heard the word "duel". The
women must have heard it too, for they gasped and shrank
back from the nulling group of men.
I pushed my way through to the center of the crowd. "Ah,
Lant," said one of the men. "Have you heard? There's going
to be a duel."
"Is there?" I demanded. "Have you seen the runes of the
duel inscribed across Shoogar's nest?"
"No, but----"
"Then how do you know there's going to be a duel?"
"A red magician----"gasped the shepherd. "A red magician----"

"Nonsense. No red magician could have the powers you
describe. Why don't you wait until you know something
definite before you start spreading silly rumors that frighten
women and children?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 3'
"You know Shoogar as well as we! As soon as he discovers
there is a new magician in the district, he'll----"
"You mean Shoogar doesn't know yet?"
The man looked blank.
I raised my voice. "Has anyone thought to tell Shoogar?"
Silence. No one had. My duty was clear. I must prevent
Shoogar from doing something rash. I hurried through the
trees toward the magician's nest.
Shoogar's nest was well suited for a wizard, a squat misshapen
gourd hung from a forbidding black ogre of a tree well
beyond the limits of the village. (The Guild of Advisors was
afraid to let him move closer; he was always experimenting
with new spells.)
I found Shoogar already packing his travel kit. His agitated
manner told me he was worried. Then I caught a glimpse of
what he was packing and / was worried. The last time he had
used that ornate bone-carved tarinele was when he had hurled
the curse of the itching red boils at Hamel the Failure.
I saw what he was packing in on top of the tarinele and I
flinched. "I believe that's against the Guild rules," I said.
For a moment I thought he'd hurl a spell at me. I cringed
and instinctively made a spell-cutting gesture, (forgetting for
the moment that Shoogar himself had made the protective
amulets I wore; he couldn't possibly break through his own
protections; at least not for a few more days--they would
expire with the coming of the blue dawns).
"You!" he snapped. "What do you know of magic? You
who call yourself my friend! You didn't even have the courtesy
to inform me of this intruding sorcerer!"
"I didn't even know of him myself, until just a few moments
ago. Perhaps he only arrived today."
"Arrived today? And immediately began throwing red fire
about? Without first informing himself of the local gods, tidal
patterns, previous local spells and their side effects? Ridiculous!
Lant, you are a fool. You are an idiot of the first circle
where magic is concerned. Why do you bother me?"
"Because you are an idiot where diplomacy is concerned!"
I snapped back, my fur bristling. (I am one of the few people
in the village who can bristle at Shoogar and survive to tell
about it.) "If I let you go charging up the mountain every
4 THE FLYING SORCERERS
time you felt you had been wronged, you'd be fighting duels
as often as the blue sun rises."
Shoogar looked at me, and I could tell from his expression
that my remarks had sunk home. "Smooth your fur, Lant.
I did not mean that you were a complete fool. I just meant
that you are not a magician."
"I'm glad you are aware of my skill as a diplomat," I said,
and allowed myself to relax. "Our abilities must complement
each other, Shoogar. If we are to succeed in our endeavors,
we must maintain a healthy respect for each other's powers.
Only thus can we protect our village."
"You and your damned speeches," he scowled. "Someday
I'm going to make your tongue swell up to the size of a sour
melon--just for the sake of some peace and quiet."
I ignored that remark. Considering the circumstances,
Shoogar had a right to be testy. He closed up his travel kit,
tugging angrily at the straps.
"Are you ready?" I asked, "I'll send a message up to Orbur,
telling him to ready two bicycles."
"Presumptuous of you," Shoogar muttered, but I knew
that he was secretly grateful for the thought. Wilville and
Orbur, my eldest two sons, carved the best bicycles in the
district.
W e found the new magician near the cairn of Musk-
Watz, the wind-god. Across a steep canyon from the caim,
there is a wide grass-covered mesa with a gentle slope to the
south. The new magician had appropriated this mesa and
scattered it with his devices and oddments. As we pulled our
bicycles to a shuddering halt, he was in the process of casting
a spell with an unfamiliar artifact. Shoogar and I paused at
a respectful distance and watched. '
The stranger was slightly taller than me, considerably
taller than Shoogar. His skin was lighter than ours, and hairless
but for a single patch of black fur, oddly positioned bn»
THE FLYING SORCERERS 5
the top half of his skull. He also wore a strange set of
appurtenances balanced across his nose. It appeared that they
were lenses of quartz mounted in a bone frame through which
the stranger could see.
The set of his features was odd and disquieting, and his
bones seemed strangely proportioned. Certainly no normal
being would have a paunch that large. The sight of him made
me feel queasy, and I surmised that some of his ancestors
had not been human.
Magicians traditionally wear outlandish clothing to identify
themselves as magicians. But even Shoogar was unprepared
for the cut of this stranger's costume. It was a single garment
which covered most of the stranger's body. The shape of the
cloth had been woven to match his own precisely; and an
oddly bulging shape it was. There was a hood, thrown back.
There were high-flared cuffs on the pantaloons to allow for
his calf-high boots, and over his heart was a golden badge.
Around his middle he wore a wide belt, to which were
attached three or four small spell devices.
He had also set up a number of larger devices. Most of
them had the blue-white glimmer of polished metal. (There is
little metal in Our village--it rusts quickly--but I am a man
of the world and have traveled much. I am familiar with
the sight of metal, having seen it in the highlands; but nothing
so finely worked as this.)
These devices stood each on three legs so that they were
always level, even where the ground was not. As we watched,
the stranger peered into one of them, peered across the canyon
at the sacred cairn of Musk-Watz, the god of the winds, and
then into his device again. Muttering constantly to himself,
he moved across the clearing and adjusted something else.
Evidently this was a long and complicated spell, though just
what its purpose was neither Shoogar nor I could fathom.
Occasionally he would refer to a large egg-shaped nest,
black and regular of shape, sitting on its wide end off to one
side of the pasture. As there were no trees in the area large
enough to hang it from, he had set it on the ground. (An
unwise course, to be sure, but the shell of that nest looked
like nothing I had ever seen--perhaps it was able to resist
marauding predators.) I wondered how he had built it overnight.
His power must be formidable.
6 THE FLYING SORCERERS
The stranger did not notice us at all, and Shoogar was
fidgeting with impatience. Just as Shoogar was about to interrupt
him, the stranger straightened and touched his device.
The device responded by hurling red fire across the canyon--
directly at the cairn of Musk-Watz!
I thought Shoogar would suffer a death-rage right then and
there. The weather gods are hard enough to control at best, and Shoogar had spent three long lunar configurations trying
to appease Musk-Watz in an effort to forestall another season
of hurricanes. Now, the stranger had disrupted one of his
most careful spells.
Redder than ruby, eye-searing, bright and narrow, straight
as the horizon of the ocean (which I have also seen), that
crimson fire speared out across the canyon, lashing Shoogar's
carefully constructed outcrop. I feared it would never end:
the fire seemed to go on and on.
And the sound of it was dreadful. There was a painful
high-pitched humming which seemed to seize my very soul,
a piercing unearthly whine. Under this we could hear the
steady crackling and spattering of the caim.
Acrid smoke billowed upward from it, and I shuddered,
thinking how the dissipating dust would affect the atmosphere.
Who knew what effects it would have on Shoogar's weather-
making spells? I made a mental note to have the wives reinforce
the flooring of our nest.
Suddenly, just as abruptly as it had begun, the red fire
went out. Once more the silence and the calm descended over
the mesa. Once more the blue twilight colored the land. But
across my eyes was a brilliant blue-white afterimage. And the
cairn of the wind-god still crackled angrily.
Amazingly enough, the caim still stood. It smouldered and
sputtered, and there was an ugly scar where the red fire had
touched it, but it was intact. When Shoogar builds, he builds
well.
The stranger was already readjusting his devices, muttering
continuously to himself. (I wondered if that were part of the
spell.) Like a mother vole checking her cubs, he moved from
device to device, peering into one, resetting another, reciting
strange sounds over a third.
, I cast a glance at Shoogar; I could see a careful tightening
at the corners of his mouth. Indeed, even his beard seemed
THE FLYING SORCERERS 7
clenched. I feared that a duel would start before the stranger
could offer Shoogar a gift. Something had to be done to
prevent Shoogar from a rash and possibly regrettable action.
I stepped forward boldly. "Ahem," I began. "Ahem. I dislike
to interrupt you while you are so obviously busy, but
that bluff is sacred to Musk-Watz. It took many cycles to
construct the pattern of spells which ..." '
The magician looked up and seemed to notice us for the
first time. He became strangely agitated. Taking a quick step
toward us, he made a straight-armed gesture, palms open to
us, and spoke quick tense words in a language I had never
heard. Instantly, I threw myself flat on the ground, arms over
my head.
Nothing happened. ^'f1
When I looked up, Shoogar was still beside the other
bicycle with his arms outstretched in a spell-breaking pattern.
Either the stranger's spell had miscarried, or Shoogar had
blocked it. The stranger threw no more spells. Instead, he
backed toward his oddly shaped nest, never taking his eyes
from us. He continued his strange words, but now they were
slow and low pitched, like the tone one uses to calm an uneasy
animal. He disappeared into his nest and all was quiet and
blue.
Except for the crackle of cooling rock which still reached
across the canyon to remind us that Musk-Watz had been
denied. ' --as
I turned to Shoogar, "This could be serious."
"Lant, you are a fool. This is already serious." .
"Can you handle this new magician?"
Shoogar grunted noncommittally, and I was afraid. Shoogar
was good; if he were not sure of his skill here, the whole
village might be in danger.
I started to voice my fears, but the stranger abruptly
reappeared carrying another of his metal and bone carved
8 THE FLYING SORCERERS
devices. This one was smaller than the rest and had slender
rods sticking out on all sides. I did not like its looks. It
reminded me of some of the more unpleasant devices that
I had seen during the dark years.
The magician watched us all the time he was setting it up
on its three slender legs. As he turned it to face us I tensed.
It began to make a humming noise, like the sound of a
water harp when a string bow is drawn across its glass tubes.
The humming rose in pitch until it began to sound disturbingly
like that of the device of the red fire. I began gauging the
distance between myself and a nearby boulder.
The stranger spoke impatiently to us in his unknown tongue.
"You are discourteous," rumbled Shoogar. "This business
can wait, surely?"
The spell device said, "Surely?"
I landed behind the boulder. Shoogar stood his ground.
"Surely," he repeated firmly. "You violate custom. In this,
my district, you must gift me with one new spell, one I have
never seen. Were I in your district----"
The spell device spoke again. Its intonation was terrifying
and inhuman. "New spell gift--never known--surely."
I realized that the stranger had spoken first. His device was
attempting to speak for him, but in our words. Shoogar saw
it too, and was reassured. The device was only a speakerspell,
and a poor one at that, despite its powerful shape.
Shoogar and the speakerspell and the stranger stood on that
wind-swept mesa and talked with each other. Or rather, they
talked at each other. It was infant's talk, most of it. The thing
had no words of its own. It could only use Shoogar's; sometimes
correctly, more often not.
Shoogar's temper was not improving. He had come to
demand gift or duel from an intruding warlock only to find
himself teaching a simpleminded construct to talk. The
stranger seemed to be enjoying himself, unfortunately at
Shoogar's expense.
The red sun was long gone, the blue was near the horizon,
and all the world was red-black shadow. The blue sun settled
behind a clump of deep violet clouds. Suddenly it was gone, like a taper blown out by the wind. The moons emerged
against the night, now in the configuration of the striped lizard.
During certain configurations Shoogar's power is higher
THE FLYING SORCERESS §
than during others. I wondered if he were master or servant
to the striped lizard. He was just drawing his robes imperiously
about his squat and stubby form. Master, apparently, from
his manner.
Abruptly, the stranger repeated his palms-out gesture,
turned, and went back to his nest. He did not go inside.
Instead, he briefly touched the rim of the doorway, and there
was light! Garish light, it spurted from the flank of the nest,
bright as double daylight.
And such a strange light. The ground and the plants seemed
to take the wrong colors and there was something not right
with their shadows, an odd blackness of shade.
The new magician's motive was obvious, even to me--and
even more so to Shoogar. He leapt back out of the light with
his arms raised for defense. But it was no use. The light
followed him, swept over him and dazzled him, effectively
cancelling out the strength of the lunar light. The stranger
had effectively negated the power of the striped lizard.
Shoogar stood trembling, a tiny figure pinned in that dazzling
odd-colored glow.
Then, for no apparent reason, the stranger caused the light
to vanish.
"I think that the light disturbs you," said the speakerspell,
talking for the magician. "But, no matter. We can talk as
well in the dark."
I breathed more easily, but did not completely relax. This
stranger had shown how easily he could cancel the effect of
any lunar configuration. Any powers Shoogar might have
hoped to draw from the sky would have to be foregone.
I watched the striped lizard slink dejectedly into the west.
The moons rode their line across the sky, milk-white crescents
with thick red fringes. On successive nights the red borderlines
would narrow as the suns set closer and closer together. Then
there would be no colored borders. Later, blue borders would
show after second sunset . . . and Shoogar could make no
use of any of this ...
Shoogar and the new magician were still talking. By now
the speakerspell had learned enough words so that the two
could intelligently discuss the matters of magicians.
"The ethics of the situation are obvious," Shoogar was
10 THE FLYING SORCERERS
saying. "You are practicing magic in my district. For this you
must pay. More precisely, you owe me a secret."
"A secret...?" echoed the speakerspell device.
Still cold and cramped, I was suddenly no longer sleepy.
I cocked an ear to hear better.
"Some bit of magic that I do not already know," Shoogar
amplified. "What, for instance, is the secret of your light like
double daylight?"
". . . potential difference . . . hot metal within an inert . . .
doubt you would understand . . . heat is caused by a flow of
... tiny packets of lightning .. ."
"Your words do not make sense. I take no meaning from
them. You must tell me a secret that I can understand and
use. I see that your magic is powerful. Perhaps you know of a way to predict the tides?"
"No, of course I can't tell you how to predict the tides.
You've got eleven moons and two primary suns tugging your
oceans in all directions. Tugging at each other too. It would
take years to compute a tidal pattern ..."
"Surely you must know things that I do not," said Shoogar.
"Just as I know secrets that you are unaware of."
"Of course. But I'm trying to think what would help you
the most. It's a wonder you've gotten as far as you have.
Bicycles even ..."
"Those are good bicycles!" I protested. "I ought to know.
Two of my sons built them."
"But bicycles!" He moved closer eagerly. I tensed, but he
only wanted to examine them. "Hardwood frames, leather-
thonged pulleys instead of chains, sewn fur pelts for tires! They're marvelous! Absolutely marvelous. Primitive and handmade,
with big flat wheels and no spokes, but it doesn't
matter: they're still bicycles. And when all the odds were
against your developing any form of ... at all!"
"What are you talking about?" Shoogar demanded. I was
silent, seething at the insult to Wilville and Orbur's bicycles.
Primitive indeed!
"... starts with the perception of order," said the magician.
"But your world has no order to it at all. You're in an opaque
dust cloud, so you cannot see any of the fixed lights-in-the-
sky. Your sky is a random set of moons picked up from the
woridlet belt . . . three-body configuration makes capture
THE FLYING SORCERERS 11
easy . . . tides that go every which way under the influence
of all those moons . . . moons that cross and recross at
random, changing their . . . because of mutual . . ." The
speakerspell was missing half of the stranger's words, making
the rest gibberish. "And then the high level of ... from the
blue sun would give you a new species every week or so.
No order in your observable . . . probably use strict cut-and-
try methods of building. No put-it-together line techniques
because you wouldn't normally expect a put-it-together belt
to produce the same item twice in a row . . . but it's a human
instinct to try to control nature. You must tell me----"
Shoogar interrupted the babbling stranger. "First, you must
tell me. Tell me some new thing that you may satisfy the
Guild law. What is the secret of your red flame?"
"Oh, I couldn't give you a secret like that!"
Shoogar began to fume again, but he only said, "And why
couldn't you?"
". . . For one thing, you couldn't understand it. You
wouldn't be able to work it." /
Shoogar drew himself up to his full height and stared up
at the stranger. "Are you telling me that I am not even a
magician of the second circle? Any magician worth his bones
is able to make fire and throw it!" And with that Shoogar
produced a ball of fire from his sleeve and casually hurled
it across the clearing.
I could see that the stranger was startled. He had not
expected that. The ball of fire lay sputtering on the ground,
then died away leaving only the burnt core. The stranger took
two steps toward it, as if to examine it, then turned back to
Shoogar, "Very impressive," he said, "but still..."
Shoogar said, "You see, I can throw fire also. And I can
control the color of the flame. What I want to know is how
to throw it in a straight line, like you do."
"It is a wholly different principle . . . coherent light . . .
tight beam . . . small clumps of energy . . . vibration of . . .*'
As if to demonstrate, he touched his spell device again, and
once more the red fire lashed out. Eye-searing flame played
across Musk-Watz's cairn. Another smoking hole. I winced.
The stranger said,'"It boils the rock and tells me what it is
made of by telling me what color the smoke is."
I tried to conceal my reaction. Any idiot could have told
12 THE FLYING SORCERERS
him the smoke was bluish-gray, let alone what rocks are made
of. I could tell him myself.
He was still talking, "Absorption of light . . . but I couldn't
teach you how to use it; you might use it as a weapon."
"Might use it as a weapon?" Shoogar exclaimed. "What
other use is there for a spell to throw red fire?"
"I just explained that," the stranger said impatiently. "I
could explain again, but for what purpose? It's much too
complex for you to understand."
(That was a needless insult. Shoogar may be only a magician
of the second circle, but that does not mean that he is
inferior. In actuality, there are few secrets he is not privy to.
Besides, gaining the first circle is a matter of politics as well
as skill, and Shoogar has never been known as a diplomat.)
I could see that Shoogar was fuming.
It was high time that the oil of diplomacy be applied to the
rough edges of these two magicians. I knew it was my duty
to prevent friction between them, especially now that the
barrier of language had been removed. "Shoogar," I said,
"let me speak. I am the diplomat." Without waiting for his
assent, I approached the speakerspell, albeit somewhat nervously.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lantlalee-laylieah-no. Perhaps it may strike you as a bit presumptuous
that I claim seven syllables, but I am a person of no mean
importance in our village." I felt it necessary to establish my
rank from the very beginning, and my right to speak for the
village.
The stranger looked at me and said, "I am pleased to meet
you. My name is . . ." The speakerspell hesitated, but I
counted the syllables of the name. Three. I smiled to myself.
Obviously, we were dealing with a very low status individual
. . . and I realized something disquieting as well. Where did
this magician come from, that individuals of such low status
controlled such mighty magic? I preferred not to think about
that. Perhaps he hadn't given his full name. After all, I hadn't
given him the secret side of mine.
The speakerspell abruptly translated the stranger's three
syllable name, "As a color, shade of purple gray."
"Very odd," said Shoogar, speaking low. "I have never
known a magician to be named for a color."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 13
"Perhaps that's not his name, but an indication of which
god he serves."
"Nonsense," Shoogar whispered back. "Then he would be
either Something-the-red or Something-the-blue. But he isn't
either."
"Perhaps he's both--that's why he's purple."
"Don't talk foolishness, Lant. It's impossible to serve two
masters. Besides, he isn't all purple. He's Purple the Gray.
And I've never heard of a gray magician."
I turned back to the stranger, "Is that your full name?
How many syllables are in the secret side of it?" He couldn't
be offended; I was not asking for the name itself.
He said, "I have given you my full name. As-A-ShadeOfPurple-Gray."

"You have no other? No secret name?"
"I am not sure I understand. That is my full name."
Shoogar and I exchanged a glance. The stranger was either
incredibly foolish, or exceedingly cunning. Either he had
betrayed his full name to us, thus delivering himself into
Shoogar's power; or he was playing the fool in order to keep
Shoogar from discovering his real name. Perhaps the name
he had given was some kind of spell trap. It certainly wasn't
a clue to his identity.
As-A-Shade-Of-Purple-Gray was speaking again. "Where
did you come from?"
"From the village," I started to point down the mountain,
but covered the gesture quickly. No sense in telling this
stranger where the village was located.
"But, I saw no village from the air ..."
"From the air .. .?" Shoogar asked.
"Yes, when I flew over the area."
At this Shoogar's ears perked up. "Flew? You have a flying
spell? How do you do it? I have not yet been able to get
anything larger than a melon to fly--and I have been trapping
the bubbles of noxious odor as they rise from the swamps."
Indeed, Shoogar had been trying to perfect a flying spell for
as long as he had been a magician. He had even contrived
to get two of my sons to aid him, Wilville and Orbur. Often
they would neglect their bicycle carving to work on some
strange new device for him. So great was their enthusiasm for
14 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Shoogar's project that--much to my annoyance--they had
been accepting no payment at all for their labors.
The new magician smiled at Shoogar's description of his
flying spell. "Primitive," he said, "but it could work. My own
vehicle uses somewhat more complex and efficient principles."
He pointed at his huge black nest. No, he must have meant
one of the devices in it, or near it. Who could conceive of a
flying nest? A nest is a home, a fixed place, a locality of
refuge, a place of returning. Philosophically a nest cannot so
much as move, let alone fly. What is philosophically impossible
is impossible to magic. This law constrains even the gods.^
"Well, show me how it works. Teach me your flying spell!"
Shoogar begged excitedly.
The stranger shook his head. "I could not show that one to
you either. It is beyond your understanding...."
This was too much for Shoogar. All evening long, this new
magician had continued to insult him. Now, he refused even
to gift him with a secret. Shoogar began jumping up and
down in exasperation. He pulled' his tarinele from his travel
kit, and had actually begun to pack the blow chambers with
cursing powder before I could calm him.
"Patience, Shoogar! Please!" I begged him. "Let us return
. to the village. Call for a meeting of the Guild of Advisors
nrst! Don't challenge him to a duel until we have a chance
to talk this thing out."
Shoogar muttered something under his breath. He muttered
a whole bunch of somethings. "I ought to use this tarinele on
you. You know how I hate to waste a good curse." But he
emptied the blow chambers, wrapped it up again in its protective
skins and returned it to his pack.
He stood and faced the new magician. "We return to our
village to confer. We will visit you again before the time of
the blue dawns."
But the stranger did not seem to hear this. "I will accompany
you," he said. "I would like to see your village."
Shoogar can be clever when he puts his mind to it. "Certainly
you may accompany us," he said. "It would be inhospitable
for us not to welcome you. But you cannot leave
yourself so far from your nest. Tonight the moons are down
and the red curses roam the land." (I wished Shoogar hadn't
brought that up. I remembered how far we were from home.)
THE FLYING SORCERERS 15
Shoogar spread his hands helplessly. "If we had empty
nests in the village, you would be welcome to use one----but
as it is, with the time of total darkness approaching, I would
not recommend straying too far from one's own nest."
"That's all right," said the stranger, "I'll just bring it with
me."
"Huh?" said Shoogar. "How? We certainly are not going
to help you. That is, neither of us has the strength to----"
As-A-Shade-Of-Purple-Gray seemed to laugh. I was becoming
most tired of his laugh. "Don't worry about that," he said.
"You just lead the way and 111 follow."
Shoogar and I exchanged a glance. Obviously this dumpy-
legged stranger would be unable to keep up with our bicycles
--especially if he was going to try to bring his nest. We waited
respectfully, however, while the magician collapsed his artifacts
and devices. I was amazed to see how easily they folded
up and how compactly they stored, and made a mental note
to get closer to one of them if I could. I was curious to see
how the bone was carved and how the metal was worked.
Perhaps I could learn something from the construction of
such devices. They were carved too precisely, too delicately
for me to see much in the dim light.
I glanced involuntarily at the sky. We Were fast approaching
the time of total darkness. Only six of the moons were
left in the sky. No wonder the light was fading. I certainly
did not intend to tarry for this stranger.
Within a remarkably short time, the stranger had packed
up all of his devices and stowed them within his nest. There
was something about his manner that made me feel vaguely
uneasy; a sureness of self that implied he knew what he was
doing. "All right," he said. "I'm ready," and he disappeared
into his nest, shutting the door behind him. That was when
my feeling of unease gave way to one of pure terror. Purple- Gray's whole nest began to hum, like the speakerspell and the
red-fire devices within it, but louder. Suddenly it rose into the
air and hung there at twice the height of a man. It began to
glow with a color we had never seen before. The plants and
the trees shone like garish hallucinations. Green is a dark
color--not a dreadful bright fluorescence.
I thought Shoogar would fall off his bicycle from astonishment.
I was having trouble with my own hands and feet.
16 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Even when you are not trembling all over, a bicycle is hard
enough to control.
The ride back to the village was a nightmare. Shoogar
was so unnerved, he forgot to chant any of his protective canteles, and we both kept looking back over our shoulders
at that huge looming egg which came floating silently, dreadfully
after us, throwing off light in all directions, like some
terrifying manifestation of Eicin, the thunder god.
It didn't help matters that every time I looked up, another
moon had set, plunging us ever closer to the time of total
darkness. One of us was moaning, but I wasn't sure whether
it was Shoogar or me.
The bicycles clattered roughly down the mountain path,
and I was so concerned about getting safely back to my nest
that I did not even think to urge Shoogar to be careful with
my other machine. The way he kept looking back over his
shoulder I was sure he would hit something and split a wheel.
Fortunately, he did not; I did not know if I would even have
stopped to help him. Not with that bright black egg chasing
us, always keeping perfectly and terrifyingly upright.
Somehow we made it down to the grasslands. Several of the
women saw us coming--they were out in the fields gathering
the night fungi--but when they saw that huge glowing nest
looming along behind us, they turned and ran for the safety
of the village. Shoogar and I did not even think to park our
bicycles on the hill, but rode them right down into the
settlement. (Well, the women would have to clean the mud
from the wheels later.)
We reached the village none too soon. The last of the
moons was just settling in the west. We paused, out of breath,
in the center clearing. The great black nest floated ominously
above us, lighting up the whole village with its odd-colored
aura. The great trees and the gourd-shaped nests hanging
from their mighty branches took on strange and terrifying
colors.
From out of the air the magician's voice boomed louder
than any natural voice, ". . . no wonder I didn't see it from
the air ... houses are structured spheres, suspended from
the limbs of tremendous trees . . . must be at least. . . . Wait
until . . . hears about this! Where should I park?" he asked
suddenly.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 17
"Anywhere . . .," I gasped weakly, "Put it anywhere," and
made an appropriate arm-sweeping gesture. I looked around
myself to see if we had any trees strong enough to hang such
a nest from. There were none big enough that were not already
occupied; but if this magician could make his nest fly,
then he could surely hang it even from a sapling.
But even this the stranger did not do. He landed it on the
ground.
And not just on any ground. He swept through the village
toward the river, and brought it to land on the crest of the
slope overlooking the frog-grading ponds. The ponds were dry
now, drained for their ritual purification and reseeding spells,
but I was appalled at such callous disregard for the property
of the village. I winced as the magician's nest sank into the
ooze with a loud squishy phloosh.
I did not sleep well at all. By the time the smoky rim
of the red sun began to appear over the horizon, I was
already up and about. I felt better after my cleansing and
purification, but still haggard and drawn. The events of the
night before had taken their toll.
A glance out the door of the nest was enough to confirm
that the stranger was still in our midst. Pilg the Crier was
already moving through the trees moaning of this new
development. Disaster was all the more certain now that
the strange magician had moved his nest into the village.
Even from here I could see a curious crowd gathering around
it--though keeping a respectful distance.
Ang, the frogmonger, was wringing his hands and moaning
over his frog-grading ponds. He would have to repurify them
again after the stranger left, and if that were not soon, he
might miss the spawning season altogether.
Shoogar and I went out to watch him, that first day. As
soon as he saw us he straightened from his examination of
a local herb and disappeared into his nest. He returned al18 THE FLYING SORCERERS
most immediately with an object in his outstretched hand. "A
gift," he said. "A gift for Shoogar, the magician."
Shoogar was caught by surprise. He had not expected the
stranger to produce the required gift. Now he had fulfilled
his obligation as a magician, and had the legal right to remain
in the district. By the same convention, Shoogar was bound
to respect the rights of the new magician as well as his spells.
Guild rules are quite specific.
Shoogar, as resident magician, had the seniority. The
stranger could do nothing to interfere with Shoogar's practice
or previous spells; but aside from that, he was free to do as
he chose.
Shoogar examined his gift. It was small and light, easily
held in one hand. One end had a glass lens mounted in it.
The stranger demonstrated how it worked. When one pressed
forward on the thing's sliding nerve, the glass lens made light.
It was a trivial thing. I could sense that Shoogar was
disappointed, and insulted that the stranger had not given
him something more spectacular. Shoogar had other ways to
make cold light. But there was little he could say. It is
extremely bad form to test a gift spell in the presence of the
giver.
The only advantage to the gift was that its light was of a
shape we had not seen before. By twisting a knob on one
side the shape could be varied from a bright narrow beam--
like the stranger's red-fire device, but nowhere near as damaging--to
a broad glare, wide enough to illuminate half a
countryside.
Using the sliding nerve, the brightness of the device could
be adjusted too. It could be muted down to a dim glow, no
brighter than a lightmoss, or it could be pushed up until it
was too bright to look at. Purple-Gray advised Shoogar not
to use the spell too much in this latter form, or its something would drain away too fast. The speakerspell didn't translate
the word.
Shoogar turned it over and over in his hands. He had
had his heart set on the flying spell or the red fire device.
Yet manners compelled him to accept this gift graciously.
I could see he wanted to ask for something else, but couldn't
figure out how to do so without the risk of offending the
other magician.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 19
Purple-Gray was saying, "I cannot understand why your
world has life at all. Your evolution patterns don't seem
right; yet who would have settled here? We certainly wouldn't.
For one thing, the dust clouds hide you from space. For another, you don't really get yellow, dwarf, sunlight." Much
of it was like that: coherent sentences trailing off into strings
of unrelated words. "Though I suppose the red and blue suns
do combine to give the same effect ... the plants all look black because there's so little green light, but the something in plants doesn't use the green anyway, so that's all right. It's
these double shadows that would drive anyone insane."
Shoogar waited 'through this stream of gibberish with
commendable patience. Purple-Gray's words about different
colors seemed to hint at something very important, and
Shoogar wanted to know what it was. "You speak of 'this
world,'" he said. "May one assume that you know of other
worlds?" I wondered if Shoogar was baiting the stranger.
"Oh, yes. My world----" He looked up, considered, then
pointed into the empty sky. "My world is in that general
direction. ... I think. Beyond the dust clouds."
"Dust clouds?" Shoogar peered up into the sky. I looked
also. So did the crowd of onlookers. "Dust clouds?" The sky
was an empty blue. What was he talking about?
Shoogar looked at the other magician, "Do you mock me?
I see nothing. No dust clouds. No other worlds. There is
nothing in the sky."
"Oh, but there is," said Purple-Gray. "It's just too small
for you to see."
Shoogar raised an eyebrow--threw me a look--turned
back to the other magician. I could sense some of the
onlookers trying to restrain their mirth. Some of the lesser
women were already giggling and had to be herded away.
"Too small?" repeated Shoogar. "Too small . . .?" His
patience was growing thin. Shoogar has no temperament for
children, fools or madmen.
"Oh, no--you misunderstand," said Purple-Gray quickly.
"It's too small to see because it's so far away."
"Oh ..." said Shoogar slowly. Purple-Gray still had not
explained the dust clouds----or the lack of them.
"Yes. In fact, it's so far away that if you tried to get there
on say, a bicycle, it would take you many generations. You
20 THE FLYING SORCERERS
would grow old and die before you had covered a significant
fraction of the journey."
"I see . . .," said Shoogar. "Then how did you get here? By pedaling faster?"
Purple-Gray laughed, "Oh, no, no. Even that wouldn't
help. I ..." The speakerspell hesitated, then said, ". . . went
around ..."
Shoogar shook his head in confusion. Several more of
the women had to be led away. It was not good for them to
see a grown man making a fool of himself, nor was it advisable
that they witness Shoogar discomfited. Several of the men
began muttering among themselves. Shoogar gestured for
silence--he still had not given up. "Went around . . .?" he
asked. "Went around what? The dust clouds?"
"Oh, no. I went through the dust clouds. I ... went
around the distance."
Shoogar repeated this sentence slowly, to see if there was
something in it he had missed. There wasn't. He looked at
Purple and shook his head. "Uh uh," he said. That was all,
just, "Uh uh."
Then he turned and walked away, up the slope, shaking
his head and turning the small light-making device over and over in his hands.
Purple-Gray spent the next several days collecting small
plants, pieces of larger plants, handfuls of mud and water
and dirt. There were plenty of sprats and adults to watch
him, but he took little notice of them.
A floating three-legged clicking device followed him about
with its legs folded, unnoticed and untended until he needed
it. Each time he took a sample of something he would mount
this device on its legs and point it at the site. It seemed a
harmless enough testing device, but Shoogar would grit his
teeth every time it came floating by.
Shoogar went into seclusion then, determined to discover
THE FLYING SORCERERS 21
the secret of the stranger's light-making device. When I
visited him for the purpose of checking his progress, he
glared angrily at me, and muttered, "Curse that single-
shadowed demon!"
"Perhaps it would help if you tried to find out which god
the spell draws its power from."
Shoogar gave me another look, more scathing than the
first. "Do I tell you how to carve bone? Why do you tell me
magic? Don't you think I know my own business? I have already tested this device for the presence of every god in
the known pantheon and it responds to none."
"Perhaps," I suggested, "perhaps it is based on a different
principle. Purple appears not to call on any gods at all. Could
it be that..."
"Then how does he work his devices?" Shoogar demanded. "By superstition?"
"I don't know----but perhaps he draws his power from
some different source. Or perhaps .. ."
"Lant, you are a fool! Why do you continue to prattle on
about things you do not know? If you are going to try to
talk to a magician about magic, you should at least try to talk
intelligently."
"But that's why I'm asking----"
"Superstition, Lant, is harmless prattle that gets repeated
so often that people start to believe it--and then it is no
longer harmless. The belief of the people gives it power.
Magic, on the other hand, involves a carefully constructed
equation of symbols intended to control specialized forces or
objects. Magic works whether one believes in it or not."
"I understand that," I said. "And I do not think that Purple
operates by superstition."
"Nor do I," said Shoogar. "His powers are too great."
"But it does not appear that he operates by magic either."
"Are you suggesting that the stranger's devices are independent
of the gods?" Shoogar's look and tone made it clear
that he felt he was talking to an imbecile.
I stiffened my tone. "Such a thing is not impossible.
Wilville once confessed to me that he has often test-ridden
new bicycles without bothering to bless them first. One grows
careless and forgets. But nothing evil has ever happened to
him."
22 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Wilville and Orbur are under my protection--remember?
In payment for helping to construct a flying spell."
"Yes, I remember. I had preferred they take something
tangible."
Shoogar ignored me. "I am protecting both your sons as
a matter of course, so Wilville's occasional ride on an un-
blessed bicycle proves nothing. Besides, if everything else has
been properly prepared, the bicycle blessing is superfluous."
"I still say that such a thing as a device independent of
the gods might be possible."
Shoogar gave me a look. "You seem very sure of yourself."
"As a boy, I once used an unblessed fishing rod. I made
it myself."
"So?"
"So I caught a fish."
Shoogar snorted. "It still proves nothing, Lant. If you had
blessed that rod and washed your hook as you should have,
you might have caught ten times as many fish. All that you
proved otherwise was that you had constructed a usable fishing
rod. What you needed for that experiment was a valid
control--an identical fishing pole that had been blessed and
washed. Then you would have seen which one could catch
the most fish."
"You talk as if you have done such an experiment."
"Not with fish, no. But with traps."
My surprise must have shown, for he said, "As an apprentice,
every new magician must prove to his own satisfaction,
at least once, that there is truly great power in magic.
One cannot be a magician if there is a seed of doubt in his
mind. By allowing the apprentice to satisfy his curiosity, we
generate faith in him. It is a simple experiment--one that
anyone can construct for himself--a test that can be repeated
as often as you choose. Each time the results are the same
and can be verified."
"And what happens?"
"The traps with the blessed bait will catch twice as many
rabbits."
"So? Maybe it was only because the bait is more attractive
to the rabbits."
"Of course," said Shoogar. "That's exactly what it is supposed
to do. The whole purpose of the spell is to make the
THE FLYING SORCERERS 23
bait more attractive. These traps are simple devices, Lant. A
simple device may not always need magic, but when it is used
the results are easily demonstrable. Now, how many parts
were there to your fishing pole?"
"Three. Stick, line and hook."
"Right. There is little that can go wrong with it, but still
the string can break, or the bait can slip off, or the hook may
not catch. And this is only a simple device--a thing that
does not have to be very precise. Think, Lant! What of the
construction that has many moving parts? It has to have all
of them in absolute working order before any of them will
work. What of, say, the bicycle?"
I started to answer, but he cut me off. "Don't interrupt.
The bicycle has many moving parts, the wheels, the pulleys,
the steering bar, the pedals, the axles. All of these things
must be precision carved and in delicate adjustment with each
other, or the device simply will not work. Now, theoretically,
a perfect machine is possible . . . but in practice--well, when
you get a machine that has to be that precise simply to function,
that is when the effect of the magic becomes most important.
If only one part fails--one part--then the whole
machine is useless. The simple device does not need magic,
so its effect is enhanced by the simplest of spells; but a complex
device needs a more complex spell just to keep it working
at all. There is just too much that can go wrong. Tell me,
Lant, how many parts are there to a bicycle?"
I shrugged. "I have never counted. A good many, I would
guess."
Shoogar nodded. "And how many parts does the stranger's
flying nest have?"
I shook my head. "I don't know."
"More than a bicycle?"
"Undoubtedly," I said. __
"Very perceptive of you, Lant. I feel sure that there must
be at least a thousand different parts in that flying nest. From
my own flying experiments, I can tell you that a flying spell
is a very complex device indeed. Purple-Gray's nest must
have many moving parts, all of them working together in
precision. The smallest error and--Poff! Nothing happens.
It's quite obvious to me that the more parts a machine has,
the more opportunities it has to go wrong. Now, are you going
24 THE FLYING SORCERERS
to stand there and try to tell me that the stranger keeps all
of those various parts working in absolute precision without
the aid of any magic at all. . .?"
I shook my head. Shoogar made a very convincing case.
Certainly, he had already given the whole matter much more
thought than I had imagined. But, of course, that was his
job as magician. It was reassuring to know that he was doing
it so well.
I beamed proudly at him, "The same thing must apply
to all of his other devices, right?"
Shoogar nodded, "You are beginning to see the obvious,
Lant."
"They must need so much magic that they must be reeking
of spells, right?"
Shoogar nodded again.
"Then, you have already figured out the secret of the light
device, Shoogar!" I exclaimed. "It is so complex that it is
obvious, right?"
"Wrong. It is so simple that it is a mystery."
"Huh——"
'The most I've been able to do is to take the device apart
—but look at what that leaves me!" He waved his hand at a
workbench. On it were only four pieces, the elements of the
stranger's light. These consisted of a hollow shell, a crystal
lens, a flat plate and an interior canister, roughly the same
shape as the outer shell. Shoogar turned this flat bulging object
over and over in his hands, but he could not find an opening.
It was hard and solid and we both puzzled over what it might
contain. It resisted all of our attempts to open it, and
Shoogar would not use force for fear of destroying the devices
within.
"And you have been able to make no changes at all in
its condition?" I prompted.
"Not exactly. I have made one change...."
"And what is that?"
"The light. It has failed completely and will no longer
glow."
"Oh."
Shoogar glumly fitted the pieces together again as I watched.
He activated the sliding nerve. Nothing happened. He twisted
the turning knob back and forth. Still nothing. "I thought
THE FLYING SORCERERS 25
not," he muttered. "I had hoped the spell might restore itself
if given a chance to rest--but apparently I was mistaken."
"Why don't you take it back to Purple?" I suggested.
Shoogar whirled on me, "What?!! Do you think I am not
capable enough on my own to solve this problem?"
"No, Shoogar!" I protested. "I am sure you are capable.
I just thought that----uh, well, perhaps Purple has done
something to cancel the original spell that you can't know
about. Perhaps he has insulted some god."
Shoogar considered this. "You could be right . . . you're
sure you're not doubting my ability as a magician?" He peered
at me.
Hastily, I reassured him, "Shoogar, I have no doubts about
the level of your knowledge."
This seemed to placate him, "Good. Then we can pay a
visit to Purple and find out why the device doesn't work."
We found Purple out in the west pasture, doing something
with a set of his devices. I looked for, but did not see
the red-fire throwing device. Apparently, he had not brought
it with him. The devices he was using here in the meadow
all seemed to be rather harmless.
Purple was puttering contentedly, murmuring and humming
busily to himself when Shoogar interrupted and handed him
the device. Purple took it, fiddled with it several times, then
opened it and examined the cylinder within. He noted that
its surface had gone red. "Well, of course it won't work.
The battery is dead."
Shoogar went pale. "The battery? Why did you not tell
me there was a living creature within this device? I did
not even know what to feed it."
"No, no," said Purple with a laugh. "You don't understand."

"I understand all too well," said Shoogar. "You entrusted
a living creature into my care without even telling me. Small
26 THE FLYING SORCERERS
wonder that it died--imprisoned in that tiny box without
food or water! You have caused the death of a living being to
be on my head, and now I must offer up prayers for its soul!"
Purple managed to check his laughter, "Listen to me,
Shoogar. Listen. A battery is not a living creature. It is a
device, a thing that stores power."
"Oh," said Shoogar. "A latent spell." He smoothed his
fur and said in a calmer tone, "Well, which god must I placate
in order to restore its power to it?"
Again Purple laughed, "You still do not understand. Here, give it to me, and I will do it for you." He reached for the
device, but Shoogar did not give it to him.
"Why will you not tell me how to restore it?" demanded
Shoogar. "What good will the device be to me, if I must
continually come to you when its power is exhausted--what
kind of a magician would that make me look like? And furthermore,
what happens after you leave--how will I restore it
then? If I at least knew which gods--"
"No gods," said Purple. "No gods at all. Your gods are
not able to restore this device's power. Here, give it to me,
Shoogar. I will do it."
Shoogar jerked his hand back as if stung. "The gods not
able to restore the device's power? Only you?"
"Relax, Shoogar," Purple said. "The device works without
the gods; it doesn't need them."
Shoogar said slowly, carefully, "Do you mock me? No
device works without the gods."
'This one does. So do the rest of my devices."
Shoogar gently stiffened his tone. "Purple, you are not
making sense. It sounds as if you are denying the power
of the gods. Such talk will cause Eicin to rain lightning down upon your head. I urge you to----"
"That would be true," Purple interrupted, "if there were an Eicin. Or any other god. You have over a thousand gods
here--and I still have not numbered them all. Oh, these
primitive superstitions, borne out of the ignorant need to
explain the inexplicable! I'm sorry, Shoogar; I can't explain
it to you--you're as much its victim as its master." Abruptly,
he was silent.
"Is that all?" Shoogar asked.
"Yes, I'm afraid so," the other replied.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 27
Shoogar looked thoughtfully at the device he still held
in his hands. "Purple," he began slowly and evenly; his voice
showed great control. "Were it not for your devices, I would
think you either a fool or a blaspheming red magician. But
the abilities of your devices are such that you can be neither
foolish nor false. Therefore, you must be something else."
He paused, then said, "I want to know what that something
is. In your conversations you continually refer to things that
do not make sense, but they hint at meaning. I am sure that
you know things that I do not. Your devices prove that. I
wish to learn these secrets." He paused again; it was very hard
for him to say what he said next, "Will you teach me?"
Shoogar's words startled me. I had never heard him so
humble. His passion for the secrets of the stranger must have
been all-consuming for him to debase himself like that.
Purple looked at Shoogar for a long moment, "Yes . . ."
he said, almost to himself. "Yes ... It is the only way--
teach the local shamans, let them introduce the knowledge. . ..
All right; look, Shoogar, you must first understand that the
gods are not gods at all, but manifestations of your belief."
Shoogar nodded, "That theory is not unfamiliar to me."
"Good," said Purple. "Perhaps you are not as primitive
as I thought."
'This theory," continued Shoogar, "is one of the key
theories upon which all of magic is based--that the gods
will take the forms necessary to their functions, and those
functions are determined by--"
"No, no." Purple cut him off. "Listen. Your people do
not understand how the moons make the tides, so you create
N'veen, the god of tides and patron of mapmakers. You do
not understand how the winds are created by great masses
of hot air, so you create Musk-Watz, the god of winds. You
do not understand the relationship between cause and effect,
so you create Leeb, the god of magic."
Shoogar frowned, but he nodded. He was trying very hard
to follow this.
"I can understand how it happened, Shoogar," said Purple
condescendingly. "It's no wonder you have so many gods--
single god worship starts with a single sun. Here you have
two suns and eleven moons. Your system is hidden away in
a dust cloud . . ." He saw that Shoogar was frowning and
28 THE FLYING SORCERERS
said quickly, "No, forget that last. It would only confuse you."
Shoogar nodded.
"Now, listen to this carefully. There is something more
than these gods of yours, Shoogar, but you and your people
have forgotten that you have created the gods yourselves, and
you have come to believe that it is the other way around—
that the gods have created you."
Shoogar flinched at this, but he said nothing.
"Now, I will try to teach you what I can. I will be glad to.
The sooner you and your people are ready to lay aside your
primitive superstitions and accept the one true ..." And here,
the speakerspell hesitated again, ". . . magic, then the sooner
will you inherit... the lights in the sky!"
"Huh?" said Shoogar. "What lights in the sky? Do you
mean those faint nonsubstantial things that appear at random
and rarely in the same place twice?"
Purple nodded, "You are not able to see them as I am—
but someday, Shoogar, someday, your people will build their
own flying spells and——"
"Yes, that's it!" said Shoogar eagerly. "Show me the
flying spell. What gods——"
"No gods, Shoogar. That's what I have been trying to
explain to you. The flying spell is not derived from the gods,
but from men; men like myself."
Shoogar started to open his mouth to protest, but he
Swallowed mightily and croaked out instead, "Derived from
men...?"
Purple nodded.
"Then it must be a simpler spell than I imagined——you
will teach it to me?"
"I can't," Purple protested.
"Can't? You just said you would."
"No, no—I meant that I would teach you my . . ." the
speakerspell seemed to be having some trouble with the word,
"... magic; but I can't teach you my flying spell."
Shoogar shook his head, as if to clear it, "Your flying spell
is not magic then?"
"No, it isn't. It's . . ." Again, the device hesitated, ". . . it's
magic."
I could see that Shoogar's temper was shortening. "Are
you or are you not going to teach me how to fly?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 29
"Yes--but it is your people who will fly----"
"Then what good is it to me?"
"I mean, your children and your grandchildren."
"I have no children," Shoogar fumed.
"I did not mean it that way," Purple said, "I meant . . .
your children and your grandchildren. That is, the spell is so
complex that it will take many years to learn and build."
"Then let us begin," prompted Shoogar impatiently.
"But we can't--" Purple protested. "Not until you learn
the basics of ... magic."
"I already know the basics of magic!" Shoogar screamed.
"Teach me the flying spell!"
"I can't!" Purple screamed back. "It's too difficult for you!"
"Then why did you say you would if you wouldn't?" A
red-faced Shoogar cried.
"I didn't say I wouldn't!" bellowed Purple. "I said, I
couldn't!"
And that's when Shoogar got mad. "May you have many
ugly daughters," he began. "May the parasites from ten
thousand mud creatures infest your cod-piece!" His voice
rose to a fearful pitch. "May dry rot take your nesting tree!
May you never receive a gift that pleases you! May the God
of Thunder strike you in the kneecap!"
They were only epithets, nothing more, but coming from
Shoogar they were enough to pale even me, an innocent
bystander. I wondered if my hair would fall out from witnessing
such a display of anger.
Purple was unmoved--and I must credit him for his
courage in the face of such fury. "I have already told you,
Shoogar, that I am not concerned with your magic. I am
above such things."
Shoogar took another breath. "If you do not cease and
desist I will be forced to use this!" And Shoogar produced
from the folds of his robe a doll. I knew from its odd proportions
and colors that the doll had been carved to represent
Purple.
Purple did not even quail, as any normal man would
have done. I knew then that he must be mad. "Use it," he
said. "Go ahead and use it. But don't interrupt me in my
work. Your world-life-system-balance has developed in a'
fascinating direction. The animals have developed some of
30 THE FLYING SORCERERS
the most unusual fluids - secreted for the control of bodily
functions that I have ever seen." Purple bent back to his
devices, did something to one of them, a stabbing gesture with
a single forefinger, and a whole section of the west pasture
erupted.
Shoogar covered his eyes in .despair. Purple had just
violated one of the finest pastures of the village--one of the
favorite pastures of Rotn'bair, the god of sheep. Who knew
what the mutton would taste like this winter?
Then, to add injury to insult. Purple began gathering up
fragments of the meadow and putting them into little containers.
He was taking the droppings!
Was it possible for one man to violate so many of the
basic laws of magic and still survive? The laws of magic
are strict. Any fool can see them in operation every day
--even I am familiar with them--they operate the entire
world, and their workings are simple and obvious.
But Purple, this man of the flying nest was blind even to the simplest of spells!
I was not surprised when Shoogar, grimly intent, set the
doll down on the grass and set it afire. Neither was I surprised
when the doll had burnt itself into a pinch of white ash
without Purple even bothering to notice.
Purple ignored it--and us; he showed not the slightest
effect. Flaming sting things! What powers this magician must
have! Shoogar stared at him aghast. How dare he not be
affected! Purple's very casualness was the ultimate insult.
When we left him he had one of his clicking boxes open and
was fumbling inside. He never even noticed us leaving.


Shoogar was peering into the sky, a frown on his face.
Both suns were still high; broad red disc and blue-white
point. The blue sun was poised on the edge of the red, ready
to begin the long crawl across its face. -
"Eicin's wrath!" he muttered. "I cannot use the suns--
THE FLYING SORCERERS 31
all is unstable. That leaves me only the moons--and the
moons are well into the mudskunk." He hurled a fireball
across the clearing. "An eight-mooned mudskunk at that!"
He put his hands on his hips and shouted into the sky, "Why
me, Ouells! Why me? What have I done to offend you that
you curse me with such unusable configurations? Have I not sworn my life to your service?"
But there was no answer. I don't think Shoogar expected
one. He turned back to his spell devices. "All right, then.
If it is a mudskunk you have given me, then it is a mud-
skunk I shall use. Here, Lant, hold this," and he thrust a
large pack at me.
He continued to rummage through his equipment, all the
while muttering under his breath. A fearful collection of
cursing devices began to grow around him.
"What is all this for?" I indicated the pile.
He appeared not to hear me, continued checking off items
in his head, then began loading them into the pack.
"What is all this for?" I repeated.
Shoogar looked at me, "Lant, you are a fool. This," he said
and hefted his kit meaningfully, "is to show the stranger that
one does not trifle with the gods of the full belly."
"I'm afraid to ask. What is it?" I asked.
"It's the spell of the. . . . No, you'll just have to wait and
see it in action, with the others." He strode purposefully
toward the frog-grading ponds. I hurried after him; it was
amazing how fast Shoogar's squat little legs could carry him.
There was already an uneasy crowd of villagers standing
on the rise above the flying nest. None dared approach it.
When Shoogar appeared, an excited murmur ran through the
crowd--the word of Purple's insult had spread quickly; the
villagers were tense with expectation.
Shoogar ignored them. He pushed through the milling
throng and strode angrily to Purple's nest, ignoring the mud
that splashed up and over his ankles and stained the hem
of his robe.
He strode around that nest three times without pause,
looking at it from all sides. I was unsure whether he had. already started spelling, or whether he was just sizing up
the situation. For a long moment he stood looking at the
32 THE FLYING SORCERERS
landward side of that nest, like an artist contemplating a
blank skin.
Then, abruptly, he made up his mind. He stepped quickly
forward and with a piece of chalk he inscribed the sign of the
homed box on the side of Purple's nest.
An interested murmur of speculation rose from the crowd,
"The homed box ... the horned box . . ." This spell would be
under the domain of Rotn'bair, the sheep god. Members of
the crowd discussed it busily amongst themselves. Rotn'bair
is neither very powerful nor very irritable. Most of the Rotn'bairic
spells deal with fertility and food gathering. Few things
will anger the sheep god; but if Rotn'bair could be angered,
Shoogar would know how. The crowd buzzed with an excited
curiosity, each speculating on just what form the final spell
would take.
Shoogar finished the sketch. Absent-mindedly wiping the
chalk from his hands, he strode down to the mudbanks of
the river. He paced back and forth along its edge, casting
about for something. Abruptly he spotted what he was looking
for, something just below the surface of the water. He grabbed
quickly for it, his hands dipping into the river with no splash
at all. When he straightened, the sleeves of his robe were
dripping, but there was a brownish-looking slug in his grasp,
and after a moment I caught the repellent odor of mudskunk.
The scent reached the rest of the crowd at the same
time, and a murmur of approval went up from them. The
antipathy between Rotn'bair, the sheep god, and Nils'n, the
god of the mud creatures, was known even to laymen.
Evidently Shoogar was constructing a spell that would play on
the mutual antipathy of the two gods.
My guess was right--I pride myself on a fairly good
understanding of the basic principles of magic--Shoogar slit
the belly of the mudskunk and deftly extracted its anger
gland. He placed this into a bone bowl. I recognized the bowl, having carved and cleansed it for him myself. It was made
from the skull of a newborn lamb and had been sanctified to
Rotn'bair. Now he was defiling it with the most odious portion
of the mud creature. No doubt, he now had Rotn'bair's
attention.
He laid this to one side and returned to the mudskunk
which lay writhing in a swampy pool. He picked it up and
THE FLYING SORCERERS 33
deftly sliced off its head without even offering up a prayer
for its soul. Thus he denied its death. Now, he had Nils'n's
attention.
Using the bladder of the slug as a mixing bag, he began
to construct a potion of powdered ramsbone, extract of
hunger, odeur of sheepsblood, and several other elements
that I could not identify; but I suspected that all of them
were designed to arouse the wrath of Nils'n, although in what
manner was not yet clear.
Shoogar surveyed the nest of the mad magician on its
riverward side. Then he began to paint his soupy potion in
broad lines across its black flank in a pattern of eleven
stripes by eleven. Having finished, he sketched in the sign of the deformed changeling, the favored son of the sheep
god. This half of the spell would anger Nils'n. Shoogar had
defiled a mud creature in order to celebrate the greatness of
Rotn'bair. To complete the other half of the spell, Shoogar
would now desecrate his earlier celebration of Rotn'bair, the
horned box sketched on the other side of the nest.
He returned to the bone bowl, the one containing the anger
gland of the mudskunk, and using the leg bone of a ^am,
he crushed the gland into a sick-smelling paste. This he
mixed with ramsblood, defiled water and a greenish powder
from his travel kit. I recognized that powder--it was an
extract of fear, usually used where potent action is desired.
It is derived from animals of the cloven hoof. Six sheep must
have been sacrificed just to provide the small amount Shoogar
was now mixing into his spell.
Stepping to the landward side of the nest, and chanting
a song of praise for Nils'n, Shoogar began painting a familiar
symbol across the chalk sketch of the horned box. It was the
sign of Nils'n, a diagonal slash with an empty circle on
either side.
The crowd gasped appreciatively. Such originality in spell-
casting was a delight to behold. No wonder he was called
Shoogar the Tall. Rotn'bair would not allow such a desecration
of his sheep to exist for long. And Nils'n, the god of mud
creatures, would not long be complacent while mud-skunks
were being sacrificed to Rotn'bair.
The antipathy of the two gods is demonstrated every time
the sheep are led to the river. Sheep are careless and clumsy.
34 THE FLYING SORCERERS
As they mill about on the banks, they trample scores of frogs,
snakes, salamanders, lizards, chameleons, and other amphibians
that live in the mud. At the same time many of the more
dangerous mud creatures, the poisonous ones, the fanged
ones, the ones with venom lash back at the sheep, cutting
their legs, ruining their wool, infecting them with parasites,
giving them festering sores, leaving them bleeding from
angry cuts and slashes. The two gods hate each other, and
in their various incarnations, as sheep and mud creatures, they
work to destroy each other at every opportunity.
Now Shoogar had inscribed insults to both upon the same
nest. He had defiled creatures of each in order to celebrate
the greatness of the other. If Purple did not make immediate
amends, he would have to suffer the wrath of both simultaneously.

Purple had said he did not believe in the gods. He denied
their existence. He denied their powers. And he had stated
that he was above Shoogar's magic.
I hoped he would return in time to see the spell take effect.
I followed Shoogar down to the river, and helped him
with his ritual purification. He had to cleanse himself of the
odeurs of offense against the gods, lest he be caught up in his
own curse. Sometimes the gods are nearsighted. We bathed
him with six different oils before we even let him step into
the river. (No sense in offending Filfo-mar, the river god.)
Even before we finished with the cleansing we could hear
the curse beginning. We could hear the cheers of the crowd;
and beneath that was a dull sort of booming. Shoogar wrapped
his robe around himself and hurried back up the hill, me
trailing excitedly in his wake.
We reached the crest of the hill in time to see an angry
ram butting his head insistently against the side of Purple's
nest. More rams were arriving, and they too began to attack
the looming black globe. The focus of their anger was the
THE FLYING SORCERERS 35
desecrated homage to Rotn'bair, and it seemed as if the
very substance of the Nils'n symbol was enough to anger
them. The smell of the mudskunk was potent enough to
raise anyone's hackles.
Red-eyed and breathing heavily, the rams jostled and
shoved and butted even at each other in their frenzy to attack
that odious desecration on the side of Purple's nest. Each
time they struck it, that same dreadful booming echoed up
and down the hill, and each time a great cheer went up from
the crowd. I expected at any moment to see one of the rams
go crashing through the walls of that fearful nest, but no--
those walls were stronger than I had thought. Perhaps even
as strong as metal.
The only effect I could see was that each time a ram
struck it, it seemed to lift slightly out of the mud for a
moment before sinking wetly back. Bleating in frenzy, the
rams raged at that offensive spot----they were the living
incarnation of Rotn'bair's anger. Again and again, they hurled
themselves at that dull black surface.
Old Khart, the lead ram, had shattered both of his horns
(sacred items in themselves--I mourned the loss), and several
of the other rams were also injured. Their eyes were red with
fury, their nostrils flared wide; their breath came in hot puffs
of steam and the sounds of bleating and snorting filled the air
with a madness born of wrath. The steam rose from their
sides; their hoofs slashed wetly through the ground, churning
the grass and mud into a meaningless soup.
Some of the rams were having trouble with their footing
already, and indeed, as we watched, one of the older ones
slipped and slid through the mud. He crashed against two
others and brought them both down with him; all three were
caught under the frenzied slashing hooves of the others.
Their angry snorts were punctuated by grunts of pain, and
by the dull thud and hollow boom that rolled up and down
the slope each time they struck the side of Purple's nest. But
the creatures had strength beyond all natural endurance, and
continued to clamber over one another, butting at that offending
spell.
And each time they did so, each time they struck it, the nest
rose up out of the ground and threatened to slide down the
slope and into the river; but each time it would pause and
36 THE FLYING SORCERERS
then sag wetly back into its hollowed out cradle of mud.
Several times it trapped slow-footed beasts under the curve
of its wall. I felt a great surge of emotion within myself----
any moment now Purple's great egg-shaped nest would be
toppled onto its side.
Then, abruptly, three of the rams hit the nest at the same
time, and it seemed to leap into the air. One more struck it
at just the right instant, and as it rose out of its hollow it
just seemed to keep on moving. Suddenly it was sliding
downslope with a great wet slosh. Angry rams scrambled
after it, butting at it all the way down, churning the mud
with their hoofs and leaving a long angry scar through Ang's
carefully terraced frog-grading pools. I shouted in triumph
with the rest.
The great black globe struck the river with a resounding
smack and splash; a loud cheer of delight went up from
the villagers. Only I was silent, for the terrible nest had not
deviated even a thumbnail's width from its perfectly upright
position. Had Shoogar noticed too? His puzzled frown was
a match for mine.
But the nest was in the river! The rams slid and skidded
down the slope, destroying what was left of the frog pools
in the process. Almost joyfully they leapt into the water,
still butting at Purple's nest.
Others milled around the banks, churning the mud. Mud-
skunks and salamanders ran panic-stricken under their hoofs
and a new shade of red added itself to the stains on the
heaving flanks of the crazed rams. Crushed mud-skunk
mingled with the blood of the sheep, and the terrible smell
reached us on the crest of the hill along with the hysterical
splashing and bleating.
Now the black nest was within Nils'n's reach. So far only
Rotn'bair had had a chance to avenge the insult. Now the
banks boiled with life as salamanders, lizards, crabs, venom-
bearing snakes and other river creatures came swarming up
out of the mud and darkness. They scrambled across the
churning surface and attacked anything that moved, even
each other, but more often the rams.
The rams continued to charge the nest, oblivious to the
mud creatures caught in their wool, hanging from their sides,
biting and slashing at their legs. Their once proud flanks, now
THE FLYING SORCERERS 37
torn and slashed, were stained with angry strokes of red
and great washes of muddy brown river water. It was an
awe-inspiring sight, sheep and mud creatures together attacking
that ominous unmoving sphere.
The villagers stood on the flanks of the hill and cheered
the frenzied activity below. One or two of the braver shepherds
tried to work their way down the slope, but the snapping
claws of the mud crabs drove them quickly back up to the
crest.
The rams were slowing down now, but still they continued
to mill about Purple's nest----still they continued to push
at it, occasionally clambering over the body of a fallen
comrade. The water was pink. Angry mud-skunks swarmed
along both banks of the river. It was a heartening sight. The
crowd continued to cheer wildly, and began to chant a chorus
of praise to Shoogar. Pilg the Crier was leading them. .<
Down below, their anger spent, some of the rams Were
already climbing back up the hill, slipping and skidding
in their own blood and falling back down the mud-slicked
surface. Two or three slipped beneath the water and failed
to surface.
The mud creatures too were beginning to calm----and
the shepherds once more dared to work their way carefully
down the slopes to tend their wounded flock.
"A beautiful spell, Shoogar!" I congratulated him, "Beautiful!
And so powerful!"
Indeed, as the churning foam of the river continued to
subside, revealing the full extent of the devastation, several
of the villagers even began to mutter that perhaps the spell
had been a bit too powerful. One of the members of the
Guild of Advisors remarked, "Look at all this destruction!
This spell should be banned."
"Banned?" I confronted the man, "And leave us defenseless
before our enemies?"
"Well," he amended, "perhaps we should only keep Shoogar
from using it on friends. He could still use it on strangers."
I nodded. I would accept that.
At least eleven of our sheep lay dead in the churned
mud of the slope, mud creatures feeding indiscriminately on
their stilled or still heaving flanks. Four of the rams were
trampled into the landscape; others lay with their heads at
38 THE FLYING SORCERERS
oddly twisted angles, their necks broken from butting against
Purple's nest. Three more bodies lay below the water with
their mouths open.
What remained of the flock would show countless mud-
skunk bites upon their legs and flanks. Many of those bites
would undoubtedly become festering sores and probably more
of the rams would die later.
The vermin of the mud would be vicious for days to
come. It would not be safe to bathe for a while, and probably
the sheep would not dare to return to the river for a long
time; they would have to be led to the mountain streams to
drink.
The frog-grading ponds had been completely obliterated
and would have to be completely resculptured elsewhere. Ang
stood moaning and wringing his hands as he surveyed his
mud-chumed slope.
And finally, the wreck of the mad magician's nest now
blocked the river. Dammed water spilled over the south bank
in a torrent. Already it was carving a new course for itself.
And none of it mattered. These were all small prices to
pay for the damage done to the stranger. Considering the
magnitude of the task, it was one of Shoogar's less expensive
efforts and we were proud of him.
Then why was the scene so utterly silent?
I looked to my left and saw Purple standing on the crest
ofthetulL
He stood there with his devices floating behind. Every
eye was on him. His hands were on his hips as he looked
thoughtfully down at his nest. How long had he been standing
there?
"Fascinating," he said. And he started briskly down the
slope. His devices followed.
The nest sat like a great egg in the middle of the river.
Water backed up behind it, flowed in great torrents past its
THE FLYING SORCERERS 39
bulging flank, splashed angrily up and over the trampled
shore. Angry mud creatures clambered over its dull black
surface, scratching determinedly at the spell designs. Gobbets
of mud and bloody fur streaked its sides, but still the spells
of Shoogar were visible, almost etched into its surface. It
stood perfectly, almost arrogantly upright.
That made me uneasy. My eyes searched for the dents
in the stranger's ruined nest, the dents surely put there by
the homs of the rams. I couldn't find them.
Purple strode straight down the slope and into the water.
Not a droplet of mud stuck to those peculiar boots of his
——in contrast to Shoogar's legs and mine, which were mud
to the hip. A pair of mud-skunks attacked the magician as
he entered the water. Purple ignored them; and they couldn't
seem to get a grip on his boots.
He stood under the bulge of the nest, and we waited for
his scream of fury.
Carefully, with a small edged tool, he began scraping off
bits of Shoogar's curse signs and putting them into small
transparent containers. His mindless speakerspell continued
to translate his ramblings. "Fascinating . . . the power of
these fluids-secreted-for-the-control-of-bodily-functions is like
nothing I've ever seen before ... I wonder if these effects
could be produced artificially?"
Twice he sniffed at what he had scraped off, and twice
muttered a word the speakerspell did not translate. When
he finished, he dipped his hands in the river to wash them,
incidentally offending Filfo-mar, the usually gentle river god.
Purple turned to the egg-shaped door of his nest; it was
flush with the curved wall, but outlined in orange to make it
visible. He punched at a square pattern of bumps on the nest.
The door slid open and Purple disappeared inside.
We waited. Would he continue to occupy his nest, living
in the middle of our defiled river?
The flying nest hummed and rose twenty feet into the air.
I screamed with the rest, a wordless scream of rage. The
nest turned in an instant from black to silver; and it must
have become terribly slippery, for every particle of mud and
blood and potion from Shoogar's spell slid down the sides,
formed a glob at the bottom of the nest and dropped in a
lump into the river.
40 THE FLYING SORCERERS
The nest turned black. It moved horizontally across the
land and dropped gently to the ground----just a few yards
west of where it had stood an hour ago. Only now it rested
at the edge of a region of churned mud where the rams and
mud creatures had fought to destroy it.
I could see Shoogar sag where he stood. And I feared
for my village, and for Shoogar's sanity and my own. If Shoo-
gar could not defend us from the mad magician, then we were
all doomed.
There was an angry rumble from the villagers as Purple
emerged from his nest. Purple frowned and said, "I wish I
knew what's gotten you people so angry."
Somebody threw a spear at him.
I couldn't blame the lad. No sound, no pattern of mere
words could properly have answered the magician. But the
young man, enraged beyond sanity, had hurled his bone spear
at the stranger's back----without a blessing!
It struck Purple hard in the back and bounced off to the
side without penetrating. Purple toppled, not like a man,
but like a statue. I had the irrational conviction that for a
single instant Purple had become as hard as stone.
But the instant was over. Immediately he was climbing to
his feet. The spear, of course, had done no harm at all. One
cannot attack a magician with an unblessed spear. The boy
would have to be brought before the Guild of Advisors.
If the village survived that long.
I he suns rose together, the blue sun silhouetted off-center
within the other's great fuzzy-edged and crimson disk.
I woke at noon. The evacuation was already well under
way. My wives and spratlings had already done a good deal
of the packing, though the fear of disturbing my sleep had
slowed them somewhat. With my supervision, however, and
the necessary discipline, the packing progressed quickly. Even
so, we were very nearly the last family to leave the village.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 41
The lower rim of the red sun was already near the mountains
when I dropped behind the procession of my wives to tarry
at Shoogar's nest.
Shoogar looked tired, but curiously determined. His eyes
were alive and dancing, and his fingers moved with a life
of their own, weaving spell knots into a leather strap. I knew
better than to speak to him while he was in the midst of a
duel.
For though no formal declaration had yet been made
by Purple, this was a duel. Perhaps Purple thought that so
long as no duel was declared, Shoogar would sit peacefully
by and allow him to continue with his duel-mongering actions.
But I knew Shoogar better than that. The fierce glow
burning in his eyes confirmed what I--and all of the rest of
the villagers--already knew: that Shoogar would not rest until
there was one less magician in the village.
I hurried on after my wives. Burdened as we were, we
would be traveling well into the night. I had even removed
the hobbles from my women so that they could travel faster;
it would not do to underestimate the seriousness of the
situation.
By the time the moons were overhead, we had reached
our destination. Most of the families of the village were
settled on the steppes to the north, a series of long sloping
rises that overlooked the river and the cluster of housetrees
that marked our village.
The encampment was a sprawling place of lean-tos and
tents, smoky campfires and shrill women, milling groups of
men and boys. Already scavengers were rooting busily underfoot;
even before we had selected a campsite, many of my
own spratlings had melted away into the bustle.
Although it was well into the night, few slept. The eerie
glow of the moons gave us a twilight neither red nor blue,
but ghostly gray--a strange half-real quality for the waiting
time before the next step of the duel. An almost festive air
pervaded the settlement.
From somewhere in the bachelor's section came the brawling
chant of a game of rolling bones, and an occasional cry
of triumph as one of the players scored a particularly dim-
cult pass. It does not take much to please the lower classes.
An unpleasant surprise awaited us in the morning.
Hinc and I were standing at the edge of the encampment,
looking down the slope toward the village, discussing the
forthcoming duel, when we heard a dull distant slam, like
a single cough from Eicin's throat.
We looked down to see a tremendous plume of black
smoke wafting through the village treetops.
"Look," said Hinc. "Shoogar has started already."
"No," I shook my head. "I think he is only warming up.
That looked like a preparation spell more than anything else.
Something to get the attention of the gods."
"Pretty fierce attention-getter," noted Hinc.
I nodded, "It's going to be a pretty fierce duel. I wonder
if we should move again? Farther back."
"If we are not out of range already, Lant, we haven't
time to get out of range," said Hinc. "Even at a dead run.
And even if you are right, you could never persuade the
others. They are too tired."
He was right, of course, but before I could speak, we
were interrupted by a crowd of frightened women running
hysterically through the encampment as fast as their hobbled
legs would carry them. They were screaming Purple's name.
I caught up with and cuffed my number three wife to
attention. "What is the matter with you?" I demanded.
"It's the mad magician!" she cried. "He's trying to talk
to the women!"
"The mad magician—here?"
She nodded fearfully, "He brought his nest to the spring
where we wash—and he's trying to talk to us! He wants to
know why we moved!"
Had the man no self-respect at all? Talking to women?
Even from the mad magician I found this hard to believe. I
strode purposefully through the crowd, now milling nervously
n 42
THE FLYING SORCERERS 43
about, women comforting other hysterical women, men interrogating
their wives, sprats crying for attention.
As I moved toward the spring, some of the men caught up
with, and followed along behind me. They were muttering
nervously. Pilg was moaning loudly, "We cannot escape.
The duel follows us. Alas! Alas!"
It was as the women had said. Purple had brought his
nest to a spot just above the encampment, near the spring
the women had chosen for washing. The great black egg-shape
was closed, and the magician was nowhere to be seen.
The others waited only long enough to see that the women
had spoken the truth. Then they turned and fled quickly back
to the settlement.
Hinc and I exchanged a wordless glance. Why had Purple
followed us? Was he fleeing from his duel? I had never heard
of such a thing before. What did he want of the villagers?
I circled the nest warily. It looked much as it had on the
fearful night that I first saw it. I crept closer. There, lightly
pressed into the dust, were the imprints of Purple's strangely
shaped boots. But where was Purple now?
Suddenly, that booming hollow voice. "Lant! Just the
person I was hoping to see."
This was too much for Hinc. He turned and disappeared
down the slope after the others. I ached to join him, but I
had to find out what the magician was up to.
The door to the nest slid open and Purple stepped out,
his strange paunchy shape oddly disquieting--he had a
fearful grin on his bare face and advanced toward me as if
I were an old friend; his speakerspell drifted along behind.
"Lant," he said, moving closer, "perhaps you can tell me
----why have you people moved your village? The other
spot was so much nicer."
I looked at him curiously. Could it be that he did not know
of the duel? Was it possible for anyone to be that naive?
Well, so much the better----his liability was Shoogar's asset.
I certainly would not tell him. Why should a layman be concerned
with the affairs of magicians? I didn't want to get
involved. Instead, I just nodded, "Yes, the other spot was nicer."
. "Then why do you not stay there?"
"We hope to return soon," I said. "After the time of the
44 THE FLYING SORCERERS
conjunction." I pointed to the sky where the suns were setting
together, Ouells's blue-white point near the bottom of Vim's
crimson disk.
"Oh, yes," Purple nodded, "very impressive." Turning, he
gazed admiringly at the ground behind him, "And it makes
the shadows very pretty too."
"Very pretty----!" I stopped in mid-sentence. Dark and
blue they were, each with a bloody edge--constant reminder
that the time of terror was upon us. Was the man fearless
----or foolish? I shut up.
"Very pretty," Purple repeated. "Quite striking. Well, I
will remain here with you and your people. If I can be of any
assistance ...?"
Something within me shriveled and died. "You--you're
going to stay here?"
"Yes, I think so. I'll go back to the village when you
people do; this will give me a chance to 'test' the mountain
area for a day or so."
"Oh," I said.
He seemed to lose interest in me then, turned and went
back to his nest. I waited to see how he caused the door to
slide open. I had been puzzling about it since I had first seen
him do the trick. There was a pattern of bumps in the surface
of the nestwall. He tapped at these in a quick precise pattern.
I presumed that the pattern must have been the spell to
open the door, but it was too quick for me to memorize.
He stepped inside; the door slid shut and he was gone.
Dejectedly, I trudged back to the encampment--or what
was left of the encampment.
Already the villagers were fleeing from their makeshift
homes. Men were hastily packing travel kits, women were
calling for spratlings. Children and dogs ran excitedly
through the crowd, kicking up dust, chickens and scavengers.
Panic-stricken families were already moving across the
steppes, upslope, downslope, sideways, anywhere, just as long
as it was away from Purple; the magician who brought disaster
with him.
My own wives were standing about nervously, waiting
for me. Numbers one and two were trying to comfort number
three, who was most upset. "He kept trying to talk to mel
He kept trying to talk to me!"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 45
"It wasn't your fault," I told her. "You will not be beaten
for his trespass. You did right to run." My words had an
immediate calming effect on the distraught woman, more so
than all the stroking and soothing of the other two wives,
once more proving that only a man can know how to handle
the unusual situation.
"Pick up your packs," I told them. "We must be on our
way."
"On our way?" questioned one. "But we just got here."
"We must move again," I said, "before this area is blasted.
The mad magician's animal manners have blinded you to
the true danger. Shoogar will follow Purple up here. Now,
pick up your packs or I will beat all three of you."
They did as I bade them--but with no small amount of
grumbling. Even though I thought to remove their hobbles
so as to speed the journey, they grumbled--and for once
they had cause. For a day and a half we had fled the site
of the coming duel. Purple had easily, thoughtlessly nullified
that effort with only a few moments of flight.
Within an hour the encampment was deserted. As we
moved down the hill, I thought I saw Purple moving like a
lost soul through the empty lean-to shelters.
W e were the only family to return to the village. Where
the others had fled I did not know. Probably south, away from the whole region. They had likely lost all interest in
watching the duel, even from a distance. Now they wanted
only to save their skins.
In the fading daylight, we approached the village warily.
The blue sun winked out behind the edge of the world,
leaving only the semicircular bulge of the red. The mists
rising off the distant swamps took fire from the glow. It
was as if the whole western edge of the world were aflame.
I could almost smell the burning of it, a smell of disaster on
the evening wind.
46 THE FLYING SORCERERS
I left my wives at the nest, the nest to which I had thought
we would never return, and headed toward Shoogar's. I
carried a pack with me--a meal for him--perhaps his last.
As I made my way through the village I could see the many
effects of his spellcasting. Here and there, some of our proudest
housetrees lay on their sides, as if they had been blasted
out of the ground with great force. Others seemed to have
withered and died where they stood.
Here and there a nest lay on the ground, shattered walls
laying it open to the elements. Everywhere were great patches
of dying vegetation. The scavenger animals were gone. There
were no sounds of nightbirds. Except for my wives, myself,
and of course, Shoogar, the village was empty. And dead.
Even if Shoogar won the duel, none would ever be able
to return to this village. Nor would they want to. Its stability
had been permanently destroyed.
All was silent and brooding.
The dead grass crunched under my feet as I approached
Shoogar's nest. I knocked cautiously on the wall.
When he appeared I gasped in horror. Shoogar had gone
gray and haggard; new circles had appeared under his eyes
and his skin was discolored in angry red patches as if he
had been caught too close to one of his own spells.
But what had startled me most was that Shoogar had
shaved off all of his fur! He was totally naked and hairless--
a frightening caricature of the mad magician!
He greeted me with a wan smile, grateful for my company.
I began to lay out the ritual supper for him. It is traditional
that on the night before a duel the men of the village serve
a meal of faith to their patron warlock. But the others had
fled, so that duty had fallen on me alone.
I stood silently by and waited, serving him at each gesture
or grunt. It was not much of a meal, but it was the best I
could prepare under such circumstances. Shoogar seemed
not to mind. He ate slowly, savoring every bite. He looked
tired and his hands trembled as he moved. But he ate heartily.
By the time he laid aside his bone food-stabber, the red
sun had long disappeared from the west. The moons had not
yet appeared. He moved slowly, but whether from satiation
or exhaustion, it was impossible to tell.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 47
"Where are the others?" he asked.
"They've fled." I explained what happened. Shoogar listened
carefully, occasionally picking at some previously overlooked
morsel in the bowls before him.
"I did not expect the stranger to move," he muttered. "It
is a bad thing--but clever. Now I must alter my spell to
account for this new factor. You say he tried to talk to the
women?" He bit into a fruit.
I nodded, "My number three wife."
"Ptahl" Shoogar spat out the seeds in disgust, "The man
must have no taste. Limp. If one is going to lower oneself
to talk to women, one could at least choose the women of a
worthy rival."
"You have no women," I pointed out.
"It is still an insult to me," brooded Shoogar.
"Perhaps he doesn't know any better. Remember, he said
that the ways of his homeland are very different from ours."
"Ignorance could be the excuse for his bad manners,"
Shoogar grumbled, "but only madness could explain the man's
trespasses against common sense."
"It is said that a madman possesses the strength of ten . . ."
Shoogar gave me a look, "I know what is said. Most of
the time / said it first."
We sat there in silence. After a while I asked, "What do
you think will happen on the morrow?"
"There will be a duel. One will win, one will lose."
"But who ...?" I prompted.
"If it were possible to tell which magician would win a
duel, there would be no need for duels."
Again we sat in silence. This was the first time Shoogar
had referred to the duel with any indication of doubt. Always
before he had expressed confidence in his own abilities and
skepticism for the powers of Purple. Clearly the duel had
taken its toll even before the first spell had been cast.
"Lant," he said abruptly, "I will need your help."
I looked up startled. "Me? But I know nothing of magic.
You have told me that I am a fool countless times. Is it wise
to risk such an important undertaking in the hands of a . . .?"
"Shut up, Lant," he said softly. I shut. "All you have
to do is help me transport my spellcasting equipment up the
48 THE FLYING SORCERERS
mountain to Purple's nest. We will need two bicycles or some
pack animals. I cannot carry it all myself."
I breathed easier at that. "Oh, well, in that i
We were on our way within the hour.
It was close to dawn when we reached the site of the
encampment. The deserted lean-tos and shelters stood bleak
and empty in the night, like some fearful city of the dead. I found myself trembling.
We rode through it wordlessly, finally parking our bicycles
on the slope just below the spring. We could hear it babbling
carelessly in the dark.
Taking care to keep as quiet as possible, we edged forward,
up the hill. I held my breath till we topped the rise, then let
it out in a whoosh. Yes, the nest was still there.
I believe I would have cried bitter tears had it been gone.
I am sure it would have killed Shoogar. The frustration of
having an enemy flee from him in such a manner would have
been too much.
We crept back to the deserted encampment, there to wait
the coming of dawn. I ached for a chance to sleep, but
Shoogar gave me a potion to keep me awake. To keep him
company, he said. He began laying out his equipment, organizing
and sorting. "If I can only take him by surprise," he
muttered. He paused to oil a metal knife. "And if only there
were some way to draw him away from his nest . . ."
"That's not needed," I blurted. "He will probably leave
it by himself. He is testing again. He said this when I spoke
to him. He wants to test the mountain."
"H'm," said Shoogar. "This is a bit of good fortune.
I hope that he tests the mountain the same way that he tested
the village; for when he tested the village he was gone from
his nest almost the entire day."
"What if he doesn't? What if he returns before the curse
is finished?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 49
"Let us hope he does not."
"Can't you do something?"
Shoogar paused, thought for a moment, then rummaged in
his kit. He produced a small leather pouch of dust and
another of herbs. "Here, go and spread this dust around the
outside of his nest. It is very fine dust; it will float in the
air for hours. If he breathes any of it, it will produce a very
strong yearning in him. He will not return until that yearning
is satisfied."
"But, what about me?"
"That's what the herbs are for. When you finish with the
dust, you will take half of those herbs and chew them well.
When they turn bitter in your mouth, swallow them, but not
until they turn bitter. Bring the rest of the herbs back to me,
so I may chew them. They will make us both immune to the
power of the dust."
I nodded, then crept up the bill and did as I was instructed.
When I brought the two leather pouches back to Shoogar he
was just laying out the last of his equipment. One swollen
pouch be handled most carefully. "Powdered magician's hair,"
he explained. I did not blame him for handling it carefully.
He had sacrificed much to produce it; his squat and shaven
body trembled with the cold.
Abruptly, a troubled look crossed his face, "I am sure that
Purple's power is in some way connected with his nest. I
must get into it somehow. That is the only part of my curse
that I am in doubt about. I must get into that nest . . ."
My heart leapt. "But, I can help you there——" I fairly
shouted, then remembered to lower my voice. "Today—I
mean, yesterday (for dawn was fast approaching)—I was
able to get close enough to Purple to observe how he worked
his doorspell."
Shoogar nearly leapt at me, "Lant, you are a fool!" Then
he thought to lower his voice. "Why did you not tell me this
earlier?" he hissed.
"You did not ask me."
"Well, I am asking you now—how does it work?"
I explained what I had seen, the pattern of bumps on the
nestwall, how Purple had tapped at them in a certain way
and how the door had slid open immediately after. Shoogar
50 THE FLYING SORCERERS
listened carefully. "Obviously, the order in which he touches
the bumps is the way the spell is controlled. Think, Lant!
Which bumps did he touch?"
"That I did not see ..." I admitted.
Shoogar cursed, "Then why bother to tell me how to open
the door if you do not know? Lant, you are a fool."
"I am sorry--but it happened so quickly. If I could only
remember----If I could only see it again----"
"Perhaps . . ." said Shoogar. "Perhaps . . . Lant, have
you ever been placed under the spell of the open mind?"
I shook my head.
"It is a spell of great power. It can be used to make you
remember things that you think you have forgotten."
"Uh, is it dangerous?"
"No more so than any other spell."
"Well," I said, picking up my bicycle, "good luck with
your duel, Shoogar. I will see you when it is----"
"Lant," he said evenly, "if you take one more step down- slope, I will work your name into the curse along with
Purple's."
I laid the bicycle down again. It had been worth a try.
My feelings must have shown, for Shoogar said, "Don't
be so fearful. I will do my best to protect you. Suddenly you
have become a very important part of this duel. The knowledge
locked up in your mind may make the difference between
success and failure."
"But, Shoogar, I am a fool. You have told me that too
many times for it to be otherwise. I admit it. I am a fool.
You could not be wrong in your judgment of my character.
What good could I be to you?"
"Lant," said Shoogar, "you are not a fool. Believe me.
Sometimes in my quickness of temper I have made rash statements.
But I have only the greatest respect for your judgment,
Lant. You are not a fool."
"Oh, but I am," I insisted.
"You are not!" Shoogar said. "Besides, it does not take
any great mental prowess to remember something as simple
as you have described. Even an idiot such as you could do it!"
"Oh, but I will be only in your way, Shoogar. Please let
me return to my family----"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 51
"And have the other men of the village think you a
coward?"
"It would be a small burden to bear----"
"Never!" snapped Shoogar. "No friend of mine shall wear
the brand of coward. You will stay here with me, Lant.
And you should be grateful that I care so much for you as a
friend."
He turned again to the equipment laid out upon the ground.
I sighed in resignation and sat down to wait. Dawn was already
seeping into the east.
Shoogar turned back to me, "Your part in this will be easy,
Lant. There is no reason to fear."
"But, the danger----"
He dismissed it with a gesture, "There will be no danger
if you follow my instructions exactly as I give them to you."
"I will follow your instructions."
"Good. There can be no room for error. Even the tiniest
mistake could cost us both our lives."
"But you just said there would be no danger----"
"Of course not. Not if you follow instructions. Most of
the hard work has already been done. Don't forget, I had
to construct the equations: I had to prepare the ingredients,
and I had to stabilize the symbology necessary to make the
various incantations and potions work. All you have to do
is help me place them in the proper place at the proper time."
"I thought all I had to do was help you open the nest----"
"Of course. But if you are going to be there anyway, you
might as well help me with the rest."
"Oh," I said.
"And whatever you do, you must not try to speak to me.
This is very important. When the suns rise, we shall begin--
and once we begin, I must not be distracted at all. Except
as is necessary to the curse I will not speak. Do you understand?"

I nodded. '< "Good. Now, listen. There is one more thing. A very important
thing. It has nothing to do with the curse, Lant, but
for your own protection you must be exceedingly careful not
to lesnerize."
"Lesnerize?" I asked. "What is lesnerize . .. ?"
But he pointed instead to the east. Day had seeped
52 THE FLYING SORCERERS
red/flashed-blue over the hills. Shoogar fell to his knees and
began chanting to the suns.
The curse had begun.
I he first step was a ritual cleansing, a purification so
that we would not contaminate the curse with some long-
forgotten residual spell.
Then came the sanctification, the prayer for forgiveness
to the suns, Ouells and Virn, and to the moons, all eleven of
them--now in the configuration of Eccar the Man, he who
had served the gods so well that he had been elevated to god-
hood himself.
Other prayers were offered to the river god, the wind god,
the gods of violence and magic, of engineering, of birds and
duels, of wars, of past and present and future, of skies and
seas and tides. And, of course, to Eicin, the thunder god. We
offered sacrifice to all of them, and sought their blessings
in the endeavors to come. We prayed that they would blame
the stranger and not us for the affronts about to be done to
them.
Then we cleansed ourselves again.
We gathered up the spellcasting equipment and crept up
the slope to where the mad magician's nest waited. Behind and
below us the mist which had covered all the lowlands at dawn
thinned as the two suns rose higher. The ponderous red sun
had turned the mists pink while the pinpoint blue burned
them away. We could see for miles.
We topped the rise slowly. Slightly below us, on the other
side, was the black egg of Purple's nest, waiting grim and
brooding in the silent morning. It was closed, but was it deserted?

I wanted to ask Shoogar what the next step was, but his
last instruction made me fear even to breathe without being
told. Shoogar must have sensed my indecision, for he said,
"Now we wait..."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 53
The suns rose higher in the sky. The last of the mists disappeared
from the land. And the egg sat silent on the steppes.
The only sound was the gurgling of the spring.
Abruptly, the door of the nest slid open and Purple
emerged. He stretched slowly and took a deep breath, then
let it out with a sigh. I wondered if the yearning dust was
still floating in the air. If it were, then Purple had just filled his
lungs with it. He showed no reaction though as he closed the
door of his nest behind him. If the dust was working, then it
was very subtle.
We held our breaths as he began climbing up the slope of
the hills. Shortly he disappeared over the top of one, and we
were alone with the nest. Shoogar scrambled eagerly for it,
I followed in his wake, not quite so eager.
Shoogar surveyed the nest carefully. He strode around it
three times, finally coming to a stop in front of the
orange and oval outline that was the door.
This first important step was the crucial one. Shoogar had
to gain entrance into Purple's nest. If he could not, then all of
the rest of his careful preparations would be for naught. He
would be unable to complete the rest of the spell.
So much depended on the spell of the open mind----
He positioned me in the exact spot I had been standing
when I observed how Purple had opened his nest. Then he
brought out a device of glass and held it before my eyes,
commanding me to look into it.
I wondered if the strain of the past three days had been too
much for my friend. I saw no answers within the device of
glass. But I did as he said, and looked into it. He began
chanting at me softly, slowly, in that high croaking voice of
his. I tried to concentrate on his words, but the crystal thing
kept nickering light into my eyes.
Nor could I focus my sight upon the thing. It seemed to
fade in and out of existence even as Shoogar held it. I tried to
follow where it went when it disappeared, but it was revolving
too fast. The sound of his chanting wove in and out with the
flashes of light, and all of it together seemed to be whirling
and twirling, churning and turning and--the world was----
Abruptly, I was wide awake.
Nothing had happened.
The spell of the open mind had failed. I remembered noth-
54 THE FLYING SORCERERS
ing. I opened my mouth to speak, but Shoogar stopped me.
"You did fine, Lant. Just fine."
I wondered what he was talking about, but he was once
more fussing with his equipment. His manner was confident,
almost cheerful. He found what he was looking for, a piece
of chalk, and proceeded to draw a rune about the square pattern
of bumps beside the door. Only once did he speak to me,
"You told me almost all of what I need to know, Lant. Almost
all. The rest I can fathom for myself."
I shrugged and sat down to watch. Obviously he knew what
he was doing.
He sat cross-legged before the door and began chanting,
working himself into a trance. He sat motionless on that
patch of ground before the door, the only sounds his thin
reedy voice and the gushing of the spring.
The suns crept up the sky, Ouells glowing like a blue-
white diamond at Vim's fading edge. So much to do, so little
time! How long would Purple be gone? Could we complete the
spell in time?
Shoogar sat silent and unmoving. His eyes were glazed.
Occasionally he would give a little grunt; but he said nothing.
I began to perspire.
Could Purple throw red fire at a mani
At last, when I had begun to fear that Shoogar would
never speak again, he rose, stepped to that pattern of bumps,
and touched four of them in a particular pattern.
Nothing happened.
Shoogar repeated the touch.
Still nothing happened.
Shoogar shrugged and returned to his place, Again he
went into his trance. This time, after an even greater wait,
he approached that door even more cautiously. Once more
he tapped out a pattern on the nestwall bumps; the same four,
but a different order.
Nothing happened again.
Shoogar sighed and returned to his squatting position. I
began to fear that we might spend the whole day just gaining
entry to Purple's nest and have no time left for the cursing.
Indeed, I had almost given up all hope of ever completing
the task before us when Shoogar rose again. He approached
THE FLYING SORCERERS 55
the nest slowly, looked at the bumps for a long time, then
touched four of them in a carefully precise manner.
And the door to the nest slid open.
Shoogar allowed himself a smile, but only a small one. It
was a smile of anticipation; there was still much to do.
Quickly, we gathered up the equipment and moved into
Purple's nest.
The walls themselves glowed with Purple's odd-colored light
—bright and yellow, it made my eyes see colors that were
not there. Slowly, as my vision sorted itself out, I began to see
that this nest was furnished like no other nest I had ever seen.
All around were tiny glowing eyes, raised knobs and more
bumps like those in the pattern outside the door. :
In the center was a zigzagged piece of padded furniture, a
fit couch for a demon. Set into the nestwall just ahead of this
were a series of flat plates like windows, but infinitely more
transparent—like hardened air! Indeed, the whole nest showed
workmanship finer than I had ever seen.
Shoogar peered carefully at the flat plates like windows.
Some showed images of the areas around the nest. Others held
odd patterns in colored light, carefully drawn lines and curves i
—obviously the demon's runes. Shoogar indicated one of these.' ^
"Do you still think he does not use magic?" he asked me; then,
remembering his own injunction against unnecessary chatter,
silenced himself.
Apparently it was not a very strong injunction, for Shoogar
had been muttering back and forth all morning. Perhaps
he had only warned me against speaking because he feared I
would distract him. Well, he need not have worried; I had
too much respect for Shoogar's abilities to question him in the
middle of a spell. I opened my mouth to tell him so, but he cut
me off.
Next to the padded thing was a plant, a vegetable well
suited for the interior of this nest. It too was of a type I had
never seen before. It was the shape of a white rose, but its
color—could such a color be greeni The leaves glowed like
an hallucination. Green is a dull color, almost black; but here
it seemed to glow as bright as any shade of red or blue. I
touched the plant, expecting it to be as delicate as any I was
familiar with; but here too, I received a shock: the leaves
were as stiff and hard as an uncured hide. What a strange
56 THE FLYING SORCERERS
world Purple must come from! I thought-- then realized that
I was giving the mad magician too much credence. This must
be a plant that would ordinarily be familiar to me. Purple
had only cursed it.
I turned my attention away, began looking for a door
leading to the area above. But there was none. Apparently
the nest included only this one compartment. The rest of
its huge interior must be all spell devices. Shoogar had been
right all along.
But how small the nest was, if this was all there was to
it! Barely room for two to stand!
Shoogar had spread his travel kit and his equipment on
the floor and was methodically organizing the materials he
would use first. It was as if he cursed flying nests every
day. He paused, put a finger into the stubble on his chin
and scratched. He began to examine a piece of parchment
which he took from his robe, a checklist, "Yes . . ." he decided
after a brief pause. He pulled out the metal knife that
I had seen before. "We will begin with the defiling of the
metal."
He spat on the knife, then began to carve runes into the
surface of the floor. Or tried to. The knife would not penetrate.
Frowning, Shoogar pressed harder. The tip of the knife
broke. Then the blade snapped in half.
Shoogar returned the pieces of the knife to his travel kit
without comment and looked at his checklist again. This time
he pulled out a pouch of reddish powder, the dust of rust.
He emptied a bit of it into his hands and blew. A smoky red
cloud filled the room. I coughed and he threw me an angry
glance.
A whirring sound started somewhere. Then a wind blew
through the nest, plucking at my hair and clothing. I looked
around in fear--could Purple have trapped the wind god?
Even as I looked for traces of such a thing, the reddish dust
in the air thinned. Shortly the wind stopped, and the dust
was gone with it. There was not even a fine red layer on any
of the polished surfaces. Odd.
Still Shoogar was undismayed. He consulted his list again.
Abruptly, he produced a ball of fire from under his robe.
Then another and another, throwing them as fast as they
THE FLYING SORCERERS 57
came, at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Where they struck
they stuck, sending up acrid sparks and oily smoke.
There was a hissing sound—and jets of water spat from
apertures in the ceiling. They aimed themselves straight at
the fireballs, drenched them to ash in seconds. And then, as
Shooger produced a last fireball from under his robe, they
all turned on Shoogar.
When the water went off, Shoogar turned his hand over,
and allowed the drenched fireball to drop stickily to the floor.
Dripping, he held up his sodden checklist and consulted it
again. Water dripped from it onto the floor, then drained
away into places we knew not.
I felt my hopes draining away with the water. Shoogar
had begun three separate attempts—and all of them had
failed. The stranger's magic was much too strong. We were
doomed even before we had begun.
"Ah, yes—" said Shoogar. "It goes well."
I doubted my ears. I dared a question, "it goes what—?"
"Obviously, Lant, you have not been paying attention.
This nest is equipped with very efficient protective spells. I
had to find out what they were, so that I could nullify them.
Now, let us curse."
Shoogar began by inscribing runes on all the surfaces of
the nest, floors, walls, ceiling, the back of the oddly shaped
couch, the panels of knobs, everything. He called upon Fine-
line, the god of engineers and architects, to blast this nest with
a spell of deformity to make it crack and shatter.
Onto each of the sacred signs, inscribed with chalk instead
of knife, he dripped evil-smelling potions. As they combined,
they began to smoke and sputter. "Waters of fire, bum and
boil," Shoogar urged them. We watched as the fluid ate holes
into the runes and the surface below.
Beautiful. Blasphemy is the heart of a good curse.
Next he began to fill the ship with dust. Apparently he
wanted to overload the spell of the protective wind, for he
blew great clouds of the red dust of rust. The whirring started
up immediately, but Shoogar kept blowing.
"Well, don't just stand there, you goat—help me!"
I grabbed handfuls of the red powder and blew—somehow
we were able to keep great swirling clouds of rust swirling
and churning throughout the compartment. The dust of rust
58 THE FLYING SORCERERS
is a symbol of time, sacred to several gods at once: Brad of
the past, Kronk of the future, and Po who causes the decay
of all things.
When we had run out of the dust of rust, Shoogar continued
with a fine white powder. It looked like the grindings of bone.
"Aim for those wind pockets," said Shoogar, pointing at a
square, screened-over opening.
Eyes streaming, coughing vigorously, I did so. Once Shoo- gar hurled a fireball at the screen, where it stuck. Water
jetted briefly, splashing through the screen. Some of the grindings
gathered around the water droplets.
Presently the whirring became uneven, threatened to stop.
"Cover your nose and mouth, Lant. I do not want you' to breathe any of this." He pulled out a fat leather pouch.
I put a cloth across the lower half of my face and watched
as he produced a thick double handful of powdered magician's
hair.
With a care borne of great sacrifice he aimed cautiously
and blew a great sneeze of it toward the wind pockets. Within
a moment, it was gone.
The whirring sound labored, the wind seemed to be dying.
And suddenly, both stopped.
"Good, Lant! Now get the pots." Shoogar was beaming
with triumph. I pulled my kit from its place by the wall and
produced a collection of six pottery containers, each with a
close-fitting lid.
"Good," said Shoogar again. He began placing them carefully
around the interior of Purple's nest. Into each he put a
sputtering ball of fire, then closed the lid on it.
There were tiny holes in the lid of each pot, to allow the
fire-god to breathe, but too tiny to allow entrance of the
water. The liquid jets arced out, but unable to reach the
flames directly, they continued playing over the pots and over
everything else.
Shoogar watched to see where the water was draining,
began pouring defiled water and other viscous syrups into
the drain holes. Once he paused to add a generous handful
of the white dust bone-grindings. As it swirled down into the
drain, the mixture began to thicken ominously.
Shortly, it seemed as if the drains were not working as
efficiently. Pools were gathering on the floor. The odious
THE FLYING SORCERERS 59
smell of defiled water was strong in the hot, steamy smoky air.
I thought I would retch. But no matter, the defiled water
would certainly anger Filfo-mar, the river god.
By now, Filfo-mar and N'veen, the god of the tides, would
be engaged in their ancient tug of war. Only this time they
would be tugging not at the waters of the world, but at opposite
sides of the black nest. The more water that poured into
the cabin, the stronger grew their powers--and the more
vicious their battle.
By the time the water jets stopped hissing, we were several
inches deep in water and Shoogar and I were both dripping
wet. But not chilly. The nest was steaming hot and growing
hotter. Shoogar shucked off his robe and I followed suit.
My eyes were watering, and I was still coughing up the :
dust from my lungs. When I pointed this out to Shoogar he
only said, "Stop complaining. Nobody ever said a curse was
easy. There's more to come yet."
Indeed, we had only begun. - Now
Shoogar turned his attention to the various panels
and plates that lined the interior. There were a great many
knobs and bumps. Many of these came in sets of eight, each
labeled with a different symbol. One we recognized: a triangle,
the symbol of Eccar the Man.
Could it be that some of Purple's spells were based on the
symbol of Eccar? If that were so, could Shoogar use that fact
as a wedge, his lever with which to unbalance the rest of the
spells of Purple's nest?
Shoogar pursed his lips thoughtfully, scratched at his
stubbly chin. "Push the bumps, Lant. Wherever you see the
symbol of the triangle, push the bumps--we will activate
all of Purple's Eccar spells and dissipate their power."
We moved through that compartment, looking high and
low for the knobs and bumps. The knobs could all be twisted
so that the triangle would appear at the top, and the bumps
could all be depressed. There were blank knobs also; with
a little experimentation Shoogar found that these could be
turned in such a way that tiny slivers of metal behind layers
of glass would move and point to triangles etched there.
Strange things happened, but Shoogar cautioned me to
ignore them. Once, one of the flat mirror-like plates glowed
with an unearthly light and images appeared on it--images
60 THE FLYING SORCERERS
of the village, images of people we knew, Hinc and Ang and
Pilg. I stared in fascinated horror--and then abruptly, Shoogar
nullified the spell by painting over it with a thick gray potion
that obscured the plate entirely.
"I told you not to look," he reproved me.
We continued. Eventually we had turned every device in
that nest to the symbol of the triangle, the symbol of three.
We began the next phase of the curse.
The fire pots had begun to cool, so Shoogar replenished
them. Already the metal where they sat was too hot to touch,
and portions of other devices had begun to crack.
Now Shoogar began painting his thick gray paint over
everything. First he nullified the image windows. Then he
painted all the dials over, and all of the bumps too. Only the
gods would know what symbols had been activated. In almost
no time the interior of that nest was entirely gray. Klarther,
the god of the skies and seas, would be furious. Fol, the god of
distortion, would be chortling. Thus had Shoogar brought
them to battle with each other, with the black nest between.
Shoogar began to sketch new runes into the painted surfaces,
oblivious of their relation to the runes beneath. Where
the upper and under surfaces conflicted, the gods would engage
in random battle. Always when he could, Shoogar
worked the name of Eicin, the thunder god, into the runes.
Into a crevice between two of the surfaces of knobs and
bumps Shoogar pushed the narrow point of a sword-wand and
called on Pull'nissin, the god of duels. Calling on Hitch, the
god of birds, he broke eggs into three apertures. They sizzled
angrily where they slid down; for Shoogar was using the
egg-shape image of the nest against itself. He continued
chanting, calling on Musk-Watz and Blok, the god of
violence; and at one point he even cast a rune defiling
Tis'turzhin, the god of love, for love turned to hate can be
the mightiest force of all. ;
Shoogar consulted his checklist again, and produced a
container of dormant sting things, and another of fungusoids
and leeches. He brought forth things with barbs and things
with claws, and began scattering them about. Torpid though
they were, some tried to attack us; but we were careful to
place them where they were not immediately dangerous. And
THE FLYING SORCERERS 61
we had had the forethought to wear our thickest boots and
gloves; the fanged creatures could not cut through.
As he called on Sp'nee, ruler of slime, Shoogar spread
great viscous gobs of goo into cracks and crannies between
the boards of knobs and bumps. The air was already unbreathable
with heat and wet, but the boards were far hotter.
In some places Shoogar's gray ointment had blackened and
cracked, and the surface beneath glowed red with such heat
and stench that one could not bear to approach too near. Eggs
sizzled and smoked in places we could not see.
And always Shoogar continued to call upon Eicin. The
God of Thunder. The God of Fear.
"Eicin, oh, Eicin! Come down. Oh Great and Tiny God of
Lightning and Loud Noises! Come down from your mountain,
oh Eicin! Come down from your mountain and strike down
this infidel who dares to profane the sacred name of your magic!"
Shoogar stood atop the demon couch and stretched his
arms toward the sky. Triumph was spread across his face as
he chanted the final canteles of the spell. The nest was hung
with webs of pain and painted with runes of despair.
The swimming heated compartment crawled with fuzz balls
and stingers, crabs and krakens and leeches. Somewhere
something was burning, and oily smoke seeped up the walls.
I choked on the rotting air and blinked the tears from my
eyes. It
was a masterpiece.
I followed Shoogar out of the nest. The dry grass
crunched underfoot as I dropped to the ground. We had spent
a lifetime in that Shoogar-generated hell.
I was amazed to find that it was still day. The double sunlight
washed the world with a reassuring familiarity. Trees
and plants and grass looked black to me; and I wondered
if my eyes had seen too long by the light of Purple's nest.
62 THE FLYING SORCERERS
My head swam in the cool clean air. Waves of dizziness
swept over me. Even so, it was I who had to help Shoogar
to walk. I had only observed the curse. Shoogar had executed
it, and it had taken its toll of his strength. We moved
unevenly down the slope. Our shadows wavered before us,
tinged with red and blue edges. As the curse had ended, so
had the conjunction. Once more the suns were separate.
It seemed a miracle that Purple had not interrupted us, but
it was still only mid-aftemoon. We had finished with time
to spare.
We collapsed behind a clump of bushes. The unfouled air
was like strong Quaff, and I was drunk on it. We lay there under
the familiar black leaves, taking deep heaving breaths.
After a while I rolled over on my side, looked at Shoogar,
and asked, "When does it begin?"
He didn't answer, and for a moment I thought he had fallen
asleep. It would not have surprised me. The exertions of the
past days had left him pale and haggard. His eyes were
red when he opened them, and rimmed with deep circles. He
sighed slowly, "I don't know, Lant, I don't know. . . Perhaps
I forgot something."
I sat up and looked uneasily at the black nest. It waited
there in a hollow between two hills, its door invitingly open.
Its door----!!
"Shoogarl" I cried. "The door! We left it open!"
He sat up suddenly, stared horrified across the hill.
"Can we close it?" I asked.
"It must need another spell for that," said Shoogar. "And
we don't have it."
"Couldn't you----"
"Couldn't I what?" he demanded. "Make up a door-closing
spell? Not for that nest, I couldn't. I'd have to know what
activates the door-opening spell first."
"But, I saw you open the door----"
"Lant," he said wearily, "you are a fool. I know how to use
the spell--but I do not know why it works as it does. You
saw what trouble I had with the light device. No, Lant----
unless you know something else about the way that door works
--and I know you don't, for I peered into your mind--it's
going to stay open."
"But the curse----"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 63
He cut me off with a gesture, "I don't know--It must be
waiting. It needs something to activate it, probably the closing
of the door. Without that . . ." He shrugged, let the sentence
trail off into silence.
The suns crept westward, the blue now visibly ahead of
the red. I peered uneasily across the hill. How long would
that curse wait before it went bad? Only the gods could help
us if this, the greatest of Shoogar's spells, were to go foul--
and if it did go foul, there would be no gods left who could help us. They would all be against us.
Slowly the shadows lengthened; the chill of the dying
day crept across the world while Shoogar and I stood helplessly
by. The black nest waited, grim and forbidding, yellow
light poured from its door.
The world waited. We waited. The nest waited.
The curse waited...
And then, abruptly, a sound. Footsteps crunching up the
side of the hill. We dropped down behind the bush.
Seconds later. Purple came into view, striding up over the
rise----I wondered if he had satisfied his yearning----then
down the slope toward his waiting nest. He could not see the
open door from the direction he approached.
He rounded the curve of the nestwall and stopped. Then
he stepped hurriedly forward and peered within. For the first
time we saw Purple react to Shoogar's magic. He screamed
like a hunting banshee-bat.
No doubt a translation would have been most instructive,
but the speakerspell was silent. Purple clambered into the
door; the jamb caught him across the forehead, knocking the
glass appurtenances from his nose. (How had Shoogar managed
that?)
We heard his voice from inside the nest; great anguished
cries, hardly recognizable. Occasionally, words would come
from the speakerspell, booming across the hollow, "My god
in ... I How the . . . did they get in? Stung me! Get off my
foot, you . . . son of ... Why isn't the pest killer working?!!"
"The sting things are giving him trouble," I whispered.
"God-damned sting things . . . I" Purple's booming voice
corrected me.
"But the sting things are not the spell, Lant," Shoogar
64 THE FLYING SORCERERS
hissed. "They would sting whether they were part of the
curse or not."
Shoogar was right. The curse had not yet been activated.
Anguished, I tore at my fur. What were the gods waiting for?
Would they wait so long that Purple would have time to
nullify the elements of the spell and turn it back on Shoogar?
More words came hurtling across the slope. "Eggs! . . .
Eggs?"
"At least you have ruined his composure," I whispered to
Shoogar. "That's a beginning."
"Not enough. . . . The gods should be tripping over each
other in their eagerness to destroy him. ... It must be the
door! It must be! Lant, I fear. . . ."
He trailed off ominously. I felt ice melting along my spine.
"Savages!" boomed Purple's voice. "Primitive savages! This
damned gray paint----Where the hell is the .. . ? Incest, lovemaking,
illegitimate, compound incest, excrement, excrement,
excrement, oral-genital contact, rectum, castration, diseases
passed by lovemaking, primitive anal lovechildren! I'll
kill the lovemaking offspring of dogs! I'll bum this lovemaking
world down to the bedrock!"
Purple may have been incoherent, but he certainly sounded
sincere. I readied myself to run. I could see him moving
about within the nest; he was stabbing furiously at the various
bumps and depressions that we had painted over. Savagely
Purple twisted the knobs, one after another, trying to nullify
Shoogar's spells.
"And as for that fur-covered animal, Sboogar----"
The heavy curved door slid shut and cut off Purple's last
raging howl.
A gentle breeze tugged at the leaves, the bushes and
the cuffs of our robes. The shadows had lengthened until they
stretched eastward into darkness.
The blue sun twinkled and vanished, leaving only the
THE FLYING SORCERERS 65
bloated disk of the red. Below us the hills lay like the folds
of a crumpled red cloth. All was deathly silent.
Slowly Shoogar and I crept out of our hiding place. The
black nest sat quietly in its depression. The door, closed now,
was only an orange oval outlined on its smooth featureless
surface.
We edged forward, curiously, cautiously.
"Has it begun yet?" I whispered. .
"Shut up, you fool! Every god in the pantheon must be
listening!"
We moved closer. The black egg waited there, motionless.
Shoogar put his ear to its surface and listened.
Abruptly, the egg rose noiselessly into the air, throwing
Shoogar back. I threw myself flat on the ground, began praying
for forgiveness. "Oh, gods of the world, I cast myself
upon your mercy. I plead to you. Please, do not let me----"
"Shut up, Lant! Do you want to foul the spell?!!"
I lifted my head cautiously. Shoogar was standing there,
hands on hips and staring up into the red twilight. The black
nest hung unmoving and patient a few feet above his head.
I climbed wearily to my feet. As a curse this spell was ,
turning out to be a dull bore. "What is it doing?" I asked. l|
Shoogar didn't answer.
Abruptly the nest turned from black to silver and began
sinking back toward the ground as gently as it had risen. The
red dusk glinted across its surface, the color of blood.
We stepped back as it touched the ground; it continued
sinking downward without so much as slowing. Now, at last,
there was sound, a churning crunching grumble of rock being
forced aside. The nest moved downward, inexorably. The
rocks screeched with the sound of its passage.
In moments it was gone.
The crackle of rock sank to a distant mutter, then died
away entirely. Dazed, I walked to the nibbled edge of the
hole. Darkness swallowed the bottom of it although an occasional
distant rumble of movement could be felt.
Shoogar came up beside me.
"Brilliant," I said, and I never meant anything more. "It's
gone, Shoogar. Completely, totally gone. The world has swallowed
it up as though it never existed. And----" I gasped
breathlessly, "and there were no side effects at all."
66 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Shoogar harrumphed modestly. He bent to pick up the
glass appurtenances which had fallen from Purple's nose. He
pocketed them absent-mindedly. "It was nothing," he said.
"But, Shoogarl No side effects! I wouldn't have believed
you could do it! I wouldn't have believed anyone could do it.
Why didn't you tell us you were planning this? We wouldn't
have had to leave the village."
"Best to be safe," Shoogar mumbled. He must have been
dazed by his triumph. "You see, I wasn't sure . . . What with
the tidal equations acting to pull the nest down instead of ...
and with Eccar the Man tending to--well, it was highly unusual;
experimental, you might say. I----"
The whole mountain shook under us.
I landed jarringly on my belly looking downslope. Two
hundred feet below, the black nest erupted out of the hillside,
shrieking in agony.
It plunged up and southward, screaming with an unholy
sound----we had hurt it terribly. The egg wailed its pain--
a rising and falling note--piercingly loud even as it moved
away from the mountain.
Some weird side effect had pulverized the very substance
of the hill beneath us, turning it to sliding dirt and pebbles.
The entire slope was sliding, shifting, carrying us majestically
downward. We were powerless to move; we rode the rumbling
avalanche, a massive churning movement of dust and sand.
The black nest was a speck of shrieking red brightness fast
disappearing into the southern horizon.
The sliding mountain came gradually to a stop. Whether
from caprice or Shoogar's magic, it had not buried us. We had
been fortunate enough to be standing at the top of the
affected area, and had ridden it down unhurt. Now I found
myself on my belly, deep in soft sloping dirt. Shoogar was
several yards below me.
I climbed to my knees. The black nest was no more than
a dot above the horizon: rising and dwindling, rising and
dwindling. It was going almost straight up when my eyes lost
it.
I scrambled down the slope to Shoogar, each step creating
tiny echoes of the bigger slide. "Is it over?" I asked, helping
him to his feet.
Shoogar brushed ineffectually at his robe, "I think not." He
THE FLYING SORCERERS 67
peered into the south, "There are too many gods who have
not yet spoken."
We were ankle-deep in the newly pulverized dirt, and would
have to walk softly lest the slope be jarred loose again. We began to work our way down cautiously. "How long must
we wait for the curse to complete its workings?" I asked.
Shoogar shrugged, "I cannot guess. We called heavily on
too many gods. Lant, I suggest you return to the village now.
Your wives and children will be waiting."
"I would stay here with you until the curse is complete."
Shoogar frowned thoughtfully, "Lant, the black nest will
probably return to attack the one who injured it. I dare not
return to the village until that danger is past, and I would not
want you here with me when that happens." He put his hand
on my shoulder, "Thank you, Lant. I appreciate all you have
done. Now go."
I nodded. I did not want to leave him. But I knew that this
had to be. Shoogar was not just saying good-night; he was
saying good-bye. Until he knew for sure that the black nest
had been destroyed, he could not return.
Dejectedly, I turned and trudged down the slope. I did not
want him to see the tears welling up in my eyes.
I he village was as I had left it. Silent, deserted, and
bearing the scars of Shoogar's preparations.'
I had been fortunate to find one of my bicycles halfway
down the hill. Now I parked it beneath my own nest.
Miraculously, both bicycle and housetree had remained undamaged.

My number one wife was curled up on the floor sleeping
when I hoisted myself into the nest. She awoke at the swaying
of the structure and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
"Where are the others?" I asked.
She shook her head, "They fled when Purple came to the
village this morning."
68 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Purple came to the village?" I Was aghast.
She nodded.
I seized her by the shoulders, "You must tell me what
he did! Did he curse Shoogar's nest? Did he----"
"No, it was nothing YAe that. He 'fast wa&ed around for
a while."
"The fire device? Did he use the fire device?"
"No. He wanted something else."
"What was it, woman?"
"I cannot say if I understood right, my husband. He did
not have his speakerspell with him. We had to use gestures."
"Well, what did he want?"
"He wanted to do the family-making thing, I think."
"And you let him .. .7"
She lowered her eyes, "I thought it would help Shoogar's
part of the duel if the mad magician were distracted for a
while ..."
"But, how could you? He is not a guest of ours! I should
beat you!"
"I am sorry, my husband. I thought it would help." She
cringed before my upraised hand, "And you did not beat your
third wife when Purple talked to her."
She was right. I lowered my hand. It would not be fair to
beat one and not the other.
"He is built most strangely, my husband. He is almost completely
without hair,, except for----"
"I do not want to hear about it," I said. "Is that all that you
did?"
She nodded.
"And then he left the village?"
Again she nodded.
"He did not touch anything? Take anything?"
She shook her head.
I breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank the gods for small
favors. The situation could have been very bad. Fortunately
you say nothing was damaged." Gratefully, I lowered myself
to the floor. I had not realized how weary I was. "You may serve me a meal," I said.
She did so, wordlessly. If she had to exercise her jaw, there
were always my dinner leavings. I had taken two bites, when
THE FLYING SORCERERS 69
abruptly from overhead came a weird kind of shrieking
whistle.
It was a sound of disaster, of emergency and panic. I
dropped out of the nest and ran for the clearing. Through
the treetops I could see———
The flying nest! It had returned to the village. It was no
longer silver. Now it was yellow with heat. It hurtled across
the sky, then circled and returned for another shrieking pass.
Shoogar's words flashed across my mind, ". . . the black
nest will probably return to attack the one who injured it . . ."
Could the nest have confused me with Shoogar? I stood
there in the central clearing, too panicked to move.
It stopped jarringly a few yards above the treetops, as
if it had hit a soft wall. Its door was missing, ripped away.
The opening showed black against the orange glow of what
could only be heated metal.
The nest turned, questing. I imagined eyes in the blackness
behind the doorway. I waited for them to find me.
The nest turned faster.
Suddenly, it was spinning, terribly fast. All details blurred
and vanished; the surface seemed a liquid red-orange. I
heard the drone of it rising and I covered my ears. A wind
swept through the trees.
As it spun, the nest was carrying the air with it. Great
gusts spun through the village with a rising shriek, different
from the agony-cry of the nest, but terrifying all the same.
It was a great whirlpool of wind with the nest at the center.
I clung to the trunk of one of the nearby housetrees.
Was Musk-Watz attacking the stranger's egg? Or was the
latter attacking the village? The wind roared through the
trees, through the leaves and branches and nests; it tried to
pluck me from where I clung tightly to one of the root limbs.
I wrapped my arms and legs about the branch and buried
my face in the trunk. Leaves, bark, bits of wood sprayed me.
It went on and on and on. ...
After a while, I became aware that the sound was lessening.
I raised my head. The wind was dying. . ..
Not a tree in the village carried a leaf. Every nest had been
knocked to the ground. Many had been shattered against
the trunks of their host trees. Others lay yards from where
they should have fallen.
70 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple's great black egg, still spinning, had moved southward
toward the river. It was above the new course of the
rushing waters when it began to drop. Filfo-mar, angry and
implacable, was pulling the black nest down to destruction.
I had to see. I followed the nest, unmindful of the possible danger. I had to know if Purple's nest was truly being destroyed.

The nest was spinning ferociously,. as if it were trying to
escape the power of the river god. When it touched the water
a great cloud of steam burst into the air. At the same time,
the river and its muddy banks all rose up in one huge wave of
earth and water. It blackened the sky, covered the moons--
I tried to run--it splashed across the world in one vast wave.
A scream forced itself out of my throat as the rushing water
swept me back through the village. Filth and mud flooded my
mouth, my nostrils.
Abruptly I was struck a jarring blow from behind, found
myself caught between two limbs of a tree. Water rained
down in fat drops and mud in stinging gobs.
The water began to recede then, flowing back toward
the river in a great mud-streaking wave. Churning debris
left in its wake.
Shoogar had miscalculated. The nest had not returned to
attack him. Even now I could see that there was nothing left
of the village: just a few blackened trees, naked against the
night.
I lowered myself from the branch. My back twinged warn.
ingly and I wondered if I had cracked a rib. Painfully I limped
toward the river. If I were destined to die, I would first know
the fate of my enemy.
Black mud squelched beneath my feet as I plodded. The
bare trees dripped muddy goo. It was as if the whole world
were uninhabitable, drowned in a rain of earth and water. It
was tricky going; often the viscous mess beneath my feet hid
shards of debris.
Under the shadowless light of seven of the moons, I began
to cross the old course of the river. The mud and the smooth
wet rocks all worked to slow me. Probably they saved my life.
I had forgotten that one god had not yet spoken.
I cursed as I balanced on the slippery surfaces. The nest lay ahead. In its spinning it had churned a great dish-shaped
THE FLYING SORCERERS 71
cavity for itself. As I topped the lip of that cavity I saw the
nest, black again and lying in shallow silvery water. Its
spin had stopped, and--finally, finally--it was no longer upright.

It rested on its side with water pouring into the hollow
around it, flooding into the doorway. Garish light reflected
in that opening and across the surface of the water.
No doubt, that final awry tilt of the egg was the work
of Fineline, the god of engineers. Perhaps in his last moments,
Purple had finally believed in the power of Shoogar's
magic. I worked my way closer, eyes open for one glimpse of
the mad magician's body. Nothing could be left alive within that nest.
I was not one quarter of the way down when the interior
of the nest began to sparkle and flash. This was not the
steady yellow which had lit the compartment earlier. This
was a sick sputtering sparkle, the color of lightning. I paused,
unsure. I could hear crackling sounds and the hiss of water
turning to steam. I began to inch my way back up the mud
slope. The nest was still dangerously alive.
The blue flashing grew brighter behind me--and then a
thick puff of black smoke erupted from the gaping door. I
reached the mud lip of the churned-out hollow none too soon
and dropped behind it. Cautiously, I raised my head.
The nest seemed to pause, as if wondering what to do
next.
It decided.
It leapt upward, up and out of the pond. It rose in a steep
arc, glowing white, paused at the apex, and fell back. It
landed right in the middle of the village. Instantly it bounced,
leaving a clutch of burning trees behind it. A hot wind fanned
my face. It bounced again."'
The nest had forgotten how to fly. Now it moved by
bouncing, and it glowed with a terrible heat. Each time it
struck it would give off one enormous spark, and the land
would burn. But only momentarily: the village was too much
a swamp to support a fire.
And still the nest was bouncing. As it left the village, other
patches of flame were spreading. They led in a straight line,
west toward the mountains where Shoogar waited.
The nest bounced uphill, like a ball in reverse. I could see
72 THE FLYING SORCERERS
it, a glowing white speck moving erratically up the mountainside.
It ultimately disappeared behind a ridge.
The wind followed it, crackling with the presence of the
one god who had not yet spoken; then it too faded into the
west. A semblance of calm crept over the landscape, leaving
only the sound of water dripping from the trees and branches.
I stood up and looked off across the black mud to where
a pillar of greasy smoke still rose from the center of the
village. Brushing at the mud which permeated my clothing,
I wondered if my first wife had survived. I would regret it
very much if she had not. She was a good woman, obedient
and almost as strong as a pack animal. I
It occurred to me then which god had not yet spoken.
I sat down.
There was a slow and deathly silence now. Only the
crackle of the mud, the hiss of water trickling into pits of
melted rock disturbed the night. The wind died to nothing.
The last of the moons was dropping toward the west. Darkness
would soon be creeping across the land. It would not be
safe to be about.
Could Shoogar have been mistaken in this one aspect? After all, He was an unpredictable god, known to have fits
of pique--and also known to have failed when most expected
to perform. Perhaps the experimental nature of Shoogar's
spell had not been enough to arouse him . ..
Behind me the east began to hint at deep blue instead
of black. I stood, cursing the stiff cold weight of my clothes ...
Then an eye-searing flash of white filled the World . . .
My eyes clenched in pain. But in the after-image, burned
into my skull, I saw a great ball of fire, like one of Shoogar's
but magnified to the size of a mountain. Then my eyes could
open, and I saw a great rising mass of flaming cloud, a toadstool
of red-lit fury----fiery smoke standing up behind the
mountains, reaching, ever-reaching into the sky----
I was slammed backward, slapped rolling across the mud
as if struck by a giant's hammer made of air. And the sound
--oh, the sound--my ears seemed to cry with the pain of a
sound so loud.
If I had thought the sound of Musk-Watz earlier sweeping
through the village had been loud, he was only a whisper
compared to this. It was as if Ouells himself had come
THE FLYING SORCERERS 73
down, and clapped his mighty hands together in a sudden
howling wind. But the sound continued--mutated into a continuous
rumbling thunder that rolled up and down the hills.
It grumbled and rumbled, rumbled and grumbled across the
world. It echoed and re-echoed in a never-ending wave. I was
sure I could hear it long after it actually had died away. That
great bass roar went on and on and on. Small rocks began to
fall from the sky.
Eicin had spoken.
I found my wife huddled in the crotch of two branches,
beneath an uprooted tree.
"Are you all right?" I asked, helping her to her feet.
She nodded.
"Good. Then find some bandage and tape up my ribs. I
am in pain."
"Yes, my husband." She began dutifully to tug at her
skirt.
I recognized that; it was one of her favorites. I put out my
hand, "No, do not tear that. Find something else. That is all
that you have left in the world. Keep it intact."
She looked up at me, grateful tears flooding her eyes,
"Yes, my husband . . ." She paused, and I knew she wanted
to say something else, but feared.
"Go on ..." I urged.
She fell to her knees, unmindful of the mud, and clasped
fiercely at my hands, "Oh, my husband, I feared so for your
safety. My heart is filled with such gladness at the sight of
you, I cannot bear it. I could not bear the thought of life
without you." She kissed my hands, buried her face against
my waist. I stroked the fur on the top of her head, mud-
smeared though it was. It did not matter; we were both soaked
through.
"It's all right..." I murmured gently.
74 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Oh, tell me it is, tell me. Tell me that the danger is over,
that all is right with the world again."
"Stand up, woman," I said. She did. "I have lost everything.
My nest is gone and my tree has been uprooted. I
know not where any of my children are, nor where my other
wives have fled to. I have nothing. Only the clothes I am
wearing. But I am still not a poor man ..."
"Not . . . ?" She looked at me, brown eyes wide with wonder.

"No, I am not. I still have one woman, a good woman."
I looked into her eyes, wide and glowing with love. "A woman
with a strong back and a willingness to work. And it is enough.
I can rebuild. Now go and find that bandage. My ribs ache
with the pain of standing."
"Oh yes, my husband. Yes." She began moving cautiously
across the mud-covered landscape. I lowered myself carefully
to the ground. To rest, to sleep ..,
D efore leaving the village we searched through the mud
to see if anything of value remained intact. We found little.
I had hoped to find my bicycle, but that had been smashed
under a falling tree. I ached to see that finely carved machine
crushed to sodden pulp. Truly, I had been right when I had
said that we had nothing but the clothes on our backs.
We stood in the ruins of the village and surveyed the
disaster.
"What will we do, my husband?"
"We will move on," I said to her. "There is nothing left for
us here." I turned and looked at the distant blue prairie.
"There," I pointed, "we will go south. Probably most of the
others have had the same thought."
She nodded in acquiescence and shouldered her miniscule
pack. Painfully we started the long trek.
The suns were high in the sky when we saw a single tiny
figure on a bicycle hurrying to catch up to us from the west.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 75
There was something familiar about that----no, it couldn't
be.
But it was! "Shoogar!" I eried, "You are alive!"
He shot me a look and climbed off the bicycle, "Of course,
I'm alive, Lant. What did you think?" He paused, looked at
the dried mud caked on our clothes, "What happened to you?"
"We were in the village. We. saw the end of Purple's nest.
But it headed toward the mountains to die. We- thought
that------"
"Nonsense, Lant. / won the duel. Only the loser gets
killed. I saw the black nest return. It attacked the village
instead of coming up into the mountains after me. If it was
going to destroy the village anyway, there was no longer any
reason for me to stay up in the hills. So I dug out the other
bicycle."
"The nest must have just missed you."
Shoogar nodded, "I saw it coming. When it finished with
the village, only then did it go for the mountains. Only I was
no longer there."
"Shoogar, that's brilliant!"
He shrugged modestly, brushed a speck of dirt from the
sleeve of his robe. "It was nothing. I had it planned that way."
There was nothing more to say. We watched as he mounted
the bicycle again, his dignity and reputation were tall and
triumphant. Once more he began pedaling into the south.
It made me proud to know him.
*****
"5wS
I> lue twilight had faded and flashed into red dawn before
we found a place to stop. We were on a rocky outcrop overlooking
a series of rolling hills, a black wooded slope, and
beyond that we could make out the vague distant shapes of a
village of brooding housetrees.
Behind us, what had been a desert was fast becoming
a sea.
It was not necessary to give the order to halt. Instinctively
76 THE FLYING SORCERERS
we knew we had done enough traveling for one day. Exhausted,
the women sank to the ground, discarding their heavy
packs and burdens where they fell. Children sank immediately
into fitful slumber, and men stooped to massage their tired
legs.
We were a sorry, shabby crew. The healthiest of us was in
none too good a shape. Many had lost most of their body fur,
and the rest had lost their grooming. (The knots and tangles
in my own fur would be there until they grew out; they were
too far gone for repair.) Open and running sores were not
uncommon, and too many of our ailments did not respond to
Shoogar's ministrations.
My number two wife, one of the balding women, began to lay a meager meal before me. Under any other circumstances
I might have cursed the poor quality of the food and beaten
her for there being so little of it--but under our present conditions
I knew that this was a hardwon feast. She had probably
spent many extra hours searching for these pitiful greens
and nuts. Still, it wasn't what I was used to and I forced myself
to eat it only with the greatest distaste.
As I sat there, silently chewing the tough vegetable fibers,
a figure approached. I recognized the now nearly hairless
Pilg; once our village crier, now a homeless vagabond, as
we all were. He was thin and wan and his ribs made an ugly
pattern under his skin.
"Ah, Lant," he cried effusively, "I hope I am not interrupting
anything."
He was and he knew it. I pretended not to hear him at
first, and I concentrated on a particularly tough root instead.
He threw himself down in front of me. I closed my eyes.
"Lant," he said, "it appears that we are nearing our journey's
end. Doesn't that gladden your soul?"
I opened one eye. Pilg was eagerly eyeing my dinner
bowl. "No," I said, "it doesn't."
Pilg was uncrushed. "Lant, you should look on the joyous
side of life."
"Is there one?" I choked down the root and bit off another,
smaller chunk.
"Of course. You should count your blessings. You still
have four of your children and two wives and all your hair--
THE FLYING SORCERERS 77
and your first wife is with child. That is far more than I can
claim."
That was true. Pilg had lost his only wife and all but one
of his children—and that one a girl—no credit there. Yet what
I had lost was greater than what I had saved. I could not help
feeling bitter.
We have lost our whole village," I said. I spat out a bitter
shred at Pilg's feet. He eyed it uncertainly, but pride won
out over hunger. He would not eat it unless it was offered
to him.
I would not do so. I had fed him three times in the past
three hands of days and I had no intention of taking Pilg any
closer into my family than that.
"But in no time at all, we will have won a whole new
village," Pilg exulted. "Surely, Shoogar's reputation as a
magician must have preceded us here. Surely, they will honor
him and us alike."
"And surely they will just as soon wish us elsewhere, Pilg.
Look behind us. Look at where we have come from. Boggy
marsh! And beyond that, water! The oceans are rising almost
as fast as we can travel. The darkless season is upon us, Pilg.
Hard times for any village. Surely they will have harvested
their crops by now, and stored up only enough food to last
them through the wading season. They will have none to
spare for us. No—they won't be very happy to have us join
them." , ,
My mention of food had caused Pilg to salivate; the spittle'
ran down his chin—but social protocol held him back. He
glanced again at the discarded bit of root near his foot. "But,
Lant—look at the lay of the land here. This village that we
are approaching is on a slope overlooking a great plain. They
will have at least another twenty or thirty days before the
water menaces them."
"Granted," I swallowed the mass I had been chewing.
"Perhaps we will be able to exchange some of our skills for
some of their food."
"And what skill will you trade them for?" I grunted.
"Rumormongering?"
Pilg looked hurt. Immediately I felt sorry, it had been a
cruel and unkind thing to say. Pilg had indeed suffered more
than I, and it was unfair for me to add my mockery to his
78 THE FLYING SORCERERS
already heavy burden. "That was cruel, Lant," he said, "if you
want-me to go, I will."
"No," I said, and immediately wondered why, for I did
want him to go. "Don't go until you have at least had something
to eat."
Curse it! He'd done it to me again! I had sworn I was not
going to invite him to partake--but he had annoyed me until
I had insulted him, and then to assuage the insult, I had to
prove to him that he had not annoyed me. I wondered if I
was going to have to start eating my meals in secret just to
avoid Pilg.
?s-S But he was right about that one point. Perhaps we would
be able to trade some of our skills for some of their food.
Probably my own trade of bonemongering was not as skillfully
practiced this far south as it was in the land we had
journeyed from.
But so much of it depended upon the magician of this village.
Would Shoogar be willing to swear an oath of truce
for the duration of the wading season? Would the new ma'
gician even want Shoogar around, considering the strength of
his reputation? Would you feel safe if a magician of such
power wanted to move into your neighborhood? If this new
magician could not match Shoogar's knowledge and skills,
would Shoogar deign to treat him as an equal? Was there a
magician anywhere who could match the powers Shoogar had
already so dramatically demonstrated?
Shoogar might, just might, consider dueling this village's
magician for the right to rule the magic of this area. If he
lost (an unlikely chance), we would have to keep moving--
only this time without our magician. More likely, if he won,
we would incur much ill will in this area, for is it not said
that a new magician must take nine generations to be accepted
by a tribe?
I feared for the inevitable meeting with these villagers and
their Guild of Advisors. Hopefully, we would have time to
rest before that meeting, but probably not. As soon as they
became aware of our presence here on the slopes of their
mountain, they would send an emissary.
There wasn't much left of our Guild--we would be a
sorry group of representatives: myself, of course; Hinc the
Weaver, Pilg the Crier, Damd the Tree Binder, and one or two
THE FLYING SORCERERS 79
others. Ran'll the Quaff-Maker had drowned in one of his
vats, Tavit the Shepherd had been lost with much of his
flock, and none of the remaining shepherds was yet old enough
to replace him in the Guild. Some of the others had not survived
our long trek south.
But the two Guilds would meet and hopefully we would
work out some kind of agreement whereby we could camp
on this land until the waters should withdraw. Then we would
either seek a new area to plant our village, or petition for the
right to remain.
But again, so much depended on the magicians.
Li ater, as red sunset/blue dawn approached, our tired
group of Advisors trudged across the slope to the lower vil~ lage and the obligatory meeting with them. We had spent
most of the red day bathing in the cold stream that ran
through the pasture, and allowing the women to massage us
and rub precious oils and fats into our skins. The oils and
fats had been saved specifically for such an occasion as this.
Had we not had this eventual confrontation continually in
mind, we would have eaten them long ago.
We had exchanged our traveling skins for other garments.
We would not be presenting ourselves as poorly as we really
were, for we had stripped nearly every member of the tribe
naked in order to assemble enough fine clothing for our
Advisors to wear to this all-important council.
Shoogar stayed behind, to meditate; the time was not yet
right for the other village to cast its eyes on his magnificence.
As we walked, Damd the Tree Binder remarked on the
fine quality of woods in this area. There were thin strong
shoots of bambooze, the fibrous tubular plant that could be
used for building, or that could be eaten as food or fermented
for Quaff. There were tall slender birts, stippled in
gray and brown; there were sparkling aspen, white spirit
pine and sturdy red vampire oaks. There was rich, dark
80 THE FLYING SORCERERS
shrubbery, and wild houseplants, stunted and twisted for lack
of a magician's blessing and a proper Binding. There were
streams aplenty, and as we walked we trudged through a
thick carpet of crackling discarded leaves.
Yes, this was a rich wood. One which had been finely
cared for, but had not yet realized its full potential. Before
we were halfway through this thick arm of forest, it was
obvious that this was as fine an area in which to live as anyone
could hope for. Froo, the eldest shepherd, exclaimed
over the grazing grounds; Jark, who had some moderate
skill at quaffmaking, expressed delight over the quality of
the bambooze. Hinc the Weaver munched thoughtfully on
a fiber plant as he walked. If they allowed us to stay, we
would be lucky indeed.
I speculated that there must be more work here than any
one village could hope to do. If they had had a good harvest
this year, they might be in an expansive mood. It was our
hope that we could trade our labors for some of their food, or
for the right to use some of this land.
Their village was on the crest of a hill, lowest of the
range below the wooded slopes. It was larger than our own
had been, but not impressively so. Most important, many of
their housetrees appeared unused, and those that were had
considerable distance between them. Where our village had
had a solid-packed floor of dirt from the extensive comings
and goings of commerce, this village had a gentle carpet of
blackgrass, cut through only here and there by dirt paths.
Clearly they did not trade on the scale we were used to.
As we approached, we could see their Advisors gathering
in a clearing near the edge of the village. We raised our
hands and gave them the finger gesture of fertility. They returned
it.
A tall man covered with sparse curly fur, brownish red,
stepped forward. "I am Gortik, Speaker of this village. These
are my Advisors." And he introduced them. There were more
than thirty--traders, weavers, fishmongers, Quaffmakers and
craftsmen were amply represented. To my ill-concealed delight,
they did not introduce a bonemonger. Could it be that
this village lacked one of my skill? If so, I was sure to find
much work. Or--a dampening thought--could it be that
THE FLYING SORCERERS 81
they did not consider a bonemonger important enough to
belong to the Guild of Advisors?
I thrust that thought away. A bonemonger was as good
as anybody.
Gortik finished pointing out the last of his Advisors, then
turned to us. "Who Speaks for you?"
That was a poser. We had not yet designated any of our
number as Speaker. We had buried Thran, our old Speaker,
only two hands of days previously. His memory was still too
warm for us. There was much shuffling and whispering
amongst ourselves. Finally Pilg pushed me forward, saying,
"You, Lant. You Speak for us. You have been an Advisor as
long as anyone."
"I can't," I whispered back. "I have never been a Speaker.
I do not even have a Speaking Token. We buried it with
Thran."
"We'll make a new one. Shoogar will consecrate it. But
we need a Speaker now."
One or two others nodded assent.
"But there's the chance they might kill me if they find me
too audacious a Speaker," I hissed.
The rest nodded eagerly.
Hinc said, "You'll cope with it, Lant."
Pilg added, "It would be an honor to die for our village.
I envy you."
And with that he pushed me out of the huddle and an;
nounced, "Lant here is our Speaker. He is too modest to admit
it."
I swallowed hard, but a man must recognize and accept
his duties. "I speak for us," I quavered. I had the feeling
that at any moment, ancient Thran would step forward to
question my impudence. Or that somehow Gortik would
recognize me as an impostor and fail to grant me the respect
due my uneasy office.
But he merely nodded his acceptance and said, "And why
do you journey?"
"We are pilgrims," I said. "Migrants seeking a new home."
"You have not chosen wisely," he said. "This is not the
best of places to live."
"You live here," I countered.
82 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Ah, but we don't enjoy it. I envy you--your ability to
travel--I wish you luck in your journey--"
"It seems to me that you are eager to see us go, friend
Gortik."
"Not so, friend Lant--it is just that I am not eager to
have you stay! This is a poor land. You would not want to be
caught here during Wading Season."
"Wading Season?"
"During interpassage, the days are hot, Speaker Lant; the
seas get high. Most of the year, this section of land connects
to the mainland----"
"This section--of land--connects--to the mainland?"
"That's right. You go by the Neck. It's convenient because
nobody lives on the Neck. They might be caught there the
wrong time of year, so it's free passage for everybody--"
"--except during Wading Season," I finished for him.
"Right." He smiled obliquely. "We're an island during the
season--so it is important that you hurry. You do not wish
to be caught here."
"How big an island?"
"Not big. Four villages and some land between them. And the Heights of Idiocy. That's where you people are camped
now." He added, "Nobody lives on the Heights. Mostly because
nothing grows. We stay there during Wading Season,
but only because the ocean covers everything else. Otherwise,
it's free land."
"An island--" I repeated. A thought was starting to take
form. "Yes, you are right. We must hurry to move on." I
gestured to my council. "Come, we cannot waste any more
time on talking. Gortik has given us fine advice and we must
hasten to take advantage of it." I gave him the finger gesture
of fertility, wrapped my robe about me, and swept from the
glade. My advisors followed behind.
We tramped back up through the woods, Hinc and the
others hastening as fast as they could. "Hurry, Lant, hurry,"
they called. I dawdled along behind them, occasionally pausing
to admire the view or a particularly fine stand of trees.
"Lant!" insisted Pilg, "Hurry!"
"Hold on, Pilg," I said. "What's your rush--?"
His eyes were wide. "You heard them! This is an island
THE FLYING SORCERERS 83
during the season—" The others paused in their flight, began
to gather round. "Yes, Lant, hurry." ,
"Why?" I said.
"Because, if we don't, well be trapped here."
"So?" I said. "What happens if we get trapped?"
"We're stuck here—we can't move on," said Hinc.
"And then they can't refuse us sanctuary, can they?"
The council considered it.
I said. "Of course, we must hurry to get away from here—
Gortik said so. But if we do not hurry fast enough, then we
have no choice in the matter. Then we have to stay."
"Hm," said Damd. He was beginning to get the point.
"Hmmmmm," said Jark. He had already gotten it.
"Look around you," I said to the rest. "The woods here
are terrible, aren't they? Remember how we noticed it on the
way down—?" They nodded thoughtfully. They remembered
what they had noticed. "This would be a miserable region to
settle, wouldn't it."
They looked about them. "Yes, this would be a miserable
place," said Damd. "I would have to weave housetree nests
twice as big as before—that's much too much work for me
to do. And what would a man do with a nest that big?"
"You're right," said Jark. "Look at the bambooze, so
strong and sturdy. Think of the Quaff I could make from it—
no, it is not right for a man to have such fine, sweet Quaffi"
Hinc was kneeling, examining a fiber-plant. "Hmm," he
said. "It would not be good for a man to wear such fine
clothes, it would spoil him for the harshnesses of life."
"And we should not get used to eating regularly, should
we?" added Pilg. "We might get fat and lazy."
We all sighed in unison.
"Yes, this would be a terrible place to settle," I said,
stretching out beneath a comfortable tree. "Come, we must-
hurry to consider how we will move on."
Hinc settled himself beneath another tree, "Good thinking,
Lant," he said. "But we should not do anything rash—let us
take some time to discuss the quickest way to travel."
"Ahhh," sighed Pilg. "But, we do wish to be gone from
here, before we are sealed off by the sea." He had found
himself some soft meadow grasses.
84 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"You are right," said Jark, from his soft bed of fern. "We
must not tarry too long."
"No," added Damd. "I think nightfall should be sufficient."
"And of course," I added, "no one would expect us to
travel by night--"
"And besides," said Pilg, "by then the women will have
put up the tents."
"It would be good to get a full night's worth of sleep before
traveling on," added another.
I sighed, "A full night of sleep? That sounds tiring; I
think I shall begin to rest up for it now."
"Tomorrow we will have to get an early start though,"
said Jark.
"Yes. I think noontime, or shortly thereafter, should be
soon enough."
"Oh, but there are so many other things to do first," said
Hinc. "For instance, there is breakfast, and then lunch."
"Ahh," sighed Pilg. "Yes, the women will not have time
to take the tents down before lunch."
"And even then, they may not have time," I said sleepily.
"For they will have to gather food for the journey before we
can leave."
"That might take all day."
"Or even two ... or three."
Another round of sighing. And yawning. Someone mumbled
sleepily, "I hope there won't be any problem introducing
Shoogar to the new magician . . ."
"I don't think there will be. We should be able to work
something out. Why don't you ask Pilg what he thinks?"
"He's asleep."
"Then ask Hinc."
"He's asleep too."
"And Jark?"
"The same."
"And Damd?"
"Also asleep."
"--Then what are you keeping me awake for!" I grumbled.
"It's hard work being a Speaker and making decisions all
dayl"
Dure enough, a terrible thing happened.
Try as we could to hurry, the seas rose up and sealed off
the island. It took eleven days.
It would have taken us only a few hours to cross by way
of the Neck, an ever-narrowing strip of land, but somehow,
we just couldn't get the women organized. The confusion in
the camp was terrible. It took six days just to get the tents
down, and then it was so late we had to put them back up
again so we could get to sleep. After all, the red sun was
high in the sky and it was night.
Gortik and his advisors came up to see us on the second
day. They stood about and fretted, urging us constantly to
hurry faster.
"But we are already hurrying as fast as we can. As you
see, our women are so stupid, they cannot keep two orders
in their heads at the same time."
"It is a wonder you made it this far," murmured Gortik.
"Yes, isn't it?" I chimed brightly, and scurried off.
Thereafter, Gortik came up every day to fret and moan
and worry over the delay of our departure. Finally, though,
we were on our way. Gortik and his advisors were only too
happy to act as our guides.
It took us five days to cross the island.
We arrived at the Neck just in time to see the seas crash
over its peak. Gortik sighed, a sound of despair. I sighed too.
He looked at me, "Lant, if I didn't know better, I'd say
your people wanted to stay here." He shook his head. "But
that's impossible; no people could be as stupid and confused
as yours."
I had to agree with him.
He said, "Well, let us turn back. Apparently, you are
going to be with us throughout the season."
I nodded. Reluctantly, I gave the order. "Turn back, turn
85
86 ' TVS FLYING SORCERERS
back! It is too late to cross the seek. We must go back to our
old camp!"
We were settled in again on the Heights of Idiocy well
before nightfall.
11 was time to introduce our magicians.
I was extraordinarily pleased with myself.
Lant the Speaker! Speaker of one of the finest villages in
the world! Speaker for Shoogar the magnificent! I beamed
proudly.
Shoogar was an impressive figure in a purple and red robe,
one that changed colors as the suns changed their positions in
the sky. On a string around his neck he wore the quartz lenses
of the mad magician, a trophy of the kill and a token of proof
that he was who he claimed to be.
In a high singsong chant he told them of his skill, how he
had defeated his most dangerous enemy, Purple, the mad
magician who had claimed to come from the other side of the
sky. There was a stir among the listeners at that. Evidently,
Shoogar's fame had preceded us. He told of how he had
flattened the mountain. Critic's Tooth, how he had called
down the thunder and laid waste to the land for miles around.
As proof, he held high Purple's quartz lenses. He embroidered
the story hardly at all--the truth was impressive enough.
When he finished, I detailed how we had had to flee our
former village because of the side effects of Shoogar's spell;
how we had been travelling south for nearly a quarter of a
cycle. Our journey had begun at the blue conjunction, and
stretched across hundreds of miles and the floor of the empty ocean. The suns had moved farther and farther apart
in the sky as we traveled. Red Virn and Blue Quells stretching
the days longer and longer between them until the darks
shrank away to nothing.
I told how, at great danger and loss of life, we had crossed
the great desert mudflats. As the darkless time approached
THE FLYING SORCERERS 87
the seas had returned to this land, and the latter part of our
journey had been a pell-mell flight from the ever-encroaching
waters. Many were the times we awakened to find the ocean
lapping at our tents.
I did not mention that that was how we had lost Thran,
drowned in his tent one night. It would not do for them to
know that I was so new to Speaking for my village.
Now Vim and Ouells were living at opposite ends of the
sky, and the darkless time was upon us. As the oceans crept to their height, I related how we had arrived here at the base
of the southern mountains, seeking refuge and a place to
build a new village.
Gortik smiled, "Your stories are most impressive, especially
that of your magician. If his magic is merely half as good
as his story telling, then he is a challenge to the Gods themselves."

"Is your magician as good?" I said calmly.
"Better," said Gortik, "his spells don't produce side effects
that destroy villages."
"Our magician's spells," I countered, "are so strong that
even after the side effects are minimized they lay waste the
countryside."
"How fortunate for you that he minimizes his side effects."
Gortik's smile mocked us. It was obvious he did not believe
in Shoogar's power. I hoped it would not be necessary to
demonstrate it to him.
"Our magician," Gortik continued, "came to us quite suddenly.
He killed the old one with a single blow that wakened
the whole countryside, but damaged nothing--except, of
course, the old magician."
The shrubbery rustled behind Gortik as if someone were
hurriedly being moved into place. Gortik stepped aside then,
saying, "Beholdl Our magician is Purple, the Unkillable!"
I thought my heart would stop.
Shoogar stood trembling and speechless, unable to move.
The man who had stepped forward was indeed Purple, the
living breathing man whom Shoogar had killed--had thought
he had killed--in fiery combat at the last conjunction.
Around Shoogar the others of our village shrank away as if to escape Purple's inevitable lightning strike.
I wanted to shrink within myself. I wanted to run. I wanted
88 THE FLYING SORCERERS
to die. Well, at least the latter wish would be granted--and
soon.
Purple looked us over carefully. He wore his suit of sky
blue----all of one piece, it fitted his bulk like a second skin.
Several objects hung from the wide belt around his formidable
waist. The hood was thrown back. His glance was squinty and
unsure; his eyes were watery and wavered back and forth from
one to the other of us. At last his searching gaze came to rest
on--oh, Eicin, no!--on me.
He strode forward eagerly, grasping my shoulders and
peering close into my face, "Lant! Is that you?" His words
were oddly pronounced, but they came from his own mouth.
With his speakerspell destroyed he had had to learn to talk
like a man.
He released me before I could faint and looked around,
"And Shoogar? Is Shoogar here?"
He caught sight of the shorter magician then; Shoogar was
stiff and trembling. This was it--I braced myself. Let it at
least be painless.
"Shoogar," he said, stepping past me, hands outstretched.
"Shoogar, there is something I've been wanting to ask you."
Shoogar uttered a single, inhuman shriek and leapt at
his throat.
The two of them tumbled to the ground, the big magician
and the small. Shoogar was making unholy grunting noises,
Purple was choking for air.
It took nine of us to pry them apart. The youngest and
strongest members of our council bore Shoogar kicking and
screaming out of the clearing. His cries carried back to us
through the woods until they were cut off by the sound of a
splash. The river.
In a moment, a chastened, dripping Shoogar returned to
us, flanked on one side by Jark the Shepherd and on the other
by Wilville, my eldest son. He stood there glowering.
Meanwhile, Purple was brushing himself off. He was surrounded
by solicitous and concerned advisors. They patted
at his bulk like anxious women. Gortik was nonplussed. He
looked at me and said, "It appears that our two magicians
already know each other."
I looked from him to Purple. My head reeled. I felt I
was drowning. My mouth opened and closed like a fish
tossed upon the bank to die. How could this disaster have
found us out?
"you were dead," I said to the magician, "how did--how
could--which God--" but there I got stuck for the question
itself was insane. Purple believed in no Gods, he had said so
many times. I could not look at him, at his paunchy frame,
his alien flesh, his pale hairless skin and his patches of
unnaturally straight black fur. He was ugly in my eyes, and
menacing to my soul and sanity.
Gortik was smiling, pleased at our discomfiture. I gestured
at Purple and managed to croak, "How?"
"He was a gift from the gods," Gortik said. "For many
years we lived with a magician who was not as well appreciated
as he might have been." He frowned darkly. "Dorthi
was a fine magician and strong, but there were those who
were unhappy with his spellcasting."
"Dorthi? We trained together," Shoogar murmured.
I nodded. Gortik's was a familiar story. Sometimes magicians
endure long after their powers and their respect have
vanished. Villages suffer because of it.
"It happened at the last conjunction," Gortik continued.
"A miracle. There was a great storm that night, a great wind
and a fireball of Eicin that swept across the sky and turned
and made another pass. Then suddenly there came a crash
from the edge of the village. When we came forth from our
houses we discovered that a strange magician had fallen on
old Dorthi's house and smashed him flat. A strange magician
indeed."
"He feU from the sky?"
Gortik nodded. The other Advisors interrupted each other
in their eagerness to explain, "From the sky he came!" "Yet
he suffered no hurt!" "Like a great falling star----" "None
89
90 THE FLYING SORCERERS
suffered hurt, not even Dorthi----" "He must have been
killed instantly." "There was much singing and dancing
then----"
"Quiet!" Gortik roared.
There was quiet; Gortik said, "We gave Purple Dorthi's
scarlet sandals and his robe and made him magician immediately.
What else could we do? But he was little help to us,
for he could not even talk. We had to burn Dorthi without
incantations."
"We trained together," Shoogar repeated. "Poor Dorthi."
"But how could a man fall from the sky and not be
killed?"
"Purple is no ordinary man," Gortik said, as if that were
explanation enough.
"He's a demon," said Shoogar, and that was explanation
enough.
"It was my impact suit," Purple said. He took a step forward
and thumped himself hard in the belly with his fist.
His belly was big and soft, so the blow should have made him
wince. It did not. I thought for a moment that Purple had
become as rigid as stone.
"My impact suit," he repeated. "Normally it flows like
cloth, but under a sharp blow it becomes a single rigid unit.
Lant, you remember that a boy threw a spear at me in your
village."
"I remember. You were not hurt."
"The suit is skin tight. With the hood up it covers all of me
but my eyes and mouth, and of course it holds my shape. It
saved my life.
"I did not realize," said Purple, "that my flying egg was
moving. You had painted thick gray goo over all the knobs
and dials, so that I could see none of the settings on my--"
he hesitated, then used the word, "--spellmakers." The loss
of his speakerspell must have taught him to think his words out
more carefully.
To his own villagers. Purple explained, "Somehow they
had gained entrance to my flying egg--which I have told
you about--and done terrible things to it." To us, he continued,
"I was furious, Lant. I would have killed the pack of
you."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 91
I shuddered. He still might. In fact, what was he waiting
for?
"Later," he continued, "I realized that you had acted from
ignorance. Perhaps you thought that the egg was alive and
dangerous. Perhaps that was the reason for Shoogar's earlier
attacks on me. I wanted to know why, why you had dirtied
and broken implements in my flying home----
"Unfortunately, I did not realize how badly you had damaged
it. There is a spell in any flying device that compensates
for sudden, sharp motion. It also compensates for the lack of a
world underfoot. Well, I did not know that I was in the air.
The windows had been painted gray, the screens likewise,
the dials had all been tampered with.
"When I opened the door to go looking for you, the wind
of my passage picked me up and sucked me out. When I
realized I was falling, I pulled my hood up and curled in a
ball. My impact suit saved me by holding my shape--much
as water in a vase does not change shape when you set it down
hard."
"I wish the vase had broken," muttered Shoogar.
"The fall knocked me out," continued Purple, "but I
broke no bones. But I saw very little of the landscape coming
down. I still don't know just where here is----my flying egg
does not respond to my signals. It has not answered me for
months. I fear it may be beyond my scope."
"True enough," I answered. "Shoogar's spells entirely destroyed
it. It was over the mountain called Critic's Tooth
when Eicin's hammer struck it."
"Eicin?"
; "The small, but mighty, god of thunder."
"Ah, yes. I know him. You say he struck my egg?"
"He struck it with a great flash, and a sound loud enough to
shake the world and shatter the sky. I could neither hear nor
see for many moments afterward."
Purple made an odd strangled sound. "Tell me, Lant, does
the ground glow blue at night now?"
"In the old village, yes. And all the trees and grass have
died. Villagers and animals as well. Look, Pilg and Ang have
lost their fur, and Pilg is covered with sores."
Purple looked, he stepped closer; Pilg, brave man that he
was, did not shrink from Purple's feverish examination. Both
92 THE FLYING SORCERERS
their faces were pale. "It's true," Purple murmured, "I am
marooned." He used a word from his own demon's tongue.
"Those are radiation sores.
"Radiation sores," he repeated. "You blew up the pile." He was trailing off into gibberish in his excitement. He looked
blindly around. "You hairy half-humans have smashed my
flying machine. I'll be lost here forever! Curse you, curse you
all----"
We all shrank back, even Purple's own villagers. He was
being too free with his curses. But Gortik and several of his
Advisors stepped forward to comfort Purple. "There, there,"
they murmured, patting his shoulders with visible reluctance.
"Let me alone!" Purple cried, jerking loose from the hands
that held him. He collided with Pilg who still stood forward
baring his naked and festering chest. Purple hesitated.
"Can you cure me?" asked Pilg with a quaver.
Purple looked at Pilg's disease-ridden body as if for the
first time, he looked into his eyes, then he stepped forward
and took Pilg by the shoulders. "Oh, my friend, my friend,
my poor dear friend." He released the shaken Pilg and turned
to the rest of us. "My friends, all of you----"
Again we shrank back. There was not a man in two villages
who wanted to be the friend of a raving, hairless madman.
"My friends, I need you more than ever now. I have lost a
major source of my power. My flying egg has been destroyed.
All the wonderful things I said I would do for you when I
recovered it, I can never do now."
At that Shoogar straightened a bit. "And I did it," he
reminded us. There was a hint of pride in his voice. He was
the only one smiling.
"And you did it," Purple echoed, in such a way that two
Advisors stepped up to take his arms.
Gortik glanced at me, at Purple, at Shoogar. He must have
been thinking furiously. He had thought his magician better
than ours; but now Purple had admitted to being hurt, and
hurt badly, by Shoogar's dueling spells. Obviously both magicians
were powers to be reckoned with.
How they must hate each other! It boded not well for either
village.
Gortik, the Speaker, drew me aside. "I think we had best
break up this meeting."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 93
"Before our magicians do it for us," I agreed.
"You take yours back to your encampment, we will return
ours to his nest. You and I will meet later, privately, to discuss
this situation. If either of our villages is to survive, there is
much that we will have to work out."
I nodded immediately. How much longer would Shoogar
restrain himself? We had to get away from Purple's own dueling
ground as fast as we could. I waved my hands frantically
at my Advisors. "Let's go, let's go." All I wanted was to put
as much, distance between Shoogar and Purple as possible.
We hurried back up the slope. One thought was uppermost:
we were trapped on an island with two mad magicians--
Eicin's Wrath--what had we done to deserve such a fate?
Could we have possibly angered the Gods that much?
11 did not take long for the word to spread. The wave of
dismay was a visible thing as it washed across the encampment.
Women began wailing, strong men trembled, children
bawled in confusion. Dogs barked.
Many began tugging at their tent ropes, pulling them
down. Exhausted as they were, they were ready to move on,
so great was their fear of Purple.
Incredible!--that these few pitiful families had once been a
strong and fruitful village. Yet so we had been before the
coming of Purple. We had seen that village reduced to rubble,
seen our friends and neighbors dead, and our property obliterated
because of the feud between Shoogar and the mad magician. --
And the duel was not yet over.
Purple still lived. He had followed us, and he would
destroy us.
No. He had flown here in a single night. For a quarter of
a cycle, he had been waiting for our arrival!
Shoogar was unapproachable. That Purple still lived, was
indication of his failure. He had cast his finest spell, and the
94 THE FLYING SORCERERS
other held not even a grudge. Angrily, Shoogar shook off his
two escorts and stamped off across the already sea-dampened
field. The crowd parted before him like goats from a pool of
defiled water. Anxious mothers herded their children safely
out of sight.
All over the camp tents were falling now as the word
spread. The people were ready to flee; they did not know
where they would go, but they were willing to die trying, so
great was their fear of Purple.
Here and there, sobbing women were loading their packs.
Children tugged at their skirts. Many of the men I passed
were putting extra sets of hobbles on their wives—there is no
telling what a hysterical woman will do.
Several members of the Guild of Advisors were standing
and arguing. They broke apart when they saw me. "Ah, Lant,
we were just discussing whether to go east or south—or
perhaps west, into the hills——"
"What foolishness are you babbling, Pilg?"
"The journey, the journey—we cannot possibly stay here?"
"We cannot possibly go anywhere else—unless you have
learned how to walk on water——"
This is not the only spot on the island, Lant," said Hinc.
"You heard Gortik. There are others."
"You heard him too," I snapped back. "This is a small
island. Four villages and the Heights of Idiocy."
Hinc shrugged, "If we must flee to the Heights, then so be
it. We can be a renegade tribe, moving by night——"
"That way we'll have every village on the island after our
necks."
"We have no choice. Shoogar is going to start a duell"
"Has Shoogar said so?"
"Hah! We don't need to talk to Shoogar to know he's
planning a duel—he's sworn to kill Purple, remember?"
"Now, listen," I said, "you are making foolish conclusions.
This is what we are going to do. First, there is not going to
be a duel. Second, I am going to go back to "he lower village
and dicker privately with Gortik. I am going to try to stick
to our original plan of trading our services for their food and
land. It is the only way."
"Hah!" snorted Hinc. "Do you think you can stop Shoogar
from planning a duel?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 95
"I am the Speaker now," I said. 'That gives me the
authority—"
"Just a minute, Lant—" Hinc said. "When we let you be
Speaker, it was only to talk to the villagers down below. We
had no intention of letting you—only a bonemonger—assume
any of the other rights and privileges of Speaker."
There was a murmur of agreement from the others.
"You are right, of course, Hinc. And I did not want to be
Speaker in the first place. But you insisted—you were one of
the loudest——and now that you have taken me as your
Speaker in dealings with other men; you must also accept
the fact that I represent you in your dealings with the Gods."
"Huh?"
"Well, think about it. Obviously, we are being tested by
them. This set of tribulations that has been thrust upon us
is nothing more than a test of our faith and our worship. The
Gods wish to see if we will continue to believe in them
despite our troubles and pray to them for relief, or if instead
we will forsake them in our despair."
"What does that have to do with whether or not you should
be allowed to give orders?" demanded Hinc's half-brother,
Lesser Hinc. They shared the same father, of course, but
were of different mothers.
I fixed him with my best angry stare. "Certainly it should
be obvious, even to a frog brain like you! If you deny the
traditions and the ancient ways, you are denying the Gods
themselves. Our whole way of life is based upon the whims of
the Gods we serve. Only a magician can control the Gods,
and only the village speaker can control the village magician.
Shoogar engraves his secret name into the Speaking Token,
so that only the owner of that token has power over him."
"But you don't have a token," Lesser Hinc said.
"Rightl" snapped Greater Hinc. "We owe you nothing!
Come, let's go." They started to turn away. "We can choose
another Speaker. Shoogar can just as easily make a token
for him."
"Wait!" I cried. I had to think fast. "You have forgotten
one thing."
There was something about my tone. They stopped. "You
have forgotten about Gortik, the Speaker of the new village.
He does not know how new I am to the art of Speaking—as
96 THE FLYING SORCERERS
far as he is concerned, I am as experienced as he. But if you
introduce another man to him as your Speaker, he will know
just how inexperienced that man is—and he will wonder why
you have elected a new Speaker at such a crucial time for the
village. All of the villages on this island would be able to
take advantage of us, knowing that they were dealing with an
unskilled Speaker."
They muttered among themselves. They moved a bit away
and discussed the subject heatedly. "Better no Speaker
than——" "But there is this new village——" "We don't need
another inept Speaker—••—" "But we are already committed
"And there is one more thing," I called. They paused,
looked over at me. "There is Shoogar. How do you think he
will react when you tell him that his best friend is no longer
Speaker? Is there one among you who thinks he can control
an angry magician?"
There wasn't. They looked at each other warily. At last,
Hinc nodded his assent, and the others nodded with him. "All
right, Lant—you win. Next time we will be more careful who
we push forward."
"It certainly won't be anyone with such a fast tongue,"
muttered Lesser Hinc.
"Let's just hope he can use it against Gortik," said Snarg.
"Don't worry," said Greater Hinc. "If he can't, we can
always strangle him with it."
"I am more concerned that he use it on Shoogar," babbled
Pilg. "And quickly. He is probably planning a duel right this
minute."
"Nonsense," I said, "he can't be planning a duell It's the
darkless season. There are no moons."
"Oh, you know your seasons well enough, Lant—but I
don't think you know Shoogar."
"I am a bonemonger," I said with dignity. "I have to have
a good layman's grasp of magic to make bone implements.
Believe me, Shoogar cannot possibly be planning a duel."
Ohoogar was alone with his shelter and his bicycle. I found
him staring up into the sky and muttering to himself. "Goat
kidneys, frog follicles, ant feathers--why did this have to
come during the darkless season?"
"Shoogar," I said. "What is the matter?"
"The sky, you idiot--the sky!" ~
"I am not an idiot. I am the Speaker now."
"Being a Speaker does not preclude you from being an
idiot," he snapped. His eyes were watery-red from peering so
long into the sun. "If only it weren't for that god-cursed skyi"
"What is the matter with the sky?"
"I can't see the moons." He stood and gestured, "Eicin's
Wrath! How can I know what the configurations are if I
can't see the moons? Red day, blue day, red day, and no
darkness ever. I've stared and stared----"
A dreadful certainty was stealing over me. "Shoogar, what
are you doing?"
"I'm trying to plan a duel--Gods protect us, Lant! How
can I even hope to defend myself if I can't see what the configurations
are?"
"It is unfortunate," I agreed. Vim knows how I managed
to keep my voice steady. "But perhaps it is also auspicious."
"Auspicious?" He whirled on me. "Auspicious? How can it
be auspicious? How can I plan a duel when all the auspices
are hidden?"
"Maybe," I said carefully. "Maybe, it's a sign that you
shouldn't duel."
"Shouldn't duel?--Are you mad? Lant the Speaker----" he mocked, "he only knows how to speak in circles."
"I am not speaking in circles," I said firmly. "I mean that
for once you won't be able to depend on your magic for an
easy solution. Perhaps, for a change, you will have to think
out the wisest course of action instead of just rashly casting
a spell with dangerous side effects. Remember, whatever you
97 '
98 THE FLYING SORCERERS
do, we won't be able to flee the side effects of it until the
waters recede."
"Are you questioning my magic?" He peered at me,
narrow-eyed.
"Me? Never! I am your staunchest supporter--but you
have to admit, Shoogar, you do sometimes use your magic
in situations where a little diplomacy might be better. You
are too hasty to cast spells before you know how they will
work out--"
"How else will I find out how they work??" he snapped.
I ignored the interruption. "You must admit, Shoogar, that
my skill with words is better than yours."
"Yes," he said. "You use more of them than I do. You
should be better."
"Be that as it may--if you don't know how the moons are
positioned, then you are unable to cast any kind of moon-
dependent spell. Instead, you must depend on me, as Speaker,
to avoid situations where your magic will be needed."
"It's too late, Lant. We're already in a situation where my
magic is necessary. I have to protect us from Purple. Obviously,
he's going to try to kill me--and you--and the rest of
the villagers! If only to retrieve these\" He held aloft the
trophy that he had picked up when he vanquished the black
egg: Purple's quartz lenses, their black bone frame glistening
in the blue light.
"Nonsense," I snapped back at him, surprising even myself
with my audacity. I was already beginning to feel like a
Speaker. "Obviously, you don't remember Purple as well as
I do. I don't recall that he ever once used violence, or ever
once tried to cast a spell against you. In fact, all of the spell-
casting done at the old village was done by you. Purple has
yet to retaliate for any of your attacks."
"All the more reason to beware. We're in his village now--
when he does retaliate, it will be a moon-destroyer, Lant."
"Again, nonsense. Purple is a talker, not a doer."
"My magic is necessary to protect us, Lant----"
"Granted, that you should protect us, but that does not
mean that you must attack Purple right off--"
"The only good defense is a strong offense--"
"And you will have the moons falling out of the sky on top
of us! Why don't you wait to see what he is planning? You
THE FLYING SORCERERS 99
forget that you have power over him, Shoogar--you have his
lenses. He'll want them back. He'll do anything to get them
back, perhaps even swear an oath of truce."
"Truce?" exploded Shoogar. "Truce?!! Lant, you have the
mind of a flea! There can be no truce with magicians. I ought
to know!"
"And you have the temper of a goat!" I snapped back. "If
it weren't for me, you would have killed yourself long ago
attempting to hurl fire balls at Eicin!"
This, stopped Shoogar for a moment. He looked at me
speechlessly. "Lant," he said quietly. "You surprise me. I had
no idea you were so violent."
"It's been a long hard journey, Shoogar--I'm tired. Most
of all, I'm tired of suffering because of poor judgment on the
part of a magician. Now use your brain for once----or if
you haven't one, let me use mine for you."
"What is it you are suggesting . ..?" he sighed.
"Wait--that's all. Wait. Swear an oath of truce, if necessary.
It is too soon to duel with Purple, much too soon. If you
attempt to duel with him on his home ground you are doomed
to lose. Wait until you are on equal terms at least."
Shoogar didn't say anything. He examined his fingernails
thoughtfully, and scratched at his thin fur.
"Well. . .?" I asked.
He didn't answer. He continued to scratch.
"There is one other thing you should consider, Shoogar.
Purple always claimed that his spells did not depend on the
gods or on the configurations of the moons. You've always
thought that he was lying. But if he is not, then the endless
sunlight does not hamper him."
He didn't answer--but at least he stopped scratching.
"Well? Will you wait? Or will you at least agree not to do
anything until you talk it over with me?"
He looked up. "I'll talk it over with you before I do
anything."
"Fine."
When I left he was still cursing the sky--but at least he
was packing away his spellcasting equipment. ;
I hat settled, I went back to Hinc and the others and
reported that we had nothing to fear from an immediate duel.
Shoogar would not move without consulting me first. I told
them we would stay here.
There was again some grumbling, but we were committed
to this course of action--if not by my authority as Speaker,
then certainly by the authority of the all-encompassing sea.
Clearly, they had not expected me to fare so well with
Shoogar, but since I had, they were left with no choice but
to honor my claim to the office. It was as if the Gods themselves
were backing me up.
As they wandered back to their tents I called my two sons,
Wilville and Orbur, to me. Wilville, noticing my smile, asked,
"Why are you so eager to stay here? This area teems with
trouble. That Purple is still alive bodes not well for us."
"Oh, I think that situation can be handled. The advantages
of staying here far outweigh the disadvantages."
"Advantages?" asked Orbur incredulously. He was the
darker of the two.
"Certainly--you're a bicycle builder--you must have noticed
the quality and variety of woods around here. Fine
bambooze shoots, spirit-pine, sparkling aspen, birts, vampire-
oaks----also flbertrees, nevergreens and cranials. One can
build fine bicycles with the materials at hand here. In fact,
one could probably build anything with the materials here.
Did you not notice there are no bicycles or bicycle builders
at all in the lower village? You will have the market all to
yourselves."
Wilville nodded eagerly. "Our father is right, Orbur. There
is much work here."
"You are thinking right, Wilville--there is. You can start
by contacting the neighboring villages for me. I want you to
locate the nearest sources of dry bone, wet bone, petrified
100
THE FLYING SORCERERS 101
bone and so. on. It seems they don't have a good bonemonger
here either ,, ."
JN oW I headed down toward the lower village and my
meeting with Gortik.
This time it would be just the two of us, without our
squabbling councils to hinder us. We had finished with the
formalities of the greetings, and now we could get down to
the real business of negotiating.
Of course, we had no choice in the matter. I and my fellow
villagers were here for the duration of the wading season.
Gortik and I had to come to some sort of agreement on' how
our two villages could survive till the onset of the next
conjunction.
To tell the truth, I was uneasy. This would be the first time
I would have to Speak for my whole village and make decisions
for them. It was one thing to browbeat one's own people
for their own good--quite another to attempt it with" a perfect
stranger.
I carried with me a token of luck in lieu of the new Speaking
Token which Shoogar had not yet begun to build. (One
of the most important ingredients he still had not located--
a stone the weight of a small child. Indeed, we had not even
selected the small child yet, whose weight was to be the
standard of the token.)
I felt unsure of myself without a proper Speaking Token
----and worried that I might not do a proper job. "A token,
a token," I mumbled, "my village for a token." But I tottered
down the slope, determined to do the best Speaking I could
without it.
There was a shout from behind me. I- paused. My first wife
came running down the hillside, her skirt flapping, her breasts
bouncing, her hobbles giving her a peculiar short-gaited run.
"Lant, oh brave Lant, waiti"
I waited.
102 THE FLYING SORCERERS
She hurried up to me, "My brave Speaker, you have forgotten
your amulet of shrewd mongering." -fa |
"But I don't need it, woman," I admonished her. "I am" ^ going to Speak. I have a token of skillful language as well as
one of luck. What do I need with a monger's token?"
She looked crestfallen. "I am sorry, my brave one. You are
right. It is just that I wanted to do something to help you--
I wanted to give you something to aid your Speaking and
all I could think of was your monger's amulet. I thought
perhaps it might help----a little bit anyway."
"How could it?" I scoffed. "I am not going there as a
monger, but as a Speaker."
"You are right, my wise master." She began kissing and
stroking my feet. "I do not know what it is that Speakers do--
but I thought it was something like mongering, so I-----I'm
sorry. I take up your time. I will go and flog myself."
She looked so unhappy and woebegone: her hair had fallen
out in patches and lost its once-proud sleekness, her shape was
heavy with child; I felt a surge of pity for her. "Here, woman,
wait. Give me the amulet. It could not hurt to carry it. It Will
not help, of course, but I will take it because you thought it
important,"
Trivial words, of course, easy enough for me to say--but
they cheered her immensely. She smiled gratefully and threw
herself at my feet in gratitude.
"Here now, here now--that's enough kissing. You want
the other wife to think I am favoring you with an inordinate
amount of affection?" I bade her rise, took the amulet and
sent her back to the encampment.
I continued downward to the lower village.
The wide river swept through it on its surging course to
the sea. Great black housetrees lined both sides of its banks.
There were many frog-tending ponds and dams, and there
were terraced riceblossom pools along the river banks. Off
to one side, well away from the village proper was a tree so
misshapen that had it been human, it surely would have been
stillborn. Clearly, that was the nest of Purple the Magician.
But that was not my destination. Not yet. First I would
speak to Gortik.
As I entered the village proper, a curious ragtag of villagers
and children began to follow me. Some of the children tried
THE FLYING SORCERERS 103
to taunt me, but were hushed by their elders. All followed
curiously as I strode between the shady trunks. The black-
grass crunched under my feet.
I could not help but admire the size of the trees and the
skillfull weaving of the nests hanging from them. They spoke
of prosperity. It takes extensive care to make a tree grow as
big as it must to support a house. That this village had so
many spoke well of the wealth of its inhabitants.
The Speaker's glade was a shady area lined with gentle
birts and yellow aspen. Here no women, no children and no
villagers outside the first circle were allowed.
I held a rank which allowed me to enter, but in the interests
of politics I gave Gortik the courtesy of officially granting me
the right. He stepped forward, bade me enter--but not before
he had first chased away a by now sizable crowd of onlookers.
The arrival of my village must have been the most exciting
thing to happen here for some time.
Gortik and I sat in the glade and exchanged formalities.
We chewed raba-root and talked about the Gods and the
weather. We each traded two syllables of our respective
names, more an indication of a growing--and necessary--
mutual trust than a sign of respect.
We traded our histories as well. I did not go into much
detail in the telling of mine--merely that I had been chosen
Speaker by acclamation of my fellow villagers because of my
bravery and courage.
Gortik was impressed. He told me how he had become
Speaker for his tribe--how he had fought for the honor many
times, and how each time he had been defeated--but only
narrowly, mind you--how his village had had a succession
of terrible Speakers one after the other, how one had been
killed for his audacity, how a second had been disgraced and
a third laughed out of power. At last these gentle villagers
had realized that Gortik had been right all along, and they
hailed him as their new Speaker.
It was an impressive story, all right. I didn't believe him
any more than he believed me; but I was thoroughly impressed
with Gortik's skill as Speaker.
"It is no secret," Gortik said then, "that your tribe needs
a place to settle permanently."
104 THE FLYING SORCERERS
I nodded. "You are right, it is no secret. One can get tired
of traveling."
"I find that hard to believe. Why, the excitement, the
adwiAva's.l"
"Yes," I admitted, "we love to sit and talk about them. We
were a brave people to have faced the dangers of such a
migration. It was the dangers behind us that helped to make
us brave." Then, changing the subject, "This is a rich area
you have here."
"Oh, no," Gortik protested. "We are really quite poor.
Quite poor. We go hungry throughout much of the ungrowing
season."
"Then you have not been exploiting the land properly,"
I countered. "Our tribe could grow enough on this land to
feed both villages."
"Ah, you exaggerate again. We have trouble feeding ourselves.
There is not space enough for a good crop, let alone
room to plant a decent number of housetrees."
"Your village belies that--there are more than enough
housetrees in your village. Many are empty. And there are
other housetrees high on the slope, unused as well. There is
room for us there, above the aspenwood."
"That is our migration ground. We will need it later when
the waters rise."
"It is still a roomy area--there are a great many house- trees there."
"Hardly enough," he shook his head. "Hardly enough--
and in poor repair. Poor repair."
"Nonsense. My villagers could put those trees in shape
within a hand of days and have decent nests hanging from
every one within a second hand."
"I find that hard to believe."
"We could show you. As I said, we have many skills that
your village obviously must not have, or you would be living
better than you do now."
"We live as well as we can."
"Do you have a decent bonemonger among you?"
"Bonemongering is a northern trade. We do not--honor it
here."
"More's the pity--you are missing out on much that would
THE FLYING SORCERERS 105
make your life easier. We have other trades as well, which
you lack."
"And suppose we did let you demonstrate your vastly
superior talents and abilities--what would you expect in
return?"
"The right to settle--say, on that piece of land above the
woods."
Gortik shook his head slowly. "That is not living land. That
land is unusable for men."
"It is unusable for you, you fnean. We are not cropmongers
as you people are. We do not need to live near the rivers,
nor do we need to migrate every year to avoid the swelling
waters. We are mountain folk and make our living off the
sheep, the goats, the high pastures. We do not go hungry
during the time of ungrowing, the season of sweat."
"Humph, Lant, I doubt much of what you say--your
clothes are rude, badly woven to say the least. And animal
skins do not indicate the quality of spells you claim to have.
One who is civilized no longer needs to wear animal skins."
"That's true for your village," I said, "because you are
weavers. We are not. We are craftsmen--have you any bicycle
makers?"
"Bicycles----?"
"Ah ha, you do not. It is a vehicle with wheels which
enables its rider to travel great distances in one day."
"And I suppose you use scavenger pigs and dogs to pull it
in the manner of the western barbarians?"
"Ah, you show your ignorance, Gortik. The bicycle requires
no animals at all--it moves by magic alone."
"By magic alone?" He was incredulous.
"Of course," I said, not without some small tone of superiority.
If these people did not know even of bicycles, they
must be stupid indeed. "One sits astride it and chants and
pedals----the harder one chants, the faster he goes. You
must chant hard, of course, to get up a hill; but that stores
so much magic in the machine that one need hardly chant
at all on the way down."
"I would like to see one of-these fabulous devices."
"Shoogar has one now--he has had it since his duel with
Purple. It used to be mine, but I would not dare ask Shoogar
106 THE FLYING SORCERERS
for its return--it would be an insult. It is no matter. My sons
can build others." .,,
"Could they build one for me?"
"Quite probably."
"I would be the only one in my village with such a device,
wouldn't I?"
"You are the Speaker here," I said. "If you felt that the
magic of a bicycle was too dangerous for the rest of your
people, your word would be law."
His eyes narrowed shrewdly, "Do you think I could get
away with it?"
I nodded reluctantly. It was obvious what Gortik wanted.
Being the only owner of a bicycle would enhance his mana greatly. I did not want to do such a thing, nor did I want to
limit the market for my sons' devices--but if it was the only
thing which I could offer him in return for the right to stay,
then I had no choice. He still had the right to demand we
move on when the wading season ended. I sighed and nodded
again.
He beamed. "Then it is settled, Lant. You and your village
will give me a bicycle, in return for which I will allow you
to demonstrate your supposedly very great housemaking skills
by clearing and cleaning our migration ground for us."
"Ah, Gortik, my friend," I answered, "you are correct in
your manner, but you have misstated the terms of the agreement. We are lending you a bicycle for your use. In return
you are granting us your migration area for our use. As a
sign of our goodwill we will offer to teach your people what
skills they will need to survive the season of ungrowing."
"Ah, Lant, my devoted friend, my lifelong companion, you
are the one who misstates the agreement. You have forgotten
the bounty of ten sheep which you have offered me for a
great feast in my honor."
"Ah, Gortik, my faithful brother, my generous colleague,
I have not forgotten them--indeed, I have not thought of
them at all. Such a feast is an honor intended only for those
Gods who have wrought mighty miracles."
"Lant, you are the playmate of my spratling years. Have I
not earned such an honor?"
"Ah, Gortik, we are more than playmates--we are suck-
lings at the same breast. I would deny you nothing. You need
THE FLYING SORCERERS 107
only ask and it is yours. I offer you, out of the boundless
affection of my own heart, six sheep so that your people may
start a flock of their own."
"Ah, but Lant, my illustrious advisor—my people are not
shepherds. The animals would die."
"Gortik, Gortik, your wisdom is unsurpassed. Of course
we cannot give the sheep to the untrained shepherd. You will
grant us three young men to watch them. We will keep your
sheep with ours and teach your men how to be shepherds.
Shoogar will teach them the necessary spells."
"I have not the men to spare."
"Boys, then. Boys love sheep. Our shepherds will teach
any three of your boys how to properly care for sheep and
keep them from grazing too long in one spot."
"Sheep have much magic in their bones, do they not? Is
that where your magician gets so much of his power? From
sheep?"
"I do not know the source of Shoogar's power," I said. "But
you are right that sheep are powerful."
"Then what guarantee do we have that you will not use
that power against us?"
"Your village is not without its strength. What guarantee
do we have that you will not use your power against usT'
"You have your magician," he said.
"And you have yours," I countered.
"Yes, there is that," he said.
There was silence for a moment.
"We must decide what they are going to do—before they
decide for themselves," I said. "A feud between them would
not augur well for either of our clans."
"Yes," he nodded. "It would tear the two villages apart."
"And much of the surrounding countryside too," I added.
He looked startled.
"I have already spoken to Shoogar," I said quickly, "and
I know that he is not planning to attack Purple—that is, not
without sufficient provocation. I have convinced Shoogar that
it is important enough for us to settle here for him to swear
a truce with Purple. In return, of course, he—and all of us—
would like some guarantees from Purple."
"Well," said Gortik, "I cannot speak for Purple. No one
speaks for Purple but Purple. To tell the truth, I do not like
108 THE FLYING. SORCERERS
the idea of having two hostile magicians in the same village--
but just as much, I do not like the idea of having even one
magician in this village--one particular magician, that is.
There is little love between myself and Purple. Dorthi and I
were good friends. Dorthi's strength supported me as Speaker;
but since Purple has replaced him, he has done nothing."
"H'm," I said thoughtfully, "is it not said that a land with
two magicians will soon have only one."
He nodded. "There is only so much magic in an area--
enough for one magician, not for two. It is inevitable that one
of them will die."
"I know. Shoogar has thought long on that."
"So have I. If we have our magicians swear a truce, it will
be a very artificial situation. It cannot last long."
I nodded. He was right, of course. "But perhaps it will at
least buy us time until the oceans again recede."
"Ah, but then what? You want a permanent village site.
I want a permanent magician."
"Purple is planning to leave you?"
"He has been talking that way ever since he first fell into
our midst. At the moment he is forced by circumstance to
stay--like you--but if that were not the case, there are many
in this village who would be happy to speed him on his way."
"Are you suggesting that you would like to see Purple
removed?" I asked.
"Of course I wouldn't suggest such a thing," he replied.
"A Speaker must never question his magician. But--if a duel
were to occur between our two warlocks, I would not be
disappointed if Purple lost."
"But you have said that you do not wish a duel." I'
"Oh, yes--I did, didn't I. To be quite honest, Lant, I would
prefer to see him leave of his own free will--quietly, if pos-
sible--but by force, if necessary."
"I see," I said. And I did. Purple was not aiding Gortik as
a magician should. Gortik wanted him gone. Even no magician
at all might be better than a bad one. I could understand
it. "Let me suggest this to you, Gortik: if there is some way
that we can remove Purple from your village, we will do that
for you."
"And replace him with Shoogar?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 109
"Uh--" I asked cautiously, "Is that what you want?" I did
not want to lose Shoogar to another village.
"Definitely no?!" he said.
"Fine. Then we will keep Shoogar."
"One thing, Lant," said Gortik. "Yes, I would like to be
rid of Purple, but not if it means devastating this land. I do
not wish to be a migrant like you."
"H'm," I said. "That makes the problem a little more difficult.
We will have to take things one at a time. First, we will
secure sn oath of truce from both our magicians. This will
give Shoogar time to acquaint himself with the local spells."
"That will be a simple task," said Gortik. "Most of the
spell-charts were destroyed with Dorthi when he was killed.
There are few local spells left, and Purple has not renewed
any of them."
"Shoogar can do that," I said expansively. "He knows all
one hundred and eleven spells of village tending."
"Good. We can make good use of them. Perhaps you have
noticed that we have many empty housetrees? Many of our
most religious people have fled since Purple's arrival--they
fear to live in a village with an inept magician."
"I know exactly how they feel," I said.
"Of course, of course; a good Speaker always empathizes
with the people."
"You must be one of the finest then," I said.
"And you as well, Lant. You are a veritable fountainhead
of faith."
"Ah, Gortik, I am but a shadow compared to the brightness
that is you."
"Ah, would you compare one sun to the other?"
"No, of course not--there can be no comparison. One is
bright, but small; the other is huge, but dim--and yet, both
light up the world equally well."
"Both are necessary, and both are beautiful," said Gortik.
"Like ourselves," I added.
"Of course, of course. It is well that we agree on so many
things, Lant. It will not be difficult at all to make an agreement
which is fair to both of us and our villages."
"How could it be difficult when each of us is thinking more
of the other than of himself?"
110	THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Ah, Lant, you have such a way with words, such a beautiful
way. Now about those sheep--six is not enough--"
"Ah, Gortik, it is more than enough if all you are planning
to send is three boys--"
And so it went.
W e stayed and chewed ro&a-root till well into the blue
afternoon. There was much to discuss, and much root to be
chewed.
And when we finished what we had, we staggered off in
search of more. We were thoroughly under its influence by
now. It was good root. Jark could make a fine Quaff from it.
"Purple!" said Gortik. "Purple has some raba-root. He
chews it whenever he gets depressed--which is often these
days."
"Ah, good. Let's pay him a visit. And while we are there, we can inform him of our agreement."
"Again you are thinking, Lant. I am continually amazed by
your prowess."
We found Purple tending his small patch of herbs and
plants. Raba-ioot was not the only fermentable spice he had.
He had several others that I recognized, and many more that
I did not. Jark would be overjoyed at the news.
"Purple, ahoy," we hailed him. He looked up, squinting in
our direction in the blue light.
"It sounds like my old friend, Lant," he said.
I shuddered--friend? I gritted my teeth and said, "Yes, it's
Lant. Gortik and I have come to speak with you." I tried to
sound as stem and formal as I could.
"Uh----" Purple hesitated. He seemed to be uneasy at
something. "How are you, Lant. How is your family, your
wife?"
What a strange question to ask. Why would anyone want
to know about the condition of a wife? But then. Purple
always had been a strange one. "My wives are fine," I said.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 111
"My number one wife is expecting a child soon. Shoogar says
it will be a daughter, but as she has already presented me with
two sons, I cannot fault her."
Purple looked startled, "Expecting a child?" He counted
hurriedly on his fingers, "It's been almost nine—" He looked
at me, "When is it due?"
"In another three hands of hands of days."
He counted again, "Three times five times five—seventy
five. That would be blue days, of course; now let's see, convert
that into standard—that would be four and a half months
from now." He exhaled loudly and looked relieved. "Whewl
For a moment there I thought it could have been—"
"Could have been what?"
"Uh, never mind. I'm just glad that there's no such thing
as a thirteen-and-a-half-month gestation period."
He was talking gibberish again—a pregnancy lasts no
longer than two hundred and fifteen blue days. What a month
was, I had no idea, although he used the term as I might
discuss a hand of days. Perhaps it was his way of measuring
clusters of days. Purple had once mentioned that his days—
"standard days" he had called them—were only half as long
as ours.
Our days, of course, are measured by the passage of the
blue sun, regardless of where the red is. Gortik had told me
how Purple had once been confused—he could not believe
it was midnight because the red sun was still high in the sky.
How odd—why should the periods of light and dark have
to correspond with the concepts of night and day? Only
during conjunctions did such a thing occur.
In any case, I could not understand his concern with the
child. I said, "Why should you care. Purple?"
"Uh—uh—"
"Is it because you did the family-making thing with my
wife on the day of the last conjunction?"
Purple went pale. "I—I—forgive me, Lant. I—"
"Forgive you? How can I forgive you?"
He took a startled step backward and held up a hand as if
to ward me off.
I said, "Shoogar had scattered a dust of yearning around
your nest. You could not help yourself."
"You mean, you think I did it because of a spell?"
112 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Of course, it was a spell. It was part of the duel."
He looked relieved again. The color flowed back into his
face. "Then I have been worrying needlessly--and I do not
need to worry about the child either."
"Why should you? Shoogar knows when the child was conceived
and when she will be born."
Purple nodded, "Yes, Shoogar is probably quite good at
those things."
"He is," I confirmed. "The child is your daughter, all right."
He went pale again. This time I thought he would faint
altogether. The blood had been flowing into and out of his
head at such a rate that he was having trouble standing.
I continued, "When we first realized that the child was
yours, I almost killed my wife--"
"Oh, no, Lant--not just because I--"
I looked at him oddly. "I told you, Purple, you could not
help yourself. And she is only a woman. A woman doesn't
know how to refuse a kindness. No, we would have killed
her because she was carrying a demon child, but Shoogar
forbade it. The child must be carried to term and born as any
other. At that time we will determine if the child is a good
demon or a bad demon. Shoogar thinks she will be a bearer
of much magic--and if so, he thinks he can control her."
"Humph," snorted Gortik, "it sounds like Shoogar wants
to emulate the legend of the poor fisher and the demon
tailor. The demon demanded three wishes--"
I shrugged. "It is of little concern to me. If the child is a
demon, then Shoogar will have to pay me for the right to
destroy or control her. If she is not, then at least I gain
another bride price. Why else would one allow a woman to
breed indiscriminately? Another son is always a pride and a
strength. A daughter is at least a price of a drink. One offers
one's wife to guests as a matter of course. Now that our two
villages are going to live peacefully together, the child's birth
will be of no importance at all. It will be as if I had offered
you the guest privilege to insure good relations between our
two groups. That she is a magician's daughter will add somewhat
to her value when I sell her on her seventh yearday, but
a daughter is only a daughter and not worth the air wasted
discussing her."
"Uh, yes," said Purple. He was obviously disturbed about
THE FLYING SORCERERS 113
something. "Just one question. Are all your women's pregnancies
so long?"
"What do you mean 'so long'? Two hundred and fifteen
days is the proper length of a pregnancy."
"Two hundred and fifteen--" Purple began counting again.
"Thirteen and a half months," he said. "Oh." He began
mumbling to himself. "Well, I guess such a thing is not
impractical--probably the extra four and a half months are
needed because conditions here are so unstable. It gives the
developing infant an extra length of time to grow and be more
ready for a hostile world. Yes, yes, I can see why such a
thing--"
Gortik and I exchanged a glance. I said, "I see he still talks
gibberish to himself."
"Not as much as he used to," Gortik replied. "He hardly
uses the demon tongue any more."
"Ah, that's good. How can a man be civilized if he does
not speak a civilized language?"
To Purple, I said, "Actually, we have come here to talk
about something much more important."
"Yes," put in Gortik. "Have you any ripe rabd-rootT' I
could see that this other Speaker was one who did not waste
words--he got right down to the subject at hand.
Purple scratched his hairless chin, which was gray with
many tiny black dots. How odd. He said, "I think I might
be able to spare some." He rummaged through his herb patch,
then decided against it and disappeared up into his nest
instead.
He returned almost immediately with a basket of tubers.
"Here, these have already been cured. Take what you need."
Gortik slung the whole basket under one arm. "Thank you,
Purple. This will do nicely."
Purple looked a bit askance, but said nothing. I found
myself wondering what kind of a magician this was who was
treated little better than a common cropmonger. Did Gortik
have some strange kind of power over Purple? No, such a
thing was not possible--or was it instead that Gortik knew
that Purple would not use his vast powers against him. But
why?
The thought crossed my mind--perhaps the only reason
Purple was allowed to endure here was because he was un114 THE FLYING SORCERERS
killable. Otherwise they would be rid of him in a minute if
they could. No wonder Gortik was so eager to accept my oner
to remove their magician for them. Purple was worse than
inept--he was a dangerous fool.
And they were stuck with him just as we had been a quarter
of a cycle ago.
No wonder Gortik treated him so shabbily--he was hoping
to drive Purple away with his rudeness.
H'm, he would not try that with Shoogar, I thought.
Shoogar would curse him hairless without even blinking.
Gortik handed me a rafra-root and I chewed it slowly,
savoring its rich bitterness. Ah, that was nice. Its pungent
smell filled the glade and saturated the air. I and my clothes
would reek of it for days.
We started to wander back toward the village when abruptly
I remembered something. I caught Gortik's arm and turned
back. "Oh, Purple," I called.
He looked up, "Yes? What is it, Lant?"
"I almost forgot to tell you. I and my tribe will be settling
in this area--but we cannot do it if you and Shoogar intend
to duel."
Purple looked puzzled, "I have no intention of dueling with
Shoogar."
"You don't?"
"Of course not. Dueling never accomplished anything."
I looked at Gortik, "You see why we thought him mad?"
Gortik returned the look, "You think you are pointing out
something we have not already noticed?"
To Purple, I said, "I am overjoyed to hear that. Shoogar
will also be glad."
Purple nodded thoughtfully. He said, "Lant, it seemed to
me that I saw my seeing pieces hanging from a string around
Shoogar's neck when he came to the conference."
"A trophy of the duel," I explained. "Although under the
circumstances--"
"I will exchange an oath of peace for those devices, Lant.
I need them to see."
"Um," I said. "I don't know. Shoogar regards that trophy
quite highly. He would not be eager to give it up--"
"No seeing pieces, Lant, no oath of peace."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 115
"--but since you put it that way, I'm sure he will be
delighted."
"Not half so much as I," said Purple.
Well! It had been easier than I had thought. I was overjoyed.
Expansively, I offered Purple a piece of raba-root to
seal the deal. "It is a more than reasonable request."
His mouth full. Purple nodded his agreement.
"I don't think so," said Gortik. "You really should ask for
more."
I frowned at him.
"There is really nothing more that I need," said Purple.
"except perhaps--"
"Perhaps what?"
"No, it is nothing. There is no way you could help me."
"But if we at least knew, perhaps we could offer some
suggestions------"
He looked at us as if we were children. "Don't speak
foolishness," he said. "There is no way either of you could
help me get home."
"Huh--!!" Gortik and I exchanged a glance. Why, he was
asking for the very thing that both of us wanted. We practically
tripped over each other in our eagerness to answer.
"But we will do anything to help you. Purple, anything! We only wish the same as you--that you can return to your home
as soon as possible."
He sighed, "That is very generous of you, but I am afraid
there is no way. My flying egg is destroyed. I have no way to
lift into the sky." He sighed again and fingered a device on
his belt. "I have the means to call down the mother-egg, but
the call signal will not work this far south."
"The mother-egg--?" I found myself choking on a piece
of root.
"The egg that Shoogar--sank, that was only a small vehicle
for exploring the contours of a world. I left the larger vehicle
in the sky."
Nervously, I looked upward.
Purple laughed, "No, you need not fear, Lant. It will not
fall--not unless I call it down. But I am too far south to do
that. If there were some way I could return to the north--"
"You mean you would leave us?" Gortik was astounded.
Purple misinterpreted it. "Oh, my friend Gortik, I know
116 THE FLYING SORCERERS
how it must hurt you, but please try to realize--I yearn to
return to my home in the sky, to converse, confer and otherwise
hobnob with my brother wizards." 3
Gortik danced a little jig of grief. |
Purple continued, "But, alas, there is no way. I cannot
travel north overland because the sea already covers everything.
And I dare not attempt it by boat. I am told that it
will be all whirlpools and dangerous uncharted reefs. There is
no path by land, and there is no path by sea. I am marooned,
marooned." Purple sighed and sat down.
I sighed with him. "If only there were a path through the
air--but nothing goes through the air but birds and eggs."
He sighed again and nodded. "If you had been willing to
teach Shoogar your flying spell," I pointed out, "perhaps today
you might not be in this predicament."
"Flying spell?" he said. A strange look came over his face.
Gortik looked at him curiously, looked at me, looked at
Purple again. "What are the two of you talking about?" The
magician was muttering curiously to himself.
"No, no--the whole idea is preposterous. It would never
work. Yes, it would----" He trailed off into the demon's
tongue. He shook his head impatiently as if trying to thrust
that thought away. But it wouldn't go--that peculiar look kept
returning to his eyes, and he argued frantically with himself
in words not known to men.
Suddenly he leapt to his feet. "Yes, it must be tried," he shouted. "It must be! It must be! It is the only way!"
He leapt at me. I jumped back, but he grabbed my robe.
"Tell me, Lant--does Shoogar still want to fly?"
"Is the sky red and blue?" I asked in reply. "Of course, Shoogar still wants to fly."
He was delighted. "Oh, yes, yes--what a wonderful idea."
He began capering around his housetree. "Go--go tell him,
tell him--go, go! I'm going home--I'm going to fly!"
"Tell him?" I echoed. "Tell him what?"
"Tell him I'm going to build a flying machine--no, we're going to build a flying machine--and I'm going to fly north
for the winter!" And he laughed hysterically.
Gortik and I exchanged another look. We shook our heads
sadly. I did not know who to feel sorrier for--Purple for
being deranged, or Gortik for being his Speaker.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 117
When we left. Purple was still dancing about his housetree
and singing at the top of his lungs.
When he heard the news, Shoogar was neither pleased
nor angered, merely curious. "So, now he wants to build a
flying machine. Before, he would not tell me how to do such
a thing—that was why I fought him—now he wants to." He
shook his head. "I don't like it, Lant. I don't like it."
"But Shoogar, don't you see what it means? You win after
all—you fought him because he wouldn't show you how to
fly—you didn't kill him, but you put him into a position
where he has to show you how, or he can't go home."
Shoogar remained unexcited. "So what? Why should I help
him build a flying machine? He will leave in it and I will still
have no flying spell."
"But he won't be taking it with him—" I said. "—only to
the north country."
"He lives in the north country? I thought he lived on the
other side of the sky."
"No—he has to go'to the north country to get to the other
side of the sky."
"Lant, you're talking in circles again. The north country
is not the other side of the sky—it's not even anywhere near
it. I ought to know; Dorthi and I trained there."
"The north country is not his destination," I explained.
"But he has to go there to call down his mother-egg."
"Mother-egg? You mean he has another one?"
"Apparently so—at least that's what he says."
"Pfah!" said Shoogar. He didn't believe it.
"He showed me a spell device—it's attached to his belt. It's
a calling thing, but he can't use it here because his mother-egg
isn't in this sky, it's in the northern sky. So he has to go to
the north country to use it. For that he needs a flying
machine."
118 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"H'm," said Shoogar. "And what happens to the machine
afterward?" afU
"After what?"
"After he leaves in it."
I shrugged. "I don't know, I guess he will leave it in the
north country--after all, once he calls down his mother-egg,
he won't need it any more."
"H'm," said Shoogar again.
"You could probably have it for the taking," I suggested.
"Pfahl You're not thinking, Lant. If I wanted it, I would
have to go north to get it. Or go there with Purple in order
to bring it back. No, I don't like the idea."
"But if he builds a flying machine, obviously he will need
help. You and Wilville and Orbur can help him--and if you
can build one flying machine for him, you should certainly
be able to build another for yourself."
"H'm," said Shoogar for a third time. His eyes lit up as he
considered the possibilities. In fact, his whole face took on
that same peculiar expression that I had seen on Purple's
when he had been thinking of flying machines.
"Then it is decided?" I asked.
He fingered the lenses on the string around his neck. "To
cooperate with him on the flying machine means first securing
an oath of peace, doesn't it?" ; I
nodded.
"And that means giving up my trophy, doesn't it?"
I nodded again.
"Um," he said. He continued to finger the lenses.
"But a flying machine, Shoogar--" I suggested softly.
"Think of it! A flying machine!"
"Umm," he said. He was thinking of it.
"And there will be no other magician in this region either,
after Purple leaves," I whispered. "Certainly not one who
could compare with you. You will be without equal--you can
be the magician of both the upper and lower villages."
"Ummm," said Shoogar.
"And think about this," I added slowly. "You will be able to accomplish all of this without a duel!"
"No, Lant--then I cannot do it,"
"Huh?!!"
"Not without a duel--if I am truly to earn my positiod
THE FLYING SORCERERS 119
here, then I must demonstrate that I am a better magician
than Purple. I must best him in a duel."
"Erk," I said. I had talked myself out of a peaceful solution.
"Uh, well, uh--"
He shook his head firmly. "I'm sorry, Lant, but you know
how things are--a duel between two magicians in the same
region is not only necessary, but proper."
"Uh, but, Shoogar--" I said quickly, "you have already
bested him in a duel."
"No, I haven't. I've only inconvenienced him by destroying
his black egg. The duel is still to be fought."
"But you said you wouldn't duel him right away--"
"No, I didn't. I only said I wouldn't duel him without
talking it over with you first. I'm talking it over with you
now."
I felt like I was drowning. "But the flying machine--"
"The duel," he insisted.
"But--but--" I stammered helplessly, but it was hopeless.
When Shoogar made up his mind, he was a solid lump of
stubbornness. "All right, Shoogar, I know when I am defeated.
If you must, you must. I will go and warn the villagers."
"You do that, Lant--but tell them not to be too alarmed."
"Why?" I asked bitterly. "Are you planning to minimize
the side effects again?"
"No," he said. "But there is no reason that the duel must
be held today. We might build a flying machine first."
My heart leapt. "Then you'll do iti You'll cooperate with
Purple?"
"Of course not. I am merely going to let him show me how
to build a flying machine--if he can," Shoogar said.
I relaxed.
"After he finishes," he added, "then I'll kill him."
I he blue sun was at one side of the sky; the red sun was
at the other. The world was bathed in red and blue light;
120 THE FLYING SORCERERS
shadows stretched in two directions. We waited in the meadow
below the heights. All was still.
This would be the first meeting of the two magicians--
would they be able to live up to their truce?
Purple, fat and paunchy, was already waddling up the
slope, escorted by Gortik and his advisors. He was a bright
figure in his suit of strange cloth. He paused and squinted up
the hill.
I looked too. Shoogar was stumping imperiously toward
us, magnificent in his shortness.
Shoogar caught sight of Purple then, and stopped. The
two of them surveyed each other, one up the hill, one down.
For a moment, all was still and silent. I held my breath and
prayed.
And then Shoogar took a step forward, another. Purple did
likewise. I exhaled loudly in relief; the two magicians carefully
closed the remaining distance. They ended up facing
each other, one standing to either side of me; Gortik was
standing opposite my position, also between the two
magicians. As Speakers for our villages, we had thought it
best to place ourselves so. If the magicians should attack
each other, we would be there to stop them (I hoped). If
we couldn't stop them. . . . Well, I would be in no position
to worry about, it.
Shoogar and Purple eyed each other warily, Shoogar looking
Purple up and down. Purple only looking down.
"The oath--" I prompted.
"Him first," they both said, pointing in unison.
"Both together!" Gortik and I cried.
Reluctantly, Shoogar and Purple reached out and took
each other's right hand; then they joined left hands too. Now
neither could reach his spellcasting equipment without first
letting go, which would allow the other to reach for his. They
glared at each other across their linked arms.
I looked at Gortik and nodded. He nodded back. Simultaneously,
we each turned to our respective wizard and
snipped off a lock of his hair, two fingernail clippings, and
took a droplet of blood and a nasal dropping.
While the two magicians watched, we mixed these ingredients
together in a bowl between them, then separated
THE FLYING SORCERERS 121
the result into two equal portions which we put into spell bags,
one for Shoogar, one for Purple.
"Here. Now neither will be able to cast a spell on the
other without also affecting himself. Any harm that befalls
one will befall the other, so it will be for the benefit of both
to watch out for each other's welfare."
They continued to scowl.
"Repeat after me," I said, "in unison, so that your oaths
will be taken as one: I (state your full name, including the
secret 'syllables) do solemnly swear . . ."
"Do solemnly swear ..."
"To love, honor and cherish ..."
"To love, honor and cherish ..."
"My brother magician as myself."
"My brother magician as myself."
I turned to Shoogar. "Do you, Shoogar, agree to uphold
the terms of this oath?" His eyes were fierce.
After a moment, I repeated, "Do you, Shoogar, agree to
uphold the terms of this oath?"
He muttered something.
"Louder." I kicked him.
"I do!" he snapped.
Gortik leaned forward then and slid a leather-and-hair
ring around the third finger of Shoogar's left hand.
I turned to Purple. "Do you, Purple, agree to uphold the
terms of this oath?"
He grumbled, "I do."
"Fine." I slipped a ring around his finger. "As long as
either of you is on this island, that ring will remind you of
your duty as a magician, and your duty to your brother
magician. See that you use it well. Now, by the authority
vested in me as Speaker for the upper village, and by the
authority which each of you has seen fit to grant me by your
presence here, and also by the authority which Gortik has
given me in allowing me to perform this ceremony, I now
pronounce the two of you magicians united in trust!"
Simultaneously, they let go of each others' hands and leapt
apart, glaring angrily. I closed my eyes and waited. There
were no explosions, no hissing fireballs.
I opened my eyes.
They were still standing there, looking at each other.
122 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"An auspicious sign," murmured Gortik. "They haven't
tried to kill each other."
"Mm," I said.
Purple drew himself up and took a step forward, hand
outstretched. "My seeing pieces?" he asked.
Shoogar slowly lifted them from around his neck. Reluctantly,
he handed them over.
Purple took them reverently, carefully. Hands trembling,
he wiped them with a soft cloth and placed them across his
face. He squinted around at us, "Lant, Shoogar, Gortik--it's
good to see you. I mean, really see you!" He stepped impulsively
forward and clasped Shoogar's right hand. "Shoogar,
thank you, thank you, for taking such care of my seeing
pieces!" He was smiling--He actually meant it!
Shoogar was caught by surprise. He muttered, "You're
welcome," without even realizing he had. "Now we can build
a flying machine?"
"Yes," laughed Purple, "now we can build a flying
machine!"
Gortik and I looked at each other. It was a start. If only
they didn't kill each other trying.
I was beginning to understand what old Thran had meant
when he used to say, "A man is not fit to be Speaker until
he has first led a flock of goats through a forest of crazyfem."
In fact, I was beginning to suspect that the goatherding
task might be easier.
For instance, it appeared that / had to organize the
flying machine construction. I appointed Wilville and Orbur
as officials aides and instructed them never to leave Purple
and Shoogar alone together--not for any reason whatever.
The boys nodded soberly. They understood all too well,
but they were willing to accept the task--they were as eager
to build the flying machine as Purple and Shoogar were.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 123
Now if only the other men of the village would be as willing
to accept my leadership.
I smiled bitterly at the thought. If only the seas were
Quaff, we could all get drunk--I might as well wish for a
moon to fall out of the sky and carry away all my problems.
The way things were going, if the seas were to turn to Quaff,
I would find only a bladder with a hole in it.
Hinc and the others had wanted to stay, then they wanted
to migrate, then they wanted to stay--then they found out
that staying meant they would have to clear the upper slopes,
bind new housetrees, build extra nests and make the area
livable--and they wanted to move on again. They wanted to
do everything but work.
To tell the truth though, the woods here were wild--they
were a savage tangle of red crabvines and scraggly black-
bushes. Broken branches hung everywhere, and stingbee nests
were a common sight. Graygauzes hung from almost every
branch, and once we found a hollow of nesting vampire kites.
Everywhere else the woods seemed delightfully tame and
well cared for--but here, where we were supposed to settle,
here it was as if all the wildness had been stored for the rest
of the forest.
Or perhaps we had not noticed these things until we began to work.
We all nursed stings and bites. The women were never less
than exhausted.
We men ate badly--sometimes worse than on the trail--
and lived in chaos. That the work was tiring was no secret.
For once even the women were allowed to grumble. The
children helped or hindered as suited their whims, and in
general had a fine time.
Shoogar appeared each morning at the rising of the blue
sun and blessed the day with a hasty chant: "blessed art Thou, Quells, father and mother of all the gods, who hast commanded
our women to work for us." Then he disappeared
back into his nest to sleep until noon.
Meanwhile the shepherds had located several excellent
pastures on which to graze the sheep. And they were delighted
--at first--with the workforce sent up from the lower village.
One of the lads was identical twins--so that though he was
counted only as one, he did the work of two. In effect we
124 THE FLYING SORCERERS
had four novice shepherds to pick the burrs out of the wool
and comb the sheep.
That, of course, freed several of the more experienced
novices to work alongside the rest of us in the sloping wood.
They appreciated that not at all.
Life in the sloping wood gradually became more pleasant
than wandering across the deserts--that is, once we had
housetrees and nests enough for our own needs. Hinc began
to talk of weaving again, and began testing various fiberplants
and trees. Jark was daily to be seen testing some new and
exotic kind of root or herb as a flavoring for Quaff. Ang,
faced by an absence of frogs, changed his vocation and set up
fishing rods along the stream. And I----
Now that I had settled the affairs of two villages and their
magicians, I was ready to return to bonemongering.
I rone the Coppersmith was a dealer in metals and a member
of the Guild of Advisors of the Lower Village. He was a
broad scowling man who spoke in monosyllables. The hair of
his head and torso was brown and coarse. He seemed to
regard my wares with disfavor.
I was at a loss to understand his hostility. At the beginning
of our trek I had taken only the most valuable pieces of petrified
bone from the ruins of the village. Later, on the trek, I
had increased my store from a desert trove, an ancient run-
forit skeleton, drf and hard as stone. Trone should have been
impressed, but he wasn't.
"What's the matter?" I asked him. "Do you fear the
competition?"
"Hah!" he snapped. "Bone is no competition for metal. It is not strong enough. A copper hammer will not break, a
bone hammer will."
"There are other uses for bone. I can carve out ceremonial
bowls and ritual ornaments."
"True," the coppersmith admitted, "but why don't you
THE FLYING SORCERERS 125
discuss this matter with Bellis the Potter—he 'might have
something to say about that."
Bellis the Potter. What was a potter?
I learned that by watching him at work. He took clay from
the bottom of the river and worked it into the shapes of
bowls. When it dried, it was as hard as any bone though far
more brittle. Bellis had worked this into a high art, baking the
clay ornaments in the hot sunlight until they would not go
soft in the water, and could be used to carry water, soup,
stews. He had even learned ways to. paint and decorate the
bowls and harden them by fire.
It was possible to make other things as well out of clay.
Bellis was considered one of the best workers of his craft in
the region. Indeed, he could do things with his clay that I
could not do with my bone.
"But," I suggested, "you cannot use these devices for rituals
and festives. Surely the Gods would be offended by the use
of a bowl or ornament without a soul. Only bone has a soul."
Bellis was a squat man, short and bent, almost deformed.
He looked up at me through wizened eyes. "My father used
clay bowls to consecrate the births of all of his children, and
my family has used clay bowls for as long as there has been
either family or clay to make bowls out of. If there were Gods
who would be offended by such use, we would have heard
from them by now."
Which might account for his twisted shape, I thought. But
since I had no wish to quarrel with him, I said only, "But
clay has no soul."
"All the more reason to use it. You can cast a spell without
having to allow for or nullify the powers and attitudes latent
in your utensils." Like a bonemonger in my own region, Bellis
the Potter understood some rudimentary magic, at least
enough to discuss his needs with a magician. "Your trade is
outmoded, Lant the Speaker. You will soon find that there is
little market for bone here."
"Oh, I will always have a trade," I said. "Shoogar will not
easily abandon the old ways—at least, he will always have a
need for my craft."
"Oh?" said Bellis. "You see that pile of bowls and pots over
there? You see this one that I am making now? All of these
are for Shoogar. I can make clay bowls faster and easier than
126 THE FLYINO SORCERERS
you can carve them out of bone, and Shoogar can use them
right away. There are no latent influences to neutralize."
I felt betrayed. Bellis was right, of course. To a magician
at least, the advantages of clay over bone were enormous.
And to the average person as well--one need not say a prayer
of sorrow if one broke a clay bowl, one need only throw
away the pieces--and that was that.
I knew it instinctively--there was no market for bone here.
Probably there never would be, for the best bone is petrified
bone and bone would not, could not, petrify here--the climate
was too wet. I should have realized it earlier.
I could understand now why Hinc and the others had
wanted to move on. Hinc was a weaver--but there were
better weavers here. Jark was a Quaff-maker--but there was
such an abundance of fermentable plants here, everybody
made their own Quaff or chewed ra&a-root. And I was a
bonemonger--but nobody used bone at all.
Even though we wanted to move on, we could not do so
until the seas receded--and that time was a long way off. And
I doubted that anyone would want to migrate then--already
many had announced themselves satisfied with their new
homes.
During the dry seasons, Gortik had told me, when the seas
were down, this island was actually a peninsula off the main
southern continent. We, could see the larger mass of it across
the swollen channel, some twenty-odd miles away. But for
all the good it could do us, it might have been beyond the
world's edge.
There was just our double village and four others on the
island. All were near the shoreline. Every second hand of
days, a trading caravan came round bringing the news and
goods of the other towns and taking away the news and
goods of ours. I soon found out that they had no use for a
bonemonger either.
No wonder I had seen no bonemonger here--they had
all starved to death. When the local villagers wanted to indicate
futility, they said, "You might as well go carve bone."
It was a fine time to find that out, I thought bitterly.
Well, so I had no trade I must concentrate instead on
Speaking for my village. I wondered if I dared tithe my people to pay me for the labor of Speaking for them. I had heard of
THE FLYING SORCERERS 127
villages where the Speaker collected a toll from each fully
grown man. But I sensed that my tribe would object strongly.
My control was still too weak for me to risk such a test of
power.
Then Wilville and Orbur would have to support me, that
was all there was to it. But no, Wilville and Orbur were working
for Shoogar and Purple in the lower village. Shoogar and
Purple were accepting responsibility for the two of them.
Hm. If they were taking care of my sons, they could easily
accept the care of the rest of my family, including me.
After all, it was the two villages that supported the magicians.
If they were to support me too, they would in effect
be paying my tithe without ever knowing it.
Yes, it would work. I could tell Gortik that I had decided
not to ply my trade until after the affair with Purple and
Shoogar was settled. My skill as a diplomat would be required
to help them wprk together in order to speed Purple's ultimate
departure.
Yes, Gortik would accept that. ;
I went to tell them what I had decided.
I found Purple and Shoogar wrangling over a writingskin
with complicated markings all over it. Wilville was sitting on
a stone crying in frustration. Orbur was patting him on the
back.
The source of the trouble was a perplexing one. Purple was
trying to convince Shoogar that the lines on the skin were a
flying machine. Shoogar didn't understand and neither did L
"Listen, lizardhead," he was saying, "animal skins don't fly.
They need animals in them even to move."
"The skin doesn't flyi" Purple screamed. "It's only something
to put the flying machine lines onl"
"Oh? Then the lines fly?"
"No--these lines don't, but they are a flying machine.
128 THE FLYING SORCERERS
That is, they are a--" He paused, having trouble choosing
the right word,"--simulacrum."
"Nonsense," said Shoogar, "if this were a simulacrum, it
would be a flying machine in itself. How can it be a simulacrum
and not be a flying machine?"
"It's a nonworking simulacrum--" insisted Purple.
"Don't be silly--the two terms are contradictory. It's like
saying it is a nonworking spell."
Purple muttered something in his demon tongue. "It's like
a doll, Shoogar, it's--"
"That's what I meani" Shoogar cut him off. "A doll is the
person and the person is the doll. What more do you need
to know?"
"The doll isn't the person. The doll is a doll!" snapped
Purple.
"And you are a frognose," Shoogar snapped back.
"Hahl You would be honored if a sheep emptied his bladder
upon youl"
"And you would be honored to be that bladderi"
As one, they both rolled up their sleeves, preparatory to
hurling curses.
Without thinking, I stepped between them. Had I thought
about it, Fm sure I would have been moving in the opposite
direction. "Now stop this, you two--do you want to devastate
another village?"
"If it will remove this fungus eater from my eyesight, it
will be worth it."
"A toad like you should be honored to live in my droppings."

"And where will you go?" I answered. "You'd both do
better to wait until the waters recede before you destroy the
island."
They hesitated. Before they could work up their fury
again, I added, "Besides, you both swore oaths of fealty and
truce. There will he no feuds and no duels. I will mediate all
disagreements--now what is the problem?"
Both spoke at once--like children, they were: "This clot-
sucking dung beetle doesn't know how to do the simplest
of--"
"Stop iti Now stop iti" I turned to Orbur, "Do you understand
the conflict?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 129
He nodded, "They're both fatheads."
Both magicians turned on him, spells at the ready, but
Orbur didn't blanch. He said, "Wilville and I understand what
it is that Purple wants. If he'll shut up long enough for us to
do the work, we can begin building the framework for it. But
not if we have to keep stopping to explain it to Shoogar, and
not if we have to keep stopping to look at Purple's drawings."
"But these are blue-drawings," insisted Purple. "You need
them in order to build the flying machine."
"Fine," said Wilville. "Draw them when we finish. Then
you'll have the machine as a model to draw them from."
"But--but that's not the way you're supposed to do it,"
Purple wailed. "These are ^He-drawings."
I looked at the animal skin. The lines were black on a brown
background. Even with his seeing pieces, Purple's eyesight was
none too good. "I don't see that the color of them is that
important," I said.
"But it is--you're supposed to have blue-drawings before
you build the machine."
"It's part of the spell, then?" I asked. Shoogar looked up.
"Yes, I guess you could say that."
"Well, then why didn't you say so?" Shoogar said..
"I--I don't know."
I looked at them both. "Then it is only a misunderstanding, isn't it?"
"I guess so," said Purple, still looking confused. Shoogar
nodded.
"Fine. Then this is what we will do. Wilville and Orbur
will start building the framework of the machine and Purple
will do the blue-drawings. Shoogar will--well, he'll do something,
I'm sure. And I will stay here and help you organize."
They all looked at me. "You? Organize?"
"You will need somebody to help round up labor for you, and materials."
They saw the wisdom of the point and nodded.
"Besides," I added, "someone like me will always be needed
to mediate your differences. Now, Wilville, you and Orbur
can start building the framework or whatever it is over there
and--"
"No, Father. We were thinking of building it up on Idiot's
Crag."
130 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Appropriately named. Why there? You would have to carry all your materials up."
"But it is a high place, a good place to launch a flying
machine. And the sea will not rise that high. We can continue
to build through Wading Season, if need be."
"H'm. A good suggestion. Then you and Orbur can start
building the framework up on Idiot's Crag and Purple will
stay here and draw his blue-drawings. And Shoogar will uh--
Shoogar will cast a rune of good luck."
Shoogar didn't look any too pleased with his duties, neither
did Purple. They both started to object, but I wouldn't hear
any of it. I insisted that Wilville and Orbur get to work
assembling their tools up on Idiot's Crag.
"Now then," I said to Purple, "if I am to organize this
project, I will need to know what I am organizing. What
other materials will we need?"
Purple said, "What we are building is a giant boat, one which will be at least five manlengths long, maybe six. We'll
attach--"
"Wait, wait. A boat? I thought you intended to fly."
"Yes, that was what I thought too. I would have used a
basket, but if I have to come down on water at all, I would
rather be in a boat than in a basket."
"That makes sense," I said. Even Shoogar nodded. "Now
how will your boat fly?"
"We will make huge bags in which we will trap air that
is lighter than air. We will attach them to the boat--they
will lift it and the boat will float through the sky."
Shoogar looked up at this. "Air which is lighter than air?
Is that like the bubbles of noxious odor that rise from the
swamps?"
"You have tried to use swamp gas to make a flying machine?"

Shoogar nodded eagerly.
"That's more intelligent than anything I would have expected
of you, Shoogar. You are more advanced than I
thought--that is just what we are going to do. In principle,
that is--we will not be getting our gas from a swamp."
"Gas?" asked Shoogar. "You use a word--"
"Yes, gas," said Purple, waving his hands excitedly. "Air
is many gases mixed together. The gas we will use will come
THE FLYING SORCERERS 131
from water. Now, do you see this?" Purple pointed to a
circle on his animal skin. "This is a big bag. We will fill--"
"That is not a big bag!" Shoogar screamed suddenly. "That
is a blue-drawing!"
At that, I took Purple aside and explained to him that
he'd better not try/to use his blue-drawings to explain anything
to Shoogar. Shoogar did not like blue-drawing spells
because he did not understand them.
Purple shrugged and turned back to Shoogar, "Uh, forget
the blue-drawings, Shoogar. You are right, this is not a big
bag,'this is a blue-drawing. But we will use big bags to lift the
boat. We will fill them with my lighter-than-air gas." He
turned to me. "We will need several things. We will need a
boat shell. These people here do not know how to build boats
as big as you did up north, and Wilville and Orbur know
much about working with wood. They can teach the local
boatsmith a thing or two. We will also need cloth, fine cloth, out of which we will tailor the bags. Fortunately, the weaving
here is among me finest in the region. Thirdly, we will need
gas to fill the bags. I can supply that."
"Then all is settled," I said. "We can easily build the
flying machine."
"Wrong," said Purple; "unfortunately, Wilville and Orbur
have so far been unable to find the proper materials for a
boat frame."
"Huh? I thought you just said--"
"They know only how to build boats out of heavy wood,"
said Purple, "and this boat must be light as well as strong.
It must be made out of the lightest wood possible. Secondly,
the quality of the cloth here is still unusable for the gasbags.
It is too coarse. We are going to have to teach these people
how to weave finer material."
"And what about the gas?" asked Shoogar. "Is there some
reason why we can't get that either?"
Purple shook his head, "No, it should be an easy matter
to separate the water. I can use my battery, or Trone the
Coppersmith can build me a spark-wheel."
"Separate the water? Battery? Spark-wheel?"
"Water is two gases. We will separate them and use one
in the gasbags."
Shoogar shook his head at this, but if it worked, it worked.
132 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Apparently Purple knew what he was talking about. The rest
of us would have to wait and see. I delegated Shoogar the
task of obtaining samples of cloth from the various weavers
in the region. He protested at first, but I took him aside and
impressed upon him the importance of having the right kind
of spell materials. He protested until I pointed out that he
could take advantage of the fact by acquainting himself with
the local spells in the process. He nodded agreeably and left.
W ilville and Orbur had already begun to mark out the
outlines of the boat with stakes and twine. It looked like a
large flat-bottomed barge.
"No, no!" screamed Purple, when they explained to him.
"It should be narrower, and it should have a keel, like sol"
"Put away the blue-drawings," I insisted. "We don't need
them."
After he calmed down, we began again--this time at the
beginning. Wilville and Orbur moved the stakes in to form a
narrower outline. They shook their heads. "What will keep it
from capsizing?" they asked.
"Outriggers, we will have outriggers," Purple explained
that the boat should have narrow pontoons, held out like
so from the sides.
"Then what will keep the thing level when it is suspended
in the air?"
"A keel, of course--a heavier beam of wood at the bottom
of the hull."
"But if it is heavier, won't it weigh down the boat too
much?"
He considered that. "You may be right. If it does, we may
have to add another gasbag."
To tell the truth, I didn't understand much of the discussion. It began to get too technical for me--but once
Wilville and Orbur started to understand what Purple meant
they began discussing the project in excited terms. The three
THE FLYING SORCERERS 133
of them argued happily back and forth, Wilvflle and Orbur
nodding and gesticulating with every new idea.
Indeed, at one point they began scratching diagrams in
the dirt in order to help them understand. When they did
this. Purple tried to bring out his blue-drawings again, but
they rejected them as having little or no relevance at all to
the project. It was the dirt-drawings which were necessary to
the construction of the device.
Obviously my sons understood what needed to be built
and how to do it. The why of it sometimes eluded them, but
Purple was willing to explain. Several times the boys suggested
alternative and better ways--especially when the discussion
turned to how they would rig the gasbags to the boat
frame.
"Why not sew up just one very big bag as large as all the
others?" Orbur asked.
Purple held up the hem of his robe of office in two hands
and gave it a yank. It did not rip, but the weave parted easily.
It looked like a piece of strainer cloth. "If all I have is one
bag and this happens," said Purple, "then I am marooned
at sea, or even high in the air! But if I have many bags and
this happens, I can only lose one at a time."
Orbur nodded excitedly. "Yes, yes, I see. I see." They
turned back to the problem of rigging the boat with a variable
number of gasbags.
When Shoogar returned from his task two days later,
he bore with him a double armful of samples of different
kinds of doth. "I have visited every weaver on the island,"
he puffed. "All are eager to supply our needs. This is their
finest cloth."
/ That evening we met with them--it was a council of all the
weavers of both the Upper and Lower Villages, and representative
weavers from the four other townships of the
134 THE FLYINO SORCERERS
peninsula/island. The five of us sat with them and discussed
the possibilities of using each type of cloth.
The only jarring note was Hinc--he demanded to know
why I was officiating--a mere bonemonger.
I replied that I was here as Speaker, and also as organizer
of the project
That failing, he challenged my sons, "And why are they
here? I thought this was to be a council of weavers and
magicians."
"It is--but they are helping to build the flying machine.
They have as much right to participate in these discussions
as you. Perhaps more."
Chastened, he sat down.
Purple had two simple tests for each type of cloth. First, he would give each one a yank to see how easily the weave
would spread. More than half of the samples failed this test.
Purple said to the weavers who had submitted them that if
they could not do better than that, then there was no point
in their staying. Several left, just as glad that they wouldn't
be working with the mad magician.
The second test was just as easy. He formed a sack out
of each piece of cloth and poured water into it. He then
counted slowly while the water leaked out. Clearly he was
searching for the cloth that was tightest and would hold water
longest. "If the cloth will hold water," he explained, "it can
be made to hold air. But if none of these cloths work, we will
have to find one that will. Even if we must weave it ourselves."

We went through the finest goods in the region, while
Purple shook his head sadly and told them that each was too
coarse. None would hold water for more than a minute.
Naturally the weavers bristled. Several more left in a huff.
Had they not been facing the two greatest magicians in the
world, undoubtedly they would have challenged us all to a
battle for the right of survivorship at the following blue dawn.
"Humph," said white-furred old Lesta; "why do you want
to carry water in a clothbag anyway? Why don't you use a
pot like a normal person?"
"The spell calls for a bag, you butter-warti" snapped
Shoogar. Lesta hissed back, but said nothing else.
Purple ignored this interchange. He lay down the last piece
THE FLYING SORCERERS 135
of cloth sadly and said, "It is as I feared—these are all too
coarse for our purposes. Can't you do better?"
"Those are our best—and if they are the best we can
do, then you will not find anyone anywhere who can match
them, let alone surpass them,"
Purple opened what he called his "impact suit" and peeled
it away from his arms and torso. He took off the shirt under-
neath—revealing (Gods protect usi) his pale, nearly hairless
chest. I had known about this already from my number one
wife,, but the men of the other villages gasped in disbelief.
The sight of Purple's fat paunch was almost too much.
Purple ignored it. Instead he handed them the shirt—he
pushed it at the man who had spoken. "Here is finer cloth," he
said.
The man took it, he turned it over curiously and examined
both sides. He rubbed it between Tus fingers.
"That should prove to you that finer weaves are possible,"
Purple said.
Other weavers were reaching for it now. Quickly, the shirt
was passed around the circle. It was sniffed at and tasted,
touched and murmured over. The weavers were incredulous
at its quality,
At last it reached old Lesta. He held it up to the light
and peered. He gave it a yank and peered at it again. He
rubbed it between his fingers. He sniffed at it, made a face,
and tasted it. He made another face. At last, he folded it
into a sack and stepped to the center of the clearing. One
of the other weavers, perceiving what he was intending, hefted
a day pot of water and poured it into the sack. It held.
Lesta counted slowly, but only a little water seeped out
——and at such a rate that it would take all day to empty
the sack. "Humph," he said and let the water splash to the
ground. It glinted wetly in the red light. "You are right," he
said. "This is a fine piece of cloth—why don't you use this?"
"Because I haven't got enough of it," said Purple, retrieving
his shirt. He began wringing the water out of it. "I want you
to match this."
"Why should I even bother to try?" grumbled Lesta. "If you
want doth that fine, go where you got that piece."
"I'm trying to!" Purple exploded. "I want to go home. I am
marooned in a strange land, and I want to go home."
136 THE FLYING SORCERERS
I pitied him. I couldn't help it. We too were marooned
in an alien land. Even though it was Purple's fault, I still
pitied him.
Purple turned away from the circle of weavers and began
shrugging back into his still-damp shirt. Clearly, he was
embarrassed at his outburst.
I waited until he had covered his alien pink flesh. Then
I turned to Lesta. "You cannot weave cloth like that, can
you?"
Lesta muttered something under his breath.
"What was that?"
"No," he said. "No, I cannot. Nobody can. It is demon-
cloth."
"But if you could learn to weave cloth like that," I suggested,
"that would make you the greatest weaver in the land, wouldn't it?"
"I am already the greatest weaver in the land!" he screamed.
"Oh," I said, "but what would happen to you if another learned how to make cloth like this----?"
He stopped breathing.
"and if you could not...?"
He didn't answer. He glared at me, at Purple, at me again.
Abruptly he regained himself. "Nonsense," he said. "It can't
be done."
"Purple has a shirt that shows it can be done. If necessary
he will teach other weavers how to duplicate it."
Lesta bristled. He started to turn away, then turned back. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He started to
gesture to Purple, then pulled back his hand. He glared. "It
can't be done," he repeated. "But if it could be, then I could
do it! If anyone can do it, it's going to be me!"
At that Purple turned back to us, still fastening his impact
suit. "All right, Lesta," he said. "I accept your statement----"
Lesta looked pleased.
"and I am going to help you prove it."
Lesta stopped looking so pleased. He swallowed hard. Suddenly he no longer had any choice in the matter; the
alternative was to lose face--and his position as head weaver.
w.
e went to examine the looms.
Purple's claim that he could teach a finer quality of weaving
was accepted, but his insistence that he be allowed to
examine the looms met with some resistance.
"But how can I teach you anything unless I can see the
looms you are working with?"
Lesta shrugged, "You will have to teach us here."
"But I can't," said Purple. "I have to see the looms."
"And I can't allow that."
"Then there will be no new cloth. I will have to seek a
weaver who will show me his looms."
At that the old weaver relented and led us toward his
secret clearing. Only weavers were allowed to enter it. That
Lesta was willing to break a generations-old tradition showed
how important he considered Purple's cloth.
As we approached we could hear the sounds of great creaking
machinery, shuddering and protesting. This was alternated
with shouts and commands--it made a steady rhythm: a
shout and a shudder, a command and a creak.
We entered the glade and caught our first sight of the
looms. They were heavy wooden structures--giant moving
frames set at odd angles to each other. They rocked steadily
back and forth at each command, and it looked as if the
cloth appeared between them. Some of the looms were
covered with spiderweb traceries of threads, others with half-
pieces of brown undyed cloth stretched across them.
The team leader caught sight of us then, and his command
stuck in his throat. The frameworks halted in their busy
motion, slowed and came to a stop. Their flashing threads .
were stilled. The novices and journeymen turned to stare as
one.
"No, no," said Purple; "make them continue, make them
continue."
Lesta snapped orders at his weavers. They looked at him
137
138 THE FLYING SORCERERS
questioningly--Weave? With strangers here? He growled
menacingly.--I could see why he was head weaver. The apprentices
went nervously back to work. The team leader
swallowed and issued his command, the looms began grinding
again.
The young men sweated as they pushed the heavy wooden
frames back and forth, back and forth, while the younger
boys played a form of catch with a ball of yam between the
two frames.
I had never seen weaving before, and I was entranced by
the process. Lesta explained it; there are two vertical sets of
threads, each set in a separate frame and independent of each
other, but interlocked in such a way that they alternate. The
horizontal threads are laid on one at a time, the frames are
moved so as to reverse their positions, and another horizontal
thread is strung.
Purple nodded slowly, as if he understood everything.
Perhaps he did. He examined a sample of the cloth they were
weaving and asked, "Could you not weave it finer than this?"
"I could, in principle--but where would I find loom teeth
fine enough to string the threads so close? And where would
I get thread fine enough to use on such teeth?"
Purple ran his fingertips along the doth. "Where does it
come from, your thread?"
'This is from the fiberplant. Sometimes we use wool from
sheep when we can barter for it, but usually it is too coarse
or too scarce."
"There are no finer threads available?"
The other shook his head.
Purple muttered in his own language. 'Too primitive even
for basic industrial facilities .. ." Though they did not understand
what he was saying, the weavers bristled. His tone made
it clear enough--he was disparaging their work, perhaps even
cursing it.
He looked up, "There is no other way of making cloth
that you know of, is there?"
"If there was, I would be making it that way," said Lesta
perfunctorily.
"You have never heard of rubber?"
"Rubber? What is rubber?"
Purple turned to me and Shoogar, "Do either of you know
THE FLYING SORCERERS 139
of any kind of tree or plant that leaks a sticky kind of sap?"
We shook our heads.
"There is the sweetbush plant," offered Shoogar. "It has a
sticky secretion."
"It does?" Purple was eager.
"Yes, the children love to suck on the sweetdroppings."
"No," sighed the magician. "That will never do. I need
a kind of sticky substance that hardens into a gummy lump."
We all looked at each other, each wishing the other to
come up with the answer.
"Oh well," sighed Purple again. "I knew it wasn't going
to be easy. Look, I need some kind of material that can be
heated and molded--liquid that dries in sheets or layers."
We all shook our heads again.
While Purple continued to describe his mystical sticky
substance to them, I moved closer to examine the looms. The
weavers looked at me with ill-concealed hostility, but I ignored
them. The teeth of the looms were carved from hardwood
limbs. Each section was about one hand-length and set into a
slot at the top of the frame.
"Are these the finest teeth you have?" I asked.
"No, we have one set finer than this," quavered the apprentice
I had spoken to. "But we never use them because they
are too fragile and break. We have to go very slowly when we
use them."
"H'm," I said. "Why don't you carve the teeth out of
bone?"
"Bone?"
"Bone-carved teeth would not only be stronger, but you
could carve them much finer than this. You could carve
two or three times as many teeth to a knuckle-length."
The man shrugged. "I don't know about those things."
I examined the frame again, climbing up on the platform
to do so. I wanted to check the slot to see how each piece
was fastened. Yes, it would be possible to carve bone to fit
into that slot. I pulled out a measuring string and began
tying measuring knots into it.
Abruptly Lesta saw what I was doing and broke away
from Purple, "Hey, what is that? You're stealing our secrets!"
I protested, "No, I'm not. What would I do with them?
140 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Do you want finer teeth for your looms? I can provide them
within a hand of days, maybe sooner."
He looked iq\at me. Purple and Shoogar moved up behind
him. "How?" he asked. "There are the finest and strongest
teeth possible."
"I will carve you better ones out of bone."
"Bonel" The old man was horrified. "You would desecrate
the cloth with the soul of an animal? Cloth comes from trees
and fiberplants. You must use the teeth of the tree, not the
teeth of the animal."
"But I can carve teeth four or five times as fine as thesel"
At that Purple's head perked up. "You can? Lant, that will be great. That would be almost as fine a weave as we
need."
"Hahl" said Lesta. "I can achieve a weave that fine already
--if I wanted to."
"How would you do that?" I demanded.
"I would compact the weave, that's alL"
"Compact the weave?" asked Purple.
He nodded, "It is a simple process. We use the same number of threads, but we press them inward so they take
up less width. You see that loom over there?"
We looked. The framework had a half-finished piece of
cloth on it. It was a small piece of cloth, less than one half the
width of the loom, but at its edges the threads stretched and
spread evenly to every tooth on the frame.
"There," said Lesta, "that doth is compacted. You want a fine weave? That is how we will get it."
Purple had gone over to examine the cloth.
Lesta followed. I jumped down from the platform and
ragtagged over. Lesta was saying, "Of course, if we compact
it, you wont have as wide a cloth aa--"
"I'm not concerned about its width," Purple said. "H necessary
well weave more of it. I'm concerned about its tightness."
Lesta shrugged. "As you wflL"
Purple turned to him. "H Lant were to carve new loom-
teeth out of bone, could you compact that weave as well?"
"Of course--you can compact any weave you want," said
Lesta. "But you will not use bone on my looms."
"But it's the only way--."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 141
"There will be no bone teeth on my looms," repeated the
weaver.
Shoogar was standing right behind him. He said, "Do you
want to get hit with the termite blight?"
The old man paled. He whirled on Shoogar, "You wouldn't."
Shoogar was rolling up his sleeves, "Want me to try .. .?"
"Uh--" Lesta eyed him warily. Obviously he didn't. He
took a step back, then another, a third and he bumped into
Purple. He jumped away and looked at us, glanced nervously
at his looms, then said, "Well, I suppose I should keep up
with the latest developments in the craft, shouldn't I . . .?"
"A wise decision, old man!" Purple boomed. He clapped
the weaver on the back. "I am glad that is settled. Lant will
begin carving the new teeth immediately."
I was delighted. If nothing else, I would unload most
of that runforit skeleton after all. What luck! The carving
of the teeth would take care of most of the flat bones and
all I'd have to worry about then would be the hundred and
twenty-eight ribs.
Now, let's see, Fd probably still have to sand some of
the pieces flatter, then carve slits into them--the best way
might be to use a cutting thread to slice very narrow lines. ITm, it would be like carving a bone comb, but faster because
I would not have to carve so deep. I could use a framework
of cutting threads, and cut all the slots in a section at
once. If I measured it precisely enough, each section would
be the same as every other one.
The same as every other one--that was an interesting
thought! If one broke, you could replace it immediately;
there would be no delay in carving a new piece to fit. You
could always keep a couple of extras around. That seemed
practical. Hmm ...
I wondered; I might be able to finish the teeth even
sooner if I could find some apprentices--but no, there was
not enough free labor in either of the villages. The only
thing we had an excess of was women--and most of them
were less than useless.
We discussed some of the details for awhile longer, until
at last Purple stretched his arms over his head and stared up
into the sky. "Ah," be yawned, "let's call it a red day."
"Good idea," I said. "My wives will be preparing the
142 THE FLYING SORCERERS
midnight meal. Tonight I would like to get to it before darkness
falls."
We climbed toward the Upper Village. We were far
enough past the interpassage that there would be a period of
darkness between red sunset and blue dawn. Shoogar might
even get a glimpse of the moons.
"I'm sure we would all appreciate a rest," I said.
"I know I would," Shoogar muttered. "I have a housetree
cultivation ceremony to perform at blue dawn."
"Why don't you come?" I said impulsively to Purple.
"You'll enjoy it"
"I just might do that," he said.
As we entered the Upper Village we could see Damd the
Tree Binder preparing the virgin tree for cultivation. A
wild housetree is a thick sturdy giant with pliable limbs; it
must be bound and strengthened before it can hold a house.
The lowest branches must be softened and treated, and then
bent into the ground to grow into roots. The upper branches
must be twined together to form a cradle for the nest. Within
a hand of days the nest weaver can begin his work.
At Wilville and Orbur's insistence. Purple ate with me
and my family. Ordinarily, I would never have invited him
anywhere near my nest, but the alternative was to publicly
refuse--and that might have offended the men of the Lower
Village.
As it turned out, I need not have feared. Purple and
Wilville and Orbur were so excited about their project that
they spoke of nothing else throughout the whole meal--and
we were having fresh sea leeches too! The three of them
argued back and forth about methods of construction and
the principles by which the machine would work. I tried to
follow as best as I could, but most of it was beyond me--
at last I had to give up and turn my attention instead to
calming my nervous wives. All this talk of flying machines
and airbags was upsetting them enormously. The two of
them twittered nervously in the background and refused to
approach except at my sternest command. Finally, I had to
threaten to beat them and refuse them our table scraps.
Shoogar had been invited to join us too, but he had declined.
Instead, he had spent the whole twenty minutes of
darkness up on Idiot's Crag, straining to catch a glimpse of
THE FLYING SORCERERS 143
the moons. At blue dawn he was furious. Only one of the
three largest moons had shown, and that only for a second as
two clouds parted. Shoogar had been unable to tell which
moon it was.
It was just as well. I knew what he wanted from the sky,
and I would be just as glad if he never found it.
rvrple had never seen a cultivation before. He stood
and watched as Shoogar offered the seventeen blessings in
Quaff borrowed from the Lower Village.
Shoogar was relaxed as I had not seen him relax since his
confrontation with Purple. It did him good to get his mind
off the complexities and unknowns of a flying spell. A cultivation
is mostly a simple rote reciting, so basic and foolproof
that even the position of the moons cannot change it.
Purple watched politely while Shoogar chanted in his
brightly marked robe and heavy headdress, prayer shawl and
beads. When Shoogar sprinkled the quaff at the base of the
tree, he muttered something about comparative something! and fertility rites. Demon words again.
At last we reached my favorite part of the ceremony. All
of the women and children shed their clothes and began
dancing around the newly sanctified tree, singing, and painting
stripes round and round the trunk in bright colored dyes.
Purple's interest immediately perked up. "What spell is this?"
he asked.
"What?" I didn't understand his question.
"What is the purpose of this spell? Perhaps you hope to
frighten away the red strangling crabvines, or the termite
blight, or--??"
"No, Purple. They're doing that for fun."
"For fun--" Purple's naked face turned pink. He watched
a bit longer, then gradually lost interest in the ceremony. It
did go on for a very long time. He wandered off morosely.
It was only when Shoogar got to the tree-bleeding that
144 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple's attention returned. He was sitting dourly off to one
side, lost in thought. Now, as Damd the Tree Binder began
tapping into the veins of the tree and Shoogar began chanting
again, he looked up.
"What are they doing now?"
"Bleeding the tree," shouted one of the children derisively.
What kind of a magician was this, who did not even recognize
a simple cultivation ceremony?
We watched patiently as Shoogar blessed the blood of the
tree and anointed the tied limbs and roots-to-be. Guided by
Damd's ropes and Shoogar's chanted instructions, the lowest
limbs would become additional sections of trunk. The higher
limbs, which had been bent downward and tied together,
would grow into a strong circular framework for a nest.
The spell was nearing completion when Purple abruptly
stepped into the middle of it. He brushed through the circle
of chanting women and ran a finger through the blood of the
tree.
The chanting stopped instantly. We stood frozen in shock,
wondering why Purple would break a treespell. And Shoogar,
furious, reached for a pouch at his waist.
Thoughtfully Purple said, "It may be that we can use
this sap." He turned to Shoogar, his sticky fingers outstretched.

Shoogar was taken aback. He hesitated, he forgot the
pouch in his hand, and doubtless he remembered his oath.
But his voice was thick with fury as he asked, "Is that why
you smashed the delicate web of my magic?"
"Shoogar, you don't understand." Purple rubbed the
sticky substance between his palms, savoring its feel. "It may
be that I can use this substance for the air bags."
"Housetree blood for a flying machine? Housetree blood?"
"Certainly," said Purple, "why not?"
The murmur of voices around him should have told Purple
why not. It didn't, of course. I stepped quickly through the
crowd, took Purple by the arm and led him out. He stumbled
along with me almost in a daze, he was murmuring excitedly
in his own tongue.
Behind his back I signaled Shoogar to start the ceremony
again. I moved off to one side with Purple and tried to get
some sense out of him.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 145
"It's like natural rubber, Lant. I'll have to try it, of
course, but it may be just what I need to hold the gas in
the bags—"
"Forget it. Purple. You can't use housetree blood. House-
trees are sacred."
"Sacred be damned. I must have an airtight container.
Will you stop jumping around like that?"
"Then stop using those horrendous curses!"
"What curses—??" He looked puzzled. "Oh, never mind."
He went back to examining the sap on his hands.
"Can't you use something else besides housetree blood?
Infant blood, for instance—I'm sure we could—"
"No!" he gasped. "No! Definitely not—no human blood—
it wouldn't work anyway."
"You said that if your cloth was watertight it would be
airtight. What about pottery? Could you hold your light gas
in large pottery containers?"
"No, no, they're too heavy—much too heavy—we've got to
try the housetree blood. It may be the only way. You see, the
cloth we've got just isn't good enough—but if they can weave
the finer cloth, and if we can soak it in housetree sap and
then dry it, perhaps that might work. We'd have to try
different arrangements, of course—"
"But—but—" I sputtered. There had to be a way out of
this mess. Purple was desperate to fly; but Shoogar and the
villagers would never permit housetree sap to be so defiled.
A duel was in the offing, unless——
A weird thought occurred to me. I would have dismissed
it instantly, even with my layman's knowledge of magic. But
Purple was so oddly unorthodox——
I said, "There is one chance. Now, don't laugh, Purple,
but could you possibly use the sap of a wild housetree in the
same spell—?"
"Yes, of course. Why not?"
"Huh?" I was incredulous. "You mean you could??"
"Of course." There was an odd expression on Purple's
face, a delighted expression. "Sap is sap."
"Uh, it isn't, you know—" but he wasn't listening. He was
fidgeting impatiently.
"Lant," he said. "I will need to experiment. I will need
146 THE FLYING SORCERERS
a wild housetree and some pots--and some cloth--and--
and--"
"See Wilville and Orbur. They will help you get what you
need. You do know how to recognize a wild housetree, don't
you?"
"Of course. The roots and branches won't be bent." And
off he went.
It was the right answer, of course--but I was still surprised.
Purple was so unorthodox.
By the time I had finished the first set of loomteeth,
Purple and Shoogar had finished their first set of experiments
with wild housetree sap. Purple knew what he wanted
to achieve, and Shoogar knew best how to achieve it.
The heated sap could be treated with certain other
magician's chemicals to make a putrid and foul smelling soup. Cloth could be dipped into this soup, and it would form
an airtight seal. However, the seal was neither as tight nor
as permanent as Purple had wished and so they continued
to experiment.
;. On the day I began carving the third set of loomteeth,
I' Purple announced that he had reached a solution to the
problem of weaving a watertight cloth. Instead of dipping
the whole cloth into the housetree soup, he would dip the
spun threads before they were woven. When the thread dried
it was impregnated with the sap and it had a smooth and
shiny feel.
| Cloth woven from these treated threads could then be
treated in a modified housetree-binding solution and dried
again. The threads, already soaked with housetree blood,
would swell and join and become one solid material, impermeable
to air and water.
Purple was delighted. If thread could be woven fine
enough, and if my bone loomteeth would work as expected,
THE FLYING SORCERERS 147
then surely we could weave a cloth light enough and tight
enough for the flying machine.
By the time I had finished the third set of loomteeth, Lesta
had already woven several swatches of fine aircloth for
Purple. It was smooth and shiny, and the weave was almost
invisible to the eye.
"Isn't it beautiful, Lant?" Purple exclaimed.
I had to admit that it was. Old Lesta beamed with pride.
Purple had been running from person to person, stopping
them, and demanding that they feel his cloth. "Why, when the
rest of the loomteeth are finished, we will be able to make
a cloth of such quality----" He was so overcome with emotion,
he could not finish the sentence.
Lesta was only slightly more subdued. "Lant," he demanded,
"I must have more of those loomteeth. I must
have as many as you can carve. We are going to weave nothing
but airclothi"
"That will be greati" cried Purple. "Thank you--I will be
able to use all you can weavel"
Lesta stared at him. "Do you think it's for you, you fuzz- wort? This cloth will be in demand for miles around--we
must prepare for that. When the waters go down again and
the trade routes are reopened, we will be prosperous indeed!"
"Aaargghl" said Purple. His face was red and blue and
several other colors at once. "Betrayeri" he cried. "You must
first weave enough cloth to satisfy my needs and purposes."
"Nonsense," muttered Lesta, "we have no agreement."
"Snakeroot slime we don'tl I was to show you how to
weave a finer cloth," he raged, "and in return, you were to
weave enough for my flying machine!"
"Blither-blather," snarled Lesta, "it's a magician's duty to
continually improve the way of life of his people. You were
merely performing your duties. Purple--and for the first time,
tool" he added.
"Wait a minute," I cried. "Let me settle this."
They both looked at me.
"It is my duty to aid the magicians whenever and wherever
possible. This is precisely the type of situation in which I
must arbitrate." '-
"Lant is right," said Purple. "Go ahead, Lant."
148 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Lesta glared at me. "Let's hear what you have to say first,"
he grumbled.
"Go on, Lant."
"Well——" I said. "It is quite obvious to me what the
situation is here. Purple is the magician, Lesta is the weaver.
Purple has shown Lesta how to weave a cloth of a quality so
fine that hitherto it has been unknown to men. Purple is now
demanding payment for such knowledge, correct?"
They both nodded.
"However, Lesta has charged that he owes Purple nothing.
Purple was merely performing his sworn duty as village
magician to uplift the way of life of all men. Still correct?"
Again they nodded.
"Well, it is all quite simple," I said. "It is obvious; Lesta
is right."
"Huh—?" Purple's jaw fell open with a snap.
Lesta beamed. "You are right, Lant. I will abide by your
decision." He threw a mocking glance at Purple.
"Now wait a minute, Lant—" Purple began.
"You heard him," rapped out Lesta. "And you said you
were willing to abide by his decisioni"
"No, I didn't—I said I'd wait to hear what he had to
say——" cried Purple. "Lant, what are you doing—?"
"Wait a minutel" I shouted again, "Wait a minutel"
Again they looked to me.
"I have not finished speaking," I said.
They quieted.
"Lesta is right," I repeated. "He owes Purple nothing.
However," I said slowly, "he does owe me—"
"Huh?"
"For the loomteeth," I said. "You are using my loom-
teeth. I carved them, they belong to me."
"You?" he said. "What would you use them for?"
I pretended to shrug nonchalantly. "Oh, I don't know,"
I said. "I might rent them out to various weavers; or I might
become a weaver myself."
"We would smash your loomsl" he snarled.
"And risk the wrath of Shoogar?" I said. "No, you
wouldn't. Instead, you will pay me a fair price for the use of
the teeth—as any other weaver would."
"I am not any other weaver!" shouted Lesta. "I pay no
THE FLYING SORCERERS 149
price. You should be willing to do this out of sheer graciousness
and goodwill for being allowed to settle here in this region."

"It is a poor region," I said. "I do not need it. Come, give
me my loomteeth--I must go and talk with Hinc the
Weaver."
"Uh--wait a minute," said Lesta. "Maybe we can work
something out--"
"I'm sure we can. You will be making profit beyond your
wildest dreams. You should not begrudge me a fair price for
my labor."
His eyes narrowed. "And what is your so-called 'fair
price?'"
Purple was gaping open-mouthed at this exchange. I said,
"Enough cloth for Purple to build his flying machine, plus
five per cent more for me, for my own uses including trading."

"Gack--" said Lesta. I thought be would choke and die
right there.
"I have made it possible for you to weave a cloth better
than any you have ever woven before!! Do you want to use
these loomteeth or not?"
He eyed the flat bone pieces I held. I could see that he
wanted them badly--and he knew that I would not hesitate
to deal with some other weaver. Already the word was out
about this fine new cloth--there was not a weaver in the
land who would not jump at the chance to make it.
"Humph," he said. "I will offer you half that--"
"No. It is either all or nothing."
"You ask too much! I cannot----"
I turned and started to walk away. "I think I saw Hinc over
by the river--"
"Waiti" he called. I kept walking. "Wait!" He hurried after
me, grabbed at my arm. "All right, Lant, all right. You win,
you win. I will weave the cloth for Purple, and five per cent
more for you."
I stopped walking. "Fine. I will take a guarantee of it."
"Huh?" He stared. "Is not my word enough?"
"No," I said. "Else we would not have had this argument.
I will take a guarantee. Two syllables of your secret name."
150 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Two--two--syllables----??" His mouth worked soundlessly.
He swallowed hard, "You jest----?"
I started up the hill again.
Again he caught my arm, "All right, Lant. All right." He was subdued now, almost chastened. He looked around
warily, then whispered into my ear. Two syllables.
"Thank you," I said. "I hope you will never betray me. If
you do, I will see that those secret syllables are no longer
secret. The first person I'll tell will be Shoogar."
"Oh no, Lant, you have nothing to fear."
"I'm sure of it. Thank you, Lesta. I am glad that we could
come to such a pleasant agreement. I will expect the first
consignment of cloth within a hand of days."
"Yes, Lant; certainly, Lant; anything, Lant--ah--"
"Yes--?"
"The loomteeth that you're holding----?"
I looked down. "Oh, yes. You'll need them, won't you?"
I handed them over.
Purple came up to me then, "Thank you, Lant."
"For what? I was merely doing my duty."
"Yes. Well, thank you for doing that. I appreciate it."
I shrugged. "It was nothing. I am just as eager to see you
leave in that flying machine as you are to do it."
I think he misunderstood. He said, "Oh, it will be a sight to
see, all right."
"Yes," I said, "I can hardly wait."
Wilville and Orbur were grumbling.
"We've built four bicycles. Father, since we've arrived
here--and now we can't use or trade any of them because
of your deal with Gortik."
I sighed, "Gortik will tire of his new toy soon enough.
Besides, you have more than enough to keep you busy with
the flying machine."
"Hahl" grumbled Wilville testily. "Gortik is such a lunk,
THE FLYING SORCERERS 151
he cannot even ride the machine. Seven times already Orbur
and I have tried to teach him."
Orbur shook his head, "He keeps crashing into trees."
"He doesn't steer very well," explained Wilville.
"And besides, the flying machine cannot feed us. The bicycles
are to trade for food and cloth and tools. Unless we
are allowed to ply our trade, we may starve." Orbur shook
his head again and sat down on a rock. "And there will
never be any profit in flying."
"Well," I said, "I will see what I can arrange. You build
your' bicycles--I will figure a way for you to trade them."
I added, "Besides, I do not believe that Gortik's injunction
prohibited you from trading bicycles in your own village,
only in his."
They looked dubious, but at my insistence they returned to
their work. They spent their mornings on the flying machine
and their afternoons on their bicycles, although lately
they were spending more and more time on the flying machine.

Purple had decided that they should line the hull with air-
cloth inside and out--it would make it more watertight. The
boys were delighted with this suggestion. They had been having
trouble with the balsite wood anyway. It was the lightest
wood they had been able to find, but it was hard to work
with. They had been using it on a frame of spirit pine, but
it was too weak. When they tested it in water, the balsite
became waterlogged and soggy. It came off the frame in
shreds. The only way to keep the boatframe in one piece was
to keep the balsite wood dry--and that was impractical: the
machine had to be able to land on water. Purple's suggestion
to use aircloth lining solved that, and the boys went eagerly
back to work on the large boatframe. But they needed aircloth
--and the production of it was still our biggest problem.
"There is not enough thread," Lesta grumbled. "We have
not the men to spin, and not enough to weave!"
"I don't understand--" Purple was saying when I arrived
on the scene. "You have enough spinners for all your other
types of weaving--why not for aircloth?"
"Because aircloth isn't just woven! The thread has to be
spun fine and dipped, then it has to be dried. That requires
three'-times as many men working on spinning. Then after
152 THE FLYING SORCERERS
the cloth is woven, it has to be dipped again. That's a whole
hew step! Where am I to get the men for such work? It
takes almost twice as long to weave a patch of aircloth as it
does to weave anything else----and that patch is only one
fourth the size of what we eould be weaving because you
want it compacted!"
"It would not be aircloth if it weren't compacted," said
Purple.
"Fine," said Lesta. "You want aircloth, you'll get air-
cloth. It'll take only eight hundred years."
"Nonsense," said Purple, "there must be a way to--"
"Not if you want it the way you want it--" Lesta was
adamant. "It takes nearly a hand of days to spin enough
thread for a single patch of the stuff."
"Well, then bring in more spinners--"
"And where am I to get them? I cannot ask my weavers
to accept such a demotion, and there are not enough boys in
either of our villages to take on as apprentices."
"Why not hire spinners from the other villages on this
island?"
"What?--and let them have the secret of aircloth too?"
"They would not have to know about the final step of the
dipping of the cloth," I offered,
"Hm. You are right there--but they will never do it."
"Why not?"
"What would their weavers do for thread?"
"Hire their weavers to help spin."
"And how will we feed them? We are but a poor village."
We thought about it. During the time of ungrowing, most
food came from the swollen oceans. If Ang, who had turned
to seafarming, had enough nets at his command, he was likely
to catch enough sea leeches and crawlers to feed the army
of weavers Purple was trying to assemble. Of course, Ang
would need some help, but we could bring in some extra sea-
farmers as well.
We discussed it that evening at a special joint meeting of
our two Guilds of Advisors, We met in a clearing in the
Lower Village. There were almost a hand of hands of tradesmen
in evidence, and more were arriving all the time.
Almost everyone who spoke, began with: "We cannot do
it--"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 153
Ang, for instance: "We cannot do it--I have not enough
nets."
"Weave some more."
"I cannot do it--it will take too long to weave enough
nets to feed that many people."
"Perhaps Lesta's weavers can help."
"Nonsense, we cannot--my men do not know how to
weave nets."
"It's a form of weaving, isn't it?"
"Of course, but----"
"Then they can learn. Ang, will you teach them?"
"Yes, but--"
"There are no buts about it. If we spend the next hand of
days just weaving nets for Ang, by the time the new weavers
arrive we should be able to feed them regularly. By that time
we will have enough aircloth thread on hand to demonstrate
the proper weaving techniques to them."
"We cannot do it--" That was Lesta again.
"Why not?"
"I have been figuring. We have enough fiberplants and fiber-
trees. We will have more than enough thread. As long as
there are wild housetrees, we will have the sap--we do not
have to worry about these things. But we still do not have
enough spinners in proportion to the weavers. Our problem
now is that we are not producing enough aircloth thread to
keep our own weavers busy--if we bring in new weavers and
spinners, we will only be multiplying our own problem by
five. We will have five times as many weavers sitting around
idle waiting for thread. We cannot do it."
"Nonsense," said Purple. "The problem is that we have
not enough people spinning, that's all."
"That's all?" retorted Lesta. "Isn't that enough? If we
can't find enough people in our own village to make a significant
difference, do you think we will be able to find
them in another?"
"I have been doing some figuring too," said Purple. He
held up a skin which looked suspiciously like a blue-drawing.
However, he did not attempt to explain it, he merely waved
it conspicuously about. "Now, using our present number of
weavers and looms, at the rate of one patch of aircloth
154 THE FLYING SORCERERS
produced per hand of days, it will take almost 12 years to
make enough for my needs."
This produced a mutter and mumble of voices among
the advisors. "Sure, it's fine stuff, but who needs it if it
takes that long to weave--"
Purple ignored the interruption. "Now, if we bring in all
the weavers and all the spinners of the other villages on this
island, that multiplies the rate of production by five and cuts
the waiting time down to two and a half years."
"Oh, fine," muttered Lesta. "I'm not sure I could survive
even one more year of Purple, let alone two and a half." .
Gortik shushed him. Purple ignored this interruption as
well. He said, "Now, let's consider the problem--it's not
that it takes such a long time to produce a piece of aircloth
that is delaying us, not at all--it's just that we don't produce
enough of it. If we had more looms and more men to operate
them, we could produce larger amounts."
"Of course," nodded Lesta; "and if I were a bird, I could
fly--and I wouldn't need aircloth at all." This produced
laughter from all the men--and an angry look from both
magicians. Shoogar spat in Lesta's direction--it sizzled when
it hit the ground.
Purple waved his skin at Lesta. "I have figured this out
very carefully. Counting all the weavers in all five villages--
and counting all the journeymen and all the novices--and
even all the apprentices, there are more than enough--"
"Pfahl Nonsensel"
"--more than enough," Purple repeated. "If all of them
are weaving."
"And who will spin the thread for them if all are weaving?
Little creatures will come in at night and do it?"
Again laughter.
Purple was one of the most patient men I have ever seen.
He cleared his throat and said slowly, "Not at all. First off,
I'm surprised you didn't ask where they will weave this cloth."
"Without the thread it doesn't make any difference."
"Let's take this one thing at a time. If every man who is
a member of the weaver's caste could become a full-fledged
weaver, and if we had enough looms for all of them and
each man worked a full day at his loom, we could make as
THE FLYING SORCERERS 155
much aircloth as I need within four--huh, let's see--huh, well
before Lant's wife delivers her child."
"A little more than two hands of hands of days," L^d in
explanation. '*
Lesta was scratching in the dust. "Purple, you're a fool--
that's 175 looms we'd need. We have but six in this village.
Where are we supposed to get the rest? You'd change us from
weavers to loom builders--and we'd be building for the next
five years."
"Wrong," said Purple. "And you exaggerate besides. First
of all, we don't need 175 looms. We only need 60--" He
waited till the hoots of laughter had died away. "--we only
need 60, but we will use them continually, all day and all
nightl"
There was a murmur^ of reaction. "Use them continually?
Are we to give up sleeping now?"
"No, no--" cried Purple. He was insistent now. "Listen,
you only work during blue days, right? When the blue sun
sets, you stop. Well why can't you work just as well during
red daylight?"
Another murmur of reaction. Purple ignored it.
"Look, the light is just as bright at night as it is during
the day. One team of men can work at night, another team of
men can work during the day--we'll call them shifts. That
way we only need one third as many looms. Each man still
works a full shift, but they don't all have to work during blue
day. Why should the looms stand empty and unused when
there is light? One shift will work in the morning, another in
the evening, a third during red morning, a fourth until red
sunset. Each shift will work nine hours--"
The noise drowned him out then. "You'd have us violate
the weaving spells? Defile the gods?" The weavers were on
their feet, waving their fists angrily. "You'd call down the
wrath of Eicin on us!"
"Wait a minutel Wait a minute!" Both Gortik and I were
calling for order. Purple was saying something, but could
not be heard. Finally Shoogar tossed a large fireball calmly
into the center of the ring. It sputtered and spat and silenced
the weavers.
Muttering, they shrank away. Their protests sank to a
whisper. Gortik said firmly, "We have agreed to listen to
156 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple's proposal and discuss it logically. He is a magician--
we have all seen a demonstration of his power. Now, if he
feels that there is no danger of offending the gods, then obviously
he knows what he is talking about."
"And if there is any doubt, we have Shoogar here for
a second opinion," I added.
Gortik turned to Shoogar, "Is there any danger?"
Shoogar shook his head slowly. "Well, I'm not that
familiar with weaving spells," he said. "But what I do know
about weaving suggests that the time of day the cloth is
woven is unimportant. However, if there is any serious
concern, I can construct some modifying spells to alleviate any
danger."
This seemed to pacify most of the weavers. They sank back
to their seats.
"But still," said Lesta, "Purple has called for sixty looms--"
"We do not even need to build that many," said Purple.
"You have six. Each of the other four villages has at least
that many. Lant tells me that Hinc and some of the weavers
of the Upper Village have already built one of their own.
That is thirty-one right there. If all the weavers--all the
weavers--were to spend only one hand of days building
looms, we'd have our sixty looms before the fourth day."
Lesta's eyes narrowed. He didn't trust that figuring, but
he wasn't going to challenge it until he had a chance to
check it himself. "And what will we do about loomteeth?" he
said.
They all looked at me.
I was unprepared for the question. I had not known that
it would be asked. I said, "Well, it takes time to carve them
--almost four days per full set."
"Hah! There--you seel" snapped Lesta. 'That means more
than 240 days of carving by Lant before there are enough
teeth for all of the looms--and what will we do about breakage
in the meantime?"
"You know something, Lesta?" I said. "You're kind of
stupid."
He stood up at that, glowering.
I stood also. "If we can bring in extra weavers and loom
builders, then we can certainly bring in extra bonecarvers--"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 157
"But there are no other bonecarvers on the island, you
fungus-headi" \)
'"Then I will train some! Any apprentice who can learn weaving can certainly learn bonecarving."
"I wouldn't let even my worst apprentice be so degradedl"
Lesta snapped. He sat down, smiling grimly, arms folded
across his chest.
"Then what will you do for aircloth?" I asked.
His smirk: faded.
Purple said quicldy, "H you lend Lant ten boys, two from
each village, the loomteeth will be finished ten times as fast."
"Er--" I said. Purple looked at me. "What will I use for
bone?" Across the clearing, Lesta snorted. "As big as a run-
font skeleton is," I said. "I have only enough for twenty or
so looms."
"Why do you have to use runforit bone?" asked Purple.
"I don't--but it's the hardest available."
"Do you have to use the hardest?"
"Well, no--but the teeth will wear down or break faster.
Wet bone is not as strong as dry."
"But it would work?"
"Yes," I admitted. "It would work. You will just have to
replace them more often."
"How often?" asked Lesta.
"I don't know," I shrugged. "I haven't had a chance yet
to see how fast they wear."
"Well, give me an idea--how long would a set of wet bone
loomteeth last?"
"I can't even give you an idea. It's a totally new situation
for me. I'll guess four hands of days, maybe more, maybe
less--how's that?"
Lesta curled his upper lip in disgust. Obviously he didn't
think it was good enough. But Purple said, "That's fine, Lant, that's fine." He looked at his skin of figuring. "Even
three hands of days per set would be fine."
"Good," I said. Already I was eager to start training
apprentices.
"Then I guess that settles everything, doesn't it?" asked
Gortfk.
"No," said a voice. Lesta's.
We all looked at him.
158 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"There's still one question that hasn't been answered--
where will the thread come from?"
"Oh. yes," said Purple. "The thread. I should think the
answer would be obvious to you by now."
It wasn't. We all shook our heads.
"There is a large untapped source of labor already right
here in our midst," said Purple.
We looked around at each other curiously. What was he
talking about?
"I'm referring, of course, to the women."
"The women!" It was a shout in unison from more than
a hundred horrified throats.
All was uproar. Men were standing, shaking their fists,
cursing and spitting. Not even a half dozen fireballs from
Shoogar could quiet them. It wasn't until Shoogar threatened
to call down Eicin himself that the noise began to subside.
"Let me explaini Let me explaini" Purple was saying. Before
anyone else could interrupt, he went on, "Listen, there
is nothing sacred about spinning--even old Lesta admits it.
The only reason you use boy apprentices to do it is that
there is no weaving for them to do. Well, now that there
is weaving for them to do, they don't have to spin any more.
The success of this whole plan depends on using the women
for spinning--and your apprentice weavers can move up to
being novices. Your novices can be promoted to journeymen.
Your journeymen will all become team leaders."
At this there was a great shout of joy from the assembled
tradesmen. At least one part of Purple's plan was going to be
popular.
"But women?" declared Lesta. "Women? A woman is so
dumb she cannot chew sweetdrops and walk through the
forest at the same time."
"Nonsense," said another man, "you are still living in the
days of your cubhood, Lesta. We are intelligent men--and
intelligent men realize that women are more than dumb
beasts of burden. They would have to be--they birthed us, did they not?"
This was greeted with a chorus of agreement from some
of the other young men around the circle.
"Hahl" snorted Lesta. "Cubs still whining for the nipples."

THE FLYING SORCERERS 159
He was hooted at. The man who had spoken, a man of
the Lower Village unknown to me, continued, "These are
modern times, Lesta. We know more now than when you
were young. We no longer treat our women as poorly as our
ancestors did because we are beginning to understand them
--and because of it, we are getting better usage out of them.
Harder work, Lestal
"When was the last time you saw a whipherder and his flock of poor women, eh? Women are more than beasts of
burden or dumb animals--and they should not be treated as
such. Women are domestic creatures capable of many simple
tasks. Why, I'll bet that there is not a man here who does
not let his wives do his foodgathering for him--and I know
some who don't even bother to hobble or chain their wives
any more."
"Fools," snapped the old weaver. "Fools and foolishness.
You will be sorry."
A few of the other older men cheered, but not many.
"Wait a minute," I said, stepping into the center. They all
looked at me. "I would like to suggest something. There is
not one of us here who is not eager to see the aircloth woven
--am I not right?"
There were nods of assent.
"Purple has shown us that it is possible--that it may be
possible--for us to weave more cloth in one season than has
ever been dreamed of--and all of it cdrclothi We have
accepted most of his other suggestions with a minimum of
fuss and debate--he has shown us that his ideas are practical.
Unorthodox, but practical. Purple's speedy departure depends
upon all of our cooperation."
"What is it you are proposing?" someone called.
"That we give Purple a chance to prove himself. There
is only one way to find out if the idea is practical. I have two
wives. I will allow one of them to be taught the skill of
spinning. If she can handle it, that will teach us that it is a
practical thing. If she cannot, then it is a foolish idea."
"Lant speaks sense," cried the man who had refuted Lesta
earlier. "I will lend two of my wives to the experiment."
"I will lend one of mine," cried another. And immediately
the air was full of pledges of women--each young tradesman
160 THE FLYING SORCERERS
was eager to outdo the rest by showing how smart his wife
or wives were.
Purple beamed in delight at this development. He was going
from man to man, grasping their hands and thanking them.
Old Lesta raised his hand. The noise quieted somewhat.
"And what will you impetuous young fools do when you are
struck by Elein's wrath, eh?"
"We have nothing to fear from Eicin," mumbled someone,
but not too loudly.
I said, "If we see that the women are desecrating the
cloth, we will have them killed. Surely that would satisfy
any offended god--but it is worth the experiment"
There was a general chorus of agreement.
As it died away, Shoogar stepped into the center of the
clearing. "You are arguing about nothing," he said. "It is a
simple matter to work up a spell that will allow a woman to
work without offending the Gods. Women are so stupid that
they cannot help but offend the Gods, so we have an all-
purpose spell which excuses them because they are ignorant.
They cannot help being what they are, or doing what they
do. Thus, once a woman has been sanctified, she can literally
do no wrong. We do not need to worry at all about the
Gods. The only question is whether or not the women are
smart enough to spin--and we will soon find that out.
"There is no point in discussing this matter any further," he said, "until we know one way or the other. I call for the
adjournment."
He was right, of course. On both counts. We cheered his
speech and broke up the meeting.
I he experiment to see if the women could spin was held
the following blue dawn.
Seventeen had been pledged. Fourteen showed up, being
herded along by their suddenly nervous and uneasy husbands.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 161
In the cold light of morning, suddenly it no longer seemed
like such a good idea.
I too was beginning to regret my offer. I could not offer my
first wife for the test because she was on the verge of childbirth.
That left only my number two wife, the thin hardworking
one with the lightcolored fur. I did not like the idea
of losing her to Purple's experiment, but I had no choice.
I was honor-bound.
I could understand why the other men were grumbling.
With only one wife foodgathering, meals would be skimpy
and uneven--for me the problem would be even more severe.
It is bad luck to beat a woman with child.
Ah, well, if worse came to worse, I could always go down
to the bachelor's compound and be served by the unclaimed
women. An unappetizing prospect at best, but at least my
stomach would be full.
We waited nervously on the hillside, milling about and
saying little. The mood of the women ranged from fearful
to delighted. All of them were obviously excited or upset at
the prospect of a new kind of task. Few of them understood
what would be required of them, but any change in their
condition, they could only assume, must be for the better.
When Purple arrived, he was flanked by Lesta and several
of his weavers. These were the men who would actually
teach the spinning. Already several novices were beginning
to assemble the spinning devices.
They began by demonstrating what spinning was all about.
"You will be making thread--do you understand? Thread--
it is very important--we will weave cloth out of it."
The women nodded then- heads, dumbly, mutely.
"I will show you how it is done," said Lesta. He sat down
on a little stool before the spinning device and began to spin,
carefully explaining each step of what he was doing. Lesta was
a good teacher. As I watched I felt that even I might learn
the craft.
But the women--they missed the point entirely. "Look!"
they murmured. "He sitsl He sits! He works and sits at the
same timel" *
My wife tugged at my arm, "My husband, my husband,
will I be able to sit too?"
"Hush, wife, hush--pay attention."
162 THE FLYING SORCERERS
All the wives were murmuring now, pointing and whispering
excitedly among themselves. "He sits! He sits while he
works!"
At last, old Lesta could stand it no longer. He stopped
spinning and leapt from his stool. "Yes, dammit, I siti And
you stupid creatures will sit too, if you can learn howl"
Immediately they were quiet.
Lesta surveyed the group, "Now, who wants to try it
first?"
"Me! Me!" All of them pressed forward eagerly. "Me
first, mel" Each wanted to see what it was like to sit and work at the same time.
Lesta chose one and sat her down on the stool. She giggled
hysterically. He put the tools in her hand, and the pieces of
combed fiberplant and bade her do as she had seen.
And, LolShe spuni
She spun the fibers into threadi
The weavers gasped in horror--it was possiblel The husbands
gasped in shock--could a woman possibly be this
smart? I gasped--just because I had never seen such a thing.
The women gasped--she sits while she works, she sits!
And Purple? Purple was bouncing with delight. "It
works," he shouted, "it works--she works, she worksl"
And all the while, the woman continued to spin.
Of course, her thread was uneven and unusable--she was
inexperienced and did not fully understand what she was
doing. But it was obvious, even here, that it was possible for a woman to spin.
Purple could build his flying machine.
With experience and training--and careful supervision--
all of these women might soon be spinning thread as fine
as the best of them.
In fact, as the day progressed, it soon became obvious
that a woman was a better spinner than an apprentice boy.
An apprentice is smart--he knows that he will soon be a
weaver--his heart is not in the spinning. His mind wanders
and he pays little attention to it because it is such a mechanical
and boring task. Boys will be boys.
On the other hand, to a woman, spinning is an enormously
complex task. They must use both hands and one foot
simultaneously in three separate and coordinated tasks. It
THE FLYING SORCERERS 163
requires all their concentration--it is a challenge. And if they
fail, they know they will be beaten. Because a woman must
continually pay attention to what she is doing, she is always
watching the thread, always careful.
By the end of the day, many of them, including my own
wife, were spinning thread fine enough to be used for air-
cloth.
Already, Purple was organizing. We had almost six hundred
unwed women in our two villages. There was little work
for them to do except for their own foodgathering and grooming.

But now we could make good use of all that wasted labor:
we would put them to work spinning. And if that were still
not enough women to produce thread for Purple, we would let
our wives work as well.
The experiment was definitely a success.
Purple was not one to waste time. Quickly, he appointed
the apprentice and novice weavers to a variety of new tasks.
The boys were eager and willing when they found out
what their tasks were to be. Purple was creating a new trade
--womenherders. These boys would be supervising the work
of the women. They were delighted when they realized that
finally they would be giving orders instead of taking them.
The herd of unwed women would be split into three
groups; one group to spin, one to gather the raw fiberplants
and wisptrees, and the third to comb the fibers smooth for
spinning. There were approximately two hundred women in
each group, but these were split into smaller herds of thirty
to fifty each.
Even old Lesta was impressed. "I have never seen such a
work force as this. I would not have believed it possible."
And then realizing that he had just complimented Purple,
he added, "It'll never work, of course."
But it did. Purple appointed another team of men, this
time weavers, to go out into the hills each day and gather
housetree blood. They had giant urns which Bellis the Potter
had made for us. Once the urns were sealed, the housetree
blood would stay fresh until we were ready to use it.
It was no secret that we were going to need it in vast
quantities. We would need everything in vast quantities. We
had already dispatched runners to the other villages with
164 THE FLYING SORCERERS
samples of aircloth and invitations to their weavers and their
women. If Lesta had thought Purple's army of labor was
impressive with only six hundred women, he had not seen
anything yet.
As the thread was spun, a team of novices would dip it into
a vat of seething housetree blood, then slowly, slowly roll
it up on a high suspended spool so it would have a chance
to dry in the air.
It soon developed that Purple was unhappy with this
method. If the thread should happen to touch anything while
it was still wet, it would pick up flecks of dirt just barely
large enough to be seen by the naked eye. Purple would
rave and swear--the gas, he insisted, would leak around the
particles of dirt and his flying machine would fall into the
sea.
Further, the boys were complaining about the heat from
the vats of boiling sap. The season made it all the more
stifling.
The solution was to move the spinning wheels and the
vats up onto Idiot's Crag. The boys enjoyed the change, for
it was cool and quiet up there in the wind; and the women
did not seem to mind the extra half hour's walk up the slope.
More important, the dipping and drying process was improved.
As each thread was soaked, a great loop of it was
stretched far down the crag, around a pulley, and back up
again to be wound on spools. The wind held it aloft, and the
boys pulled it from the housetree blood as fast as they could
wind it through the wringers. The thread was clean and dry--
and even shinier than before.
I stood up on the ledge with Purple one day. The work
was progressing smoothly--with a minimum number of obstacles.
Along the cliff edge were nearly two hundred women
and spinning devices. There were fifty boys tending the vats
of housetree blood. Loops of newly spun thread stretched out
before them. Another twenty boys were winding it up on
spools.
Wilville and Orbur had built several great spool winding
devices. Each consisted of a rack of spools, a set of pulleys
and two cranks. Each was powered by four boys, two on
each crank, and wound up the thread faster than ten boys
could do working alone.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 165
Below, in the villages, there were almost ten looms now,
each producing three patches of aircloth every five days. It
was still not enough--but we were getting there.
Already, weavers from other villages were arriving, eager
to learn this new secret. Many were shocked when they saw
we had women spinning or that we had bone teeth on our
looms--but most stayed to learn and to work. New looms
were going up every day.
Purple and I stood on the edge and surveyed the scene
below us. The waters of the sea were already lapping at the
Lower Village, and several of the housetrees had already
been abandoned.
"How high will the water rise?" I asked. "Will it menace
the looms?"
"I hope not. Look below. You see the tree line? That's
where Gortik says the waters rose to last year. Apparently
that's as far as the sea carried the new soil. You are lucky to
have a fresh water ocean here, Lant. Where I come from,
the seas are salty."
"That sounds unpleasant," I said. I looked out over the
greasy blue water, remembering how it had been aching desert
only a short time ago. "I wonder where all the water comes
from."
Purple said absent-mindedly, "When you pass between the
suns, the ice caps melt."
I looked at him oddly. After all this time, he still spoke
gibberish. Probably he would never lose the habit. Abruptly,
I realized just how accustomed to Purple's presence I had
become. I no longer thought of his strange ways as being
strange--just different. I had stopped thinking of him as
something queer and alien--it was only when he said something
undecipherable like this that I was reminded that he
was not of our people.
Indeed, I had even become used to the sight of his naked
and hairless face.
Until, suddenly, I looked again--
"Purple," I exclaimed. "Did you miscast a spell?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Your chin, Purple--you are starting to grow hair all over
your chin and on the sides of your facel"
166 THE FLYING SORCERERS
His hand went to his face. He rubbed--then he started
laughing, a deep booming laugh.
I didn't think it was funny at all. There were many, like
Pilg, for instance, who were still bald from head to toe because
of a miscast spell.
Still grinning, Purple took a fist-sized thing from his belt
and said, "Do you see this, Lant?"
"Of course."
"It is a--magic razor, moved by a particular kind of
magic called electrissy." I think that was how he said it.
"I will need the power in my razor to help make the lighter-
than-air gas. So I have stopped removing the hair from my
face."
I peered at him curiously. "You mean you can grow hair?"
He nodded.
"But you have been removing it willfully?"
He nodded again.
Strange. Very strange. I peered again. "But, Purple," I
asked, "if you are going to stop removing the hair from
your face, why do you not stop completely?"
"Huh?" he said. Then realising that I was referring to the
rest of his naked face, he started laughing again.
I still did not see what was so funny.
I he next day. Purple attempted to separate water into
gases. Men of both villages came to watch.
The magician had obtained two lengths of copper wire
from the coppersmith. These he attached to the rim of a
large pot of water, using wooden clips, so that the end of
each length of wire trailed in the water.
We watched as he disconnected a spell device from his
belt. It was a flat bulging object like the one in the light
tube he had given Shoogar many months ago--only bigger. He
called it a battery.
He explained that it stored the magic called electrissy.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 167
When it was connected to his impact suit spell-belt, it powered
several of the other devices attached there. He indicated,
but did not explain. The only devices he had that did
not depend on his battery were a lightmaker which had a tiny
battery of its own, and a radiation counter, which Purple
said needed no battery at all.
The battery was a heavy object--heavier than one would
expect for its size. There were two shiny metal nodes at one
end of it. Purple twisted the free end of each copper wire
around these nodes, one to each one.
"Now," he said, "all I have to do is turn the battery on.
This dial tells me how much power I have. This knob controls
the rate with which I release it. When I switch the battery
on here, I will activate the spell and the gases will separate."
With a knowing look, he did so. We waited.
I heard a--sizzling--and looked into the pot.
Tiny bubbles were forming on the ends of the wires,
breaking free and streaming toward the surface.
"Ah," said Purple. He turned the knob. The water began
bubbling more vigorously. He smiled proudly. "Hydrogen
and oxygen," he explained. "From this wire comes oxygen.
From the other comes hydrogen, which is lighter than air.
We will want to trap the hydrogen. It will lift the airbags."
"Oh," I said. I nodded as if I understood. I didn't, but I felt
that I should at least pretend. Besides, I had expected something
more impressive.
I stayed long enough to appear polite, then returned to my
bone carving. I had seven apprentices now--and although
they were quite capable of doing the work without me, I
still felt it my responsibility to check on them as often as
I could.
We were using sheepbone now. We had great amounts
of it drying in the sun. It would not be the petrified bone that
was so hard, of course, but it would still be usable. Such was
the difference between wet bone and dry bone.
The apprentices themselves were working busily. Purple
had suggested that they work in a new manner. One lad
cut the bone into flat segments, another sanded the pieces
down to fit into the loom slots, a third cut grooves into the
bases so they would lock into the frame, a fourth and fifth
cut the slits into the edges, while the sixth polished the fin168 THE FLYING SORCERERS
ished pieces. The seventh serviced the tools of the first six
and kept them sharp. Thus they were able to produce more
loomteeth than they could have working alone.
Purple called it a "division of labor"—every job could
be reduced to a few simple tasks. If all a person had to do
was learn one task only, it would simplify and speed up all
methods of production. Nobody had to know everything.
Except Purple, of course, but then—he was the magician.
He had set up his put-it-together lines all over the village.
There were put it-together lines to spin the thread, to weave
the cloth, to build the looms, to make the spinning machines.
Everywhere there were great numbers of things to be made,
Purple taught the people his put-it-together magic.
In fact he once explained to me that the whole region
had become a put-it-together line for a flying machine. We
could build others in the future, he said, if we so wished. All
we had to do was keep the put-it-together lines going, and
we could build as many as we wanted.
It was a staggering thought!
When he heard it, Shoogar's ears perked up. It was no
secret what he wanted. An evil gleam came into his eyes,
and he headed off to the mountains, to await the fall of
darkness and a chance to glimpse the moons.
Fortunately, the nights stayed cloudy.
Purple had odd ways of speaking—even odder ways of
doing things—but if we gave him the chance, his ways
worked.
He proved it time and time again.
For instance, he had figured out a way to keep Gortik
from crashing his bicycle into trees. He had suggested that
Wilville and Orbur add a pair of smaller wheels to it, one
on each side of the rear wheel. It kept the machine from
falling over.
Gortik was so grateful at finally being able to ride his
THE FLYING SORCERERS 169
bicycle that he allowed Wilville and Orbur to trade their
other machines in the Lower Village--but only if they
did not have "Gortik wheels" on them. He wanted to be the
only one with a "crashproof bicycle.
Wilville and Orbur were pleased at this turn of events. They
had figured out a put-it-together line of their own--with
only four apprentices they might be able to build as many as
two bicycles per hand of days. They were eager to try it
out as soon as they finished the flying machine.
At the moment, however, they had more than they could
handle building spell devices for Purple.
For instance, he wanted bagholders--great frameworks to
hold the aircloth bags over the bubbling pots of water. Thus
he would trap the gas as it rose from his hydrogen wires.
Bellis the Potter had been asked to make great tunneled
pots for these frameworks, and had already finished the first
one. In addition to the opening at the top through which
the water would be added, it had two long spouts reaching
up from either side. One was narrow and delicate; the gas-
making wires were set so that the hydrogen gas would
rise up through this spout. The other gas would bubble away
harmlessly through the other spout which was wide and
stubby.
An airbag--completely empty--would be hung on the
framework over the pot and its mouth would be attached to
the proper spout. When the wire was attached to the battery,
Purple hoped the bag would fill with hydrogen.
But none of the airbags had yet been sewn together, only
two of the frameworks for holding them had been built, and
only one of the water pots had been finished. Bellis the
Potter was being recalcitrant.
Originally he had been delighted at Purple's request for
great amounts of pottery--but he was not delighted at Purple's
suggestion that he use women to help make the pots.
Not for gathering clay, he said, not for turning his wheel;
not for polishing the finished pots, and not for cleaning his
tools--not for nothingi No women, he insisted. Women were
for breeding--and that was all they were for.
Purple said that it had already been proven that women
could do such simple labors as spinning and gathering. .
^^r
170 . THE FLYING SORCERERS
Bellis shook his head. "Spinning does not require much
thought. Pottery does."
"H'm, that's what Lesta said. Only he said it was pottery
that did not require much thought."
"Lesta is an old fuzzwort. There will be no women working
on my pots--"
"Is that your final word, Bellis?"
"It is."
"Oh, dear. I had hoped you wouldn't say that. Ah, it's just
as well. I have already sent for some potters from the other
villages. They have said that they are willing to work with
women, I guess I will have to deal with them. I will be
seeing you--"
"Waiti" said Bellis. "Maybe it is possible. We will have to
try it and see."
In other words, everybody wanted to work with Purple
now--even it it meant changing one's way of working.
And something else: just as we were learning from Purple,
it had become obvious, just from listening to him bargain,
that he had learned something from us as well.
D y now Shoogar had completed the cultivation and consecration
of every housetree in the region except for three
wild ones he had left for Purple to use for his aircloth.
For a day and a half, then, Shoogar wandered around
the village looking for things to do, amusing himself with
minor spells here and there to patch up minor problems.
Finally he complained to me. "Everyone has something
to do with the flying machine, but mel There are no spells that
I have to cast to make it work properly--all of them are
Purple's speus."
"Nonsense, Shoogar. There are many spells you can cast."
"Name sixl"
"Well, ah--surely you can use your skill on the preparations
for the flying machine. The aircloth for instance."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 171
"What is there to do with the aircloth? They weave it, they dip it--it holds air."
"But surely, there should be a blessing over it, Shoogar,
shouldn't there? I mean, it is like trapping Musk-Watz the
Wind God. There should be some kind of amelioration spell."
Shoogar thought about it, "I believe you are right, Lant.
I will have to investigate this--certainly the Gods should be
involved in this flying machine."
I followed him down to the weavers' work area, a great
pasture just under the crag. There were more than forty
of the giant looms thrusting back and forth now. The noise
was tremendous--each loom creaked and shuddered and protested
mightily. The racous cries of the team leaders tumbled
one upon the other until I wondered how the various weavers
could tell who was commanding what.
We held our hands over our ears as we strode through
the row upon row of machines--each with a tiny patch of
aircloth growing in its heavy frame.
I noticed with some dismay that the field here had been
ruined by so much traffic--the blackgrass had given way
to dirt, and dust hung heavy in the air. That was not good
for the cloth. Even though each piece was carefully washed
before it was dipped, it still was not a good idea for it to be
exposed to so much dirt.
Doubtless we would have to move the looms farther
apart.
We found old Lesta down near the end, supervising the
construction of three additional looms. Shoogar pulled him
away from the work, and away from the noise. "I must talk
to you," he said.
"What about? As you can see, I'm very busy--" Even as
he spoke, he fidgeted with his robe and growled at the
scurrying apprentices.
"Well," said Shoogar. "I have been doing some calculations--"

"Oh, no--not more calculationsi"
"It is about the aircloth--we cannot weave it without
offending Musk-Watz--that is, we can weave it, but we must
offer a spell of appeasement for every piece and over every
loom--"
172 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"I cannot afford it," groaned Lesta. "I have enough magic
already to make my hair fall out--"
"You would risk being hit with a tornado--7"
"It would be a blessing," snapped the weaver. "I would
at least have a bit of peace." He waved his arm, "Look, you
see all these looms? Each one is commanded by a different
weaver--and each weaver pays homage to a different God. There is Tukker the god of names. Caff the god of dragons,
Yake the god of what-if--more Gods than I have ever heard
of! And each of those weavers is demanding that his cloth be woven in a pattern sacred to his God!"
"But--but--" I said, "Purple would have a fit--"
"Exactly," said Lesta. "The cloth must be woven in a simple
over and under, over and under, a steady alternation--
we want it as tight as possible--no twill weaves, no satin
weaves, no fancy patterns of threads--just a simple aircloth
weave! But no--you see those men over there? They are
packing to return to their village--they won't weave anything
but satins. They are afraid to offend Purman the God of
Fasf--whatever that is--every day we lose at least five more
weavers."
He turned on us, "You know what it is? They are stealing
the secret of aircloth--they come, they weave for a week, then they find some excuse to run back to their own villages.
I cannot keep any workers here." He groaned and sank down
onto a log. "Aaghh, I wish rd never heard of aircloth."
"But why?" I asked. "Surely, y&u have taken precautions--"

"Of course, of course," nodded Lesta. "No weaver is allowed
near the looms without surrendering at least two syllables
of his secret name as security--but it doesn't work. They
claim that an oath to a god is stronger and more important
than an oath to a man--and they are right."
"H'm," said Shoogar. "I might be able to do something
about that."
Lesta looked up.
"It is simple," he said, "we will just consecrate all the air-
doth to Musk-Watz. Anyone else who weaves it without
my blessing, or who weaves it in another pattern, will be
risking his wrath."
"But what about the men who keep leaving?" asked Lesta.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 173
Shoogar shook his head, "They are not important. We
can swear them to more binding oaths--"
"Oaths more binding than those to a god?"
"Certainly--how about the oath of hairiessness?"
"Huh?"
"It is simple--if they defy you, their hair falls out."
"Oh," said Lesta. He thought about it and brightened. "Yes," he said, "let's try it. Surely, it couldn't hurt."
When I left them, they were happily arguing over Shoogar's
fee for deconsecrating all the other Gods out of the cloth.
I went to see Purple at his nest. He was well pleased with
the way the work was going. A satisfied grin showed
through the black bush that surrounded his chin, and he
patted his huge stomach in a jovial manner. For some reason, he reminded me of a huge black tusker.
I told him of the problem with the weavers leaving, and
he nodded thoughtfully when I told him of Shoogar's solution.
"Yes," he said, "that was very clever. And I would not-
worry about the ones who have left, Lant. Most of them
will be back."
"Huh? Why?"
Purple said innocently, "Because we have almost every
spinning wheel on the island--where win they get enough
thread for their looms?" And he laughed at his own mighty
joke. "They will be lucky if they can make even one piece
of aireloth."
"Why, you are right--I never realized that."
"And another thing--we have the only bone teeth on the
island. They would not be able to weave cloth as fine as ours
anyway; they will be back." He clapped me on the shoulder.
"Come, I must go up to the Crag and check on the progress
of the spinning."
"I will walk with you part way," I said. "There are several
other problems we must discuss." I told him of the
174 THE FLYING SORCERERS
noise and the dirt created by having so many looms so close
together. "It is not good," I said, "not for the cloth and
not for the men."
"You are right, Lant—we will have to separate them,
perhaps move some of the looms to other pastures. At all
costs, we must protect the cloth. I will arrange it myself."
"I have already told Lesta," I said. "He does not object—
at least no more than usual."
"Good."
We puffed up the slope toward the Upper Village. I said,
"There is another thing. Certain of the men are beginning
to wonder about payment for their skills. They fear that you
will be unable to cast enough spells to pay them for then-
labor—they wonder how you will even keep track of them
all. I confess. Purple, even I am mystified as to how you will
keep your promises."
"Um," said Purple. "I will have to give them some tokens
or something."
"Spell tokens?"
He nodded slowly, "Yes, I guess we could call them
that."
"But what would they do—?"
"Well, each one would be a promise, Lant—a promise
of a future spell. The person could keep it or trade it as he
^sees fit, or he can redeem it later when I have the time for
Sit."
I considered it. "You will need a great many, won't you?"
"Yes, I will, won't I? I wonder if Bellis the Potter could—"
"No, wait—I have a better ideal" My mind was working
furiously. My apprentices were way ahead in their bone
carving. They had more than enough loomteeth carved to
satisfy the needs of all the present looms, and even the ones
still to be built for at least another hand of days. I did not
like to see them sitting around idle—and I still had those one
hundred and twenty-eight runforit ribs. I said, "Why don't
you let me carve them? Bone has a soul—clay doesn't. My
apprentices have nothing better to do now."
He nodded slowly, "Yes, yes, a good idea, Lant. We
can give one spell token for each day's labor."
"Oh, no," I said. "One for each five days of labor. That is
THE FLYING SORCERERS 175
the way Shoogar works--it makes his spells worth more.
'Work for a hand of days, earn a spelL*"
He shrugged. "All right, Lant. Go carve."
I was delighted. I left him to go on up to the Crag, and
I hurried off to the Upper Village to set my idle apprentices to work. We would cut each runforit rib into a thousand
narrow slices--maybe more--and stain the resultant chips
with the pressed juices of darkberries.
I found, after a little experimentation, that we could use the
same cutting threads that we used for loomteeth. The cutting
threads were held in a stiff frame. If we opened up one side
of the frame and spread the threads out more, we could use
it to cut several slices at a time off the end of each rib. Later
on we figured that a larger frame holding more threads could
cut more slices at a time.
In fact, there was no reason at all that the threads had to
be held in a rigid frame--not for this type of cutting. In the
space of that afternoon I must have figured at least six new
ways to carve bone slices. One of the most effective involved
wrapping a single thread in a loop around the piece of bone
and pulling it steadily back and forth--in this way, the rib
was cut from all sides at once.
We could cut several slices at a time this way--the only
limit was the number of threads that we could string around
the bone and pull at any one time.
While we were discussing this, Wilville and Orbur stopped
by. They were on their way up to the Crag; each was carrying
a bundle of hardened bambooze shoots.
I told them of my latest project and they nodded thoughtfully,
"Yes, we can build you a device for cutting many slices
of bone at a time. We will use cranks and pullies, and it will be
operated by two apprentices. I think we may be able to
pull fifty threads at a time with it."
"Good, good," I said. "How soon can I have it?"
"As soon as we have a chance to build it--first we must
finish the airboat frame. The spirit pine is too heavy--we
are going to try again with bambooze."
"And that means building a whole new frame," sighed
Orbur.
They shouldered their loads and trudged on up the hill.
It was well past midnight when I finally grew tired. The
red sun was already nearing the west.
It had been a relaxing day. It had been too long since I had
concentrated on my boneearving only, and I had missed it.
I was tired and I ached all over--but at the same time I
glowed with the satisfaction of a job well done.
As I trudged across the blackgrass-covered slope toward
my home I thought of the pleasures that awaited me there:
a hot meal, yes--perhaps even a bit of choice meat; a massage,
gentle and warm--I might even let the wives rub
precious oil into my fur. It had been too long since I had
allowed myself that luxury. And perhaps, if I felt in the
mood, perhaps we would do the family-maldng thing. It would
have to be the number two wife, of course--number one
was growing heavier and more swollen every day.
Perhaps a hot brushing too, I dreamed--yes, definitely. I
could feel the combs already. I quickened my step. My nest-
tree loomed invitingly----
. I found my wives in bitter argument. The first wife, the
one with seniority, was in tears--the second wife, the
thinner one, was red-eyed and glaring.
"Have you no sense?" I shouted at her. "You do not
badger my number one wife--she has borne me two sonsi
You have borne me nonel"
The woman only glared angrily.
"Go get the whipl" I ordered.
She said, "You may whip me, my master--but you cannot
change what is. What is isl"
She would pay for such insolence. A man with a wife
he cannot control has one wife too many. I stepped over
to the other woman and put my arms around her swollen
form, "What is the matter, my number one woman?"
She pointed and said through her tears, "That--that woman--she--"
176
THE FLYING SORCERERS 177
My second wife interrupted haughtily, "I am not 'that
woman' any more. I am Kate."
"Kate? What is a Kate?"
"Kate is my name. I have a name. Purple has given it to
me."
"A -what? You have a what? You cannot havel No woman
has ever had a namel"
"I dol Purple gave it to mel"
"He has not the rightl"
"He does too--he is a magician, isn't he? He came up to
the Crag today where we spin--and he talked to us, and he
asked us what our names were. When we told him we had
none, he proceeded to give us names--and he blessed them
tool We have consecrated names!"
Why, the fool would bring ruin upon us alll There is
nothing so dangerous as a haughty woman--we should
never have allowed them to learn how to spini And now he
had given them names! Names, indeed!
Did he think they were equal to men in other respects
as well? I would fear to ask him--he might say yes. And this
from a magician?!!
Shoogar would have to be told at once. The other men
must be warned. Purple must be chastised. K women could
have names, then they could be cursed through the power of
those names. A man is strong enough to bear such responsibility
and avoid such cursing. But a woman? How could a
woman even realize the danger? They would be so delighted
at having names, they would run to tell everybody.
My first wife turned to me in tears. "Give me a name, my
husband. I want to be somebody too."
I stormed out.
The village was in an uproar. The sky was smoky and red, and angry men stood about in clumps, shouting foolishness.
As if they would dare attack a magician!
Pilg the Crier stood on a tall housetree stump, shouting into
the uproar, 'Torchlight procession--bum the----blasphemed
against--"
A lot of help he was. And Pilg didn't even have a wife
any more! What had he to complain about?
This had gone far enough--a voice of reason was needed
here. I climbed the stump behind Pilg and pushed him hard
178 THE FLYING SORCERERS
in the small of the back. He stumbled forward and off, waving
his arms.
I filled my lungs and bellowed, "Listen to me, townspeople--"

But there was too much noise--and suddenly they were
all going away.
Torches appeared as if by magic, red flames bright over
dark crazed heads. I was off the stump and shoving through
the jostling crowd. Where was Shoogar now that we needed
him?
There was only me to stop them as they streamed toward
the river, toward Purple--
I pushed and fought my way to the front of the crowd
so that they could see me. "Listen to mel Listen to your
Speakeri"
And then the mob from the Lower Village charged into
us, and there was no point. Nothing human or demon could have been heard above the roaring.
We were a raging torrent of men bent on murder. I
was still trying to reach the leading edge, trying to turn it
aside, somehow deflect it----
And then we spilled out onto the riverbank and there was
Purple.
He was kneeling beside one of Bellis's tunneled pots,
hugging a kind of bag against his chest, an inflated bag as
big as a small woman. As the mob rolled toward him he
turned in astonishment, letting go of what he was holding.
And it fell up.
It was as if the villagers had run into a stone wall. They
stopped jokingly short, and then they moaned as if in
agony.
Purple's thing tumbled slowly upward into the red-black
sky. It was a flimsy-looking bag of wind, made of atrcloth,
THE FLYING SORCERERS 179
shiny and bright and flickering back the glow of the torches. It danced as it rose .. .
"Lanti" Purple cried. "What's--what's happening? Why
are they here?"
I tore my eyes off the bag of wind. "Purple--why did you
name the women?"
"Why not?" He seemed doubly confused. "I couldn't just
keep calling every one of them 'Hey, you,' could I?" There
was a moan from somewhere behind me. I ignored it.
Purple continued, "I had trouble remembering the order,
Lant. There were too many of them. I mean, it was easy to
remember to call a woman Trone's wife,' but she got insulted
if I forgot to call her Trone's second wife.'"
"Third," I remembered.
"Third. You see? It was slowing things up. So I made up
some names--Kate, Judy, Anne, Ursula, Karen, Andre,
Marian, Leigh, Miriam, Sonya, Zenna, Joanna, Quinn--it made things so much easier."
"Easier?" I looked about me. Perhaps a score of villagers
remained. They seemed to huddle together, holding their
torches high against the night. The others had not fled, but
seeped away into the darkness while Purple and I were talking.

I glanced nervously at the sky--but his thing had vanished.
"Easier?" I repeated. "They're here to bum you. Purple. Or they were."
"Um," he said. He looked vaguely about him. "Where's
my balloon? It was right here a minute ago--I was holding
it--"
"You mean that thing--that thing that went up into the
sky--?"
His face lit up, "It did? You mean it worked?"
I swallowed hard and nodded.
"It actually worked!" He peered excitedly upward, squinted
at the darkness. Abruptly he looked at me, "Eh, did you say
bum me?"
I nodded again.
It didn't seem to bother him much--he still kept glancing
at the sky. He was preoccupied with that balloon. "For what?"
he asked. "For naming women?"
"Purple, you're a magician--you should have known
180 THE FLYING SORCERERS
betteri I suppose you named them right out in public, in
the hearing of others, so that every woman who spins now
knows the names of every other woman! Well, did you?"
"Certainly. Why not?" ^
I groaned. "Because they'll use magic on each other! And
magic is too powerful to be placed in the hands of fools
and womeni They'll get above themselves, Purplel First you
have given them a profession, now you give them names.
They'll think they're as good as meni"
"It bothers you, doesn't it?" he said perceptively. "Very
well, Lant, what would you like me to do? Shall I take their
names away?"
"Could you?"
"Certainly, ril do it for you—Til memorise their numbers
and their husbands' names instead—anything to make peace."
I couldn't believe he would give up so easily, so casually.
As casually as he had given them . . . Timidly I repeated,
"youii take their names away?"
"Of course," said Purple, "what do you think I am? Some
kind of fiend?" He laughed boomingly, showing his teeth.
Twenty villagers moaned softly and pushed closer together.
Purple bent back to his water pot again, began fiddling
with his battery wires. I watched as he fastened a large piece
of cloth to the funnel of the pot. "Another airbag?"
"Huh? Oh, yes—another balloon." He spread the cloth
between his hands. "We made the first ones today." Slowly, the
bag began puffing up. He held it so it would fill evenly.
"Watehl" he said, "Watch—it's filling with hydrogen!"
I took a step forward, curious in spite of myself.
Behind me, the small knot of men who remained also edged
forward.
The bag was puffy now, almost its full size. It grew rounder
as we watched. I fancied I could hear the bubbles flowing
up through the water, through the spout and into the bag.
Purple watched it narrowly. At last he lifted the windbag
from the pot spout and tied its neck. He let it go.
It wasn't quite as large as the other, nor was it as full—
but it lifted into the air and flew!
It floated toward the little knot of twenty.
"It worksl It worksl" Purple was exultant. He did a little
dance of delight.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 181
We backed away as the thing drifted nearer. Pug held his torch before him to ward it off. The bag ignored the warning, floated closer and--
Suddenly was a \x 11 of flamel
A bright orange flash of heat and lightl
I don't know what happened after that. Most of us reached
home, one way or another; but Ford the Digger ran straight
off a cliff, and nobody could find Pilg at all.
D ut the trouble didn't end that easily.
When Purple told the women that they could no longer
have any names, there arose such a weeping and wailing that
one would have thought that all the men in the village were beating their wives in unison.
In fact many of them took to beating their wives in order
to stop them from wailing--but that only increased their
anguish. In a short time it became apparent that we bad a
spontaneous revolt on our hands.
Quite simply, the wives refused to work, to cook, and
even to do the family-making thing unless we granted them
the right to bear names.
"No," I told my own wives, "the old ways are best. If I let you have names, the Gods will be angered."
They looked at me adamantly, "But, La-ant, beloved
master and faithful husband--"
"There are no buts about it," I insisted. "There will be no
names."
"Then there will be no family-making thing either." They
said it with a whimper.
I looked at these two women. The number one wife I
had purchased while still wearing the fur of youth. She had
been with me for many years and had borne me two fine
sons and only one daughter. She had been a faithful companion,
and I had trained her to my moods well. She was
no longer as sleek as she once was, but I would not discard
182 THE FLYING SORCERERS
her to the vagaries of the old womens' compound. No, she
was too well suited for the duties of running my home.
And the number two wife, sleek and sassy. Young she
was, and only a wife of three cycles. She had borne me only
daughters. She was spoiled and shrill.
Abruptly, I found myself mourning the loss of the number
three wife, the modest and sweet one. She had talked little,
and the others had bullied her, but she had been the most
gentle. She had borne one son, but both she and he had been
lost in the destruction of the old village.
I wondered about the possibility of gaining a new wife.
Perhaps I should discard these two if they were going to be
so difficult. After all, there were plenty of women around--
they would jump at the chance to marry a man such as I.
But then, most of the good women were already married. It was only the flightier and shriller ones who were still single
--and even the most comely of those was none too attractive.

Besides, if any other men were thinking in the same manner
as I, there would be such a demand for wives that
many would go without.
The possibility of trading my wives for the wives of someone
else also occurred to me--but who wanted to inherit
someone else's bad habits? No, I would just as soon keep these
women----
But, no family-making thing.
I could try taking them by force--but they would probably
make such grimaces and terrible expressions that there
would be no enjoyment in it.
No--I must be the master in my own house. If they would
not accept my wishes, then I would discard them and bring
in new wives. I could have my pick of the village. After all,
was I not the Speaker?
But most of the wailing was in the compound of the unwed
womeni
These were the women who did most of the spinning--
and they were the ones wailing the loudest about names.
But surely, I thought, surely there must be at least one
or maybe two of these women who would be willing to forsake
her name for the privilege of keeping my house and
THE FLYING SORCERERS 183
bearing my children. Surely there would be one who
would do the family-making thing with me.
I was mistaken.
Too many other men had had the same idea--too many
other men were too eager.
And the women wanted names.
We held another council meeting.
Hinc stood up and said, "I propose that we beat our wives
thoroughly. Tell them we will allow them no names and
will riot permit a strike----"
There was a chorus of cheering. Clearly, it was a popular
idea.
But a man of the Lower Village shook his head and said, "It won't work, Hinc. We have already beaten our wives--
and still they won't work. They want names and no amount
of beating will erase that desire."
"But it's unthinkablel"
"The women do not think sol"
"The women are incapable of thinking!"
"But we are noti Think about iti Beating will only increase
their resentmenti"
We thought about it.
We went home and beat our wives and thought about it
some more.
We held another meeting. At last, we decided that a compromise might be in order. The word was Purple's--as was
the solution.
The women could have names--but names only to be used
as identifiers. They would be unconsecrated names with no
religious significance at all. Just words, so to speak, that
might let us know which woman we were speaking of.
In other words, a woman's name would be outside the
influence of the Gods.
Shoogar grumbled at this--something about undermining
the foundations of modem magic. He said. "By their very
definition names are part of the object which they are the
name of. You can't separate the two. A flower is a flower is
a flower."
"Nonsense, Shoogar; a flower by any other name is still a
flower!"
"Wrong, Lant--it's only a flower because you call it a
184 THE FLYflMO SORCERERS
flower. If it weren't a flower, it would be something else.
It would be whatever you named it!"
"But it would still smell the samel"
"But it wouldn't be a fioweri"
We were getting off the track, "I'm sorry, Shoogar, but
these names cannot be retracted. The best thing we can do
is deconsecrate them and make the best of a bad situation.
Make the women spellproof. Let the names be only meaningless
words."
"That's just it, Lant. There are no meaningless words. All
words have meanings, whether we know them or not. There
can be no words that are not also specific symbols of the
objects they are names of--and a symbol is a way to
manipulate the object. When Purple says we must deconsecrate
the names, he is talking foolishness. You cannot deconsecrate
a name."
"Unh," I said, "but Purple thinks so."
"Purple thinks so!--Who is the magician here? Me or
Purple?!!"
"Purple," I said meekly.
That brought him down. He glared at me.
"Well, this is his territory."
Shoogar harrumphed and started picking through his spell
devices.
I said, "Shoogar, you are as smart as he--surely there
must be some way--"
He frowned. "H'm, yes----" He considered it. "Yes, Lant,
there is. I will simply consecrate every woman with the same
name. Therefore no one will dare cast a spell on anyone
else's woman, because he will also be casting a spell on his
own. And no woman would dare curse another because she
would be cursing herself as well!"
"Shoogar--you are brilliant!"
"Yes," he said modestly. "I am."
The next day he went out and named all the women Missa. Gone were the Kates and Ursulas and Annes and
Judys. Gone were the Karens and Andres, Marions, Leighs,
Miriams, Sonyas, Zennas and Joannas. Gone were the
Quinns.
Now there were only Missas. Trone's Missas, Gortik's
. Missas, Lant's Missas.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 185
It was tfae perfect solution. The men were happy, the
women were happy--excuse me, the Missas were happy.
And best of all, they went back to spinning and working
and doing the family-making thing.
Purple could call them whatever he wished--it wouldn't
make any difference. Their consecrated names were Missa.
That was the only name that had any power.
The men of the village breathed a sigh of relief. Now
we could get back to normal--the business of making a
flying machine.
I n order to disturb the production of the aircloth as little
as possible the looms were being separated at the rate of
only three a day. New looms were being built on other slopes
instead of in the same general area as the first ones.
When Lesta had been told that he would have to separate
the looms already built and working, he had groaned in dismay--the
thought of moving all forty-five looms was
frightening. But Purple had quickly pointed out that he need
move only twenty-two; if he removed every other loom from
the line, he would leave plenty of working space between the
rest.
Shaking his head, Lesta went off to issue the orders.
Half of the new cloth was allocated to Purple's construction.
The rest was divided on a percentage basis. Each
weaver was paid in product, the amount determined by his
importance and by the labor he had performed.
Purple paid for his cloth with spell tokens. I had carved
them, or my assistants had, to meet his needs. The first set
of chips was given to Lesta to be distributed to his workers
in the same proportion as the cloth.
At first neither Lesta nor the weavers understood their purpose,
but when we explained that each was the promise of
a future spell, they nodded and accepted them.
Within a few days they were trading them back and forth
186 THE FLYING SORCERERS
among themselves in exchange for various labors. One group
of men was found rolling the bones for them: a common
game, except that they had thought of exchanging chips according
to the way the bones felll Shoogar decided it was an
offense against the Gods to trifle so with magic. They were
severely warned, and their chips confiscated.
Still another man was found trading his wives' family-
making privileges for chips. We confiscated his wives.
Because the put-it-together lines were so efficient, the total
production of aircloth was more than twenty percent greater
than all of the villages' previous cloth production combined.
Of course Purple's share comprised half of that production,
but few of the weavers minded--without Purple, there would
have been no aircloth at alL They knew that they would be
able to trade it for much more than the old cloth.
For a while Purple considered appropriating all of the
cloth for his flying machine, but he let himself be talked out
of it. If the weavers felt they were working only for Purple's
benefit, they would be resentful and careless. If they knew
they were working for themselves as well, they would treat
each piece of cloth as if it were their own--as it might very
well be, after the distribution.
Distributions were held every second hand of days. Most
of the men received enough of the cloth for their own uses,
and enough more for trading. The lesser weavers, the apprentices
and novices whose labors did not add up to
enough to make even one piece of cloth, were paid with a
spell token. If they saved up three of them they could trade
them for a piece of cloth.
That the cloth was highly valued was no secret. It soon
became a mark of status to wear an aircloth toga, and trading
for the material was fast and furious. Several men, head
weavers in their own villages, took to clothing their wives *' in aircloth to show their own importance. But we put a stop
to that soon enough.
It was not that they had not the right to parade their
wealth, but they should not use their women for the purpose.
The women were proud enough as it was--just with names.
We didn't need our wives complaining that so-and-so's wife
was wearing aircloth and why couldn't they wear aircloth too?
Hurriedly, we stifled that trend.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 187
Chastened, the weavers wore the clothes themselves--as
many as they could. For a while it was the fad to wear one's
fortune on one's back, but it stopped after a few days. This
was still the wading season--the season of sweat.
There was another incident too. We had our first theft.
They were two of the lesser weavers--boys really--they
had coveted Purple's huge store of aircloth. They were from
one of the other villages on the island and did not truly comprehend
the importance of the flying machine project. They
were only here for the weaving--and for the marvelous new
aircloth.
But, being only apprentices, they weren't paid in cloth, only
in extra spell tokens, and they were bitter about it.
Most of the weavers, not needing airtight cloth, took it as it came from the looms. The threads of the linens were highly
polished due to the dipping in housetree blood. The cloth
had a luxuriously smooth, starchy feel to it
Purple's share of the cloth was set aside for its later
treatment. It would have to be dipped again, this time in
housetree-binding solution. It was this stockpile of waiting
cloth that had tempted the boys.
They bad been caught, of course. Although it was past midnight
and most people were asleep, still the red sun was high in
the west. Purple, whose sleeping habits were not like the
rest of us, had accosted them--indeed had blundered into
them, their arms laden with his stolen cloth.
The boys made the mistake of running for the weaving
fields. Purple in hot pursuit, yelling, "Stop, thiefl Stopi"
The midnight weavers did not know the word. But they
saw two boys running and a screaming magician following,
and they knew something was up. They headed off the boys,
, and held them for Purple. ^ At blue dawn we held a council: the magicians, the head
weavers of the villages, and five Speakers including myself
, and Gortik.
"I don't know how they expected to escape," Purple
confided in me. "Is there a standard punishment for--" He
seemed to search for a word, "--this crime?"
"How could there be? Such a thing has never happened
before. I don't know what we will decide."
188 THE FLYING SORCBRERS
Purple looked astonished. He seemed about to speak;
but then the proceedings began.
„ I said little. This was not a matter for me to decide. It
was for the Speaker of the boys' village. The boys stood
trembling, off to one side. They were much the same age
as my Wilville and Orbur.
The Speakers argued for most of the morning. There was
no precedent, no basis for a decision.
At last it was Shoogar who decided it. Grumpily he
stepped to the center of the ring. "These boys have committed
a theft," he said. "The word is Purple's. Purple tells
us that a theft is an offense where he comes from.
"Personally, speaking for myself, I consider it an act of
foolishness--taking something from a magician is downright
dangerous!"
There was a murmur of agreement
Shoogar continued, "Obviously, because the property taken
was a magician's, this is not a matter for Speakers. It is a
matter for magicians."
This time the Speakers agreed heartily. Shoogar was
taking them off the hook.
"It was aircloth that these two thieves wanted--" said
Shoogar, advancing on the boys. They shrank away from
him. "Therefore, I propose that the punishment match the
offense--I say we give them airclothi"
And with that he unfurled the huge bolts of cloth the
boys had taken from Purple. They were long strips, the
first ones sewn together for the airbags. "Wrap them in ill"
commanded Shoogar.
"Now, wait a minute--" began Purple.
Shoogar ignored him. The head weavers shoved the boys
forward and forced them onto the ground, flat on the strips
of doth. "Roll them upl" said Shoogar. "Tightl Roll them
tightl" The weavers did so.
"But--Shoogar," Purple protested, "they'll suffocate"
"I do not know the word," said Shoogar, not taking his
eyes from the struggling bulks in the cloth.
"It means to--to run out of oxygen."
Shoogar threw him a glance. He may have remembered
the word, but what of it? Oxygen was the gas Purple threw
away when he made hydrogen from water. Throw-away gas.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 189
"Fine," he said. "They will suffocate."
"You mustn't," said Purple. He was quite pale.
Shoogar turned away with a grimace.
Purple made a sound in his throat. I thought he would
go after the other magician; but he did not.
The boys were completely bound up now, the weavers
were tying the cloth firmly about them. They looked like
giant sting thing larvae, long and brown and shapeless.
"We will leave them here until the next rising of the blue
sun,", said Shoogar. "You will post men to see that no one
comes near."
W hen the boys were unrolled, they were stiff and dead.
Even Shoogar was shaken. "I had not expected--"
He shook his head slowly. "So that's what suffocate means." He circled the bodies. "A strong spell it must be. Look, not
a mark on them." ----
We looked. Their faces were dark and cold. Their tongues
protruded, and their eyes bulged in amazement; but of
wounds there were none.
When we told Purple, he made a sound of pain--but as
if he had expected it, I thought. He went down to the clearing
himself to see. "I shouldn't have let him," he said. "I
should have stopped him."
When he saw their stiff forms, he recoiled. He sank down
upon a log and buried his head in his hands and sobbed.
Even Wilville and Orbur edged away from him.
The fathers of the boys arrived then. They had been summoned
from the other side of the island, and it had taken
them almost a day to make the journey. When they learned
what had happened, they began to wail. They had come to
participate in a punishment ceremony, not a funeral.
I myself felt strange, empty, taken with a terrible sense of
loss.
Gortik gathered up the thefted cloth, handling it with new
190 THE FLYING SORCERERS
respect, and presented it to Purple. Purple raised his head,
looked at the offering. He shook his head vehemently, shrinking
back. "Take it away. Take it away."
In the end, we buried the boys in it.
Afterward I found Purple alone. He was sitting morosely
on the unfinished airboat frame.
He looked at me, "I told Shoogar. They'll suffocate. They
won't get enough oxygen."
"Curse your throw-away gas anyway! They didn't get any
air. Purple! Your aircloth holds air out as well as gas in!"
"Yes, of course." He looked puzzled.
"You knew? You knew!" I cried wildly. "You knew they
would die! If you'd sat on Shoogar and made him listen--or
told me! The boys had done nothing so very wrong--"
"Stop it!" he moaned.
"You let them die. Purple! For so small a thing?"
"But that's the way it is in many savage societies----" he
said. He stopped then and looked at me. Speechless.
"Savage societies?" I asked. "Is that what you think of us
--that we are savages?"
"No--no, Lant, I----" He flailed about. "I thought that--
I have never seen a punishment here. I did not know what
your penalties were. I thought Shoogar knew what he was
doing. I--I--I'm sorry, Lant. I didn't know--" He covered
his face.
Suddenly, I was calm. Purple was outside all human experience.
We had been assuming things about him just as he
had been assuming them about us.
I asked, "Do they kill for theft, where you come from?"
He shook his head. "It is not necessary. When one commits
a major crime, our--Advisors can tamper with the
thief s--soul, so that he can never do it again."
I was impressed. "It is a powerful spell."
"And a powerful threat," said Purple. "A killer who has
been so treated cannot even defend himself, or his children
or his property. A treated thief could not theft water, 'though
THE FLYING SORCERERS 191
his house was burning . . . But, Lant, I do not understand--
how can theft be so rare here? The boys took a thing that did
not--pertain to them; they did not build it or earn it or trade
for it. How can this be unusual?"
"It is unheard of, Purple. It has never happened before."
"But----" He seemed to search for words. "What do you
call it when one takes another's bread?"
"Hunger."
He was flustered. "Well, what would you do if someone
took your carved bone?"
"Without payment? I would go and get it back. He could
not disguise it. No bonemonger ever carves exactly like any
other. I never carve even two pieces alike--except for loom-
teeth, of course."
"Uncarved bone, then. You have a good store of uncarved
bone. What if someone took it?"
"For what? Who could use it? Only another bonemonger.
I would know them all, in any region. I would go and get
it back."
'This is nonsense. Lant, surely there must be something for thieves to take. Secrets!" Purple cried wildly. "Lesta
guards his weaving secrets as a mother her children."
"But if one took his secrets, Lesta would still have them.
He could still make his cloth, though others could also. One
cannot theft a secret without leaving it behind. One cannot
theft more food than one can eat before it spoils. One cannot
theft a house, or anything too heavy to lift. One cannot
theft tools; tools belong to a trade; one would have to learn
the trade also. One cannot theft a profession, or standing in
a community, or a reputation."
"But--"
"One cannot theft anything easily recognized, unless one
can flee faster than men can follow. In fact, the only things
one can theft are things that look exactly like a great many
other things." My mind was searching as I talked, and I was
beginning to understand Purple's confusion. "Things that
look like other things. Cloth, or spell chips, or grain--"
Purple was horrified. "Why, you're right!"
"Cloth and spell chips. Yes. Until your coming, one could
not theft enough cloth to be worth the effort. So much cloth
did not exist. And how could one theft the services of a
192 THE FLYING SORCERERS
magician? The idea was nonsense until you arrived. Purple." ^ "I've invented a new crime," said Purple dazedly.
"Congratulations," I said, and left him.
I he search for fiberplants and wild housetrees had been
extended even into the wilderness hills. Four teams left the
village each blue dawn to search for materials, and they often
did not return till long after Quells had winked out in the
west.
Too often they came back with their gathering baskets and
urns only half full.
The fiberplants were not as big a problem as they might
have been. They .grew fast and the cropmongers had begun
experimenting with planting them for the weavers. Already
the new shoots were springing up and it looked like we
would have fiberplant all year long.
It was the housetree sap, though, that was really slowing
us down. We were running out of trees. Shoogar had consecrated
all the trees in the region, except three--and those
three were nearly tapped dry. Indeed Purple didn't want to
bleed them any more for fear of killing them. Already they
were losing their leaves.
There were wild housetrees of course, but the effort involved
in dragging the filled urns back from the wilderness
hills was prohibitive. They were great heavy things, and it
took eight men to move them. Bellis had made them out of
oaken barrels lined with aircloth, then reinforced them again
with extra bindings.
He'd made larger ones as well to be used as vats. These
had been made out of heavy bricks of reinforced clay. They
were beautiful.
'But we did not have enough housetree blood to fill them.
Meanwhile the piles of untreated cloth continued to grow.
We had only enough sap for the spinning, not enough for
the second dipping.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 193
And the boatframe was rapidly taking shape on the
peak. y~'
The first boatframe had become much too heavy and bad
to be scrapped. The boys had taken it apart and thrown out
everything heavier than spirit pine. Then they threw out the
spirit pine too, leaving only one length of it for the keel.
Instead, they used bundles of bambooze, bound together
and made rigid by judicious hardening. Shoogar had helped
them on this, although we rarely saw him otherwise. He was
too busy with loomblessings and other spells.
The second boatframe was almost entirely bambooze. But,
so far, it was only a framework.
The boys abandoned their idea of aircloth-covered balsite.
It turned out that the balsite was unnecessary and that they
could use the aircloth alone. The hull could be made of many
stiffened layers of it stretched tightly over the bambooze
frame. Wherever possible, the aircloth would be used instead
of lumber. It would be hardened later by the application of
many layers of housetree blood to make it watertight.
Once the boys began thinking about it, they came up with
many ways to keep the airboat as light as possible. Instead
of wooden planks for seats, they used stretched cloth over
simple frames, and Purple would sit on those. Instead of planking on the sides of the two cabins--one a storage compartment,
the other a sleeping room--they would use air-
cloth again.
The boys were ecstatic over their work. It would be watertight;
it would be strong. Best of all, it would be so light that
Purple could afford to be extravagant with the rest of his
weight allowances.
The only part of the boatframe that had to be wood were
the deck slats along the floor. The boys had already tied and
glued them into the frame; it was a narrow walk running the
length of the boat. The rest of the hull was still open to air,
but eventually the rigid structure would be covered and firm.
It made me wonder--could aircloth be used in other ways
as well?
For instance, could one use it to make a nest? Instead of
weaving a home out of fiberplants and stretchvines, one could
use aircloth instead. It would be easier and faster and lighter
--and it would keep out the rain too.
194 THE FLYING SORCERERS
H'm—perhaps one could stretch large pieces of the cloth
across a rigid framework and use it as a rainshelter for the
flocks—or to dam a stream. Many thicknesses might be
required for the latter, but there was no reason why it
shouldn't work. H'm, we might be able to store large amounts
of water in aircloth-lined pools as well. It would not drain
away. If we put aircloth across the top of the water, not even
thirsty Musk-Watz could steal it.
I was willing to bet that there were a great many uses for
the cloth that we had not thought of yet. Perhaps I had
been too easy with Lesta. No matter, I could renegotiate the
terms of our deal after Purple's flying machine was finished.
The finished framework looked like the outline of a boat.
It was so light that it had to be tied down against the winds
of Idiot's Crag. One man could move it, and two could carry
it without difficulty.
The keel was the single length of spirit pine they had
saved. To make it even more effective, they had slung it below
the boatframe on several spars of rigid bambooze. Then, to
hold the boatframe and keep the keel from snapping, they
had built a cradle to stand it upright.
Now they were adding rungs to the struts that supported
the outriggers. Why rungs? Because, Wilville told me with
a happy smile, they would need to be able to crawl from the
hull out to the airpushers.
Airpushers?
I didn't ask. In time we would know.
The boys continued to work on the outriggers. Soon they
would begin stretching the cloth over the frame. Then the
only thing holding up the launching of the airship would be
the sewing up of the windbags.
And that was being held up by three things.
We needed more aircloth. For that, we needed both fiber-
plants and housetree blood.
We needed more housetree blood just to treat the cloth we
had already woven.
And thirdly, we needed another way to separate water.
Purple's battery had died.
I found out about the battery when I went to tell him
about the housetree blood. Purple was sitting on a log outside
his house, turning the flat, bulging case over in his hands.
From the way he looked, he might have been holding his own
death.
I sat down beside him, without speaking, and waited.
"It's dead," he said presently. ^
I said, "How? Did you starve it?" al
He pointed up. Hovering above his housetree were seven
man-sized aircloth bags. They hung upward from ropes. "I
have been experimenting, Lant--I grew carried away." He
waved up at the village. "And I did not want your people to
fear the airship--"
A group of young boys came running by, each trailing a
shiny aircloth bag behind him on a string. The bags were
about the size of a man's head, maybe bigger. "Useless
patches of extra cloth," Purple explained. "Not tight enough
for the airboat, but I thought if the children could see--that
is, if the adults could see that even children could handle the
spell----"
I understood. Purple had seen our terror on the night of
the riot. He was trying to lessen that by showing this was a
simpler spell than we had thought.
Now, he mourned over his battery and stroked it sadly.
"Is there no way you can make a new one?"
"You don't know what you're asking!" he exclaimed. "My
whole civilization is based on the kind of power that was in
this battery. I am not a--a--magician of that type, I don't
have that training. I am only a student of how savage men
can live together!"
I ignored the insult, for clearly he was upset. I forced him
to sit down and would not let him say another word until
he had drunk off a bowl of Quaff. His face twisted into
extraordinary shapes.
195 :
196 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"I've been an idiot," he told me. "For eight months I
shaved my face with the electrissy I needed to get home!"
"But what about those airbags?" I pointed at his housetree.
"Those wouldn't be enough. Besides, by the time we finish
the boatframe, those will be empty again. The gas leaks out,
Lant. Very slowly, but it still leaks."
I handed him another bowl of Quaff. "But surely, you can
make some kind of power source to separate the water."
"No. That was it. You don't have the tools to make the
tools to make the tools."
"Is there nothing else that would activate a flying spell?"
"Hot air. Hot air is lighter than cold air. That's why smoke
rises. The cursed trouble is that hot air gets cold. We'd sink
into the sea and stay there; we couldn-'t possibly get far
enough north in a hot-air windbag."
I sank down onto the log next to him and poured myself
some Quaff. "Surely there must be some way, Purple. It was
not so long ago that you thought an airboat was impossible.
Is there nothing you can do about your battery? There must
have been a first source of electrissy some time. How was it
done?"
He looked at me, bleary-eyed. "Oh, no, Lant--" And then
his eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute----I did make something
in school once! A spinning motor made from paper clips and
copper wire and a battery. But--"
"But you don't have paper clips--" Whatever that was.
"Oh, that's no problem. The paper clips were only for
structure."
"But your battery is dead--"
"That's no problem either. In that--spell, I was using the
battery to make the spinning section go round." He grabbed
me excitedly--we tumbled backward off the log; he didn't
notice. "It will work just the same the other way! I can
reverse the spell and make a spinning section to recharge my
battery!"
I grabbed the Quaff bladder before too much spilled. I
took a drink. "You mean, you can restore its power?"
"Yes, yes!" He began dancing about, paused, took the
bladder from my hands and drank. "I can make as much
electrissy as I need. We can even make some for you too, Lant--"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 197
"Uh, no thank you. Purple--"
"But it is great magic! It can help you! You'll see. And I won't need to take it all with me--oh, my goodness--we'll
have to turn the spinning section by hand, won't we? Well,
we can use a crank and--gears! Migosh, yes--we can gear it
up and--"
Abruptly he stopped. "No, it won't work."
"Huh? What's the matter?"
"Lant, it was so long ago. The thing I built was so small.
I'm not sure how to do it any more, and I don't know if it
would make enough electrissy."
I poured him some more Quaff and sat down on the log
again with the bladder. "But you're going to try it, aren't
you?"
"Of course," he said. "I have to--but I hardly remember--"
He sat down on the log next to me. "Making an
airship isn't as easy as I thought."
I nodded. "It's been nine hands of days since we started.
I thought this would take only a few at most, but it has gone
on and on."
"And on," he added.
I took another swig. "You know," I said, "I've got some
more bad news for you."
"Oh? What?"
"There won't be any more aircloth. We've run out of wild
housetrees. The weavers can keep weaving, of course, but
unless the threads are dipped, it won't do you any good."
"Wonderful," he said. His tone suggested that he thought
it was anything but. "Of course, it hardly matters, if we can't
make more gas."
I took another drink. So did Purple.
"Of course," he said, "I do have enough aircloth for a
small airship--one that would carry me alone----" He
trailed off. He hiccuped and said, "If I have to make a hot-air
flying spell, I'll do it. Just so that Shoogar can't call me a liar.
I promised." He drained his bowl and held it out. I filled it
again.
"I'd sell my hope of flying for a quart of good Scotch right
now. Well, if we can't bleed the wild housetrees any more,
let's bleed the tame housetrees!"
"Blessed housetrees," I corrected him. "Consecrated house198 THE FLYING SORCERERS
trees. If you try that, they'll bum you for sure. Tampering
with a wife is one thing, but a housetree is quite another."
"Can't bleed consecrated housetrees," said Purple. He was
having more trouble than usual talking. "Can't bleed consecrated
housetrees." His face lit up. "We can deconsecrate
them first!"
"Nonsense."
"Why? Shoogar deconsecrated the other villages' weaving
patterns. Shoogar deconsecrated the womens' names. Why
don't I get to deconsecrate something?"
He was right. "Why not?" I agreed.
"Because I don't know a deconsecration spell," he answered.

"Nobody does," I said. "There are no spells for deconsecrating
housetrees."
"Nobody's ever needed one. I'll make one up. Am I not a
magician?"
"Certainly," I said.
"Best magician in this whole spiral arm, and two more
besides." He was trailing off into gibberish. What he needed
was another bowl of Quaff. Me too.
We trudged up to the Upper Village, and climbed into my
nest. I dug out a fresh bladder.
Purple took the first swig. Somewhere along the way he'd
lost his bowl, so he drank it straight from the bladder.
"How are you going to deconsecrate the trees?" I asked.
Purple lowered the skin from his mouth. He gave me a
dignified look of reproach and staggered to his feet, "Let's go
look at one and see."
Somewhat unsteadily, he lowered himself from my nest
and together we tottered through the village to one of the
largest housetrees--that of Hinc the Lesser. Purple took
another swill of the Quaff and surveyed it thoughtfully. "To
which God is this tree consecrated?" he asked.
"Um, this is the tree of Hinc the Lesser. I believe that it
is consecrated to Poup, the God of Fertility. Hinc has fourteen
children--all but one of them girls."
"H'm," said Purple, "I would need to deconsecrate it with
potions of sterility then, wouldn't I? H'm, Quaff being alcohol
is a cleansing medicine. Yes, Quaff can be used to make
things sterile. Quaff should be used in the deconsecration
THE FLYING SORCERERS 199
spell. And let me see, we should use the petals of the prickly
plant which blooms only once in fifty seasons, and . . ." He mumbled on and on like this. I took another drink of the
Quaff and followed him back to his nest.
He disappeared up into it, still mumbling. A hail of objects,
vials, potions and other magical devices began falling out of
the nestdoor. "Junk!" Purple bellowed. "It was all Dorthi's
junk. I had to learn the names of each and every--Damn,
I'm out of prickly plant petals. Can I substitute?"
"Isn't that dangerous?"
"Do you want to wait fifty family-making years?"
"No."
"I don't either. I'll substitute."
After a bit he dropped out of the nest himself, landing
unsteadily on top of the by now large pile of spellcasting
items. He started gathering them into a large pack. "It's
obvious to me, Lant, that we need to research this a little
further. Let's return to the village and look at the trees
again."
Again we surveyed Hinc's tree. The sun was red in the
west. We had perhaps an hour before blue dawn. "Is this a
nighttime or a daytime spell?" I asked.
"I don't know. Let's make it a dawn spell, a five o'clock
in the morning spell." He took another drink of Quaff. The
bladder was badly deflated by now.
He hiccuped and pulled out a clay mixing bowl. He began
mixing a potion, changed his mind abruptly and discarded it.
He started another, but poured that one out too--it sizzled
on top of the first. Finally he started mixing powders and
things in his pottery bowl.
Pottery. I wondered if IShould be insulted.
Purple sniffed his mixture and wrinkled his nose. "Ugh!
Almost--almost. This should do it, Lant. All it needs is--"
Abruptly he straightened and announced, "I have an urge."
He lifted his robe and looked around for a bush to step
behind. There were none. He looked at the bowl before him,
shrugged, "Why not?"
There was a hot spattering into the bowl.
"Purple!" I cried, "That is sheer genius--defiled water will
make the spell twice as powerful--defiled magician's water! Yes, yes."
200 THE FLYING SORCERERS
He lowered his robe modestly, "It was nothing, Lant. It
comes naturally." He reached for the Quaff, explaining, "I
may need more later." He drank, then returned the bladder
to me.
He hefted his spell-potion bowl carefully. "Now, there is
only one thing left to do."
I lowered the skin and said, "What's that?"
"Why, try the spell of course——" Immediately he began
singing and dancing in a circle around Hinc's tree. On his
second round, he almost tripped over his robe, but fortunately
he caught himself before he fell into his bowl. Quickly he
divested himself of the robe, and picking up the bowl once
again began dancing around the tree and singing, "Here we
go around the prickly plant, the prickly plant, the prickly
plant—here we go around the prickly plant at five o'clock
in the morning."
I wondered if I should tell him that it was not a prickly
plant he was deconsecrating, but a housetree, when suddenly
Hinc shoved his head out of his nest and shouted, "What is
that terrible noise?" He wrinkled his nose, "And what is that
terrible smell?"
"It's nothing," Purple called as he came around again. "Go
back to bed, Hinc. We're only deconsecrating your house-
tree."
"You're what?" Hinc's neck-fur bristled. He dropped
angrily out of the nest.
"Calm down, Hinc," I said. "Have a drink of Quaff while
we explain." He did and we did. We told him how we were
short of housetree blood, how Purple needed it desperately
in order to complete his flying machine and leave this world.
We told him how desperately Purple wanted to go home, and
how he was doing Purple a great favor. We told him how it
would only be for a day or two, and then Shoogar would be
glad to reconsecrate the tree.
By the time we finished telling him, Hinc was almost as
drunk as we.
He nodded agreeably as Purple gathered up his bowl again
and began singing and dancing around the tree, sprinkling it
gently with the potion. We watched for a bit and couldn't
help laughing.
Purple called out, "Don't stand there laughing. Help me."
THE FLYING SORCERERS :--^ 201
We looked at each other and shrugged. Hinc dropped the
robe he was holding about himself and easily joined Purple.
After pausing for a moment to finish the Quaff I did too.
When we had finished deconsecrating Hinc's tree, we
found we had potion left, a lot of it, so we moved on to the
tree of Ang the Fish-Farmer and Net-tender. He peered out
of his nest at the noise and shouted, "A festival? Waiti I will
join you."
Almost immediately he dropped out of his tree, stripping
off his clothes, but Purple had stopped singing. "No, it's no
good--we're out ;of Quaff."
"No! No, we're not!" cried Ang. He disappeared back into
his nest and reappeared almost immediately with another full
bladder. "Here, let the celebration continue!"
After we had danced about his tree five times, Ang suddenly
turned to me and asked, "By the way, Lant, what are
we celebrating?"
I told him.
"Oh," was all he said. Whatever the magician wanted was
fine with him. We kept on dancing.
The noise awakened several other people nearby, and they
joined us, with Quaff. We deconsecrated their trees for them
too,, and were about to start on mine--when abruptly we
were out of potion. "It's not fair, Purple. You've deconsecrated
everybody else's tree--you've got to deconsecrate
mine!"
So we made some more potion.
This time, though, we all provided the defiled water.
By this time the sun was close to rising, we could see the
blue-black glare of it behind the horizon. Most of the men
in the village were awake now and eagerly joining the line
to put defiled water into the potion pots--of which there
were several now. We passed around the everpresent Quaff
bladders. As soon as one was emptied, another full one
seemed to appear from nowhere. The new arrivals kept bringing
them. The wives watched nervously from the nests.
And then we were ready to resume the dancing and singing.
We danced and sang around every tree we could, until
the sun flashed over the horizon. We danced and sang in the
harsh blue light until it disappeared behind a cloud bank and
abruptly we were in the midst of a raging rainstorm.
202 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Hurrah! The deconsecration spell has worked!" We
skipped down the slope and began to dance around Purple's
housetree and the seven giant airbags hanging over it. "The
Gods are angry! The Gods are angry!" We sang, "It's raining,
it's pouring! All the Gods are roaring!"
Lightning and thunder shattered the sky--the warm drops
felt good against our naked fur.
And then--
A crackle of shattering brightness--our hair stood on end
--a giant KKK-R-R-R-ummmmppp!!! And a ball of orange
flame enveloped Purple's airbags, housetree and all.
For a moment I stood petrified--had we gone too far?
Was Eicin about to destroy this village too?
And then it was over, and silence reigned. Only the quiet
spattering of raindrops.
"Well," said Purple in the stillness. "I guess that's how you
deconsecrate a magician's tree."
W hen I awoke, the crimson sun was glaring.
Shoogar was standing above me, also glaring.
"Shoogar," I said and groaned. The sound of my voice
hurt my left eye.
"Lant," he replied. His voice hurt my right eye. ,
"Shoogar," I said.
"Lant," he replied.
"Shoogar," I said.
"I mean to know the meaning of your dancing this
morning."
"Not my dancing, not mine." I lifted myself up on one
arm. "It was Purple's. He deconsecrated some housetrees so
he could use their blood."
"He what??!!"
"Shoogar," I whispered. "Please don't shout. He only did
it for a little while. You can reconsecrate them again."
"I can what?!!"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 203
"You can reconsecrate them as soon as we tap their blood."
"When?!!" he screamed. I winced. "I have cloth to bless,
airboat frames to bless, threads to bless, nets to bless, weaving
to bless. When do I have the time to consecrate house-
trees?"
"You'll find time, Shoogar. We didn't deconsecrate that
many."
"How many?"
"Um, not that many."
"How many is 'not that many'?"
"Um, let me figure it out. There was Ang's and Hinc's
and Kif's and Totty's and Goldin's and . . . um . . . and . . ."
"Come on, clothead. Remember!"
"I will, I will, don't rush me. I think we deconsecrated
mine and maybe Purple's--but I don't think we have to
worry about Purple's. After we deconsecrated it, there was
nothing left. And I think we did Snarg's, but not ... or
maybe..."
"Lant, you're such a bloody blithering bowl of bladder-
worts--if you don't remember, I'll have to reconsecrate every
tree in the whole fang-sucking village!"
"Um, I'm sure I can remember, Shoogar. Just give me
time."
uhoogar was preparing to reconsecrate every tree in the
village.
But we wouldn't let him. To do that meant that all the
other work would have to wait until he could bless it. We
would just have to pass out spell tokens to the housetree
owners until Shoogar could redeem them. Like Purple's, they
would be promises of future spells, and he could catch up
later.
"Um," said Shoogar, surveying the village. It was obvious
he didn't like the idea. "Well, I still need to know--would ,you n»ind telling me just how you and Purple did your spell?"
204 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"It's all every vague. I remember we sang and danced and
had a lot of fun. Purple was singing something about 'It's
raining, it's pouring, all the Gods are roaring.' "
"I can imagine."
"Oh yes, he also sang, 'Here we go around the prickly
plant, the prickly plant, the princkly plant--' "
"He turned the housetrees into prickly plants?"
"Only symbologically, Shoogar--"
"Only symbologically--?" He groaned. "Of course, only
symbologically. How else can you turn a housetree into a
prickly plant?"
He turned and stared across the hillside, toward the village
of prickly plants. "Well," he sighed, "there goes the neighborhood."

The sap-gathering was well under way. I headed down
to the Lower Village. Bellis the Potter would have to supply
us with everything he had that we could use to hold house- tree blood--we weren't going to run out again.
When I told him, he was delighted. It meant a great deal
of work, he kept bouncing up and down and shouting,
"Oh, goody, goody, goody--spell tokens, spell tokens!"
I shrugged and left him. My head still hurt. I went up the
river to look for Purple. I couldn't even find where he had
been working. The surf was already crashing in around his
blackened housetree stump.
Half the Lower Village was underwater, the Speakers'
clearing and the graves of the two boys as well. The river
had long since seeped over its banks.
Lower Village families had been trickling up the hill to
occupy the housetrees we had prepared for them for some
time now, but I had not realized just how high the water had
risen. It had been a while since I had been to this part of
the village.
I found Purple with Trone the Coppersmith. The two of
THE FLYING SORCERERS 205
them were hard at work with wood and metal. I couldn't
fathom what they were doing, but it seemed odd that Trone,
a layman, should be working on a magical device.
When I pointed this out, Trone only snarled at me. Purple
said, "I need his skills, Lant. He's the only man who can
make what I need. We've got the copper wire—now, I need
a way to insulate it."
"Insulate? I wish you'd speak like a man. Purple."
"It means trap the magic in the wire. That way it can't
take short cuts. I can make it go round and round in a spiral,
but if the wire touches itself—I wonder, maybe if I coated
the wires with sap ..."
"We have more housetree blood. Purple. The gathering
crews are busily working in the Upper Village right now. All
those trees we deconsecrated—"
"I remember, I remember." Purple clutched at his head.
"Ooh. I've got a head you wouldn't believe ..."
True enough. I hadn't believed Purple's head the first time
I saw it. But I had come on weightier matters. I said, "Your
housetree was destroyed last night. Purple—" '
"No matter. There are others—"
"But your battery—?"
He held it up. "Safe!" he said. "I have kept it with me
always."
"Have you worked out a way to restore its power?"
"That's what we're working on now." He indicated the
device on Trone's bench. "This one is only a model, but as
soon as Trone gets more copper wire, we will be building
larger ones. We still have to wind these two iron uprights
with copper wire. Then, between them, we will mount a long
cylinder of iron so that it can spin between the two uprights.
We must wind that with wire too, as much as can be fitted
on. Then we must run leads for half a mile."
"Half a mile? That's a tradesman's ransom in metal!"
"In your old village it may have been," snorted Trone.
"Here metal is more plentiful."
"Besides," said Purple, "we dare not risk bringing the
electrissy maker any closer. A stray spark from it might set
off all the hydrogen bags."
"Set off?"
"Explode," said Purple. "Catch fire."
206 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"You mean like the ones over your housetree--?"
"Exactly," said Purple. "Only we will be using bigger airbags
for the flying machine--we must be very careful with
them."
"Oh, yes," I said. "Oh, yes. By all means. Use a mile of
wire if necessary, two miles--a dozen--as much as you
need."
Purple laughed at that. "Don't worry, Lant. The danger
will be minimal."
"That's what Shoogar said, just before the last conjunction."

He missed the point, began poking at his device again.
"What is it that will make the magic?" I asked.
"The spinner here--" he pointed at the iron bar which
would be mounted between the other two uprights. "One
must turn this core to make the magic flow. When the wire
is wrapped properly, the core will resist turning. We have
already mounted the crank here. For the larger ones we will
use a set of bicycle pedals and a seat for the pedaller."
"That means more work for my sons," I said. "They will
have to build a bicycle frame for your devices, won't they?"
He frowned, "Yes, they will. I hadn't thought of that. I'll
go and tell them."
"Don't bother. I'm going up there; I will mention it to
them."
"Yes," said Trone to Purple, "you will have to stay here
and help me melt this copper into wire. You work the
bellows."
Up on Idiot's crag the women were still spinning thread,
a pleasant and pastoral scene. Great loops of silvery thread
shimmered out over the edge, glistening wetly in the wind.
I climbed past them to where my sons were just finishing
the outriggers on the boat. Every day saw them making more
THE FLYING SORCERERS 207
and more adjustments with the masts and rigging. All they
needed now were the windbags.
The women, of course, did not know about Purple's windbags.
All they saw was a great flatbottomed boat with a fin
on the bottom and two pontoons mounted far out on the
sides.
Naturally, the women gossiped among themselves. Occasionally
one of my wives would relate to me the latest rumor
--the most recent being that Purple's strange machine was
going to fly off the mountain by flapping its wings. Purple
was only waiting until Orbur and Wilville could cover the
outriggers with fabric and feathers.
We had tried to stop the rumors by showing the loudest of
the women the small airbags that Purple had made for the
children. Those we said would lift the airboat. It did little
good. Most of the small airbags had grown flaccid over the
few days since they had been filled. They drooped.
I could see what Purple was talking about when he said
it was imperative that his battery be recharged--when he
took the flying machine on his long journey he would have
to be constantly renewing the hydrogen in the balloons.
Wilville was applying another hardening layer of housetree
blood to an aircloth-covered side. Orbur was just fastening a
bicycle frame to one of the outriggers and stringing pulleys
to an odd, bladed construction.
A bicycle on an airboat?
"What in the name of Ouells is that?" I asked.
"It's an airpusher," said one.
"A windmaker," said the other. ''
"What does it do?"
"It makes wind," said Orbur. "Shall I show you? We have
the other one booked up right--I think." He crawled across
the outrigger, into the boat, out the other side and across
that outrigger--
"Hey!" cried Wilville. "Be carefull"
"Sorry," said Orbur, still climbing.
"Is it safe to climb on those?" I asked.
- "Oh, yes," he called down, "they're designed for it. Whoever
is working the airpushers will have to climb out there
to sit on the bicycle frames."
"Oh," I said.
208 THE FLYING SORCERERS
He pulled himself onto the bicycle seat, explaining, "If it
were in the air, I wouldn't be able to stand on anything but
the outrigger. Wilville and I have been practicing, crawling
from the boat to the bicycle and back again."
I nodded. "Yes, that makes sense."
"Stand just behind that bladed thing there—not too close."
I did so. Wilville paused in his painting to watch. :
Orbur began pedaling then—the airpusher started to spin.
A wind blew against my face. Harder and harder—it was a
pocket hurricane! It was coming from Orbur, coming from
that whirling bladed devicel I stumbled back with my arm
across my eyes.
My sons laughed. Orbur released the bicycle pedals. The
spinning slowed and so did the wind.
"You see," said Wilville. "It makes wind. When we get
the airboat up in the air, we will lower these slings with the
pushers on the end. They hang one manheight below the
airframe. We will be sitting on the bikeframes and we will
pedal. The pulleys turn the shafts, and the blades make wind.
The wind pushes the airboat, and it moves."
"Oh," I said, "but why are there two windmakers?"
"You need two to steer."
"But that means that someone else will have to go with
Purple!"
"Two people," corrected Wilville. "One person could not
bring the airboat back alone. He would be stranded there."
"But—but—who—who is so foolish as to—?"
"Father," said Orbur. "Haven't you been listening to a
thing we've said? We are going with Purple."
I felt suddenly stricken. "You're what—?!!"
"Somebody must—who is it that knows the airboat better
than us?"
"But—but—"
Orbur climbed down off his bicycle frame, climbed down
from the airboat cradle, and came up to me. Gently he put
his hands on my shoulders and began to guide me down the
hill. "You go home and think about it. Father. You will see
that it is the wisest choice. Somebody must see that Purple
leaves. Somebody must make sure."
I went. Wilville and Orbur were right.
I trudged back down the hill toward the village. Spread
below me was another facet of the airboat's construction. .
Great swatches of cloth had been spread out across an
unused slope and Grimm the Tailor was sewing them together
to make the first of Purple's giant airbags.
This was cloth that had already been treated in houseblood
and tested for its water-tightness. As it was sewn together, the
seams would also be treated. The cloth was light and airy,
and a gusty wind swept across the hill making ripples in its
surface, despite the weights that were holding it down.
I had not realized that we were this far along. I had
imagined many more hands of days before we had enough
cloth. Apparently, Purple's prophecy had been correct, "It
may seem like a long time before we see any results, but
when they do happen, they will seem to happen overnight."
Now, all of a sudden, the airboat was almost complete,
the first of the bags was being finished and Purple was making
a large-scale gasmaker.
As I approached I noticed Shoogar also was working with
Grimm. He was holding a copy of--of Purple's blue- drawings! He seemed to be directing something. When I
came closer I realized that Shoogar either had figured them
out or----
No, it soon became apparent. He was directing the transference
of the pattern onto the cloth. Knowing that the bag
would form a sphere when inflated, Shoogar wanted the
proper spell markings on it. Accordingly, he was using the
best flying spell available--Purple's. After all, weren't the
blue-drawings the airship itself? Wouldn't it be necessary to
have blue-drawings on the balloon in order to make it lift?
Shoogar had taken on two apprentices, and they were painting
the lines in wide swatches.
I continued on down to the village, where I ran into a
disgruntled group of villagers. They were setting up tents
209
210 THE FLYING SORCERERS
beneath their housetrees. "I am not going to live in a prickly
plant," Trimmel was saying. "I absolutely refuse."
Others murmured their agreement. I tried to quiet them
the best I could. "As your Speaker--" I began.
"Some Speaker--you were part of the dancing!"
"Uh, it is necessary for the Speaker to be on good terms
with the magician," I said. "He invited me to dance. I
couldn't very well refuse."
"All right," grumbled Snarg. "What are you going to do
about it now."
"I'm not going to do anything--Shoogar is. He has promised
to reconsecrate all your housetrees as soon as he gets a
chance."
"As soon as he gets a chance? That could be days!"
"Don't worry," I said. "He has authorized me to give you
blue spell tokens. You will be able 'to redeem them later."
There was some grumbling at this, but no serious dissent.
Spell tokens were accepted in both the villages now.
A voice called, "So where are the tokens?"
"My apprentices are making them," I said. I hurried 'back
to my work area and quickly stained some bone chips blue. I directed my assistants to stain as many blue ones in the
future as purple ones. We would need both.
I returned to the villagers and began distributing the
tokens. There was a little more grumbling about the house-
blood-gathering teams. Some villagers felt that the magicians
had no right to take their housetree blood, even if it was a
prickly plant now. I paid them a purple token for Purple,
and they were satisfied. They disappeared into their nests to
sleep.
I wandered downward to the weaving pastures. The
weavers were grumbling because Shoogar had not shown up
today to offer the morning blessings. I gave them some blue spell tokens in lieu of the blessing. "These are spell tokens
too. Shoogar spell tokens. They are just like the Purple ones,
only Shoogar will redeem them."
They eyed the blue chips warily. They hadn't liked the
purple ones that much, but they had been forced to accept
them. Now they were having another chip introduced, and
they liked it even less.
I prevailed upon them. "Shoogar will redeem these as soon
THE FLYING SORCERERS 211
as he has time. This is only the promise of a spell. As soon
as he catches up with everything else, he'll come by and
consecrate the cloth. Go ahead and weave."
Glumly they did so. Now they were getting paid in blue
chips and purple chips.
I pocketed the balance of the tokens; I was carrying several
of each, and wandered back up to the village. Here and there
were a few people I had missed earlier in the day, still moaning
about not wanting to live in prickly plants. I gave them
some tokens, blue ones for the reconsecration spell, purple
ones for the use of their housetree blood.
Having solved those problems, I felt that I had earned my
pay as Speaker and went downslope to see Ang the Net
Tender. "Ang, have you a fish for my dinner?"
He produced a fine flatfish, already plucked. "I will trade
you for it," he said. .
"A bone utensil?"
"No," he shook his head, "bone rots here."
"H'm, how about some of the new cloth?"
"No, I already have some new cloth."
I put my hand into my robe fold and found one last blue
token. "How about a magic spell?"
"You're not a magician."
"No, but Shoogar is. I will give you this token, which is
the promise of a spell."
"H'm," he eyed it warily, "I would rather have one from
Purple."
"I can do that." Fortunately, I still had a few Purple
tokens with me. I gave one to him for the fish. He handed
me the fish and a blue token. "Here is the difference between
the value of the fish and the value of the purple token. One Shoogar."
"How did you get a blue token?" I asked. I had just distributed
them a few hours earlier. I had not given one to Ang.
"I traded a fish for three blue tokens earlier. Also, I traded
for some cloth, but they didn't have enough for me, so they
gave me some tokens in exchange, telling me I can trade
them back later."
"Oh."
Something about that troubled me. While my wives prepared
the flatfish for dinner, I realized what it was. People
212 THE FLYING SORCERERS
were trading those spell tokens as if they were the actual
spells themselves. But they weren't. They were only the promises
of the spells.
But then again, a promise is a symbol of an act, and a
symbol is the same as the act itself.
They were trading magic!
It suddenly occurred to me that it was possible for a magician
to make enough "promises" to release an inordinate
amount of magic into the village. There would have to be
controls of some kind. Oh well, it was Shoogar's problem
now, not mine.
I hree days later, Grimm finished the first of the giant
airbags and began working on the second.
Shoogar and Purple, Wilville and Orbur had already
claimed the first one and folded it carefully over the giant
filling framework that Wilville and Orbur had built so many
hands earlier. Three other filling frameworks waited empty
nearby.
"Only four windbags?" I asked.
"No," said Purple. "I hope to use more. But we will probably
only need four frameworks. We can only fill one bag
at a time, and it will take a while to lay each empty one on
a framework. While we're doing that, we can fill the others.
We'll do it in' rotation."
"Oh," I said. "What is this trench that runs below?"
'That's for the water--instead of using water pots, we
are going to use a trench. See these funnel affairs on the side?
That's where we will attach the hydrogen-making wires--the
airbag mouths will attach here. The oxygen-making wires we
will put down at the other end of the trench. We won't need
them."
"By using a trench," said Orbur, "we will be able to
generate much more electrissy--"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 213
"No," corrected Purple, "we will be able to make better
use of it. It will fill the balloons faster."
"We can fill four balloons at once," said Wilville, "or one
balloon four times as fast. It all depends where we put the
wires and funnels." He held up an odd-looking aircloth bag,
a collection of sleeves. "We can attach this to several gas-
making funnels, and lead all their hydrogen into one balloon."
"It looks as if you have been doing a lot of work," I said.
"All you need now is the electrissy." Purple winced when I
said the last word. He always did when I spoke of electrissy.
I asked, "Have you and Trone succeeded in making a magic
maker?"
Purple sighed. "Yes. Eicin's wrath, but that gave me
trouble!^ Trone did everything right, mind you, but I wound
the wire wrong, and then it took me a while to figure out a
commutator—"
"A what—?"
"Alternating current, Father," said Wilville. "We can't use
it."
"We have to change it to direct current—" said Orbur.
"Never mind. Pretend I didn't ask."
"Okay," said Purple. "Anyway, it's working now. It doesn't
make as much electrissy as I'd like, but Trone is building the
bigger machines and hopefully, they will be ready before the
airbags are. Would you like to see them?"
He didn't give me a chance to refuse, but led me up the
slope to where one of the ever-present apprentices was sitting
on a bicycle frame and pedaling wildly—but getting nowhere.
"What is he doing?" I asked.
"Look," said Purple. "Isn't it obvious? He is making
electrissy."
I looked. All I saw was a complicated arrangement of
cranks and belts and pulleys making a spinning thing turn
as fast as it could. Two wires led from the spinning thing to
Purple's battery.
"He is restoring its power?" I asked.
"Oh yes—he could never restore all of it," said Purple,
"but he can make enough electrissy so that it will not run out
on the journey."
We trudged farther up the slope. We found Trone and half
a dozen other men, working with some giant frameworks of
214 THE FLYING SORCERERS
iron and copper. I had never seen so much metal in my life.
"Where did you get so much?" I asked.
"We practically had to ransack every smith on the island,"
he grunted. Apparently he wasn't too happy about it, but
then Trone was rarely happy about anything.
"When will the bicycle frames be ready?" he asked.
Purple groaned. "Oh, no--I knew I forgot something." He
looked at me. "Your sons have been building bicycles and
bicycles--all without wheels. They have built them to power
the airship, and to make electrissy for my battery--now they
will have to build more, many more. As many as possible to
power these spinning things."
"How many will you need?"
"At least ten or more for each spinning thing. If we have
more, we can turn them faster."
"And how many spinning things are you hoping to build?"
"At least four--but we won't have to wait until they are
all through before we can use them. As each one is finished
we will put it to work storing power in the battery."
I nodded. I was doing some figuring, "But, Purple, you are
asking for forty bicycle frames--without wheels. That's a lot
of bicycles. It takes time to build that many machines."
"I know, I know. We had better go back down and talk
to the boys. We may have to start another put-it-together line.
This time for bicycles."
As we trudged downslope, I noticed that a different apprentice
was on the bicycle now. The first was resting. "It is very
tiring work," explained Purple.
"Oh, come now," I said, "I've ridden bicycles--"
"It's not the bicycle," said Purple. "It's the generator. Try
turning that crank on its other side."
"All right." I took the handle in both hands. I waited while
the apprentice dismounted from the bicycle. He was panting
heavily.
The crank did not look that hard to turn. I pushed on it.
The crank turned easily when I moved it slowly, but the
faster I moved it, the more it fought me. An invisible
spirit was pushing back. I felt my fur trying to stand on end.
I let go of the handle and backed away slowly. The crank
whirred to a stop.
"There--now you see why we need a boy on a bicycle.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 215
Legs are stronger than arms. Even so, they still get tired.
Can you imagine how hard it will be to make a big machine
spin?"
I nodded my head. "I can see, I can see. You will need
more than ten bicycles to a machine."
"Right," said Purple.
When we explained the problem to my sons, they nodded
understandingly. "We may have to recruit every free man in
the village to make a bicycle put-it-together line."
"Do it," said Purple. He turned to me, "You will have to
make some more spell tokens, won't you?"
I nodded.
Wilville and Orbur did not seem as depressed as I had
thought they would be when Purple told them of the number
of bicycles they would have to build. Apparently they had
been talking about their bicycle put-it-together line for some
time. This would give them a chance to try it out sooner.
Purple began talking over the details with them, "Of
course, we will want to fill all the airbags at one time--that
means we won't launch the flying boat until all four generators
are working. But as each one is finished we'll put it
to work storing power. My battery will hold as much electrissy
as any of these machines can turn out. The best part
about it is that we can use it to supplement the power from
the generators when we are ready to launch the boat and fill
the airbags that much sooner."
"Won't you run the risk of making it dead again?" I asked.
"Not really. It "has a power meter on it. That tells me how
much power I have left. I have figured out how much we
will need to be sure of making the trip north safely. As long
as there is that much in the battery, we are okay. Anything
over it we can use for the launching. I can regulate the outflow
of the power, Lant, so as to fill the balloons as fast as I
can on launch day."
I nodded knowingly. I hadn't understood a word he had
said--but I felt he needed the reassurance.
I he waters continued to rise. The surf crashed higher on
the slope every day. The tides came in--and in and in and in,
until most of the people of the Lower Village were forced to
move up the slope. Only the tops of the housetrees marked
where the major portion of the village had been. Occasionally
a nest would break free, and be seen floating away.
The Upper Village was fairly crowded, but we were able
to manage with a minimum of doubling up. Wilville and
Orbur were able to recruit quite a few men for their bicycle
put-it-together line. It gave many of the villagers something
to do while waiting for the waters to recede, and there were
those who were eager to earn extra spell chips.
By the time the first twelve bicycle frames were finished,
Trone had finished the first of the big spinning things--
generators he called them. The boys connected up the
bicycles that same day.
.Shoogar had recruited twelve good men for the first test.
They stood nervously to one side and grumbled to themselves.
They were unhappy about the prospect of making
electrissy. Shoogar kept fumbling with his magic kit, and
every time he did, the men twitched in response.
No matter. As long as we could perform the test.
Purple checked over the wires that led across the hill to
the water-filled trench. When he was ready he signaled
Shoogar with a wave of his hand. Shoogar bade the men
mount the bicycles.
At another command they began pedaling. The generator
began spinning, slowly at first, then faster and faster--it was
making electrissy. Sure enough, down by the trench there
was activity--other men were clustering around the wires.
I left the generator crew and approached the water trench.
From one end, oxygen bubbled steadily upward. At the other,
Purple was just fitting a clay spout over a water-immersed
216
THE FLYING SORCERERS 217
wire. To this he attached a small airbag. Within a few
minutes it was full.
He tied it at the neck and released it. It drifted gently
upward. This time though, there was no panic--only a cheer.
We were becoming more and more used to this spell. Indeed,
it was almost commonplace by now.
Purple was delighted. He signaled Shoogar to stop the
pedaling. He then trudged halfway up the hill and connected
his battery to the leads from the generator.
"AH right, Shoogar," he; called, "start them up again."
Shoogar growled an order and the twelve men began
pumping again. It looked strange to see them pedaling as
hard as they could and getting nowhere--but it was only a
foretaste of things to come. Purple wanted a whole army of
men up on the hill, pedaling wildly.
The smaller generator--the one powered by one apprentice
on a bicycle--was dismantled then, and its parts cannibalized
for the larger generators. It was one less bike frame to build
and that much more wire that could be used.
Wilville and Orbur were pleased at the success. That the
twelve bicycle frames had been built so quickly testified to,
the efficiency of their put-it-together line. "I figure we could
have at least fifty bicycles before another hand of days is up,"
said Orbur.
We started trudging up the slope to where the airboat
waited. Wilville replied, "I think only part of it is the put-it-
together line, Orbur--remember, we have an awful lot of
people working for us too." .,
"Yes, but we bad to teach them." '"'"*" When we got to the Crag the boys pointed out what still
needed to be done on the airboat. Some of the rigging structures
to hold the ropes for the balloons had not been secured
yet, and Wilville wanted to add at least one more coat of
hardener to the sides of the airboat. It felt hard enough to
me, but then it was my sons who would be flying in it, and
if they felt they wanted it hard, it was their boat.
Orbur explained that he had adjusted the airpushers as well
as he could, but he wanted to experiment some more with
"higher" gears. He wanted to try putting smaller wheels on
the spinning sections and larger wheels on the bicycle frames.
The connecting pulleys should then make the airpushers spin
218 THE FLYING SORCERERS

even faster. But he needed new pulley cloths first. He hoped
to have them before this hand of days was over.
Wilville sighed as he began heating his hardening solution.
"I'm glad that most of the other building is over--we could
have had this boatframe finished months ago had it not been
for all the bicycle frames and filling frameworks and cranking
machines we have had to work on."
"Yes," I agreed. "But the boatframe couldn't have gone
anywhere until all the other work was done first. You needed
the aircloth and the generators and the cranking thing for
making loomteeth and--"
"It's just as Purple said. You have to make the tools with
which to make the tools to make the tools," Orbur called
from above. "That's just what we have been doing. You can't
just build an airboat--you have to build the put-it-together
line which can make the pieces which will make the airboat."
"Imagine the size of the put-it-together line for Purple's
black egg," replied Wilville.
I tried to, but I couldn't.
I noticed a figure trudging up the hill then--it was Shoogar.
He had come to inspect the flying machine.
"Oh, not again," groaned Orbur. "He's up here almost
every day now, asking questions and annoying us--"
"He's only trying to understand the spell," I said.
"He will never understand the spell," said Wilville. "He is
a--"
"Watch it," I cautioned, "whatever else he may be, he has jgphenomenal hearing."
- Shoogar arrived then and tsk-ed satisfactorily over the
progress of the work. "But when will you hang the sails?"
he asked.
Orbur said, "Sails? We won't be hanging any sails, Shoogar.
We don't need them."
"Nonsense," said the magician peering up at Orbur who
was hanging in the rigging. "How many times must I
explain to you--you can't be pushed by the wind without
sails."
Orbur began climbing down. I could see that he was sighing
to himself. He swung down a rope to the boat's cradle,
then dropped off the edge to the ground. He walked around
THE FLYING SORCERERS 219
to Shoogar, "Purple has explained it to us over and over.
We won't need sails. We have the windmakers instead."
Shoogar stamped his foot impatiently. "No, Orbur--if you
have windmakers then obviously you are planning to use
sails. The windmakers will make wind and push the sails,
and the boat will move."
"No, Shoogar--the windmakers push the air backward and
the airboat moves forward. Without sails."
"Without sails, what will they have to push against? The
boat won't move at all through the air."
"The boat will move."
"It won't."
"Purple says it will."
"And I say it won't."
"I say it will!" ^ "
"Are you arguing with a magician?!!"
"Yes! We have tested the windmakers already--and when
both Wilville and I are pumping as hard as we can the boat
seems to edge forward as if it could hardly wait to leap into
the air."
"It may get into the air," said Shoogar, "but it'll never
move an inch without sails!"
"But--"
"Don't try to correct me, Orbur. I've already ordered the
sails from Lesta. You and Wilville had best plan on masts
for them."
"Masts?" asked Orbur. "And where will we put masts?" He pointed at the boatframe. It sat gently on the cradle, its
two outriggers stretching wide on either side, its heavy keel
hanging below on a spar of bambooze. It had a flimsy looking
set of bambooze rigging above, empty and waiting for the airbags.
It looked strangely incomplete. I tried to imagine it
finished and in the air, but could not.
Shoogar peered at it. He circled the boat thoughtfully,
stepping around Wilville who quietly and calmly continued to
paint.
He climbed up on the launching cradle and peered into
the boat itself. Orbur and I followed. He climbed in and
rapped on the floor. "What's this?"
"It's sand-ash wood. We're using three thin planks to add
stability to the floor."
220 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"It's too thin. We can't possibly mount masts in it."
"That's what I'm--"
"We'll have to hang them from the outriggers."
"Where? There's no room at all behind the airpushers!"
True enough, there wasn't. There was a bicycle frame at
the back of each outrigger. The airpushers hung a good man-
height below the bicycle seats and well behind the pedals--
so that the pedaller would not be riding in his own wind.
"You'll have to put them in front," said Shoogar. "Plenty
of room if you do that. Put the masts and sails in front of the
windmakers, then pedal in reverse. The wind will blow forward,
into the sails. Youll be facing in the direction you're
going."
"But pedaling in reverse is hard work!"
"Then reverse the gear!" Shoogar snapped. "Do I have to
do all your thinking for you?"
"We do not need any sails!" Orbur shouted at him.
"All you have is Purple's word for that." Shoogar's voice
suddenly turned persuasive. "Set the masts now, put the sails
on before you leave. Then you'll be prepared for anything.
If the sails don't work, you can take them off!"
"Well--" Orbur hesitated. He looked at Wilville. Wilville
studiously ignored him, slapped the paint on extra fast.
"It wouldn't hurt," I suggested.
"Therel" said Shoogar. "You see--even your own father
thinks so."
"Yes, but--"
"No buts about it The sails will be ready in seven days."
Pleased that he had won the battle, Shoogar began climbing
down from the boat. As he dropped to the ground, he
rapped sharply on the sturdy side of hardened aireloth.
"Good construction," he noted. He grabbed my arm and
started dragging me toward the village, "Now then, Lant, we
have to get straight on this matter of the spell tokens. The
blue tokens are obviously not being properly appreciated by
the villagers."
"What do you mean?"
"They are trading four Shoogars for one Purple--why just
this morning Hinc the Lesser told me that it was because I
was only one fourth the magician that Purple is. Excuse me,
Hinc the Hairless told me."
THE FLYING SORCERERS 221
"Oh," I said.
"Now tell me honestly, Lant—could you agree with a
point of view like that?"
"Uh, well—" I began.
"Don't be afraid, Lant. You can tell me the truth."
"Well, Shoogar—it is well known that you do much more
work than Purple. You do most of the spellcasting in the
village, and Purple hardly does any. That makes Purple's
magic much rarer and worth a lot more. The people know
that they can always redeem your coins for spells—but
Purple's magic is rarer, and hence they seem to think that
it is more valuable or else he would use it as freely as you do."
"H'm," said Shoogar.
"Well, you wanted me to be truthful."
"I didn't mean for you to be that truthful." He grumbled
on down to the village. Certainly he had the right to be
miffed.
But there was no help for it. Already the villagers were
calling Shoogar's blue tokens "quarters." The custom was
now fixed in the language.
\-)rbw was having some trouble with his gears. He had
dismantled the whole assembly and rebuilt them from scratch.
When finished, he had increased the speed of the airpushers
so that the boat had to be tied down when he tested them.
He had connected three sets of pulleys to each windmaker
in descending orders—Purple called it "high gear." There was
the large wheel which was turned by the man pedaling. The
pulley from this was looped around a very small wheel which
was caused to turn very fast. On the same shaft as this small
wheel was another large wheel. A pulley from this large
wheel was connected to the shaft of the bladed airpusher.
Orbur had also changed the pulley cloths, alternating the
loops in order to reverse the spin of the airpushers. Now
they threw their wind forward, toward the masts.
222 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple came to inspect the progress and nodded in satisfaction.
Then his eye caught the masts that protruded below
each outrigger, and he asked, "What are these?"
"For the sails," Orbur explained.
"Sails? Are we going to have to start that again?"
"No, but Shoogar--"
"Shoogar. I might have known. Shoogar wants sails, does
he?"
"See for yourself. When they're mounted, the wind from
the airmakers will blow right into them. We won't have to
wait for a breeze--if it works. In fact," said Orbur, "it ought
to work for boats too. If--" But he had to stop there, for
Purple was leaning against the hull, chortling, while his nude
face grew redder and redder.
"You think it won't work," Orbur said sadly.
"Yes, yes, I think that. But try it anyway. What harm can
it do? There is only one way Shoogar will ever be convinced
that we don't need sails. We'll have to let him try it." He
turned to go, but turned back. "Just be sure we can remove
the sails after we prove they don't work."
-Uown the slope Trone had finished two generators, and
there were more than twenty men pumping away on each of
them. All of their power was going steadily into Purple's little
battery.
Purple was growing more and more impatient every day.
He hovered around the workers like a bumble-sting, prodding
and poking. Grimm, the tailor, had finished sixteen airbags
for him. Each, when inflated, would be nearly six manlengths
in height.
Purple estimated that ten airbags might lift the boat, but
thirteen would be necessary to carry the additional supplies
he wanted to take--and sixteen balloons would give him a
margin for error in case they leaked faster than he had
figured. He was worried about the seams.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 223
Grimm also made three additional airbags to be taken
along in case of emergency. If one of the airbags developed
a leak too big to be patched, or was otherwise damaged, Purple would have a spare with which to replace it.
In short, we were taking no chances--when Purple left, we wanted to be sure he was gone.
Right now he was directing the anchoring of the fining
frames. He had suddenly realized how light they were, and
did not want to risk a balloon suddenly lifting up and taking
a filling frame with it.
With Grimm's help they had worked out a system of
harness and anchor ropes for the balloons, and as each one
was filled, six men wearing weighted belts would ferry it up to
the Crag where Wilville and Orbur waited. The rigging ropes
for the airboat were laid out across the launching cradle in a
set pattern, and the harness ropes had to be attached in a
specific order. Then--and only then--would the anchoring
ropes be released. Purple did not want to risk losing even one
of his giant balloons. They had taken too much time and
effort to build.
Originally he had planned to use many smaller balloons,
each the height of a man--but then he had done some figuring--he
could hold the same amount of gas in fewer but
larger balloons--and it would not need as much cloth. He
would still be able to fly, and it would not take so long to
make his windbags.
Purple and Shoogar had created a whole new trade--
airmen. These were the various crews who were tending the
generators, the filling frames, the water trenches, the anchoring
of the airboat--everything that was needed to fly.
More and more villagers came to watch or help. We had
little else to do now that the seas had reached their peak--
even the lower slope of the Upper Village was under water
now. Most people were living close to the working site
anyway. That was fortuitous for Purple--he always had need
of men to pump on his bicycles, and the demand for his spell
tokens was so great that there was never any shortage of
volunteers.
Purple grew more and more impatient with each day. The
only thing holding him up was the production of electrissy.
224 THH FLYING SORCERERS
Apparently, it took fantastic amounts to make enough
hydrogen.
The fourth generator had not even been begun when
Purple began filling his airbags. He was experimenting, he
said. He wanted to see how long it took to fill each one,
and he needed to know how fast they lost their gas. Besides,
it would be easier to pump a limp atrbag taut than to start
from scratch. And in any case, it would take several days to
fill all the balloons.
That he was eager to see how well his flying machine
worked was no secret. There were almost thirty men on each
generator now and he had more than enough power in his battery
to fill all the airbags. He would use it if he had to, he
said, but he hoped to save it for his journey where it would
really be necessary.
We watched as he arranged the wires in the trough. The
women began filling that channel with water. Fortunately,
they did not have to carry it very far, only half a mile uphill, and the slope was gentle.
There was some hassling then with the filling crews, the
boys who had been hired to watch the filling of the bag, but
finally Purple straightened out their instructions and they
began laying one of the finished airbags across the frame.
Shoogar and Gortik and I exchanged a glance. "You
know," said Gortik. "I actually think he's going to do it----"
"I've never doubted it," I said.
Shoogar only snorted.
"All that work, all that work--" Gortik murmured.
"Frameworks and looms and bicycles----all that work, just to build a flying machine."
"He said it was a complicated spell," I put in.
Shoogar snorted again.
"It's necessary though," I added. "Otherwise, he can't go
home."
"He must want to go home very badly," Gortik said.
"Not as badly as we want him to," Shoogar snapped.
"And the sooner the better. I think I'll go help him." And
he tottered off down the hill. "There are supplies to gather
and sails to pack."
It was a strange scene--four giant frames, three covered
with cloth, and the fourth holding a gently puffing mass of
rising airbag. A trench of water ran below, and bubbled
furiously at its free end. At its other end a nozzle and hose
attachment reached up to the giant bag.
Farther up the slope, more than a hundred and twenty men
were pumping wildly on their bicycles. Great spinning
generators whirred loudly. One could hear their high-pitched
whine all over the hill--but we had become used to that
sound. It had become a part of our lives.
Nine airbags had already been filled and ferried up the
hill. Wilville and Orbur were climbing excitedly about on
the airboat frame, making last minute adjustments in the
rigging.
All over the slope we could see the imposing frame of
the craft--and at last we saw what Purple had visualized
all this time. Not all the airbags had yet been attached;
yet the nine straining upward from their ropes gave us an
idea--a cluster of moons swelling gloriously in the red
and blue light.
It had taken nearly five days to fill this many bags. Already
the first bags filled were starting to droop, and others
were showing ripples in the wind--signs that they were not
as taut as they should be.
But Purple had counted on a certain amount of leakage
during the time it took to fill the bags. He intended to use
his battery to replenish the hydrogen in each of them just
before departure.
By now the affair had turned into quite a festival. There
was much singing and shouting and drinking of Quaff. The _
men working on the generators had organized themselves J
into teams and had begun competing--each team trying
to see how long they could go at full speed--each team a
trying to prove it was stronger than the other, fl
225
226 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple was delighted. He offered two extra spell tokens
for every man on the winning team. As soon as one competition
was ended, another promptly began, fresh teams
replacing the tired ones on the bicycles. The process of
replacement was always fun to watch--one man at a time
would hop off his bicycle, leaving the pedals still spinning
wildly. Another would then hop on and match the rate of
pumping. The next man in line would then hop off his bike
and so on.
As soon as all the teams were replaced the signal would
be given, and another competition would begin with a roar
from the spectators. Purple had even permitted a certain
amount of side-wagering with his spell tokens although
Shoogar and I had expressed some misgivings about it. "Why
not?" Purple said. "It makes them more enthusiastic."
He was right about that. Often the teams would bet large
amounts of spell tokens against each other so that it was
possible for a generator team to lose chips while they worked.
But if they didn't mind ...
Trone and his men were eager to finish the fourth genera-
tor--they hoped to form a bicycle team themselves and
earn some of those extra chips. His would be a formidable
team, I thought. Trone's arms and legs were strong and
thick from years of coppersmithing. I might bet on him
myself.
Meanwhile, the eleventh balloon was already puffing up.
The tenth was just being removed from its filling frame for
its transfer up the slope. Purple was directing the transfer,
with much swearing and threats of curses.
It was an eerie sight: Six strong men bouncing slowly
up the hill under the absence of weight of the giant balloon.
Once a sudden gust of wind caught them, and they bounced
high in the air and floated slowly down. All were laughing--
except Purple. He was white beneath his beard as he followed
them up.
Then they were on the Crag, and the harnessed bag was
attached to the rigging. The rope transfer was made and the
men released the balloon--it snapped upward to join the
others. They were blue spheres with white lines inscribed
upon them, looking tiny from here. The airboat tugged at
THE FLYING SORCERERS 227
its mooring, and Purple kept climbing in and out of it, pulling
at its rigging and anchoring ropes.
Satisfied, he came bounding down the hill again, shouting,
"Two more balloons, Lant. Two more and I can go flying!"
"I thought you wanted to use sixteen--"
"But it works so well, look! See how it tugs at its ropes--
and that's with only ten balloons! And see how some of
them are limp. Imagine how it will lift when I pump them up
again with the battery! Two more balloons should do it.
Those will be for the weight of the supplies and the passengers.
We will be able to test it today!"
And he bounded on down the hill to supervise the filling
of the eleventh balloon. I followed slowly in his wake.
Thoughtfully.
I couldn't get used to the idea. Purple was actually leaving!
He had actually built his flying machine, and he was
actually going to leave in it. Soon we would be rid of him.
I shook my head as I looked over the fantastic activity
below me--things would not be the same with him gone.
A group of boys stood down near the unused end of the j
trough, cheering the balloons and giggling hysterically, li^
Some were rolling in the blackgrass, others were peering "F'|^B
into the bubbling water. Trone's generator wires led into
the water right at that point, and apparently the boys liked y
to watch it bubble, fli
They had been gathering at this point for some days now,
ever since Purple had begun filling his airbags.
I began to wonder about this. Curious, I approached that
end of the trough and observed. The water was bubbling furiously as the gas rose from the wires. The young men
would put their faces near it and inhale deeply, then fall
back among their fellows and giggle happily. ^
Their behavior was much like that of one who was drunk
228 THE FLYING SORCERERS
on Quaff--but that was silly. These boys were still unconsecrated
and not allowed to drink Quaff.
But then, what was producing this strange effect?
I pushed my way through them and asked, "What's going
on here?"
They shook their heads shamefacedly, but would not say.
I bent over and sniffed at the bubbling waters, but I could
smell nothing. Curious, that. I took another sniff. Still nothing.
It was interesting though. I took another sniff, a deep
one--I felt just a wee bit lightheaded.
I took another sniff--was it possible that this gas made
people light-headed? I wondered about that. The other gas
made things light----this gas made people light. No, I'd have to think about that. I took another sniff. The other
gas made things rise above other things. This new gas made
people's view of things rise above other things.
Another sniff--how strange! I knew what I meant. Why
weren't there words for it? I lowered my head again----
Abruptly I was being pulled away by Shoogar, "Lant,
Lant--what is the matter with you?"
"Um--ah, oh--hi, Shoogar--"
He dragged me downwind of the bubbling water. "What
are you doing?"
"Um, I was investigating the bubbles."
"You will turn into a bubblehead--like those wastrels!" He gestured at the boys once again gathered around the trench.
"They talk about the strange gas that makes them light."
"I didn't know you'd investigated it, Shoogar." I was beginning
to feel heavy again. "Is it dangerous?"
"Of course it is--if only because it teaches the young
to enjoy themselves."
"Something should be done," I said.
"Right." Shoogar fumbled in his sleeve. "I'll toss a ball
of fire at them." He reached and pulled and--
Fwoof! It went off in his hand, burning and sizzling faster
than I'd ever seen--
Shoogar yelped and plunged his hand into a water pot. He shouted, "See? I told you the bubbles were dangerous!"
When it happened, it happened in broad double daylight.
Red sunlight and blue lit the sky. The windbags glowed
like moons; one side red, the other blue.
There was always a crowd on the Crag now, and Purple
had posted men to keep them back. Mongers moved among
the people, trading sweetdrops and spicy meats for small
tokens.
Wilville and Orbur were just storing the last of Purple's
supplies. Each packet had been wrapped in aircloth to
protect it from the wet and cold Purple said they would find
in the upper sky.
I stood below, leaning on one of the taut ropes that led
from the boat to the ground.
Purple was up on the landing cradle with three large pots
of water. He had his battery connected to one of them, and
a neck of cloth hung down from one of the balloons. It was
tied tightly to the water-pot funnel, and as we watched, this
last giant sphere swelled and tightened.
Abruptly one of the mooring ropes parted. One end of
the boat swung upward.
There was an "Ooooool" from the crowd.
Purple jumped back in surprise, knocking over one of
the water pots. Wilville and Orbur had been thrown to the
floor of the boat--they stuck their heads up confusedly.
"The other end! The other end!" Purple was shouting and
pointing, "Go stand at the other end!" He pointed to the
nose of the boat which was aimed eagerly at the sky.
Wilville and Orbur scrambled quickly up the boat. As
they did so, that part of it started to settle. Purple began
directing men to secure it with new mooring ropes. He
bent to disconnect his battery, and hurriedly began tying
off the neck of his balloon.
And then Shoogar arrived, leading an excited team of
men, bringing with them the twelfth giant windbag. He 229 ,
230 THE FLYING SORCERERS
caught sight of the eager airboat and cried, "Purple, Purple—
don't leave without your balloon!"
The murmur of the crowd rose behind him—a gabble
of voices and conflicting opinions. "Shut up, Shoogar—if
he wants to leave without it, let him!"
Wilville was leaning out over the edge, pointing and
waving at the men with the balloon—"No, nol That's the
wrong rope—don't attach it therel" They couldn't hear him.
"Wilvillel Orbur!" I cried. "Get out of the boati"
But Purple was crying, "Stay in the boati Stay in the
boat!" He jumped off the landing cradle and ran over to
where Shoogar and the others were trying to attach the
windbag. "Not here, you slithy tovel" He began pulling them
around to the other side—"This is the rope, herel"
For a moment I thought they were going to lose it—
the bag was as eager as the rest to leap into the sky. Thank
the Gods for the anchor ropes. If we lost a balloon, we
would lose many days of work. The anchor ropes prevented
that. The balloons could not escape their tethers. If we let go
of one, it would only snap upward until we could pull it
down again.
Under Purple's direction the men were able to fasten the
bag to the proper rope without losing it. It snapped upward,
and the rope strained as taut as the others.
This last windbag seemed to do it. The boat hung upward
at the end of its mooring ropes. The chatter of excited
voices rose.
"Ballast!" Purple was crying. "Get the ballast bags—"
"I'll do iti" cried Orbur and started to climb out of the
boat—"
"No!" Purple swarmed up the cradle and pushed him
back in—he fell to the deck slats with a thump. "You stay
in the boat! We need your weight to help hold it down."
Shoogar was bouncing around the base of the launching
cradle, barking at the men struggling to tie more mooring
ropes. Heavy wooden stakes were being pounded into the
ground.
Other men came running across the slope—each carrying
two heavy ballast bags with him. They swung ominously
back and forth. Trone the Coppersmith brought four.
The ballast bags were also made of aircloth, and filled
THE FLYING SORCERERS 231
with sand. Purple had realized their need only a hand of
days ago, and Grimm had had to hurry to sew them up.
Trone had taken the responsibility of seeing that they were
filled.
Now the men came jumping up onto the cradle and
practically threw the bags at Wilville and Orbur--Orbur
slipped under their weight and disappeared again into the
bottom of the boat. There was a muffled curse.
The bags had been finished and waiting since this mom-
ing. Purple said they were needed to provide extra weight
that was expendable as the gas leaked out. A thought occurred
to me--why hadn't he put them in the boat as they
were finished, instead of waiting till the last moment like
this. It certainly would have been easier.
"More bags! More bags!" He was calling. The men took
off again, dashing to get another load. Wilville and Orbur
staggered to stow them evenly.
Purple then jumped into the boat to help. He grabbed the
ballast bags as each one was brought up, and directed their
distribution about the craft.
I jumped up on the cradle. "Purple," I screamed over the
noise of the crowd and the ballast runners. "It has been a
great honor to have you here--we will miss you greatly--
your memory will never be forgotten--we wish you the
speediest of journeys--"
"Shut up, Lant--you blithering wart! I'm not going anywhere.
I'm only going on a test flight! That's why we only
need twelve balloons for now. We'll need the other four for
the longer journey, but right now we only want to see how
well she handles in case we have to make any modifications--"

"Don't forget the sails! The sails!" Shoogar came screaming
up. His arms were laden with great folds of cloth, and
he was followed by two apprentices, also laden with cloth.
"Yes," said Purple. "We can use them as ballast--Shoogar,
what are you doing?!!"
Shoogar paused. He was climbing into the boat. "What does
it look like I am doing?"
"It looks like you're getting into the boat--"
"That's right, I am. You cannot take from me the honor
of the first flight."
232 THE FLYING SQRCERERS
"Honor?!! Shoogar, this might be very dangerous--"
"It will be even more dangerous if you don't take the
sails--you will have no way to move through the air." His
assistants began handing them over the sides to him.
Purple shrugged. He grabbed one last sandbag from
Trone. Did the airboat seem to sag? Had the mooring ropes
slackened momentarily? "All right, Shoogar," he said. "You
can come. I guess I do owe you a ride in my flying machine." ^,"0w flying machine," corrected Shoogar.
3g|gg"All right," sighed Purple. He climbed up a rope ladder
to get a better view. "Trone!" he called. The coppersmith
looked up. "Be sure that you and the rest of the flight crew
pump up the other four balloons! We will be needing them.
And organize that ground crew that I told you about--we
will need them when we return!"
Trone waved and grinned. "Don't worry. Purple."
Purple waved back. He climbed higher up the rope ladder
and began checking the rigging of the balloons. "Wilville,"
I whispered loudly, "be careful! Do not let the magicians
kill each other!"
"Father," he called back, wide-eyed, "do not let the
magicians kill us!"
"Don't worry--they won't. They need you to pedal the
bicycles and turn the airpushers. Just be careful--don't fall
off."
"We won't--we are going to tie safety ropes around our
necks."
"Try your waists," I suggested. "It'll be even safer. Good
luck with the sails."
He groaned. "We'll need it. Shoogar will not be convinced
--he is sure we will need sails."
"What do you think?" I asked.
Wilville shook his head. "Purple's first flying machine
didn't have sails. I think he knows what he's talking about.
So does Orbur--"
We were interrupted by a voice from above. Purple had
completed his check of the rigging and he was calling, "All
right, cast loose! Cast loose the ropes!"
"Huh? What--? Talk like a man. Purple! Not your demon
language!"
He screamed, "Cut the ropes, curse you!"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 233
I paled and grabbed for a knife.
"Try to cut them all at once!" he shouted.
I started hacking at the first of the mooring ropes. Both
Shoogar and Purple were yelling at me from above. As soon
as I cut it, that side of the boat leapt upward, throwing it
into a violent slant. Purple and Shoogar screamed excitedly,
"The other side! Cut the ropes on the other side now!"
I ran around to the other side and cut a rope there, but
then that side leapt upward. I ran back to the first side and
cut another rope, but now the front of the airship was
hanging lower than the back, and so I had to cut another and
meanwhile all of them were screaming, Wilville and Orbur,
Purple and Shoogar, Trone and the ballast crew, the roiling
crowd--even Lesta, upset because the ropes had been bound
from his finest cloth.
And then there was only one rope left--the airboat was
pointed severely at the sky. I cut it and----
It leapt upward, and there was a great echoing cheer
from the crowd. I collapsed on the cradle, rolled over on
my back, and watched them shrink into the sky. I was glad
that there had not been more ropes. I was panting heavily.
The sky was sparkling blue. The airboat was a slender
shape, hanging under a cluster of swollen grapes. The crowd ooh'd and ah'd as it floated up and away from them.
It was not the first time I had seen a flying machine. But
I felt a surge of pride as it rose into the sky--as if I had
built it myself. It was so much lovelier than Purple's black
egg had been. And after all, hadn't I helped to build it?
A white sail bloomed beneath one of the outriggers.
Then another.
Still the flying boat continued to rise. I thought I could
hear voices floating back to me, tiny from the distance, but
shrill with emotion: "We don't need your guilty-ofincestuous-rape
sails!"
"We do!"
"We doa'tl"
"We do!"
But perhaps it was only the wind.
I he wind pushed the tiny speck of the airship over the
mountains and out of sight, and we settled down for a few
quiet days of recovery.
Lesta and his weavers continued to make their cloth,
the women relaxed into a more leisurely pace of spinning.
The airboat was- finished now, and there was no longer an
urgent need for dipped aircloth. Indeed, Lesta was considering
abandoning the dipping steps altogether, except for small
amounts of thread and cloth specifically set aside for the
weaving of watertight fabrics.
Trone finished the fourth generator and attached the
bicycle frames to it. There were forty men on each generator
now, but still, those on the bicycle-put-it-together line kept
building. No one had told them to stop. Besides, more and
more men wanted to join the generator pumping teams, and
the only way to do that was to increase the number of
bicycles.
The four balloons were filled in just a little more than
one full day. They hung tautly in their filling frameworks.
With all four generators working it was possible to fill a balloon
faster than ever--indeed, they grew and swelled as we
watched. The oxygen bubbled furiously from the other end
of the trench, and the bubble-heads giggled hysterically.
My assistants were carving nearly three sets of loom-
teeth a day, just to replace the ones that had worn out.
Every afternoon was spent carving new chips for Purple and
Shoogar.
Damd the Tree Binder was busier than ever. Many of
those who had emigrated from other villages were tired of
their tents, and wanted to move into proper housetrees. Because
of the shortage, Damd had begun binding trees to
hold two or three nests whenever possible. In a way it was
a lost effort. The trees would be under water before they
would be ready for nests.
234
THE FLYING SORCERERS 235
Ang had commissioned three more giant nets from Lesta,
and was working out new ways to increase his catch of fish
every day. One set of nets was strung across the river.
Another set of nets hung from an overhanging ledge of rock
which had not been submerged by the rising seas. The third
set was used in the most ingenious way yet. Ang had built a
boat, much like the hull of the flying machine. Each day he
and three of his apprentices would row out a ways, trailing
the net behind them. They had to be careful though--once
they caught a submerged housetree.
In short, life had settled down to a regular and steady pace.
Neither of the magicians were present to consecrate anything,
and Shoogar's two apprentices were neither skilled
enough nor trusted enough to handle even routine consecrations,
so I took it upon myself to distribute tokens as necessary.

Of course I levied a small charge for my carving services
upon both Purple and Shoogar--it was the least they could
do for me. Hence, as monitor of all the carved chips, for
every nine I carved for them, I kept two for myself. It was a
fair rate.
Of course I had other sources of wealth as well. Lesta
and I had renegotiated our contract for the use of the loom-
teeth. I would provide him with as many loomteeth as he
would need, in return for which I received seven percent
of his total output, payable either in spell tokens or cloth.
I was beginning to think about the purchase of a third wife.
The gods knew I was entitled to it. I had had three wives
before, and had never been happy with the demotion to
two-wife status. It was not fitting for a Speaker to have only two.
I decided, however, to wait until the airship returned.
If this first airship worked well, we might be able to build
others. We could perhaps use such ships of the sky for trading
expeditions. Yes, that would enrich us considerably. Large
bodies of water would no longer be barriers to travel, and
we would not be cut off from the mainland every wading
season.
Gortik and I and Lesta and the other advisors discussed
the idea eagerly. Lesta, who was now the head of the newly
enlarged Clothmakers' Guild (formerly the Weavers' Caste),
236 THE FLYING SORCERERS
was one of the strongest adherents of the idea. Of course
he had the most to gain--it was his cloth that they would
be trading. But still, there was little opposition from any
of the rest of us. Aircloth had enriched all of our lives considerably.

We spent those three days resting--and making exciting
plans for the future--and speculating about the fate of the
airship. We had not been told how long they would be gone.
Purple had said only that they would take as long as necessary,
until they had determined how best to steer and control
the Cathawk--for that was what he had decided to call the
boat.
It. did not look like a cathawk to me, but it was Purple's
spell, so I did not question it.
Without the magicians the village seemed strangely quiet
--and I began to wonder, was this how it would be after
Purple was gone? A strange thought that--I had grown so
used to Purple's presence, I could not imagine this village
existing without him.
I spent one afternoon helping Trone and his ground crew.
They were practicing the mooring of the Cathawk when it
returned. One group of men stood on the launching cradle
and threw down ropes, pretending to be the returning airship.
The ground crew stood below. When we threw down the
ropes, they would chase after them and grab them as fast as
they could--then they would pull us off the cradle.
It quickly turned into a competition. We would throw
down our ropes and try as hard as we could to keep the
ground crew from catching them. The ground crew would
try as hard as they could to pull us from our perches. As
they were some of the burliest men in two villages, they
always won.
Afterward, panting, sweating and covered with dirt, I
went up to Trone and asked him if he thought all this effort
was truly worth it. After all, the Cathawk would only be
making this one landing, and then we'd never see it again.
Trone grunted, "Purple is paying me and my men to see
that the Cathawk is grounded safely. It is to our own
benefit to see that it does. If anything should happen to the
airhoat. Purple will only want to build another--and that
THE FLYING SORCERERS 237
might take another three hands of hands of days. You want
to see him gone, don't you?"
I couldn't argue with that.
Shortly after that a rumor started that once Purple returned,
he would outfit the Cathawk immediately for his
journey north, and leave without redeeming any of his spell
tokens.
I tried to stop such foolish prattle, but the villagers would
not be convinced. They felt that if Purple did not cast
spells in return for his coins, they were worthless. I said that
this was nonsense. The coins were symbols of the magic and,
as such, were magic themselves. They were as good as a real
consecration. Just keep the spell token near the object to be
consecrated.
They didn't believe me.
Instead, they argued about the Cathawk. Trone took credit
for it by saying that it was his generators that made the gas
that put it into the air. The pumping crews said that the
generators wouldn't have done any good at all without their
effort. Lesta laughed at them both, saying that it was his
cloth that had done the job. Nonsense, said the weavers,
it was their effort in weaving the cloth. Yes, agreed my
apprentices, but they couldn't have done it without my loom-
teeth. Grimm claimed it was his work in sewing up the airbags,
the thread-dippers claimed it was their housetree blood,
and even the women murmured about the thread they had
spun. But the heights of idiocy were reached when the
ballast-stuffers claimed it was their sand that allowed the Cathawk to fly--it flew when Purple threw it out.
It would have been funny; except that they were all taking
it so seriously! Ang was making a small fortune selling dried
fish--the same kind, he said, that Purple had taken with him
on his historic flight.
The speculation went on about the flight itself. I wondered
if they had used Shoogar's sails. Wilville and Orbur believed
that Purple's airpushers didn't need sails, but----
I was bathing in the ocean, on a hot still day, when a
shout rose up. "The Cathawk is returning! The airship is
coming back!"
I didn't bother to dry myself, but snatched up my robe
and ran for the Crag. Others had the same idea. A great
238 THE FLYING SORCERERS
crowd materialized out of nowhere, and streamed up the
hill, shouting and cheering. As I rounded the crest I could
see it--slender boatframe and great swollen bags bright
against the sky.
I wondered why the Cathawk was flying backward.
Then I saw that there were no sails. Purple's method of
airpushing had worked! Wilville and Orbur were right again!
As the boat approached I could see my two sons pedaling
wildly on the windmakers, pushing the boat closer and closer.
Occasionally one of them would stop or pedal backwards
for a few seconds, and the Cathawk would shift ever so
slightly in its direction.
Purple was hanging in the rigging again. He was fiddling
with the neck of one of his airbags--apparently he was releasing
the gas in calculated amounts to control their descent.
He was shouting too: "Where is my ground crew?!! Where
is my ground crew?!!" The boat sank sideways through the
air.
On the ground, Trone and his men were running around
wildly, the big Coppersmith shouting orders, the others
trying to take up positions around the landing cradle.
"Okay," Trone was shouting. "Bring 'er in--right over
the cradle--and we'll grab the ropes!"
"No! No!" Purple shouted back. "You bloody blind fools!
You have to come out and grab the ropes where they fall and pull the boat over the landing rack! Then you pull it down!
We can't control it that fine!" He swung around in the rigging,
"Wilville, Orbur, throw down the .mooring ropes!"
Trone shouted at his crew, "Move out! Move out! They
can't get it over the landing rack--we'll have to do it for
them." His ragged group of men ran down the slope toward
the Cathawk's trailing ropes. They were waving gaily in the
wind. Wilville and Orbur were pedaling as hard as they could
just to keep the boat in place.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 239
"Grab the ropesi Grab them!" Purple exhorted the ground
crew. "We've got to come down on the landing cradle or
we'll snap the keel." Boys and men were running hither and
thither, trying to catch the trailing ends of the ropes, but
the constant wind across the Crag kept snatching them away.
One boy, very light, grabbed onto a rope only to find himself
lifted into the air. He let go, and fell back to the ground.
Other controllers were having troubles too. They would
seize a rope only to find themselves dragged across the hill.
It was Trone who saved the day, by pouncing on one of
these men--four other controllers pounced on top of him,
and the Cathawk came to a jarring halt in the air.
The other ropes were slowed enough then to allow other
men to grab them. It was great sport, with ground crew and
villagers alike chasing after every rope still waving free, but
at last nearly every rope had a controller or two hanging
breathlessly onto the end of it.
Trone released his rope then--there were three other
men on it--and shouted to his crew, "All right, pull it up
the slope--over the landing rack!"
Shouting and cheering, the men dragged the Cathawk along, like a child with one of Purple's tiny airbags. The
villagers waved excitedly at the heroes above. Wilville and
Orbur had ceased their pedaling and were waving back, big foolish grins across their faces.
The flight controllers were just positioning the airboat
above the landing rack when one of them called, "Wait!--
If Purple leaves in this boat, our tokens won't be worth anything."

The others looked at him, "So what?"
"We've got to do something about it--"
Meanwhile, Purple was shouting, "The landing cradle!
The landing cradle! Pull us to the landing cradle!"
They ignored him while they argued amongst themselves.
Trone was insisting that they obey his orders, but the others
were too insistent and they ignored him. Finally one of
the men shouted skyward, "We're going on strike, Purple!"
"Huh? What's that?"
"The flight controllers are going on strike--"
"The what--?!!"
"We want you to guarantee your tokens!"
240 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Of course, of course! Anything--"
Suddenly we saw Shoogar's head over the railing. He
had a ball of itching balls in his hand, and he was taking
careful aim at us below. Three of the flight controllers started
to let go of their ropes, but their leader marshaled them
back. "If you drop it, Shoogar, we'll let go and you'll never
get down."
I backed away. I knew Shoogar. /
Sure enough, he dropped it. It struck and burst and
tiny flecks of black spotted the air, alighting on the nearest
people--the ground crew.
From the air came Shoogar's voice, "If you want to be
cured, pull us down!"
Some of the men were trying to rub the back flecks away.
Others had let go of their ropes and were rolling on the
ground. The Cathawk swung out of position.
Shoogar called, "In about an hour you're all going to be screaming for a magician!"
That did it. They swarmed for the ropes and started
pulling.
| Shoogar apparently wanted to drop more itch balls, but
Purple was climbing down from the rigging and motioning
frantically. Wilville and Orbur, no longer needed on the
airpushers, slung them up into the outriggers exactly as
planned, and began climbing back into the boat proper. They too were remonstrating with Shoogar.
"No more itch ballsl We're pulling! We're pulling!" called
the flight controllers.
Shoogar, Wilville and Orbur vanished below the side of
the boat. There were curses and muffled noises. Purple was
peering over the side and directing the landing maneuver,
"All right, all right--easy now. Watch the keel, the keel!
Pull us to the landing cradle--the cradle I Don't snap the
keel!"
Grumbling and cursing the men pulled the boat down and
into the cradle. They looped their ropes loosely around stakes
in the ground. Gradually the boat was hauled down out of
the sky. The keel slid into its slot in the landing frame, and
I heaved a sigh of relief.
A gust of wind caught the clustered windbags then, just
THE FLYING SORCERERS 241
at the right angle and the wrong moment--there was a cra-a-ack! of bambooze. The keel had snapped.
Purple leapt out of the boat cursing. It bounced back into
the air, but the men pulled it down again. Others dragged
sandbags over, and quickly tossed them into the boat. It hit
the cradle with a thump.
Wilville and Orbur got off Shoogar then. They had been
holding him down on the floor of the boat. The three
scrambled out.
Even the sandbags were not enough then. A sudden gust
of wind caught the boat and swept it down the slope, bouncing
and gliding. It was too heavy to fly with the sandbags in
it, but too light to resist the force of the wind. It swept down
the slope and into the water.
Ang's fisherboys had to recover it.
When he saw it bobbing in the water, its outriggers balancing
it gently against the waves. Purple's only comment was,
"H'm, I guess it didn't need a keel after all."
I he next few days were busy ones indeed.
The waters had risen higher than ever, even to the middle
slopes of the Upper Village. The tents which had served us
so well in our journey across the desert were brought out
again, so that affected families could move up to the Crag
itself.
Trone and his crew of ground controllers carried the
airboat back up to the Crag. They had little difficulty because
the airbags offset most of the boatframe's weight.
After some additional modifications and repair work
by Wilville and Orbur, the last four balloons were added.
This time there was more than enough ballast in the boat,
and extra mooring ropes to hold it down.
We did not slow down the .generator teams though. Purple
attached the lead wires to his battery, and the output of all
four machines was stored in that tiny device. Once I asked
242 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple about it, and he explained that as far as we were concerned
the battery could hold an almost infinite amount of
power.
There were advantages to its use. For one thing. Purple
could release power at any rate he cfiose. It might take two
hundred men five days to pump up all sixteen balloons, but
if Purple had stored all that pedaled electrissy in his battery,
he could fill the airbags almost as fast as we could add water
to the pots and change the fittings on the funnels.
So it did not matter that the balloons up on the Crag
were starting to droop. Purple would recharge them just before
his departure. He planned to leave after two more hands
of days had passed. That way, he estimated, he would have
enough power to recharge the balloons two and a half times
--maybe more.
Also, he said, he did not want to recharge the bafioons
before then because so much stored hydrogen could be
dangerous. And this would give him a chance to measure
their rate of leakage even more accurately.
"Danger?" I asked, when he said this. "What kind of
danger?"
"Fire," he said, "or spares. That's why we can't even
take a bicycle type electrissymaker with us. Besides not being
fast enough--even with four people working it--it makes
sparks. A spark could set everything off."
A spark, he explained, was a very small dot of lightning.
"Remember the way my housetree exploded?"
Lightning? Was that what we were working with? Was it
lightning that fought back when we turned the pedals of
"the generators?
I shuddered--lightning!--Purple was definitely not one
for half-measures I
He had proven it now. While the teams of men continued
their roaring competitions on the generators, while Wilville
and Orbur tended to the further provisioning of the Cathawk, Purple went about he.aling every sick person he could find.
"It looks like I can replace my first-aid kit pretty soon,"
he told me. "I was saving it because I might need it myself,
but now----might as well make use of it." He cured Hinc
the Hairless and Farg the Weaver; both began to grow new
hair. Other men lost the sores they had carried for so many
THE FLYING SORCERERS 243
hands of hands of days--Purple blew wet air onto their skins
from a tiny cylinder in his medicine kit, and within hours
their flesh began to heal.
He didn't stop with the men. He cured the wives of their
hairlessness too. He treated Little Gortik, a boy of four
conjunctions, whose arm bad been small and withered
from the day he was born. "Forced regeneration," Purple
had chanted over the boy, and had made him swallow two
oddly translucent capsules. Now the boy's bones had gone
soft, and the arm seemed to be straightening out.
Purple moved daily about the Upper Village and among
the tents above the titnberline, with his spell kit in his hand
and a fierce, eager light in his eyes, as if he suspected sick
people were hiding from him.
When Zone the Vender fell out of a tree and broke his
back. Purple actually came at a dead run! He reached Zone
before the man could finish dying; he sprayed Zone's back with
something that went right through the skin, and forbade him
to move at all until he could wiggle his toes again. He was
there now, beneath the tree that had nearly killed him, while
his wife fed him and changed his blankets. He was not
dying, but he was getting terribly bored, and Purple had
taken all his tokens.
They started trading Purple's tokens for Shoogar's at a
ten-for-one ratio.
About this time my first wife finally gave birth to the
daughter Shoogar had predicted. She was red and ugly and
totally bald--not even a fine layer of glistening down-fur.
When Shoogar spanked the child to life, her skin gleamed
with womb fluid only.
He took the damp towel I held for him, and began cleaning
the child's eyes and nose and mouth. He handled her
tenderly, and there was a strange expression on his face.
"Is there something the matter, Shoogar?" I asked.
244 THE FLYING SORCERERS
He never took his eyes off the baby, "As I feared, •she
is a demon child; but in all my years, Lant, I have never
seen a demon child such as this."
"Is she a good witch or a bad witch?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. It's too early to tell."
He maneuvered her around in his arms apd continued
rubbing softly. From her birthing cot, my wife watched wide-
eyed. Most women fear to carry a demon child. My woman
had born it stoically—I would have to reward her somehow.
Shoogar said, "This much I do know—this child must be
protected and cared for. Perhaps even treated as well as a
male—"
I stared at him in fear. "Shoogar—" I started, but he
cut me off.
"Lant, I do not know. This is something I have never seen
or heard of. We can only watch and wait. If this child is a
good demon, then for sure we will want to please her—if
she is a bad demon, just as surely we will not want to anger
her. In any case, it never hurts to "take care in an unknown
situation."
I nodded gravely. There had been cases of demon daughters
before—the children had been treated as sons, named and
consecrated, and in some cases even admitted to the Guild of
Advisors. But there had also been cases where demon
daughters had caused the destruction of-whole villages.
Both situations were rare, happening perhaps only once
every hundred conjunctions. I had never expected it to
happen in my lifetime though, let alone to my wife,
When he heard the news, Purple came running. The
villagers parted in awe, as his chubby bulk came pelting
across the slope. Excitedly, the villagers trailed -in his wake,
gabbling eagerly. On top of all that had happened to us
previously, this new development was merely one more
topic for the gossipmongers.
Purple burst into my nest and stood looking down at my
bald red demon daughter. He was grinning all over his
partially naked face. "She's beautiful, isn't she?" he said.
Shoogar and I exchanged a glance. Perhaps to Purple she
was—but to us she was a thing of fear. What did children
look like where Purple came from that such a thing would
be considered beautiful?
THE FLYING SORCERERS 245
He approached Shoogar tentatively, "May I hold her?"
Shoogar backed away, shielding the child in his arms. His eyes glared angrily. Purple looked shocked and hurt.
I touched his arm, "Purple, will she grow hair?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Will you cure her then?"
"I can't."
"My apology--I did not mean to insult you, but you have
been doing such curing lately--"
"Anything that will hold still long enough--" Shoogar
snapped.
Purple put out his hands, "You misunderstand. She is not
sick, Lant. She is merely bald, like me." He advanced toward
Shoogar again, "Let me hold her, please." He held out his
arms.
Shoogar refused to give up the child. He shook his head
firmly.
"But she is mine--" Purple said. "I mean, I sired her--"
"So? Do you think that gives you any special rights?
It was Lant's wife who bore her. The child is his."
Purple looked at Shoogar and at me. He had an expression
of confusion and hurt. "I do not mean--that is, I only want
to hold her--just for a little bit--Lant, please--?"
He looked so pitiful, I wanted to say yes, but Shoogar
only shook his head. At last, Purple bowed his head in sad
acquiescence. "As you wish. Will you at least let me insure
her health with a _______?" He used a word from his
demon-tongue.
"What kind of a spell is it?" asked Shoogar.
"It is a spell of--luck," answered Purple. "Luck and
protection. It will make her stronger and more healthy. She
will have a better chance to gain maturity--" .a
At first, I thought Shoogar would refuse. He narrowed I
his eyes suspiciously. I said, "Shoogar, remember, we must
please her--"
"All right," said Shoogar. "You may approach." And
he let Purple spray essences through her skin with a thing
from his medicine kit.
Purple did not ask to hold her again, and when he left,
his step was slow and confused. We did not see him for the
rest of that day.
I n all, the villagers did not redeem a large percentage of
Purple's tokens--not even when the sick and crippled began
arriving from the other four villages by the boatload. People
who were already healthy preferred to keep the tokens,
partly because they might be needed for some very strong
act of magic later, and partly because they were magic in
and of themselves. They would bring good luck.
After they were cured many of the pilgrims decided to
stay on. Intrigued by our flying boat and our electrissy
generators, they formed an ever-present crowd of curious
onlookers. They began trading for spell tokens so they could
bet on the various pumping teams.
Others came in hopes of joining our growing Clothmakers'
Guild, or of joining a bicycle put-it-together line or a generator
team. Still others came to trade, and they were followed
by those who prey on those who trade. Others came
out of curiosity. They had heard of our flying machine and
wanted to see it for themselves.
Our combined Guild of Advisors had grown to a size
almost unmanageable, and there were ominous mutterings
from various elements who felt they had been slighted in its
growth. Clearly we were going to need some reorganization.
And finally came the day that Purple announced his battery
was charged. He would depart for the sky before the
next dawning of the blue sun.
And this time he meant it; --this was no test flight. This
would be Purple's actual departure. Once the airboat lifted
from its cradle, he would be gone from our village and our
lives forever.
He spent almost all of his time on the Crag now, checking
lists and counting supplies; Often he could be seen poking
carefully at the boat's rigging or testing an airbag.
"Look how the boat strains at the ropes, Lant--isn't it
beautiful? We have food aboard for at least four hands of
246
THE FLYING SORCERERS 247
days; we've got four or five manweights of ballast; we've got
a few extra windbags in case we rip any. I say we're ready,
Lant. How about you?"
"Huh? I'd say you're ready, too."
"No--I mean, are you ready?"
"Huh?"
"Aren't you coming with us?"
"Me?ll" I squeaked. "I wouldn't set foot in that--I mean,
I have no intention--that is, I'm needed here. Business requires
it! I'm a Speaker! I--"
"But--but---your sons said--"
"My sons?"
"Yes--they led me to believe that you were going to come
too. We planned for you."
"This is the first I have heard of it."
"You do not want to come then?"
"Of course not; I can see no reason at all why I should."
"Well, neither did I," said Purple. "But Wilville and
Orbur seemed to think it necessary."
I shuddered. "No, thank you. Purple. I will forego the
honor." I did not add that I would rather be in a village
with no magicians, than in a flying machine with two mad
ones.
D ut later that day, in the heat of double daylight, a time
when most of the villagers were sleeping, Shoogar took me
aside. "Lant, you've seen how he has devalued my magic!"
he said bitterly. "You must come with us, Lant. I will need
you to help with the spell against him--"
"Spell? Oh, no, Shoogar--"
"I will be free of my oath when we leave this locality.
But I will need you for a witness that I have killed him.
You are the Speaker. Your word is law."
"Shoogar, can you not leave well enough alone? Purple
is leaving. You will be the only magician here--and this
248 THE FLYING SORCERERS
is the greatest village of alll There may be as many as 5,000
mea living here, maybe more! Never has there been a village
of such size! Why must you risk it all by starting another
foolish duel?"
But at that Shoogar snarled and left me. He grumbled
off down the dark slope, scattering villagers and women alike.
Later, after th& blue sun had winked out, Wilville and
Orbur came to see me. As soon as I saw them, I said, "What
nonsense have you been telling Purple? He says that you
want me to come along on this fantastic journey."
They nodded. "Father, you must! You are the only one
who can control Shoogar. Surely you must know that he
is planning another duel as soon as we are out of this region."
"Yes. He's mentioned it."
"Well then, you must come along to stop it. We will never
return if you don't; even if we should be lucky enough to
survive this time. He'll insist that we put on the sails again.
He's still not convinced! Father, you must come or we'll
never get home."
"I'm sure you can manage without me, sons—you did all
right on your test flight—"
"Yes, but that was only a test. Shoogar knew no more
about the flying machine than anyone else. Now that he has
been up in it once, he is convinced that he is an expert.
Surely you have heard the tales he has been telling of his
exploit."
I nodded. "But you have all been telling tales—and no
two of your tales agree. The villagers don't believe any of
you. That fact alone should keep Shoogar from dueling. If
he has no credible witness along—"
"Father, he is not interested so much in a credible witness
as he is in killing Purple." Orbur lowered his voice. "You
don't know, do you, what he tried to do on our test flight?"
"Huh?" I shook my head. "I have not heard—"
"That is because Wilville and I have kept it quiet. We
do not want to start even the hint of a rumor that there is
trouble between our magicians."
Wilville nodded in agreement and said, "Shortly after we
took off, they got into an argument about whether or not we
needed sails. Shoogar got so mad that he tried to throw a
ball of fire at Purple—"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 249
"A ball of fire?!! But--the airboat? The hydrogen?"
"We were lucky," said Orbur. "Purple screamed when he
saw it. I thought he would jump out of the boat----; but
Wilville was thinking fast, and he threw a bucket of water on
Shoogar."
Wilville said, "And then Orbur jumped on Shoogar and
held him down. We drenched him all over with another
bucket of water and then made him strip. We made him
throw away all of his fire-making devices. Purple was as
white as a cloud--"
"I can imagine." I Was thinking of a blackened stump of
a housetree.
"But that's not all," said Orbur. "Later, he tried to push
Purple out. Purple was climbing on the rigging--you know,
father, for a man like that, he is remarkably brave; he climbed
across those ropes as if he had not the slightest fear of falling."

"He did slip once, though," said Wilville. "Fortunately, it
was only a few feet, and he fell into the boat."
"Well, we all had to get used to it," Orbur said to him.
"Nobody has ever been in an airboat before. There is no
one to teach us what to do--"
"Except Shoogar," said Wilville. He looked at me imploringly,
"Father, Shoogar is convinced that only he knows
the vagaries of Musk-Watz the wind god, but somehow his
magic doesn't seem to work right in the upper sky. His sails
didn't work, his fireballs almost killed us--"
"My sons, you survived that experience, didn't you?"
They nodded reluctantly.
"Good, then I have faith that you can survive another.
From what you have just told me I am all the more sure
that I am not getting into that airboat."
I returned to my nest tired and irritated.
It wasn't just the way everyone badgered me. It was the
250 THE FLYING SORCERERS
crowds. By now every family in the five villages was here
on the Heights. The nearly bare rock was a maze of tents,
practically edge to edge, the meager gaps filled by a swarm
of sprats and women and strangers. The sea had swallowed i the rest of the island.
I The only clear spots were on Idiot's Peak, around the
launching cradle, and the wide servicing area that now led
all the way down to the water. Keeping those areas clear
enough to work in only made the rest of the Heights more
crowded.
My tree, like a few others, still reached partway above
the waters. We still used the nest and thus avoided some of
the crowding; but we had to wade waist deep between nest
and Heights.
The sea was tepid and very wet. I was still bristling from
the need to push my way between the tents and among the
hordes of strangers when I climbed into my nest, my fur dripping.
I sank gratefully onto my cot.
"Wives," I called, "I am ready for a hot brushing. I have
had such a day as to try even the greatest of men!"
"Oh, our poor Lant," they mourned. "Surely even the
greatest of tribulations is only child's play to a man so
brave as you--"
"Naturally, but the effort is tiring. Purple wants me to
come on the airboat with him; so do Wilville and Orbur--"
"Oh, no, not my brave Lant! Not in the airboat! You
might fall!" cried one Missa.
"You mustn't, my husband! You will never return! What
would we do if we lost you?" said the other whose non-
name was Kate.
"Of course, you told them that you wouldn't!" said the
first.
"You have your carving to tend to," said the second.
"And there are other things besides. The nestwalls are leaking
and must be repaired--"
"Wait a minute," I cuffed them into silence. "What is this
noise you make? You dare to tell me what I should do--?"
"Oh, no--" They flung themselves at my feet.
Missa, the second, looked up and said, "It is just that we
love you so much, we do not want you to go--"
Missa, the first, said, "It is such a dangerous thing to do--
THE FLYING SORCERERS 251
maybe even too dangerous for such a brave man as our
Lant."
I looked down at them, "How dare you even suggest such
a thing. I am the Speaker of my village—I have tamed two
of the wildest magicians ever known, and, I kept them from
killing each other. I have guided the construction of an
actual flying machine—"
"Yes my husband, but that does not mean that you should
fly in iti"
"Yes—leave that honor for somebody else—"
"And why should I?" I demanded. "I have as much right
as anybody to voyage on the Cathawk, perhaps even more."
"Oh, but we are so afraid for you—"
"You think I am afraid of the dangers?"
"Oh, no, my brave Lant—but we are—"
"You think too much, wives—it has addled your brains.
I am fully aware of the dangers of such a voyage. You think
I am not? Let me tell you this though: if I did not think it
was a safe journey, I would not be planning to go."
"Oh, my husband, my brave, brave husband, you do not
need to prove it to us. We know you are the greatest of all
husbands. Just stay with us, and we will not even protest
your purchase of a third wife—"
"You will not what—? What makes you think you have
even the right to do so? If I want a third wife, I will buy
one. If I want to go flying in a flying machine, I will do
that tool And I am going to do both! And neither one of
you will say another word about it or I will beat you! Now
bring me my supper! And be grateful that I am not yet too
angry to do the family-making thing tonight!"
-Tied sunset, still and quiet, a hot mugginess in the air—
the memory of the blistering heat of day.
Trone and four other men were holding a line; Wilville
and Orbur were up in the rigging rearranging the position
252 THE FLYING SORCERERS
of two of the balloons in the cluster. On their signal, Trone
and his crew released the rope and the balloons snapped
into position.
Purple had spent this day recharging the tired windbags.
Even now, he was just filling the last from a water pot
balanced on the narrow deck slats.
Shoogar and I stood quietly to one side. I was carrying
a narrow pack and wondering how I had gotten myself into
this position. I kept replaying the conversations of the day
over and over in my head, but somehow the why of it still
eluded me.
I had been ready enough to change my mind when I left
my nest. But, in their zeal to persuade me not to risk my
life, my wives had been busily asking the advice of a great
many other women. And those women had been telling their
men ... I soon found out that every man, woman and child
on the Heights knew that Lant the Speaker would be aboard
the Cathawk when it rose into the sky at red sunset.
Wilville and Orbur climbed down from the rigging then.
Purple made a mark on his checklist. Orbur turned and
burrowed under a cloth-covered pile of supplies. "The
blankets are under here, Purple."
"Good," he replied, "I would not want to leave them.
Have we plenty of drinking water this time?"
"More than enough," said Wilville; he looked at Shoogar
as he said it.
Purple came over to us then. "I am glad you are coming,
Lant. It will be a long journey, and I welcome your company."
To Shoogar, he said, "You have brought no fire-
making devices, this time, have you?"
Shoogar shook his head dourly.
"You remember what I told you about them, don't you?"
He nodded.
"Fine."
He went back to the boys and told them. Wilville and
Orbur looked over at us and exchanged a glance. They
excused themselves from Purple and climbed out of the
boat. "Oh, Shoogar," they said, "could we speak with you a
moment; we have a question about one of the finer points of
the spell--"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 253
Shoogar toddled off after them. They disappeared behind
a clump of blackbushes.
There was a sharp cry and the sound of a struggle. Another
cry and then silence. After a moment, there was a
sputtering and the sound of water being poured out of a
pot. Wilville and Orbur returned then, smiling. A few moments
later a soaked Shoogar followed them. He was glaring
angrily.
He came up to me, "If they weren't your sons--"
"And if they also weren't necessary to the success of the
journey home," I said calmly, "you would do what--?"
"Never mind," he grumbled. "I'm just glad that you decided
to come along, after all. I am going to take a revenge
on Purple such as no one has ever dreamed of!"
Despite the hour there was a considerable crowd gathered
on the slope. Many of them were from the other villages,
people who had heard of our wondrous machine, and had
come to witness our ascent. Still, there were quite a few people
from our own village as well, proudly pointing out
what part of the machine they had worked on. Again, there
were mongers selling sweetdrops and spicy meats. I had
eaten some the last time, and had been sick for hours
afterward. This time I had resolved not to eat anything; if
I was going to be sick, I didn't want to be so in an airship.
"All right, Lant," said Purple. "You can get in now." He
gestured. "Shoogar?"
We went. Purple directed us where to sit, far forward in
the boat, one on each side of a cloth-lined bench. Purple
took up his position at the rear. He peered about him
anxiously, as if he had forgotten something.
I was petrified. My heart was pounding--I could not believe
it--I was actually here--in a flying machine! And I was
going to rise up into the sky in it!
A voice was calling, "Lant! Lant!" I looked over the side.
There was Pilg the Crier.
"Pilg!" I cried. "Where have you been?"
"I have been coming back," he called. "Lant, are you really
going flying with Purple the Magician?"
"Yes," I said. "I am."
"You are a brave man," he said. "I shall miss you."
Farther up the slope I could see both my wives with Gor-
254 THE FLYING SORCERERS
tik. They were sobbing copiously. Little Gortik waved happily.

"All right," Purple was saying, "ground crew take your
positions."
I looked around me, thousands of faces were looking
back--
Wilville and Orbur waved at them. They had climbed onto
their bicycles, and were just tying their safety ropes. Underneath,
the boat rocked gently. "You know," I said suddenly,
"I think I ought to stay behind, after all. I--"
Shoogar pulled me down again. "Shut up, Lant--you
want everyone to think you're a coward?"
"I'd just as soon they know it for sure--let go of me,
Shoogar!"
Purple was standing at the rear of the boat, one hand on, the rigging to balance himself. He was gesturing at the
ground crew. I pulled myself away from Shoogar and
looked. Trone and his men were stationing themselves
around the cradle. Each had a heavy knife and was waiting
by a mooring rope.
"All right, now," Purple shouted. "All the ropes have to be cut at once, so wait for my signal. We will do it just
as I said. I will count backwards--ready, now? Ten, nine,
eight--" ^
"Shoogar, let go of me!" I said. "I'm not going--"
"Yes, you are!"
"--to do anything foolish!"
"You are too!"
"Seven, six, five--"
"Shoogarl"
"Four, three--"
There were fifty jarring thunksl as the knives came down
on the ropes. We shot upward! The crowd cheered. I yelped.
Shoogar screamed and clutched at me. The boat rocked
wildly and I grabbed at something to keep from falling--
there was a tearing sound--it was Shoogar's spell belt--
We were in a tumbled heap at the bottom of the boat. I
pulled myself into a sitting position, and back up onto the
bench. Purple was cursing furiously, "You addlebrained
idiots! You can't even count right!! I didn't even get to
finish--"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 255
"Finish what?" I said "Three is the spell number. Purple.
All spells start with three."
He looked at me stupidly, then he turned away muttering:
"Of course, Purple; three is the spell number. Purple;
how can you be so stupid. Purple--Oh, what I wouldn't give
for a--" His words were whipped away by the wind.
I looked around. Shoogar was peering curiously over the
side.
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"My spell belt, you fool! You ripped it."
I joined him at the rail. The boat tipped precariously, but
Purple shifted his weight in the rear, and we balanced
again. "It must be the lack of a keel," called Orbur from his
outrigger.
And now, for the first time since the ascent, I had a chance
to look down. Far below us was the Crag, red sunlight slant- Bfc
ing severely across it. Blue shadows stretched outward to
infinity. Tiny people, getting tinier every moment, moved
below. I could see the landing cradle, the housetrees, the
foamy edge of the sea, and the rippled surface of it
stretching out to the end of the world.
On the other side were the peaks of the mountains. We were
even above them.
Shoogar was still looking down. "What are you so upset
about?" I asked. "Most of your spells are here at the bottom
of the boat."
"I know," he said, "I saw them--but the one you ripped
--it spilled out. It's going to hang in the air over the village
for days."
"Oh," I said. "What is it?"
"A powder. You remember the dust of yearning?"
"The spell we used on Purple the day we destroyed his
black egg?"
"That's the one."
I shuddered. I remembered it well. After just a few sniffs
of it. Purple had gone into the village and done the family-
making thing with my wife. Repeatedly.
"I wonder," said Shoogar. "I wonder . . ."
"Well, we must go back," I said. "You must show them the
proper herbs to chew--there isn't another magician in the
region. There will be chaos--"
256 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Go back?" said Shoogar. "You are jesting. You will not
bring this craft down to the ground again until the airgas
gets tired of working and sneaks out of the balloons. Besides,
we are moving strongly north--"
He was right, of course. I left him at the railing and moved
to another part of the boat. It swayed sickeningly under my
every step. Wilville called across to Orbur, "I think we should
put the keel back on!"
"Me too!" he answered.
"No," said Purple, "all you need do is rearrange the
rigging. Spread it out farther at the bottom. It will give the hoist a wider stance." ;.',..
"The who a what?" they called.'
He sighed. "Never mind."
The wind was strong this high in the sky. Idiot's Crag had
shrunk to a spear of black on the horizon. Below us the
sea was many colors. Spots were brown and opaque with
mud. In some places reefs showed through.' There were
groves of submerged trees as well, spines of mountain rock,
and even a tall cairn to Musk-Watz. You could see them all
sticking out of the water. There were churning whirlpools and
vast rippling tides, and the surface of the water was gray and
foamy.
Purple was sighting against the sun and marking something
on a skin which had been stretched across a framework.
Strange lines speared out from the center of the skin
to its edges. "It's a direction-telling spell," explained Purple.
"We're headed almost directly east."
"I could have told you that," I said.
"Huh?"
I pointed below. "See that spine of land there? That's the
way we followed on our migration. It leads directly to the
old village."
"It does?" Purple leaned far over the edge and tried to
follow it with his eyes. I feared for his balance, but even
more I feared for Shoogar who watched us with eyes gleaming.

He straightened then. "Wilville, Orbur! We want to change
course. Unsling your airpushers!"
They nodded and began to do so. First one of the bladed
wheels swung down to hang a manheight below the preTHE FLYING SORCERERS 257
carious outrigger, then the other on the other side. I shuddered
as I watched. I would not trade places with either of
my sons. You would not get me out there, with nothing between
me and the sea but empty air.
"We have to come about," called Purple. "Turn toward
the west--left about ninety degrees." I didn't understand that
last, but the boys apparently did. Wilville began backpedaling
while Orbur pedaled forward. Slowly the Cathawk turned in
the sky. The red sunlight seeped through the rigging, and the
shadows shifted across our faces.
Purple watched carefully on his measuring skin. A small
rod stuck up from the center, and he watched the position of
its shadow. He called, "All right, stop!" He waited until both
airpushers were still, then checked the shadow again. "Not
enough," he called, "another ten degrees."
When we were finally pointed in the right direction, he
gave another order. "Quarter speed," he called. The two
boys began chanting and pedaling. They had removed the
extra twist in the pulleys, so that the airpushers blew their
wind stemward again and the boys faced in the direction they
were going.
The chant was at a set rhythm, and they pedaled in time
to it. Purple watched them for a while, then he peered over
the side again. After a bit he said, "Ah." He straightened.
"We are on the right course. We are traveling parallel to
that spine of land you pointed out, Lant. If the wind lets
up at all, we will try to get directly over it."
He went to the back of the boat then and stretched out
on a cot of aircloth over a wide frame. "You know, Lant,"
he called, "if I didn't have my responsibilities elsewhere, I
might almost be willing to settle down here. This is a very
relaxing way of life."
"Oh, no, Purple," I reassured him. "You would not be
happy living with us. You had best return--"
"Fear not, Lant. That's what I intend to do. But I tell
you, I have truly enjoyed myself here." He pounded himself
on his stomach. "Look, I think I may have even lost a few
pounds."
"Have you looked behind you?" muttered Shoogar.
"Sh," I hissed. "We are all going to be together for
a very long time. At least try to get along."
258 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"With him?!!" '"You
didn't have to come, Shoogar!"
"I did too! How else can I ever--"
"Never mind! If you can't say anything nice, don't say
anything at all. At least so long as we're in the airl"
Shoogar snarled at me and went forward to the front of the
boat. I sank down tiredly on a pile of supplies and blankets.
For a while I watched my sons as they pedaled. It was a
funny sight, a bicycle so high in the air----with no wheels
at all, yet they were pedaling so steadily, I had to laugh.
They glared at me, but kept chanting and pumping.
Above us the clustered windbags were like a distant roof.
Large enough to be covering, but high enough so that they
were not oppressive. It was a feeling like being sheltered, but
also one of being strangely free.
Occasionally the boys rested--and then all was silent. That
was the most peculiar thing about the airship. Once in the sky, it neither creaked nor shuddered. There were no sounds
at all, except perhaps that of our own heartbeats.
We had stopped rising now. And a good thing too. The
air was cold--almost biting. Purple pulled out some blankets
and passed them around. Wilville and Orbur were wearing
extra layers of clothing. It had been tied to their outriggers
so they could pull it on as they wished. They also had water
bottles and packs of hardbread. There was no need for
them to come into the boat itself at all, if they did not wish
to.
The last of the red sun finally seeped below the horizon.
"Are they going to pedal through the dark?" I asked
Purple.
"Uh huh. As long as the wind keeps up, someone has
to keep pedaling. You see, Lant, the wind is blowing us northeast.
If we pedal west, then we cancel out the east and go
only north. But the wind doesn't stop at night, so neither
can we. The only other choice is to land--and that means
letting air out of the bags."
"And you don't want to do that, do you?"
"Right We know the boat will float in water, but I'd
rather not have to depend on it, Besides, even if we did
come down on the sea, the wind might still push us. So we
might as well stay in the air and keep pedaling all night. The
THE FLYING SORCERERS 259
boys know how to pace themselves. As long as we stay near
that spine of land under the water, I won't worry."
In the dark the steady chanting and pumping was an
eerie thing--coming, as it did, from outside the boat.
Fortunately, the time till blue dawn was little more than an
hour away--we would have naught but a brief flash of darkness
at this time of year. Followed by seventeen hours of
pure blue sunlight, an hour of double sunlight, and another
seventeen hours of red sunlight. Then darkness again. Later
in the year the darknesses would stretch, as would the times
of double sunlight. The single-sun hours would shrink as the
suns moved closer and closer in the sky--toward the inevitable
red conjunction.
We pedaled on through the darkened sky.
P ar to the east the horizon's edge was limned by a faint
blue glow. Blue Ouells was sneaking up behind it, soon to
shout and leap and flash brightly over the edge.
Below, the sea was a dark platter, greasy and wrinkled.
A cold wind whipped around us. I pulled my blanket tighter
against it. The boat rocked gently. The swollen balloons
seemed motionless above; the sea motionless and flat so far
below.
My sons pedaled steadily. I fancied I could see the churned
air stretching out in a line behind us, but that way was as
dark as the way ahead. Their pumping was a steady sound,
sensed rather than heard--a constant vibration filled the
boat.
And then it was morning, sharp and blue--bright Ouells
was a pinpoint at the edge of the world, sleeting light sideways
across our eyes.
Wilville and Orbur rested then, while Purple sighted for
the spine of land under the water. It was a barren range of
hills, barely higher than the land around it. Beneath the
risen ocean it would appear with a lighter color.
260 THE FLYING SORCERERS
At first he thought we had lost it, then he sighted it off
to our right. Apparently, during the dark, the wind had
slackened somewhat. The boys, having no way of knowing
this, had kept pedaling, and so had carried us farther west
than Purple had wanted us to go.
Fortunately the wind was still blowing northeast, so Purple
told Wilville and Orbur that they could rest until such time
as we were again over our guide. The boys climbed into the
boat, but did not remove their waist ropes until they were
safely inside.
They sucked eagerly at a skin of Quaff, passing it back and
forth between them, then each stretched out on a cloth-lined
framework, the Cathawk's equivalent of a cot. Within moments
they were asleep.
I picked my way forward, past bundles of supplies. Shoo-
gar was just stretching and yawning. He greeted me with a
surly grunt.
"Haven't you slept?" I asked.
"Of course not, Lant. We only had an hour of darkness.
I was watching for the moons. The moons," he yawned
grumpily, "I need the moons."
"Shoogar," I said, "you do not need the moons--"
"Yes, I do--do you want me to lose my duel?"
I could see that he was unapproachable. "Go aft," I said. I "Go aft and get some sleep."
He was fumbling in his sleeve, but all he found was a
damp husk-ball. "Curse it," he said, "they ruined it, your
sons ruined it. I had hoped it would dry out, but--" he
shrugged and tossed the sodden mass over the side. "I'm going to sleep, Lant," he mumbled and tottered off.
I moved to the front of the boat and peered out. Here was
a view, unobstructed by either balloons or rigging. I was
suspended above a silvery-blue sea, miles above it. I seemed
to be floating in silence. The stillness was overpowering.
Deafening.
The air was crisp and, at the same time, hot. Blue Ouells
was already heating up the day.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
I looked around. Purple had come up beside me. He placed
his hands on the rail and looked out at the ocean blueness
on all sides. "I love the way it changes," he said. "The
THE FLYING SORCERERS 261
changing light of the suns keeps changing the look of the
water."
I nodded. I did not particularly feel like talking yet.
My bones still ached from the cold of the night, and the
sun had not yet begun to bake that out.
"Lant," he said, "tell me about your journey again. I am
trying to figure out how far you traveled, and how long it
will take us to cover that distance in the flying machine."
I sighed. We had been over this many times already. It
was on the basis of our migration that Purple had calculated
the number of balloons and amount of supplies he
would need. "We journeyed for a hundred and fifty days,
Purple. We followed that range of hills because the seas
were rising so fast. We needed every advantage we could get."
He nodded, "Good, good," then fell silent and became
lost in thought, as if he were making figures in his head.
After a while he brought out his measuring skin again and
began sighting the sun. "We will be drifting over our course
line again," he said. "I had better go wake up the boys."
Afterward, when we were again vibrating to the tune of
the whirring bicycles, I tottered aft and joined Purple for
a bite of breakfast, my first meal since coming aboard the
aircraft. Shoogar was snoring loudly on a cot.
Purple bit into a sour melon. He said, "For some time I
have wondered, Lant. Why do you call me Purple?"
"Huh? That is your name."
He cocked his head at me, "What do you mean? I knew U you had a word for me in your language, but it wasn't until ;;
my speakerspell was destroyed that I found out it was your |
word for purple."
"But you told us that was your name, long ago."
"I couldn't have. It isn't."
"It isn't? But--" I thought hard. "But your speakerspell
said it was--"
"Oh," he said, "the speakerspell." As if that explained it.
"Yes, Lant, sometimes we do have troubles with speaker-
spells."
"I thought so," I said, "I sometimes wondered if it was
working correctly. It said some very silly things."
"Just what did it say?"
"It spoke wildly of dust clouds and other suns--"
262 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"I mean, about my name."
"Oh. It said that your name was As A Color, Shade of
Purple-Gray. We thought it distinctly odd."
Purple looked distinctly confused. He wiped a bit of melon
dribble off his chin. "As a color, shade of purple-gray? I don't
see how--" And then his eyes lit up behind his black bone
frames. A delighted expression came across his face, "Ah,
it's a pun! A pun!" He began chortling hysterically. "Of
course, of course--how right that I should have a translator
that makes two-language puns! As a color, shade of purple-
gray! As a mauve! Oh, how delightful."
I looked at him oddly.
He explained. "It must have tried to translate the syllables
individually, Lant, from my language to yours."
"Then Purple isn't your real name?"
"Oh, no, of course not--that's just a poor translation.
My real name is--" and he spoke in the demon-tongue.
At that I felt a cold chill--no wonder Shoogar's first
curse hadn't worked--he had used the wrong name!
Behind us Shoogar's snoring had stopped--he was lying
on his back. His eyes were narrow slits--had he heard too?
I he wind had died completely.
Purple signaled Wilville and Orbur to take a rest while he
measured the suns again. "It's very difficult," he said. "There's
no north star in this world, and even a magnetic compass isn't
that much help. I have to rely mostly on the suns to tell
me which direction is which."
The boys had climbed into the boat again and were
thirstily swigging Quaff and chewing hardbread. "Relax,"
Purple told them, "because we are becalmed, you can take
all the time you need. We do not have to worry about being
blown off course."
The boys stretched out for a short nap then. Shoogar
was up at the front of the boat, offering a chant to MuskTHE FLYING SORCERERS 263
Watz, trying to restore the wind, and Purple decided to climb
up into the rigging to check his balloons.
I climbed forward. So far, this journey had been very boring.
There had been nothing to do but sit.
Shoogar finished with his cantele and sat down on a
bench. He began packing away his spell-chanting equipment.
"Bung-smelling apprentices!" he cursed. "Forgot to pack my
filk-singer flute."
"You should be grateful you even have apprentices," I
said. "They have been most hard to come by recently. Most
of the young boys in the village want to become weavers or
electrissy makers. There are few who want to follow the old
ways."
"Hahl" snorted Shoogar. He looked at me. "And what
will those others do now that the airboat is finished? Eh?
There will be no more demand for aircloth, no more need
to pump on the generators. All of a sudden there is no more
work for them."
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "Last hand I heard Gortik
and Lesta discussing the possibility of building another flying
machine, a bigger one, to carry trade goods back and forth
between the village and the mainland."
Shoogar grunted. "It's possible--but I still have yngvi-
infested apprentices. They left out my locusts, my trumpets,
my appas--" 'M
"Then you have not trained them properly," I said. "I've H
had no trouble with mine."
"Hah, it is not so easy as you think, Lant, to train a
magician. I remember my own training----" He trailed off
suddenly.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"You are right, Lant. I have not been beating them
enough."
"I don't understand." ' ;,,
"Of course not; training a magician's apprentice is not like ^|
training a bonecarver or a weaver. First off, you must beat
them three times a day so they do not become presumptuous. ,|
Then you must beat them three more times so they will pay ;1
attention. Then you must beat them three more times so as
to instill in them a healthy fear of you--else they will carry
a grudge all their lives, may even one day turn against you."
264 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"That's a lot of beating," I said.
He nodded, "It's necessary. The greatness of a magician
is directly proportional to the amount of beating he has
taken."
"Your training must have been frightful--"
"It was. I was lucky to live through it. Old Alger would
not rest until he had beaten all resentment out of Dorthi and
me. We set over five hundred different spell traps for him.
Not one of them worked--he saw through them all."
"You mean an apprentice magician keeps trying to kill
his teacher?"
Shoogar nodded. "Of course, that's how you get to be
recognized as being better than he. It's not necessary, but
it is always tried by the apprentices because it is a short cut
to greatness. It is easier than waiting for a formal consecration."

"But Shoogar," I said, "your apprentices--they will try
to kill you."
"Of course. I expect it. But I am greater and smarter than
either of them can ever hope to be--I'm greater and smarter
than both of them put together. I have no worries about
them. They have not yet learned even how to curse a
stream. Besides, every time they fail, I beat them for it, severely. Thus they are inspired to do better next time--
it will force them to plan more carefully. They will fail,
of course. They always do--but a contest of wits like this
is always great fun for a magician."
I shook my head. I did not understand many things in this
life--and this was one of them.
I wobbled aft to get some sleep. The boat rocked gently
under the swollen balloons, and within moments the cares of
magicians had slipped away.
W e spent a miserable hour of darkness drifting, all five
of us huddled together at the bottom of the boat. Keeping
THE FLYING SORCERERS 265
watch would have done little good. There was little to see
but black water.
After a while Purple gathered his blanket around him
and stumbled off. We could hear him pacing back and forth
at the stern of the boat, we could feel the pad-padding of
his feet through the deck slats.
"He's restless and impatient," murmured Orbur.
"Let's hope a wind doesn't come up for a while," said
Wilville. "It's cold enough without having to go out and
pedal."
I peeked out from under my blanket. Purple was peering
upward at the balloons. They were illuminated by the eerie
glow of his flashlight. They shone brightly in the dark,
ominous and impassive. He was muttering something about
hydrogen leakage.
Wilville and Orbur exchanged a glance. "He doesn't
want to land," said one.
"We'll have to," replied the other. "If we have to recharge
the balloons, we'll have to."
I shivered. Below, we could hear the water lap-lapping, and
the occasional splash and groan of a cavernmouth fish. Best
we do not land at all, I thought--although, if the hydrogen
was leaking, we would have no choice at all in the matter.
I longed for a fire, blessed warmth, but Purple would
allow us none--no flame, no fire, no spark-making device
of any kind. Nothing that might endanger the violently explosive
hydrogen.
Had it not been for the ample supply of Quaff, we would
have been twice as unhappy and twice as cold. But Shoogar
and I passed the flask back and forth between us, and after
a while the sun came out and we didn't care any more.
Purple sighted our course then, and Wilville and Orbur
climbed out onto the outriggers. They turned us in the .proper
direction and began pedaling across the sky. Purple ||
retired to his sleeping cot in the back of the boat. He snored
like an awakening mountain. _ -<
Shoogar was grumpy again. The few times he had poked ^i his head out from under his blanket during the darkness, there I
had still been no moons. The first time of dark, there had
been mist. The second time had been clear, but there were
266 THE FLYING SORCERERS
still no moons! It was annoying and frustrating: the sign of
Gafia, when all the gods have stopped listening.
Shoogar was unapproachable. He climbed up into the
rigging, onto a little platform Purple called a bird's nest, and sat there moodily.
Later, when Purple awoke, he asked why Shoogar was so
angry. I told him that it was the moons. Shoogar needed
them and he could not see them--I didn't tell him why he
needed them though.
Purple called up to him, "Shoogar, come down--I will
explain to you about the moons."
"You?" he snorted. "You explain about the moons?"
"But I can tell you about them," Purple insisted.
"It wouldn't hurt to listen," I called.
"Humph," said Shoogar to me, "what do you know?" But
he began climbing down.
Purple pulled out an animal skin and began marking lines
on it. "Before I brought my flying egg down, I studied the
paths of your moons, Shoogar. Apparently they are all
fragments of one larger moon and they stay close together in
its orbit. At least they are all together now. I suppose there
are other times when they are all far apart."
Shoogar. nodded. This much at least was correct. "They
change their configurations often," he said. "But they go
in cycles of close configurations alternating with loose ones."
"Ah," said Purple. "Of course, they interfere with each
other too, and some get lost, and others get picked up from
the stream of rocks that follows in your sign-of-eight orbit;
but for a while, at least, the moons should behave like this.
Especially this one, which is very important to me--"
' I stopped listening and wandered to another part of the
airship. I am no magician and shop talk generally bores me.
Later though I noticed that Shoogar had kept the spell
chart that Purple had made, and was poring over it interestedly.
He had a fierce look in his eyes, and was muttering
grumpily and happily to himself.
Dlue dawn of the third day revealed us to be only
a few manheights above the water. Great swells swept before
us, the water rising and falling in constant uneasy motion.
As Wilville and Orbur climbed out onto their bicycles they
muttered about our lack of height. "The wind is more effective
at pushing us higher up." Orbur said.
Purple nodded thoughtfully. He was peering up at his
balloons.
I was peering uneasily down. The surface of the water was
greasy and black, and crinkled with flecks of light. I could
see the foam on the waves, and smell the wetness in the air.
We had been moving erratically north for two days. now,
sometimes pushed by the wind, and sometimes by the air-
pushers. Whenever the flying machine had dropped too low,
Purple poured sand out of the ballast bags until we rose
again. But we only had one sandbag left, and Purple was
beginning to worry.
He had been measuring the balloons regularly since the
first night. Periodically, he would climb up into the rigging
and poke one experimentally, then climb down, tsktsk'ing-
and shaking his head. The windbags were drooping sadly
now; we could see that without climbing the ropes.
He spent all morning leaning over the rail trying to ;J
estimate the distance to the water below. |
I spent long hours leaning over the rail myself, but Ill
little of it was in contemplation of the water. The continual
height had begun to unnerve me--and the motion, the constant
sway of the boat, the uneasy rocking whenever someone a shifted his position---- j|
It was Purple's observance of me that gave him the idea
of how to measure our height. He would drop an object and ^|
time how long it took to fall. He could do that even in the
dark if he listened carefully for the splash.
After his latest calculation--made by dropping a sour
. 267
268 THE FLYING SORCERERS
melon over the side--Purple announced that we were losing
gas very rapidly and would have to pump up the balloons
as soon as possible.
He climbed up into the rigging then, while Wilville and
Orbur manned the bicycle frames. Hopefully, he said, after
we came down in the water, the propellers would keep us
balanced and headed in the right direction. He began untying
the neck of one of his windbags.
He hung from the ropes above us, a puffy figure against
a background of limp and bloated cloth, and he called in-
structipns to the rest of us. "Lant, Shoogar, pull hard on that
rope--I must push this balloon aside. Loosen your pace,
Wilville! Orbur, backpedal now! Hard right! Keep on course."
Carefully, he manipulated the long hose-like neck of the
windbag, and let some gas seep out. We sank toward the
water.
He let more gas out, then tied the neck of the bag again.
He readjusted himself in the rigging and grabbed another
bag. We continued sinking. "How high are we?" he called.
I looked over the edge. We were less than one manheight
above the water. Already the propellers were slashing across
the tops of the swells, dipping in and out of them, churning
them to froth. A foamy wake appeared behind us.
"Check to see that the boat rudder is straight, Lant!" Purple
called. I wobbled to the back of the boat to where the
rudder was mounted. It too was an aircloth-hardened frame.
I straightened it out, and looped a rope around it to hold
it so.
"How high are we?"
I looked again. We were still one manheight over the
water. We had stopped sinking.
Purple loosed a little more gas from the bag and we sank,
sank--oof!--smacked into the water, slid sickeningly downward,
then up again, across the tops of the swells, up and
down, up and down. Wilville and Orbur kept pedaling. Amazing!
The airpushers kept churning the water behind us, and
we moved steadily forward--the airpushers worked in water
too! What a marvelous device they were!
Purple then unslung the hoses from the windbags, so that
they hung down into the boat frame. Sixteen long nozzles--
I looked up and thought of a milkbeast's belly.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 269
Purple brought out a wooden frame which Pran the Carpenter
had made for him. There was a slot in it to hold the
battery. Two copper wires led out across separate arms. One
of them ended in a clay funnel. To this Purple attached the first balloon nozzle. He hooked the whole affair over the boat
rail and let the wires and funnel arm dip into the water. He
made an adjustment on his battery. From the oxygen wire
came the familiar furious bubbling. We could not see the
bubbling on the other wire, it was inside the funnel. But we
did see the gentle puffing of the balloon neck, and we knew
that the gas was leaping upward through it.
Suddenly there was a yelp from Orbur, "Hey! We're rising
again!"
Sure enough, we were. The annoying up-and-down motion
of the boat across the swells had stopped. We had swung
back into the air. I could see our shadow slipping across the
water beneath us. Only the propellers still skimmed through
the surface, and then they too were free.
"Curse it," said Purple. "I never thought of that."
There was a wind pushing us along. We watched glumly
as our wake disappeared behind, lost in the swells.
"What do we do now?" I asked.
He switched off his battery. "We wait."
"But there's hardly enough gas in the balloons to lift us,
Purple. We'll be hitting the water again in five minutes."
"I know that, Lant. That's what I'm hoping for."
He began looking around him. He laid aside the recharging
framework and started rearranging the supplies in the bottom
of the boat; checking and tying the aircloth covers to see
that they were secure. "Find me a pail," he called.
There was one in the bow of the boat. We had been
using it to hold wash water, but it was empty now. Shoogar
brought it back to where we waited.
As soon as we were skimming through the tops of the
swells again. Purple leaned far over the rail, the bucket
trailing in his hands. He pulled it up, half full, and emptied
it into the boat. Again he leaned over the edge.
When he had poured ten bucketsful into the boat we were
again splashing through the waves. Another ten bucketsful and
we were dipping into the troughs. Ten more and we were
firmly in the water. Up and down. Up and down.
270 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"We need ballast," he explained. "And there's nothing else
to use." He peered over the side and measured how low the
boat was riding in the waves. He poured fifteen more bucketsful
into the boat before he was satisfied. It was up to our
knees at its deepest point.
He picked up his battery and funnel device again and
started to lean over the side-- "Eh? What am I doing? I can
just as easily use this water--" He sat down on a cloth-
covered seat and placed the device in the water before him.
It began bubbling and he beamed delightedly.
We were all delighted. On all sides splashed the restless
ocean. If Purple's gas-making magic were to suddenly stop
working, we would be trapped here, a tiny craft bobbing
across an uncaring sea.
Whether Purple worried about this or not, I did not know.
Apparently he had full confidence in the power of his battery
and he worked steadily. Within seven hours, he had recharged
all sixteen balloons. They hung taut and full-bellied
overhead. Several times we had added more water to the
boat to offset their increased lifting power. There were more
than a hundred bucketsful in the boat now.
At last though, Purple tied off the last windbag, and
began disconnecting his battery wires. He tsked thoughtfully
as he did so, "H'm, we have used more power than I thought
we would. We will have to be careful."
He put the device aside and began gathering up the empty
ballast bags. "Fill these with water," he instructed. "We will
use that as ballast instead of sand."
While Shoogar and I did as he instructed, he began bailing
the water out of the boat. After fifteen bucketsful had been
poured out, the boat began rocking harder in response to the
waves. A few more bucketsful and we were splashing through
them, the swells smacking the bottom of the boat. A few more
,and we were level again while the water skimmed harmlessly
below.
"Are we off the water?" Purple called to Wilville.
Wilville nodded, "By half a manlength easily." He and
Orbur were still on their bicycles, still hanging down onto
the sea--they were pumping steadily, and keeping the air-
pushers spinning to maintain our heading in the proper direction.

THE FLYING SORCERERS 271
Purple bailed one last bucket and straightened up. "Do
you want me to bail for a while?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Uh, uh. There's no need for any
more bailing, Lant." He put the pail aside.
While I scratched my head in confusion, he splashed forward
to the Cathcmk's toolbox. He came back carrying a
drill, and proceeded to make a small hole in the narrow deck
slats.
It took only a few moments, and then he stood up proudly
and wetly. Almost immediately Orbur called, "We're on
our way up again!"
Indeed we were. The ocean dropped away at an ever increasing
pace. The water spilled out of the hole at a steady
rate, and gradually there was less and less water in the boat.
Like Purple's first windbag so many hands ago, we fell upward.

I leaned over the railing in excitement. "Why, it works
just like the sand ballast," I said. "When you throw it away,
the boat rises."
"Of course, you nit!" said Shoogar. "That's part of the
ballast spell."
"It's the weight, Lant--it doesn't make any difference
what your ballast is. It's the throwing away of weight that
makes the boat rise."
"Nice thinking," commented Shoogar. 'The ballast goes
automatically. No jerks, no bumps."
"Thank you," Purple beamed. It was the first compliment
he had ever gotten from Shoogar.
He checked our course heading then--the wind was
blowing almost directly north--so the boys could either rest
or pedal in the same direction, as they chose. They chose to
rest and stretched out on their outriggers. There had to be one
son on each outrigger at all times, or no son on either--
otherwise the airboat slanted all askew.
Purple dried himself off as well as he could, then climbed
into the rigging to tie up the airbag nozzles. They were still
hanging down. By the time he had finished, all the water had
drained out of the boat. He toddled back to where we waited
and pounded a heavy bone plug into the hole.
Once more the sea glistened far below us. Indeed, it
seemed we were higher than ever. When we dropped a sour
272 THE FLYING SORCERERS
melon over the side, it dwindled to a distant speck and vanished
without a splash.
We were aloft for the rest of that day and most of
the next, before we again had to dump ballast. Purple always
waited until we had sunk below a certain level before he
would throw any away. Otherwise, he said, we were just
wasting it. "The idea is to stay aloft as long as possible," he
explained.
We were standing in the front of the boat looking down
at the glass-colored water. All was blue and red with the
fairy-tale quality of double daylight. Above, massive cloud-
banks covered half the sky, the multi-colored sunlights painting
them in gaudy hues and stark relief. Purple eyed them
with a worried frown. "I hope the weather holds up," he
said.
The blue sun hesitated on the horizon, then winked out,
leaving everything rose-colored. The silence of the upper air
was perfect, but for the sssssss of the bicycles and the low
chanting at the rear of the boat where Shoogar was trying
to change the direction of the wind. It was northeast again,
and the boys were pedaling west.
"How much longer do you think the voyage will take?"
I asked.
Purple shrugged, "I estimate that we are covering fifteen
miles an hour, maybe twenty--that is, in the direction we
want to go. If we had a steady wind we could cover the
whole fifteen hundred miles in three full days. Unfortunately,
Lant, the winds over the ocean are most erratic. We have
been journeying for three and a half days and still no land is
in sight."
"We were becalmed for a full day," I pointed out. "That
did not help any either."
"True," he admitted, "but I had hoped--" He sighed and
sank down onto a bench.
THE FLYING SORCERERS - 273
I sat down across from him. "I don't see why you should
be so impatient. Your test flight took at least this long."
"Yes, but we didn't go that far. Then the wind was blowing
west, and we were swept over the mountains. We spent the
whole three days just coming back."
"You were fighting the wind?" --
"Oh no. It had died away by that time, but we needed to |§
figure out how best to handle the boat in the air--and then
we had to prove to Shoogar that his sails wouldn't work. It
took a full day just to rig them, and then Shoogar would
still not be convinced. He made us try over and over and :||
over again. He kept insisting that the airpushers needed some- |a
thing to push against. IM
"All the time we had those damned sails up," said Purple,
"we were powerless to fight the wind, so we were blown even
farther away. Shoogar didn't want to let us bring them in,
but we would have never gotten home otherwise. Once we ^ got organized though, we made good time, and later on the
wind gave us a push too."
"You weren't over the island the whole time, were you?"
"Oh no. Just before we started pedaling for home we were
getting very close to the mainland. There was a very excited
crowd there on the beach, but we didn't try to approach."
"It was well that you didn't--they might have stoned you
or worse--" I started to tell him what Gortik had said about
the mainlanders, but a distant cough of Eicin interrupted.
Purple started at the sound. His eyes went wide and he
leapt to his feet. "Thunder!" he yelped.
"What? What about it?"
"Thunder means lightning, Lant!" He was leaning forward,
shading his eyes with one heavy hand. Frantically
he searched the sky and the blood-colored clouds. He didn't
see what he was looking for and moved nervously backward
to peer out across the side. He began climbing up into the
rigging for a better view.
Abruptly there was another KKK-R-R-u-umpp, this time
noticeably closer.
Purple yelped again. He didn't wait for a third cough,
but swarmed up to the top of the rigging and began untying
the windbag nozzles.
"What is it?" both Shoogar and I cried.
274 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Thunderstorm!" he screamed. "Get up here and help
me! Wilville, Orbur! You too!" My sons abandoned their
posts immediately and began climbing inward.
"I don't understand," I said confusedly, "what is the danger?"

"Lightning!" shouted Orbur. He was already into the
rigging.
"You mean lightning strikes airboats too?"
"Especially airboats--remember what happened to Purple's
housetree? We have to land and drain all the hydrogen out
of the airbags. The slightest spark and we'll all blow up!"
He didn't have to repeat himself. I followed Wilville up
the ropes. Shoogar was right behind me. Purple had already
untied three of the bags and was working on a fourth. The
airboat lurched sickeningly. I could not tell if the sinking
sensation I felt was me or it.
There was a flash of light and another crashing slam. It
was directly above us. We were headed right into the storm.
Purple was muttering wildly to himself, "Damn the bloody--
I should have thought about emergency deflations! Orbur,
this is too slow and we will never get all the gas out of the
balloons through the nozzles. Somebody is going to have
to climb up to the top with a knife and cut holes to let the
gas out! We'll patch them up later--"
"Not now," I yelped. "If you cut holes now, we'll fall!"
"No, not now--after we hit the water," shouted Purple.
"We can't risk doing it in the air or the balloons might rip!"
He untied another nozzle. Seven of them were waving free
now, spewing their precious hydrogen unseen to the reddened
thunder.
Another crash of light and sound limned us in stark relief
--and sparked us all to move still faster. The black water
below rushed up at sickening speed--
"Tie off the balloons," shouted Purple. "Slow our descenti"
Orbur swung precariously from a rear mast section, Wilville
only a few yards away. A frantic Shoogar clung to
the bird's nest platform. Purple and I were in the forward
section of the rigging. All of us were grabbing furiously
for the free swinging hoses----
The wind whistled and shrieked. I pulled at the aircloth
TT
THE FLYING SORCERERS 275
hose and wrapped it around itself. I swung out on the rigging
grabbing for another—
"Hold on!" screamed Purple. "Wait—"
A precious moment of stillness while we fell through
the angry sky. Still too fast, too fast—were we slowing at
all?
Another crash of thunder—this one closest of them all.
A second flash of whiteness——
Purple was a stark silhouette. He was grim-faced, but
suddenly stem. He stared at the uprushing water with no sign
of emotion. Had he miscalculated? Would we hit the water
too hard?
The image of a splintering airboat filled my mind—why
had I ever come on this god-cursed journey——?
"Ballast—" he shouted and disappeared from his post.
For a moment I thought he had fallen, but with the next
crash of thunder I saw him below, tugging at the ballast '' | ^
bags. Wilville was already there, just emptying one over the | |
side—
"I'll help!" I hollered, but he yelled back, "Stay where you
are, Lant—it'll be safer—tie off the airbagsl Don't release
any more gas until I tell you to!"
He cast about frantically then, looking for things to throw
overboard. His eye lit on a pile of cloth—"What the—?"
Shoogar yelped from the rigging, "Those are my sails!"
"Good!" And with that, he snatched them up and heaved
them over the side. Shoogar began screaming curses, but
they were lost in the loudest crash of all.
The spare windbags followed the sails, as did half our
food and water. Wilville had emptied all the ballast bags
by now and was helping Purple.
We were still falling. A sickening sensation in the pit of
my stomach told me we were about to die.
Purple called for me to unreel a windbag nozzle, but not
to untie it. What was he planning? He grabbed it as it fell,
and hooked it to his funnel. He had a ballast bag between
his legs; he plunged the nozzle and battery device into the
bag of water. I saw him turn the battery up to its maximum
release of electrissy. Great gulps of gas roared up the hose—
the windbag expanded terrifically.
L
276 THE FLYING SORCERERS
Purple waved to Wilville. "Get up in the rigging!" he bellowed.
"It'll be safer!"
I could see long streamers of foam below us. We were
falling at little more than a fast gallop--the sea was a
wall of blackness--I could see the individual waves--
Cra-a-ack--the boat smacked down with a great splash
that sent water in all directions. For a sickening moment all
the ropes were slack--then they snapped taut again as the
balloons leapt back. There was a yelp from behind me--Shoogar--I
turned in time to see Orbur lose his grip and fall into
the water, but he surfaced again almost immediately and began
paddling for an outrigger.
Wilville was climbing down from the rigging then to see if
Purple was all right, but the magician was screaming: "The
balloons! The balloons! We've got to finish deflating the
balloons!"
"Then you'd better disconnect that!" pointed Wilville.
Purple looked, saw his battery and funnel device lying
in a puddle of water at the bottom of the boat. The puddle
boiled. Purple yelped and leapt for it.
The boat rocked as Orbur climbed into it, his fur plastered
wetly to his body. He started up the rigging to join us, then
stopped. He cocked his head oddly-- "Wait a minute!" he
called. "Don't deflate the balloons yet."
"Huh?" Purple cried. "What are you--" Then he stopped
too. There was a distant cough of thunder. Behind us. Far
behind us.
"The storm is over," said Orbur. "We're past it."
"We fell through it," muttered Shoogar. He began climbing
down. The bird's nest, where he had been holding onto it,
was bent out of shape.
I he rolling sea lifted us up and dropped us down. Lifted
us up and dropped us down.
The boat lay askew in the water. One of the outriggers
THE FLYING SORCERERS 277
had snapped halfway oS and had to be retied before we ,a|, I
dared to ascend again. Wilville and Orbur were working on ,|| ^^^j it now. 3
The balloons--nearly empty now--drooped flaccidly above
us. They had barely enough gas to hold themselves aloft, m We had been sitting in the sea for half a day now. The red a sun was seeping into the west, and the day was ever darkening.
Purple sat glumly in the rear of the boat with his battery ?
and his filling framework. Shoogar was half-heartedly bailing Sj|
water. Apparently we had sprung a small leak somewhere, if
I staggered aft, stumbling once. "How bad is our situation,
Purple?" I asked. ij|
He shook his head. "It's not good, I can tell you that. I
used an awful lot of power in my attempt to pump up the
balloons."
"But you had to--you had no choice." ;'
"I shouldn't have panicked though. I was so afraid we ;:
were going to be struck by lightning that I let the gas out of
the bags too fast, then I used up too much power trying to
replace it. And I don't think I did that much good. All I did
was make steam. I'm sure some oxygen got mixed up with
the hydrogen." He peered upward at the limp airbags. "I'm fl afraid this may be the end of our journey, Lant."
I looked around me. Fortunately, Shoogar and the sons ,
had not heard. Or, if they had, they showed no sign. "Are you j jj
out of power completely?" 1|
"No, but I'm not sure there's enough to refill the balloons, a Lant--"
"There's only one way to find out."
Purple nodded, "Yes, of course--we will have to try it. .ijg
The only thing is, I have to save some power with which '
to call down my flying egg. I'm not sure I have enough to do
both." He scratched thoughtfully at his chin hair.
I thought hard. "Why don't we use another ballast spell?
Throw away some more weight?" ,
He started to shake his head to that, then-- "Wait! You're
right, Lant. We can lighten this boat considerably. We can't
be that far from land--" He stood up, began looking around I
for things to throw overboard.
He tugged at a bundle. "What's this?"
278 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"The spare windbags. Orbur found them floating in the
water."
"Oh," He started throwing them over again. "I'm sorry,
Lant," he said to my shocked expression, "But it's the same
situation as when we were falling. It's either us or them.
Now, what else--what's in here?"
"Quaff skins, water skins, sour melons, sweet melons,
smoked meats--Purple, what are you doing?"
"Throwing it overboard, Lant. We packed enough food
for three or four weeks. We don't need that much. I'm keeping
only enough for two more days." He began dropping armloads
of it over the side.
"Not thati" I protested, but he ignored me--the Quaff
went too.
We stumbled forward, looking for other things to throw
out. The sea rolled around us, rocking the boat and carrying
away our hard-won treasures. Our Quaff.
The blankets followed the food, all but three--which
Purple agreed might be necessary. He picked up a twisting
tool, "Orbur, are you through with this?" Orbur nodded.
"Good," said Purple. It splashed over the side. He moved
forward again. "What's this junk--"
"Not thati" yelped Shoogar. "That's my spellcasting equip-
menti"
"For God's sake, Shoogar--what's more important, your
life or your spells?"
"Without my spells I wouldn't have a life," snapped Shoo-
gar.
For a moment I wondered if maybe Purple wasn't considering
throwing Shoogar over too. But instead he thrust his
spell kit back at him. "Here, this must be as important to
you as my battery is to me. If something this light is enough
to make a difference--well, if we're that far gone it won't
matter one way or another. Keep it." Shoogar took his kit
and examined it carefully.
Purple stumbled forward and began to empty out the
small cabin framework there.
Wilville climbed back into the boat then. "The outrigger is
fixed," he announced.
"Good," said Purple, dumping an armload of things. He wobbled back to us and began throwing the tools overboard.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 279
That done, he straightened and said, "I guess we're ready
to ascend now. Orbur, will you pull down the first of the
windbag nozzles while I ready the gasmaker?"
Orbur nodded and started to climb the rigging—that is,
he tried to—what happened was that he pulled the balloon
down to where the rest of us could reach it. "Umph," said I
Purple, "that is limp, isn't it?"
He attached the hose to the funnel and battery and
lowered it into the water. "I am going to fill these very
carefully," he said to no one in particular and switched on
his battery.
While he worked the rest of us began to fill the ballast bags.
"You won't need those," said Purple when he saw what we S
were doing. "We're going to have to make it without
ballast."
"Yes, but we're going to need some in the boat while you
fill the balloons," I said.
"Yes, of course—you're right, I forgot." He turned back
to his gas making.
After two balloons had been filled, Wilville and Orbur
climbed out onto the outriggers and began pedaling. The
boat rode up and down the ocean swells. Five balloons later, „,
it stopped riding the waves. Instead, the water just slapped at H
the bottom.
Shoogar and I exchanged a glance. "We need more water
in the boat," he said and reached for the bucket. I helped
him for a bit, then something occurred to me. |
"Why are we doing it the hard way?" I asked. "Just pull
the plug and let the water flow in." As I spoke I was already
tugging.
There was a yelp from the stem. "No!" shouted Purple,
but it was too late. Water spurted up and struck me in the
face.
"Stop it, stop it!" Purple cried. "Stop it!"
"Why?"
"Just do it! Don't ask why! Just do it!" He dropped his
gasmaker and came splashing back, slipped in the water
and fell. "Stop it, Lant!"
"But—but—" The water was rapidly filling the boat and
I began to understand. "I can't! I let go of the plug when
the water hit me!" And then we were all down on our hands
280 THE FLYING SORCERERS
and knees feeling around for it under the rising water. It was
cold and it surged into the boat eagerly--a spouting fountain
marked the spot where the hole was.
We scrambled around frantically in that cold wetness and
then suddenly I had it--something small and round and hard. The plug! I tried to jam it back into the hole, but the
water was up to my thighs already--I went down on my
knees, but then I had to stretch my neck to hold my head
above water, and after a few seconds even that didn't work.
Shivering, I took a deep breath and went under. I pressed
hard on the plug, but I couldn't get the leverage, and the
water continued to pour in too fast.
There was another pair of hands on top of mine--Shoogar's--he
was trying to help. But it wasn't working---- Even
the two of us couldn't press hard enough. I surfaced for air.
Wilville and Orbur were shouting at me from their outriggers.
They were up to their necks in water already--and
still pedaling furiously. Purple was bailing frantically with the
bucket.
And then the water stopped rising.
It was up to our chests, and waves were sloshing over the
sides of the boat. We had stopped sinking. The windbags held
the boat just a few hand's-breadths from total immersion.
We stood there up to our chests in cold sea water and glared
at each other. I said, "Well, don't just stand there treading
water. Purple! Do something!"
He glared at me. Shoogar glared at me. Wilville and
Orbur glared at me.
The bags of wind hung over us, the restless sea tossed
around us. The red sun began to seep behind the horizon.
We had perhaps an hour and a half of daylight left----
Well, since nobody else was going to do anything------
I trod water to the center of the boat and ducked under.
I came up with a ballast bag, pulled it to the rim--I could
not have lifted it without going under--opened the mouth
and poured the ballast over the side. I ducked, found another
bag and emptied it.
Purple began to laugh.
Shoogar had gotten the idea and was helping me empty the
bags of water overboard. It wasn't enough. The windbags
tugged upward on the boat frame, but they couldn't lift it.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 281
They could only keep it from sinking into the uneasy
swells. Shoogar searched around for some more ballast bags,
ducking under and feeling around with his hands. The dumping
of ballast did not help noticeably. The rim of the boat
frame continued to show only as an outline in the water.
Purple had been clinging to the rigging and chortling helplessly
while we worked. It seemed a singularly rude act. Now
he found his voice and said, "Stop. Please stop. You're only
emptying water out of water."
"But it's ballast," said Shoogar.
"But it's water too--it just replaces itself as fast as you
bail it." He swam over to us. "Put the plug in first, then
bail."
I looked at the plug in my hand and shrugged. Why not?
--I ducked into the water and felt around for the hole.
There was no pressure to fight this time, and the plug
slipped in easily. I surfaced with a gasp.
"Is it in?" asked Purple. I nodded. He dove under to check
it himself. He came up beside me. "All right, it's firm
enough." He gave Shoogar and me a look. "You two start
bailing while I finish refilling the balloons. Wilville, Orbur,
keep pedaling."
"We have to," they called back, "otherwise we'll sink."
Grumbling, Purple splashed aft. Shoogar and I grabbed
buckets and set to work. We bailed fast and furiously. By the
time Purple had two more balloons refilled, we had the water
level down to our thighs. "You know," I mused, "this might
be a good way to keep boats from sinking--hang them from
windbags."
Purple only glared at me.
I went back to my bailing.
The red sun seeped down behind the horizon, leaving
only a festering glow across the western edge of the world.
We worked in shivering darkness. The water splashed coldly
about our knees.
After a while I became aware that we were rocking more
noticeably. "Purple," I called, "we're riding higher in the
water."
He looked up from his battery device, peered over the
edge. "So we are." He tied off the neck of the balloon--the
tenth to be filled and slogged forward to where we stood.
282 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"One more balloon and we should be out of the water altogether."

"How is your battery holding up?"
"Better than I had hoped--" He tugged at the rigging,
pulled down another nozzle. "--it's getting awfully cold,
isn't it, Lant? Why don't you break out the blankets?"
"You threw them overboard," I said. "All except for three
--and those are soaking wet."
"Everything is soaking wet," grumbled Shoogar.
"Oh," said Purple. He sloshed aft for his battery. There
was nothing more to say.
Shoogar and I paused in our bailing to hang the sodden
blankets across the rigging, hoping to dry them out. I imagined
that tiny icicles were forming on the ends of my body fur.
"Our food supplies are a mess too," said Shoogar, sniffing
at a package. "The hardbread isn't." He tossed it soggily
over the side.
"You should have said a ballast blessing over it," I said, but
it was a cheerless joke.
He didn't appreciate it anyway--this was no time for
joking. Purple was just filling the twelfth balloon, and we
were miserable and cold.
"Shoogar," I said.
He looked at me from where he was huddling in his
damp robe. "What?"
"Feel! We're not rocking any morel We're out of the
water!"
"Huh?" He turned to the railing and looked. I joined him.
In the last fading glow of red sunset, we could just make out
the black water skimming effortlessly below.
There was no doubting it--and every moment we rose
higher and higher. The twelfth balloon was bulging taut overhead.
"Purple," I called, "we're in the air!"
"I know," he called back. "WilviUe! Orburl" he shouted
to the outriggers. "How high are we?"
"At least a manheight. The airpushers are just out of the
waves----"
Purple undipped his flashlight from his belt and aimed
it at the balloons above. Only four still hung limp, the rest
were swollen with the familiar and friendly bulge of hydrogen gas. He stepped to the side of the boat and aimed the
THE FLYING SORCERERS 283
light over the side. The water gleamed five manheights below.

"I will pull the plug," I said. "It must be safe to drain the
rest of this water now." I splashed toward it; the water was
still knee-high in the boat.
"No!" shouted Purple and Shoogar together. Wilville and
Orbur too. "Don't touch that plug."
"Huh?" I stopped, my hand on the bone cylinder.
"Don't do it, Lant! Don't touch the plug unless I tell you
to!"
"But we're so high above the water. Surely there's no danger
now."
"I still have four balloons to refill. Where will I get the
water I need if you will pull the plug?"
"Oh," I said. I let go of it quickly.
"Wait a minute," Shoogar said suddenly, "you can't use
that water for your hydrogen gas. That's ballast water. It makes us go down, not up."
"Shoogar, it's water. Just water," Purple said patiently.
"But it's symbological nonsense to think that the same
water can make us go in two directions!" And then Shoogar
could only make gulping sounds. For Purple had casually
dipped up a double handful of water from the bottom of
the boat, and was drinking it. Drinking the ballast! ^-
Shoogar choked in impotent rage; he tottered off.
"Why don't you go sit down too?" Purple suggested to
me. "Let me worry about the boat."
"All right," I shrugged and sat down on a bench. It was
cold and wet like everything else on the Cathawk. From the
stern came sounds of damp rigging being pulled and
stretched. Purple was just starting to fill another windbag.
We sailed on through the dark, shivering and miserable.
Wilville and Orbur pumped and chanted. Purple filled the
balloons. Shoogar and I froze.
A wind came up then and started pushing us north. Any
other time we might have appreciated it. In this sodden darkness
though, it only set our teeth to chattering. Wilville and
Orbur gave up on their pedaling then--it was too cold to
continue. They huddled at the wet bottom of the boat with
the rest of us. After a while even Purple joined us. Being
284 / THE FLYING SORCERERS
wrapped with cold soaking blankets was still better than
being exposed to the biting upper air.
Or should have been. My fingers were so numb, I could
not even pull the icy cloth tighter about myself.
Sleep was impossible. I muttered constantly. "There's no
such thing as warm, Lant. It's all your imagination. You'll
never be warm again. You'd better get used to freezing,
Lant--"
When Ouells--bright blue and tiny--snapped up over
the eastern horizon an hour later, we were still damp with
chill, and there was a thin layer of frost on everything in
the boat.
I he morning was crisp, but rapidly warming.
The sea was a plate of restless blue far below. We seemed
higher than we'd ever been in the airship. The edge of the
world was almost curved.
Purple said that was an optical illusion. We were much
too low to see any real curvature. Gibberish again.
We stretched the blankets across the rigging to dry
them in the sun. Our togas as well. Even Purple shed his
impact suit and stretched out against the bright morning.
The wind continued to blow steadily north, and Wilville
and Orbur were resting on their outrigger cots.
I splashed around in the front of the boat, looking for any
foodstuffs that either Purple or the water had missed. I
found a half of a sour melon and glumly split it with Shoogar.
None of the rest wanted any.
We still had water in the airboat, up to our knees, but
Purple refused to let us dump it. "Look how high we are
already," he said. "There's no point to throwing this water
away. Later, when the windbags leak a little more, then we'll
need it. Besides, I may want to make some more hydrogen
first."
"Do you have enough electrissy?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 285
He smiled sheepishly. "I--uh, I sort of miscalculated
when I filled the windbags. I didn't realize they still had'
as much hydrogen in them as they did. I have enough power
left to fill three airbags. Or to fill four if I don't want to
call my flying egg down." He looked about him. "That should
be enough. We should have at least four days of flying time
left before the balloons are too weak again and I'm out of
power. If we can't make it by then, we'll never make it."
We sailed on hungrily; and steadily, steadily north.
We fought crosswinds for a while, but always the general
direction of our motion was north.
We had lost our course line of hills under the water some- ||
time during the thunderstorm. That we had been unable to
find it again didn't worry Purple as much as it might have.
He still had his measuring devices, and he charted our course
by them. s'
When I asked him about it, he shrugged it off, "Well, it
seemed like a good idea, Lant--but I think those hills of yours
are too deeply submerged now to be seen. Maybe we'll be
lucky though, and see them again when we get over shallower
water." a
The next day, he recharged the windbags, leaving him- |
self only enough power to fill two bags completely until full,
or one windbag and a call to his flying egg.
Toward evening we finally pulled the plug and drained ,.,
away the knee-high water which had been our companion i|
for the last two days. "I had thought this trip was going to be
over water," Shoogar grumbled, "not through it."
Purple grinned as he watched the water spill away. We
were too high to see if we were rising, but the feel of the
craft told us that we were. He said, "But it was obvious,
Shoogar, we should have thought of it sooner--always keep
a quantity of water in the boat. It helps us to balance the
craft so that it doesn't rock so much when we move. It's
there for recharging the airbags--we never have to go down
to the water any more. And we can use it as ballast too."
"I tell you that that's nonsense!" Shoogar exploded. "Ballast,
drinking water, gas-making water, wash water---- What
kind of a spell is it when you arbitrarily change the name of
the object to suit your needs?"
286 THE FLYING SORCERERS
And he stamped off to the bow to sulk, his sandals making
wet squishy sounds as he went.
He was still there when darkness came, peering forward
at the sky and chanting a moon-bringer spell.
It was Orbur who spotted our course line again. Far oil
to the left, a lighter-colored patch of sea could be seen.
We were lower now, despite the dumping of six bags
of water. Purple said it was due to the airbags leaking faster
than before. They were stretching, he said, and the seams
weren't as strong as he had hoped. He ordered the boys to
come about and head the boat in a course that would
eventually bring us over the spine of hills again.
I chewed thoughtfully on a lump of moldy hardbread. That
the hills were visible under the water again meant that we
were nearing shallower seas. Soon we might be over land,
and our journey would be over----
The windbags above were taut, but rippling slightly in the
wind. Soon the ripplings would increase some more, folds
of cloth would hang loose, the bags would droop heavily--and
all the while we would descend lower and lower.
Purple began emptying the last of the ballast bags--all except
two which we would save for drinking water. Shoogar
moaned, when he said that. The boat rose some as he
dumped the ballast, but not by any significant amount.
"Well, that's it," he said. "We make it on the gas we've got
left, or not at all."
Wilville and Orbur pumped silently and steadily. They
no longer chanted happily while they worked. Rather, they
seemed almost in a trance, trying to endure from one moment
to the next. They had both developed sores and blisters
on their hands and buttocks. Purple had sprayed them each
with a salve, but then they had gone back out onto the outriggers,
and I suspected that the salve would not do much
good.
THE FLYING SORCERERS 287
We took up our position over the spine of hills and pumped
steadily north. I wobbled to the front of the boat and joined
Shoogar. Although the red sun was still bright in the west,
he wanted to miss not a moment of the impending darkness.
"The moons," he chortled happily, "the moons should be
visible soon."
I ignored him. I was not so much concerned with what
was above as with what was ahead. Was that a line of narrow
darkness on the forward horizon? It was too dark to tell.
I called it to Purple's attention. He shouldered roughly
past Shoogar and peered eagerly forward. "Umph," he said,
"I can't see."
"Use your flashlight," I suggested.
"No, Lant, it hasn't enough power to reach that far."
"Attach it to your big battery. That still has some power
left in it."
He smiled. "I could do that, but it hasn't got enough power
left in it to turn the flashlight up that bright. Besides, blue
dawn will be here in slightly more than an hour. If it is land,
we'll see it then."
The red sun faded away then, and we throbbed impatiently
through the darkness, only the steady sssssss of the bicycles
reminding us that we were moving. Purple paced restlessly
in the back of the boat, while Shoogar chanted steadily in the
bow.
I tried to sleep, but couldn't.
Morning snapped up over the east and as one. Purple and
I rushed forward. Wilville was already crying, "Land! I can
see it! Land! We've made it! We've made it!"
"Keep pedaling," Purple shouted. "Keep pedaling!"
We were lower now—much lower—the airbags were not
holding their hydrogen as long as they used to, and we were
only a few manheights above the water.
It mattered not. Far ahead of us we could see the craggy
shore of the North, and behind it, jagged hills rising toward
a familiar mountain range—The Teeth Of Despair.
"Oh, pump, Wilville, pump!" cried Purple. "Pump, Orbur,
pump!" He peered so far forward out of the boat, I thought
he was ready to leap out and swim for land. "Just a little bit
farther!"
The sea below us was mottled and ugly. We could see
288 THE FLYING SORCERERS
jagged reefs below us--and here and there a whirlpool. All
slid past, but we were sinking lower and lower.
Purple noticed it too. "What the--" He moved back inside
the boat and began tugging experimentally at the rigging.
"One of the bags must have a leak--" He started climbing
upward. "Is it this one?" He pulled at a rope. "No. Maybe
it's that one. Yes, the seam there--see it?"
I looked. Just above him, one of the airbags had a narrow
slit of darkness in its belly. Purple took a step higher in the
rigging--
And then it happened.
The seam ripped wide open--a great stretching and tearing
sound. The bag folded open, and the boat gave a sudden
lurch as it collapsed. Huge lengths of aircloth began falling
across the rigging. Wilville and Orbur screamed.
"Throw some ballast! Throw some ballast!" cried Shoogar.
He ran frantically about the boat, but we only had two ballast
bags. He pulled at them furiously.
"No!" shouted Purple. "That won't do any good. There's
not enough!" He half climbed, half fell from the rigging.
"Lant, get my airmakeri"
"Where is it?"
"In the back of the boat, I think! Hurry!"
We were losing altitude fast. And I could see why he
wanted me to hurry. A swirling whirlpool lay below us, hungry
and sucking. It was huge--
Purple already had a windbag nozzle untied and waiting
above an open sack of water. He grabbed the airmaker and
shoved its funnel into the airhose and into the water, both
in one motion. He snapped his battery on. The windbag
swelled frantically, strove to rise. The airboat gave a lurch.
Purple flung away the empty water bag. "Give me the
other." Shoogar shoved it into position before the words
were out of his mouth, and again Purple plunged his wires
and funnel into it. Again the windbag puffed with a mixture
that was half hydrogen, half throw-away gas.
We could hear the roar of the whirlpool now--and little
else. We were less than two manheights above the water.
Wilville and Orbur were frantically pulling their airpushers
up so they would not get caught in the maelstrom below.
But we had stopped our descent!
THE FLYING SORCERERS 289
The great whirling walls of water slipped thunderously
past us--crashing and black. We could feel the wet mist
across our faces. Foam sprayed the boat.
"The Mouth of Teev," whispered Shoogar. "It appears
at the end of every summer. As the seas recede, it sucks
up everything within its reach, men, boats, trees, rocks----"
"But summer isn't over yet," said Purple. His face was
white, and the bones of his knuckles showed where he
gripped 'the railing.
"No," said Shoogar, "but it's starting to wane. By summer's
end the Mouth will be much bigger than this. Its roar will
be audible for miles."
Purple peered nervously backward. The dark thundering
water was slipping steadily behind us. Wilville and Orbur
lay clenched across their outriggers.
"I never thought I'd live to see it that close," Shoogar
said weakly.
Purple grunted thoughtfully. He was looking at his air-
maker.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"My battery. I think it's dead."
"What? No! Again?"
"I think so." He disconnected the battery and shook it experimentally.
"Look, the dial doesn't even light up. We used
up all the power we had."
"We needed it. We'd be in the Mouth of Teev if we hadn't
made more gas."
"We could have swum for it. Or cut the boat loose and
hung onto the ropes! Or--anything----" He put his face in
his hands and made sounds of pain. Then suddenly he stood
up, picked up the battery and--for an endless moment I
thought he was going to fling it overboard and perhaps follow
it.
Instead he called briskly, "Wilvillel Orburl Back on the
bicycles. We're so close to land, you don't want to quit
now!"
I could see that he was only acting. He didn't want the
others to see how deeply he felt his loss. He pretended to
busy himself checking the rigging, but several times I caught
him staring off into the sky with a faraway look.
The boys unslung the windmakers again and Shoogar
290 THE FLYING SORCERERS
began to chant with them--the / Think Icon. a fast chant, strong and purposeful.
The shore line loomed ever nearer--the surf was white
and foaming; Shoogar steadily increased the pace of the
chant. Even so, we kept sinking lower and lower toward the
water--not as fast as before, but it was apparent that the
airbags were no longer as tight as they had been.
The water slipped past us, the windmakers dipping through
the higher waves; then cutting through the swells themselves,
becoming visible only in the troughs between the waves; and
at last, no longer visible at all. The outriggers hung low
along the sides of the boat, and pushed us through the
surf. The balloons hung in silent stillness overhead, and
the sea splashed below. An occasional spray of wet foam came
through the rigging.
Shoogar interrupted his chanting to call, "Lant, lookl Do you recognize Where we are heading? Come look!"
I climbed forward. Ahead lay a bleak and forbidding landscape
of jagged black and brown. It was streaked with gray
and purple, and ominously stained whites. All was pitted and
scarred. Here and there a flash of red testified to a scorch-
blossom's attempt to take root, but little more was visible.
Except--was that the fire-blackened shell of a wild house-
tree? It looked like a gaunt hand frozen in an anguished
skyward grasp.
"Lant! It is the Cove of Mysteries--or what's left of it.
We are not far from the old village, just a few miles south
of it."
Purple came up behind me, a clicking device in his hands.
I had noticed it on his belt before, but he had never explained
its use. Now he tapped it experimentally and
frowned. At last he smiled, "The level of--" He used a demon
word here, "is not as high as I thought it would be, not much
higher than the normal background level. Certainly not dangerous,
anyway. It will be safe to walk in this area."
The boat was splashing through the waves now, and
Purple directed the boys to head for a place where the
ground sloped gently into the water. We could see one not
too far ahead, and the boys shifted direction to make for it.
Purple peered ahead. "Lant, how far are we from
Critic's Tooth?"
THE FLYING SORCERERS 291
"Well, it used to be over there. Purple," I pointed. A few
cracked, half-melted slabs of rock marked a conspicuous gap
in the mountains to the north.
He misunderstood. "That peak is Critic's Tooth?"
"No, that's Viper's Bite--one of the lesser foothills before
Critic's Tooth. Critic's Tooth is gone."
"Oh."
"The whole range of jagged mountains is called the Teeth
of Despair. Critic's Tooth was one of the sharpest peaks.
The region is ruled by the mad demon, Peers, who gnashes
and gnarls mightily. He attacks natives and strangers alike.
We should approach no closer, lest he blame us for the '
damage to his Teeth."
Purple was looking at his ticking thing again, waving it
and pointing it. "A good idea."
We bounced through the surf. There was a gentle bump
as the nose of the boat slid up onto the sand. We had.
reached the northern shore.
"The Cathawk has landed!" shouted WilviUe. "The Cat-
hawk has landed!"
A s one person we jumped for shore, Shoogar and Purple
and I scrambling over each other.
At last we stood on solid ground again. The land was desolate,
mostly naked rock, blood-colored in the westering light of Ouells and the overhead glow of Vim, but it was solid. No
more standing in air, no more standing in water. No more
standing in both at the same time.
If ever I returned safely home, I swore, I would never
again risk my life in so foolhardy a venture. The skies were not friendly
WilviUe and Orbur had slung up the airpushers and pulled
the Cathawk high on the shore, out of reach of the lapping
waves. Immediately they began filling the ballast bags, and ' the interior of the boat as well, with a low level of water.
292 THE FLYING SORCERERS
They began checking the rigging, the bicycle frames, and
even the watertightness of the boatframe and the balloons.
They acted as if they expected the Cathawk to fly again.
How, I could not imagine. The gasbags were all limp from
leakage, and I did not trust the seams on several of them.
They still extended upward from their ropes, but none were
very determined about it.
How they hoped to refill the windbags, I did not know.
Shoogar was walking around and chuckling to himself.
"I won't have to acquaint myself with the local spells or the
local gods at all. I can start as soon as I check the moons . . ."
and he wandered off toward a distant blackened hill, carrying
his spell kit.
A strange black crust covered everything. It shattered
when one stepped on it and left miniscule shards, or stinging
dust which went up in wisps before the surly wind. Curious,
I crunched across the ground toward the hill where Purple
stood. He was attaching his big battery to another of his
endless spell devices.
He looked both sheepish and defiant as I came up. "Well,
I have to try it, don't I?"
"But you said it was dead."
"Perhaps I've come to believe in magic," said Purple.
"Nothing else seems to work." And he finished attaching the
wires to the disc-shaped thing from his belt.
He twisted a knob, but nothing happened.
"This yellow eye should light up to show it's working,"
Purple explained, smiling foolishly. He twisted the knob
again, harder this time, but the yellow light still did not
appear.
"Magic doesn't work either," he said. He sighed.
I knew just how he felt then. I longed to be going home
myself.
How strange!--that I should consider an area that I had
lived in for only a short time as my home; while this bleak
map, the blasted remains of the village where I had spent
most of my life, was no longer home but a strange and
alien land. "Home" was a new land and a different life across
the sea.
For that one terrible moment Purple and I were alike.
THE FLYING SORCERBRS 293
Two strangers, marooned on a bleak and blackened shore,
each longing for his home, his wives, and his Quaff.
"All I needed was one surge of power," said Purple.
"Shoogar was right. You can't mix symbols."
He picked up his useless devices and trudged slowly down
the hill. The ground crunched beneath his feet.
I here was nothing to eat. I lay there in the darkness and
listened to the roar of the surf and the rumble of my stomach.
Man was not meant to live without bread alone. I was dizzy
with hunger. My thoughts didn't even make sense any more.
Purple had spent the red day wandering dully up and down
this landscape of despair. I and my sons waited. There was
little else we could do. Shoogar was the only one with a sense
of purpose. He had positioned himself patiently at the top
of a nearby slope to wait for the moons. He chanted a song
of triumph.
Purple muttered incessantly. "When the seas recede, we
could walk back. Lant's people did it before. We can do it
again. Yes, we could walk back. The generators are still
there, the looms are still there. I could recharge my battery.
We could make another flying machine. Yes, of course. And
this time, we would know better. I would have my battery
fully charged. Fully charged. We wouldn't have to make the
same mistakes again. That's it, we left before we were fully
ready. We weren't tested or experienced enough. But we
came so close, so close. Next time, we'll do it better and well
succeed. Next time, next time. Next time--"
He crunched through the dark, mumbling insanely. He
would pick up rocks and examine them, then throw them
down again and stumble on.
I stared up into the dark at the twinkling moons. There
would be no next time. I was sure of that. Shoogar wasn't
going to let there be a next time. From his hill there was only
silence now.
294 THE FLYING SORCERERS
I turned over on my blanket and raised up on my elbows.
"Purple," I called, "you should try to rest."
"I can't, Lant," he called back. There was a skidding sound
and a thump. "Ow--"
"What's the matter?" I leapt to my feet, thinking Shoogar
had struck in the dark.
But no--Purple's flashlight went on revealing that he had
tripped over a boulder. He lay there in his impact suit, grinning
foolishly.
I walked over and helped him up. The night was stale
and still; the surf was a distant rumble. We stood in the
dark. Purple's light the only thing in existence, casting an
eery white aura into the chaotic blackness.
Purple switched it off. "I guess I'd better save my power,"
he said--and stopped.
There was deathly silence. Not even insects still lived in
this accursed land. "Save my power," Purple repeated quietly.
His hands clamped on my shoulders and he screamed,
"Poweri In my flashlight! In my flashlight, Lant!"
"Let go, curse iti" He was as strong as an old ram.
"Power, Lant! Power!"
"Don't get your hopes up. Purple. Wait until you get a
response from your mother nest."
He sobered instantly. "Yes, you're right, Lant." There was
a scraping sound in the dark as he removed the flashlight's
small battery, another sound as he pulled the calling device
from his belt, an incomprehensible curse as he tried to attach
the wires in the dark. He worked eagerly, impatiently--I
could not blame him.
At last he said, "I'm ready." There was a click as he
switched on the device. A dial on its face gave off a soft
glow. Before he even pressed the call button, he peered at
this dial. "There is power enough, Lant. More than enough.
I can call my mother nest ten times, maybe more, with the
power in this battery."
"Is it enough to recharge the windbags too?" I asked
hopefully.
His face was a dark blur. "No, not that much. That
requires vast amounts of power, Lant. It needs a heavy-duty
battery like my other one--but don't worry. When my
THE FLYING SORCERERS 295
mother egg gets here, I'll see that you and your sons get
safely home.
"Home," he repeated. "I'm going home. No more double
shadows. No more furry women. No more black plants—"
"Green, Purple. Plants are green."
"Green is a bright color where I come from. No more odd
food and foul drink. No more scratchy dothing. No more
medicine shows for yokels." He chanted this litany in man's
tongue and demon's tongue. It was a homegoing spell and he
spoke it intensely. "I'll have books, music, normal weight—"
"You intend to diet?"
He laughed at that and kept laughing from sheer joy. "I'm
going home!" he bellowed into the night.
"Why not try your calling device?" I was getting impatient.
He said, "I'm afraid to."
"Oh."
He turned the knob. A yellow eye opened brilliantly. ?
"Hahl" Purple shouted. "And the red eye means that the ?
mother nest has answered."
"What red eye?"
Purple twiddled the knob impatiently. "Come on," he
whispered. "Come on."
Nothing happened.
He shook the device. "Come on, damn you! I want to go
homel"
The yellow eye burned steadily. There was no red response
light.
"We're far enough north," said Purple. "Close enough to
the equator. The seeing should be good; the curve of the
planet isn't in the way. What could be wrong? It can't be
sending the wrong frequency," he mumbled. If he was making
magic, it wasn't working.
"Perhaps it's your battery," I suggested.
"It's not- my battery. Why doesn't it answer? Why doesn't
it answer?" He jumped to his feet and went raging off into
the dark. After a moment, I followed him.
I found him sitting in ashes and despair. He had his device
on the ground in front of him and was banging on it with
a rock.
He hadn't damaged it though—only pounded it deeper
into the soft dead earth.
296 THE FLYING SORCERERS
"Purple, stop," I said softly. "Stop."
"Why should I?" he said bitterly. "We've come all this way for nothing. All of your devices have worked, Lant. None of mine have. Your aircloth got us here, your generators got us here, your airpushers got us here--but my calling device
doesn't work. So why did we bother to come at all. The
only one who's going to get any benefit out of this will be
Shoogar."
"Huh?" Did he know about the duel? Had he realized?
"Yes, Shoogar," he answered my questioning look. "He
needed to know about the moons. He had to come north.
The rest of us might as well have stayed home." He started
pounding again.
"Perhaps we have not come far enough north," I suggested.
He made a sound that suggested he thought me a fool.
I was grabbing for ideas now, anything to restore his
spirit. "Or perhaps there is still a planet in the way." Whatever
that meant. He had used the word before.
For a moment, there was silence. "What did you say?--"
I opened my mouth to repeat it.
"Never mind. I heard it the first time." There was a sound
of digging in the dirt. A scraping and a crunching. "Damn
me. I'm so stupid sometimes--"
"What are you talking about?"
He stood up, a blur in the darkness. He held his device in
his hands. "Lant, you are a genius sometimes. And all this
time I thought you didn't understand a thing I was talking
about but were only being polite and pretending that you did. Of course there's a planet in the way," he stamped his foot.
"This one."
"H'm," I said, pretending to understand. Who was I to
shatter his illusion?
"Don't you see? My egg hasn't risen yet. Like the suns, it's
probably on the other side of the world. I will have to wait
until it is in sight, before I try calling it again. That's probably
why it didn't work before."
When magic doesn't work, a good magician usually has an
explanation ready. Purple was one of the best. I wondered
if he understood his own explanation. I asked, "How long
will it take before you can call it down?"
"A couple of hours should be all I need. I'll try calling it
THE FLYING SORCERERS 297
every fifteen minutes. Its orbit is only two and a half hours.
I couldn't possibly miss it, no matter how low on the horizon
it is."
I left him mumbling happily to himself, explaining things to no one in particular.
D lue dawn snapped up over the eastern rim, revealing a
world even bleaker arid drearier than before--if such was
possible.
Aching with hunger I stumbled up a black hill to find
Shoogar tracing a gigantic pattern in the greasy dust. He was using a brilliant white powder and mixing it with various
colored potions as he trickled it into graceful curves. Every
so often he stopped to consult a parchment in his hand.
I recognized the skin, with its circles and ellipses looping
around a central dot--then I recognized the larger pattern.
"Shoogar! What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm casting a spell!"
"And your oath of fealty?"
"You know perfectly well that I swore by the local gods.
Different territories imply different gods and different oaths.
Now we're on my home territory. Here, I painted the runes
of the duel against Purple. Here, that duel is still in progress!"
"But so much has changed--" I stopped, for he was right.
"And you stole his map of the moonpaths."
"No. He gave it to me, the fool. I'll use his own magic
against him. And his own name--his real name! Of course,
he wasn't worried before. He knew I couldn't hurt him
because his speakerspell hadn't told his true name. But this
time--"
"Maybe he was lying," I said quickly.
Shoogar gave me a contemptuous look. "Lant," he explained
patiently, "the act of saying 'my real name is,' is a
consecration spell. Even if he was lying when he said it, the
act of saying it made it as good as his real name. And it can
298 THE FLYING SORCERERS
be used against him! If this were not so, a magician would
have no power at all. People would change names at will to
avoid local spells."
"But why the moonpaths?" I said. Then it dawned on me.
"No--you can't!"
"I can--and I will. I'm going to drop a moon on his head."
I felt a strong urge to laugh. It w,as insane. Wildly, incredibly
insane.
And he meant every word of it.
"Shoogar," I said. "A moon did fall once. Do you know
what the results were?" ^ "I have seen the Circle Sea."
-eal "Circle Sea was once a rich farming area. Now the sea
rolls in a circular depression of blasted stone, where nothing
grows at alL"
Shoogar shrugged unconcernedly. "Ttiis place is already
accursed, Lant. What harm can a falling moon do here?"
"It can kill us!" I almost shouted.
"I'll pick one of the little ones--"
"Even a little one can kill us--they say that the Circle Sea
was a ring of molten rock for many years, before the sea
stopped boiling and moved in to cover it."
"Probably, they exaggerate."
"But--"
"Lant," he said, "I can do no less. Consider: Purple has
insulted the Gods themselves. He has claimed repeatedly that
they do not exist at all--and he has had the incredible
effrontery to build a flying machine that proves it! In his
violations of reason, such as his games with the ballast concept,
he mocks the laws that even the gods obey."
Shoogar paced furiously as he spoke, red-eyed and wild.
"He has insulted custom, Lant. He has given names to
women and taught them the trades of men! He has interrupted
housetree consecrations, and turned housetrees into
prickly plants. He has reduced our village life to chaos. Some
of our traditional trades no longer exist, while others, like
coppersmithery, have swollen monstrously in importance."
He stopped pacing and looked at me. "He has introduced
new concepts to us, Lant. He has taught us evil things that
lessen the value of life and increase the importance of things!
"But most of all," he said. "He has insulted me. He would
THE FLYING SORCERERS 299
not teach me to fly, until he needed to fly himself; and he
still has not taught me the spells that make electrissy. We
depend on his charity for his lightning boxes and airmakers!
He has undermined my authority with his spurious cures, so
that they trade my spells for his at ten to one!
"I was bound to him by an oath of servitude, but he never
asked for my help in anything. Never, not once. He even
threw my sails overboard!
"No little death spell would retrieve my honor," Shoogar
screamed. "I'will bring a moon down upon his head! This
one last time I must show my might, before he escapes me
forever!"
"I won't help you," I said feebly.
"You don't have to, Lant. I'm sure it was your help last
time that yngvied me up."
"How long will this take?"
"Not long. I will finish this soon and then I will chant. I
will chant until the red sun is high in the west. Then we will
move off and wait."
"I would rather you do something about finding us some
food," I grumbled.
"Forget your stomach for once, Lant. Before the blue sun
rises again, Purple will be destroyed."
S- urple tried his calling thing three more times. On the
third try the red light flashed. It began winking steadily.
Purple screamed with delight and threw the device joyously
into the air. He capered about wildly, singing and dancing.
"I'm going home, I'm going home—I'm going home."
He flung himself on the ground and rolled and kicked. He
jumped up with a holler and ran furiously in all directions.
Back and forth, in a great circle about me, he pranced and
yelled.
At last—it seemed like days—he tired and came gasping
up to me. "Lant, I can hardly believe it. It has been so long,"
300 THE FLYING SORCERERS
he panted. "But it's true. It's happening. My mother egg has
heard."
I glanced nervously at the hill where Shoogar still worked.
He was sitting and chanting now. "Uh, how long will it
take before your egg gets here. Purple?"
He frowned. "Who cares? It's coming—that's all."
"I care!" I almost screamed.
He gave me a peculiar look. "I hadn't realized this meant
so much to you."
"Well, it does," I said, in a slightly quieter tone. "How long
will it take?"
"Maybe a day," he said. "Maybe a little longer. The egg
was on standby. It will have to activate itself, come to full
power, take bearings, check its systems, plot a course, make
an approach—it will take time.^Lant. The egg could not
possibly be here before blue sunset."
I groaned.
"I know how it must pain you, my friend. But fear not. I
have waited this long. I can wait a little longer."
I groaned and trudged away, clutching at the ache in my
stomach.
I went down to the shore. The sea surged restlessly at the
slope where Wilville and Orbur worked.
"Father, you look ill," said one.
"I am," I said. "I am tired and hungry and I hurt all over.
I long for a decent bed and a decent meal—"
"Wilville has found some cavernmouth eggs," said Orbur.
"Do you want one?"
I groaned. But it was better than nothing. I took the heavy
sphere and bit at its rind. A salty-sweet taste flowed into my
mouth. "Oh, that's awful," I said. I took a drink of water
from a ballast sack.
"Don't let Shoogar see you doing that."
"Curse Shoogar—" I said. "Do you know what he's doing?
He's trying to call down a moon!"
Orbur snorted. Wilville didn't say anything.
"Didn't you hear what I said?"
"We heard you," said Wilville. "Shoogar is trying to call
down a moon. At least it will keep him out of our way."
"Oh," I said. Apparently they were so intent on what they
were doing, they were oblivious to what was going on around
THE FLYING SORCERERS 301
them. "What are you working on?" I asked. I squatted down
on my haunches to look.
They explained. One of the pulleys had worked loose from
a bicycle frame. But they had almost no tools at all to work
with. Purple had thrown them all overboard. They were working
now with rocks and sticks and shreds of aircloth. "If we
can get this working again, we can use the boat to get away
from here, whether we have windbags or not."
I nodded and offered my help, but Orbur said I would
only be in the way. I gathered up the cavemmouth eggs and
took them off a ways. I found some driftwood and made a
small fire to roast them. They were still awful, but they were
food.
I took one up to Purple, but he had spread out a piece of
aircloth from the ripped balloon and was snoring blissfully
and peacefully; it was the first time that I had seen him completely
relaxed since I had known him.
I let him sleep and trudged across the slope to Shoogar. He shook his head at the sight of the egg, "I will have it later,
when I finish my chant."
I looked at his gigantic spell pattern. "Why don't you draw
it around Purple?" I asked.
"Why bother? If a moon falls on him, it won't matter if
it hits him directly or not--it's going to make another Circle
Sea."
"Oh," I said. I went back to my sons and watched them
work.
They worked for most of the day, stopping only to chew on
a piece of roast cavemmouth egg or to swill down some
water. By the time night had fallen and the red sun was
.seeping into the west, the bicycle pulley was working again
as well as it would ever be.
The day was rapidly nearing its end. Purple's egg had still
not arrived, and Shoogar was still on the hill chanting.
My sons stretched out tiredly on their blankets and chewed
gratefully on the rubbery eggmeat. Had they had their tools,
they might have finished the job in less than an hour, but
encumbered as they were, it took nearly all day. They were
exhausted from the frustrations involved.
I lay on my back and stared into the sky. Already one of
the moons had emerged in the darkening east, and others
302 THE FLYING SORCERERS
would join it shortly. I watched with a helpless feeling. I had
been unable to dissuade Shoogar in his spellmaking. Warning
Purple would do no good; I knew what he thought of
Shoogar's magic.
I tried to guess what pattern the moons had assumed. Two
of the three big ones made a diagonal across a line of four
small ones, so tiny they barely showed their colors.
The sign of the Bent Cross?
No matter. Whatever sign it was,' Sboogar would think of
a way to use it——
He came running over the hill then. He pulled me roughly
to my feet, "Come on, Lant. It's time to retreat."
"Huh?" I said sleepily. "What—?"
"I've finished my spell. All we have to do now is wait."
He pulled at my arm.
I followed him down to the boat. He was grabbing things
at random and throwing them into the craft where they
splashed into the water. "Come on, Lant, come on'—we
haven't got any time."
I woke-my sons. They were just as confused and upset as
I—and twice as grumpy. "If Shoogar's spell really does work,"
I insisted, "this is no place we want to be." They allowed
themselves to be pushed down the slope. Wilville pulled the
plug to drain the water from the boat—it was no longer
needed—the airbags were so limp they could no longer hold
up even the rigging.
Orbur gathered the last of the aircloth shreds we had been
using as blankets, and the remaining cavernmouth eggs. We
pounded the plug back into the hole, and shoved the boat
roughly into the water.
"Hurry, hurry," snapped Shoogar. "The moon will be
falling soon!"
"Does Purple know?" asked Orbur.
"Of course not. Why should I tell Purple?"
"Oh, no reason," Orbur said as he pulled himself out of
the water and onto his outrigger. "Except that he might have
died of fright, and then you wouldn't, have needed to go
through with the spell."
Shoogar snorted and climbed into the boat. I followed. Our
robes were wet from our thighs down. We had had to push
the boat out past the breakers before we could climb in.
THE FLYINO SORCERERS 303
Wilville was the last to mount. He swung the boat around so
that its stem was toward the sea--it would have taken too
long to try to turn it the other way.
He swung himself up on the bike frame, and the two boys
unslung their ail-pushers and began backpedaling furiously.
Within moments we were moving away from the shore.
Purple, up there in the dark with his many-eyed calling
device, did not notice at first. But by and by he came strolling
across the sand to call, "What are you doing?"
"Testing the boat!" Shoogar called across the black water.
"Good idea," Purple called back. He went back up th&
hill. There was sufficient light from the moons and the still
westering sun to see him as a puffy form on the crest of the
slope.
Wilville kept backpedaling then, while Orbur began pedaling
forward. The boat swung around to head away from
the Teeth of Despair. Bow forward, we moved across the
water.
We made little progress though. The wind was headed
shoreward and hampered our efforts.
"Pedal faster," Shoogar urged them, "lest the falling moon
destroy us!"
"This is nonsense," Orbur complained. "Shoogar can't
bring down a mooni"
"Don't you believe in magic?" I demanded.
"Well--"
"You've flown, you fooll How can you not believe in
magic?"
"Of course, I believe in magic!" Orbur whispered to me.
"It's Shoogar I don't believe in!"
"I notice," I said, "that despite your skepticism you still thought enough to whisper."
"I don't care. He's not the magician Purple is. Even Purple
never claimed the power to bring down a moon."
I didn't answer. The boys continued to pedal, but without
conviction. Sssss----the bicycles droned, and the water
churned.
The boat was a fragile frame with limp bags hanging above
it. The sea was restless, like an endless vat of ink; the water
was a greasy black oil, flecked with foam. The shore was
304 THE FLYING SORCERERS
dark, and Purple was a motionless silhouette on a blackened
hill.
I looked at the moons--two were disks, pink on one side,
blue-white on the other. Four were too small to show as
disks--and there was something wrong up there, something
dreadfully wrong.
The boys felt it too. The ssssss of the bicycles rose frantically.
The boat bounced across the water.
I continued to stare, frozen.
One of the little moons, the tail of the crooked cross, was
drifting out of alignment.
I looked toward the shore. Did Purple suspect?
He was a doll-sized silhouette capering wildly on a darkened
mound. Yes, he must be trying to force it back into the
sky. Even now as we watched, he was jumping and crying--
but this was Shoogar's home ground.
I glanced over at him as he leaned out the back of the
boat. His teeth gleamed as he watched. My sons pedaled
furiously, frantically. Our wake was a churning froth. «
The moon grew larger.
At first it was a bright dot against the black sky like the
other moons--but moving, always moving--faster than any
moon had a right to move! Then it was a clear disk like the
major moons, red on one side and blue on the other. It was
the largest moon in the sky now.
And still it grew!
It should have been sinking toward Purple--should have
been. Instead, it seemed to hover overhead growing steadily.
The blue-white side suddenly darkened, now dimmed to
almost black. The moon grew faster, and the red side commenced
to dim also.
In the middle of the nearly black globe a yellow eye stared
down at us.
And the moon grew huge, huge, and huger still!
"Pedall Curse you! Faster! Faster!" Shoogar and I were
both screaming.
He had miscalculated, the blithering toad--a moon is too
big a thing for one man's revenge! Its weight would destroy
a world for one man's pride!
And then it was drifting down, down like a monstrous
THE FLYING SORCERERS 305
soap bubble--Shoogar hadn't miscalculated--down to where
Purple capered on the black-scarred hill.
It stopped over Purple's head--and directly over Shoogar's
design.
"Well, don't stop now!" Shoogar shrieked. He practically leapt out of the boat. "Crush him! Crush him! Another two manheights, is that too much to manage? Arrrgh!" For the
moon would fall no further. Instead, Purple was rising, rising
toward the yellow eye. He disappeared into it.
"It ate himi" Shoogar was flabbergasted. "Why did it do
that? It wasn't in any of the runes."
"Maybe it was in Purple's runes," said Wilville.
"Yest He's right," I said. "I see it now! Your moon and
Purple's mother egg are one and the same."
"What do you mean?"
"He's going home in it," I said. "Home. I'm glad."
"Purple? In my moon? He can't! I won't let him! Boys, turn
around!"
"Do it," I told them. As the boat swung slowly around,
Shoogar stamped toward the bow. I followed to reason with
him.
"He's probably going to wait for us," I said quietly. "He told me he'd make sure we could get home before he left.
What are you going to tell him?"
"Tell him? I'll tell him to get his hairless rump out of my
moon! What else would I tell him?"
"And what do you think he will answer?"
"What do you mean?"
"There's only one thing Purple can say if he wants to
keep the moon. He'll have to say that this is his vehicle; that
he brought it down; that you had nothing at all to do with it."
"But that's a black lie!"
"Of course it is, Shoogar. But he needs the moon to get
home. He'll have to say it. And as your only witness," I
explained softly, "I'll have to tell the villagers that Purple
denied your claim that you brought down a moon."
"But it's a lie, a black outrageous lie!" Shoogar was flabbergasted
at the mad magician's perfidy. "I did too bring it down!
And they'll know it, too! Who will the villagers believe, me
or that insane bald magician?!!"
"They will believe their Speaker," I said.
306 THE FLYING SORCERERS
For a moment Shoogar glared at me. Then he stamped
back to the stern to sulk. We were twenty minutes pedaling
back to shore.
I he great black moon waited for us, shedding yellow light
on the sand.
"I never thought he could do it," Orbur kept repeating as
he pulled the boat onto the shore. "Imagine Shoogar bringing
down a moon! And he couldn't even cure baldness."
"Perhaps he had help," I said, jumping' out of the boat,
splashing into ankle-deep water. "Orbur," I complained.
"Couldn't you have beached it a little higher? Look at my
robe."
"Sorry, Father," said Orbur. He gave another tug at his
outrigger. "You think Purple brought the moon down?"
"Not by himself. Obviously he had to wait for Shoogar's
spells. But they both wanted the same thing: a falling moon
and Purple's departure. Two such powerful magicians working
in concert, is it surprising that they succeeded?"
Wilville came up on the other side of me. There was a
splash from behind as Shoogar stamped grumpily from the
boat. We turned to look at him.
He returned our stare, pulled himself up to his full height
of half a manlength, and stamped forward. He brushed imperiously
past us--
"Shoogar!" I called.
He stopped, folded his arms and surveyed the giant glowing
sphere at the top of the hill. As I came up beside him, he said, "Let him keep my moon, then, if it will take him home! My
oath binds me to drive him from my territory, and that I have
certainly done!"
"Well said," I bellowed, "you're a generous magician,
Shoogar!"
With not another word the four of us trudged up the hill
to where Purple waited. His mood was one of frantic impa-
THE FLYING SORCERERS 307
tience--but the lines of worry seemed to have vanished
from his face and he beamed with a smile as wide as the
world.
We approached cautiously. That great dark mass hung over
us like the Doom of the Gods, and we could see nothing
holding it up. It was no windbag, that was for certain--it
neither behaved nor looked like one.
"Don't be afraid," said Purple. "It's safe."
We advanced into the cone of the peculiar yellow light that
poured from Purple's moon. It was that same color that
turned green into something eye-hurtingly bright, and I wondered
how anyone could stand it for long. The moon towered
brightly above us, seeming as high as Idiot's Crag, perhaps
higher.
Shoogar leaned back, back as far as he could, to peer up at
its height. Absent-mindedly, he brought out a cavemmouth
egg and began scratching a rune into it.
Purple reached behind him then--I noticed a huge stack
of items lying there--and handed Orbur a new battery. It
was identical with the one Purple had used to charge our
windbags, but this one. Purple said, was fully powered. There
was no danger at all of our running it down. It would fill
more windbags than we could make before it would even
begin to weaken. "It has enough power to make a dozen
journeys like this, Lant. This dial, Orbur, shows you how
much power you have left in it. This knob controls the rate
at which you use it."
He handed the device to Wilville to examine, and reached
behind him for another. This was a large box with a hinged
opening on its top. "This is a chest of emergency rations. I
have given you five of them. There is enough food here for
a one-month journey." He shoved the box forward and
reached again. We crowded forward, interestedly. "These are
blankets, of course," said Purple. "You will need new ones
for the upper atmosphere and--let's see, what else?"
He rummaged happily through his pile, presenting things
to Wilville and Orbur. One by one he would hand them to the
boys, who would pass them on to me. After examining each
one, I put them in a stack behind me. His pile shrank while
ours grew.
Shoogar was not at all interested. He kept wandering
308 THE FLYING SORCERERS
around and around the base of the giant egg, scratching runes
on the cavemmouth rind.
"Here are flashlights, and this is a simple medkit. I have
labeled the sprays in here that you will want to use for hairlessness
and things. You should be careful with this, even
though there's nothing here that can kill you." Purple picked
up one or two last items, meaningless things. One was a flat
folder of odd pictures--Purple called it a book--we would
have to examine it later. But Shoogar gasped when he saw it,
"Spell images!"
Purple tried to convince him that they were not, but
Shoogar wouldn't listen. No matter. Few of the images made
sense anyway. After a while, Shoogar tossed the book in
with the other stuff and went back to his egg marking.
At last there was only one item left, a shapeless mass of glimmering white. Purple didn't even try to pick it up, it
seemed too big for that. He merely pointed at it. "I think
you will find this the most useful of all."
"What is it?" I asked.
"A new windbag," he said. He smiled. "I am afraid that
the ones we made weren't as good as I thought. They hardly
lasted the journey. One is already ripped, and I fear the rest
will rip too. My friends--and I know you are my friends--"
Behind me Shoogar snorted.
"I want your journey home to be as pleasant as mine. This
windbag is used for weather testing on strange worlds. It will
be big enough to hold your weights. Use it with your other
windbags, and you should be able to make it home."
Orbur was already examining it eagerly. The material was
light and transparent and thinner than anything we had ever
seen. "There's no weave!" he exclaimed. "Wilville, come look at this!"
But Wilville had disappeared. A moment later, he came
panting up the hill. "This is a terrible place to park a moon,"
he gasped. "Why couldn't you have guided it lower."
"Where were you?"
He indicated his laden arms. "I have brought Purple a gift
too." He held out his hands. "An aircloth blanket, Purple,
and--and a sack of ballast. Just in case. You might need it."
Purple was visibly moved. He took the bulging sack and
held it tenderly, like a child. His eyes were moist, but there
THE FLYING SORCERERS 309
was a smile on his face. He allowed Wilville to drape the
blanket over his arm. "Thank you," he said, "these are fine
gifts." His voice choked as he said it.
He turned to me. "Lant, thank you for everything. Thank
you for your help, for being such a fine Speaker. I--wait, I
have something for you." He disappeared up into his moon,
Almost immediately, he reappeared; he had stowed our
gifts and carried something else. A sphere, with strange knobs
and protrusions on it. "Lant, this is for you--"
"What is it?" I took it curiously. It was heavy--as heavy
as a small child.
"It is your Speaker's token. I know Shoogar never had
time to make one for you. I hope he will not mind if I present
you with this. See there--that is my name in the markings
of my own language. You are the Speaker of the Purple
magician."
I was confused, shocked, delighted, horrified--a tumble of
emotions poured across my mind. "I--I--"
"Don't say anything, Lant. Just take it. It is a special token.
It will be recognized and honored by any of my people who
should ever again come to this world. And should I ever
return it makes you my official Speaker. Keep it, Lant."
I nodded dumbly and staggered back with it.
Finally, Purple turned to Shoogar who had stood patiently
throughout this all.
"Shoogar," he said, extending his empty hands. "I have
nothing to give you. You are too great a magician for me to
insult you. I cannot offer you anything at all that you do not
already have, and for me to presume that I can would be
an affront to your skill and greatness."
Shoogar's jaw dropped. He almost dropped his egg--then
his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "No gift--?" He asked. I
didn't know whether to feel hurt or pleased for him.
"Only this," said Purple, "and it is one that you cannot
carry with you, it is already there. I leave you the two
villages. You are now the official magician there."
Shoogar stared at him wide-eyed. Purple stood there, tall
and impressive. In that peculiar-colored light, he looked
almost a God himself. No longer the pudgy, almost comical
figure who had terrorized us for so many months. Suddenly
310 THE FLYING SORCERERS
he seemed a kind of nobility itself: generous, loving, all-
Imowing.
Shoogar managed to say, "You admit it--you admit that
I am a greater magician--?"
"Shoogar, I admit it. You know more about the magic and
the Gods of this world than anyone--including me. You are
the greatest--and you have your flying machine now." He
looked at all of us then, a great friendly figure. "I will miss
you," he whispered. "All of you. Even you, Shoogar. And
your duels."
And with that he rose up into his moon and vanished.
The yellow light glowed brighter for a second, then winked
out.
The moon vanished as silently as it had come, rising, rising,
ever upward, dwindling, shrinking; snapping brilliant for a
second, and then vanishing altogether.
Shoogar was so startled he almost forgot his cavemmouth
egg spell. Hurriedly, he bit into it with a noisy chomp.
He started choking then, and we had to pound him hard
on the back before he would stop.
I he sea tumbled and broke on the blackened shore.
Except for that, all was silent. Above hung the pinpoint
brightness of Ouells, blue and glaring. The Cathawk lay
beached on the shore, her balloons full but flaccid. A larger
white one blossomed above them; only one tenth full, it was
a narrow cylinder with a gentle bulge at its top. A full load
of water kept the boat from rising.
Our supplies lay scattered on the sand to protect them from
the water in the boat. The four of us sat there and stared
glumly at it.
"I knew we had forgotten something," repeated Wilville.
It was the eleventh time he had said it.
"North," said Orbur, "we forgot about north."
"We forgot that the wind blows north," I said.
. THE FLYING SORCERERS 311
"No matter," shrugged Orbur. He tossed a pebble toward
the sea. We're still not going anywhere. Wilville and I just
can't pump hard enough to fight our way south." He tossed
another pebble. "Curse it, anyway."
"Don't swear," mumbled Shoogar. "Greatest magician in
the world, and I can't even change the wind. Curse it all."
"You're swearing," said Orbur petulantly.
"That's my job. I'm a magician."
We had tried to lift the boat four times already. Each time
the best we had done was to maintain our position over the
shore--and each time, as the boys had slackened, the wind
had threatened to push us inland. Each time, we had brought
the airboat down again.
"I don't care how much power that battery has got in it,"
Wilville said. "If we're not getting anywhere, we might as
well not have it at all. We're only wasting its power this way."
"It doesn't show on the dial yet," I said.
"That doesn't mean we haven't wasted the power we've
used," said Wilville. "And if we keep this up, we'll keep going
until there's no more left."
We were miles east of where we had first touched shore.
It was a spot that had once been below our old village. It
was as desolate as the other. I chewed thoughtfully on one of
Purple's food sticks--it was soft and brown and had an odd
taste. "There must be a way," I said. "There must be."
"Not through the air," grumbled Wilville.
Orbur tossed a rock, "Then let's go through the water."
"Why not? The boat will float, won't it?"
"Yes, but--the whirlpools, the reefs--" I said.
"We lift above them!" Wilville was shouting now. "Yes,
I've got it. We put just enough gas in the windbags to hold
the boat out of water--but not the outriggers! The airpushers
will move water too, and we can pedal our way home. Whenever
the wind dies, we can lift into the air."
"But," I said, "if the wind works on balloons like it does
on sails--it pushes--won't it push against us in the water
too?"
"Yes, but the water will be pushing back. That is, the water
will give us the leverage we need to move forward. Besides,
we won't pump the balloons as full as they are now--they
312 THE FLYING SORCERERS
won't present as much area to the wind and we won't be
fighting it as much."
Wilville and Orbur were right, of course. They usually
were in matters concerning the flying machine. It was almost
as if they knew as much about it as Purple--certainly more
so than Shoogar. Shoogar had protested their whole discussion
equating the action of the wind on the balloons with the
action of wind on sails. But, said Orbur, wind is wind. And
Wilville and Orbur were right.
The water splashed slowly under us, the airmakers churned
it into froth behind us. The boys had to pedal nearly twice
as hard as they would have in the air.
The sea was sinking again, and rapids and whirlpools were
frequent. Often, we had to take to the air. When we did
this, we would usually slip backwards, but then the boys
would begin driving either east or west, and in this manner
we managed to avoid most of the dangers of our first journey.
Whenever the boys tired of pedaling, we either took on
ballast or released some gas. In the water, our backward
slippage was slight.
We trailed fishing lines behind us. They had been a gift from
Purple and not understood at first, but once they had been
explained we were eager to put them to use. Once we caught
something big and it pulled us eastward for half a day before
we could cut through the line. We had to use a special tool
to do that.
It was not that the food Purple had given us was inadequate.
It was just that it tasted bad. We ate it only when
there was nothing else available.
On the fifth day we were lucky enough to slip into/a
section of water that was receding rapidly southward. We
stayed with it as long as we could until it became too savage.
Then we lifted into the air. The boys were delighted to find
that the wind was behind us now.
The darknesses were longer now--nearly two hours--and
the seasons were changing. The oceans were slipping away
again. They would continue to slip for months, but the
process had begun.
The sea below churned over razor-sharp reefs that were
becoming mountain peaks. There was a period when we saw
nothing but fog: blue fog, white fog, red fog, black fog, blue
THE FLYING SORCERERS 313
fog, and so on, endlessly repeated with the cycle of the suns.
We had lost three of our aircloth windbags by now. Their
seams had given way abruptly, one right after the other,
smacking the boat solidly into the water. We made up the
difference by inflating Purple's weather windbag even more.
It was only half full, but more than offset the loss of the
others.
We lost two more bags in as many days. Apparently there
was something seriously wrong with the glue Grimm had
used to seal the seams--and perhaps his stitching wasn't as
strong as it should have been. The bags that we still had held
their air for little more than a day. Shoogar and I were constantly
recharging them. The aircloth had been tight when
we had woven it, but it was certainly no longer so. Something
tended to weaken it with continual use.
We still trailed our fishing lines below us, they hung like
slender threads of shimmering gossamer. I wondered how
they were made, and if we could duplicate them.
We sailed into another wall of fog. Blue fog, white fog,
red fog----
In black fog we hooked something big, too big to draw
in. We dared not cut the line. It was too precious to lose. The
wind whistled past us--how fast were we moving?
And then the fog cleared as the blue sun burnt it off, and
we saw that we had hooked land.
The desert we had crossed so many months ago--which
had been sea bottom for the last few seasons--was a swamp
now; a marsh of riotous colors, blooming briefly and frenetically
during the few short hands of days it would take it to
dry. There were roots to chew down there--and possibly meat.
We reeled in the line and pulled ourselves down.
We were within walking distance of home.
We returned to the peaceful life of the twin villages.
Indeed, life turned out to be even more peaceful than we
314 THE FLYING SORCERERS
remembered it. And Shoogar and I were responsible. On the Cathcmk's departure we had dropped the dust of yearning
across the cheering crowd. The resultant orgy lasted for three
weeks.
Most improper, of course, but it left a feeling of fellowship
between the Upper and Lower Village.
Another bond between us is Shoogar himself; He is now
resident magician of both tribes.
Before Gortik would let him assume that post though, he
secured from Shoogar an oath to redeem and honor all spell
chips in the village at their full value. Shoogar had needed
some persuading before he would redeem Purple's chips,
but Purple's parting words left him in what could only be
called a good humor. Once, he was even seen smiling.
There were one or two who were upset about the arrangement,
of course. Hinc, who had invested heavily in Purple
chips, felt that they should be redeemed at their old value of
ten for one. Hinc has been scratching for the past three hands
of days.
But life is peaceful here. In the evenings I sit and listen to
the wives quarreling and the children crying and think how
good it is to be home. Life has returned to its gentle pace.
I carve the bone into chips, and regulate the flow of commerce
as I have always done. Others work out the new
processes and make the goods and I distribute the chips, blue
ones only since Purple has gone.
Weaving is still our major industry here. Traders come not
only from the other villages on the island, but from the
mainland as well--even from as far south as the Land of
Frozen Water. Every five days a new party arrives, always
from further and further away. We are a powerful trading
village now, gaining power as the fame of our cloth is
spreading.
Wilville and Orbur are at work on a new Cathawk. The
old one sits in a place of honor in a special clearing owned
by the son of Trone the Smith. It is Smith's Son's Clearing,
and no trader ever comes without stopping to peer curiously
at the boat out of water.
The new Cathawk will be huge--nearly fifteen manlengths
--it will require over one hundred windbags and ten men on
bicycles to propel it; but the next wading season will not