The Flying Sorcerers

by David Gerrold

  “Is that all?” Shoogar asked.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” the other replied.

  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 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 ex-plain 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?”

  “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 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 know 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 one. 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 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 thing! 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 neve
r 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.

  “Elcin’s wrath!” he muttered. “I cannot use the suns — 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 mudskunk 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…. 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 land-ward 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 horned box on the side of Purple’s nest.

  An interested murmur of speculation rose from the crowd, “The horned 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 new born 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 deftly sliced off its head without even offering up a prayer for its soul. Thus he defiled 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 ram, 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. 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 befor
e 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 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 mud skunk 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 in-carnation 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.