The Flying Sorcerers

by David Gerrold

  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 en-durance, 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 bank and into the river; but each time it would pause and 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 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!” 1 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?” 1 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. 1 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 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-churned 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 of the hill.

  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 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 horns 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.

  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 Shoogar 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.

  The 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 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 difficult 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 Elcin’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 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 conjunction.” I pointed to the sky where the suns were setting together, Ouells’s blue-white point near the bottom of Virn’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 pie 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.