The Flying Sorcerers

by David Gerrold

  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 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.”

  “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. You’ll 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.

  “There!” 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 aircloth. “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.”

  “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 spell casting 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 villagers were calling Shoogar’s blue tokens “quarters”. The custom was now fixed in the language.

  Orbur 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.

  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.”

  Down 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.

  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 filling 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.

  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 airbag 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 into teams and had begun competing — each team trying to see how long they could go at full speed — each team trying to prove it was stronger than the other.

  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 generator — they hoped to form a bicycle team themselves and earn some of those extra chips. He 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 its mooring, and Purple k
ept 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 trough, cheering the balloons and giggling hysterically.

  Some were rolling in the blackgrass, others were peering into the bubbling water. Trone’s generator wires led into the water right at that point, and apparently the boys liked to watch it bubble.

  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 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.