The Flying Sorcerers

by David Gerrold

  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 light-headed.

  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 “Oooooo!” 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 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, no! That’s the wrong rope — don’t attach it there!” They couldn’t hear him.

  “Wilville! Orbur!” I cried. “Get out of the boat!”

  But Purple was crying, “Stay in the boat! 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 tove!” He began pulling them around to the other side — “This is the rope, here!”

  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 it!” 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 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 morning. 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.”

  “Honor?!! Shoogar, this might be very dangerous —”

  “It will be even more dangerous if you don’t take the sails — you will have no ways 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.”

  “Our flying machine,” corrected Shoogar.

  “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!”

  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-of-incestuous-rape sails!”

  “We do!”

  “We don’t!”

  “We do!”

  But perhaps it was only the wind.

  The 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.

  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 loomteeth. 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), 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 airboat, Purple will only want to build another — and that 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.