The Flying Sorcerers

Before 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.

There was something familiar about that — no, it couldn’t be.

But it was! “Shoogar!” I cried, “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. I 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.