The Flying Sorcerers

Trone the Coppersmith was a dealer in metals and a member of the Guild of Advisors of the Lower Village. He was a broad scowling man who spoke in monosyllables. The hair of his head and torso was brown and coarse. He seemed to regard my wares with disfavor.

I was at a loss to understand his hostility. At the beginning of our trek I had taken only the most valuable pieces of petrified bone from the ruins of the village. Later, on the trek, I had increased my store from a desert trove, an ancient runforit skeleton, dry and hard as stone. Trone should have been impressed, but he wasn’t.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Do you fear the competition?”

“Hah!” he snapped. “Bone is no competition for metal. It is not strong enough. A copper hammer will not break, a bone hammer will.”

“There are other uses for bone. I can carve out ceremonial bowls and ritual ornaments.”

“True,” the coppersmith admitted, “but why don’t you discuss this matter with Bellis the Potter — he might have something to say about that.”

Bellis the Potter. What was a potter?

I learned that by watching him at work. He took clay from the bottom of the river and worked it into the shapes of bowls. When it dried, it was as hard as any bone though far more brittle. Bellis had worked this into a high art, baking the clay ornaments in the hot sunlight until they would not go soft in the water, and could be used to carry water, soup, stews. He had even learned ways to paint and decorate the bowls and harden them by fire.

It was possible to make other things as well out of clay. Bellis was considered one of the best workers of his craft in the region. Indeed, he could do things with his clay that I could not do with my bone.

“But,” I suggested, “you cannot use these devices for rituals and festives. Surely the Gods would be offended by the use of a bowl or ornament without a soul. Only bone has a soul.”

Bellis was a squat man, short and bent, almost deformed. He looked up at me through wizened eyes. “My father used clay bowls to consecrate the births of all of his children, and my family has used clay bowls for as long as there has been either family or clay to make bowls out of. If there were Gods who would be offended by such use, we would have heard from them by now.”

Which might account for his twisted shape, I thought. But since I had no wish to quarrel with him, I said only, “But clay has no soul.”

“All the more reason to use it. You can cast a spell without having to allow for or nullify the powers and attitudes latent in your utensils.” Like a bonemonger in my own region, Bellis the Potter understood some rudimentary magic, at least enough to discuss his needs with a magician. “Your trade is outmoded, Lant the Speaker. You will soon find that there is little market for bone here.”

“Oh, I will always have a trade,” I said. “Shoogar will not easily abandon the old ways — at least, he will always have a need for my craft.”

“Oh?” said Bellis. “You see that pile of bowls and pots over there? You see this one that I am making now? All of these are for Shoogar. I can make clay bowls faster and easier than you can carve them out of bone, and Shoogar can use them right away. There are no latent influences to neutralize.”

I felt betrayed. Bellis was right, of course. To a magician at least, the advantages of clay over bone were enormous. And to the average person as well — one need not say a prayer of sorrow if one broke a clay bowl, one need only throw away the pieces — and that was that.

I knew it instinctively — there was no market for bone here. Probably there never would be, for the best bone is petrified bone and bone would not, could not, petrify here — the climate was too wet. I should have realized it earlier.

I could understand now why Hinc and the others had wanted to move on. Hinc was a weaver — but there were better weavers here. Jark was a Quaff-maker — but there was such an abundance of fermentable plants here, everybody made their own Quaff or chewed raba-root. And I was a bonemonger — but nobody used bone at all.

Even though we wanted to move on, we could not do so until the seas receded — and that time was a long way off. And I doubted that anyone would want to migrate then — already many had announced themselves satisfied with their new homes.

During the dry seasons, Gortik had told me, when the seas were down, this island was actually a peninsula off the main southern continent. We could see the larger mass of it across the swollen channel, some twenty-odd miles away. But for all the good it could do us, it might have been beyond the world’s edge.

There was just our double village and four others on the island. All were near the shoreline. Every second hand of days, a trading caravan came round bringing the news and goods of the other towns and taking away the news and goods of ours. I soon found out that they had no use for a bonemonger either.

No wonder I had seen no bonemonger here — they had all starved to death. When the local villagers wanted to indicate futility, they said, “You might as well go carve bone.”

It was a fine time to find that out, I thought bitterly.

Well, so I had no trade I must concentrate instead on Speaking for my village. I wondered if I dared tithe my people to pay me for the labor of Speaking for them. I had heard of villages where the Speaker collected a toll from each fully grown man. But I sensed that my tribe would object strongly. My control was still too weak for me to risk such a test of power.

Then Wilville and Orbur would have to support me, that was all there was to it. But no, Wilville and Orbur were working for Shoogar and Purple in the lower village. Shoogar and Purple were accepting responsibility for the two of them.

Mm. If they were taking care of my sons, they could easily accept the care of the rest of my family, including me.

After all, it was the two villages that supported the magicians. If they were to support me too, they would in effect be paying my tithe without ever knowing it.

Yes, it would work. I could tell Gortik that I had decided not to ply my trade until after the affair with Purple and Shoogar was settled. My skill as a diplomat would be required to help them work together in order to speed Purple’s ultimate departure.

Yes, Gortik would accept that.

I went to tell them what I had decided.