The Flying Sorcerers

We went to examine the looms.

Purple’s claim that he could teach a finer quality of weaving was accepted, but his insistence that he be allowed to examine the looms met with some resistance.

“But how can I teach you anything unless I can see the looms you are working with?”

Lesta shrugged, “You will have to teach us here.”

“But I can’t,” said Purple. “I have to see the looms.”

“And I can’t allow that.”

Then there will be no new cloth. I will have to seek a ; weaver who will show me his looms.”

At that the old weaver relented and led us toward his secret clearing. Only weavers were allowed to enter it. That Lesta was willing to break a generations-old tradition showed how important he considered Purple’s cloth.

As we approached we could hear the sounds of great creaking machinery, shuddering and protesting. This was alternated with shouts and commands — it made a steady rhythm: a shout and a shudder, a command and a creak.

We entered the glade and caught our first sight of the looms. They were heavy wooden structures — giant moving frames set at odd angles to each other. They rocked steadily back and forth at each command, and it looked as if the cloth appeared between them. Some of the looms were covered with spiderweb traceries of threads, others with half-pieces of brown undyed cloth stretched across them.

The team leader caught sight of us then, and his command stuck in his throat. The frameworks halted in their busy motion, slowed and came to a stop. Their flashing threads were stilled. The novices and journeymen turned to stare as one.

“No, no,” said Purple; “make them continue, make them continue.”

Lesta snapped orders at his weavers. They looked at him questioningly — Weave? With strangers here? He growled ; menacingly. — I could see why he was head weaver. The apprentices went nervously back to work. The team leader swallowed and issued his command, the looms began grinding again.

The young men sweated as they pushed the heavy wooden frames back and forth, back and forth, while the younger boys played a form of catch with a ball of yam between the two frames.

I had never seen weaving before, and I was entranced by the process. Lesta explained it: there are two vertical sets of threads, each set in a separate frame and independent of each other, but interlocked in such a way that they alternate. The horizontal threads are laid on one at a time, the frames are moved so as to reverse their positions, and another horizontal thread is strung.

Purple nodded slowly, as if he understood everything. Perhaps he did. He examined a sample of the cloth they were weaving and asked, “Could you not weave it finer than this?”

“I could, in principle — but where would I find loom teeth fine enough to string the threads so close? And where would I get thread fine enough to use on such teeth?”

Purple ran his fingertips along the cloth. “Where does it come from, your thread?”

This is from the fiberplant. Sometimes we use wool from sheep when we can barter for it, but usually it is too coarse or too scarce.”

“There are no finer threads available?”

The other shook his head.

Purple muttered in his own language. “Too primitive even for basic industrial facilities …” Though they did not understand what he was saying, the weavers bristled. His tone made it clear enough — he was disparaging their work, perhaps even cursing it.

He looked up, There is no other way of making cloth that you know of, is there?”

“If there was, I would be making it that way,” said Lesta perfunctorily.

“You have never heard of rubber?”

“Rubber? What is rubber?”

Purple turned to me and Shoogar, “Do either of you know of any kind of tree or plant that leaks a sticky kind of sap?”

We shook our heads.

“There is the sweetbush plant,” offered Shoogar. “It has a sticky secretion.”

“It does?” Purple was eager.

“Yes, the children love to suck on the sweetdroppings.”

“No,” sighed the magician. “That will never do. I need a kind of sticky substance that hardens into a gummy lump.”

We all looked at each other, each wishing the other to come up with the answer.

“Oh well,” sighed Purple again. “I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Look, I need some kind of material that can be heated and molded — liquid that dries in sheets or layers.”

We all shook our heads again.

While Purple continued to describe his mystical sticky substance to them, I moved closer to examine the looms.

The weavers looked at me with ill-concealed hostility, but I ignored them. The teeth of the looms were carved from hardwood limbs. Each section was about one hand-length and set into a slot at the top of the frame.

“Are these the finest teeth you have? I asked.

“No, we have one set finer than this,” quavered the apprentice I had spoken to. “But we never use them because they are too fragile and break. We have to go very slowly when we use them.”

“H’m,” I said. “Why don’t you carve the teeth out of bone?”

“Bone?”

“Bone-carved teeth would not only be stronger, but you could carve them much finer than this. You could carve two or three times as many teeth to a knuckle-length.”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know about those things.”

I examined the frame again, climbing up on the platform to do so. I wanted to check the slot to see how each piece was fastened. Yes, it would be possible to carve bone to fit into that slot. I pulled out a measuring string and began tying measuring knots into it.

Abruptly Lesta saw what I was doing and broke away from Purple, “Hey, what is that? You’re stealing our secrets!”

I protested, “No, I’m not. What would I do with them? Do you want finer teeth for your looms? I can provide them within a hand of days, maybe sooner.”

He looked up at me, Purple and Shoogar moved up behind him. “How?” he asked. There are the finest and strongest teeth possible.”

“I will carve you better ones out of bone.”

“Bone!” The old man was horrified. “You would desecrate the cloth with the soul of an animal? Cloth comes from trees and fiberplants. You must use the teeth of the tree, not the teeth of the animal.”

“But I can carve teeth four or five times as fine as these!”

At that Purple’s head perked up. “You can? Lant, that will be great. That would be almost as fine a weave as we need.”

“Hah!” said Lesta. “I can achieve a weave that fine already — if I wanted to.”

“How would you do that?” I demanded.

“I would compact the weave, that’s all.”

“Compact the weave?” asked Purple.

He nodded, “It is a simple process. We use the same number of threads, but we press them inward so they take up less width. You see that loom over there?”

We looked. The framework had a half-finished piece of cloth on it. It was a small piece of cloth, less than one half the width of the loom, but at its edges the threads stretched and spread evenly to every tooth on the frame.

“There,” said Lesta, “that cloth is compacted. You want a fine weave? That is how we will get it.”

Purple had gone over to examine the cloth.

Lesta followed. I jumped down from the platform and ragtagged over. Lesta was saying, “Of course, if we compact it, you won’t have as wide a cloth as —”

“I’m not concerned about its width,” Purple said. “If necessary we’ll weave more of it. I’m concerned about its tightness.”

Lesta shrugged. “As you will.”

Purple turned to him. “If Lant were to carve new loomteeth out of bone, could you compact that weave as well?”

“Of course — you can compact any weave you want,” said Lesta. “But you will not use bone on my looms,”

“But it’s the only way —”

There will be no bone teeth on my looms,” repeated the weaver.

Shoogar was standing right behind him. He said, “Do you want to get hit with the termite blight?”

The old man paled. He whirled on Shoogar, “You wouldn’t.”

Shoogar was rolling up his sleeves, “Want me to try…?”

“Uh —” Lesta eyed him warily. Obviously he didn’t. He took a step back, then another, a third and he bumped into Purple. He jumped away and looked at us, glanced nervously at his looms, then said, “Well, I suppose I should keep up with the latest developments in the craft, shouldn’t I …?”

“A wise decision, old man!” Purple boomed. He clapped the weaver on the back. “I am glad that is settled. Lant will begin carving the new teeth immediately.”

I was delighted. If nothing else, I would unload most of that runforit skeleton after all. What luck! The carving of the teeth would take care of most of the flat bones and all I’d have to worry about then would be the hundred and twenty-eight ribs.

Now, let’s see, I’d probably still have to sand some of the pieces flatter, then carve slits into them — the best way might be to use a cutting thread to slice very narrow lines. H’m, it would be like carving a bone comb, but faster because I would not have to carve so deep. I could use a framework of cutting threads, and cut all the slots in a section at once. If I measured it precisely enough, each section would be the same as every other one.

The same as every other one — that was an interesting thought! If one broke, you could replace it immediately; there would be no delay in carving a new piece to fit. You could always keep a couple of extras around. That seemed practical. Hmm …

I wondered; I might be able to finish the teeth even sooner if I could find some apprentices — but no, there was not enough free labor in either of the villages. The only thing we had an excess of was women — and most of them were less than useless.

We discussed some of the details for awhile longer, until at last Purple stretched his arms over his head and stared up into the sky. “Ah,” he yawned, “let’s call it a red day.”

“Good idea,” I said. “My wives will be preparing the midnight meal. Tonight I would like to get to it before darkness falls.”

We climbed toward the Upper Village. We were far enough past the interpassage that there would be a period of darkness between red sunset and blue dawn. Shoogar might even get a glimpse of the moons.

“I’m sure we would all appreciate a rest,” I said.

“I know I would,” Shoogar muttered. “I have a housetree cultivation ceremony to perform at blue dawn.”

“Why don’t you come?” I said impulsively to Purple. “You’ll enjoy it”

“I just might do that,” he said.

As we entered the Upper Village we could see Damd the Tree Binder preparing the virgin tree for cultivation. A wild housetree is a thick sturdy giant with pliable limbs; it must be bound and strengthened before it can hold a house. The lowest branches must be softened and treated, and then bent into the ground to grow into roots. The upper branches must be twined together to form a cradle for the nest. Within a hand of days the nest weaver can begin his work.

At Wilville and Orbur’s insistence, Purple ate with me and my family. Ordinarily, I would never have invited him anywhere near my nest, but the alternative was to publicly refuse — and that might have offended the men of the Lower Village.

As it turned out, I need not have feared. Purple and Wilville and Orbur were so excited about their project that they spoke of nothing else throughout the whole meal — and we were having fresh sea leeches too! The three of them argued back and forth about methods of construction and the principles by which the machine would work. I tried to follow as best as I could, but most of it was beyond me — at last I had to give up and turn my attention instead to calming my nervous wives. All this talk of flying machines and airbags was upsetting them enormously. The two of them twittered nervously in the background and refused to approach except at my sternest command. Finally, I had to threaten to beat them and refuse them our table scraps.

Shoogar had been invited to join us too, but he had declined. Instead, he had spent the whole twenty minutes of darkness up on Idiot’s Crag, straining to catch a glimpse of the moons. At blue dawn he was furious. Only one of the three largest moons had shown, and that only for a second as two clouds parted. Shoogar had been unable to tell which moon it was.

It was just as well. I knew what he wanted from the sky, and I would be just as glad if he never found it.