The Flying Sorcerers

I went to see Purple at his nest. He was well pleased with the way the work was going. A satisfied grin showed through the black bush that surrounded his chin, and he patted his huge stomach in a jovial manner. For some reason, he reminded me of a huge black tusker.

I told him of the problem with the weavers leaving, and he nodded thoughtfully when I told him of Shoogar’s solution. “Yes,” he said, “that was very clever. And I would not worry about the ones who have left, Lant. Most of them will be back.”

“Huh? Why?”

Purple said innocently, “Because we have almost every spinning wheel on the island — where will they get enough thread for their looms?” And he laughed at his own mighty joke. “They will be lucky if they can make even one piece of aircloth.”

“Why, you are right — I never realized that.”

“And another thing — we have the only bone teeth on the island. They would not be able to weave cloth as fine as ours anyway; they will be back.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Come, I must go up to the Crag and check on the progress of the spinning.”

I will walk with you part way,” I said. “There are several other problems we must discuss.” I told him of the noise and the dirt created by having so many looms so close together. “It is not good,” I said, “not for the cloth and not for the men.”

“You are right, Lant — we will have to separate them, perhaps move some of the looms to other pastures. At all costs, we must protect the cloth. I will arrange it myself.”

“I have already told Lesta,” I said. “He does not object — at least no more than usual.”

“Good.”

We puffed up the slope toward the Upper Village. I said, “There is another thing. Certain of the men are beginning to wonder about payment for their skills. They fear that you will be unable to cast enough spells to pay them for their labor — they wonder how you will even keep track of them all. I confess, Purple, even I am mystified as to how you will keep your promises.”

“Um,” said Purple. “I will have to give them some tokens or something.”

“Spell tokens?”

He nodded slowly, “Yes, I guess we could call them that.”

“But what would they do?”

“Well, each one would be a promise, Lant — a promise of a future spell. The person could keep it or trade it as he sees fit, or he can redeem it later when I have the time for it.”

I considered it. “You will need a great many, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will, won’t I? I wonder if Bellis the Potter could —”

“No wait — I have a better idea!” My mind was working furiously. My apprentices were way ahead in their bone , carving. They had more than enough loomteeth carved to “ satisfy the needs of all the present looms, and even the ones still to be built for at least another hand of days. I did not like to see them sitting around idle — and I still had those one hundred and twenty-eight runforit ribs. I said, “Why don’t you let me carve them? Bone has a soul — clay doesn’t. My apprentices have nothing better to do now.”

He nodded slowly, “Yes, yes, a good idea, Lant. We can give one spell token for each day’s labor.”

“Oh, no,” I said. ‘One for each five days of labor. That is the way Shoogar works — it makes his spells worth more. ‘Work for a hand of days, earn a spell.’ ”

He shrugged. “All right, Lant. Go carve.”

I was delighted. I left him to go on up to the Crag, and I hurried off to the Upper Village to set my idle apprentices to work. We would cut each runforit rib into a thousand narrow slices — maybe more — and stain the resultant chips with the pressed juices of darkberries.

I found, after a little experimentation, that we could use the same cutting threads that we used for loomteeth. The cutting threads were held in a stiff frame. If we opened up one side of the frame and spread the threads out more, we could use it to cut several slices at a time off the end of each rib. Later on we figured that a larger frame holding more threads could cut more slices at a time.

In fact, there was no reason at all that the threads had to be held in a rigid frame — not for this type of cutting. In the space of that afternoon I must have figured at least six new ways to carve bone slices. One of the most effective involved wrapping a single thread in a loop around the piece of bone and pulling it steadily back and forth — in this way, the rib was cut from all sides at once.

We could cut several slices at a time this way — the only limit was the number of threads that we could string around the bone and pull at any one time.

While we were discussing this, Wilville and Orbur stopped by. They were on their way up to the Crag; each was carrying a bundle of hardened bambooze shoots.

I told them of my latest project and they nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, we can build you a device for cutting many slices of bone at a time. We will use cranks and pullies, and it will be operated by two apprentices. I think we may be able to pull fifty threads at a time with it.”

“Good, good,” I said. “How soon can I have it?”

“As soon as we have a chance to build it — first we must finish the airboat frame. The spirit pine is too heavy — we are going to try again with bambooze.”

“And that means building a whole new frame,” sighed Orbur.

They shouldered their loads and trudged on up the hill.