The Flying Sorcerers

Up on Idiot’s crag the women were still spinning thread, a pleasant and pastoral scene. Great loops of silvery thread shimmered out over the edge, glistening wetly in the wind.

I climbed past them to where my sons were just finishing the outriggers on the boat. Every day saw them making more and more adjustments with the masts and rigging. All they needed now were the windbags. The women, of course, did not know about Purple’s windbags. All they saw was a great flatbottomed boat with a fin on the bottom and two pontoons mounted far out on the sides.

Naturally, the women gossiped among themselves. Occasionally one of my wives would relate to me the latest rumor — the most recent being that Purple’s strange machine was going to fly off the mountain by flapping its wings. Purple was only waiting until Orbur and Wilville could cover the outriggers with fabric and feathers.

We had tried to stop the rumors by showing the loudest of the women the small airbags that Purple had made for the children. Those we said would lift the airboat. It did little good. Most of the small airbags had grown flaccid over the few days since they had been filled. They drooped.

I could see what Purple was talking about when he said it was imperative that his battery be recharged — when he took the flying machine on his long journey he would have to be constantly renewing the hydrogen in the balloons.

Wilville was applying another hardening layer of housetree blood to an aircloth-covered side. Orbur was just fastening a bicycle frame to one of the outriggers and stringing pulleys to an odd, bladed construction.

A bicycle on an airboat?

“What in the name of Ouells is that?” I asked.

“It’s an airpusher,” said one.

“A windmaker,” said the other.

“What does it do?”

“It makes wind,” said Orbur. “Shall I show you? We have the other one hooked up right — I think.” He crawled across the outrigger, into the boat, out the other side and across that outrigger.

“Hey!” cried Wilville. “Be careful!”

“Sorry,” said Orbur, still climbing.

“Is it safe to climb on those?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he called down, “they’re designed for it. Whoever is working the airpushers will have to climb out there to sit on the bicycle frames.”

“Oh,” I said.

He pulled himself onto the bicycle seat, explaining, “If it were in the air, I wouldn’t be able to stand on anything but the outrigger. Wilville and I have been practicing, crawling from the boat to the bicycle and back again.”

I nodded. “Yes, that makes sense.”

“Stand just behind that bladed thing there — not too close.” I did so. Wilville paused in his painting to watch.

Orbur began pedaling then — the airpusher started to spin. A wind blew against my face. Harder and harder — it was a pocket hurricane! It was coming from Orbur, coming from that whirling bladed device! I stumbled back with my arm across my eyes.

My sons laughed. Orbur released the bicycle pedals. The spinning slowed and so did the wind.

“You see,” said Wilville. “It makes wind. When we get the airboat up in the air, we will lower these slings with the pushers on the end. They hang one man height below the airframe. We will be sitting on the bike frames and we will pedal. The pulleys turn the shafts, and the blades make wind. The wind pushes the airboat, and it moves.”

“Oh,” I said, “but why are there two windmakers?”

“You need two to steer.”

“But that means that someone else will have to go with Purple!”

“Two people,” corrected Wilville. “One person could not bring the airboat back alone. He would be stranded there.”

“But — but — who — who is so foolish as to?”

“Father,” said Orbur. “Haven’t you been listening to a thing we’ve said ? We are going with Purple.”

I felt suddenly stricken. “You’re what?!!”

“Somebody must — who is it that knows the airboat better than us?”

“But-but —”

Orbur climbed down off his bicycle frame, climbed down from the airboat cradle, and came up to me. Gently he put his hands on my shoulders and began to guide me down the hill. “You go home and think about it, Father. You will see that it is the wisest choice. Somebody must see that Purple leaves. Somebody must make sure.”

I went. Wilville and Orbur were right.