The Flying Sorcerers

It was Orbur who spotted our course line again. Far off to the left, a lighter-colored patch of sea could be seen.

We were lower now, despite the dumping of six bags of water. Purple said it was due to the airbags leaking faster than before. They were stretching, he said, and the seams weren’t as strong as he had hoped. He ordered the boys to come about and head the boat in a course that would eventually bring us over the spine of hills again.

I chewed thoughtfully on a lump of moldy hardbread. That the hills were visible under the water again meant that we were nearing shallower seas. Soon we might be over land, and our journey would be over.

The windbags above were taut, but rippling slightly in the wind. Soon the ripplings would increase some more, folds of cloth would hang loose, the bags would droop heavily — and all the while we would descend lower and lower.

Purple began emptying the last of the ballast bags — all except two which we would save for drinking water. Shoogar moaned, when he said that. The boat rose some as he dumped the ballast, but not by any significant amount. “Well, that’s it,” he said. “We make it on the gas we’ve got left, or not at all.”

Wilville and Orbur pumped silently and steadily. They no longer chanted happily while they worked. Rather, they seemed almost in a trance, trying to endure from one moment to the next. They had both developed sores and blisters on their hands and buttocks. Purple had sprayed them each with a salve, but then they had gone back out onto the out-riggers, and I suspected that the salve would not do much good.

We took up our position over the spine of hills and pumped steadily north. I wobbled to the front of the boat and joined Shoogar. Although the red sun was still bright in the west, he wanted to miss not a moment of the impending darkness. “The moons,” he chortled happily, “the moons should be visible soon.”

I ignored him. I was not so much concerned with what was above as with what was ahead. Was that a line of narrow darkness on the forward horizon? It was too dark to tell.

I called it to Purple’s attention. He shouldered roughly past Shoogar and peered eagerly forward. “Umph,” he said, “I can’t see.”

“Use your flashlight,” I suggested.

“No, Lant, it hasn’t enough power to reach that far.”

“Attach it to your big battery. That still has some power left in it.”

He smiled. “I could do that, but it hasn’t got enough power left in it to turn the flashlight up that bright. Besides, blue dawn will be here in slightly more than an hour. If it is land, we’ll see it then.”

The red sun faded away then, and we throbbed impatiently through the darkness, only the steady sssssss of the bicycles reminding us that we were moving. Purple paced restlessly in the back of the boat, while Shoogar chanted steadily in the bow.

I tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

Morning snapped up over the east and as one, Purple and I rushed forward. Wilville was already crying, “Land! I can see it! Land! We’ve made it! We’ve made it!”

“Keep pedaling,” Purple shouted. “Keep pedaling!”

We were lower now — much lower — the airbags were not holding their hydrogen as long as they used to, and we were only a few manheights above the water.

It mattered not. Far ahead of us we could see the craggy shore of the North, and behind it, jagged hills rising toward a familiar mountain range — The Teeth Of Despair.

“Oh, pump, Wilville, pump!” cried Purple. “Pump, Orbur, pump!” He peered so far forward out of the boat, I thought he was ready to leap out and swim for land. “Just a little bit farther!”

The sea below us was mottled and ugly. We could see jagged reefs below us — and here and there a whirlpool. All slid past, but we were sinking lower and lower.

Purple noticed it too. “What the —” He moved back inside the boat and began tugging experimentally at the rigging.

“One of the bags must have a leak!” He started climbing upward. “Is it this one?” He pulled at a rope. “No. Maybe it s that one. Yes, the seam there — see it?”

I looked. Just above him, one of the airbags had a narrow slit of darkness in its belly. Purple took a step higher in the rigging.

And then it happened.

The seam ripped wide open — a great stretching and tearing sound. The bag folded open, and the boat gave a sudden lurch as it collapsed. Huge lengths of aircloth began falling across the rigging. Wilville and Orbur screamed.

“Throw some ballast! Throw some ballast!” cried Shoogar.

He ran frantically about the boat, but we only had two ballast bags. He pulled at them furiously.

“No!” shouted Purple. “That won’t do any good. There’s not enough!” He half climbed, half fell from the rigging.

“Lant, get my airmaker!”

“Where is it?”

“In the back of the boat, I think! Hurry!”

We were losing altitude fast. And I could see why he wanted me to hurry. A swirling whirlpool lay below us, hungry and sucking. It was huge.

Purple already had a windbag nozzle untied and waiting above an open sack of water. He grabbed the airmaker and shoved its funnel into the airhose and into the water, both in one motion. He snapped his battery on. The windbag swelled frantically, strove to rise. The airboat gave a lurch.

Purple flung away the empty water bag. “Give me the other.” Shoogar shoved it into position before the words were out of his mouth, and again Purple plunged his wires and funnel into it. Again the windbag puffed with a mixture that was half hydrogen, half throw-away gas.

We could hear the roar of the whirlpool now — and little else. We were less than two manheights above the water. Wilville and Orbur were frantically pulling their airpushers up so they would not get caught in the maelstrom below.

But we had stopped our descent!

The great whirling walls of water slipped thunderously past us — crashing and black. We could feel the wet mist I across our faces. Foam sprayed the beat.

“The mouth of Teev,” whispered Shoogar. “It appears at the end of every summer. As the waters recede, it sucks up everything within its reach, men, boats, trees, rocks —”

“But summer isn’t over yet,” said Purple. His face was I white, and the bones of his knuckles showed where he gripped the railing.

“No,” said Shoogar, “but it’s starting to wane. By summer’s end the Mouth will be much bigger than this. Its roar will be audible for miles.”

Purple peered nervously backward. The dark thundering water was slipping steadily behind us. Wilville and Orbur lay clenched across their outriggers.

“I never thought I’d live to see it that close,” Shoogar said weakly.

Purple grunted thoughtfully. He was looking at his airmaker.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“My battery. I think it’s dead.”

“What? No! Again?”

“I think so.” He disconnected the battery and shook it experimentally. “Look, the dial doesn’t even light up. We used up all the power we had.”

“We needed it. We’d be in the Mouth of Teev if we hadn’t made more gas.”

“We could have swum for it. Or cut the boat loose and hung onto the ropes! Or — anything —” He put his face in his hands and made sounds of pain. Then suddenly he stood up, picked up the battery and — for an endless moment I thought he was going to fling it overboard and perhaps follow it.

Instead he called briskly, Wilville! Orbur! Back on the bicycles. We’re so close to land, you don’t want to quit now!”

I could see that he was only acting. He didn’t want the others to see how deeply he felt his loss. He pretended to busy himself checking the rigging, but several times I caught him staring off into the sky with a faraway look.

The boys unslung the windmakers again and Shoogar began to chant with them — the I Think Icon, a fast chant, strong and purposeful.

The shore line loomed ever nearer — the surf was white and foaming; Shoogar steadily increased the pace of the chant. Even so, we kept sinking lower and lower toward the water — not as fast as before, but it was apparent that the airbags were no longer as tight as they had been.

The water slipped past us, the windmakers dipping through the higher waves; then cutting through the swells themselves, becoming visible only in the troughs between the waves; and at last, no longer visible at all. The outriggers hung low along the sides of the boat, and pushed us through the surf. The balloons hung in silent stillness overhead, and the sea splashed below. An occasional spray of wet foam came through the rigging.

Shoogar interrupted his chanting to call, “Lant, look! Do you recognize where we are heading? Come look!”

I climbed forward. Ahead lay a bleak and forbidding landscape of jagged black and brown. It was streaked with gray and purple, and ominously stained whites. All was pitted and scarred. Here and there a flash of red testified to a scorch-blossom’s attempt to take root, but little more was visible. Except — was that the fire-blackened shell of a wild housetree? It looked like a gaunt hand frozen in an anguished skyward grasp.

“Lant! It is the Cove of Mysteries — or what’s left of it. We are not far from the old village, just a few miles south of it.”

Purple came up behind me, a clicking device in his hands. I had noticed it on his belt before, but he had never explained its use. Now he tapped it experimentally and frowned. At last he smiled, “The level of — “ He used a demon word here, “is not as high as I thought it would be, not much higher than the normal background level. Certainly not dangerous, anyway. It will be safe to walk in this area.”

The boat was splashing through the waves now, and Purple directed the boys to head for a place where the ground sloped gently into the water. We could see one not too far ahead, and the boys shifted direction to make for it.

Purple peered ahead. “Lant, how far are we from Critic’s Tooth?”

“Well, it used to be over there, Purple,” I pointed. A few cracked, half-melted slabs of rock marked a conspicuous gap in the mountains to the north.

He misunderstood. “That peak is Critic’s Tooth?”

“No, that’s Viper’s Bite — one of the lesser foothills before Critic’s Tooth. Critic’s Tooth is gone.”

“Oh.”

The whole range of jagged mountains is called the Teeth of Despair. Critic’s Tooth was one of the sharpest peaks. The region is ruled by the mad demon, Peers, who gnashes and gnarls mightily. He attacks natives and strangers alike. We should approach no closer, lest he blame us for the damage to his Teeth.”

Purple was looking at his ticking thing again, waving it and pointing it. “A good idea.”

We bounced through the surf. There was a gentle bump as the nose of the boat slid up onto the sand. We had reached the northern shore.

“The Cathawk has landed!” shouted Wilville. The Cathawk has landed!”