David Gerrold - The Flying Sorcerers

I decided, however, to wait until the airship returned. If this first airship worked well, we might be able to build others. We could perhaps use such ships of the sky for trading expeditions. Yes, that would enrich us considerably. Large bodies of water would no longer be barriers to travel, and we would not be cut off from the mainland every wading season.

Gortik and I and Lesta and the other advisors discussed the idea eagerly. Lesta, who was now the head of the newly enlarged Clothmakers’ Guild (formerly the Weavers’ Caste), was one of the strongest adherents of the idea. Of course he had the most to gain — it was his cloth that they would be trading. But still, there was little opposition from any of the rest of us. Aircloth had enriched all of our lives considerably.

We spent those three days resting — and making exciting plans for the future — and speculating about the fate of the airship. We had not been told how long they would be gone. Purple had said only that they would take as long as necessary, until they had determined how best to steer and control the Cathawk — for that was what he had decided to call the boat.

It did not look like a cathawk to me, but it was Purple’s spell, so I did not question it.

Without the magicians the village seemed strangely quiet — and I began to wonder, was this how it would be after Purple was gone? A strange thought that — I had grown so used to Purple’s presence, I could not imagine this village existing without him.

I spent one afternoon helping Trone and his ground crew. They were practicing the mooring of the Cathawk when it returned. One group of men stood on the launching cradle and threw down ropes, pretending to be the returning airship. The ground crew stood below. When we threw down the ropes, they would chase after them and grab them as fast as they could — then they would pull us off the cradle.

It quickly turned into a competition. We would throw down our ropes and try as hard as we could to keep the ground crew from catching them. The ground crew would try as hard as they could to pull us from our perches. As they were some of the burliest men in two villages, they always won.

Afterward, panting, sweating and covered with dirt, I went up to Trone and asked him if he thought all this effort was truly worth it. After all, the Cathawk would only be making this one landing, and then we’d never see it again.

Trone grunted, “Purple is paying me and my men to see that the Cathawk is grounded safely. It is to our own benefit to see that it does. If anything should happen to the airboat, Purple will only want to build another — and that might take another three hands of hands of days. You want to see him gone, don’t you?”

I couldn’t argue with that.

Shortly after that a rumor started that once Purple returned, he would outfit the Cathawk immediately for his journey north, and leave without redeeming any of his spell tokens.

I tried to stop such foolish prattle, but the villagers would not be convinced. They felt that if Purple did not cast spells in return for his coins, they were worthless. I said that this was nonsense. The coins were symbols of the magic and, as such, were magic themselves. They were as good as a real consecration. Just keep the spell token near the object to be consecrated.

They didn’t believe me.

Instead, they argued about the Cathawk . Trone took credit for it by saying that it was his generators that made the gas that put it into the air. The pumping crews said that the generators wouldn’t have done any good at all without their effort. Lesta laughed at them both, saying that it was his cloth that had done the job. Nonsense, said the weavers, it was their effort in weaving the cloth. Yes, agreed my apprentices, but they couldn’t have done it without my loom-teeth. Grimm claimed it was his work in sewing up the airbags, the thread-dippers claimed it was their housetree blood, and even the women murmured about the thread they had spun. But the heights of idiocy were reached when the ballast-stuffers claimed it was their sand that allowed the Cathawk to fly — it flew when Purple threw it out.

It would have been funny; except that they were all taking it so seriously! Ang was making a small fortune selling dried fish — the same kind, he said, that Purple had taken with him on his historic flight.

The speculation went on about the flight itself. I wondered if they had used Shoogar’s sails. Wilville and Orbur believed that Purple’s airpushers didn’t need sails, but —

I was bathing in the ocean, on a hot still day, when a shout rose up. The Cathawk is returning! The airship is coming back!”

I didn’t bother to dry myself, but snatched up my robe and ran for the Crag. Others had the same idea. A great crowd materialized out of nowhere, and streamed up the hill, shouting and cheering. As I rounded the crest I could see it — slender boatframe and great swollen bags bright against the sky.

I wondered why the Cathawk was flying backward.

Then I saw that there were no sails. Purple’s method of airpushing had worked! Wilville and Orbur were right again!

As the boat approached I could see my two sons pedaling wildly on the windmakers, pushing the boat closer and closer. Occasionally one of them would stop or pedal backwards for a few seconds, and the Cathawk would shift ever so slightly in its direction.

Purple was hanging in the rigging again. He was fiddling with the neck of one of his airbags — apparently he was releasing the gas in calculated amounts to control their descent.

He was shouting too: “Where is my ground crew?!! Where is my ground crew?!!” The boat sank sideways through the air.

On the ground, Trone and his men were running around wildly, the big Coppersmith shouting orders, the others trying to take up positions around the landing cradle.

“Okay,” Trone was shouting. “Bring “er in — right over the cradle — and we’ll grab the ropes!”

“No! No!” Purple shouted back. “You bloody blind fools! You have to come out and grab the ropes where they fall and pull the boat over the landing rack! Then you pull it down! We can’t control it that fine!” He swung around in the rigging, “Wilville, Orbur, throw down the mooring ropes!”

Trone shouted at his crew, “Move out! Move out! They can’t get it over the landing rack — we’ll have to do it for them.” His ragged group of men ran down the slope toward the Cathawk’s trailing ropes. They were waving gaily in the wind. Wilville and Orbur were pedaling as hard as they could just to keep the boat in place.

“Grab the ropes! Grab them!” Purple exhorted the ground crew. “We’ve got to come down on the landing cradle or we’ll snap the keel.” Boys and men were running hither and thither, trying to catch the trailing ends of the ropes, but the constant wind across the Crag kept snatching them away.

One boy, very light, grabbed onto a rope only to find himself lifted into the air. He let go, and fell back to the ground.

Other controllers were having troubles too. They would seize a rope only to find themselves dragged across the hill. It was Trone who saved the day, by pouncing on one of these men — four other controllers pounced on top of him, and the Cathawk came to a jarring halt in the air.

The other ropes were slowed enough then to allow other men to grab them. It was great sport, with ground crew and villagers alike chasing after every rope still waving free, but at last nearly every rope had a controller or two hanging breathlessly onto the end of it.

Trone released his rope then — there were three other men on it — and shouted to his crew, “All right, pull it up the slope — over the landing rack!”