Paul Thompson - Darkness and Light

"Higgher! Higher! Get that balk in place! — Sturm grunted against the massive weight of the gnomes' flying ship. He and Kitiara strained against a rough-hewn lever they'd made over the gnomes' protests. Crude levers! the gnomes protested. Bellcrank claimed that any gnome could invent a device ten times better for lifting heavy objects. Of course, it would take a committee to study the stress analysis of the local wood, as well as to calculate the proper pivot point for raising the ship.

"No," Kitiara had insisted. "If you want us to help get your ship out of the mud, then we'll do it our own way."

The gnomes had shrugged and rubbed their bare pates. Trust humans to do things the crudest way. The gnomes rolled several large rocks up to the hull. These would be the fulcrums. After Sturm and Kitiara had made the ship level, the gnomes shoved short, thick timber balks into place to brace it upright. It was slow, sweaty labor, but by noon of the day after the storm, the flying ship was finally on an even keel.

"A problem," Wingover announced.

"Now what?" Kitiara asked.

"The landing gear must have a firm surface on which to roll. Therefore, it will be necessary to construct a roadbed. Here; I've made calculations as to how much crushed stone and mortar we'll need — "

Kitiara plucked the paper from his hand and tore it in two.

"I've gotten wagons out of mud before," she said, "by putting straw or twigs in the ruts." "Might work," Sturm said. "But this thing is very heavy." He spoke to Stutts, who promptly removed the protesting gnomes from their important (though completely useless) 'improvement' work and set them to gathering windfall branches and brushwood. They all turned out except Bellcrank, who was busy with his pots of powders and vials of noxious liquids.

"I must attend to my first task, generating the ethereal air, he said, pouring iron filings from a keg. "When the air bag is filled, it will help lighten the ship."

"You do that," said Kitiara. She leaned against the hull to watch. She didn't like strenuous work. Work was for dullards and peasants, not warriors. The gnomes returned with a scant armful of brush.

"Nine of you, and that's all you have?" Sturm said incredulously.

"Roperig and Sighter disagreed on which kind of sticks to bring, so in the spirit of cooperation, we didn't pick up either of their choices," Wingover said. "Wingover," Sturm said pleadingly, "please tell Roperig and Sighter that the kind of wood doesn't matter in the least. We just want something dry for the wheels to run over."

The tallish gnome dropped his bundle of sticks and led his fellows back to the woods. Meanwhile, Bellcrank had managed to enlist Kitiara's aid in inflating the Cloudmaster's air bag. On the ground beside the ship he'd set up a big clay tub, five feet wide." He poured powdered iron and other bits of scrap metal in the tub and smoothed the pile out around the edges.

"Lower away!" he told Kitiara, and she set a domed wooden lid, like the top half of a beer barrel, on top of the ceramic tub. Bellcrank worked around the outside, poking a long strip of greased leather into the joint. "It must be tight," he explained, "or the ethereal air will seep out and not fill the bag."

She hoisted the gnome up and set him on top of the barrel. With a corkscrew, Bellcrank popped a large cork in the top of the barrel. "Hand me the hose," he said.

"This?" asked Kitiara, holding up a limp tube of canvas.

"The very thing."

She gave it to him, and he tied it over the neck of a wooden turncock.

"Now," said Bellcrank, "for the vitriol!"

There were three very large demijohns sitting in the tall grass. Kitiara stooped to pick one up.

"Oof!" she gasped. "Feels like a keg of ale!"

"It's concentrated vitriol. Be careful not to spill it; it can burn you very badly."

She set the heavy jug down by the tub. 'You don't expect me to pour that stuff in there, do you?"

Bellcrank said, "No indeed! I have a most efficacious invention that will circumvent such tiresome duty. Hand me the Excellent Mouthless Siphon, would you?"

Kitiara cast about but saw nothing that resembled an Excellent Mouthless Siphon. Bellcrank pointed with his stubby finger.

"That, there; the bellows-looking item. Yes."

She gave him the mouthless siphon. Bellcrank put the beak of the bellows into the demijohn and pulled the handles apart. The sinister brown liquid in the jug sank by an inch.

"There!" the gnome said triumphantly. "No sucking on tubes. No spillage."

He pushed the beak into the hole in the barrel where the cork had been, and emptied the vitriol. "Ha, ha! Gnomish science overcomes ignorance again!" Bellcrank repeated the siphoning four more times before Kitiara noticed vapor escaping from the leather hinges of the Excellent Mouthless Siphon. "Bellcrank," she said hesitantly.

"Not now! The process has begun, and it must be kept going at a steady pace!"

"But the siphon — " A drop of vitriol seeped through a hole that it had eaten in the hinge of the siphon, and splashed on Bellcrank's shoe. He carelessly flung the siphon away and began hopping around on one foot, trying desperately to pry the shoe off his foot. The vitriol ate the buckle strap in two, and with a mighty kick, Bellcrank flung the shoe away. It missed the returning Fitter's nose by a whisker.

"Oh, Reorx!" said Bellcrank sadly. The Excellent Mouthless Siphon was a pile of steaming fragments.

"Never mind," Kitiara said. Whe wrapped her arms around the vitriol jug and planted her feet firmly. "Hai-yup!" she grunted, and raised the demijohn to Bellcrank's level. He guided the jug's mouth, and soon a steady stream of the acrid fluid was spilling into the ethereal air generator. The hose from the keg to the air bag swelled. The sagging bag itself began to fill out and grow firmer inside its web of netting. Soon all the rope rigging and tackle was taut. The bag strained against the confining ropes. At Bellcrank's signal, Kitiara lowered the heavy demijohn. Sturm came around the bow with the other gnomes. "The ruts are full of brush," he said.

"The bag is full of ethereal air," said Bellcrank.

"My back is killing me," said Kitiara. "What next?"

"We f-fly," said Stutts. "All colleagues to their flying ststations!"

Stutts, Wingover, and the two humans went into the forward end of the deck house. The other gnomes lined the rail.

"Release ballast!" cried Wingover.

"Release b-ballast!" Stutts called out an open porthole.

The gnomes took up long, sausage-shaped bags that lined the rail. The ends opened, and sand poured out. The gnomes flung sand over the side, getting as much in their own eyes as they did out of the ship. This went on until Sturm felt the deck shift under his feet. Kitiara, wide-eyed, grabbed the brass rail that ran around the wheelhouse at the gnomes' shoulder height.

"Open front wings!" cried Wingover.

"Opening f-front wings!" Stutts replied. He leaned against a lever as tall as he was and shoved it forward. A rattle, a screech, and the leather 'sails' that Kitiara and Sturm had noticed on the hull unfolded into long, graceful batlike wings. The goatskin covering the bony ribs was pale brown and translucent. "F-front wings open," Stutts reported.

Wind caught in them, and the ship lifted an inch or two at the bow.

"Open rear wings!" "Opening rear w-wings!" A slightly wider and longer pair of leather-clad wings blossomed aft of the deckhouse.

"Set tail!" The gnomes on deck ran out a long spar and clamped it to the stern. Roperig and Fitter clambered over the spar, attaching lines to pulleys to hooks. They unfolded a fanshaped set of ribs, also covered in goatskin. By the time they finished, the Cloudmaster was swaying and bucking off the ground. Wingover flipped the cover off a speaking tube. "Hello, Birdcall, are you there? A shrill whistled answered. "Tell Flash to start the engine."