Niven, Larry & David Gerrold - The Flying Sorcerers

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The Flying Sorcerers -- David Gerrold and Larry Niven -- (1971)

(Version 2003.01.07)

Shoogar was on the warpath. The villagers wondered uneasily if they should

pack. The last time their protector had done this he had blown the whole

village to hell and they had all had to trek to find a new area. Still, he had

proved his point. Shoogar was indeed a mighty witch doctor -- and his flock

took a kind of resigned pride in his power. After all, who knew what the new

invader could do? Better the protector you know than the one you don't. Had

they but known the marvels and monstrosities that Shoogar in his rage would

bring about they would have fled shrieking. Which of course they did -for a

while. But Shoogar drew them back, for his power was great. And they didn't

really have any place else to go. No place, that is, that had as many

interesting possibilities as Shoogar's wild and woolly mind could conceive ...

Dedicated to the men of NASA;

We understand their problems

I WAS awakened by Pilg the Crier pounding excitedly on the wall of my nest and

crying, "Lant! Lant! It's happened! Come quickly!"

I stuck my head out. "What's happened?"

"The disaster! The disaster!" Pilg was jumping up and down in excitement. "I

told you it would happen."

I pulled my head in and dressed. Pilg's joy was a frightening thing. I felt my

fur rising, fluffing out in fear as I wondered...

Pilg the Crier had been predicting disaster for weeks -- as was his habit. He

predicted his disasters twice a year, at the times of the equinox. The fact

that we were leaving the influence of one sun and entering that of the other

would make the local spells completely unstable. As we approached conjunction

-- the time when the blue sun would cross the face of the red -- Pilg had

increased the intensity of his warnings. This was disaster weather: something

dire would certainly happen.

Usually it did, of course. Afterward -- and after we of the village had

somehow picked up the pieces -- Pilg would shake his heavy head and moan,

"Wait until next year. Wait. It'll be even worse."

Sometimes we joked about it, predicting the end of the world if Pilg's "next

year" ever arrived...

I lowered the ladder and joined Pilg on the ground. "What's the trouble?"

"Oh, I warned you, Lant. I warned you. Now maybe you'll believe me. I warned

you though -- you can't say I didn't warn you. The omens were there, written

across the sky. What more proof did you need?"

He meant the moons. They were starting to pile up on one side of the sky.

Shoogar the Magician had predicted that we were due for a time of total

darkness soon.- perhaps even tonight -- and Pilg had seized on this as just

one more omen of disaster.

As we hurried through the village I tried to get Pilg to tell me what had

happened. Had the river changed its course? Had someone's nest fallen from its

tree? Had the flocks all died mysteriously? But Pilg was so excited at having

finally been proven correct that he himself was not sure what exactly had

happened.

One of the hill shepherds, it seemed, had come running into town, panic-

stricken and shouting something about a new magician. By the time I got this

information out of Pilg, we were already at the village clearing where the

frightened shepherd was leaning against one of the great housetrees, gasping

out his story to a nervous group of men. They pressed in close to him,

badgering him with questions. Even the women had paused in their work, and

hanging back at a respectful distance, listened fearfully to the shepherd's

words.

"A new magician," he gasped. "A red one! I saw him!" Someone handed him a

skin; he sucked the Quaff from it noisily, then panted, "Near the cairn of the

wind-god. He was throwing red fire across the mountains."

"Red fire. Red fire."

The villagemen murmured excitedly among themselves. "If he throws red fire, he

must be a red magician." Almost immediately, I heard the word "duel'. The

women must have heard it too, for they gasped and shrank back from the milling

group of men.

I pushed my way through to the center of the crowd. "Ah, Lant," said one of

the men. "Have you heard? There's going to be a duel."

"Is there?" I demanded. "Have you seen the runes of the duel inscribed across

Shoogar's nest?"

"No, but-"

"Then how do you know there's going to be a duel?"

"A red magician-" gasped the shepherd. "A red magician-"

"Nonsense. No red magician could have the powers you describe. Why don't you

wait until you know something definite before you start spreading silly rumors

that frighten women and children?"

"You know Shoogar as well as we! As soon as he discovers there is a new

magician in the district, he'll-"

"You mean Shoogar doesn't know yet?"

The man looked blank.

I raised my voice. "Has anyone thought to tell Shoogar ?"

Silence. No one had. My duty was clear. I must prevent Shoogar from doing

something rash. I hurried through the trees toward the magician's nest.

Shoogar's nest was well suited for a wizard, a squat misshapen gourd hung from

a forbidding black ogre of a tree well beyond the limits of the village. (The

Guild of Advisors was afraid to let him move closer; he was always

experimenting with new spells.)

I found Shoogar already packing his travel kit. His agitated manner told me he

was worried. Then I caught a glimpse of what he was packing and I was worried.

The last time he had used that ornate bone-carved tarinele was when he had

hurled the curse of the itching red boils at Hamel the Failure.

I saw what he was packing in on top of the tarinele and I flinched. "I believe

that's against the Guild rules," I said.

For a moment I thought he'd hurl a spell at me. I cringed and instinctively

made a spell-cutting gesture, (forgetting for the moment that Shoogar himself

had made the protective amulets I wore; he couldn't possibly break through his

own protections; at least not for a few more days -- they would expire with

the coming of the blue dawns).

"You!" he snapped. "What do you know of magic? You who call yourself my

friend! You didn't even have the courtesy to inform me of this intruding

sorcerer !"

"I didn't even know of him myself, until just a few moments ago. Perhaps he

only arrived today."

"Arrived today? And immediately began throwing red fire about? Without first

informing himself of the local gods, tidal patterns, previous local spells and

their side effects? Ridiculous! Lant, you are a fool. You are an idiot of the

first circle where magic is concerned. Why do you bother me?"

"Because you are an idiot where diplomacy is concerned!" I snapped back, my

fur bristling. (I am one of the few people in the village who can bristle at

Shoogar and survive to tell about it.) "If I let you go charging up the

mountain every time you felt you had been wronged, you'd be fighting duels as

often as the blue sun rises."

Shoogar looked at me, and I could tell from his expression that my remarks had

sunk home. "Smooth your fur, Lant. I did not mean that you were a complete

fool..I just meant that you are not a magician."

"I'm glad you are aware of my skill as a diplomat.." I said, and allowed

myself to relax. "Our abilities must complement each other, Shoogar. If we are

to succeed in our endeavors, we must maintain a healthy respect for each

other's powers. Only thus can we protect our village."

"You and your damned speeches, he scowled. "Someday I'm going to make your

tongue swell up to the size of a sour melon -- just for the sake of some peace

and quiet."

I ignored that remark. Considering the circumstances, Shoogar had a right to

be testy. He closed up his travel kit, tugging angrily at the straps.

"Are you ready?" I asked, "I'll send a message up to Orbur, telling him to

ready two bicycles."

"Presumptuous of you," Shoogar muttered, but I knew that he was secretly

grateful for the thought. Wilville and Orbur, my eldest two sons, carved the

best bicycles in the district.

-----

WE found the new magician near the cairn of Musk-Watz, the Wind-god. Across a

steep canyon from the cairn, there is a wide grass-covered mesa with a gentle

slope to the south. The new magician had appropriated this mesa and scattered

it with his devices and oddments. As we pulled our bicycles to a shuddering

halt, he vas in the process of casting a spell with an unfamiliar artifact.

Shoogar and I paused at a respectful distance and watched.

The stranger was slightly taller than me, considerably taller than Shoogar.

His skin was lighter than ours, and hairless but for a single patch of black

fur, oddly positioned on the top half of his skull. He also wore a strange set

of appurtenances balanced across his nose. It appeared that they were lenses

of quartz mounted in a bone frame through which the stranger could see.

The set of his features was odd and disquieting, and his bones seemed

strangely proportioned. Certainly no normal being would have a paunch that

large. The sight of him made me feel queasy, and I surmised that some of his

ancestors had not been human.

Magicians traditionally wear outlandish clothing to identify themselves as

magicians. But even Shoogar was unprepared for the cut of this stranger's

costume. It was a single garment which covered most of the stranger's body.

The shape of the cloth had been woven to match his own precisely; and an oddly

bulging shape it was. There was a hood, thrown back. There were high-flared

cuffs on the pantaloons to allow for his calf-high boots, and over his heart

was a golden badge. Around his middle he wore a wide belt, to which were

attached three or four small spell devices.

He had also set up a number of larger devices. Most of them had the blue-white

glimmer of polished metal. (There is little metal in our village -- it rusts

quickly -- but I am a man of the world and have traveled much. I am familiar

with the sight of metal, having seen it in the highlands; but nothing so

finely worked as this.)

These devices stood each on three legs so that they were always level, even

where the ground was not. As we watched, the stranger peered into one of them,

peered across the canyon at the sacred cairn of Musk-Watz, the god of the

winds, and then into his device again. Muttering constantly to himself, he

moved across the clearing and adjusted something else. Evidently this was a

long and complicated spell, though just what its purpose was neither Shoogar

nor I could fathom.

Occasionally he would refer to a large egg-shaped nest, black and regular of

shape, sitting on its wide end off to one side of the pasture. As there were

no trees in the area large enough to hang it from, he had set it on the

ground. (An unwise course, to be sure, but the shell of that nest looked like

nothing I had ever seen -- perhaps it was able to resist marauding predators.)

I wondered how he had built it over-night. His power must be formidable.

The stranger did not notice us at all, and Shoogar was fidgeting with

impatience. Just as Shoogar was about to interrupt him, the stranger

straightened and touched his device. The device responded by hurling red fire

across the canyon -- directly at the cairn of Musk-Watz!

I thought Shoogar would suffer a death-rage right then and there. The Weather

gods are hard enough to control at best, and Shoogar had spent three long

lunar configurations trying to appease Musk-Watz in an effort to forestall

another season of hurricanes. Now, the stranger had disrupted one of his most

careful spells.

Redder than ruby, eye-searing, bright and narrow, straight as the horizon of

the ocean (which I have also seen), that crimson fire speared out across the

canyon, lashing Shoogar's carefully constructed outcrop. I feared it would

never end: the fire seemed to go on and on.

And the sound of it was dreadful. There was a painful high-pitched humming

which seemed to seize my very soul, a piercing unearthly whine. Under this we

could hear the steady crackling and spattering of the cairn.

Acrid smoke billowed upward from it, and I shuddered, thinking how the

dissipating dust would affect the atmosphere. Who knew what effects it would

have on Shoogar's weather-making spells? I made a mental note to have the

wives reinforce the flooring of our nest.

Suddenly, just as abruptly as it had begun, the red fire went out. Once more

the silence and the calm descended over the mesa. Once more the blue twilight

colored the land. But across my eyes was a brilliant blue-white afterimage.

And the cairn of the wind-god still crackled angrily.

Amazingly enough, the cairn still stood. It smouldered and sputtered, and

there was an ugly scar where the red fire had touched it, but it was intact.

When Shoogar builds, he builds well.

The stranger was already readjusting his devices, muttering continuously to

himself. (I wondered if that were part of the spell.) Like a mother vole

checking her cubs, he moved from device to device, peering into one, resetting

another, reciting strange sounds over a third.

I cast a glance at Shoogar; I could see a careful tightening at the corners of

his mouth. Indeed, even his beard seemed clenched. I feared that a duel would

start before the stranger could offer Shoogar a gift. Something had to be done

to prevent Shoogar from a rash and possibly regrettable action.

I stepped forward boldly. "Ahem," I began. "Ahem. I dislike to interrupt you

while you are so obviously busy, but that bluff is sacred to Musk-Watz. It

took many cycles to construct the pattern of spells which ..."

The magician looked up and seemed to notice us for the first time. He became

strangely agitated. Taking a quick step toward us, he made a straight-armed

gesture, palms open to us, and spoke quick tense words in a language I had

never heard. Instantly, I threw myself flat on the ground, arms over my head.

Nothing happened.

When I looked up, Shoogar was still beside the other bicycle with his arms

outstretched in a spell-breaking pattern. Either the stranger's spell had

miscarried, or Shoogar had blocked it. The stranger threw no more spells.

Instead, he backed toward his oddly shaped nest, never taking his eyes from

us. He continued his strange words, but now they were slow and low pitched,

like the tone one uses to calm an uneasy animal. He disappeared into his nest

and all was quiet and blue.

Except for the crackle of cooling rock which still reached across the canyon

to remind us that Musk-Watz had been defiled.

-----

I TURNED to Shoogar, "This could be serious."

"Lant, you are a fool. This is already serious."

"Can you handle this new magician?"

Shoogar grunted noncommittally, and I was afraid. Shoo-gar was good; if he

were not sure of his skill here, the whole village might be in danger.

I started to voice my fears, but the stranger abruptly re-appeared carrying

another of his metal and bone carved devices. This one was smaller than the

rest and had slender rods sticking out on all sides. I did not like its looks.

It reminded me of some of the more unpleasant devices that I had seen during

the dark years.

The magician watched us all the time he was setting it up on its three slender

legs. As he turned it to face us I tensed.

It began to make a humming noise, like the sound of a water harp when a string

bow is drawn across its glass tubes. The humming rose in pitch until it began

to sound disturbingly like that of the device of the red fire. I began gauging

the distance between myself and a nearby boulder.

The stranger spoke impatiently to us in his unknown tongue.

"You are discourteous," rumbled Shoogar. This business can wait, surely?"

The spell device said, "Surely?"

I landed behind the boulder. Shoogar stood his ground. "Surely," he repeated

firmly. "You violate custom. In this, my district, you must gift me with one

new spell, one I have never seen. Were I in your district-"

The spell device spoke again. Its intonation was terrifying and inhuman. "New

spell gift -- never known -- surely."

I realized that the stranger had spoken first. His device was attempting to

speak for him, but in our words. Shoogar saw it too, and was reassured. The

device was only a speakerspell, and a poor one at that, despite its powerful

shape.

Shoogar and the speakerspell and the stranger stood on that wind-swept mesa

and talked with each other. Or rather, they talked at each other. It was

infant's talk, most of it. The thing had no words of its own. It could only

use Shoogar's; sometimes correctly, more often not.

Shoogar's temper was not improving. He had come to demand gift or duel from an

intruding warlock only to find himself teaching a simpleminded construct to

talk. The stranger seemed to be enjoying himself, unfortunately at Shoogar's

expense.

The red sun was long gone, the blue was near the horizon, and all the world

was red-black shadow. The blue sun settled behind a clump of deep violet

clouds. Suddenly it was gone, like a taper blown out by the wind. The moons

emerged against the night, now in the configuration of the striped lizard.

During certain configurations Shoogar's power is higher than during others. I

wondered if he were master or servant to the striped lizard. He was just

drawing his robes imperiously about his squat and stubby form. Master,

apparently, from his manner.

Abruptly, the stranger repeated his palms-out gesture, turned, and went back

to his nest. He did not go inside. Instead. he briefly touched the rim of the

doorway, and there was light! Garish light -- it spurted from the flank of the

nest, bright as double daylight.

And such a strange light. The ground and the plants seemed to take the wrong

colors and there was something not right with their shadows, an odd blackness

of shade.

The new magician's motive was obvious, even to me -- and even more so to

Shoogar. He leapt back out of the light with his arms raised for defense. But

it was no use. The light followed him, swept over him and dazzled him,

effectively cancelling out the strength of the lunar light. The stranger had

effectively negated the power of the striped lizard. Shoogar stood trembling,

a tiny figure pinned in that dazzling odd-colored glow.

Then, for no apparent reason, the stranger caused the light to vanish.

"I think that the light disturbs you," said the speakerspell, talking for the

magician. "But, no matter. We can talk as well in the dark."

I breathed more easily, but did not completely relax. This stranger had shown

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摘要：

TheFlyingSorcerers--DavidGerroldandLarryNiven--(1971)(Version2003.01.07)Shoogarwasonthewarpath.Thevillagerswondereduneasilyiftheyshouldpack.Thelasttimetheirprotectorhaddonethishehadblownthewholevillagetohellandtheyhadallhadtotrektofindanewarea.Still,hehadprovedhispoint.Shoogarwasindeedamightywitchdo...

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Niven, Larry & David Gerrold - The Flying Sorcerers

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