The Flying Sorcerers

The next day, Purple attempted to separate water into gases. Men of both villages came to watch.

The magician had obtained two lengths of copper wire from the coppersmith. These he attached to the rim of a large pot of water, using wooden clips, so that the end of each length of wire trailed in the water.

We watched as he disconnected a spell device from his belt. It was a flat bulging object like the one in the light tube he had given Shoogar many months ago — only bigger. He called it a battery.

He explained that it stored the magic called electrissy. When it was connected to his impact suit spell-belt, it powered several of the other devices attached there. He indicated, but did not explain. The only devices he had that did not depend on his battery were a lightmaker which had a tiny battery of its own, and a radiation counter, which Purple said needed no battery at all.

The battery was a heavy object — heavier than one would expect for its size. There were two shiny metal nodes at one end of it. Purple twisted the free end of each copper wire around these nodes, one to each one.

“Now,” he said, “all I have to do is turn the battery on. This dial tells me how much power I have. This knob controls the rate with which I release it. When I switch the battery on here, I will activate the spell and the gases will separate.”

With a knowing look, he did so. We waited.

I heard a — sizzling — and looked into the pot.

Tiny bubbles were forming on the ends of the wires, breaking free and streaming toward the surface.

“Ah,” said Purple. He turned the knob. The water began bubbling more vigorously. He smiled proudly. “Hydrogen and oxygen,” he explained. “From this wire comes oxygen. From the other comes hydrogen, which is lighter than air. We will want to trap the hydrogen. It will lift the airbags.”

“Oh,” I said. I nodded as if I understood. I didn’t, but I felt that I should at least pretend. Besides, I had expected something more impressive.

I stayed long enough to appear polite, then returned to my bone carving. I had seven apprentices now — and al-though they were quite capable of doing the work without me, I still felt it my responsibility to check on them as often as I could.

We were using sheepbone now. We had great amounts of it drying in the sun. It would not be the petrified bone that was so hard, of course, but it would still be usable. Such was the difference between wet bone and dry bone.

The apprentices themselves were working busily. Purple had suggested that they work in a new manner. One lad cut the bone into flat segments, another sanded the pieces down to fit into the loom slots, a third cut grooves into the bases so they would lock into the frame, a fourth and fifth cut the slits into the edges, while the sixth polished the finished pieces. The seventh serviced the tools of the first six and kept them sharp. Thus they were able to produce more loomteeth than they could have working alone.

Purple called it a “division of labor’ — every job could be reduced to a few simple tasks. If all a person had to do was learn one task only, it would simplify and speed up all methods of production. Nobody had to know everything.

Except Purple, of course, but then — he was the magician.

He had set up his put-it-together lines all over the village. There were put-it-together lines to spin the thread, to weave the cloth, to build the looms, to make the spinning machines. Everywhere there were great numbers of things to be made. Purple taught the people his put-it-together magic.

In fact he once explained to me that the whole region had become a put-it-together line for a flying machine. We could build others in the future, he said, if we so wished. All we had to do was keep the put-it-together lines going, and we could build as many as we wanted.

It was a staggering thought!

When he heard it, Shoogar’s ears perked up. It was no secret what he wanted. An evil gleam came into his eyes, and he headed off to the mountains, to await the fall of darkness and a chance to glimpse the moons.

Fortunately, the nights stayed cloudy.