I thought Shoogar would fall off his bicycle from astonishment. I was having trouble with my own hands and feet. Even when you are not trembling all over, a bicycle is hard enough to control.
The ride back to the village was a nightmare. Shoogar was so unnerved, he forgot to chant any of his protective canteles and we both kept looking back over our shoulders at that huge looming egg which came floating silently, dreadfully after us, throwing off light in all directions, like some terrifying manifestation of Elcin, the thunder god.
It didn’t help matters that every time I looked up, another moon had set, plunging us ever closer to the time of total darkness. One of us was moaning, but I wasn’t sure whether it was Shoogar or me.
The bicycles clattered roughly down the mountain path, and I was so concerned about getting safely back to my nest that I did not even think to urge Shoogar to be careful with my other machine. The way he kept looking back over his shoulder I was sure he would hit something and split a wheel. Fortunately, he did not; I did not know if I would even have stopped to help him. Not with that bright black egg chasing us, always keeping perfectly and terrifyingly up-right.
Somehow we made it down to the grasslands. Several of the women saw us coming — they were out in the fields gathering the night fungi — but when they saw that huge glowing nest looming along behind us, they turned and ran for the safety of the village. Shoogar and I did not even think to park our bicycles on the hill, but rode them right down into the settlement. (Well, the women would have to clean the mud from the wheels later.)
We reached the village none too soon. The last of the moons was just settling in the west. We paused, out of breath, in the center clearing. The great black nest floated ominously above us, lighting up the whole village with its odd-colored aura. The great trees and the gourd-shaped nests hanging from their mighty branches took on strange and terrifying colors.
From out of the air the magician’s voice boomed louder than any natural voice, “… no wonder I didn’t see it from the air … houses are structured spheres, suspended from the limbs of tremendous trees … must be at least. … Wait until … hears about this! Where should I park?” he asked suddenly.
“Anywhere …” I gasped weakly, “Put it anywhere,” and made an appropriate arm-sweeping gesture. I looked around myself to see if we had any trees strong enough to hang such a nest from. There were none big enough that were not already occupied; but if this magician could make his nest fly, then he could surely hang it even from a sapling.
But even this the stranger did not do. He landed it on the ground.
And not just on any ground. He swept through the village toward the river, and brought it to land on the crest of the slope overlooking the frog-grading ponds. The ponds were dry now, drained for their ritual purification and reseeding spells, but I was appalled at such callous disregard for the property of the village. I winced as the magician’s nest sank into the ooze with a loud squishy phloosh.
I did not sleep well at all. By the time the smoky rim of the red sun began to appear over the horizon, I was already up and about. I felt better after my cleansing and purification, but still haggard and drawn. The events of the night before had taken their toll.
A glance out the door of the nest was enough to confirm that the stranger was still in our midst. Pilg the Crier was already moving through the trees moaning of this new development. Disaster was all the more certain now that the strange magician had moved his nest into the village. Even from here I could see a curious crowd gathering around it — though keeping a respectful distance.
Ang, the frogmonger, was wringing his hands and moaning over his frog-grading ponds. He would have to repurify them again after the stranger left, and if that were not soon, he might miss the spawning season altogether.
Shoogar and I went out to watch him, that first day. As soon as he saw us he straightened from his examination of a local herb and disappeared into his nest. He returned almost immediately with an object in his outstretched hand. “A gift.” he said. “A gift for Shoogar, the magician.”
Shoogar was caught by surprise. He had not expected the stranger to produce the required gift. Now he had fulfilled his obligation as a magician, and had the legal right to remain in the district. By the same convention, Shoogar was bound to respect the rights of the new magician as well as his spells. Guild rules are quite specific.
Shoogar, as resident magician, had the seniority. The stranger could do nothing to interfere with Shoogar’s practice or previous spells; but aside from that, he was free to do as he chose.
Shoogar examined his gift. It was small and light, easily held in one hand. One end had a glass lens mounted in it.
The stranger demonstrated how it worked. When one pressed forward on the thing’s sliding nerve, the glass lens made light.
It was a trivial thing. I could sense that Shoogar was disappointed, and insulted that the stranger had not given him something more spectacular. Shoogar had other ways to make cold light. But there was little he could say. It is extremely bad form to test a gift spell in the presence of the giver.
The only advantage to the gift was that its light was of a shape we had not seen before. By twisting a knob on one side the shape could be varied from a bright narrow beam — like the stranger’s red-fire device, but nowhere near as damaging — to a broad glare, wide enough to illuminate half a countryside.
Using the sliding nerve, the brightness of the device could be adjusted too. It could be muted down to a dim glow, no brighter than a lightmoss, or it could be pushed up until it was too bright to look at. Purple-Gray advised Shoogar not to use the spell too much in this latter form, or its something would drain away too fast. The speakerspell didn’t translate the word.
Shoogar turned it over and over in his hands. He had had his heart set on the flying spell or the red fire device. Yet manners compelled him to accept this gift graciously. I could see he wanted to ask for something else, but couldn’t figure out how to do so without the risk of offending the other magician.
Purple-Gray was saying, “I cannot understand why your world has life at all. Your evolution patterns don’t seem right: yet who would have settled here? We certainly wouldn’t. For one thing, the dust clouds hide you from space. For another, you don’t really get yellow, dwarf, sunlight.” Much of it was like that: coherent sentences trailing off into strings of unrelated words. “Though I suppose the red and blue suns do combine to give the same effect… the plants all look black because there’s so little green light, but the something in plants doesn’t use the green anyway, so that’s all right. It’s these double shadows that would drive anyone insane.”
Shoogar waited through this stream of gibberish with commendable patience. Purple-Gray’s words about different colors seemed to hint at something very important, and Shoogar wanted to know what it was. “You speak of this world. “ he said. “May one assume that you know of other worlds?” I wondered if Shoogar was baiting the stranger.
“Oh. yes. My world —” He looked up, considered, then pointed into the empty sky. “My world is in that general direction … I think. Beyond the dust clouds.”
“Dust clouds?” Shoogar peered up into the sky. I looked also. So did the crowd of onlookers. “Dust clouds?” The sky was an empty blue. What was he talking about?