Thomas paused there, with every eye fixed on him intently. There was no murmur in the tent, but rather a deep hush; somewhere in the camp outside a blacksmith was shouting coarse imprecations at an animal.
He went on. “After, we make a feint to the north and perhaps a few skirmishes there with Som’s outlying garrisons. In the Black Mountains is his power rooted, and only there can it be destroyed.”
Someone urged: “Wait for the spring, then, for the birds’ help! We cannot scale Som’s cliffs against him. The birds could lift rope ladders for us, scout, bear messages, drop rocks upon the enemy, and use their talons, too!”
Thomas shook his head inflexibly and the murmur of approval that had started up died down. “We thought once that the Silent People might have stayed; we would have tried to warm them through the winter; but it is written in their bone-marrow, it seems, that they must fly south each autumn. There was nothing we or they could do about it. However, if the birds of the West will be absent from this campaign, at least the reptiles of the East will be sluggish and thick-blooded. And it is all very well to say, wait for spring, for the Silent People to fly north again. But so might Som be stronger then. And what of this human army we have gathered here and now? Shall we sit on our tails for another half year, hoping for improvement in our luck?”
That got something of the response Thomas must have hoped for. Folding his arms before him once again, he went on in a milder voice. “As for getting at Som in his citadel, we think that we have found a way. Gray?”
Once more the wizard arose, and spoke. As the plan he was proposing became clear, they cast looks at one another across the circle, with slowly lengthening faces. When the wizard paused, there were no questions. Probably, Rolf thought, because the only ones that came to mind were bluntly insulting about Gray’s sincerity or sanity.
“As I said before, we are now on the march, away from prying eyes. Now the time has come to test what I propose, and if the test succeeds, to practice it. It will not be a usable technique till it is given considerable practice.”
The stunned silence continued. Thomas dismissed the meeting, and while the others were filing out, called Rolf to one side where he stood with Gray. “Rolf. You have more experience with technology than anyone else we know of in our army. Gray will need an assistant in the project he just spoke of. I think you could do a good job of helping him.”
Rolf grunted. “I don’t know much, really.”
“You have a knack.” Thomas clapped both their shoulders, and said to Gray: “Take him, if you will, as your helper for the first experiment.” Then Thomas turned quickly away, answering voices that were already calling him to see about some other business.
Gray and Rolf were left confronting each other in what was apparently a mutual lack of confidence. “Tell me, young one,” the tall wizard said at last, “what do you know about the djinn?”
“Much like demons, are they not?”
Gray’s gaze grew harder. “May you never be called upon to suffer in proportion to your ignorance of the world! Djinn are no more like demons than men are like the talking reptiles.”
Continuing to talk Gray led Rolf from the tent. “Demons are, without exception, of the East. But the djinn are rather like elementals, neither good nor evil in themselves, and a human may call on them without being corrupted or consumed thereby.”
“I see.” Rolf nodded, not seeing much. “But what has this to do with technology, and the scheme you were proposing?” They were walking now through the uneven rows of tents, Gray heading for the outskirts of the camp.
“Just this. The djinn I plan to call upon for help is unique, so far as I know, among his kind. He is a technologist, a builder and designer, I think superior in those fields to any human who has lived since the Old World. Now help me with some preparations, if you will.”
It seemed to Rolf that he had little choice. Besides, the djinn as Gray described him was certainly intriguing.
They had got past the tents now, to a place near the camp’s edge, not far from the latrines. It was a clear, open area perhaps fifty meters across, badly illuminated by a couple of torches on poles stuck in the ground. Rolf had earlier heard casual speculation that the place was being kept reserved for some magical purpose. Near its center was tethered a sullen-looking loadbeast wearing panniers that were bulky but did not seem heavy. From these Rolf and the wizard gathered bags and parcels which Gray opened on the sand. From them in turn he took small objects which, Rolf again helping as directed, he set out on the ground in a regular and careful pattern. The things looked to Rolf for the most part like toys for some carpenter’s child: there were miniature hammers, wooden wheels, a tiny saw, small brace and bit, and other little tools.
“Rolf, once you rode upon an Old World vehicle that moved across the land without a beast to pull it; you learned its secrets of control, and rode it into battle.”
“That is so.” Rolf had finished laying out his portion of the pattern.
“Had you ever any indication that it might fly?”
“No, Gray.” His answer was emphatic. “It was of metal, and heavier than a big house, and it had no sign of wings.”
Gray shrugged. “Well, certainly they had many machines that did not fly; but they had some that did. And some of them still do, I think, though that does not concern us at this moment. What I proposed in meeting just now was not as mad as some thought. Machines can fly, and I intend that we shall use them to assault the cliffs of the Black Mountains.” Squinting at the arrangement of toy tools on the ground, Gray grunted with satisfaction, and began to draw with his staff (it occurred to Rolf that he had not noticed any staff in Gray’s hands until just now) a diagram of straight lines surrounding the symbolic tools. “The djinn that I will summon up will build for us a vehicle which we will then operate ourselves. I think its pilotage will not be too difficult, for intelligent men who have a little nerve and imagination.”
Gray stood his staff beside him on the ground; there it remained, as if it had taken root. He rummaged in the beast’s panniers again, and produced a paper that he unrolled and showed to Rolf.
“I have made this sketch from drawings left by the ancients of some of their simpler flying machines. Other types they made as well, that were heavier than air, and winged like birds, but the technology of those remains somewhat beyond my grasp; and what I cannot understand, I cannot order the djinn to build. However, the type that I have shown here should suit us well.”
Rolf studied the sketch. It showed, apparently in midair, a rimmed platform or shallow basket, supported at each of its four corners by a cluster of lines, the lines in turn reaching tautly upward to four great globes above. A mast rose from the center of the platform; small sails bellied, and pennants fluttered, showing the direction of the breeze. Inside the basket, four men rode.
“These globes from which the flying craft depended were made of some elastic fabric” Gray explained. “Sometimes filling them with hot air was enough to make them rise.”
Rolf considered silently. Was Gray mad? But wait—hot air did rush up the chimney.
“But with the djinn to labor for us, we shall do far better. Our globes will be made of thin metal, much stronger and safer, and in them there will be nothing.”
“Nothing?” Rolf tried to make the question sound intelligent.
Gray studied him, and sighed. Perhaps he wondered if he should request a more intelligent aide. “Consider: Why does a ship, or any chunk of wood, float on the water?”
“Because—because it is lighter than water. Too light to sink.”
“Ah. Very true.” Gray smiled, and tapped the paper with his finger. “Now, when all the air has been exhausted from these metal spheres—experiments have already shown me that air indeed has weight—when the weight of this whole apparatus is thus made less than the weight of an equal volume of air, what will this flying craft do?”
“It will weigh less than air?” Yes, it all sounded mad; but Rolf despite
himself felt some enthusiasm grawing for this mad scheme. Wild as Gray’s ideas were, they somehow began to feel right in Rolf’s mind.
Gray spoke more rapidly, pleased that someone could halfway understand him. “Air is very light, true. But nothingness is lighter still. I tell you, the ancients made the idea work. Are you ready to try it with me, young technologist? I will need quick hands to help me and a quick mind, too, perhaps; Thomas tells me you have both, and I believe him. Of course you will help, you are ordered to. But are you really with me in this enterprise?”
Rolf took the time to give the question honest thought. “I am.”
Gray nodded. With a flourish, then, he beckoned to his balancing staff-that sprang lightly through the air into his hand. “Be silent for a moment now, while I evoke the djinn. He is an odd creature, even of his kind, irascible and not well-meaning. But he must labor for us, though he cares nothing for East or West, or for any man or demon.”
The calling-up was accomplished with quick confidence. After making a few controlled gestures over the array of toy tools and drawn lines, Gray uttered in a low rapid voice words that Rolf could not quite hear. Fire appeared in the air before the wizard, with a belching of soot and acrid smoke, and accompanied by a sound of rapid pounding, as by unseen, crude and heavy implements. The voice of the djinn rolled forth, sounding one moment like splintering wood, the next like clashing metal. “I come as bidden, master. What is your command?”
Gray unrolled his sketch and held it forth toward the flaming image of the djinn, meanwhile intoning:
“I first let be created four such great hollow spheres such as you see represented here—“
The djinn’s voice hammered, interrupting. “You let be? That means you do not hinder?”
Asperity was in Gray’s voice. “It means that I command! I order you to do it, and be quick! The specifications for the globes are as follows...”
The djinn did not dispute him further, but maintained its sooty glow in silence, evidently listening. A moment after Gray had finished detailing his order, there appeared from nowhere four crude blocks of metal, each half as big as a man. In another moment the blocks were glowing hot. At once there arose a mighty screeching, and a banging as of invisible hammers.
The few soldiers who had been standing in the middle distance, watching, were being joined momentarily by ever-growing numbers of their fellows, drawn by the prospect of seeing something spectacularly unusual in the way of magic. The camp had doubtless heard by now several versions of what had happened at the meeting in Thomas’s tent. Rolf, for his part, backed up a few paces, and considered putting his fingers in his ears to dull the noise. The blocks of metal glowed incandescent and expanded under the powerful working of the djinn. They stretched out and up into enormous sheets of fiery metal, which then began to curve themselves, perfectly and surely, into spheres.
When the spheres, each the size of a small house, were almost completely closed, the djinn left them to cool on the sand. Meanwhile he received from Gray the specifications for the platform of the flying device, and for the ropes and sails and their attachments.
“So I let it be done!” Gray concluded.
The djinn began to work again, extruding from its smoke long coils of twine. And as it worked, it grumbled. “Just so you understand that it is I am gathering all the stuffs and doing all the work that you are letting. It does not come from nothingness, you know.”
“Nothingness,” said Gray sharply, “is what I want inside the spheres—when the craft is finished, we are aboard, and all’s in readiness for flight. Then will I give you the order to empty them and seal them.”
The djinn emitted a burst of noise somewhat like the working of a broken sawmill. It took Rolf a little time to understand that this was laughter. “Nothingness! You do not know what you are ordering—beg pardon, what you are letting, master.”
“Contrary dolt!” A vein now stood upon Gray’s forehead. Rolf made a prudent mental note that the wizard was not notably long on patience. Gray went on: “By nothingness I mean a lack of air, a vacuum, nullity; such as you yourself will soon become if you irritate me too sorely!”
The djinn evidently did not regard the threat as idle, for the work did pick up speed, and for the time being at least there were no further grumblings. What seemed to be a multitude of invisible hands spun twine into stout ropes, and fastened ropes to the basket as it was fabricated. It was of a size to hold three or four people without crowding, with a waist-high rim all round, woven of tough, flexible withes, and seemingly very light. Each corner of the square basket was secured with several ropes to one of the great metal spheres. Their overshadowing bulks creaked as they cooled, and all but hid the basket from observation. At Gray’s direction, a central mast was now stepped in, and sails and pennants made and stowed folded in the bottom of the basket. Water and provisions, from more commonplace sources, went in also.
Full night had come when Gray was satisfied that all was in readiness for flight. He himself was the first to step into the basket, with a somewhat cautious scissoring of his long legs. “Now master Rolf, if you will.” And Rolf, feeling almost evenly balanced between eagerness and reluctance, hopped nimbly aboard.
Thomas and several others had drawn near, to wish the voyagers well and to observe at close range whatever might happen next. When the last word of encouragement had been called in between the surrounding metal globes, Gray gestured for silence. Facing the smoky glow of the djinn’s image, he swept his pointing hand to one after another of the four spheres as he cried out: “Now, let there be exhausted from them all the air and other vapors, and let them then be sealed shut!”
A quartet of hissing noises suddenly surrounded the basket, issuing from the four orifices left in the spheres. Rolf felt his hair stirred by one of the jets of air. Tensely he gripped the basket’s railing, waiting for the first surge of flight.
And almost at once the four enormous globes did stir themselves. But not to rise. Instead, as their hissings began to be drowned out by ringings and portentous metal groans, they rolled from side to side on the sand, they lurched and crumpled and deformed themselves. The sphere in front of Rolf seemed to be struck by some giant and invisible mace; it sounded a deafening clang as it drew into itself a vast dent that bent its surface to its center. Then all four spheres, in a great blacksmith’s uproar of tortured metal, were shrivelling and flattening like so many fruit-husks thrown into a fire. As their obscuring bulks shrank down, Rolf saw Thomas and others tumbling away with as little thought of dignity or face as they would have shown before an enemy ambush that caught them unarmed. Rolf had one leg over the basket rim again, and would have fled himself, but one direction looked as perilous as another. Meanwhile the basket stayed firmly seated on the sand, only swaying with Gray’s vociferous anger. The wizard spouted words at a tremendous rate, while Rolf dodged this way and that to avoid his gesturing arms.
Silence returned as suddenly as it had fled. The metal spheres, now reduced to shrunken, twisted wads of scrap, were still. Gray’s speech faltered and ran down, and for the moment silence was complete. There quickly ensued a murmur of laughter from part of the watching army, a murmur that dissolved before it could grow too large, when Gray swept his glare around him like a weapon. The dim masses of people beyond the torchlight began to scatter and drift off; a number of them, once they had got some distance away, seemed compelled to utter muted whooping noises.
Thomas and others, drawing near once more, spitting dust and brushing it from their clothes, did not seem much amused. But none of them dared yet say anything to Gray.
Gray drew in a big breath, and shouted one more outburst at the djinn. Its flaming, fuming scroll flared on apparently unperturbed.
“Oh great master,” it answered in its clattering voice, “such a curse as you have just delivered would pain me like the grip of Zapranoth—if I were in fact such a disobedient traitor as you say I am. But, as things are, I feel no ill effects. I have followed y
our instructions to the letter.”
“Ahhg! Technology!” Gray flung down his arms. He climbed out of the basket, in his excitement of disgust catching his foot on the rim and nearly falling. Lowering his voice, he said to those nearby: “It speaks the truth. Technology! How can any man who means to keep his sanity go far in such an art?”
Rolf, having got out of the basket too, was thinking. Hesitantly he asked: “Can I put questions to this djinn?”
“Why not?” Gray snapped, as if answering only with the easiest thing to say.
Rolf turned to address the fiery image. “You, there. What made the balls crumple up like that?”
There was a brief silence, as if the djinn were assessing its new questioner. Then with a clatter the answer came: “Little master, they crumpled because the air was taken out of them.”
“Why?”
“Why not? The outside air pushed in with all its weight, and there was only thin metal to resist it.”
Gray had spoken of his experiments, showing that air had weight. The wizard looked uncomfortable, but with a sharp motion of his head he signed Rolf to go on with his questioning.
Rolf considered. It seemed to him that Gray’s theory was basically correct: a machine made lighter than air should rise in air, as wood rose in water; and air most certainly had weight. But obviously there were traps and dangers awaiting the technologist.
Rolf asked Gray: “Must it speak the truth to us?”
“Yes.” Gray sighed. “But not the whole truth; that’s the catch. Go on, go on, ask it more. Perhaps you have a better head for this than I.”
Rolf took thought, tried to put from his mind the fact that everyone present was watching and listening to him, and faced the djinn again. “Suppose you make the walls of the globes thicker and stronger. That should keep them from being crushed when you take out the air.”
“You are right,” said the djinn immediately. “Shall I rebuild them so?”
“And would they still be light enough, when emptied, to lift us and the basket with them?”
Empire of the East Trilogy Page 24