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Authors: James Blish
Tags: Science-Fiction
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aircraft, and though he was fully as wealthy as the
industrialist – in fact most of the money had once been Baines’s – it seemed wholly unlikely that any airline was selling
tickets these days. A sea and overland journey would be too slow.
Would it be possible to compel A STAROTH to provide him with some kind of an apport? This too was a terrifying thought. To the best of Ware’s knowledge; the last
magician to have ridden astride a devil had been Gerbert, back in the tenth century. He had resorted to it only to save his
life from a predecessor of the Inquisition, whose attention he had amply earned; and, moreover, had lived through the ordeal
to become Pope Sylvester II.
Gerbert had been a great man, and though Ware rather doubted that he had been any better a magician than Ware was, he did
not feel prepared to try that conclusion just now. In any event, the process was probably unnecessarily drastic; transvection
might serve the purpose just as well, or better. Though he had never been to a sabbat, he knew the theory and the particulars
well enough. Included in the steel cabinets which held his magical pharmacopoeia were all the ingredients necessary for the
flying ointment, and the compounding of it required no special time or ritual. As for piloting and navigation, that was to
be sure a little alarming to anticipate, but if thousands upon thousands of ignorant old women had been able to fly a cleft
stick, a distaff, a besom or even a shovel upon the first try, then so could Theron Ware.
First, however, he drew from the cabinet a flat slab of synthetic ruby, about the size and shape of an opened match folder;
and from his cabinet of instruments, a burin. Upon the ruby, on the day of Mars, which is Tuesday, and in the hour of Mars,
which is 0600. 1300, 2000 or 0300 on hat day, he would engrave the following seal and characters:
This he would henceforth carry in his right shirt pocket, like a reliquary. Though he would accept no help from A STAROTH if he could possibly avoid it, it would be well since he was going to be travelling in that fiend’s domains, to be wearing
his colours. As a purist, it bothered him a little that the ruby was synthetic, but his disturbance, he knew, was only an
aesthetic one. A STAROTH was a solar spirit, and the ancients, all the way through Albertus Magnus, had believed that rubies were engendered in the
Earth by the influence of the Sun – but since they were not in fact formed that way, the persistence of the ruby in the ritual
was only another example of one of the primary processes of magic,
superstiiion,
the gradual supremacy of the sign over the thing, so that so far as efficacy was concerned it did not matter a bit whether
the ruby was synthetic or natural. Nature, too, obstinately refused to form rubies the size and shape of opened match folders.
For a magician, Ware reflected, there were indeed distinct advantages in being able to practise ten centuries after Gerbert
had ridden upon his demon eagle.
7
Transvection, too, has its hazards, Ware discovered. He crossed the Atlantic without incident in well under three hours –
indeed, he suspected that in some aspect beyond the reach of his senses, the flight was taking place only partially in real
time – and it began to look as though he would easily reach his goal before dawn. The candle affixed by its own tallow to
the bundle of twigs and rushes before him (for only the foolhardy fly a broomstick with the brush trailing, no matter what
is shown to the contrary in conventional Halloween cartoons) burned as steadily as though he were not in motion at all, casting
a brilliant light ahead along his path; any ships at sea that might have seen him might have taken him to be an unusually
brilliant meteor. As he approached the eastern United States, he wondered how he would show up on radar; the dropping of the
bomb two days ago suggested that there might still be a number of
industrialist – in fact most of the money had once been Baines’s – it seemed wholly unlikely that any airline was selling
tickets these days. A sea and overland journey would be too slow.
Would it be possible to compel A STAROTH to provide him with some kind of an apport? This too was a terrifying thought. To the best of Ware’s knowledge; the last
magician to have ridden astride a devil had been Gerbert, back in the tenth century. He had resorted to it only to save his
life from a predecessor of the Inquisition, whose attention he had amply earned; and, moreover, had lived through the ordeal
to become Pope Sylvester II.
Gerbert had been a great man, and though Ware rather doubted that he had been any better a magician than Ware was, he did
not feel prepared to try that conclusion just now. In any event, the process was probably unnecessarily drastic; transvection
might serve the purpose just as well, or better. Though he had never been to a sabbat, he knew the theory and the particulars
well enough. Included in the steel cabinets which held his magical pharmacopoeia were all the ingredients necessary for the
flying ointment, and the compounding of it required no special time or ritual. As for piloting and navigation, that was to
be sure a little alarming to anticipate, but if thousands upon thousands of ignorant old women had been able to fly a cleft
stick, a distaff, a besom or even a shovel upon the first try, then so could Theron Ware.
First, however, he drew from the cabinet a flat slab of synthetic ruby, about the size and shape of an opened match folder;
and from his cabinet of instruments, a burin. Upon the ruby, on the day of Mars, which is Tuesday, and in the hour of Mars,
which is 0600. 1300, 2000 or 0300 on hat day, he would engrave the following seal and characters:
This he would henceforth carry in his right shirt pocket, like a reliquary. Though he would accept no help from A STAROTH if he could possibly avoid it, it would be well since he was going to be travelling in that fiend’s domains, to be wearing
his colours. As a purist, it bothered him a little that the ruby was synthetic, but his disturbance, he knew, was only an
aesthetic one. A STAROTH was a solar spirit, and the ancients, all the way through Albertus Magnus, had believed that rubies were engendered in the
Earth by the influence of the Sun – but since they were not in fact formed that way, the persistence of the ruby in the ritual
was only another example of one of the primary processes of magic,
superstiiion,
the gradual supremacy of the sign over the thing, so that so far as efficacy was concerned it did not matter a bit whether
the ruby was synthetic or natural. Nature, too, obstinately refused to form rubies the size and shape of opened match folders.
For a magician, Ware reflected, there were indeed distinct advantages in being able to practise ten centuries after Gerbert
had ridden upon his demon eagle.
7
Transvection, too, has its hazards, Ware discovered. He crossed the Atlantic without incident in well under three hours –
indeed, he suspected that in some aspect beyond the reach of his senses, the flight was taking place only partially in real
time – and it began to look as though he would easily reach his goal before dawn. The candle affixed by its own tallow to
the bundle of twigs and rushes before him (for only the foolhardy fly a broomstick with the brush trailing, no matter what
is shown to the contrary in conventional Halloween cartoons) burned as steadily as though he were not in motion at all, casting
a brilliant light ahead along his path; any ships at sea that might have seen him might have taken him to be an unusually
brilliant meteor. As he approached the eastern United States, he wondered how he would show up on radar; the dropping of the
bomb two days ago suggested that there might still be a number of
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