When I read the first of the Harry Potter books parts of it reminded me of the following story. I doubt that J. K. Rowling has read this story, so I can't imagine it served as any inspiration, but it goes to show how great minds think alike. Except that in the case of Ted Cogswell it was fifty years ago. Cogswell (1918-87) was an American author and academic, who was refreshingly challenging. His fiction, of which there is all too little, was always original, clever and ingenious. His best work will be found in the story collections The Wall Around the World (1962) and The Third Eye (1968).
The wall that went all the way around the world had always been there, so nobody paid much attention to it - except Porgie.
Porgie was going to find out what was on the other side of it - assuming there was another side - or break his neck trying. He was going on fourteen, an age that tends to view the word impossible as a meaningless term invented by adults for their own peculiar purposes. But he recognized that there were certain practical difficulties involved in scaling a glassy-smooth surface that rose over 1,000 feet straight up. That's why he spent a lot of time watching the eagles.
This morning, as usual, he was late for school. He lost time finding a spot for his broomstick in the crowded rack in the school yard, and it was exactly six minutes after the hour as he slipped guiltily into the classroom.
For a moment, he thought he was safe. Old Mr Wickens had his back to him and was chalking a pentagram on the blackboard.
But just as Porgie started to slide into his seat, the schoolmaster turned and drawled, "I see Mr Mills has finally decided to join us."
The class laughed, and Porgie flushed.
"What's your excuse this time, Mr Mills?"
"I was watching an eagle," said Porgie lamely.
"How nice for the eagle. And what was he doing that was of such great interest?"
"He was riding up on the wind. His wings weren't flapping or anything. He was over the box canyon that runs into the east wall, where the wind hits the wall and goes up. The eagle just floated in circles, going higher all the time. You know, Mr Wickens, I'll bet if you caught a whole bunch of eagles and tied ropes to them, they could lift you right up to the top of the wall!"
"That," said Mr Wickens, "is possible — if you could catch the eagles. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll continue with the lecture. When invoking Elementals of the Fifth Order, care must be taken to…"
Porgie glazed his eyes and began to think up ways and means to catch some eagles.
The next period, Mr Wickens gave them a problem in Practical Astrology. Porgie chewed his pencil and tried to work on it, but couldn't concentrate. Nothing came out right - and when he found he had accidentally transposed a couple of signs of the zodiac at the very beginning, he gave up and began to draw plans for eagle traps. He tried one, decided it wouldn't work, started another—
"Porgie!"
He jumped. Mr Wickens, instead of being in front of the class, was standing right beside him. The schoolmaster reached down, picked up the paper Porgie had been drawing on, and looked at it. Then he grabbed Porgie by the arm and jerked him from his seat.
"Go to my study!"
As Porgie went out the door, he heard Mr Wickens say, "The class is dismissed until I return!"
There was a sudden rush of large-, medium-, and small-sized boys out of the classroom. Down the corridor to the front door they pelted, and out into the bright sunshine. As they ran past Porgie, his cousin Homer skidded to a stop and accidentally on purpose jabbed an elbow into his ribs. Homer, usually called "Bull Pup" by the kids because of his squat build and pugnacious face, was a year older than Porgie and took his seniority seriously.
"Wait'll I tell Dad about this. You'll catch it tonight!" He gave Porgie another jab and then ran out into the schoolyard to take command of a game of Warlock.
Mr Wickens unlocked the door to his study and motioned Porgie inside. Then he shut and locked it carefully behind him. He sat down in the high-backed chair behind his desk and folded his hands.
Porgie stood silently, hanging his head, filled with that helpless guilty anger that comes from conflict with superior authority.
"What were you doing instead of your lesson?" Mr Wickens demanded.
Porgie didn't answer.
Mr Wickens narrowed his eyes. The large hazel switch that rested on top of the bookcase beside the stuffed owl lifted lightly into the air, drifted across the room, and dropped into his hand.
"Well?" he said, tapping the switch on the desk.
"Eagle traps," admitted Porgie. "I was drawing eagle traps. I couldn't help it. The wall made me do it."
"Proceed."
Porgie hesitated for a moment. The switch tapped. Porgie burst out, "I want to see what's on the other side! There's no magic that will get me over, so I've got to find something else!"
Tap, went the switch. "Something else?"
"If a magic way was in the old books, somebody would have found it already!"
Mr Wickens rose to his feet and stabbed one bony finger accusingly at Porgie. "Doubt is the mother of damnation!"
Porgie dropped his eyes to the floor and wished he was somewhere else.
"I see doubt in you. Doubt is evil, Porgie, evil! There are ways permitted to men and ways forbidden. You stand on the brink of the fatal choice. Beware that the Black Man does not come for you as he did for your father before you. Now, bend over!"
Porgie bent. He wished he'd worn a heavier pair of pants.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes, sir," said Porgie sadly.
Mr Wickens raised the switch over his head. Porgie waited. The switch slammed - but on the desk.
"Straighten up," Mr Wickens said wearily. He sat down again. "I've tried pounding things into your head, and I've tried pounding things on your bottom, and one end is as insensitive as the other. Porgie, can't you understand that you aren't supposed to try and find out new things? The Books contain everything there is to know. Year by year, what is written in them becomes clearer to us."
He pointed out the window at the distant towering face of the wall that went around the world. "Don't worry about what is on the other side of that! It may be a place of angels or a place of demons - the Books do not tell us. But no man will know until he is ready for that knowledge. Our broomsticks won't climb that high, our charms aren't strong enough. We need more skill at magic, more understanding of the strange unseen forces that surround us. In my grandfather's time, the best of the broomsticks wouldn't climb over 100 feet in the air. But Adepts in the Great Tower worked and worked until now, when the clouds are low, we can ride right up among them. Some day we will be able to soar all the way to the top of the wall—"
"Why not now?" Porgie asked stubbornly. "With eagles."
"Because we're not ready" Mr Wickens snapped. "Look at mind-talk. It was only thirty years ago that the proper incantations were worked out, and even now there are only a few who have the skill to talk across the miles by just thinking out their words. Time, Porgie - it's going to take time. We were placed here to learn the Way, and everything that might divert us from the search is evil. Man can't walk two roads at once. If he tries, he'll split himself in half."
"Maybe so," said Porgie. "But birds get over the wall, and they don't know any spells. Look, Mr Wickens, if everything is magic, how come magic won't work on everything? Like this, for instance—"
He took a shiny quartz pebble out of his pocket and laid it on the desk.
Nudging it with his finger, he said:
The stone didn't move.
"You see, sir? If words work on broomsticks, they should work on stones, too."
Mr Wickens stared at the stone. Suddenly it quivered and jumped into the air.
"That's different," said Porgie. "You took hold of it with your mind. Anybody can do that with little things. What I want to know is why the words won't work by themselves."
"We just don't know enough yet," said Mr Wickens impatiently. He released the stone and it clicked on the desktop. "Every year we learn a little more. Maybe by your children's time we'll find the incantation that will make everything lift." He sniffed. "What do you want to make stones fly for, anyhow? You get into enough trouble just throwing them."
Porgie's brow furrowed. "There's a difference between making a thing do something, like when I lift it with my hand or mind, and putting a spell on it so it does the work by itself, like a broomstick."
There was a long silence in the study as each thought his own thoughts.
Finally Mr Wickens said, "I don't want to bring up the unpleasant past, Porgie, but it would be well to remember what happened to your father. His doubts came later than yours - for a while he was my most promising student - but they were just as strong."
He opened a desk drawer, fumbled in it for a moment, and brought out a sheaf of papers yellow with age. "This is the paper that damned him: 'An Enquiry into Non-Magical Methods of Levitation'. He wrote it to qualify for his Junior Adeptship." He threw the paper down in front of Porgie as if the touch of it defiled his fingers.
Porgie started to pick it up.
Mr Wickens roared, "Don't touch it! It contains blasphemy!"
Porgie snatched back his hand. He looked at the top paper and saw a neat sketch of something that looked like a bird - except that it had two sets of wings, one in front and one in back.
Mr Wickens put the papers back in the desk drawer. His disapproving eyes caught and held Porgie's as he said, "If you want to go the way of your father, none of us can stop you." His voice rose sternly, "But there is one who can… Remember the Black Man, Porgie, for his walk is terrible! There are fires in his eyes and no spell may defend you against him. When he came for your father, there was darkness at noon and a high screaming. When the sunlight came back, they were gone - and it is not good to think where."
Mr Wickens shook his head as if overcome at the memory and pointed towards the door. "Think before you act, Porgie. Think well!"
Porgie was thinking as he left, but more about the sketch in his father's paper than about the Black Man.
The orange crate with the two boards across it for wings had looked something like his father's drawing, but appearances had been deceiving. Porgie sat on the back steps of his house feeling sorry for himself and alternately rubbing two tender spots on his anatomy. Though they were at opposite ends, and had different immediate causes, they both grew out of the same thing. His bottom was sore as a result of a liberal application of his uncle's hand. His swollen nose came from an aerial crack-up.
He'd hoisted his laboriously contrived machine to the top of the woodshed and taken a flying leap in it. The expected soaring glide hadn't materialized. Instead, there had been a sickening fall, a splintering crash, a momentary whirling of stars as his nose banged into something hard.
He wished now he hadn't invited Bull Pup to witness his triumph., because the story'd got right back to his uncle - with the usual results.
Just to be sure the lesson was pounded home, his uncle had taken away his broomstick for a week - and just so Porgie wouldn't sneak out, he'd put a spell on it before locking it away in the closet.
"Didn't feel like flying, anyway," Porgie said sulkily to himself, but the pretence wasn't strong enough to cover up the loss. The gang was going over to Red Rocks to chase bats as soon as the sun went down, and he wanted to go along.
He shaded his eyes and looked towards the western wall as he heard a distant halloo of laughing voices. They were coming in high and fast on their broomsticks. He went back to the woodshed so they wouldn't see him. He was glad he had when they swung low and began to circle the house yelling for him and Bull Pup. They kept hooting and shouting until Homer flew out of his bedroom window to join them.
"Porgie can't come," he yelled. "He got licked and Dad took his broom away from him. Come on, gang!"
With a quick looping climb, he took the lead and they went hedge-hopping off towards Red Rocks. Bull Pup had been top dog ever since he got his big stick. He'd zoom up to 500 feet, hang from his broom by his knees and then let go. Down he'd plummet, his arms spread and body arched as if he were making a swan dive - and then, when the ground wasn't more than 100 feet away, he'd call and his broomstick would arrow down after him and slide between his legs, lifting him up in a great sweeping arc that barely cleared the treetops.
"Show-off!" muttered Porgie and shut the woodshed door on the vanishing stick-riders.
Over on the workbench sat the little model of paper and sticks that had got him into trouble in the first place. He picked it up and gave it a quick shove into the air with his hands. It dived towards the floor and then, as it picked up speed, tilted its nose towards the ceiling and made a graceful loop in the air. Levelling off, it made a sudden veer to the left and crashed against the woodshed wall. A wing splintered.
Porgie went to pick it up. Maybe what works for little things doesn't work for big ones, he thought sourly. The orange crate and the crossed boards had been as close an approximation of the model as he had been able to make. Listlessly, he put the broken glider back on his workbench and went outside. Maybe Mr Wickens and his uncle and all the rest were right. Maybe there was only one road to follow.
He did a little thinking about it and came to a conclusion that brought forth a secret grin. He'd do it their way - but there wasn't any reason why he couldn't hurry things up a bit. Waiting for his grandchildren to work things out wasn't getting him over the wall.
Tomorrow, after school, he'd start working on his new idea, and this time maybe he'd find the way.
In the kitchen, his uncle and aunt were arguing about him. Porgie paused in the hall that led to the front room and listened.
"Do you think I like to lick the kid? I'm not some kind of an ogre. It hurt me more than it hurt him."
"I notice you were able to sit down afterwards," said Aunt Olga dryly.
"Well, what else could I do? Mr Wickens didn't come right out and say so, but he hinted that if Porgie didn't stop mooning around, he might be dropped from school altogether. He's having an unsettling effect on the other kids. Damn it, Olga, I've done everything for that boy I've done for my own son. What do you want me to do, stand back and let him end up like your brother?"
"You leave my brother out of this! No matter what Porgie does, you don't have to beat him. He's still only a little boy."
There was a loud snort. "In case you've forgotten, dear, he had his thirteenth birthday last March. He'll be a man pretty soon."
"Then why don't you have a man-to-man talk with him?"
"Haven't I tried? You know what happens every time. He gets off with those crazy questions and ideas of his and I lose my temper and pretty soon we're back where we started." He threw up his hands. "I don't know what to do with him. Maybe that fall he had this afternoon will do some good. I think he had a scare thrown into him that he won't forget for a long time. Where's Bull Pup?"
"Can't you call him Homer? It's bad enough having his friends call him by that horrible name. He went out to Red Rocks with the other kids. They're having a bat hunt or something."
Porgie's uncle grunted and got up. "I don't see why that kid can't stay at home at night for a change. I'm going in the front room and read the paper."
Porgie was already there, flipping the pages of his schoolbooks and looking studious. His uncle settled down in his easy chair, opened his paper, and lit his pipe. He reached out to put the charred match in the ashtray, and as usual the ashtray wasn't there.
"Damn that Woman," he muttered to himself and raised his voice: "Porgie."
"Yes, Uncle Veryl?"
"Bring me an ashtray from the kitchen, will you please? Your aunt has them all out there again."
"Sure thing." said Porgie and shut his eyes. He thought of the kitchen until a picture of it was crystal-clear in his mind. The beaten copper ashtray was sitting beside the sink where his aunt had left it after she had washed it out. He squinted the little eye inside his head, stared hard at the copper bowl, and whispered:
Simultaneously he lifted with his mind. The ashtray quivered and rose slowly into the air.
Keeping it firmly suspended, Porgie quickly visualized the kitchen door and the hallway and drifted it through.
"Porgie!" came his uncle's angry voice.
Porgie jumped, and there was a crash in the hallway outside as the bowl was suddenly released and crashed to the floor.
"How many times have I told you not to levitate around the house? If it's too much work to go out to the kitchen, tell me and I'll do it myself."
"I was just practising," mumbled Porgie defensively.
"Well, practise outside. You've got the walls all scratched up from banging things against them. You know you shouldn't fool around with telekinesis outside sight range until you've mastered full visualization. Now go and get me that ashtray."
Crestfallen, Porgie went out the door into the hall. When he saw where the ashtray had fallen, he gave a silent whistle. Instead of coming down the centre of the hall, it had been 3 feet off course and heading directly for the hall table when he let it fall. In another second, it would have smashed into his aunt's precious black alabaster vase.
"Here it is, Uncle," he said, taking it into the front room. "I'm sorry."
His uncle looked at his unhappy face, sighed and reached out and tousled his head affectionately.
"Buck up, Porgie. I'm sorry I had to paddle you this afternoon. It was for your own good. Your aunt and I don't want you to get into any serious trouble. You know what folks think about machines." He screwed up his face as if he'd said a dirty word. "Now, back to your books - we'll forget all about what happened today. Just remember this, Porgie: if there's anything you want to know, don't go fooling around on your own. Come and ask me, and we'll have a man-to-man talk."
Porgie brightened. "There's something I have been wondering about."
"Yes?" said his uncle encouragingly.
"How many eagles would it take to lift a fellow high enough to see what was on the other side of the wall?"
Uncle Veryl counted to ten - very slowly.
The next day Porgie went to work on his new project. As soon as school was out, he went over to the public library and climbed upstairs to the main circulation room.
"Little boys are not allowed in this section," the librarian said. "The children's division is downstairs."
"But I need a book," protested Porgie. "A book on how to fly."
"This section is only for adults."
Porgie did some fast thinking. "My uncle can take books from here, can't he?"
"I suppose so."
"And he could send me over to get something for him, couldn't he?"
The librarian nodded reluctantly.
Porgie prided himself on never lying. If the librarian chose to misconstrue his questions, it was her fault, not his.
"Well, then," he said, "do you have any books on how to make things fly in the air?"
"What kind of things?"
"Things like birds."
"Birds don't have to be made to fly. They're born that way."
"I don't mean real birds," said Porgie. "I mean birds you make."
"Oh, Animation. Just a second, let me visualize." She shut her eyes and a card catalogue across the room opened and shut one drawer after another. "Ah, that might be what he's looking for," she murmured after a moment, and concentrated again. A large brass-bound book came flying out of the stacks and came to rest on the desk in front of her. She pulled the index card out of the pocket in the back and shoved it towards Porgie. "Sign your uncle's name here."
He did and then, hugging the book to his chest, got out of the library as quickly as he could.
By the time Porgie had worked three-quarters of the way through the book, he was about ready to give up in despair. It Was all grown-up magic. Each set of instructions he ran into either used words he didn't understand or called for unobtainable ingredients like powdered unicorn horns and the blood of redheaded female virgins.
He didn't know what a virgin was - all his uncle's encyclopedia had to say on the subject was that they were the only ones who could ride unicorns - but there was a redhead by the name of Dorothy Boggs who lived down the road a piece. He had a feeling, however, that neither she nor her family would take kindly to a request for 2 quarts of blood, so he kept on searching through the book. Almost at the very end he found a set of instructions he thought he could follow.
It took him two days to get the ingredients together. The only thing that gave him trouble was finding a toad; the rest of the stuff, though mostly nasty and odoriferous, was obtained with little difficulty. The date and exact time of the experiment was important and he surprised Mr Wickens by taking a sudden interest in his Practical Astrology course.
At last, after laborious computations, he decided everything was ready.
Late that night, he slipped out of bed, opened his bedroom door a crack, and listened. Except for the usual night noises and resonant snores from Uncle Veryl's room, the house was silent. He shut the door carefully and got his broomstick from the closet - Uncle Veryl had relented about that week's punishment.
Silently he drifted out through his open window and across the yard to the woodshed.
Once inside, he checked carefully to see that all the windows were covered. Then he lit a candle. He pulled a loose floorboard up and removed the book and his assembled ingredients. Quickly, he made the initial preparations.
First there was the matter of moulding the clay he had taken from the graveyard into a rough semblance of a bird. Then, after sticking several white feathers obtained from last Sunday's chicken into each side of the figure to make wings, he anointed it with a noxious mixture he had prepared in advance.
The moon was just setting behind the wall when he began the incantation. Candlelight flickered on the pages of the old book as he slowly and carefully pronounced the difficult words.
When it came time for the business with the toad, he almost didn't have the heart to go through with it; but he steeled himself and did what was necessary. Then, wincing, he jabbed his forefinger with a pin and slowly dropped the requisite three drops of blood down on the crude clay figure. He whispered:
Breathlessly he waited. He seemed to be in the middle of a circle of silence. The wind in the trees outside had stopped and there was only the sound of his own quick breathing. As the candlelight rippled, the clay figure seemed to quiver slightly as if it were hunching for flight.
Porgie bent closer, tense with anticipation. In his mind's eye, he saw himself building a giant bird with wings powerful enough to lift him over the wall around the world. Swooping low over the schoolhouse during recess, he would wave his hands in a condescending gesture of farewell, and then as the kids hopped on their sticks and tried to follow him, he would rise higher and higher until he had passed the ceiling of their brooms and left them circling impotently below him. At last he would sweep over the wall with hundreds of feet to spare, over it and then down — down into the great unknown.
The candle flame stopped flickering and stood steady and dear. Beside it, the clay bird squatted, lifeless and motionless.
Minutes ticked by and Porgie gradually saw it for what it was - a smelly clod of dirt with a few feathers tucked in it. There were tears in his eyes as he picked up the body of the dead toad and said softly, "I'm sorry."
When he came in from burying it, he grasped the image of the clay bird tightly in his mind and sent it swinging angrily around the shed. Feathers fluttered behind it as it flew faster and faster until in disgust he released it and let it smash into the rough boards of the wall. It crumbled into a pile of foul-smelling trash and fell to the floor. He stirred it with his toe, hurt, angry, confused.
His broken glider still stood where he had left it on the far end of his workbench. He went over and picked it up.
"At least you flew by yourself," he said, "and I didn't have to kill any poor little toads to make you."
Then he juggled it in his hand, feeling its weight, and began to wonder. It had occurred to him that maybe the wooden wings on his big orange-box glider had been too heavy.
Maybe if I could get some long, thin poles, he thought, and some cloth to put across the wings…
During the next three months, there was room in Porgie's mind for only one thing: the machine he was building in the roomy old cave at the top of the long hill on the other side of Arnett's grove. As a result, he kept slipping further and further behind at school.
Things at home weren't too pleasant, either; Bull Pup felt it was his duty to keep his parents fully informed of Porgie's shortcomings. Porgie didn't care, though. He was too busy. Every minute he could steal was spent in either collecting materials or putting them together.
The afternoon the machine was finally finished, he could hardly tear himself away from it long enough to go home for dinner. He was barely able to choke down his food, and didn't even wait for dessert.
He sat on the grass in front of the cave, waiting for darkness. Below, little twinkling lights marked the villages that stretched across the plain for a full 40 miles. Enclosing them like encircling arms stretched the dark and forbidding mass of the wall. No matter where he looked, it stood high against the night. He followed its curve with his eyes until he had turned completely around, and then he shook his fist at it.
Patting the ungainly mass of the machine that rested on the grass beside him, he whispered fiercely, "I'll get over you yet. Old Eagle here will take me!"
Old Eagle was an awkward, boxkite-like affair; but to Porgie she was a thing of beauty. She had an uncovered fuselage composed of four long poles braced together to make a rectangular frame, at each end of which was fastened a large wing.
When it was dark enough, he climbed into the open frame and reached down and grabbed hold of the two lower members. Grunting, he lifted until the two upper ones rested under his armpits. There was padding there to support his weight comfortably once he was airborne. The bottom of the machine was level with his waist and the rest of him hung free. According to his thinking, he should be able to control his flight by swinging his legs. If he swung forward, the shifting weight should tilt the nose down; if he swung back, it should go up.
There was only one way to find out if his ifs were right. The Eagle was a heavy contraption. He walked awkwardly to the top of the hill, the cords standing out on his neck. He was scared as he looked down the long steep slope that stretched out before him - so scared that he was having trouble breathing. He swallowed twice in a vain attempt to moisten his dry throat, and then lunged forward, fighting desperately to keep his balance as his wobbling steps gradually picked up speed.
Faster he went, and faster, his steps turning into leaps as the wing surfaces gradually took hold. His toes scraped through the long grass and then they were dangling in free air.
He was aloft.
Not daring even to move his head, he slanted his eyes down and to the left. The earth was slipping rapidly by a dozen feet below him. Slowly and cautiously, he swung his feet back. As the weight shifted, the nose of the glider rose. Up, up he went, until he felt a Sudden slowing down and a clumsiness of motion. Almost instinctively, he leaned forward again, pointing the nose down in a swift dip to regain flying speed.
By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, he was 150 feet up. Experimentally, he swung his feet a little to the left. The glider dipped slightly and turned. Soaring over a clump of trees, he felt a sudden lifting as an updraught caught him.
Up he went - 10, 20, 30 feet - and then slowly began to settle again.
The landing wasn't easy. More by luck than by skill, he came down in the long grass of the meadow with no more damage than a few bruises. He sat for a moment and rested, his head spinning with excitement. He had flown like a bird, without his stick, without uttering a word. There were other ways than magic!
His elation suddenly faded with the realization that, while gliding down was fun, the way over the wall was up. Also, and of more immediate importance, he was half a mile from the cave with a contraption so heavy and unwieldy that he could never hope to haul it all the way back up the hill by himself. If he didn't get it out of sight by morning, there was going to be trouble, serious trouble. People took an unpleasant view of machines and those who built them.
Broomsticks, he decided, had certain advantages, after all. They might not fly very high, but at least you didn't have to walk home from a ride.
If I just had a great big broomstick, he thought, I could lift the Eagle up with it and fly her home.
He jumped to his feet. It might work!
He ran back up the hill as fast as he could and finally, very much out of breath, reached the entrance of the cave. Without waiting to get back his wind, he jumped on his stick and flew down to the stranded glider.
Five minutes later, he stepped back and said:
It didn't fly. It couldn't. Porgie had lashed it to the framework of the Eagle. When he grabbed hold of the machine and lifted, nine-tenths of its weight was gone, cancelled out by the broomstick's lifting power.
He towed it back up the hill and shoved it into the cave. Then he looked uneasily at the sky. It was later than he had thought. He should be home and in bed — but when he thought of the feeling of power he had had in his flight, he couldn't resist hauling the Eagle back out again.
After checking the broomstick to be sure it was still fastened tightly to the frame, he went swooping down the hill again. This time when he hit the thermal over the clump of trees, he was pushed up 100 feet before he lost it. He curved through the darkness until he found it again and then circled tightly within it. Higher he went and higher, higher than any broomstick had ever gone!
When he started to head back, though, he didn't have such an easy time of it. Twice he was caught in downdraughts that almost grounded him before he was able to break loose from the tugging winds. Only the lifting power of his broomstick enabled him to stay aloft. With it bearing most of the load, the Eagle was so light that it took just a flutter of air to sweep her up again.
He landed the glider a stone's throw from the mouth of his cave.
Tomorrow night! he thought exultantly as he unleashed his broomstick. Tomorrow night!
There was a tomorrow night, and many nights after that. The Eagle was sensitive to every updraught, and with care he found he could remain aloft for hours, riding from thermal to thermal. It was hard to keep his secret, hard to keep from shouting the news, but he had to. He slipped out at night to practise, slipping back in again before sunrise to get what sleep he could.
He circled the day of his fourteenth birthday in red and waited. He had a reason for waiting.
In the world within the wall, fourteenth birthdays marked the boundary between the little and the big, between being a big child and a small man. Most important, they marked the time when one was taken to the Great Tower where the Adepts lived and given a full-sized broomstick powered by the most potent of spells, sticks that would climb to a full 600 feet, twice the height that could be reached by the smaller ones the youngsters rode.
Porgie needed a man-sized stick, needed that extra power, for he had found that only the strongest of updraughts would lift him past the 300-foot ceiling where the lifting power of his little broomstick gave out. He had to get up almost as high as the wall before he could make it across the wide expanse of flat plain that separated him from the box canyon where the great wind waited.
So he counted the slowly passing days and practised flying during the rapidly passing nights.
The afternoon of his fourteenth birthday found Porgie sitting on the front steps expectantly, dressed in his best and waiting for his uncle to come out of the house. Bull Pup came out and sat down beside him.
"The gang's having a coven up on top of old Baldy tonight," he said. "Too bad you can't come."
"I can go if I want to," said Porgie.
"How?" said Bull Pup and snickered. "You going to grow wings and fly? Old Baldy's 500 feet up and your kid stick won't lift you that high."
"Today's my birthday."
"You think you're going to get a new stick?"
Porgie nodded.
"Well, you ain't. I heard Mom and Dad talking. Dad's mad because you flunked Alchemy. He said you had to be taught a lesson."
Porgie felt sick inside, but he wouldn't let Bull Pup have the satisfaction of knowing it.
"I don't care," he said. "I'll go to the coven if I want to. You just wait and see."
Bull Pup was laughing when he hopped on his stick and took off down the street. Porgie waited an hour, but his uncle didn't come out.
He went into the house. Nobody said anything about his new broomstick until after supper. Then his uncle called him into the living room and told him he wasn't getting it.
"But, Uncle Veryl, you promised!"
"It was a conditional promise, Porgie. There was a big if attached to it. Do you remember what it was?"
Porgie looked down at the floor and scuffed one toe on the worn carpet. "I tried."
"Did you really, son?" His uncle's eyes were stern but compassionate. "Were you trying when you fell asleep in school today? I've tried talking with you and I've tried whipping you and neither seems to work. Maybe this will. Now you run upstairs and get started on your studies. When you can show me that your marks are improving, we'll talk about getting you a new broomstick. Until then, the old one will have to do."
Porgie knew that he was too big to cry, but when he got to his room he couldn't help it. He was stretched out on his bed with his face buried in the pillows when he heard a hiss from the window. He looked up to see Bull Pup sitting on his stick, grinning malevolently at him.
"What do you want?" sniffed Porgie.
"Only little kids cry," said Bull Pup.
"I wasn't crying. I got a cold."
"I just saw Mr Wickens. He was coming out of that old cave back of Arnett's grove. He's going to get the Black Man, I'll bet."
"I don't know anything about that old cave," said Porgie, sitting bolt upright on his bed.
"Oh, yes, you do. I followed you up there one day. You got a machine in there. I told Mr Wickens and he gave me a quarter. He was real interested."
Porgie jumped from his bed and ran towards the window, his face red and his fists doubled. "I'll fix you!" Bull Pup backed his broomstick just out of Porgie's reach, and then stuck his thumbs in his ears and waggled his fingers. When Porgie started to throw things, he gave a final taunt and swooped away towards old Baldy and the coven.
Porgie's uncle was just about to go out in the kitchen and fix himself a sandwich when the doorbell rang. Grumbling, he went out into the front hall. Mr Wickens was at the door. He came into the house and stood blinking in the light. He seemed uncertain as to just how to begin.
"I've got bad news for you," he said finally. "It's about Porgie. Is your wife still up?"
Porgie's uncle nodded anxiously. "She'd better hear this, too."
Aunt Olga put down her knitting when they came into the living room.
"You're out late, Mr Wickens."
"It's not of my own choosing."
"Porgie's done something again," said his uncle.
Aunt Olga sighed. "What is it this time?"
Mr Wickens hesitated, cleared his throat, and finally spoke in a low, hushed voice: "Porgie's built a machine. The Black Man told me. He's coming after the boy tonight."
Uncle Veryl dashed up the stairs to find Porgie. He wasn't in his room.
Aunt Olga just sat in her chair and cried shrilly.
The moon stood high and silver-lit the whole countryside. Porgie could make out the world far below him almost as if it were day. Miles to his left, he saw the little flickering fires on top of old Baldy where the kids were holding their coven. He fought an impulse and then succumbed to it. He circled the Eagle over a clump of trees until the strong rising currents lifted him almost to the height of the wall. Then he twisted his body and banked over towards the distant red glowing fires.
Minutes later, he went silently over them at 800 feet, feeling out the air currents around the rocks. There was a sharp down-draught on the far side of Baldy that dropped him suddenly when he glided into it, but he made a quick turn and found untroubled air before he fell too far. On the other side, towards the box canyon, he found what he wanted, a strong, rising current that seemed to have no upward limits.
He fixed its location carefully in his mind and then began to circle down towards the coven. Soon he was close enough to make out individual forms sitting silently around their little fires.
"Hey, Bull Pup," he yelled at the top of his lungs.
A stocky figure jumped to its feet and looked wildly around for the source of the ghostly voice.
"Up here!"
Porgie reached in his pocket, pulled out a small pebble and chucked it down. It cracked against a shelf of rock 4 feet from Bull Pup. Porgie's cousin let out a howl of fear. The rest of the kids jumped up and reared back their heads at the night sky, their eyes blinded by firelight.
"I told you I could come to the coven if I wanted to," yelled Porgie, "but now I don't. I don't have any time for kid stuff; I'm going over the wall!"
During his last pass over the plateau he wasn't more than 30 feet up. As he leaned over, his face was clearly visible in the firelight.
Placing one thumb to his nose, he waggled his fingers and chanted, "Nyah, nyah, nyah, you can't catch me!"
His feet were almost scraping the ground as he glided over the drop-off. There was an anxious second of waiting and then he felt the sure, steady thrust of the up-current against his wings.
He looked back. The gang was milling around, trying to figure out what had happened. There was an angry shout of command from Bull Pup, and after a moment of confused hesitation they all made for their brooms and swooped up into the air.
Porgie mentally gauged his altitude and then relaxed. He was almost at their ceiling and would be above it before they reached him.
He flattened out his glide and yelled, "Come on up! Only little kids play that low!"
Bull Pup's stick wouldn't rise any higher. He circled impotently, shaking his fist at the machine that rode serenely above him.
"You just wait," he yelled. "You can't stay up there all night. You got to come down some time, and when you do, we'll be waiting for you."
"Nyah, nyah, nyah," chanted Porgie and mounted higher into the moonlit night.
When the updraught gave out, he wasn't as high as he wanted to be, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He turned and started a flat glide across the level plain towards the box canyon. He wished now that he had left Bull Pup and the other kids alone. They were following along below him. If he dropped down to their level before the canyon winds caught him, he was in trouble.
He tried to flatten his glide still more, but instead of saving altitude. he went into a stall that dropped him 100 feet before he was able to regain control. He saw now that he could never make it without dropping to Bull Pup's level.
Bull Pup saw it, too, and let out an exultant yell: "Just you wait! You're going to get it good!"
Porgie peered over the side into the darkness where his cousin rode, his pug face gleaming palely in the moonlight.
"Leave him alone, gang," Bull Pup shouted. "He's mine!"
The rest pulled back and circled slowly as the Eagle glided quietly down among them. Bull Pup darted in and rode right alongside Porgie.
He pointed savagely towards the ground: "Go down or I'll knock you down!"
Porgie kicked at him, almost upsetting his machine. He wasn't fast enough. Bull Pup dodged easily. He made a wide circle and came back, reaching out and grabbing the far end of the Eagle's front wing. Slowly and maliciously, he began to jerk it up and down, twisting violently as he did so.
"Get down," he yelled, "or I'll break it off!"
Porgie almost lost his head as the wrenching threatened to throw him out of control.
"Let go!" he screamed, his voice cracking.
Bull Pup's face had a strange excited look on it as he gave the wing another jerk. The rest of the boys were becoming frightened as they saw what was happening.
"Quit it. Bull Pup!" somebody called. "Do you want to kill him?"
"Shut up or you'll get a dose of the same!"
Porgie fought to clear his head. His broomstick was tied to the frame of the Eagle so securely that he would never be able to free it in time to save himself. He stared into the darkness until he caught the picture of Bull Pup's broomstick sharply in his mind. He'd never tried to handle anything that big before, but it was that or nothing.
Tensing suddenly, he clamped his mind down on the picture and held it hard. He knew that words didn't help, but he uttered them anyway:
There was a sharp tearing pain in his head. He gritted his teeth held on, fighting desperately against the red haze that threatened to swallow him. Suddenly there was a half-startled, half-frightened squawk from his left wingtip, and Bull Pup's stick jerked to an abrupt halt, gyrating so madly that its rider could hardly hang on.
''All right, the rest of you," screamed Porgie. "Get going or I'll do the same thing to you!"
They got, arcing away in terrified disorder. Porgie watched as they formed a frightened semicircle around the blubbering Bull Pup. With a sigh of relief, he let go with his mind. As he left them behind in the night, he turned his head back and yelled weakly, "Nyah, nyah, nyah, you can't catch me!" He was only 50 feet off the ground when he glided into the far end of the box canyon and was suddenly caught by the strong updraught. As he soared in a tight spiral, he slumped down against the arm-rests, his whole body shaking in delayed reaction. The lashings that held the front wing to the frame were dangerously loose from the manhandling they had received. One more tug and the whole wing might have twisted back, dumping him down on the sharp rocks below. Shudders ran through the Eagle as the supports shook in their loose bonds. He clamped both hands around the place where the rear wing spar crossed the frame and tried to steady it.
He felt his stick's lifting power give out at 300 feet. The Eagle felt clumsy and heavy, but the current was still enough to carry him slowly upwards. Foot by foot he rose towards the top of the wall, losing a precious 100 feet once when he spiralled out of the updraught and had to circle to find it. A wisp of cloud curled down from the top of the wall and he felt a moment of panic as he climbed into it.
Momentarily, there was no left or right or up or down. Only damp whiteness. He had the feeling that the Eagle was falling out of control; but he kept steady, relying on the feel for the air he had got during his many practice flights. The lashings had loosened more. The full strength of his hands wasn't enough to keep the wing from shuddering and trembling.
He struggled resolutely to maintain control of ship and self against the strong temptation to lean forward and throw the Eagle into a shallow dive that would take him back to normalcy and safety.
He was almost at the end of his resolution when with dramatic suddenness he glided out of the cloud into the clear moon-touched night. The up-current under him seemed to have lessened. He banked in a gentle arc, trying to find the centre of it again.
As he turned, he became aware of something strange, something different, something almost frightening. For the first time in his life, there was no wall to block his vision, no vast black line stretching through the night.
He was above it!
There was no time for looking. With a loud ping, one of the lashings parted and the leading edge of the front wing flapped violently. The glider began to pitch and yaw, threatening to nose over into a plummeting dive. He fought for mastery, swinging his legs like desperate pendulums as he tried to correct the erratic side swings that threatened to throw him out of control. As he fought, he headed for the wall.
If he were to fall, it would be on the other side. At least he would cheat old Mr Wickens and the Black Man.
Now he was directly over the wall. It stretched like a wide road underneath him, its smooth top black and shining in the moonlight. Acting on quick impulse, he threw his body savagely forward and to the right. The ungainly machine dipped abruptly and dived towards the black surface beneath it.
Eighty feet, 70, 60, 50 - he had no room to manoeuvre, there would be no second chance - 30, 20—
He threw his weight back, jerking the nose of the Eagle suddenly up. For a precious second the wings held, there was a sharp breaking of his fall; then, with a loud, cracking noise, the front wing buckled back in his face. There was a moment of blind whirling fall and a splintering crash that threw him into darkness.
Slowly, groggily, Porgie pulled himself up out of the broken wreckage. The Eagle had made her last flight. She perched precariously, so near the outside edge of the wall that part of her rear wing stretched out over nothingness.
Porgie crawled cautiously across the slippery wet surface of the top of the wall until he reached the centre. There he crouched down to wait for morning. He was exhausted, his body so drained of energy that in spite of himself he kept slipping into an uneasy sleep.
Each time he did, he'd struggle back to consciousness trying to escape the nightmare figures that scampered through his brain. He was falling, pursued by wheeling, batlike figures with pug faces. He was in a tiny room and the walls were inching in towards him and he could hear the voice of Bull Pup in the distance chanting, "You're going to get it." And then the room turned into a long, dark corridor and he was running. Mr Wickens was close behind him, and he had long, sharp teeth and he kept yelling, "Porgie! Porgie!"
He shuddered back to wakefulness, crawled to the far edge of the wall and, hanging his head over, tried to look down at the outside world. The clouds had boiled up and there was nothing underneath him but grey blankness hiding the sheer 1,000-foot drop. He crawled back to his old spot and looked towards the east, praying for the first sign of dawn. There was only blackness there.
He started to doze off again and once more he heard the voice: "Porgie! Porgie!"
He opened his eyes and sat up. The voice was still calling, even though he was awake. It seemed to be coming from high up and far away.
It came closer, closer, and suddenly he saw it in the darkness - a black figure wheeling above the wall like a giant crow. Down it came, nearer and nearer, a man in black with arms outstretched and long fingers hooked like talons!
Porgie scrambled to his feet and ran, his feet skidding on the slippery surface. He looked back over his shoulder. The black figure was almost on top of him. Porgie dodged desperately and slipped.
He felt himself shoot across the slippery surface towards the edge of the wall. He clawed, scrabbling for purchase. He couldn't stop. One moment he felt wet coldness slipping away under him; the next, nothingness as he shot out into the dark and empty air.
He spun slowly as he fell. First the clouds were under him and then they tipped and the star-flecked sky took their places. He felt cradled, suspended in time. There was no terror. There was nothing.
Nothing - until suddenly the sky above him was blotted out by a plummeting black figure that swooped down on him, hawk-like and horrible.
Porgie kicked wildly. One foot slammed into something solid and for an instant he was free. Then strong arms circled him from behind and he was jerked out of the nothingness into a world of falling and fear.
There was a sudden strain on his chest and then he felt himself being lifted. He was set down gently on the top of the wall.
He stood defiant, head erect, and faced the black figure.
"I won't go back. You can't make me go back."
"You don't have to go back, Porgie."
He couldn't see the hooded face, but the voice sounded strangely familiar.
"You've earned your right to see what's on the other side," it said. Then the figure laughed and threw back the hood that partially covered its face.
In the bright moonlight, Porgie saw Mr Wickens!
The schoolmaster nodded cheerfully. "Yes, Porgie, I'm the Black Man. Bit of a shock, isn't it?"
Porgie sat down suddenly.
"I'm from the Outside," said Mr Wickens, seating himself carefully on the slick black surface. "I guess you could call me a sort of observer."
Porgie's spinning mind couldn't catch up with the new ideas that were being thrown at him. "Observer?" he said uncomprehendingly. "Outside?"
"Outside. That's where you'll be spending your next few years. I don't think you'll find life better there, and I don't think you'll find it worse. It'll be different, though, I can guarantee that." He chuckled. "Do you remember what I said to you in my office that day - that man can't follow two paths at once, that mind and nature are bound to conflict? That's true, but it's also false. You can have both, but it takes two worlds to do it.
"Outside, where you're going, is the world of the machines. It's a good world, too. But the men who live there saw a long time ago that they were paying a price for it; that control over nature meant that the forces of the mind were neglected, for the machine is a thing of logic and reason, but miracles aren't. Not yet. So they built the wall and they placed people within it and gave them such books and such laws as would ensure development of the powers of the mind. At least they hoped it would work that way - and it did."
"But - but why the wall?" asked Porgie.
"Because their guess was right. There is magic." He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. "Lift it, Porgie."
Porgie stared at it until he had the picture in his mind and then let his mind take hold, pulling with invisible hands until the keys hung high in the air. Then he dropped them back into Mr Wickens's hand.
"What was that for?"
"Outsiders can't do that," said the schoolmaster. "And they can't do conscious telepathy - what you call mind-talk — either. They can't because they really don't believe such things can be done. The people inside the wall do, for they live in an atmosphere of magic. But once these things are worked out, and become simply a matter of training and method, then the ritual, the mumbo-jumbo, the deeply ingrained belief in the existence of supernatural forces will be no longer necessary.
"These phenomena will be only tools that anybody can be trained to use, and the crutches can be thrown away. Then the wall will come tumbling down. But until then" - he stopped and frowned in mock severity — "there will always be a Black Man around to see that the people inside don't split themselves up the middle trying to walk down two roads at once."
There was a lingering doubt in Porgie's eyes. "But you flew without a machine."
The Black Man opened his cloak and displayed a small, gleaming disc that was strapped to his chest. He tapped it. "A machine, Porgie. A machine, just like your glider, only of a different sort and much better. It's almost as good as levitation. Mind and nature… magic and science… they'll get together eventually."
He wrapped his cloak about him again. "It's cold up here. Shall we go? Tomorrow is time enough to find out what is outside the wall that goes around the world."
"Can't we wait until the clouds lift?" asked Porgie wistfully. "I'd sort of like to see it for the first time from up here."
"We could," said Mr Wickens, "but there is somebody you haven't seen for a long time waiting for you down there. If we stay up here, he'll be worried."
Porgie looked up blankly. "I don't know anybody Outside. I—" He stopped suddenly. He felt as if he were about to explode. "Not my father!"
"Who else? He came out the easy way. Come, now, let's go and show him what kind of man his son has grown up to be. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," said Porgie.
"Then help me drag your contraption over to the other side of the wall so we can drop it inside. When the folk find the wreckage in the morning, they'll know what the Black Man does to those who build machines instead of tending to their proper business. It should have a salutary effect on Bull Pup and the others."
He walked over to the wreckage of the Eagle and began to tug at it.
"Wait," said Porgie. "Let me." He stared at the broken glider until his eyes began to burn. Then he gripped and pulled.
Slowly, with an increasing consciousness of mastery, he lifted until the glider floated free and was rocking gently in the slight breeze that rippled across the top of the great wall. Then, with a sudden shove, he swung it far out over the abyss and released it.
The two stood silently, side by side, watching the Eagle pitch downwards on broken wings. When it was lost in the darkness below, Mr Wickens took Porgie in his strong arms and stepped confidently to the edge of the wall.
"Wait a second," said Porgie, remembering a day in the schoolmaster's study and a switch that had come floating obediently down through the air. "If you're from Outside, how come you can do lifting?"
Mr Wickens grinned. "Oh, I was born Inside. I went over the Wall for the first time when I was just a little older than you are now."
"In a glider?" asked Porgie.
"No," said the Black Man, his face perfectly sober. "I went out and caught myself a half-dozen eagles."