“Please, stay with us! Your music is difficult and different, but exciting and new. You can’t imagine how nice it is to be able to play something else besides those same two lousy, stinking songs.”
Jon-Tom found an unoccupied chair and sank gratefully onto the seat. “I don’t get your problem. You play well. No, you play superbly, all of you. I know clubs in L.A. that would sign you in a minute.” He grinned knowingly. “Places where your appearance wouldn’t even draw stares.”
The weasel bent double to examine himself. “Appearance? What’s wrong with our appearance?”
“If you hate those two songs, why do you keep playing them over and over? Can’t you reprise some of the stuff I just showed you?”
Mournful looks were exchanged, of which the gibbon’s was the most expressive. “No, we can’t.” He readied his ukulele. “This is a contemporary sea chantey, lively and brisk. A favorite with visiting sailors. By popular demand we used to play it half a dozen times every evening.” His finger dipped to strum the strings of the heavily varnished mellowood instrument.
No sound emerged. Not an off-key plunk, not a fragment of a melody; nothing.
Jon-Tom stared. He could see the gibbon’s fingers moving, see the strings of his instrument bend and vibrate, but nothing disturbed his hearing. There was no music.
“How are you doing that?”
“I’m not doing it.” The slender simian sighed soulfully as he paused. “Something’s doing it to me.” He indicated his companions. “Doing it to all musicians, everywhere. These past several months we’ve met with and shared conversation with many fellow performers. All are suffering as we are.”
“You zee why we call it a curze.” The serval fondly caressed his instrument. “And it zeemz to be zpreading, getting worze.”
“It started quite slowly,” added the wallaby. “At first you’d just lose a phrase or a chord here and there. Then whole passages would prove unplayable. Your fingers moved properly, and your lips and hands, but no music came forth. We’d play songs with unexpected, increasingly lengthy interrupts.”
“Made for zome awkward movez on the dance floor,” the serval recalled.
“Eventually we started losing entire arrangements, then whole songs.” The weasel put his lips around the mouthpiece of his attenuated double flute and blew affectionately. A single lonely, forlorn B-sharp drifted forth like a melancholy honeybee heading hiveward at the end of a long day’s work.
“That’s why we’re down to two songs.” Like all of them, the wallaby was obviously suffering under the strain. “Soon now I expect we’ll lose one of those, or so much of it that it’ll become unplayable, like the others.”
“Eventually we’ll lose it all.” The gibbon tucked his uke under one long arm. “Musicians without music. That means no music, no song for anyone. Every other group we’ve talked with these past months, even wandering soloists, are suffering from the same terrible, inexplicable plague.”
The wallaby’s eyes suddenly widened and he pointed. “What’s that?”
Floating in from outside, the cloud of lost chords had paused to hover slightly behind and above Jon-Tom’s right shoulder. Glittering like a bushel of pink diamonds suspended in a glass barrel filled with mineral oil, it chimed softly.
“Sorcery.” Clearly uncomfortable, the gibbon took a step back from Jon-Tom, who hastened to reassure them.
“I told you I was a spellsinger. This is magic, yes, but not of my doing. It has nothing to do with the troubles you’re having.”
Taking courage and unable to restrain his curiosity, the weasel edged forward to examine the drifting mass more closely. “It doesn’t sound like a very happy bit of music.”
“It’s not. I think it’s in search of help, very anxious to get somewhere, and to have company along the way. We’re letting it lead us.” He smiled gently. “I’ve let music lead me most of my life.”
“A wandering melody.” Entranced, the gibbon reached tentatively for the cloud. It emitted a soft ring of suspicion as it darted back behind Jon-Tom’s head. “How do you know there’s no connection? We’ve all of us lost music, and here you are with a piece of same.”
“Maybe it belongz to another unhappy, worried muzician zomewhere,” the serval suggested.
Jon-Tom blinked. Here was a connection too obvious to ignore, one that at the very least deserved further consideration.
“We’ve no way of knowing that.”
“Why not just ask it?” The gibbon continued to move closer to the cloud, which kept dodging around behind Jon-Tom.
“Ask it?
“Why not? I talk to my instrument all the time.”
“Yeah, and when you’ve had too much happy juice, sometimes it even answers.” The wallaby chuckled.
Jon-Tom glanced self-consciously back over his shoulder. “Well? Are you connected to the disappearance of everyone else’s music. Are your condition and theirs related?” As they had been doing for weeks the chords chimed softly, with no special emphasis or force. It could hardly be considered a response.
“I suppose that’s open to interpretation.” The weasel looked disappointed.
“Not exactly conclusive,” the wallaby added dubiously.
“A plague.” The gibbon strummed his silent ukulele. “It’s spreading, making musicless the whole world, and no one can do anything about it. Soon we’ll be forced to consider new professions.”
“I can’t imagine being anything but a musician,” the wallaby observed.
“Nor I,” the serval admitted.
“Dammit, I love music!” Despite the laughter and merriment that filled the tavern, the weasel appeared on the verge of tears.
“None of these tavern trawlers you see making merry here complain because they all know about the plague.” The gibbon’s arm moved to encompass the swirling crowd. “They’re just grateful we have as much as two songs left. How they, how everyone will react when the last of the music is gone, I don’t know.” He eyed the ringing cloud wistfully. “Imagine a world without music.”
“But what’s happened to it?” Jon-Tom eyed them each in turn. “Where’s it all going?”
“Going?” The weasel shrugged helplessly. “We don’t know that it’s ‘going’ anywhere. It’s simply fading away. You can’t even bang out a rude tune on the underside of a metal pot. As soon as it starts to sound like music, it evaporates.”
“All of it.” The gibbon studied Jon-Tom’s face. “All, it would seem, except yours.” He indicated the duar. “Your music seems unaffected.”
“I come from a far, far-off land. One untouched by this plague.”
“How do you know?” The weasel sniffed. “You said that you’ve been traveling for a long time, through very empty country. How do you know what music is vanishing from your homeland?”
Jon-Tom started to reply, stopped cold. The weasel spoke truly. He had no idea what was happening back in the Bellwoods. For all he knew, this curse, or plague, or whatever one chose to call the scourge, had infected the musical life of that region as insidiously and thoroughly as it had Mashupro and the rest of the Karrakas. He tried to envision lively Lynchbany void of music in its public places and taverns, tried to imagine the main square without the raucous cacophony of its amateur performers and traveling minstrels. It was a sobering thought.
What was happening to all the music? Was every tune and melody in the world being sucked into some sort of musical graveyard or dumping ground?
“I can’t worry about the whole world,” he finally declaimed. “Right now Mudge and I are tracking this one group of chords. That’s enough to concentrate on. We’re also trying to help half a dozen prin—persons of importance to return to their homes. I can’t worry about any music but my own.”
The gibbon wasn’t buying it. “I don’t believe you for a minute, human. Spellsinger or not, you’re a true musician. You must be concerned.”
“What will you do when it begins to affect you?” the weasel pressed him. “How
will you react when you start to play that strange device you carry and no sound comes forth? Not only will you be like us, unable to make music any longer, you won’t be able to make your magic, either.”
“I don’t expect to be affected,” Jon-Tom replied with more assurance than he felt. After all, why should he be exempt? A plague was a plague, whether one was a common traveling minstrel or an exalted spellsinger. Was there some sort of germ that was killing off everyone’s music? Some sort of mutant hermetic virus? What reason did he have to believe he was immune from such an infection? Germs and viruses were no respecters of reputation or position.
Could he spellsing up a musical vaccine? If so, it would be a useful concoction to carry with him on his rare transits back to his own world. He knew all too many people there who were immune to the effects of any kind of music whatsoever.
“We must be on our way,” he finally informed them. “If I was traveling alone I would stay and study the trouble, but there are others depending on me. Perhaps on the return journey I can try and do something.”
The gibbon and his companions looked resigned. “There is nothing we can do to persuade you to linger?” He fingered his uke longingly. “Tonight brought back many memories. Tonight we were makers and masters of music again.”
“Remember some of the songs we played.” Jon-Tom tried to offer some support. “Maybe they’ll hang with you after I’ve left. For a while, anyway.”
The weasel raised his instrument and blew a few cautious, experimental notes. Emerging from a double flute, “Pinball Wizard” sounded somewhat muted, but oddly appealing. It had winsome overtones Pete Townshend doubtless never envisioned.
“There!” Jon-Tom felt better, less like he was abandoning these new friends and colleagues to a despondent and uncertain fate.
The gibbon had to wipe away a tear. He was certainly the sentimental type, Jon-Tom mused.
“It’s a great gift, the gift of music. We thank you for it, for as long as it will last. Though we’d rather have our own melodies restored.” A murmur of agreement rose from his companions.
“String it out, be thrifty with the songs I’ve left you. When I’ve seen these ladies returned to their families, I’ll come back this way and do what I can to help. That’s a promise.” Behind Jon-Tom the lost chords sang softly—aural perfume.
There were handshakes and back claps all around. He might differ in shape from them, Jon-Tom reflected as he took his leave and went in search of Mudge, but what they shared went far deeper than mere appearance. Music was the most exclusive of all languages, and none understood it better than those who spoke it professionally.
The otter wasn’t at the table where Jon-Tom had left him. Somewhat to his surprise, Pivver of Trenku still was. Aleaukauna occupied Mudge’s former seat. Both princesses had decorated the tips of each whisker with silver glitter.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Nor did Pivver much care, Jon-Tom decided from the tone of her voice. “He was trying to demonstrate his capacity for liquid imbibulation, but his insides betrayed him.”
“Several times.” Aleaukauna took a ladylike sip from her long-stemmed goblet.
“As you might imagine, at that point my interest in his company began to wane.” Pivver had very long eyelashes, Jon-Tom noted, a not uncommon trait among female otters. “There’s nothing like grooming fresh vomit out of your fur to tell you that an evening is not proceeding as hoped.”
Poor Mudge, Jon-Tom thought. His appetites often got the better of him. “Where’d he go?”
“How should I know? I don’t occupy my thoughts with the comings and goings of commoners.”
Lifting his gaze, Jon-Tom resumed his search of the room. “It’s just that when he’s not entirely sober he has a tendency to get into trouble.”
“I fail to see any difference. He struck me as equally unhinged before he’d had a single drink, though a good deal cleaner.”
Further inquiries yielded the news that the otter had last been seen wending his way outside. A worried Jon-Tom made his way toward the entrance. If his friend took a tumble off the raised wooden walkway, he’d float like a cork … unless he struck his head on something on the way down. Extraordinary swimmers though they were, otters were no more immune to drowning than an unconscious bird was to succumbing to the blandishments of gravity.
“Mudge!” The moon had crossed the noon of night and had commenced its languid descent westward. A small fishing boat was heading seaward, splitting the calm mirror of water between Mashupro and its protective barrier islet. Moving to the inadequate, rickety railing, Jon-Tom leaned over and searched the water which lapped gently at the tavern’s moss-stained, barnacle-encrusted pilings.
“Mudge, where are you?”
The otter’s voice reached him, but not from below. Turning to his left, he saw his friend clinging to a post supporting the porch of a building south of the rowdy tavern. Despite the racket from within and the distance between, the otter’s slurred bellowing was clearly audible. Given their present situation, his choice of words qualified as something less than diplomatic.
“You’re all a pack o’ miserable stinkin’ useless muckers! Can’t even walk from one place to another. Got to ’ave your bleedin’ ’ouses do it for you! This ’as got to be the crummiest, sorriest, filthiest, smelliest, est-est excuse for a town I’ve ever seen in me ’ole bloody life, and I’ve seen plenty of shit’oles in me time, I ’ave!” He lifted the bottle gripped in his right hand, clinging to the pole with his left. “’Ere’s to bleedin’ Mashupro, the screen at the bottom o’ the world’s cesspool!” Upending the bottle, he scarfed a glassful, then blinked up at the figure that was suddenly towering over him.
“Oi. ’Ello, mate.” He offered the all but empty container. “’Ave a nip?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough for one night?” Though he was boiling inside, Jon-Tom kept his voice calm, reasonable.
“Enough for one night.” Feathered cap askew, the otter struggled to cerebrate this majestic aphorism, finally delivering himself of the conclusion that it was too deep for him and besides, wasn’t it a lovely evening, what with no wind and all three moons in the sky? “There’s only one,” Jon-Tom patiently corrected him. “What’s got you so ticked off at Mashupro? It’s no worse than many towns we’ve passed through. Damper, maybe, but no worse.”
The otter goggled up at him. “Mate! ’Ow can you say that? Why, there’s no pride o’ place ’ere, none at all.” He semaphored wildly with the bottle, forcing Jon-Tom to flinch away from one wild swing. “They don’t even pave their bleedin’ roads!”
“There are no roads here, Mudge,” Jon-Tom reminded him. “It’s all water, remember? Everyone uses boats.”
“Boats? Water?” Thoroughly bemused (not to mention beclouded, befogged, and blitzed), the otter turned to gawk over a railing. “Aha! See wot I’ve been tryin’ to tell you? The bloody befouled streets ’ere don’t even ’ave drains!”
Worried that the flimsy railing might snap under his friend’s weight, Jon-Tom put a hand on the otter’s shoulder. Mudge responded by whirling belligerently and backing away.
“’Ere now; we’ll ’ave none o’ that!”
“Mudge, you need to lie down.”
“Oi, is that a fact, now? When did you become my keeper, man?”
“I’m not your keeper, Mudge. I’m your friend. I’ve been your friend for a long time, remember?” It struck him suddenly that something was troubling the otter, something that had nothing to do with the state or status of the local municipality. “What’s bothering you, Mudge?”
“Nothin’s botherin’ me, mate. Not me! Nothin’.” He hesitated, swaying on his short legs. “’Tis only that…”
“’Tis only what, Mudge?”
Turning away, the otter leaned heavily on the railing. It creaked alarmingly, but held. It was a good twenty feet to the water below, dangerously flecked with the stumps of old pilings. Small craft bobbed at their moo
rings. If he fell, his landing might not be soft.
“’Tis that Puffer, the princess o’ me very own tribe.”
“Pivver,” Jon-Tom corrected him softly. “What about her? You’ve been hitting on her ever since we got clear of that Manzai.”
The otter turned uncharacteristically sad, soulful eyes on his companion. “Wot a way with words you ’umans ’ave. Jonny-Toms, she’s as comely a member o’ me own kind as ever I set eyes upon.”
“I’ve seen enough of otters to know better than to disagree with you.”
“Too bloody right, mate. If only it weren’t for this rotten bastard excuse of a town …”
The walkway shimmied slightly underfoot, forcing Jon-Tom to wave his arms to keep his balance. He hadn’t imagined the tremor. The planking had actually risen and dropped back several inches.
As Mudge continued his inebriated harangue, Jon-Tom risked a cautious glance over the rail. Were those pilings shifting even as he watched, stirring concentric ripples in the murky brine?
“… and I succeeded, mate!”
Jon-Tom looked from the otter back toward the tavern. “Succeeded?”
Stumbling close, the otter grasped the lower edge of his friend’s sweat-soaked shirt. “I mean she were willin’, mate. Willin’, ’ell! She were bloomin’ ready, she were.” Gently Jon-Tom disengaged from the otter’s grip.
“So what happened?”
“I couldn’t. For the first time in me life, I couldn’t.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Jon-Tom said carefully, not at all sure that he wanted to.
“I tried not to. Believe me, mate, I tried! But all I could think of when I should’ve been attendin’ to business was those bedamned cubs and that naggin’, overbearin’, sharp-as-a-razor voiced female I share me burrow with.”
“Weegee.”
The otter fixed him with a furious stare. “Did I ask you to mention ’er name, mate? Did I ask you?” He tried to shove his face right up into Jon-Tom’s but was thwarted by the fact that he was nearly two feet shorter.
“Why, Mudge! It’s hard to believe, but damned if I don’t think you’ve acquired some morals. Must have been when I wasn’t looking,” he added thoughtfully.
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