by neetha Napew
“That’s right, fatso. I’ve defeated demons with powers beyond your comprehension, have freed wandering perambulators to cavort openly between the stars, have battled otherworldly sorcerers and whole armies of plated folk. Now take your weakling minions and begone, lest I loose my wrath on you all!”
As a threat it was magnificently purple, but ineffective. The guinea pig gestured with the knife, twisting the blade through the air.
“How about if I loose the blood in your veins? Since your throat is out of reach, I think I’ll start on your legs.”
“A short serenade is in order then.” Jon-Tom launched into song. Months of practice in the tree while the world around him lay blanketed in cold and snow had made him proficient. As the first notes emerged from the duar there was the taste of magic in the air.
He’d chosen the song carefully. It was designed to turn the intruders’ own weapons against them. This it did. Unfortunately, it did so with the unpredictable selectivity that Jon-Tom had come to know at his peril. There were several weapons for the magic to fasten upon: the battle-axe of the wolf, the knife of the guinea pig, the sword of the civet cat. In addition to his sword, the civet cat also possessed a natural weapon which was much superior to all the other weapons in the room combined. This consisted of the skunk-like glands that flanked its anus. It was this weapon which the spellsong loosed against thieves and innocents alike as the dining room was flooded with the most awful stink imaginable.
Flinging aside his formidable axe, the wolf put both hands over his mouth and raced for the far doorway. Knife raised, the guinea pig halted as though he’d run fiat out into a brick wall, bent over and began heaving his dinner all over the floor. Also his lunch, breakfast and the undigested remnants of a previous day’s salad. As the only one in the room capable of standing his own effluvia, the civet cat grabbed his leader by the collar and began dragging him in the wolf’s wake.
Meanwhile Clothahump had retreated back into his shell to take advantage of what little protection it afforded him from this pernicious assault while Sorbl was retching uncontrollably in his bonds. Jon-Tom struggled to segue into a song that sang of sweetness and sugar. He’d defeated the intruders without having to shed a drop of blood, but the victory had proved messy nonetheless.
Civet cat, wolf and guinea pig had fled and he did not think they would soon return. As he sang away the stink his own stomach quieted.
Eventually Clothahump’s head popped out of his shell. Eyes watering, he gingerly extended hands and feet. His words were woozy but complimentary.
“That was very nicely done, my boy. There are no rules in war, but next time it would be better if you could settle on some alternate method of sending our assailants fleeing in panic.” Indecipherable sounds of internal unpleasantness issued from Sorbl’s vicinity. The owl’s feathers were sodden with vomit. The dining room stank of something long dead and only recently exhumed.
Jon-Tom staggered to his mentor on shaky legs. “Sorry, sir. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but with that knife waving at me I didn’t have time to be particular.”
The wizard nodded sagely. “What you have in mind never does seem to be quite what happens. Come, help me with these bindings.” He was struggling to loosen the ropes that bound his shell to the back of the chair, nodded toward a cabinet. “Carving knives in the lower drawer. They will make quicker work of these restraints than my thick fingers.” He glanced back toward the door that led to the hallway and grinned slightly.
“It seems we have seen the last of our robbers. I am sure they will not try to come back.”
“I don’t blame them.” Jon-Tom worked with one hand while holding his nostrils pinched with the fingers of the other. “I’m ready to leave myself.”
Locating the drawer Clothahump had indicated, he chose the largest of the butchering knives within and turned to cut the wizard loose. As he turned around a terrific pain went through his right foot. Neglecting to look where he was stepping, he’d spun right into the upturned blade of the battle-axe the wolf had abandoned in his precipitous flight, with the result that the naked steel had laid open his right slipper from his little toe to his heel. The wound was not deep but was exceedingly painful.
Stumbling, he grabbed for the nearest chair for support. The chair overbalanced and he went down on top of it. As he fell he tried to stabilize himself, but the pain in his foot prevented him from doing so.
He did not worry about striking the floor, did not concern himself with damaging the chair. What troubled him beyond measure was what found itself caught up between his body, the chair and the unyielding floor. A sickening crunch filled the room as he landed. Even Sorbl, until now preoccupied with his own predicament, let out a cry of shock.
Jon-Tom rolled fast to his right, knowing as he did so that it was a futile gesture. It was already too late. Short of reversing time, the damage could not be undone. Nor could it be wished away. He sat up slowly, ignoring his bleeding foot, and stared.
Then he bent to pick up the shattered splinters of his irreplaceable, priceless, silenced duar.
II
The wooden necks had been broken in several places. The resonating chamber resembled a squashed brown melon. Tiny wires and internal pieces of intricate boxwork had been reduced to toothpicks. It was just short of a total loss, a ludicrous parody of the instrument it had been a moment earlier.
Having finally freed himself, Clothahump climbed down off his chair and waddled over to inspect the ruins.
“You wish the benefit of my wizardly mien and my store of experience in such matters?”
Jon-Tom could only nod, speechless. Clothahump fondled several pieces, twirled loose wires around one finger, then looked up at his tall friend. “You sure broke the shit out of it.”
“I don’t need three hundred years of accumulated wisdom to tell me that,” the spellsinger replied sourly.
“Just underscoring the seriousness of what you’ve done. I never saw a human who could fall gracefully.”
“As opposed to a turtle?”
“No need to discuss unrelated matters now. I do not believe it was your fault.”
Jon-Tom was too furious at himself to cry. “You were right the first time. I’m a clumsy slob and I deserve this for not watching where I put my big feet.”
“When you two finish exchanging compliments and commiserations, would one of you mind untying me?” Sorbl struggled in his bonds. “I need about half a dozen baths.”
“A truth from the beak of the unwashed, so to speak. Life never ceases to amaze me.” But despite his sarcasm, Clothahump untied the apprentice himself instead of asking Jon-Tom to do it. “Seven baths, I should say. One would think someone accustomed to exotic smells could control his stomach a bit better.”
“I’m sorry I do not have your control, master.” Sorbl slid out of the chair and tried to shake out his wings. “I think I received the full blast of that cat’s rear end.”
“No excuses. Go and get yourself cleaned up. Your odor is exceeded in unpleasantness only by your appearance. Hurry your cleansing. We now face a much more serious problem than the mere intrusion of some simple robbers. We have a broken duar to deal with.”
As Sorbl departed, walking stiffly, the wizard turned to rejoin Jon-Tom as the tall young man lovingly laid the remnants of his instrument on the dining table.
“I almost wish you’d given them the gold, sir,” he murmured disconsolately.
“I could not do that, Jon-Tom. As I told them, I hoard no gold.” He nudged bits and pieces of the duar with a finger, peering at the debris through his thick glasses.
“What now?” Jon-Tom asked him. “Without the duar I can’t make music, and without music I can’t make magic. Can you fix it, sir?”
“I am a wizard, my boy, not a maker of tootles and tweets. I can shatter mountains. Reassembling them or anything else again is a matter for a different sort of expertise. A simple drum or flute I might repair, but this,” and he gestured at the ta
ble, “is beyond my skills. I am not ashamed to admit this. Such a task is beyond the ability of but a very few unique craftsmen. To make a duar whole again requires the talent of one who understands how the stars sing to each other. I always did have a tin ear, insofar as I have ears at all.”
Jon-Tom could sense what the wizard was leading up to. “It would be too much to hope that someone like that resides in Lynchbany or points nearby, I suppose.”
“Too much by many leagues, I fear. Broken instruments are simple to fix. Broken magic is much more difficult. Something like your duar which combines both is almost impossible to make well again. I know by reputation of only one craftsman who might, I say might, have the mastery to make your instrument whole once more. His name is Couvier Coulb. It is rumored he resides in the town of Strelakat Mews, which lies in the jungle south of far Chejiji.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“Because you have never traveled that far south, my boy. For that matter, neither have I. It is a long journey.”
Jon-Tom sighed. They’d been through this before. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
“Because you have a good memory, not because you are prescient. Chejiji is a seaport on the upper southern shore of the Glittergeist Sea. If you wish your instrument repaired, that is where you will have to go.”
“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.” He sat down in an intact, unvomited-upon chair. “I’ve never gone on a long trip without my duar. How am I going to protect myself?”
“Disconcerting as it seems, it appears you will have to rely upon your fighting skills and your wits.” Jon-Tom couldn’t be sure if the wizard was disparaging one talent or both. “If I have done nothing to sharpen the latter this past year then I have failed as a teacher. Be you magician or spellsinger, sorcerer or cardsharp, necromancer or solicitor, in the final analysis one lives or perishes by one’s wits.”
Jon-Tom summoned a weak smile. “You’ve been a good instructor, sir, and I have learned a lot. It’s just that knowing I’m going to have to find this Couvier Coulb without being able to rely on my spellsinging to help me along the way is pretty scary.”
“It will not be the first time you have faced adversity only to emerge triumphant, my boy. I have confidence in you. Bear in mind that this is not the usual dangerous quest you are about to embark upon but merely a long excursion, as it were. You are simply going to find a repairman to have something fixed. I foresee no dangers lying in wait for you.”
Clothahump’s words cheered him a little. What was he so despondent, so concerned about? He’d undertaken long journeys before, often opposed by supernatural forces. There would be none to harass him this time. He was overreacting.
Still, there was one danger he could not avoid, one that would have to be dealt with immediately.
“How the hell am I going to tell Talea that I have to go away again?”
The wizard smiled ruefully. “That is something, my boy, that you will have to do without any magic to back you up.”
“You’re going wherel No, never mind, I heard you. I don’t understand, but I heard.”
“I have no choice, Talea. Logic says so, Clothahump says so. I don’t want to go, but of what use is a spellsinger without his instrument?”
Watching her stride angrily back and forth in the dimly lit bedroom he found it increasingly difficult to stand up to her. She was wearing the diaphanous gown which had been given to her by the grateful citizens of Ospenspri. It shone like mauve smoke and revealed more of her than it hid. Motile points of crimson light lived io the material and drifted about from place to place like diatoms on the crest of a wave. They tended, for whatever reason, to gravitate to the high points of her body.
She halted in front of the single window. The moonlight enhanced the nearly overpowering effect of the gown and served to unsettle him further.
“Why doesn’t Clothahump go?” she finally whispered.
“Clothahump is the greatest wizard in the world. He doesn’t run errands for students. People run errands for him.”
“Convenient. Sometimes I think all his moaning about his advanced age is so much rot.” As abruptly as it had bubbled forth her anger vanished and she ran to him, holding him close. “I don’t want you to go, Jonny-Tom! You’ve been through so much since you came here. We’ve hardly had any time together at all and now you want to go running off halfway across the world again.”
“Talea “ He put his hands on her cheeks and turned her face up so that he could look into her eyes. “I don’t want to any more than you want me to, but I have to do this. Spellsinging can’t be faked. I have to have that duar repaired.”
“Can’t you try spellsinging with another instrument?”
He shook his head. “I’ve tried. The duar is as much responsible for my success at magic as is my singing. The two are inseparable.”
“Can’t you buy another one, then?”
“There isn’t another one, light of my life. I wish it was that easy. This particular duar has special qualities that, when combined with my singing, allow me to make magic happen. The way the strings weave in and out of reality, the intricate interior of the resonating chamber—it can’t be replaced. Only fixed, and Clothahump can’t fix it. Nor can anyone else in the Bellwoods, or even Polastrindu. I have to find this Couvier Coulb.”
She pressed herself tight against him and the temperature inside the tree rose noticeably. “I don’t want to lose you, Jon-Tom. You stayed inside my mind for almost a year until I found you waiting for me there, and I don’t want to lose you. You’ve gone off on so many of these dangerous journeys that I’m afraid your luck may have run out. Even a retired thief can read the odds, and it’s time for them to turn against you. I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go!” She was sobbing uncontrollably now. He didn’t know whether to push her away, try to comfort her with words of reassurance, or simply let her cry out her sorrow on his shoulder.
What should have been an obvious thought finally occurred to him. “Why not come with me, then? You’ve never seen the Glittergeist. We can relax on our ship, make a real vacation out of it no matter haw long it takes us to get to Strelakat Mews.”
The tears dried with astonishing speed and she took a step backward, her sorrow changing abruptly to outrage.
“You want me to what! Leave here, now, to run off with you on some endless ocean voyage?” She made a sweeping gesture at the bedroom. “This tree isn’t half decorated yet. In two days the curtain maker will be here from Lynchbany, and then there are the carpets to be seen to and do you think that can be done in a day?”
“Well I....”
“Not a chance! Have you ever tried to order carpeting for a tree? Everything’s round and curved. There’s not a decent square corner in the place. If you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life walking on wood shavings like your precious senile old wizard you’ve got another thing coming, Jon-Tom!” She was circling the room now, rather like an eagle homing in on its chosen prey. Jon-Tom harbored no illusions as to which role he occupied in this little domestic play. She was alive with the irrepressible energy which had first attracted him to her. Trouble was, it was now directed at him and not some nameless enemy.
“I’ve got painters coming in a week. We’re going to have to dye some of this wood. I refuse to spend the rest of my life in a house where all the walls are the same color, even if it is an oak tree. And you want me to drop all that so I can run off and carouse with you? You’ve got your nerve, Jon-Tom!”
Was this the same Talea he’d first encountered so many months ago who’d come to him for help in loading one of her mugging victims into the back of a wagon? The same fiery haired, short-tempered little terror who was as quick with her sword as her tongue? His mini-Brunhilde had metamorphosed into a hausfrau.
“Cripes, Talea, you’ve become domesticated.”
She shook an angry finger at him. “Don’t you swear at me, Jon-Tom. You’re going to run off and leave
all the decision making to me.” She had him backed against a wall now. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re going to stay here and help me with the decorating, help me choose colors and patterns and weaves and landscaping.”
“Talea, if I don’t get the duar repaired I can’t spellsing. If I can’t spellsing I can’t earn a living. And if I don’t earn a living you won’t have any money to pay painters and carpet makers and landscapers.”
Her finger froze in mid-wag, drifted to her lower lip as she considered this new bit of reasoning thoughtfully. “Yes.
That’s true. Though I could always go back to work to support us. I’m a little out of practice but . . .”
Now it was his turn to anger. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re a respectable woman now.”
“I thought I warned you to stop calling me names.”
“I’m not going to have you go running off knocking people in the head in dark alleys. How can you think of going back to thievery and robbery?”
“Easy. I did it for years. I’m a thieves’ guild member in good standing, I’ve kept up my dues, and if I get caught you can always come visit me in jail. At least that way you’ll be close to me.”
“No way.” He tried to say it with an air of finality. “You’re going to stay here and do all those things you were just talking about. You’re going to furnish and decorate this tree exactly the way you want.”
“I could just work weekends,” she argued in a small voice. “A good thief can make a lot of money on the weekends.”
“No, dammit!”
Her voice fell even further. “Just one teensy little mugging a week?”
He sighed in exasperation. “I don’t know quite how to explain this, Talea, but I’ll try it one more time. Where I come from that kind of business is frowned upon morally as well as legally. It just doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Nobody has any fun where you come from.” She crossed her arms and pouted.
“I admit ethics are a little more, well, liberal in this world, but that’s how I feel about it. Besides, I couldn’t just sit around and live off my wife’s earnings.”