by neetha Napew
“Then I don’t guess you’d have one for sale, either.”
“Ah ah, because I do not myself personally me deal with magic does not mean I am unwilling or unable to trade in it. Sadly unfortunately discouragingly I have no duar to sell you. In fact, in all the years I have been in this business I have never so much as seen set eyes upon viewed a duar. I however have an item or two that might do for you.”
The first instrument he produced from below his counter resembled a piccolo with Pinocchio syndrome. Tiny secondary pipes emerged from the central tube like the branches of a tree. It was fashioned of holly wood and inlaid with mother of pearl.
“Difficult hard troublesome to play, but it is said that in the right hands it can make rain and snow.”
“I’m not a weatherman. I need something more versatile.”
“I understand comprehend got you.” Izzy put the flute aside and placed a pocket accordion on the counter. There were only four keys on each side of the little squeezebox. Jon-Tom gave it a try out of curiosity. It made a sound like a overweight hog trying to sing Wagner. Mudge looked pained.
“What does it do?”
“A proper musician can bring food and drink into being and the quality of the food varies according to the sweetness of the song.”
“Forget that then,” said Mudge. “If we ‘ad to depend on the smoothness of ‘is voice to get us out o’ trouble we’d ‘ave been dead a ‘undred times over by now.” He nodded curtly at the squeezebox. “Tryin’ to make food with that we’d bloody well starve to death.”
Jon-Tom made a face at the otter but pushed the instrument back across the counter. “I don’t know how to play the thing anyway.”
Izzy looked discouraged. “Then I suppose assume guess I must let you have the one item which might really be of use to you.”
Jon-Tom’s face lit up when he first saw the instrument the indri removed from a locked box behind the counter, but his initial excitement faded as he inspected the workmanship more closely. There were similarities to his own instrument, but a duar it was not. There was a resonating chamber, smaller and simpler than his own, different controls, and only one set of metal strings. They did fade into insubstantiality where they crossed the resonating chamber, but they did not vanish entirely into another dimension.
“A suar.” Izzy plucked idly at the strings. “This little beauty was owned by a pinheaded prestidigitator who used it only on holidays.”
Mudge had sauntered over to inspect the instrument closely. “Stuff the sales pitch, bug eyes. Do it work?”
“So I am told, though the owner was hardly what one would call a master of magic. Perhaps in more skilled hands....” He left the thought unfinished.
“Looks a lot like an ordinary mandolin.” Jon-Tom accepted it from the indri. “If it wasn’t for this,” and he indicated the place where the strings faded from view, “I’d say you were trying to sell me an ordinary musical instrument.”
“Not for three hundred gold pieces I’m not.”
“Three hun...” Mudge choked on the figure, then put a hand on Jon-Tom’s arm. “Come on, mate. I never thought I’d meet a bigger thief than meself, but ‘tis finally ‘appened.”
“Too expensive,” said Jon-Tom. The indri tried to appear indifferent. “As you wish. Another willing to pay will come along. Music is cheap. Magic is expensive.”
Jon-Tom hesitated, ran his fingers experimentally over the strings. Strange to be strumming one set instead of two, but it reminded him of his electric guitar back home in a way the duar never could. “Can I try it out?”
“Certainly of course naturally.” The indri bestowed a frosty stare on Mudge. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to cheat you.”
Jon-Tom tried a few impassioned stanzas of Pink Floyd’s “Money.” The result was not what might have been hoped, but neither did it prove the storekeeper a liar. A tiny white cloud materialized in the air of the shop, drifted about uncertainly for a minute, then excreted a miniature lightning bolt. Instead of thunder the cloud made a noise like a cash register and a shower of coins began to rain on the indri’s counter. The cloud eventually gave out and dissipated, but not before exactly three hundred large coins lay in a gleaming pile on the hardwood. The only problem was they were silver rather than gold.
“Best I can do,” Jon-Tom said apologetically.
“Ah well.” Izzy surveyed the pile. “It is a suar and not a duar.”
“But the magic works. I can spellsing with this.” Jon-Tom held the instrument out at arm’s length. “The power is there, but not the strength. I’ll just have to scale down my expectations. Will you take the silver and,” he considered carefully, “five pieces of gold? We still have an ocean voyage to pay for.”
“Done! Finished, completed, agreed upon.”
Mudge sidled up close to his friend. “You could’ve bargained ‘im down and got it for a lot less, mate.”
“A lot less than what, Mudge? We got it for a song.”
The otter was eying the pile of silver hungrily. “Then ‘ow about givin’ us another demonstration, mate? Just for entertainment value, wot?”
“Mudge, you ought to know by now I can’t get results by singing the same song more than once. Not with this. It just doesn’t have the power.”
“Pity. Well, at least you’re a spellsinger once more, ‘eaven ‘elp us.”
Jon-Tom nodded. “It’s not a duar, but it seems to be the next best thing. Properly utilized it ought to get us there and back in two pieces.” He turned to the delighted shopkeeper. “Thanks, Izzy. See you again sometime, maybe.”
“I most sincerely surely hope so, friend.”
Mudge trotted alongside his taller friend as they started down the street. “I thought you had just enough lucre to get us to this Scream Cat place and back. You just ‘anded that big-eyed thief five gold pieces.”
“No matter, Mudge. We have this now.” He tapped the suar.
“I was afraid that was wot you were goin’ to say,” the otter sighed.
“Come on, Mudge. Have you forgotten already? I sang us up a boat once before. Given all the practice and study I’ve had these past months I see no reason why I can’t sing up another. That way we can save our money and enjoy a few luxuries along the way.”
“Yeah, like stayin’ alive,” the otter grumbled.
“Have a little confidence. You’ve seen what I can do.”
“That’s wot worries me.”
“Don’t. Let’s find ourselves a fine inn and have a good night’s sleep. In the morning we’ll find an empty dock and I’ll sing us up some automatic piloting yacht or something.”
“Or something,” Mudge mumbled, but under his breath.
Despite Jon-Tom’s insistence he’d prefer to work without an audience, Mudge managed to hustle up a bevy of spectators to watch the spellsinger at work.
“Step right up, folks! Feast your eyes on the wonder o’ the day, a real live spellsinger about to perform ‘is bafflin’ an’ mystifyin’ trade.” He stepped in the path of a strolling merchant. “ ‘Ere now mister moneybags, ‘ave you ever seen real magic before? I mean real magic, in the light o’ day, without any tricks or gimmicks?”
“No, but I....”
“See the spellsinger conjure up a ‘ole ship out o’ thin air! Bet you ain’t never seen nothin’ like that in your simple, dull-as-daffbdils life, ‘ave you?”
“No, but I . . .”
“Much less a ship crewed by as sexy a lot o’ naked lovelies as ever twisted their legs ‘round a mizzenmast?”
The merchant suddenly halted and strained to see through the rest of the assembling crowd. “How much?” he said enthusiastically.
Jon-Tom did his best to ignore the jostling, eager crowd as he strummed the suar and considered what song to sing. The harbor of Yarrowl lay spread out before him, full of tall sailing ships and smaller craft. The thick aroma of salt mixed with that of cargoes from distant lands and the raw sewage which the ships discharged
into the bay.
Surely he was accomplished enough to execute a simple transportation song before a crowd of rubbernecking onlookers? Wasn’t that what being a professional was all about? Mudge stepped smartly past, jingling his purse full of coins and grinning behind his whiskers. The otter looked exceedingly pleased with himself.
“Not bad, mate. Maybe there’s somethin’ to this spellsingin’ business after all. With your talents and mine we could do ourselves proud.”
“Don’t forget, Mudge, that I have to make a boat appear or else you’ll have to give all these people their money back.”
“Yeah, let’s see some magic,” shouted one of the spectators, a small black bear clad in a silvery toga and leather cap. The cry was echoed by several others in the crowd. They had business to attend to and were starting to get edgy.
Jon-Tom leaned over to whisper to his companion. “Maybe you should have waited until I had a chance to try a simpler spell first. This isn’t a duar, remember.”
Mudge put a reassuring paw on his friend’s shoulder. “I ‘ave confidence in you, mate. I know you won’t let me down, or your public either. Didn’t you always tell me you wanted to perform for an audience?”
“Yes, but that just involved singing, not magic.” He eyed some of the heavily armed spectators uneasily. “And this isn’t quite the type of audience I always dreamed about.”
“Now listen, mate, ‘ere I’ve gone to the trouble o’ linin’ up enough money to pay for our ‘ole journey and then some and you’re ‘avin’ second thoughts. Tis unbecomin’ for a spellsinger. Wot would ‘is sorcerorship say about this distressin’ lack o’ self-assurance?”
“I just wish you hadn’t promised them so much, that’s all. Naked crew members! I’ve no intention of conjuring up any such thing.”
Mudge winked. “Right, but they don’t know that. Ah, a couple more potential customers. I’ll just slip over quiet-like and ease them into the audience while you’re gettin’ started.” He melted into the semicircle of onlookers. A couple of margays regarded Jon-Tom out of wide eyes.
How had he let the otter talk him into something like this? Nothing for it now but to try. If he failed they could always return the money Mudge had collected. He strummed the suar again, having already settled on a song. With its single set of strings, the suar was much easier to play. No reason not to proceed with confidence.
Half closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on the water next to the dock, he began to sing. The crowd quieted immediately, hushed and expectant.
Despite Jon-Tom’s best effort the first song produced nothing save some mutterings of discontent from his audience. He tried again, his fingers a blur against the suar strings. He felt confident and in control of himself and his music. If anything he was in better voice than usual. Not so much as a single gneechee appeared. The water lapped against the shore, driftwood bumped against the dock pilings, and the crowd stared at him unpleasantly. Wrong song, he told himself. Wrong instrument, too, but he had no choice there. Try another tune, and fast.
This time it went much better. Perhaps he simply needed the warm-up. The air above the water began to fluoresce. A few oohs and aahs rose from the crowd. Crabs clinging to the base of the pilings scattered. But while some of the onlookers claimed to be able to see outlines forming in the mist above the water, nothing solid materialized.
“Where’s the damn boat?” an elegantly attired wallaby demanded to know.
“Yes, where are the females?” asked the tall hare standing next to him.
“This we can see for free in any tavern,” growled a large spectator near the rear of the crowd.
“I’m still warming up.” It sounded lame even to his own ears, Jon-Tom knew.
“You said that after the first song,” hissed a lynx. Scarred and missing one ear, this tough looking customer was fingering something short, sharp and curved. “Let’s see something—or let’s have our money back.”
“Magic isn’t science,” Jon-Tom pleaded. “Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”
“We were guaranteed magic.”
“I want my gold back!”, shouted a tall simian from the crowd.
“What do you mean ‘guaranteed’?” Jon-Tom asked the lynx. “Nobody can guarantee magic.”
“Your friend the water rat did.” Light flashed off the curved knife the lynx was manipulating.
“He did? Mudge?” Jon-Tom strained to see into the crowd. There were representatives of many species facing him, but not one otter. Especially not one particular otter. “Mudge!”
The otter had disappeared along with his sackful of money. It appeared that Talea’s threat to sic the Lynchbany law on him had finally lost its hold. Having taken the opportunity to acquire some traveling cash of his own, he’d departed for distant parts unknown, leaving Jon-Tom to deal with an increasingly sullen, angry crowd which had been “guaranteed” a demonstration of real magic making. That was something Jon-Tom couldn’t promise Clothahump, much less a mob of newly fleeced citizens.
“Look, you have to understand that I didn’t promise you any magic. I can only try. That’s all any spellsinger can do. It was the otter who made all the promises.”
“We don’t argue that.” The voice was that of a squat long whiskered mole who eyed Jon-Tom from behind thick, extremely dark glasses. He was brandishing a four-inch-long bone blade. “But he ain’t here no more, minstrel, and you are.”
“I’m not a minstrel.” Jon-Tom overtopped most of the crowd. Now he tried to take advantage of his height to make himself as imposing as possible. “I am a spellsinger.”
“Then prove it,” snapped the mole, “and I don’t mean by making pretty colors in the air.”
“You’re damn right I’ll prove it!” He was shaking, partly from anger and partly from fright. “I said I’d conjure up a boat and conjure up a boat I will.”
While he’d been arguing with the crowd a far more appropriate song had come to him. Confident now, he turned back to face the waters of Yarr Bay. Once more he began to sing, once again his fingers danced over the suar’s strings, and this time something far more cohesive than colored lights began to take shape atop the water. No gneechees swirled curiously around it, but he wasn’t singing for the gneechees this time. He was concentrating on his song.
Part of the problem stemmed from the fact that not many rock songs dealt with boats or ships. He didn’t dare use the Beach Boys’ “ Sloop John B.” again. That had been a near disaster. So the song he sang now was one of his own devising, improvised words set to the official theme music by Walter Sharf for the old Cousteau television specials. Add a little reggae and what more suitable combination of themes for calling up a proper boat? Perhaps he might even create a copy of the famed Calypso itself. Let the natives sneer until he confronted them with the reality of a modem, diesel-powered craft.
Several members of the crowd broke and ran. Most remained to stare in awe. Yes, conjure up the Calypso with its radar and complex electronics! Doubt his ability, would they? Double-stringed or single-stringed instrument in hand, he’d show them what a spellsinger was all about.
Twisting and flickering, the intense lights pirouetted above the disturbed surface of the bay. As he brought his vibrant, improvised tune to a rousing conclusion the lights softened and ran together, began to condense and solidify to form a cloud of pink incandescence which finally blew apart to reveal floating lightly on the water—a boat.
On its bow it bore the outline of a golden merman and the legend CALYPSO. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the famed Calypso itself that bobbed gently in the backwater eddy. It wasn’t even a reasonable facsimile.
It was a zodiac, one of the inflatable rubber craft that the crew of the Calypso utilized for short excursions away from the main ship. It was not very impressive.
“What the hell’s that?” The lynx leaned forward and squinted at the black skinned apparition.
“Floats it does, but ‘taint no boat for sure,” commented someone e
lse near the back of the crowd of onlookers.
“Of course it’s a boat.” Now Jon-Tom was angry as well as frustrated. “Any idiot can see it’s a boat. What else could it be but a boat?”
“It’s no boat.” A rat clad in shorts and a shirt with puffed sleeves waded into the murky water to poke at the zodiac’s flanks. “It’s just a big balloon.” He tapped the big black outboard motor that hung from the zodiac’s stern. “What’s this funny-looking hunk of metal for?”
The crowd’s initial astonishment was rapidly giving way to a general feeling that they’d been had. To them a boat was a creature the length of a dock and tall as a three-story building, with billowing sails, intricate rigging and a wooden hull. What a boat was not was a flattened bunch of black balloons. Knives began to appear in profusion, brandished in company with numerous homicidal expressions. They’d wanted a boat, they’d paid for a boat, and by the ancestor of every creature present they were damn well going to have a proper boat or else they were going to take it out of this so-called spellsinger’s hide.
And where was the crew of lithesome lovelies?
“All right,” Jon-Tom told them, “I’ll prove to you that this is a boat.”
“Pillows,” growled the lynx, taking a step forward. He grinned, showing dirty fangs. “You know what I think? I think I’ve been cheated, that’s what I think.”
“It’s a goddamn boat!” Trying not to show the anxiety he was feeling, he walked into the water, pushed the rat aside, and sat down in the back of the zodiac. The bow rose slightly.
“See? A bunch of pillows wouldn’t support my weight like this.” The mob was crowding toward the water’s edge, muttering loudly. “And this is a magic oar.” He primed the engine, praying it would start when he hit the ignition.
The mole peered through his black glasses at the outboard. “Looks like a bunch of junk to me.”
“No, I’ll prove it, see? All you have to do is press this button.” He did so. The engine rumbled, making the crowd retreat slightly. It coughed, spat and died.
“Hornets,” shouted the lynx, “he’s got hornets in there!”