by neetha Napew
The walls of the house were composed of pipes: some of bamboo, others of dark grained wood, still others of gleaming metal. The ropes which bound them together vibrated like viola strings. Bright beams thrummed with the sonority of massed muffled trumpets. The waterfall which tumbled over a nearby cliff splashed in percussive counterpoint to the melody the house was playing. Sight and sound affected all of them equally. Even Mudge was subdued.
“This ‘ere chap may not know ‘ow to cure ‘imself, but ‘e sure as ‘ell knows ‘ow to make music. Rather wish ‘e weren’t dyin’. I’d give a gold piece to see this place when ‘e were “ealthy.”
“Maybe we ought to just leave,” said Cautious. “Go back to town, try find somebody else.”
“There is no one else. That’s what Clothahump told us. That’s why we’ve come here. We have to see him.”
“Wot if ‘e ain’t receivin’ no visitors, mate? Blimey, wot if ‘e ain’t even receivin’ air no more?”
“We have to try.”
As they approached the front door the stones on which they trod rang like the plates of a gamelan. The doorbell was a flurry of flutes with an echo of panpipes. It was opened by a matronly possum. Her wise old eyes flicked over each of them in turn, stopping to rest on Jon-Tom.
“Strangers by the look of you. We don’t get many visitors. I don’t know from whence you come or why, but this is a house of the dying.”
Jon-Tom looked to Mudge for advice, found none available. He had come to this place for reasons of his own. Now he would have to deal with the results of his decisions in the same way.
“It’s about an instrument. Just one instrument. I don’t know where else to go or what else to do. I’ve come so far in the hope that Master Coulb might be able to fix it.”
“Master Coulb cannot rise from his bed, much less replace a reed in an oboe. I am Amalm, his housekeeper.” She started to close the door.
“Please!” Jon-Tom took a step forward, forced himself to be patient. “The wizard who teaches me insisted only Coulb could repair my duar. I must have it fixed or I can’t spellsing.”
The door opened a crack. “You be a spellsinger, young human?” He nodded. The door opened the rest of the way. “A wizard sent you here?” Another nod. “Then there is magic involved. Truly only Master Coulb could help you. If he were capable of helping anyone.” She hesitated, then sighed resignedly. “Because you have traveled far and magic is involved I will see if Master Coulb will speak to you. But be warned: he can do nothing for you. Perhaps he can recommend another.”
As they entered Jon-Tom had to bend to clear the opening. Their guide continued to talk. “There are other master instrument makers, but none like Master Coulb. Still, he may know of one I do not. After all, I am only the housekeeper. This way.”
She led them into a living room which was dominated by a tall stone fireplace. The wind whistled mournfully down the chimney, perfectly in tune with the melody the house was playing. There were several couches, each fashioned in the shape of some stringed instrument.
“Rest yourselves while I see to the Master.”
They sat and listened and stared. Wind whistled through the rafters while loose floor slats chimed against one another. The windowpanes resonated like drumheads.
“Gloomy sort o’ place,” whispered Mudge. “Too bleedin’ dignified for me.”
“What did you expect?” Jon-Tom asked him. “Bells and laughter?”
The housekeeper returned. “He is worse today, but then he is worse each day.”
“What kind of disease is he suffering from?”
“Maybe ‘e’s just old,” Mudge said.
The possum eyed him sharply. “Aye, old he is, but in the prime of health before this affliction brought him down. It is no normal sickness that afflicts the Master. Potions, lotions, painkillers and pills have no effect on it. He is haunted by demons.”
“Right.” Mudge sprang from his chair. “Thanks for your ‘ospitality, ma’am. Time to be goin’.”
Jon-Tom caught him by the collar of his vest. “Don’t be so quick to panic, Mudge.”
“Who’s quick? I’ve thought it right through, I ‘ave. See, all I ‘ave to do is ‘ear the word ‘demon’ an’ it don’t take me but a minim to carefully an’ thoughtfully decide I’d be better off elsewhere.”
“They’re not very big demons.” The housekeeper sniffed. “Quite small, actually.” She held her thumb and forefinger apart. “Such strange demons as have never been seen before. They wear identical raiment and they all look something like—you.” And she shocked Jon-Tom to the bottom of his heart by pointing at him.
“Not you personally,” she said hastily, seeing the effect her words had produced. “I mean that they are all humanlike.” Her eyes rolled ceilingward. “Why they picked on poor Master Coulb, who never did anyone any harm, none of the experts in town have been able to divine. Perhaps it was just his time. Perhaps it was the special trumpet he sold to another traveler who passed by this way not long ago.
“One thing we know for certain: Something angered these demons enough for their own master to set them upon poor Coulb. Every attempt by our local wizards and sorcerers to exorcise them has failed. We even imported an urban wizard from Chejiji but his efforts were no more helpful than those of our own. The evil of these demons is insidious and slow. They kill gradually by poisoning the mind and the spirit rather than the body. Most demons suck blood, but these are worse, far worse. They suck the will out of a person. I feel the Master has little left with which to resist them. They will claim him soon.”
“Life’s irony,” said Mudge. “ ‘Ere stands me friend, a special spellsinger if ever there was one, but ‘e can’t ‘elp cure your master because ‘is instrument is broke. An’ if it were ‘ole, we wouldn’t be ‘ere now.”
“I still have this.” Jon-Tom displayed the suar. “My spellsinging’s not as effective with this as it is when I’m playing the duar, but I can still rouse a gneechee or two. Let me try. Please?”
“I don’t know.” She was shaking her head slowly. “Little enough peace has Master Coulb. I’ve no wish to make his last days, perhaps even his final hours, uncomfortable ones.”
“Let us talk to him,” Weegee pleaded. “I’ve seen Jon-Tom’s powers at work.”
Jon-Tom started but managed to hide his surprise. Exception to the rule she might be, but Weegee was still all otter. When the need arose she could lie as fluidly as Mudge.
“I suppose it can’t hurt letting you see him,” Amalm murmured. “Perhaps some company would do him good. I will put it to him—if he’s awake and able to respond. We’ll see what he says.” She turned to leave the room.
“Tell him not only am I a spellsinger, but I’m a spellsinger from another world. My magic, if I can make any, might be effective against these demons “where that of local practitioners might not.”
She looked back at him. “I will tell him, but I don’t think it will matter.” She vanished into the next room.
“Wot do you think, mate? Can you really do ‘im some good?”
“I don’t know, Mudge, but even if he can’t help me we have to try.”
“You mean you can try.” Weegee was studying the weakly pulsating windows. “The rest of us can only watch. I want nothing to do with any demons, no matter how small they may be.” She shuddered. “Suppose they take offense at our intrusion and decide to strike us as well?”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
“Don’t you love the way ‘e uses the word ‘we’?” Mudge walked over to stand close to Weegee. He felt as if the house was beginning to close in around him. Or maybe it was just the tightness in his throat. “Whenever ‘e runs into trouble or danger, suddenly ‘tis ‘we’ this an’ ‘we’ that.”
“You can leave if you want to, Mudge.” Jon-Tom gestured back toward the front hall. “You know where the door is. I won’t stop you. All you have to do is walk out.”
“Don’t tempt me, mate. One o�
� these days you’re gonna tempt me one time too many. So you think I’m going to walk out, wot? Why, I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction, you skinny-legged, flat-nosed pale excuse for a feeble fart.”
The otter would have continued but the housekeeper had returned. “He is very weak, but your story intrigues him.” She smiled warmly. “He loves music, you see, and the idea of meeting a spellsinger, much less one from another world, was enough to rouse him from his lethargy.” She shook a motherly finger at Jon-Tom. “You weren’t lying about that just to get in to see him, were you?”
“No, ma’am. I am a spellsinger and I am from another world.” I’m just not a spellsinger in the other world, he murmured silently.
“Come then.” She turned and led them into the next room.
At the far end of the sitting chamber a stairway led to a second floor. Much more than a revitalized attic, this spacious area had been turned into a comfortable bedroom complete with dresser, chairs, a washtub in the shape of a squashed tuba, and an exquisitely carved bed. The headboard was composed of wood and metal pipes while the foot of the bed comprised ranked wooden keys.
Presently the bed was humming a sad lullaby. Every so often it would strike an odd atonal note, pause as if confused, back up and recommence playing like an elderly musician suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Lying in the middle of the bed was a single figure no taller than Mudge and considerably slimmer. In fact, the elderly kinkajou was more closely related to Cautious than to the otters. Couvier Coulb wore a plain white nightdress and white tasseled sleeping cap. His nose was much too dry and his big eyes appeared more deeply sunk into his head than was normal. But they were open. He squinted at them, as was only to be expected of a nocturnal creature awakened during the day. The absence of upstairs windows kept the bedroom comfortably dark during the daytime.
Amalm stood on tiptoes to whisper to Jon-Tom. “Try not to tire him; he’s very feeble.” He nodded and approached the bed while his companions held back. At the bedside he dropped to his knees to bring his face closer to the kinka-jou’s level.
“I’ve crossed part of an ocean and many strange lands to see you, Couvier Coulb.”
“So Amalm tells me.” The small mouth curled upward in a semblance of a smile. Jon-Tom felt dampness at the corners of his eyes. He had expected to encounter an aged and kindly individual, but hardly one with the mien of a favorite uncle—if one could imagine having a kinkajou for an uncle.
A hand emerged from beneath the sheets. The fingers were narrow and delicate, the grip unexpectedly strong. “I have met many musicians, but never one from another world. How strange I should have the opportunity to do so on my deathbed.”
“Don’t talk like that.” It sounded silly but he didn’t know what else to say. “I really am a spellsinger, you know. Maybe I can do something to help you. I’ve helped people before, but almost always with the aid of this.”
Carefully he slipped off the sack containing his duar and brought out the fragments one by one. Couvier Coulb examined each piece thoroughly, turning them over and over in his sensitive fingers. “How did you break this?”
“I fell on it.”
“That was most clumsy of you. These are the components of a duar. One of a design unfamiliar to me, and quite unique. So you see, there is at least one other instrument maker in the world of a skill to match my own, for whoever fashioned this is no less a master. In the hands of a truly gifted spellsinger I can believe this would work great magic.” He placed the pieces back in Jon-Tom’s hands.
“Alas, I fear that would not be enough to save me. I would be more than happy to repair your instrument, young human, but these days I cannot muster enough strength to climb out of bed. Even the thought of resetting strings that fade into another dimension tires me.” He looked past his visitor.
“Amalm looks after me well and attends efficiently to my simple needs. But I am glad you came. It is pleasant to have guests even in one’s last days.” The delicate fingers patted the back of Jon-Tom’s hand.
“Those demons who torment you so; Amalm could describe them to us only vaguely. Why should they pick on you?”
“I don’t know.” The kinkajou’s breathing was labored. “They simply appeared one day and declared they had been assigned to my case—whatever that means. Demon lore. I thought perhaps they were talking of a case I had fashioned for a bass twiddle not long ago, but as it turned out they were talking of something else entirely. No doubt Amalm has told you we have tried everything. Wizards and magicians, doctors and physicians: None have been able to help me. I even went so far as to try to comply with their incessant demands, but these are so strange and incomprehensible I believe they invent them simply to torment me further. You can’t fight them, young man. You can only try to mitigate the agony they inflict.” Making a supreme effort, the kinkajou lifted his head off his oversized pillow.
“You should go. Go now, before they assign themselves to your case as well.”
Jon-Tom rose, looked around the room. There was defiance in his tone. “I’m not afraid of demons, much less small ones. Neither are my friends. Are we, Mudge?” He peered into the darkness. “Mudge?”
“Went downstairs.” That was Weegee’s voice from near the head of the stairs. “Said he had to take a leak.”
“He’s had plenty of time. I’ll go get him. I may need his help.” He took a step toward the stairwell.
A faint glow appeared in the air between him and the exit. Weegee let out a gasp and Cautious a curse. Amalm rushed from her place to stand protectively close to the bed.
“Damn them,” the kinkajou muttered weakly, “they’re coming for me again.” He raised his shaky voice. “Why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t you suck at someone else? I’m not guilty of anything!”
“None are innocent; all are guilty,” intoned a sepulchral voice. “Nor could we leave you if we wished to. We have been assigned to you—assigned to you—assigned to you.” The words echoed through the room.
Jon-Tom held his ground. Shapes were beginning to form within the pale white mist that had filled the bedchamber. They were not the shapes he’d steeled himself to see. They took the form of words, quite indecipherable, that drifted hither and yon. Black letters that formed snakelike blobs and scorpion shapes. They danced and pirouetted and closed in on the bed and its helpless elderly occupant.
Poor Couvier Coulb sank deep into his pillow as the sheer force of the mysterious words pushed Jon-Tom aside. They did not try to injure him, but they did shunt him several steps backward as though he weighed nothing at all.
Then the words coalesced and shrank to create the figures Amalm had described. They accumulated on the headboard and the blankets in little knots of twos and threes, tiny faceless men some four inches tall. Each looked exactly like the one next to him, interchangeable and expressionless as they regarded the kinkajou stonily. Each wore a miniature three-piece gray pinstriped suit complete with matching gray tie and gray shoes. Now faces appeared, eyes and mouths and nostrils, and Jon-Tom saw that their eyes were as gray as their clothing. About half of them carried matchbook size gray briefcases.
“You haven’t filed on time,” declared one of the group gravely.
“But I told you,” Coulb whined, “I don’t know what it is you want filed, or how to go about filing it.”
“That does not matter,” said a second.
“Ignorance is no excuse,” insisted a third.
“We have examined what you have returned.” The first demon opened his tiny briefcase and portentously examined the contents. “You did not sign your form 1933-AB Supplement.’’
“Please, please, I don’t know what a 1933-AB Supplement is.”
The demon ignored this plea and continued relentlessly. “There is an error on Line 4, Subsection H of your 5550 Supplement.”
The kinkajou moaned.
“Your 140 Depletion Allowance was filed incorrectly.”
Couvier Coulb pulled his sheets over
his head and whimpered. At the same time Jon-Tom noticed that each of the demons had a forked tail emerging from the seat of their perfectly pressed pants. The tip of each tail was darkly strained, possibly by ink.
“There is a mistake on your Form 440 which we have not be able to resolve with the current data.” Tiny lines of type leaped from the open briefcase to stab at Couvier Coulb like so many micropoint hypodermics. He let out a yelp of pain.
“Now wait a minute!” Jon-Tom stepped forward and glared down at the tiny shapes. It seemed impossible anything so small and bland could be causing the kinkajou such agony.
A dozen tiny faces turned up at him and the power of those blank stares froze him in place. “Do not interfere,” said the one Jon-Tom had come to think of as the leader. “You cannot help. No one can help. He did not file properly and must pay the penalty.”
“Pay the penalty,” echoed the whey-faced demonic chorus.
“Come to think of it,” the leader continued, “have you filed?”
Jon-Tom stumbled backward. A huge, invisible fist had struck him in the gut. His breath came in short, painful gasps. Cautious started toward him but he waved the raccoon away.
“It’s okay, I’m all right.” He straightened, glaring down at the demon. “You still haven’t explained why you’re tormenting poor Couvier Coulb.”
“Indeed we have. He did not file. Anyone who does not file is visited by representatives of the IRS—the Inter-dimensional Reliquary of Spirits. Us.” Each word was uttered with utmost reverence by the demonic chorus.
“But he doesn’t know how to file. Hell, he shouldn’t have to file.”
“Hell says otherwise. Everyone has to file. It is required. It is the Law.”
“Not here it isn’t. You boys not only have the wrong individual, you’ve got the wrong world.”
“We do not have the wrong world. We cannot have the wrong world. We are infallible. We are always sent to the right place. He has not filed and therefore he must pay.”