Son Of Spellsinger

Maybe nothing would have happened if Talea hadn’t found the demon in the breadbox.

She’d baked six loaves of fresh humberpine the previous day and had left them in the metal-lined wooden container to cool. It sat on the tiled kitchen counter just to the left of me big oval window cut in the south side of the tree, overlooking the riverbank and the willows that clung there like tipsy spectators at a fishing tournament.

Half a dozen was a lot to make all at once, but thanks to a petite, highly domesticated preserving spell thoughtfully provided by Clothahump, the bread would stay not only fresh but hot for as long as was necessary. It was also more energy-efficient than refrigeration.

When she opened the breadbox to remove some for supper she was startled to see, seated against the nearest loaf, a perfectly formed six-inch-high homunculus. Two curved horns protruded from the sides of his skull, a single smaller one from his forehead. Gossamer rose-hued wings lay folded against his back. He wore long maroon denim pants with matching suspenders, and his clawed feet protruded beyond the ends of thick rubber sandals.

He also owned a hearty appetite. Half the loaf he was seated against had been devoured. She’d caught him red-handed (of course, with demons this was not an especially difficult task).

Startled, he jerked around sharply when she raised the lid of the box, a double-handful of steaming fresh bread clutched in one tiny fist.

“Azmac!” the creature shouted, waving its free hand at her. “Poreon faytul Begone, or I shall make of your life Purgatory resplendent!”

“Get out of my breadbox!” Talea was not in the least intimidated by the baroque threat. Fumbling in a nearby drawer, her fingers wrapped around the handle of a small iron skillet and thrust it toward the loaf.

Dropping its aromatic prize, the demon scrambled toward the back of the box. “Emarion! Sacarath sanctus!”

“Never mind that.” Reversing the skillet, Talea used the handle to dig at the back of the box. “Get out of my bread!”

Though not very big, Talea was deceptively strong, and the demon, sated on humberpine, was decidedly overfed. There was a loud poing as he lost his grip on the rear of the box and went flying, arms and legs akimbo, across the kitchen. He soared neatly over the central butcher block to smack with a slightly wet splat against the rhomboidal window on the far side of the room. There he seemed to hang for an instant, suspended, before sliding down the glass into the dish basin.

Hefting the skillet by its handle, Talea rushed to the sink and peered down among the duty plates and cups. “What were you doing in my breadbox? Does somebody have it in for me, is that it? I’ll bet it’s that stuck-up possum Mrs. Genfine up the river. She always stays upside down when we visit.” She watched while the dazed demon struggled unsuccessfully to stand. “You’re not much of a curse.”

Something buzzed loudly past her head and she twisted sideways, the demon in the dishwater momentarily forgotten. This new specter was smaller than the homunculus, with four bright emerald-green wings and a long snaky tail trailing behind it. A face once removed from toad roadkill sneered back at her. From its four hands hung the crystal saltcellar that had been a wedding gift from her mother.

She snatched for it but it darted just out of reach, taunting her with a high-pitched buzz-accompanied version of some cabalistic mantra that sounded very much like “My Darling Clementine.”

“Now what?” Taking aim with the edge, she swung the skillet. The toadbuzz dodged once, a second time, and then there was a loud bang as the skillet connected. The song faded as the apparition fell on the stove, bounced once, and tumbled off to land on the floor. Unharmed, the saltcellar rolled clear. Ignoring the dazed buzzing of the would-be thief, she knelt to recover it.

“What the hell is going on here?” she mumbled to herself as she put the skillet aside and pulled the big broom from storage. Now, where was the dustpan?

As she bent over to search for it, something smacked her in the rear. Clutching the broom in front of her, she whirled.

It couldn’t be called a demon, though it wore a demonic grin. Considerably larger than the pair of intruders she’d already coped with, it squatted before her on thickly muscled, kangaroo-like legs, its flat fish face regarding her blandly. Lavender scales covered the naked body except for the pair of turquoise tentacles that made swimming motions against the air. Sprouting from the top of the head was a bright, rotating blue searchlight.

She hefted the broom and inspected the newcomer. “What are you supposed to be?”

“Beeble,” it burped. It made another rude body noise and took a tentative hop toward her.

“Keep away from me.” She made a threatening gesture with the broom as she started edging sideways, away from the broom closet. “I’m warning you.”

The bread demon had recovered and was now busily poking through the kitchen cabinets, looking for something else to eat, its red belly hanging pendulously over its belt line.

“What’s going on here?” she muttered. “Jon-Tom!” There was no response. Her husband wasn’t due home from work for a while yet. She was isolated in her kitchen. “Somebody! Anybody?”

She dodged as the hop-searchlight took another bound in her direction, extending toward her face a vile and obscene tongue.

“I warned you.” She swung the broom and smacked the tongue sideways. The protruding organ whizzed several times around the hopper’s head before the tip smacked its owner square in the right eye.

“Ow. Ow, ow, ow!” It hop-retreated, trying to recoil the rebellious organ.

The breadbox demon was in an upper cabinet, scattering her victuals. Broom held high, she charged, shoving the hopper aside. “Damn your demonic ass, get out of my provisions!”

When she reached the cabinet the demon was nowhere to be seen, having sought the depths within. But half a dozen brand-new apparitions flew straight out at her, squealing and screeching. As they circled and darted she swung the broom in frenzied self-defense, fighting to keep them out of her hair.

“Get away from me, get away!” They were a rainbow of colors and a plethora of shapes, none very pleasing to look upon save for one with iridescent compound eyes. It had the body of an undersize, anorexic macaque attached to the wings of a falcon. They came at her from all directions, forcing her to retreat. “Get away, I’m warning you!” she yelled as she flailed with the broom. They were pouring out of the woodwork now: emerging from cabinets and drawers, from cracks in the tree floor, from behind bowls, from beneath the sink, and from the doorway that led to the den. Drooling, grinning, gurgling, belching and farting, laughing and hissing as they crawled, slithered, hopped, and flew toward her. They stank and they gibbered, they uttered incomprehensibilities and obscenities, they messed impertinently with her clean dishes, and pawed through her carefully stacked foodstuff’s.

Dozens of the creatures filled the kitchen, and more were arriving every minute. There was a translucent winged thing that looked like nothing so much as a vampire butterfly, horrific in aspect save for its decidedly befuddled expression. It kept beating against the skylight as if trying to escape.

Something was tugging at the sandal on her left foot. Looking down, she saw a small bright yellow and pink polka-dotted snake with seven heads.

“Excuse me.” The septicephalic slitherer spoke plaintively, its accent unidentifiable. “I seem to have wandered into the wrong mythology. Can you . . . ?”

Talea screamed and jumped backward. “Get out of my kitchen! Get out of my house!” The flailing broom knocked two of the heads senseless, while the other five fell to arguing among themselves.

Something landed on her right shoulder. As she reached up to rip it off, she saw a small fat man with a cherubic expression. He was composed entirely of layers of some resilient white substance that threatened to rub off on her blouse.

“Madame, I don’t know what eez going on heere, but I have work to do elsewhere and I reesent most heartily being sucked in with the rest of theeze undeesciplined and unrefined conjurations.”

“Don’t blame me. I didn’t conjure anything.” She grabbed the puffy white arm and wrenched. The limb promptly came off in her fingers. There was no blood, only a sort of thick black goo that began to ooze from the ruptured joints.

“Now look what you have done. I will meeze my next assignment.”

“Sorry.” She handed back the amputated limb.

“Merci.” With great dignity the creature jammed the arm back into the vacant shoulder socket. It hopped off her shoulder and bounced across the floor, disappearing into the otherworldly tumult.

The majority of phantasms were not nearly so polite. One tried to take a bite out of her left calf. Using the broom, ser left calf. Using the broom, s the heavy wooden kitchen table. Another leaped at her face, scrabbling at her eyes. All three of its own were missing. She caught it on the rounded end of the broomstick and jammed it hard against the cooler. The big box rattled. Have to get the coolant spell renewed, she thought absently.

That was the trouble with being married to a wizard. Or in her case, to a spellsinger. It was all very well and good to go toodling off all the time to save the world or close shattered interdimensional gates or defeat hordes of ravening invaders, oh yes. But try to get something fixed around the house? No way! They never had any time for domestic mundanities.

She picked up the skillet and flung it at another advancing horror. Utilizing all six of its black arms, it plucked the utensil cleanly from the air, studied it intently for a moment, then plunked it down on its already flattened skull, exhibiting an air of considerable satisfaction.

“By the Twelve Crinoline Veils of the Most Repentant Sinner,” she bawled irately, “I want you all out of here! Now!” Yanking open a drawer, she reached for the large skillet stored inside, only to draw back her hand at the sight of the four tiny imps cavorting within. They wore brightly striped scarves around their necks and nothing else as they skated on the fiat metal surface. Tiny wisps of steam rose from beneath their splayed feet.

“Do you mind?” one said, upset at the interruption of his private reverie.

“Do I mind? Get out of my drawer!” She spun around to swing at something that was chewing on the hem of her housedress, then thrust the end of the broomstick at the pan. The skating imps scattered wildly.

Suddenly she felt her feet going out from under her. The broom went flying as she landed on her front, the impact knocking the breath out of her. Looking down and backward, she saw four things that resembled a cross between miniature donkeys and salamanders. Their tack consisted of perfectly fashioned miniature harnesses hooked up to downsized block and tackle, which had been fastened to her ankles.

Seated atop a matching wagon at the back of the alien team was a tiny drover who was mostly long black beard and busy whip. He bellowed orders in a deep, unintelligible mumble as he and his team dragged the frantic Talea toward a gaping, ominous, and hitherto unsuspected cavity beneath the fruit bin. Conflagrant lights alternately flared and faded in me black depths.

She dug at the floor, yelling and screeching, while all around her wee monstrosities and diminutive horrors gibbered contentedly as they reduced her kitchen to rubble.

“That’s enough’.” she roared.

Rolling over, she leaned forward and kicked with both legs as hard as she could. The block and tackle snapped, and both drover and team went flying. Still mumbling and babbling to themselves, they vanished into that abiding black maw.

“My sword,” she muttered as she struggled to her feet. “Where’d I store that damn sword?”

Since marrying Jon-Tom she hadn’t had much occasion to make use of her old weapon. During holidays it was handy for making spectacularly short work of a big roast. Otherwise it slept in storage, her thieving and fighting days being far behind her. But she hadn’t forgotten how to use it.

Was it in with the cutlery? No, not enough room. Behind the stove? No, it would’ve stuck out there. She finally located it jammed unceremoniously in the back of the broom closet. Except for a light glaze of kitchen grease it was perfectly functional.

Hefting the familiar old grip in both hands, she turned in her housedress to confront the room full of clawing, cawing demons. Pots and dishes were scattered everywhere, food containers had been upturned and then contents dumped on the counters, while piquant liquids pooled on her painstakingly polished floor.

“Chaos repossess all of you, Spawn of Hell!” Swinging the sword in broad, powerful, horizontal arcs, she waded fearlessly into the babble.

Heads, limbs, and interesting other body parts went flying as blood of dissimilar colors spurted, mixing with the spilled honey and milk and household cleansers. She knew it was going to take a heavy, not to mention expensive, housecleaning spell to scrub away the carnage, but she was damned if she was going to clean up this mess manually. Jon-Tom was going to have to drop whatever he was involved with and do something about it.

Squealing and striking out with long, pointed arms, a giant blue spider rushed her on stiltlike legs. Skewering it neatly, she swung the sword and bashed its brains out against the baking counter. Green ichor and pink brains bubbled from the crushed chiton, getting all over the batch of sprinkle-topped cupcakes she’d made just the week before. At that sight her fury knew no bounds, and she laid about the kitchen with a will.

Demonic shapes struck at her, or scrambled to get out of her way, or sought escape in cabinets and drawers. Yet despite her successes, progress eluded her. Mocking her efforts, fresh furies materialized whenever another was destroyed. They kept coming at her: oozing up out of the floor, dropping down from the skylight, spiraling up out of the sinks—an endless procession of horrors that reinforced themselves even as she demolished their predecessors.

Gradually she found herself forced to retreat by the sheer weight of numbers. Backed up against the broom closet, her sword strokes inevitably grew shorter and weaker as her assailants pressed their attack.

She’d always envisioned herself perishing on some grand quest of Jon-Tom’s, or at worst while comfortably retired amongst the widows of the local Thieves and Cutpurses Rest Home. Not like this, not in her own kitchen, brought down by a conjuration she’d had no part in and couldn’t comprehend. What had happened to the carefully crafted home protection and insulation spell that usually shielded her sanctum from nefarious external influences? Admittedly it was primarily designed to vacuum and deodorize, but it should have restricted the access of demons, gargoyles, and their ilk as well. That it had failed so spectacularly suggested an even more powerful sorcery was at work.

Her hair tousled about her, housedress in tatters, she continued to cut and thrust with the sword. It was just like old times, except that her arms weren’t nearly as responsive as they used to be, her strokes not quite as economical of arc.

Just when she thought her trembling legs and arms were about to give out completely and that the fanged and taloned mob of necrotic intruders were going to take her down for the last time, there came the sound of a thump from beyond the kitchen doorway.

“Hi, honey,” boomed a cheery voice, “I’m home! Clothahump and I finally got the old Toolawhip bridge braced with a decent suspension spell. Of course, it’s only temporary, but . . .”

Jon-Tom strode around the corner and into the kitchen, whereupon something compact and violet leaped onto his chest and thrust a belligerent bulbous blue nose into his face.

“ Youse better stay outta dis if you know what’s good for you, buddy. Da broad givin’ us enough trouble as it is, see? We don’t need no interference from no kibbitzers, see?”

A startled Jon-Tom clutched the creature by its short, thick neck. It gurgled, and its eyes bulged hugely. Without a word the spellsinger drop-kicked it halfway across the kitchen. It struck a shelf, breaking one of Talea’s favorite fairy vases in the process, and fell motionless to the floor.

“What the hell’s going on here?” He gaped at the bedlam, eyes wide.

“Don’t just stand there.” Talea redoubled her efforts, reinvigorated by his appearance. “Do something!”

Stunned by the scope of the turmoil, he found himself hesitating. Had he left his duar in the cart? No, he’d brought it in with him. It needed some restringing, but it ought to suffice to deal with this. It had better, he thought, seeing how hard-pressed was Talea.

Racing back to the front hall, he yanked the unique instrument from its slot in the carved umbrella stand and tried to think of an appropriate song as he rushed back to the kitchen. Years of practice under Clothahump’s aegis had made him facile. He was infinitely more confident than the awkward young man who’d first found himself transported to this world.

Still, he found himself struggling as he confronted the pandemonium in the kitchen. Historically, the domestic household did not figure prominently in the rock-and-roll lexicon with which he was conversant.

An old ditty by John Mellencamp finally leaped to mind. He began to play, and to sing, his voice and the mellifluous chords of the duar rising strong and pure above the uproar.

From cabinets and vents, from fractures in the floor and the seams around windows, a pink haze began to emerge. Swirling in lazy currents, it picked its way into the kitchen, smelling faintly of pumpernickel and Simellot cheese. There was nothing Jon-Tom could do about the latter. Considering what the miasma could have smelted like, he was rather pleased. Ancillary odors were not his primary concern at the moment.

The slightly moist mist had an immediate effect on the army of invading fiends (or maybe it was the smell). From cabinets and shelves, from pots and pans and dishes, they ceased their activities to stare and sniff r activities to stare and sniff.king and screaming, they proceeded to get the hell out. Nostrils pinched, mouths puckered, they plunged back into the depths of the cupboards, the floor, the ceiling, returning at breakneck speed to the noxious nexi of their respective existences. In their panicked recision they took with them not so much as a cookie.

The duar pulsed and trembled in Jon-Tom’s practiced hands. Unsourced wind caused his iridescent green cape (which was overdue for dry cleaning) to stream out behind him, as though he stood in the forefront of an intense but highly localized squall.

As he strolled deliberately through the kitchen a few of the bolder intruders threw themselves angrily at him, attacking from every direction. The music beat them back, the pink haze forming knots around their necks or club-shaped clouds which smashed them into oblivion.

Her feet and composure regained, Talea warily trailed her husband as far as the sink. She laid the bloody sword lengthwise in the basin, shaking her head. Getting the blade properly clean was going to take a lot of scrubbing. Ichor had a notorious tendency to cling.

Jon-Tom had halted in the middle of the kitchen, his voice quavering. Eighteen years of practice had improved but not perfected the weakest component of his spellsinging. The power of his playing more than compensated, however, for his less than operatic voice.

As she stared, those demons who hadn’t been able to escape, or who had foolishly chosen to attack Jon-Tom, began to swell like balloons. They started to rise, bouncing off the cabinets and finally the ceiling. As Jon-Tom brought the song to an end, they began to burst like soap bubbles. She inhaled despairingly. As if the kitchen wasn’t enough a mess already.

Finally nothing remained save swirling pink mist and a powerful scent of cheese and pumpernickel. As Jon-Tom flung his Fingers against the double strings of the duar in one last dramatic riff, the mist faded and began to dissipate. Taking a deep, relieved breath, he turned to face her.

“Now, then. Will you please tell me what happened here?” His brows drew slightly together. “Talea, have you been experimenting with thaumaturgical cooking spells again? I told you, I’m not that big on fried foods. Sometimes household shortcuts aren’t worth the trouble they cause.”

She waggled an admonishing finger in his face. “Don’t you lip me, Jon-Tom! I haven’t done a damned thing.” Moving to the window over the sink, she fought to open it. Coagulating blood and gore caused it to stick. She waved at the remnants of the pink mist, backing away as fresh air sucked it outside. The heavy stink likewise began to disperse, leaving in its wake a faint memory of dill pickle.

She eyed the shattered crockery, the broken crumbs of baked goods over which she’d labored long and lovingly, the disgusting mess which coated everything, the thin rivulets of unidentifiable fluids which dripped from counters to pool noisomely on the floor, and she wanted to scream. Instead she sank tiredly into one of the snakeskin-upholstered chairs in the breakfast nook.

Jon-Tom carefully leaned the warm duar against the cooler, brushed back his long hair, and sat down next to his distraught wife.

“Okay, so you weren’t messing with spells.” He indicated the kitchen. “How do you explain this?”

She glared at him. “Why ask me? You’re the great spellsinger. Someone have a grudge against you?” She sighed. “I’d kill for a cup of tea.”

He found a reasonably clean empty cup. “Iced or hot?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly, “no shortcuts!” Rising, she made her way to the stove and checked to make sure that it was set on medium heat. Filling a pot from the sink, she set it on the burner. Beneath, the indentured fire elemental set to work, grumbling audibly. Have to get him adjusted, she thought idly. Thoughtfully, she found a second cup before resuming her seat.

Jon-Tom had been pondering her question. “Clothahump and I have some long-term, overdue debtors, but we’ve never used any strong-arm collection techniques. Nothing that would turn anyone vengeful. At least, I haven’t. I can mention it to Clothahump. You know how he can get about money sometimes.”

“The old miser,” Talea muttered.

“With him it’s not the interest. It’s the principal of the thing.”

She gestured at the kitchen, her arm shaking slightly. “Jon-Tom, I’m reasonably well versed in the nature of the inhabitants of the Nether Regions. I’d have to be, being married to you. But I didn’t recognize half of what materialized here.”

He shrugged. “Other dimensions, other demons. Don’t blame yourself. Even the standard references have to be updated every year.”

She leaned toward him, smiling at sudden memories. “Sometimes I think things were easier when you and I were on the road all the time, fighting and slaughtering, living by our wits. Having fan.”

“We were a lot younger then, Talea. I didn’t have the responsibilities that come with being Clothahump’s junior partner. We didn’t have a home, or a family.”

“You’re forty-one, Jon-Tom. That’s hardly old.”

He stiffened slightly. “I didn’t say it was. Why, by now Mick Jagger must be . . .” He changed direction. “Never mind. This doesn’t tell us what happened here.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I mixed something wrong. Maybe I whistled a happy tune the wrong way. Maybe some netherworld entity has a grudge against you from some years-old encounter you’ve long since forgotten.”

“I could check the records,” he murmured thoughtfully, “but as near as I can remember all old conflicts have been resolved, all numinous debts paid off.”

“You’re sure you haven’t offended any important deities or spirits recently? Trod on the toes of some easily offended Prince of Darkness?”

“Clothahump and I are careful to observe all protocols. We’re very proud of our work habits. Before signing any contracts we run them through half a dozen legal spells and have at least three eternally damned lawyers check them for errors. I’m clean, darling.

“Even if there was a serious problem somewhere, the provoked entity would take up the quarrel with me, not you.”

“I don’t know about that,” she countered. “All I know is what went on in my kitchen. Unless you isolate the causality, it could happen again.” She shuddered slightly.

“I know that.” He put a reassuring arm around her. “Interdimensional manifestations of pure evil don’t just happen. There has to be a reason.” His lips tightened. “It has to be something I’ve done. Or haven’t done.”

They fell silent. After a moment Talea looked up. “Listen.”

In the absence of conversation or chaos a faint, rhythmic moaning became audible. A distinctly unpalatable, eerie, pulse-pounding rise and fall of verbalizations that verged on the incomprehensible. The sound issued not from the Nether Regions, but from above. From upstairs.

Jon-Tom followed his wife’s gaze. They exchanged a look.

“There it is, then,” she told him confidently. “You haven’t offended any paranormal princes, and it’s not a consequence of random chance. The Plated Folk aren’t involved, and neither are the Inimical Outer Guards of Proximate Perdition. It’s much, much worse than that.” Her gaze rose, tracking the inhuman discord.

“Jon-Tom, you have got to do something about that kid.”

CHAPTER 2

As he mounted the spiral staircase cut into the heart of the interdimensionally expanded tree, the music, if such it could be called, grew steadily louder. Actually, some of what he could hear through the heavy-handed, sound-dampening spell was no worse than borderline awful. The awkwardness of the lyrics, however, made him wince.

Standing just outside the room, he was better able to judge the volume within. He estimated that it fell somewhere between deafening and permanent brain damage.

Steeling himself, he hammered on the solid door.

“Buncan! T\irn that racket down and open up! I’ve got to talk to you.”

There was no response from within. Either his son couldn’t hear him over the din, or else he was pretending not to. The instrumental work wasn’t bad, Jon-Tom decided, but as usual Duncan’s voice was excruciatingly off-key. In fact, his singing was so bad he made his father sound like a La Scala heldentenor by comparison.

He pounded on the wood afresh. “You hear me, Buncan? Stop that wailing and open this door!”

Something was coming through the barrier. Jon-Tom retreated to the far side of the hall and watched with interest as a two-foot-long white whale emerged, glanced to right and left, then swam off down the hall. It was attached by a thread to a small wooden boat crewed by half a dozen nautically garbed mini-imps wearing tormented expressions. There was barely room in the boat for their tails.

Standing in the bow was a wee fiend with skin the hue of pea soup. His forked tail flicked wildly back and forth, metronoming time for his crew to row by. One leg was fashioned of white ivory, and his expression was suitably demented.

Chanting a plangent tune, he directed his reluctant rowers in pursuit of the retreating mini-whale. They drifted off toward the stairway and disappeared below.

The inevitable scream reached him a moment later, followed by the outraged and angry voice of his wife, who, from the tenor and tone of her voice, he could tell had had it up to the proverbial here.

“Jon-Tom, you make your son quit that now!” This time he kicked the door. “Last chance, Buncan! Open up. Or I’ll cast an all-encompassing blanket of silence on your room that’ll last for weeks!”

The music within, together with its decidedly unpleasant caterwauling accompaniment, abruptly ceased. With a reluctant creak, the door opened slightly.

Avoiding a cluster of hovering eyeballs that blinked as they looked him over, Jon-Tom pushed his way inside.

“It’s all right,” said a voice from across the room. “It’s just my dad.”

Jon-Tom shut the door behind him. “Don’t get funny with me, young man. I’m not here on funny business.”

Buncan sat up on his bed. “You’re right, Dad. Existence is tragic as hell, isn’t it?”

Jon-Tom walked over to the single oval window, stared out at the neatly kept grounds and the river beyond. After what he felt was a sufficiently lengthy pause of suitably solemn significance, he turned to regard his son.

Buncan balanced the duar easily in his lap. That had to be the source of the trouble, Jon-Tom knew. Using his own singular duar as a template, with the aid of Lynchbany’s finest craftsfolk he and Clothahump had fashioned the new instrument as a gift for Buncan’s twelfth birthday. The boy had kept it close at hand ever since. While no match for Jon-Tom’s own instrument, it was quite capable of propagating a conjuring nexus at the point where the two sets of strings intersected.

Until recently, however, Buncan had not acquired sufficient skill to do anything other than make music with it. This morning’s events showed how drastically that had changed. Making magic with music was one thing. Controlling it, as Jon-Tom probably knew better than anyone else alive, was something else again.

Given Buncan’s genuinely appalling voice, it represented a bona fide threat to anyone unlucky enough to come within hearing distance.

Over the years Buncan had added some decorative modifications of his own to the instrument. Instead of the graceful, curving lines of Jon-Tom’s duar, his son had grafted on spikes and fake claws. Bright green and red parallel lines gave the instrument the look of a runaway migraine.

But it worked. He could see the nebulous blend of reality and nonreality fading at the stringed nexus even as he spoke. Occasional sparks flared and vanished. Yes, his son’s carefully crafted duar functioned like the magical instrument it was.

It was Buncan who didn’t always function properly.

Which, since he was only eighteen, was to be expected. After all, Jon-Tom had been considerably older and more experienced when he’d first made the acquaintance of the mysterious duar and its remarkable capabilities.

He left the window and approached the bed, sitting down near the end and promptly sinking clear to the floor. That seemed to rouse Buncan. The boy mumbled a few off-key words and the bed promptly reinflated. Jon-Tom wished he could say the same for his son’s attitude.

Buncan was clad entirely in gray with emerald accents. Spiral stripes wound down his pants, as though his legs had been thrust into a pair of green tornadoes. His low-top day boots were bright red.

He was shorter than Jon-Tom, a consequence of his mother’s genes, but he retained his father’s red hair. It was cut in a short, stiff brush with twin arcs shaved in the sides ! above and behind each ear. A lanky, almost disjointed build corraled a carefully constructed air of adolescent indolence.

“Look at yourself,” muttered Jon-Tom as he considered j his progeny.

“Can’t do that, Dad. Nearest mirror’s in the bathroom.” “There must be a gene for sarcasm. Until now I was sure it was recessive.”

Buncan grinned slightly but said nothing. Better not to laugh until he found out what was on his old man’s mind.

“And your hair. What’s with this short hair? Why can’t you wear it a decent shoulder-length like your friends?”

“Caswise wears his short. So does Whickwith.”

“Caswise and Whickwith are orang-utans. Orangs are the reverse of humans, follicle-wise. They have naturally short hair on top and long hair everywhere else.”

“Maybe I should try and grow long hair everywhere else. I can probably scribe something hairy.”

Jon-Tom counted silently, giving up at seven. “I don’t suppose you have any knowledge of what just happened downstairs?”

Buncan sat up a little straighten “No, what?” “You nearly destroyed your mother’s kitchen. Not to mention your mother.” “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been spellsinging again, haven’t you?” Buncan turned away. “How many times have I told you not to spellsing in the house?”

The younger Meriweather looked frustrated. “Well, where am I supposed to practice?”

“On the riverbank. In the Bellwoods. Outside school. Anywhere but at home. It’s dangerous.” He softened his tone. “You’ve got a lot of natural talent, Buncan. You may even be a better duar player than I. But as to spellsinging . . . you’ve got to work on your lyrics, and your voice. It’s taken me eighteen years to learn how to carry a tune adequately. Your pitch, your tonal control, is worse than mine. Sometimes it’s nonexistent.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Buncan replied sardonically. “For the vote of confidence.”

“Son, not everyone has the skills necessary to make magic, much less be a spellsinger. It may be that despite your obvious instrumental talents your true vocation lies elsewhere. It’s all very well and good to be a brilliant instrumentalist,” Buncan perked up at the compliment, “but if the words and phrasing aren’t there, you risk unpredictable consequences of a possibly lethal nature.”

“Dad, you’ve been hanging with Clothahump much too long.”

“Let me put it another way. You could total yourself.” Jon-Tom rose from the end of the bed. “Now come downstairs and take a look at what you did to your mother’s kitchen.”

Buncan sounded uncertain. “You mean my singing . . . ?”

Jon-Tom nodded. “Demons, devils, imps, inimical sprites, and all manner of nasty conjurations. It’s a real mess.”

Buncan rose to follow, sarcasm giving way to contrition. “I’m really sorry, Dad. I thought I was being careful. Will you tell Mom I’m sorry?”

“You can tell her yourself.” Jon-Tom opened the door and headed down the hall. “This has got to stop, Buncan. You’re just not experienced enough to be taking these kinds of chances. Especially in the house. What if you accidentally freed the monster under your bed?”

Buncan followed slowly. “There’s no monster under my bed, Dad.”

“Shows how much you know. Until they reach their twentieth birthday every kid has a monster under their bed.”

His son considered. “Was there one under yours when you were a kid, Dad?”

“I told you, there’s one under everybody’s. I just didn’t know it when I was your age. Mine,” he added as they started down the stairs, “was warty and leprous, and wanted to force-feed me eggplant. I hated eggplant. Still do.” They reached the den and paused there. “I think it was a Republican. “No more spellsinging, anytime, anywhere, until your voice improves.”

“But, Dad . . .!”

“No buts.”

“I hate voice school. Sitting in a chair for hours, listening to that stupid nightingale. I’m not a bird, Dad.”

“Mrs. Nellawhistle makes appropriate allowances for the natural limitations of her students. She’s very patient.” She has to be, he thought, with pupils like Buncan. “She really can help you with pitch and tone, if you’ll let her. Spellsinging takes study and work. Or did you just think you could pick up a duar and successfully manipulate the forces of Otherness? If I hadn’t come home when I did, your mother could be lying on the kitchen floor right now, sword in one hand, broom in the other, eviscerated and dismembered.”

Buncan chuckled. “Good ol’ Mom. That’s the way she’d want to go.”

“This is serious. No more spellsinging until your lyric composition and singing have improved.”

“How the hole-in-the-stone can anyone be expected to improve when all they have to work with are these ossified old songs?” Buncan complained bitterly.

Jon-Tom looked shocked. “Those ‘ossified old songs’ are the classics of my world, Buncan. Good, solid, serious rock. I’ve made plenty of magic with them. They constitute a fine basis for spellsinging.”

“Maybe they do for you. Dad, but I just can’t relate to them. I’ve tried. Magic or no magic. No wonder I can’t keep control. I’m just not into the stuff.”

“You’d better get into it. As for controlling anything, you’re eighteen years old, stubborn and bullheaded and inexperienced, notwithstanding you’re convinced you know everything. Maybe you ought to take up another instrument.”

Buncan glanced sharply at his father. “You can only spellsing with a duar.”

“You got it. Then maybe you should take up something else altogether. Woodcarving. I could apprentice you to Genrac the suslik. He’d be glad to teach you. There’s no shame in learning a real trade.”

“I want to spellsing, Dad. The problem’s with the music, not my musicianship.”

“Excepting your lamentable singing voice. Frankly, Buncan, you couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Unless that changes you’ll only be a danger to yourself and everyone around you, no matter how well you play the duar. Speaking of which, after Clothahump and Semond and I labored so long and hard over your instrument, I don’t see why you couldn’t have left it alone.”

“I don’t just want to play good, Dad. I want to look good, too.”

“Then there’s these ridiculously subdued outfits you’ve started to favor.”

“Dad, cut me some slack, please? I promise, I won’t screw up again. But I’m just not ready to give up on this and go into woodworking or metal husbandry or thieving or any of the other traditional professions yet.”

“Okay. I accept your promise. So much for the easy part.”

Buncan blinked. “What’s the hard part?”

“Keeping your mother from flaying you alive. Follow me.”

Preparing himself as best he could, Buncan did so.

At dinner he was sullen and uncommunicative. Not that it was necessarily a corollary to what had transpired earlier. It was the same pose he’d affected for much of the preceding year.

Feeling sorry for the boy, Jon-Tom tried to mediate, explaining to Talea that it was all just a phase then- son was going through. Having been brought up under different circumstances in a very different society from that of her husband, Talea responded that in her clan such phases were usually handled with a sharp knife. Buncan started to say something but wisely thought better of it.

Only after he felt that his mother had vented most of her spleen did he push aside what remained of his vegetables and snake sausage. “Want me to get your sword now, Mom, or should I just take poison after I’ve finished brushing my teeth?”

“Could we dispense with the sarcasm for five minutes?”

“Hey, what more can I say, Mom? I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not like I turned the stove into a salamander.” He hesitated, staring at his father. “All I want is to be like Dad. To do some of the things he’s done. To come near to his achievements, have adventures, perform great deeds. I want to rescue beautiful damsels and defeat evil and save the world. Is that too much to ask?”

“Let me tell you something, son.” Jon-Tom sliced off a cylinder of sausage and poked it into his mouth, chewing reflectively as he gestured with his fork. “It’s true that I helped save the world, and as a full-time occupation I can tell you that it’s very overrated. Not to mention highly stressful.”

“Actually I mink you’ve saved the world twice, sweetheart.” Talea set a fresh bowl of steaming sweet-and-sour potato down alongside the vegetables.

Jon-Tom frowned. “I thought it was just once.”

“No, dear,” she said firmly. “Twice, at least.”

“Really? Anyway,” he continued, turning back to his son, “I’ve been down that road, and it’s not half so glamorous as you seem to think it is. A nice, steady, comfortable practice of magic somewhere, executing medicinal spells to help people get well and plastic surgery spells to improve their looks: That’s what you want. A good living in a proven profession that’s respected and admired.”

“But I don’t just want to make a living, Dad,” Buncan protested. “I want to perform mighty deeds. I want to accomplish great things. I want to see the worlds.”

“Better start with this one. You’re too young and inexperienced for the rest. Besides, there aren’t any great quests at hand presently. I know. I keep a regular check on the ‘Q’ section in the classifieds. Just for old times’ sake,” he explained quickly to Talea.

Buncan tried to meet his father halfway. “Are you trying to tell me there are no great quests left in the world?”

“Not at the moment. Not in this part of it, anyway. The Plated Folk have been quiet ever since Clothahump and I kicked their chitonous butts back over the Jo-Troom Pass. Nothing of similar bellicosity has emerged to duplicate the threat they once presented.

“Meanwhile, business is good. I’m not trying to come down hard on you, Buncan. But you can take it from someone who needed more than eighteen years to overcome a bad voice: Right now you aren’t close to having what it takes, verbally. And without your duar you sing even worse. Sort of a crapella. You need heavy-duty voice training, and plenty of it. It’s something you can’t fix with magic. I tried that route, and it doesn’t work that way. Some things,” he finished grimly, “are beyond the reach of even the most powerful forces to fix.”

“Clothahump could do it,” Buncan muttered. “If he was interested in anybody’s problems besides his own.”

Talea whacked him on the side of his arc-inscribed head. “Don’t speak like that about your goduncle. Even if he is a turtle. He’s been very good to your father and me, when he could just as easily have decorporalized us and had done with it, after all the trouble we caused him.”

“You have to apply yourself to your studies and your training,” Jon-Tom insisted unequivocally. “How can you do that if you’re off on a quest somewhere?”

“On-the-job training?” Buncan ventured hopefully.

“Not a good idea where controlling the forces of Otherness are concerned,” his father replied. “Anyway, my situation was different. I was trapped in this world and had no choice but to experiment. I did just well enough to stay alive. If it hadn’t been for Clothahump . . .”

“That’s right,” agreed Talea. “Let me tell you, when I first met your father he was the most wimpy, hopeless, gangly, driveling . . .”

“Hey!” said Jon-Tom.

Buncan pushed himself back from the table. “I know you both mean well, and I promise I’ll think about what you’ve said. But you’ve fulfilled your dreams, Dad. You’ve been all over mis world and your own. I haven’t been any farther than Lynchbany. I’ve never been beyond the Bellwoods. All I want is what you had.” He rose and headed for his room.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” his father called after him.

“You haven’t finished your snake,” his mother added.

Following dinner, Jon-Tom helped Talea with the dishes. “He’ll be all right,” he assured her. “He’s just going through a stage.”

“You keep saying that.” She handed him a dripping bowl. “Do all the young people in your world go through stages and phases? Personally I think a few good whacks with a stout cane would cwhacks with a stout cane would c don’t use that where I come from. We use more enlightened methods, like psychology.”

“Does that raise as red a welt as hickory?” She shook her head. “You coddle the boy.”

Jon-Tom looked toward the stairs. “I disagree. I think our little talk had quite a profound effect on him. He’s a bright kid, and he does play well.”

“Yeah, but he sure can’t sing worth a copper. He’s so bad he makes your voice sound good.” She handed him a platter.

He put it on the counter and took her, soapy water and all, in his arms. “You’ll pay for that one, Talea.”

Something twinkled in her eyes. “There were many who said I should have charged.”

For a while they managed to forget all about their obstreperous son.

Later, as they lay on the kitchen floor, Jon-Tom pondered his progeny’s future and saw too many potential problems for comfort. After all, Buncan was not what one would call a dedicated student. His academic shortcomings were the bane of his father’s existence, Jon-Tom having advanced as far as law school in his own world. It wasn’t that the boy couldn’t do the work. It was just that his interests lay elsewhere.

Talea was less concerned. “Buncan will never be a solicitor or physician, Jon-Tom. If he has any special talent, it lies in the field of magic.”

“But he has to do the minimal schoolwork,” he argued. “A basic knowledge of zoology, for example, is critical to the establishment of good business relationships. You need to understand how the needs of a gorilla differ from those of a chimp.”

She put her arms around his neck, leaning against him. “You worry too much. Buncan gets along fine with everybody. All his classmates like him.”

“Getting along isn’t the same as understanding.”

CHAPTER 3

Buncan drew back his fist, but before he could swing, the heavy-bodied adolescent black bear had a paw on his chest, shoving him back and down. Because he’d inherited some of his father’s unusual Otherworld height, Buncan towered over the majority of his fellow students.

But not Fasvunk. The bear came as near as anyone in the school to carrying the mantle of class bully. While no taller than Buncan, he was built far more massively. He adjusted the yellow lizard-skin headband above his eyes, hitched up his matching pants, and beckoned with both paws.

They were surrounded by the rest of Buncan’s class. Archmer the badger held the ball they’d been playing pentagon with.

“C’mon, human,” Fasvunk growled. “You think you’re so special ‘cause your sire’s a spellsinger. Well, I ain’t impressed.”

Breathing hard, Buncan confronted the bear squarely. He wasn’t afraid of Fasvunk, but neither was this how he’d planned to spend his afternoon.

“I don’t want to fight you, Fasvunk. I haven’t got the time.”

“Sure you do, Buncan.” The bear’s gaze narrowed. “Way I hear it, you want to fight everybody sooner or later. Why not start with me?” He snorted and kicked at the ground.

“I never said I wanted to fight everybody. I just said that I wanted to deal with everybody. As for my father, you’re right about him. If you’re not careful he’ll—”

“He’ll what?” said Fasvunk, interrupting. “Turn me into a fish? Force me down on all fours? I thought you could do that yourself. Or do you have to run to your daddy to perform every little spell?”

“Yeah,” came a nasal voice from the surrounding circle. Buncan recognized Othol the anteater. “You’re always carrying that duar around so you’ll have something to scratch your butt with.” A few of the others laughed, but most kept silent, waiting to see the outcome of the confrontation before choosing sides.

Buncan glared. “I’ll take care of you next, Othol.” The much smaller anteater stubbornly held his ground.

Fasvunk took a ponderous step forward, heavy paws held out in front of him in fighting mode. “You got to get through me first, toad-turd.”

Sucking in a breath, Buncan checked to make sure his duar was secure against his back, and adopted a stance. “I can see you’re not going to be reasonable about this. Have it your way. No claws, and no biting.”

“Why not?” Fasvunk grinned. “So you can make the best use of your height? No restrictions, baldy.”

“Suit yourself.” Buncan presented his fists. “No death-dealing, though. I don’t want you ripping out my throat.”

“Hey, would I do that?” The bear opened his right paw, displaying half-inch-long claws. “Just a little nick here and there. Maybe I’ll carve my initials in your ass.” Several of the spectators giggled.

“And maybe,” replied Buncan threateningly, “I’ll twist off that stub you call a tail and shove it up your nose.”

Fasvunk’s smile vanished and he grunted heavily, advancing. “Like to see you try, human.”

“No one’s going to ‘try’ anything,” said a new voice.

The circle patted quickly to admit Master Washwum. Not that it would have mattered if they’d tried to hold their ground. The silverback gorilla went where he chose.

Adjusting his thick glasses, his gaze flicked from one antagonist to the other, his white collar stiff against his bull neck. “What’s this all about, then? You two at it again?” He glared at Buncan. “I thought I told you no more fighting.”

“Hey, he started it!” Buncan gestured at the somnolent black bulk of Fasvunk.

“Wasn’t me, sir.” The bear sounded appropriately chagrined.

The silverback’s nostrils flared. “I have just about had it with both of you. You! Get back to class.”

“Yes, sir.” Fasvunk turned and beat a hasty retreat back toward the buildings, followed by a wake of relieved onlookers.

“And as for you,” the gorilla began, turning his attention back to Buncan.

“You don’t like me,” Buncan said sharply. “You always side with him, or the others.”

“I do not side with anyone, boy,” said the silverback with great dignity. “But even you must admit that you are a caution to me.”

“If it’s about that piece of ensorceled carpet I put in your desk last week, that was intended for reupholstering your old chair. It needs it. I was just trying to do you a good turn.”

“It gave me a turn, all right,” Washwurn admitted. “Half a week’s worth of notes full of interwoven thread; unreadable.”

Buncan kicked absently at the dirt. “It was an accident.”

The gorilla considered his rambunctious pupil. “You are still intent on following in your father’s footsteps, aren’t you? If that is the case, you will find a solid academic background invaluable in your intended line of work. It will be especially helpful if it should develop that certain factors preclude your excelling in that difficult profession. Your voice, for example.”

“Don’t you criticize me too. Master Washwurn. I can play.”

“That’s not enough, a fact I am certain your father has repeatedly pointed out to you. I shall see you back in class. And see if you can’t somehow make peace with that unimaginative lump Fasvunk.”

Buncan’s voice fell to an irritated whisper. “Fasvunk’s a wus.”

Washwurn pretended not to hear. “And get yourself cleaned up.” He turned and with immense self-presence walked back toward the buildings.

Buncan followed him with his eyes. He was alone on the recess ground. His expression tightened as he turned and started running. Not toward the buildings, not after his instructor, but for the line of nearby trees. For the familiar succor of the forest, which did not criticize. For the balm of the Bellwoods, which welcomed without questioning.

He ran aimlessly, the Belltrees tinkling around him. He was a good runner, and it wasn’t long before he’d left both the school and the outer fringes of Lynchbany far behind. The same light breeze which stirred the bell leaves cooled him as he ran. Glass butterflies flitted brilliantly through the branches, and in a half-eaten bush coilpillars flashed metallic scales at him as he charged past.

Exhausted, he finally slowed to a walk. Sympathetic or not, Washwurn would still report the incident and his subsequent absence from class to his parents, Buncan knew. It wouldn’t be the first time. It meant he’d have to endure another lecture from his father. He’d far rather be beaten, but Jon-Tom was too enlightened for that. If only the old man knew how painfully his words fell on his offspring’s ears.

The river lay just ahead. He could follow the big curve around to the far side of Lynchbany and hang out there, with friends who had given up school and even thoughts of apprenticeship. Borgemont the mongoose would be awake soon, and Sissily, human like himself but much prettier, might put in an appearance.

Changing his mind, he headed south, sticking to the forest, heading for the one place where everyone sought answers. What he had in mind would be hard to go through with, perhaps even degrading, but he couldn’t go home yet and he couldn’t go back to school. It was the only place left.

Tenebrous clouds hung over the gigantic old oak. They didn’t worry him, because he knew they were only transitory. The rest of the sky was perfectly clear. It meant that Clothahump was at home and working. From time to time all manner of objects could be seen hovering over his tree: intersecting rainbows, lambent sunshine, tropical downpours, the occasional isolated fragment of befuddled comet. Less wholesome sights ofttimes greeted nocturnal visitors: swarms of dainty dark winged shapes with glowing orange eyes, or ticklish feelers.

Buncan was not afraid of clouds, no matter how threatening. He stepped out of the forest into the neatly mown clearing that surrounded the tree. Immediately a throaty nimble assaulted his ears, and he looked around anxiously.

Dipping out of the center of the boiling clouds was a tightly restrained swirling funnel, the tip of which poked and probed as if feeling for the earth like some necromantic drill.

Buncan’s first thought was to run and warn Clothahump. But what if the wizard wasn’t home? What if some old enemy was taking advantage of his absence to destroy the turtle’s beloved tree?

The duar was heavy against his back. He was completely confident in his playing, but his voice, his lyrics . . . What if he made things worse? What if instead of banishing the apparition he tempted it toward him?

As he equivocated it touched down, corkscrewing across the neatly manicured grounds, sending twigs and leaves and dust flying in all directions. Despite its extensive root system, a bubblebush weed was ripped from the soil to vanish into the howling funnel.

Then the swirling tip touched the tree itself. It grew momentarily darker, denser, before sliding neatly through a half-open upper-story window. He could still hear it, roaring and growling somewhere deep within the irreplaceable bole.

It was time to make a decision. He could race home and relate the tale to his father. Jon-Tom would surely know what to do. Or . . .

He could take action himself. Wasn’t that what he’d been wanting all along?

Unlimbering his duar as he walked, he strode purposefully across the meadow that isolated Clothahump’s tree from the rest of the forest.

When he reached the door he realized suddenly he had no idea how to proceed. More from reflex than forethought, he knocked.

To his shock and surprise, it was opened from within. A fluttering, hovering shape hung in the air before him. The young great homed owl regarded him disdainfully. It wore a short red vest embroidered in gold and silver thread with unrecognizable cabalistic symbols. Talons clutched a broom in one foot and a dustpan in the other.

“Whoooooo the hell are youuuu? And what doooo youuuu want here?”

“Uh, I need to talk to Clothahump.” Duncan tried to see past the hovering owl. He could hear the wailing specter somewhere in the back.

“The Master is busy right now. Come back another tune.” The owl made as if to shut the door.

“Just a minute. Who’re you?”

“Mulwit, his famulus.”

Not for the first time it struck Buncan that Clothahump went through famuli the way an echidna went through termites. Using his bulk, he forced his way past the owl.

“This’ll just take a minute. My dad’s his partner.”

“Youuu’re Jon-Tom’s nestling?” Mulwit looked around uneasily. “It doesn’t matter. Youuu have to get out of here. If the Master catches me talking instead of working, it’ll go hard on me. But I shouldn’t let youuu in. Not now. Not in the middle.”

“Middle of what?” Buncan asked.

“Middle of everything. Go away.” With that Mulwit flew off up a side passage, his great wings scraping the walls with each powerful downbeat.

Left alone, Buncan thoughtfully closed the door behind him before starting up the narrow hallway that led into the depths of the interdimensionally expanded tree. Light globes illuminated the way.

Peering into a study filled with scrolls and books, he found it deserted and moved on.

“Clothahump? Master Clotnahump?” He came to the workshop and halted.

Suddenly it was right there.

Snarling and thundering, the funnel-shaped storm confronted him. Sticks and chunks of gravel spun wildly within the spiral structure. Instinctively he started to retreat, reaching for his sword.

It was at home, with his dress clothes. Weapons weren’t allowed in school.

The stout storm slid behind him and shoved him forward, into the room. He could feel the intensity of the collared winds, the power within. It could as easily have wrenched his head off his shoulders.

At which point Clothahump appeared, peering curiously over his glasses.

“What have we here? Buncan Meriweather, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Sir.” Buncan turned to stare at the storm, watching in awe as it scooted across the floor, over benches, tiptoeing daintily among delicate equipment. “I was worried about you, sir. I thought maybe this was some theurgic weapon called up by an enemy of yours. I see now that you control it. What hapless unfortunate is to be visited by this irresistible horror?”

“No one. I’m in the midst of my spring cleaning.”

Buncan pointed uncertainly at the coiled riot of a storm. “That has to do with spring cleaning?”

“Yes. It’s a tornado, albeit a small one. That’s your father’s name for it. Mine’s much longer, and I prefer his. They’re very useful meteorologic phenomenons . . . if you can keep them under control. Otherwise they make a total hash of everything.” Turning, he uttered a string of phrases which meant nothing to Buncan.

Compliant, the tornado took one last passing swipe at Buncan as it whizzed around the room, sucking the dust from window shelves, poking under carpets, scouring behind furniture, and generally going about the tasks Clothahump had assigned it earlier.

“Quite efficient, actually.” Ignoring the tornado, the wizard put a thick-fingered hand on Buncan’s back and eased him out of the workshop, leading him back toward the front study. “Have to renew the spell periodically, though, or it gets irritable. What brings you to the tree, lad?”

Buncan was glancing back over his shoulder. “I think it wanted to eat me.”

“Instinct. Don’t blame it for that. It’s a very effective, not to mention ecologically sound, method of cleaning, especially for those hard-to-reach spots.”

“What’s ‘ecologically’?”

“A term I acquired from your father. Something that sorcery needs to be more concerned with, I’m afraid. Have to stop dumping toxic waste in the third cosmic interstice, things like that. Bright fellow, your father, if a bit impulsive. Of course, he’s a human. Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Somehow it seemed counterproductive to try to hide anything from the greatest wizard in the world. “I know. I’ve got problems.”

In tine study, Clothahump directed his visitor to the couch beneath the wide picture window while taking the stiff-backed chair directly across. “You’re eighteen. Of course you’ve got problems. All the troubles of the world have fallen exclusively on your shoulders, and you haven’t the vaguest notion how to cope with them.” The wizard glanced to his right. “Mulwit!”

The owl appeared in seconds, a heavily patterned headband restraining the feathers above its eyes. The broom and dustpan were gone, having been replaced by a rag and a bottle of amber liquid.

“Purebark tea for my visitor and me,” the wizard commanded. “Cold or hot?” he inquired of Buncan.

Why is it, he wondered, that whenever I want to talk about my troubles everyone keeps offering me tea? “Uh, hot, I suppose.”

“Be off!” Clothahump ordered.

The owl shot Buncan an impressively venomous look but soared away to comply. He returned in short order.

“Now then, lad.” The wizard adopted a benign tone as he poured himself a cup of the pungent liquid and stirred in a teaspoon of Noworry honey. “Tell me your problem.”

“Well, for one thing, the other kids know that my old man’s a spellsinger and they’re always teasing me about it It’s been that way ever since I started school. I’m sick of academics anyway.”

“Your father has mentioned the situation. He seems to believe you might be better off apprenticed to some worthy craftsperson. Or, if you choose to pursue your music, as a member of some larger group. These seem to me worthwhile goals for someone of your age to consider.”

“But I want to be a full-fledged spellsinger like Jon-Tom.”

“Yes, well,” the wizard demurred. He sipped at his tea as he crossed his short, thick-skinned legs. “Not just anyone can be a spellsinger, you know. It’s rather more difficult than, say, greengrocering. Your father is an exception. There has to be innate talent present, a special spark.”

Buncan tapped the duar strapped to his back. “I’ve inherited his ability. I know I have!”

“I don’t know that such ability is inheritable.”

“I can make magic already. I just can’t, well, make to do exactly what I want it to every time.”

“According to your father, you can’t make it do what yoa want it to any of the time.”

“Dad had similar troubles when he was starting out.”

“It wasn’t as extreme as it seems to be in your case. His voice was merely bad, and he utilized already composed lyrics from his own world. Not liking his music much, you improvise, and from everything I hear it would appear that while your playing may possibly be his equal, your singing is truly excruciating.”

Buncan winced. That criticism was becoming a part of him. An unpleasant part. “I’ll get better.”

“Perhaps. If you don’t kill somebody in the meantime.”

“So I mussed up the kitchen a little. So what?”

“From what I was told, your would-be spellsinging put your mother at some physical risk.”

“My mother, at physical risk?” Buncan tried not to laugh. “My mother could disembowel any three of the best swordsmen in Polastrindu before they could land a blade on her. With her balancing arm fastened behind her back.”

Clothahump wagged a stubby finger at his visitor. “The fact remains that you are dabbling in harmonic forces you imperfectly comprehend and cannot control.”

Buncan slumped back in the overpadded couch. “Why does that sound like a cliché to me?”

“Clichés are merely truths repeated to the point of boredom, lad.”

“Then why don’t you teach me? Help me to learn?” Clothahump sighed. “Some things cannot be taught. Nor can I cast a spell to improve your voice. At best you might become an accompanist to your father. His fingers are not as fast as they once were.”

“Thanks for your help.” Barely containing his sarcasm, Buncan rose and headed for the doorway. It was terribly impolite: He should have waited to be dismissed. Clothahump could have restrained him easily with a few choice words. Instead, the wizard simply watched the youth depart, peering down over his beak through his thick glasses.

“You must make your own decisions, lad. You’re nearly old enough to do that.”

Buncan whirled. “What do you mean ‘nearly’? I’m going to be a spellsinger and do great deeds. Whether you approve or not, or whether my father approves or not! Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” He shoved the sputtering, flapping owl out of his way.

“Let him go, Mulwit,” said Clothahump tiredly. “After the first hundred years he’ll begin to understand. If he lives that long.”

“What was that all about, Master?” The owl began to gather up the tea service. Clothahump raised a hand.

“Leave it. This spring cleaning exhausts me. As does the impatience of youth.”

“The huuuman vexed youuu, Master?” Mulwit could not conceal his pleasure.

“We disagreed on the path he has chosen. As do his parents. That’s normal, of course. But in the lad’s case it could prove truly dangerous.”

“I never disagree with youuu, Master.”

“No. You’re as slavishly obsequious a servant as anyone could ask for.”

“Does that mean,” said Mulwit eagerly, “that youuu show me the fourth-level aerial spell which enables one tooo fly without breathing?”

“Not just yet. You have other tasks to master first. Like how to get a sink whiter than white.”

“But, Master, youuur sink is not white.”

“Therein lies the magic. Now behave yourself, or I’ll turn you into a kiwi. How’d you like to spend the rest of your apprenticeship flightless, with a long beak and hairy feathers?”

“No, Master! I meant no disrespect. I’ll hurry back tooo helping the windstorm with the cleaning.” He bounced anxiously off the far wall, like a bug seeking a way through a window.

“See that you do. And keep out of its way while it’s at work. There are enough loose feathers around the house as it is.”

The owl disappeared. Clothahump finished his tea, then rose with the slowness of great age and stared out the window toward the distant woods. There was no sign of young Meriweather. Clothahump hoped he was on his way home, though that was unlikely.

Well, it wasn’t his responsibility. He had other matters to attend to. There were alcoves and storage chambers inside the tree that hadn’t been scoured in a hundred years. That’s what happened when you put off cleaning for a few decades. Jon-Tom and Talea would have to straighten the lad out by themselves.

Checking the drawers set in his plastron, he trundled off in the direction of his workshop. The tornado ought to be about finished there by now. Have to make sure and empty it outside, he reminded himself.

As the wizard suspected, Buncan did not head back toward school or home. Instead he found himself wandering in the direction of the Shortstub, which was itself a tributary of the river Tailaroam, without any particular destination in mind. He was angry at Clothahump both for his summation of Buncan’s prospects and for his honesty. Just as he was angry at his schoolmates, his teachers, his parents, and most of the rest of the world, all of which seemed to him engaged in a vast conspiracy to prevent him from doing what he wanted.

In short, he was feeling quite normal for an active eighteen-year-old male.

“So I’m a little off-key,” he muttered to himself as he walked. “I can still sing. Dad couldn’t sing either when he was first dumped in this world, but he worked on it, and now he manages.” Although, Buncan had to admit, Jon-Tom still didn’t possess the kind of voice that would sell tickets. “I can get better,” he insisted to himself. “I can—”

A sudden sharp sound interrupted his self-pitying reverie and he halted in his tracks, looking around anxiously. The tornado coming after him? Could wind hold a grudge? It was getting late, and it occurred to him that no one knew where he was.

As he gazed nervously into the forest, something hit him from behind and sent him tumbling. He found himself caught up in a flurry of blows and dirt and confusion. But it wasn’t the tornado. It was something far more active and a good deal less stratified.

Rolling free of the turmoil, he stood and tried to brush himself off. “Very funny,” he murmured.

The nearest of his two assailants was holding his sides, laughing in short, barking yips as he rolled back and forth on the ground. “Well, I thought it was pretty funny, mate!”

His sister sat up and regarded her sibling. “Cor, but it weren’t that funny, Squill.”

“Wot? Why, it were downright hysterical, squinch-face!” Before Buncan could venture his own commentary the two had fallen to fighting again, locked in each other’s arms as they tussled in the grass and dirt. Somehow they managed to keep their clothing intact despite the ferocious level of activity.

Having observed this typical otterish sibling behavior innumerable times before, Buncan simply waited patiently. Another minute or so and it would end. Which was precisely what happened. The two adolescent otters separated, stood, and straightened their attire as they joined him on the horizontal tree root where he was sitting.

Both were full-grown, nearly five feet tall on their short hind legs. Squill was imperceptibly heavier than his sister. He wore a pale-green peaked cap decorated with three feathers, each purchased from a different bird. His vest was a darker shade of green and his short pants brown. A shoulder pouch hung off his neck and across his chest. Both he and his sister carried bows and arrow-filled quivers across their backs and short swords at their sides.

Instead of a hat his sister Neena sported a multihued headband with a thin cabachon of maroon jasper set in the center of her forehead. Bright blue and yellow streaks flowed in waves from the corners of her eyes, running toward the back of her head and up toward her ears. The body paint had been applied with skill and diligence, fur being harder to make up than bare skin. Gold glitter glistened within the paint. Similar designs decorated her short, protruding tail. Her shorts were cut to a more feminine pattern man were her brother’s, and were pale yellow to match her fuller vest. As for the wrestling match, it might as well never have happened.

Her tail twitched as she eyed her tall human friend. “Wot are you doin’ out ‘ere all by your lonesome, Buns?”

“Being angry.”

“Oi, we can see that in yer face, mate.” With his short, clipped claws Squill dug idly at the root’s exposed bark.

How can they see anything in my face? “You can’t see anything, fish-breath.”

Neena let out an appreciative hysterical bark which resulted in her brother jumping her immediately. Buncan sighed as he watched them brawl, not really interested. A moment later it was all over and they rejoined him as though nothing had happened. Which to their way of thinking was exactly the case. One simply had to tolerate such goings-on when one was in the company of otters. Especially adolescent otters. They had more energy than a shrew on uppers.

For their part, they had to slow down not only their movements but their speech when they chose to share the company of anything as plodding as a human.

Squill carefully straightened the feathers in his cap while his sister adjusted her headband.

“I never see you two in school,” Buncan commented. “How do you ever expect to learn anything?”

“Wot,” said Squill, “you mean like ‘ow to wander about in the woods spittin’ into the breeze, like you were doin’ just now? Cor, I think I can manage that without stayin’ up nights porin’ over some manual.”

Neena sidled closer to him. “Wot ‘appened, Bunky?”

He shrugged. “Got into it with Fasvunk again. Had to take another lecture from Master Washwurn.”

She wrinkled her black nose, whiskers arcing. “Sucks, that does.”

“It was brief enough. Then I went to see Clothahump.”

“No shit?” Squill perked up. “By yourself? That’s somethin’. You pick up any spells?”

Buncan shook his head. “Nothing. Just advice. Most of which I didn’t want to hear.” He aimed a kick at a shelf fungus, knocking the punky growth free of the root.

“Don’t surprise me, mate. Me, I don’t need advice.” Sharp teeth flashed. “I already know everythin’.”

His sister made a face. “You don’t know anythin’, bro’. In fact, I’d opine that you know less than nothin’.”

“Yeah? ‘Ow about me knowledge o’ physics an’ engineerin’? Like ‘ow I can fit your square ‘ead into a round snake ‘ole?” He moved toward her.

Buncan held out his hands between them. “Give it a rest, can’t you? I’m in agony and all you can do is goof around.”

Squill frowned at his friend. “ ‘Ere now, you’re really down, ain’t you?” He put a short arm around as much of the human’s back as he could manage, careful not to disturb the duar.

“It’s just that I’m so bored there,” Buncan explained. “I want to do great things, to challenge the primary forces of existence. I want to spellsing.”

“Uh-oh,” muttered Neena, “that again.”

“Nothin’ personal, mate,” said Squill, “but you can’t sing well enough to inveigle a deaf dugong, much less a primary force.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t play a single-stringed bow,” Buncan shot back.

Squill raised both paws. “Hey, I know that, mate.”

Buncan gazed morosely at the ground. “I keep fooling myself, telling myself I can get better. But deep down I know I’ll never be able to sing well enough to make magic.”

“At least you can play an instrument,” said Neena. “I wish I could play anythin’.”

“Same ‘ere,” her brother confessed.

Buncan slid off the root and turned to face them. “How can I execute spellsongs if I can’t sing? How can I save the world and rescue fair maidens if I can’t work proper gramarye?”

“Ah!” barked Neena. “Now the truth comes out, it does. You’re just like any other male.”

He glared at her. “Why do you always have to bring everything down to such a base and common level, Neena?” She batted her eyes at him enticingly. “Because I’m a base and common sort of lass, Buns.”

He turned away from them. “Dammit, I want to do something . . . something noble and elevating!”

Squill tapped the growth on which he was sitting. “We could climb this ‘ere tree.”

Exasperated, Buncan whirled on his friend. “Can’t you be serious for just a minute?”

The otter considered carefully. “Well now, that’s a pretty heavy request, mate.” He glanced at his sister. “But since you’re about our best friend, we’ll make an effort.”

“Thank you,” said Buncan with exaggerated solemnity. “You know, I can sing well enough to make magic. I just can’t sing well enough to control it.”

“Don’t sound like a very promisin’ weapon with which to take on the primal forces.” This time Squill didn’t smile. “An’ I wouldn’t rely on your swordwork to get you out o’ any scrapes. I’ve seen you work with a sword.”

“You’re no match for your father yourself.”

“ ‘S’truth, Mudge still wields a quick blade,”

Neena agreed. “Even if ol’ Daddy-whiskers is gettin’ a bit wide in the gut.”

“You’d better not let him hear you say that,” Buncan warned her. “He’ll blister your butt.” He walked over and rested both hands on the root. “I can do this. I can spellsing. If I could only find a way to improve my vocalizations.”

Neena tickled him, and he jumped. “Well, you’d best be careful with it, Bunkle. Like me brother says, you’re about the best non-otter friend we ‘ave. You kill yourself and we won’t ‘ave no one better to tease.” She exchanged a glance with Squill. “Want to see somethin’ really interestin’?”

“What?” He tried not to sound too indifferent, knowing she was doing her best to try to cheer him up.

From a pocket in the lower part of her vest she extracted a flat, squarish black box. A small transparent window was set in the slightly domed top. Intrigued, Buncan took a closer look. His eyes widened as soon as he recognized it.

“Hey, that looks like . . .!”

Neena nodded vigorously. “The CD player your father brought back from his world on his last visit there and gave to Mudge.”

Buncan was appalled. “If your parents knew you’d taken that from the den they’d shave you front and back.”

Her whiskers twitched. “Bloody right. But they don’t know.” She winked at her brother. “Mudge didn’t teach us all ‘is of techniques for nothin’.”

“They ‘ardly ever let us use it,” added Squill, “so we just sort of appropriated it for the afternoon.”

“The only problem is that we can’t get it to work.” Neena fingered the black rectangle. “Somethin’ about it needin’ some magic installed before it’ll play. Mudge says it needs ‘better days.’ ”

“ ‘Batteries,’ ” Buncan corrected her. “I’ve watched Jon-Tom use them at our tree. They’re four little magically charged cylinders that fit in here. See?” He turned the rectangle over and showed them the compartment and the four cylinders nestled like larvae within. “The spell runs down and Dad has to revitalize it before it’ll work again. I don’t remember the exact words to the spell. Something about a rabbit that keeps going.” He shrugged as he reseated the cylinder compartment.

Neena considered. “ ‘Ere now, Bunco, if you’re any kind o’ spellsinger at all, you ought to be able to recharge a simple little spell like this.”

“Jolly right!” Squill took the player and set it down on the ground. “Get on it, mate.”

“Now wait a minute.” Buncan looked uneasy. “This involves some serious magic. Electrons and rabbits and all kinds of stuff. I don’t know if I should be messing with Mudge’s property.”

Neena sniffed disdainfully. “An’ you want to rescue damsels and battle evil. Right.”

“But this is a device from the Otherworld.”

“Blimey, give it a try, Buncan,” Squill implored his friend. “ ‘Ow bad can you bung it up?”

“Well . . .” He slid the duar off his back and plucked hesitantly at the double set of strings. A soft golden glow began to coalesce at the place where the strings intersected. “This is risky.”

“You think you won’t meet any risks on a quest?” Neena challenged him. “Come on, you can do it.”

Taking a deep breath, he began to sing. The instrumental accompaniment was exalting, exquisitely rendered, but the words . . . It was a struggle for the otters to keep their paws off their ears.

The CD player twitched a couple of times, but did not otherwise react.

After his best effort drew forth only a brief whine from the device’s tiny internal speaker, Buncan let his fingers fall from the duar. “There, you see?” he said angrily. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

“You play beautifully, Bunky,” Neena told bun.

The trio regarded the quiescent player regretfully, until Squill unexpectedly let out a yip of inspiration.

“Oi! I’ve an idea, I ‘ave!”

“Now there’s an odd notion,” said Neena.

Squill ignored her. “Me sister and me, we ‘ave wonderful voices, we do. An’ we’re bloomin’ quick with wordplay.”

He twirled a whisker. “Otters are quick with everythin’. ”

“I ‘ave to admit that this one time me squish-brained brother ‘appens to be right,” Neena agreed. “Though I don’t see ‘is point.”

“Don’t you get it?” Squill eyed Buncan eagerly. “Wot if you played an’ we took care o’ the singin’?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Spellsinging’s not a cooperative enterprise.”

“Says who? Don’t wizards ofttimes work together to homogenize a big spell?”

“Sure, but that’s different.” Isn’t it? “We’ve known each other all our lives.” Neena enthusiastically took up her brother’s suggestion. “We’ve grown up together. We’re personally and emotionally compatible. Lots o’ times.”

“Being friends is different from making magic together,” Buncan argued.

“Bein’ friends is a kind of magic,” she countered.

“Much as it pains me deep to admit it, me brother might ‘ave somethin’ worth pursuin’ “ere.” Her eyes shone brightly.

“It’s worth a try, mate,” Squill added. “Wot’s to lose?”

“We can try that new kind of music.” A delighted Neena clapped both paws together. “The kind that Jon-Tom brought back from his last visit to the Otherworld, that our parents don’t like. That’s a good reason to use it.”

Buncan pondered. “You mean that rap stuff? I don’t know if I can play to accompany that.”

“Oh, sure you can, mate.” Squill exuded confidence. “It’s all beat. Just follow us. You can do that, can’t you?” “I suppose.” Who is the spellsinger here? he found himself wondering.

This wasn’t going to work, he told himself. But what else was he going to do? Slink homeward? Time enough for that. Time enough to deal with his parents, and Master Washwurn. “Okay. I’ll suggest some words-of-power I picked up from listening to Dad. You work them into whatever lyrics you improvise, and I’ll back you the best I can.” He hefted the duar, his fingers hovering over the strings.

The otters looked at each other. “Wot’ll we sing about?” Squill asked his sister. “We can’t just imitate one o’ those Other World songs we’ve ‘eard. It ‘as to be specific to the situation.”

“To the player.” Neena nodded at the black rectangle, which lay motionless on the ground in front of them.

While Buncan waited impatiently they discussed various approaches among themselves. Finally Squill indicated their readiness. Facing each other, the otters commenced . . . to rap. Music flowed from the duar as Buncan matched them chord for word.

“Got no music and we got no sound

Got to hear it clear if we wanna go ‘round

Play it loud and play it neat

Play it in the forest ‘cause we ain’t got no Street

‘Cause we wanna hear the beat

Dig it, wig it, feets for the beat!”

Certainly it was the first rap ever heard in the Bellwoods. The otters were nothing if not enthusiastic and facile improvisers. Buncan was hard-pressed to match their energy with music.

The radiance at the nexus of the duar intensified, darkening from pale pink to a deep rose hue. It expanded to envelop his fingers, then his hands.

The CD player began to quiver.

CHAPTER 4

THE OTTERS CONTINUED TO SING AS THE BLACK RECtangle bounced on its edges. Bounced in tune to the music, Buncan noted. As he looked on, a miniature golden vortex issued from the transparent, domed cover. Music began to emanate from the tiny built-in speaker. He didn’t recognize the song: He was too busy playing.

Abruptly the otters ceased then- rapping so they could stare. Buncan’s fingers stilled.

The player was now floating four feet off the ground, still jiving and bouncing to the music which issued from within. The words meant nothing to any of them, but that didn’t matter. Not now.

“Let’s make it louder.” Squill was enthralled by his own accomplishment. His sister nodded slowly, her eyes focused on the perambulating player. They resumed their rapping, while Buncan hastened to back them. Or were they backing him? He had no time to wonder.

In response to their efforts the music pouring from the player grew louder. Much louder. The black rectangle was now rotating rapidly on its axis, pierced through from top to bottom by the golden vortex. Around the trio the forest began to vibrate, the Belltrees ringing in time to the rap. Insects and small flying reptiles scattered in panic.

Duncan’s initial hesitation had vanished completely, his earlier depression displaced by the ecstasy of pure performance.

“This is great!” He had to shout to make himself heard above the music erupting from the energized CD, the harmonic vibrato of the duar, and the pounding pulse of hitherto never heard otter-rap. Sparks flew from the duar’s nexus. They were matched in intensity by bursts of celestial light that were flung off from the golden vortex. He’d been wondering what that was ever since it had first appeared. Now he felt that he knew.

It was music made visible.

And then, as the otters finished off a particularly zesty phrase, the vortex containing the CD player shot straight upward, climbing toward the clouds. Neena squealed in surprise.

At that the player paused, seemed to shudder slightly, and stopped. The vortex hummed energetically as it hovered motionless at treetop level.

The incipient spellsingers gathered beneath it, staring upward and occasionally dodging drizzling shards of effervescent music. As soon as these struck the ground they melted away like ice in a frying pan, notes sinking in descending scale into the music-moistened earth.

“Great.” Buncan brushed an errant b-flat from his forehead. “Now what do we do?”

Squill balanced his cap on his head as he craned his neck to study the player. It showed no inclination to descend from its lofty position.

“Don’t ask me, mate. You’re the one wot wants to be a spellsinger.”

Buncan felt his blood pressure rising. “You two got me into this.” He blinked. “Hey, what am I upset for? It’s not my dad’s player.”

The otters looked at him. “You can’t just leave it like this,” said Squill. “You’ve got to ‘elp us.”

Buncan shrugged. “That’s the way the magic falls.”

Neena clutched at his arm. “We’ve got to get it down, Bunky. If we don’t, Mudge will kill us.”

“Not to mention wot Mom’ll do.” Squill tried not to envision Weegee in a rage.

“We sang it up there,” Buncan pointed out. “If we try that again, it’s liable to vanish completely. But I don’t know what else to do.”

Squill looked unhappy. “Me neither.”

“Of course, we could get some help,” Buncan said thoughtfully. “Corander the raven could just fly up and pluck it out of the air.”

Squill shook his head doubtfully, the feathers in his cap fluttering. “The bloody thing might take off with ‘im, too. That’d be ‘ell to try an’ explain. No, spellsingin’ put it up there, it’d best be spellsingin’ we use to try an’ get it down.”

“You could climb that nearest tree,” his sister suggested,

“and take a jump at it.”

He glared at her. “Wot, am I a flyin’ squirrel?” He made an obscene suggestion.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Buncan plucked at the duar’s strings. “Let’s get it over with. But you’d better be prepared for it not to work.”

“It ‘as to work.” Neena and her brother backed up slightly and conferenced.

“Get on with it,” snapped Buncan after a while. He wasn’t impatient so much as he was nervous.

Neena glared at him. “We ‘ave to be careful, Bickles. Fok up the first time an’ we might not get a second chance, wot?” She brushed glistening notes from her shoulders.

They began to sing, a slow, relaxed rap this time, almost languorous. Caught off guard by the unexpected shift in tempo, it took Buncan a moment to figure out the correct fingering.

“Sounds too high, my oh my

Don’ wanna send it up in the sky

Put it down on the ground

Where it can be found

Sound, sound, pound it in the ground

Beats for the feet, feets for the beat!

We’ve ‘ad our treat, now takes a seat”

The duar’s nexus pulsed softly, an ethereal pale blue mis time. It did not look or feel promising. Indeed, the CD player actually rose another few feet instead of descending. Then it stopped and hovered, seemingly confused.

Still pounding out tracks from the disc spinning within, it commenced a steady regression, descending in time to the otter’s slow-paced rap. The golden vortex attenuated, contracting in upon itself, until it was no thicker than a rotating golden pencil. A few random, ersatz notes flaked off, but they were few now and chords between.

As the rap concluded, the player settled to the ground. The supportive vortex vanished utterly. When it had winked out completely, Squill made a dive for the device. It tried to squirt clear of his grasping fingers, but sometimes even magic isn’t as quick as an otter. He got one paw on the box, then the other, rolled over and sat up, waving it triumphantly. Exhausted, it didn’t so much as quiver in his hands. The music from within ceased.

Neena hurried over for a look. “Is it all right? Is the bloody thing damaged?”

Squill was turning it over in his fingers, careful to keep a firm grip on the plastic in case it was playing dead, waiting for an opportunity to jump free.

“Seems okay to me.”

Clutching the duar by its neck, Buncan came over for a look. “Pop the cover.”

Squill complied. The motionless silver disc inside was warm to the touch but otherwise unchanged. Buncan picked out a loose f-sharp and dumped it aside. It landed discordantly near his boots.

The otter snapped the cover shut and shoved the player into his pouch. “That were too bleedin’ close. Thought we’d lost it for sure.”

Neena’s eyes were flashing. “We spellsang! Bugger me if we didn’t, Buncan!”

“We did, didn’t we?” He eyed the duar thoughtfully. “I wonder why your father never tried singing along with mine.”

“Cor’, mate,” said Squill, “ ‘ave you ever ‘eard Mudge sing? ‘Is voice is worse than yours an’ Jon-Tom’s put together, it is.”

“That might explain it,” agreed Buncan dryly.

Neena put an arm around her brother. “We got our voices from our mum, we did.”

“You realize what this means?” Buncan said slowly.

“Yeah,” piped Squill. “We can ‘ave music anytime we want.”

“It means,” continued Buncan solemnly, “that while I can spellsing by myself, with your help I can do serious magics. I can realize my dreams.”

“Wot dreams?” Neena was suddenly wary.

“Save the world. Defeat evil in ail its manifestations. Rescue fair damsels in distress.”

Squill sauntered back to the arching tree root. “Far be it from me to divert your current, Buncan, but I’m real ‘appy swimmin’ and eatin’ and sleepin’. I ain’t got no crawfish on me tail spurrin’ me to save the blinkin’ world. Let the world take care o’ itself, says I.” He wore a reflective expression as he lay down on the root. “Though I ‘ave to admit the fair damsel part sounds intriguin’.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Buncan walked over to peer down at his recumbent friend. “Where’s your desire to surmount the impossible?”

“Rather surmount a fair damsel.” Squill grinned.

“We’ve ‘eard all about that sort o’ thing from Mudge,” Neena pointed out. “Once you throw out the eighty percent o’ ‘is stories that’s out-an’-out lyin’, the rest o’ it still sounds unpleasant.”

“Let’s try just one more experiment.” Duncan walked away from them, toward the riverbank. Exchanging a resigned whistle and a reluctant glance, the two otters followed. “If it doesn’t come off, I promise I’ll drop the whole business. If it does,” he looked back over his shoulder, “you’ll agree that not to make use of our combined abilities is a real waste of talent, and that you’ll consider coming with me.”

“Going with you?” Neena was pacing alongside him. “Going with you where?”

“Why, to . . .” Buncan hesitated. “I haven’t figured that part of it out yet.”

“Bleedin’ precise,” muttered Squill. “You’ve inherited Jon-Tom’s sense o’ direction as well as his musicianship.” Buncan marched around a bubblebush, ignoring the peach-scented globules that floated out of the mature, oval-mouthed flowers. “Admit it: What we just accomplished was tantalizing.”

“CM, I’ll admit to that,” agreed Squill. “Been a bloody sight more excitin’ if we’d lost Mudge’s player. Could’ve been fatal.”

“We don’t have to try anything that extreme this time.” Buncan worked to soothe his wary friend. “Something simple, to prove we can do this.” “I thought we just did that,” Neena wondered aloud. Buncan reached out and ruffled the fur on the back of her neck. “That player had previously been activated by one of my dad’s spellsongs. We need to do something from scratch, something that’s all our own.” There was eagerness in his voice. “I’ll think of something.” “That’s wot worries me,” Squill murmured. Without stopping, Buncan turned, continued walking backward. “Just one spell that’s all our own. If it doesn’t work I promise I won’t bring this subject up again.”

“You’re a liar, Bunkies.” Neena batted her lashes at him. “But I loves you anyway.” She glanced at her brother. “Wot ‘ave we got to lose, mussel-breath?” “If a spellsing goes awry?” Squill thrust out his lower lip. “Not much, I wager. Our fingers, maybe. Our voice boxes. Our ‘eads.”

“I’ll be careful,” Buncan assured him. “If it looks dangerous, I can kill the spell by putting the duar down. Or you can alter your lyrics, or just stop singing. You’ll be as much in control as I will.”

“Oi, that’s right.” Squill was still reluctant—he remembered too many of bis father’s stories—but with both Buncan and his sister egging him on, he finally gave in.

They reached the river and halted. Downstream lay the little aqueous suburb of Twinkle’s Bend, home to Squill and Neena, their parents Mudge and Weegee, and a diverse but generally copacetic assortment of riparian citizens: more otters, muskrats, beavers, kingfishers, and other water avi-ans, as well as those locals who simply preferred to live close by running water and the delights it afforded. Presently the river below them was deserted. The Shortstub did not carry anywhere near the volume of commerce of its much larger relative, the Tailaroam, which ran deep and wide all the way down to the Glittergeist Sea.

Buncan had spent many a contented afternoon splashing and diving with his friends in those invigorating waters. They were good about not teasing him, for while he was an excellent swimmer for his kind, no human alive could match the aquatic acrobatics of even the youngest, most inept otter.

It was something other than swimming that was currently on his mind, however.

The bank on which they stood rose some nine feet above the river, falling in a gentle slope to a gravelly beach. At the high-water mark mature trees gave way to weeds and bushes. Sunbeams splashed dappling on the languid water with the ease and skill of a knife spreading butter. Nothing moved in the forest on the far side, though the Belltrees there chorused in counterpoint to those on the other side every time they were agitated by a passing breeze.

Buncan chose a convenient boulder for a seat, plunked himself down, and readied the duar. His legs dangled over a drop of several fleet. The otters eyed him expectantly.

“This is your show, mate,” said Squill. “Wot’ll we sing about?” Neena adjusted her headband, primping.

“You did pretty well before. I thought you two might come up with something.”

“Not me. You’re the one who wants to save the world. As if it asked you.”

It should be profound, Buncan mused. But for the life of him he couldn’t think of anything. It was a lovely day, the river was calm, he could not espy any evil sorcerers lurking in the Bellwoods, and no one in the immediate vicinity was screaming for help. Spellsinging in such circumstances seemed suddenly superfluous.

He had to try something. If he waited, given the otters’ demonstrated reluctance to participate, they might never again prove so amenable. Especially if either Mudge or Weegee found out what they’d been up to.

“I’m hungry,” said Neena unexpectedly.

“We’ll be ‘avin’ supper soon enough,” her brother reminded her.

“Cor, but I’m ‘ungry now.” She stared at Buncan. “ ‘Ow about we try to conjure up some food? We’re right on the Shortstub. ‘Ow about we spellsing out some nice fish?”

Fish aren’t very profound, Buncan reflected. “That’s not much of a challenge,” he responded dubiously.

Her tail twitched animatedly as she jabbed a short finger in his direction. “You listen to me, Bunkles. It’s all very well an’ good to want to go off battlin’ ‘ellish ‘ordes an’ upliftin’ the downtrodden an’ all that rot, but a bloke’s liable to work up one ‘ell of an appetite in the process. So let’s see if we can manage a snack first.”

“I did say we’d start with something simple,” he mumbled.

“Mudge would approve,” Neena added.

“Sure ‘e would.” Squill whistled appreciatively. “Mudge approves o’ anythin’ ‘avin’ to do with food.”

“Food it is, then.” Buncan sighed. “I’m waiting.”

Once more the siblings conferenced. When they separated, Neena nodded at Buncan. Three feet tapped out a unified beat.

“Got no gear, got no line.

Still wanna eat, wanna eat what’s fine.

Bring it from the bottom, bring it from the depth

Bring up somethin’ swimmin’ to where we can get it

Bet it, better not let it, better not set it

Down too far, down far away, hey, hey

Wanna eat what’s fine but I gots no line.”

The otters rapped a nice, relaxed rhythm, one Buncan could follow easily. A satisfyingly bright green nimbus coalesced at the nexus of the duar’s strings as the harmonious blend of otterish voices and dual sets of strings drifted out across the placid expanse of the Shortstub.

No fish responded by breaking the opalescent surface to land at their feet. No silver-sided morsels manifested mem-selves alongside the boulder. The river flowed on undisturbed and indifferent.

Buncan’s fingers drifted from the strings. “Come on,” he urged them. “You’re not putting your hearts into this. I’ve heard Jon-Tom talk about this a lot. Making magic with music means more than just playing the chords and mouthing the words. You’ve got to put your whole soul, your deepest feelings, into what you’re doing.”

“Wot the ‘ell do you dunk we’re doin’, mate?” snapped Squill.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m really ‘ungry, I am,” his sister added.

“You have to try harder,” Buncan admonished them. “Don’t dunk about spellsinging, don’t think about magic. Just dunk about how hungry you are.”

“She’s the one who’s ‘ungry, not me,” Squill protested.

Buncan glared at him. “Well, get hungry!”

The otter looked thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, all this ‘ere work ‘tis made me a touch ravenous. Cor, I believes I can feel the pangs workin’ in me belly even us I stand ‘ere speakin’.”

Buncan smiled. “Right, that’s the spirit.” His fingers returned to the strings. “Let’s give it another try. And really put your hearts and your minds into it this time, as well as your stomachs.”

The otters put men- whiskers together and started over. Buncan could sense the difference immediately. The lyrics contained the kind of barely constrained energy only a pair of otters could muster a nervous, teeth-tingling, edgy concentration of adrenaline. Despite his skill, Buncan was suddenly hard-pressed to keep up with them.

A waxen dark-green mist appeared on the river, palpitating energy sucked hither from some cabalistic fog bank by the power of the spellsong. It eddied and intensified, a curdled haze, shifting about as unpredictably as a cloud uncertain of where the wind was preparing to blow it next.

A faint trembling began underfoot as the earth itself grew nervous. Pebbles jostled and clicked against one another and blades of grass vibrated, a thousand tiny tuning forks attuned to an unnatural disturbance of vast potency.

Maybe, Buncan thought, starting to sweat a little, maybe this could get out of hand. The otters rapped on, oblivious to his concern.

A portion of the bank beneath him collapsed and he half tumbled, half slid off the boulder, scrambling madly in search of more solid ground. That he never missed a beat on the duar was a credit more to his physical than mental resiliency. On the far side of the Shortstub, cracks appeared in the hitherto stable bank as soil and sand crumbled into the water, leaving damp V-shaped scars behind.

Something stupendous was coalescing within the fog. Something slick of flank and commodious of bulk. A fish, as Squill and Neena had demanded. A fish, but bigger than any Buncan had ever seen. Bigger than any he had ever imagined. He played on mechanically, mesmerized by the vision, unable to stop.

As it jutted out of the mist, loomed above it, seriously disturbed the waters beneath, one thing became quickly apparent. It was not a fish.

He raised his voice. “Hey! You guys can stop rapping now.” He pointed.

They’d been singin He pointed.

They’d been singin Now they turned, following his gesture. “Sister,” Squill murmured through a long, eloquent whistle, “while I’ve been on occasion amazed by your appetite, I didn’t realize you were quite this ‘ungry.”

The conjuration nearly filled the river from bank to bank. It was twenty times as long as Buncan was tall and must have weighed as much or more than the combined population of Lynchbany, with that of a few outlying farms and maybe a small suburb or two thrown in for good measure. In color it was a light blue on top, a whitish slate-gray underneath. White spots splotched the striated lower jaw. A lurch of its massive tail sent a miniature tidal wave crashing against the far bank. Water plants and fish flew in all directions.

An eye that was small only comparatively located them. The immense skull struggled to turn in their direction, but was constrained by a combination of the green fog and the narrowness of the river channel.

“LET ME GUESS.” The voice rumbled and reverberated like a great bell. “YOU THREE WOULDN’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY BEING HERE, WOULD YOU?”

“Ummmm . . .” Squill jerked a finger in his sister’s direction. “It were all ‘er idea.”

“Wot?” she squeaked, outraged.

“Well, you were the one who were so bleedin’ ‘ungry!”

Instantly they were clamped in furious internecine combat, rolling about on the now soggy riverbank, flailing and kicking and scratching and biting at one another.

“Otters.” Buncan smiled wanly, as though this explained everything.

“I CAN SEE THAT.” The grievously displaced blue whale spoke with immense gravity. “THE POINT IS, I SEEM TO BE MISSING AN OCEAN. THERE’S NOT REALLY ENOUGH WATER HERE TO SUPPORT ME, AND I’M ALREADY HAVING A BIT OF DIFFICULTY BREATHING. SO IF YOU DON’T MIND . . . ?”

Buncan swallowed. “Uh, what happens if we can’t put you back?”

“WHY, THEN YOU HAVE A VERY LARGE CORPSE TO DISPOSE OF AND A BLOOD FEUD WITH ALL MY BRETHREN.”

Since Buncan had from time to time entertained thoughts of traveling upon the sea, and since this desire might be rendered difficult to fulfill if every great whale upon the waters was made of a mind to kill him, he thought it wise to do his best to prevent that condition from coming about. Preferably as soon as possible.

“It was an accident.” He tried to explain, gesturing in Neena’s direction. “My friend was hungry and wanted a fish.”

“DO I LOOK LIKE A FISH?” inquired the sulphurbottom.

“Only marginally.”

“WOULD IT NOT BE INCORRECT OF ME TO ASSUME THAT MY INVOLUNTARY PLACEMENT IN THIS INSIGNIFICANT ESTUARY IS THE RESULT OF SORCERY GONE AWRY?”

“Like I said, it was an accident.” Despite the whale’s intimidating size and manner, Buncan held his ground. After all, it wasn’t likely to burst from the river and come running after them (he hoped).

Certainly, they had to save it by sending it back where it had come from. He couldn’t stand the thought of having its death on his hands. His conscience wouldn’t stand for it.

Besides, his father might find out.

“Don’t worry. We’ll send you back. I’m not entirely sure how we brought you here, but we’ll send you back. As soon as I can get my friends to stop trying to kill each other.”

“I SHOULD APPRECIATE THAT,” boomed the whale.

Though it was not unlike trying to unwind a hurricane, Buncan managed to separate the otters. Squill glared at his sister, recovered his precious hat, and taunted her as she struggled to make sense of her makeup.

“Go on,” he urged her, “tell our guest ‘ow you really wanted to eat him.”

“Go sit on your face.” She looked to Buncan as she brushed dirt and grass from her clothes. “ ‘Ow do we send this back to the deep ocean, spellsinger?”

Buncan mumbled a reply. “You two came up with the lyrics that brought it here.”

“I was ‘ungry. I’m inspired when I’m ‘ungry. I thought our singin” would get us a little bitty somethin’ out o’ the river. Not this bloody great mass o’ blubber.”

“IT IS ASSISTANCE I REQUIRE, NOT FLATTERY.” The otters conferred, finally nodding at Buncan, who began to play with more hope than assurance. Perhaps because they were becoming more confident, or perhaps out of fear of what Mudge would do to them if they failed, they rapped with greater facility than ever before. Buncan’s accompaniment was equally accomplished.

The green mist coalesced afresh around the immense bulk, from which eventually issued a relieved sigh of satisfaction. “BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME. AMATEURS,” it concluded. Buncan gritted his teeth and offered no comment, not wishing or daring to do anything that might interrupt the flow of the spellsinging.

“Send it back, back

Back to the sea, back to the water, back ‘ome

“Ome, ‘ome, not the Shortstub to roam

Down in the depths, in the depths, away from ‘ere

Steer it clear, steer it free

Don’t y’see, free, away from me and away from Thee.”

There was a sharp bang, and a brief but intense gust of green wind knocked the three of them off their feet. Previously dammed up by the whale’s bulk, the abruptly released accumulated flow of the Shortstub surged in a towering wave downstream, racing toward its distant juncture with the mighty Tailaroam.

Squill watched the wave recede around the far bend as he levered himself up on his elbows. “I don’t know if it ‘as occurred to any of you lot yet, but it strikes me that this ‘ere sudden spurt o’ water ‘as the potential to be somewot upsettin’ to them wot lives downriver.”

“There’ve been floods on the Shortstub before,” his sister pointed out.

“Not this time o’ year, fungus-lips.” Her brother jabbed a thumb skyward. “Not in this kind o’ weather.”

“Boats, docks, front porches.” Buncan envisioned wholesale downstream destruction as he contemplated the turbulent tributary. “Maybe it would be a good idea if we didn’t mention this little episode to anyone for a while?”

“Capital idea.” Squill was quick to second the suggestion. “Like maybe, never.”

“I think we could leave now.” Neena was eyeing her friend and her brother intently. “And get ‘ome fast.”

There was no need to wait for concurrence.

As they hurried back through the Bellwoods, Bur.can couldn’t resist nudging the otter nearest him. “It worked, Squill. Maybe not exactly the way we intended, but it worked. We spellsang. We performed great magic.”

The otter squinted up at him. “Blimey but you’re a ‘ard one to convince, Duncan. Next time we’re ‘aif likely to bring a mountain down on top of us.”

“Come on,” Buncan prodded his friends. “Aren’t you proud of what we just accomplished? Didn’t you get a little charge out of it?”

“Well. .just a flicker, maybe.”

“Yeah, right.” Buncan was grinning hugely. “We put a little too much into the spell, that’s all. With practice we can do better. Modulate, refine. Neena, you want to try for your fish again?”

“I’m not ‘ungry anymore, Bunkies. We’ve got to do some serious thinkin’ about this.”

“An otter, serious?” he chided her. When she didn’t reply, he lowered his tone. “All right. We can talk about it tomorrow. And if anybody asks us about what happened on the river, we don’t know anything, right?”

“Bloody right,” Squill muttered.

“But we’re a team. Don’t forget that. Sure I’d like to be able to spellsing like that all by myself, but being part of a team has its advantages, too. I can concentrate all my efforts on the duar.”

Neena glared at bun. “CM, and the next time we do somethin’ equally stupid we can run away in three different directions and maybe one o’ us will survive.”

“Don’t be so negative. You’d think you’d never seen a whale before.”

“Never ‘ad,” said Squill solemnly, “and neither ‘ad you, except in pictures. Seemed like a right enough bloke, though. Just a bit put out.”

“Think about this, though.” Buncan was hard put to rein in his enthusiasm. “If we can spellsing up something like that when we’re just trying for a fish dinner, imagine what we might do if we take our time and really make an effort to do something serious. We could do better than Jon-Tom, or maybe even Clothahump. We could change the world.”

“Ain’t sure I want to change the world, mate.” Squill spat to one side as he jogged through the woods. “ “Us a nice day. Maybe if it were blowin’ cold I’d try somethin’.”

“Just think about what we’ve done. That’s all I ask.”

All three fell into a contemplative silence as they hurried on through the forest, the Belltrees chiming uneasily around them.

CHAPTER 5

After the episode in the woods Buncan made a show of tending seriously to his studies, but each day he waited for the opportunity to meet with Squill and Neena. They chose a small glade well away from the river in which to practice. Not out of fear of encountering any more polite but irritated cetaceans, but to avoid those angry citizens whose waterfront homes and business establishments had been damaged by the mysterious tidal bore of some days previous.

They sang only small spells, conjuring up nothing they couldn’t deal with on a nontheurgic level, practicing and refining their ability to match Buncan’s music to the otters’ improvised lyrics. Repetition gave rise to confidence as they invented raps for recovering spent arrows or blunting sword points.

Sharpened skills enabled them to turn grass blue, or open sizable holes in the ground without the use of spade or shovel. They spellsang into existence not raw fish but cooked food, and sleeping platforms complete with fresh linen.

Soon they were feeling very good about themselves and their talent. They just couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Duncan devoted a good deal of time to the problem, certain that if they just kept their secret and had patience an appropriate situation would present itself.

It was peaceful in the house where the west side of the tree wrapped itself around the dimensionally expanded den. Outside, past the neatly maintained lawn and flowers, the Shortstub flowed tranquil and undisturbed to the south.

Father and son were alone, reading. Duncan had heard Jon-Tom speak of something from his own world called “television,” but from his description of it Buncan didn’t see how it could better a book for good company and entertainment. It was an evaluation Jon-Tom chose never to dispute.

His mother was finishing up in the kitchen as the door pealed for attention. Buncan barely looked up from his reading as she entered the hall. As he watched he envisioned her wielding the sword she kept in the back of the broom closet instead of the dishcloth she was presently carrying. It was a difficult image to sustain, no matter how many tales he recalled of her early life.

She leaned back to peer into the den. “Dear, there’s an owl to see you.”

Jon-Tom put down the large book he’d been browsing and rubbed his eyes. He needed glasses, Buncan knew, but insisted on using imperfect vision spells instead. They needed constant adjustment.

Buncan headed for the kitchen on the pretext of getting something to eat. Actually, he rose and moved because it offered a much better view of the front door.

Clothahump’s famulus Mulwit stood there, rustling his great wings as he spoke to Jon-Tom, who knelt on one knee to respond to the owl. Talea lingered nearby. Buncan could overhear them without straining.

“ . . . but the Master declares that youuu have to come now,” the famulus was saying insistently.

“It’s awfully late,” Buncan heard his father reply. “And it’s chilly out. Why can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“Master Clothahump did not offer explanations,” Mulwit hooted. “He says for youuu to come now. Dooo youuu want me tooo go back and tell him you’re not coming? If youuu dooo it will go hard on me.”

“If it’s that urgent . . .” Jon-Tom rose and turned to face Talea. “You heard. I’ve got to go. I know it’s late, but it seems to be important.”

Talea stared up at him. “You’re not going off on some sort of silly quest or something again, are you?”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Now look: I told you when you got pregnant that I’ve done with all that. I’ve a family and a home to look after, a profitable and respected profession, and they come first. The time when Mudge and I traipsed all over the world getting into all sorts of trouble is history.”

“Just so long as you understand that,” she responded. “Because by all the imbalances in the Aether, if that hardshell ropes you into some crazy expedition I’ll cut off your feet and hide them in the closet before I’ll let you go.”

“Now, love.” Buncan heard the moist echo of a kiss. “Clothahump just wants to network with me.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Right, Mulwit?”

“So far as I am permitted to know, Master Jon-Tom. With youuu, and one other.”

Jon-Tom’s brow furrowed. “There’s someone else involved?”

“Not here, not here!” The agitated famulus was flapping his wings as he hopped back and forth from one foot to the other. “Already we have lingered tooo long.”

“Just let me get my cloak.” Jon-Tom hesitated at the open hall closet. “Do you think I’ll need my duar?”

“Wizardry was not spoken of,” the famulus responded. “Only talk.”

“Good.” Jon-Tom swept the iridescent lizard-skin cloak around his shoulders, bestowed another kiss upon Talea, and disappeared into the night in the company of the anxious owl.

As his mother reentered the kitchen, Buncan feigned interest in a piece of cake. “What was that all about?”

Talea stood at the sink, gazing out the oval window in the direction of the dark river. Her demeanor was stiff. “I’ll tell you something, boy. If your father gets himself sucked into something dangerous . . .”

“Didn’t you used to do dangerous things, Mom?”

She turned to him. “That was different. When I was young I had to do certain things to survive.” She attacked the remnants of the innocent dinner dishes, refusing as always to use the cleaning spells stocked in the cupboard under the towels.

“Is there some kind of problem?” The indifference of his query was crafted with admirable skill.

“How the hell should I know? You think they tell me anything? Anyone would think I had no acquaintance with the mysteries of the Universe. I never did trust that turtle completely.”

“You can’t ever trust wizards, Mom. It’s in their nature. They can’t help it.”

“Every time your father answered one of that aged reptile’s calls, it got him into trouble.”

Buncan set the cake aside, rose, and stood behind his much shorter mother, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Now, Mom. If Dad said he wasn’t going to get involved in anything, then I’m sure he isn’t. I just wonder what the rush is all about.”

“Oh, who knows,” she muttered irritably. “Some mother wants to change the sex of her unborn two days before it’s due, or that fat Mrs. Twogg on the other side of Lynchbany is having digestive troubles again. Emergency!” She assaulted the stewpot with a vigor no mere spell could match.

“Yeah, well, I’ve pretty much had it, Mom. I’m going on up to bed.”

She glanced sideways at him. “Kind of early, isn’t it?” He shrugged. “I’ve been reading all evening, and I had kind of a rough day at school.”

She turned to him and put soapy fingers on his cheek. “You have a good mind, Buncan. Better than mine. You also have talent, but not everyone can be a spellsinger like your father.”

“I know, Mom.”

The outside glowbulbs stayed dark as he slipped out his bedroom window and shinnied down the trunk of the tree, heading northwest across the back lawn. There was hardly enough moon to count as an afterthought, and it was difficult to see the way as he hurried along the secondary path through the woods. The Belltrees were silent, their tinkling blooms closed for the night.

Breathing hard, he still managed to arrive at the edge of the clearing surrounding the wizard’s tree just as Mulwit and his father appeared. He waited a suitable interval after they entered. Tethered in the corral out back were a pan: of husky dray lizards and the silhouette of a large wagon he didn’t recognize.

Normally the wizard kept the clearing alarmed, but those spells would likely remain deactivated until his father departed. With care Buncan thought he could slip inside the tree undetected. He edged forward, advancing noiselessly.

The door was unsealed, and he eased it aside. There was no need to lock it, since anyone not familiar with the way would immediately find themselves confronting an impassable dead end exactly like the burned-out core of an old oak. Remembering from many previous visits the curious twists and turns of the tree’s ulterior, he successfully advanced past the entrance and soon found himself standing in the hallway outside Clothahump’s front study. Not too long ago he had sat in that same sanctuary discussing his personal problems with the wizard.

He crept as close as he dared, until he could hear Jon-Tom and Clothahump’s conversation clearly. A third voice kept interposing commentary. Not Mulwit, which meant that part of his attention would have to remain on the lookout for the nosy owl. Cautiously Buncan allowed himself a quick peek into the room.

The venerable turtle was seated in his special chair, while Jon-Tom sprawled on the long couch beneath the window. Seated at the other end was a hirsute stranger, a sloth by tribe. Their kind was uncommon in the Bellwoods, preferring as they did warmer, more southerly climes.

This one wore a thin vest of what looked like metal foil. Even a hasty glance was enough to show that it was too flimsy to be any kind of armor. The long-legged pants of gray cotton were something of a surprise, but the open-toed sandals seemed appropriate. Though severely trimmed, the claws on the visitor’s hands and feet were still formidable. Clearly alert and attentive, the visitor nonetheless gave the appearance of one half asleep, an unfortunate and unavoidable characteristic of his kind. His words were carefully chosen, and no one would mistake his natural slowness of speech for stupidity.

He wore an extravagant amount of delicate gold jewelry.

Jon-Tom sipped from a goblet while Clothahump leaned on the sturdy cane he favored lately and scrutinized the visitor through his thick glasses.

“I have done as you requested, traveler Gragelouth,” the wizard was saying. “I have roused myself from deep slumber and, since you insisted you would relate your tale to no fewer man two witnesses of sorceral competence, caused to be brought hence my junior partner.” (Clothahump always stuck in that “junior,” Buncan reflected sourly.) The wizard leaned slightly but threateningly forward.

“All I have to add is that what you have to say had better be worth all this inconvenience. After a few hundred years, one begins to value one’s time.”

The sloth seemed anxious though unintimidated. “I assure you I would not waste your time, Master.” He looked at Jon-Tom. “As I have informed your colleague, I am a traveling merchant, dealing mostly in domestic utensils and household goods.”

“Saw your wagon and team out back,” Jon-Tom commented.

Gragelouth nodded. “I buy and sell anything, but that is my area of specialization.”

“Enough personal history,” grumbled Clothahump. “Your story.”

“Certainly.” The sloth looked thoughtful as he began to reminisce. “I was far to the north of here, traveling a back road in the vicinity of L’bor, when a singular sight happened to catch my eye. It appeared to be an injured individual lying forsaken by the side of the road.” He sniffed.

“You can imagine that I was reluctant to stop. It is a common and well-known ploy of bandits to set out one of their own as bait, decorated to appear damaged, to attract the attention of the naturally solicitous, whereupon when the would-be Samaritan halts to render assistance, the others fall upon and rob him, or worse.

“My outfit, however, is not built for speed, and I would have had little hope of outrunning a band of determined dacoits anyway. As this solitary individual’s injuries struck me as quite real, I halted and went to render what assistance I could.”

“That was noble of you.” Jon-Tom mused privately that the merchant might just as easily have had in mind the same thought as a band of passing robbers.

“His name was Juh Phit, a fox by typus, and his desperate condition was due not to harm suffered in battle but to age, starvation, and exposure. He was still alive when I found him. Weak and exhausted as he was, he still attempted to draw the sword slung at his side when I approached.

“Now, I am no fighter, Masters, and I started to pull back. When he saw that he beckoned me close, and related to me the gist of the tale I now pass on to you.

“He had been long afoot and had come stumbling all that way down out of the high mountains to the northwest of L’bor. Where precisely he had been he could not say, being no geographer or navigator himself. But he had found something up there, and his description of the exact location was marked by the kind of detail one masters when memorizing a field of battle, for I soon found out that he was a mercenary by trade.

“This lifelong professional soldier had encountered something which had frightened him badly. So anxious was he to flee its environs that he lost both his mount and his kit in his rush to escape, and it was only by some miracle that he had half run, half wandered as far southeast as L’bor, shunning all who crossed his path.

“One more day, Masters, and he would have made it to the outskirts of that northern town, which, he confided to me, was his intended destination. But his strength had at last deserted him, his body had played him false, and he had fallen helpless where I encountered him, at which point he was nearer death than L’bor.

“I comforted him and gave him water, but he was too weak to take food.”

“So what did he find in the northwestern mountains?” In Jon-Tom’s eyes was the hint of an old gleam. “Treasure? Some fabulous forgotten city?”

“Nothing like that,” said the merchant. “I do not pretend to understand all that he said. Only that what he found had been compelling and terrifying enough to drive him to that desperate condition. I have discussed mis with others whom I knew or encountered on my journey here, and if anything their ignorance on the subject exceeds my own.

“Only one, who had had some minor dealings with matters sorceral, suggested that I seek you out. This I have done because this dead soldier’s tale has become something of an obsession with me, and I desire deeply to understand it. Also, it was in a sense all that this unfortunate fox had to bequeath, the only other thing of value left in his possession being his oft-used sword.”

“Which you have with you?” Jon-Tom inquired.

The sloth looked away. “Uh, no. I hocked it. I am after all a merchant, and I have to live.”

“This thing he encountered?” said Qothahump impatiently.

Gragelouth turned gratefully to the wizard. “He called it ‘The Grand Veritable.’“

Over the years Duncan had seen the wizard Clothahump deal with much that was marvelous and inexplicable, from conjuring up entire buildings to transmuting gold into lead (the latter not being a spell that was overmuch in demand, but one which the wizard often performed for practice). In all that time he had never seen the turtle react as he did at that moment.

Clothahump jerked backward so sharply that it snapped the minor retention spell that held his heavy glasses on his beak. With a grunt he picked them off the floor and carefully set them back in place. As for Jon-Tom, he could only look on in bewilderment.

When he had fully recovered, the wizard spoke slowly and with great certitude. “There is no such thing as the Grand Veritable. It’s nothing more than a widespread rumor among those of us in the Profession. An old rumor, but a rumor nonetheless. It does not exist. Some wish that it did, but wishing and reality are infrequent companions.”

“I know I never heard of it,” Jon-Tom added.

Clothahump squinted at him. “You would not, nor is it something you’d be likely to encounter in your spellsinging. It is not a subject to spark casual conversation.”

Gragelouth seemed hesitant to comment, perhaps a bit taken aback by the vehemence of the great wizard’s reaction. “I do not know whether it exists or not. I only repeat to you the tale of the dying mercenary. Real or not, it cost him his life.”

“It’s not unknown for individuals weakened by exposure and its consequences to suffer from delusions,” Jon-Tom pointed out.

The sloth favored the spellsinger with his inherently mournful expression and perpetually sad eyes. “I may be ignorant in matters thaumaturgical, sir, but I flatter myself that I am a good judge of people. It is a consequence of being a successful trader. Nor have I suffered the companionship, however brief, of many on the verge of death. That confessed, I am convinced those who are about to depart this plane of existence have no reason to lie to a stranger.”

Jon-Tom waved off the rationalization. “Okay, so this Juh Phit believed he’d encountered something he called the Grand Veritable. That doesn’t mean he actually did so.”

“I am of course in no position to dispute that.” The merchant’s voice was as soft as his pelt.

“Even people of good intentions sometimes repeat falsehoods so often they come to think of mem as truths,” Jon-Tom added. “Real estate brokers, for example.”

“I can only say that I received the dying testament of this soldier Juh Phit, and that I believe in what he said.”

“Something so dangerous, so insidious, could not exist,” Clothahump was mumbling. “When I think of the damage it could cause if it did, the havoc it could wreak, I shudder inside my shell.” He leaned back in the chair, the willow springs creaking beneath his weight.

“Just what exactly is this rumor, anyway?” Jon-Tom wanted to know. Out in the hallway Buncan listened motionless, hardly daring to breathe.

“Like all truly great dangers it is at once simple and complex,” Clothahump was moved to explain. “To adequately analyze it would require its use, a proposition fiendishly designed to ensnare any who would attempt it. Its attractions would by definition be simultaneously irresistible and invariably fatal.” He took a deep breath. “The Grand Veritable, lad, is a notion best avoided by all sensible-thinking folk. Forget about it. Pretend you never heard of it In the hands of even the most clever, careful, and well-meaning of individuals, it could destroy entire communities, up to and including civilization as we know it.

“Which is why it cannot exist. The mere concept is too terrifying to contemplate.” As he delivered this warning the lights inside the tree dimmed until it was black in the hallway and downright murky in the study.

The reduced illumination did not trouble Mulwit, who came flapping into the room through the portal on the side opposite Buncan.

“I didn’t call for you,” Clothahump admonished the famulus.

Mulwit perched on the back of an empty chair. “Youuu sounded exercised, Master. I thought perhaps youuu might need some assistance.”

“Your concern is praiseworthy but misplaced.” The turtle harmmphed. “As long as you’re here you might as well hang around.” He smiled as much as his inflexible beak allowed. “That was an old joke between your predecessor and me.” He squinted at the glowbulbs. “Here, this won’t do.” A quick, arcane sentence restored the study to its previous brightness.

Buncan knew he was pushing his luck by staying. If not Clothahump or his father, the quick-eyed, sharp-eared Mulwit was sure to spot him soon. That would lead to accusatory questions he would be unable to satisfactorily answer. But fascination held him in the hallway.

The Grand Veritable, the merchant Gragelouth had called it. Reality or delusion, it had certainly provoked Clothahump. What could be formidable enough to cause the great wizard to adamantly refuse to acknowledge so much as its possible existence? What could frighten the all-powerful Clothahump that badly?

“The soldier Juh Phit spoke of it in more efficacious terms.” Gragelouth dug at a furry ear.

“How like a mercenary,” Clothahump murmured.

“He said that possession could make one wealthy beyond imagination. That any desire could be fulfilled if one but learned how to use the Veritabletproperly.”

“The true horrors always bewitch,” said Clothahump. “The Grand Veritable does not exist, and if it does, it is best left alone.” He stared evenly at his nocturnal visitor. “The fate of your Juh Phit should be proof enough of that. Continue to pursue this rumor and you will surely meet a similar end.” He turned abruptly on Jon-Tom, jabbing a finger in his direction.

“As for you, associate, I know how your mind works. Put aside all such thoughts. Besides, your mate would cut you off at the knees if you proposed anything.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Jon-Tom mumbled.

“We have ample work to keep us busy, and I need you here. Even if I did not, I would do everything in my power to stop you from pursuing this dangerous rumor.”

“I’m not afraid of rumors.” Out in the hall, Buncan felt an unexpected surge of pride. “Talea, however, is another matter.” Buncan slumped.

“Deal solely with those nightmares which have been domesticated by sleep,” Clothahump advised his human colleagues, “and leave the real ones to the reckless.” He turned back to face the sloth. “You have come far to see us, merchant. To what purpose?”

“I think what Juh Phit spoke of as he lay dying in my arms is worthy of further investigation, but I have no experience in matters mystical. I thought to seek assistance.” The sloth’s persistence in the face of Clothahump’s daunting skepticism was admirable, Duncan mused.

“You intend to pursue this matter purely in the spirit of intellectual inquiry, of course.” The wizard stared knowingly at his guest.

“I am a merchant, a trader in goods and stores.” Gragelouth showed the upturned palms of heavy, clawed hands. “I do not deny that I seek profit alongside elucidation. Tell me: With proper supervision could not this Veritable be a force for good?”

“No, never!” Clothahump insisted vehemently. “It can only cause divisiveness and disruption, destruction and death. On this the old tales are explicit. I would not trust its possession even to myself.”

“You can at least allow as how someone else might hold a differing opinion.” The merchant wasn’t afraid to defend his ground, Jon-Tom thought approvingly.

“Anyone is entitled to an opinion about hearsay,” Clothahump grunted. Searching a drawer in his plastron, he removed a small cube of something green and odious, plopped it in his mouth, and chewed reflectively as he slammed the drawer shut. “You’ll get no help from me. I’m too old to go chasing after dangerous rumors.”

“You’ve been ‘getting old’ for a hundred and fifty years,” Jon-Tom commented.

The turtle nodded. “And believe me, nothing gets old faster than getting old.” He sighed heavily. “If you want my advice, traveler, you’ll go back to your trading and forget this nonsense. If it’s nothing but rumor you’ll perish in the seeking of it, and if it’s at all for real, you’ll perish in the finding of it. I won’t charge you for this little conference,” he said, displaying uncharacteristic generosity. “Disillusionment is costly enough.”

Having tried every ploy he could think of, Gragelouth had nothing more to say. Clothahump shifted in his chair. “Do you have lodging for the night?”

The sloth shrugged wide shoulders, looking even sadder than usual. “Many times have I had to bed down with my wagon and team.” “It’s late, and a ways to Lynehbany,” the turtle murmured.

“I can make a suitable room for you here. Dimensional expansion. One of my better spells.”

The sloth looked up, nodding gratefully. “You are as hospitable as you are discouraging. I accept.” He reached for the purse attached to his wide belt. “I will pay—”

“Not now.” Clothahump waved magnanimously. “Even absurd tales have their uses. One must balance enlightenment with entertainment. This is fortunate for you, elsewise I might have turned you into a cockroach as penance for interrupting my sleep.” The sloth started, sleepy eyes suddenly wide. Jon-Tom was quick to reassure him.

“Clothahump has a unique sense of humor.”

The wizard chose not to comment as he rose and lumbered on short, stumpy legs toward the far portal. “Come, traveler, and we’ll see to your sleeping arrangements. Your body type would, I think, prefer a particularly soft bed. Or perhaps a low-slung hammock?”

Jon-Tom rose, shaking out his cape behind him. “It’s late. I’d better be getting back.”

No need to linger to overhear final farewells, Buncan knew. Turning in the darkness, he felt carefully along the wall as he retraced his steps. Soon he was back at the front door, which yielded silently to his touch. Out in the glade then, and moments later safely back among the friendly shadows of the silent Bellwoods. Heading home with the hope that Talea hadn’t checked his room in his absence. Even if she had, he’d prepared an elaborate and, he hoped, convincing excuse. In the event of total disbelief, the last thing she would suspect was that he’d been off spying on his father and Clothahump.

His head was awhirl with what he’d just overheard. Too much to contain, it spilled over into ancillary hopes and dreams, washing reality aside. Not to mention common sense.

It was news he had to share with others, and soon.

CHAPTER 6

“So this Garglemouth—”

“Gragelouth,” Buncan corrected him.

“So ‘e were a merchant from far away, an’ a sloth.” Squill dug his feet into the squishy sand of the riverbank. “Wot was ‘e, besides slothful?”

They were on the beach which struck out into the current on an upper bend of the Shortstub. Vest and pants bundled nearby, Neena cavorted in the water, a sliver of brown sleekness arcing through the silver. Like any other non-otter, Buncan could only look on enviously.

“Experienced and well-traveled,” he told Squill.

“Wealthy?”

“Hard to say. Sloths as a general rule aren’t very forthcoming.”

“Don’t see many in the Bellwoods.”

“This one had a wagon and pair.”

“Came a long way, ‘e did, to harangue mister hardshell.” Squill evicted a small freshwater crab with a toe, watched it scurry for the water. “This ‘ere Grand Veritable ‘e were prattlin’ about. Sounds special.”

“Clothahump doesn’t think it exists.”

Locating a nice palm-sized rock, Squill aimed and attempted to hit his sister the next tune she broke the surface. She dodged the missile with ease. “Accordin’ to wot you’re tellin’ me, mate, of beak-face spent a lot ‘o time listenin’. Wot do that tell you?”

“That Clothahump is kind to strangers.”

“Tell me another! The old bugger’s a grump.”

Buncan skipped a smooth stone of his own across the placid surface. He was stronger than Squill, but not as quick. “Then we’re left to consider the alternative, which is that mere was some substance to what the trader was saying.”

“Never been to the northwest,” Squill murmured thoughtfully. “Never been anywheres, really.”

Neena had emerged from the water and was shaking herself dry, her dark-brown fur glistening with droplets. “So Clothahump’s not gonna check this story out?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Buncan told her. “He let this Gragelouth spend the night. I’m sure he’s already left.”

“Wot about Jon-Tom?” She dug moss from behind one ear.

Buncan regarded the river. “Dad’s become . . . settled. You know what Talea would think about him going off on some crazy quest. Or how Weegee would give it to Mudge if he tried the same.”

“Old people,” groused Squill.

“Better not let Mudge ‘ear you say that,” Neena warned him as she methodically dried her whiskers.

“Squill’s more than half right.” Buncan chucked another rock into the water. “They’ve all gotten tired and lazy, forgotten what adventure’s all about. They’ve become too much a part of the community.”

“Well, I ain’t part o’ no community.” Squill rose and adjusted the angle of his cap’s feathers. “Me, I says we go after this ‘ere Gragelouth and check out ‘is story for ourselves. An’ if ‘e’s lyin’, we’ll be able to bring back proof o’ it.”

“Right,” agreed his sister. “Maybe ‘e were just tryin’ to extort some money from ol’ drawer-guts. Or free “elp.”

“Clothahump doesn’t hand out free samples,” Buncan murmured.

“Sure, ‘e ain’t dumb,” Squill agreed, nodding. “Just lazy.”

“I wonder how far to the northwest this Grand Veritable thing is supposed to lie,” Buncan said.

“Don’t matter. We got lots o’ time.” Squill moved nearer. “You said ‘e were near L’bor when he found that dyin’ mercenary. Did ‘e mention if ‘e were ‘eaded back up that way?”

Buncan tried to remember. “He may have said something along those lines.”

“We know where L’bor is.” Neena was slipping into her shorts. “We could find our way. This slant-eyed bloke came to Clodiahump lookin’ for ‘elp, did ‘e?”

“That’s right.” Buncan also stood, brushing at the seat of his pants.

“Well, then?” she murmured. The otters exchanged a glance. “Wot are we ‘angin’ around ‘ere for?”

“D’you mink he’d take us with him?”

“Cor,” she replied, batting her eyelashes at her tall human friend, “ ‘e’s a bleedin’ merchant! ‘E don’t know nothin’ about sorceral matters. If its spellsingin’ ‘elp ‘e wants, it’s spellsingin’ ‘elp we’ll ofifer ‘im.”

“Let’s get after ‘im.” Squill was already heading for the trees. “The farther off ‘e gets, the ‘aider it’ll be for us to catch up with ‘im. We’ll try the main north-south roads first.”

“What, leave right now?” Buncan hurried to catch up to the excited otter. “Without telling our parents?”

“Wot, you want their bloomin’ approval?” Neena came op behind him and pinched him on the butt. “We got our clothes, our weapons, your duar. We’re bloody well ready for anythin’. We can spellsing a privacy cocoon around us, keep Jon-Tom from spellsingin’ us out. That’s all we need to worry about. Besides, they’re used to us skippin’ off for a few days at a tune, campin’ in the woods. They won’t even look for us for a while.”

“The more distance we can make before they do,” Squill pointed out, “the ‘aider it’ll be for them to interfere.”

“If this Grugletooth—” Neena began.

“Gragelouth,” Buncan patiently corrected her.

“If ‘e turns out to be nothin’ more than some country extortionist, we’ll be right back anyways. Clothahump’ll be grateful for the confirmation.”

“Always wanted to see L’bor,” Squill murmured.

“What’ll we do for money?” Buncan wanted to know.

“We’ll live by our wits, mate. That’s wot Mudge always said ‘e did.”

“Your dad’s an inveterate liar.”

“I know. It’s one o’ ‘is most endearin’ traits. Come on.”

“You said this sloth ‘ad a team o’ two an’ a wagon. If it’s much o’ a team ‘e might be movin’ fast.” Neena was bursting with confidence and energy. “No matter. We’ll catch up with ‘im some’ow.”

Discreet queries revealed that the merchant had indeed passed through Lynchbany that very morning and had been observed heading north out of the town. That meant he was already a day ahead of mem.

“We ain’t gonna catch a wagon on foot,” Squill pointed out. “Bloody ‘ell! I was ‘oping ‘e’d ‘ole up ‘ere in town for a while.”

“We’ll ‘ave to find transportation.” His sister was nodding in agreement.

“How? We have hardly any money,” Buncan pointed out.

A twinkle showed in Neena’s gaze. “I’m the daughter o’ the inimitable Kludge, an’ Squill ‘ere, sad to say, is me brother. We’ve spent all our lives listenin’ to Mudge’s stories. You don’t do that an’ not pick up a smidgee o’ practical information ‘ere an’ there.”

Buncan glanced nervously up and down the busy street on which they stood conversing. “This is awfully close to home. Just being here makes it hard to stay inconspicuous.”

“Cor, mate, we ‘aven’t even started to push things.” Squill indicated a comfortable empty half-barrel in a nearby alleyway. “You just ‘ave a seat an’ wait ‘ere. Neena an’ I will be back shortly.”

“Just don’t do anything obvious!” Buncan shouted after them. He doubted that they heard, or if they did, would pay his words any heed.

The pair of four-legged riding lizards the otters found were strong and willing. They left Lynchbany quickly behind and soon found themselves once more among the dense groves of the Bellwoods, heading north at a laudable pace.

Buncan couldn’t keep from repeatedly glancing back over his shoulder, but no pursuit appeared on the smooth dirt road behind them. Squill and Neena rode back-to-back on the other animal’s saddle.

“If the stable owner catches us first, he’ll make hides out of us before we can explain.”

“Don’t be such an old granny-cakes.” Neena smoothed down the fur around her muzzle. “As soon as we catch up with Gragelouth an’ ‘ire ‘ourselves on with ‘im we’ll let these two skinks go. They’ll find their way back, an’ their owner’ll just think they slipped their bloody tethers.”

Clinging to the narrow reins, Buncan considered his horse-sized, yellow-and-blue-striped mount. “I didn’t know that skinks had a homing instinct.”

Neena waved absently. “Well, they’ll find their way back somewhere.” Her own mount lurched slightly and she grabbed hold of one of the long saddle’s multiple pommels. The saddle was designed to accommodate as wide a variation of backsides as possible. It was not particularly constructed with otters in mind. Or humans.

“Anyway,” Squill was saying, “they ‘ave to catch us first. If an’ when they do, if we ain’t got the goods in question in our possession, they can’t prove a bleedin’ thing. Relax, mate. Nobody saw us.”

Buncan did his best to comply.

They rode most of the night, catching a few hours’ sleep beneath the branches of a huge old Belltree whose leaves chimed only at the low end of the scale. Like their daytime counterparts the transparent butterflies, glass moths flitted among nocturnal blossoms, the light of the waxing moon shining through their transparent tinted wings and filtering starlight through living stained glass. A pair of owls soared past overhead, making for L’bor. Not searching for him, Buncan mused. Messengers, most likely, or just a young couple looking for a nice empty tree in which to make out.

The otters were up before the sun. Their energy was incredible, though if the mood took them they could also sleep for a day and a half.

By midmoming there was still no sign of pursuit, and Squill had paused to point out fresh ruts in the road.

“See that?” He clutched at his mount’s reins, steadying the big lizard. “The merchant’s wagon.”

“How do you know that?” Buncan asked him. “This is the main road from Lynchbany to L’bor. Plenty of wagons pass this way.”

“Ain’t seen any,” Neena countered. “ Tis the slow season.”

“We’ll know right soon.” Squill spurred his mount on, and Buncan hurried to follow.

Were their parents missing them yet? he wondered. Following breakfast they’d taken then- best shot at a privacy spell. In theory Jon-Tom shouldn’t be able to track them now with magic. In theory. He shrugged. There was little more they could do to cover their tracks.

Legend said that his father and Mudge had helped stop the Plated Folk at the Jo-Troom Pass. Hard to believe it was the same person who spent much of his time puttering around the family tree, fixing leaky plumbing and barbecuing fish on the lawn out back. Could that person break through the straightforward solidity of a privacy spell?

He chucked the reins and the big skink hissed slightly, turning its narrow blindered head to look back at him.

“Come on, pick it up,” he told the uncomprehending animal. “We want to overtake this merchant before another night falls.” With poor grace the lizard increased its pace.

Evening was threatening to make its appearance when Squill suddenly brought his own mount to an abrupt halt. Buncan drew alongside, stopped. “What is it? Something the matter?”

“Don’t you ‘ear it?”

“I ‘ear it.” Neena was leaning forward and to one side, trying to see past her brother.

“Well, I don’t,” snapped Buncan.

“Why not? Your ears are bigger than ours.”

“But not as sharp. Above or below the water.”

“You’re always underwater, mate,” Squill told him. But affectionately.

Buncan followed the otters’ lead as they dismounted and secured their skinks to a nearby tree. Just as they had for years, they used the undergrowth to conceal their movements as they advanced. Only, Buncan knew that this time Squill and Neena weren’t playing. Maybe his hearing wasn’t as good as theirs, but he was equally adept at avoiding twigs and dry leaves.

It didn’t take long before he, too, could hear what had attracted Squill’s attention: many voices shouting and yelling. Only a couple were deep enough to suggest size. The rest were fairly high-pitched.

They came to a place where the forest thinned and they could see the road again. Stopped to one side was the merchant’s wagon. Thanks to his well-honed powers of memory and observation, Buncan was able to recognize it instantly from the single brief glimpse he’d had of it parked behind Clothahump’s tree.

Also, there was a large spellcharged sign on the side which periodically flashed in bright canary-yellow letters:GRAGELOUTH—MERCHANT & TRADER

The wagon rested on four thick-spoked, brightly painted wooden wheels. A single door interrupted the smooth lines of the stem. There was a built-in ladder which allowed access to the roof, and a pair of stairs bolted beneath the doorway. Pots, pans, and other household goods dangled from hempen and wire leaders like misshapen fruit. Two muscular, squat-bodied dray lizards yoked side by side stood placidly in front of the wagon, scratching at their blinders and sampling the ground with their flattened pink tongues.

Though the wagon faced away from them, they could see the merchant seated on the forebench. Hatless, his thick gray coat showed evidence of recent trimming. The long fur beneath his arms swayed as he argued with those who had surrounded him.

Standing near the front of the team and holding the harness of the lead lizard was a massive masked figure. The mask was natural, for the individual was a spectacled bear. He wore long pants, a dull hazel shirt, and a heavy leather cap. His size made him prominent among the sword- and ax-armed ringtail cats and raccoons who comprised the majority of the gang.

A tall, lithe, rather rakishly clad coatimundi stood nearest the wagon, gesturing animatedly in the merchant’s direction with a thin rapier. They could see Gragelouth flinch whenever the blade flicked too close. Brass studs glistened among the coati’s attire. Even at a distance Buncan could make out the diamond that sparkled in one of his prominent canines.

“Wot a bleedin’ marvelous opportunity!” Neena whispered. “We can rescue the silly sod an’ ingratiate ourselves to ‘im forever. ‘E’ll ‘ave to take us on.” She drew her short sword and took a step forward.

Buncan hastened to restrain her. “Wait a minute!” He raised his eyes above the brush line. “There’s. .half a dozen raccoons and ringtails, the coati, and the bear. There’s only three of us, and the bear’s a lot bigger than I am.”

“Righty-ho, mate,” agreed Squill cheerfully. “Them’s fair odds, they are.”

“Are you crazy? You’ve inherited Mudge’s bravado along with his lack of judgment. If we go charging out there we’re gonna get ourselves stomped. Don’t lose sight of why we’re here.” One of the ringtails was now peering curiously in their direction, and Buncan hurriedly ducked back down into the vegetation.

“You’re right, Bunkies.” Neena sheathed her sword. “We’re ‘ere to show this merchant ‘ow our spellsingin’ can ‘elp ‘im.” She rubbed her forepaws together. “So let’s get to it.”

Squill was less enthusiastic. He fingered his bow. “We might could take two or three of ‘em out with arrows before they pinned us. If we try singin’ first, we’ll give away both our position and the element o’ surprise.”

Buncan was unlimbering his duar. “Singing might surprise them. Or they might even ignore it. We can always resort to our weapons if it doesn’t work. If we don’t do something fast, they’ll kill the merchant and we might as well turn around and slink back home.”

The otter considered, then nodded. “Right-o, but ‘tis likely we’ll only get one chance. Keep your blades “andy.”

Buncan plucked lightly at the duar. A faint globule of pale-blue smoke arose from the nexus. He eyed his companions expectantly.

“Wot’ll we sing about?” Squill eyed his sister uncertainly. “Buncan?”

“Don’t ask me. You two are the lyricists.” He strained to see past them. The discussion at the wagon appeared to be taking a conclusive turn. If they didn’t hurry, a sword thrust would render moot whatever effort they expended. “Better get on with it. I have a feeling the hoods are getting tired of Gragelouth’s banter.”

“ ‘E must ‘ave somethin’ worth protecting or ‘e’d ‘ave given ‘em wot they want by now.” Neena leaned over to exchange hurried whispers with her brother.

Buncan waited nervously. If it came to a fight, he was bigger and probably stronger than any of the bandits save the bear, and nothing was quicker in combat than an otter. But there were eight of them, all much more experienced at real fighting than he or his Mends. The scarred dandy of a coati in particular looked like a tough customer.

None of which would matter if they could spellsing them aside. Hopefully the otters’ wits would prove as quick as then-feet.

“How shall I start off?” he muttered.

“Somethin’ slow and heavy,” Squill advised him. “Like when we called up the whale.”

“Okay, but let’s try and make this a little more low-key.” His fingers hovered above the strings, anxious to begin. “We don’t want to kill anyone if we can help it.”

“Why not?” Neena regarded him out of bright eyes.

“Because it’s messy. We don’t want to frighten off the merchant, either.”

Squill was staring in the wagon’s direction. “That rapier pokes ‘im any deeper an’ ‘e won’t be in any condition to do much o’ anything.” He turned back to his sister. “Ready, mush-mouth? On three. A one, a two, an’ a three . . .”

Buncan began to play.

“Rumble in the woods got no place to go

Bangin’ in the hood where it ain’t no show

Gonna break it up, gonna bring it low, throw

It out, kick it out, stop it now

Stop it before it gets serious. Gets serious?

We’re delirious.

Better believe it or you’re gonna buy it

Wanna fight our power, better not try it!”

Every one of the bandits surrounding the wagon, from the bear to the slightest raccoon, turned to stare in the direction of the music. Buncan’s fingers flew over the duar. He could feel the energy surging from the instrument, felt confidence in the counterpoint he was generating to the otters’ rap. The more the three of them performed, the easier it became. He began to feel that with practice and time they might actually become proficient.

Except . . . while the music was invigorating, and sounded fresh, nothing else was happening.

The coati was conversing rapidly with three of the four raccoons. A moment later this heavily armed trio started toward the source of the singing. Two of them wielded axes, and the third a wicked, barb-tipped pike.

“Nothing’s happening.” Buncan raised his voice over the music. “Something’s wrong with your singing, or your choice of lyrics.”

“I can’t mink o’ anythin’ else,” Squill mumbled frantically.

His sister glared at him. “Well, you’re the one who’s supposed to be so clever!”

““ ‘Ell, don’t pick on me! You’re always on about ‘ow clever you think you are.”

“For the Tree’s sake,” Buncan growled, “don’t start fighting now!”

The lead raccoon wore a checkered and striped bandanna, while his companion sported an incongruous stovepipe hat decorated with tufts of bud down. The pike wielder shifted a leather beret between his ears. All three readied their weapons as they drew nearer.

“Do something!” Buncan hissed desperately.

“I’m tryin’,” said Neena, “but ‘e ain’t ‘elping none.”

“I just can’t think o’ notiiin’ appropriate.” Squill glanced anxiously in the direction of the approaching brigands.

“Anything!” A groaning Buncan found himself wondering if he should put down the duar and take up his sword.

“Wait a minim.” The otter blinked suddenly. “Remember that one ditty that was on that collection?” He whispered rapidly to his sister. Her expression widened, she nodded, and they began to sing once more, their voices rising in unison above the vegetation.

“Time for the beat, time for the feet

Time to get real out on the street

Time to Hammer the bad dudes down

Time to Hammer ‘em right down in the ground

Hammer; Hammer, show ‘em who’s boss

Show ‘em who’s the tool that’ll waste ‘em for a Loss!”

A glistening argent nimbus materialized above the bushes between the singers and the advancing robbers. It was clearly visible to those back by the wagon. The ugly conversation between the desperate Gragelouth and his increasingly impatient tormentor ceased as both turned to stare.

The silvery vapor seemed composed of metal fragments. It was gravid and intimidating, and Duncan instinctively stumbled away from it until he bumped up against a tree. He had the’ presence of mind to keep playing. What they were conjuring up he didn’t know, but so far it was enormously impressive even in its indistinctness. The otters ducked slightly but continued to rap. The raccoons clutched their weapons in front of them and gaped, their advance stalled by the otherworldly conjuration.

The cloud began to congeal into a crystal the size of a wine barrel. This was crossed with a much longer cylinder composed of identical material. Together they formed a slender T shape that was as long as Gragelouth’s wagon.

It was, in point of fact, an enormous tool: a hammer fashioned of some unidentifiable solid metal. A giant’s hammer. It hung in the air above the bushes and young trees, vibrating slightly in tune to the beat of Duncan’s duar.

The raccoons began to edge around it, keeping a wary eye on the gleaming, highly polished apparition as they did so.

This wouldn’t do, Buncan knew, and he so informed the otters. Without missing a beat they altered their lyrics appropriately.

The hammer shuddered. It arced backward, paused briefly in a vertical position, and then swooshed down with tremendous force. It struck the foremost bandit before he could dodge and squashed him as fiat as if the singers had dumped a blue whale on nun. The denouement was both messy and noisy. The sight, when the hammer retracted to a position parallel with the ground, was unpleasant to look upon. It was sufficiently disagreeable to send the two surviving brigands racing back toward their compatriots, screeching as they threw their useless weapons aside.

Buncan forced himself to look out at the mess the hammerish apparition had created on the otherwise pristine forest floor and felt his stomach engage gears independent of the rest of his system. He was, however, too busy playing to throw up. The otters, delighted, proceeded to ghoulify their lyrics to the utmost extent of their imagination, which was considerable.

The hammer pivoted in midair and began to chase the retreating bandits, repeatedly slamming into the ground behind them and leaving deep, perfectly round impressions in the solid earth. Each time it struck, the ground jumped slightly. Booming thuds echoed through the forest.

Seeing the outrageous device pursuing their panicky companions, the rest of the gang hesitated. At this critical moment the coati bravely scampered forward and made a gallant if misguided effort to rally his dispirited troops. He jabbed at the hammer with his rapier, only to see the blade turned by the smooth astral metal.

The hammer came down on his tail, breaking it in several places.

Letting out a barking scream, the bandit leader keeled over, unconscious. A ringtail and the bear grabbed him under the arms and hustled him away toward the densest cluster of trees while the rest of the gang scattered in every direction. Momentarily confused, the hammer went after all of them at once, missing with predictable but nonetheless intimidating regularity.

Buncan kept playing until the last robber had disappeared around the far bend in the road. He didn’t laugh at the sight, because he couldn’t. The nearby pulverized bone and expansive bloodstain which had been the unfortunate raccoon was too bright in his eyes, too thick in his nostrils. Instead he settled for a silent cry of thankfulness as he let his fingers relax. The glow at the duar’s nexus faded.

“Not bad,” he told the otters, who had ceased their singing. “Let’s see how our merchant’s doing.” The trio broke from the underbrush and jogged toward the wagon, carefully avoiding the bloody pulp to their right.

“Wot’ll we say to ‘im?” Squill wondered as they approached the road.

“I dunno.” His sister reflexively tried to smooth her makeup. “ ‘E looks a bit rattled.”

Indeed, Gragelouth was clearly shaken. That was understandable, considering that he’d thus far seen only the homicidal hammer and not its manipulators. When all was explained to him he would doubtless be properly grateful, Buncan mused. After all, they’d just saved his fortune and most probably his life as well.

A loud crash sounded from the tree line, causing Buncan to turn and look behind him. Still flailing about madly, splintering bushes and trees and the occasional small boulder, the hammer reappeared. Having been spellsung into existence, it was not about to simply fade away.

It hesitated as if searching for something new and different to flatten. After a brief pause it aligned itself with the wagon and came thumping directly toward them. From the front seat they could hear Gragelouth moan.

“It’s still active!” Squill yelped.

“I can see that.” Clutching his duar tightly in both hands, Buncan found himself backing toward the road. “Sing it away.”

“Play!” yelled Neena. “You have to play, Buncan!”

Galvanized by her order, he let his fingers drift down to the quiescent strings. The first chords were atonal and ineffective. Meanwhile, the metallic wraith continued its menacing advance.

All three of them retreated in a body, Buncan strumming madly, the otters rapping at maximum speed. They were in the middle of the road now, in front of the wagon, with no cover in sight.

The hammer reached them and hesitated. Paws in the air, Gragelouth cowered back on his bench. The apparition seemed to consider him, then accelerated purposefully in the direction of the somewhat quavering musicians.

“Scatter!” howled Squill at the last possible instant as the head of the hammer plunged toward them. Human and otters broke in three directions as the massive chunk of metal slammed into the earth where they’d been standing, sending gravel and dirt flying.

Buncan yelled as he dodged and played. “Make it go away! Sing something else! Send it back where it came from!”

“Back where it came from?” Squill tried to keep one eye on his friend and the other on the prodigious apparition. “I don’t bloody well know where it came from! The bleedin’ toolbox o’ the gods?” The hammer zigged as he zagged to his left. “You’re the damned spellsinger!” He jumped, and the device just missed him.

“You’re the singers!” Buncan yelled.

The otters continued to improvise, to no avail. While they were getting tired of trying to dodge and sing at the same time, the remorseless specter gave no indication it was slowing down.

Suddenly the wind increased. Tree limbs and trunks bent toward the road as the breeze rapidly grew into a full-fledged gale. From his seat Gragelouth looked on in fascination.

Leaves and branches thrashed around Buncan. He was tiring fast, having neither the energy nor the agility of the otters. If that thing landed on them . . . The remains of the unlucky bandit were as fresh in his mind as they were on the ground back in the trees.

A flailing branch knocked him down, and he felt the duar slip from his stunned grasp. The pulsing radiance at the nexus of the two sets of strings instantly vanished. Seeing mis, the otters ceased their rapping, useless without Buncan’s skilled accompaniment.

Lying on his chest, panting, Buncan looked up in time to see the hammer hovering above him, measuring itself for the terminal strike. He closed his eyes.

Instantly the wind died. Two doubled-over trees straightened, their thick trunks catching the hammer on either side of the gleaming head and lifting it upward. They bounced back and forth a couple of times before quivering to a stop, the hammer pinned between them as neatly as on any holder in a carpenter’s shop. There the apparition hung motionless, seemingly pacific at last.

Gasping, Buncan rolled over onto his back and regarded the sky. Then he scrambled to his feet and walked over to recover the duar. Some leaves had landed in the active nexus. A couple had simply been fried, while the third had been turned to topaz. He brushed all of them away and examined the instrument anxiously. It appeared intact. He carried spare strings, but if the body had been damaged . . .

A few experimental strums reassured him of its integrity. As he moved to sling it across his back and shoulders, he felt a paw on his arm. It was Squill, gazing up at him with concern.

“You all right, mate?”

Buncan nodded, narrowing his gaze as he looked up at the neatly pinned hammer. “Interesting resolution.”

Squill’s whiskers twitched. “Couldn’t think o’ anythin’ else except the tools in old man Herton’s shop. Worked.”

“Wonder how long it’ll stay there.”

“No tellin’.” Neena calmly considered the otherworldly instrument of mass destruction. “Don’t like to think of it as puttin’ in an appearance some night outside me bedroom window.”

“Your bedroom ain’t got no window,” Squill pointed out.

She sniffed, whiskers rising. “That’s right, brother. Just go ahead an’ stomp on me reputation.”

“Anytime.” Squill straightened. “Wot say we go accept the grateful genuflections o’ our pitiful fellow traveler?” He started toward the wagon.

“I’ll go get the riding lizards,” Buncan offered.

Gragelouth sat stiffly on his bench seat, watching them approach. Buncan rejoined his friends momentarily, his expression grim. “Who tethered the skinks?”

“I did,” replied Neena.

“Well, they’re gone.”

“Wot do you mean, they’re gone?” Squill turned angrily on his sister. “You snub-tailed twit, you never did learn ‘ow to tie a proper knot!”

“Is that so? Want to see me tie one in your whiskers?” She grabbed for his face and the two of them went down, rolling over and over until their scuffling eventually carried mem beneath the wagon.

Buncan bent slightly to check on them, (hen straightened and extended a hand. “Those are my friends, Squill and Neena.”

“So I presumed.” The sloth shook his head slowly, the dark stripes that began around his eyes and ran down his face giving him a look of perpetual sorrow. “Otters.” Holding carefully to the reins of his team with one hand, he took Buncan’s with the other. It was warm to the touch. All that heavy fur, Buncan reflected.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Buncan Meriweather.”

The merchant withdrew his hand and placed it over his heart. “I am Gragelouth, trader by profession and inclination. I find that I owe my everything to your timely arrival, young traveler. What I do not understand is why you youngsters,” Buncan winced but said nothing, “should intervene on my behalf. You are not, I hope, deranged altruists?”

“Not at all. I’m pleased to tell you that we have a perfectly valid ulterior motive.”

“Ah.” Gragelouth smiled, showing surprisingly bright teeth in his broad, flat face. “I am delighted to learn that you are merely foolhardy and not insane.” Reaching behind his seat, he rummaged through a large satchel. “You must allow me to reward you for your help. Though I am not wealthy, I am most certainly wealthier thanks to your efforts. I regret only that you did not slay more of those brigands.”

Buncan smiled thinly. “Actually, we were trying hard not to hurt anybody. At least, I was.”

“Spoken like a true student of the thaumaturgical arts.”

“We’re still learning.”

The merchant straightened and nodded. “That is what life is for. To stop learning is to begin to die.” He opened the purse he’d extracted from the satchel and made a show of searching the contents. “I will give you all that I can spare, impossible as it is to put a price on a life. I retain only enough to support me awhile in L’bor, until I can resume my sales.”

“We don’t want your money.” Buncan could hear the tussling otters as they bumped up against the rear wheels.

A grateful Gragelouth sealed his purse with a soft snap. “Something from my stock, perhaps? I maintain quite a diverse inventory. Some fine new weapons to balance your magical skills? Or raiment most excellent, to insinuate you with the female of your choice? Though I carry garments for humans, I am not sure I can fit one of your stature.”

“We don’t want anything like that.”

“What, then, can I do for you?” The sloth spread his hands wide. “An unpaid debt weighs heavy on the soul.” His engaging, deceptively lazy smile returned. “No doubt something that involves your aforementioned ulterior motive.”

“In point of fact, sir, it involves us doing something more for you.”

The sloth sniffed delicately. “Explain yourself, Buncan Meriweather. Your words warm my heart but confuse my brain.”

Buncan considered how best to proceed. “It’s like mis, trader Gragelouth. We’re bored.”

The sloth grinned. “Ah. The endemic affliction of the incipient adult. I fear it requires a more skilled physician than myself to treat that condition.”

“Several nights ago you discussed your travels with my father.”

Gragelouth’s heavy brows rose. “Your sire is a turtle?”

It was Duncan’s turn to smile. “Hardly. But he is a master spellsinger.”

“How do you know of this?”

“I was there, in the front hall. I heard pretty much everything.”

“I see. And you were not discovered. You are a very adroit young human.”

“And you’re a very intriguing old sloth. I suppose Clothahump could be right and your whole story could be an elaborate ploy to draw attention to yourself, or get some free sorceral help, or whatever, but I happened to think that there was a lot of conviction in your voice.”

“The conviction of truth,” Gragelouth replied solemnly.

“My friends think so too. Just because Clothahump and Jon-Tom don’t feel it’s worthwhile to assist you doesn’t mean no one does.”

Sleepy eyelids rose as realization dawned on the sloth. “You?”

“Why not us?” Squill emerged from beneath the wagon, slapping his hat against his side to knock the dust off. “At least we believe in you. ‘Alfway, anyway. We’re younger and more resilient than that oP ‘ardback. More important, we’re willin’ to give you the benefit o’ the doubt, we are.”

“We’re ready and willing,” Buncan added.

Gragelouth was silent as he studied his youthful saviors and would-be companions. At last he shook his head slowly, the gray fur rippling.

“I am sorry, but you cannot come with me.”

“Why not, guv?” Neena struggled out from beneath the wagon. “Somethin’ about our looks you don’t like?”

“There is nothing wrong with your appearance, or your enthusiasm. It is your parentage that concerns me. Most especially his.” He pointed at Buncan. “You tell me that your sire is the great spellsinger Jon-Tom. I cannot help but feel that since he declined to aid me himself, he would prefer that you did not substitute in his stead. I cannot chance incurring his wrath, much less that of his colleague the wizard Clothahump.”

Buncan repositioned the duar against his back. “Yeah, but since he doesn’t believe there’s any truth to your story, that means he doesn’t think mere’s any danger, either. How can something that doesn’t exist pose any threat?”

“The wizard seemed to think that it does. Besides which the journey itself presents many obstacles that will have to be overcome. But you argue like a solicitor. Clearly you have mastered certain skills.”

“Like spellsinging,” boasted Buncan proudly.

“Oi, that’s right enough!” Squill gestured in the direction of the tree-hooked hammer. “Wot did you just think you saw, guv? Unprovoked prestidigitation?” He slipped an arm around Buncan’s waist. “Me sister and I does the singin’ an’ Buncan ‘ere the playin’. We’re a bloody magic-masterin’ trio, we are.”

“We saved your bleedin’ life,” Neena added pugnaciously.

“And nearly lost your own in the bargain. Upon extended observation it struck me that you have less than complete control over your conjuring.”

“Now see ‘ere, mate . . .,” Squill began, but Buncan put out a hand to cut him off.

“No, Squill. Let’s be honest from the start.”

“ ‘Onest from the start? Me dad would ‘ave a fit.”

“Nevertheless.” Buncan looked back to the merchant. “We don’t claim to be masters. There’s still a lot we need to learn. But I’ve spent my whole life watching and studying my father. All I’ve wanted to do is be like him. I can do some spellsinging on my own, but the otters are in better voice, and the three of us have spent so much time growing up together that we’ve been a unit of sorts practically since birth. That’s why we were able to scatter those bandits the way we did.

“Sure our control isn’t perfect, but neither was my father’s when he started. Maybe we’re not as proficient as him, but we’re a damn sight more powerful than anyone else you’re likely to encounter. Do you still want the kind of special help we can offer, and if so, how badly do you need it?” He stopped, watching the merchant intently.

Gragelouth sighed. “Your style and sound of spellsinging is entirely new to me. I admit that it frightens me some.”

“ ‘Ell,” said Squill, “it bloody well frightens us some. Anythin’ new is a little bit frightenin’, wot? But it works.”

“It nearly worked on you.”

“That’s a risk we’re willing to take,” said Buncan. “What about you?”

“You espy clearly my desperate situation.” The merchant sighed deeply. “Have any of you ever taken a long journey away from your homes?”

“O’ course.” Squill responded without hesitation. “Wot does we look like to you, mewlin’ babes? Why, our sire is Mudge the Stupendous!”

“Mudge the otter, anyway.” Gragelouth turned contemplative. “I have heard that name elsewhere, though usually in connection with extensive debts long owed or assorted ingenious moral outrages.”

Neena nodded. “That sounds like Dad right enough.”

“Yes, I know of his reputation. Mudge the great thief, Mudge the great drunk, Mudge the great wencher, Mudge the great . . .”

‘Well, at least the operative adjective is still ‘great,’“ Squill muttered.

“You have daring and guts,” Gragelouth admitted. “I wonder how extensive is your quotient of courage.”

“As big as any bloody merchant’s,” Squill shot back testily.

“Your inexperience in matters sorceral and otherwise still concerns me,” he readily admitted, “but as is clearly evident I have no army of wizards clamoring to accompany me. There are occasions when youth can work to an advantage. So . . . I will allow you to accompany me until such time as your presence becomes more of a burden than an asset.”

Buncan couldn’t repress a pleased smile. “I hope we never give you reason to regret your decision, merchant.”

“Right, then!” chirped Neena. “ Tis on to L’bor.”

“L’bor?” Gragelouth made room for Buncan on the bench seat and for the others behind. “We do not go to L’bor.”

Buncan eyed him. “But this is the road to L’bor. That’s where you were heading.”

“To seek wizardry aid and advice. I now have, the Great Counter watch over me, you three to supply that. So there is no reason to waste time journeying to L’bor. We will procure final supplies at Timswitty, which is nearer, before striking out northwestward.”

“Northwest.” Squill’s brows scrunched together. “That means crossin’ the Muddletup Moors.”

“That is correct.” Gragelouth was watching him closely. Watching all of them.

Squill spat over the side of the wagon. “Piece o’ carp. A little lousy weather, the projected mental murmurin’s o’ some discontented fungi, maybe an ‘umble but interestin’ ogre or two. We’ve ‘eard all about the place from Mudge an’ Jon-Tom. They made it through. So will we.”

“Bravado is useful when it translates into assurance and not foolhardy overconfidence.” He glanced at Buncan. “Do you have money of your own?”

“Very little.”

The merchant nodded resignedly. “My resources are limited. Now it seems they are to be stretched still further. We will manage somehow. When pressed we have my wagon for shelter, though it will be crowded with four of us.” He shuffled the reins in his hands. “We should move on. Great mysteries await resolution.” He chucked the reins and the wagon trundled forward. Squill and Neena settled themselves on some cushions behind the bench seat.

“You hope to capture, or acquire, this Grand Veritable?” Buncan asked their host.

“Nothing so estimable,” replied the merchant modestly. “I wish merely to ascertain the truth of gallant Juh Phil’s story. Yes, when that moment arrives it will be good to have three young, strong companions by my side.”

Buncan repressed a grin. “You forget that I overheard the whole conversation.”

Gragelouth looked slightly abashed. “Well, there would be nothing immoral in making a profit as well.”

Tack strained and creaked as the two dray lizards increased their pace, hissing in protest at Gragelouth’s insistent reins.

Buncan settled himself as comfortably as he could on the padded wooden seat. They were on their way! This must be how his father used to feel when starting off on one of his inimitable adventures. Though if he and Clothahump were right there wouldn’t be any adventure. Just a lot of hard, difficult traveling.

At least it was a. journey. At his age that was adventure enough in itself. Everything they saw from now on would be new and different from everything which had been seen before, and therefore exciting. Different if not startling, stimulating if not overawing.

From their excited chatter behind him he could tell that Squill and Neena felt the same way. With the three of them working together he was confident there was nothing they couldn’t handle, no obstacle they could fail to overcome.

This was a common enough feeling among young men his age, so he could hardly be faulted for thinking like an idiot.

“Drive on, Gragelouth! We’ll find this Grand Veritable, if it exists, and toss it in your wagon like any other piece of goods. Maybe it’ll be worth a few gold pieces.”

“All things are possible to those whom life has not yet disenchanted,” the merchant murmured condescendingly without looking up from his team. “You are not afraid, then?”

“Afraid? Of what?”

“Of meeting Juh Phit’s fate; Of horrors and obstacles unknown yet to be overcome. Of what the Grand Veritable itself may be or be capable of.”

“It’s only a thing,” Buncan replied manfully. “I’ve never yet encountered a thing worth fearing. Besides,” he finished aiMfy as he crossed his legs and leaned back, “if it gives us any trouble we’ll just spellsing it away.”

“Bloody right, mate!” Squill barked belligerently behind nun. “We’ll conjure the bleedin’ wotever it is back into thin air! We can do oversize ‘ammers. Why not a Grand Veritable?”

“Whatever it is indeed,” murmured Gragelouth. “We may hope to survive long enough to find out.”

From the undergrowth several pairs of eyes watched the wagon disappear over the next rise in the road. Their owners were exhausted and battered, scratched and torn from their wild flight through the brush, worn out from avoiding the crush of the thaumaturgical hammer. Some studied that apparition warily where it rested high up in the trees. It had not moved for some tune, but where the necromantic arts were concerned nothing, absolutely nothing, could be taken for granted.

“Pulp their eyes!” chattered a ringtail. “Who knew the interfering ones were spellsingers?”

“None could have foreseen it,” insisted the coati who led them. His eyes flashed almost as brightly as the diamond in his left canine. “Children! Are you all to be put to flight by children?”

“Not me,” said another ringtail. “Not by cubs of any species.”

One of the assembled raccoons spoke up. “Sorcery invoked by children is still sorcery, and any sensible person fears that.”

“They were lucky, that’s all.” The coati gestured toward the hanging hammer. “Did you not see how after putting us to flight it turned on its conjurers and tried to kill them? They are inexperienced and callow.”

“I’m not interested in what it did after it tried to kill us,” growled another raccoon. “I saw what it did to poor Jachay. He was my friend. Now he’s a smear on the ground.”

“Aye,” said a ringtail. “That’s sorcery of a kind I’ve no desire to encounter again. Certainly not for what poor swag a humble merchant’s wagon might contain.”

The coati raged among his followers. “They caught us by surprise, that’s all! A little stealth, a little planning next time, arid we’ll take them before they can sing up so much as a blue wasp!” His voice dropped ominously. “Hard to spellsing with your throat cut.”

“And if we fail?” the ringtail wanted to know. “What then? Will assurances and excuses deliver us?”

“Me, I’m not going to chance finding out.” Hefting his war ax, one of the reluctant raccoons turned and stalked off toward the road, not in pursuit of the vanished wagon but south, toward Lynchbany.

“Go then, Wrochek!” the coati yelled after him. “Flee to the safety of a Thieves’ Hall and a protected bed.”

“Sounds good to me,” confessed one of the ringtails. He promptly broke into a trot to catch up with the raccoon.

Their impudent departure started a minor rush. Even the spectacled bear lumbered off to join his defecting friends.

“Even you, Sinwahh, put to flight by infants!” The coati’s sneers trailed them remorselessly. “All of you ‘brave’ robbers, terrified by three cubs and some strange music. Cowards, weaklings! Offspring of discount whores! You’ll not share in our bounty!”

“Is there any bounty, o revered leader Charming?” The one raccoon who’d stayed behind was uncertain.

“Aye,” wondered the ringtail who’d remained. “The sloth looked like nothing but a simple merchant.”

The coati turned violently on his small constituency, all that remained of his once powerful band. “You believe that? Then you’re no better than those spineless fools who’ve fled. What ‘simple merchant’ merits rescue by three spellsingers, even young ones? Do you imagine that the newcomers risked their lives out of the goodness of their hearts, or from some imagined debt to the trader?” He spun ‘round to glare at the northern stretch of now empty road.

“There’s mote at stake here than pots and pans. There’s something in that wagon worth dying for. A lifetime’s savings in gold, perhaps, or precious stones garnered in Glittergeist trade. Or something even more valuable we cannot imagine. Something worm the concern of young wizards.” He turned back to his two anxious companions.

“You are right, Sisarfi. That wagon is not worth the attention of common thieves. But I am not common, and by cleaving to me and my leadership you bask in the glory of my uncommonness.”

“Uh, thanks.” Though obviously confused, the ringtail instinctively sensed it would be impolitic to seek further clarification. He rubbed at the place on his head where his left ear used to be. It had been sacrificed many years before in a badly bollixed attempt at robbing a riverboat.

“Those fools.” Chamung turned his gaze to the road leading south. “They’ll find no profit in Lynchbany. They’ll starve. It’s a town overrun with thieves, and half of them don’t even have Guild cards. All profit entails some risk, and we’re not afraid of a little risk, are we? Come!” He stalked determinedly toward the road, aiming north. “We’ll have our profit, and revenge for our poor brother Jachay as well! Already my mind ferments with provocative scenarios for entertaining disembowelments.”

The ringtail and raccoon exchanged a distinctly hesitant look before following.

CHAPTER 7

The wagon wound its way through the bellwoods until a barely visible leftward branching in the road that Buncan would not even have guessed was there drew Gragelouth to the west. As their new route was not merely less traveled but practically nonexistent, their progress was slow. The terrain remained relatively level and firm.

The Bellwoods did not so much meld into the Moors as give way abruptly. One moment they were traveling among healthy oaks and sycamores, belltrees and glissando bushes, accompanied by the singing of crywail lizards and the hum of insects, and the next found them passing between cinder-gray groves and the inert hulks of long-dead trees.

These quickly surrendered the soil to an astonishingly fecund and fevered forest of giant mushrooms, toadstools, and shelf fungi, an overgrown morass of macabre mycelium that throbbed with an unwholesome internal phosphorescence. The cloud-flecked blue sky of the Bellwoods had been obliterated by a pervasive gray-green gloom that disheartened the soul as well as the eye.

Somewhere above the pestilent fog Buncan knew that the sun still shone brightly, the clouds still collided and coalesced amiably in a blue sea. It was vital to cling to that image as they plodded through the baleful olive-green twilight.

Water seeped lugubriously from the crowns of gigantic mushrooms and other fungi. Ghostly white growths loomed before them, diseased of appearance, loathsome of smell. Buncan drew his cape a little tighter around his neck. Even the otters were subdued. The dampness didn’t bother them, but the gloom did. The dour surroundings muted their irrepressibly cheerful sibling banter as effectively as the soggy earth hushed the creaky wheels of Gragelouth’s wagon.

“So these are the Muddletup Moors,” Buncan commented uneasily, not because it was necessary but because the continued silence was unbearable. Peculiar hisses and squeakings emanated from the undermorass, while phosphorescent shapes darted within, hinting at unpleasant horrors just beyond the range of ready vision. Displaying a subdued but unshakable sense of assurance (or hope), Gragelouth picked their way through the intimidating vegetation.

“I’ve ‘eard all about the Moors, I ‘ave.” Squill knelt on the cushions behind the driver’s bench, peering between Buncan and Gragelouth. Like his enthusiasm, his smile was forced. Moisture beaded up on the tips of his whiskers. “Mudge talked about ‘em a lot. ‘E’s been through ‘ere an’ back an’ come out tail intact every time.”

“E just never said wot a really depressin’ place it is,” Neena added unhelpfully.

“Therein lies the true danger of the Moors.” Gragelouth shifted the reins in his thick fingers, his gaze darting nervously to left and then right. “It infiltrates the mind and weakens the will to resist, to go on. Eventually you give up and just stop. Then the spores come, and the white tendrils, and enter your body. They grow in you and on you and use you up, until nothing is left but a collapsed skeleton. That, too, is eventually returned to the muck.”

“Glad to see you don’t let it bother you,” commented Neena dryly.

Squill’s expression was sullen. “I ‘ave to admit this ain’t the ‘appiest place I’ve ever been.”

The atmosphere of the Moors was already beginning to get to them, Buncan realized with a start. The all-pervasive aura of depression and hopelessness pressed down relentlessly.

“How about a song?”

“Cor, that’s a good idea, Bunkles.” Neena levered herself up from the cushions. “Somethin’ merry an’ ‘olesome.”

“No spellsinging,” Gragelouth admonished them. He eyed Buncan’s duar warily. “I thought it was agreed that was only for emergencies. I admit I am depressed, but not mortally so. Not yet.”

“No spellsinging,” Buncan agreed. “Just something to buoy us up and beat back this gloom.”

“That could be useful,” the merchant reluctantly conceded.

“Right.” Buncan struck the strings, flinging frisky chords into the brooding ah- like a noble casting gold pieces at an impecunious crowd. Behind him the otters began to harmonize playfully.

“Got no time to be sad today

There’s a time to be sad and a time to play

Place to be cryin’, place to be dyin’

We’re gonna get outta here ‘cause we be tryin’

To motivate this wagon on its way.”

The music drifted out across the Moors, penetrating and pushing aside the gloom as if it were a dirty, rotting curtain. The weight of the oleaginous air they were breathing lightened perceptibly, while the nearest sphacelated fungi seemed to recoil from the unrelenting cheerfulness, a perception that turned out to be anything but imaginary.

“Will you stop playing that music?” pleaded the growth on their immediate right.

“Blimey, Mudge were right.” Neena examined the giant toadstool. “They can communicate when they want to.”

“How can you sing?” declaimed a chorus of shelf fungi from nearby, “when there’s no hope left? When all is doomed?”

A cluster of mushrooms no higher man a dray lizard’s belly chimed in. “When existence defines itself through unending misery.”

“If you put it like that,” Buncan found himself muttering. A paw came down hard on his shoulder.

“Watch it, mate!” Squill’s bright eyes stared into his own. “Remember that’s ‘ow they work, the Moors. If the atmosphere doesn’t get you, then they try fatalistic philosophy. That’s wot Mudge always told us.”

Neena glared challengingly at the rutilant fungi. “There can’t be depression where mere’s music. Keep playin’, Bunkole.”

Buncan looked down at his duar. The polished surface of the unique instrument seemed dulled, the strings uneven and fraying. “I don’t know if this is doing any good.”

This time Squill grabbed him by the shoulders and half spun him around on the bench. The duar bonged against Gragelouth’s knee. The sloth winced but said nothing, resolutely tending to his driving.

“Fok your ‘don’t knows,’ mate! This ‘ere swamp is the mother of all indecision. Wake up, and play!”

Buncan nodded, blinking. The effect of the Moors, he realized, was so insidious you weren’t aware of what the place was doing to you even as it happened. Fortunately, otters had a very strong natural resistance to depression. He directed his attention to the duar with a vengeance.

Immediately the air seemed brighter, clearer. The grim fog rolled back and fungi in the wagon’s path crawled or oozed aside. Seeing that the music kept the creeping enervation at bay, even Gragelouth made an attempt to join in the singing.

They were feeling much better when the Moors responded, not with additional intimations of infectious ennui, but with music of its own: a distant, wild baying. It stopped their own singing cold. A prickly clamminess crept down Duncan’s back like a rain-soaked centipede.

“Wot were that?” Squill murmured, wide-eyed. “Sounds like somethin’ that crawled out o’ river-bottom mud.” He looked to the merchant.

Gragelouth was sniffing the air. “I do not recognize the sound. Nor do I look forward to encountering its source.” As he finished, the noise came again: flagrant, whetted, and definitely closer.

Buncan shook the sloth’s arm. “Don’t stop now. Not here. Can’t we go any faster?”

“My team was bred for endurance and not sprints,” the sloth told bun. “You can see that for yourself. They are making the best speed they can.” He glanced nervously sideways. “There is something about that sound which is more evil than mere depression.”

“Penetratin’, wotever it is,” Neena observed as the wild baying echoed through the morass. It definitely was not the wind: Wind was unknown in the Moors, where even a stray zephyr grew quickly depressed and died. The howling was dark and deep and rich with carnivorous import.