Chorus Skating (25 page)

“I was trying to conjure some aviation fuel.” Jon-Tom couldn't think of anything else to say. “And instead, you showed up.”

“Coincidence.” The creature had a voice no less mellifluous than Ansibette's. Feathery antennae bobbed. “Aviation fuel? I wonder at your time-frame. Ah! Now I have it. Petroleum distillates which are burned to provide motive power?”

“That's it!” exclaimed Jon-Tom excitedly.

“Afraid I can't help you there. My kind did away with such wasteful practices centuries ago. As will your own.”

Jon-Tom's fascinated gaze fixed on the complex backpack and side pouches the visitor wore. Wherever, whenever it came from, it was a place technologically more advanced than his own. He wished Clothahump were present, though he suspected that this was one confluence conflicted enough to baffle even that wise old turtle.

“You'd better be more respectful o' who you're talkin' to, guv.”

The creature's head swiveled to face the otter. “Why?”

“Uh”—Mudge moved to slide slightly behind Naike—“me friend an' boon companion there just appens to be the greatest spellsinger who ever was.”

Returning his attention to Jon-Tom, Caz inquired with open curiosity, “What, precisely, is a spellsinger?”

“I'll tell you wot 'e is.” Mudge barked a reply before Jon-Tom could answer. “'E's a bloomin' sorcerer! 'E makes magic, 'e does.”

“There is no such thing as magic,” the one called Caz declared conclusively.

“No such things as—” Ignoring Jon-Tom's frantic shushing motions the otter raced on. “Why, 'e can make things appear where none were afore! 'E can turn rocks to metal, an' alter the shape o' reality, and bring into existence anythin' you can dream of!” The otter's voice fell slightly. “That is, 'e can most o' the time. Sometimes,” he concluded with an apologetic glance in his exasperated friend's direction, “'e screws up.”

“I believe I understand.” The creature was less than impressed. “He is an engineer.”

“No, no.” Jon-Tom was finally able to get a word in. “I'm not an engineer, I'm a—” Mouth agape, he froze in midsentence.

An engineer had been what the wizard Clothahump had been seeking when he'd reached into Jon-Tom's world all those many years ago. Instead, he'd reeled in Jonathan Thomas Meriweather—amateur rock guitarist, law student, and part-time “sanitation engineer.”

Now this. Where did reality end and coincidence begin? The same place, he decided, where science became magic and magic become science.
I
live,
he decided,
in an interesting cosmos.

Better just to play along.

“I, too, am searching for something.” Demonstrating a double-jointedness not even the otters could match, Caz reached back with a lower arm to adjust several contact switches on his complex burden of electronics. “That I am here at all is thanks only to a project still in the experimental stage. If I were to suddenly explode in a million fragments before your eyes, I would not be surprised.”

“I would be,” commented Mudge. “Not necessarily disappointed, but surprised.”

“For my initial experiment I have chosen to track something specific across space-time,” the visitor went on. “It is proving more difficult than I envisioned, no doubt due to the largely insubstantial nature of my quarry. I had believed wave forms simpler to trail than particles. It seems that I may have been mistaken.”

“What are you looking for?” Jon-Tom inquired, interested in spite of his own difficulties.

“That's the trouble: I'm pupaed if I can remember.” Delicate antennae switched and bobbed in frustration. “Traveling between realities seems to affect the memory. The only thing I am certain of—and he turned so sharply that Jon-Tom jerked back in his seat—“is that it has to do with
you.
”

“Righty-ho,” barked Mudge. “Actually, we're just casual friends, him an' I. Not close a'tall. Nothin' much to do with one another, really.” He stepped completely behind Naike.

“There is an energetic aura surrounding you,” Caz went on. “Such auras attract.”

“Is that what 'tis called?” Mudge pinched his nose. “Always tended to put me off, it did.”

Imitating an all-too-human gesture, the creature shook its head from side to side. “Try as I will, I cannot recall the particulars of my quest. It is
most
frustrating. So I have resorted to tracking your very specific and bright aura in the hopes that it will lead me to that which I seek. Memory is a most pernicious thing.”

“How long have you, um, been following us?” Jon-Tom asked.

“Too long. Until now you have always been a stride or two ahead of me. Speaking nonlinearly, of course. One rattles around the continuum like a larvae in a maturation chamber. And now that I have finally caught up with you, I cannot recall why it was necessary.”

“Because 'e's a spellsinger an' maybe can 'elp you with 'is magickin'?” Mudge ventured cautiously.

“I tell you there is no such thing as magic! There is only physics, immutable regardless of how it is labeled.”

Clothahump would understand that, Jon-Tom thought.

As Caz's tone turned doleful, Jon-Tom, having been on a quest or two himself in his time, felt suddenly sympathetic.

“This insertion has been a waste,” the visitor was muttering aloud. “I am forced to return home to try and determine what it was I traveled here to find.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me.” Mudge was more than ready to be rid of their eccentric, not to mention incomprehensible, visitor.

“I really should make a note to carry with me. That would solve the problem. But the memory distortion which seems an unavoidable consequence of the transposition causes me to forget to do even that. I must find a way out of this conundrum!”

So saying, he fingered the controls on the backpack. The blue vapor reappeared and enveloped him. It was not unlike the mists which emerged from Jon-Tom's duar: slightly different in intensity, more structured in appearance.

When it dissipated, there was no sign that Caz had ever been there. Only his body odor lingered awhile, a faint scent of roses and lilac that stood out sharply amid the turgid stink of the marsh.

Though it looked no different from any other part of their craft, no one cared to step through the space formerly occupied by their visitor. Only Mudge went near, his black nose working overtime as it sampled the faintly singed air.

“Quaint little bugger. Polite enough, though.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Seshenshe.

“Where did it go?” inquired Pivver.

“And what did it want?” wondered Aleaukauna.

“That thing on its back,” Jon-Tom murmured. “Advanced science. Or magic. As the creature said, it's all in how you choose to define it. It certainly wasn't the product of Plated Folk technology. Wherever it came from lies far, far from this world. Probably in time as well as space.”

Prosaic as always, Naike interrupted. “Speaking of time, we are not making any while we sit here gabbing. We are no longer in the main channel and the current here is slack. This craft is equipped with neither oars nor sail.” As if to emphasize his impatience, the cloud of chords chimed away at the prow of the boat, a musical bowsprit.

Jon-Tom considered his duar. “I'm not sure I should try this again. I don't know if I called up that creature or if it simply materialized on its own, and I'd hate to conjure something worse. But if you're all against drifting awhile …”

The response was loud and earnest. Shrugging, he reprised the same melody and rhythm as best as he could recall it, not forgetting to modify the lyrics in what he hoped would be a more efficacious manner.

Encouragingly, the duar responded this time with light that was charcoal gray instead of blue, dull instead of intense. On the other hand, nothing much coalesced out of the consequent vapor. The engine gurgled thirstily a couple of times and then was silent.

As time wore on, so did Jon-Tom's voice. Not the most salubrious of singers when at his best, his increasingly haggard vocalizing was beginning to grate even on the most tolerant of the princesses. They began to whisper among themselves. Even Naike was prompted to inquire aloud if there was anything he could do to facilitate the process.

Jon-Tom took a break, to rest his larynx and fingers as well as the ears of his captive audience. “The magic doesn't work
every
time,” he grumbled.

“'Ere now, mate. Far be it from me to be overly encouragin', based on certain past experiences which shall remain unrecalled in this company, but maybe you're puttin' too much pressure on yourself. Instead o' strugglin' to come up with somethin' new, 'ow about tryin' the old method?” Mudge smiled encouragingly. “Use one o' the songs you know from your home world, like you used to.”

“I can't think of any hard rock songs that deal with gasoline. Cars, sure, but not gas. And if I were to try ‘Born to be Wild' or ‘Turbo Lover' or even ‘Little Deuce Coupe' and conjure up a car, it wouldn't do us much good out here.”

“That's for sure,” the otter agreed readily. “Wot's a car?”

Jon-Tom sighed wearily. “Never mind. There's got to be another way.” He brightened. “Sure! That's it!”

“Righty-ho, mate, that's it. Wotever
it
is.” Climbing down from the first step on the driver's chair and seeking what cover he could find, he retreated from his friend. Meanwhile, Jon-Tom raised his hands to the duar's strings and began to play. And to sing an old familiar song.

Whether it would be of any help to them remained to be seen.

A pale, silvery fog billowed from the duar. It curled around the silent engine like a great, ghostly anaconda, its tendrils probing the interior. The scarred, oil-stained metal sucked up the mist like a sponge. Encouraged, Jon-Tom played on. It was a relief to be able to fall back on well-known lyrics instead of having to concoct his own.

When the song reached its end and the last of the argent vapor had vanished into the machine, he swung his duar onto his back, took a deep breath, and tried the ignition.

A throaty snarl rose from the depths of the P&W as it sprang instantly to life. Soldiers and princesses cheered.

“See there?” Mudge gestured proudly at his companion. “Nothin' to it. Works every time, it does.” He lowered his voice as he leaned toward Pivver. “'Course, every once in a while I 'ave to tell 'im 'ow to go about it. 'E really would be lost without me.”

The otter princess's expression was carefully neutral. “I have no doubt of that.”

Mudge's whiskers twitched upward as he looked back at his friend. “Interestin' spellsong. Don't recall 'earin' 'im mention the magic word
gas,
though.”

“Perhaps there are other magic words that mean the same thing?” Pivver speculated.

“I'd think that meself, except that 'e's always talkin' about the need to be specific in 'is spellsingin', and that if 'e ain't, 'tis impossible to predict wot might 'appen when—”

With a sharp
bang
from the engine, Jon-Tom was thrown back in his seat so abruptly that his desperate grab completely missed the control stick. Princesses and soldiers went flying. Only Umagi's quick thinking and great strength enabled her to grab the scion of Borobos before she went sailing over-board.

“Thank you,” Ansibette told her rescuer.

“That's all right, dear. We primates must look out for one another.”

Hard upon this rescue, a second blast erupted from the vicinity of the swamp buggy's engine, knocking both of them to the aluminum floor of the craft. This time Jon-Tom was nearly tossed from the boat and had to fight to hang on to his seat. Though slowed, his reflexes were still fast enough to save him from being thrown backward into the propeller, which was now spinning with the force of a small hurricane.

Balancing the precious duar, he fought to get a hand on the madly gyrating control stick. His fellow travelers clung to anything sturdy while the swamp buggy rocketed wildly across the marsh, scattering all manner of muck dwellers in a hundred directions. The princesses were wailing, the soldiers cursing, and Mudge complaining with an eloquence only he could muster as Jon-Tom fought to reestablish control while blue flames spewed from the buggy's exhaust pipes.

The otter's voice was barely audible above the blazing thunder. “Wot the bloody 'ell did you
sing
about, mate?”

Finally getting a hand on the stick, the spellsinger struggled to restrain the runaway craft. “Drag racing!” he shouted down at Mudge. “I was singing about drag racing!”

Flat on the deck, Seshenshe and Aleaukauna exchanged a confused glance. “Drag racing?” mumbled the mongoose.

“What is this ‘drag racing'?”

“Ssurely ssome ssort of powerful magic,” replied Seshenshe. “Though, it would sseem, mosst difficult to masster.”

“See the flames?” Both hands now wrapped securely around the stick, Jon-Tom was able to straighten the boat out. The Karrakas sped past, a blur on either side of the boat.

“We're running on pure alcohol!”

Warm wind ripping at his ears, Mudge managed to stand in the middle of the violently rocking craft. “Wot! An' none for me to run on? Wot kind o' a spellsingin' friend are you?”

“This kind of alcohol you don't need!” Jon-Tom bellowed back. “Besides, you've always managed to run just fine on boasts and lies, and I know you're not running low on those!”

Once he had the swamp buggy back under control, he found time for other concerns. The first thing he did was direct everyone to move to the front of the craft to keep its nose down. Too much air under the bow at the speed they were going and there was a real danger that the swamp buggy might start to hydroplane. The last thing they wanted was to crash at their current speed.