Chorus Skating (37 page)

“How do I tell the princesses that we're not heading straight for Harakun?”

The otter shrugged. “Don't tell 'em. Say we 'ave to make a short stop on the way. Looks like we're goin' to, whether we likes it or not.”

Jon-Tom nodded thoughtfully. “It was that storm that forced us to change course. You don't suppose our happy ball of harmony could have had anything to do with that little discrepancy in the weather, do you?”

“Don't very well see 'ow music can call up a storm, mate. But then there's more than one wonder in this world that I fails to understand. Like, for example, if your spouse finds somethin' on sale for fifty coins that regular costs a 'undred, 'ow come she insists she's saved you fifty coins instead of 'avin' spent fifty?” He shook his head. “The mysteries o' the cosmos confound me continually.”

“I as well.” Jon-Tom looked back over the side. “I guess we'll keep on this way for a while longer, at least, and see what develops.”

“WE KNEW YOU WOULD. THE MERMAID ASSURED US.”

“Did she?” Apparently he'd made more of an impression on that bathyal beauty than he'd thought.
Damn allergies,
he thought to himself.

“GIVE US A SONG, SPELLSINGER. WE HAVE BEEN LONG WITHOUT SONG. THE MERMAID TELLS THAT YOU STILL CONTROL YOUR OWN MUSIC.”

Jon-Tom modestly brought the duar around. “I suppose a song or two wouldn't hurt anything. Of course, I don't have your lungs. I can't sing like you.”

“'Ell, 'e can't even sing like a 'uman,” Mudge informed the humpback.

“ANYTHING AT ALL WOULD BE MOST WELCOME. MUSIC IS AS LIFE TO US.”

“All right. As long as you don't expect too much.” His fingers rested on the duar's strings as he tried to think of something that might appeal to their escort. After several moments spent in contemplation, he began to sing.

A number of whales and dolphins crowded closer, nudging the ship and making her timbers creak. Whenever this happened the offending individual immediately moved away. The cetaceans continuously rotated places so that as many as possible would have the opportunity to hear.

When he finished the first song Jon-Tom received a kind of applause new in his experience. A hundred individuals spouted simultaneously, vitalizing the air with sound and pungent exhalation. Only the humpbacks and some of the porpoises were equipped for actual clapping. They acknowledged Jon-Tom's effort with more familiar, if decidedly damper than usual, expressions of approval.

They sailed on with Jon-Tom energetically serenading the cetacean host. Mudge and Pivver frequently joined their benthic escort in energetic swims, diving and twisting with the skill of any porpoise, though they could not match them in speed or endurance. It was something to see them clinging to the fore edge of a humpback's fin as it breached, casting themselves free, and spinning in the air with an agility the best human diver could only dream of before neatly reentering the water.

Once, a pair of pirate craft bore down on them in threatening manner. Confronted by several dozen blue and sperm whales, the oared galley and converted merchantman turned tail as fast as their crews could back sails and oars, those of the galley dipping and rising at a rate that verged on the comical.

“Per'aps if we manage to find their missin' songs,” Mudge commented thoughtfully, “we can inveigle a few o' these bloated blue blokes to convoy us across to Harakun. They 'ave a way o' discouragin' unwanted visitors, they do.”

“We not only have to find their music, we have to restore it to them as well.” Jon-Tom idly fingered the duar's strings. “Where do you conceal missing music? In a chest, in a stoppered bottle, in an enchanted disk? As part of my education as a spellsinger I've researched such things with Clothahump. Whatever storage device can be imagined can be made. CD-ROM, for example.”

“Wot's that?” The otter made a face. “Some kind o' special room?”

“A very small room. You have to know what you're doing when you access that kind of storage. It stands for ‘Charged Demons—Reconstituted Out of Mayhem.' You have to handle them carefully, by their edges. There are many other kinds of containers that would hold music. Finding them's not the problem. Accessing them often is.”

“You'll 'andle it, mate. I know you will.”

Jon-Tom eyed his friend in surprise. “Why, Mudge. It's not like you to show such confidence in me.”

“Oh, it weren't that, mate,” replied the otter cheerily. “I just know you can confound any sorceral opponent because o' your unpredictability, which comes from the fact that you usually don't 'ave the foggiest notion o' wot you're about. See, if you don't know wot you're doin', ain't no way wotever you're fightin' can anticipate your next move.” It was not merely a backhanded compliment, it was positively inside out.

“You know, mate, we started out on this 'ere little ramble to trail a few bars o' wanderin' music to wherever its anxiety might 'appen to take us. I don't know about you, but it strikes me as 'ow things 'ave become a bit more complicated than wot were originally intended.”

Jon-Tom grinned down at his whiskery friend. “They always seem to, don't they … mate.”

Chapter 20

THE ISLAND APPEARED
on the fifth day. It was drastically different from the inviting, sandy low isles among which the travelers had repaired their vessel. A nightmare sculpted from stark black basalt and decomposing schists, the towering peaks clutched at the pallid clouds which struggled to draw away from them.

The ancient fires which had formed the central crags had long since been extinguished by time. Over the intervening aeons rain and wind had gouged at the central crater and its subsidiary pumice cones, sharpening and furrowing them. The island was imperceptibly dissolving into the ocean.

Waves smashed into sheer black cliffs that rose precipitously a hundred feet and more from the glassy green sea. As the whale pods led them south and then southwest the travelers came into the lee of the isolated landmass and the agitated surface of the sea flattened out. A shattered and tumbled lava reef further muted the force of the swells.

Once again the venerable humpback laid himself alongside the boat.
“HERE BE THE PLACE.”

“HERE IS THE PLACE!”
boomed the somber cetacean chorus.

“Here it is, here it is!” sang out the smaller dolphins and porpoises.

Mudge turned from scrutinizing the intimidating interior of the island to confront his friend. “I could be wrong, mate, but me unerrin' instinct tells me that we may very possibly 'ave arrived.” Arrived where? Jon-Tom wondered. The entire aspect of the island before them was morbid and threatening.

“WE CAN GO NO FARTHER,”
the humpback declared.
“ALREADY THE WATER GROWS TOO SHALLOW FOR COMFORT. BUT YOU MUST GO ON. FIND OUR SONGS AND RETURN THEM TO US.”

“FIND OUR SONGS AND RETURN THEM TO US!”
implored the vast mammalian choir.

“WE'LL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”
The humpback rolled and pushed off toward the open sea.

“Well now, that's for sure a comfort.” Mudge went to help Pivver—who had just reemerged from the water—get dressed. The fact that she required no such assistance in this task dissuaded him not in the least.

Several dolphins led them through a passage in the lava reef. Once inside, the travelers were able to drop their single anchor without fear of damaging any delicate tropical life-forms. The bottom of the lagoon was nearly devoid of life. Only a few bêche-de-mer eked out a lonely living in the sand and gravel. Of colorful corals, chromatic anemones, and tinted tridacna and the fish that associated with them there were none.

The dense tropical vegetation which had once covered the shore and lower slopes of the mountains lay stunted and blasted by some unknown calamity. Trees struggled to put forth the occasional wrinkled leaf, while palms drooped low, their fronds curled and crisped as if from an encounter with searing heat. Those isolated clumps of greenery which did survive huddled against the trunks of the larger growths for protection.

“Somethin' terrible 'as 'appened 'ere.” Mudge peered warily over the bow as they swung gently at anchor.

“Lost their songs. Trees and flowers have their own music. Something's stolen it away and unlike traveling musicians or sea-spanning whales, they couldn't run from it.” Jon-Tom looked to his right. The chord cloud was throbbing a deep, angry red. Its normally contented chiming had turned sharp and strident. Anyone who insisted that pure music could not convey real emotion, Jon-Tom felt, had to be either lying or tone deaf.

The princesses had gathered along the rail to point and murmur. They could afford to be indifferent: None of them would be going ashore. He walked back to join them.

“Do any of you recognize this place?”

Quiquell replied for all of them. “don't be ridiculous. this is a land to be shunned, not claimed.”

“That's what I thought.”

“Oi, mate!” At the otter's call Jon-Tom hurriedly raced back forward.

Still phosphorescing crimson, the cluster of chords was streaming toward the black sand beach. Jon-Tom let his gaze rise toward the topmost peak. Thunder rumbled distantly from the dark cloud which encircled the uppermost crags.

“Now that looks promisin', that do.” Mudge stood at his friend's elbow. “Why do I 'ave this sinkin' feelin' that we're about to do some climbin'?” For a change Jon-Tom chose not to venture a clever, sardonic reply. He was not feeling especially witty—only apprehensive.

Flinging a few riffs off the duar made him feel a little better. Whatever was at work here still had no effect on his own music.

“I wonder what sort of phenomenon abducts music. And why? What does it do with it?”

“That rotter Manzai collected princesses,” Mudge reminded him. “Maybe somethin' or someone 'ere collects music.”

“Collecting is one thing. Stealing it away forever from those it belongs to is something else.”

Naike had come up to join them. “If you succeed in finding this missing music, how will you know it?”

Jon-Tom regarded the mongoose. “I'll know it. If there's one thing I can recognize, it's music.”

A furry paw reached up to touch his shoulder. “You have done right by us. If you wish our halberds at your sides, they will be given freely.”

Emotion welled up inside the spellsinger. “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I have a feeling this is not a place where cold steel and deft soldiering will be of much use. Better you stay aboard and watch over the princesses.”

“Now 'old on a minim, mate,” Mudge protested. “'Ow do you know cold steel an' wotever won't be 'elpful 'ere?”

“This isn't their quest, Mudge. We're the ones who followed the chords. It's up to us to track them to the end.”

“Oh, right poetic, that is! Very noble!”

“The princesses need looking after,” Jon-Tom argued.

The otter's eyes widened. “Wot, this lot? Give 'em proper weapons an' I'd wager they could make any lot o' brigands an' thieves wish they'd never 'appened across this particular bum-boat. They can bloody well look after themselves.”

“Sorry, Mudge. It's going to be me and thee, as always.”

Turning away, the otter voiced a succession of imprecations which struck Naike dumb with admiration.

Jon-Tom took the Lieutenant's paw. “If we're not back within a couple of days, set sail for Harakun. I'm sure the whales will guide you.”

The eyes of a mongoose are extraordinarily bright and clear. Naike's were no exception, though there was presently a hint of moisture about the right one. “You will be back, spellsinger. Who else would we get to entertain and divert Their Highnesses on the long journey?” He smiled, showing small sharp teeth as his lightly furred fingers fondly squeezed Jon-Tom's naked digits.

Arms crossed over his chest, Mudge was staring at the cloud-swathed, thunder-riven central peak. “This be a good place, all right. A good place to leave one's bones.”

“Be of good cheer, Mudge.” Jon-Tom rejoined his friend, leaving Naike to inform the other soldiers and the princesses of the spellsinger's decision.

“Good cheer! Tell me, O cheerleadin' one, why I should come with you?”

“Because you always come with me.” Jon-Tom chuckled softly. “It's inevitable. It's fate.”

“Tis bleeding lunacy, is wot it is.”

“We're simply looking for some lost music. Where's the danger in that?”

“Oi, where indeed?” The otter turned back to consider the island. “Where's the danger in wotever's laid waste to this forest? Where's the danger in sheer, naked rock an' sharp spires, or lingerin' black clouds, or thunder that breaks where there be no lightnin'? Why, only a bloomin' fool would see danger 'ere.”

A delicate paw touched his arm. Turning, he found himself gazing into Piwer's admiring face. “I think it's very brave of you to accompany your friend.”

“Yess.” The lynx put an arm around his shoulders. “It'ss sso virtuouss and honorable of you!”

“Virtuous? 'Onorable?” The otter appeared stunned. “'Tis true then: I'm bleedin' done for, I am. No self-respectin' thief will want to be seen in me company.” Resignation underlay his response. “Might as well 'ave a go, then. Can't be nothin' worse awaitin' us up there than a kind female face wot calls me virtuous.”

Jon-Tom leaned close. “Don't take it too hard, Mudge. To me you'll always be the same lying, cheating, thieving, conniving coward you've always been.”

A tear welled up in the otter's eye. “Bless you, mate. 'Tis good to know that no matter 'ow I may 'ave changed, there'll always be one bloke who respects me for who I truly am.”