“I always tell the truth,” a voice announced through a tiny grid inset next to the glass-protected scroll. Buncan could see that the long metal needle or pointer was quivering. With indignation? he wondered.
“Then you are some kind of polygraph?” Jon-Tom inquired hesitantly.
The knob (which Buncan later learned was called a “plug” but which still looked like a snake’s head to him) pivoted to “face” the senior spellsinger. “I am the Grand Veritable. I am the Truth, and I never lie.”
Jon-Tom scratched behind one ear. “You’re a damn sight more voluble than any polygraph I ever saw. How’d you come to be here?”
“I don’t know. Truth travels everywhere. I remember a great storm, being studied and inspected, being transformed, enhanced, and enchanted, and finally ending up on a high place outside a cave. There I’ve slept for some time, until your offspring brought me hither.”
“What is your purpose?” Clothahump, Buncan noted, was treating the device as if it were some kind of highly poisonous reptile.
“To relate the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Squill let out a barking laugh. “Cor, this may turn out to be a bit o’ all right after all! If only that merchant knew wot he’d passed on in favor o’ a pile o’ gold.”
“It wouldn’t matter. He’s quite content.” The Veritable’s plug swung ‘round to confront the startled otter. “He wouldn’t know what to do with me. He is a merchant, after all.”
“I know what to do with you.” Clothahump kept a wary eye on the pulsating device.
The plug turned to him. “No, you don’t. That’s a lie. You continue to believe that I’m mortally dangerous, and hide that truth from your friends.”
Everyone turned to look at Clothahump, who sputtered and harrumphed uncomfortably. Jon-Tom sought to cover his mentor’s embarrassment.
“Why haven’t you spoken before now?”
“No one addressed me, no one questioned me. But you,” and the plug darted sharply in the spellsinger’s direction, “insulted me, and I felt I had to defend myself. When all one has to offer is the truth, one can’t sit silently aside and let it be besmirched.”
Clothahump peered over the top of his glasses at his young human colleague. “Are all such devices in your world this forward?”
Jon-Tom shook his head. “Usually they’re speechless. But then, in my world I couldn’t make magic with my singing, either. I acquired certain abilities when I stepped over here. Maybe the same is true for machines. It seems to be for this one, anyway.” He considered the enchanted polygraph. “Unless it’s lying, of course.”
“I never lie,” the Veritable insisted. The plug drooped. “Sometimes I wish that I could. There are so many floating about unexposed. Lies, that is. Never enough time to deal with mem all.”
“If you’re telling the truth,” Jon-Tom reiterated. “Couldn’t we try it out?” Neena suggested. “On each other?”
“I do not know,” Clothahump said slowly, “if that is such a good idea. As I have been trying to point out all along, the truth can be a dangerous thing.”
“And that’s no lie,” the Veritable declared. “You’re very perceptive, turtle.”
“I am the greatest wizard in all the worlds.” Clothahump spoke quietly and without a hint of boastfulness. It was significant that the Veritable did not contradict him.
“I’ve got an idea.” Sudden excitement suffused Squill’s face. “ ‘Ow’s about we take this ‘ere yappin’ box into town?”
“That is not a good idea either.” Clothahump hesitated. “Still, under carefully controlled conditions, the experience could be enlightening. For everyone.”
Buncan looked to his father. “You can always spellsing any problems away, Dad.”
“Uh, yeah, right,” Jon-Tom mumbled. The Veritable piped up without prodding. “That’s a lie.” Talea glared at the box. “I wonder if the spell under which you’re enchanted could survive a few well-placed sword strokes.”
The plug stiffened. “You can’t cut down the truth.”
“I’m not sure I like the idea of a machine that’s smarter than me,” Jon-Tom opined.
“I am not smarter than you,” the Veritable declared formally. “That, too, is the truth. I just call ‘em as I see ‘em, and I’m always right.”
“Every time?”
The cord nodded. “Every time.”
“Pity we can’t unplug you for a while.” “You can’t turn the truth on and off like water, spellsinger.”
He frowned at the machine. “You don’t need to analyze everything I say.”
“Sorry. It’s what I do. Call it a job-related compulsion.”
Jon-Tom stared at the box for a long moment before turning to his mentor. “You’re right, Clothahump. You were right before the kids found this thing, and you’re right now. It’s dangerous as hell, and we’ve got to get rid of it.”
Buncan and his friends immediately protested. They found an ally in Mudge.
“ ‘Ere now, mate. Let’s not be ‘asty. It strikes me that somethin’ which can tell truth from fiction and never lie itself ought to be worth a bit o’ money.”
“A fortune,” agreed Clothahump readily.
“Then why get rid o’ it?” Squill and Neena had moved to stand next to their father. Weegee looked on and tapped one foot threateningly.
“Because it is unbelievably dangerous. Because truth kills.” He glanced up at his colleague. “An appropriate spellsong might be best, Jon-Tom. Send it away. Far away.”
“Wait a minute, now!” Mudge ignored Weegee’s warning glare. “I’ve somethin’ to say in this.”
“So does we.” Squill huddled close to his father, sister, and Buncan.
Jon-Tom eyed his son. “You side with them in this?” Buncan nodded stiffly. “Well,” the spellsinger sighed, “it’s not the first time we’ve disagreed.”
“Then let it be as you wish.” Everyone looked in surprise at Clothahump. “I wash my hands of it. Experience is the best instructor, and evidently I am not. Jon-Tom?”
The spellsinger glanced uncertainly at Talea, then back down at his mentor. “If you’re going to have nothing more to do with it, then neither will I.”
“Good!” Mudge stepped forward and put his arms around the device, then hesitated. “Are you goin’ to stop us from takin’ it out o’ ‘ere, mates?”
“Not at all.” Clothahump had turned away and was busying himself with his equipment. “Do with it what you will. Just keep it well away from my tree.”
“Oh, that we’ll do, sor!” With Buncan’s help the otter began wrestling the mechanism toward the doorway. Squill and Neena trailed behind. “Beggin’ your pardon if we also keep all the money we’re goin’ to make with it.”
Talea and Weegee stood together in the doorway to watch the three otters and one young human disappear down the extended hallway. Mudge’s mate glanced worriedly back over her shoulder.
“Great Clothahump, do you think they’ll be all right?”
The wizard sniffed. “I am too old to argue with children, but I sincerely hope so. Where the inimitable truth is involved, who can say what might happen?”
The two ladies, one gray of fur, toe other red of hair, were not comforted.
The next day, the expectant confidants sauntered full of anticipation into Mudge’s favorite Lynchbany watering hole. Espying several acquaintances at a central gaming table, the otter wandered over and sat down nearby, making convenient seat of the unprotesting Veritable. Buncan, Squill, and Neena hung by the bar, sipping what liquid the bartender would provide them, and watched.
An elegantly clad and coiffured weasel pushed back his dealer’s cap and gestured at the box. “What’s that, friend? Some sort of magical device?” His playing companions chuckled over their cards and dice.
“Some sort,” confessed Mudge with a smug smile.
A husky badger frowned as he tugged at his black leather vest. “You been dealing with that turt
le again?”
“Actually, mates, me pups an’ their friend brought this little toy back from a far-distant land, recent-like.” He nodded in the direction of the bar. Neena waved back prettily.
“Nice-looking girl you got there, water rat,” commented the weasel approvingly. He was sucking on a stick saturated with keep-awake.
“Just keep your bleedin’ paws an’ mind on the cards, Sucrep,” said Mudge warningly. “I’ve always suspected you o’ unhealthy goin’s-on.” Reaching down, he patted the Veritable fondly. “In fact, this little box is about to answer me a question I’ve been wonderin’ about for years.”
The smirking weasel attended to his dealing. “Why you can’t get it up anymore?”
“Somethin’ not quite as personal. Mind if I buy in?”
Sucrep readily shifted to one side. “Your money is always welcome at mis table, Mudge. Especially since you leave so much of it here.”
The game continued as before, coins changing their position in front of the various players according to the flash of dice and cards. Beneath Mudge, the Veritable was silent. Mudge won some and lost some, but as was usually the case his luck attended more frequently to the latter than to the former.
A kinkajou emitted its eerie, high-pitched giggle as he collected a pot. “Thet box mey be full of megeek, but et hesn’t mede you a beeter kerd pleyer.”
“That’s true,” declared the Veritable suddenly.
Amidst general laughter Mudge leaned over and glowered at his makeshift metal pew. “I don’t recall askin’ for your opinion just yet. Whose side are you .on ‘ere, anyway?”
“You know what side,” the Veritable replied calmly.
“Can it do anything besides talk?” asked a heavy set hog curiously.
Mudge straightened and forced himself to smile. “It tells the blinkin’ truth. Always. Every time.”
“Interesting.” A wolf clad in rough muslin peered over his cards. “So it will tell us if you are cheating.” He leaned forward. “Tell me something, box.”
“ ‘Ere now.” Mudge half rose in his seat. ‘ Tis my device! I’ll be the one to ask it any bloody questions.”
“Sit down and shut up, river rat,” said the wolf dangerously. “Box?”
“I am the Grand Veritable,” announced the device stiffly.
“Right then, Grand Veritable. Has Mudge here been cheating on us?”
“Not today,” the Veritable declared positively.
“Oh well, then.” The wolf relaxed and studied his cards.
“See there?” Mudge permitted himself a sneer of self-satisfaction. “I’ve never cheated on you, Ragregren.”
As soon as he said it, he was sorry.
“That’s not true.” The Veritable was inexorable.
The wolf blinked. “What’s that?”
“Nothin’, mate. Nothin’. See to your cards.” To the Veritable the otter hissed, “Turn your bloody self off until I ask for you!”
“Sorry. The truth doesn’t work that way. Once you call it up, it just sort of sticks around.”
“I asked what was said.” Putting his cards aside (facedown), the wolf rose, an imposing figure on the far side of the table, and again addressed the box. “Grand Veritable, when has the river rat cheated us before?”
“I can only tell the truth,” the grid declared apologetically. “I cannot read the future or the past.”
“I never cheated you, Ragregren! The damned thing’s confused.”
The burly wolf was staring at him hard. “You just told us yourself that it couldn’t lie.”
“I can’t,” added the Veritable for good measure.
“Then you have cheated at this table before.” The wolf pushed his chair back.
“I bloody well ‘ave not!” Mudge was sputtering wildly. “You . . . ‘tis you who’ve done the cheatin’!”
“Don’t try to worm your way out of this, river rat. I’m not the one who’s been cheating here.”
“Not today,” declared the Veritable cheerfully.
The wolf froze. “What’s that?”
“You’ve cheated before, but you’re not cheating today. Actually, the one who is cheating today is that hog over there.”
“I beg your pardon?” said the hog. He shrank back in his seat as both Mudge and Ragregren turned to glare at him. “There must be some mistake.”
“You’ve been winning an awful lot today, Bulmont,” the wolf muttered suspiciously.
The hog drew himself up. “You’ve no right to accuse me just because I am a better dice thrower man you, Ragregren.”
“But you’re not a better dice thrower,” declared the Veritable.
“My dice are clean,” the hog protested.
“Indeed they are,” agreed the machine.
“Ah, you see?” Bulmont looked greatly relieved.
Mudge nudged his seat with a sandaled foot. “Explain yourself, not-so-Grand Veritable.”
“It’s quite simple. The weasel who calls himself Sucrep always deals appropriately to the porcine one. Therefore, the individual Bulmont need not worry about his dice, because his cards are correctly loaded even before he can throw. I suspect that at an appropriate time the two will split the hog’s winnings.”
Sucrep said nothing. He didn’t have to. The look on his face as the keep-awake stick fell from his lips was revelation enough.
“The cursed container lies!”
“I do not,” replied the Veritable quietly. “Check beneath the table where he sits. There is a hidden compartment containing the requisite additional cards.”
With a roar the wolf lunged. Displaying the agility for which his kind was noted, Sucrep dove beneath the table. Bulmont made a frantic attempt to sweep up the last pot, only to be bowled over chair and all by the infuriated badger. The kinkajou reached for the coins, froze as Mudge’s stiletto slammed into the table between two of the fruit-eater’s slim fingers.
The otter grinned thinly. “I think we’ll divide up this pot a bit differently, wot?” The kinkajou nodded slowly, men brought his other hand up and around. It held a bottle, which shattered against Mudge’s feathered cap.
“Oi!” yelled Squill. “Dad’s in trouble!” Together he, Neena, and Buncan rushed to join the fray. With a sigh, the bartender ducked down behind his heavy wooden barrier.
“You’d better stay out of this, Buncan!”
Startled at hearing his name, Buncan paused and looked around for the speaker. When the admonition was repeated, he saw that its source was the now sinister metal box.
“Why?” he demanded to know as he prepared to fend off any attackers. By this time the tavern existed in a state of utter pandemonium.
“Because you’re not half the fighter you think you are.”
“What are you talking about? I’m as good as the otters or Jon-Tom.”
“No, you’re not. You’re liable to get yourself killed. And that’s . . .”
“The truth; I know, I know.” Confused and uncertain, he hunkered down beneath the table. “ ‘Ello, mate.”
He was startled to see his friends folded up nearby. “You two too?”
Squill nodded. “We thought it best to take the bloody thing’s advice. It ‘asn’t been wrong so far. Besides, me mum’d ‘ave me arse if I let Neena be ‘urt in some bleedin’ bar brawl.”
“Why worry about her? She’s a better fighter than you,” announced the Veritable helpfully.
“Don’t act the mechanical twit,” groused the otter. “When we’re wrestlin’ I always win.” “That’s right,” agreed Neena. “She lets you win,” said the Veritable. “I do not!” Neena glared at the box but wouldn’t meet her brother’s querulous gaze.
“That is a lie,” stated the Veritable with quiet aplomb.
“I’ll show you who’s the better fighter!” In an instant, and for the first time in some while, the two otters were rolling across the floor, locked in each other’s antagonistic embrace.
“Let ‘em fight,” Buncan muttered wearily.
“When they’ve had enough, I’ll spellsing them apart.”
“You cannot spellsing,” observed the Veritable. “You can only play the duar.”
“Well, at least I can do that better than anyone,” Buncan replied irritably.
“You cannot. Jon-Tom is better.”
Buncan’s eyes widened. “I’m better. He’s said so himself.”
“He flatters you to build your confidence.”
Buncan rested his chin on his knees as he turned away. The brawl surged around him. An astonishing mixture of roars, bellows, squeaks, yelps, and howls reverberated the length and breadth of the tavern. “I need the otters’ singing now, but if I keep working at it I’ll be able to spellsing all by myself someday.”
The Veritable was relentless, but not insensitive. It spoke softly. “You will never be able to spellsing by yourself, young human.”
Buncan turned sharply. “Why don’t you just shut up for a while, okay?”
“Truth is always in great demand,” the Veritable whispered, “for everyone except ourselves.”
A chair slammed into the table over his head. Being fashioned of honest wood, it did not break, unlike the wineglass which shattered like thin ice on the floor nearby. Eventually Buncan spoke again.
“I’m beginning to understand what Clothahump was talking about.”
“No, you’re not. You’re too young to understand. You’re just poking around the periphery. The meaning of truth is not so easily grasped. You seriously overestimate your perceptual and analytical capabilities as well as your martial skills and duar playing.”
“I didn’t ask you for criticism.”
“Just truth. Only truth. Always truth. Hurts, doesn’t it?”
Another chair came sliding by. It still contained its most recent occupant, who was in no condition to escape its confines. Buncan leaned out from beneath the table for a better look.
“We need to get you out of here before one of these happy, thature adults tries to make off with you. Though at this point I’m not so sure I’d fight anyone to keep you.” He quickly saw that Squill and Neena would be no help, still intent as they were on pursuing their most recent sibling altercation.