Chorus Skating

  “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.”

  All the princesses and soldiers had now gathered around the pair. “The embodiment of fortitude,” Seshenshe avowed.

  “Steadfastness personified,” declared Aleaukauna.

  “The essence of virility.” Pivver’s eyes were shining.

  “Essence o’ virility, eh?” The otter stood as much taller as he could manage. “Too right there, luv.” He turned back to Jon-Tom. “Best we see to a boat for you, mate. O’ course, I don’t need one, but I wouldn’t think o’ askin’ you to make the swim. Don’t worry. I’ll look after you, I will.”

  Jon-Tom was forced to bite down in order to maintain a straight face. Considering the number of previous times and occasions when he’d been compelled to do likewise, it was surprising his lower lip was not permanently scarred.

  While he fine-tuned the duar’s frets and Mudge made like a figurehead in the bow, the soldiers carefully lowered the ship’s single lifeboat over the side. Admonitions to take care and not a few verbal caresses from the princesses followed them as they rowed for the shore. The agitated chord cloud danced and spun through the air just ahead of them.

  Once safely aground on the fine black sand beach and out of earshot of those aboard, Mudge quickly reverted to form as they
hauled the lifeboat above the water line.

  “Wot the ’ell am I doin’ ’ere? Wot circumstances ’ave brought us to this sorrowful place, mate?”

  Jon-Tom carefully shipped his oars. “Your vanity, for one thing. That’s what’s brought you this far, anyway. That’s what propels you everywhere: vanity and greed.”

  The otter looked relieved. “Thank goodness! For a minim there I thought I’d really gone off the deep end.” He grinned exuberantly. “Virile, she called me.”

  “That she did. If the appeal to one organ fails, try another.” He wiped salt residue from his palms. “Let’s get going.”

  The otter looked around. “Get goin’? Get goin’ where?”

  “Same place we’ve been headed all along.” Jon-Tom gestured at the chord cloud. It was hovering impatiently just outside the first line of damaged brush.

  “You really mean to keep followin’ a lot o’ mindless notes?”

  “I really do.”

  “Why ain’t I surprised?” The otter’s head tilted back as he surveyed the path ahead. “Take ’er slow, mate. You know that with these legs I ain’t much for climbin’. That’s one spot where you ’umans ’ave it over my kind.”

  Jon-Tom started forward. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you over the rough places.” When it became clear he was advancing alone, he halted and looked back. “Well, come on.”

  Mudge traced a thoughtful pattern in the sand with the tip of one boot. “I could stay an’ guard the lifeboat. Wouldn’t want to be marooned ’ere now, would we?”

  “It’s a short swim. Come on. What about your vaunted virility?”

  Reluctantly, the otter started forward. “I reckon I’ve still got it. I just want to make sure I ’angs on to it, is all. Some o’ the situations you put us into, that ain’t always so easy.”

  Back on the securely anchored boat the soldiers cleaned and tidied what they could while the princesses gathered to converse near the stern.

  “At lasst!” Seshenshe was clearly relieved. “I thought we were never going to get that otter off.”

  Aleaukauna was of like mind. “Yes. Have you noticed how he looks at you? His eyes swell to the size of an owl’s. Nothing subtle in his staring, either.”

  Quiquell was filing her claws. “subtlety is not a word in that otter’s vocabulary, at least not where members of the opposite sex are concerned.”

  “I think you may be imagining things.” Umagi lay flat on the deck, soaking up the sun. “Or overstating them. I know he doesn’t look at me that way.”

  As Seshenshe and Quiquell exchanged a glance and a muffled giggle, Pivver spoke up. “Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s kind of cute.”

  “As he is of your tribe, that is understandable,” remarked Aleaukauna.

  “But not excussable.” Seshenshe’s comment was punctuated by more giggling.

  “You can have him.” Ansibette gave a little shudder. “Male otters are just so … so …”

  “So what?” Pivver challenged her.

  “So persistent. Don’t they ever think of anything else?”

  “Besides what?” Pivver wasn’t about to let it go.

  “Besides fish. That’s all he ever talks about. Types of fish, cooking fish, catching fish. Furthermore, he smells of fish. He’s obsessed with fish.”

  “Think you so?” Pivver smiled ever so wisely. “I have to hand it to you, sister Ansibette. You humans’ powers of observation never cease to astonish me.”

  “Well, I mean, it’s just so obvious,” Ansibette murmured.

  “Oh, assuredly,” Pivver agreed.

  “Lieutenant?” Pauko stood in the stern, gazing out across the lagoon. Naike moved to join him.

  “You see something, soldier?”

  “A glow, sir. Not near us. It’s a good ways out, past the reef.” He strained his superb sight. “It looks almost familiar, somehow.”

  The chitinous, insectoid form that coalesced within the pulsing cloud had just enough time to scrutinize his surroundings and emit the equivalent in its own language of “Oh, damn!” before tumbling into the open sea. He would have blinked in surprise had he been equipped with eyelids.

  Thrashing frantically as he fumbled for his instrumentation, he marveled at the ease with which he’d once again bollixed the requisite coordinates. It was entirely possible that he was being too hard on himself. Programming interdimensional transposition was rather more difficult than taking a spin around the block. Even so, he had, so to speak, missed the boat yet again.

  Gasping and choking, he found himself lifted above the surface by a smooth, rubbery skull. Unceremoniously tossed through the air, he landed hard atop a similar forehead. It squeaked sonorously and chucked him to his left. In this manner he was thrown from cetacean to cetacean, each airborne interval too brief to permit him to enter the necessary retreat sequence into his gear. His yelps and hisses of distress soon faded from hearing, as did his pinwheeling form from view.

  “What do you make of that?” Naike had moved to join the princesses in gazing over the stern.

  “I think that was the peculiar creature that attempted to confront the spellsinger earlier.” Aleaukauna rubbed the side of her muzzle. “If he, too, is some sort of sorcerer, he strikes me as a particularly inept one.”

  “I wonder what it wants?”

  “I can’t imagine.” Umagi bulked large behind them. “But I’m glad he’s gone again. He gives me the creep-crawlies.”

  “Me, too.” The tufts at the tips of Seshenshe’s ears twitched.

  Ansibette absently brushed a few windblown strands from her forehead. “Speaking of the spellsinger, I wonder how he’s doing.”

  Pivver sniffed and turned to stare at the brooding mountain. “I don’t know, but I hope he and that filthy-minded disreputable lowlife traveling with him return soon.”

  Aleaukauna grinned. “Could we be worried about Mr. Feather-in-His-Cap?”

  “Not at all.” Pivver was properly indignant. “I’m just anxious to be on our way, is all.”

  “Come on. You like him, don’t you?”

  “Be serious! I know his type all too well.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” The mongoose was unrelenting.

  Pivver could no longer repress a slight smile. Slight, not shy—shyness being an emotion foreign to otters. “He’s quite the talker, but unlike many such, he has the experience to back it up. The trick when dealing with a male like that is to separate the fact from the friction.

  “How could I not be taken with him? He’s traveled far, visited extraordinary places, had remarkable adventures. Quite a contrast to the courtiers who call on me at home. Without exception they all lead lives of stultifying ennui. No, despite his lack of manners he might make an interesting companion.”

  “Mudge?” Umagi chuckled.

  “There’s something about him.” Pivver was tenacious. “A certain aura, an energy.”

  “It’ss called lusst,” Seshenshe explained helpfully.

  Pivver contemplated possibilities. “Delegating any power to him would of course be out of the question. But he’d be fun to have around the palace.” Quiquell spoke quietly, “there remains the awkward fact that he is already mated.”

  “Awkward, perhaps, but hardly insurmountable.” Pivver confronted the anteater. “Having lived and socialized with him these past many days, which do you think he’d prefer? An aimless, dead-end existence in a riverbank burrow or the life of an honored consort in a royal palace? One requiring neither work nor responsibility.” A smile creased her muzzle. “Except, of course, looking after me.” She turned sharply on a startled Naike.

  “Which would you choose, Lieutenant?”

  “I?” Naike looked blank. “Your Highness, I have never been in a position to consider such a thing.” He was careful to avoid the curious, penetrating gaze of the Princess Aleaukauna.

  Pivver snapped her fingers contemptuously. “Knowing Mudge’s type as I do, I don’t see anything as trivial as an aging relatio
nship constraining his actions.”

  Quiquell was not so easily put off. “in addition to being mated, he’s also a good deal older than you.”

  “There is that,” Pivver conceded. “Youth is all very well in its way, but there is much to be said for experience.” Her eyes took on a far-off look. “And that is far and away the most experienced otter I have ever encountered.”

  The discussion evolved into a debate on the various traits to be desired in a prospective consort. In the course of the colloquy they employed nomenclature which set the ears of the several soldiers to burning, not to mention heartily amusing the many porpoises and dolphins who clustered near the stern.

  Chapter 21

  EMERGING FROM THE LOWLAND forest, Jon-Tom and Mudge found themselves working their way up a brushy slope spotted with shattered boulders and tumbled volcanic columns. The vegetation was tough and dense, difficult to push through. As he battled an obstreperous bush Jon-Tom found himself looking forward to the steeper but unobstructed rocky slopes above.

  An indifferent trickle of viscous, nasty-looking water meandered down the center of the shallow gully they were ascending. Catching up to his long-legged friend, Mudge put a hand on the human’s arm and spoke quietly.

  “We’re bein’ followed, mate.”

  “Your imagination’s playing you false again, Mudge. There’s nothing here. Even the bugs are hiding.”

  “All right, maybe not followed. But watched. I can feel the eyes.”

  With a sigh Jon-Tom halted and turned a slow circle. There was no wind to stir the blasted branches and browned leaves. Hopefully they would encounter more of a breeze higher up. If not, it was going to be hot climbing, the perpetual dark cloud which clung to the mountaintop notwithstanding.

  As he turned to resume the ascent, shapes burst from the brush on either side of them.

  Screeching, howling, wild-eyed, they brandished imperfectly made tomahawks and spears with careless abandon. Their hair was long and unkempt and a look of madness was in their eyes. None was very big, but all were lean and muscular. Filthy rags and animal skins bounced against their otherwise naked bodies.