“It will not work,” Clothahump argued with the air. “You will never be able to hold us here, nor get us to fighting among ourselves. We are too intelligent and too diverse a group. Your best efforts have already failed.” Mudge and Colin exchanged an embarrassed glance.
“Sinister, malign, and loquacious you may be,” the wizard went on, “but you are also directed by an unbalanced personality and therefore can have no effect on those of us who are healthy.”
“He calls us unbalanced,” declared a voice. “Him, who’s been senile for the past fifty years.” This was followed by a roll of sardonic laughter. It faded away with frightening finality, like the door of a safe being slammed shut.
“This is ridiculous,” Jon-Tom said. “There’s nothing holding us here. All we have to do is walk away.” He wasn’t ready to grant that anything had actually stopped Sorbl. He started off to his left, striding deliberately toward the nearest trees.
“Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, kid? You know nothing and understand everything. The turtle knows everything and understands nothing.”
Jon-Tom bounced off nothing, as though he’d walked into a brick fireplace. Nothing was a good, solid, unyielding word. He reached out with both hands, found that the air in front of him had the consistency of transparent vinyl.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“I certainly hope so,” said the voice, forcing him back a couple of steps.
“Words can be stronger barriers than metal,” Clothahump told them all. “It has always been so, if not always recognized as such. This is one perturbation we cannot outwait. We must find a way to break through it. Insults can be as suffocating as any fire, for all that they smother the spirit instead of the body.”
Jon-Tom grabbed up his cape and duar. “This is crazy, and we’re getting out of here right now. Mudge and I have fought our way past djinn, monsters, swamps, evil magicians, and well-meaning muck, and I’m not going to let a few words stop me.” He swung the duar around and began to sing.
But as soon as the music began, so did the voices. “A spellsinger, huh? You’ve got a lot to learn about music.”
“Yeah. For openers, remarks aren’t lyrics.” Jon-Tom was knocked backward a step.
“He sings for the ages.”
“Sure does,” agreed another voice. “The ages between five and nine.” Jon-Tom felt his fingers trembling. He began to miss notes.
“Obviously descended from a long line,” said the first voice.
“Yep. A long line that his mother listened to.”
Jon-Tom was forced to his knees, and the words caught in his throat.
“Actually,” declared the first voice, “he hasn’t any enemy in the world. And his friends don’t like him, either.”
At that point Jon-Tom gave up trying to play or sing. He swallowed hard, the insults catching in his throat, and rolled over onto his knees as he fought to catch his breath. It had been a long time since he’d faced magic as powerful and relentless as this, and never had he been confronted by anything quite as insidious. The strength of the perambulator, he knew. How could he counter it with simple songs, mere spellsinging? What could you sing to counter an insult?
Rock music was designed to make you feel good, to raise your spirits, not to knock down. But there was one kind of rock that was a reaction to that, just as it was a reaction against any kind of authority, against anything worthwhile. Knees shaky, fingers uncertain on the strings, he struggled to his feet. Yes, those were the only kind of lyrics that might have some eifect on the cage of insults. He considered whom to begin with: Oxo, Sex Pistols, The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, or some of the new groups. He began to feel some of his control returning along with his confidence.
You didn’t need the haircut to sing punk.
Mudge put his paws to his ears, and Clothahump’s expression reflected his thorough disgust with the lyrics Jon-Tom was singing. Excellent! It was proof that he was doing exactly what he intended to do. Like any good punk singer, he was doing his utmost to insult his audience.
“What do you think?” wondered the first voice. Jon-Tom tried not to rush his music. It seemed that the cage was tightening around them, restricting their range of movement even further. He staggered but didn’t fall.
“Careful,” said the other voice, “he might be dangerous after all.”
“Not a chance. He’s a sheep in sheep’s clothing.”
“He sings,” rumbled the first voice, firing a serious salvo, “as if it were a painful duty.”
Jon-Tom was forced backward. Delivered with precision and perfect timing, each insult struck him like a physical blow, as any good insult should. He felt like a boxer trying to go the full fifteen rounds, and his hands were tied to the duar. But he kept singing nonetheless. It was all he knew to do.
And still he was forced back. It wasn’t that his punk anthems didn’t possess an equal amount of vitriol, he thought, but the fact that they were blatant and straightforward that made them less effective. There was nothing subtle about them. He was a barbarian with a battle-ax, trying to fend off the attacks of half a dozen lightning-fast fencers. If he could just get in one solid blow with his music, one unparried stab, he felt certain it would shatter the verbal cage contracting around them.
But the insults continued to flow unabated, drawing their strength and power from some unseen well of acid, out-maneuvering him at every turn. A little jab here, a crude comment on his bodily functions there, a deprecatory nod in the direction of his ancestry slipping in to stick him from behind before his cruder counterjabs could have any effect.
“He is dull,” claimed the first voice, “naturally dull, but it must have taken a great deal of work on his part for him to have become what we see now. Such excess is not in nature.” Jon-Tom went to his knees.
“He’s not all that bad,” countered the second voice. “After all, he is capable of running the full gamut of musical emotion from A to B.”
Now Jon-Tom was squirming helplessly on his back, still trying to play the duar, still trying to sing. He was finding it difficult to breathe.
Anxious faces peering down at him now; his friends, their concern reflected in their expressions.
“Take ‘er easy now, mate.” Mudge glanced up at Clothahump. “You ‘ave to do somethin’, Your Wizardship. ‘E’s in a bad way.”
“I have never encountered a distortion of reality of this nature before. It is difficult to know what to do or where to begin.”
“Well, / know where to begin!” yelled Mudge, and he pulled the duar from Jon-Tom’s weakened hands.
“Wait—no.” Jon-Tom tried to sit up, failed. “You can’t, Mudge! You don’t know how to spellsing.”
“Spellsingin* ain’t wot’s wanted ‘ere,” snapped the otter, “and neither is your bleedin’ useless magic, Your Sorceremess.” Mudge looked off-balance since the duar was nearly as tall as he was. Somehow he got it settled in front of him. He ran his fingers over the double set of strings, and notes, angry and atonal, floated out into the air.
“That’s not music,” said Dormas.
“Oh, yes, it is. Tis exactly the sort of music this monstrosity that’s surroundin’ us and tryin’ to choke us off will appreciate.”
“So he thinks he can sing,” said the first voice as the contracting cage turned its attention away from Jon-Tom.
“Yes,” said the second. “He doesn’t realize that all he is doing is sitting in a sewer and getting ready to contribute to it.”
“Is that a fact?” yelled the otter. “Well, ‘ave a care an’ listen to this, you invisible, impolite, perturbed arse’ole!”
The otter began to sing. The accompaniment the duar provided was nothing less than awful, but what mattered was not the ragged series of notes but rather the lyrics Mudge invented. For while Jon-Tom might be the spellsinger and Clothahump the wizard, when it came to concocting insults, Mudge had no equal in this world or in any other.
A kind of wave went through the
atmosphere of the camp. A shudder, as though they had just passed through a cloud.
The oppression lifted from Jon-Tom, enabling him to sit up straight. The pain inside his skull began to fade.
The voices fought back furiously, though for the first time, Jon-Tom thought they sounded just the slightest bit hesitant.
“A foul mouth and getting fouler.”
“The air around him is as he does.”
“Is that the best you can do?” Mudge howled on, enjoying himself, letting his anger spill out of him. “An” you call yourselves insults? You wouldn’t know shit if you were standin’ in it!”
Jon-Tom found he could stand. He was wincing repeatedly, not from the insulting blows that had been rained on him previously but from the screeching, wailing sounds the abused duar was producing. Mudge might have fooled with a lyre or some other stringed instrument before, but the complexity of the duar was clearly beyond him. And yet the noise he was making, though bearing the same resemblance to music that a diamond does to a cowflop, seemed to be aiding instead of hindering his offensive efforts.
“Your master should ‘ave great fortune,” the otter sang. “ ‘E should become rich an’ famous an’ attractive, with all the world bowin’ before ‘im. An’ ‘e should learn at the same time that ‘e ‘as some ‘orrible uncurable disease.”
A blast of diseased wind rocked the camp, sending ashes flying from the fire. It was a last feeble attempt to whip them into submission, and it failed. Mudge was already beyond the original barrier, striding toward the trees as though stalking an unseen enemy. Which was exactly what he was doing.
“Go ahead, go ahead,” squeaked the voice, desperately attempting to regain the offensive, “tell us everything you know. It won’t take long.”
Mudge sang back at it. “I’ll tell you everythin’ we both know—it won’t take any longer!”
“If I had to listen to singing like yours much longer,” moaned the remaining voice, “I’d poison you.”
“If I ‘ad to listen to you much longer,” Mudge barked gleefully, “I’d take it!”
When the otter stopped strumming the duar, there was silence, save for the wind blowing through the trees. Nothing more, not a veiled comment, not a sound. The heavy, oppressive feeling that had crowded them into a smaller and smaller place was gone.
“Done already, you cowardly lot? You can dish it out, wot, but you can’t take it. I’m just gettin’ warmed up, I am.” He plucked at the duar. “You think you’ve ‘card insults? You ‘aven’t ‘card any insults. I’ve got an insult for every day I’ve been alive and a few brought forward from prenatal eaves-droppin’.”
“Mudge, it’s over, you did it. You broke the cage and drove it off.”
“Oh, right you are, lad.” He handed over the duar. “I wanted to make sure. I did well, didn’t I?”
Jon-Tom smiled down at his friend. “Mudge, it was positively inspiring.”
“Aye.” The otter drew himself up proudly. “Aye, it were, weren’t it? A day to remember.”
“And a lot of words to forget,” said Clothahump. “It is wholly characteristic of this expedition that we should require rescue by a thersitical water rat. It is one more example of the unpredictability of the enemy we seek. We must be on guard for everything, including that which we cannot imagine. Had I more time, I would have managed to defeat this most recent adversary by more conventional and congenial means.”
“Sure you would, Your Lordship,” said Mudge. Jon-Tom hastened to step between them.
“I’ve listened to enough insults for one morning. Let’s get our gear together and be on our way.”
As they were packing to depart Jon-Tom strolled over to confront Mudge curiously. “Tell me something, Mudge. If what you’d sung, and I use the word hesitantly, hadn’t done the trick, what else did you have in your repertoire? What’s the worst insult you could have thrown against the cage?”
“Why, that’s easy, mate.”
Jon-Tom bent low. The otter cupped a paw to his lips and whispered in the man’s ear. Jon-Tom listened intently, nodding from time to time, his expression twisting. Eventually the otter concluded his recitation and returned to his packing. As he did so there was a sudden rumble underfoot. Mudge jumped one way; Jon-Tom backpedaled and stumbled.
Fortunately the crevass, after splitting the earth between them for about a yard, ceased expanding. Man and otter crawled to the edge of the chasm and peered down into black depths that seemed to extend for miles. They could feel the heat rising from below, and the thick aroma of sulfur filled the air.
Mudge lifted his eyes to meet Jon-Tom’s stare. “Crikey, mate, I ‘ad no idea it were that insultin’.” Rising, he retreated a couple of steps and, while Jon-Tom held his breath, sprinted forward and leapt across the bottomless gap. Mudge turned to look back at the rift he’d opened in the earth’s crust.
“I don’t understand, mate. I’ve mounted me share o’ insults before and not one of ‘em ever ‘ad a result like this.”
“The lingering power of the duar’s music,” Clothahump explained. “It will fade. You did well, though if any unusual ability might have been expected of you, the one you demonstrated was appropriate and unsurprising.”
“Can’t even give me a compliment when ‘tis due, the old fart,” Mudge grumbled. “I save ‘is arse, save everyone’s, and that’s me reward. Well, ‘e’ll see. The next time trouble comes, you won’t find old Mudge leapin’ to the rescue. No, sir. Not by the thickness of a cat’s whisker you won’t.
“That’s just Clothahump’s way, Mudge.” Jon-Tom tried to calm his friend. “You ought to know that by now.”
“That’s true, lad. That’s ‘is way—selfish, contemptuous, an’ overbearin’. Me, I’m glad I’m no wizard if that’s the personality that goes with it.”
“Just don’t utter any absolutes. We’re not out of this yet, you know.”
“Is that supposed to be a revelation, mate? I’m never out of it so long as I’m forced to ‘ang around you and ‘Is Snotness. Well”—he took a deep breath—”we ‘andled ‘is forest fire and we ‘andled ‘is farkin’ insults. If that’s the worst this ‘ere madman can throw against us, we should ‘ave a simple enough time of it settin’ the perambulator free.”
“I hope you’re right, Mudge.” Jon-Tom turned his gaze toward the northern mountains. “But we still have to worry about the perambulator itself. Somehow I have the feeling that everything we’ve experienced so far is just a foretaste of what it can do.”
Sorbl had spotted a pass cutting through the first line of peaks, and they were climbing toward it. After weeks of marching through endless forest it was cheering to have a visible goal in sight. Having walked for more than a year, it was difficult to keep the excited Colin from sprinting out ahead of them.
“Slowly and carefully go,” Clothahump warned him. “The nearer we get, the greater the danger. He knows now that we are coming for him. The cage of deadly insults he tried to trap us with is proof enough of that.”
“I’m not afraid, Wise One. I don’t care what form he takes or what obstacles he tries to put in our path. I’ve come long and far, and I can taste the moment when I put my sword through the throat of this crazed troublemaker. He’s brought so much unpleasantness and discomfort upon the world.”
“We are not yet certain our adversary is a ‘he,’“ Clothahump reminded the koala, “nor even if it inhabits a familiar form. There may be no throat to stick.”
“You can bet I’ll find an appropriate place to stick it, sorcerer.” As he spoke, the turtle next to him was beginning to change. “Beware, friends! It’s happening again!”
“The world looks the same,” Sorbl argued.
“No, I can feel it coming too.” Clothahump spread his arms wide. “Be at ease. No one panic. We have survived and overcome every perturbation to date, and we shall survive this one as well.”
Had he known what was coming, it’s doubtful the wizard would have voiced such confidence, for
this was a perturbation so severe and unsettling, it seemed certain to drive them all mad before the world snapped back to reality again. All were affected. All save one.
Jon-Tom was not changed at all. Throughout the entire transformation he suffered nothing more than a momentary nausea. And while he could understand his companions’ distress from a philosophical standpoint, it was hard for him to empathize with their metamorphosis.
“Oh, God,” Dormas moaned, “this is too much! I—I don’t think I can handle it.”
“Easy, steady there.” It was clear Clothahump himself, despite his brave and defiant words of a moment ago, was more than a little shaken by the change that overcame them. “I know it’s bad, but we’ve come through worse.”
“No, we haven’t,” cried Sorbl. “Master, this is terrible! I can’t fly. I’ve lost my wings completely and I have these things instead.”
Indeed there was something particularly heart-wrenching about an earthbound owl, though Sorbl was no more or less severely altered than any of the others.
“As ‘eaven is me witness,” Mudge was muttering disconsolately, “if I gets back me old self again, I’ll never complain at wot fate ‘as in store for me. I’m one with Dormas on this, Your Sorcerership. I don’t know ‘ow long I can stand it.”
“We have no choice,” Clothahump told them grimly. “We have to stand it—somehow.” He stood there gritting his teeth, in itself a remarkable circumstance since turtles do not have teeth. But Clothahump had them now. So did Sorbl.
“Come on now.” Jon-Tom tried his best to cheer them. “It’s not all that bad. If you’ll just try relaxing, you might find yourselves getting used to it.”
“I’m gonna die for sure,” Dormas moaned. Her toughness and resilience had deserted her in the face of this newest nightmare.
“Get used to this?” said Colin. “I’d sooner pluck out my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at myself.”
“Yes, it’s easy for you to stand there calmly and mouth platitudes,” said a whimpering Sorbl. “You aren’t suffering as we are suffering.”