“Instead of sendin’ just you, for a change, ‘is magicship ‘is riskin’ ‘is own precious arse, wot? I admit that’s a point, lad.” The stooped otter considered. “A perambulator, eh? So that’s wot’s causin’ all the trouble. And you call wot it’s doin’ ‘perturbing’ things.”
Jon-Tom nodded. “That’s right.”
“Then it’s only right an’ proper that you and ‘is sorceremess be the ones to be ‘untin’ it. I’ve always known old Clothybump to be more than a little permanently perturbed, and I’ve never been too sure o’ you, neither. Well, I expect that you’re doin’ wot ‘as to be done.” He tried to straighten, but his distorted spine fought against the effort. “I’m comin’ along, o’ course.”
“What?” Jon-Tom stared hard at the twisted, furry figure. He must be wrong. This couldn’t be Mudge.
“Aye. As you say, someone ‘as to stop this bleedin’ switchin’ and changin’ from gettin’ any worse. You can use all the ‘elp you can get, especially where you’re goin’. Besides, mate, wot would you do without me to bail you out of a tough spot?”
Jon-Tom had no ready reply. Nor could he mouth one upon a moment’s reflection. The otter’s words were as much of a shock to his system as the sight of the perturbed city. Mudge possessed an extensive and colorful vocabulary, but to the best of Jon-Tom’s knowledge, the word volunteer was as alien to the otter as celibacy.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said slowly. “Are you actually offering to help? Of your own free will? Without having to be coerced by Clothahump or myself?”
“Well, o’ course I am, lad.” Mudge looked hurt, a specialty among his vast repertoire of expressions. “Wot do you take me for?”
“Let’s see.” Jon-Tom ticked them off on his fingers as he recited. “A thief, a wencher, a coward, a scoundrel, a—”
Mudge hastened to interrupt the steady flow of derogatory appellations. “Let’s not be overenthusiastic, mate. O’ course I’m volunterin’. You’re goin’ to need me ‘elp. Neither you nor ‘is wizardship is wot you’d call a master at scoutin’ or fightin’, and that flyin’ bag of feathery booze old hard-shell calls ‘is famulus ain’t much better.”
“We’ve managed to make it this far.” It was Jon-Tom’s turn to be insulted.
“Luck always travels in the company o’ fools, wot? Nonetheless, I’ll come along if you’ll ‘ave me. Wot’s left o’ me, that is.”
The combination of the once vibrant otter’s wrenched appearance coupled with his apparently selfless eagerness to be of assistance caused moisture to begin forming at the corners of Jon-Tom’s eyes. He had to struggle to keep his voice from breaking as he replied.
“Of course, we’ll be glad of your company and your help, Mudge.”
The otter appeared both pleased and relieved. “That’s settled, then.” He nodded toward the mud fountain where Clothahump was engaged in the erection of his sorcerous apparatus, mixing the steady litany of a long spell with selected curses that he heaped on the bumbling, unsteady Sorbl. “Wot’s ‘e up to?”
“I don’t know,” Jon-Tom confessed. “He said that he was going to try to help these people, but he didn’t go into details. You know Clothahump: he’d rather show than tell.”
“Aye. That’s so innocent bystanders like you an’ me don’t ‘ave a chance to get out of the way.”
A few of the blasted inhabitants of Ospenspri had gathered to watch, but all remained on the fringe of the square. Only the aged fox was daring enough to stay and chat with them. Jon-Tom left him conversing animatedly with Mudge and walked over to see if he could help the wizard in his work.
“You certainly can, my boy,” the old turtle told him as he adjusted his glasses on his beak. Jon-Tom started to swing his duar off his back, and the wizard hastened to forestall him. “No, no, I do not have need of your singing. Could you hold this up here?”
Mildly mortified, Jon-Tom bit back the response he wanted to make and took hold of the folding wooden platform, steadying it on the cracked surface of the square. Mudge did not comment on this demotion with the expected flurry of jeers. Perhaps the otter’s disfigurement had sobered him.
He tried to make some sense out of the interlocking platform and failed. “What’s this setup for, anyway?”
Instead of answering, the sorcerer was walking a slow circle around the enigmatic apparatus, studying it intently from every angle, occasionally bending over or kneeling to check its position relative to the hills on the north side of the city. From time to time he would interrupt his circumnavigation to adjust this or that piece of metal or wood, then step back to resume his journey.
Having returned to the precise spot where he’d begun, he turned and marched over to his supply pack. A large box had been removed and now stood next to it. It contained half a dozen drawers. As Jon-Tom watched and struggled to contain his curiosity, the wizard began to mix powders taken from the six drawers in a small bowl. It took only a few minutes. Then he dumped the contents of the bowl into a small, deep metal goblet that hung suspended in the center of the structure Jon-Tom was steadying against the breeze.
“That cloud overhead,” the wizard explained, as though no time at all had elapsed since Jon-Tom had first asked his question, “is the localized center of the disturbance that continues to hold Ospenspri and its population fast in its perturbing grasp. If we can change its composition, not to mention its disposition, back to that of a normal cloud, I believe this also will result in a shift in the perturbation.”
Jon-Tom tilted his head back to gaze up at the threatening mass of black moisture billowing overhead. “How are you going to do that, sir?”
“The best way I know how, my boy, the best way I know how. Hold the platform firmly now.”
Jon-Tom tightened his grip on two of the wooden legs, at the same time frowning at his mentor. “This isn’t going to be dangerous, is it?”
“My boy, would I ever involve you in anything dangerous?” Before Jon-Tom had an opportunity to oifer the self-evident reply, the wizard had launched into a most impressive and forceful incantation, simultaneously passing his hands rapidly over the central goblet as he traced intricate geometric shapes in the empty air.
Harken to me, affronting front.
Winds that linger, false winter solstice.
Prepare to flee, to leave, to shunt
Aside thy paralyzed coriolis.
Disintegrate and break apart the lattice
That maintains thy present cumulostrarus status!
As the wizard recited, the goblet began to jiggle and bounce. Then it broke free of its leather bindings, and instead of falling to the hard ground below, it remained in place, dancing and spinning and beginning to glow. Jon-Tom could feel the powerful vibrations through the supporting sticks. The apparatus seemed far too fragile to contain the rapidly intensifying ramble that was emanating from the base of the goblet, but somehow the aracane concatenation held together.
The goblet was glowing white-hot. The ground began to tremble. He held his position as the few observers who had clumped on the outskirts of the square scattered into the mud huts. The ramble became a deafening roar in his ears. He felt as if he were standing under a waterfall. Clothahump’s words faded into inaudibility.
The wizard abruptly brought both hands together over his head. A small thunderclap rolled across the square. Sorbl was knocked from his perch atop the jeep’s windshield. Jon-Tom gritted his teeth and held on, the concussion making his ears ring, his fingers beginning to go numb.
Through half-closed eyes he saw something bright and shiny rocket skyward from the mouth of the goblet. The whistling sound of the miniature comet’s ascension was quickly swallowed up by the roiling blackness above. Clothahump was shading his eyes with one hand. He spoke absently, clearly concentrating on the place where the shiny object had vanished into the bottom of the great cloud.
“You can let go now, my boy.”
With relief Jon-Tom did so, joining the wizard in gazing skyward
while he tried to rub some feeling back into his hands.
The cloud let out a rumble that was a vaster echo of the one the goblet had generated. It was less explosive, more natural, and the sound of it lingered not unpleasantly in the ear. It was preceded by something akin to lightning but not of it, a more benign electrical relative. The pale white pulsation that lit the underside of the cloud spread quickly to its edges. A second rumble came from the far side. It sounded like a question.
“What did you do, sir?”
“The only thing I knew how, my boy, the only thing I knew how.”
“What happens now? Something wondrous and magical?”
“If we’re lucky, yes.”
Unable to keep his head tilted back any longer, Jon-Tom turned his attention to the now-silent jumble of wooden poles and metal strips that had been used to precipitate the glittering whatever-it-had-been into the sky. The leather strips that had originally supported the metal goblet had been vaporized. The goblet itself now lay on the ground, a blob of half-melted pewter. In contravention of every law of physics, the fragile wooden apparatus remained standing. The explosion that had flung the shiny object skyward should have blown the collage of dowels to bits; the heat that had melted the goblet should have fired it like kindling. Jon-Tom shook his head in amazement. Truly Clothahump was a master of elegant supernatural forces.
Mudge, who had limped over to join him, nodded at the construction. “Weird, ain’t it?” His black nose twitched as he leaned toward it. “One o’ these days I ‘ave to ask ‘is conjureness why magic always stinks.”
“Mudge, you could steal the wonder from a fairy castle.”
“Castles stink too; marble floors soak up odors. An’ I’ve met some pretty slovenly fairies.”
Trying to ignore him, Jon-Tom bent over and reached for the goblet. Thunder continued its querulous exhortations overhead, and a prickly dampness could be felt in the air. He touched the melted metal carefully. It was cool against his palm.
Removing it, he turned the barely recognizable lump over in his hands. Not just cool but ice-cold, despite the intense heat it had recently endured. And Mudge was right; there was a peculiar smell attending to the metal. He stuck a finger inside, rubbed it against the bottom of the curve. When he removed it, it was smeared with black and glittering sparkles. He held it to his nose and sniffed.
Mudge made a face. “Wot is it, guv’nor?”
“I’m not sure.” He eyed the sky again. “It smells and looks something like silver iodide. Where I come from, something similar is used for seeding clouds.”
The otter gave him a sideways look. “We seed the ground ‘ere, mate, not the clouds. You’re not makin’ any sense.”
But Jon-Tom knew better. He looked over to where the patiently waiting Clothahump stood motionless, still shading his eyes and inspecting the sky. You clever, sharp old codger you, he thought, and found that he was smiling.
Then something wondrous and magical began to happen, exactly as the wizard had indicated it should, and Jon-Tom found that he was not just smiling, he was laughing. Laughing, and feeling good enough to kick up his feet in a celebratory jig.
It began to rain.
The rumbling from the cloud had sounded querulous at first, then confused, but now it was booming and roaring with unperturbed assurance. He stood there with the rain pelting his upturned face, luxuriating in the clean, pure, undistorted moisture.
Well, maybe just a little distorted.
Mudge grabbed the goblet. “ ‘Ere now, let me ‘ave a sniff o’ that, you dancin’ ape. Something’s not right ‘ere.” He inhaled deeply. Then his eyes grew wide. “Bugger me for a wayward clergyman! That’s brandy, mate, and top-quality stuff too! Maybe there’s a drop or two left in the bottom to whet old Mudge’s whistle, wot?” He started to tilt the melted goblet to his lips.
Jon-Tom quickly snatched it back. “Whoa! Silver iodide’s a strong poison, Mudge. Or maybe it was silver chloride? No matter.” He sniffed himself, looked puzzled. “It’s not brandy, anyway. It’s bourbon.”
The otter leaned forward, and now he looked equally confused. “Peculiar, mate. I get chocolate liqueur this time.”
And Jon-Tom again, “Sour mash—or vodka. Say, what’s going on here?”
Clothahump was trying to keep his glasses dry against the downpour that was soaking them. “It’s none of those, my boy. The particular ingredient to which you refer and which you are having such difficulty identifying is far more basic, not to mention expensive. I would never utilize it so freely were it not for the seriousness of this moment of mercy. It is very scarce, very hard to come by, and very much in demand, and not only by those of us who dabble in the sorcerous arts. We call it Essoob.” He glanced upward again, studying the storm with a critical eye.
It was raining steadily. The thunder had worked itself out, and now there was only the steady patter of rain against the ground. There was no wind and the big drops came straight down.
“Never heard of it,” Jon-Tom confessed.
“Essence of Booze. I determined that we needed not only to prime this particular cloud but to shock it back to normality. I also had to utilize something that would mix well with water.”
Mudge was standing with his head back and his mouth open, swallowing and smacking his lips. “Well, I’ll be a shrew with a migraine! Drink up, mate! We’ll likely never stand in a storm the likes o’ this ever again!” Sorbl, too, was partaking of the alcoholic rain, had been since the descent of the first drops. That explained the owl’s unusual silence, Jon-Tom mused. The famulus was drifting peacefully in some imbiber’s heaven.
Cautiously he parted his lips and sucked in the moisture that was running off his nose. Creme de me’nthe. A second slurp brought home the taste of Galliano, a third of Midori, or something like it.
Enough, he told himself firmly. He was not thirsty and had no desire to be unconscious.
“Oasafin!” Mudge was babbling. “Terraquin. Coosage, guinal, essark, goodmage, sankerberry wine!” The otter was lying on his back in the mud, his arms and legs spread wide but not as wide as his mouth.
And he wasn’t the only one, for the unique properties of the downpour Clothahump had induced had not passed unnoticed among the other inhabitants of Ospenspri. They came stumbling out of their mud and wattle houses, in pairs and trios at first, then in a delighted, exuberant rush. Even those citizens who considered themselves teetotalers participated, for they could hardly pass on such a wonderful piece of sorcerous business and leave it to their less inhibited neighbors to tell them all about it when it was over.
As the aromatic rain continued to fall it began to have an affect on the desiccated trees and shriveled plants. Flowers bloomed from seemingly dead stalks. Bushes put out new, fresh green growth. Up in the ruined orchards the apple and tokla trees straightened; their limbs lifted and erupted in a burst of green. They did not put forth fruit, for it was too late in the season, but next year’s harvest would surely be spectacular.
The rain worked its most wondrous transformation out in the fields of late autumn wheat. The flattened, burned stalks lifted skyward, and the dry heads grew swollen with golden kernels. Not merely gold in color but in promise. Because for months thereafter, any bread baked from that season’s threshing was famed throughout the Bellwoods and even beyond.
Renowned and marveled at, bread and long rolls alike, for their texture and color and most especially of all, the faintly alcoholic flavor each bite imparted to the palate.
Through the rain and the fog that accompanied it, Jon-Tom could witness the transformation of Ospenspri and its inhabitants. The city itself seemed to straighten as it returned to health, buildings and citizens alike drawing strength from the rain and the concomitant metamorphosis of the cloud. As that black mass of moisture lightened, so did the mood of the city and the lands surrounding it. As he stared, Ospenspri changed from an island of devastation and despair to the jewel of the north.
The mud huts vanished, t
o be replaced by finely wrought structures of hardwood and dressed stone. The mud seemed to dissolve beneath his feet, leaving behind yard-square paving blocks of ocher-streaked white marble. Close by, the mud spring was transformed into a graceful spire of filagreed arches. Water spurted or trickled from dozens of nozzles. Set among the marble sculptures that comprised the fountain were hundreds of the brilliant green garnets called peridots, which gave the square its name.
The storm was beginning to abate, the black cloud to break up. Once the dissolution had begun, it proceeded rapidly. For the first time in weeks the sun shone brightly on the tormented city. The thirsty earth soaked up what precipitation managed to escape the tubs and rain barrels of the inhabitants. Having spent its force, the cloud and the perturbation it had sheltered faded away with equal alacrity.
Nor was the city all that returned to normal. Mudge had straightened and now danced a wild saraband on the marble edge of the towering fountain. But Jon-Tom found his attention drawn to the one citizen of Ospenspri who had greeted them.
No longer crooked and bent, the old fox stood tall and proud before Clothahump. He was bigger than Mudge, and his silver-streaked ears were on a level with Jon-Tom’s shoulders. As both wizard and spellsinger looked on, he performed a deep, profound bow. In place of the dirty rags he’d been wearing when he’d initially approached the visitors, he now wore a splendid suit of dark brown edged with green velvet and fastened with hardwood buttons inlaid with brass. A peculiarly narrow hat of green felt and leather rested between his ears.
“I am Sorenset,” he informed them, “a senior member of the ruling council of Ospenspri.” Another bow toward Clothahump. “We are laid low by the weight of your genius, sir, and raised up again through your timely assistance. I am honored to reflect the glory of the greatest of wizards.”
“The people of Ospenspri have always been famed for the accuracy of their observations,” Clothahump said blithely. “I only did what any traveler of my stature would have done.”