“Clothahump,” Jon-Tom explained politely, “doesn’t think much of games.”
“Word travels that he does not because he is getting senile.”
Jon-Tom didn’t reply. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with Chenelska and angering him.
“Therefore, my master is badly frustrated, since there is no way he can prove that he is truly the most skilled in the wizardly arts.
“Word arrived recently about this severe sickness Clothahump is suffering from and that he cannot cure with his own magic, that he needs medicine obtainable only from a land beyond Snarken. My master was delighted by it.”
“When we get out of this,” Jon-Tom whispered to Mudge, “I’m going to string Sorbl up by his feet and hang him beak-first over an open bottle of brandy.”
“Mate, I truly ’ope you get that opportunity,” said Mudge.
“Thanks to the information the wizard’s famulus provided, we were able to locate and intercept you,” said Chenelska.
“What does your master intend doing with us?”
“I do not know, man. For now, it would seem sufficient to prevent you from carrying out your mission and returning with the necessary medicine. Perhaps after he has weakened enough my master will take pity on him and travel south to allow him the privilege of begging for his help.”
“Clothahump would never do that,” Jon-Tom assured the coati. “He’ll spit in Zancresta’s face before he asks his help.”
“Then I imagine he will die.” The coati spoke without emotion. “It is of no import to me. I only serve my master.”
“Yes, you’re a good slave.”
The coati moved closer to the wagon and slapped the sideboard angrily. “I am no slave!”
“A slave is one who unquestioningly carries out the orders of his master without considering the possible consequences.”
“I know the consequences of what I do.” Chenelska glowered at him, no longer friendly. “Of one consequence I am sure. I will emerge from this little journey far better off than you. You think you’re smart, man? I was instructed in all the tricks a spellsinger can play. You can make only music with your voice and not magic without your instrument. If I choose to cut your throat, I will be safer still.
“As for the water rat that accompanies you, it may be that the master will free him. If he does so, I will be waiting for him myself, to greet him as is his due.” With that, the coati left them, increasing his stride to again assume his place at the head of the little procession.
“I’m beginnin’ to wish you’d left me at Madam Lorsha’s,” the otter said later that night.
“To Tork’s tender mercies?” Jon-Tom snorted. “You’d be scattered all over Timswitty by now if I hadn’t shown up to save you, and you know it.”
“Better to die after three days o’ bliss than to lie in some filthy cell in Malderpot contemplatin’ a more mundane way o’ passin’.”
“We’re not dead yet. That’s something.”
“Is it now? You’re a fine one for graspin’ at straws.”
“I once saw a man start a fire with nothing more than a blade of dry grass. It kept both of us warm through a night in high mountains.”
“Well ’e ain’t ’ere and neither is ’is fire.”
“You give up too quickly.” Jon-Tom looked ahead, to where Chenelska strode proudly at the head of his band. “I could put in for a writ of habeas corpus after we arrive, but somehow I don’t think it would have much sway with this Zancresta.”
“Wot’s that, mate? Some kind of otherworldly magic?”
“Yes. We’re going to need something like it to get out of this with our heads in place. And let’s not forget poor Clothahump for worrying about our own skins. He’s depending on us.”
“Aye, and see ’ow well ’is trust is placed.”
They kept to back roads and trails, staying under cover of the forest, avoiding intervening communities. Chenelska intended to avoid unnecessary confrontations as well as keep his not always reliable troops clear of civilization’s temptations. So they made good time and after a number of days arrived on the outskirts of a town too small to be a city but too large to be called a village.
A crudely fashioned but solid stone wall encircled it, in contrast to the open city boundaries of Lynchbany and Timswitty. It wasn’t a very high wall, a fact Jon-Tom commented on as they headed west.
A small door provided an entrance. The prisoners were hustled quickly down several flights of stone stairs, past crackling torches smelling of creosote, and thrust into a dark, odiferous cell. An obese porcupine turned the large key in the iron lock and departed, leaving them alone in the near blackness.
“Still optimistic, mate?” Mudge leaned against a dank wall and sniffed. “Cast into a dungeon without hope of rescue to spend our last hours talkin’ philosophy.”
Jon-Tom was running his fingers speculatively over the mossy walls. “Not very well masoned or mortared.”
“I stand corrected,” said Mudge sardonically. “Talkin’ about architecture.”
“Architecture’s an interesting subject, Mudge. Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. If you know how something is put together, you might learn how to take it apart.”
“That’s right, guv’nor. You find us a loose stone in the wall, take it out, and bring the whole stinkin’ city down on top o’ us. Then we’ll be well and truly free.” He slunk off toward a corner.
“Not even a chamber pot in this cesspool. I ’ope they kill us fast instead o’ leavin’ us to die with this smell.” He moved back to grab the bars of the cell, shouted toward the jailer.
“Hey mate, get your fat ass over ’ere!”
In no hurry, the porcupine ambled across the floor from his chair. When he reached the bars he turned his back, and Mudge backed hastily away from the two-foot-long barbed quills.
“I will thank you to be a little more polite.”
“Right, sure, guv. Take ’er easy. No offense. You can imagine me state o’ mind, chucked in ’ere like an old coat.”
“No, I cannot,” said the jailer. “I do my job and go home to my family. I do not imagine your state of mind.”
“Excuse me,” said Jon-Tom, “but have you any idea how long we are to be held in here?”
“Ah, no.”
Slow. Their jailer was a little slow in all areas. It was a characteristic of all porcupines, and this one was no exception. That didn’t mean he was a moron. Tread slowly, Jon-Tom warned himself.
“Our possessions have become separated from us,” he went on. “Do you know what was done with them?”
Lazily, the porcupine pointed upward. “They are in the main guard chamber, to be taken out and sent along with you when word comes for you to be moved.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen to us?”
The porcupine shook his head. “No idea. None of my business. I do my job and stay out of other people’s business, I do.”
Mudge instantly divined his companion’s intentions, said sadly, “We were searched before we were sent down here. I wonder if they found your sack o’ gold, mate?”
“Sack of gold?” Evidently the porcupine wasn’t all that slow. For the first time the half-lidded eyes opened fully, then narrowed again. “You are trying to fool me. Chenelska would never leave a sack of gold in a place where others could find it and steal it.”
“Yeah, but wot if ’e didn’t think to look for somethin’ like that?” Mudge said insinuatingly. “We just don’t want ’im to get ’is ’ands on it, after ’im throwin’ us down ’ere and all. If you wanted to find out if we were lyin’ or not, all you’d ’ave to do is go look for yourself, mate. You ’ave the keys, and we ain’t ’ardly goin’ to dig our way out o’ this cell while you’re gone.”
“That is true.” The jailer started for the stairs. “Do not get any funny ideas. You cannot cut through the bars, and there is no one else here but me.”
“Oh, we ain’t goin’ anywhere, we ain’t,” Mudge insisted.
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“By the way,” Jon-Tom added offhandedly, “as long as you’re going upstairs, maybe you could do something for us? This is an awfully dank and somber place. A little music would do a lot to lighten it up. Surely working down here day after day, the atmosphere must get pretty depressing after a while.”
“No, it does not,” said the porcupine as he ascended the stairs. “I like it dank and somber and quiet, though I would be interested in hearing the kind of music you could play. You see, Chenelska told me you were a spellsinger.”
Jon-Tom’s heart sank. “Not really. I’m more of an apprentice. I don’t know enough yet to really spellsing. I just like to make music.”
“Nonetheless, I cannot take the chance.”
“Wait!” Jon-Tom called desperately. “If you know what spellsinging’s all about, then surely you know that a spellsinger can’t make magic without his instrument.”
“That is so.” The porcupine eyed him warily.
“Well then, how about this? You bring down my duar, my instrument, but after you give it to me you chain my hands so I can’t pull them back through these bars. That way if I tried to sing anything that sounded dangerous to you, you could yank the duar away from me before I could finish and I couldn’t do a thing to stop you from doing so.”
The jailer considered, wrestling with unfamiliar concepts. Jon-Tom and Mudge waited breathlessly, glad of the darkness. It helped to conceal their anxiety.
“Yes, I think that would be safe enough,” the jailer said finally. “And I am curious to hear you sing. I will see if your instrument is with your other possessions. While I look for the sack of gold.”
“You won’t regret it!” Jon-Tom called after him as he disappeared up the stairway. As soon as he’d left, Mudge looked excitedly at his friend.
“Cor, mate, can you really do anythin’ tied like that?”
“I don’t know. I have to try. It’s clear he wasn’t just going to hand me the duar without some kind of safeguard. I just don’t know what I could sing that could help us out of here before he decided it sounded threatening and took the duar away from me. Not that I ever know what to sing. I had the same problem in my own world. But it was all I could think of.”
“You better think o’ somethin’, mate, or it’ll be two worlds that’ll be missin’ you permanent. I don’t know what this Zancresta has planned for us, but as much as ’e hates Clothahump, I don’t figure on ’im bein’ overly polite to a couple o’ the turtle’s servants.”
“We’re not his servants. At least, you’re not.”
“Aye, an’ you saw ’ow far that got me with Chenelska. I’m stuck with the bedamned label just like you are, like it or not. So think of somethin’. Somethin’ effective, and fast.”
“I don’t know.” Jon-Tom fought with his memory. “Practically everything I know is hard rock.”
Mudge gestured at the walls. “Strikes me as damned appropriate.”
“Not like that,” Jon-Tom explained impatiently. “It’s a name for a kind of popular music. You’ve heard me sing it.”
“Aye, an’ I don’t pretend to understand a word o’ it.”
“Then you have something in common with my parents.”
Footsteps coming down the stairs interrupted them momentarily.
“You’d better think up somethin’ quick, mate.”
“I’ll try.” He stuck his arms out between the bars, waiting expectantly. His spirits were boosted by the sight of the undamaged duar dangling from one of the jailer’s paws.
“There was no gold,” the porcupine declared sourly.
“Sorry.” Mudge sighed fitfully. “About wot one would expect from a snurge like Zancresta. Still, ’tweren’t no ’arm in lookin’, were there?”
“What were you two talking about while I was gone? I heard you talking.” The porcupine looked suspicious.
“Nothin’ much, mate. Just makin’ conversation. We talk while you’re right ’ere, too, don’t we?”
“Yes, that is so. Very well.” He stepped forward and made as if to hand the duar to Jon-Tom, then hesitated. “I do not know.”
“Oh, come on,” Jon-Tom urged him, a big smile frozen on his face. “A little music would be nice. Not everyone has the chance to hear an apprentice spellsinger make music just for pleasure.”
“That is what concerns me.” The jailer stepped back and rummaged through a wooden chest. When he returned it was to clap a pair of thick leather cuffs on Jon-Tom’s wrists. They were connected to one another by a chain. He also, to Jon-Tom’s dismay, tied a thick cord around the neck of the duar.
“There,” he said, apparently satisfied, and handed over the instrument. Jon-Tom’s fingers closed gratefully over the familiar wooden surface, lightly stroked the double set of strings.
The porcupine returned to his chair, keeping a firm grip on his end of the cord. “Now if you try anything funny I don’t even have to run over to you. All I have to do is pull this rope.” He gave the cord an experimental yank, and Jon-Tom had to fight to hold onto the duar.
“I need a little slack,” he pleaded, “or I won’t be able to play at all.”
“All right.” The jailer relaxed his grip slightly. “But if I think you are trying to trick me I will pull it right out of your hands and smash it against the floor.”
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t try anything like that. Would I, Mudge?”
“Oh, no, sor. Not after you’ve all but given this gentlebeing your word.” The otter assumed an air of mock unconcern as he settled down on the floor to listen. “Play us a lullaby, Jon-Tom. Somethin’ soothin’ and relaxin’ to ’elp us poor ones forget the troubles we face and the problems o’ the world.”
“Yes, play something like that,” asked the porcupine.
Jon-Tom struggled with himself. Best to first play a couple of innocuous ditties to lull this sod into a false sense of security. The trouble was, being mostly into heavy metal, he knew about as many gentle tunes as he did operatic arias. Somehow something by Ozzy Osbourne or Ted Nugent didn’t seem right, nor did anything by KISS. He considered “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” by AC/DC, decided quickly that one stanza would cost him control of the duar permanently.
He decided to take a chance with some golden oldies. Maybe a few of Roy Orbison’s songs, even if his voice wasn’t up to it. It seemed to work. The porcupine lazed back in his chair, obviously content, but still holding tight to the cord.
Jon-Tom segued into the part of one song where the lyrics went “the day you walked out on me” and the jailer didn’t stir, but neither did the walls part to let them through. Discouraged, he moved on to “America” by Neil Diamond. A few faint images of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island flickered fitfully in the cell, but Jon-Tom did not find himself standing safe at either location.
Then he noticed Mudge. The otter sat back in the shadows making long pulling and throwing motions. It took Jon-Tom a moment to understand what his companion was driving at. In the middle of humming “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” he figured the otter’s movements out.
The porcupine had tied the cord to the duar in order to be able to jerk it quickly out of Jon-Tom’s hands. If they could somehow gain control of the rope, they might be able to make a small lasso and cast it toward a weapon or even the big keyring lying on the table.
In order to try that, of course, they had to somehow incapacitate their jailer. Since he seemed half-asleep already, Jon-Tom softened his voice as much as possible and sang the sweetest ballads he could think of, finishing with “Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. That particularly apt selection set the porcupine to snoozing. To make sure, he added a relaxing rendition of “Scarborough Fair.”
Carefully, he tugged gently on the cord. Two half-witted eyes popped wide open and the line went taut.
“I told you not to try anything,” the porcupine growled.
For an instant Jon-Tom was sure they’d lose the duar along with their last hope. “I didn’t mean anything!” he sai
d desperately. “It’s only that playing in the same position all the time hurts my arms. I wasn’t doing anything else.”
“Well …” The jailer slumped back in his chair. “See that you don’t do it no more. Please play another song. I never heard anything like them. Pretty.”
Despairingly, Jon-Tom simply sang the first thing that came to mind, the theme song from one of the Rocky films. Maybe it was his frustration, perhaps his sudden indifference. Whatever the reason, he almost thought he could feel the power running through him. He tried to focus on it, really working himself into the useless song in the hope it might lead to something better.
A faint smell of ozone began to filter into the air of the dungeon. Something crackled near the ceiling. Mudge scrambled warily back into the farthest corner of the cell. Jon-Tom jumped as an electric shock ran up his wrists. He tried to pull back into the cell, found he was trapped against the bars by the leather wristcuffs and linking chain.
Oh, shit, he mumbled silently. I’ve gone and done something weird again.
Only this time he was trapped up against whatever it was. Something was materializing in the air next to him. He tugged futilely at the leather cuffs, dropping the duar in the process. The instrument was glowing brightly as it bounced around on the floor like a toad at a disco.
The slow-moving porcupine was on his feet and staring. He’d abandoned the cord in favor of edging ’round toward the rack of weapons. Selecting a long spear, he aimed it at the cell. Jon-Tom was uncomfortably aware of the fact that if the jailer so chose, he could run him through where he stood.
“What are you doing, spellsinger? Stop it!”
“I’m not doing anything!” Jon-Tom prayed his hysteria was as convincing as it was heartfelt. “Untie my hands!”
The jailer ignored him, gazing in stupefied fascination at the slowly rotating cylinder of fluorescent gas that had gathered inside the cell. “Don’t lie to me. Something is happening. Something is happening!”