“A short serenade is in order then.” Jon-Tom launched into song. Months of practice in the tree while the world around him lay blanketed in cold and snow had made him proficient. As the first notes emerged from the duar there was the taste of magic in the air.
He’d chosen the song carefully. It was designed to turn the intruders’ own weapons against them. This it did. Unfortunately, it did so with the unpredictable selectivity that Jon-Tom had come to know at his peril. There were several weapons for the magic to fasten upon: the battle-axe of the wolf, the knife of the guinea pig, the sword of the civet cat. In addition to his sword, the civet cat also possessed a natural weapon which was much superior to all the other weapons in the room combined. This consisted of the skunk-like glands that flanked its anus. It was this weapon which the spellsong loosed against thieves and innocents alike as the dining room was flooded with the most awful stink imaginable.
Flinging aside his formidable axe, the wolf put both hands over his mouth and raced for the far doorway. Knife raised, the guinea pig halted as though he’d run flat out into a brick wall, bent over and began heaving his dinner all over the floor. Also his lunch, breakfast and the undigested remnants of a previous day’s salad. As the only one in the room capable of standing his own effluvia, the civet cat grabbed his leader by the collar and began dragging him in the wolf’s wake.
Meanwhile Clothahump had retreated back into his shell to take advantage of what little protection it afforded him from this pernicious assault while Sorbl was retching uncontrollably in his bonds. Jon-Tom struggled to segue into a song that sang of sweetness and sugar. He’d defeated the intruders without having to shed a drop of blood, but the victory had proved messy nonetheless.
Civet cat, wolf and guinea pig had fled and he did not think they would soon return. As he sang away the stink his own stomach quieted.
Eventually Clothahump’s head popped out of his shell. Eyes watering, he gingerly extended hands and feet. His words were woozy but complimentary.
“That was very nicely done, my boy. There are no rules in war, but next time it would be better if you could settle on some alternate method of sending our assailants fleeing in panic.” Indecipherable sounds of internal unpleasantness issued from Sorbl’s vicinity. The owl’s feathers were sodden with vomit. The dining room stank of something long dead and only recently exhumed.
Jon-Tom staggered to his mentor on shaky legs. “Sorry, sir. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but with that knife waving at me I didn’t have time to be particular.”
The wizard nodded sagely. “What you have in mind never does seem to be quite what happens. Come, help me with these bindings.” He was struggling to loosen the ropes that bound his shell to the back of the chair, nodded toward a cabinet. “Carving knives in the lower drawer. They will make quicker work of these restraints than my thick fingers.” He glanced back toward the door that led to the hallway and grinned slightly.
“It seems we have seen the last of our robbers. I am sure they will not try to come back.”
“I don’t blame them.” Jon-Tom worked with one hand while holding his nostrils pinched with the fingers of the other. “I’m ready to leave myself.”
Locating the drawer Clothahump had indicated, he chose the largest of the butchering knives within and turned to cut the wizard loose. As he turned around a terrific pain went through his right foot. Neglecting to look where he was stepping, he’d spun right into the upturned blade of the battle-axe the wolf had abandoned in his precipitous flight, with the result that the naked steel had laid open his right slipper from his little toe to his heel. The wound was not deep but was exceedingly painful.
Stumbling, he grabbed for the nearest chair for support. The chair overbalanced and he went down on top of it. As he fell he tried to stabilize himself, but the pain in his foot prevented him from doing so.
He did not worry about striking the floor, did not concern himself with damaging the chair. What troubled him beyond measure was what found itself caught up between his body, the chair and the unyielding floor. A sickening crunch filled the room as he landed. Even Sorbl, until now preoccupied with his own predicament, let out a cry of shock.
Jon-Tom rolled fast to his right, knowing as he did so that it was a futile gesture. It was already too late. Short of reversing time, the damage could not be undone. Nor could it be wished away. He sat up slowly, ignoring his bleeding foot, and stared.
Then he bent to pick up the shattered splinters of his irreplaceable, priceless, silenced duar.
II
THE WOODEN NECKS had been broken in several places. The resonating chamber resembled a squashed brown melon. Tiny wires and internal pieces of intricate boxwork had been reduced to toothpicks. It was just short of a total loss, a ludicrous parody of the instrument it had been a moment earlier.
Having finally freed himself, Clothahump climbed down off his chair and waddled over to inspect the ruins.
“You wish the benefit of my wizardly mien and my store of experience in such matters?”
Jon-Tom could only nod, speechless. Clothahump fondled several pieces, twirled loose wires around one finger, then looked up at his tall friend. “You sure broke the shit out of it.”
“I don’t need three hundred years of accumulated wisdom to tell me that,” the spellsinger replied sourly.
“Just underscoring the seriousness of what you’ve done. I never saw a human who could fall gracefully.”
“As opposed to a turtle?”
“No need to discuss unrelated matters now. I do not believe it was your fault.”
Jon-Tom was too furious at himself to cry. “You were right the first time. I’m a clumsy slob and I deserve this for not watching where I put my big feet.”
“When you two finish exchanging compliments and commiserations, would one of you mind untying me?” Sorbl struggled in his bonds. “I need about half a dozen baths.”
“A truth from the beak of the unwashed, so to speak. Life never ceases to amaze me.” But despite his sarcasm, Clothahump untied the apprentice himself instead of asking Jon-Tom to do it. “Seven baths, I should say. One would think someone accustomed to exotic smells could control his stomach a bit better.”
“I’m sorry I do not have your control, master.” Sorbl slid out of the chair and tried to shake out his wings. “I think I received the full blast of that cat’s rear end.”
“No excuses. Go and get yourself cleaned up. Your odor is exceeded in unpleasantness only by your appearance. Hurry your cleansing. We now face a much more serious problem than the mere intrusion of some simple robbers. We have a broken duar to deal with.”
As Sorbl departed, walking stiffly, the wizard turned to rejoin Jon-Tom as the tall young man lovingly laid the remnants of his instrument on the dining table.
“I almost wish you’d given them the gold, sir,” he murmured disconsolately.
“I could not do that, Jon-Tom. As I told them, I hoard no gold.” He nudged bits and pieces of the duar with a finger, peering at the debris through his thick glasses.
“What now?” Jon-Tom asked him. “Without the duar I can’t make music, and without music I can’t make magic. Can you fix it, sir?”
“I am a wizard, my boy, not a maker of tootles and tweets. I can shatter mountains. Reassembling them or anything else again is a matter for a different sort of expertise. A simple drum or flute I might repair, but this,” and he gestured at the table, “is beyond my skills. I am not ashamed to admit this. Such a task is beyond the ability of but a very few unique craftsmen. To make a duar whole again requires the talent of one who understands how the stars sing to each other. I always did have a tin ear, insofar as I have ears at all.”
Jon-Tom could sense what the wizard was leading up to. “It would be too much to hope that someone like that resides in Lynchbany or points nearby, I suppose.”
“Too much by many leagues, I fear. Broken instruments are simple to fix. Broken magic is much more difficult. Something like your duar which combines both is almost impossible to make well again. I know by reputation of only one craftsman who might, I say might, have the mastery to make your instrument whole once more. His name is Couvier Coulb. It is rumored he resides in the town of Strelakat Mews, which lies in the jungle south of far Chejiji.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“Because you have never traveled that far south, my boy. For that matter, neither have I. It is a long journey.”
Jon-Tom sighed. They’d been through this before. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
