“You can leave if you want to, Mudge.” Jon-Tom gestured back toward the front hall. “You know where the door is. I won’t stop you. All you have to do is walk out.”
“Don’t tempt me, mate. One o’ these days you’re gonna tempt me one time too many. So you think I’m going to walk out, wot? Why, I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction, you skinny-legged, flat-nosed pale excuse for a feeble fart.”
The otter would have continued but the housekeeper had returned. “He is very weak, but your story intrigues him.” She smiled warmly. “He loves music, you see, and the idea of meeting a spellsinger, much less one from another world, was enough to rouse him from his lethargy.” She shook a motherly finger at Jon-Tom. “You weren’t lying about that just to get in to see him, were you?”
“No, ma’am. I am a spellsinger and I am from another world.” I’m just not a spellsinger in the other world, he murmured silently.
“Come then.” She turned and led them into the next room.
At the far end of the sitting chamber a stairway led to a second floor. Much more than a revitalized attic, this spacious area had been turned into a comfortable bedroom complete with dresser, chairs, a washtub in the shape of a squashed tuba, and an exquisitely carved bed. The headboard was composed of wood and metal pipes while the foot of the bed comprised ranked wooden keys.
Presently the bed was humming a sad lullaby. Every so often it would strike an odd atonal note, pause as if confused, back up and recommence playing, like an elderly musician suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Lying in the middle of the bed was a single figure no taller than Mudge and considerably slimmer. In fact, the elderly kinkajou was more closely related to Cautious than to the otters. Couvier Coulb wore a plain white nightdress and white tasseled sleeping cap. His nose was much too dry and his big eyes appeared more deeply sunk into his head than was normal. But they were open. He squinted at them, as was only to be expected of a nocturnal creature awakened during the day. The absence of upstairs windows kept the bedroom comfortably dark during the daytime.
Amalm stood on tiptoes to whisper to Jon-Tom. “Try not to tire him; he’s very feeble.” He nodded and approached the bed while his companions held back. At the bedside he dropped to his knees to bring his face closer to the kinkajou’s level.
“I’ve crossed part of an ocean and many strange lands to see you, Couvier Coulb.”
“So Amalm tells me.” The small mouth curled upward in a semblance of a smile. Jon-Tom felt dampness at the corners of his eyes. He had expected to encounter an aged and kindly individual, but hardly one with the mien of a favorite uncle—if one could imagine having a kinkajou for an uncle.
A hand emerged from beneath the sheets. The fingers were narrow and delicate, the grip unexpectedly strong. “I have met many musicians, but never one from another world. How strange I should have the opportunity to do so on my deathbed.”
“Don’t talk like that.” It sounded silly but he didn’t know what else to say. “I really am a spellsinger, you know. Maybe I can do something to help you. I’ve helped people before, but almost always with the aid of this.”
Carefully he slipped off the sack containing his duar and brought out the fragments one by one. Couvier Coulb examined each piece thoroughly, turning them over and over in his sensitive fingers. “How did you break this?”
“I fell on it.”
“That was most clumsy of you. These are the components of a duar. One of a design unfamiliar to me, and quite unique. So you see, there is at least one other instrument maker in the world of a skill to match my own, for whoever fashioned this is no less a master. In the hands of a truly gifted spellsinger I can believe this would work great magic.” He placed the pieces back in Jon-Tom’s hands. “Alas, I fear that would not be enough to save me. I would be more than happy to repair your instrument, young human, but these days I cannot muster enough strength to climb out of bed. Even the thought of resetting strings that fade into another dimension tires me.” He looked past his visitor.
“Amalm looks after me well and attends efficiently to my simple needs. But I am glad you came. It is pleasant to have guests even in one’s last days.” The delicate fingers patted the back of Jon-Tom’s hand.
“Those demons who torment you so; Amalm could describe them to us only vaguely. Why should they pick on you?”
“I don’t know.” The kinkajou’s breathing was labored. “They simply appeared one day and declared they had been assigned to my case—whatever that means. Demon lore. I thought perhaps they were talking of a case I had fashioned for a bass twiddle not long ago, but as it turned out they were talking of something else entirely. No doubt Amalm has told you we have tried everything. Wizards and magicians, doctors and physicians: None have been able to help me. I even went so far as to try to comply with their incessant demands, but these are so strange and incomprehensible I believe they invent them simply to torment me further. You can’t fight them, young man. You can only try to mitigate the agony they inflict.” Making a supreme effort, the kinkajou lifted his head off his oversized pillow.
“You should go. Go now, before they assign themselves to your case as well.”
Jon-Tom rose, looked around the room. There was defiance in his tone. “I’m not afraid of demons, much less small ones. Neither are my friends. Are we, Mudge?” He peered into the darkness. “Mudge?”
“Went downstairs.” That was Weegee’s voice from near the head of the stairs. “Said he had to take a leak.”
“He’s had plenty of time. I’ll go get him. I may need his help.” He took a step toward the stairwell.
A faint glow appeared in the air between him and the exit. Weegee let out a gasp and Cautious a curse. Amalm rushed from her place to stand protectively close to the bed.
“Damn them,” the kinkajou muttered weakly, “they’re coming for me again.” He raised his shaky voice. “Why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t you suck at someone else? I’m not guilty of anything!”
“None are innocent; all are guilty,” intoned a sepulchral voice. “Nor could we leave you if we wished to. We have been assigned to you—assigned to you—assigned to you.” The words echoed through the room.
Jon-Tom held his ground. Shapes were beginning to form within the pale white mist that had filled the bedchamber. They were not the shapes he’d steeled himself to see. They took the form of words, quite indecipherable, that drifted hither and yon. Black letters that formed snakelike blobs and scorpion shapes. They danced and pirouetted and closed in on the bed and its helpless elderly occupant.
Poor Couvier Coulb sank deep into his pillow as the sheer force of the mysterious words pushed Jon-Tom aside. They did not try to injure him, but they did shunt him several steps backward as though he weighed nothing at all.
Then the words coalesced and shrank to create the figures Amalm had described. They accumulated on the headboard and the blankets in little knots of twos and threes, tiny faceless men some four inches tall. Each looked exactly like the one next to him, interchangeable and expressionless as they regarded the kinkajou stonily. Each wore a miniature three-piece gray pinstriped suit complete with matching gray tie and gray shoes. Now faces appeared, eyes and mouths and nostrils, and Jon-Tom saw that their eyes were as gray as their clothing. About half of them carried matchbook-size gray briefcases.
“You haven’t filed on time,” declared one of the group gravely.
“But I told you,” Coulb whined, “I don’t know what it is you want filed, or how to go about filing it.”
“That does not matter,” said a second.
“Ignorance is no excuse,” insisted a third.
“We have examined what you have returned.” The first demon opened his tiny briefcase and portentously examined the contents. “You did not sign your form 1933-AB Supplement.”
“Please, please, I don’t know what a 1933-AB Supplement is.”
The demon ignored this plea and continued relentlessly. “There is an error on Line 4, Subsection H of your 5550 Supplement.”
The kinkajou moaned.
“Your 140 Depletion Allowance was filed incorrectly.”
Couvier Coulb pulled his sheets over his head and whimpered. At the same time Jon-Tom noticed that each of the demons had a forked tail emerging from the seat of their perfectly pressed pants. The tip of each tail was darkly stained, possibly by ink.
“There is a mistake on your Form 440 which we have not be able to resolve with the current data.” Tiny lines of type leaped from the open briefcase to stab at Couvier Coulb like so many micropoint hypodermics. He let out a yelp of pain.
