Chorus Skating (19 page)

“Huh?” He looked up suddenly from the remnant of his meal, eyes wide and confused. Mudge, who had been eating nearby, hastened to slide as far as possible away from his companion.

“Yes!” Bending low, Ansibette formed her mouth into a perfect pout and smiled enticingly. “Who should be senior among us, Jon-Tom?”

“stop that,” breathed Quiquell. “you are distracting him unfairly!”

Ansibette turned to blink innocently. “I? I would not demean myself.”

“Sure you would,” growled Umagi. That induced Ansibette to whirl on the genial gorilla.

Mudge considered whether to intervene or to allow his old friend to be sacrificed. The fuddled expression on the spellsinger's face, he decided, was simply too piteous to be ignored. Steeling himself, the otter stepped forward into the light and raised both hands. At least
he
was quick enough to dodge any claws that might happen to come his direction.

“Now listen 'ere, you graceless if exceptionally lovely lot! There ain't no bloody ‘senior princess.' In the sight o' danger an' desolation you're all equal. If you want to compare the sizes o' your respective kingdoms”—and he favored them individually with a leer so swift none had time to react to it— “ain't no one going to stop you. But if we're goin' to get out o' this place alive, we're damn well goin' to 'ave to depend on each other. So let's 'ave no more o' this nonsense, at least until we're in a right more comfortable situation than we are now.”

With that he turned and stalked back to his seat, sat down on the fallen log, and resumed devouring the last of his dinner as noisily as possible.

“The otter is right.” An abashed Aleaukauna surveyed her silent sisters. “Once again we have been shamed. Imagine trying to curry favor with such as the spellsinger, who clearly favors none among us above any other.” Penetrating black eyes regarded him. “Is that not so?”

“Oh, sure, sure!” Jon-Tom fought manfully to avert his gaze from the fluid and all too proximate form of the princess Ansibette. “I'll do my best to help all of you equally.”

“We should be devoting our efforts and thoughts to more important matters,” Aleaukauna added.

“most certainly we should,” murmured Quiquell.

“Then we are agreed.” Fur quivering as she stretched, Seshenshe extended both arms out in front of her. Sharp claws caught the light of the fire. “For example, jusst look at my nailss! No paint, no insserts, no glitter outlining: nothing.” She turned her paws over. “A dissgrace to my family and my kingdom.”

“i know just how you feel.” Quiquell had been cleaning her face with her tongue. Now she delicately traced her long, tapering snout with a heavy foreclaw. “i should have emblems and insignia painted all along here. i can't imagine what the supervisor designate of etiquette would say if he could see me like this.”

“See
you?
” Pivver brushed hopelessly at her arms and waist. “My fur hasn't been properly groomed in days. Another week in this open swamp and I'll look more like a rag doll than a royal representative of great Trenku.”

“I can sympathize.” Ansibette fluffed her shoulder-length golden tresses. “This is all I have to worry about, and it gives me enough trouble.” She gazed admiringly at Seshenshe. “I'd give anything if I had a thick natural pelt like you, or like Pivver.”

“That's all right.” The otter was understanding. “I'd give anything if I had your … your … Be glad you don't. Fur is no blessing in this humidity.”

Aleaukauna had been thinking hard while listening to her sisters-in-distress. “We'd be better off if we spent our time dealing with instead of bemoaning our present situation. For example, do we not count a great spellsinger amongst our number?” Six equally intent feminine gazes turned to Jon-Tom, who once more found himself the center of dubious attention. “Surely one who can conjure so well could bring forth a few simple cosmetics.”

Umagi snapped her fingers. “Yes! There wouldn't be any danger in that, Jon-Tom.”

“do try, spellsinger!” requested Quiquell breathily.

“I don't know.” He eyed them askance. “Mudge, what do you think?” He turned, frowning. “Mudge?”

“Said he was going fishing.” Heke looked disgusted.

“In the middle of the night?”

“Hey, you ask him about it,” barked the mongoose. “He's your friend.”

“Well, what does Lieutenant Naike think? Surely he'll have an opinion on this.”

“I suppose in a manner of speaking he does.” Pauko looked up from where he was washing out a skillet. “However, he went with your friend.”

“And you didn't go?” Jon-Tom said.

“You think we weren't
ordered
to stay here?” Karaukul replied ruefully.

Wordlessly, Jon-Tom picked up his duar from where he'd placed it carefully atop a relatively dry rock. He'd had about enough of the princesses and their individual concerns. “You want cosmetics? I'll give you cosmetics! Stand back.”

They did so, looking on with a mixture of expectation and wonderment as he began to sing.

He had no trouble combining bits and pieces of old songs with new bridging lyrics. Half the old rock tunes he knew had at least something to do with personal appearance. The lost chords fluttered ecstatically about him as he sang.

“Ohhh, I got to look good for my bay-beee.

Got to look good for the ball.

Pretty 'em up, don't say may-beee

Color and glitz, one and all!

Glitter and paint and touch-up

Don't spare the glamour

Make sure they'll enamor

Anyone who chances to see

The best that each one can be!”

The duar actually vibrated as it responded to his wild playing. For the first time ever, a blast of multihued instead of monotonic light erupted from the interdimensional nexus, flaring in all directions to wrap about the squealing, screeching princesses like so many refulgent snakes. The soldiers dove for cover, the skillet Pauko had been cleaning clanging against the rocks as he flung it aside in his haste to conceal himself. Only the drifting chord cloud seemed enthused, serving up a soupçon of musical accompaniment to the dashing streams of light.

As he fought to hang on to his bucking, twitching instrument, Jon-Tom found himself wondering if perhaps he ought to have waited until he'd calmed down some. Too late now. He'd summoned the magic of the duar and it was out in full force, bright enough to conceal all but the outlines of the princesses from view.

Above the chiming of the chords and the flux of surging lights he heard Seshenshe's laughter.

“It tickless!”

“And it's cold!” added Aleaukauna from somewhere near-by.

Without pausing to see if he'd been successful he decided that this was one spellsong he'd better wrap up right quick. Concluding a last stanza with a few hasty, desultory words, he let his fingers rise from the duar's strings. The writhing shafts of color responded by bursting like so many party favors, cascading in a brief but intense shower of scintillating particulates to the ground. Melting into the damp soil, they caused the uneven surface of the dirt road to sparkle for just an instant like some sort of grandiose fairy freeway, a garish off ramp from the Yellow Brick Road.

As the colors dissipated, the princesses stood revealed in all their newly resplendent glory. Screeches and gasps were replaced by giggles and inadequately suppressed smiles.

“What are
you
laughing at?” Seshenshe grinned as she eyed Quiquell.

The anteater gestured with her tongue. “i'm not sure that purple and pink polka dots suit your fur. and wouldn't that ring look better in one of your ears than in your nose?”

The lynx's eyes crossed as she put both paws to her muzzle, from which now dangled a circlet of heavy-gauge twenty-four-carat gold wire. “No! Where did thiss come from? I don't wear anything like thiss!” She whirled on Jon-Tom.

“What's wrong with a nose ring?” Ansibette studied the lynx's new adornment speculatively. “I think it's kind of flattering.”

“As flattering as your tattoo?” Umagi gestured at the blonde.

“Tattoo? What tatt … By my great-grandmother's uterus!” Clutching a handful of her flowing skirt, she began rubbing furiously at her right arm. “It doesn't come off! Doesn't it come off?”

Jon-Tom took a cautious step backward. Possibly she wouldn't have been quite as upset, he reflected, if the exorbitantly chromatic tattoo hadn't covered her entire body from forehead to toes. Personally he found the effect, as well as the actual artwork, quite elegant, though on closer inspection he did feel that there were one or two smaller drawings which could cause some offense. In particular there was one on her right shoulder running down into her cleavage which …

“Look what you've done!” she wailed at him. “How can I return to my family looking like … like a walking painting from the royal galleries? Especially
this
kind of painting!” She indicated the etching which began at her shoulder and ended in…

Jon-Tom stood his ground. “You all asked for a cosmetic makeover. This isn't exactly my area of specialization.”

Umagi was rubbing furiously at the indelible body paint which had traced a complex geometric design over her entire massive body. Pivver now wore a mixture of gold-laced stripes and circles which seemed to be skin deep, while Aleaukauna's dark brown fur had suffered a radical body cut from crown to heel.

Overall, it could be said that the princesses were somewhat less than wholly pleased by the manner in which Jon-Tom had complied with their request. In fact, it would not be exaggerating their reaction to say that if it were possible to lynch someone with a glance, he would by then have been swinging from beneath a branch of the nearest tree.

To Jon-Tom's surprise it was Heke who came to his defense, pointing out calmly but firmly that the spellsinger had done no more than comply with their wishes, and if they hadn't badgered him into responding, they would not now be compelled to deal with their altered appearances. Which, he added, he personally could find nothing wrong with. While others might find a daub here and a razor cut there a touch extreme, he thought that on the whole they all looked most attractive.

This mollified them only slightly. They continued muttering dire imprecations while commiserating sorrowfully with one another.

“Look, I'm sorry,” Jon-Tom told them, “but after all Mudge and I have gone through on our behalf, I thought your insistence on something so trivial was a bit out of line. I didn't intend for my response to your request to be so … emphatic.

“Besides which I kind of agree with Heke. I think you all look wonderful.”

“Well…” Ansibette peered down at herself uncertainly. “Isn't it a bit… daring? I mean, can you see
all
of this?” So saying, she grabbed the scoop of her bodice and pulled it down to her waist, to reveal a great deal more of her remarkably elaborate tattoo.

Jon-Tom swallowed with difficulty. “Uh, yes, I can.”

Moving much closer, she traced the scandalizing outline with the tip of one forefinger. “You really believe this is beautiful? You think this is attractive?”

He chose his words with great care. “Bearing in mind that it's difficult to improve on a blank canvas that's already perfection itself, then I'd have to say yes, I do.”

Lips pursed thoughtfully, she pulled the bodice back up. “Maybe I've been too cloistered.” Raising an arm, she examined the design which ran from shoulder to fingers. “It certainly is eye-catching.”

“The soldier is right.” Aleaukauna was running a finger along several spirals which had been neatly shaved into the fur of her chest. “We have no one to blame for our present appearance save ourselves. We asked for this.”

“Maybe
you
did; I didn't. At leasst your fur will grow back.” The lynx tugged on the rings which decorated various parts of her body.

Jon-Tom finally quieted them by reminding them that his spells had a habit of wearing off rapidly and that if this one lingered, he would decosmetize them one at a time until their individual appearance had been restored. Still muttering, each of them found a place to lie down. It was hardly surprising that no one asked him to conjure up a proper bed or even so much as a sleeping pad, fearful of what they might awaken atop.

Lieutenant Naike had sense enough to keep his reaction to himself when he and Mudge returned from their foraging. The otter was less restrained.

“Bugger me for a pie-eyed potu, mate! Wot the blazes did you
do
to 'em?”

Jon-Tom looked up irritably from where he lay beneath his iridescent cape. “What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”

“Crikey, am I supposed to believe they did that to
themselves
?”

“Some of it's quite attractive,” Jon-Tom argued back. “And keep your voice down.”

“Attractive, is it?” The otter considered the recumbent, redecorated royals. “Well, perhaps it 'tis, in a barbaric sort o' fashion. Though I don't see a one who looks much like the scion o' some noble family.” He chuckled. “Just
look
at wot you've done to 'em, mate!”

Keeping a grip on his temper, the spellsinger sat up. “So what are you saying? That you now find the princess Pivver, for example, unattractive just because she's undergone a little fur styling?”

“No, no. Did I say that?”

Jon-Tom rested his forehead against one palm. “They hounded me into it, Mudge. And you weren't exactly around to offer advice.”

“Oi, wot could I 'ave done? I ain't no intermediary 'twixt sorcery and nobility.” He was grinning broadly. “Though off wot I see 'ere, I don't think you'll 'ave to worry about bein' bothered by any more conjurin' requests anytime real soon.”