Chorus Skating (33 page)

“She was asked,” shouted Naike from alongside the spellsinger, “but while her strength is equal to the task, her constitution is not. She is unwell.”

“Oi, a royal rail rider, is that it? Too bad.” The otter ducked and grabbed a line as a belligerent wave crashed over the port side, soaking everything and everyone on deck. “This is the life, mate!” he yelled when the sea had drained away. “This is wot we came for, crikey but it 'tis!”

“I'm sure it's even better up in the bow!” Jon-Tom yelled back.
Besides which,
he added to himself,
we don't have to listen to you if you're up there.
“We could all drown, you know.”

Instead of heading forward, the otter moved nearer. “
You
could all drown, you mean.”

“Even an otter could drown in this.” Naike was less than overwhelmed by Kludge's bravado. “It may be true that at swimming your tribe is the most accomplished, but I have yet to hear it told of one who could swim across an ocean.”

“I'd just float,” the otter replied. “Drift in the sun and eat crabs and sargassum.”

“If something didn't eat you first,” the mongoose shot back.

Mudge was unfazed. Very little truly upset the otter. “Then it'd be a proper end to an interestin' life, an' I'd 'ave no regrets, I wouldn't. Beats dyin' in bed o' distemper or the colic.”

Naike's gaze traveled from the patient, drifting chord cloud back to Jon-Tom. “My tall friend, I begin to wonder if we were right to trust the line of this wandering music.”

“If you'll recall, we didn't have a lot of choices!” Salt crusted Jon-Tom's lips, leaving them wet and chapped at the same time. “If we chose wrong and we die, I'll apologize.”

The mongoose grimaced. “Humans have the most peculiar sense of humor. No wonder you get along so well with the otter.”

“Courage, brave Lieutenant. We still float, and we sail on.”

“Toward what fate, I wonder?” The strain of wrestling with the heavy wheel was beginning to take its toll on the mongoose's smaller, lighter frame. A glance showed the top of the mast whipping like a cattail as the shrieking wind toyed with the rigging.

“What about a spellsong now? Surely our circumstances justify the taking of some risks?”

Jon-Tom blinked away rain. “I would, but there's no one else to help you hold the wheel. And I could make things worse.”

“Worse? What could be worse than this?” The Lieutenant gritted his teeth as a rogue wave struck them hard aport, rocking and rolling the ship simultaneously. From belowdecks there arose a collective feminine moan.

This was followed by a dimly perceived shout from one of the soldiers, who clung grimly to the lines at the base of the bowsprit.

“Sir, master Jon-Tom: I think I see something ahead!”

Naike extended his limber body to its maximum. “Sing out! What see you, Heke?”

“Clearing! I see clearing ahead!”

Moments later Jon-Tom and the Lieutenant could see it as well—an unequivocal break in the storm, bright and beckoning. It was toward this that the music was leading them. Of course the opening could close back up at any time, but it was the first sign of hope they'd had all day.

“Steer for it!” Naike shouted superfluously. “Steer for our lives!” Jon-Tom kept his weight on the wheel and continued to pray for the integrity of the rudder.

Though the wind still howled and the rain continued to pelt them, it was clear that the storm was moving off to the northeast. Gradually the seas decreased from the monstrous to the merely fearful, the wind became an irritant instead of a threat, and the horrible pounding they had endured came at last to an end. Heke, Pauko, and Karaukul went over every foot of the battered vessel and were able to report that the only damage it had sustained was minor. Except for a few slow leaks which the soldiers set to patching, she was in remarkably good shape.

The same could not be said for her passengers. Bruised and exhausted, they gathered on deck to try to dry out, but even this small comfort was denied them. Though the temperature had warmed considerably, the thick fog which had followed in the wake of the storm closed in smotheringly around them.

Jon-Tom had been gazing astern, studying the retreating edge of the gale. Now he turned and regripped the wheel. “I think we can resume our original course. Four points to port.”

“Right.” Naike put his own paws back on the wheel.

It would not turn. Not even when Pauko and Karaukul added their weight and strength to the effort.

Jon-Tom stepped back from the frozen disk. “Something has us in its grip. Has us good.”

Pauko gestured forward. “The music?” Indeed, the chord cloud drifted on unconcerned, as though nothing had changed.

“I don't think so,” Jon-Tom declared quietly. “It hasn't affected Mudge or me physically in any way before now. I suspect something else.”

“But what?” wondered Karaukul. Jon-Tom shrugged.

“Some sorcerer,” Pauko muttered under his breath.

“Let's try once more.” Naike was unwilling to quietly surrender their destiny to forces unseen.

“It's no use.” Mouth slightly agape and panting rhythmically, Karaukul finally stepped away from the wheel. “At least we're out of the storm. Perhaps that's a sign that the fate in store for us is a benign one.”

“Or perhaps 'tis only a sign that we busted our butts to get clear.” Mudge had come astern to join the others.

“
We?
” Naike eyed the otter sharply. “Why, o' course, guv. Who else gave freely o' 'is emotions till nothin' were left to comfort the ladies an' see to their safety? I'm bloomin' drained, I am!”

For an instant the Lieutenant's iron self-control seemed about to snap. Eyes blazing, he took a step forward, compelling Mudge to skip back. Then, with a great effort of will, the mongoose calmed himself.

“We are in the grip of some unknown force or current, which is carrying us we know not where. We'll need all the ‘comforting' you can muster, river-mouse. I suggest you ponder
that
for a while.”

Mudge grinned guilefully. “I'd try, guv, but as me friend Jonny-Tom can tell you, me attention span is bleedin' brief.”

The tension between the two was shattered by a frantic shout from Heke, who had stayed forward. “Lost, all is lost!”

“What?” Naike yelled back. “What are you talking about? Do you see something?”

Without waiting for a reply Mudge had raced to the mast and ascended the starboard-side ladder-rigged stay as agilely as any monkey. From the crow's nest he called down to those waiting anxiously below.

“The snake-eater's right, we're done!”

Head tilted back, Jon-Tom blinked up at his friend through the drifting fog. “What is it? What do you mean?”

“There've been plenty down through the years, mate, both friend and foe, who said I'd end up in the 'ole someday.” The otter sounded unnaturally fatalistic. “But I never thought they meant it literally!”

At that moment the fog broke and they could see clearly. Several of the princesses screamed and Quiquell commenced a steady, if barely audible, sobbing. Ansibette and Seshenshe hugged each other tightly. The source of the current which had locked them in its grip and was dragging them inexorably forward was now apparent.

They were much too near the edge of the whirlpool to avoid it.

Chapter 18

JON-TOM HAD
heard sailors' tales of great maelstroms that formed in the deep open ocean, but never of anything like this. It was perfectly circular, an inverted volcano in the sea. As they approached the rim, the spectacle acquired a voice as well as a visage: a profound, basso rumble. It was the call of the Abyss.

Even as they realized it was hopeless, Jon-Tom and Naike threw all their strength onto the wheel. It would not budge an inch. With a piercing cry from Heke, who clung desperately to the fore stays, they went over the edge. Locked in the maelstrom's inexorable grasp, they began to spin, cycling around and around the great green wall, riding the carouseling waters ever downward, accelerating as they descended.

Heeling to port, Jon-Tom was able to see all the way to the bottom. Benthic sands gleamed darkly where the whirlpool exposed the very floor of the ocean. Several of the princesses were sobbing openly as they tried to console one other, while the soldiers were exchanging solemn good-byes.

Caught as they were in the maelstrom's grip, fish and other extraordinary sea dwellers spiraled within the rotating wall of water. From time to time inorganic flotsam and jetsam appeared: the hulks of sunken ships, fragments of ruined buildings, whole chunks of polished lava like great black beads ripped from some colossus's necklace, massive tree trunks shorn of all but their heaviest branches.

Someone was pulling insistently on Jon-Tom's shirt. Looking down, he saw Naike staring up at him. The eyes of a mongoose are particularly penetrating. “No more talk of what ‘might' follow, spellsinger. If you've ever made magic, make some now!”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He stumbled toward the stairs, intending to remove his duar from its secure place of storage.

The boat careened sideways, heeling still farther to port, and he was forced to grab wildly at several cross lines to keep from being thrown over the side. Ansibette let out a shriek and Seshenshe hissed in panic. They were spinning very fast now indeed. Very rapidly, around and around, one revolution after another, spinning dizzingly …

Jon-Tom's insides were overwhelmed. Nor was his a solitary reaction, nausea being a decidedly egalitarian condition. Only Mudge seemed immune.

“Interestin' way to go.” The otter's disarming cheerfulness had yet to desert him. Jon-Tom wanted to strangle him but it was all he could do to hang on, both to the lines and to his intestines. “Smashed to bits on the bottom o' the sea with me best friend an' 'alf a dozen noble princesses all competin' to see who can upchuck the most. Frankly, I'd always 'oped to depart this world in a fashion somewot flashier, I 'ad.” He tilted his head back to peer philosophically at the distant sky, now hundreds of feet overhead.

“Reminds me o' the story o' the two baker's apprentices an' the baker's wife. You remember, mate. The one about gettin' yeast to rise?” When a bilious, green-faced Jon-Tom proved unable to reply, the otter proceeded to repeat the tale anyway. It never failed to crack him up, and if he was going to die, he was by heaven going to die laughing.

Something else, however, was paying attention.

A deep booming reverberated around them. It was akin to the resolute roaring of the whirlpool and yet subtly different. A variegated modulation that suggested something less primal and more cognizant than simply a rotating hole in the sea.

“What … what's that?” Jon-Tom's color was approaching that of pea soup. His fur blocking any such subtle shifts in epidermal hue, Naike clung weakly to the railing nearby. The state of his innards, however, was straightforwardly apparent in his voice.

“I can't … imagine.”

“It almost sounds like … almost sounds …” Jon-Tom forced himself to turn from the railing. “Haven't we slowed down a little?”

“We must not be falling as fast,” Naike suggested weakly.

“No.” Jon-Tom found that concentration helped to steady his stomach. “We've definitely stopped descending. And I know that sound. It's
laughter.
“

“Laughter?” The Lieutenant's cheeks bulged. “What could be laughing here, besides an uncaring fate?”

Jon-Tom stumbled in the direction of his friend. “That … that was a good story, Mudge.”

“Glad you liked it, mate. How are you doin'? Not that it matters, by me soul.”

“You told a joke. It provoked a response.” He was no longer sure if the roaring was in his ears or arose from an external source.

“Response? I were just makin' a small, final analogy between our present situation and the baker's daughters.”

The booming sounded a second time. Jon-Tom whirled, anxiously searching the roiling waters. “There it was again! The maelstrom! It has to be the maelstrom.”

Blimey,
the otter thought,
the poor bloke's finally gone over the edge.
“Whirlpools don't laugh, mate. Gurgle, maybe, an' roar.”

“Is it such a stretch from gurgling and roaring to laughing? Have you noticed that our descent has slowed? Tell another joke.”

“Another joke?”

“A funny story, a dirty limerick, one of your horrible puns—anything!”

“Cor, I suppose I could think o' one or two. Right, then: 'ere goes.” With evident relish, the otter proceeded to relate a famous tale involving a stallion, two ladies of the evening and a wealthy but perpetually inebriated banker. It was, on balance, considerably bluer than the waters surrounding them. It was also hysterically funny. Several of the princesses had the grace to blush through their lingering discomfort.

When with typically otterish gusto Mudge delivered the long-anticipated punch line, Pivver let out a series of startled barks, Quiquell involuntarily wrapped her remarkable tongue several times around her snout, Ansibette's face turned the most charming shade of pink, and the remaining princesses reacted similarly. Heke and Pauko would have fallen down laughing had they not already been rolling about the deck under an entirely different type of stimulus, and even the perpetually dour Karaukul cracked a broad smile.

As for the maelstrom, from its depths issued a Promethean bellow of amusement that rose clearly above the rumble of the rotating waters. Unbelievably, the tormented ship began to ascend.

“I'll be swoggled.” Leaning over the side, Jon-Tom studied the sea beneath their keel. “We're rising; we're going back up.” He straightened to shout the news to the others. “The whirlpool's sending us up!”