Chorus Skating (46 page)

“There's room on the boat,” Jon-Tom insisted.

The otter sighed heavily. “Jinny-tob, there ain't been ‘room' on that bum-boat since the third princess climbed aboard. But if that's wot you want, I'd just like to bloody well know
why.
”

“We can't leave them here. This island won't support them.”

“You can say that again.” Zimmerman patted his empty stomach meaningfully.

Jon-Tom continued. “And while I'm
sure
Mr. Hinckel here wouldn't
think
of reneging on his promises, I'd feel better if I knew he was being watched over by some responsible authority.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Nervously eyeing his former associates, Hinckel hung close to Jon-Tom. “What do you want me to do?”

“For a start, I'd recommend voice training.” His attention shifted to the waiting, watching princesses. “Perhaps at some unusually tolerant royal court. I'd think twenty years or so might do it.”

“Twenty years!” Hinckel blanched.

“It worked for me. Maybe by then you'll have learned how to carry a tune.”

The younger man nodded reluctantly, then began searching the ground. “My harmonica. My guitar.”

“Gone, finished. I'm sure suitable substitutes can be found. Personally, I'd rather see you on a lute. Not many inimical properties in a lute.”

“All right.” The battered musician seemed to straighten a little. “You'll see. One day … one day I'll be as good as you.” He indicated the duar. “How do you make that kind of magic, anyway?”

Jon-Tom shrugged modestly. “Damned if I know. All I'm certain of is that the magic's in the music.”

“That's good enough for me. I'll get better, I will. You'll see. Someday I'll be the best!”

“Oh yes, that's real determination! I just know it!”

A voluptuous form rushed forward to throw her arms around the startled but hardly displeased Hinckel. “
I'll
help you,” Ansibette cooed, “you poor, put-upon, deprived excuse for a wandering bard. I can imagine what it's been like for you, to be denigrated in first one and now two worlds. It's not fair!”

Stunned beyond the power to respond, Jon-Tom for just an instant felt a pang of regret. Then he remembered Talea, and Buncan, and home, and was calm.

Calm, but not entirely at peace.

Mudge nudged him. “Well now, mate, explain this one to me, if you will. Is there some mysterious form o' sorcery still at work in our midst, or wot?”

Jon-Tom looked on as Ansibette repeatedly and enthusiastically kissed and reassured the still startled but rapidly recovering Hinckel.

“Not sorcery, Mudge. The taste displayed by human females can be inexplicably perverse.”

“Oi, is that all it is? Why didn't you know, mate, that the taste o' all female types is perverse? 'Tis a well-known law o' nature, it 'tis.”

“I'm familiar with the corollary. The most beautiful women always gravitate to the ugliest males. There seems to be something especially alluring about emaciated, tone-deaf musicians. I think it must be one of nature's ways of limiting population growth. Hopefully one of these days it'll breed out of the species.”

“'Ere now, mate, don't act the gibberin' walrus. Maybe she's a princess an' all that rot, wot, but I don't think she 'olds a candle to Talea. Or a leg.” The otter considered thoughtfully. “Other parts, now …”

“You're right; she doesn't,” Jon-Tom declared conclusively. And he was only lying a little bit.

Her fingers locked behind his thin neck, Princess Ansibette of Borobos was beaming as she stared into Hinckel's watery eyes. “I'll see that you get the best of help. We have wonderful music teachers at court.” Taking his arm in hers, she guided him gently toward the lifeboat.

Wolf Gathers's expression showed that he'd seen it all before. “That's fine for that son of a bitch, but what are we supposed to do?”

Seshenshe stepped forward and ran a thoughtful, clawed finger up and down the center of the guitarist's chest. “There'ss not a court that can't do without another mussician or two.
If
they really can play.”

“Sure we can play,” he shot back. “We just need a new lead singer.”

“Then if you've no objection to accompanying ssome fancy caterwauling, perhapss I can find usse for you.” Opening her mouth, she demonstrated one of the sweetest, purest sopranos Jon-Tom had ever heard. At least, it was sweet and pure until it broke into a succession of growls and yowls. Raw and untutored, grating and harsh, it sounded like a dozen alley cats in heat.

“Hey, that's not bad!” An admiring Zimmerman was already humming the backbeat to the refrain. “Sounds a lot like Pearl Jam.”

“Or the Chili Peppers,” Hill suggested.

Gathers was nodding agreeably. “We can work with that, dudes. Does this gig, like, you know, pay?”

“Room and board,” Seshenshe replied, “but on a royal sscale. Ass dessignated court mussicianss you will be well looked after.”

The trio exchanged looks. Then Zimmerman spoke for all of them. “It's the best offer we've had in a while. Got to be better than playing clubs in Passaic.”

Hill gave a little shudder. “Anything'd be better than that.”

Bearing in mind that he was addressing a princess, Gathers inquired hesitantly, “Would there be any, like, drink to go along with the food?”

Seshenshe smiled toothily. “The finesst sspiritss my country can produce sshall be yourss to ssample. My people have a long tradition of brewing and vintnering.”

“Well, all right, then!” Hill looked content. “Sounds okay to me, dudes.”

“One last thing.” Gathers started to say something more, looked helplessly to Jon-Tom. “Would this royal court be maybe, like, you know … integrated?”

Jon-Tom smiled reassuringly. “You'll find that all the warm-blooded species mix pretty freely here. I'm sure you'll encounter other humans in Paressi Glissar.”

“That's the way o' things.” Mudge winked. “O' course, 'tis your choice if you choose to restrict yourselves to—” Jon-Tom clamped a hand over the otter's muzzle.

“Let's let the boys find a few things out for themselves, why don't we? They don't need to be confused any more than they already are.” Led by the soldiers, they started wading out to the waiting lifeboat.

“No Sixth Avenue Deli,” Hill was muttering, “but I guess a royal court can't be all bad.”

Mudge tugged at his friend's sleeve. “Oi then, mate. Wot about all that music wot's caught up in this place, don't you know?”

“I was getting to that.” Standing on the shore, Jon-Tom turned back to face the central mountain, still shrouded in its surly cloak of dark cumulus. Unlimbering the duar, he began a last time to sing. This time his words needed no otherworldly amplification.

“Can't bind the music

Can't tie it down

A song's got to be free

To soar and bring light

To every corner of the world

Let the music fly

Let there be such a sight

Of sounds twisted and curled

That the air itself takes flight!”

Oh, what a sound there came then! As the black clouds broke apart, all the music Hieronymus Hinckel had stealthily entrapped came rushing down the mountain in a great galumphing glorious wave of pure sound, each individual note like a fragment of mother-of-pearl bathed in a hundred floodlights.

It washed over them where they stood, a grand tsunami of melody and rhythm, harmony and tempo. It riffled their hair and teased their nerve endings, a concentration of sound the likes of which none of them had ever heard before or would ever hear again.

Quicker than a favorite memory, it was gone, dissipating out over the ocean, dispersing to the many lands from which it had been filched. Tunes returning to their instruments, songs reverting to their singers, eerie high-pitched wails reabsorbed and relearned by a hundred pods of waiting whales. It left Jon-Tom and his companions with a lingering feeling of great warmth and contentment.

Then he heard a noise he hadn't experienced in quite some time. One he'd nearly forgotten, so immersed had he been in his family and spellsinging and assorted adventures. Very different from that offered by the cetaceans many days before, it arose from the princesses and the soldiers, from the band members and even (albeit somewhat reluctantly) from a much-chastened Hinckel.

They were applauding.

He did the only thing he could, of course. Sweeping his grand purple cape behind him, he put one foot back, brought his other arm around in front of his chest, and took a bow.

Maybe it wasn't MTV, he mused, but it wasn't so bad, either.

“Wot about all that, mate?” As the soldiers helped the last of the princesses to board, the otter pointed to the gargantuan amplifier and speakers. The recklessly invoked timpani had vanished with Jon-Tom's last song. Waves were already lapping at the base of the otherworldly electronics as the tide started to change.

“Cazpowarex sent them here. He'll have to deal with them. Since I didn't magic them up, I don't see how I can send them away. This is a deserted island. They won't be the source of any distressing speculation.”

“No, but I can see as 'ow they might make someone a mite curious someday.” Walking over to the nearest monolith, he ran the tips of his fingers along the shiny black surface. There was an imperceptible vibration. “Some folk might invent a legend or two to explain 'em.”

“Let them.” Jon-Tom was eager to be gone from this place.

Epilogue

THEY TOOK THEIR LEAVE
of the island. Attended by A thousand whales and porpoises, they safely brought the princesses to Aleaukauna's homeland of Harakun, which lay on the rich and prosperous eastern shore of the Farraglean Sea. From there it was nothing but that they had to individually escort each and every one of the rescued ladies to their respective kingdoms.

In Tuuro and Borobos, in Trenku and Paressi Glissar they were greeted and feted as heroes, much to Jon-Tom's embarrassment. Always ready to help out his reluctant companion, Mudge vowed to celebrate for the both of them, which he did to the fullest extent of his astonishing capacity.

In Trenku they parted company with a tearful Pivver, a parting far harder on Mudge than was Jon-Tom's farewell to Ansibette of Borobos, who by now had eyes only for the remarkably reformed Hinckel. After spending several weeks in her highly attentive company, he had quickly decided that twenty years of music lessons was a small price to pay to continue such a relationship indefinitely.

Wolf Gathers, Splitz Zimmerman, and Nuke-o Hill found themselves comfortably ensconced under Seshenshe's personal care at the court of Paressi Glissar. True to Jon-Tom's word, the court boasted in attendance numerous well-bred representatives of many other tribes, the human included.

Eventually man and otter managed, by means of boat and cart, foot and pack animal, to wend their way back to the familiar confines of the Bellwoods, whereupon they were promptly confronted by a less-than-understanding Talea and Weegee, who demanded in no uncertain terms to know precisely where the hell their wandering consorts had taken off to for so long.

“I left you a note,” Jon-Tom stammered hopefully.

“Yes, a note.” Conscious of the fact that a furious Weegee could be far more dangerous than any errant spellsong, Mudge lingered in the spellsinger's shadow.

Knowing it was what she really wanted instead of some half-baked male excuse, Jon-Tom took his wife in his arms. “We were just out chasing a tune,” he murmured before he kissed her. She fully intended to formulate an angry reply, but since that's difficult to do while in the midst of a kiss, she decided to hold the thought until later.

Weegee stepped around the embracing humans. “And what might be your excuse, nimble-fingers?”

“Well, you know 'ow it 'tis, luv. Where Jon-Tom goes, I sort o' 'ave to follow.” Drawing reassurance from her hesitation, he put an arm around her and drew her aside, lowering his voice as he did so.

“'Orrible it were, me luv, just 'orrible. Such perils, such dangers as you can't imagine. Overcame 'em all, I did. In the name o' music an' art. 'Tis a wonderment we survived.”

“Survived, fishballs!” She jabbed him in the belly, drew back her fist to punch him, and ended up smiling. “Flay me for a holiday cloak if you haven't put on a hand's-breadth in width. What sort of ‘peril' caused that?”

“Now, don't fret, luv, I 'ave an explanation.” Advancing, he once again put his arms around her and affectionately began to nuzzle her muzzle with his own until she started to relent.

He did, of course. Have an explanation. Which only proved that Jon-Tom wasn't the only one in the room who could work magic.

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copyright © 1994 by Thranx, Inc.

cover design by Jason Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-4532-1189-2

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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