The Ultimate Stonemage: A Modest Autobiography

by McKenzie, Duncan

Finally, they said, “We will accept the wager, on two conditions.”

  I said, “State them.”

  They said, “First, we will determine the animal you are to hunt.”

  I said, “Can the animal can be found within this region?”

  They said, “It can.”

  I said, “Is the animal truly a wild animal, and not the property of some person?”

  They said, “No no, it is wild, and it is nobody’s property.”

  I said, “In that case, your first condition is acceptable to me. What is the second?”

  They said, “You must not kill or injure the animal, but must instead capture it, and bring it back to the Imperial City.”

  Well, that was a challenge indeed, especially if they meant me to hunt a ferocious animal, such a sand cat. Still, a number of clever plans for capturing a fierce animal popped into my head even as I stood there, so I was quite sure that, with sufficient thought, I could come up with something.

  “Very well,” I said. “The terms of your wager are acceptable to me. Now, what animal do you wish me to capture?”

  Then the ring leader grinned at me and said, “The Pulsiter.”

  At once, there was a great reaction from the others present. Some people laughed, while others cried out that the wager was unfair. For myself, I did not know what a Pulsiter might be, but I knew trickery of some sort was involved. Still, I also knew I had agreed to their terms for the wager, so I said, “I will bring the Pulsiter to the Imperial City before six weeks have passed. Now, please be so good as to leave this place in peace.”

  They laughed, saying, “In six weeks we will be rich men.” Then they left the shop, taking their hare with them.

  Now, I soon found out the Pulsiter is a unique magical creature. Just as the chameleon can change its colour, so the Pulsiter can change its form, taking on the appearance and attributes of any living thing, large or small, that pleases it at that moment. For example, if the Pulsiter is travelling over land, it may take the form of horse and gallop along. If it comes to an ocean, it will change into a fish and swim across. If a hawk plucks it from the waves, it will change into a lion and eat the bird, then change back into a fish upon the instant it strikes the water once more.

  I talked to many people about the Pulsiter, and some said it did not exist. However, the older folk I talked to assured me that it did exist, for they remembered it was kept captive in Saskatoon many years earlier, and would have been there still if an enemy of the previous emperor had not opened the door of the enclosure and allowed it to escape.

  I searched through the libraries next, looking for more detailed information about the Pulsiter. I discovered many eyewitness accounts of those who had met the Pulsiter in the wild. Some had been attacked by it, and they wrote of how it changed from the form of a tree into the form of a wolf, all in the twinkling of an eye. As might be expected, many of these accounts were confused or contradictory, for doubtless the writers were very afraid when they met the Pulsiter and did not have the time to make exact observations. Nevertheless, I noticed two important facts which virtually all of the experts mentioned, and I took careful note of these, for I knew, if everyone agreed on some facts, it was very likely these facts at least were true.

  The first fact was that the Pulsiter has an unusual love of areas near rivers or lakes or other bodies of water. Once I had made this observation, I was struck by its perfect sense, for such locations would allow the creature to change into a water creature, such as a fish or a frog, if a danger should approach by land, and to change into a land animal, such as a gazelle, in the event a danger should come from the water.

  The second fact I noted was that the Pulsiter seemed to be attracted by music. Many of the observers wrote of how they were casually walking along, whistling or singing, before they encountered the creature. Clearly, then, it was this whistling or singing which had drawn the creature to them.

  Using these two facts, I formulated my plan to catch the beast. I decided I would buy a musical instrument of some kind, something easy to learn, and I would then go to all those places in the region which were close to lakes or rivers and play the instrument. This would draw the creature to me.

  Here, however, a problem arose. How would I capture the Pulsiter once it had come to hear my music? I thought hard upon this question, but I could think of no good answer. After all, if the Pulsiter had assumed the form of a bird and I tried to catch it with a net, it had only to change into some large, strong animal to tear itself free. On the other hand, if I designed a trap for a strong animal, perhaps a cage of some kind, the Pulsiter might easily change to a flea and crawl through the bars.

  I examined the place where the Pulsiter had been kept when it was a prisoner in the city. I found its enclosure was a sealed area of stone and glass set into one of the side walls of the palace. The chamber was precisely crafted, with no spaces the creature could have used for escape, only a grid of very tiny holes to give the creature air. It was a good design to be sure, but not the sort of thing I might lift up and take on a hunting expedition, and so I was no closer to finding a workable plan.

  One evening, I was explaining my problem to a friend of mine who was both a courtier and an artist and went by the name of Bitian Teppel. I had won this man’s friendship not by means of gold, but because of my taming of the boy Pandrick. The boy, you see, had formerly been in the habit of pulling Bitian’s ladder over as he painted, and the artist had suffered several grievous injuries as a result. Thanks to me, however, he could now do his painting work in safety, and he swore he would be eternally grateful to me because of it.

  In any event, I told him all about the difficulties of catching such a creature as the Pulsiter. I had worked myself into such a pitch over the matter that I finally threw up my hands and said, “It is all quite futile, for no cage will hold the beast securely.”

  Well, Bitian was a very witty man, and he responded by saying, “Then why not use no-cage, since you say it will hold the beast securely.”

  This was a joke, you see, and he said it to cheer me up. It did cheer me up, too, when I caught the cleverness of it, and we laughed for a good few minutes.

  Later on, after Bitian had left, I had another chuckle over his joke. Then, suddenly, I thought to myself, “I wonder if I could use no-cage? Perhaps there are more brains than feathers to his witty words.”

  Well, I thought upon this for a bit, and I said to myself, “How might I take the creature to the city without confining it in any way?” I realized the music which first summoned the creature might also be used to keep it my prisoner. “Perhaps,” I thought, “I could simply continue to play my beautiful music and walk back to the city. If the Pulsiter is as fond of music as I suspect, it will follow me on my journey. Then I have only to lead it into the old enclosure and close the door, and it will be captured.

  Of course, I had my doubts about this plan at first, for it seemed almost too simple to be workable. Yet, when I considered the matter, I realized that all those who had tried to catch the Pulsiter in the past had failed precisely because they had used clever nets and traps and cages, so there was some wisdom in my no-cage idea.

  The next day, I looked around the market for a musical instrument of some kind. Most of them did not please me, for, while they looked easy to play, they were actually very difficult.

  Take the pipe, for example. There are only eight holes upon a pipe, and, since eight is a low number, I reasoned the manipulation of these holes should not be too taxing. But the truth is that the holes are placed with a subtle unevenness, barely perceptible to the eye, which causes one’s fingers to become confused and tangled as they move over them.

  The horn is impossibly difficult, and when I tried one I found I could not get any sound out of it at all except by humming into its mouthpiece, but the man told me this was wrong.

  I said to him, “Why should this be
wrong? At least it produces a sound that is in some way musical, whereas when I employ your method I can produce no sound at all.”

  He had no good answer to this, however, reinforcing an opinion I have held for many years that those who play upon the horn are generally halfwitted.

  The various stringed instruments, both those played with the fingers and those played with a bow, were easier to get a sound from, but the sound did not seem musical to my ears, and I quickly discovered that to play these instruments correctly required the tiresome memorization of a great many combinations of finger positions.

  Eventually, though, as I scoured the market, I came across an instrument called the rare-bellows. I had not heard of it before that time, and I have seen it only once or twice since, so I will explain how it works. In appearance, it is like a rounded box, with a pair of bellows set underneath it, and a stick down one side, connected to a wheel at the bottom. To play it, one has only to pump the bellows and push the wheel over the ground. The movement of the wheel is transmitted, by means of a strong thread, to a mechanism inside the box. As the mechanism turns, it plays beautiful music, sounding a like a troupe of highly skilled pipers.

  I knew at once this was exactly the instrument I had been looking for, and I purchased it on the spot, even though it was expensive. I also received a number of wooden cylinders with pegs attached. The woman who sold me the instrument showed me how the top of the box could be opened up and the cylinder within replaced by one of these others. Once this was done, the rare-bellows would play a different tune, for it was the placing of the pegs upon the cylinder that determined the melody. The cylinders she gave me played Ein’s Lament, The Pack of Wolves, Trickle down the Fountain, Poultry Boys and The Weaver’s Angry Slave. All these are American songs, of course, but they are good melodies nonetheless.

  “And if you wish,” she said, “you can pull the pegs from the cylinders and place them in different holes, thereby creating your own tunes.”

  I found later this claim might be true in theory, but the process was so difficult I would have been better off simply learning all the finger positions required for the viol or the guitar!

  There was also a kind of pipe attached to the front of the instrument which could be played with one hand in time to the music. I experimented with this for a while, but soon found that this pipe was just as badly designed as every two-handed pipe, and, besides, the rest of the instrument sounded very beautiful even without the accompaniment. Therefore, I removed the appendage and threw it away, plugging up the hole with a cork.

  Later the same week, I placed food and water into a pack, together with a map of the region I had copied, and I walked off into the wilderness, pushing my rare-bellows ahead of me.

  I travelled east for a day or so, following the road which led, so my map told me, to the town of Eight Trees, which lies upon the river, and is close to a number of small lakes.

  With so much water about, this appeared to be ideal territory for the Pulsiter, so I wandered around the riverbanks and lake shores for five days playing my rare-bellows. I tried each of the cylinders in the instrument, but no animals came near me, and I came to the conclusion that the Pulsiter must be elsewhere.

  I moved on then, following the river to the south and into a region of swamps. I wandered the swamps for a couple of days, keeping to the dry patches and playing my instrument. I also smiled at any unusual looking trees I came across, just in case one of them was the Pulsiter in disguise. My efforts were entirely unsuccessful in locating the creature, although I did come across several ancient buildings. I searched them, too, but there were no treasures within, just decaying timbers and a small crocodile which looked as if it had been dead for some time.

  I continued my wanderings for weeks, still concentrating on the areas closest to lakes or rivers or streams. I played my rare-bellows with a will (I was becoming a very talented musician by this point) but still my mysterious quarry did not appear. Then I began to regret I had so rashly given myself only six weeks to find the beast, because the region was large, and there were numerous places I would have liked to examine more thoroughly.

  I searched for as long as I could, but the time trotted away, and I had still seen no sign of the Pulsiter. Regretfully, I turned around once more, heading back towards Saskatoon.

  Of the original six weeks, only three days now remained, and it would take me that long to make the journey to the city gates. I imagined I was beaten, and I hung my head very low.

  Now, I had been walking along the road for a little over a day, my eyes fixed upon the ground in my dejection and woe, when I observed a curious thing. Upon the earth at the side of the road I saw the footprints of a small animal—a cat or a fox. The footprints went only for a short way, however, before they disappeared. A little further on, I saw the footprints had changed to those of a bird. Then they vanished again, and later still they changed back to the footprints of the small animal again and headed away from the road.

  The meaning of these footprints was obvious to me, as I am sure it is to you. Clearly, these were the tracks of the Pulsiter, travelling, perhaps, as a fox for a time, then transforming into a bird, and flying over the sand for a short distance, then landing upon the ground, and walking with its bird’s feet, then flying a little further, and then finally changing back into a fox.

  I immediately knelt down and gave thanks to God for leading me, in my despair, to the trail of my quarry. I said to God, “Now, let me capture the animal, and I will ensure the great cathedral I have been planning is the next thing I build, and it will be built right here in this very place.”

  I heard a voice speaking to me then, in tones that seemed faint and faraway, yet also deep and powerful. The voice, which I knew to be that of God, said, “No, build me five cathedrals.”

  I responded, “Five is a great many. Will you take three?”

  For three, you see, is the number of the Holy Trinity, and it seemed a good number to me.

  God did not reply, and I took this to mean He approved of this number, so we settled upon three, and I immediately left the road and went off in the direction of the tracks, in pursuit of the Pulsiter.

  After a time trudging over through the bush, I saw a body of water ahead. I crept forward, examining the ground and plants around to see if they were hiding some small creature which might be the Pulsiter in disguise. But I need not have checked so closely, for this noble beast has no need to be timid. As I came around from behind a clump of trees, I gasped, for there I saw a cow. It was just standing by the water, eating the grass.

  The cow was of the black-and-white kind—the sort you might often see in a farmer’s fields. But I was far from any farm. The cow looked up at me, then continued with its eating, feigning innocence.

  I looked carefully at the ground around its feet and saw, just as I had suspected, that there were not so many hoofprints as there should have been if the cow had been there for a long time. Also, I saw numerous bird tracks, and the footprints of other animals, although it was clear none of these animals were present. There could be only one explanation for all this: I was face to face with the Pulsiter!

  I knew I must go very carefully, for the Pulsiter can be a dangerous foe, especially if it decides to transform into a lion or a mud dragon. I approached cautiously, and when I was just a few yards from its tail, I started to play the rare-bellows, marching back and forth and doing my best to push the wheel through the mud and long grass.

  The Pulsiter tried to ignore my alluring tune, and it pretended it was just an ordinary cow eating grass, but I could see the tip of its tail twitching in time to the music, and I knew it was falling under my spell. When I had played for a few minutes, I walked around to stand in front of the animal. It raised its head, and, even though it was in a trance from my music, I immediately saw the great intelligence and wisdom in the creature’s eyes, signifying more plainly than ever that this was n
o ordinary cow, but the one true Pulsiter.

  I turned away then, pushing my rare-bellows ahead of me and hoping the Pulsiter would follow. However, it did not follow. It was in such an ecstatic blur from my music that it could do no more than stand and chew.

  I said to it, “Come along, do not just stop there, for I have enchanted you and you are compelled to follow my tune.” So saying, I broke off a branch from one of the bushes, and I whipped it against the creature’s rump, which brought the Pulsiter out of its dazed rumination. Then I pushed the rare-bellows off once more, and we went off. I pumped at the bellows with one hand, and whipped at the Pulsiter with the other. In this manner, I led the creature out of the wilderness towards the Imperial City.

  When we finally arrived at the city gates, I was exhausted. I had not slept in two days, for I had needed to keep the Pulsiter entertained with music day and night during the long walk. My efforts were well rewarded, however, for the creature made no attempt to transform into some other animal and escape.

  My good friend Bitian Teppel was waiting for me outside the gates, and he supported me at the elbow, keeping me from falling as we went past the guards. Naturally, I had no sooner entered the city, than a great crowd began to gather, for word of my quest had spread. How they cheered to see I had brought the Pulsiter back to the Imperial City once again, although there were three men present who were not cheering at the sight, and I think you can guess who they were.

  We moved quickly then, and placed the Pulsiter in its old enclosure, together with a trough of water and a sheaf of long grass cut fresh in the city’s gardens. In spite of my fatigue, I turned to the great crowd waiting there, and I told them the story of my great search for the Pulsiter, and of the miraculous events which had finally led me to it.

  No sooner had I finished my story, though, than the three courtiers came forward. They were angry at my success. One of them said, “How do we know that this is truly the Pulsiter, and not just a cow?”

  The crowd hissed at them for this, but I raised my hands to quieten the assembly. I said, “No, it is a fair question. Listen, then, I have stopped playing my music now. I invite any one of you three brave courtiers to enter the enclosure and touch the Pulsiter. If, as you suspect, it is nothing more than a cow, you will certainly have nothing to fear, for a common cow cannot change to a bear and tear you limb from limb.”