Spellsinger

by Alan Dean Foster

"Now he insists he will burn down the entire city. I'm afraid the only thing that has kept him from destroying more of the town thus far is his own rage. It chokes him so severely he cannot concentrate on generating fire."

  "Why don't you make him stop, wizard?" Talea was leaning close to his face and practically shouting into it. "You're the all-powerful sorcerer, the great master of magic. Make him stop!"

  "Stop, yes? I was trying to think." Clothahump leaned his chin on stubby fingers. "Dragon spells are as complicated as their subjects, you know. The right ingredients are required for a truly effective cast. I don't know..."

  "You've got to do something!" She looked back at the searing blaze. Then she looked at Jon-Tom. So did everyone else.

  "Now the lad's willin' and good-natured," said Mudge caution-ingly, "but 'e ain't no fool. Are you, mate?" The otter was torn between common sense and the desire to save his own highly flammable skin.

  But Jon-Tom already had the duar swung around against his belly and was trying to think of something to sing. He could remember several rain songs, but that might only anger the dragon and certainly wouldn't solve the problem. Falameezar might not burn Polastrindu down, but from the smashing and crunching sounds issuing from behind the flames Jon-Tom judged him quite capable of tearing it down physically.

  He marched out toward the barracks, ignoring the single plea that came from Flor. None of the others tried to dissuade him. They had not the right, and they knew he had to try. They wanted him to try.

  The near barracks' wall suddenly collapsed in a Niagara of flaming embers and hot coals. He shielded himself with the duar and his green cape. There was a roaring in his ears from the flames, and wood exploded from the heat ahead.

  "You! Deviationist! Counterrevolutionary!" The epithets emerged fast and accusing from the fire, though so far without accompanying arcs of flame. Jon-Tom looked up from beneath his cape and found himself only a couple of yards away from the glowering visage of Falameezar. Red eyes burned down into his own, and plate-sized teeth gleamed in the orange light as the dragon-skull dipped dowr toward him....

  XXI

  "Lies, lies, lies! You lied to me." A massive clawed foot gestured toward the inner city. "This is no commune, not even in part, but instead a virulent nest of capitalistic vice. It needs not to be reformed, for it is beyond that. It needs to be cleansed!"

  "Now hold on a minute, Falameezar." Jon-Tom tried hard to sound righteous. "What gives you the right to decide what should happen to all these workers?"

  "Workers... pagh!" Fire scorched the cobblestones just to Jon-Tom's right. "They have the tasks of workers, but the souls of imperialists! As for my right, I am pure of philosophy and dedicated in my arms. I can tell when a society is capable of achieving a noble state... or is beyond redemption! And besides," he spat a petulant burst of fire at a nearby market stall, which immediately burst into flame, "you lied to me."

  Since indecision was clearly the path leading to imminent incineration, Jon-Tom replied boldly. "I did not lie to you, Falameezar. This is a commune-to-be, and most of the population are workers."

  "It means naught if they willingly condone the system which exploits them."

  "How much choice does an oppressed worker have, comrade? It is easy to speak of revolution when you're twenty times bigger than anyone else and can spit fire and destruction. You expect an awful lot of some poor worker with a family to take care of. You don't have those kinds of responsibilities, do you?"

  "No, but..."

  "Then don't condemn some poor bear for protecting his family. You're asking them to sacrifice cubs and children. And besides, they don't have your education. You're expecting revolutionary sophistication from uneducated workers. Shouldn't you try and educate them first? Then if they reject the True Path and continue to accept the capitalistic evils they live with, then it will be time for cleansing."

  And by that time, he thought hopefully, we'll be safely away from Polastrindu.

  "They still willingly countenance an antibourgeois life," said Falameezar grumblingly, but with less certainty.

  Meanwhile Jon-Tom was still furiously trying to recall an anti-dragon song. He didn't know any. "Puff the Magic Dragon" was pleasant but hardly restrictive. Think, man, think!

  But he had no time to think of songs. He was too busy trying to tie the dragon's tale into semantic knots.

  "But would it not be best for all concerned if a warning was to be given?"

  Falameezar's head rose high against the glowing night. "Yes, a warning! Burn out the evil influences so that the new order can be installed. Down with the exploiting industries and the factories of the capitalists! Build the commune anew, beneath the banner of true socialism."

  "Didn't you hear what I just said?" Jon-Tom took a worried step backward. "You'll destroy the homes of the innocent, ignorant workers."

  "It will be good for them," Falameezar replied firmly. "They will have to rebuild their homes with their own hands, cooperatively, instead of living in those owned by landlords and the bosses. Yes, the people must have the opportunity to begin afresh." He turned his attention speculatively to the nearest multistoried building, considering how most efficiently to commence "cleansing" it.

  "But they already hate their bosses." Jon-Tom ran parallel to the loping dragon. "There's no reason to put them out in the rain and cold. What's needed here now isn't violence but a sound revolutionary dialectic!"

  Falameezar's claws scraped on the cobblestones like the wheels of a vast engine.

  "Remember the workers!" He shook his fist at the unresponsive dragon. "Consider their ignorance and their personal plights." Then, without thinking, his fingers were flying over the duar, the necessary words and music having come to him abruptly and unbidden.

  "Arise ye pris'ners of starvation!

  Arise, ye wretched of the Earth.

  For justice thunders condemnation, a better world in birth.

  No more tradition's chains shall bind us.

  Arise, you slaves, no more in thrall!"

  At the first stirring words of the "Internationale," Falameezar halted as if shot. Slowly his head swung around and down to stare blankly at Jon-Tom.

  "Watch 'im, mate!" sounded the faint voice of Mudge. Similar warnings came from Caz and Flor, Talea and Pog.

  But the dragon was utterly mesmerized. His ears remained cocked attentively forward as the singer's voice rose and fell.

  Finally the anthem was at an end. As Jon-Tom's fingers trailed a last time over the duar's strings, Falameezar slowly emerged from his stupor, nodding slowly.

  "Yes, you are right, comrade. I will do what you say. For a moment I forgot what is truly important. Compassion was lost in my desire to establish proper dogma among the proletariat. I had forgotten the more important task before us in my rage at petty injustice." His head drooped low.

  "I lost control of myself, and I apologize for the damage."

  Jon-Tom whirled and frantically waved his arms, shouting the all-clear. Immediately the wagons of the Polastrindu fire brigade trundled forward, trailing hoses like brown slugtracks. Hands and paws were laid to pumps, and water was soon attacking the burning barracks. Thicker dark smoke filled the sky as the flames were pushed back and hot embers sizzled.

  "I shall cause no more trouble," said the downcast dragon. "I will not forget again." Then the great lean skull turned to one side, and a crimson eye locked on Jon-Tom. "But before long we will make revolutionary progress here, and the bosses will be thrown out."

  Jon-Tom nodded rapidly. "Of course. Remember that first we have to defeat the most repressive, most brutal bosses of all."

  "I will remember." Falameezar sighed and a puff of smoke emerged from his mouth. Jon-Tom winced instinctively, but there was no flame. "We will strike to protect the workers." He curled up like a great cat, laid his head across his right foreleg.

  "I'm very tired now. I leave the night in your hands, Comrade." With that he closed his eyes, oblivious to the activity and smoke an
d yelling all around him, and went peacefully to sleep.

  "Thank you, Comrade Falameezar." Jon-Tom turned away. He was starting to shiver now, recalling the feel of heat on his face and the fury in the dragon's gaze when he'd first confronted him.

  His friends were cautiously running to him. Their expressions were a mixture of relief and awe.

  "What in hell did you sing?... What spell did you use?... How did you do it?" were some of the amazed comments.

  "I don't know, I'm not sure. The words just came to me. Old studies that stick," he muttered as they walked back toward the city gate.

  Clothahump was waiting there to greet him. The old turtle solemnly offered his hand. "A feat worthy of a true wizard, whether you believe yourself that or not, my boy. I salute you. You have just saved our journey."

  "I'm afraid my principal motivation was to save myself, there at the last." He couldn't meet the wizard's eyes.

  "Tut, motivation! It is accomplishment and result that count. I welcome you to the brotherhood of magicians." Jon-Tom found his fingers clasped in the cool but emphatic grasp of the elderly sorcerer.

  "Perhaps it would be a good thing if you were to teach me the words to that spellsong, in case something were to happen to you. My voice is not particularly melodious, but at least I would have the words. It sounded especially powerful, and may serve to control the beast another time."

  "It specializes in control, for all sorts of beasts," Jon-Tom replied.

  The others listened as well, but the words had no special effect on them. Across the courtyard the fire brigade was bringing the last of the blaze under control. Falameezar snored unconcernedly nearby, his rage spent, his conscience assuaged.

  Possibly it was because of Falameezar's tantrum, but in any case the summons to council came the following day. A much subdued beaver informed them that the representatives they'd wished to meet were already assembled and waiting for them.

  Jon-Tom had spent much of the previous night coaching Caz in socialist jargon, realizing that Clothahump could not remain behind this time. The fact that the rabbit had volunteered to remain behind and keep a watch on the still somnolent dragon pleased Jon-Tom.

  The fact that Talea and Flor had decided to remain and assist him did not. So he was in a foul mood as they neared the city hall.

  "My boy," Clothahump was telling him, "if ever you live to be half my age you will learn that love is a lasting thing, while lust is but transitory. Are you so sure that you've sorted out the degree and direction of your feelings? Because if you are drowning in the former, then you have my wholehearted support. If merely the latter, then I can only sympathize with your subservience to the follies of youth, which are locked to but physical matters."

  "It's just physical to me." He slammed the butt end of his staff angrily into the road with each stride. "Anyhow, you can't be objective about it. Aren't turtles by nature sluggish in such matters?"

  "Occasionally yes, sometimes no. What is important is one's mental reaction, since it is the mind that makes the separation between love and lust, not the body. You let your gonads do your thinking, my boy, and you're no better than a lizard."

  "That's easy for you to say. I'd imagine the internal fires are barely simmering after two hundred and a few odd years."

  "We are not talking about my situation but of yours."

  "Well, I'm trying to control myself."

  "That's the good lad. Then I suggest you stop trying to find water beneath the street."

  Jon-Tom eased up on his staff.

  Mudge strode cockily alongside the youth. He was basking in the attention of the pedestrians who stopped on the street to stare at them, in the curious looks of others peering down from windows. Pog fluttered and soared majestically overhead, darting past aerial abodes with seeming indifference to their feathered inhabitants. While Clothahump did not anticipate treachery, he'd still insisted the bat remain safely out of arrow shot. Pog was their link with the unspoken dragonthreat sleeping back by the harbor gate.

  "We're here, thirth." The beaver came to a halt, and directed them onward. They climbed a series of stone steps. Two guards stood on either side of the arched entrance. They snapped to attention, ceremonial armor shining in the sun and giving evidence of much laborious polishing. Dents in the metal were testimony to other activities.

  Life quickly returned to normal around the fountain that dominated the small square in front of the city hall. Jon-Tom paused to study the peaceful scene.

  A young wolf bitch nursed two cubs. Young hares and muskrats played a crude variety of field hockey with sticks and the battered skull of a recent guillotine victim. Two grizzled oldsters chatted casually about weather and politics. The aged possum hung from an oak tree branch while his corpulent companion, a fat fox clad in heavy overcoat, sat beneath him on a bench. The fact that one was upside down and the other rightside up had no effect on their conversation.

  A clockmaker and candleshop owner stood in their doorways and argued business in the warmth of the unusually benign winter day. A customer entered the clock shop and the proprietor, an aproned gibbon, returned reluctantly to ply his trade.

  Maybe the warm day was a good omen, Jon-Tom thought as he turned away from the peaceful scene. It was hard to imagine that all who frolicked or chattered in the square might soon be dead or locked in slavery.

  It looked heartbreakingly normal. He felt that if he could only blink, refocus his mind, when he opened his eyes again there would be old men sitting and talking, boys and girls running and playing. And yet they were old men, boys and girls, for all their shapes were different and they were covered with warm fur. It was the warm blood that mattered. Everything else was superficial.

  He turned to gaze into the hallway before them. They would have to face and convince a hostile, suspicious Council of the danger that was imminent. Somehow he would have to master the magic inherent in his duar and in his voice. He was not going to confront a group of teachers now, not about to present a scholarly master's thesis on some obscure portion of history. Millions of lives were at stake. The future of this world and maybe his own.

  Except... this was his world now, and the dark future foreseen by Clothahump had become his future. His friends stood alongside him, ready to offer support and comfort. Flor Quintera never looked as beautiful shouting inanities beside a field of false combat. He would talk loud and hope silently.

  "Let's go, and may the strength of our ancestors go with us," announced Clothahump, trundling up the last steps.

  Jon-Tom could only agree, though as they passed beneath the appraising stares of the soldiers lining the hallway, he wished fervently for a little grass, and not the kind that grew in the courtyard outside.