Spellsinger

by neetha Napew

  back toward them. He arranged the collection neatly on the wood chips in front

  of the couch. Choosing from several, he mixed their contents in a small brass

  bowl set between Jon-Tom's legs. A yellow powder was added to a murky pool in

  the bowl and was followed by a barely audible mumbling. Mudge and Jon-Tom

  clutched suddenly at their nostrils. The paste was now emitting an odor awful in

  the extreme.

  Clothahump added a last pinch of blue powder, stirred the mixture, and then

  began plastering it directly on the open wound. Thoughts of infection faded when

  it became clear to Jon that the paste was having a soothing effect on the pain.

  "Pog!" Clothahump snapped short fingers. "Bring a small crucible. The one with

  the sun symbols engraved on the sides."

  Jon-Tom thought he might have heard the bat mumble, "Why don't ya get it

  yourself, ya lazy fat cousin to a clam." But he couldn't be sure.

  In any case, Pog did not speak when he returned with the requested crucible. He

  deposited it between Jon-Tom and the wizard, then flapped back out of the way.

  Clothahump measured the paste into the crucible, added a vile-smelling liquid

  from a tall, waspish black bottle, then a pinch of something puce from a drawer

  near his right arm. Jon-Tom wondered if the wizard's built-in compartments ever

  itched.

  "What the devil did I do with that wand... ah!" Using a small ebony staff inlaid

  with silver and amethyst, he stirred the mixture, muttering continuously.

  Within the crucible the paste had gained the consistency of a thick soup. It

  began to glow a rich emerald green. Tiny explosions broke its surface, were

  reflected in Jon-Tom's wide eyes. The mixture now smelled of cinnamon instead of

  swamp gas.

  Using the wand, the wizard dipped out some of the liquid and tasted it. Finding

  it satisfactory, he gripped the wand at either end with two fingers of each hand

  and began passing it in low swoops over the boiling crucible. The sparks on the

  liquid's surface increased in intensity and frequency.

  "Terra bacteria,

  Red for muscle, blue for blood,

  Ruination, agglutination, confrontation,

  Knit Superior.

  Pyroxine for nerves, Penicillin for curds.

  Surgical wisps, solvent site, I bid you complete

  your unquent fight!"

  Jon-Tom listened in utter bewilderment. There was no deep-throated invocation of

  tail of newt, eye of bat. No spider's blood or ox eyes, though he remained

  ignorant of the powders and fluids the wizard had employed. Clothahump's mystic

  singsong chatter of pyroxine and agglutinating and such sounded suspiciously

  like the sort of thing a practicing physician might write to amuse himself in a

  moment of irrepressible nonsense.

  As soon as the recital had been completed, Jon-Tom asked about the words.

  "Those are the magic words and symbols, boy."

  "But they actually mean something. I mean, they refer to real things."

  "Of course they do." Clothahump stared at him as if concerned more about his

  sanity than his wound. "What is more real than the components of magic?" He

  nodded at the watch. "I do not recognize your timepiece, yet I accept that it

  keeps true time."

  "That's not magical, though."

  "No? Explain to me exactly how it works."

  "It's a quartz-crystal. The electrons flow through... I mean..." He gave up.

  "It's not my specialty. But it runs on electricity, not magic formulae."

  "Really? I know many electric formulae."

  "But dammit, it runs on a battery!"

  "And what is inside this thing you call a battery?"

  "Stored electric power."

  "And is there no formula to explain that?"

  "Of course there is. But it's a mathematical formula, not a magic one."

  "You say mathematics is not magic? What kind of wizard are you?"

  "I keep trying to tell you, I'm..." But Clothahump raised a hand for silence,

  leaving a frustrated Jon-Tom to fume silently at the turtle's obstinacy.

  Jon-Tom began to consider what the wizard had just said and grew steadily more

  confused.

  In addition to the firefly explosions dancing on its surface, the paste-brew had

  changed from green to yellow and was pulsing steadily. Clothahump laid his wand

  aside ceremoniously. Lifting the crucible, he offered it to the four corners of

  the compass. Then he tilted it and drained the contents.

  "Pog." He wiped paste from his beak.

  "Yes, Master." The bat's voice was subservient now.

  Clothahump passed him the crucible, then the brass bowl. "Scullery work." The

  bat hefted both containers, flapped off toward a distant kitchen.

  "How's that now, my boy?" Clothahump eyed him sympathetically. "Feel better?"

  "You mean... that's it? You're finished?" Jon-Tom thought to look down at

  himself. The ugly wound had vanished completely. The flesh was smooth and

  unbroken, the sole difference between it and the surrounding skin being that it

  wasn't suntanned like the rest of his torso. It occurred to him that the pain

  had also left him.

  Tentatively he pressed the formerly bleeding region. Nothing. He turned an

  open-mouthed stare of amazement on the turtle.

  "Please." Clothahump turned away. "Naked adulation embarrasses me."

  "But how...?"

  "Oh, the incantations healed you, boy."

  "Then what was the purpose of the stuff" in the bowl?"

  "That? Oh, that was my breakfast." He grinned as much as his beak would allow.

  "It also served nicely to distract you while you healed. Some patients get upset

  if they see their own bodies healing... sometimes it can be messy to look upon.

  So I had the choice of putting you to sleep or distracting you. The latter was

  safer and simpler. Besides, I was hungry.

  "And now I think it time we touch on the matter of why I drew you into this

  world from your own. You know, I went to the considerable trouble, not to

  mention danger, of opening the portals between dimensions and bending

  space-time. But first it is necessary to seal this room. Move over there,

  please."

  Still wordless at his astonishing recovery, Jon-Tom obediently stepped back

  against a bookcase. Mudge joined him. So did the returning Pog.

  "Scrubbing crucibles," the bat muttered under his breath. Clothahump had picked

  up his wand and was waving it through the air, mumbling cryptically. "Dat's all

  I ever do around here; wash da dishes, fetch da books, clean da dirt."

  "If you're so disgusted, why stick around?" Jon-Tom regarded the bat

  sympathetically. He'd almost grown used to its hideousness. "Do you want to be a

  wizard so badly?"

  "Shit, no!" Pog's gruffness gave way to agitation. "Wizarding's mighty dangerous

  stuff." He fluttered nearer. "I've indentured myself to da old wreck in return

  for a major, permanent transmogrification. I only got ta stick it out another

  few years... I tink... before I can demand payment."

  "What kind o' change you got in mind, mate?"

  Pog turned to face the otter. "Y'know da section o' town at da end of da Avenue

  o' da Pacers? Da big old building dere dat's built above da stables?"

  "Cor, wot be you doin' thereabouts? You don't rate that kind o' trade. That's a

  high-ren
t district, that is." The otter was grinning hugely under his whiskers.

  "I know, I know," confessed the disconsolate Pog. "I've a friend who made a

  killing on da races who took me dere one night ta celebrate. He knows Madam

  Scorianza, who runs da house for arboreals. Dere's a girl who works up dere, not

  much more dan a fledgling, a full flagon o' falcon if ever dere one was. Her

  name's Uleimee and she is," he fairly danced in the air as he reminisced, "da

  most exquisite creature on wings. Such grace, such color and power, Mudge! I

  thought I'd die of ecstasy." The excitement of the memory trembled in the air.

  "But she won't have a thing ta do wid me unless I pay like everyone else. She

  dotes on a wealthy old osprey who runs a law practice over in Knotsmidge Hollow.

  Me she won't do much more dan loop da loop wid, but whenever dis guy flicks a

  feather at her she's ready ta fly round da world wid him."

  "Forget 'er then, mate," Mudge advised him. "There be other birds and some of

  'em are pretty good-lookin' bats. One flyin' fox I've seen around town can wrap

  'er wings 'round me any time."

  "Mudge, you've never been in love, have ya?"

  "Sure I 'ave... lots o' times."

  "I thought dat much. Den I can't expeet ya ta understand."

  "I do." Jon-Tom nodded knowingly. "You want Clothahump to transform you into the

  biggest, fastest falcon around, right?"

  "Wid da biggest beak," Pog added. "Dat's da only reason why I hang around dis

  hole waitin' wing and foot on da doddering old curmudgeon. I could never afford

  ta pay for a permanent transmogrification. I got ta slave it out."

  Jon-Tom's gaze returned to the center of the room. Having miraculously cured the

  stab wound, the doddering old curmudgeon was beckoning for them to rejoin him.

  The windows were dimming rapidly.

  "Come close, my friends." Mudge and Jon-Tom did so. Pog hung himself from the

  upper rim of a nearby bookcase.

  "A great crisis threatens to burst upon us," the wizard said solemnly. It

  continued to darken inside the tree. "I can feel it in the movement of worms in

  the earth, in the way the breezes whisper among themselves when they think no

  one else is listening. I sense it in the pattern formed by raindrops, in the

  early flight of leaves this past autumn, in the call of reluctant winter

  seedlings and in the nervous belly crawl of the snake. The clouds collide

  overhead, so intent are they on the events shaping themselves below, and the

  earth itself sometimes skips a heartbeat.

  "It is a crisis of our world, but its crux, its center, comes from another...

  from yours," and he stabbed a stubby finger at a shocked Jon-Tom.

  "Be calm, boy. You yourself have naught to do with it." It was dark as night

  inside the tree now. Jon-Tom thought he could feel the darkness as a perceptible

  weight on his neck. Or were the other things crowding invisibly near, fighting

  to hear through the protective cloak the sorcerer had drawn tight about the

  tree?

  "A vast malevolence has succeeded in turning the laws of magic and reason inside

  out, to bring spells of terrible power from your world into ours, to threaten

  our peaceful land.

  "It lies beyond my meager skills to determine what this power is, or to cope

  with it. Only a great en'geeneer-magician from your own world might supply the

  key to this menace. Woeful difficult it be to open the portal between

  dimensions, yet I had to cast out for such a person. It can be done only once or

  twice in a year's tune, so great is the strain on parts of the mind. That is why

  you are come among us now, my young friend."

  "But I've been trying to tell you. I'm not an engineer."

  Clothahump looked shaken. "That is not possible. The portals would open only to

  permit the entrance of an en'geeneer."

  "I'm truly sorry," Jon-Tom spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I'm

  only a prelaw student and would-be musician."

  "It can't be... at least, I don't think it can." Clothahump abruptly looked very

  old indeed.

  "Wot's the nature o' this 'ere bloomin' crisis?" the irrepressible Mudge

  demanded to know.

  "I don't precisely know. I know for certain only that it is centered around some

  powerful magic drawn from this lad's world-time." A horny hand slammed a

  counter, rocking jars and cannisters. Thunder flooded the room.

  "The conjuration could not have worked save for an en'geeneer. I was casting

  blind and was tired, but I cannot be wrong in this." He took a deep breath.

  "Lad, you say you are a student?"

  "That's right."

  "A student en'geeneer, perhaps?"

  "Sorry. Prelaw. And I don't think amateur electric guitar qualifies me, either.

  I also work part time as a janitor at... wait a minute, now." He looked worried.

  "My official title is sanitation engineer."

  Clothahump let out a groan of despair, sank back on the couch. "So ends

  civilization."

  Pog let loose of the bookcase shelf and flew high above them, growling

  delightedly. "Wonderful, wonderful! A wizard of garbage!" He dove sharply,

  braked to hover in front of Jon. "Welcome oh welcome, wizard most high! Stay and

  help me make all da dirt in dis dump disappear!"

  "BEGONE!" Clothahump thundered in a tone more suited to the throat of a mountain

  than a turtle. Jon-Tom and Mudge shook as that unnatural roar filled the room,

  while Pog was slammed up against the far side of the tree. He tumbled halfway to

  the floor before he could right himself and get shaky wings working again. He

  whipped out through a side passage.

  "Blasphemer of truth." The turtle's normal voice had returned. "I don't know why

  I retain him...." He sighed, adjusted his spectacles, and looked sadly at

  Jon-Tom.

  "Tis clear enough now what happened, lad. I was not precise enough in defining

  the parameters of the spell. I am an old turtle, and very tired. Sloppy work has

  earned its just reward.

  "Months it took me to prepare the conjuration. Four months' careful rune

  reading, compiling the requisite materials and injunctives, a full cauldron of

  boiled subatomic particles and such--and I end up with you."

  Jon-Tom felt guilty despite his innocence.

  "Not to trouble yourself with it, lad. There's nothing you can do now. I'll

  simply have to begin again."

  "What happens if you don't succeed in time, sir? If you don't get the help you

  think you'll need?"

  "We'll probably all die. But it's a small matter in the universal scheme of

  things.

  "That's all?" asked Jon-Tom sarcastically. "Well, I do have work to get back to.

  I'm really sorry I'm not what you expected, and I do thank you for fixing my

  side, but I'd really appreciate it if you could send me back home."

  "I don't think that's possible, lad."

  Jon-Tom tried not to sound panicked. "If you open this portal orwhatever for me,

  maybe I could find you the engineer you want. Any kind of engineer. My

  university's full of them."

  "I am sure of that," said Clothahump benignly. "Otherwise the portal would not

  have impinged on the fabric of your world at the place and time it did. I was in

  the proper fishing ground. I simply hooked the wrong s
ubject.

  "Sending you back is not a question of choice, but of tune and preparation.

  Remember that I told you it takes months to prepare such a conjuration, and I

  must rest as near to a year as possible before I risk the effort once more. And

  when I do so, I fear it must be for more important things than sending you back.

  I hope you understand, but it will not matter if you do not."

  "What about another wizard?" Jon-Tom asked hopefully.

  Clothahump sounded proud. "I venture to say no other in all the world could

  manipulate the necessary incantations and physical distortings. Rest assured I

  will send you back as soon as I am able." He patted Jon-Tom paternally with one

  hand and wagged a cautionary finger at him with the other.

  "Never fear. We will send you back. I only hope," he added regretfully, "I am

  able to do so before the crisis breaks and we are all slaughtered." He whispered

  some words, absently waved his wand.

  "Dissemination vanish, Solar execration banish. Wormwood high, cone-form low,

  Molecules resume thy flow."

  Light returned, rich and welcome, to the dimensionally distorted interior of the

  tree. With the darkness went the feeling of unclean things crawling about

  Jon-Tom's back. Lizard songs sounded again from the branches outside.

  "If you don't mind my saying so, your magic isn't at all what I expected,"

  Jon-Tom ventured.

  "What did you expect, lad?"

  "Where I come from, magic formulae are always done up with potions made from

  things like spiders' legs and rabbits' feet and... oh, I don't know. Mystic

  verbs from Latin and other old languages."

  Mudge snorted derisively while Pog, peering out from a doorway, allowed himself

  a squeaky chuckle. Clothahump merely eyed the pair disapprovingly.

  "As for spiders' legs, lad, the little ones underfoot are no good for much of

  anything. The greater ones, on the other hand... but I've never been to

  Gossameringue, and never expect to." Clothahump gestured, indicating spiders as

  long as his arm, and Jon-Tom held off inquiring about Gossameringue, not to

  mention the whereabouts of spiders of such magnitude.

  "As for the rabbits' feet, I'd expect any self-respecting rabbit to cut me up

  and use me for a washbasin if I so much as broached the idea. Words are

  time-proven by experimentation, and agreed upon during meetings of the

  sorcerers' grand council."