by neetha Napew
“You’re a liar, Bunkies.” Neena batted her lashes at him. “But I loves you anyway.” She glanced at her brother. “Wot ‘ave we got to lose, mussel-breath?” “If a spellsing goes awry?” Squill thrust out his lower lip. “Not much, I wager. Our fingers, maybe. Our voice boxes. Our ‘eads.”
“I’ll be careful,” Buncan assured him. “If it looks dangerous, I can kill the spell by putting the duar down. Or you can alter your lyrics, or just stop singing. You’ll be as much in control as I will.”
“Oi, that’s right.” Squill was still reluctant—he remembered too many of bis father’s stories—but with both Buncan and his sister egging him on, he finally gave in.
They reached the river and halted. Downstream lay the little aqueous suburb of Twinkle’s Bend, home to Squill and Neena, their parents Mudge and Weegee, and a diverse but generally copacetic assortment of riparian citizens: more otters, muskrats, beavers, kingfishers, and other water avi-ans, as well as those locals who simply preferred to live close by running water and the delights it afforded. Presently the river below them was deserted. The Shortstub did not carry anywhere near the volume of commerce of its much larger relative, the Tailaroam, which ran deep and wide all the way down to the Glittergeist Sea.
Buncan had spent many a contented afternoon splashing and diving with his friends in those invigorating waters. They were good about not teasing him, for while he was an excellent swimmer for his kind, no human alive could match the aquatic acrobatics of even the youngest, most inept otter.
It was something other than swimming that was currently on his mind, however.
The bank on which they stood rose some nine feet above the river, falling in a gentle slope to a gravelly beach. At the high-water mark mature trees gave way to weeds and bushes. Sunbeams splashed dappling on the languid water with the ease and skill of a knife spreading butter. Nothing moved in the forest on the far side, though the Belltrees there chorused in counterpoint to those on the other side every time they were agitated by a passing breeze.
Buncan chose a convenient boulder for a seat, plunked himself down, and readied the duar. His legs dangled over a drop of several fleet. The otters eyed him expectantly.
“This is your show, mate,” said Squill. “Wot’ll we sing about?” Neena adjusted her headband, primping.
“You did pretty well before. I thought you two might come up with something.”
“Not me. You’re the one who wants to save the world. As if it asked you.”
It should be profound, Buncan mused. But for the life of him he couldn’t think of anything. It was a lovely day, the river was calm, he could not espy any evil sorcerers lurking in the Bellwoods, and no one in the immediate vicinity was screaming for help. Spellsinging in such circumstances seemed suddenly superfluous.
He had to try something. If he waited, given the otters’ demonstrated reluctance to participate, they might never again prove so amenable. Especially if either Mudge or Weegee found out what they’d been up to.
“I’m hungry,” said Neena unexpectedly.
“We’ll be ‘avin’ supper soon enough,” her brother reminded her.
“Cor, but I’m ‘ungry now.” She stared at Buncan. “ ‘Ow about we try to conjure up some food? We’re right on the Shortstub. ‘Ow about we spellsing out some nice fish?”
Fish aren’t very profound, Buncan reflected. “That’s not much of a challenge,” he responded dubiously.
Her tail twitched animatedly as she jabbed a short finger in his direction. “You listen to me, Bunkles. It’s all very well an’ good to want to go off battlin’ ‘ellish ‘ordes an’ upliftin’ the downtrodden an’ all that rot, but a bloke’s liable to work up one ‘ell of an appetite in the process. So let’s see if we can manage a snack first.”
“I did say we’d start with something simple,” he mumbled.
“Mudge would approve,” Neena added.
“Sure ‘e would.” Squill whistled appreciatively. “Mudge approves o’ anythin’ ‘avin’ to do with food.”
“Food it is, then.” Buncan sighed. “I’m waiting.”
Once more the siblings conferenced. When they separated, Neena nodded at Buncan. Three feet tapped out a unified beat.
“Got no gear, got no line.
Still wanna eat, wanna eat what’s fine.
Bring it from the bottom, bring it from the depth
Bring up somethin’ swimmin’ to where we can get it
Bet it, better not let it, better not set it
Down too far, down far away, hey, hey
Wanna eat what’s fine but I gots no line.”
The otters rapped a nice, relaxed rhythm, one Buncan could follow easily. A satisfyingly bright green nimbus coalesced at the nexus of the duar’s strings as the harmonious blend of otterish voices and dual sets of strings drifted out across the placid expanse of the Shortstub.
No fish responded by breaking the opalescent surface to land at their feet. No silver-sided morsels manifested mem-selves alongside the boulder. The river flowed on undisturbed and indifferent.
Buncan’s fingers drifted from the strings. “Come on,” he urged them. “You’re not putting your hearts into this. I’ve heard Jon-Tom talk about this a lot. Making magic with music means more than just playing the chords and mouthing the words. You’ve got to put your whole soul, your deepest feelings, into what you’re doing.”
“Wot the ‘ell do you dunk we’re doin’, mate?” snapped Squill.
“Yeah. I mean, I’m really ‘ungry, I am,” his sister added.
“You have to try harder,” Buncan admonished them. “Don’t dunk about spellsinging, don’t think about magic. Just dunk about how hungry you are.”
“She’s the one who’s ‘ungry, not me,” Squill protested.
Buncan glared at him. “Well, get hungry!”
The otter looked thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, all this ‘ere work ‘tis made me a touch ravenous. Cor, I believes I can feel the pangs workin’ in me belly even us I stand ‘ere speakin’.”
Buncan smiled. “Right, that’s the spirit.” His fingers returned to the strings. “Let’s give it another try. And really put your hearts and your minds into it this time, as well as your stomachs.”
The otters put men- whiskers together and started over. Buncan could sense the difference immediately. The lyrics contained the kind of barely constrained energy only a pair of otters could muster a nervous, teeth-tingling, edgy concentration of adrenaline. Despite his skill, Buncan was suddenly hard-pressed to keep up with them.
A waxen dark-green mist appeared on the river, palpitating energy sucked hither from some cabalistic fog bank by the power of the spellsong. It eddied and intensified, a curdled haze, shifting about as unpredictably as a cloud uncertain of where the wind was preparing to blow it next.
A faint trembling began underfoot as the earth itself grew nervous. Pebbles jostled and clicked against one another and blades of grass vibrated, a thousand tiny tuning forks attuned to an unnatural disturbance of vast potency.
Maybe, Buncan thought, starting to sweat a little, maybe this could get out of hand. The otters rapped on, oblivious to his concern.
A portion of the bank beneath him collapsed and he half tumbled, half slid off the boulder, scrambling madly in search of more solid ground. That he never missed a beat on the duar was a credit more to his physical than mental resiliency. On the far side of the Shortstub, cracks appeared in the hitherto stable bank as soil and sand crumbled into the water, leaving damp V-shaped scars behind.
Something stupendous was coalescing within the fog. Something slick of flank and commodious of bulk. A fish, as Squill and Neena had demanded. A fish, but bigger than any Buncan had ever seen. Bigger than any he had ever imagined. He played on mechanically, mesmerized by the vision, unable to stop.
As it jutted out of the mist, loomed above it, seriously disturbed the waters beneath, one thing became quickly apparent. It was not a fish.
He raised h
is voice. “Hey! You guys can stop rapping now.” He pointed.
They’d been singin He pointed.
They’d been singin Now they turned, following his gesture. “Sister,” Squill murmured through a long, eloquent whistle, “while I’ve been on occasion amazed by your appetite, I didn’t realize you were quite this ‘ungry.”
The conjuration nearly filled the river from bank to bank. It was twenty times as long as Buncan was tall and must have weighed as much or more than the combined population of Lynchbany, with that of a few outlying farms and maybe a small suburb or two thrown in for good measure. In color it was a light blue on top, a whitish slate-gray underneath. White spots splotched the striated lower jaw. A lurch of its massive tail sent a miniature tidal wave crashing against the far bank. Water plants and fish flew in all directions.
An eye that was small only comparatively located them. The immense skull struggled to turn in their direction, but was constrained by a combination of the green fog and the narrowness of the river channel.
“LET ME GUESS.” The voice rumbled and reverberated like a great bell. “YOU THREE WOULDN’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY BEING HERE, WOULD YOU?”
“Ummmm . . .” Squill jerked a finger in his sister’s direction. “It were all ‘er idea.”
“Wot?” she squeaked, outraged.
“Well, you were the one who were so bleedin’ ‘ungry!”
Instantly they were clamped in furious internecine combat, rolling about on the now soggy riverbank, flailing and kicking and scratching and biting at one another.
“Otters.” Buncan smiled wanly, as though this explained everything.
“I CAN SEE THAT.” The grievously displaced blue whale spoke with immense gravity. “THE POINT IS, I SEEM TO BE MISSING AN OCEAN. THERE’S NOT REALLY ENOUGH WATER HERE TO SUPPORT ME, AND I’M ALREADY HAVING A BIT OF DIFFICULTY BREATHING. SO IF YOU DON’T MIND . . . ?”
Buncan swallowed. “Uh, what happens if we can’t put you back?”
“WHY, THEN YOU HAVE A VERY LARGE CORPSE TO DISPOSE OF AND A BLOOD FEUD WITH ALL MY BRETHREN.”
Since Buncan had from time to time entertained thoughts of traveling upon the sea, and since this desire might be rendered difficult to fulfill if every great whale upon the waters was made of a mind to kill him, he thought it wise to do his best to prevent that condition from coming about. Preferably as soon as possible.
“It was an accident.” He tried to explain, gesturing in Neena’s direction. “My friend was hungry and wanted a fish.”
“DO I LOOK LIKE A FISH?” inquired the sulphurbottom.
“Only marginally.”
“WOULD IT NOT BE INCORRECT OF ME TO ASSUME THAT MY INVOLUNTARY PLACEMENT IN THIS INSIGNIFICANT ESTUARY IS THE RESULT OF SORCERY GONE AWRY?”
“Like I said, it was an accident.” Despite the whale’s intimidating size and manner, Buncan held his ground. After all, it wasn’t likely to burst from the river and come running after them (he hoped).
Certainly, they had to save it by sending it back where it had come from. He couldn’t stand the thought of having its death on his hands. His conscience wouldn’t stand for it.
Besides, his father might find out.
“Don’t worry. We’ll send you back. I’m not entirely sure how we brought you here, but we’ll send you back. As soon as I can get my friends to stop trying to kill each other.”
“I SHOULD APPRECIATE THAT,” boomed the whale.
Though it was not unlike trying to unwind a hurricane, Buncan managed to separate the otters. Squill glared at his sister, recovered his precious hat, and taunted her as she struggled to make sense of her makeup.
“Go on,” he urged her, “tell our guest ‘ow you really wanted to eat him.”
“Go sit on your face.” She looked to Buncan as she brushed dirt and grass from her clothes. “ ‘Ow do we send this back to the deep ocean, spellsinger?”
Buncan mumbled a reply. “You two came up with the lyrics that brought it here.”
“I was ‘ungry. I’m inspired when I’m ‘ungry. I thought our singin” would get us a little bitty somethin’ out o’ the river. Not this bloody great mass o’ blubber.”
“IT IS ASSISTANCE I REQUIRE, NOT FLATTERY.” The otters conferred, finally nodding at Buncan, who began to play with more hope than assurance. Perhaps because they were becoming more confident, or perhaps out of fear of what Mudge would do to them if they failed, they rapped with greater facility than ever before. Buncan’s accompaniment was equally accomplished.
The green mist coalesced afresh around the immense bulk, from which eventually issued a relieved sigh of satisfaction. “BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME. AMATEURS,” it concluded. Buncan gritted his teeth and offered no comment, not wishing or daring to do anything that might interrupt the flow of the spellsinging.
“Send it back, back
Back to the sea, back to the water, back ‘ome
“Ome, ‘ome, not the Shortstub to roam
Down in the depths, in the depths, away from ‘ere
Steer it clear, steer it free
Don’t y’see, free, away from me and away from Thee.”
There was a sharp bang, and a brief but intense gust of green wind knocked the three of them off their feet. Previously dammed up by the whale’s bulk, the abruptly released accumulated flow of the Shortstub surged in a towering wave downstream, racing toward its distant juncture with the mighty Tailaroam.
Squill watched the wave recede around the far bend as he levered himself up on his elbows. “I don’t know if it ‘as occurred to any of you lot yet, but it strikes me that this ‘ere sudden spurt o’ water ‘as the potential to be somewot upsettin’ to them wot lives downriver.”
“There’ve been floods on the Shortstub before,” his sister pointed out.
“Not this time o’ year, fungus-lips.” Her brother jabbed a thumb skyward. “Not in this kind o’ weather.”
“Boats, docks, front porches.” Buncan envisioned wholesale downstream destruction as he contemplated the turbulent tributary. “Maybe it would be a good idea if we didn’t mention this little episode to anyone for a while?”
“Capital idea.” Squill was quick to second the suggestion. “Like maybe, never.”
“I think we could leave now.” Neena was eyeing her friend and her brother intently. “And get ‘ome fast.”
There was no need to wait for concurrence.
As they hurried back through the Bellwoods, Bur.can couldn’t resist nudging the otter nearest him. “It worked, Squill. Maybe not exactly the way we intended, but it worked. We spellsang. We performed great magic.”
The otter squinted up at him. “Blimey but you’re a ‘ard one to convince, Duncan. Next time we’re ‘aif likely to bring a mountain down on top of us.”
“Come on,” Buncan prodded his friends. “Aren’t you proud of what we just accomplished? Didn’t you get a little charge out of it?”
“Well. .just a flicker, maybe.”
“Yeah, right.” Buncan was grinning hugely. “We put a little too much into the spell, that’s all. With practice we can do better. Modulate, refine. Neena, you want to try for your fish again?”
“I’m not ‘ungry anymore, Bunkies. We’ve got to do some serious thinkin’ about this.”
“An otter, serious?” he chided her. When she didn’t reply, he lowered his tone. “All right. We can talk about it tomorrow. And if anybody asks us about what happened on the river, we don’t know anything, right?”
“Bloody right,” Squill muttered.
“But we’re a team. Don’t forget that. Sure I’d like to be able to spellsing like that all by myself, but being part of a team has its advantages, too. I can concentrate all my efforts on the duar.”
Neena glared at bun. “CM, and the next time we do somethin’ equally stupid we can run away in three different directions and maybe one o’ us will survive.”
“Don’t be so negative. You’d think you’d never seen a whale before.”
“
Never ‘ad,” said Squill solemnly, “and neither ‘ad you, except in pictures. Seemed like a right enough bloke, though. Just a bit put out.”
“Think about this, though.” Buncan was hard put to rein in his enthusiasm. “If we can spellsing up something like that when we’re just trying for a fish dinner, imagine what we might do if we take our time and really make an effort to do something serious. We could do better than Jon-Tom, or maybe even Clothahump. We could change the world.”
“Ain’t sure I want to change the world, mate.” Squill spat to one side as he jogged through the woods. “ “Us a nice day. Maybe if it were blowin’ cold I’d try somethin’.”
“Just think about what we’ve done. That’s all I ask.”
All three fell into a contemplative silence as they hurried on through the forest, the Belltrees chiming uneasily around them.
CHAPTER 5
After the episode in the woods Buncan made a show of tending seriously to his studies, but each day he waited for the opportunity to meet with Squill and Neena. They chose a small glade well away from the river in which to practice. Not out of fear of encountering any more polite but irritated cetaceans, but to avoid those angry citizens whose waterfront homes and business establishments had been damaged by the mysterious tidal bore of some days previous.
They sang only small spells, conjuring up nothing they couldn’t deal with on a nontheurgic level, practicing and refining their ability to match Buncan’s music to the otters’ improvised lyrics. Repetition gave rise to confidence as they invented raps for recovering spent arrows or blunting sword points.
Sharpened skills enabled them to turn grass blue, or open sizable holes in the ground without the use of spade or shovel. They spellsang into existence not raw fish but cooked food, and sleeping platforms complete with fresh linen.
