by neetha Napew
Fighting to restrain his excitement, Gragelouth inquired delicately, “If we can fix the problem permanently, will you let us see the Grand Veritable?”
The sabertooth’s green gaze shifted back to the merchant. “If you can fix this so it doesn’t hurt anymore, ever, I’ll give you the damn thing!”
The merchant’s face broke out into a wholly uncharacteristic wide smile.
“Right,” muttered Buncan. “Let’s do it.” He huddled with the otters while the others, including the tormented sabertooth, waited expectantly. Torn between a natural desire to rend and tear, which he was obligated to do, and a desperate need to alleviate the worsening pain in his jaw, the Guardian sat silent as a house pet and waited. Before long the human confronted him again. “We’re ready.” When the Guardian didn’t respond he nodded to his companions.
The rhythm was gentler than any they’d employed previously, coaxing rather than challenging, soothing instead of belligerent. No problem with that. Rap was adaptable. They’d just never had the occasion to speak softly before.
“Ain’t no gain without no pain
But the pain, in the main
She’s a tiresome refrain, the bane
Of existence
Do we make sense?
Got to chuck it out
Shouldn’t have to shout
That it’s plain that the pain
Is on the wane an’ on its way out.”
As they played and sang, a small silvery cloud, a miniature of those which formed so often when they spellsang, drifted from the duar’s nexus to the Guardian’s mouth. It swirled gently about the infected tooth, taking on multiple forms and shapes: now a small pointed instrument, now one through which glistening white liquid flowed.
An expression wondrous to behold slipped over the sabertooth’s face like a cleansing wrap, an expression not mere seen since it had been a cub. Though only the corners of his mouth curved upward, there was no mistaking the contortion for what it was: a smile.
As the silver radiance faded, the heavy paw which had temporarily pinned Gragelouth rose to feel gingerly of the area around the left saber. The merchant dared to inspect the sensitive region yet again.
“The dark gap appears to be gone.”
“It is gone!” Emitting a roar of pure delight, the Guardian leaped into the air, turned a complete somersault, and landed effortlessly on all fours. The light in his eyes burned as brightly as before: Only the motivation had changed.
Neena considered the sabertooth thoughtfully. “Mate, you really ought to learn to walk on your ‘hid legs, proper like.”
The Guardian nodded. “I know that’s how it’s done these days, but I’m one of the Forgotten, or soon-to-be. Many of the old ways are still mine. I’m comfortable with them.” He rubbed his jaw. “More comfortable than I’ve been in some time.”
“Let him be,” Snaugenhutt advised her. “Some of us just ain’t inclined to walk vertical.”
“I keep my word.” The sabertooth pointed toward his cave. “It’s just inside. Don’t want to trip over it in the dark.”
Duncan turned to gaze at the cave. After all they had been through, it seemed impossible they’d actually achieved their goal. More important, if the Guardian was not lying, it seemed that there was actually a goal to achieve. The Grand Veritable was real. Real what remained to be seen.
“You’ve done so much for me,” the sabertooth was saying. “Wait here and I’ll bring it out to you.” Springing from the rock on which he’d been sitting, he loped into the cave.
Buncan waited; they all waited. Even Gragelouth, who had to restrain himself from following the Guardian into his lair.
“Can’t be very big,” Neena observed. “Not if the cat can drag it out all by ‘imself.”
“Maybe ‘tis a pink diamond the size o’ ‘is “cad,” Squill commented hopefully.
“Or a wand.” Now that they were actually about to encounter the mysterious source of legends, Buncan recalled the odd mixture of disdain and apprehension with which Clothahump had treated the subject. “No matter how innocent or harmless it looks, we need to be careful with it.”
“ ‘Ell, you worry too much, mate.” Squill twisted completely around to groom his tail. A human attempting the same move would have to dislocate his spine. “Wotever it is, it ain’t ‘art this ‘ere kitty-cat none. I’d say ‘e’s ‘ad plenty o’ time to play with it, and if it couldn’t cure ‘is bloomin’ toothache, then I says there can’t be much power in it.”
“Perhaps it is possessed of a different sort of power.” Gragelouth’s gaze was fixated on the cave mourn.
All speculation aside, there wasn’t one among them who wasn’t surprised when the sabertooth finally reemerged with the object held firmly but respectfully in his mouth.
“Well, I’ll be orificed.” Neena sat down right where she’d been standing. A puzzled Snaugenhutt simply smiled and shook his great head, while Viz let out a series of bemused whistles.
“What’s that!” A wary Buncan bent for a better look as the Guardian carefully placed the object on a smooth-surfaced boulder.
“The Grand Veritable,” the sabertooth replied. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? What you traveled all mis way to find?”
“Righty-ho,” said Squill, frowning at the subject under discussion, “but wot is it? Wot do it do?”
“Do?” The Guardian was openly bemused. “Why, it doesn’t ‘do’ anything. It just is. Truth, that is. The Grand Veritable is truth, just as its name implies. That’s what the Ancient Ones who set my kind to watch over it said.”
Gragelouth sat down heavily, moaning. “Solipsisms. All mis way come, all this distance traversed, great dangers and perils overcome, for that.”
The rejuvenated sabertooth growled. “Don’t underestimate it. Truth is the most valuable of all commodities . . . and the most dangerous.”
Squill gave the object a tentative kick. It did not react. “Don’t look so dangerous to me.”
The Guardian grinned. “You can’t hurt the truth that way.”
Gragelouth put one hand to his forehead. “What good is truth to me? I’m a merchant, a trader. You can’t sell truth.”
Neena let out a derisive bark. “Why not? I thought the stuff were always in short supply.”
The sloth looked up at her. “Tram’s an intangible. I do not deal in intangibles.”
She knelt next to the object. “Looks kind of . . . broken.”
“I assure you it’s not.” Bright green eyes studied Gragelouth. “I owe you much. Had I eaten you, there’s no telling how long I’d have continued to suffer. So you are a merchant in ‘tangible’ things? I know about merchants. I’ve had several for dinner. There exists a base for the Grand Veritable. Maybe you’d find it of more interest than the Veritable itself.”
The sloth blinked slowly. “I do not understand.”
“Come and have a look-see.” The sabertooth started toward the cave. So despondent was Gragelouth that he followed without thinking.
Time passed while Buncan and the others studied the Grand Veritable closely. Their examination left them no less baffled than when the Guardian had first presented it to mem.
A voice shouted from the lip of the cave. “Hoy, Snaugenhutt! Come give us a hand here, would you?” The rhino shrugged and ambled over. As it developed, the assistance of Duncan and the otters was required as well.
Deeply graven with cryptic inscriptions, the ancient pedestal was as tall as Neena. Poured in the shape of a pyramid with the top sliced off to form a resting place for the Veritable, it was so heavy it required their combined efforts to wrestle it into place on Snaugenhutt’s back, where they secured it with leather straps. Still, Squill worried about it falling off on their return journey.
“No need to concern yourself on that matter.” Grage-louth’s eyes were shining. “I will ride alongside and see to its stability.”
At least, Buncan mused, they wouldn’t have to worry about it blowing away. The pedest
al was fashioned of solid, absolutely pure gold. The purest gold, Gragelouth breathlessly informed them, he had ever seen. A gold that was not of this world, but was recognizably gold nonetheless.
“No revelations,” he commented, “but for all that, a most profitable journey. Yes, most profitable.”
‘Ere now.” Squill was quick to protest. “Wot makes you think feat bit o’ furniture’s all yours?”
The merchant looked hurt. “You came seeking adventure. Surely you have had that in quantity. You also have the Veritable. The wizard of whom you spoke should find it of considerable interest. Each of us has gained what we came for. Do not mink to deprive me of my dream, however base you may find my motives.”
“Take it easy,” Buncan told him. “We don’t want your gold.”
The otters gaped at him. “We don’t?” they chorused.
“Gragelouth’s right. We’ve gained more from mis journey man mere gold could buy.”
“But,” Squill sputtered, “maybe just a little mere gold . . . ?”
Buncan had turned away from him and back to the Veritable. “I still don’t see how this thing embodies or represents truth.”
A frustrated Squill gave it anomer kick. “It don’t embody nothin’ but garbage, Buncan. Me, I’d rather ‘ave a share o’ the gold.”
Buncan knelt next to the large, rectangular metal box and ran his fingers over the surface. There were glass-covered numbers with little arrows pointing to them, round knobs and buttons, and a large window beneath which a paper scroll was prominent. A narrow metal pointer thrust hallway up the height of the scroll, which was in turn divided by innumerable little black squares, and a black rope that ended in a twin-pronged knob of some kind protruded from the rear of the box. The exterior was somewhat the worse for wear, but intact at the corners and seams. Of one dung Buncan was certain: The Grand Veritable was indubitably a device necromantic.
“Be careful,” the Guardian warned nun as he fiddled with the knobs and buttons. “It’s enchanted.”
“It’s manure,” groused Squill. Because of his long torso and short arms, he had to bend almost double in order to thrust bis hands angrily into his pockets. He leaned over Buncan’s shoulder and shouted at the bruised and scratched box.
“Go on, men; show us somethin’!” Stepping around Buncan and ignoring his protests, the otter picked up the container and shook it firmly. It made quite a bit of noise, as if mere were a number of small bits rattling around loose inside. Disgusted, he let it drop unceremoniously. “Some source o’ ultimate power!” he griped. “A smidgen overrated, wouldn’t you say?”
“Like most wondrous rumors.” There was a hint of sadness in Neena’s voice.
“Maybe we just don’t know how to make it work?” Buncan suggested.
“A spellsong?” Neena eyed the box uncertainly.
Buncan looked doubtful. “How to begin? We don’t know what it’s capable of or what it can do, if anything. So how do we design a song?”
“Why sing to that hunk o’ junk?” Squill had turned his back on the sorry-looking Veritable. “Might as well sing to the trees, or the sky. The ‘truth’ is that we’ve come all this bloomin’ way for nothin’. If the bloody thing ever did do anythin’, it don’t no more.”
“Where’s your sense of vision, of higher motives?” Buncan challenged him.
Squill squinted up at his friend. “I’m an otter, mate. We don’t ‘ave a sense o’ vision or ‘igher motives. We ‘ave fun. Gold aids an’ abets that. Junk don’t.”
“Come on Squill. Which would be more valuable to you: the truth, or a little gold?”
The otter made a truly appalling face. “Let me get back to you on that, mate.”
Disappointed, Buncan turned back to the object of controversy. “Maybe Clothahamp and Jon-Tom can do something with it.” Bending,’he carefully raised it off the rocks. It was heavy, but not unduly so.
“You don’t mean you’re goin’ to take up ridin’ space with that thing?” Squill was more outraged than angry.
“It’s my space. I’ll make room for it.” With those few remaining straps which hadn’t been used to secure the pedestal, Buncan set about tying the Grand Veritable to Snaugenhutt’s back.
They left the sabertooth on his mountain, turning somersaults and yelping with joy as he snapped at trees, rocks, and whatever else struck his fancy, biting for the sheer joy of being able to once again bite without pain.
CHAPTER 26
The journey home proved far easier and faster man it had been coming out, for they knew which areas to avoid and which to stick to. This time they encountered no caucusing whirlwinds or animate mesas. They crossed the Sprilashoone downstream of Camrioca and its doubtless still-seething Baron Krasvin. By the time they reached the Muddletup Moors they found its brooding atmosphere almost invigorating, so near were they to home. After what seemed like an age (but if you think carefully about it was really not so very long as all that), they found themselves again in the bright and friendly confines of the Beilwoods, heading south. Timswitty provided civilized comforts for a day and a night, and then it was on to Lynchbany, passing to the west of Oglagia Towne. There they parted company with Gragelouth, leaving him to see to the melting down of his beloved gold into more manageable form.
Upon greeting her long-absent, wayward son, Talea alternated hugs and kisses with blows of such ferocity that it was uncertain as to whether she would love or beat him to death. Squill and Neena received similar attention from Mudge and Weegee (bear in mind that otters can deliver attention of bom kinds at twice the rate of the fastest human).
When everyone’s respective offspring had recovered from their shower of affection and concurrent beating, there was a formal gathering at Clothahump’s tree. As the wizard’s dimensional expansion spell had not been designed to accommodate individuals of Snaugenhutt’s bulk, the rhino waited outside, placidly cropping the fresh grass.
The rest of them assembled in Clothahump’s central workshop, Viz sharing a perch and whispered conversation with the wizard’s famulus, Mulwit. The Grand Veritable rested, a mute and battered enigma, on the wooden workbench. Jon-Tom and his hard-shelled mentor regarded it thoughtfully.
“So this is the Grand Veritable. The Grand Veritable.” Clothahump nibbed at his lower jaw, cautiously nudged the box with a finger. When it didn’t go off he prodded it again, harder. There was no reaction. “I admit it doesn’t look like much, but then, the truth rarely does.”
“Ought to be in Lynchbany,” Squill mumbled rebelliously, “sharin’ out the gold with that greedy sloth.”
“Be glad you returned with your lives.” Jon-Tom glared at the young otter, who dropped his eyes.
“Should ‘ave you sheared,” said Weegee, “ ‘til you look like a naked mole-rat. That’d be fit punishment for the worry you gave us.”
Indifferent to this ongoing display of domestic bliss, Clothahump continued to prod and examine the mysterious device. But it was Jon-Tom who finally spoke up.
“I think there’s one thing I can say with some certainty.” Everyone looked to him. “It’s definitely a mechanism from my world.”
“I suspected as much but wished to hear you confirm it.” The wizard adjusted the glasses which rode on the forepart of his beak. “Do you have any idea as to its intended function?”
Jon-Tom looked thoughtful. “According to what the kids have told us, it’s supposed to be, or to represent, truth. In my world we have a machine called a polygraph. When I was a law student I got to see several. This is an old model, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.” He hesitated. “Though I suppose it could be a seismograph, or some other kind of graph.’ It’s pretty beat up.”
“The Guardian said it was enchanted,” Buncan informed them.
“Enchanted or not, the apparatuses I’m familiar with are far from perfect. All too often they fail to reveal the truth.”
At that the box gave an unexpected twitch. Jon-Tom glanced quickly at Clothahump. “You nudge
d it again.”
The wizard took a step backward, shaking his head. “Didn’t.”
Shimmering softly, the black cord rose into the air like an awakening cobra. The pronged knob turned slowly to face first Clothahump, then Jon-Tom. Slowly it scanned the rest of the room, weaving slightly from side to side. The guts of the machine were now pulsating a soft, luminous yellow, as though something vital had sparked to life within.
“I always tell the truth,” a voice announced through a tiny grid inset next to the glass-protected scroll. Buncan could see that the long metal needle or pointer was quivering. With indignation? he wondered.
“Then you are some kind of polygraph?” Jon-Tom inquired hesitantly.
The knob (which Buncan later learned was called a “plug” but which still looked like a snake’s head to him) pivoted to “face” the senior spellsinger. “I am the Grand Veritable. I am the Truth, and I never lie.”
Jon-Tom scratched behind one ear. “You’re a damn sight more voluble than any polygraph I ever saw. How’d you come to be here?”
“I don’t know. Truth travels everywhere. I remember a great storm, being studied and inspected, being transformed, enhanced, and enchanted, and finally ending up on a high place outside a cave. There I’ve slept for some time, until your offspring brought me hither.”
“What is your purpose?” Clothahump, Buncan noted, was treating the device as if it were some kind of highly poisonous reptile.
“To relate the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Squill let out a barking laugh. “Cor, this may turn out to be a bit o’ all right after all! If only that merchant knew wot he’d passed on in favor o’ a pile o’ gold.”
“It wouldn’t matter. He’s quite content.” The Veritable’s plug swung ‘round to confront the startled otter. “He wouldn’t know what to do with me. He is a merchant, after all.”
“I know what to do with you.” Clothahump kept a wary eye on the pulsating device.
The plug turned to him. “No, you don’t. That’s a lie. You continue to believe that I’m mortally dangerous, and hide that truth from your friends.”
