neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

“Then why don’t you teach me? Help me to learn?” Clothahump sighed. “Some things cannot be taught. Nor can I cast a spell to improve your voice. At best you might become an accompanist to your father. His fingers are not as fast as they once were.”

“Thanks for your help.” Barely containing his sarcasm, Buncan rose and headed for the doorway. It was terribly impolite: He should have waited to be dismissed. Clothahump could have restrained him easily with a few choice words. Instead, the wizard simply watched the youth depart, peering down over his beak through his thick glasses.

“You must make your own decisions, lad. You’re nearly old enough to do that.”

Buncan whirled. “What do you mean ‘nearly’? I’m going to be a spellsinger and do great deeds. Whether you approve or not, or whether my father approves or not! Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” He shoved the sputtering, flapping owl out of his way.

“Let him go, Mulwit,” said Clothahump tiredly. “After the first hundred years he’ll begin to understand. If he lives that long.”

“What was that all about, Master?” The owl began to gather up the tea service. Clothahump raised a hand.

“Leave it. This spring cleaning exhausts me. As does the impatience of youth.”

“The huuuman vexed youuu, Master?” Mulwit could not conceal his pleasure.

“We disagreed on the path he has chosen. As do his parents. That’s normal, of course. But in the lad’s case it could prove truly dangerous.”

“I never disagree with youuu, Master.”

“No. You’re as slavishly obsequious a servant as anyone could ask for.”

“Does that mean,” said Mulwit eagerly, “that youuu show me the fourth-level aerial spell which enables one tooo fly without breathing?”

“Not just yet. You have other tasks to master first. Like how to get a sink whiter than white.”

“But, Master, youuur sink is not white.”

“Therein lies the magic. Now behave yourself, or I’ll turn you into a kiwi. How’d you like to spend the rest of your apprenticeship flightless, with a long beak and hairy feathers?”

“No, Master! I meant no disrespect. I’ll hurry back tooo helping the windstorm with the cleaning.” He bounced anxiously off the far wall, like a bug seeking a way through a window.

“See that you do. And keep out of its way while it’s at work. There are enough loose feathers around the house as it is.”

The owl disappeared. Clothahump finished his tea, then rose with the slowness of great age and stared out the window toward the distant woods. There was no sign of young Meriweather. Clothahump hoped he was on his way home, though that was unlikely.

Well, it wasn’t his responsibility. He had other matters to attend to. There were alcoves and storage chambers inside the tree that hadn’t been scoured in a hundred years. That’s what happened when you put off cleaning for a few decades. Jon-Tom and Talea would have to straighten the lad out by themselves.

Checking the drawers set in his plastron, he trundled off in the direction of his workshop. The tornado ought to be about finished there by now. Have to make sure and empty it outside, he reminded himself.

As the wizard suspected, Buncan did not head back toward school or home. Instead he found himself wandering in the direction of the Shortstub, which was itself a tributary of the river Tailaroam, without any particular destination in mind. He was angry at Clothahump both for his summation of Buncan’s prospects and for his honesty. Just as he was angry at his schoolmates, his teachers, his parents, and most of the rest of the world, all of which seemed to him engaged in a vast conspiracy to prevent him from doing what he wanted.

In short, he was feeling quite normal for an active eighteen-year-old male.

“So I’m a little off-key,” he muttered to himself as he walked. “I can still sing. Dad couldn’t sing either when he was first dumped in this world, but he worked on it, and now he manages.” Although, Buncan had to admit, Jon-Tom still didn’t possess the kind of voice that would sell tickets. “I can get better,” he insisted to himself. “I can—”

A sudden sharp sound interrupted his self-pitying reverie and he halted in his tracks, looking around anxiously. The tornado coming after him? Could wind hold a grudge? It was getting late, and it occurred to him that no one knew where he was.

As he gazed nervously into the forest, something hit him from behind and sent him tumbling. He found himself caught up in a flurry of blows and dirt and confusion. But it wasn’t the tornado. It was something far more active and a good deal less stratified.

Rolling free of the turmoil, he stood and tried to brush himself off. “Very funny,” he murmured.

The nearest of his two assailants was holding his sides, laughing in short, barking yips as he rolled back and forth on the ground. “Well, I thought it was pretty funny, mate!”

His sister sat up and regarded her sibling. “Cor, but it weren’t that funny, Squill.”

“Wot? Why, it were downright hysterical, squinch-face!” Before Buncan could venture his own commentary the two had fallen to fighting again, locked in each other’s arms as they tussled in the grass and dirt. Somehow they managed to keep their clothing intact despite the ferocious level of activity.

Having observed this typical otterish sibling behavior innumerable times before, Buncan simply waited patiently. Another minute or so and it would end. Which was precisely what happened. The two adolescent otters separated, stood, and straightened their attire as they joined him on the horizontal tree root where he was sitting.

Both were full-grown, nearly five feet tall on their short hind legs. Squill was imperceptibly heavier than his sister. He wore a pale-green peaked cap decorated with three feathers, each purchased from a different bird. His vest was a darker shade of green and his short pants brown. A shoulder pouch hung off his neck and across his chest. Both he and his sister carried bows and arrow-filled quivers across their backs and short swords at their sides.

Instead of a hat his sister Neena sported a multihued headband with a thin cabachon of maroon jasper set in the center of her forehead. Bright blue and yellow streaks flowed in waves from the corners of her eyes, running toward the back of her head and up toward her ears. The body paint had been applied with skill and diligence, fur being harder to make up than bare skin. Gold glitter glistened within the paint. Similar designs decorated her short, protruding tail. Her shorts were cut to a more feminine pattern man were her brother’s, and were pale yellow to match her fuller vest. As for the wrestling match, it might as well never have happened.

Her tail twitched as she eyed her tall human friend. “Wot are you doin’ out ‘ere all by your lonesome, Buns?”

“Being angry.”

“Oi, we can see that in yer face, mate.” With his short, clipped claws Squill dug idly at the root’s exposed bark.

How can they see anything in my face? “You can’t see anything, fish-breath.”

Neena let out an appreciative hysterical bark which resulted in her brother jumping her immediately. Buncan sighed as he watched them brawl, not really interested. A moment later it was all over and they rejoined him as though nothing had happened. Which to their way of thinking was exactly the case. One simply had to tolerate such goings-on when one was in the company of otters. Especially adolescent otters. They had more energy than a shrew on uppers.

For their part, they had to slow down not only their movements but their speech when they chose to share the company of anything as plodding as a human.

Squill carefully straightened the feathers in his cap while his sister adjusted her headband.