neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

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 nudged 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.”

Everyone turned to look at Clothahump, who sputtered and harrumphed uncomfortably. Jon-Tom sought to cover his mentor’s embarrassment.

“Why haven’t you spoken before now?”

“No one addressed me, no one questioned me. But you,” and the plug darted sharply in the spellsinger’s direction, “insulted me, and I felt I had to defend myself. When all one has to offer is the truth, one can’t sit silently aside and let it be besmirched.”

Clothahump peered over the top of his glasses at his young human colleague. “Are all such devices in your world this forward?”

Jon-Tom shook his head. “Usually they’re speechless. But then, in my world I couldn’t make magic with my singing, either. I acquired certain abilities when I stepped over here. Maybe the same is true for machines. It seems to be for this one, anyway.” He considered the enchanted polygraph. “Unless it’s lying, of course.”

“I never lie,” the Veritable insisted. The plug drooped. “Sometimes I wish that I could. There are so many floating about unexposed. Lies, that is. Never enough time to deal with mem all.”

“If you’re telling the truth,” Jon-Tom reiterated. “Couldn’t we try it out?” Neena suggested. “On each other?”

“I do not know,” Clothahump said slowly, “if that is such a good idea. As I have been trying to point out all along, the truth can be a dangerous thing.”

“And that’s no lie,” the Veritable declared. “You’re very perceptive, turtle.”

“I am the greatest wizard in all the worlds.” Clothahump spoke quietly and without a hint of boastfulness. It was significant that the Veritable did not contradict him.

“I’ve got an idea.” Sudden excitement suffused Squill’s face. “ ‘Ow’s about we take this ‘ere yappin’ box into town?”

“That is not a good idea either.” Clothahump hesitated. “Still, under carefully controlled conditions, the experience could be enlightening. For everyone.”

Buncan looked to his father. “You can always spellsing any problems away, Dad.”

“Uh, yeah, right,” Jon-Tom mumbled. The Veritable piped up without prodding. “That’s a lie.” Talea glared at the box. “I wonder if the spell under which you’re enchanted could survive a few well-placed sword strokes.”

The plug stiffened. “You can’t cut down the truth.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of a machine that’s smarter than me,” Jon-Tom opined.

“I am not smarter than you,” the Veritable declared formally. “That, too, is the truth. I just call ‘em as I see ‘em, and I’m always right.”

“Every time?”

The cord nodded. “Every time.”

“Pity we can’t unplug you for a while.” “You can’t turn the truth on and off like water, spellsinger.”

He frowned at the machine. “You don’t need to analyze everything I say.”

“Sorry. It’s what I do. Call it a job-related compulsion.”

Jon-Tom stared at the box for a long moment before turning to his mentor. “You’re right, Clothahump. You were right before the kids found this thing, and you’re right now. It’s dangerous as hell, and we’ve got to get rid of it.”

Buncan and his friends immediately protested. They found an ally in Mudge.

“ ‘Ere now, mate. Let’s not be ‘asty. It strikes me that somethin’ which can tell truth from fiction and never lie itself ought to be worth a bit o’ money.”

“A fortune,” agreed Clothahump readily.