neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

“What are we going to do with it?” Jon-Tom asked his mentor.

Clothahump considered the temporarily quiescent device. “Try to magic it away, I suppose. I will make an attempt. Should that fail, perhaps a spellsong would be in order.”

“Yeah!” Buncan sat up quickly. “I could . . .!” He went silent at the look on his father’s face.

Clothahump’s magic shook and twisted the tree, and drew curious storm clouds overhead. Lightning and thunder failed to impress the Veritable, which sat unmoving atop the workbench. When the turtle eventually admitted defeat, Jon-Tom drew upon his memory for his most powerful spellsongs. These likewise had no effect. Finally he even let his wayward son have a go at the duar while he sang in place of the absent otters, all to no avail.

“You can’t wish away the truth.” The Veritable spoke up only when it was clear they’d finally thrown in the thaumaturgical towel. “Not all your spells or sorcery can make it disappear. Nor is it so easy to dump in a river,” it added pointedly.

“We must get rid of it somehow.” The wizard looked sternly at Buncan, who was appropriately contrite. “I tried to warn you about bringing it back. Most people already have all the truth they can stand. More, in fact.”

“That’s so,” agreed the Veritable.

“It induces the ill-equipped, which is to say most folk, to fight among themselves. It destroys families, whole communities. It starts wars.”

“That’s not my fault,” said the device. “I don’t make truths. I only report on mem. You can’t blame me if people prefer comfortable prevarications. Why, if everyone told the truth I’d be out of a job, and damn glad of it.”

Jon-Tom looked beaten, but no more so than his mentor. “What do we do now?”

“Leave it here. Isolate it within mis tree. Keep it away from everyone else. I have lived several hundred years and can handle the truth better than most. We must all do our best to ignore it.”

“You can’t isolate the truth, and you can’t ignore it,” declared the Veritable.

Eyes glittering, Clothahump approached the mechanism. Beneath that wizened, unexpectedly energetic gaze the plug drew back. Maybe the truth couldn’t be eliminated, but it could occasionally be cowed.

“We can but try.” The wizard beckoned to Jon-Tom. “Come, my friend. We will consult the texts and see what can be done. If anything more can be done.”

That night a lithe, muscular shadow approached Clotha-hump’s tree. Numerous spells protected the wizard’s home, but this particular intruder had prepared well for his nocturnal excursion. Proceeding directly to the object of his intentions, he swathed it in a large canvas bag and tossed it over his shoulder. Mulwit, who ought to have detected the thief, unaccountably slept through the entire intrusion.

In a distant riverbank Mudge and Talea lay entwined in a manner no humans, no matter how flexible, could have duplicated. Having recovered from the fracas at the tavern, a spent Squill and Neena gently whistled away the night in their own beds. Side by side in a tree somewhat less ensorceled than Clothahump’s, Jon-Tom and Talea alternately hugged covers and one another, while down the woody hallway Buncan tossed and turned uneasily in his sleep.

So the thief got away clean, to rejoin his colleagues in the depths of the Bellwoods.

“I told you I could do it!” Triumphantly, the coati unbagged his prize. In the dim light his companions eyed it appreciatively.

“Truly you are the greatest among thieves, O honored Chamung,” the raccoon murmured. His ringtailed companion concurred.

“I knew that if we waited, and watched, and bided our time, the opportunity for revenge would come!” The bandit leader’s teeth glinted in the light that fell between the Belltrees. “Those cursed interfering youths! I would have slit their throats, but the tree was empty save for the dotty old wizard and his apprentice. With them I have no quarrel.” He nudged the Grand Veritable with a foot.

“Now we have this: the booty they journeyed so far to acquire. I learned of it during a brawl at Nogel’s Tavern in Lynchbany, and subsequently laid my plan. They cost me my band; therefore I take their prize. Life is just!” His voice fell to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you know what this magical device does?”

“Uh-uh,” admitted the ringtail, wondering simultaneously if he was being set up.

“It reveals the truth. All truths, apparent or hidden. With mis I will raise a great army. Beginning with Lynchbany, we will lay waste to the Bellwoods. The forest will run red with blood. Not even a great wizard can stand against the truth! I will bathe in his scraped-out shell, and sleep on the tanned skins of those three cubs, and those of their relations, and their friends. In payment for the humiliation I have suffered, then’ skulls will be impaled on the gables of my home!” Exhilarated and breathing hard, he struggled to unwind.

“Come, my loyal companions. It is time to begin.” They moved into deeper forest, heading toward town. “I will share my victory with you, as I have always shared our spoils.”‘

“Speaking to that,” chirped the Grand Veritable unexpectedly, “it is a statement which contains several blatant untruths.”

“No one queried you, box,” snarled Chamung.

When he looked up, it was to find that his two remaining warriors were eyeing him speculatively.

* * *

Not too many days later a thrashed, defeated figure limped into the distant town of Malderpot, having been chased from one town after another. His domes were in rags, one ear and several teeth were missing, and his formerly resplendent tail had been singed down to the bare skin.

The hidden chime tinkled as the door to the small shop closed behind him, shutting out the steady rain. Beneath one arm he carried a scratched and battered, but still intact, metal box from which issued a steady, undying saffron glow.

As the visitor warily shoved back the hood of his cape the shop’s proprietor, a slightly inebriated muskrat, emerged from behind a curtain. Though he had been drinking steadily to keep out the cold, sufficient faculties remained to nun to reveal that the coati had been through a difficult time. The muskrat perked up. Here was an individual in the final stages of physical and mental dissolution. In short, the source of a possible bargain.

The walls of the little shop were covered with strange objects, its shelves lined with tightly capped jars full of noisome organics. Mysterious devices and stuffed reptiles hung from the ceiling, dangling at the ends of strong wires.

“Thimocane, you have to help me.” The coati’s voice was shaky, and his speech was interrupted frequently by hacking coughs. “I am told that you are a wizard.”

“I used to engage in shorcery,” the muskrat admitted freely. “Now I shimply buy and shell. I’m short of shemiretired, you shee. But if you’d like to buy me a case of good liquor . . .”

“Later, later.” The coati glanced nervously over a shoulder, as though even on a rotten night like this someone might be after him. Or some thing. “I can’t buy you anything right now, or even pay for your services. I’m utterly broke.”

The muskrat raised both paws. “Then I don’t know what you’re doing here. I’m no charity.”

“Please!” The coati all but collapsed on the narrow countertop. “You’ve got to help me! If you don’t I will surely die . . . or go mad.”

“That’s the truth,” announced the box beneath his ill-kempt arm.

Intrigued, the muskrat stood on his tiptoes and leaned forward. “Now what have you there, traveler?”

“For All-Tails’ sake, don’t listen to it! Don’t pay any attention to it. Pretend it’s not there.” The coati’s expression verged on mania, the muskrat thought.