Foster, Dean - Spellsinger 04 - The Moment Of The Magician

bled into the room, tripping and spilling weapons in

THB MOMENT OF THS MAOICIAM 889

all directions. The otters grabbed them up and waited

tfor whatever might come.

Jon-Tom rolled over, discovered a pair of crossbow

bolts protruding from the back of his cape. Once

again he'd been saved by the thick leather. He plucked

them out as several guards emerged from the tunnel

mouth, only to find themselves confronted by not

three but more than a dozen armed opponents.

Thornrack struggled to catch his breath, held his

sword over his head. "All right, you've had your fun.

You've led us a hard chase, but that's over now." He

glared around until he located Jon-Tom- "We'll see

how well you run with your calf muscles cut."

At that point Falameezar lifted his head, closed

^one eye, and spat. A small globe of very intense

flame struck the jaguar's sword, which melted like

taffy. Eyes bulging at the immense outline which was

slowly rising behind the otters, Thornrack dropped

the glowing metal and bolted for the tunnel. He ran

into the guards who were clustered thickly behind

him.

Falameezar sighted and went poof with his lips.

Thornrack's tail burst into flame, and he redoubled

his efforts to push past his own troops. They could

hear 'him cursing and screaming halfway back through

the tunnel.

*T don't think we'll have any more trouble from

that direction," observed Jon-Tom dryly.

"No," agreed Opiode, dampening their euphoria,

"but he will report what has happened back to Markus,

and you can be certain the magician vail do something-

There are only two openings to this room: the tunnel

and the mouth of the old well above us. Both could

easily be plugged- We could be sealed in here to

starve or suffocate, and no magic would be required

to accomplish those ends. Somehow we must get out

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before Markus has time to react to our escape."

Those salamander-slick eyes turned to Jon-Tom.

"Clothahump must have had confidence in you to

send you by yourself in response to my request. If

you are any kind of spellsinger, you must free us

from this prison now. Even a wizard needs room to

maneuver, and we have none of that here."

*"E's right, mate. We got your bloomin' music box

back. Now show 'em wot you can do!"

Every eye turned to him. He was glad it was dark

so they couldn't see how nervous he was- A song—

what would be the right song?

johnny Cash's "Fol&om Prison Blues" created no

openings -in the stone walls, nor did any song of

prisons or chain gangs. He started to sweat despite

the coolness. Mudge sat down, looking resigned.

He'd been through this before. Opiode looked disap-

pointed and the rest of the party confused. It hurt

Jon-Tom's recall, though his playing was as smooth

as ever.

"Wot's wrong?" Quorly leaned over Mudge and

snuggled close. "Nothin's 'appenin'."

Mudge ran fingers lightly over her fur. tt Tis just

the way it works sometimes. 'E's a spellsinger for

sure, but 'e's still new to 'is profession and don't quite

*ave the *ang o' it quite. Sometimes the magic works

and sometimes it don't. And sometimes you just 'ave

to be patient."

"I'll try," she murmured worriedly, "but Opiode

said we didn't have a lot of time."

Jon-Tom sang until he began to grow hoarse, and

still the singing produced no results. Only a few idle

gneechees, who didn't hang around long enough for

him to finish a single tune.

More to cheer himself than out of any hope of

doing anything, he launched into a spirited ren-

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287

dition of Def Lepard's "Rock of Ages." StBl no magical

escape hatches appeared, no stairways or corridors.

He got something else, though. ^

The otters stirred. Awed whispers rose from die

Quorum members. Opiode's eyes narrowed, and he

stroked his chin as he tried to analyze the meaning

of this bizarre conjuration. Powerful sorcery it was,

but of what kind, and what could it portend?

Only Mudge knew the origin of the shifting, glow-

ing shapes that had appeared and now danced glee-

fully around the spellsinger's feet. He knew because

he'd encountered them once before.

"Wot did you call 'em, mate?" he asked softly,

staring along with the others.

The duar continued to produce thunderous, ring-

ing chords. "Geolks," Jon-Tom shouted at him, "but

what are we going to do with them?"

XVII

The exquisite phosphorescent worm-forms continued

to multiply, until they occupied much of the floor

and most of the walls. They twisted and flowed

through the stone in a peculiar cadence all their

own, sometimes in time to the rhythm of the duar,

sometimes in time to one utterly alien. The chamber

was alive with living rainbows.

Jon-Tom concluded a brazen chorus, kept playing

as he spoke. "Hello! Do you remember me?"

"It is good to see you again, music-maker.'* The

speaker might have been the same one who'd con-

versed with Jon-Tom back among the karst pinnacles

in the Wrounipai, or it might have been another.

There was no way of knowing for certain- Color was

no clue. "Singing still, we see."

"Yes, but not freely. We're trapped in this place."

He tried to alter the melody subtly, to substitute his

words for Lepard's lyrics. "Trapped in this awful

dark place."

"Awful? What is the difference between one vacu-

um and another?" the worm asked him.

"Freedom of movement. Something you take for

granted. Can you help us out of here? I'll play

whatever you like for as long as you want if you'll just

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289

help us get out of here. There's an opening higher

up. Can you make something we can climb?"

"What is 'climb'?" inquired a coolly curious geolk.

The other prisoners looked on in mesmerized silence.

"What is 'out'? We like your emptiness but your

movements concern us not."

There had to be something they could do, he

thought desperately. What could the geolks do? They

could move freely through solid rock, come and go

as they pleased and...

They could make earthquakes.

"Find a crack in this wall... in the rock that sur-

rounds us. Link together as I saw you do before. Feel

the music."

"Nothing to do with us," the geolks insisted distantly.

"To tremor we have to work together, and right now

we do not feel like working together."

"Don't feel like working together?" a new voice

said. Jon-Tom continued to sing while trying simul-

taneously to quiet Falameezar, but the dragon's politi-

cal consciousness was up and he refused to be shushed.

If anything, he looked inspired.

"Leave this to me, comrade. This is a matter of

organization"

"But you don't understand, Falameezar," Jon-Tom

said desperately. "These aren't your usual folks. They

won't—"

"Workers of the world, arise!" Falameezar bellowed.

"Join together in solidarity and nothing can stop

you!"

"Nothing can stop us now," a bright blue geolk

replied. "And we are not workers."

Falameezar would have none of it, continued to

lambast the glowing shapes with the profoundest

barrage of Marxist rhetoric Jon-Tom had ever heard.

It made absolutely no sense to him, but it seemed to

hypnotize the geolks.

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"Make Vladimir Ilyich proud of you," Falameezar