“Yeah, okay. I agree. But I’ll be watching you - you’d better help me good!”
“I have every intention,” Shaa said dryly, “hence this whole drawn-out exercise. As a token of my intent, in fact, you may even ask the first question. Try a simple one for a start.”
Mont was taken aback, but not rendered speechless. “Okay,” he said, “that’s easy. You carry a sword. Can you handle it?”
“Although such actions speak louder than words, in a word, yes. I once took a comprehensive advanced course with one of the better blade-persons it has been my fortune to encounter.”
“Who’s that?”
“Maximillian,” Shaa said, “the Vaguely Disreputable.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“He doesn’t generally go in for the popular press.”
Shaa paused. Mont had spoken with some authority, as though he had expected to recognize the name. “Do you try to stay abreast of the major sword-swinging talent out of basic principles, or do you have aspirations along those lines yourself?”
Mont looked away. “It’s not me, it’s my father. He has these guys over to the house all the time and I hear who they talk about, so I know lots of the big names.” He sighed, his shoulders drooping. “My father was the Lion of the Oolvaan Plain. I guess he thinks I’m a disgrace to him. I don’t want to be a fighter, not really, but he thinks it’s the only acceptable thing to do.”
Ah, Shaa thought, you want to rescue your father and thus prove your worth; an honorable motive indeed. If potentially transient in effect, given what he’d already heard about the senior Mont. “Indeed,” Shaa said aloud. “I daresay your father’s opinion of you may never be the same again following this experience.”
Mont shifted nervously, perhaps a bit flustered. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I, uh - why do you talk like that all the time?” he blurted.
Shaa had the feeling that what had just emerged from his mouth was not quite what Mont had really started to say. Still, whatever it was supposed to have been would no doubt come out in due course. “The tendency toward a somewhat baroque sentence structure runs in my family. And now, if you’re quite finished with your first question, on – I might add – the installment plan, it would seem to be my turn. Your attacks are related to music, yes?”
Shaa watched Mont mull, then looked back at the deepening violet of the sky. All it needs is a little of that pink phosphorescent rain, he thought, like they have around that swamp - what was that place called? I should find a way to export that rain; it certainly had character.
“… My problem’s not just music, it’s anything rhythmic, really,” Mont said. “Cart wheels going over a bridge, horses trotting, that kind of thing. Those are the easy ones; I can usually fight them off by concentrating hard, but my thinking gets sort of fuzzy and sometimes I can’t see. Music is the worst. Anything that has a beat. If the music’s out of tune I can maybe concentrate around it, too, only most of the time it’s no use. Any music with a regular part makes me go … it’s like my mind starts pounding along with it and pushes away everything else. The next thing I know I’m lying on the ground somewhere.” Jurtan paused, cutting off the rush of words. Though his head was turned, Shaa had the feeling he was setting his jaw and gritting his teeth. “You, ah, you don’t think I’m a - a freak, do you?”
“Certainly not. Your ailment may be unusual but I wouldn’t categorize it as freakish. Could be a curse, but I doubt that. My snap diagnosis would be some interesting oddity in your organic nervous system. None of your fault, obviously, but a significant handicap nonetheless. Hmm... I must think. It is not impossible that there may be something that can be done.”
“You, ah, you know I’ve been to lots of doctors.”
“The revelation fails to shock.”
“None of them did anything that helped. They kept bleeding me, or waving their arms around and giving me horrible things to drink. None of them would ever talk so I could understand, either.”
“Yes, well, the state of the medical profession is not what it should be,” Shaa said superciliously.
“Are you sure you’re really a doctor? I mean, you’re not like any of the other ones.”
“Few of the other ones are like me. Sadly, the scientific method is not currently in repute.”
“The what?”
“Just my point.” Shaa had still been thinking while he talked, and the most singular symptom was intriguing him more and more. “Music, you say.”
“Music,” Mont groaned. “Yeah, music. Sometimes it feels like my life’s run by music. I - oh, I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, but I guess I’d better tell you this too. The, uh, seizures aren’t all. I, uh, I hear music all the time.”
“Please elaborate.” Shaa, his fingers interlaced on his chest, his eyes closed, was beaming beatifically up at the sky. Finally, he thought, a decent diagnostic challenge. “This is quite fascinating,” he added.
“Uh, thanks,” said Mont. “Whatever I do, there’s always a little bit of music playing along in the back of my head. It matches my mood, sort of matches what I’m doing. Other times it matches what’s going on around me, picks up if there’s action or excitement or stuff like that. All different kinds of sounds, all kinds of instruments, every instrument I’ve ever heard and lots more. Of course, I can only hear an instrument - for real, I mean, like when a live musician’s playing on the street - I only hear it when it’s out of tune, or when it’s not being played right, but I’ve still heard enough to know what they sound like. Trumpets, birds, thompers, you name it, I hear it in my head.”
“One’s own private orchestra,” Shaa murmured. “Swelling with the crescendos of life. Playing marches at weddings, off-key polkas at wakes, soft strings for candlelit dinners, the slink of slide-horns for menace. That is quite an affliction, my friend. Have you yourself tried to play an instrument? Have you tried to write this music down?”
“I’ve - I’ve never tried. I, uh, I didn’t know what might happen.”
Feedback? Shaa wondered. Resonance effects? “We will see. There is much in you to study. You are unique, yes, but certainly not a freak.” He sighed. “Much as I would like to begin the investigation now, though, there are other pressing matters afoot. It is time for the plan of action.”
“Just a second. You asked your big question, I get to ask you mine.”
Like most people, Shaa thought, Mont is sharpest where his self-interest is concerned. “I try never to do business with a sea-lawyer,” he said, “but I suppose sometimes it is a necessary evil. Very well, ask away.”
“You know my question. Why are you helping me?”
“That one again? There’s a prophecy. “
“What do you mean, a prophecy? That’s no answer.”
“That’s not much of a question.” Shaa’s eyes, if Mont could have seen them, were not focusing on anything in particular. “There is a prophecy that I would meet the major love of my life while on an adventure. I haven’t met whomever it is yet, so I am forced to continue to dredge up new escapades. There are certain penalty clauses also involved, making it unproductive for me to swear off the idea of love and merely retire to a mountaintop on a permanent basis.” These were not the only other clauses, but Mont hopefully didn’t know enough to ask and Shaa certainly didn’t intend to volunteer more than had already been squeezed out.
“What about that curse you mentioned before?”
“This prophecy isn’t a curse? It doesn’t guarantee anything about the condition I’ll be in at the time. It won’t be too exciting to fall in love with someone right after I’ve been run through with a pike.”