“You wish the benefit of my wizardly mien and my store of experience in such matters?”
Jon-Tom could only nod, speechless. Clothahump fondled several pieces, twirled loose wires around one finger, then looked up at his tall friend. “You sure broke the shit out of it.”
“I don’t need three hundred years of accumulated wisdom to tell me that,” the spellsinger replied sourly.
“Just underscoring the seriousness of what you’ve done. I never saw a human who could fall gracefully.”
“As opposed to a turtle?”
“No need to discuss unrelated matters now. I do not believe it was your fault.”
Jon-Tom was too furious at himself to cry. “You were right the first time. I’m a clumsy slob and I deserve this for not watching where I put my big feet.”
“When you two finish exchanging compliments and commiserations, would one of you mind untying me?” Sorbl struggled in his bonds. “I need about half a dozen baths.”
“A truth from the beak of the unwashed, so to speak. Life never ceases to amaze me.” But despite his sarcasm, Clothahump untied the apprentice himself instead of asking Jon-Tom to do it. “Seven baths, I should say. One would think someone accustomed to exotic smells could control his stomach a bit better.”
“I’m sorry I do not have your control, master.” Sorbl slid out of the chair and tried to shake out his wings. “I think I received the full blast of that cat’s rear end.”
“No excuses. Go and get yourself cleaned up. Your odor is exceeded in unpleasantness only by your appearance. Hurry your cleansing. We now face a much more serious problem than the mere intrusion of some simple robbers. We have a broken duar to deal with.”
As Sorbl departed, walking stiffly, the wizard turned to rejoin Jon-Tom as the tall young man lovingly laid the remnants of his instrument on the dining table.
“I almost wish you’d given them the gold, sir,” he murmured disconsolately.
“I could not do that, Jon-Tom. As I told them, I hoard no gold.” He nudged bits and pieces of the duar with a finger, peering at the debris through his thick glasses.
“What now?” Jon-Tom asked him. “Without the duar I can’t make music, and without music I can’t make magic. Can you fix it, sir?”
“I am a wizard, my boy, not a maker of tootles and tweets. I can shatter mountains. Reassembling them or anything else again is a matter for a different sort of expertise. A simple drum or flute I might repair, but this,” and he gestured at the table, “is beyond my skills. I am not ashamed to admit this. Such a task is beyond the ability of but a very few unique craftsmen. To make a duar whole again requires the talent of one who understands how the stars sing to each other. I always did have a tin ear, insofar as I have ears at all.”
Jon-Tom could sense what the wizard was leading up to. “It would be too much to hope that someone like that resides in Lynchbany or points nearby, I suppose.”
“Too much by many leagues, I fear. Broken instruments are simple to fix. Broken magic is much more difficult. Something like your duar which combines both is almost impossible to make well again. I know by reputation of only one craftsman who might, I say might, have the mastery to make your instrument whole once more. His name is Couvier Coulb. It is rumored he resides in the town of Strelakat Mews, which lies in the jungle south of far Chejiji.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“Because you have never traveled that far south, my boy. For that matter, neither have I. It is a long journey.”
Jon-Tom sighed. They’d been through this before. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
“Because you have a good memory, not because you are prescient. Chejiji is a seaport on the upper southern shore of the Glittergeist Sea. If you wish your instrument repaired, that is where you will have to go.”
“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.” He sat down in an intact, unvomited-upon chair. “I’ve never gone on a long trip without my duar. How am I going to protect myself?”
“Disconcerting as it seems, it appears you will have to rely upon your fighting skills and your wits.” Jon-Tom couldn’t be sure if the wizard was disparaging one talent or both. “If I have done nothing to sharpen the latter this past year then I have failed as a teacher. Be you magician or spellsinger, sorcerer or cardsharp, necromancer or solicitor, in the final analysis one lives or perishes by one’s wits.”
Jon-Tom summoned a weak smile. “You’ve been a good instructor, sir, and I have learned a lot. It’s just that knowing I’m going to have to find this Couvier Coulb without being able to rely on my spellsinging to help me along the way is pretty scary.”
“It will not be the first time you have faced adversity only to emerge triumphant, my boy. I have confidence in you. Bear in mind that this is not the usual dangerous quest you are about to embark upon but merely a long excursion, as it were. You are simply going to find a repairman to have something fixed. I foresee no dangers lying in wait for you.”
Clothahump’s words cheered him a little. What was he so despondent, so concerned about? He’d undertaken long journeys before, often opposed by supernatural forces. There would be none to harass him this time. He was overreacting.
Still, there was one danger he could not avoid, one that would have to be dealt with immediately.
“How the hell am I going to tell Talea that I have to go away again?”
The wizard smiled ruefully. “That is something, my boy, that you will have to do without any magic to back you up.”
“You’re going wherel No, never mind, I heard you. I don’t understand, but I heard.”
“I have no choice, Talea. Logic says so, Clothahump says so. I don’t want to go, but of what use is a spellsinger without his instrument?”
Watching her stride angrily back and forth in the dimly lit bedroom he found it increasingly difficult to stand up to her. She was wearing the diaphanous gown which had been given to her by the grateful citizens of Ospenspri. It shone like mauve smoke and revealed more of her than it hid. Motile points of crimson light lived io the material and drifted about from place to place like diatoms on the crest of a wave. They tended, for whatever reason, to gravitate to the high points of her body.
She halted in front of the single window. The moonlight enhanced the nearly overpowering effect of the gown and served to unsettle him further.
“Why doesn’t Clothahump go?” she finally whispered.
“Clothahump is the greatest wizard in the world. He doesn’t run errands for students. People run errands for him.”
“Convenient. Sometimes I think all his moaning about his advanced age is so much rot.” As abruptly as it had bubbled forth her anger vanished and she ran to him, holding him close. “I don’t want you to go, Jonny-Tom! You’ve been through so much since you came here. We’ve hardly had any time together at all and now you want to go running off halfway across the world again.”
“Talea “ He put his hands on her cheeks and turned her face up so that he could look into her eyes. “I don’t want to any more than you want me to, but I have to do this. Spellsinging can’t be faked. I have to have that duar repaired.”
“Can’t you try spellsinging with another instrument?”
He shook his head. “I’ve tried. The duar is as much responsible for my success at magic as is my singing. The two are inseparable.”
“Can’t you buy another one, then?”
“There isn’t another one, light of my life. I wish it was that easy. This particular duar has special qualities that, when combined with my singing, allow me to make magic happen. The way the strings weave in and out of reality, the intricate interior of the resonating chamber—it can’t be replaced. Only fixed, and Clothahump can’t fix it. Nor can anyone else in the Bellwoods, or even Polastrindu. I have to find this Couvier Coulb.”
She pressed herself tight against him and the temperature inside the tree rose noticeably. “I don’t want to lose you, Jon-Tom. You stayed inside my mind for almost a year until I found you waiting for me there, and I don’t want to lose you. You’ve gone off on so many of these dangerous journeys that I’m afraid your luck may have run out. Even a retired thief can read the odds, and it’s time for them to turn against you. I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go!” She was sobbing uncontrollably now. He didn’t know whether to push her away, try to comfort her with words of reassurance, or simply let her cry out her sorrow on his shoulder.