Chorus Skating (29 page)

Mudge set himself to entertain Pivver of Trenku. She seemed to find his antics and attention amusing without taking any of it seriously. Half of Jon-Tom burned to have Ansibette take him seriously, while his other half restrained him. The resulting internal conflict created a condition which liquor was unable to mitigate.

It didn't help that, out of breath from being swung about the floor by various enthusiastic if temporary partners, she sat down in the chair opposite him and leaned forward.

“What a grand time! Aren't you having a grand time, master spellsinger?”

“Oh yeah.” Jon-Tom smiled wanly. “Grand.”

“Commoners can be
so
diverting.” Resting her perfect chin in one hand, she batted her eyes at him. This was a physical reaction Jon-Tom encountered infrequently at best and he had no idea how to react, though he suspected that inquiring if she was suffering from some sort of intermittent twitch would be considered improper.

“Tell me more of your wondrous adventures,” she cooed, preventing Jon-Tom from pigeonholing her attitude.

Having nowhere to hide, his fingers did something inane with his glass. “I don't know that they're all that wondrous.” Forcing himself to look elsewhere, he watched Umagi whirl a fairly overwhelmed orangutan dressed in sailor's garb high overhead.

The princess gestured toward the table where Pivver and Mudge were sunk in intense conversation. “I don't understand your reluctance. Your friend doesn't hesitate to speak of your travels.”

“I'm sure he doesn't.”

“You mustn't chide him for his zeal. We have court magicians, but they're mostly clever fakers. I've never met a
real
spellsinger before. Were you born to the profession?”

“Yes … no … I don't really know. I haven't thought about it much. I'm as surprised by my skills as anyone.” He continued fiddling with the half-empty glass. “It's what you'd call an unusual story.”

“There, you see!” Sitting back, she smiled encouragingly. “I knew you had tales to tell.”

“Mine's pretty hard to believe. Sometimes I don't completely believe it myself.” Having deposed that caveat, he proceeded to regale her with the story of how he'd come to be in her world and make for himself a place, a respected place at that, within it.

Much impressed, Ansibette of Borobos hung intently on his every word. He was halfway through his reminiscence when he realized that the tavern band was playing the same two tunes over and over. The gibbon, weasel, serval, and wallaby struck him as too adept at their profession to be so musically constipated. To perform successfully in a venue like the tavern, a certain variety was usually demanded, lest the musicians be hooted off their small stage or become the recipients of large, disagreeable missiles.

“Have you noticed that the local band seems to know only two songs?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“What's surprising is that no one in this mob is complaining about it. It doesn't make any sense. I've been watching them, and they play well.”

“Better to play two songs well than a hundred poorly,” she argued, obviously bemused by his sudden obsession.

“Not in a place like this.” Pushing back his chair, he started to rise.

Delicate fingers reached for his arm. “Don't go. I was just coming to know you.”

Staring at the stage, he replied absently. “Sip your drink. I'll be back in a minute.”

She followed him as he headed off in search of his companion. Since he did not look back, he failed to note the skill with which she tossed down the remaining contents of her glass.

He found the otter nose to nose with princess Pivver of Trenku. “Mudge?”

Favoring him with a look that promised abrupt disembowelment without anesthesia sometime in the near future, the otter growled softly, “Wot is it this time, mate?”

Jon-Tom nodded across the bobbing sea of heads. “Have you noticed the local band?”

“I am pleased to say that I 'ave not, mate. I've other matters of a rhythmic nature on me mind, I do.” Turning back to the princess, he was rewarded with an enigmatic smile that, while not especially encouraging, was something other than wholly indifferent.

“They're only playing two songs,” Jon-Tom informed him.

“Oi, only two? Why, I guess I'll just 'ave to drop every-thin' and hie meself over there to bawl 'em out for their impertinence, won't I?”

“But it doesn't make any sense. They're good players.”

The otter glared intently at his friend. “See 'ere, mate: If you're so bleedin' curious about aspects o' the local musicology, why don't you go over an' ask 'em about it yourself?”

“Yes.” Pivver continued to peer deeply into Mudge's eyes. “Leave your friend and I to continue with our conversation.”

“Fine! I guess I'll just have to check it out all by myself.”

“Fine indeed.” Mudge didn't look up.

As he pushed his way through the undulating, smelly mob, Jon-Tom saw that the musicians had broken for a rest. Glad of the opportunity, he strode right up to the gibbon, trying to wave away the aromatic smoke that tended to collect at this end of the tavern.

“You guys are pretty good.”

“Thanks.” The gibbon's response was neither inviting nor hostile. His long arms were crossed behind his head and he wore lacy leotards and a matching vest.

“I was just wondering if there was something wrong. I've noticed that your repertoire seems restricted to the same two tunes.”

The wallaby smirked at the serval. “Observant, isn't he?”

“I've also noticed,” Jon-Tom went on, “that no one's griping about it.” He waved at the crowd. “I know places like this. People should be throwing things at you by now. Yet no one seems to be taking any notice.”

“Why zhould they?” replied the serval. “They all live under the zame curze.”

Jon-Tom frowned. “Curze?

“What curze?”

“You don't know?” The gibbon showed a flicker of interest. “I don't believe I've seen you in here before, and I would have remembered a human as tall as—”

Before he could finish, the weasel noted the duar strapped to Jon-Tom's back. “Hoy, are you a musician, too?”

“After a fashion.” Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the wall. “I'm a spellsinger, though I can also play just for fun.”

“And you don't suffer from the curse?” The wallaby's expression conveyed a mixture of hope and despair.

“I don't even know what it is.” Straightening, he swung the duar around. “If you don't mind, I'd be pleased to sit in with you during your next session.”

“You can play more than two zongz?” The serval was staring hard at him, showing yellow-stained teeth.

“I can play hundreds. Some of them not very well, but enough to get by. If you're having trouble with more than the two you've been playing, why don't you let me lead and you just follow along? Maybe it'll break you out of your rut. Or curse, as the case may be.”

“That would be wonderful!” The gibbon eyed his companions. “I don't think it will work, but—”

“What's the harm in trying, Lesvash?” The wallaby picked up a trumpetlike instrument. “What have we got to lose?”

“I'll start with something simple.” Jon-Tom strummed a few bars. “Just try to stay with me.”

“Anything, anything at all.” The gibbon was pitiably eager. He was holding what looked like a radically modified ukulele. The weasel hefted a double flute as long as Jon-Tom's arm, while the serval used its claws to pick at the thick strings of a cross between a cello and a drum.

They backed him perfectly, harmonizing with admirable and effortless fluidity, supporting each chord, underlining each coda. Outside, the lost chords partnered with the moonlight in a waltz of luminous intoxication.

Their efforts did not pass unnoticed by the tavern's clientele. As soon as the new music began to ring out, the dancers and drinkers and revelers responded with cheers and yells of wild approval. They sounded downright startled, Jon-Tom decided, even though he was playing only the most basic riffs and rhythms. The simplicity of the music wasn't what mattered to the enthralled, enthusiastic listeners, however.

What mattered about the music,
all
that mattered about the music, was that it was fresh.

It was a good deal later when an exhausted Jon-Tom called a halt to the session. Though his fingers hurt all the way up to his shoulders, he didn't mind the soreness. For the first time in a long while he'd been able to jam with other musicians. I was wonderful to be able to play not to cure someone of the pox or restore a dry well or demonstrate his improving sorcerous acuity to Clothahump, but simply for the sheer joy of playing. It reminded him why he'd taken up the electric guitar in the first place, all those many years ago.

Reality intruded, as it was sadly wont to do, in the form of a bright-eyed, lace-clad gibbon tugging at his arm.

“Please, stay with us! Your music is difficult and different, but exciting and new. You can't imagine how nice it is to be able to play something else besides those same two lousy, stinking songs.”

Jon-Tom found an unoccupied chair and sank gratefully onto the seat. “I don't get your problem. You play well. No, you play superbly, all of you. I know clubs in L.A. that would sign you in a minute.” He grinned knowingly. “Places where your appearance wouldn't even draw stares.”

The weasel bent double to examine himself. “Appearance? What's wrong with our appearance?”

“If you hate those two songs, why do you keep playing them over and over? Can't you reprise some of the stuff I just showed you?”

Mournful looks were exchanged, of which the gibbon's was the most expressive. “No, we can't.” He readied his ukulele. “This is a contemporary sea chantey, lively and brisk. A favorite with visiting sailors. By popular demand we used to play it half a dozen times every evening.” His finger dipped to strum the strings of the heavily varnished mellowood instrument.

No sound emerged. Not an off-key plunk, not a fragment of a melody; nothing.

Jon-Tom stared. He could see the gibbon's fingers moving, see the strings of his instrument bend and vibrate, but nothing disturbed his hearing. There was no music.

“How are you doing that?”

“I'm not doing it.” The slender simian sighed soulfully as he paused. “Something's doing it to me.” He indicated his companions. “Doing it to all musicians, everywhere. These past several months we've met with and shared conversation with many fellow performers. All are suffering as we are.”

“You zee why we call it a curze.” The serval fondly caressed his instrument. “And it zeemz to be zpreading, getting worze.”

“It started quite slowly,” added the wallaby. “At first you'd just lose a phrase or a chord here and there. Then whole passages would prove unplayable. Your fingers moved properly, and your lips and hands, but no music came forth. We'd play songs with unexpected, increasingly lengthy interrupts.”

“Made for zome awkward movez on the dance floor,” the serval recalled.

“Eventually we started losing entire arrangements, then whole songs.” The weasel put his lips around the mouthpiece of his attenuated double flute and blew affectionately. A single lonely, forlorn B-sharp drifted forth like a melancholy honeybee heading hiveward at the end of a long day's work.

“That's why we're down to two songs.” Like all of them, the wallaby was obviously suffering under the strain. “Soon now I expect we'll lose one of those, or so much of it that it'll become unplayable, like the others.”

“Eventually we'll lose it all.” The gibbon tucked his uke under one long arm. “Musicians without music. That means no music, no song for anyone. Every other group we've talked with these past months, even wandering soloists, are suffering from the same terrible, inexplicable plague.”

The wallaby's eyes suddenly widened and he pointed. “What's
that?
”

Floating in from outside, the cloud of lost chords had paused to hover slightly behind and above Jon-Tom's right shoulder. Glittering like a bushel of pink diamonds suspended in a glass barrel filled with mineral oil, it chimed softly.

“Sorcery.” Clearly uncomfortable, the gibbon took a step back from Jon-Tom, who hastened to reassure them.

“I told you I was a spellsinger. This is magic, yes, but not of my doing. It has nothing to do with the troubles you're having.”

Taking courage and unable to restrain his curiosity, the weasel edged forward to examine the drifting mass more closely. “It doesn't sound like a very happy bit of music.”

“It's not. I think it's in search of help, very anxious to get somewhere, and to have company along the way. We're letting it lead us.” He smiled gently. “I've let music lead me most of my life.”

“A wandering melody.” Entranced, the gibbon reached tentatively for the cloud. It emitted a soft ring of suspicion as it darted back behind Jon-Tom's head. “How do you know there's no connection? We've all of us lost music, and here you are with a piece of same.”

“Maybe it belongz to another unhappy, worried muzician zomewhere,” the serval suggested.

Jon-Tom blinked. Here was a connection too obvious to ignore, one that at the very least deserved further consideration.

“We've no way of knowing that.”

“Why not just ask it?” The gibbon continued to move closer to the cloud, which kept dodging around behind Jon-Tom.

“Ask it?

“Why not? I talk to my instrument all the time.”

“Yeah, and when you've had too much happy juice, sometimes it even answers.” The wallaby chuckled.

Jon-Tom glanced self-consciously back over his shoulder. “Well?
Are
you connected to the disappearance of everyone else's music. Are your condition and theirs related?” As they had been doing for weeks the chords chimed softly, with no special emphasis or force. It could hardly be considered a response.