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"Of course not, mate. I did nothin' o' the sort. An' you didn't snap at me
when I were about to set out on the mornin's foragin'?"
"No. Why would I do that?"
Clothahump had proceeded on to the far side of the camp when the voice sounded
again. "Can't even walk in a straight line anymore, can you? Advanced
decrepitude's definitely set it. Wonder which'll go first? The brain or the
body?"
The wizard took a couple of steps backward and the voice ceased. "It is a
wall," he announced confidently. The others gaped at him.
"A wall?" Jon-Tom muttered. He looked in front of the wizard, saw nothing but
clear air. "But everything's normal, everything and everybody are normal. The
world's unaltered."
"It is definitely a designed perturbation," Clothahump went on, "sent here to
stop us. Truly the individual we seek is one of power and talent, though his
thoughts are distorted and his methods unorthodox. We are in a cage."
"I don't see any bars, Master." Sorbl spread his wings and lifted off. He was
ten feet off the ground when that by-now familiar voice boomed at him.
"Looks like a pie plate with wings."
"No," declared a second voice, at least as nasty as the first, "it's a flying
feather duster."
Sorbl was brought up as short, as if he'd smacked into a glass ceiling. He
barely had time to right himself as he tumbled groundward, landing hard on his
left side. Pushing himself upright with a wing, he hopped onto his feet and
studied the seemingly empty air overhead.
"I am sorry I doubted you, Master. It was just like hitting a roof."
"I still don't see any bars or anything," a thoroughly confused Jon-Tom
muttered.
"This is not your ordinary sort of cage, my boy. I have seen cages fashioned
of wood and cages made of steel. I have heard of cages built of clay and
delicate cages woven of silk. I have even heard of cages built with the bodies
of living creatures. But I have never heard of, read of, or expected to
encounter a cage fashioned of gratuitous insults."
"Who said they're gratuitous?" chorused a cluster of voices around them.
"Every one of 'em's well deserved."
"It will not work," Clothahump argued with the air. "You will never be able to
hold us here, nor get us to fighting among ourselves. We are too intelligent
and too diverse a group. Your best efforts have already failed." Mudge and
Colin exchanged an embarrassed glance.
"Sinister, malign, and loquacious you may be," the wizard went on, "but you
are also directed by an unbalanced personality and therefore can have no
effect on those of us who are healthy."
"He calls us unbalanced," declared a voice. "Him, who's been senile for the
past fifty years." This was followed by a roll of sardonic laughter. It faded
away with frightening finality, like the door of a safe being slammed shut.
"This is ridiculous," Jon-Tom said. "There's nothing holding us here. All we
have to do is walk away." He wasn't ready to grant that anything had actually
stopped Sorbl. He started off to his left, striding deliberately toward the
nearest trees.
"Think you're pretty smart, don't you, kid? You know nothing and understand
everything. The turtle knows everything and understands nothing."
Jon-Tom bounced off nothing, as though he'd walked into a brick fireplace.
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Nothing was a good, solid, unyielding word. He reached out with both hands,
found that the air in front of him had the consistency of transparent vinyl.
"Well, I'll be damned."
"I certainly hope so," said the voice, forcing him back a couple of steps.
"Words can be stronger barriers than metal," Clothahump told them all. "It has
always been so, if not always recognized as such. This is one perturbation we
cannot outwait. We must find a way to break through it. Insults can be as
suffocating as any fire, for all that they smother the spirit instead of the
body."
Jon-Tom grabbed up his cape and duar. "This is crazy, and we're getting out of
here right now. Mudge and I have fought our way past djinn, monsters, swamps,
evil magicians, and well-meaning muck, and I'm not going to let a few words
stop me." He swung the duar around and began to sing.
But as soon as the music began, so did the voices. "A spellsinger, huh? You've
got a lot to learn about music."
"Yeah. For openers, remarks aren't lyrics." Jon-Tom was knocked backward a
step.
"He sings for the ages."
"Sure does," agreed another voice. "The ages between five and nine." Jon-Tom
felt his fingers trembling.
He began to miss notes.
"Obviously descended from a long line," said the first voice.
"Yep. A long line that his mother listened to."
Jon-Tom was forced to his knees, and the words caught in his throat.
"Actually," declared the first voice, "he hasn't any enemy in the world. And
his friends don't like him, either."
At that point Jon-Tom gave up trying to play or sing. He swallowed hard, the
insults catching in his throat, and rolled over onto his knees as he fought to
catch his breath. It had been a long time since he'd faced magic as powerful
and relentless as this, and never had he been confronted by anything quite as
insidious. The strength of the perambulator, he knew. How could he counter it
with simple songs, mere spellsinging? What could you sing to counter an
insult?
Rock music was designed to make you feel good, to raise your spirits, not to
knock down. But there was one kind of rock that was a reaction to that, just
as it was a reaction against any kind of authority, against anything
worthwhile. Knees shaky, fingers uncertain on the strings, he struggled to his
feet. Yes, those were the only kind of lyrics that might have some eifect on
the cage of insults. He considered whom to begin with: Oxo, Sex Pistols, The
Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, or some of the new groups. He began to feel some of
his control returning along with his confidence.
You didn't need the haircut to sing punk.
Mudge put his paws to his ears, and Clothahump's expression reflected his
thorough disgust with the lyrics Jon-Tom was singing. Excellent! It was proof
that he was doing exactly what he intended to do.
Like any good punk singer, he was doing his utmost to insult his audience.
"What do you think?" wondered the first voice. Jon-Tom tried not to rush his
music. It seemed that the cage was tightening around them, restricting their
range of movement even further. He staggered but didn't fall.
"Careful," said the other voice, "he might be dangerous after all."
"Not a chance. He's a sheep in sheep's clothing."
"He sings," rumbled the first voice, firing a serious salvo, "as if it were a
painful duty."
Jon-Tom was forced backward. Delivered with precision and perfect timing, each
insult struck him like a physical blow, as any good insult should. He felt
like a boxer trying to go the full fifteen rounds, and his hands were tied to
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