Chapter the 17th
Scott laid a gentle hand on top of Dornal's.
"Sing me a song," Scott pleaded.
"How can I sing when the strings of my harp are broken by your cutting eyes and knife-shaped mouth?"
“What can I say that could bring the bring the strings of your harp back together?” Scott asked.
“Nothing!”
Dr. Rosskill looked at the heart monitor and anxiously studied Dornal's pulse rate.
"Prepare an injection for him," Dr. Rosskill ordered the nurse.
Scott moved his hand up to Dornal's shoulder.
“Dornal,” said Scott, “if the strings are brought back together, then you can play a song of peace to the king.”
"I've never seen a king like you," groaned Dornal "a king who closes his open fist, a king who wraps the golden lines of verse around his ears to deafen the whole of Carelin."
"I'll unwrap the golden lines for you," said Scott soothingly.
"Unwrap the golden lines?" asked Dornal. “The golden boar is tied up by the golden lines of verse or else he would trample every song that every royal bard has sung!”
“The golden boar is frightened,” said Scott. “He ran away because he was scared.”
Dornal groaned loudly. He turned over in his bed one way and then the other, while Dr. Rosskill watched anxiously.
“The song—“ Dornal gasped, “the song is banished.”
“What song?”
“THE SONG OF THE FIERCE WILD BOAR!”
The nurse entered with a syringe ready for an injection. Dr. Rosskill looked at the monitors and shook her head.
“Can you sing the banished song?” asked Scott.
Dornal raised himself up to a sitting position and began to play an imaginary harp. After humming along with it, he sang:
“There was a good kind lad, a good kind lad—“
Dornal sank back into his pillows.
"I’m sure you can do it," Scott urged. "I really want to hear your song."
“No,” said Dornal, “the wind and the snow blow the song away. The notes are still lost.”
“How can we get the song back?” asked Scott.
“Under the forest,” Dornal replied, “under the forest under the river. Under the forest under the river.”
Dornal’s voice trailed off and he breathed heavily, but his body showed signs of relaxing and Marion Rosskill liked the readings she was getting on the monitor.
“Let’s hold off the injection for now,” she said to the nurse, “and wait and see how he does.”
Within a few minutes, an exhausted Dornal had fallen into a peaceful sleep.
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“Edmund,” said Kevin, “I’m sorry I threatened you with that knitting needle.”
“That’s okay,” said Edmund. “I mean that’s okay that you didn’t stab me with it or tear me to pieces with your boar tusks.”
The crown-prince-turned-boar struggled against the golden threads, but in vain.
“I guess Kevin was safe enough in his boar shape after all,” said Nigel, “but what about this one?”
As if answering Nigel’s question, prince, the wind brought a fresh gust filled with snow to the garden. Kevin drew the shawl more tightly around his shoulders now that he suddenly no longer had the boar’s golden fur to keep him warm.
“I don’t think the boar from the frame of Dornal’s harp would want to hurt anybody,” said Nigel.
“But if the Crown Prince Perezvon has turned into the boar in Dornal’s Harp,” Edmund cautioned him, “then he might want to hurt somebody.”
The boar let out a menacing growl to confirm Edmund’s fears.
“Hey! Ho! Holiday!” chorused three more choirboys as they swung over the wall with the golden serpent and landed between Nigel and Edmund.
“Now we’re getting enough people to really help us find the missing notes,” said Edmund.
“Aren’t we going to untie the captives here?” asked one of the newcomers as he noticed the plight of Kevin and the crown prince.
“Who are they?” asked another boy.
“The Crown Prince, known to us as King Perezvon XXVI,” answered Nigel.
“And Kevin the Weaver-Maker,” added Edmund.
“I don’t see the crown prince,” said one of the boys.
“I’ll bet the Crown Prince is the boar,” said another boy.
The boar roared and Nigel and Edmund said “yes” at the same time.
“We can try to untie them,” Nigel explained, “but that won’t do any good if we can’t untie the anger that caused golden boars to run loose and this blizzard to hit us all so hard.”
The boar let out a roar so deafening that everybody shrank back.
“What am I so mad about that I can’t get untied?” asked Kevin, who still struggled against his bonds with no success.
Nigel sat next to Kevin and looked him in the eye.
“Master Kevin, I don’t know what you are so angry about.”
“He’s pretty mad about something,” said Edmund. “He threatened me with that knitting needle, and when it’s that big—or we’re this small—that’s saying something.”
“I said I’m sorry about that!” Kevin protested.
“Hey!” cried one of the other boys. “If this is Kevin the Weaver-Maker, what’s he doing here?”
“Yea,” said another boy, “shouldn’t he be working on his painting?”
“I’ve been trying—I mean—I’ve sort of worked on my painting,” Kevin stammered, “but this wild boar keeps chasing me.
“It looks like we have two fierce wild boars,” Edmund suggested.
“Two angry boys, two angry boars,” said another of the boys.
“The boar on the harp and the boar in the painting,” added another boy.
“What is this harp all about?” asked Kevin.
"Tell Kevin who Dornal is," Edmund urged.
"We don't know the whole story yet," said Nigel, "but we know that Dornal is the king's harpist, and Dornal has a feud going with the king because the king hates music. We've all been afraid for a long time that Dornal would get too angry and sing a cursing song that would bring calamity on us all. So putting three and three together, when the blizzard struck, and we found out that Dornal's harp was broken, that Dornal landed in Michael’s world, and Amarilla and her friend Michael are trying to get the harp fixed, we concluded that it all came together - and it does - sort of."
“Was Dornal rejected by the king, then?" asked Kevin.
"Looks like it," said Edmund. “Everybody else around here likes him, but—“
"It takes just one rejection to forget everything else," said Kevin.
As he said those words, Kevin choked over tears he didn’t know were there. He winced at the reaction he expected from the boys but they looked at him with sympathy.
“Did that happen to you, too?” Edmund asked.
Kevin nodded.
“Then you understand the problem?” asked Nigel.
“Sort of.”
“Think we should sing the Song of the Fierce Wild Boar?” asked Edmund.
“Do you mean the banished song?” asked one of the boys in mock horror.
“Of course Edmund means the banished song,” Nigel replied.
The boar gave out a long drawn out menacing growl.
“If that boar doesn’t like it,” said a boy, “then we’d better learn the song right away.”
“If the song is banished, how come you know it?” asked another boy.
“It’s like this,” Edmund explained. “When Mr. Spitzenbergen told us there was a banished song, Nigel and I looked it up in the archives and found it learned it, thinking it might come in handy some day.”
“Can you teach it to us, then?” asked one of the boys.
“Of course I can,” said Nigel. “It goes like this:
There was a good kind lad
a good kind lad was—
Nigel’s voice broke off once he had croaked on several notes.
“I guess my voice is changing too fast,” said Nigel. “You try it Edmund.”
“Sure thing.”
There was a good kind lad
a good kind lad was he,
and when he saw a fierce wild boar,
He asked, “what can it be?”
Although Edmund had gotten through the verse, the tune had not survived at all.
“I’m sorry,” a crestfallen Edmund apologized, “I thought I knew it better than that.”
Nigel put an arm around his friend to console him. Kevin could hardly believe what he was seeing. No boy in Milton would show that kind of sympathy to another boy who had faltered at anything.
“I think we’re going to have to find the missing notes before we can sing it,” said Nigel.
-----------
Amarilla took another sip of the hot chocolate that Mrs. Lear had served her.
“I must admit that this is a most refreshing drink after traveling through a blizzard on a serpent serving as a rope,” commented Amarilla.
“A serpent, you say?” Mrs. Lear replied.
“Yes, a golden serpent.”
“That is most interesting,” said Mrs. Lear. “Golden serpents are be crawling all over Milton. As far as I can tell, most people do not believe it is happening.”
“Have I really have ended up in Milton, same as you?”
“Yes, that is exactly what has happened.”
“Now, I have been led to believe that this town of Milton exists in quite a different world from Carelin,” said Amarilla. “Is that right?”
“That is correct.”
“And usually separate worlds go their jolly separate way. Is that also correct?”
“Yes.”
“Than the fact that this blizzard has struck both Milton and Carelin, plus the fact that Dornal stumbled into this town of Milton, plus the fact that the serpent carried me to your door all suggest that the usual separation of worlds is breaking down. Is that correct as well?”
“Yes, you are correct on all accounts, my dear Amarilla.”
“I would assume that I was carried here because there is something I should do here,” said Amarilla.
“I would make the same assumption if I were in your snowshoes,” Mrs. Lear replied.
“I wonder what my next quest should be.”
“Is not Michael Bullinger inside the harp?”
“That is correct, Mrs. Lear.”
“Then I suggest you play what strings you can play and see if that gives you any ideas.”
“That is a good suggestion.”
Amarilla picked up the harp off the carpet and placed it in her lap. She felt along the usable strings and then tried picking out a tune. Her first effort produced little of musical sense.
“Please remember that Michael presumably had to let himself go in order to enter the harp,” Mrs. Lear reminded her.
Amarilla nodded, heave a sigh, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried again. This time, the strings guided her fingers and a lively tune played itself. The tune didn’t play itself well as roughly half the notes were missing.
“Well, Amarilla!” exclaimed Mrs. Lear, “as usual, you’ve really done it again!”
“Done what again?”
“All you’ve done is play the tune for the one song that is banished from the Kingdom of Carelin by my wayward son, King Perezvon XXVI.”
“Oh, I see. And I suppose that means that the banished song is what is needed to stop the blizzard.”
“That’s what I would suppose under the circumstances.”
“And where might that be?”
“The royal children are at the Milton Public Library dealing with a manuscript that has run out of control. I would look there.”
“I take it that this quest requires going back outside?” asked Amarilla with a sinking heart.
“I would think so, unless you can find an inside route to the library. I think that if you follow the trail of golden serpents, you will get there before long.”
Amarilla sighed deeply. Once resignation had set in, she put her boots back on and then her winter coat and scarf. When she ready for re-entry into the storm, she picked up the harp and went to the door.
“Thank for the hot chocolate, Mrs. Lear.”
“You are most welcome, my dear. Say hello to the royal children if you see them.”
“I will.”
With that, Amarilla braced herself and stepped outside. She was chilled to the bone within half a second and the thought of walking even a few blocks was daunting but she had to do it and she was going to do it. There was a line of golden serpents in the snow to show her the direction she should follow, just as the Queen Mother said there would. She walked along beside the serpents but did not get far before she heard the sound of padded footsteps behind her. Amarilla gasped in dismay when she saw three shadowy figures overtaking her, one of them the zombie of Michael’s father, the second a zombie of the late King Perezvon XXV of Unfortunate Memory, and the third a zombie of a younger man she did not recognize. The two figures, however, were ringed by a golden light, a golden light that let out an exuberant roar.
“Oh Goldfire! I’m so glad to see you! Can you give me a lift to the Milton Public Library?”
Amarilla, taking Goldfire’s compliance as a matter of course, mounted the lion in front of the three zombies who, she knew, were harmless as long as they stayed on the lion’s back, and an instant later, the lion had already been carried her down a block through the winter storm.
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“Hey! Ho! Holiday!” yelled a small group of boys as they swung in front of Dornal on a glittering rope.
They dropped themselves off and landed on the serpent-coils, then looked about expectantly. Roger, Samantha and Karen did not seem to be the ones he was looking for.
“Where’s the rest of the choir?” asked one of the boys.
“Somewhere else, Geoffrey” Roger replied.
“HOW CAN THE CHOIR SING WHEN THE HARP IS BROKEN BY YOUR FALSE WORD?” Dornal railed.
The boys whirled around, their jaws hanging open.
“That’s Dornal!” cried Geoffrey, “You found him!”
“We found him but we can’t talk any sense into him,” said Roger sadly.
“My Great Aunt says that if you can’t talk sense to somebody, said another boy, “then we should talk nonsense instead.”
“We’ve been living nonsense all day,” Karen protested wearily.
“We’re inside a serpent inside a clam shell inside of Dornal,” said Samantha.
“That’s what I mean,” said Karen.
The boys looked at Karen curiously.
“Who are you?” asked Geoffrey
“That’s Karen, sister of Kevin the Weaver Painter,” Roger answered on Karen’s behalf.
“And where is Kevin the Waver Painter?” asked another boy.
“That is what I would like to know,” Karen replied wearily. “I’ve been looking for him all this time and all I’ve found is this crazy harpist tied to a stake.”
“But you’ve found the best harpist of all,” said the boy.
“All right, I’ve found the best harpist of all, but what does he have to do with Kevin?”
“I’m sure my Great Aunt would say that finding Dornal has something to do with finding Kevin,” said the small boy.
“Dennis, has she told you any stories about Dornal and Kevin?” asked a boy.
Dennis thought a moment and then a few tears ran down his cheeks.
“I can’t remember,” he sobbed.
Samantha patted Dennis on the head.
“Try not to worry about it too much,” she advised him. “That will help you remember.”
“If I don’t worry about the stories I can’t remember, who will worry about them?” asked a sniffling Dennis.
“WHO CAN REMEMBER THE STORIES OF LIFE WHEN YOUR FROWN CASTS A SHADOW TO HIDE THEM FROM OUR SIGHT?” yelled Dornal.
“It might help if we can find some of the missing notes,” suggested another boy.
“We can’t find the missing notes unless we find the missing story,” Dennis replied through fresh tears.
“And we can’t find the missing story unless we find the missing notes,” added Geogrrey, himself on the verge of tears.
“Does this mean we can’t find anything?” asked an exasperated Karen.
The surrounding children stood quietly, thinking about the question.
“I think my Grand Aunt would say that we don’t have to find anything as long as we find the missing notes or the missing story,” sniffed Dennis.
“Well, part of the story is that there was a boy named Kevin,” Karen began, hesitantly at first, but encouraged by the attention of the other children. “Kevin had a bossy sister who got so bossy that her brother ran away to the library. While he was at the library, Kevin drew a picture from a book and then he disappeared.”
“A picture of what?” asked one of the boys.
“Why a picture of—Why, I have it here!”
Karen pulled out the crumpled piece of paper and the boys noisily crowded around her to look at it.
“I know!” cried Dennis. “I know! It’s the story of the boar and the boy! There’s a song about it!”
“The Song of the Boar is banished from the kingdom!” yelled Dornal, “by order of the King Perezvon XXVI!”
Dennis crumpled.
“He’s right. My Great Aunt told me the song is banished.”
The children muttered among themselves while Karen stubbornly folded her arms across her chest.
“If we are inside of Dornal,” said Karen, “then we are in Milton, Pennsylvania and not in this Kingdom of Carelin, because Dornal is in Milton and not in Carelin.”
“Then we can sing the song!” cried one of the boys.
“If anybody knows it,” said Samantha.
“I’ll bet Amarilla could look it up,” said Roger, “she’s good at that sort of thing.”
“But she’s not here,” Geoffrey protested.
The children looked at each other questioningly.
“My Great Aunt taught me the song,” said Dennis, breaking the silence. “She wanted to make sure somebody knew it when the song got unbanished.”
“Can you sing it?” asked Geoffrey.
“I’ll try:
There was a good kind lad
a good kind lad was he,
and when he saw a fierce—wild—wild—“
Dennis broke down and cried as the tune broke down.
“Looks like we’ve got to find the notes to sing the song,” said Geoffrey.
“Hey! Ho-o-o-o-o-o!” cried a man swinging on the golden rope.
“Mr. Spitzenbergen!” cried the boys.
Two of the boys caught the man dressed in a tuxedo and brought him to a stop.
“Yes, it’s your very own choirmaster trying to keep up with his choristers,” said Mr. Spitzenbergen as he continued to cling to the rope for dear life, even as the rope twisted and the serpent looked at the choirmaster impatiently.
“You can let go of the rope now,” said Roger.
“Wait!” cried Dennis, “Don’t do that! Hang on!”
“What am I supposed to do with this rope—I mean this snake—now that I’m here?” asked an increasingly nervous Mr. Spitzenbergen.
Dennis ran over to the serpent and took its head in his hands, allowing the choirmaster to ease away from the reptile. The serpent eyed the children with a slightly jaundiced look that seemed vaguely familiar to Karen in an unsettling way.
“Uh—Serpent,” said Dennis, “I don’t know your name, but could you take one of us to where the missing notes are. We have to have them back, you see.”
“Ssssssilly quesssssstion,” said the serpent.
“I think that means it’s silly to doubt that he can,” said Samantha.
“Well,” said Mr. Spitzenbergen, “finding the missing notes is all well and good, but who wants to go with the serpent on the quest?”
The children looked at each other and gulped, Dennis especially. Then Roger stepped forward and put an arm around the serpent.
“I will go. In the meantime, keep singing the banished song as best you can. Hey! Ho! Holiday!”
Before anybody could try to stop him, Roger had swung away on the serpent and was gone.
“Banished song?” asked Mr. Spitzenbergen, obviously relishing the thought. “I smell choral mischief here,