Chapter the Third of Part the First
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Danzigger Singing Fiddle in Baschdynn.
Danzigger was awakened gently but firmly. He listened to the gentle sleeping sounds of his mother, brother and sister in the tent. His father was snoring loudly but that is not what had awakened him. Since Danzigger, like everybody in the Baschi Tribe, slept in the furs he wore during the day, he was immediately ready to go where he was called. He held down the interlocked ear rings on each ear to keep them from jingling and awakening his family and slipped out of the tent.
As he expected, the only light to be seen came from the dying embers of the central fire and the stars and moon above. He judged that there was much more night left before dawn would break. The night air chilled Danzigger as he stood still for a moment to make sure of where he was being called to go. Upon awakening, he thought he was being called to Maranzigga’s tent, but he quickly became afraid that he the call was to head straight to Rossonzigger’s tent instead. Once he was sure of that, he moved quickly as the matter was sure to be urgent. He waved at the young man guarding the lashampas who were penned up for the night. He knew the furry creatures well since he and the other children were assigned to watch over them during the day. The young man was equally used to seeing the young boy with the double ear rings move about at any time of the night. Danzigger was Maranzigga’s apprentice and, like her, was expected to respond when needed at any time.
Danzigger did not need any light to find his way through the tent village. The tents were always set up in the same order at every place they stopped. Even if they were not, Danzigger would know where to go if he were needed. He already had a clear picture of the old man, Rossonzigger, clutching his fiddle and breathing with difficulty and he heard the sound of Maranzigga’s drum long before he reached the tent. This was not a time to clap to announce his coming. Danzigger opened the tent flap and knelt down beside the old man. Maranzigga was already traveling in the spirit world to the beat of her drum and so could not say anything to the boy. Rossonzigger’s daughter, Messonzigga, sat by, waiting anxiously for whatever the Spirit Speaker and her apprentice could do for her father.
There was nobody in the tribe that Danzigger wanted less to lose to the spirit world than Rossonzigger, not that the boy liked to lose anyone that he ministered to. Many other people in the tribe felt the same way. There was many an evening when Rossonzigger had gladdened the hearts of the people by playing his fiddle. As often happened, that very evening Danzigger sang songs while Rossonzigger played. He feared they may have made music together for the last time.
Danzigger knew what to do without needing to be told. He began to sing the breath healing song softly. The singing would soon grow louder and it might wake up those in nearby tents. They would understand. Danzigger closed his eyes and let the song move into the man’s chest where the breath lived. He let the song move about inside the man’s body, looking for other areas that needed healing. It was only the breath that needed healing, but it needed healing very badly. Danzigger sang the healing song, letting the melody leap and soar in new directions, wherever it needed to go to heal the breath. But the more Danzigger sang, the less breath he could find to bring back to life.
Suddenly, but gently, Danzigger crossed a dark stream. He knew most of the breath was on the other side of it. He saw Maranzigga ahead of him, beating her drum and searching for the breath with her slender hands while Danzigger tried to sing the breath towards her. In the spirit world, Maranzigga looked much younger. Danzigger wondered if he looked younger in the spirit world as well. If he did, he would look like a baby. Rossonzigger, slowly walking away from both of them, looked as old as ever. Danzigger sang more intensely, even with desperation as the breath slipped out of his singing and through Maranzigga’s fingers. He felt like crying then but he knew he had to wait until he had returned from the spirit world before allowing his tears to fall.
For a brief hopeful instant, Rossonzigger turned around, suddenly revealing a much younger face than Danzigger had ever seen on him. In his hands, he held his fiddle, the bow, and the sling he used for carrying it about. Danzigger nodded to the fiddler to accompany his song, hoping that would bring back the man’s breath. But Rossonzigger did not bring the fiddle to his shoulder. Instead, he held it out to Danzigger. The boy was horrified but Maranzigga had impressed upon him the importance of never, under any circumstances, turning down a gift offered in the spirit world. And so Danzigger took the fiddle, its bow, and the sling. Rossonzigger gave the boy a smile filled with stars, leaped over the next hill, and was gone. He and Maranzigga could follow him no further.
Danzigger let the healing song trail off into the returning song. At Maranzigga’s side, he moved out of the spirit world and back into the tent where the dead body of Rossonzigger lay. The man’s daughter was sobbing. Maranzigga pulled a blanket over the man’s face. Danzigger felt something in his hands. It was the fiddle, its bow, and the sling.
“It will be a healing channel for you,” said Maranzigga softly.
“I thought singing was my healing channel,” Danzigger protested.
“Singing is your healing channel. The fiddle will also be your healing channel.”
“Then I will have two healing channels if I learn to play the fiddle,” said the boy.
Messonzigga looked up and gave Danzigger a look sharper than a saber cat’s tooth.
“Yes, you will have two healing channels,” said Maranzigga.
“They will be strong together, if I keep them together,” said Danzigger.
Although Messonzigga’s stare was enough to tear him apart. Danzigger knew that grief often caused such fury.
“Yes, if you hold the channels together, they will be very strong,” said Maranzigga. “Although you are still my apprentice, you are wise already.”
“But I do not know how to play the fiddle,” said Danzigger.
“I am sure the fiddle will teach you. Go now and learn from it. You must play and sing at Rossonzigger’s departure fire this evening. Do not take it to heart that Rossonzigger has gone beyond. The time comes for each of us. We can only bring back those who are in danger of going beyond before their time.”
“That fiddle is not yours!” said Messonzigga.
“But Maranzigga said I must keep whatever is given me in the spirit world,’ said Danzigger.
“That is right,” said Maranzigga firmly, cutting Messonzigga’s angry reply. “Danzigger, go at once. There is no time to lose as you must play the fiddle tonight when you sing for Rossonzigger. Go now!”
Danzigger wanted to linger and look at the covered body of Rossonzigger and he wished that he could listen to the old man play the fiddle once more. But he understood that the Spirit Speaker did not want him to allow Rossonzigger’s daughter to argue about the fiddle and so he rose to his feet and left the tent. He heard the sound of arguing at once but there was no contesting his teacher’s order and he continued to move briskly away.
Dawn had made its first appearance by this time and there was much stirring in the camp. The air was even sharper than it was during the middle of the night. Danzigger thought that perhaps it was the chill of Rossonzigger’s death that he was feeling. The central fire was blazing. Children were pestering the women and that meant that the dawn cakes were frying and almost ready for eating. Much as Danzigger loved to eat dawn cakes, this was one morning when he would not eat. If the fiddle was going to teach him how to play it, Danzigger would have to be empty in every way.
“Danzigger!” cried out the girl Lonzigga.
“Danzigger Double Ear!” cried out Framzigger.
Like most children, Framzigger only wore one ear ring on each ear and that was why he started calling Danzigger Double Ear. It was the wrong name, Danzigger knew, but time would tell him his true name. He knew the children envied his double ear rings, but they did not envy his being Maranzigga’s apprentice as Spirit Speaker. In time, Framzigger, like the other boys, would kill his first barkel and then he would be awarded his second pair of ear rings. Danzigger would never make his first kill as a Spirit Speaker never takes a life of any kind. Danzigger waved his hand to the children and moved on. They knew there were times when he would not respond to him and that this was one of them. When they received word of Rossonzigger, they would know why.
Danzigger walked through the camp and out of it without looking where he was going. It was up to his feet to guide him to the right place. That place turned out to be the shore of a lake close to the camp. One more step and Danzigger would have walked right into the water. He did not think he had nearly missed an unexpected bath. His feet always knew when to stop when they were given the task of taking him somewhere. Danzigger sat down on the ground, taking satisfaction that the trees by the lake would shelter him from the sun when it rose further into the sky. In the morning, a cloud of mist rose above the water, making Danzigger feel that he was about to walk into another dream. He liked the lake very much but he was disturbed that some people in the tribe were talking about keeping the camp by the lake and not moving from it. Maranzigga said that the Baschi would cease to be the Baschi if they stopped moving with the lashampas. Danzigger knew she was right. The fierce look Messonzigga gave him haunted Danzigger, but the Spirit Speaker’s apprentice knew he had to give his attention to the fiddle that had been given him by Rossonzigger.
Danzigger plucked each string of the fiddle and then drew the bow across each one. They did not sound right. He remembered that Rossonzigger worked with the pegs to get the strings to sound right when they didn’t. He worked with each peg, plucking its string as he did so, until they all sounded the way he wanted them to. He played back and forth on the four strings for some time, getting used to their sounds. Over a pattern of those four notes, Danzigger sang a simple healing song. The song comforted him so much that he felt he was dishonoring the memory of Rossonzigger by not mourning his death properly. But when Danzigger added some music of his own to the song he felt his breath breaking inside. He then knew he need not worry that he was not mourning the passing of Rossonzigger.
Knowing that Rossonzigger created many notes by pressing his fingers against the strings, Danzigger experimented with moving a finger around on the first string until he got what sounded like a note to him. He did the same with the other strings until he could play one fingered note on each one. While moving his finger around, he noticed that he could get sliding effects that matched an effect he could make with his voice. Danzigger then worked out a few patterns using the eight notes he had found and he sang a departure song over those notes that he knew that he could sing that evening when the whole tribe gathered to mourn the loss of Rossonzigger. As he sang, he added words that recalled the deeds Rossonzigger had done and especially his playing of the fiddle that was now in Danzigger’s hands. The melody itself also began to change with more jerks and bursts of sound entering the music as of their own accord. Somehow, it all sounded like the kind of melody Rossonzigger might play on his fiddle, the sort of melody that Danzigger would also find on that instrument some day, but not on his first day with it.
Danzigger continued to search for more notes and to sing his heartbreak over the loss of Rossonzigger. His voice soared higher than it ever had before, as if inspired by the fiddle’s support. While holding a long, trilled high note, Danzigger saw a flicker in the trees. He assumed it was the sun playing tricks on him and the intensity of his own singing. He cut off the note and continued to play his simple pattern of notes softly. The sound was not as mellow as it was when Rossonzigger played it, but it didn’t sound too bad and there seemed to be hope that, with time, the sound under his bowing would mellow. The flickering in the middle of the lake became a large hulking shadow. Thinking it might be a barkel, Danzigger pulled the fiddle to his chest protectively. But it was not a barkel threatening to attack and devour a boy out alone. It was not an animal at all. What he saw looked more like a living dream into the spirit world.
For a bit of time, Danzigger stood in the silence until that was interrupted by the sound of a plucked note. The note was followed by a few other notes that sounded like somebody trying to learn a musical instrument the way Danzigger was trying to learn to play the fiddle. Then Danzigger heard the sound of a high-pitched voice, much like his own, sing a melody even more heart-breaking than the songs he had been practicing for Rossonzigger’s departure. He padded over to the opening and looked in.
There was very little to see in the darkness, but there were a few sparkles of light. More important, he could hear the singing more clearly and its effect on Danzigger was all the stronger. Danzigger put one foot into the darkness and felt a very hard surface, like a rock. He would not sink into the water in this walking dream. Danzigger put his other foot into the dark and his eyes could take in a few more weak sparks such as the central fire would make after it had mostly died down during the night. The motionless air was chilly but not as cold as it was outside this place. Just a short distance away, Danzigger could make out the shadow of a person sitting on the stone ground, playing an instrument made of more and longer strings than his fiddle had. The melody was very different than any he had heard sung among the Baschi, so that Danzigger wondered if this person lived in a tribe on the other side of the world.
Danzigger took a few more cautious steps into the dream place and gently hit his toe against something soft. It was not slimy or furry or in any other way alive, and so Danzigger put forward a hand. Whatever it was felt soft and crinkly to the touch. The light was so faint that he had no idea what it was that his hand was feeling, but it seemed to vibrate with the music he was listening to. Danzigger tried to move closer yet but ran into something more solid that fell over with a loud thud. The singing stopped suddenly with a high-pitched gasp.
“How may I serve you?”
The frightened singer seemed to be a boy about Danzigger’s age but he seemed strange in many ways. His hair was quite light, much lighter than Danzigger had ever seen on a human. He wasn’t wearing any furs but instead wore something much thinner with odd shapes painted on it.
“I am sorry to have made a noise,” said Danzigger. “You can serve me by singing some more.”
“But—you want me to sing for you?”
“Yes, why would I not?”
“You are not wearing your livery,” said the boy.
“I always wear lashampa fur. I thought everybody did, but you don’t.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Danzigger. Who are you?”
“I am Kyle Pen Terraga. Are you an inheritor?”
Danzigger did not understand the question.
“My name is Danzigger. I am an apprentice to the spirit speaker of our clan. Singing is my healing channel. My fiddle is a new healing channel that I must learn. I must play tonight to comfort myself and my people because the man who played this fiddle for us has gone beyond.”
“You can sing, too?”
“Of course.”
“You won’t tell anyone you heard me singing?” the boy asked, as if he could be whipped for singing.
“Why should not people know you were singing? Singing is a healing channel for you.”
“But the disinherited are not allowed to sing.”
“Disinherited? Do you mean, you are—you are cut off from your people?”
“Sort of. I have to do what they tell me and they give me nothing except enough food to live on. Are you neither an inheritor nor disinherited?”
“No one among our people are cut off the way you are. Only if somebody wrongs us very deeply is someone cut off and that person goes away.”
“Where are you from?”
“The world. Aren’t you?”
“Uh—have you heard of Mastruum?”
“No.”
“I am beginning to think this place is more strange than I thought,” said Kyle. “How did you get here?”
“The song I sang struck the lake and then a shadow covered the light, but the shadow opened the way to this place,” Danzigger replied.
“I came through an opening in a parlor in the household where I work,” said Kyle.
“This place must be a waking dream in between,” said Danzigger.
“Between what?” asked Kyle.
“Between where I live and where you live.”
“Why would we come to this place?” asked Kyle.
“There is probably a reason but I do not know what it is,” Danzigger replied. “Were you singing when the way opened for you to enter this waking dream?”
“Are you going to report what I say to my aunt or my uncle or my cousins or to the peacekeepers?”
“You are still afraid because I heard you singing in this place and you are afraid to tell me you were singing in the tent where you live. I will tell no people you were singing if they will hurt you if they should know. You should not have to be afraid of your singing. I feel you need healing.”
“Yes, I was singing in the house where I live. I don’t think you can heal me. I am a disinherited son and will always be in trouble if I sing.”
“Nobody is disinherited among my people. You are not disinherited,” Danzigger insisted. “You may sing. Here, in between our worlds, nobody is disinherited. In walking dreams you cannot be what you call ‘disinherited.’ You are not disinherited here. I think you should sing while you are in this between space. You need healing. Your spirit does not walk with you.”
“My spirit?” Kyle asked.
“Your spirit is the center of you, but your spirit has been pulled away. I will sing a healing song and you will sing a song that will heal. Then you will know what I am saying.”
Danzigger worked out a pattern of notes on his fiddle and Kyle hesitantly played a few notes on his instrument. Danzigger listened carefully to make his notes on the fiddle sound right with the notes Kyle was playing. Then Kyle began his song and Danzigger joined in with a healing song for the fear that made somebody afraid of what others would do to him. There were clashes between the two songs but, most of the time, Danzigger liked the effect of singing them together and he hoped that Kyle did too. As their songs rose to their climaxes, Danzigger’s fingers started sliding around the notes the way his voice did. Then the songs ended, but Kyle continued to play a few notes softly on his instrument and Danzigger played his pattern of notes on the fiddle.
“I like your song,” said Kyle. “Nobody in Mastruum sings like that.”
“Nobody among the Baschi sings like you,” Danzigger said in reply.
“I think I feel better,” said Kyle.
Kyle looked to where Danzigger was pointing. Danzigger thought the space seemed a bit brighter than it did when he first entered it. Something flickering caught his eye and he looked in that direction. He saw two constellations of sparks floating some distance away from him and Kyle that flickered in time to the music the boys had just sung.
“Look at that!” said Danzigger.
“Ah! It happened again,” said Kyle. “One clump of sparks appeared when I sang in here the first time.”
“And now two more have appeared. I think we should sing in this place many times and create more light here.”
“It is hard for me to get away, but I will try,” said Kyle.
“I must return to my own people,” said Danzigger. “I hope I see you again and hear you again soon. You song is healing. I will say nothing to anybody who will hurt you for singing.”
“I hope I see you again, too,” said Kyle.
Danzigger picked his way out of the room. It was easier now that he could see the piles of materials more clearly. He found the opening to the lake side and stepped right into something soft and furry. Danzigger struggled to keep his balance and something soft and wet touched his neck. Behind him, lashampas were lapping up the water from the lake.
“You didn’t really think you could get out of herding the lashampas altogether, did you?” asked Petzigger with a look that could have burned the skin off Danzigger’s face.
Proceed to Chapter the Fourth of Part the First