Chapter the Seventh of Part the Third

In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Danzigger Singing Fiddle in Baschdynn.

Danzigger moved his fingers along the fiddle’s string until he found a new note. Having found it, he relished it for some time, amazed at how beautiful even a single note could sound. Several lashampas crowded in on him as he played. One of them butted his bow-playing hand with its muzzle. Danzigger gently pushed it away. That was one of the disadvantages of the way the lashampas responded to his fiddle. One of the advantages was that it made herding much easier. The other children were noisily throwing a twister back and forth among them. Playing on the job was strictly forbidden, but the children always did it when none of the elders were spotted coming along to check on them. With the lashampas crowding in on Danzigger while he practiced his fiddle, the other children played with more abandon than ever because they knew that none of their animals would stray.

With sadness, Danzigger noted the barriers made out of fallen trees that Terrenzigger had made to keep the lashampas claimed by him and his followers apart from those claimed by Sampanzigger and those Baschi who stayed with him. The first night Danzigger played the fiddle and sang over the drumming of Maranzigga for the healing of Pir Min and Tel Arman, all of Terrenzigger’s lashampas broke away and surrounded Danzigger’s tent. When Terrenzigger came to collect his animals and tie them behind the barriers of the land he had claimed for his own people, he accused Danzigger of stealing his lashampas.

Pir Min sat close to Danzigger, lost in thought and painful memories. He stroked blades of grass as if they were the most precious things in the world and petted the lashampas who came near him as if they were his dearest friends. This was the first day where Pir Min felt strong enough to come out of the tent for a whole day, and so this was the first day Danzigger had been out to join the other children for herding duty.

“Do you like our world?” Danzigger asked Pir Min.

“I can’t believe you have all of this land, these trees, these animals.”

“And how could you not have land and trees and animals in your own world?” Danzigger asked.

“Everything was built up,” Pir Min replied.

“Built up?” Danzigger asked. “I do not understand.”

“Uh—the Empire built something everywhere, with no room for trees or animals.”

“Do you mean they covered everything with tents?”

“Something like that—big tents with hard walls.”

“And what did you eat? What did you wear if you had no lashampas?”

“The Empire made food and clothes by machines.”

“I do not understand—do you mean the Empire made food and clothes just appear, the way Dunsland can make something appear?”

“Something like that—but different.”

“Is this why Tel Arman would not stay here long enough to be healed?” Danzigger asked. “He seemed afraid even of the smallest blade of grass.”

“I think that is a reason,” said Pir Min. “The Empire taught him to hate everything that is not made by the Empire. And I think Tel Arman was angry at you for telling him that they should not have attacked me.”

“But that is what I think,” said Danzigger. “Why should he think his Empire should attack a boy like you?”

“Because we do not believe in the Empire,” said Pir Min.

While Danzigger talked with Pir Min, the lashampas started to move off in different directions.

“Let us find another place and then I will play the fiddle and we will sing,” Danzigger suggested. “The lashampas like my fiddle. When I play it, they stay where I am, even if they eat all the grass where I am. If I keep playing, they will not move to where the grass is longer, no matter how hungry they are. It is not good for a place of grass to be eaten up all at once, and so we move now.”

“Why don’t you make the other children pay attention to the lashampas?” Pir Min asked.

“You saw their faces this morning,” Danzigger replied. “They are mad at me for taking care of you instead of helping them with the lashampas. If I keep the lashampas together by playing my fiddle so that they can play with the twister, they are not so mad at me.”

“I’m sorry I’m making things hard for you,” said Pir Min.

“Pir Min,” said Danzigger, as he walked up another small hill, plucking a string on the fiddle as he went to prod the lashampas into following him, “you were hurt, badly hurt, and so I helped Maranzigga heal you because that is what the spirits told me to do. I am sorry for all your injuries, but I am happier that you are here with me than I was before you came. You and the other boys of Merithwell are the only ones except for Maranzigga that I can talk to.”

“I had parents and friends I could talk to once,” said Pir Min, “but not now. I am glad to have you to talk to.”

Danzigger sat down again with Pir Min next to him and played a few notes on his fiddle, making sure that he used the note he had just discovered/ Then he sang one of his herding songs. Pir Min listened intently and then joined in with Danzigger, once he knew how to song went. Danzigger liked the sound of Pir Min’s voice very much, as he liked the singing of the other boys he had met at Merithwell.

“Can you sing one of your songs?” Danzigger asked Pir Min.

“We have a song that says the Lord is a shepherd,” Pir Min replied. “The song was hard to understand but we sang it because our ancestors sang it. Now I understand it better.”

“Please sing the song.”

Danzigger played a pattern of notes and Pir Min began to sing: “The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore I shall nothing lack.” Danzigger played the fiddle along with Pir Min’s singing and then sang along with Pir Min about the “darkness of the valley of death” where he “felt no evil” and finally “living in the house of the Lord forever.”

“How do you have songs about a shepherd who herds animals when you have no animals to herd?” Danzigger asked.

“I think there were animals and grass for animals to eat when our ancestors first sang this song,” said Pir Min.

“Did this song come from Brendan’s world, like the songs we sang at Merithwell?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it did.”

“Tel Arman seems to hate the songs we sing in Merithwell.”

“The Empire hates all songs except their imperial songs,” said Pir Min.

“I wish Tel Arman would be healed, but I do not like his Empire,” said Danzigger sadly. “I think it will be hard for him to be healed as long as he stays with Malcoomb. I think there is something Malcoomb wants more than he wants the healing of Tel Arman.”

“I think Tel Arman chose to go with Malcoomb after Dunsland read the story about the Fall of Merithwell.”

“That is what I think,” said Danzigger. “I hope that Tel Arman can come back to Merithwell if he chooses a different path than the one he has chosen now.”

“I think it is hard to believe in the Empire and then give up believing in it,” said Pir Min. “I never believed in it because my people did not believe in it. We lived in fear of it. When a group that called itself the Cutting Edge started to fight the Empire with bombs, we feared the Empire more than ever. We tried to tell the leaders of the Cutting Edge that they should not attack the Empire but they would not listen to us any more than the Empire would ever listen to us.”

“And so, like Tel Arman, you lost everything you had in your world, did you not?”

Pir Min turned away as that question jerked many tears out of him.

“Yes,” Pir Min choked.

Suddenly a lashampa jumped away with much more energy than those animals normally showed. Several children cried out. The twister landed on the ground at Danzigger’s feet. Seeing that the twisted wooden toy had hit the animal, Danzigger gently reached over to touch its head but the lashampa shied away.

“Singing Fiddle!” called out Framzigger. “Do you have the twister?”

Danzigger wasn’t sure he liked to be called Singing Fiddle, but the name was fitting and he knew he wasn’t going to stop others from calling him that.

“You hit a lashampa with the twister,” Danzigger replied. “Why don’t you watch where you throw it?”

“I tried to throw it that way,” said Lonzigga, pointing in a different direction, “but it went this way instead.”

“I watched where it was going,” said Framzigger, “but I couldn’t stop it.”

Danzigger tried again to reach the injured lashampa but it hopped further away from him.

“Is that the one that got hit?” Kenzigger asked as he pointed to the lashampa. “He’s got red water on his head.”

“That’s the one,” Danzigger answered. “He won’t cooperate now that he needs help.”

“Play your fiddle and he’ll come back to you,” Norzigga suggested.

“Maybe I should leave it the way it is until we bring it in so that our elders will know that you were playing with the twister when you were supposed to be watching the lashampas and that you hurt one of them with the twister,” said Danzigger.

The looks from the children told Danzigger that he would not be popular with them if he did that and their side glances at Pir Min warned Danzigger that Pir Min might suffer from their anger.

“You don’t want to let a lashampa stay hurt, do you?” said Lonzigga.

Danzigger knew the girl was right. He put the fiddle to his shoulder and began to play one of the simple tunes he had worked out. The injured lashampa immediately turned around and headed back towards Danzigger. The other lashampas also crowded in on Danzigger and blocked the way of the injured one. Lonzigga and Framzigger each pulled a lashampa away to let the injured one reach Danzigger. The spirit speaker’s apprentice played the pattern of notes that he liked to use for an injury healing song and then he sang his song. Danzigger imagined his song going into the wound on the lashampa’s head and stopping the red water from running out of him and then he directed the song to close the wound. With that accomplished, Danzigger ended his song.

“Feeling better?” Danzigger asked the lashampa as he patted him on the head.

The lashampa wagged its tail appreciatively. Danzigger expected that the other children would make noises of appreciation but instead, there was silence. Instead, the children wore expressions not unlike what Danzigger read in the faces of his people when he played the fiddle and sang at Rossonzigger’s departure ceremony. With the music stopped, the lashampas moved off in different directions. The children remained standing in their places.

“Is anything wrong?” Danzigger asked.

Framzigger shook his head. The other children drifted further off. None of them seemed to be paying attention to the lashampas.

“Don’t let the lashampas get out of your sight,” Danzigger warned them.

“If you play for them, Singing Fiddle, they will come back,” said Norzigga.

Danzigger wondered about the effect his music was having on the lashampas and his people. It seemed that the animals were the ones who liked it the better. Noting that the twister was still at his feet, Danzigger picked it up.

“Singing Fiddle! Throw it here!” Framzigger cried when he saw that Danzigger had it.

“Singing Fiddle!” Lonzigga cried, “throw it here!”

“Who should get it?” Danzigger asked Pir Min.

“Throw it to the girl,” Pir Min suggested. “She is the nicer one.”

And so Danzigger threw the twister to Lonzigga, but it veered away from the girl and sailed off in between Lonzigga and Framzigger. A few of the lashampas strayed off in the same direction. Then, right where the twister was going to land, there was a flicker in the air. The lashampa closest to the flickering disappeared and so did the twister. The two children converged on the spot but found neither the animal nor the twister.

“Singing Fiddle!” Framzigger yelled. “You lost the lashampa!”

“We’ll all get into trouble if we don’t bring in the lost lashampa,” said Lonzigga.

“And it will be all your fault,” added Kenzigger.

Danzigger, with Pir Min straight behind him, wasted no time in coming down the hill to the spot where the lashampa disappeared.

“Is he the one who made the lashampa disappear?” Framzigger asked, pointing at Pir Min.

“No,” said Danzigger. “Pir Min likes our animals and he does not make them disappear. I think I can make it come back if I play my fiddle.”

“Then play your fiddle,” Lonzigga ordered.

Danzigger played a simple tune on his fiddle and the flickering in that spot returned. Pir Min sucked in his breath. The other children started to back away. Then the flickering broke apart and the lashampa bolted out of a dark area. Danzigger stopped playing and looked into what was unmistakably Merithwell where several stones were sparkling. He saw Dunsland moving frantically with two other gray-robed children. He and another student magus seemed to be carrying a girl who was dangerously injured.

“We must help that girl,” said Danzigger.

“Yes. We must,” Pir Min agreed.

Proceed to Chapter the First of Part the Fourth

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