Chapter the Fifth of Part the Fourth
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Danzigger Singing Fiddle in Merithwell.
“Are they okay?” Sue asked anxiously.
“So far,” Danzigger answered his new friend, but he forged ahead with his anguished playing pn his fiddle.
“Do you mean they’re still in danger?” asked Kit.
“Yes, they are still in danger,” Danzigger replied.
As he played his fiddle to focus his sight, Danzigger could see the boys in the stone tent as clearly as if he were floating above them. Tormo, Tel Arman and the dark boy from Brendan’s world were acting like berserk warriors against the priests and the angry crowd with their high kicks and their fists. Knowing that neither the priests nor the crowd knew what they were doing, and forbidden, as apprentice to the Spirit Speaker, to take human lives under any circumstances, Danzigger worked hard to protect the crowd from deadly injury as much as he worked to protect the boys. Under the protection of Tel Arman, whose spirit-given energy was astounding, and the dark boy and Tormo, Brendan and Mark and Luke gathered the other boys to safety inside a red wagon. When the three defenders followed them inside and Danzigger saw the entry to Merithwell opening at the back of the wagon, Danzigger stopped playing the fiddle and relaxed slightly.
“They are safe. They are coming.”
“Thank God!” Sue exclaimed.
“There are injuries and spirit loss that will need much healing.”
“What happened in there?” asked Kit.
“Many bad things,” said Danzigger.
The spirit speaker’s apprentice took a look at Raissa and Malcoomb. Raissa seemed to have solidified to her proper shape.
“I think their spirits have returned to them,” said Danzigger. “That is good.”
“I think it best to keep them sleeping,” said Dunsland, “if we have much more healing to do.”
Danzigger nodded. The rescue team plus the four people in the wagon came pouring back into Merithwell with their faces bruised and bloody.
“Look who’s been to the war!” Kit exclaimed when he saw the boys’ condition.
Gwendarin started to play the harp again. Danzigger had little concern for the cuts and bruises. His own healing powers would not be needed for those. What did concern Danzigger was the loosening of the spirit of all of the boys who were in the stone tent. Passenell’s spirit was completely gone and rescuing him would be a long process. This was the first battle that had taken place since Danzigger had become an apprentice and he sent a desperate plea to Maranzigga to come help him. Dunsland said a spell that laid out a carpet and a pillow for Passenell without needing to be asked. Mark and Tel Arman carefully laid Passenell out on the carpet just as Maranzigga, in answer to Danzigger’s summons, stepped though another opening and walked straight to the stricken boy. The boys who hadn’t seen her before were startled at the sight of an old woman dressed in furs. Luke and Mark hastily whispered to their friends that the woman would only help them. Maranzigga ignored the reception and knelt down to touch the boy’s throat and chest.
“There is a poison in him,” said Maranzigga, “but that is not the great problem.”
“I’ve heard that people who were going to be killed or—or sacrificed—were given drugs so they wouldn’t fight back,” said Luke.
“Yes,” said Maranzigga, “it seems to be the kind of poison that lets the body return to life.”
“But his soul is far from here,” said Danzigger.
“That it is,” said Maranzigga, “and that is the problem. My bones tell me that his soul will not return unless we go after it.”
“Can I come with you and help?” asked Polnar.
“No,” said Maranzigga. “You do not know how to make a spirit journey. And your spirit is already in danger of leaving you as well. All of you boys are in danger.”
“It was like a battle—only worse—that they went through,” said Danzigger.
“I know what has happened and—yes—it is worse than a battle.
“Should we—should we sing?” asked Pir Min.
“Yes,” said Maranzigga. “I think you must sing to keep your own souls from wandering from you.”
“I think she means we’re traumatized,” Luke explained to the boys from his world.
“I feel that your word is right for what has happened,” said Danzigger.
“I wish we had our instruments and could play them,” said the older man who had driven the wagon into the stone tent, “but I think they were lost during our narrow escape from the temple.”
Maranzigga took a small drum out of her fur bag.
“Is one of you a drummer?”
“Petzkah is,” said Polnar as he pointed to the young woman who turned away at the sudden attention.
“Give us a slow, steady beat,” Maranzigga ordered as she put the drum in Petzkah’s hands. “Danzigger will start singing the chant. All who can sing will sing the chant with Danzigger. Even if you can no longer hear Danzigger or his fiddle, sing the chant. Sing the chant especially if you cannot hear him.”
Maranzigga nodded to a flustered Petzkah and she began to beat on the Spirit Speaker’s drum. Danzigger played a pattern of notes on his fiddle and began to sing the chant for a spirit journey. Gwendarin supported the beat by plucking notes on the harp. Danzigger sang the chant over and over many times until all the boys had joined it and were singing it accurately. Then Danzigger and Maranzigga followed the music into the spirit world in search of Passenell.
There, Danzigger found himself in a rough, parched landscape.
“It must have been a drought they were sacrificing the boy for,” said Maranzigga.
Danzigger nodded and continued with his chanting and playing his fiddle. The two spirit speakers floated up an incline to a plateau. Scorched fields stretched out further than the Spirit Speaker’s apprentice could see. In the distance, a lone figure was walking away from him.
“I think I see him,” Danzigger said into Maranzigga’s mind.
“Sing to him.”
Danzigger sang the healing chant with renewed intensity, strengthened by the singing of the boys in Merithwell. Maranzigga and Danzigger took flight and soared under the searing sun over the fields until they reached Passenell. The boy was stumbling through the grass, his face blank. Maranzigga called out to him while Danzigger sang to him. Passenell turned around and walked towards them, but no expression returned to his face. Just as Danzigger was hoping that the spirit calling was succeeding, a large shadow covered Passenell and raucous cries filled his ears. Looking up, Danzigger saw a flock of large black birds with pointed beaks and fiery red eyes flying overhead. They blocked out the sun and drowned out Danzigger’s singing and his fiddle.
“Whatever happens, keep playing the fiddle and keep singing,” Maranzigga instructed her apprentice.
Danzigger could hardly heard the words over the birds’ cries, but he knew what Maranzigga was telling him. He had been warned often of dangers such as this in the spirit world but he had never encountered any them before. He felt like screaming but he knew that the birds would turn a scream to their twisted purposes. He wanted to put his arms around Passenell to protect him but he knew the birds would tear his arms away and carry off the stricken boy. Only the music of his healing channels, his fiddle and his singing, could protect Passenell and himself and his teacher. Maranzigga stretched out her arms and sang a chant in her deep, husky voice. The giant black birds swooped down, covering Danzigger with their wings and cutting him off from Passenell, but Danzigger still resisted the temptation to stop playing the fiddle and reach for the boy. He knew he had to trust his teacher’s command, no matter what happened. The birds filled Danzigger’s head with their raucous cries until the spirit speaker’s apprentice could no longer hear himself sing. And yet he sang the chant anyway, hoping he was still singing in tune and hoping that the boys back in Merithwell were still singing with him. Desperately, Danzigger prayed to every spirit that ever existed, not least the spirit Sue and Kit called God, to guide him and to save Passenell.
Suddenly Danzigger was swept off his feet so violently that he almost lost his fiddle and bow. It was no longer possible to play the instrument and he hardly had enough breath to sing. And yet the sound of the boys chanting infiltrated the cries of the birds and then it grew gradually louder and finally the singing drowned out the birds’ cries. Suddenly the pressure lifted and Danzigger was free to play on his fiddle again. As soon as he played on his instrument and resumed chanting, he saw Passenell walking at his side and Maranzigga limping badly behind them.
“Keep playing, keep singing,” Maranzigga urged her apprentice.
Danzigger continued to chant and he realized that the chant had changed. It was the song about the Western Wind once more. In the song, one of the spirits Danzigger had called on, the one called God, was filling heaven and earth with glory. Danzigger sang the song, walked to the drumbeat set by the young woman, and played a variant on the melody on his fiddle until he felt his foot hit the stone floor of Merithwell. The image of Passenell sank into the boy’s body lying before him. Maranzigga limped into Merithwell and all but collapsed on the ground. Danzigger stopped chanting and then stopped playing his fiddle. The other boys, looking very anxious, broke off their singing. Danzigger himself collapsed on the ground.
“Danzigger! Are you all right?” asked Brendan.
Pir Min picked up the fiddle and bow and Mark Streeter gently brought Danzigger to a sitting position. Danzigger’s head went round in circles for some time before he could shake off the dizziness. Everybody who was there to greet him looked, in Luke’s word, traumatized. Their spirits were only hanging on by little threads. Passenell’s eyes fluttered and opened.
“Passenell, are you all right?” Polnar asked his friend.
“I—guess so. We’re not—we’re not in the temple are we?”
“You’re not even in the same world as that temple,” said Mark.
“Good,” said Passenell, but the faded look on his face suggested that nothing would ever be good for the rest of his life.
“What happened here?” Danzigger asked. “Were you attacked by giant birds with cries that ripped the singing?”
Several frightened boys nodded.
“They were so loud we could hardly sing,” said Luke.
“But you still sang,” said Danzigger weakly.
“We did,” said Mark. “Kyle kept us going.”
“No, you kept us going,” Kyle said to Mark.
“I think all the boys kept each other going,” said the older man from the wagon.
“I think you saved our lives by singing,” said Danzigger. “It was good that you changed the chant. You seemed to know what chant to sing.”
“Did those birds attack you, too?” asked Polnar.
“Yes,” Danzigger answered.
“Why did they attack us?” asked Pir Min.
“They attacked us because somebody or something wants to destroy your singing,” said Maranzigga, startling the boys with her strong voice.
“But—who?” several boys asked.
“I think I know,” said Dunsland. “The Master Magi at the Academy, where I’m supposed to be learning magical arts, just told us that an errant magus or several errant magi are building a fortress somewhere and they are going to attack everybody and try and take over all seven worlds. Maybe it’s them.”
“Maybe,” said Maranzigga, “but don’t count on it.”
“What can we do if a bunch of sorcerers attack Merithwell?” asked Brendan.
“I don’t know,” said Dunsland. “I’m no good with magic.”
“I can see if I can find a bomb or two from my world that still works,” Tel Arman suggested.
“No!” cried Pir Min.
“I won’t throw any more bombs at you,” Tel Arman promised.
“What are you talking about?” Danzigger asked.
“A bomb is a little box that explodes—like making a volcano,” Brendan explained.
“I don’t think Chet would like it if we stole bombs and smuggled them into Merithwell,” said Luke.
“Things like that won’t work against errant magi,” said Morrass.
“You must keep singing,” said Maranzigga stoutly.
The boys looked at each other.
“That’s not much protection,” said Kyle in a small voice.
“Your singing brought me and Maranzigga back with Passenell,” said Danzigger. “It was all the protection we needed, but we needed it completely.”
“I say we all come to Merithwell as much as we can and see how many more singing stones we can make,” Mark suggested.
“That is the idea,” said Maranzigga. “I am going back to my tent now. If I am needed again and if I am still alive, I will come.”
The spirit speaker rose slowly to her feet and hobbled painfully back towards her world. Kyle followed after her.
“Can I help you?” Kyle asked.
“NO! Just keep singing.”
Danzigger looked after her until she was gone. He was far more worried about her than he had ever been before.
“I’m not reading any more science fiction after this,” said the boy named Kit.
“I think we’d all better double our reading dose,” Luke replied, “so we’ll know what to do the next time things like this happen.”
“I think we should bring Passenell to my tent in my world,” said Danzigger.
“Can I stay with him?” asked Polnar.
“Of Course.”
“I can move out and make room,” Pir Min offered.
“You can stay in my tent if you want,” said Danzigger. “There’s still room.”
“Do you want to come to our world and join our choir?” Luke asked Pir Min.
“Yea, sure,” said Pir Min with almost heart-breaking eagerness.
“I think Tel Arman also needs a place to go to,” said Dunsland. “I think he’s had enough of my horrible world.”
The atmosphere suddenly tightened. Tel Arman hid his face in his arms. Brendan and Luke looked over at Pir Min. Pir Min nodded.
“You come can come with us, too, if you want to,” said Luke.
“Really?” Tel Arman asked.
“Yes, really,” said Brendan. “You helped us a lot when we went after Polnar and Passenell. I don’t think we could have done gotten them and gotten back without you.”
Proceed to Chapter the Sixth of Part the Fourth