Squill frowned at his friend. “ ‘Ere now, you’re really down, ain’t you?” He put a short arm around as much of the human’s back as he could manage, careful not to disturb the duar.
“It’s just that I’m so bored there,” Buncan explained. “I want to do great things, to challenge the primary forces of existence. I want to spellsing.”
“Uh-oh,” muttered Neena, “that again.”
“Nothin’ personal, mate,” said Squill, “but you can’t sing well enough to inveigle a deaf dugong, much less a primary force.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t play a single-stringed bow,” Buncan shot back.
Squill raised both paws. “Hey, I know that, mate.”
Buncan gazed morosely at the ground. “I keep fooling myself, telling myself I can get better. But deep down I know I’ll never be able to sing well enough to make magic.”
“At least you can play an instrument,” said Neena. “I wish I could play anythin’.”
“Same ‘ere,” her brother confessed.
Buncan slid off the root and turned to face them. “How can I execute spellsongs if I can’t sing? How can I save the world and rescue fair maidens if I can’t work proper gramarye?”
“Ah!” barked Neena. “Now the truth comes out, it does. You’re just like any other male.”
He glared at her. “Why do you always have to bring everything down to such a base and common level, Neena?” She batted her eyes at him enticingly. “Because I’m a base and common sort of lass, Buns.”
He turned away from them. “Dammit, I want to do something . . . something noble and elevating!”
Squill tapped the growth on which he was sitting. “We could climb this ‘ere tree.”
Exasperated, Buncan whirled on his friend. “Can’t you be serious for just a minute?”
The otter considered carefully. “Well now, that’s a pretty heavy request, mate.” He glanced at his sister. “But since you’re about our best friend, we’ll make an effort.”
“Thank you,” said Buncan with exaggerated solemnity. “You know, I can sing well enough to make magic. I just can’t sing well enough to control it.”
“Don’t sound like a very promisin’ weapon with which to take on the primal forces.” This time Squill didn’t smile. “An’ I wouldn’t rely on your swordwork to get you out o’ any scrapes. I’ve seen you work with a sword.”
“You’re no match for your father yourself.”
“ ‘S’truth, Mudge still wields a quick blade,”
Neena agreed. “Even if ol’ Daddy-whiskers is gettin’ a bit wide in the gut.”
“You’d better not let him hear you say that,” Buncan warned her. “He’ll blister your butt.” He walked over and rested both hands on the root. “I can do this. I can spellsing. If I could only find a way to improve my vocalizations.”
Neena tickled him, and he jumped. “Well, you’d best be careful with it, Bunkle. Like me brother says, you’re about the best non-otter friend we ‘ave. You kill yourself and we won’t ‘ave no one better to tease.” She exchanged a glance with Squill. “Want to see somethin’ really interestin’?”
“What?” He tried not to sound too indifferent, knowing she was doing her best to try to cheer him up.
From a pocket in the lower part of her vest she extracted a flat, squarish black box. A small transparent window was set in the slightly domed top. Intrigued, Buncan took a closer look. His eyes widened as soon as he recognized it.
“Hey, that looks like . . .!”
Neena nodded vigorously. “The CD player your father brought back from his world on his last visit there and gave to Mudge.”
Buncan was appalled. “If your parents knew you’d taken that from the den they’d shave you front and back.”
Her whiskers twitched. “Bloody right. But they don’t know.” She winked at her brother. “Mudge didn’t teach us all ‘is of techniques for nothin’.”
“They ‘ardly ever let us use it,” added Squill, “so we just sort of appropriated it for the afternoon.”
“The only problem is that we can’t get it to work.” Neena fingered the black rectangle. “Somethin’ about it needin’ some magic installed before it’ll play. Mudge says it needs ‘better days.’ ”
“ ‘Batteries,’ ” Buncan corrected her. “I’ve watched Jon-Tom use them at our tree. They’re four little magically charged cylinders that fit in here. See?” He turned the rectangle over and showed them the compartment and the four cylinders nestled like larvae within. “The spell runs down and Dad has to revitalize it before it’ll work again. I don’t remember the exact words to the spell. Something about a rabbit that keeps going.” He shrugged as he reseated the cylinder compartment.
Neena considered. “ ‘Ere now, Bunco, if you’re any kind o’ spellsinger at all, you ought to be able to recharge a simple little spell like this.”
“Jolly right!” Squill took the player and set it down on the ground. “Get on it, mate.”
“Now wait a minute.” Buncan looked uneasy. “This involves some serious magic. Electrons and rabbits and all kinds of stuff. I don’t know if I should be messing with Mudge’s property.”
Neena sniffed disdainfully. “An’ you want to rescue damsels and battle evil. Right.”
“But this is a device from the Otherworld.”
“Blimey, give it a try, Buncan,” Squill implored his friend. “ ‘Ow bad can you bung it up?”
“Well . . .” He slid the duar off his back and plucked hesitantly at the double set of strings. A soft golden glow began to coalesce at the place where the strings intersected. “This is risky.”
“You think you won’t meet any risks on a quest?” Neena challenged him. “Come on, you can do it.”
Taking a deep breath, he began to sing. The instrumental accompaniment was exalting, exquisitely rendered, but the words . . . It was a struggle for the otters to keep their paws off their ears.
The CD player twitched a couple of times, but did not otherwise react.
After his best effort drew forth only a brief whine from the device’s tiny internal speaker, Buncan let his fingers fall from the duar. “There, you see?” he said angrily. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
“You play beautifully, Bunky,” Neena told bun.
The trio regarded the quiescent player regretfully, until Squill unexpectedly let out a yip of inspiration.
“Oi! I’ve an idea, I ‘ave!”
“Now there’s an odd notion,” said Neena.
Squill ignored her. “Me sister and me, we ‘ave wonderful voices, we do. An’ we’re bloomin’ quick with wordplay.”
He twirled a whisker. “Otters are quick with everythin’. ”
“I ‘ave to admit that this one time me squish-brained brother ‘appens to be right,” Neena agreed. “Though I don’t see ‘is point.”
“Don’t you get it?” Squill eyed Buncan eagerly. “Wot if you played an’ we took care o’ the singin’?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Spellsinging’s not a cooperative enterprise.”
“Says who? Don’t wizards ofttimes work together to homogenize a big spell?”
“Sure, but that’s different.” Isn’t it? “We’ve known each other all our lives.” Neena enthusiastically took up her brother’s suggestion. “We’ve grown up together. We’re personally and emotionally compatible. Lots o’ times.”
“Being friends is different from making magic together,” Buncan argued.
“Bein’ friends is a kind of magic,” she countered.
“Much as it pains me deep to admit it, me brother might ‘ave somethin’ worth pursuin’ “ere.” Her eyes shone brightly.
“It’s worth a try, mate,” Squill added. “Wot’s to lose?”
“We can try that new kind of music.” A delighted Neena clapped both paws together. “The kind that Jon-Tom brought back from his last visit to the Otherworld, that our parents don’t like. That’s a good reason to use it.”
Buncan pondered. “You mean that rap stuff? I don’t know if I can play to accompany that.”