For one thing, Squill’s head was protruding not from his neck but from his left side, just beneath his arm. His other arm was waving from where his head ought to have been. Then there was the more subtle problem of his left arm having been swapped for Neena’s. The slight difference in length was a clue, the disparity in fur color a dead giveaway. Not that they could compare fur, because Neena, to her utter mortification, was beneath her clothing as bald as a newborn human.
Nor did Gragelouth escape the confusion. Sizable, hairless, naked ears stuck out of the top of his head, whereas Buncan had acquired the sloth’s ears: comparatively small, gray-furred flaps of skin. That doubtless explained his current hearing difficulties.
They gathered upside down at the stern to contemplate their physiological disarray. Just as the boat had not reformed perfectly, neither had they. It was evident that in the process widely scattered body parts had sometimes taken the path of least resistance. In several instances this was not merely comical, it was downright embarrassing.
“Definitely a few kinks in that spellsong,” Buncan muttered.
“As kinked as this river,” Gragelouth added.
“This simply ain’t gonna do.” The hand atop Squill’s head gestured angrily.
“It certainly ain’t.” Neena was all but in tears over her condition. “Look at me. Just look at me!” She indicated her furless limbs.
“At least they’re in the bloody right places,” said her brother from beneath his arm.
Gragelouth’s absurd human ears twitched involuntarily. “The solution is clear. You must fix your spellsong and then sing it once again.”
“I knew we should have finished stronger,” Neena grumbled disconsolately.
“Thank goodness we got our own voices back.” Buncan shook the duar lightly. Water droplets fell past his head. A few experimental strums revealed that the instrument had survived the fall and subsequent awkward reintegration unharmed.
“This ‘ad better work.” Squill leaned against the cabin, bumping his head.
“Don’t make it sound like it was my fault.” Buncan tilted his head slightly to glare at his friend. “You two were the ones who came up with the lyrics.”
“Well, you were responsible for the bleedin’ accompaniment.”
“Arguing will help none of us.” Gragelouth held on to the tiller, more for support than out of any realistic hope of steering the inverted craft. “Please concentrate. I very much want my own ears back.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for yours.” Buncan strummed his instrument lightly.
The otters conferenced briefly before Neena looked up, her face full of concern. “Wot if we try this again an’ it just makes things worse?”
“Wot could be worse than this?” Her brother regarded her from somewhere in the vicinity of his thud rib.
“Do you guys remember the words?” Buncan asked them.
Neena smiled wanly. Even her whiskers were missing. “I thought I were goin’ to die. When you think you’re goin’ to die, you remember everythin’ right clearly.”
He nodded, readied himself. “Let’s pick it up near where we left off.”
As they rehearsed, the boat slid down one side of the tubular stream, across the bottom, and began to crawl slowly up the other side.
“And let’s hurry. I’ve never sailed on anything like this before, and I think I’m starting to get what Dad calls seasick.”
“Oh.” Gragelouth examined him with interest. “I thought your present coloration was another consequence of our unfortunate condition.”
As the boat described acrobatic loops within the tunnel of the river, they sang and played. A now familiar silvery flame gradually enveloped the entire boat, sweeping over and through each of them with a cold, prickly sensation. It faded with the song.
When his vision cleared, Buncan noted that Squill’s head and arm had exchanged places. So had his own ears and Gragelouth’s, along with other portions of their anatomy no one had had the courage to discuss in detail. Neena had reacquired her coat of dense, carefully groomed fur, though she didn’t relax until she had counted each and every one of her restored whiskers.
Everyone was very much relieved.
“That were ‘orrible.” Neena preened herself as best she could without a comb. “Imagine goin’ through life with no more fur on your body than a “uman!”
“See,” said Gragelouth, pointing. “Your hymn of restorations has rejuvenated our craft as well.” Sure enough, the crooked mast had been straightened.
It didn’t keep them from twisting and swirling upside down, sideways, and every other which way within the tube that was the river Sprilashoone.
“How do we get clear of mis?” Buncan gazed at fee hissing, reverberating tunnel of water until he found himself growing dizzy. “How do we find a place to land?”
“How did your fathers free themselves from this other enchanted stream?” Gragelouth prompted him.
Neena scratched her head. “Spellsang ‘emselves out, I reckon. Or maybe the river just flattened out. Deuced if I remember.”
“At least we are traveling in the right direction.” The merchant managed to sound optimistic.
Squill eyed him curiously. “Now ‘ow do you know that? I’ve a brilliant sense o’ direction, but upside down and all enclosed like this I’m buggered if I can tell a thing.”
Gragelouth. did not miss a beat. “Traders who travel as much as I do learn how to judge such matters. Many of my customers live in difficult-to-locate places. It would be bad for business if I were unable to find my way to them.” A sudden thought cast a pall of concern over his always melancholy face. “I certainly hope we do not reach a point where this tunnel collapses. Drowning may be a less novel means of perishing than going to pieces, but it is just as decisive.”
“We wouldn’t let you drown, baggy-eyes.” Neena smiled at him. “I’d get lonely for your constant complainin’.”
“No signs of any change,” Buncan assured the sloth, though he had to admit that the thought worried him. Neither he nor fee merchant could hold their breath half as long as fee otters.
“Your color has improved,” Grageloufe informed him.
“I feel better. I guess I’m getting used to this. As much as it’s possible to get used to something like this.”
He spoke too soon.
CHAPTER 11
Ten minutes downstream the tunnel began to warp and curl in upon itself. It felt as if they were sailing at high speed down fee intestines of a gigantic snake in fee grip of some wild, dyspeptic dance. Which, for all they actually knew, might in fact be fee case.
The tubular river bounced and dove, rose and plunged vertically: rapids inside a corkscrew. All fee while fee boat clung tenaciously to fee surface of fee water, while its occupants clung to cabin, tiller, gunwale, mast, or one another. The only thing that helped at all, Buncan discovered, was to close one’s eyes tight and concentrate on breathing evenly. Grageloufe had long since give up any attempt at steering, because he wished to devote his full attention to not throwing up. Abandoned, fee tiller banged plaintively against fee stern.
While human and sloth fought desperately to hang on to various portions of fee boat as well as fee contents of their stomachs, fee inimitable otters amused themselves by leaping overboard and cavorting in fee crashing waters that rushed and sang on all sides. They positively reveled in fee fervid disruption of natural law, ignoring Buncan’s warnings to beware of unexpected whirlpools, or intersecting tributaries that might tunnel away to nowhere.
After all, where else could you swim up fee side of a river until you were looking down on a boat and your companions, then kick free and dive through fee air past them to splash into fee water directly alongside?