Buncan sat up a little straighten “No, what?” “You nearly destroyed your mother’s kitchen. Not to mention your mother.” “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been spellsinging again, haven’t you?” Buncan turned away. “How many times have I told you not to spellsing in the house?”
The younger Meriweather looked frustrated. “Well, where am I supposed to practice?”
“On the riverbank. In the Bellwoods. Outside school. Anywhere but at home. It’s dangerous.” He softened his tone. “You’ve got a lot of natural talent, Buncan. You may even be a better duar player than I. But as to spellsinging . . . you’ve got to work on your lyrics, and your voice. It’s taken me eighteen years to learn how to carry a tune adequately. Your pitch, your tonal control, is worse than mine. Sometimes it’s nonexistent.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Buncan replied sardonically. “For the vote of confidence.”
“Son, not everyone has the skills necessary to make magic, much less be a spellsinger. It may be that despite your obvious instrumental talents your true vocation lies elsewhere. It’s all very well and good to be a brilliant instrumentalist,” Buncan perked up at the compliment, “but if the words and phrasing aren’t there, you risk unpredictable consequences of a possibly lethal nature.”
“Dad, you’ve been hanging with Clothahump much too long.”
“Let me put it another way. You could total yourself.” Jon-Tom rose from the end of the bed. “Now come downstairs and take a look at what you did to your mother’s kitchen.”
Buncan sounded uncertain. “You mean my singing . . . ?”
Jon-Tom nodded. “Demons, devils, imps, inimical sprites, and all manner of nasty conjurations. It’s a real mess.”
Buncan rose to follow, sarcasm giving way to contrition. “I’m really sorry, Dad. I thought I was being careful. Will you tell Mom I’m sorry?”
“You can tell her yourself.” Jon-Tom opened the door and headed down the hall. “This has got to stop, Buncan. You’re just not experienced enough to be taking these kinds of chances. Especially in the house. What if you accidentally freed the monster under your bed?”
Buncan followed slowly. “There’s no monster under my bed, Dad.”
“Shows how much you know. Until they reach their twentieth birthday every kid has a monster under their bed.”
His son considered. “Was there one under yours when you were a kid, Dad?”
“I told you, there’s one under everybody’s. I just didn’t know it when I was your age. Mine,” he added as they started down the stairs, “was warty and leprous, and wanted to force-feed me eggplant. I hated eggplant. Still do.” They reached the den and paused there. “I think it was a Republican. “No more spellsinging, anytime, anywhere, until your voice improves.”
“But, Dad . . .!”
“No buts.”
“I hate voice school. Sitting in a chair for hours, listening to that stupid nightingale. I’m not a bird, Dad.”
“Mrs. Nellawhistle makes appropriate allowances for the natural limitations of her students. She’s very patient.” She has to be, he thought, with pupils like Buncan. “She really can help you with pitch and tone, if you’ll let her. Spellsinging takes study and work. Or did you just think you could pick up a duar and successfully manipulate the forces of Otherness? If I hadn’t come home when I did, your mother could be lying on the kitchen floor right now, sword in one hand, broom in the other, eviscerated and dismembered.”
Buncan chuckled. “Good ol’ Mom. That’s the way she’d want to go.”
“This is serious. No more spellsinging until your lyric composition and singing have improved.”
“How the hole-in-the-stone can anyone be expected to improve when all they have to work with are these ossified old songs?” Buncan complained bitterly.
Jon-Tom looked shocked. “Those ‘ossified old songs’ are the classics of my world, Buncan. Good, solid, serious rock. I’ve made plenty of magic with them. They constitute a fine basis for spellsinging.”
“Maybe they do for you. Dad, but I just can’t relate to them. I’ve tried. Magic or no magic. No wonder I can’t keep control. I’m just not into the stuff.”
“You’d better get into it. As for controlling anything, you’re eighteen years old, stubborn and bullheaded and inexperienced, notwithstanding you’re convinced you know everything. Maybe you ought to take up another instrument.”
Buncan glanced sharply at his father. “You can only spellsing with a duar.”
“You got it. Then maybe you should take up something else altogether. Woodcarving. I could apprentice you to Genrac the suslik. He’d be glad to teach you. There’s no shame in learning a real trade.”
“I want to spellsing, Dad. The problem’s with the music, not my musicianship.”
“Excepting your lamentable singing voice. Frankly, Buncan, you couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Unless that changes you’ll only be a danger to yourself and everyone around you, no matter how well you play the duar. Speaking of which, after Clothahump and Semond and I labored so long and hard over your instrument, I don’t see why you couldn’t have left it alone.”
“I don’t just want to play good, Dad. I want to look good, too.”
“Then there’s these ridiculously subdued outfits you’ve started to favor.”
“Dad, cut me some slack, please? I promise, I won’t screw up again. But I’m just not ready to give up on this and go into woodworking or metal husbandry or thieving or any of the other traditional professions yet.”
“Okay. I accept your promise. So much for the easy part.”
Buncan blinked. “What’s the hard part?”
“Keeping your mother from flaying you alive. Follow me.”
Preparing himself as best he could, Buncan did so.
At dinner he was sullen and uncommunicative. Not that it was necessarily a corollary to what had transpired earlier. It was the same pose he’d affected for much of the preceding year.
Feeling sorry for the boy, Jon-Tom tried to mediate, explaining to Talea that it was all just a phase then- son was going through. Having been brought up under different circumstances in a very different society from that of her husband, Talea responded that in her clan such phases were usually handled with a sharp knife. Buncan started to say something but wisely thought better of it.
Only after he felt that his mother had vented most of her spleen did he push aside what remained of his vegetables and snake sausage. “Want me to get your sword now, Mom, or should I just take poison after I’ve finished brushing my teeth?”
“Could we dispense with the sarcasm for five minutes?”
“Hey, what more can I say, Mom? I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not like I turned the stove into a salamander.” He hesitated, staring at his father. “All I want is to be like Dad. To do some of the things he’s done. To come near to his achievements, have adventures, perform great deeds. I want to rescue beautiful damsels and defeat evil and save the world. Is that too much to ask?”
“Let me tell you something, son.” Jon-Tom sliced off a cylinder of sausage and poked it into his mouth, chewing reflectively as he gestured with his fork. “It’s true that I helped save the world, and as a full-time occupation I can tell you that it’s very overrated. Not to mention highly stressful.”
“Actually I mink you’ve saved the world twice, sweetheart.” Talea set a fresh bowl of steaming sweet-and-sour potato down alongside the vegetables.
Jon-Tom frowned. “I thought it was just once.”
“No, dear,” she said firmly. “Twice, at least.”
“Really? Anyway,” he continued, turning back to his son, “I’ve been down that road, and it’s not half so glamorous as you seem to think it is. A nice, steady, comfortable practice of magic somewhere, executing medicinal spells to help people get well and plastic surgery spells to improve their looks: That’s what you want. A good living in a proven profession that’s respected and admired.”