Ch 11: Percussion Therapy

Shai danced around them sniffing dramatically. “Aye ye be fit tae enter a human encampment…” She gave Gary a few more loooong sniffs. “or as close as such as ye might ever be. Come boys, tis groundworms and fer home. We would be in town walls again this evening!”

“The ladies are tired of roughing it in my primitive cabin are they?” Gary snarked. Shai pointed to her hair. It looked fine, not like when Gunnar was done with it, but it looked clean and not very tangled at all.

“Gary, I would like to get to town as well.” Liam said scratching at his patchy shave.

As they entered the house through the garden gate, a lovely lunch was spread out on the lawn near the bath. “Just in case you smelled like assholes, instead of just looking like them” Ivy chimed in, waving her arms to encompass the preparations.

After lunch, groundworms were a simple matter. Gary used a drum to call them to the surface with his gift, then the others would stab them. As for the worms themselves… boneless furry mole tubes? They were six foot long bodies, no bones, limbs or sense organs. Just a round chewing mouth and two yards of smooth, soft, silky fur.

If anything was ever easier to skin and cook he had no idea what it could be.

Mikkel showed them the trick in a moment and that was it. “Cut off the hideous mouth and throw it into the woods, turn the creature inside out. The meaty part is all meat. The rest is fur and what in polite company, we call ‘tract’. Nobody wants a ‘tract’, bury it deep.”

They killed two dozen of the creatures, Gary had to summon the house so he could stuff the gory mess into his freezer.

They came to the city gates just as seventh bell was sounding its first melancholy peal. He was sure he caught Tawny humming some Tina Turner as she walked beside Liam.

Gary turned to the temple district and the Adventurers Guild, while the rest headed for the market ward, even Shai. “Where are you guys going?” He asked, feeling slightly lost.

“Go boy, we be off on minor errands, ye hae a house tae build, dinnae ye forget me improvements now!”

They wandered off, saying something about barbers and mirrors. That kind of talk was tiring. He had not been alone in a while and it surprised him how much he missed the noise and ruckus of his friends already.

As he walked up the familiar streets he began to play his mandolin, just idly strumming in bluegrass. Acquaintances would wave and he replied with a riff and a smile, eager to get settled back in.

Gary felt loose and wobbly around the middle, like he needed to go for a run, or better yet dancing with Shai. Those thoughts carried him through a steamier than expected conjuration of their home.

Watching a young man cavort through an acoustic mandolin reimagining of Spinal Tap’s, ‘Big Bottoms’, in an empty courtyard would be confusing under any circumstances. Watching without the cultural context to fully grasp the irony and whimsey was a missed opportunity. The watching old timers were more interested in the young idiot’s bathhouse.

In Gunnar’s barbershop, Shai was quietly briefing Otho on the events of the week. “The boy is a least partly afflicted with some spirit or spirits, an I did wander through his mind in me own dreams, tis an odd place and nae in good condition.” She gave him her note book with a whisper, “I did write down whae he did say in his sleep, an did record me own dreams as best I were able.”

Gary soaked in the pool as Tallum dug up his duskmoon vine, under Tawny’s supervision. Liam was carrying a sack of pollen as big as his torso.

He waved goodbye to his plant while fondly remembering the delicious pods. They were a delight in soups and made any salad into ecstasy. He still had a big bag of pollen hidden away. It gave dreamless sleep, something he needed right now.

Gary was still getting his legs back under him when Shai came back looking great. Conjuring the garden with a second pool was still taxing. He felt much more in control of the courtyard than before, but it took some of the wind out of his sails.

Shai returned last of the group, carrying a large, flat paper wrapped package carefully. Her hair had been returned to its smooth lustrous glory and she looked pleased with herself. She marched right past with her burden and into the bathing room. With a wink a curtained partition appeared, and she vanished behind it. When she emerged, she was holding a ball of used paper and twine, and there was a rather nice lacquer cabinet on the wall in its own little curtained nook.

Curious, Gary moved to exit the pool, only to be swatted away by Shai. “Tis nae fer thee boy! Tis a mirror cabinet, t’will make ye dumb and confused again. Dinnae be sticking yer nose in there unless ye do want to be even dumber.”

“If you keep up this level of sass, I'm only going to put up with you for a few more decades, woman.” He griped. Shai just pitched her ball of paper and twine into the pool and watched it dissolve into nothing.

She slid into the pool with him when her paper had been consumed. “Gary,” She said, catching his attention by using his name. “Ye do know there is summat wrong wi ye, yes? In yer head and in yer soul?” He nodded mutely, caught off guard. “There be important matters what I nae kin speak of wi ye, because ye do lose focus and become an idiot. Dae ye understand?” He nodded again feeling foolish.

They floated there, silent and still, while the other members caught the vibe and fled the home for their own haunts. The doors locked and the lights went out throughout their home, responding to her will. Then she took her foolish boy and made sure the universe understood that he was hers and not to be trifled with. When the waves settled they went to bed.

She was in the house again, she could hear the music thumping away… and the knocking on the door… was she going to answer it? Boots appeared on her feet as she stepped down into Gary’s odd entryway where he insisted everyone put on those silly animal slippers. Where was that boy? This was his party too.

Her boots were silent on the smooth stone floor and they no longer left tracks of horrible filth behind. At the door she slid back the peephole door and asked “Who is it?”

In the lantern lights of the front door, stood a hooded and shrouded entity in a cloak of tattered streamers and rags of no easy description. The garment fluttered and drifted in unknowable breezes, its edges trailing and fraying into mist.

The voice from its hood was male, rich and smooth, an educated and controlled timbre. “I’m just a wandering stranger, summoned by the owner of this place, you are not he. Please tell him I came by again. We simply must stop missing each other.”

The entity began to recede into the shadows beyond the lamplight. “Wait, who are you?” She asked again, pulling the door open with a heave.

“Ohh, no dear me, don’t open the door, that will not do at all.” Its tattered rags shot into the shadows beside the door and dragged some squealing loathsome thing into the light. “Close the door madam, lest you be infested with these pests.” It said, flinging the thing into the void beyond the doorstep.

As the door slid home and latched she looked back out the peephole, it was lingering just on the edge of the light. “Sometimes the sharing of a secret is as powerful as the keeping of it, sometimes not. I am Secret, don’t spread it around.” It made a shallow but graceful bow.

“We will meet soon, you and I have business as well, but you feel that in your heart already. Just as when my brother, the god of Beasts touched your soul, I have left my mark. Though I see sweet sister Joy has beaten us all and claimed the prize.” Somehow it managed to wink its unseen eye at her in a saucy way. “I never begrudge Joy her victories, She was to have been the First of us after all.” After that, it vanished, the creature was simply no more.

She woke to find the boy pressed against her, drooling. It was an hour before first bell by the faint glow of pre, predawn, she rose and went downstairs to start some breakfast for herself and the company.

Ivy showed up with a basket from the orphanage kitchen. She seemed pleased and disappointed that “little Dannyl” had managed by himself for a week. It was easy to forget that he was only two years younger at sixteen and could try for his journeyman's apron, if he were not an orphan.

“How are you going to distract the boy?” Ivy asked, “He is hard to pin down.”

“Master Otho does say he has bait prepared. T’will stick him to his workbench fer long enough tae make a plan. Though I mislike the thought.” Ivy shuddered with revulsion at some idea and settled in to wait for the rest.

When Gary shambled downstairs the whole gang was there, Amicus and Otho and all the Bathers, save Aisha. He was wearing the embroidered robe from Z’s closet, like a silk bowling shirt for a wizard and a kilt, it was comfortable. They all looked him up and down from bare feet to haystack hair and laughed together.

“I just woke up, since someone slipped away like a sneaky sneak and closed all the curtains.” He glared at Shai. “I smell coffee…”

Breakfast was over and Gary was shaving in the bathing room with a conjured straight razor when he noticed they were all watching.

“I never noticed before…” Liam was murmuring.

“How does he keep from cutting his own throat?” Tallum wondered, rubbing at his own in concern.

The girls just looked confused and horrified, except Shai, who was numb to it now. “The mind is highly adaptable, youngsters,” Amicus lectured. “We can learn to compensate for many of life’s little challenges if we strive to overcome them.”

“I’m shaving, it's not an afterschool special, it's not a spectator sport either.” He said, as a folding screen painted in bright primary colors with hand gestures from (they assumed,) several cultures appeared. Rude hand gestures of course, many of which needed no translation.

When Gary emerged, Tallum looked very closely. “Not even a nick…” He reported to the group.

“Shai… tell your little friends to behave in my home, or they will have to go play in the park.” Gary said archly.

Otho smiled indulgently and remarked casually to the room. “A courier from the bargeman's guild came by at first bell you know… lugging a chunk of some poor dead tree. I had him toss it downstairs in your workshop.” He scratched his head in thought. “Bog cypress? Mistglen village he said? It is so hard to remember at my advanced age.”

“That should keep him busy til lunchtime. Let's get to work.” Otho announced when the workshop door closed. Amicus and Otho started drawing complex circles in chalk, salt and wax on the pavers around the pool.

The others began their own preparations. Ivy assisted the two old sorcerers in their ritual drawings. Liam and Tallum were warming up and stretching as if for battle, while Shai and Tawny went through meditation exercises in the garden.

Gary had used conjured blades, wedges and a steaming kettle with a long flexible neck to ever so carefully remove the back panel of that poor violin a few weeks ago. He had been waiting for the lumber to finish the job properly for a good while and he was excited to get it done.

“It is going to feel unpleasant and unnatural at first, but you will grow accustomed to the feeling.” Tawny was explaining to Shai as they readied themselves “It's much like what you have already experienced with him, but instead of the front door you will be using the back entrance. Expect pressure, discomfort and a little pain, there may be a small amount of bleeding, are you ready?”

“Nae I be not ready, tis unnatural and frightening, I dinna ken how it should even fit In there…” She shuddered “He be coming up.” she whispered, suddenly tense.

He emerged, covered in shavings and sawdust but looking pleased. “Tell acolyte Dering her violin will be ready by the end of the week, if you would be so kind, master Otho.” He announced happily. “Why does everyone look on edge?”

Shai stepped close, tenderly dusting the shavings from his conjured work clothes. “Boy, dae ye remember when ye did tell us o your gifts?” she said softly. He nodded, feeling a weird vibe in the room. “Did ye hear whae I spoke of tae Otho and Amicus?”

“He reflected back… it was hazy coming in flashes;

“Poke him where? Wae me what?”

“...thumb ye say?”

“An tis nae agin the law o the church nor the land?”

“But There be moral considerations dae he nae consent!”

He did not like these memories at all. That was when he felt hands on him.

His “friends” were all wearing conjured bathrobes, and dragging him into his own bath. He struggled wildly, but they had him. Tawny stepped up and struck him with her wand, rendering him limp as a rag doll but still fully aware and conscious.

He strained against her magical paralysis but it was hopeless. Pinned by Liam and Tallum, he watched helplessly as Shai approached. The old men were chanting something that made no sense over at the edge of the pool.

Shai slid behind him and he heard her whisper in his ear, so softly, “Forgive me Gary.” Her use of his actual name, rather than ‘fool, boy or foolish boy’ was startling, catching him off guard and vulnerable. Open if you would, that was when she struck with her rigid thumb, lodging it firmly and directly into his earhole.

Some eldritch magic of the old men made the unclean thing possible, her thumb entered and she followed after, her mind slipping into his through that connection.

It was not the party, nor their home. It was that damn cave, the cave with the hateful voice and bubbling contraption, and the endless music. Gary was there looking hurt and confused, looking at her, hurt and confused, betrayed perhaps. She tried to speak, but had no voice here. He tried to ask “Why?” but no sound emerged.

“Well, this is less than ideal.” A familiar voice said, cutting through the music with ease. The tattered shroud of evershifting infinite muted colors moved out from the darkness, not exactly into the light but into a nebulous area of almost shadow.

It drifted closer, but never became more clearly defined. “You are not yet ripe.” it said, looking at her. “This one is, but can't be plucked by law.” It pointed a glove made of questionable motivations at Gary. “I need him to go someplace where the law is not. He needs to go there and let me in of his own free will.” It pointed that finger at her. “You need to remember, because he won’t” It looked at her blank stare and sighed, like leaves rustling in the wind.

It waved an arm and Gary was gone, so too was the cave, she was gone as well. In her place was a collection of bubbles in clusters, stitched together with filmy ribbons of light and shadow.

It was her, those bubbles, her essence laid out in an anonymous and still intimate way. The figure was there, standing nearby but still indistinct.

“This is how the gods, spirits and outsiders perceive mortals.” It explained patiently. “You are all filled to the brim with limitless potential and options. Each and every one could be anyone or anything. Who you are is a matter of the choices you make, who you become is the result of those choices.”

Her perspective fled back, giving a wider view of the bubbles she was. “Here we have you, mind, body and soul. Each represented here as these colorful and charming bubbles and ribbons. This cluster is your body… very nice, well maintained.” It indicated a collection of swirling greens and browns.

“Here is your mind, healthy but underutilized, tighten it up young lady, a keen mind is a gift all its own.” Rainbow hued bubbles spun, but some were drifting loosely while others were tangling up.

“and the soul, wracked with fresh guilt I see. You stepped in it and now you need to find a way to clean it up, I suggest you tell him everything. Ironic, the god of Secrets telling you to confess.” He prodded a cluster of fiery red and gold bubbles, faintly laced with a few ugly black threads.

He waved to indicate the complex network of tightly interwoven clusters. “That's you, Pretty, healthy and normal. You can see where you are marked by Joy and Beast, there I am too. Craft has been busy here I see. This is what we expect.”

Just as suddenly, she was back in her body, standing beside the entity, looking out on a chaotic field of strewn bubbles in loose clusters.

“This is our boy, he is a mess. Look at the body, it’s shaping up and is nicely connected to the mind, just what we like to see, but the body is barely connected to the soul at all.”

The creature moved her view, showing the pitiful few threads and ribbons connecting the two. “That is a real problem, but look at the soul itself, someone has been having a go at this kid for a while.” Many of the bubbles were deflated, discolored, disconnected or even missing. Some innate sense told her that he had been damaged and was in a fragile state.

“The mind though… look at it, sewn to the soul by the thinnest threads and in random spots, all rumpled and torn, you could barely wipe up a spill with that rag.” It reached out and flicked a bubble at random causing a song chime out in joyful, tinny, music box tones. “Music, that's mostly what's in there, shake one, maybe you will be surprised…”

It swept her back for a distant view of Gary’s constellation of bubbles and she was horrified. From a distance he was scattered and almost falling apart at the edges, his soul was tattered like poor quality lace washed once too often. His mind looked like a wad of unwanted wrapping paper and leftover string, not unlike what she had tossed away that morning.

“You are being pulled back into the human world, remember and tell him, meet me at his party. We can only Contract there.” The creature called from an increasing distance as she was pulled away.

Gary was floating there, eyes open and limp as a rag doll, a thin trickle of blood streaming from one ear into the pool. Her thumb was still slightly bloody, and coated with a slippery clear goo that vanished rapidly when the old men fell silent.

“An he does nae forgive this trespass, I shall have the joy of murdering you two old goats.” She snarled, collecting the wreck of her musician and holding him close.