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devastation and despair to the jewel of the north.
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The mud huts vanished, to be replaced by finely wrought structures
of hardwood and dressed stone. The mud seemed to dissolve beneath his feet,
leaving behind yard-square paving blocks of ocher-streaked white marble. Close
by, the mud spring was transformed into a graceful spire of filagreed arches.
Water spurted or trickled from dozens of nozzles. Set among the marble
sculptures that comprised the fountain were hundreds of the brilliant green
garnets called peridots, which gave the square its name.
The storm was beginning to abate, the black cloud to break up. Once
the dissolution had begun, it proceeded rapidly. For the first time in weeks
the sun shone brightly on the tormented city. The thirsty earth soaked up what
precipitation managed to escape the tubs and rain barrels of the inhabitants.
Having spent its force, the cloud and the perturbation it had sheltered faded
away with equal alacrity.
Nor was the city all that returned to normal. Mudge had straightened
and now danced a wild saraband on the marble edge of the towering fountain.
But Jon-Tom found his attention drawn to the one citizen of Ospenspri who had
greeted them.
No longer crooked and bent, the old fox stood tall and proud before
Clothahump. He was bigger than Mudge, and his silver-streaked ears were on a
level with Jon-Tom's shoulders. As both wizard and spellsinger looked on, he
performed a deep, profound bow. In place of the dirty rags he'd been wearing
when he'd initially approached the visitors, he now wore a splendid suit of
dark brown edged with green velvet and fastened with hardwood buttons inlaid
with brass. A peculiarly narrow hat of green felt and leather rested between
his ears.
"I am Sorenset," he informed them, "a senior member of the ruling
council of Ospenspri." Another bow toward Clothahump. "We are laid low by the
weight of your genius, sir, and raised up again through your timely
assistance. I am honored to reflect the glory of the greatest of wizards."
"The people of Ospenspri have always been famed for the accuracy of
their observations," Clothahump said blithely. "I only did what any traveler
of my stature would have done."
"But which none could do until now." Sorenset closed his eyes and
stared at the sun, luxuriating in its feel against his face. "The curse has
been lifted. Ospenspri has suffered before, but such calamities have wrought
their damage and then moved on. We began to fear that the black cloud was
destined to stay with us forever."
"It could return, in the same guise or another."
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Sorenset dropped his face and stared at the wizard. "Do not say such
things. Have you not banished the cloud?"
"Yes, but not its cause. Until we can do that, no morning will be
the same as the one that has preceded it, and none of us can go to sleep with
any assurance that we will wake up recognizing what we are. It is to remedy
this matter that the three of us have undertaken this journey from our home in
the South."
Sorenset nodded somberly. "Anything that you require that can be
found in Ospenspri will be provided. We will help in any way that we can. You
have restored our bodies, our city, and our souls."
He turned toward the beautiful homes and apartments, no longer poor
structures of mud and wattle, which fronted on the central square. Laughter,
shouts of relief, and other sounds of merriment poured from open windows and
doors. The cries might have been deafening except that many of Ospenspri's
restored citizens had ingested too much of the flavorful downpour and now lay
savoring their restoration in stuporous slumber on porches and doorsteps,
streets and benches.
Mudge leapt off the fountain enclosure and wrapped his arms around
Jon-Tom, hooting and barking with delight. Jon-Tom staggered under the weight
and collapsed to the ground with the otter on top of him. He wasn't angry. He
could only grin. The otter's high spirits were infectious. Besides, he'd done
more than taste of the alcoholic precipitation himself. He was feeling
pleasantly giddy.
As for the wizard's famulus, Sorbl was flying in tighter and tighter
circles around the spire of the fountain, until his wings and coordination
finally gave out. Mudge and Jon-Tom had to drag him from the pool.
As befitted their station, Sorenset and Clothahump observed this
display of youthful celebration with a tolerant eye. "It appears that it is
left to us to proceed with practical matters."
"I am not displeased," Clothahump told the fox. "We will not be
interrupted with foolish questions. I will lay out our needs for you. They are
modest in scope. We will also require proper lodging for the night, assuming
any innkeeper has recovered sufficiently to serve us."
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"I know just the place," Sorenset replied. "The finest establishment
in the city. When the owners learn who their guests will be, they will be even
more effusive in their praise than I. This I will attend to myself, in the
name of the council and the people of a grateful Ospenspri."
The music that the orchestra was playing for the enjoyment of the
diners was soft and light, all flutes and strings. Such sounds ordinarily
would have driven a hard-rock guitarist like Jon-Tom from the building. But
after all they'd been through on the long journey northward, he found he was
glad of the respite from anything harsh, including sounds. He was particularly
fascinated by the multireeded flute the bobcat was tootling on and the
thirty-stringed lyre the well-dressed gibbon was stroking. The latter made the
double strings of his duar seem simple by comparison. But then, the gibbon had
arms that trailed on the ground when he walked. No human could match his
reach.
On the other hand, he told himself as he regarded his duar fondly,
it wasn't an easy matter to bring forth chords from strings that tended to
blur into another dimension when you were playing on them, either.
It seemed that everyone in Ospenspri wanted to thank the city's
saviors personally. Sorenset politely but firmly warded off the multitude of
well-wishers, explaining that their visitors were exhausted and still had many
leagues to travel.
The deluge of hosannas was mitigated more than a little by the
perturbation that struck later that afternoon. It was not as damaging to the
spirit as the black cloud and it lasted less than ten minutes, but it was a
sobering reminder to all that the world was still a long way from returning to
a state of normalcy. Everyone became a multihued butterfly, each building a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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