Title: Spellsinger
Author(s): Alan Dean Foster
Release year: 1983
Publisher: Phantasia Press
Why in Database: The Spellsinger series is a very turtle book series, thanks to one character called the Clothahump, magician. The first volume, titled the same as the whole series, has a huge number of fragments in which the same turtle appears, so below we present only eleven selected fragments, just a small portion of the turtle presence.
The first fragment is a scene in which the main character meets Clothahump:
”Now where’s this lazy old so-called wizard of yours?” Jon-Tom asked Pog.
”OVER HERE!” a powerful voice thundered.
Shaking lest his discourteous remark had been overheard, Jon turned slowly to confront the renowned Clothahump. There were no flowing robes or white beard, no peaked hat or cryptically marked robe. But the horn-rimmed glasses were present. Somehow they remained fixed above a broad, rounded beak, just above tiny nostrils. The glasses did not have arms extended back and behind ears, since a turtle’s ears are almost invisible.
A thick book clutched in one stubby-fingered hand, Clothahump waddled over to join them. He stood a good foot shorter than Mudge.
”I mean no disrespect, sir,” Jon had the presence of mind to say. ”I didn’t know you were in the room and I’m a stranger here and I…”
”Tosh, boy.” Clothahump smiled and waved away the coming apology. His voice had dropped to normal, the wizardly thunder vanished. ”I’m not easily offended. If I were I wouldn’t be able to put up with _him_.” He jerked a thumb in Pog’s direction. ”Just a moment, please.”
He looked down at himself. Jon followed the gaze, noticing a number of small knobs protruding from the wizard’s plastron. Clothahump tugged several, revealing tiny drawers built into his front. He hunted around for something, mumbling apologies.
”Only way I can keep from losing the really important powders and liquids,” he explained.
”But how can you… I mean, doesn’t that hurt?”
”Oh heavens no, boy.” He let loose an infectious chuckle. ”I employ the same technique that enables me to enlarge the inside of my tree without enlarging the outside.”
The second fragment says a little bit about the Clothahump character:
Tentatively he pressed the formerly bleeding region. Nothing. He turned an open-mouthed stare of amazement on the turtle.
”Please.” Clothahump turned away. ”Naked adulation embarrasses me.”
”But how…?”
”Oh, the incantations healed you, boy.”
”Then what was the purpose of the stuff” in the bowl?”
”That? Oh, that was my breakfast.” He grinned as much as his beak would allow. ”It also served nicely to distract you while you healed. Some patients get upset if they see their own bodies healing… sometimes it can be messy to look upon. So I had the choice of putting you to sleep or distracting you. The latter was safer and simpler. Besides, I was hungry.
The third passage deals with the evolution of intelligence in the world shown in the book:
”You said that a rabbit would resist giving up a foot. Are rabbits intelligent also?”
”Lad, lad.” Clothahump settled tiredly into the couch, which creaked beneath him. ”All the warm-blooded are intelligent. That is as it should be. Has been as far back as history goes. All except the four-foot herbivores: cattle, horses, antelopes, and the like.” He shook his head sadly. ”Poor creatures never developed useful hands from those hooves, and the development of intelligenee is concurrent with digital dexterity. ”The rest have it, though. Along with the birds. None of the reptiles save us turtles, for some reason. And the inhabitants of Gossameringue and the Greendowns, of course. The less spoken about them, the better.” He studied Jon-Tom. ”Now since we can’t send you home, lad, what are we going to do with you…?”
Another fragment showing the nature of the turtle:
”You’re a roustabout by trade, and a drunkard and lecher by avocation,” countered Clothahump with considerable certitude. ”You’re far from the ideal guardian for the lad, but I know of no scholars to substitute, feeble intellectual community that Lynchbany is. So… you’re elected.”
”And if I refuse?”
Clothahump rolled up nonexistent sleeves. ”I’ll turn you into a human. I’ll shrink your whiskers and whiten your nose, I’ll thin your legs and squash your face. Your fur will fall out and you’ll run around the rest of your life with bare flesh showing.”
Poor Mudge appeared genuinely frightened, his bravado completely gone.
”No, no, your sorcererness! If it’s destined I take the lad in care, I ain’t the one t’ challenge destiny.”
”A wise and prosaic decision.” Clothahump settled down. ”I do not like to threaten. Now that the matter of a guide is settled, the need of money remains.”
Reflection about Clothahump:
Somewhere in this world a terror beyond his imagining swelled and prepared. He pictured Clothahump again: the squat, almost comical turtle shape with its plastron compartments; the hexagonal little glasses; the absentminded way of speaking; and he forced himself to consider him beyond the mere physical image. He remembered the glimpses of Clothahump’s real power. For all the insults Pog and Mudge levied at the wizard, they were always tinged with respect.
So on those rounded–indeed, nonexistent–shoulders rested possibly not only the destiny of one, but of two worlds: this, and his own, the latter dreaming innocently along in a universe of predictable physics.
Another fragment:
”Then it wasn’t entirely your fault. I think I understand. _El tortuga_ was very enlightening.” She turned and waved around the chamber. ”Then what are we waiting here for? We have to help these people as best we can.”
”That is most commendable of you,” said an admiring Clothahump. ”You are a most adaptable young lady. It is a pity you are not the eng’neer we sought, but you are bigger and stronger than most. Can you fight?”
Part about the nature of Clothahump and his age:
”It’s better that we go,” she told him. ”I’ve been thinking, Mudge. If a wizard as great as Clothahump says that the danger is so great, then we must help fight it if we can.”
”I don’t think you follow me thoughts, luv. This wizard Clothahump, ‘e’s a brilliant one, all right. But ‘e ‘as lapses, if you know wot I mean.” He tapped his head with one furry fist.
”You’re saying he’s senile.”
”Not all the time, no. But ‘e _is_ two ‘undred and ought odd years old. Even for a wizard o’ the hard-shell, that’s gettin’ on a bit, wot? I’m a thinkin’ ‘e’s overexaggeratin’ this ‘ere Plated danger.”
”Sorry, Mudge, I don’t agree with you. I’ve seen and heard enough to convince me he’s more sane than senile. Besides,” she added with a disdainful air, ”he was right in that we have no immediate prospects. In fact, it would do us good to get out of this area for a while. He’ll pay us to do that. So we’re doing right if he’s mad and right if he’s not.”
Mudge looked resigned. ”Maybe so, luv. Maybe so. Though I wish ‘e’d been a bit more specific in spellin’ out just wot ‘e meant by ‘worth our while.”’
”What do you mean?”
”Sorcerers ‘ave the use o’ words that you and I ain’t privy to, luv. So it stands t’ reason they could be more subtle when it comes t’ the employin’ o’ more familiar ones.”
”Mudge! Are you saying he lied to us?”
”No. ‘E couldn’t do that, not and keep ‘is wizardry powers. But there be direct truth and then there be spiral truth, as me sainted mother used t’ tell me.”
Another interesting fragment with the Clothahump:
”Get to your own saddle, you mange-mouthed mucker. D’you honestly think I’d let you sit that close to me?”
”Talea sweets, you ‘ave poor Mudge all wrong.”
”Sure I do.” She mounted the lead saddle, spoke down to Clothahump. ”You can ride behind me. I trust your hands, and we’ve a shell between us.”
”I can assure you, my dear,” said the wizard, sounding slightly offended, ”that I have no intentions in the slightest of…”
”Yeah, that’s what they all say.” She slipped both boots into her stirrups. ”But come on and get aboard.”
Clothahump struggled with the high seat, puffing alarmingly. His short legs and great weight rendered mounting all but impossible. Jon-Tom moved forward and got his arms and shoulders beneath the considerable bulk. It was against Clothahump’s principles (not to mention his ego) to use magic to lift himself into the saddle. With Jon-Tom pushing and Talea pulling he managed to make it with a minimum of lost pride.
Clothahump using his magic:
Clothahump had taken a stance in the center of the near sun drawing. They could hear his voice for the first time, raised in chant and invocation. His short arms were above his head, and his fingers made mute magic-talk with the sky.
Another fragment with the Clothahump:
Instead of moving and waking her, he used the time to study that perfect, silent face. She looked so different, so childlike in sleep. Further to his left slumbered the silent shape of the wizard.
With his head and limbs retracted Clothahump was a boulderish form near a clump of bushes. Jon-Tom started to look back down at his sleeper when he became aware of movement just behind him. Startled, he reached automatically for his war staff.
”Rest easy, Jon-Tom.” The voice was less reassuring than the words it spoke. Talea moved down beside him, staring morosely at the recumbent couple. ”If I murder you, Jon-Tom, it won’t ever be in your sleep.” She stepped lithely over them both and trotted over to Clothahump.
She bent and rapped unceremoniously on the shell. ”Wake up, wizard!”
A head soon appeared, followed by a pair of arms. One hand held a pair of spectacles which were promptly secured before the turtle’s eyes. Then the legs appeared. After resting a moment on all fours, the wizard pushed back into a squat, then stood.
”I am not accustomed,” he began huffily, ”to being awakened in so brusque a fashion, young lady. If I were of less understanding a mind…”
The last fragment we chose, again, about Clothahump:
Clothahump had waddled over to them. Now he looked sorrow-ingly down at Mudge. ”My dear otter,” he said, peering over his spectacles, ”do you never stop to consider that one who is capable of calling up elemental forces from halfway across the universe is also quite able to hear what is being said only a few yards behind him?”
Mudge looked startled. ”You ‘eard everythin’, then?”
”Most everything. Oh, don’t look like a frightened infant. I’m not going to punish you for expressing in private an opinion you’ve made no secret of in public.”
The otter relaxed slightly.
”I didn’t imagine you might ‘ave a ‘earin’ spell set on yourself, Your Niceness.”
”I didn’t,” explained the wizard. ”I simply have very good hearing. A compensation perhaps for my weak eyesight.” He regarded the watchful Caz. ”You, sir, you have heard what our mutual friend thinks. Allow me to explain further, and then see if you think our ‘crusade’ is so insane.”
Author: XYuriTT
