Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac

’Twill escape!’
    ‘You
can’t put an echo into a bucket,’ laughed Cedric and took it away from him.
    ‘But
’tis the voice!’
    ‘No
it’s not. It’s yours! Groome’s lost his because of laryngitis.’ ‘ ’Tis a demon
I know not,’ said Catweazle, clearly disappointed at Cedric’s reaction.
    ‘Listen,’
explained Cedric, as they walked back through the woods, ‘when someone loses
their voice it doesn’t mean they’ve lost their voice. It means... well... that
they’ve — ’ Cedric pointed to his throat and whispered hoarsely — ‘lost their
voice.’
    ‘Now
thine hath gone!’ said Catweazle, very alarmed.
    ‘No it
hasn’t!’ said Cedric loudly. ‘Now for goodness’ sake — go home!’
    But
Catweazle wouldn’t go home and he followed Cedric all the way back to the car.
    ‘Mayhap
’tis in thy house,’ he said helpfully.
    ‘I’ll
go mad in a minute,’ muttered Cedric, wondering how to get rid of him. ‘Once
and for all, you can’t have a voice without a body.’ He switched on the record
player and a man’s voice began to sing.
    ‘Thou
liest!’ said Catweazle and pointed a skinny finger at the box.
    Cedric
had to admit that the magician was right, so he opened the record player and
showed him the revolving disc and the others poised above it on the
auto-changer. ‘The voice is on there,’ he said.
    Catweazle
became tremendously excited and started his fizzing noise. ‘The black wheels!’
he cried. ‘The lost voice! The black wheels!’
    He
capered wildly for a moment and then skipped off between the rose beds, his
robe flapping round his bony legs.
    Cedric
watched him go, wondering what he was getting up to.
    Catweazle
went straight back to Touchwood and told him his discovery.
    ‘All is
now clear, my minion,’ he chuckled and Touch-
    wood’s
amber eyes seemed to glow with understanding. ‘Trapped in these wheels,’
explained Catweazle, holding up a record, ‘are lost voices. Mayhap conjured
from deep caves, from wells, or mighty cliffs, where such things live.’
    He put
the record in an old pudding basin and began breaking it into little pieces,
using a rusty bicycle pump as a pestle. ‘The groom hath lost his voice, but he
shall have another!’ he said as he pounded away. ‘He shall have this voice. All
shall be well.’
    When he
was satisfied that the pieces of gramophone record were small enough, he
scooped them into an empty tin, and then, leaving Touchwood on guard, he
mounted his tricycle and rode back to Kings Farthing on his errand of mercy.
    He was
becoming quite expert on the old tricycle and had found that if he squeezed the
springy black ball on the handlebars, it made a sound rather like the cry of a
seagull. He kept off the main roads as much as he could because the roar of the
magic chariots frightened him, and besides, he preferred to bump along across
country. When he reached Kings Farthing, Cedric was standing outside the
gatehouse waiting for the doctor to arrive.
    ‘Where
is thy groom?’ asked Catweazle.
    ‘Will
you go away!’ said Cedric, looking anxiously down the road.
    ‘Where
is thy groom?’ repeated Catweazle and put his tricycle in the bushes.
    Cedric
pointed to the gatehouse. ‘He lives in there, if you must know, and he’s in
bed. Now will you go — ’
    Catweazle
didn’t wait to hear any more. He ran into the gatehouse and looked round
quickly. Cedric followed him and managed to stop him going into the bedroom.
    ‘What’s
the matter with you?’ he whispered. ‘The doctor will be here at any minute and
you’ll get caught.’
    ‘Unhand
me, Owlface,’ said Catweazle angrily. ‘I have a voice for thy groom.
See!’
    Cedric
was still looking staggered at the contents of the t in, when he
heard the doctor’s car approaching the gatehouse. In a complete panic he ran
outside but the car went on up the drive and when Cedric went back into the
gatehouse he was too late to stop Catweazle slipping through the bedroom door.
    The
magician went straight to the bed and bent over the sleeping figure. Carefully
scooping some pieces of record from the tin, he shook Groome gently. ‘Waken, O
groom!’ he said.
    Groome
woke with a start and for a moment thought he was having a nightmare.
    ‘Thy
voice cannot be found,’ said Catweazle. ‘But I have brought thee another.’ He
began to recite an ancient spell to ward off evil spirits.
     
    ‘Ochnotinos
    Chnotinos
    Notinos
    Tinos
    Inos
    Nos
    Os’
     
    Groome’s
disbelief