really big enough to ride?" She was heading for the door at a respectable jog.
Mudge was whispering to him. "Now you'll 'ave to do better than that, mate.
That's no ordinary maiden you've brought t' yourself. Now if I were you..."
But Jon-Tom didn't hear the rest because he was hurrying after her. Clothahump
watched them, frowning.
"I must make ready. Pog!" the wizard yelled.
"Here, Master." The bat moved tiredly to hover over the workbench, knowing what
would be expected of him. Together they began assembling several large piles of
potions and powders: a traveling sorcerer's work kit.
"Now 'ow did we get ourselves roped into this, luv?"
Talea looked across at the otter. "Don't trouble your furry noggin about it.
We're committed. You agreed yourself."
"Yes, yes," he said softly, looking back to see if Clothahump was paying them
any attention. He was not. "But it were only to keep the old bugger-nut from
puttin' a spell on me. Then I'd never 'ave a chance to slip away when the proper
time comes."
"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."
"You had a mother?"
He took a playful swipe at her with a paw and she stepped lithely out of reach.
"I always did think a lot o' you, luv. If you only 'ad a bit more body fur, at
least on your chest, say."
"No thanks." She edged toward the door. "We'd better go see how the others are
making out."
They started down the hallway. "I'm not worried much about the giantess," Mudge
was saying, "but our friend Jon-Tom still displays pangs o' loneliness. I worry
that the appearance o' the girl from 'is 'ome may do him more 'arm than good,
seein' as how besotted 'e is on her."
"Besotted?" Talea studied the walls. "You think so?"
They had almost reached the doorway. " 'Tis in the lad's voice, in 'is manner
and look. I've dodged traps that were better 'idden. But I don't think 'e'll
'ave much luck with this one. She's cheery enough, but I 'ave a 'unch 'er true
love's reserved for 'er new sword. She strikes me a proper mate for a wolverine,
not our Jon-Tom."
"I don't think he's besotted," Talea murmured. "A boyish attraction, certainly."
"And that be somethin' else. 'E may act boyish, but in a fight 'e's all right.
Remember 'is magic, and they also say that those who can draw the gneechees in
the numbers 'e can may 'ave greater powers locked within 'em than even they can
imagine."
"He's already admitted he doesn't know much about his own magical capabilities,"
she replied. "I don't think they're so much greater than what we've seen."
"We're likely to find out on this bug-brained journey."
The riding snake would have carried the extra load with ease, but they had only
far-off Malderpot by the warmland's most skilled leatherworkers.
"Two of us will have to double up," said Clothahump, voicing the obvious as the
last of their baggage was seeured to the snake's lengthy back. "At least Pog
does not present a problem."
"Thank the Design!" agreed the bat, fluttering overhead and adjusting his body
and back pouches. "It going to be hard enough ta slow down ta keep up wid ya."
"Jon-Tom and Flor must have saddles to themselves," the wizard pointed out,
"they being simultaneously the largest and least experienced of us. Perhaps the
two of you... ?" He gestured at Talea and Mudge.
"Oh no." She shook her head negatively. "I'm not riding with him." Mudge looked
hurt.
"In that case," Clothahump bowed as best he could, considering his short legs
and weighty front, "you may join me."
"Fine."
"Cor, now, Talea me luv...."
"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.
When they were all seated Talea tugged lightly back on the reins. Having slept
all night and morning as was the habit of its kind, the snake came awake slowly.
She let the reins hang loose and the snake started to move forward.
A laugh of surprise and delight came from the third saddle, where Flores
Quintera sat. She was clearly enjoying the new sensation provided by an
extraordinary means of locomotion. Looking back over her shoulder, she flashed a
dazzling smile at Jon-Tom.
"What a wonderful way to travel! Que magnifico! You can see everything without
having your behind battered." She faced forward again and placed both hands on
the pommel of the saddle.
"Giddy up!" Her heels kicked girlishly at the scaly sides. The snake did not
notice the minuscule tapping on its flanks, but paid attention only to the
steering tugs at its sensitive ears.
"Any particular route you'd like me to follow?" Talea inquired of her fellow
saddle-mate.
&nb
sp; "The shortest one to the Tailaroam," replied Clothahump. "There we will hire
passage."
"What about building our own raft?"
"Impossible. Tacking upstream against the current would be difficult. At the
Duggakurra rapids it would become impossible. We must engage professionals with
the know-how and muscle to fight such obstacles. I think we should turn slightly
to the left here, my dear."
Talea pulled gently on the reins, and the snake obediently altered its slither.
"That'll take us a day longer, if I remember the land right. It's been a long
time since I've been as far south as the river. Too many nasty types hole out
there."
"I agree it may take us a little longer to reach our goal this way, but by doing
so we will pass a certain glade. It is ringed with very old oaks and is a place
of ancient power. I am going to risk a dangerous conjuration there. It is the
best place for it, and will be our last chance to learn the nature of the
special corruption the warmlands will have to face.
"To do this involves stretching my meager powers to the utmost, so I will
require all the magical support the web of Earthforce can supply me. The web is
"I've never heard of the others."
"They lie far around the world and meet at the center of the earth. The affairs
of all sentient beings are interwoven in the web, each individual's destiny tied
to its own designated strand. I will stand on one of the four anchors of fate
and make the call that I must."
"Call? Who are you going to call?"
But Clothahump's thoughts seemed to have shifted. "The glade is close enough to
the river so that we may leave our riding snake before we reach it and walk the
rest of the way."
"Why not ride the snake all the way to the river?"
"You do not understand." She could feel his eyes on the back of her neck. "You
will not, until you see the result of what I am to attempt. Such as this," and
he tapped the riding snake's back with a foot, "is but a dumb creature whose
life might not survive even a near confrontation of the sort I have in mind. It
is as strong as it is stupid, and in a panic could be the undoing of all of us.
So we must leave it a day behind when we give it its freedom."
She shrugged. "Whatever you say. But my feet will argue with you." She urged the
snake to a faster pace.
Several days of pleasant travel passed as they journeyed southward. No predator
came near the massive snake, and at night they didn't even bother to set a
watch.
Flores Quintera was a pleasant companion, but what troubled Jon-Tom was not her
dissuasion of his hesitant attempts at intimacy so much as that the excitement
of the trip seemed to make her oblivious to anything else.
"It's everything I ever dreamed of when I was a little girl." She spoke to him
as they sat around the small cookfire. The flames danced in her night-eyes,
prompting thoughts of obsidian spewing from the hearts of volcanoes.
"When I was little I wished I was a boy, Jon-Tom," she told him fervently. "I
wanted to be an astronaut, to fly over the poles with Byrd, to sail the
unexplored South Pacific with Captain Cook. I wanted to be with the English at
Agincourt and with Pizzaro in Peru. Failing a change of gender, I imagined
myself Amelia Earhart or Joan of Arc."
"You can't change your sex," he told her sympathetically, "and you can't go back
in time, but you could have tried for the astronaut training."
She shook her head sadly. "It's not enough to have the ambition, Jon-Tom. You
have to have the wherewithal. Los cerebros. I've got the guts but not the
other." She looked up at him and smiled crookedly. "Then there is the other
thing, the unfortunate drawback, the crippling deformity that I've had to suffer
with all my life."
He stared at her in genuine puzzlement, unable to see the slightest hint of
imperfection.
"I don't follow you, Flor. You look great to me."
"That's the deformity, Jon-Tom, My lack of one. I'm cursed with beauty. Don't
misunderstand me now," she added quickly. "I'm not being facetious or boastful.
It's something I've just had to try and live with."
"We all have our handicaps," he said, not very sympathetically.
She rose, paced catlike behind the fire. Talea was stirring the other one
nearby. Mudge was humming some ribald ditty about the mouse from Cantatrouse who
ran around on her spouse, much to the gruff amusement of Pog. Clothahump was a
silent, brooding lump somewhere off in the darkness.
"You don't understand, do you? How could you imagine what it's like to be a
beautiful animal? Because that's how the world sees me, you know. I did the
cheerleader thing because I was asked to." She paused, stared across the flames
at him. "Do you know what my major is?"
"Theater Arts, right?"
"Acting." She nodded ruefully. "That's what everyone expected of me. Well it's
easy for me, and it lets me concentrate on the harder work involved in my minor.
I didn't have the math for astrophysics or tensor analysis or any of that, so
I'm doing business administration. Between that and the theater arts I'm hoping
I can get in on the public relations end of the space program. That's the only
way I ever thought I'd have a chance of getting close to the frontiers. Even so,
no one takes me seriously."
"I take you seriously," he murmured.
She stared at him sharply. "Do you? I've heard that before. Can you really see
beyond my face and body?"
"Sure." He hoped he sounded sincere. "I don't pretend that I can ignore them."
"Nobody can. Nobody!" She threw up her hands in despair. "Professors, fellow
students: it's hell just trying to get through an ordinary class without having
to offend someone by turning down their incessant requests for a date. And it's
next to impossible to get any kind of a serious answer out of a professor when
he's staring at your tetas instead of concentrating on your question. You can
call it beauty. I call it my special deformity."
"Are you saying you'd rather have been born a hunchback? Maybe with no hair and
one eye set higher than the other?" '
"No." Some of the anger left her. "No, of course not. I just could have done
with a little less of everything physical, I suppose."
"Asi es la vida," he said quietly.
"Si, es verdad." She sat down on the grass again, crossing her legs. "There's
nothing I can do about it. But here"--and she gestured at the dark forest and
the huge serpentine shape coiled nearby--"here things are different. Here my
height and size are helpful and people, furry or human, seem to accept me as a
person instead of a sex object."
"Don't rely on that," he warned her. "For example our otter friend Mudge seems
to have no compunctions whatsoever about crossing interspecies lines. Nor do
very many others, from what I've seen."
"Well, so far they've accepted me as a warrior more than a toy. If that's due to
my size more than my personality, at least it's a start." She lay down and
stretched langorously. The fire seemed to spread fr
om the burning embers to
Jon-Tom's loins.
"Here I have a chance to be more than what heredity seemed to have locked me
into. And it's like my childhood dreams of adventure."
"People get killed here," he warned her. "This is no fairyland. You make a
mistake, you die."
She rolled over. It was a warm winter night and her cape was blanket enough.
"I'll take my chances. It can't be any worse than the barrio. Good night,
Jon-Tom. Remember, when in Rome..."
He kicked dirt over the fire until it subsided and wished he were in Rome, or
any other familiar place. All he said was, "Good night, Flor. Pleasant dreams."
Then he rolled over and sought sleep. The night was pleasant, but his thoughts
were troubled.
The following day found them climbing and descending much hillier terrain. Trees
were still plentiful, but on the higher knolls they tended to be smaller and
with more land between. Occasionally bare granite showed where the ground cover
had thinned, though they were still traveling through forest.
And the gneechees were back. Even when Jon-Tom was not strumming his duar,
swarms of almost-theres were clustering thickly around the little party of
travelers.
He explained to Flor about gneechees. She was delighted at the concept and spent
hours trying to catch one with her eyes. Talea mumbled worriedly about their
inexplicable presence. Clothahump would have none of it.
"There is no room in magic for superstition, young lady," the turtle admonished
her. "If you would learn more about the world you must disabuse yourself of such
primitive notions."
"I've seen primitive notions kill a lot of people," she shot back knowingly. "I
don't mean to question you, but I bet you'd be the last person to say that we
know everything there is to know."
"That is so, child," agreed the wizard. "If the latter were true we would not be
making our way to this glade." He snapped irritably at Pog. The bat was diving
and swooping above their heads.
"You know you'll never catch one, Pog. You can't even see one."
"Yeah. Dey don't even react to my headseek either." He snapped at empty air
where something might have been.
"Then why do you persist?"
"Gives me somethin' ta do, as opposed ta idly dancin' in da air currents. But
dat's a thrill you'll never know, ain't it?"