"There are some ramifications of communal government I would like to discuss
with you, comrade," he said to Jon-Tom as the youth was walking toward his own
quarters.
"Later, Falameezar." He yawned, nearly exhausted by the hectic day. It had
turned dark outside. The windows of Polastrindu had come alive like a swarm of
fireflies.
Also, he was plain tired of keeping the dragon's insatiable curiosity sated. His
limited store of knowledge about the workings of Marxism was beginning to get a
little threadbare, and he was growing increasingly worried about making a
dangerous philosophical mistake. Falameezar's friendship was predicated on a
supposedly mutual affinity for a particular socioeconomic system. A devastating
temper lay just beneath those iridescent scales.
A hand clutched his arm and he jumped. It was only Mudge.
"Take 'er a mite easier, mate. Yer more knotted up than a virgin's girdle. We've
made it 'ere, an' that were the important thing, wot? Tonight we'll go out an'
find ourselves a couple of less argumentative ladies than the pair we're
travelin' with and 'ave ourselves a time of it, right?"
Jon-Tom firmly disengaged his arm. "Oh no. I remember the last tavern you took
me into. You nearly got my belly opened. Not to mention abandoning me in
Thieves' Hall."
"Now that were Talea's doin', not mine."
"What was my doing?" The redhead had appeared in the doorway ahead.
"Why nothin', luv," said Mudge innocently.
She eyed him a moment longer, then decided to ignore him. "Anybody noticed that
there are dormitories at each end of this mausoleum? They're full of soldiers.
We've been given the officer's quarters, but I don't like being surrounded by
the others."
"Afraid of being murdered in your sleep?" Flor had joined the discussion.
Talea glared at her. "It's been known to happen, usually to those who think
their beds safe. Besides, that Major Maskface said there was normally only a
'maintenance crew' living here. Then where'd all the bully-boys come from, and
why?"
"How many are there?" inquired Caz.
"At least fifty at each end. Possums, weasels, humans; a nice mix. They looked
awfully alert for a bunch of broom-pushers. Well armed, too."
"It's only natural for the city to be nervous at our presence," Jon-Tom argued.
"A few guards are understandable."
"A few yes, a hundred I'm not so sure."
"Are you saying we're prisoners?" said Flor.
"I'm saying I don't sleep well knowing that over a hundred 'nervous' and
well-armed soldiers are sleeping on either side of me."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Mudge murmured.
She looked at him sharply. "What? What did you say, you fuzz-faced little
prick?"
"That it wouldn't be the first time we've been surrounded, luv."
"Oh."
"There's one way to find out." Caz moved to the small door set in one of the
huge sliding panels hung from the west wall. He opened it and conversed with
someone unseen. Presently the beaver officer they'd first encountered outside
the city appeared. He looked unhappy, tried to avoid their stares.
"I underthand you would like an evening meal."
"That's right," said Caz.
"They will be brought in immediately. The betht the city can offer." He started
to leave. Caz restrained him.
"Just a moment. That's a very kind offer, but some of us would prefer to find
our own dinery." He picked absently at his tail, whiskers twitching. "That's all
right, isn't it?" He took a step toward the open door.
The officer reluctantly moved to block his path. "I'm truly thorry, thir." He
sounded as if he meant it. "But Major Ortrum gave thrict inthructions on how you
were to be quartered and fed. Your thafety ith of much conthern to the
authoritieth. They are worried that thertain radical foolth among the population
might try to attack you."
"Their concern for our health is most kind," replied Caz, "but they needn't
worry. We can take care of ourselves."
"I know that, thir," admitted the officer, "but my thuperiorth think otherwithe.
Ith for your own protecthion." He backed out, closing the door tightly behind
him.
"That's it, then," snapped an angry Talea. "We're under house arrest. I knew
they were up to something."
Flor was playing with her knife, cleaning her long nails and looking quite
ravishing as she leaned against a wall, legs crossed and her black cape framing
her figure.
"That's easily fixed. Un poco sangre and we'll go where we please, ¿no es
verdad? Or we could wake up Jonny-Tom's fire-breathing compadre and make
charcoal of that door." She gestured at the huge sliding panels with the knife.
"These aren't the enemy, Flor. Now is a time for diplomacy," he told her. "In
any case, I can't risk leaving Falameezar."
Black eyes flashed at him and she stood away from the wall, jabbed the knife
into the wood. "Maybe so, but I'm like Talea in this. I don't like being told
where I can and can't go even if it supposedly is for my own 'protection'! I had
twenty years of older brothers and sisters telling me that. I'll be damned if
I'm going to let some oversized stuffy coon dictate the same thing to me now."
"Tch, tch... children, children."
They all turned. The squat figure of Clothahump was watching them, clucking his
tongue in disapproval.
"You will all be valuable on the battlefield in the war to come, but that war is
not yet, nor here. The fleshpots of the city do not interest me in the least,
so," and he smiled up at Jon-Tom, "I will remain here to satisfy our large
companion's desire for conversation."
"Are you sure... ?" Jon-Tom began.
"I have listened closely to much of your chatter, and you have instructed me
well. The underlying principles to which this dragon adheres so fanatically are
simple enough to manipulate. I can handle him. Besides, it is the nature of
wizards and dragons to get along with one another. There are other things we can
talk about.
"But you should all go, if you so desire. You have done all I have asked of you
so far and deserve some relaxation. So I will occupy the attention of the dragon
when required, and will aid you in slipping away."
"I don't know." Jon-Tom studied the snoring figure of the dragon. "He has a
pretty probing, one-track mind."
"I will endeavor to steer our talk away from eeonomics. That seems to be his
main interest. After you have departed I shall bar the door from the outside...
a simple bit of levitation. With the bars in place and the sounds of
conversation inside, the other guards will assume all are still here.
"That shouldn't be too 'ard to do, wot?"
Mudge jumped. The wizard had mimicked his voice perfectly.
A dark form descended from the rafters. "What about me, Master?" Pog looked
imploringly at him.
"Go with them if you will. I will have no need of you here tonight. But stay
away from the brothels. That's what got you into this in the first place,
remember. You will end up indenturing yourself to a second master."
"Not ta worry, boss. And thanks!" He
bowed in the air, dipping like a diving
plane.
"I don't believe you, but I will not hold you back and let the others go. Moral
desiccation," he muttered disgustedly. Pog simply winked at Jon-Tom.
"You said you'd help us get out. What are you going to do," Flor wondered,
"dissolve the wall?"
Clothahump frowned at her as much as his hard face would allow. "You
underestimate the resources available to a sophisticated worker of miracles such
as myself. If I were to do as you suggest, it would be immediately evident to
those watching us what had taken place. Your temporary departure must go
unnoticed.
"When it is but a little darker I will allow you to pass safely and unseen into
the city."
So it was that several hours later the little group of sightseers stood
clustered in a narrow side street. Oil lamps flickered in the night mist. Light
struggled to escape from behind closed shutters. Around them drifted the faint
sounds of a city too big and bustling to go to sleep at night.
Behind them, across the deserted square, bulked the shadowy, barnlike barracks
in which they'd been confined only moments earlier.
Jon-Tom had expected Clothahump to do something extraordinary, such as
materializing them inside another building.
Instead, the wizard had moved to another small side door. His gift for mimicry,
magical or otherwise, had been used to throw the studied voice of one snoozing
guard. Through the use of ventriloquism he had cast rude aspersions on the
ancestry of the other guard. Violently waking up his supposedly insulting
companion, this victim and his associate soon fell to more physical discussion.
At that point it was a simple matter for Caz and Talea to slip up behind them
and via the judicious application of some loose cobblestones, settle the
argument for the duration of the evening.
It was not quite the miraculous manipulation of magic Jon-Tom had expected from
Clothahump, but he had to admit it was efficient.
No one troubled them or challenged them as they walked down the deserted
thoroughfare. Citizens were voluntarily or else by directive giving the barracks
area a wide berth.
Soon they began encountering evening pedestrian traffic, however, and despite
the size of Jon-Tom and Flor, they attracted little attention. Talea and Mudge
had never been inside a city the size of Polastrindu. They were trying hard to
act blasé, but their actual feeling was awe.
Jon-Tom and Flor were equally ignorant of the city's customs, though not of its
size, and so was Pog. So it was left unspoken that Caz would lead them. After a
while Jon-Tom felt almost comfortable walking the rain-soaked streets, his cape
up over his head. With its overhanging balconies and flickering oil lamps it was
not unlike Lynchbany. The principal difference was the increased volume of
bickering and fighting, of the sounds of loving and playing and cursing and
crying cubs that issued from behind doors and windows.
As in Lynchbany the uppermost garret levels were inhabited by the various
arboreal citizens. Bats like Pog, or kilt-clad birds. Night-fliers filled the
sky and danced or fought in silhouette against the cloud-shrouded moon.
A group of drunken raccoons and coatis ambled past them. Their capes and vests
were liquor-stained. One inebriated bobcat tottered in their midst. She was
magnificently dressed in a long flowing skirt and broad-rimmed hat. With short
tail switching and cat-eyes piercing the night she looked as if she might just
have emerged from a stage version of Puss n' Boots, though the way her companion
coati was pawing her was anything but fairytalish.
They encountered a group of voles and opossums on their way to work. Having just
arisen from a long day's sleep, the workers were anxious to reach their jobs.
The revelers would not let them pass. There was shoving and pushing, much of it
good-natured, as the workers made their way at last up the street.
"Down this way," Caz directed them. They turned down a narrow, winding road. The
lighting was more garish, the noise from busy establishments more raucous.
Heavily made-up faces boasting extreme coloration of fur and skin only partly
due to cosmetics beckoned to them from various windows. By no means were all of
them of a female cast. Flor in particular studied them with as much interest as
ever she'd devoted to a class in the sociology of nineteenth-century theater.
Occasionally these faces would regard them with more than usual intent. These
stares were reserved primarily for the giants Flor and Jon-Tom. Some of the
comments that accompanied these looks were as appreciative as they were ribald.
"My feet are beginning to hurt," Jon-Tom told Caz. "How much farther? You know
where you're taking us?"
"In a nonspecific way, yes, my friend. We are searching for an establishment
that combines the best of all possible worlds. Not every tavern offers sport.
Not every gaming house supplies refreshment. And of the few that offer all, not
many are reputable enough to set foot in."
Still another corner they turned. To his surprise Jon-Tom noted that Talea had
sidled close to him.
"It's nice to be out," he said conversationally. "Not that I was so
uncomfortable back there in the barracks, but it's the principle of the thing.
If they think they can get away with restricting our movements, then they'll be
more inclined to do so, and less respeetful of Clothahump's information."
"No?" He put his arm around her experimentally. She didn't resist. He thought
back to that morning in the forest when he'd awakened to find her curled up
against his shoulder. That warmth communicated itself now through her shirt and
cape. It traveled through his fingers right up his arm and down toward nether
regions.
"What does concern you, then?" he asked affectionately.
"That for the past several minutes we've been followed." Startled, Jon-Tom
started to look back over his shoulder when a hand jabbed painfully into his
ribs.
"Don't look at them, you idiot!" He forced his eyes resolutely ahead. "There are
six or seven of them, I think."
"Maybe it's just another group of party-goers," he said hopefully.
"I don't think so. They've neither fallen behind us, turned off on a different
street, nor come any nearer. They've kept too consistent a gap between us to
mean well."
"Then what should we do?" he asked her.
"Probably turn into the next tavern. If they mean us any harm, they'll be more
reluctant to try anything in front of a room full of witnesses."
"We can't be sure of that. Why not send Pog back to check 'em out," he suggested
brightly, "before we jump to any conclusions? At the least he can tell us
exactly how many of them there are and how heavily armed they are."
She looked up at him approvingly. "That's more like it. The more suspicious you
become, Jon-Tom, the longer you'll live. Pog! Pog?" The others looked back at
her curiously.
"Pog! Good-for-nothing parasitic airborne piece of shit, where the hell--?"
"St
ow it, sister!" The bat was abruptly fluttering in front of them. "I've got
some bad news for ya."
"We already know," Talea informed him.
He looked puzzled, remained hovering a couple of feet in front of them as they
walked. "You do? But how could you? I flew on ahead because I was getting bored,
and surely ya can't see...?"
"Wait... wait a second," muttered Jon-Tom. "Ahead? But," and he jerked a thumb
back over his left shoulder, "we were talking about the group that's be--"
"That's far enough!" declaimed a strange voice.
"Whup... see yas." Pog suddenly rocketed straight up into the darkness formed by
garrets and overhanging beams.
Jon-Tom hastily searched the street. The nearest open doorway from which music
and laughter emerged was at least half a block ahead of them on the left. At the
moment there was nothing flanking them save a couple of dark portals. One led
into a close that pierced a labyrinth of stairways. The other was heavily barred
with iron-studded shutters.
There was no one else in sight. Not a single stray celebrant, or better still,
any of the city's night patrol.
In front of them waited perhaps a dozen heavily armed humans. Most boasted long
scraggly hair and longer faces. They hefted clubs, maces, quarterstaffs, and
bolas. It was an impressive assortment of armament. Not until much later did he
have time to reflect on the fact that there was not a single serious killing
weapon, not one knife or spear or sword, among them.
The humans had spread themselves into a semicircle across the street, blocking
it completely. Jon-Tom considered the narrow close a last time. It had more the
look of a trap than a means of escape.
Two-thirds of the humans were male, the rest female. None wore decent clothes or
pleasant looks. All were roughly Talea's height. Even Caz was taller than most
of them. Their attention was on Jon-Tom and Flor, whom they regarded with
unconcealed interest.
"We'd appreciate it if you'd come along with us." This request was made by a
stocky blond fellow in the middle of the group. His beard seemed to continue
right down into his naked chest, as did the drooping mustache. In fact, he
displayed so much hair that Jon-Tom wondered in the darkness if he really was
human and not one of the other furry local citizens.
That led him to consider the unusual homogeneity of the group. Up till now,