“So that’s what it is.” Now that Mudge had pointed it out, Jon-Tom wondered how he could have missed seeing it right away. The wolverine’s whole posture and attitude since they’d encountered him was indicative not of defiance but of fear. He was afraid of them. All the threats he’d made since confronting them were just so much bluff.
That did not, however, mean that he was harmless. He flung the battle-ax aside and tried to crawl into the wall, wrapping his face in both arms as he turned away from them.
“No, don’t come any closer, get away!’
How much of a wizard he was, they might never know, but madness can amplify magic as surely as it can physical strength. Insane people have been known to do extraordinary things, from bending the bars on hospital room windows to ripping off straitjackets while fighting a dozen men at a time.
Clothahump was blown backward by a blast of pure terrified madness, fueled by cowardice and powered by fear. He did have just enough time to draw in his head and limbs as he was thrown into a wall opposite. As he lay there rocking back and forth and trying to recover from the concussion, Braglob turned his paranoia on the rest of them.
“Go away, don’t hurt me, leave me alone!” he sobbed.
The wind that struck them stank of madness. Dormas dug in and somehow managed to hold her ground. Colin had a low center of gravity to begin with. He immediately dropped to the ground and dug into the floor with his powerful claws.
But Mudge was lifted and tossed backward. Only his otterish acrobatic ability enabled him to tuck and roll. He was only slightly bruised as he reached out and grabbed onto one of Dormas’s hind legs. He hung on as the insane gale tore at him, trying to blow him away, stretching him out behind the ninny like a furry flag rippling on a pole.
Jon-Tom had the duar around in front of him and was playing before the first storm-breath struck. The main force of the gale split and passed to either side of him. Talea stood at his back, shielded by his body and the aura of immobility in which he’d wrapped himself. Her red hair streamed out behind her. What wind did get through the spellsong ripped at Jon-Tom’s clothes and blew dust in his eyes. But it was not strong enough to knock him off his feet.
Braglob slowly turned to stare at Jon-Tom, having at least temporarily vanquished all other opponents. “You! Why don’t you go away too? I want you to go away!” He waved both arms at Jon-Tom. A stronger gust of wind battered him, but he was able to hold his ground. “Why don’t you go away?”
“Because I am not of your world, and so I do not respond to your madness.”
“What insanity is this?” roared the wolverine. “Another lie!” His face twisted violently. “It will have to be something special for you, then. Something unique. Something I have never tried before. Something even more devastating than your heart’s desire.”
“No, it won’t. This madness has to stop. Not only for our sake and for the rest of the world but for your own sake as well, Braglob. It doesn’t matter what you do from now on because . . .”
And he began to sing, “We’re not gonna take it. We’re not gonna take it. We’re not gonna take it anymorrre . . .!”
Dee Snider and the rest of the gang would’ve been proud.
Braglob let out a tremulous howl. At the same time the deep-throated hum and the song of the perambulator grew louder still. Jon-Tom sang on, aware that Talea was tugging at his shirt.
“Jon-Tom—look!”
There was something in the brilliantly lit chamber besides the perambulator. Gneechees. Not just one or two this time but a veritable snowstorm of them, each as bright and intense as the perambulator itself. And for the first time outside of a dream he found he could look at them directly instead of just out of the corner of his eye.
They danced in the air, coalescing until they’d formed a laser-pure spiral that wove its way around the perambulator. They appeared to be tiptoeing on its fringes, tangent to but not quite touching the substance of the apparition that it was. They had been drawn to this place by Jon-Tom’s spellsinging and remained to luxuriate in the instability generated by the perambulator.
Jon-Tom was growing hoarse trying to match his output to that of the otherworldly traveler. The sound battered at his body as much as at his ears. The music of the perambulator raged through his soul. He couldn’t go on much longer.
So he threw the dice, took the chance, and tried to draw to an inside magical straight by changing his song in mid-refrain, switching abruptly (as abruptly as the perambulator, in fact) from a defiant ballad to the sweetest strong song he knew.
Braglob was ill-prepared for the sudden shift in tactics. The wolverine staggered away from his wailing wall, fought to draw himself upright. You could see the change come over him. His expression softened. His body relaxed as the tenseness drained out of his muscles. Most revealing of all, the wild, undisciplined stare began to fade from his eyes. Gone was the terrified, frozen glare; gone the hopeless, defensive posture.
He blinked once, twice, did Braglob the Mad, and smiled at Jon-Tom.
Behind him there came an explosion of light and sound. Even though he was looking away from it, the sudden pulse of energy temporarily blinded him. Gneechees fled the chamber like a million retreating miniature suns. The humming and whistling of the panpipes retreated before a single reverberating note like the lowest register of some gigantic organ.
Jon-Tom made himself turn, heedless of the consequences. The single devastating flash of light had faded, and he could see that the perambulator had been transformed a last time, into a crystalline geometric conglomerate so utterly perfect, so heart-stoppingly beautiful that he thought he would burst into tears.
He turned away just in time. A second energy pulse even more powerful than the first lit the walls. Jon-Tom felt himself lifted off his feet by the sheer pressure of light. He saw himself turning, tumbling, doing a slow somersault in the air, and bouncing gently off the far wall.
The organ pedal faded with the light, and so did his consciousness.
XIII
Calm. It was so calm, he thought as he regained his senses. It was quiet in the chamber, but in his mind he still heard that climactic final note, felt the photons lifting him off the ground and shoving him against the stones. Yet as he picked himself slowly off the floor and checked his bones, he discovered that there was no reminder of that hard contact, nothing broken, not so much as a bruise to indicate where he’d struck the wall. Even his clothing was undamaged.
A small shape lay crumpled nearly, lithe and familiar. It let out a sob. He stumbled over to kneel beside it. “Talea.”
She was lying on her belly. He rolled her over, and she grabbed him tightly with both hands. He winced, having forgotten how strong she was. Then she recognized him and loosened her grip.
“Jon-Tom?”
“You’re all right?”
She did not reply immediately, as though the question required some careful consideration. “I guess so. I shouldn’t be. I think I bounced headfirst off the ceiling, like a ball in a game of whist.” She sat up without his aid. “But I feel okay. Just a little dazed. What happened?”
“The perambulator went away. It didn’t go quietly, but I think it went joyfuDy. By breaking Braglob’s madness we broke his control over it.” He was looking past her, toward the center of the now-empty chamber. “I think the perambulator, in its way, was saying good-bye to us as it departed. Or maybe it was nothing more than abstract noise. I guess we’ll never know.”
Their companions were slowly picking themselves off the floor. Clothahump was examining the air beneath the dome. Protected and cushioned by his shell, he’d recovered first. Mudge was brushing himself off while Dormas was trying to untangle her legs from Colin, who’d been blown into her by the force of the perambulator’s departure.
And there was one more who was recovering rapidly from the shock. Jon-Tom left Talea to cautiously confront their nemesis.
Braglob was flexing his muscles, testing first his legs and then hi
s mighty arms. He appeared clear-eyed and alert.
“How do you feel?”
“Very strange, man.” The wolverine lifted the hem of what once had been a fine piece of clothing. “Why am I clad in rags like this? Wait—I remember now. Yes, I remember.” He raised his eyes to meet Jon-Tom’s. “Something about changing the world. I was going to change the world so that I would feel comfortable with it.”
“But you don’t have to do that anymore, do you? There’s no longer any reason to live in a crazy world because you’re no longer unbalanced yourself. You’re cured, Braglob. Your madness departed with the perambulator. A little spellsinging goes a long way.”
Mudge had rejoined Colin, leaned close to whisper to the koala. “Cured, ‘e says. Look at ‘em standin’ there grinnin’ at each other. If you ask me, the both of ‘em are nuts.”
Braglob listened, and as he listened, he was nodding slowly. “It is true. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing or why. I remember only that I was afraid. I’ve always been afraid. Eventually my fears drove me from my family, my friends, my home. To this place, where I resolved to deal with my fears by changing the world. I had to do that, don’t you see? It was the only way.
“My companions laughed at and tormented me until I fled to this remote region to escape their taunts. Even the smallest citizens, the rats and the mice and voles, threw things at me and chased me from their company. So I came here to practice my art. I studied hard. And I trapped the perambulator! Something the books said could not be done. I, Braglob, did this,” He searched the chamber behind Jon-Tom. “And now it is gone isn’t it?”
Jon-Tom nodded. “Gone like your madness and the fear that drove you mad. You couldn’t live with your private terrors, could you? You couldn’t deal with being a wolverine and a coward at the same time.”
“You understand, then. But I am no longer fearful. I feel as I should. The fears are gone, every one of them, along with the pain and the hurt that was with me every day, here.” He rubbed the back of his head and neck. “I feel—normal.” His smile vanished.
“But I was going to change the world. I can’t do that now. I was going to rule it. Tell me, man, is it better to live a sane but ordinary life or to be a mad emperor?” He reached for the massive battle-ax, which lay where he’d tossed it aside. “You have given me back my sanity but have stolen my dreams.”
Jon-Tom took a step backward, his gaze shifting rapidly from the ax to Braglob’s face. This was not turning out as he’d anticipated. Not only was the wolverine acting in a less than thankful manner, he seemed downright displeased about something.
“You could have left me alone to work out my problems on my own,” Braglob growled.
“Left you alone? You mean, you were enjoying being a coward?”
“Of course not.”
“Then you’re saying you were happy as a madman?”
“No, but I didn’t know that I was mad. I knew only that I was going to rule the world, or at least that I had the power to alter and affect it. Now I have no power at all.” He held the battle-ax lightly in one paw.
“You don’t need that now that you’ve had your sanity returned to you.”
“A wolverine who has no need of power? What alien philosophy is that? I had power and you stole it from me. But you are right. You did cure me. I am quite myself now. Quite.”
It suddenly struck Jon-Tom that having disposed of the perambulator and its perturbations, as well as having cured its captor, they now had to decide how to deal with an angry, intelligent, six-foot-tall wolverine with, so to speak, an ax to grind. Yes, Braglob was himself once more, with the temperament typical of a member of his species.
“Uh-oh, ‘ere we go again.” Mudge disengaged himself from Colin and made a dash to recover his sword and longbow. Dormas turned around so that her hind legs were facing the slowly advancing Braglob.
“Be reasonable. You’re not thinking straight,” Jon-Tom told the quietly furious wolverine. “There are six of us and only one of you.”
Braglob was not impressed. “Six against one wolverine. Fair enough odds, man.”
Jon-Tom didn’t want a fight. It was crazy. There was no reason for a fight. The perambulator, the real cause of all the trouble and the reason they had made the long journey to this obscure mountain valley, had been sent on its merry way. It was ridiculous to think that they had accomplished all that they’d set out to do, only to be faced with an entirely new and unexpected danger in the form of this now-healthy, belligerent Braglob character. It made no sense, no sense at all. He wasn’t going to stand for it!
However, he still had to convince Braglob of that.
“I could have lived with it,” the wolverine was muttering angrily. “I could have coped. We wolverines live all our lives on the edge of madness as it is. But power is hard to get and harder to hold. You took it from me.”
Jon-Tom was trying to think of what to say next when a small, squat shape stepped past him. “Your problem,” Colin said as he fumbled with his pack, “is that you’re not completely cured yet.”
Holding the menacing ax high overhead, Braglob halted and turned his attention to this new arrival. “What do you mean, not cured?”
“It’s obvious. You’re still a coward.”
The wolverine’s eyes grew wide, and his nostrils flared. “Still a coward, am I? I’ll show you who’s a coward, fat-bear. I’ll smash you like a bug.”
Colin held up a hand. “You’re still afraid. Not of me, or of any of the rest of us, but of the future. You don’t know what it holds in store for you now that you’ve become yourself again, and it frightens you. When you were mad, you didn’t give it a thought. Now you have to.”
“Everyone is a little fearful of the future,” Braglob snapped. “You as well as I. That is not cowardice, it is common sense. There is nothing that can be done about it.”
“On the contrary.” Colin extracted his familiar silver-and-black leather bag and stepped boldly forward. “I am a reader of runes. As a practitioner of the art, you know what that means. I can foretell the future. I can tell yours.” He shook the bag so that Braglob could hear the pile of runes rattle within.
The wolverine hesitated. “No one can foretell the future. All rune-casters are charlatans and cheats.”
“Not all. A few of us have the skill. None of us is perfect, but I’m pretty good.”
“It’s a trick. You’re trying to shield yourselves from my wrath.”
“Snakeshit. You can sit close and watch me. If I try anything that looks phony to you, I’ll be in easy reach. Maybe if I tell your future and it looks good to you, you’ll consider letting us leave without any bloodshed.”
A long pause. Then the ax descended—to hang loosely at the wolverine’s side. “Very well.” He gestured past Colin with his free hand. “You see five tunnels leading from this chamber in addition to the one I am standing in. Only one other leads to freedom. The other four are dead ends.” He sat down opposite Colin, blocking the hallway with his bulk.
“You can’t slip out past me, and the odds against you finding the other exit on a first try are slight indeed. You will remain here as hostages to my disappointment until I have decided whether to reward this fat-bear or grind all of you underfoot.”
“Fair enough.” Colin sat down close to Braglob.
“Let’s rush ‘im, mate,” Mudge whispered to Jon-Tom. “ ‘E’s big an’ tough and ‘e might get one or two of us, but the rest would get away clean. An’ if we ‘it ‘im fast enough, we might all of us make it. Let’s ‘ave at ‘im while ‘e’s sittin’ down an’ preoccupied.” His fingers began to slide slowly toward his sword.
Jon-Tom put a restraining hand on the otter’s wrist. “No. Let’s see what Colin can do first.”
“Wot, an’ wait while ‘e entertains ‘im at our expense? Better to ‘ave a go now while we’ve ‘alf a chance to surprise ‘im.”
“I said wait.”
The otter whispered something particularly
vile, and Jon-Tom bridled, but he knew Mudge wouldn’t attack on his own. Being the first into a fray was not the otter’s idea of sensible strategy. So he fumed and kept his hand off his weapon.
For his part, Jon-Tom wondered what their best move would be should Colin’s reading fail to assuage the wolverine’s fury. Certainly he was big enough and fast enough to block the corridor he was occupying. Not even Sorbl would be able to slip past, for the roof was within reach of the wolverine’s weapon.
“My future, then, and be quick about it,” Braglob demanded, gesturing threateningly with the ax.
“You want this done right; it can’t be rushed. First the ground must be prepared.” Colin leaned forward and began smoothing the dust away from the polished stone beneath. “Everything must be just so, or the casting will be useless.” Using the dust and dirt he’d gathered, he drew an ellipse on the floor. “Perfection in preparation is the key to a successful reading.” He added several arcane symbols in the center of the ellipse. “See here. By concentrating the runes on this spot we’ll have the best look at your immediate future.”
Braglob leaned forward interestedly to study the symbols. “I have practiced the art, but I do not recognize these.”
“They’re not uncommon. It’s just hard to delineate them properly when all you have to form them with is dirt and dust.”
Braglob leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the symbols. “You are right. I believe I do recognize them.”
“That’s good, because it’s almost time to cast.” So saying, he grabbed the neck of the sack tightly with both hands and, with a swiftness even Mudge would have been hard-pressed to match, brought it down in a sweeping arc to land with a loud whomp on top of the wolverine’s skull. Previously Jon-Tom had only considered their metaphysical weight.
The Paths Of The Perambulator Page 26
