The Adventures of Duncan & Mallory: The Beginning

by Robert Asprin

  After they warmed up Duncan put on dry pants and shirt. Mallory didn’t put his vest back on since he didn’t want to destroy it. They climbed onto the land to try and push the boat off, but that was mostly a huge waste of time and energy.

  “What now?” Mallory asked.

  Duncan looked cold and more than a little defeated. “As luck would have it I had just finished the repair to the engine when we started going too fast and it dawned on me that without the engine we couldn’t slow the boat down.”

  Mallory nodded. “We probably both came to that conclusion at the same time, not that it helps us now. What was wrong with the engine anyway?”

  “The thingy was all gerfunkted and the mishtagog was out of line with…”

  “You don’t know, do you?” Mallory asked, remembering that his friend was a self-confessed tinkerer.

  “Of course I do! I just don’t know the names of the parts. There was this bar, and it had a bend in it, and it wasn’t supposed to… I don’t think. It was supposed to be attached to this other thing, but with it bent, it wouldn’t reach, so I took it off and hit it with a hammer till it was straight again. Hey, you know, if the engine is fixed, I could try the paddle wheel in reverse and see if it can pull us off the shore.”

  “That’s an idea. I’ll tell you what. I’ll stand here and push. It couldn’t hurt, right?”

  “Right.” Duncan jumped back onto the boat and headed for the engine room. Mallory took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “A little help here.”

  A few minutes later Mallory heard the engine start. He could see that the paddle wheel was engaged, so he put his shoulder to the bow of the boat and pushed as hard as he could. A few minutes later he was knee deep in mud, the paddle wheel stopped with a loud clang, and the boat was still stuck on land.

  Duncan showed up with two pieces of something that was obviously supposed to be one piece.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Mallory said, making a face.

  “The thingy snapped right in two. We need a new one,” Duncan said with a sigh. “Who knows how many times it has been straightened? It was weak; you can only bend metal just so many times before it breaks.”

  Mallory nodded as if he understood that. “Great,” he said. Which it wasn’t at all.

  He reluctantly cleaned off in the cold water and then climbed up on the deck. They walked back into the kitchen to warm up, and as they did a plume of black smoke puffed out of the cook stove. “Beautiful.” Mallory sighed. And again it really wasn’t at all. He played with the damper on the pipe till the smoke stopped.

  “As long as we can’t fix the engine we might as well be stuck, since we can’t actually run the boat without it. If only the shyster who sold us this piece of crap had actually spent even a second telling us how it really works.”

  “But we know why he didn’t,” Mallory said. A thought suddenly came to him, and he immediately felt like an idiot. “You know who probably knows more about this boat than anyone?” It was obvious from the look on the human’s face that he didn’t. “Fred! He’s been attached to this boat most of his life.”

  “Who says he’d tell us if he knew?” Duncan asked.

  “It’s in his best interest for the boat to be kept up and running,” Mallory said. “Plus, he and I have an understanding.”

  “As long as I don’t have to deal with him,” Duncan said.

  * * * *

  They had gone to the wheel house and from there they walked out on the upper deck. They spent the better part of an hour looking and listening, but they neither heard nor saw any sign of a town nearby or any other traffic on the river.

  They were about to go back inside when first they heard and then saw a small boat. “Get inside and get down,” Duncan ordered.

  “Why?” Mallory asked.

  “Why? Because you’re a big blue dragon, and some folks find that a little off putting.”

  Mallory mumbled something about small-minded people’s preconceived notions. He went inside and got out of sight anyway.

  Duncan jumped up and down, flagging his arms around wildly, yelling, “Hey you there!” till he got their attention. The boat pulled up along side and he was relieved to see that it was humans—so maybe he was prejudiced, too.

  “Run aground?” the one at the wheel of the small boat asked.

  Well duh, sprang to mind as an answer to this rather stupid question, but since he needed their help, Duncan just explained with a tiny lie. “Our engine broke, we got caught in a quick current and we were forced to run aground.” It sounded better than “We ran our boat aground because we don’t know anything about it.”

  “Do you need a tow off land then?” he asked.

  Duncan thought about that for a second. It wouldn’t do them much good till they had a new part for their engine. They’d have to anchor and stay close enough to shore to put down their gangplank, but at least then they’d be level and ready to go if they could find or fix the part. “That would be great, thanks.” He started to go back inside but then turned and asked, “You guys afraid of dragons?”

  “The sacking-villages kind or the accountant type?” the captain of the boat asked.

  “The second kind.”

  “Nope, one of them does my taxes.”

  * * * *

  Duncan met the captain of the other boat on the deck and introduced him to Mallory. The captain’s name was Anthony. A rather short roundish man, Anthony walked to the bow of the ship and looked down. “You aren’t hung up bad. We ought to be able to break you free pretty easy.”

  “Thank you very much,” Mallory said. “What about the engine part?” Duncan held it up so Anthony could see it.

  Anthony clicked his tongue and said, “You need a new part. As old as this boat is you’ll likely as not have to have it made. Bad place to break down. There isn’t anything approaching a decent machinist around here for a hundred miles.” He chuckled a little. “Yup, you couldn’ ah picked a much worse place ta break down. This has gottah be the most backwards sector on all Overlap. Your only chance is to find someone with a forge and have ’em make you something that will work good enough to get you out of here.”

  “If I could find a forge I could fix it myself I think. Maybe I could even make a new part,” Duncan said.

  Anthony looked him over carefully. “You aren’t…you aren’t a tinkerer are ya?” Anthony asked a hint of agitation entering his voice.

  “No, oh no,” Mallory said quickly. “My friend is a licensed professional.”

  “Oh well, that’s different then, isn’t it?”

  “Could you maybe take us up river or down to find a forge?”

  Anthony laughed. “You fellows don’t have any idea where you are, do ya?”

  Duncan looked at Mallory and Mallory looked at Duncan. Duncan knew he didn’t and from the short time he’d known him, he’d learned that Mallory had an even worse sense of direction than he did.

  Duncan watched as a lie started to form on Mallory’s lips but then he obviously realized that wasn’t going to help them, so he swallowed his pride and said, “No, we’ve just been going down river. You know, just two adventurers going with the flow.”

  “Well the flow just landed you in Winterhurst, the coldest, and most backwards sector on all of Overlap. And we’re about fifteen minutes from winter,” Anthony said, laughing. “I’d love to help you boys out, but my boat is way too small to pull yours any distance. The truth is I shouldn’t be out here now. Seems like you and I are the only ones crazy enough to be on the river in these parts this time of year. I’m just picking up a couple of more nets—hopefully full of fish—and then I’m heading back up river, away from the coming storm. I won’t be back down this way till things warm up again.

  “Fishing’s good On the Sliding West, no doubt, but I don’t come this way often and never in the real cold.”

  “We can just wait for another boat,” Mallory said, shrugging.

  “When’s the last time you seen a boa
t, fella? Didn’t ya hear what I said? Only a fool would be on the river today.” Anthony shook his head and laughed. “Nope, you couldn’t have landed in a much worse place, being a dragon with a broken boat and all. There’s a big storm heading this way in the next couple of days. Everyone who runs the river knows that. Nope, there won’t be another boat down this way till spring thaw.”

  “Are we at least in walking distance of a town?” Mallory asked.

  “When’s the last time you boys saw a town?”

  “Not for a while,” Duncan said, thoughtfully.

  “Are you saying all the towns are inland?” Mallory asked.

  “Several miles inland. Folks that live around these parts are so backwards they’re afraid of the river because it slides,” Anthony said, moving to tie a tow rope he was thrown by his crew to the back of their boat. Duncan helped him. He looked at Duncan, “You’ll be damn lucky to find a decent forge, much less anything else. If I were you I’d just count on being here till spring. Then you’ll be able to hitch a ride with someone going down stream and find someone heading back up through these parts.”

  “But there is always traffic on the Sliding. Always,” Mallory said, confused.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? Boy, you guys really don’t have any idea where you are. This ain’t exactly the Sliding.” He pointed across the river. “That there is an island. It’s smack in the middle of the river. The only slides on the other side. This here is the Sliding West, and it don’t slide…”

  “Wait a minute, wait just a minute. If this part of the river doesn’t slide why are the locals afraid of it?” Mallory asked.

  “I told you they was backwards. Hill folks. Real superstitious. Look, beyond that big block of land is the Sliding. You guys done wound up on the wrong side.” He laughed again. He sure did think their predicament was funny. “Didn’t you notice the river got smaller?”

  “I just thought it did. I mean everything’s always changing on Overlap, the plant life, the animals, the soil, the people,” Mallory said.

  “Yeah, well the river got smaller ’cause that island splits it in two.” Anthony laughed again. “You all hang on now. Go ahead boys! Give her a good, hard pull.” Duncan hung on and with one good pull their boat was free. Mallory went and dropped the anchor.

  “Thank you very much,” Duncan said. “Could we maybe get a ride with you guys back to civilization?”

  “Sorry, boat’s hardly big enough for the crew I’ve got and the fish I’ll pick up. Less of course you could pay for the fish I can’t haul.”

  Duncan sighed. “I’m afraid all we have to our names is five coins.”

  “Sorry, wish I could do more, but I gotta think about me an’ my crew first. You understand I’m sure. Tell you what. If you’re still here when I start running my spring nets I’ll give you a lift up stream to a good machinist I know.”

  “Thanks,” Duncan said and waved, watching helplessly as the other boat roared away.

  Mallory joined him and Duncan snapped, “Could you not see that the river was splitting?”

  Mallory looked at him like he’d gone right around the bend. “Don’t get pissy with me. It didn’t split on my watch. Even if it had I can’t say I would have known which was the river and which was the side-thingy, and neither would you. I think it split somewhere above where we bought the boat. One of the times when we couldn’t see the river.”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Duncan said, the wind taken out of his sails a bit. “So what now?”

  “Do you think you can put that piece…what did you call it?”

  “The thingy.”

  “Do you think you can put the thingy back together? Fix it?”

  “Not without a forge. Even then I’m not sure a weld would hold. There is a lot of tension on that piece,” Duncan said. He thought about it a minute and then added, “I’m sure I could build a new thingy. It’s a simple enough piece. If I had the right piece of metal…but again I’d need a forge and an anvil.”

  “Could you hobble it together good enough that it will get us out of here?”

  “You mean like stick it back together with sticks and rope and such?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. It wouldn’t get us three feet,” Duncan snapped back. “There is a lot of tension on the thingy.”

  “Don’t jump on me for being ignorant. I’m not the one who named a vital part of our boat the thingy,” Mallory said calmly. “Now let’s think for a moment. It’s true we have no idea how we got where we are. However that doesn’t mean our friend Anthony has told us the truth about where we are.”

  “Huh?”

  Mallory talked slower. “Look, he and his crew, they just kept laughing. I realize our predicament would be funny if it wasn’t happening to us, but how do we know that he didn’t tell us all that stuff about where we are and how dire our circumstances are as some sort of sick joke?”

  “Why would he?” Duncan asked.

  “For fun? I don’t know. I’m just saying…”

  “Then where are all the towns? I haven’t seen any. You haven’t, either. It’s been most of two days,” Duncan said.

  “Then he might be wrong about the river traffic, and someone might come by who can help us and…”

  “Alright, Mal. You know what? You’re right. Maybe someone might come by. Meanwhile, we don’t have enough food to last a week, winter’s coming, it’s already cold, we have no way of knowing how long we’ll be stuck here, and…”

  “Geez! Could you whine any more than that? Buck up, little camper. Tell you what. I’ll stay and watch for any sign of a town or a ship. I have better eyesight and better hearing than you do. You scout around close and see what, if anything, besides fish there is to eat and see if you see any sign that people have been around.”

  “What sort of sign, Mal?”

  “I don’t know. An old fire pit, a road, a little girl selling cookies…”

  Duncan really wanted to be mad, but what Mallory said made sense. “Ah…all right then, let’s do that!” He stomped to the gangplank and released it, letting it fall ashore with a loud plop, just because.

  “Do you feel better?” Mallory asked.

  “A little.” Duncan walked down the gangplank and started walking around looking for anything that might be useful and any signs of man. He found several edible plants and a bunch of rabbit-type animals that weren’t really rabbits but weren’t much like anything else he’d seen, so he just called them rabbits. He was pretty sure they’d be yummy cooked—maybe with a nice sauce. He found bamboo and cattails and lots of deadfall wood, but after several hours of finding stuff and dragging it back to the boat, what he hadn’t found was any sign of intelligent life.

  He was about to give up looking and just collect food and wood when he saw something through the trees that looked promising—a small clearing. He walked towards it, almost running when he saw sections of log twelve inches around and about two feet in length which had clearly been saw cut. Someone had been here cutting wood, and maybe they’d come back for these.

  But as he looked them over he could tell they weren’t recently cut. In fact, when he rolled one around to see how hard it would be to move all the bark fell off, so the wood had been cut several seasons back. Still it meant civilization couldn’t be too far away.

  He hefted a couple of the sections onto his shoulders and hauled them back to the boat.

  He walked in with them just in time to see Mallory trying to push his way through all the greenery and wood Duncan had collected through the day. The main room on the bottom deck was now completely full except for the area behind the bar.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Mallory asked, spitting some bamboo leaves out of his mouth. It was only then that Duncan realized that he’d just been grabbing anything and everything that might be even the least bit useful.

  “Preparing?” Duncan explained with a smile and a shrug. “I guess I freaked out a little.”

  “Maybe just a little,
” Mallory said as he pushed his way into the kitchen.

  “Look, I brought us chairs,” Duncan said, carrying in the two massive pieces of tree and setting them on the kitchen floor. Mallory looked at them and nodded approvingly.

  “Some place to sit is always nice. The bedrooms have small closets. I checked them all and found quite a haul—three half-burned candles, a few empty tin cans, a couple of old rags, and a dead rat. I decided not to keep that—just stuck it in the boiler fire.”

  “That’s probably best.” Duncan laughed.

  “I found a whole box of short rolls of wire.” Mallory held up one of the small rolls and Duncan smiled.

  “That’s spent bailing wire.” He nodded, thinking of lots of things he could do with that.

  “And there was this.” Mallory held up a small, rather rusty metal tackle box. Before Mallory could say more, Duncan grabbed it out of his hands and opened it. There wasn’t much, but there were half a dozen rusty hooks and a bunch of line. The horrible panic Duncan had been feeling left him.

  “There’s a medicine chest and a closet in the bathroom, but there was nothing there as good as the dead rat. I didn’t see or hear any hint of a boat, and no smoke from any town. Of course that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, just means we’re in no position to see the smoke from its chimneys where we’re at.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve been in much worse spots,” Duncan said, more to comfort himself than anything else. Which was why what Mallory said next was just all wrong, and not what he wanted to hear at all.

  “Maybe,” Mallory shrugged. “Truth is we don’t really know what we’re in for, do we?”

  His statement annoyed Duncan more than a little. “That being the case, would it have killed you to just agree?”

  Mallory laughed. “Killed no. Look, I’m not worried. We have a roof over our heads, a heater, all the fish we can catch, and half the forest here in the boat with us.”

  Duncan looked back at his haul for the day and had to admit he didn’t really know what he intended to do with half of it.