"Now don't you go tryin' any of your daemonic tricks on me... if you 'ave any."
"I"--Jon couldn't decide whether to pay attention to the bump on his head or the pain in his side--"I'm not a daemon."
The otter made a satisfied cluttering sound. "Ah! Never did think you were. Knew it all along, I did. First off, a daemon wouldn't let hisself be cut as easy as you did and second, they don't fall flat on their puss when they be in pursuit of daemonic prey. Worst attempt at levitation ever I saw.
"Thinkin' I might 'ave misjudged you, for bein' upset over losin' me supper, I bandaged up that little nick I gifted you with. Guess you're naught but a man, what? No hard feelin's, mate?"
Jon looked down at himself. His shirt had been pulled up. A crude dressing of some fibrous material was tied around his waist with a snakeskin thong. A dull ache came from the bandaged region. He felt as though he'd been used as a tackling dummy.
Sitting up very slowly, he again noted his surroundings. He was not in his apartment, a tiny hovel which now seemed as desirable and unattainable as heaven.
Dream trees continued to shade dream flowers. Grass and blue clover formed a springy mattress beneath him. Dream birds sang in the branches overhead, only they were not birds. They had teeth, and scales, and claws on their wings. As he watched, a glass butterfly lit on his knee. It fanned him with sapphire wings, fluttered away when he reached tentatively toward it.
Sinewy muscles tensed beneath his armpits as the otter got behind him and lifted. "You're a big one... give us a 'and now, will you, mate?"
With the otter's aid, Jon soon found himself standing. He tottered a little, but the fog was lifting from his brain.
"Where's my room? Where's the school?" He turned a circle, was met by trees on all sides and not a hint of a building projecting above them. The tears started again, surprising because Jon had always prided himself on his emotional self-control. But he was badly, almost dangerously disoriented. "Where am I? What... who are you?"
"All good questions, man." This is a funny bloke, the otter thought. Watch yourself, now. "As to your room and school, I can't guess. As to where we are, that be simple enough to say. These be the Bellwoods, as any fool knows. We're a couple days' walk out o' Lynchbany Towne, and my name be Mudge. What might yours be, sor, if you 'ave a name?"
Jon answered numbly, "Meriweather. Jonathan Thomas Meriweather."
"Well then, Jnthin Tos Miwath... Joneth Omaz Morwoth... see 'ere, man, this simply won't do! That's not a proper name. The sayin' of it ud give one time enough to dance twice widdershins 'round the slick thighs o' the smooth-furred Felice, who's said t've teased more males than there be bureaucrats in Polastrindu. I'll call you Jon-Tom, if you don't mind, and if you will insist on havin' more than one name. But I'll not give you three. That clatters indecently on the ears."
"Bellwoods," the lanky, disoriented youth was babbling. "Lynchbany... Lynchbany... is that near Culver City? It's got to be in the South Bay somewhere."
The otter put both hands on Jon-Tom's wrists, and squeezed. Hard. "Look 'ere, lad," he said solemnly, "I know not whether you be balmy or bewitched, but you'd best get hold of yourself. I've not the time t' solve your problems or wipe away those baby-bottom tears you're spillin'. You're as real as you feel, as real as I, and if you don't start lookin' up for yourself you'll be a real corpse, with real maggots feedin' on you who won't give a snake fart for where you hailed from. You hearin' me, lad?"
Jon-Tom stopped snuffling, suddenly seemed his proper age. Easy, he told himself. Take this at face value and puzzle it through, whatever it is. Adhere to the internal logic and pray to wake up even if it's in a hospital bed. Whether this animal before you is real or dream, it's all you've got now. No need to make even an imaginary asshole of yourself.
"That's better." The otter let loose of the man's tingling wrists. "You mumble names I ain't never heard o'." Suddenly he slapped small paws together, gave a delighted spring into the air. "O' course! Bugger me for a rat-headed fool for not thinkin' of it afore! This 'as t' be Clothahump's work. The old sot's been meddlin' with the forces of nature again." His attitude was instantly sympathetic, whiskers quivering as he nodded knowingly at the gaping Jon-Tom.
" 'Tis all clear enough now, you poor blighter. It's no wonder you're as puzzled and dazed as you appear, and that I couldn't fathom you a'tall." He kicked at the dirt, boot sending flowers flying. "You've been magicked here."
"Magicked?"
"Aye! Oh, don't look like that, guv'nor. I don't expect it's fatal. Old Clothahump's a decent docent and wily enough wizard when he's sober and sane, but the troublemaker o' the ages when he lapses into senility, as 'e's wont t' do these days. Sometimes it's 'ard to tell when 'e's rightside in. Not that it be 'is fault for turnin' old and dotty, 'appens t' us all eventually, I expect.
"I stay away from 'is place, I do. As do any folk with brains enough. Never know what kind o' crazed incantation you might get sucked up in."
"He's a wizard, then," Jon-Tom mumbled. Trees, grass, the otter before him assumed the clarity of a fire alarm. "It's all real, then."
"I told you so. There be nothin' wrong with your ears, lad. No need t' repeat what I've already said. You sound dumb enough as it is."
"Dumb? Now look," Jon-Tom said with some heat, "I am confused. I am worried. I'll confess to being terrified out of my wits." One hand dropped reflexively to his injured side. "But I'm not dumb."
The otter sniffed disdainfully.
"Do you know who was president of Paraguay from 1936 to 1941?"
"No." Mudge's nose wiggled. "Do you know 'ow many pins can dance on the 'ead of an angel?"
"No, and"--Jon-Tom hesitated; his gaze narrowed--"it's 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.' "
Mudge let out a disgusted whistle. "Think we're smart, do we. I can't do fire, but I'm not even an apprentice and I can pindance."
His paw drew five small, silvery pins from a vest pocket. Each was about a quarter of an inch long. The otter mumbled something indistinct and made a pass or two over the metal splinters. The pins rose and commenced a very respectable cakewalk in his open palm.
"Allemande left," the otter commanded. The pins complied, the odd one out having some trouble working itself into the pattern of the dance.
"Never can get that fifth pin right. If only we 'ad the 'ead o' an angel."
"That's very interesting," Jon-Tom observed quietly. Then he fainted....
"You keep that up, guv, and the back o' your nog's goin' to be as rough as the hills of Kilkapny Claw. Not t'mention what it's doin' t' your fur."
"My fur?" Jon-Tom rolled to his knees, took several deep breaths before rising. "Oh." Self-consciously he smoothed back his shoulder-length locks, leaned against the helpful otter.
"Little enough as you 'umans got, I'd think you'd take better care o' it." Mudge let loose of the man's arm. "Furless, naked skin... I'd rather 'ave a pox."
"I have to get back," Jon-Tom murmured tiredly. "I can't stay here any longer. I've got a job, and classes, and a date Friday night, and I've got to..."
"Your otherworldly concerns are of no matter to me." Mudge gestured at the sticky bandage below the man's ribs. "I didn't spear you bad. You ought t' be able to run if you 'ave t'. If it's 'ome you want, we'd best go call on Clothahump. I'll leave you t' 'im. I've work of me own t' do. Can you walk?"
"I can walk to meet this... wizard. You called him Clothahump?"
"Aye, that's it, lad. The fornicating troublemakin' blighter, muckin' about with forces 'e can't no longer control. No doubt in my mind t' it, mate. Your bein' 'ere is 'is doin'. 'E be bound to send you back to where you belong before you get 'urt."
"I can take care of myself." Jon-Tom had traveled extensively for his age. He prided himself on his ability to adapt to exotic locales. Objectively considered, this land he now found himself in was no more alien-appearing than Amazonian Peru, and considerably less so than Manhattan. "Let's go and find this wizard."
"That's
the spirit, guv'nor!" Privately Mudge still thought the tall youth a whining, runny-nosed baby. "We'll 'ave this 'ere situation put right in no time, wot?"
Oak and pine dominated the forest, rising above the sycamore and birch. In addition, Jon-Tom thought he recognized an occasional spruce. All coexisted in a botanistic nightmare, though Jon-Tom wasn't knowledgeable enough to realize the incongruity of the landscape.
Epiphytic bushes abounded, as did gigantic mushrooms and other fungi. Scattered clumps of brown and green vines dripped black berries, or scarlet, or peridot green. There were saplings that looked like elms, save for their iridescent blue bark.
The glass butterflies were everywhere. Their wings sent isolated shafts of rainbow light through the branches. Yet everything seemed to belong, seemed natural, even to the bells formed by the leaves of some unknown tree, which rang in the wind and gave substance to the name of this forest.
The cool woods, with its invigorating tang of mint ever present, had become almost familiar when he finally had his first close view of a "bird." It lit on a low-hanging vine nearby and eyed the marchers curiously.
Bird resemblance ended with the feathers. A short snout revealed tiny sharp teeth and a long, forked tongue. The wings sprouted from a scaly yellow body. Having loosened its clawed feet from the vine, the feathered reptile (or scaly bird?) circled once or twice above their heads. It uttered a charming trill that reminded the astonished Jon-Tom of a mockingbird. Yet it bore closer resemblance to the creature he'd seen scamper beneath the boulder in the meadow than to any bird, and was sooner cousin to a viper than a finch.
A small rock whizzed through the air. With an outraged squawk the feathered apparition wheeled and vanished into the sheltering trees.
"Why'd you do that, Mudge?"
"It were circlin' above us, sor." The otter shook his head sadly. "Not entirely bright you are. Or don't the flyers o' your own world ever vent their excrement upon unwary travelers? Or is it that you 'ave magicked reasons o' your own for wishin' t' be shat upon?"
"No." He tried to regain some of the otter's respect. "I've had to dodge birds several times."
The confession produced a reaction different from what he'd hoped for.
"BIRDS?" The otter's expression was full of disbelief, the thin whiskers twitching nervously. "No self-respectin' bird would dare do an insult like that. Why, 'ed be up afore council in less time than it takes t' gut a snake. D'you think we're uncivilized monsters 'ere, like the Plated Folk?"
"Sorry." Jon-Tom sounded contrite, though still puzzled.
"Mind you watch your language 'ere, lad, or you'll find someone who'll prick you a mite more seriously than did I."
They continued through the trees. Though low and bandy-legged like all his kind, the otter made up for his slight stride with inexhaustible energy. Jon-Tom had to break into an occasional jog to keep pace with him.
Seeds within belltree leaves generated fresh music with every varying breeze, now sounding like Christmas chimes, now like a dozen angry tambourines. A pair of honeybees buzzed by them. They seemed so achingly normal, so homey in this mad world that Jon-Tom felt a powerful desire to follow them all the way to their hive, if only to assure himself it was not equipped with miniature windows and doors.
Mudge assured him it was not. "But there be them who are related to such who be anything but normal, lad." He pointed warningly eastward. "Many leagues that way, past grand Polastrindu and the source o' the River Tailaroam, far beyond the Swordsward, on the other side o' great Zaryt's Teeth, lies a land no warmblood has visited and returned to tell o' it. A land not to look after, a country in'abited by stinks and suppurations and malodorous creatures who are o' a vileness that shames the good earth. A land where those who are not animal as us rule. A place called Cugluch."
"I don't think of myself as animal," Jon-Tom commented, momentarily forgetting the bees and wondering at what would inspire such loathing and obvious fear in so confident a creature as Mudge.
"You're not much of a human, either." Mudge let out a high-pitched whistle of amusement. "But I forget myself. You're a stranger 'ere, plucked unwillingly from some poor benighted land o' magic. Unwillingly snookered you've been, an' I ought by right not t' make sport o' you." Suddenly his face contorted and he missed a step. He eyed his taller companion uncertainly.
"You 'ave the right look 'bout you, and you feel right, but with magic one can never be sure. You do 'ave warm blood, don't you, mate?"
Jon-Tom winced, listed to his left. A powerful arm steadied him. "Thanks," he told the otter. "You should know. You spilled enough of it."
"Aye, it did seem warm enough, though my thoughts were on other matters at the time." He shrugged. "You've proved yourself harmless enough, anyway. Clothahump will know what he's called you for."
What could this wizard want with me, Jon-Tom wondered? Why is this being done to me? Why not Shelly, or Professor Stanhope, or anyone else? Why me? He noticed that they'd stopped.
"We're there?" He looked around, expecting maybe a quaint thatched cottage. There was no cottage in sight, no house of any kind. Then his eyes touched on the dull-paned windows in the flanks of the massive old oak, the wisp of smoke rising lazily from the chimney that split the thick subtrunks high up, and the modest door scrunched in between a pair of huge, gnarly roots.
They started for the doorway, and Jon-Tom's attention was drawn upward.
"Now what?" wondered Mudge, aware that his entranced companion was no longer listening attentively to his description of Clothahump's growing catalog of peculiarities.
"It's a bird. A real one, this time."
Mudge glanced indifferently skyward. "O' course it's a bird. What, now, did you expect?"
"One of those hybrid lizard things like those we passed in the forest. This looks like a true bird."
"You're bloody right it is, and better be glad this one can't 'ear you talkin' like that."
It was a robin, for all that it had a wingspan of nearly a yard. It wore a vest of kelly green satin, a cap not unlike Mudge's, and a red and puce kilt. A sack was slung and strapped across its chest. It also sported a translucent eyeshade lettered in unknown script.
Three stories above ground a doweled landing post projected from the massive tree. Braking neatly, the robin touched down on this. With surprisingly agile wing tips it reached into the chest sack, fumbled around, and withdrew several small cylinders. They might have been scrolls.
These the bird shoved into a dark recess, a notch or small window showing in the side of the tree. It warbled twice, piercingly, sounding very much like the robins who frequented the acacia tree outside Kinsey Hall back on campus.
Leaning toward the notch, it cupped a wing tip to its beak and was heard to shout distinctly, "Hey, stupid! Get off your fat ass and pick up your mail! You've got three days' worth moldering up here, and if I come by tomorrow and it's still piled up I'll use it for nest lining!" There followed a string of obscenities much out of keeping with the bird's coloring and otherwise gentle demeanor. It turned from the notch with a gruff chirp, grumbling under its breath.
"Horace!" shouted the otter. The bird looked downward and dropped off the perch to circle above them.
"Mudge? Whatcha doin'?" The voice reminded Jon of one he'd heard frequently during a journey to another exotic section of the real world, a realm known as Brooklyn. "Ain't seen ya around town much lately."
"Been out 'untin', I 'ave."
"Where'd ya pick up the funny-looking bozo?"
"Long story, mate. Did I 'ear you right when you said the old geezer hain't been 'ome in three days?"
"Oh, he's inside, all right," replied the bird. "Mixing and sorcering as usual. I can tell because there's a different stink blowing out that mail drop every time I fly in. You wouldn't happen to have a worm on ya, would ya?"
"Sorry, mate. Crayfish and oysters run more t' my taste."
"Yeah, I know. No harm in asking." He cocked a hopeful eye at Jon-Tom. "How 'bout you, buddy?"
"Afraid not." Anxious to please, he fumbled in his jeans' pockets. "How about a Juicyfruit?"
"Thanks, but I've had all the berries I can stand for now. I'm up to my ass feathers in berries." He stared at Jon a moment longer, then bid them a civil good-bye.
"Always did envy them birds." Mudge looked envious. "Wings are so much faster than feet."
"I think I'd rather have real feet and hands."
Mudge grunted. "That's a point t' reckon with, guv'nor." They moved to the doorway. " 'Ere goes now. Mind," he whispered, "you be on your best behavior, Jon-Tom. Old Clothahump's got the reputation o' bein' fair-tempered for a wizard, but they're a cranky group. Just as soon turn you into a dung beetle as look at you. It ain't good policy t' provoke one, 'specially one as powerful and senile as Clothy-nose 'ere."
The otter knocked on the door, nervously repeated it when no reply was forthcoming. Jon-Tom noted the animal's tenseness, decided that for all his joking and name-calling he was deeply fearful of wizards or anything having to do with them. He twitched and shifted his feet constantly while they waited. It occurred to Jon-Tom that at no time had he actually seen the otter standing motionless. Trying to ignore the pain pounding in his side he struggled to stand straight and presentable.
In a moment the door would creak inward and he would be standing face to face with what was, at least to Mudge's mind, a genuine magic-making wizard. It was easy enough to visualize him: six and a half feet tall, he would be garbed in flowing purple robes enscribed with mystic symbols. A bestarred pointy. hat would crown the majestic head. His face would be wrinkled and stern-what wasn't hidden beneath a flowing white beard-and he would very likely be wearing thick glasses.
The door opened inward. It creaked portentously. "Good morning," he began, "we..."
The rest of the carefully rehearsed greeting shattered in his throat as he stumbled backward in panic, tripped, and fell. Something tore in his side and he sensed dampness there. He wondered how much longer he could tolerate the wound without having it properly treated, and if he might die in this falsely cheerful place, as far from home as anyone could be. The monstrosity that had filled the open doorway drifted toward him as he tried to crawl, to scramble away....
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