by neetha Napew
“Why not?” She was genuinely surprised. “Most men I know would be glad to.”
“I’m not most men. About the best I could do would be to give up spellsinging and magic and try to make a normal living as a musician.”
“Not with your voice you couldn’t.” Seeing the look that came over his face she hastened to comfort him, her anger vanishing as rapidly as it had materialized. “I guess you’re right, you and that hard-shelled, hardheaded old fraud. You’ll have to go. I’ll stay here and keep tree until you return.”
He could see she was trying to bolster her own spirits more than she was trying to reassure him. “After all,” she continued, “it’s not like you’re going off to try and save the world this time. You’re just running a long errand. Like a vacation, right?”
“Right.” He smiled lovingly down at her. “You’re sure you won’t come? It’ll be an adventure.”
She grinned up at him. “After my encounter with that wolverine and his perambulator I’m kind of adventured out. I like little, safe adventures, Jon-Tom, not the awesome world-shaking ones you seem to go in for. I think I’ll just stay here and enjoy the feeling of being married until you come back. It’s still a new sensation for me. That’s enough of an adventure for me for now.” Suddenly she looked worried. “Or do you think I’m getting old? After all, I’ll be twenty-three in three months.”
He gave her a light kiss. “I don’t think you’ll ever get old, Talea. I think you’ll still be looking to crack skulls and pick pockets when you turn ninety.”
“That’s one reason why I love you so much, Jonny-Tom. You know how to say the sweetest things to a girl. Go on, get your duar repaired. Take your time and stay clear of trouble.”
“I’ll be back in no time, you’ll see. I’m just taking a long cruise, that’s all. What could happen?” He pulled her to him, lowering his lips toward hers as . . .
A loud crash sounded from overhead. She pulled away from him, her mood twitching from affectionate and conciliatory to angry once again.
“And while you’re at it, as long as you’re going/ar away, take that unspeakable vile water rat with you and see if you can’t lose him somewhere in the middle of the ocean!” A second thump followed the first, not quite as loud as its predecessor but still aggravating.
The notion of having an attic in a tree was a radical one. But, he’d argued with Clothahump, if one can have a cellar, why not an attic? The wizard had shrugged and complied. After all, it was a wedding present and one could expand dimensionally upwards as easily as down. It proved a convenient place to store unpacked wedding gifts, extra furniture, household supplies, and those items which one has no use for but which are obviously so useful they cannot be thrown away. Counted among the latter was a grotesque stone sculpture which had been a present from one of Clothahump’s friends, a whole collection of arms and armor which Talea cooed over and refused to part with despite Jon-Tom’s insistence that they were going to live a normal, peaceful life, and one five-foot-tall, bedraggled, foulmouthed, perpetually hungry otter.
Jon-Tom blinked as wood dust drifted down from the ceiling. “I don’t think Mudge is ready to leave.”
“You don’t make it a question,” she snapped. “You make it an order.”
“But Mudge is my friend. We’ve been through a lot, the two of us, and because he helped me out this last trip I feel like I owe him something.”
“Any old debts between you have long since been squared. Don’t you remember what he said after our wedding? That he’d only stay on here for a few days. That he just wanted a place to kick up his heels and relax for a week. That was months ago, Jon-Tom. He’s been freeloading ever since, putting his feet up on my best furniture, tracking mud in every time he goes swimming in the river—and to top it off he stinks and he has rotten table manners.”
“All otters have rotten table manners,” Jon-Tom mumbled, aware it was a feeble defense. “They’re not what you’d call a disciplined bunch.”
“Disciplined my ass! The lot of them are crazier than a coterie of cuckoos. I thought maybe Mudge would quiet down after you and I got married, but he’s worse than ever. I don’t know how many times I’ve caught him trying to peek at me while I’m taking my bath.”
“You ought to feel flattered. Usually Mudge won’t waste a glance on anything without fur.”
“You think so, do you? He’s got you flummoxed too, then, because I happen to know that among the many diseases he’s infected with is terminal satyriasis. That otter will screw anything that moves and probably a few things that don’t. Sometimes I think he prefers the latter because whatever he’s glommed onto can’t run away.”
“Come on, Talea. Mudge wouldn’t lay a paw on you.”
“He doesn’t have to. All he has to do is look at a female, but I don’t expect you to understand that. Anyway,” she said, raising her voice and not caring if the rest of the Bellwoods overheard, much less the sole occupant of the attic above, “I want him out of my house; fur, claws, filthy teeth and all. You’ve the perfect excuse for it now. Tell him you’re off on another journey and you need him to serve as guide and companion. Isn’t that what you always told him?” She wore a deliciously predatory smile now. “A perfect reason to drag him off with you—and dump him somewhere.”
“Talea, I just can’t “
She spun on her heel and marched over to the other armoire, began rummaging through the contents. Underwear and clothing went flying as she dug. “Where the hell did I put that sword?”
“Talea, we don’t want to do anything foolish.”
“Foolish?” She spoke without looking back at him. “You get that rat out of here in one piece or I’ll have him out in sections. Ah.” She removed her old sword from the bottom drawer, managing to look thoroughly incongruous standing there in the phosphorescent nightgown hefting a shaft of unyielding steel in her right hand. She was as adept with it, he knew, as any soldier.
He leaned back against the wall as he watched her head for the door. “Don’t you think,” he said softly, “that if you’re going to fight that a little more substantial armor would be in order?”
She glanced down at her nearly naked self, suddenly conscious that she was not exactly dressed for traditional battle.
“Don’t worry.” He walked over to where she stood fuming silently and gently removed the sword from her hand, laid it aside. “I promise I’ll take Mudge along, if that’s what you want. He could use the exercise anyway. His current condition is partly your fault. None of us suspected that in addition to knowing how to use a sword and bow and arrows and pike and knives and fighting staff and battle-axe and mace that you could handle a cook pot and stove equally well. He’s gotten fat on your cooking, as have I. As soon as I assure him there’s no danger involved this time and that I’ll be paying all expenses he’ll be eager to come along. That’s Mudge, always raring to visit new places and explore new lands and cities.”
“Sure he is. He might find a whorehouse he hasn’t visited before. You promise you’ll take him with you?”
“I promise.” She put her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoes against him. There was nothing between his body and hers save a nightgown and bathrobe, and those hardly counted.
“In that case, why are we standing here wasting the rest of the night talking when we could be over there not talking?” She nodded toward the disheveled bed.
He swallowed. “Don’t you think maybe I ought to start packing as long as we’re already awake?”
She tugged him gently in the direction of the sheets. “You need some rest before starting on such a long journey. I’ll help you pack. The first thing we need to find is your staff, and I know right where it is.”
III
He had in mind to make an early start, but it was mid-morning before Talea finally let him crawl out of the bed. The pale brown sheets were all twisted around her as she lay sprawled in the middle of the mattress, watching him as he dressed. She looked like a vanilla swir
l in the middle of a chocolate sundae.
“Maybe I could put off leaving for another week or two.”
She laughed at that as she sat up, shaking out covers and her shoulder length red hair. “I don’t think so. Another night’s ‘rest’ and neither one of us will be able to walk.”
He slipped on his boots, shaky as he balanced first on one leg, then the other. “You know where my old backpack is?” She nodded. “Give me one change of clothing, plenty of dried jerky for noshing on between towns, and anything else you think I’ll find useful. That and my staff, and I’ll have Mudge ready to go by the time you have everything packed.”
“Pity you can’t leave your staff here.”
“Sorry. I might need it on the trip.” He ducked the pillow she threw at him. “What’s left of the duar’s already packaged for the trek. You can tie it to the top of my pack.” He tested one boot, then the other. “I feel naked going off like this, without that instrument resting against my ribs.”
She put her head down on the remaining pillow. “I wish you weren’t going, Jonny-Tom. But since you are, I’m going to think every day what a safe, relaxing time you’ll be having. You’ll make the best possible ship connections and you’ll be back here weeks early.” She rolled her eyes ceilingward. “Just don’t forget to put out the garbage when you leave.”
He made a face as he left the room.
The spiral staircase was located just oif the parlor. As he climbed toward the attic he went over what he was going to say to Mudge. Getting the otter out of the house was going to be harder than pulling a tooth.
“Mudge?” He raised the trap door and peered into the room. “Mudge, you awake yet?” No reply. The sharply slanted roof forced him to stay in the center of the chamber. It was filled with piles of gifts, many of which had been forced on him by the grateful citizens of Ospenspri, the city he and Clothahump had recently rescued from the deleterious effects of the wandering perambulator. Most remained unopened. A single porthole allowed sunlight to enter from outside.
Beneath the glass stood a beautiful brass and turquoise bed which had been a wedding gift from one of Lynchbany’s most prominent citizens, an old friend of Clothahump’s. The reason it reposed in the attic instead of downstairs in the master bedroom was that despite its exquisite workmanship it was impractical, having been built for the shorter humans inhabiting this world. It fit Talea perfectly, but his longer legs, hung over the end. They decided to keep it anyway. Some day there might be one or two little spellsingers who’d need a place to sleep. So they’d reassembled it in the attic.
Presently it was occupied by a single furry shape not unlike a large rug in need of washing. Mudge’s head lay beneath the covers facing the foot of the bed. His flexible rear end protruded from the sheets and stuck up in the air, the tail twitching spasmodically like an undersized brown flag in response to the otter’s depraved dreams. Mudge didn’t live quietly and he didn’t sleep quietly, something else Talea held against him. He tended to bounce around in the bed despite the muffling effects of Clothahump’s best silencing spells. Worse, he tended to walk in his sleep. He also talked in his sleep, which led to the discovery that he spouted more obscenities when unconscious than he did when he was awake.
Jon-Tom bent over to regard his somnolent houseguest. “Mudge? Mudgey-Wudgey? Time to get up.” He yelled at the buried head. “Wake up, dammit!”
The otter’s rear end subsided slowly like a leaky balloon. A head emerged from the bunched sheets near the foot of the bed. Brown eyes blinked sleepily up at him.
“Cor’, wot a bloody racket. Wot’s up, mate?”
“Me, and now you, and soon business.”
The otter frowned, smacking his lips. “Now wot sort o’ business might any civilized person be ‘avin’ so early in the momin’?
“Mudge, it’s almost lunchtime.”
“Lunch?” The otter’s eyes snapped all the way open. He was instantly and fully awake, exploding from the bed to slide supplely and with extraordinary speed into his clothes. “Why din’ you say so? Missed breakfast already, ‘ave I? Well, we’ll make up for it some’ow. Tell me then, lad, wot succulent viands ‘as the beauteous Talea prepared for us this charmin’ midday?”
“Nothing to swallow this morning but a bitter pill, Mudge. A bunch of thugs broke into the wizard’s tree earlier and tried to rob him. I woke up, snuck over there, and routed them.”
‘ Tis a true selfless ‘ero you are, mate. ‘Aven’t I always said so?”
“No, you’ve always said that I was a prime idiot for sticking my nose into other people’s troubles, but that’s beside the point. I fell on my duar and broke it.”
That gave the otter pause. “Broke the duar, you say? Bad?”
“Reduced it to fragments. Clothahump says it can only be fixed, if it can be fixed at all, by a master craftsman named Couvier Coulb who lives in a town called Strelakat Mews.”
The otter sniffed, his whiskers twitching. “Never ‘card of it.” He bent over to gaze into a small mirror, preening himself. “Well, we all ‘ave our little unexpected errands to run from time to time.”
“We sure do. You’re coming with me.”
“Wot?” Mudge looked up from the mirror, placed his feathered green felt cap on his head between his ears. “Before lunch?”
“No,” Jon-Tom replied in exasperation, “we can eat first.”
“Well that’s all right then.” Fully clad, the otter sauntered toward the staircase. “Where is this Strelakat place? Up near Malderpot? Or east over by Polastrindu?”
“Neither. It lies inland from the southern shore of the Glittergeist.”
“Wot, down near Yarrowl?” Mudge hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, that’s not but a few days journey by public conveyance. I could use a bit of a change o’ scenery. Join me in a quick swim?”
“Mudge, Strelakat Mews lies somewhere in the jungle south of the city of Chejiji, which is clear across the ocean. When I said the southern shore, I meant the southern shore.’’
Mudge cocked a suspicious eye on his friend. “Do you know ‘ow far that is, mate?”
“I have an idea.”
“Then here’s another idea for you to ‘ave: count me out. I’ve ‘ad me fill o’ travelin’ to far distant lands, I ‘ave, especially in your company. Nasty things tend to ‘appen to folks taggin’ along with you, Jon-Tom.”
“There’ll be no trouble this time. We’re just taking a trip to get a duar repaired. We’re not marching off to save the world this time.”
“Get this straight, mate: we ain’t marchin’ anywhere. Besides, I ain’t got the stomach for another ocean voyage. One with you were enough to last me a lifetime. I’ll just stay right “ere.”
“I didn’t want to bring this up, Mudge, but you’ve been staying ‘right here’ ever since Talea and I got married.”
“Right, and don’t think I ‘aven’t appreciated the ‘ospitaliry. I’ve enjoyed every day and every meal, just as I’ve enjoyed the company.”
“Talea seems to feel otherwise,” he said quietly.
“Ah, that sweet bare skinned redhead.” Mudge spoke wistfully. “Always was like that, ‘idin’ ‘er true feelings behind a fake wall o’ temper. That’s just to show the world ‘ow tough she is. When she says yes she means no, and when she says no she means yes.”
“She had her sword out a few hours ago. I think that means ‘no.’”
“Wot a sense o’ humor. You’re a lucky male, Jon-Tom.” The otter chuckled.
“I believe,” he continued dryly, “she intended to come up here and cut your heart out.”
The otter shook his head. “Wot a laugh, your Talea!”
Jon-Tom glanced toward the stairway. “In fact, I think I hear her coming up now.”
The otter’s smile vanished instantly and he bounded back behind the bed, the amused expression on his furry face now replaced by one of stark terror.
“Don’t let ‘er get me, mate. I’ve seen ‘er like this before. She
goes crazy. You can’t talk to ‘er, no one can, not even you.”
Jon-Tom suppressed a smile. “I think she’s gone back down—for the moment. No promises, but if you agree to accompany me I think I can calm her down long enough for us to slip out of the house without bloodshed.”
Mudge looked uncertain. “Got to cross the ‘ole Glittergeist, you say?”
Jon-Tom nodded slowly. “And then an unknown stretch of jungle after we leave the boat.”
The otter considered silently before replying. “I ain’t so sure I wouldn’t be better off just takin’ me chances with Talea’s sword.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little bitty gal like Talea?”
“You ‘aven’t seen that ‘little bitty’ one fight the way I ‘ave. She’s ruthless as a magistrate on ‘angin’ day.”
Jon-Tom turned and started down the stairs. “You coming with me or not?”
“Give me another minute to think it over, mate,” the otter pleaded.
“I can hear her banging around down there with that sword. Sounds like she’s getting herself good and worked up.”
“Okay, okay.” The otter rushed out from behind the bed. “Just keep ‘er off me, will you?”
“Let’s go,” Jon-Tom suggested. “It won’t seem so bad on a full stomach, although,” and he glanced down at the bulge that was straining the limits of the otter’s waistband, “you don’t look like you’ve been empty for some time.”
“Right. Always a good idea to eat and then talk. Besides, if she’s wieldin’ a servin’ spoon she can’t handle a sword.” He was careful to follow his host down the stairs.
“A wonderful meal, luv.” Mudge leaned back in his chair as if to - accentuate the compliment, wiping grease and fragments of food from his lips. “All those years you and I were pickin’ pockets and relievin’ undeservin’ citizens o’ their oversized wallets and you never dropped a ‘int that you could cook as well as you could cut.”
“We all have hidden talents, Mudge.” Talea was cleaning off the stove as she spoke. Clothahump’s tree-expanding spell hadn’t provided for a separate dining area so the rough-hewn table was located in the middle of the kitchen.
