The Time Of The Transferance

“Jon-Tom, there’s someone in the tree.”

From the abyss of deep rest he replied. “Huh—what?”

Feminine fingers imprinted themselves on the flesh of his shoulder. “I said there’s someone in the tree” The voice was sharp, melodious, familiar, as well it should have been.

Extending himself mightily, he opened one eye. Moonlight gilded the branches of his home and those of the bell trees that surrounded the glade of oaks. Morning was conspicuous by its absence, nor was there any indication that the sun intended to put in an appearance any time soon. He listened intently.

“Go back to sleep, Talea.” He turned over slowly. “There’s no one in the tree.”

“Not our tree, idiot!”she whispered huskily. “Old hard-shell’s tree.”

“Of course there’s someone inside Clothahump’s tree.”

He told his mind to go back to sleep. His subconscious laughed at him. “Clothahump and Sorbl.”

“The wizard sleeps the sleep of the dead and I know what Sorbl sounds like when he’s drunk. This is different, Jon-Tom. Trust me, I know sounds in the night.”

He sat up, rubbed his eyes. “From stalking innocent citizens in dark alleys, no doubt.”

She punched him in the ribs. “Don’t be funny. I’ve put those days behind me. I’m serious, Jon-Tom.” She looked toward the window that punctured the tree wall. “I don’t know how you can sleep through that racket anyway. They’ve been screaming and snouting over there for half an hour. Naturally now that you’re awake they’ve stopped.”

In the silence that followed, the sound of breaking crockery and muffled oaths drifted across the flowerbed. Talea’s face whipped ‘round to stare at him.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that.”

Still half asleep, he frowned and pushed the covers forward. “I won’t, because I did hear it. So they’re having a party over there or something. Wouldn’t be the first time Clothahump’s entertained out-of-town visitors. Some sorcerers can get pretty wild when they’ve had a few.”

“If it’s a party, why weren’t we invited? You know how old shelldrawers likes to show off your music.”

“So it isn’t a party. What if they’re friends of Clothahump’s from far away and they don’t want to be disturbed?”

“I don’t care if they’re visiting from another planet. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep.” Angrily she put her fists on her hips. This did wonderful things to the rest of her body. He stared at her, sitting there next to him in bed, the moonlight highlighting the shadows and secret places of her body, and his thoughts drifted from the continuing commotion next door.

“You don’t need any beauty sleep. You’re perfect already.” He reached for her.

“Oh no.” She skittered away from his hands and smiled determinedly at him. “I didn’t Wake you up for that. At least, not right now.” Her expression softened. “Can’t you go over there and tell them to keep it down? Even if they are wizards.” Another burst of noise from the turtle’s tree punctuated her request.

He eyed her longingly for another moment, then turned and slipped from beneath the covers. Winter was loosening its grip reluctantly this year, so he stepped into slippers and a heavy robe. While Clothahump could dimensionally expand the interior of a tree to provide its occupants with spacious living quarters, he had yet to figure out a practical way to heat one without burning the tree itself to the ground.

Walking to the single bedroom window, he gazed across the sleeping flowers toward the immense ancient oak that the wizard called home. He thought he saw lights flickering inside, but that could be an illusion cast by the dimension spell. If it was a torch or glow bulb, it probably meant that Clothahump had caught his famulus in the chemicals again and was chasing him around the tree. He said as much to Talea without turning to face her. If he saw her sitting there naked on the bed he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else.

They had been living together for several months. Time enough to discover that she was as adept at making love as she had been at picking pockets, the latter a distressing habit he was having a hard time breaking her from. The dimensionally expanded tree had been a .present from Clothahump. Designed, she’d noted sardonically, to make sure Jon-Tom stayed close to his mentor. Clothahump wanted Jon-Tom close at hand in case he had any more potentially lethal errands to be run. But that hadn’t been reason enough for her to turn the gift down.

“Clothahump’s the world’s greatest wizard. It’s not my place to tell him how to behave.”

She yanked the heavy quilts back up to her neck. “You need an excuse to stand up to him? Okay—tell him that your sweet, demure little Talea badgered you unmercifully until you had no choice but to stumble over and pretty-please ask him to shut his exalted self up. For the rest of the night, at least. As the greatest wizard in the world I’m sure he can decapitate Sorbl silently. And if it’s a party, ask him why we weren’t invited.” She sat up abruptly. “You do think that’s all it is, don’t you?”

He .glanced back out the window. “I don’t know. Clothahump’s almost three hundred years old. You can make a lot of enemies in three hundred years. I’ve never known him to be up this late.” More breaking sounds drifted across the space between the trees. What if Sorbl’s life wasn’t the one in danger?

Leaving the window he walked to the rear of the bedroom and opened the large carved armoire that stood there. In addition to clothes, boots and other personal effects it contained a small, seamless ramwood chest. He opened it and removed a curious, double-stringed instrument from the padded interior.

“If you think there’s trouble,” said Talea, watching him, “why don’t you take your fighting staff instead?”

Jon-Tom cradled the duar against his chest, fiddled with the tuning fweeps. “If it’s a party I’d look a pretty fool barging in with weapons. If Clothahump’s just chasing Sorbl maybe I can calm him down. And if it’s something else, I’ll be better armed with this than the staff.”

“Not with your voice.” She slid down beneath the covers until only her eyes were visible. Her voice was muffled by the blankets. “Hurry back. If you can get them to shut up over there maybe we can make a little noise of our own over here.”

“Just stay like that.” He was backing toward the doorway. “Don’t move a muscle, not an eyebrow. I’ll be back before you can blink.”

She blinked, murmured teasingly. “What, back already?”

He turned and walked fast for the parlor, wondering if he ought to take a lantern and as quickly deciding against it. He hadn’t mastered any fire songs yet and his precious supply of matches was down to four. Besides, he didn’t need any more light, not with the moon half full on a clear night.

As he shut the tree door behind him the chill night air scratched his throat. He bundled the robe’s heavy collar up tight. Based on where the moon was pinned to the sky he thought it was between three and four A.M. An uncivilized time to be awake, much less to be tramping through hibernating flowers clad only in furry slippers and a downy robe. He knew he cut an absurd figure in the moonlight, even though there were only small nocturnal flying lizards and phosphorescent branch crawlers present to observe his passage.

As he neared the wizard’s tree he slowed to peer in the front window. The parlor was dark, which strongly suggested that Clothahump was not in a partying mood. The skylight which looked down into the laboratory was equally blank.

Probably nothing more than the usual wizard-apprentice infighting, he groused silently. Here he’d roused himself out of a warm bed and away from a warm woman to find out that the combatants had retired for the evening immediately prior to his arrival.

Might as well make a thorough job of it, he told himself, to placate Talea’s suspicions if nothing else. He made his way around to the back of the tree. A huge toot half the height of man emerged from the flank of the great oak to plunge at a gentle angle down into the earth. Set into the side of the root was a door which led not to a root cellar, but into the rear of the wizard’s kitchen. The door was secured with a massive padlock.

A few appropriate notes from his duar sufficed to spring the seal. The magic words the wizard employed would have taken less time, but Jon-Tom always had a hard time remembering them. Pulling the door aside, he peered inward. No light, but this time he thought he could make out the muffled mutter of distant conversation. There was moi;e than one voice and the whole conversation sounded agitated. He thought he recognized Clothahump’s solemn tone and Sorbl’s high-pitched whine.

But other voices were present.

It was not unknown for wizards to entertain visitors at odd hours, but such meetings were always held in the front parlor, not in the kitchen. He hesitated as he thought about returning home to get his ramwood fighting staff. But having already refused to bring it, such a return would only make him look foolish in Talea’s eyes. Anyway, he didn’t need the ramwood. He had his duar.

He felt his way down the steps that led into the tree. They led him into the back, of the pantry, which was filled with preserved crawfish, river greens, bottles and jars of spices and flavorings and dressings and every other sort of victual that might appeal to the palate of a discriminating two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old turtle.

Carefully he opened the pantry door. A dim glow bulb cast faint light through the kitchen. The voices, much louder now, came from beyond. The lab was to his right down a narrow corridor. The dining room lay straight ahead. Closing the door quietly behind him, he tiptoed past the stove where Sorbl the owl toiled daily and leaned against the kitchen-dining area divider.

It was easy to make out what was being said. The voice that was currently speaking did not sound like that of an invited guest.

“Where is it? I’m getting tired of asking the same question, wizard!”

Jon-Tom clutched the duar close to his chest and slowly nudged the door outward. The glow bulbs in the dining room were running at maximum intensity and he could see clearly. Wings fastened to his side, his clawed feet tied together and his beak taped shut, Sorbl sat bound to a chair. Clothahump had been secured to another chair in the center of the room. The dining table had been shoved to one side.

Three figures confronted the stubborn wizard. None looked to be the sort one would invite to elevate the general level of conversation at a casual soiree. A tall, muscular wolf leaned on the shaft of his battle-axe and picked his teeth. Jon-Tom saw that he had only one eye. The other socket had been filled with a large cabachon citrine which sparkled piss-yellow in the glow-bulb light.

A civet cat lounged against a chair next to him. The cat’s sword rested in its sheath and he held a bucket from which rose thick steam. To his right stood the portly individual who had been doing most of the talking Jon-Tom had overheard. The guinea pig was not cute. At four feet he had to stretch to lean over the back of the chair to which Clothahump was tied. He wore a suit of thin chain mail which jangled as he hopped up and down in anger and frustration.

Clothahump had retreated completely into his shell. The wizard’s hands, feet and head were not visible. The guinea pig was leaning over the opening in the top of the shell and screaming inside. Ugly scars showed on his neck where the hair had never grown back.

“Come out of there, damn you! I’m tired of talking to a carapace.” He started to reach inside with a paw, thought better of it and did not. Then he stepped back and nodded to the civet cat. To Jon-Tom’s horror he saw that the bucket held boiling hot mud, which the cat was preparing to dump down Clothahump’s shell.

The threat was sufficient to induce Clothahump to slowly stick out his head. He squinted in the light, his hexagonal glasses unsteady on his beak. Obviously he and Sorbl had been surprised while sleeping, before either could take any defensive action.

“For the last time, I am telling you to get out while you still have a chance.” Clothahump sniffed disdainfully. “I am the world’s greatest wizard. Tying me to a chair will not prevent me from turning all of you into walking flagons of pain. I will strip the flesh from your bones, slowly and agonizingly. It is only out of the goodness of my heart and out of sympathy for such blatantly ignorant morons as yourselves that I have not done so already!”

The wolf cast a hesitant glance in the direction of his leader, but the boss of the bandits wasn’t fazed in the slightest by the wizard’s threat.

“Typical turtle drivel. If you could do anything to us you would have done so already. Without ready access to your potions and powders you’re helpless. Empty threats irritate patience already grown thin. For the last time, I say, tell us where your gold is hidden!”

“For the last time,” Clothahump replied in an irritated mutter, “I tell you that I have no gold. I have better things to do with my time than spend it amassing a useless fortune. My house is rich in knowledge only, a treasure beyond compare which lies forever beyond the grasp of your soiled fingers. As my servant can attest, I keep on hand only enough money to pay my household expenses, which are not exorbitant.” At this blatant attempt to deflect the thieves’ attention to him, Sorbl squirmed nervously in his chair, his vast yellow eyes wider even than usual.

The guinea pig spat on the clean floor. “Everyone knows that wizards like to keep treasure close about ‘em.” He cast sharp glances in all directions. “There are riches in this tree. I can smell them.” His whiskers quivered as he looked back into Clothahump’s eyes.

“The sun will be up soon and I’m tired of talking. I’ve no time for visiting noseybodies.” He nodded to the civet cat. “Let’s see how the old fakir likes having something a little warmer than his shell next to his skin.”

The cat grinned and raised the steaming bucket. Clothahump eyed it until the first drop of hot mud began to slide over the rim. “No, wait. I’ll tell you.”

Holding the bucket in position, the cat glanced to his leader for instructions.

“All right, that’s better. What’s a little lost gold to the ‘greatest wizard in the world’?” The guinea pig shoved his bristly face right up against Clothahump’s. “Tell us your secret place, then, and be quick about it.”

“A moment, if you please, to catch my breath.” The bandit gestured curtly for the civet cat to back off. “I must think—I am very old and have not had the need to check on the condition of my hoard for some time. As your small minds have no doubt already noticed, this tree contains many more rooms than one would think to look upon it from outside.”

“I’ve seen dimension-expanding spells at work before.”

The guinea pig was tapping his sword sheath impatiently. “Don’t try to impress me with such as that, and don’t think to stall me, either.”

“Please be quiet.” Clothahump closed his eyes, bowed his head forward. “I have to concentrate.”

Heretofore, Clothahump’s reputation had been enough to keep would-be thieves away from his sanctuary. These three were much bolder than the rest—or much stupider. They didn’t know enough to be frightened. That did not lessen the threat they posed to the old sorceror.

Three common thugs. Well, he could deal with them easily enough.

He took a step back and kicked open the door. It slammed against the dining room wall with a sound like a cannon going off. The civet cat nearly dropped the bucket of hot mud he was threatening Clothahump with while the guinea pig did a complete turn in midair. Raising his battle-axe, the wolf bared his fangs and assumed a defensive pose.

Jon-Tom glared down at the trio of intruders, well aware that he towered over the tallest of them. “It’s too early in the morning for fun and games.” He ignored wolf and civet cat and spoke directly to the guinea pig. “That means it’s time for sensible beings who want to live to see another morning to be in bed. That includes bewhiskered butterballs with bad table manners. The lot of you have five seconds to clear out before I reduce you all to gibbering mush.”

So saying and having already chosen a suitable tune, he plucked out a few chords on the duar. The civet cat jumped away from the noise and tossed the mud bucket aside, splattering the floor. The wolf winced visibly. So did Sorbl for that matter, but not Clothahump.

“My boy, I cannot recall a previous occasion when I had reason to compliment you on your usually atrocious timing, but this makes up for it. Thank you for saving me from an indecorous situation.”

Wary but far from trembling in his sandals, the guinea pig glanced back at the bound wizard. “Who is this singing fool who carries no weapon and challenges us clad in his nightciothes?”

“This is Jon-Tom,” said Clothahump. “Just as I am the greatest of all wizards, so is he the greatest of all Spellsingers. And while I do not have access to my magic potions and powders, as you have so carefully noted, you will also note that he carries his instrument of power with him. With a few fragments of song he can spin the world like a top. Or strip the fur from incautious intruders.” He looked past the guinea pig. “Have mercy on them, Jon-Tom. I know your temper, but none have suffered yet.” Now he turned to fix a warning stare on the civet cat.

“You still have a chance, albeit a fast vanishing one, to leave here with your heads still attached to your disreputable necks. Avail yourselves of it or I will not be responsible. I cannot restrain the spellsinger forever.”

The wolf was starting to retreat toward the far door. “Mebbee we better do as he says, Squig.”

“Sure.is a strange looking one,” agreed the civet cat in a rasping tone.

Having chanced so much and nearly accomplished all, the guinea pig was not quite ready to concede defeat.

“So you’re a spellsinger, eh?” As he spoke he was drawing a short, thick-bladed knife from his belt. Jon-Tom did his best to ignore this as he glared down at his adversary.

“That’s right, fatso. I’ve defeated demons with powers beyond your comprehension, have freed wandering perambulators to cavort openly between the stars, have battled otherworldly sorcerers and whole armies of plated folk. Now take your weakling minions and begone, lest I loose my wrath on you all!”

As a threat it was magnificently purple, but ineffective. The guinea pig gestured with the knife, twisting the blade through the air.

“How about if I loose the blood in your veins? Since your throat is out of reach, I think I’ll start on your legs.”

“A short serenade is in order then.” Jon-Tom launched into song. Months of practice in the tree while the world around him lay blanketed in cold and snow had made him proficient. As the first notes emerged from the duar there was the taste of magic in the air.

He’d chosen the song carefully. It was designed to turn the intruders’ own weapons against them. This it did. Unfortunately, it did so with the unpredictable selectivity that Jon-Tom had come to know at his peril. There were several weapons for the magic to fasten upon: the battle-axe of the wolf, the knife of the guinea pig, the sword of the civet cat. In addition to his sword, the civet cat also possessed a natural weapon which was much superior to all the other weapons in the room combined. This consisted of the skunk-like glands that flanked its anus. It was this weapon which the spellsong loosed against thieves and innocents alike as the dining room was flooded with the most awful stink imaginable.

Flinging aside his formidable axe, the wolf put both hands over his mouth and raced for the far doorway. Knife raised, the guinea pig halted as though he’d run fiat out into a brick wall, bent over and began heaving his dinner all over the floor. Also his lunch, breakfast and the undigested remnants of a previous day’s salad. As the only one in the room capable of standing his own effluvia, the civet cat grabbed his leader by the collar and began dragging him in the wolf’s wake.

Meanwhile Clothahump had retreated back into his shell to take advantage of what little protection it afforded him from this pernicious assault while Sorbl was retching uncontrollably in his bonds. Jon-Tom struggled to segue into a song that sang of sweetness and sugar. He’d defeated the intruders without having to shed a drop of blood, but the victory had proved messy nonetheless.

Civet cat, wolf and guinea pig had fled and he did not think they would soon return. As he sang away the stink his own stomach quieted.

Eventually Clothahump’s head popped out of his shell. Eyes watering, he gingerly extended hands and feet. His words were woozy but complimentary.

“That was very nicely done, my boy. There are no rules in war, but next time it would be better if you could settle on some alternate method of sending our assailants fleeing in panic.” Indecipherable sounds of internal unpleasantness issued from Sorbl’s vicinity. The owl’s feathers were sodden with vomit. The dining room stank of something long dead and only recently exhumed.

Jon-Tom staggered to his mentor on shaky legs. “Sorry, sir. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but with that knife waving at me I didn’t have time to be particular.”

The wizard nodded sagely. “What you have in mind never does seem to be quite what happens. Come, help me with these bindings.” He was struggling to loosen the ropes that bound his shell to the back of the chair, nodded toward a cabinet. “Carving knives in the lower drawer. They will make quicker work of these restraints than my thick fingers.” He glanced back toward the door that led to the hallway and grinned slightly.

“It seems we have seen the last of our robbers. I am sure they will not try to come back.”

“I don’t blame them.” Jon-Tom worked with one hand while holding his nostrils pinched with the fingers of the other. “I’m ready to leave myself.”

Locating the drawer Clothahump had indicated, he chose the largest of the butchering knives within and turned to cut the wizard loose. As he turned around a terrific pain went through his right foot. Neglecting to look where he was stepping, he’d spun right into the upturned blade of the battle-axe the wolf had abandoned in his precipitous flight, with the result that the naked steel had laid open his right slipper from his little toe to his heel. The wound was not deep but was exceedingly painful.

Stumbling, he grabbed for the nearest chair for support. The chair overbalanced and he went down on top of it. As he fell he tried to stabilize himself, but the pain in his foot prevented him from doing so.

He did not worry about striking the floor, did not concern himself with damaging the chair. What troubled him beyond measure was what found itself caught up between his body, the chair and the unyielding floor. A sickening crunch filled the room as he landed. Even Sorbl, until now preoccupied with his own predicament, let out a cry of shock.

Jon-Tom rolled fast to his right, knowing as he did so that it was a futile gesture. It was already too late. Short of reversing time, the damage could not be undone. Nor could it be wished away. He sat up slowly, ignoring his bleeding foot, and stared.

Then he bent to pick up the shattered splinters of his irreplaceable, priceless, silenced duar.

II

The wooden necks had been broken in several places. The resonating chamber resembled a squashed brown melon. Tiny wires and internal pieces of intricate boxwork had been reduced to toothpicks. It was just short of a total loss, a ludicrous parody of the instrument it had been a moment earlier.

Having finally freed himself, Clothahump climbed down off his chair and waddled over to inspect the ruins.

“You wish the benefit of my wizardly mien and my store of experience in such matters?”

Jon-Tom could only nod, speechless. Clothahump fondled several pieces, twirled loose wires around one finger, then looked up at his tall friend. “You sure broke the shit out of it.”

“I don’t need three hundred years of accumulated wisdom to tell me that,” the spellsinger replied sourly.

“Just underscoring the seriousness of what you’ve done. I never saw a human who could fall gracefully.”

“As opposed to a turtle?”

“No need to discuss unrelated matters now. I do not believe it was your fault.”

Jon-Tom was too furious at himself to cry. “You were right the first time. I’m a clumsy slob and I deserve this for not watching where I put my big feet.”

“When you two finish exchanging compliments and commiserations, would one of you mind untying me?” Sorbl struggled in his bonds. “I need about half a dozen baths.”

“A truth from the beak of the unwashed, so to speak. Life never ceases to amaze me.” But despite his sarcasm, Clothahump untied the apprentice himself instead of asking Jon-Tom to do it. “Seven baths, I should say. One would think someone accustomed to exotic smells could control his stomach a bit better.”

“I’m sorry I do not have your control, master.” Sorbl slid out of the chair and tried to shake out his wings. “I think I received the full blast of that cat’s rear end.”

“No excuses. Go and get yourself cleaned up. Your odor is exceeded in unpleasantness only by your appearance. Hurry your cleansing. We now face a much more serious problem than the mere intrusion of some simple robbers. We have a broken duar to deal with.”

As Sorbl departed, walking stiffly, the wizard turned to rejoin Jon-Tom as the tall young man lovingly laid the remnants of his instrument on the dining table.

“I almost wish you’d given them the gold, sir,” he murmured disconsolately.

“I could not do that, Jon-Tom. As I told them, I hoard no gold.” He nudged bits and pieces of the duar with a finger, peering at the debris through his thick glasses.

“What now?” Jon-Tom asked him. “Without the duar I can’t make music, and without music I can’t make magic. Can you fix it, sir?”

“I am a wizard, my boy, not a maker of tootles and tweets. I can shatter mountains. Reassembling them or anything else again is a matter for a different sort of expertise. A simple drum or flute I might repair, but this,” and he gestured at the table, “is beyond my skills. I am not ashamed to admit this. Such a task is beyond the ability of but a very few unique craftsmen. To make a duar whole again requires the talent of one who understands how the stars sing to each other. I always did have a tin ear, insofar as I have ears at all.”

Jon-Tom could sense what the wizard was leading up to. “It would be too much to hope that someone like that resides in Lynchbany or points nearby, I suppose.”

“Too much by many leagues, I fear. Broken instruments are simple to fix. Broken magic is much more difficult. Something like your duar which combines both is almost impossible to make well again. I know by reputation of only one craftsman who might, I say might, have the mastery to make your instrument whole once more. His name is Couvier Coulb. It is rumored he resides in the town of Strelakat Mews, which lies in the jungle south of far Chejiji.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“Because you have never traveled that far south, my boy. For that matter, neither have I. It is a long journey.”

Jon-Tom sighed. They’d been through this before. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

“Because you have a good memory, not because you are prescient. Chejiji is a seaport on the upper southern shore of the Glittergeist Sea. If you wish your instrument repaired, that is where you will have to go.”

“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.” He sat down in an intact, unvomited-upon chair. “I’ve never gone on a long trip without my duar. How am I going to protect myself?”

“Disconcerting as it seems, it appears you will have to rely upon your fighting skills and your wits.” Jon-Tom couldn’t be sure if the wizard was disparaging one talent or both. “If I have done nothing to sharpen the latter this past year then I have failed as a teacher. Be you magician or spellsinger, sorcerer or cardsharp, necromancer or solicitor, in the final analysis one lives or perishes by one’s wits.”

Jon-Tom summoned a weak smile. “You’ve been a good instructor, sir, and I have learned a lot. It’s just that knowing I’m going to have to find this Couvier Coulb without being able to rely on my spellsinging to help me along the way is pretty scary.”

“It will not be the first time you have faced adversity only to emerge triumphant, my boy. I have confidence in you. Bear in mind that this is not the usual dangerous quest you are about to embark upon but merely a long excursion, as it were. You are simply going to find a repairman to have something fixed. I foresee no dangers lying in wait for you.”

Clothahump’s words cheered him a little. What was he so despondent, so concerned about? He’d undertaken long journeys before, often opposed by supernatural forces. There would be none to harass him this time. He was overreacting.

Still, there was one danger he could not avoid, one that would have to be dealt with immediately.

“How the hell am I going to tell Talea that I have to go away again?”

The wizard smiled ruefully. “That is something, my boy, that you will have to do without any magic to back you up.”

“You’re going wherel No, never mind, I heard you. I don’t understand, but I heard.”

“I have no choice, Talea. Logic says so, Clothahump says so. I don’t want to go, but of what use is a spellsinger without his instrument?”

Watching her stride angrily back and forth in the dimly lit bedroom he found it increasingly difficult to stand up to her. She was wearing the diaphanous gown which had been given to her by the grateful citizens of Ospenspri. It shone like mauve smoke and revealed more of her than it hid. Motile points of crimson light lived io the material and drifted about from place to place like diatoms on the crest of a wave. They tended, for whatever reason, to gravitate to the high points of her body.

She halted in front of the single window. The moonlight enhanced the nearly overpowering effect of the gown and served to unsettle him further.

“Why doesn’t Clothahump go?” she finally whispered.

“Clothahump is the greatest wizard in the world. He doesn’t run errands for students. People run errands for him.”

“Convenient. Sometimes I think all his moaning about his advanced age is so much rot.” As abruptly as it had bubbled forth her anger vanished and she ran to him, holding him close. “I don’t want you to go, Jonny-Tom! You’ve been through so much since you came here. We’ve hardly had any time together at all and now you want to go running off halfway across the world again.”

“Talea “ He put his hands on her cheeks and turned her face up so that he could look into her eyes. “I don’t want to any more than you want me to, but I have to do this. Spellsinging can’t be faked. I have to have that duar repaired.”

“Can’t you try spellsinging with another instrument?”

He shook his head. “I’ve tried. The duar is as much responsible for my success at magic as is my singing. The two are inseparable.”

“Can’t you buy another one, then?”

“There isn’t another one, light of my life. I wish it was that easy. This particular duar has special qualities that, when combined with my singing, allow me to make magic happen. The way the strings weave in and out of reality, the intricate interior of the resonating chamber—it can’t be replaced. Only fixed, and Clothahump can’t fix it. Nor can anyone else in the Bellwoods, or even Polastrindu. I have to find this Couvier Coulb.”

She pressed herself tight against him and the temperature inside the tree rose noticeably. “I don’t want to lose you, Jon-Tom. You stayed inside my mind for almost a year until I found you waiting for me there, and I don’t want to lose you. You’ve gone off on so many of these dangerous journeys that I’m afraid your luck may have run out. Even a retired thief can read the odds, and it’s time for them to turn against you. I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go!” She was sobbing uncontrollably now. He didn’t know whether to push her away, try to comfort her with words of reassurance, or simply let her cry out her sorrow on his shoulder.

What should have been an obvious thought finally occurred to him. “Why not come with me, then? You’ve never seen the Glittergeist. We can relax on our ship, make a real vacation out of it no matter haw long it takes us to get to Strelakat Mews.”

The tears dried with astonishing speed and she took a step backward, her sorrow changing abruptly to outrage.

“You want me to what! Leave here, now, to run off with you on some endless ocean voyage?” She made a sweeping gesture at the bedroom. “This tree isn’t half decorated yet. In two days the curtain maker will be here from Lynchbany, and then there are the carpets to be seen to and do you think that can be done in a day?”

“Well I....”

“Not a chance! Have you ever tried to order carpeting for a tree? Everything’s round and curved. There’s not a decent square corner in the place. If you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life walking on wood shavings like your precious senile old wizard you’ve got another thing coming, Jon-Tom!” She was circling the room now, rather like an eagle homing in on its chosen prey. Jon-Tom harbored no illusions as to which role he occupied in this little domestic play. She was alive with the irrepressible energy which had first attracted him to her. Trouble was, it was now directed at him and not some nameless enemy.

“I’ve got painters coming in a week. We’re going to have to dye some of this wood. I refuse to spend the rest of my life in a house where all the walls are the same color, even if it is an oak tree. And you want me to drop all that so I can run off and carouse with you? You’ve got your nerve, Jon-Tom!”

Was this the same Talea he’d first encountered so many months ago who’d come to him for help in loading one of her mugging victims into the back of a wagon? The same fiery haired, short-tempered little terror who was as quick with her sword as her tongue? His mini-Brunhilde had metamorphosed into a hausfrau.

“Cripes, Talea, you’ve become domesticated.”

She shook an angry finger at him. “Don’t you swear at me, Jon-Tom. You’re going to run off and leave all the decision making to me.” She had him backed against a wall now. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re going to stay here and help me with the decorating, help me choose colors and patterns and weaves and landscaping.”

“Talea, if I don’t get the duar repaired I can’t spellsing. If I can’t spellsing I can’t earn a living. And if I don’t earn a living you won’t have any money to pay painters and carpet makers and landscapers.”

Her finger froze in mid-wag, drifted to her lower lip as she considered this new bit of reasoning thoughtfully. “Yes.

That’s true. Though I could always go back to work to support us. I’m a little out of practice but . . .”

Now it was his turn to anger. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re a respectable woman now.”

“I thought I warned you to stop calling me names.”

“I’m not going to have you go running off knocking people in the head in dark alleys. How can you think of going back to thievery and robbery?”

“Easy. I did it for years. I’m a thieves’ guild member in good standing, I’ve kept up my dues, and if I get caught you can always come visit me in jail. At least that way you’ll be close to me.”

“No way.” He tried to say it with an air of finality. “You’re going to stay here and do all those things you were just talking about. You’re going to furnish and decorate this tree exactly the way you want.”

“I could just work weekends,” she argued in a small voice. “A good thief can make a lot of money on the weekends.”

“No, dammit!”

Her voice fell even further. “Just one teensy little mugging a week?”

He sighed in exasperation. “I don’t know quite how to explain this, Talea, but I’ll try it one more time. Where I come from that kind of business is frowned upon morally as well as legally. It just doesn’t sit well with me.”

“Nobody has any fun where you come from.” She crossed her arms and pouted.

“I admit ethics are a little more, well, liberal in this world, but that’s how I feel about it. Besides, I couldn’t just sit around and live off my wife’s earnings.”

“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 swirl 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.

“That we do,” the otter agreed contentedly. “Wot might you suppose mine would be?”

“I think you’d make a fine salesman,” she replied, wiping her hands with a damp rag. “You’ve always been as fast with your tongue as with your feet.”

“Crikey, that’s wot all the ladies tell me. But, says I, why haul a lot o’ goods around the country to sell when ‘tis easier and cleaner to relieve folks o’ their coin without burdenin’ them with shoddy goods in return?”

“Something called morals.” Jon-Tom was finishing the last of his lunch.

The otter’s brows drew together. “Morals, morals—let me see now. I’m sure I’ve ‘card that word somewhere before, lad, but at the moment its meanin’ escapes me. Some sort o’ fruit or somethin’, ain’t it? Grows up north somewheres?” Jon-Tom could only shake his head ruefully.

Mudge slipped out of his chair and stretched. “ Tis been a wonderfully relaxing few days, it has, but I know when I’ve overstayed me welcome. No, you needn’t try to talk me out o’ leavin’.” He put up a restraining paw despite the fact that his hosts were not exactly imploring him to change his mind. “Far be it from me to strain a friend’s largess. I can see that ‘tis time for old Mudge to be movin’ on. They say the opportunities for ungainful employment in Malderpot are ‘ot just now. I think I’ll mosey on up that way and check out the scenery, so to speak.”

Jon-Tom put his fork aside. “Just a minute. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Forgettin’ somethin’?” The otter mumbled to himself for a moment, then he said brightly, “O’ course. Don’t worry, mate, I’ll see to me kit and me weapons before I takes me leave. Wouldn’t do for old Mudge to go traipsin’ off without ‘is weapons, now would it?”

“Certainly not, considering the length of the journey that lies ahead of us.”

“Us? Long journey? Oh, you mean that brief ocean voyage you were tellin’ me about. I’m sure it’ll do you well, mate. The sea seems to agree with you. When you get back you ‘ave to look me up so you can tell me all about it.”

Jon-Tom’s sense of humor was ebbing rapidly. “You’re forgetting something else. You’re coming with me, remember? You agreed.”

“Piffle. Surely you didn’t take that serious, lad? Now, if your life were in danger or it were a truly serious situation, why, I wouldn’t ‘esitate to tag along to back you up.”

“You don’t think the fact that my duar is shattered is serious?”

Mudge shrugged. “Serious for you maybe; not serious for anybody else. Not my responsibility, it ain’t. As I said, if you were off to save the world....”

“You’d be so eager to come along you’d be tripping over your own feet, I know,” Jon-Tom said evenly. “Now you listen to me, Mudge. You go upstairs and pack your things, but not for Malderpot. We’re leaving for Yarrowl in half an hour.”

“Yarrowl? I ain’t got no business in Yarrowl, mate.” The otter stared back at him out of steely dark eyes. “I might accompany you for a day or so just so’s to make sure you start off on the right road, but then I promise you mate, I’d just kind o’ slip away quiet-like some night in the woods.”

“You never did anything like that before.”

“Me conscience were never clear about it before. Knowin’ this time that I weren’t abandonin’ you to some ‘orrible danger, I wouldn’t have a second thought about it.”

“You’re going to do exactly as Jon-Tom says.” Both of them turned to look at Talea.

“Don’t you o’ all folks go appealin’ to me ethics, redfur.”

“Why would I appeal to the nonexistent?” She walked from the sink to a nearby cabinet that held her household papers, searched through the second drawer until she found several sheets clipped together. As she spoke her eyes traveled down the pages.

“Mudge the otter Expenses Incurred.” The otter gaped at her, then at Jon-Tom, who wore an equally blank expression. “Room and board; three meals a day, sometimes four; evening snacks, transportation to and from Lynchbany; laundry—want me to read you the totals, or should I just go on with the list?”

“Now wait a bloody minute, luv! I’m your bloomin’ friend from years back, I am. Did I charge you for the times I bailed you out o’ damp jails, or protected your arse against a concealed blade? Wot’s all this rot about expenses, then?”

She handed him the papers. “Keep that for your records, if you want. I have a copy.”

Mudge’s eyes ran rapidly down the list. “This is bleedin’ outrageous, is wot it is! Tis not only illegal and immoral, ‘tis outright insultin’. Wot kind o’ friend o’ me youth are you, anyways?”

“A cautious one. That’s one thing you taught me. Of course,” and she smiled sweetly at the furious otter, “we can forget the whole bill.”

“You’re bloody right we can.” He ripped the sheets to shreds and with great dignity deposited them in the middle of the table. “That don’t mean snake-pucky. ‘Tis fit for nothin’ but wipin’ one’s arse.”

“I’m sure you noted that toilet paper was included on the list,” she replied calmly. “On the contrary, that is a perfectly valid contract. Reception of services is sufficient proof of agreement to pay for services received. That’s one thing Jon-Tom taught me.”

“Bloody solicitor,” the otter grumbled, glaring up at Jon-Tom. “I made no such arrangements to pay for anythin’ when I came to stay ‘ere as your guest.”

“The judge won’t know that. Who do you think he’ll believe, Mudge?” She walked over and stroked the fur on the back of his neck. He jerked away, but not very violently. “The honest, respectable wife of a noted local citizen, or a thoroughly disreputable peculator like yourself?”

“Peculator?” The otter turned on Jon-Tom. “Will you listen to this female, mate? You’re ruinin’ ‘er, you are.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He leaned back in his chair. “She doesn’t look particularly ruined to me.”

“Which’ll it be, Mudge?” She looked at her husband. “You were right. This is almost as much fun as carving someone up with a knife.”

“It’s pretty much the same thing where I come from, light of my life.”

Mudge sat down heavily. Talea didn’t let up on him. “Answer me, water rat. Do you ship out or pay up?”

Displaying his unparalleled mastery of the blue funk, the otter stared at the floor for several moments. Finally he squinted up at Jon-Tom. “You promise me this ain’t no ruse? You ain’t tryin’ to trick poor Mudge into takin’ off on another o’ your wild, life threatenin’ trips to the backside o’ hell?”

Jon-Tom solemnly raised his right hand. “I swear we’re only taking a little ocean voyage to get my duar repaired. I don’t anticipate any trouble and I’m not going to go looking for any.”

“Huh,” the otter grunted. He swiveled his head to look at Talea. “Wot ‘appens when we gets back?”

“I tear up all copies of your bill.”

“Bill, that’s a laugh.” He licked his lips and whiskers. “Do I get me room back?”

“Over my dead body.”

“Wot if this don’t turn out to be the picnic Jon-Tom claims it to be?”

“I’ll bury you in the backyard. That far I’ll go. I’ve no objection to having you around so long as I don’t have to feed you, listen to you, or smell you.”

“You always was generous to a fault, luv. Was one o’ the things I liked about you. Almost otterish.” He smiled in spite of himself. It was impossible for Mudge to stay gloomy for long. “Ah well. If one’s to be outfoxed ‘ow better than by the sauciest vixen in the ‘ole Bellwoods.” He rose to confront Jon-Tom. “I’ll be comin’ along then, mate, but I warn you: If you’re tryin’ to pull a fast one I’ll be away from your side faster than a celibate at a doxy’s convention.”

“No tricks, Mudge. I promise. You and I are going to relax and enjoy a pleasant sea voyage, at the conclusion of which we’ll do a little business with a master craftsman. Then we’ll come home. That’s all. I’ve never been that far south or on an ocean voyage that long. It ought to be educational.”

“Aye, that’s wot worries me. Every trip I’ve accompanied you on ‘as been too bloody educational.” Spying an unconsumed slice of Talea’s delicious tokla bread, he lunged toward the table and plucked it off its plate. He did not offer to share it with his traveling companion.

IV

Their backpacks filled to bursting with the savory produce of Talea’s kitchen, anxious spellsinger and reluctant companion paused to pay their respects to Clothahump before striking off on the southern road. They found the wizard berating Sorbl for some unspecified offense which the owl insisted loudly was more imagined than real. Upon concluding his lengthy admonition, the wizard turned to the matter of his friend’s imminent departure.

“Though she needs none, I will look after Talea in your absence, Jon-Tom. I pity anyone who troubles her while you are away.”

“So do I. Talea can take care of herself, but I appreciate the concern. What about you, sir? Are you doing all right?”

“Actually, my boy, I am feeling fitter than I have in some time.” He glanced back over his shell. “Things would be better still if I could beat some sense into that useless famulus of mine. Time will tell if Sorbl is to become something more than an alcoholic sponge. I have only just completed an extensive insurance spell for the city of Folklare and I may have to go up there in person in order to check the installation.” He lowered his head and peered over his glasses to where a bored Mudge was leaning impatiently against the tree.

“Your education is proceeding apace, I see, for it must have taken magic indeed to convince that one to accompany you.”

“Not my magic. Talea’s.”

Clothahump nodded knowingly. “I always thought that young woman had hidden talents, in addition to the visible ones.”

“Pity I never ‘ad the opportunity to plumb ‘em,” commented Mudge. The otter’s hearing was acute.

“Lay off, Mudge. We’re married now.” This warning only served to increase the width of the otter’s smirk. Jon-Tom gave up and looked back down at his mentor. “I have this,” and he gestured with his ramwood staff, “but I feel naked without the duar.”

“Try not to dwell on what you do not have, my boy. Soon Couvier Coulb will make it whole again. Perhaps you can convince him to fashion you a new set of interdimensional strings. Though made of metal, those you have salvaged will not last forever. Now then, when you reach Yarrowl and after booking your passage to Chejiji, I suggest you stop at a certain shop in the commercial district. It is known only by the name of its owner, which is Izfan ab-Akmajiandor, but who is called locally Dizzy Izzy. He is something of an eccentric, something of a local legend, and very much a dealer in precious and unique articles. He trades in clocks, toys—and musical instruments.”

Jon-Tom felt a rush of excitement. “You think maybe he...?”

“No, my boy. No one but Coulb himself might repair your duar. Still, there is no telling what Dizzy Izzy conceals beneath his shop counter. It is said he deals in devices as eccentric as himself. You might find something to your liking in his inventory.”

“Another duar?”

“Too much to hope for, but who can say? Certainly it is worth a visit to find out.”

“You hear that, Mudge? If this merchant has another duar in stock we may not have to go all the way to Strelakat Mews.”

“Much as that’s a development devoutly to be desired, mate, I ain’t ‘oldin’ me breath.” The otter was cleaning beneath his claws with a pocket knife. “ ‘Tis occurred to me that if duars o’ such power as yours were that common, the roads would be overflowin’ with would-be spellsingers.”

“If Clothahump thinks this shop is worth checking out we’ll certainly pay it a visit.”

Mudge shrugged. “Makes no matter to me. I’m just an indentured servant on this excursion, I am.”

“Don’t belittle yourself. I’ve always valued your advice and I don’t value it any less now.”

“Is that so?” The otter stopped picking his nails and jabbed the knife in Jon-Tom’s direction. “ ‘Ere’s a bit o’ advice, then. Before you destroy yourself and any unfortunates who ‘appen to be unlucky enough to be in the immediate vicinity, give up this spellsingin’ business and take up some practical profession.”

“Mudge, spellsinging is all I’m trained to do. That and the law.”

“Never thought I’d live to ‘ear meself say it, but better a live solicitor than a dead spellsinger.”

“Thanks for the advice, but you’re not getting out of this that easily.”

“Easily? Hell, you watch me, mate. I’m just warmin’ up, I am.”

‘They bought seats on the southbound coach, changed at the small town of Wourmet, and rattled into Yarrowl several days later. Located where the Tailaroam River emptied into the Glittergeist Sea, the port was abustle with traffic as cargo was transferred from barges and keelboats to ocean-going freighters or animal-drawn wagons destined for the numerous towns and cities sprinkled through the vast forest known as the Bell woods. In such a crossroads of commerce anything might be purchased. Perhaps, Jon-Tom thought to himself, even something as exotic as a duar.

They found the shop of Dizzy Izzy without much difficulty, only to find themselves confronted by drawn shades and a sign in the window that read:Open from 8 to 8

Jon-Tom tried to see through the beveled glass and around one of the shades. “Nothing moving.”

“There wouldn’t be. Tis too early, or ‘ave you forgotten wot ‘is wizardship told us? This ‘ere storekeeper’s a member o’ the lemur persuasion. ‘E’s open from eight at night ‘til eight in the mornin’, not the other way ‘round.”

“I remember now. So we’re too early, not too late.” He checked the nearby public clock. “We have enough time to eat first.”

Mudge licked his chops. “ Supper it ‘tis , then! Washed down with a pint or two, wot?”

“No booze, Mudge. Not here, not yet. First we have to get on the boat, then you can drink yourself silly if you’ve a mind to, but if you get yourself good and plastered in a strange city I might not be able to find you again. You tend to wander aimlessly when you’re liquored up.”

“I do not,” replied the otter with some dignity, “ever get ‘liquored up.’ Drunk occasionally, inebriated once in a while, but never liquored up. Sounds like someone fillin’ a bloomin’ ‘orse trough.”

“Yes, that’s not a bad metaphor.” The otter made a rude noise as they started up the street.

Lights showed behind the shades when they returned from eating. It was not quite eight and they had to wait outside for another few minutes until the proprietor opened his doors. The indri wore canvas pants and vest over his black and white fur, and his bright yellow eyes stared at them from behind round rose-colored glasses with thin lenses.

“Come in, come in. You’re early, friends, or late, depending on your time of day preferences.”

Izzy’s shop was a delight, the shelves crammed full of intricately fashioned clocks of all kinds, small mechanical toys, music boxes and animated banks. But Jon-Tom’s attention was drawn instantly to the right-hand wall, on which hung a collection of musical instruments. Many of them were new to him, and several were so alien in design and construction he could not tell by looking at them whether they were intended to be strummed, tootled, or beaten.

A series of small drums wound round a central post like fruit on a branch. Grotesque horns hung next to attenuated woodwinds. On the floor was a pipe carved from the trunk of a single tree. It must have weighed a hundred pounds or more and had fingering holes the size of Jon-Tom’s fist.

“Bear pipe,” Izzy explained. His voice was high and reedy, not unlike that of some of his stock. “I sold the former owner a duplicate of much lighter wood and accepted this in part payment. It’s been here a long time.”

“I can see why,” Jon-Tom said. “No one but another bear could lift it.”

“So true, but I enjoy watching customers try. Sometimes a big cat will get it off the ground. Then they find they don’t have the lung power to operate it. What maybe perhaps possibly can I do for you, sir? By your stance and attire I divine you are a person of means, for all that you appear to enjoy associating with lesser lifes. I will be most very muchly pleased to help you, just as soon as your friend returns the small gold music box to the cabinet from which he has removed it.”

Jon-Tom whirled to glare back at Mudge. The otter sheepishly removed an exquisitely made music box in the shape of a clavier from his inside vest pocket and put it back into the open display cabinet in front of him.

“I were just ‘avin’ a close look at it, mate. Tis a pretty thing and I thought of buyin’ it, I did.”

“I know, and you had to see whether or not it would ride comfortably in your breast pocket.”

“Very comfortably I’m sure,” said Izzy agreeably. “My name, you should know, friends, comes from my dancing talent and not any inability to take care of business.”

“Pfagh.” Mudge made a show of sauntering over to inspect a clock that was at least as tall as he was. “ Tis all right for me to look at this one or do you think I’ll try an’ walk off with it when you ain’t lookin’?”

“I’d put nothing not at all never past an otter.” The indri smiled back at Jon-Tom. “What appeals to you, friend? What can I sell you? A timepiece?”

“I have plenty of time. I need something else. I am a spellsinger.”

The indri peered intently at his customer over the rims of his glasses. “Truly absolutely for sure so? A spellsinger? I’ve never met one myself though I once had an encounter with a substantial rumor.”

Jon-Tom indicated the sack secured to his backpack. “Got a busted duar with me. I don’t suppose you could fix it?”

“A true duar? Far beyond my meager skills, friend magic music maker. I’m no dabbler in the arcane arts.”

“Then I don’t guess you’d have one for sale, either.”

“Ah ah, because I do not myself personally me deal with magic does not mean I am unwilling or unable to trade in it. Sadly unfortunately discouragingly I have no duar to sell you. In fact, in all the years I have been in this business I have never so much as seen set eyes upon viewed a duar. I however have an item or two that might do for you.”

The first instrument he produced from below his counter resembled a piccolo with Pinocchio syndrome. Tiny secondary pipes emerged from the central tube like the branches of a tree. It was fashioned of holly wood and inlaid with mother of pearl.

“Difficult hard troublesome to play, but it is said that in the right hands it can make rain and snow.”

“I’m not a weatherman. I need something more versatile.”

“I understand comprehend got you.” Izzy put the flute aside and placed a pocket accordion on the counter. There were only four keys on each side of the little squeezebox. Jon-Tom gave it a try out of curiosity. It made a sound like a overweight hog trying to sing Wagner. Mudge looked pained.

“What does it do?”

“A proper musician can bring food and drink into being and the quality of the food varies according to the sweetness of the song.”

“Forget that then,” said Mudge. “If we ‘ad to depend on the smoothness of ‘is voice to get us out o’ trouble we’d ‘ave been dead a ‘undred times over by now.” He nodded curtly at the squeezebox. “Tryin’ to make food with that we’d bloody well starve to death.”

Jon-Tom made a face at the otter but pushed the instrument back across the counter. “I don’t know how to play the thing anyway.”

Izzy looked discouraged. “Then I suppose assume guess I must let you have the one item which might really be of use to you.”

Jon-Tom’s face lit up when he first saw the instrument the indri removed from a locked box behind the counter, but his initial excitement faded as he inspected the workmanship more closely. There were similarities to his own instrument, but a duar it was not. There was a resonating chamber, smaller and simpler than his own, different controls, and only one set of metal strings. They did fade into insubstantiality where they crossed the resonating chamber, but they did not vanish entirely into another dimension.

“A suar.” Izzy plucked idly at the strings. “This little beauty was owned by a pinheaded prestidigitator who used it only on holidays.”

Mudge had sauntered over to inspect the instrument closely. “Stuff the sales pitch, bug eyes. Do it work?”

“So I am told, though the owner was hardly what one would call a master of magic. Perhaps in more skilled hands....” He left the thought unfinished.

“Looks a lot like an ordinary mandolin.” Jon-Tom accepted it from the indri. “If it wasn’t for this,” and he indicated the place where the strings faded from view, “I’d say you were trying to sell me an ordinary musical instrument.”

“Not for three hundred gold pieces I’m not.”

“Three hun...” Mudge choked on the figure, then put a hand on Jon-Tom’s arm. “Come on, mate. I never thought I’d meet a bigger thief than meself, but ‘tis finally ‘appened.”

“Too expensive,” said Jon-Tom. The indri tried to appear indifferent. “As you wish. Another willing to pay will come along. Music is cheap. Magic is expensive.”

Jon-Tom hesitated, ran his fingers experimentally over the strings. Strange to be strumming one set instead of two, but it reminded him of his electric guitar back home in a way the duar never could. “Can I try it out?”

“Certainly of course naturally.” The indri bestowed a frosty stare on Mudge. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to cheat you.”

Jon-Tom tried a few impassioned stanzas of Pink Floyd’s “Money.” The result was not what might have been hoped, but neither did it prove the storekeeper a liar. A tiny white cloud materialized in the air of the shop, drifted about uncertainly for a minute, then excreted a miniature lightning bolt. Instead of thunder the cloud made a noise like a cash register and a shower of coins began to rain on the indri’s counter. The cloud eventually gave out and dissipated, but not before exactly three hundred large coins lay in a gleaming pile on the hardwood. The only problem was they were silver rather than gold.

“Best I can do,” Jon-Tom said apologetically.

“Ah well.” Izzy surveyed the pile. “It is a suar and not a duar.”

“But the magic works. I can spellsing with this.” Jon-Tom held the instrument out at arm’s length. “The power is there, but not the strength. I’ll just have to scale down my expectations. Will you take the silver and,” he considered carefully, “five pieces of gold? We still have an ocean voyage to pay for.”

“Done! Finished, completed, agreed upon.”

Mudge sidled up close to his friend. “You could’ve bargained ‘im down and got it for a lot less, mate.”

“A lot less than what, Mudge? We got it for a song.”

The otter was eying the pile of silver hungrily. “Then ‘ow about givin’ us another demonstration, mate? Just for entertainment value, wot?”

“Mudge, you ought to know by now I can’t get results by singing the same song more than once. Not with this. It just doesn’t have the power.”

“Pity. Well, at least you’re a spellsinger once more, ‘eaven ‘elp us.”

Jon-Tom nodded. “It’s not a duar, but it seems to be the next best thing. Properly utilized it ought to get us there and back in two pieces.” He turned to the delighted shopkeeper. “Thanks, Izzy. See you again sometime, maybe.”

“I most sincerely surely hope so, friend.”

Mudge trotted alongside his taller friend as they started down the street. “I thought you had just enough lucre to get us to this Scream Cat place and back. You just ‘anded that big-eyed thief five gold pieces.”

“No matter, Mudge. We have this now.” He tapped the suar.

“I was afraid that was wot you were goin’ to say,” the otter sighed.

“Come on, Mudge. Have you forgotten already? I sang us up a boat once before. Given all the practice and study I’ve had these past months I see no reason why I can’t sing up another. That way we can save our money and enjoy a few luxuries along the way.”

“Yeah, like stayin’ alive,” the otter grumbled.

“Have a little confidence. You’ve seen what I can do.”

“That’s wot worries me.”

“Don’t. Let’s find ourselves a fine inn and have a good night’s sleep. In the morning we’ll find an empty dock and I’ll sing us up some automatic piloting yacht or something.”

“Or something,” Mudge mumbled, but under his breath.

Despite Jon-Tom’s insistence he’d prefer to work without an audience, Mudge managed to hustle up a bevy of spectators to watch the spellsinger at work.

“Step right up, folks! Feast your eyes on the wonder o’ the day, a real live spellsinger about to perform ‘is bafflin’ an’ mystifyin’ trade.” He stepped in the path of a strolling merchant. “ ‘Ere now mister moneybags, ‘ave you ever seen real magic before? I mean real magic, in the light o’ day, without any tricks or gimmicks?”

“No, but I....”

“See the spellsinger conjure up a ‘ole ship out o’ thin air! Bet you ain’t never seen nothin’ like that in your simple, dull-as-daffbdils life, ‘ave you?”

“No, but I . . .”

“Much less a ship crewed by as sexy a lot o’ naked lovelies as ever twisted their legs ‘round a mizzenmast?”

The merchant suddenly halted and strained to see through the rest of the assembling crowd. “How much?” he said enthusiastically.

Jon-Tom did his best to ignore the jostling, eager crowd as he strummed the suar and considered what song to sing. The harbor of Yarrowl lay spread out before him, full of tall sailing ships and smaller craft. The thick aroma of salt mixed with that of cargoes from distant lands and the raw sewage which the ships discharged into the bay.

Surely he was accomplished enough to execute a simple transportation song before a crowd of rubbernecking onlookers? Wasn’t that what being a professional was all about? Mudge stepped smartly past, jingling his purse full of coins and grinning behind his whiskers. The otter looked exceedingly pleased with himself.

“Not bad, mate. Maybe there’s somethin’ to this spellsingin’ business after all. With your talents and mine we could do ourselves proud.”

“Don’t forget, Mudge, that I have to make a boat appear or else you’ll have to give all these people their money back.”

“Yeah, let’s see some magic,” shouted one of the spectators, a small black bear clad in a silvery toga and leather cap. The cry was echoed by several others in the crowd. They had business to attend to and were starting to get edgy.

Jon-Tom leaned over to whisper to his companion. “Maybe you should have waited until I had a chance to try a simpler spell first. This isn’t a duar, remember.”

Mudge put a reassuring paw on his friend’s shoulder. “I ‘ave confidence in you, mate. I know you won’t let me down, or your public either. Didn’t you always tell me you wanted to perform for an audience?”

“Yes, but that just involved singing, not magic.” He eyed some of the heavily armed spectators uneasily. “And this isn’t quite the type of audience I always dreamed about.”

“Now listen, mate, ‘ere I’ve gone to the trouble o’ linin’ up enough money to pay for our ‘ole journey and then some and you’re ‘avin’ second thoughts. Tis unbecomin’ for a spellsinger. Wot would ‘is sorcerorship say about this distressin’ lack o’ self-assurance?”

“I just wish you hadn’t promised them so much, that’s all. Naked crew members! I’ve no intention of conjuring up any such thing.”

Mudge winked. “Right, but they don’t know that. Ah, a couple more potential customers. I’ll just slip over quiet-like and ease them into the audience while you’re gettin’ started.” He melted into the semicircle of onlookers. A couple of margays regarded Jon-Tom out of wide eyes.

How had he let the otter talk him into something like this? Nothing for it now but to try. If he failed they could always return the money Mudge had collected. He strummed the suar again, having already settled on a song. With its single set of strings, the suar was much easier to play. No reason not to proceed with confidence.

Half closing his eyes and trying to concentrate on the water next to the dock, he began to sing. The crowd quieted immediately, hushed and expectant.

Despite Jon-Tom’s best effort the first song produced nothing save some mutterings of discontent from his audience. He tried again, his fingers a blur against the suar strings. He felt confident and in control of himself and his music. If anything he was in better voice than usual. Not so much as a single gneechee appeared. The water lapped against the shore, driftwood bumped against the dock pilings, and the crowd stared at him unpleasantly. Wrong song, he told himself. Wrong instrument, too, but he had no choice there. Try another tune, and fast.

This time it went much better. Perhaps he simply needed the warm-up. The air above the water began to fluoresce. A few oohs and aahs rose from the crowd. Crabs clinging to the base of the pilings scattered. But while some of the onlookers claimed to be able to see outlines forming in the mist above the water, nothing solid materialized.

“Where’s the damn boat?” an elegantly attired wallaby demanded to know.

“Yes, where are the females?” asked the tall hare standing next to him.

“This we can see for free in any tavern,” growled a large spectator near the rear of the crowd.

“I’m still warming up.” It sounded lame even to his own ears, Jon-Tom knew.

“You said that after the first song,” hissed a lynx. Scarred and missing one ear, this tough looking customer was fingering something short, sharp and curved. “Let’s see something—or let’s have our money back.”

“Magic isn’t science,” Jon-Tom pleaded. “Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“We were guaranteed magic.”

“I want my gold back!”, shouted a tall simian from the crowd.

“What do you mean ‘guaranteed’?” Jon-Tom asked the lynx. “Nobody can guarantee magic.”

“Your friend the water rat did.” Light flashed off the curved knife the lynx was manipulating.

“He did? Mudge?” Jon-Tom strained to see into the crowd. There were representatives of many species facing him, but not one otter. Especially not one particular otter. “Mudge!”

The otter had disappeared along with his sackful of money. It appeared that Talea’s threat to sic the Lynchbany law on him had finally lost its hold. Having taken the opportunity to acquire some traveling cash of his own, he’d departed for distant parts unknown, leaving Jon-Tom to deal with an increasingly sullen, angry crowd which had been “guaranteed” a demonstration of real magic making. That was something Jon-Tom couldn’t promise Clothahump, much less a mob of newly fleeced citizens.

“Look, you have to understand that I didn’t promise you any magic. I can only try. That’s all any spellsinger can do. It was the otter who made all the promises.”

“We don’t argue that.” The voice was that of a squat long whiskered mole who eyed Jon-Tom from behind thick, extremely dark glasses. He was brandishing a four-inch-long bone blade. “But he ain’t here no more, minstrel, and you are.”

“I’m not a minstrel.” Jon-Tom overtopped most of the crowd. Now he tried to take advantage of his height to make himself as imposing as possible. “I am a spellsinger.”

“Then prove it,” snapped the mole, “and I don’t mean by making pretty colors in the air.”

“You’re damn right I’ll prove it!” He was shaking, partly from anger and partly from fright. “I said I’d conjure up a boat and conjure up a boat I will.”

While he’d been arguing with the crowd a far more appropriate song had come to him. Confident now, he turned back to face the waters of Yarr Bay. Once more he began to sing, once again his fingers danced over the suar’s strings, and this time something far more cohesive than colored lights began to take shape atop the water. No gneechees swirled curiously around it, but he wasn’t singing for the gneechees this time. He was concentrating on his song.

Part of the problem stemmed from the fact that not many rock songs dealt with boats or ships. He didn’t dare use the Beach Boys’ “ Sloop John B.” again. That had been a near disaster. So the song he sang now was one of his own devising, improvised words set to the official theme music by Walter Sharf for the old Cousteau television specials. Add a little reggae and what more suitable combination of themes for calling up a proper boat? Perhaps he might even create a copy of the famed Calypso itself. Let the natives sneer until he confronted them with the reality of a modem, diesel-powered craft.

Several members of the crowd broke and ran. Most remained to stare in awe. Yes, conjure up the Calypso with its radar and complex electronics! Doubt his ability, would they? Double-stringed or single-stringed instrument in hand, he’d show them what a spellsinger was all about.

Twisting and flickering, the intense lights pirouetted above the disturbed surface of the bay. As he brought his vibrant, improvised tune to a rousing conclusion the lights softened and ran together, began to condense and solidify to form a cloud of pink incandescence which finally blew apart to reveal floating lightly on the water—a boat.

On its bow it bore the outline of a golden merman and the legend CALYPSO. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the famed Calypso itself that bobbed gently in the backwater eddy. It wasn’t even a reasonable facsimile.

It was a zodiac, one of the inflatable rubber craft that the crew of the Calypso utilized for short excursions away from the main ship. It was not very impressive.

“What the hell’s that?” The lynx leaned forward and squinted at the black skinned apparition.

“Floats it does, but ‘taint no boat for sure,” commented someone else near the back of the crowd of onlookers.

“Of course it’s a boat.” Now Jon-Tom was angry as well as frustrated. “Any idiot can see it’s a boat. What else could it be but a boat?”

“It’s no boat.” A rat clad in shorts and a shirt with puffed sleeves waded into the murky water to poke at the zodiac’s flanks. “It’s just a big balloon.” He tapped the big black outboard motor that hung from the zodiac’s stern. “What’s this funny-looking hunk of metal for?”

The crowd’s initial astonishment was rapidly giving way to a general feeling that they’d been had. To them a boat was a creature the length of a dock and tall as a three-story building, with billowing sails, intricate rigging and a wooden hull. What a boat was not was a flattened bunch of black balloons. Knives began to appear in profusion, brandished in company with numerous homicidal expressions. They’d wanted a boat, they’d paid for a boat, and by the ancestor of every creature present they were damn well going to have a proper boat or else they were going to take it out of this so-called spellsinger’s hide.

And where was the crew of lithesome lovelies?

“All right,” Jon-Tom told them, “I’ll prove to you that this is a boat.”

“Pillows,” growled the lynx, taking a step forward. He grinned, showing dirty fangs. “You know what I think? I think I’ve been cheated, that’s what I think.”

“It’s a goddamn boat!” Trying not to show the anxiety he was feeling, he walked into the water, pushed the rat aside, and sat down in the back of the zodiac. The bow rose slightly.

“See? A bunch of pillows wouldn’t support my weight like this.” The mob was crowding toward the water’s edge, muttering loudly. “And this is a magic oar.” He primed the engine, praying it would start when he hit the ignition.

The mole peered through his black glasses at the outboard. “Looks like a bunch of junk to me.”

“No, I’ll prove it, see? All you have to do is press this button.” He did so. The engine rumbled, making the crowd retreat slightly. It coughed, spat and died.

“Hornets,” shouted the lynx, “he’s got hornets in there!”

“I don’t see any,” said the rat. “It’s a trick. He’s trying to scare us with tricks!”

The mob surged forward. Praying as hard as he ever had in his brief life, Jon-Tom stabbed the ignition button again and held it down. Come on baby, he said silently, turn over, turn over!

The engine threw black smoke in the face of the advancing lynx, kicked in, and sent the zodiac shooting out across the calm water of me bay, snarling like a lost motocross bike. It was followed by a number of sharp-edged pointed objects which fell far short of their goal. A few choice, equally pointed insults did reach him but did no damage.

But what now? His outraged audience did not appear pacified by this incontrovertible proof that the object he had conjured up was indeed a boat. Probably still looking for the promised crew, he mused. They continued to jump up and down on the shore, screaming unheard imprecations and gesticulating obscenely in his direction. He would have to wait and circle back up the river after nightfall, find some secluded anchorage, and try to make his inglorious way back to Lynchbany under cover of darkness.

First he had to wend his way through the harbor traffic. Bearing down on him already was a huge ocean-going catamaran. The double hull contained the lower class passenger compartments, the upper deck the rooms for those traveling first class, while the cargo was slung in nets between the hulls. This enabled the catamaran to run smartly up over a low dock without having to remove cargo from inside the ship.

He turned to port and the catamaran appeared to swerve to bear down on him. Each hull boasted a pair of masts, one square-rigged for speed, the other fore-rigged for maneuverability. It wasn’t maneuvering to his liking now. Had someone on shore somehow communicated with a relative or friend in charge of the ship? The zodiac could run circles around anything in Yarrowl harbor, but it was distressing to think the entire city might be roused against him so quickly.

As the starboard hull of the big ship slid past him something tumbled over the side. Instinctively he winced, but it was only a rope. He recognized the face leaning over the railing.

“Don’t just squat there like a bug on a rock, mate,” Mudge shouted. “Grab hold and tie on!”

In disbelief Jon-Tom gaped at the otter. Then he swung the zodiac around and accelerated to catch up with the catamaran. Catching hold of the trailing line, he secured it to the hole in the zodiac’s bow and shut off the engine as sailors pulled him close to the hull. A sea ladder was extended to him. Making his way carefully hand over hand, he soon found himself standing on the deck looking back at curious sailors and well-dressed passengers. A grinning Mudge saluted briskly and then stepped clear. Jon-Tom brushed his hair out of his eyes and started for the otter.

“Hold off a minim, mate. I know wot you’re thinkin’.”

“No you don’t. If you did, you’d already have jumped overboard.”

Mudge continued to retreat, well aware he could dodge Jon-Tom’s lunges with ease. “Think it through, lad. You really didn’t think you were goin’ to conjure up a proper craft with that shadow o’ a duar, did you?”

“Why not?”

“Because you couldn’t do it when you ‘ad your duar, that’s why.”

Jon-Tom halted. Three times he’d sung his song, and the best he’d been able to do was the little zodiac. A fine craft for exploring a lake or cruising up a river, but not the sort of thing one would choose to cross an ocean in, especially after the couple of gallons of fuel the engine contained ran out.

“Soon as I saw ‘ow things weren’t goin’ with your spellsingin’,” the otter went on, “I sort of took the first opportunity to make a discreet exit and locate emergency transportation. A fine ship an’ a cooperative captain ‘ave agreed to carry us as far as the island kingdom o’ Orangel. That’s where this vessel’s bound. Orangel’s more than ‘alf the way to Chejiji. From there we won’t ‘ave no trouble ‘inn* transportation to the southern shores, or so says our Captain. A substantial payment insured a slight change o’ course to pluck you from the water. Money we now ‘ave in plenty, thanks to your performance.”

“Mudge, you guaranteed those spectators magic. You of all people should know that spellsinging isn’t an infallible discipline, much less when I’m trying to make it work with a back-up instrument. Suppose I hadn’t been able to conjure up my small inflatable craft and get away? What then?”

“Now don’t let’s go gettin’ ourselves all upset over might-’ave-beens. The facts o’ the matter are that you did produce this charmin’ little boat an’ that it did spirit you safely away from that pustulant seep o’ ignorant gawkers. O’ course, ‘ad it not done so and ‘ad you not been able to outswim your critics then I expect I would’ve returned ‘ome sadder an’ richer to convey me regrets to your beloved, thence to continue on life’s merry way after sheddin’ a sorry tear or two for me lost friend. All o’ which is so much snakesnot, since you’re standin’ ‘ere safe, sound and much better off than when you started singin’.”

“That’s a pretty cold assessment of what could have happened, Mudge.”

‘ Tis a cold world, mate, as I’ve ‘ad occasion to mention before. T’wasn’t so bad, now were it? I took the time to make sure there were none among your avid audience likely to outswim you. No otters.”

As the novelty of the fleeing human and his inflatable boat began to pale, the sailors and well-dressed promenaders on the upper deck started to disperse.

“Let’s ‘ave no more talk o’ despair an’ disasters that weren’t.” Mudge encompassed sea and sky with a sweeping gesture. “See wot a luvely day it is. We’re off to this Stubborn Kit Mail place an’ we’re goin’ in style. Wait ‘til you sees the cabin I’ve reserved for you. Ain’t this wot you wanted?”

Jon-Tom’s voice had fallen to whisper as he made the grudging confession. “I guess so.”

“Right! said the otter cheerfully. “An’ when we get to Orangel we can sell that inflatable doohickey you conjured up for a pretty piece, wot?”

Jon-Tom leaned close. “It would take several dozen individuals with steel lungs to inflate it properly.”

“Or one wizard,” the otter countered. “But why trouble yourself with details like that? Such things are for the buyer to contemplate. If your conscience is beginnin’ to bother you already, just let ol’ Mudge ‘andle the sellin’.”

“What, and have us run out of another town?” The otter was shaking his head sadly. “You may make a great spellsinger some day, mate, but you’ll never know ‘ow to sing the proper tune to carry a business. Come on, the Captain wants to meet you. ‘E’s never met a real life spellsinger before and I told ‘im you were the best who ever picked up a duar. ‘E’s invited us to dine at his table tonight.” Mudge winked lecherously. “I’ve taken the liberty o’ invitin’ a couple o’ ladies o’ compatible species to join us.”

“Those days are past, Mudge. I’m a married man now.” The otter spat disgustedly over the railing. “A fine trip this is goin’ to turn out to be.”

V

Contrary to this prediction Mudge did not perish of terminal boredom as the voyage proceeded. After trying and failing repeatedly to interest his tall companion in a little shipboard rousting and jousting with members of the opposite sex, Mudge finally took to spending much of his time below decks among the second-class passengers. There he could gamble and drink unhindered by Jon-Tom’s admonitions to keep it clean because there was no place out in the middle of the ocean to run if he was caught cheating at cards or dice.

Actually Jon-Tom was enjoying himself. The sea was calm, the winds gentle but steady, the sun warm and relaxing as the graceful ship sailed steadily southward. The cuisine was new and intriguing, much spicier than he was used to. Every few days professional dancers and musicians entertained on the vast rear deck of the catamaran.

Jon-Tom guessed the number of paying passengers at forty, so there was plenty of room to move about on what was essentially a cargo vessel. The crew was helpful and unobtrusive. Only Talea’s absence prevented him from relaxing completely. As he was the only human on the ship, he missed her more than ever.

They were three-quarters of the way to Orangel when Mudge came trudging up to him. Jon-Tom was sprawled across two deck chairs, soaking up the sun, but he sat up fast when he got a look at his friend.

“Something wrong, Mudge?”

The otter responded with a gargling noise that sounded vaguely like “Yeh.”

“You don’t look so good.” He sat up and put a hand on the otter’s shoulder, gripping it hard. Mudge blinked, seeming to see him for the first time.

“Oh, ‘tis you, mate. That’s good. Wot did you say? Oh, I’m fine, I am. That is, I think I am. Come to think of it, I guess I ain’t sure.”

“Something you ate?”

This set off a fit of coughing, followed by a smile, then a look of dazed amusement. “Come with me, lad, I’ve somethin’ to show you.”

Jon-Tom allowed himself to be led to the inner railing of the portside hull on which they were standing. Safety nets had been strung between the twin hulls and a number of passengers were cavorting in the shark-free pool thus created. As the catamaran skimmed the waves the current would push the swimmers into the back net, whereupon they would clamber out of the water and walk along a narrow catwalk until they could dive back into the upper end of the net pool, thus repeating the process.

“Don’t you see her?”

“Where?” Jon-Tom leaned over the rail. There were a dozen passengers in the nets. Then he saw one who was a blur in the water. As he watched she concluded her swim and climbed the stairs leading to the main deck. There she shook herself out, dried herself further with a towel, and snuggled down into an empty deck chair to allow the sun to finish the job. She wore some flimsy swimming costume which was more decoration than concealment.

Mudge had his elbows propped on the rail and his muzzle cupped in his paws. “Now I ask you straight, mate,” he said with a sigh, “did you ever see anything o’ flesh an’ blood on this world or in any other that were ‘alf so beautiful as that?” As he spoke the object of his desire twisted in her chair, plucked a lace handkerchief from a small bag and used it to dry her whiskers one at a time.

Jon-Tom regarded the lady otter a moment longer before his attention was caught by Mudge’s expression. The bemusement he had noted before remained, now butfered by a peculiar intensity. It was not the standard gaze of unalloyed lechery he was familiar with. This was something different.

‘ ‘Er name’s Weegee.” Mudge’s voice was distant, unfocused. “She’s a typical forest products buyer on ‘er way ‘ome from a shoppin’ trip up the Tailaroam. I believe the Earth, rotates around ‘er.”

The otter’s tone, his choice of words and his posture combined to make a statement Jon-Tom was not long in assessing. Only a natural disbelief caused him to hesitate before noting the obvious. It was as if a basic law of nature had been contravened, as though one of the great pyramids at Giza had crumbled to dust in a single day.

“Mudge, you’re in love.”

“So good o’ you to notice.” Not once did he take his eyes from the vision of sleek brown-furred loveliness sprawled on the deck chair not far away.

“No, I mean really in love, Mudge. As opposed to in lust. I can hear it in your voice and see it in your face.”

“Then I expect ‘tis so, spellsinger. I’ve never felt like this before, I ‘aven’t. Why, me insides ‘ave turned all to crikleberry jelly.”

“You know her name, so obviously you’ve met. Why don’t you introduce me?”

“Wot, now?”

“Why not now?”

“Well, I don’t know—yes I do. Come on, mate.”

Jon-Tom allowed the otter to lead him onto the central deck. The lady was lying half asleep and Jon-Tom had to prod his companion to say something, as it seemed Miidge would have been quite content simply to stand there and stare until they docked in Orangel.

“Amber face, are you awake, luv?”

She opened her eyes and quickly took in the both of them. “Hello, Mudge.”

A sweet, seductive voice, Jon-Tom thought, one that curled around each vowel as slickly as an otter would curl around a fish; toying with it, playing with it before finally devouring it. He was conscious of bottomless black eyes studying him intently. “This must be the friend you spoke of.” She half twisted, half jumped out of the deck chair, gave one leg a final shake. Water droplets sparkled in the air.

“Come now, tall man, bend down and give us a kiss.” Jon-Tom glanced uncertainly at his companion, only to find Mudge grinning back at him. So he bent over and tried to bestow a quick peck on one furry cheek. Much too fast for him, she turned and treated him to a full otterish buss on the lips, which consisted of a rapid-fire series of wet bewhis-kered smacks smelling vaguely of mackerel. Contact with a cold black nose completed the extraordinary sensation, not unlike having one’s mouth attacked by a fishy jackhammer.

She pulled back and cocked her head sideways at him. “He’s shy. You didn’t say he was shy.”

“ ‘E’s married an’ a spellsinger an’ ‘e’s from another world. Wot did you expect, luv? Normalcy?”

“Not from a spellsinger.”

Straightforward as an arrow, Jon-Tom thought, shifting uncomfortably under that uncompromising stare. Otters were not a subtle race. He watched as she reached over to muss the fur on Mudge’s forehead just below the brim of his green cap. Diaphanous material swirled around her lithesome form and her fur gleamed like brass in the midday sun.

“So you’re his best friend?” Jon-Tom glanced at Mudge in surprise. The otter shrugged.

“Well, for want o’ a better choice. Anyway, you’re ‘ere.”

“That sounds more like it,” he said.

“What am I to make of your companion, Jon-Tom? He’s been trying to get me into bed with him from the moment we met. Do you think I should?”

“Ah, hey now, friends, I—that is...” He stopped stammering when he saw they were both grinning at him. Mudge put an arm around her and she didn’t resist or pull away.

“She’s just teasin’ you, mate. You ought to know otters that well by now. We took care o’ that little detail right away.”

“Yes, and we have a lot of work to do to get it right,” she added pleasantly.

“Uh huh. Swell meeting you, Weegee. Now if the two of you will excuse me, I have an appointment to make a fool of myself somewhere else.”

“Don’t do it here,” she chided him. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. Mudge said you were easily embarrassed and I wanted to find out for myself. Now come and sit down.” She grabbed his arm and practically yanked him into the empty deck chair next to hers, sat down and crossed her short legs over her lower torso, the latter a spine-destroying trick that only someone with the backbone of an otter could manage.

“Now then: tell me all about yourself.”

Jon-Tom flicked his gaze sideways. “Hasn’t Mudge done that already.”

“Yes, but I’ve known Fastfingers long enough to realize that in addition to his many talents he is also an incorrigible liar. So tell me about yourself, and about him, and about anything else you think I might be interested in. I’m all ears.” She wiggled the short brown ones atop her head. “Mudge says that you’re as trustworthy, honest and open as you are naive and ignorant.”

“I see.” He looked up at his companion, who had suddenly found something of interest to study in the water below. “I’d be glad to. When I first found Mudge and dragged him from the gutter in Lynchbany where he was lying in a drunken stupor....”

The otter’s outraged bark echoed throughout the ship.

As the days passed Jon-Tom rarely saw Mudge far from Weegee’s side. The more they talked, the better he liked her. She was one of those rare otters whose sense of playfulness and joie de vivre did not prevent her from functioning effectively in an urban context. Most otters didn’t have the patience to make a go of it in the world of commerce.

She found the stories of their travels and adventures fascinating. Who wouldn’t, considering what he and Mudge had been through this past year? And when the otter’s embroidery grew too elaborate, Jon-Tom was always there to inject a dose of reality into his companion’s narcissistic fantasies.

He was delighted to see that Mudge’s feelings for her were being reciprocated and that what he initially viewed as a typical shipboard romance was ripening into something deeper and more substantial. He was quite prepared to lose a traveling companion to true love. Mudge had never been thrilled about galavanting around with the spellsinger anyway.

For his part, in spite of all the trouble Mudge had caused him in the past, Jon-Tom was quite fond of the irrepressible otter. Weegee might be strong enough and stable enough to settle him. Mudge needed that kind of influence if he was to see middle age. Nor did Jon-Tom have to build the otter up in Weegee’s eyes. Mudge did quite a good job of that all by himself, and Weegee was sensible and perceptive enough to discard ninety-five percent of everything her paramour said. The remaining five percent was remarkable enough, if only Mudge would realize it.

It was a pleasure to watch their relationship grow, to witness the change in Mudge from indifferent seducer to protective companion. To see him finally mature a little from drunken carouser into a thoughtful, attentive being. Until one day hopes new and old were shattered at a single stroke.

The alarm rang at night when all of the passengers and most of the crew were asleep. It was only through the courage and alertness of one of the night watch, a brave little aye-aye with an outsize voice, that the warning was given at all and utter disaster thereby averted.

At the first clang of the alarm bell Mudge was out of bed and donning clothes and weapons. Jon-Tom was still struggling with his pants when a couple of heavily armed pangolins came stumbling into their cabin. Each was barely four feet tall and carried a short hooked sword. One wore a bloodstained bandana around his head. Neither was dressed to waltz.

After breaking in the door the first intruder ran straight into Mudge’s short sword, which pierced the throat just beneath the chin and above the animal’s armor. Blood gushed in all directions as the second pangolin swung at Mudge, who somehow managed to dodge aside while the first fell on top of him. So involved was the intruder with the otter that he neglected to spot Jon-Tom on the other side of the room. The club end of Jon-Tom’s ramwood staff rectified this oversight while simultaneously putting out the invader’s lights.

“Thanks, mate!” The otter shoved the body of his assailant aside and bounded to his feet. Shouts mixed with an occasional scream filtered down from above. “Let’s up an’ at ‘em.”

After a discreet survey proved the hallway to be deserted, the otter led Jon-Tom toward the stairs at the far end.

“Hurry it up, mate.”

Jon-Tom was trying to run and step into his pants at the same time. “I’m coming as fast as I can, or do you expect me to fight without any pants?”

“Why not? Would you rather be embarrassed or dead?”

Wearing only his pants, a bare-chested, barefooted Jon-Tom followed his friend up the stairway. They emerged on deck in the midst of darkness, confusion and carnage.

Another ship had fastened itself to the portside hull. The ketch was old and beat-up but evidently seaworthy enough to tackle the much larger caramaran. It was also home to an astonishing variety of cutthroats and thugs, who continued to swarm over the gunwales onto the freighter.

Their plan was as simple as their intentions were obvious: wait until dark, then slip quietly aboard and exterminate the officers and crew in their bunks. Then they could sample cargo and passengers at their leisure. Unfortunately for them the alert aye-aye had died a hero’s death while sacrificing his life to raise the alarm. This had roused not only the crew but the passengers as well, most of whom knew their way around a weapon or two. As this was not Bel-Air or Brentwood, most of the citizens carried some form of personal defense. As a consequence the pirates found themselves badly outnumbered and being forced steadily back toward their ship.

A few had managed to secure some booty in those first frantic minutes before the ship’s complement had been aroused. They hurried back toward the ketch with their arms full of stolen goods. The deck was slippery with blood. The dangerous, uncertain footing was more to the pirates’ disadvantage than that of the defenders.

Jon-Tom watched the energetic Captain Magriff lead the counterattack, his crew silently and determinedly following the badger as they plunged into the pirates’ midst. With the aid of the passengers they were slowly overwhelming the attackers.

A few unlucky brigands were cut down as they tried to make it back to their ship. The survivors tossed what they’d been able to steal over the side, followed it down the lines and cut themselves free. Those on board the catamaran sent a stream of curses and insults in their wake.

Jon-Tom and Mudge listened as the ship’s officers argued with the captain. Several were for putting on additional sail and turning to pursue their fleeing assailants. Magriff would have none of that.

“Stow that spray, gentlebeings. We nay go chasin’ after phantoms this night. Listen to your heads for a minute instead o’ yer hearts. With a strong wind at our backs we might overtake ‘em, but the breeze tonight is light and out o’ the east instead o’ the north. Not only would we have to work a change in course, but in such a light wind a smaller boat could easily outmaneuver us. And they might have friends a-waitin’ for ‘em somewhere out on the dark sea. It would not make good sense to go a-chasin’ in pursuit o’ some wounded blackguards only to find ourselves confronted by two or three vessels o’ the criminal class. Our first responsibility be to our passengers and cargo. Remember that and belay any talk o’ wild pursuits.” He stepped up onto a capstan.

“Mister Poison, check the stores and see what we have lost. See to the below decks cargo as well. I’ll want a list of damages for insurance purposes. Mister Opoltin!” A tall, sinewy marten with blood on his muzzle snapped to attention. “You and Doctor Kesswith see to any injured. Passengers first, crew second, officers last.”

“Yes sir!” The marten vanished.

Two crew men arrived with the body of the dead aye-aye. The primate who had saved the ship was barely three and a half feet tall. His long tail lay curled stiffly over his back.

“Saved the ship and surely saved us,” murmured the captain. “A hero’s burial at sea as befits a good sailor, and company damages to his survivors. I’ll see to it.” The badger turned to his third mate. “Check with the doctor and let me know who else be hurt. You,” he snapped at another officer, “get a squad up here armed with mops and brooms. Buckets and scrubs, mister Seevar. Let’s get this mess cleaned up and this deck looking shipshape. Double the watch until further notice. We nay want to chance bein’ surprised again.”

Mudge was staring out across the ocean. His face was alive, his eyes shining. “That weren’t such a bad evenin’s entertainment, now were it?” The otter loved a good fight, provided the numbers were on his side. He looked back at his taller companion and frowned.

“Hey now, mate, you’ve been cut.”

Jon-Tom touched his left side. The small trickle of red was already drying up. “Just a scratch.”

The otter nevertheless inspected the shallow gash closely. “So it ‘tis.” He grinned up at the tall human. “Remember when our good friend Clothahump first brought you into this world and dumped you on top o’ me?”

“Sure, I remember. You tried to run me through, but you were too scared to strike a hard blow.”

“Wot, me scared o’ a bald scarecrow like you? I just saw no reason to kill when I could strike a warnin’ blow first.” The otter peered past him at the crowd still milling about on deck. Everyone was too excited to go back to sleep. “Wonder where Weegee is? Surely she wouldn’t ‘ave missed a good knockabout like this.”

“Maybe she slept through it.” He leaned on his staff, suddenly exhausted. The sleep he hadn’t enjoyed was starting to catch up with him. From the position of the moon it had to be around three or four in the morning. Nocturnal fights weren’t to his liking.

“She’ll be damned upset if she did.” Mudge darted down the nearest gangway, leaving Jon-Tom alone on deck as the passengers began to return to their cabins and the crew to bed or duty stations.

Except for the unlucky aye-aye who’d sounded the alarm, there were no fatalities among the ship’s complement. There were wounded, however, and dead pirates to be unceremoniously dumped overboard.

He started back toward his own bed only to find an anxious Mudge confronting him at the top of the stairs. “She ain’t in ‘er cabin, mate. I don’t suppose... ?”

Jon-Tom shook his head. “I haven’t seen her. She probably came up through the other hull. Don’t worry, Mudge. She’s on board. She has to be. Maybe she’s down in the galley having something to eat, or maybe she’s helping with the wounded.”

“That’d be like ‘er.” The otter pleaded gently. “Could you ‘elp me ‘ave a look-see, mate?-I’d be obliged. Wouldn’t be able to sleep until we found ‘er.”

“Of course.”

But Weegee wasn’t in the dining area, or was she helping to bind up the injuries the crew had suffered. Word was passed to the captain, who ordered an immediate search to ascertain passenger Weegee’s location. As time passed and one crew member after another reported negatively to the bridge, Mudge grew progressively more frantic.

Enlightenment came not from one of the searching sailors but from a passenger who happened to overhear their concern. She was immediately escorted to the bridge to tell her tale to Jon-Tom, Mudge, the captain and his first officers. The jerboa belle was still clad in a lacy pink nightdress which had been torn in several places. As she spoke she nervously preened the black tuft at the tip of her tail. Her eyelashes were nearly as big as her feet, Jon-Tom noted.

“The otter you speak of was near me. We shared cabins by the place where the pirates first came on board. She went out on deck with her knife.”

Mudge nudged his friend in the ribs. “Told you Weegee weren’t the one to pass up a good fight.” He raised his voice slightly. “Bet she’s restin’ in somebody else’s cabin right now, wot?”

“I’m afraid she may not be,” said the jerboa sadly. “I am sure now that I saw her go over the side in the arms of an agouti.”

Jon-Tom swallowed. “You mean you think she’s on the pirate ship?”

The jerboa nodded, her whiskers trembling. Obviously a high-strung type. “If she is still alive, the poor brave thing. I told her not to join the fight until the rest of the crew appeared, but she would not listen to me.”

“That’s Weegee for sure,” Mudge muttered. “You’re sure now, lass, that this agouti took her onto the boat and that they didn’t just land in the water?

“As sure as I can be, for I listened and there was no splash.” She put her narrow bewhiskered face in her hands and began to sob. “It would have been so much better had she died on board here. A nasty business, nasty.”

“You didn’t see them kill her?” Jon-Tom asked the question because he knew Mudge couldn’t.

“Why should they kill her?” The jerboa looked up at them, wiping at her tears. “A live prisoner is worth infinitely more than a dead one, especially a brave attractive one. I think I saw the pirate captain order the poor thing taken below decks to keep her from escaping.” She shuddered. “He was a frightening looking fellow. I think he must have been the captain because he was standing atop the center cabin giving orders. A leopard, big, nearly as big as you.” She nodded toward Jon-Tom. “Almost handsome he was, but there was nothing attractive in his demeanor.” A finger went to her lips as she continued playing with her tail.

“You know something—I didn’t think of it at the time, but his tail didn’t look quite right.”

“A strange thing to say,” commented Magriff. “How do you mean, madame?”

“Well, it looked as if the last half of it was stiff and frozen. It didn’t twitch once, didn’t move at all. Almost as though it was artificial, yes, that was it. Artificial.” She looked pleased at finally puzzling it out. “I am sure that at some time that leopard’s tail had been cut off and that a false end has been substituted for the missing piece.”

Jon-Tom listened in disbelief. He and Mudge had once made the acquaintance of a leopard with half a tail. It was not an acquaintance either of them wished to renew.

“Mudge?”

“Anythin’s possible in the world, mate,” said the otter grimly. “Old Corroboc’s dead, but we watched ‘is bastard crew go sailin’ off in another direction on this very same ocean not that many months ago.”

Jon-Tom remembered their narrow escape from the blood-thirsty pirate parrot Corroboc. His first mate had been a muscular, sadistic leapord named Sasheem. Sasheem of the prosthetic tail. There could not be two of them, not even on an ocean as big as the Glittergeist.

“I wonder how many others of the original crew are with him?”

“Don’t matter, mate. Sasheem’s who matters. That cat would remember us for sure. Get ‘is claws into us and ‘e’d disembowel us as slowly as possible, lookin’ into our eyes all the while. Not out o’ any misplaced sense o’ loss over ‘is late unlamented captain but to satisfy ‘is own sense o’ revenge. Made a fool of ‘im, we did, and a cat like that don’t forget.”

“We’ll just have to deal with him as best we can. If our fuel holds out I think we can catch them in the zodiac.”

“Now wait a minim, mate. Wot about wot I just said about Sasheem, and that murderin’ lot? You know wot’ll ‘appen to us if they get their paws on us?”

Jon-Tom hesitated. “All right. This is your decision to make, Mudge.” He nodded toward the dark water. “That’s your lady out there, not mine.”

The otter stared blankly back at him, then turned and stumbled over to the railing. “Weegee!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “You ‘ear me, Weegee? Damn you for gettin’ me into this. Damn you from your whiskers to your bloody beautiful tail, an’ double-damn you for makin’ me fall in love with you!”

Jon-Tom put a comforting hand gently on the otter’s shoulder. “You really mean that, Mudge? Or is it just another term of convenience for you?”

“ ‘Ow the ‘ell should I know, mate? I ain’t never felt like this before. ‘Ow the ‘ell do you tellT’

Jon-Tom stared down into the otter’s eyes. “There’s one simple way. Is she worth dying for?”

“Dyin* for.” The otter looked past him. The captain and officers remained discreetly behind on the bridge. It was lonely on deck now, lonely and quiet enough to hear the sound of the waves slapping against the catamaran’s hulls.

“I never thought a lady were worth gettin’ excited over, much less dyin’ for—but this one, Weegee. I dunno.”

“How do you feel, inside?”

“Angry. ‘Urt, upset. ‘Urt outside too, far as that goes. Shit. This is a ridiculous position to be in.”

“Another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Stanley?”

“Wot? Wot’s that ?”

“Forget it.” He waited another minute, then turned toward the nearest gangway. “I’m going back to sleep. It’s still a ways to Orangel and I’m flat worn out.”

A furry paw grabbed him by the belt. “Now ‘old on a minim there, mate. You ain’t goin’ nowheres.”

“Oh?” Jon-Tom was glad he was facing the other way so that Mudge couldn’t see the grin spreading across his face. “We going someplace else then?”

“You bet your bald arse we are. We’re goin’ after me true luv, that’s where we’re goin’.”

Jon-Tom looked back and down. “ ‘True love’? Am I hearing these words from that mouth or am I imagining them?”

“We’re wastin’ time. With just the pair of us in a small open boat you’ll ‘ave all the opportunities you want to snigger at me an’ make jokes.”

“What do you mean ‘the pair of us’?”

“You’re comin’ with me. Remember? Friends to the end, you watch my backside, I watch yours?”

“Let me see now.” Jon-Tom struck an exaggerated pose. “Am I listening to the same otter who’s always having a fit because he’s stuck tramping all over the place with me? Who can’t stop cursing his ill luck at being my companion on similar journeys? Who is constantly bemoaning the fact that fate has made me his friend?”

“There’s only one Mudge ‘ereabouts, an’ it ‘appens to be the selfsame one you’re foamin’ at the mouth about, only maybe just a titch changed. Even an otter can change, you know. Let’s not babble on about past disagreements. You owe me, this time. I’ve pulled your arse out o’ the fire often enough, an’ I’ve the singe marks to prove it. You really think this boat o’ yours will run out of fuel somewheres in the middle o’ the sea?”

All business now, Jon-Tom considered. “I don’t know. I wish I’d paid more attention to Clothahump’s hydrocarbon spells. I’d take a shot at it with the duar, but with this suar I’d probably just gum up the engine.”

“Then we’ll need us a sail. As for dealin’ with me luv’s abductors, I don’t need no magic. I’ll rely on me other old friend.” Fingers flipped the short sword into the air. It did a triple twist and he caught it neatly in one paw. “Sword and longbow and don’t sing me no lullabies, pater, because it ain’t firewood I’m off to cut.” He glanced back at Jon-Tom. “Sasheem’U be onto us the moment we put in our appearance.”

“I know that,” Jon-Tom replied solemnly.

“Wish we ‘ad your striped sassyface Roseroar with us. She’d like to meet up with Sasheem ‘erself.”

“And I’d like for her to also, but she’d sink the boat.” He looked over the side. The zodiac trailed alongside the catamaran like a puppy on a tether. “I’m sure we can rig a brace for a small mast. With luck we won’t need it. How are you at tracking on water?”

“I’m an otter, mate. Not a fish.”

“Then we’ll have to try and raise some porpoises because we’ve no idea which way the pirates went.” He waved vaguely at the night. “East isn’t much of a heading to go on. We need something more specific.”

Mudge came up close and put both paws on the human’s waist. “I’ll never forget this, mate.”

“Damn right you won’t.”

Even as they were helping to outfit the zodiac with a flexible mast and sail, the ships’ crew tried to discourage them from setting out on what they perceived to be a futile and possibly fatal excursion. The first mate stared out into the night.

“You’ll never find them. Too much ocean out. there.”

“We’re not going completely blind. They won’t be expecting any pursuit, so they’re likely to head for the nearest landfall. Captain Magriff s already told us there are no islands between here and the coast, so we’ll be able to track them after they make land if not before.”

“Aye,” said another sailor, “but which landfall are you talking about? That’s a lot of coastline to be searching.”

“I think they’ll head due east, give or take a few degrees. They’ll need a place where their wounded can recover. The sooner they’re put on land, the better they’ll do.”

“Perhaps your magical oar will let you overtake them and allow you to sneak up on their stern at night.” The sailor sounded dubious. “You’re both crazier than a couple of loons.”

“That’s wot luv does to you,” Mudge told him.

“Not to me.” The nimble-fingered vervet secured a package of supplies to the inside of the boat.

In an hour they were done. In addition to receiving the mast, the zodiac had been stocked to overflowing with provisions. Jon-Tom brought out his purse and turned to pay the first mate. The sloth raised both massive paws.

“The captain says that the company will absorb the difference.” He nodded toward the zodiac, winked through sleepy-lidded eyes that were nevertheless quite alert. “He’s putting it in the manifest as part of the cargo that was taken by the brigands. If you should find them and rescue the otter’s lady and by chance manage to cut a few throats in the process, he says to tell you that will be repayment enough.”

Still he hesitated until Mudge tugged insistently at his arm. “Wot are you waitin’ for, mate? Didn’t you ‘ear the bleedin’ sailor? Don’t look a gift badger in the mouth.”

The money might come in handy elsewhere, Jon-Tom told himself. “Give Captain Magriff our thanks and tell him we’ll thank him in person when we get to Orangel.”

“If you ever get to Orangel, which all of us doubt most sincerely. We wish you all our luck.” He hesitated, then said in a slightly different tone, “The otter keeps saying to everyone that you’re a true spellsinger.” Jon-Tom nodded. “Good. Magic’s the only thing that might get you away from where you’re heading alive. Don’t see how it can help you track those ruffians, though.”

“But it can.” He had one leg over the railing preparatory to climbing down the sea ladder into the bobbing zodiac. “We’ll just ask the locals which way they went.”

“The locals?” Another sailor indicated the open ocean. “What locals?”

“The local yokels, o’ course,” shouted Mudge as he helped cast off.

Crew members crowded the railing as the zodiac fell behind the catamaran. A few waved farewell. The expressions they wore were not reassuring. It took three tries before the engine caught. Then Jon-Tom swung it sharply to the right and the zodiac leaped into the night like a flying fish breaking foam.

The catamaran’s running lights were swallowed up all too rapidly by the open sea. It was very empty out on the ocean. Fortunately the sea was calm, though they felt the swells more strongly in the much smaller boat. Jon-Tom hadn’t really considered how they might cope with a real storm. He prayed they wouldn’t have to.

Mudge was relaxing in the bow. “Which way, master mariner?”

“East, I guess. Until we can find some help.”

“No time like the present,” the otter said pointedly.

Jon-Tom sighed resignedly. “Here.” As they switched places he showed Mudge how to keep the zodiac on course. Then he settled himself in the bow and slid the suar into playing position.

The zodiac boasted a built-in compass. All they needed now was a proper heading. But which way in the darkness besides east? Once while sailing to distant Snarken they had encountered the only intelligent inhabitants of the open sea. Now he would have to try again, knowing that even a successful effort might be doomed to failure. Porpoises were notoriously uncooperative. They tended to spend all their time telling anyone they could get to listen to them the most excruciatingly bad jokes.

He had to try, because they could help. If they could identify the pirate ship and provide directions, he and Mudge might actually have a chance to save Weegee. But what to sing? He leaned back against the inflated wall, reflecting that if nothing else the zodiac was a comfortable boat to ride, and began to murmur a gentle seasong. His voice would not carry far, but porpoises had exquisitely sharp hearing. Perhaps they’d be lucky.

It seemed it was not to be. The sun was rising and he was nearly sung out when a surge almost lifted them out of the water. Jon-Tom’s expectations were dashed when he saw that they had been dumped not by porpoises but by a vast school of far smaller swimmers.

Doffing his clothes, Mudge went over the side, as at home in the water as he was on land. Jon-Tom was beginning to get anxious when the otter finally reappeared, licking his whiskers and holding up two small fish from which the heads had been neatly removed.

“Sardines. Tasty, but they ain’t much for givin’ directions.” Climbing back aboard, he set the rest of his snack aside as he shook himself off and picked up a towel.

“Sing like that, mate, an’ we’ll never starve, but we won’t find wot we’re looking for either.”

The surface of the sea was silver with schools of the tiny fish. “Suar works all right,” Mudge continued, “ but don’t seem to ‘ave the power of a regular duar. You sing for a big boat, you get this floatin’ mattress. You sing for porpoises, you get sardines. Proportional magic, I expect.”

“What’s proportional magic?” a new voice squawked quite unexpectedly, nearly causing Jon-Tom to jump out of the zodiac. The slick grinning head had emerged right behind him. It was joined by a second, then a third, like so many toofs lining up at the feeding trough.

“It did work,” Jon-Tom said triumphantly to Mudge, who nodded grudging assent.

“What worked?” one of the porpoises inquired.

“My spellsinging. My music. I used it to call you up, and here you are.”

“Call us up?” They looked at one another, then back at Jon-Tom. “You didn’t call us up, man. We came for the fish. Never have seen so many in this part of the world.” Two of them dropped back beneath the surface.

“Well, it worked, anyway,” Jon-Tom mumbled. “I called up sardines instead of porpoises, but the porpoises came after the fish.”

“You don’t need to draw pictures for me, lad.” The otter was slipping back into his shorts. “Main thing is they’re ‘ere an’ we’ve made contact of a sorts.”

“Contact,” squeaked the remaining porpoise. “Speaking of contact, have you heard the one about... ?”

Jon-Tom put an arm around their visitor and patted it affectionately on top of its head. It was rather like slapping a bulging hot water bottle. The sound was sharp and hollow, the porpoise’s skin smooth and solid as an off-road tire.

Thus greeted, the porpoise glanced over at Mudge. “Tell me, citizen of both worlds, is the man always like this?”

‘ ‘E’s just a friendly soul, ‘e is.”

“My turn first,” Jon-Tom said, having decided on his line of attack earlier. “This story concerns the shipmaster and the eel.”

“Wait, whoa!” The porpoise let out several short high-pitched squeals that sounded like miniature train whistles. In seconds the zodiac was surrounded by bobbing heads wearing attentive expressions.

“Better make it funny, mate,” Mudge whispered wamingly.

“Don’t worry.”

He spent the next half hour repeating every old Richard Pryor and Woody Allen joke he could remember, adding cetaceanic gags whenever possible. His audience roared at every one.

There was only one drawback. Every time he told a joke he was compelled to listen to one from his audience. These were invariably as bad as they were filthy and risque. Whether they understood them or not, Jon-Tom and Mudge laughed uproariously at all of them.

The steady supply of fresh food and jokes combined to put the notoriously mercurial porpoises in a convivial mood. Finally convinced he’d gained their confidence sufficiently to- talk as well as joke with them, Jon-Tom made the request. It was batted around from one cetacean to the next and a reply was not long in forthcoming.

“Yeah, I’ve seen the landwiller craft you describe.” The speaker was a small bottlenose leaning over the starboard side of the boat. “What about it?”

“Could you tell us which way they went?”

“Easy. Follow me and I’ll see you set on the right track.” He then proceeded to taildance a compass heading, repeating it several times until Jon-Tom was positive he had it down pat.

“You’re not leaving?” asked another, a big yellowside. “You haven’t heard all our new jokes yet.”

“We’re in a desperate rush. Besides, we don’t want to hear them all at once. Let’s save some for next time.”

“Why the hurry?” It was the bottlenose who’d provided the heading. “Ordinarily none of us would give a damn, but for a landwiller you’ve been awfully accommodating.” A chorus of agreement came from his companions.

While Mudge railed silently at the loss of precious time, Jon-Tom told their seagong friends the story of the pirate attack and kidnapping. This last produced a chorus of outrage among the members of the school, for porpoises are quite family oriented.

“Nothing for us to do, though,” said the bottlenose, sounding regretful. “We never involve ourselves in the affairs of landwillers or the details of their shallow, meaningless lives. But we will convoy you for a while to make sure you keep to the proper course.”

“We appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” sounded the high-pitched, squeaky choir.

Jon-Tom pointed at the engine. “Don’t let this frighten you. It’s only a bit of otherworldly magic. It’s going to make a lot of noise. There are blades attached to the bottom that will cut if you get too close, so I suggest you back off a ways.” The porpoises complied.

A couple of stabs on the ignition brought the engine to vibrant life. It coughed several times—and died. Jon-Tom’s fears were confirmed by the position of the needle in the little gauge atop the engine.

“Magic’s gone out of it, eh, mate?”

“The gasoline has. Same thing.”

“Then we’ll just have to raise sail and hope we don’t fall too far behind ‘em.”

As they struggled to set the jury-rigged mast in place, the bottlenose swam over and plopped his head on the side of the zodiac. “It didn’t frighten us, man. When does it get loud?”

“I’m afraid it’s dead,” Jon-Tom told the porpoise. The spell’s run out.”

“Too bad.” He hesitated, bobbing lightly in the water, and then dropped clear. Jon-Tom could hear him whistling to his companions. The call was taken up by others. Soon squeaks and querulous squirps and squeals filled the air around the boat. The bottlenose reappeared.

“Landwillers often carry interesting toys they call ‘rope’ with them. Do you have any ropes?”

Jon-Tom looked puzzled, then began hunting through their overstock of supplies. There were several strong coils of hemp in addition to the rigging Mudge was unpacking. As it turned out, they found a much better use for the rigging. The sail became superfluous.

The bottlenose shouted to the two landwillers when all preparations had been completed. “Ready?”

“Ready,” said Jon-Tom, bracing himself.

“Then hold on, man!”

They began to move through the water. Slowly at first, then more rapidly as the porpoises gained confidence in the makeshift harness. In a couple of minutes the zodiac was rocketing across the swells twenty miles an hour faster than the engine could have driven it. In fact, the empty engine was acting as a drag. With the wind blowing his long hair back into his face, Jon-Tom unbolted the outboard and dumped it over the stern. Then he leaned back against the padded hull of the zodiac and watched the four dozen porpoises rising and falling in unison as they pulled the little craft through the water. Other members of the school paralleled those pulling, shouting encouragement while awaiting their turns.

Not only would they not fall behind the pirate ketch, they might overtake it by morning. Sometimes a good joke was the best magic.

VI

As morning dawned the fleeing ketch still had not put in an appearance. The porpoises pulled tirelessly, laughing and giggling among themselves, competing to see who could pull the hardest or make the grossest joke. Once Jon-Tom was nearly thrown overboard as the porpoises on the right gave an especially hard surge. Mudge caught him just in time, and a good thing, too. So self-centered were their voluntary steeds they might have continued swimming eastward, arguing about punch lines and forgetting their lost passenger until it was too late.

Morning gave way to midday and still no sign of their quarry. The shore of the eastern continent dominated the horizon, a fringe of bright sand backed by tall greenery. The zodiac slowed to a stop and the porpoises began slipping out of their harness. A familiar bottlenosed face peered apologetically over the gunwale.

“We have to leave you here. The water is growing shallow and there is a lot of fresh mixing with the salt. Fresh water makes us itch. If not for that we would take you onto the beach.”

“That’s all right.” Jon-Tom was helping Mudge raise the sail. “You’ve done more than enough already. I just wish we could’ve located the ketch.”

“We followed its course true. It must be somewhere close. Perhaps those you track made a last minute change of course to enter a hidden anchorage. Seek carefully and we’re sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

We’d better, Jon-Tom reflected as he surveyed the inhospitable shoreline. The last thing he wanted was to spend endless days cruising aimlessly up and down the coast. By that time the pirates might be long gone via some overland route, and Weegee with them.

A few kest excruciatingly bad quips were exchanged. The school turned and raced back toward the open ocean. They were something to see, Jon-Tom reflected, leaping clear of the water and swapping jokes and laughter like ar chorus of kids who’d been inhaling helium.

It grew downright steamy as he and Mudge sailed the zodiac along the beach, searching for possible landfalls.

“Doesn’t look very promising,” he murmured. The swampy, humid terrain was a nightmarish tangle of cypress and morgel roots. Giant fither vines let down long air roots. They could maneuver beneath much of this cellulose mesh but couldn’t penetrate far into it.

“There has to be a channel or an inlet somewhere.”

“That’s for damn sure, lad. No way could the best sailor in the world slip a big boat like that ketch into this mess. Which way, then?”

“South, I guess.”

“Any special reason?”

“Just a hunch. Besides, home lies northward and sailing in that direction feels too much like retreating.”

The otter nodded and swung the sail around to catch as much of the hot breeze as possible. Obediently the zodiac turned southward.

“We can’t be too far off.” Jon-Tom made this appraisal as evening neared. “The porpoises were sure they followed the right course.”

“I wouldn’t bet a tin coin on anything that lot o’ seagoin’ sardine strainers said.” The otter was lying on his back on the starboard hull, legs crossed and staring lazily at the sky. -”Pleasant enough country, though a smidgen on the damp side.”

“We’ll find a place to anchor tonight,” Jon-Tom said grimly, “and continue on south tomorrow. If we don’t find them by then we’ll turn about and try farther north. I can’t believe the porpoises were deliberately leading us on.”

“Why not? ‘Ow can you take seriously anyone wot don’t ‘ave no ‘ands?”

Jon-Tom followed the coast as it curved slightly to the east. They were preparing to tie up to the buttress roots of a huge morgel when Mudge suddenly dropped the line he was holding.

“You ‘ear that, mate?”

Jon-Tom straightened, stared into the swamp. Small insects were beginning to emerge from the trees. The hisses and hoots of flying lizards reverberated in the evening air.

“I don’t hear a thing, Mudge.”

“Well I sure as ‘ell do!” The otter dumped the rope back into the zodiac and pointed. “That way.” Reaching up, he began pulling them into the trees.

“Mudge,” Jon-Tom said warily, “if we go in there at night we’re liable to find ourselves good and lost by morning.”

“Don’t worry, mate. It ain’t far.”

“What ain’t—what isn’t far?”

“Why, the music, o’ course. Sounds like celebratin’. Mebbe ‘tis our friends, ‘avin’ themselves a high drunken old time. Mebbee drunk enough so’s they won’t know we’re about and we can sneak right up on ‘em before they know where their bleedin’ pants are an’ steal sweet Weege away.”

“I still don’t hear any music.”

“Trust me, mate. Well, trust me ears, anyways.”

Jon-Tom sighed, adjusted the sail. “All right, but just the ears.”

As the vines and tangled branches closed in over them he grew steadily more apprehensive. Bogart had a hell of a time getting the African Queen out of country like this and he wasn’t Bogart. At last he was able to draw some relief from the knowledge that Mudge hadn’t been affected by the heat. The otter was no crazier than usual.

There was definitely music coming from up ahead.

Mudge stood in the bow, sniffing nervously at the air, his small round ears cocked sharply forward. The tangle of roots and branches began to thin until they found themselves sailing up a slow-moving river whose banks were festooned with low-hanging vegetation. It was almost night now, but the otter’s eyes saw clearly in the dark.

“Over there.” Squinting, Jon-Tom was just able to make out not one but several small boats of unfamiliar design. The big pirate ketch was not in sight. “Anchored somewhere else,” the otter muttered. “Mebbee still out at sea. They ‘ave to use them smaller craft to make it through the swamp.”

A large bonfire lirthe woods behind the beached boats, which were drawn up on the first bit of solid land they’d encountered since leaving Yarrowl. Something small and leathery landed on Jon-Tom’s forearm. He let out a muffled yelp of pain and slapped at it, watched as it fell, twitching and stunned, into the bottom of the zodiac. The half-inch long reptile had thin, membranous wings, a narrow, pointed muzzle. His forearm was starting to redden and swell where the invader had bitten him.

Mudge turned from his lookout position near the bow and picked it up. After a cursory inspection, he tossed it over the side. “Bloodsucker. Bet there are plenty in this country. Foulness with wings, wot?”

“I don’t see anyone guarding the boats.”

“Who’d they ‘ave to guard ‘em from? Anyways, sounds like they’re ‘avin’ too much fun. Crikey, that looks like a row o’ bloomin’ ‘ouses. Mighty domestic, this lot.”

The line of shacks, lean-tos and cabins’ hardly qualified as houses. Shelters would’ve been a more accurate description. Some appeared to stand erect in defiance of gravity.

Jon-Tom was nonplussed by the sight. “This doesn’t look right, Mudge. The houses don’t fit, there’s no sign of the ketch, and that singing doesn’t sound like the chorus of a bunch of drunken brigands to me. I’d swear some of the voices are female.”

“One way to find out.”

They tied the zodiac to a downstream cypress and cautiously headed toward the makeshift village, Jon-Tom cursing the low-hanging branches and thick roots as he fought to follow the agile otter. There was a small gap between a couple of the cabins and they slowly followed it toward the light and singing. All of the cabins were built on stilts, a necessity in a swampland that doubtless flooded every wet season.

Beyond the semicircle of structures was the bonfire whose glow they’d spotted from the river. A covey of musicians were playing a rollicking tune to which numerous members of the little community were dancing and jumping. None of them were dressed like pirates. Mudge’s black nose was working overtime.

“They don’t cook like pirates, neither. Wonderful smells! You know wot?” He glanced up at his friend. “I bloody well think we’ve come to the wrong place. These folks ain’t buccaneers.”

“Of course we no buccaneers. What you two?”

Jon-Tom spun, to see a young lady muskrat leaning out of a cabin window looking down at him. She had a corncob pipe stuck in one comer of her mouth and a bright yellow polka-dot bandana wrapped around her head.

“Yeah, ever’body!” she yelled.

The dancing slowed and the music stopped as the villagers turned in the direction of the shout.

“Right, let’s not overstay the welcome we ain’t been given.” Mudge started to back up the way they’d come, but Jon-Tom put out a hand to hold him. The otter shook it off.

“Wot’s the ‘old-up, mate? Wot are you waitin’ for? Let’s make a run for the boat while we still ‘ave the time.”

“So we can do what? Continue sailing blindly along the coast until we hit a submerged root or something? Maybe these people can help us.”

Reluctantly Mudge held his ground, muttering. “Aye, *elp us into the cookpot.”

A fox, several squirrels, and a sleepy-eyed porcupine approached to confront the strangers. “Now what we got here, you think?” The fox’s clothes were of simple materials and design, frayed at the edges but clean. Nor did Jon-Tom fail to note the long sharp skinning knife sheathed at his waist. One of the lady squirrels walked right up to Mudge and put her nose against his, sniffing interestedly. He drew back.

“ ‘Ave a care for the familiarities, luv. We ain’t been properly introduced.”

“Doen flatter youself, water rat. I already married.” She looked up at the fox. “Smell clean, no blood on ‘em. Not recently, anyways.”

“You’re not pirates,” said Jon-Tom.

The fox and the squirrel looked at each other and then burst out laughing. The porcupine let out a gruff guffaw.

“Us, pirates?” said the fox. “We fisherman, crabbers, swampfolk. What you?” He had to lean back to look up at Jon-Tom, since he was no taller than Mudge. “Big man; never seen one big like you. Pirates. You hungry?”

The thought of a hot meal overcame Mudge’s initial hesitations. Also his second and third ones. “Now that you mention it, mate, I could do with a spot o’ tea an’ fish.”

“Good!” The fox turned to yell over his shoulder. “Play-on music! Get the food ready.” He grinned up at Jon-Tom, showing sharp teeth. “Time to eat anyway, an’ now we got company time.” Putting a paw on the tall human’s arm, he gently led Jon-Tom toward the roaring, crackling blaze.

“Hey, Porge, what you stop playin’ for? The field mouse who sat in the front of the band was staring at Jon-Tom.

“Hey, I doen know.” He put his lips to his double harmonica. The other musicians resumed their serenade and a few of the villagers struck up a brisk dance, but most were moving toward a line of roughhewn tables laden with food. There was a lot of red and yellow in the food, though whether from spices or natural coloring Jon-Tom couldn’t tell. He didn’t care. Not after a day eating cold rations in an open boat.

One thing they didn’t have to worry about was poison. All the food came out of common pots and portable ovens and casseroles. Jon-Tom and Mudge joined the other villagers in heaping it on individual plates.

“So where you two funny fellas come from?” the fox asked him.

“Up north.” Someone shoved a ladle full of vegetables and two or three different kinds of meat onto his plate. He hunted around until he located a cut-off stump that would do service as a chair. “North by a roundabout route.” Since no one profferred a fork or any other silverware, he dug in with his fingers.

The first bite nearly blew his palate off. There was a big pitcher of cool water nearby and he gulped a third of it without wasting time hunting for a glass.

“Take small bites,” the lady squirrel advised him. Jon-Tom nodded, picked carefully at his plate as he enviously watched Mudge downing huge mouthfuls of the fiery concoction. The otter saw him staring, sidled over to sit on the ground next to the stump. He gestured at the village, the fire, the inhabitants.

“Wonder who these people are and where they came from? Whichever, they sure as ‘ell can cook.”

“So you think we pirates?” The fox sat on Jon-Tom’s other side. “That pretty funny, man. What you want to find pirates for? Most folk want to avoid them.”

It was hard to talk, what with’his mouth having been thoroughly numbed by the steady barrage of peppers and other spices. Everything between his lips and upper alimentary tract had been blitzed by a combination of food and liquid that most closely resembled carbonated turpentine. He made an effort to communicate.

“Last night some of them attacked the ship my friend and I were on and made off with his intended.”

The fox looked solemn. “I see now. Nasty goingson. Take a little money and goods, that business, but people-stealin’ we doen agree wid.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any idea where this particular bunch of cutthroats might have their landing, would you? We were assured it was right around here someplace.”

For an instant Jon-Tom thought he saw a spark of recognition in the fox’s eyes. Then his host was leaning backward and staring at Jon-Tom’s pack. “Hey I never see instrument like that before. Funny-lookin’ thing. You musician? Maybe you give folks a little music, who know, maybe you jog somebody’s memory.” He winked.

Jon-Tom smiled back. “Sure, I’d be happy to.”

“Careful now.” Mudge put his plate aside. “We don’t wish to scare the lot o’ them into the woods.”

Jon-Tom gave his companion a sour look as he strode past the fire to join the village band. They welcomed him curiously, checking out his suar. Rather than launching into some alien tune, he chose to listen until he could pick up on their own music. It wasn’t difficult. The rhythms were simple and the melodies straightforward. He jumped in at an opportune moment and let the beat take him, his fingers moving faster and faster over the suar’s strings. He found he was enjoying himself immensely, almost wished for a real guitar instead of the suar he was forced to make do with. If his duar had been intact he could have ‘given them some magic to go along with his music, but the latter seemed more than enough. Villagers set their food aside to join in the dancing; swirling and flying around the fire. One egret executed a move that had Jon-Tom laughing off and on for half an hour.

Still, despite his best efforts to blend in and make himself a part of the band the suar didn’t sound right. If only he could play it differently, the way he’d seen similar instruments in identical circumstances played. Then there it was, just as he wished for it, near at it. From a terrapin tapping his feet nearby Jon-Tom plucked a device that looked like a cross between a saw and a cheese slicer but was less biting than either. Bowed across the suar’s strings it made the instrument sound very much like a country fiddle.

The dancing and singing didn’t slow down even when a muskrat and a drunken mongoose fell to fighting. The battle only inspired Jon-Tom’s fellow musicians to play faster.

Eventually the celebration petered out as couples wandered off into the woods or back to their cabins. Soon Jon-Tom and the terrapin were the only ones still playing. By mutual agreement they halted together. It was time to call it a night. Jon-Tom was plumb tuckered, but also elated. Making music was as good as making magic, especially when one had an appreciative audience.

The grateful fox escorted the visitors to an empty cabin.

“About these pirates now, friend.” The fox ignored the otter’s query.

“You had enough to eat?”

“Yeh, plenty, but....”

“Good. You be hungry all over by morning, you see. Maybe you get rid of supper quick-like unexpected in middle of night. Light up swamp.” He chuckled. “Just watch out for gator an’ snake or maybe you lose more than your food.” Laughing to himself, he sauntered back out toward the clearing. Jon-Tom noticed that he was slightly bowlegged. A couple of lady mice were raking out the coals from the fire.

He leaned back on the bed which was soft and almost long enough to accommodate his gangling frame. Mudge sat on the edge of a nearby cot.

“What do you make of that?”

“I dunno, mate,” said the otter thoughtfully. “Friendly enough. Never met a chummier bunch. Never saw so many people ready to drop everythin’ an’ ‘ave a good time with strangers.”

“Never saw any folks it was so hard to get a straight answer out of, either.”

“Too many good spirits maybe, lad.”

“Possible. Or maybe they don’t like talking about pirates because it’s unhealthy. That would make sense if the schmucks we’re after hang around this part of the country a lot. We’ll find out in the morning if we have to corner one of these happy chappies and tie him to the breakfast table.”

“Until then, let’s try and get some sleep.”

A paw on his shoulder woke Jon-Tom. He couldn’t hear anything over the din of night critters from within the swamp, but He could see a furry shape standing in the darkness staring down at him.

“Mudge?” His eyes were reluctant to open.

“No. You be quiet, man.”

The silhouette turned and approached the otter’s bed.

“Don’t worry about me, stranger,” Jon-Tom heard his friend whisper. “I’ve been awake ever since you set foot to board.”

“So I see.” No doubt their visitor also saw the glint of moonlight on Mudge’s knife.

“ Tis a bit early for breakfast and a shade too late for sweet goodnights. Wot is it you want?”

“To help you. I listen during dancing and talking and bullshitting, hear whole story. Got one for you.”

Jon-Tom was sitting up on his cot now. As his eyes grew used to the light he saw that their nocturnal visitor was about Mudge’s size and shape. At first glance he thought the stranger wore a mask to disguise his identity, then he realized the mask was part of the face.

“Name is Cautious.” The raccoon was looking out the cabin’s front window as he spoke. “I hear much of what you talk with fox and others. You looking for your beloved.”

“My loved, anyway.”

“Love what matters.” He was wearing vest and short pants with a hole cut in the latter to allow the bushy gray tail egress.

“The fox told us he’d discuss Mudge’s problem in the morning.”

Dark eyes winked at him. “Fox say anything to change the subject.”

“So you do know something about the pirates.”

“Sure we know ‘bout ‘em. We sell them food and other supplies and sometime two or three of us go help work fix up their boat. Their ship-place not too far south of here.”

“We just didn’t sail far enough,” Jon-Tom muttered half to himself.

“You sell them supplies; wot do they pay you with?”

The raccoon shrugged. “Money, goods, none of it earned honest, you bet. We’re isolated village here. Do pretty good business with them and don’t ask too hard where payment come from.” He spat disgustedly to one side.

“Only you’re different.” Jon-Tom was wide awake now.

“Pretty sick of whole stinkin’ business, but nobody listen to Cautious. Ever’body listen to fox who he say if we doen sell them food then next village inland or one beyond that will get the gold. He say we not cutting anybody’s throat. Me, I think you take the money, you take the blood that come with it, you bet. Once in while you get paid with silk dress or boots that got funny stain on ‘em you know don’t come from maker’s mistake, you know what I mean.”

“We know wot you mean, mate.” Mudge put his knife up.

“Now maybe they take your lady someplace and trade her for gold. Not around here. Swamp folk doen traffic in live people. Others do.”

“Why are you telling us all this?” Jon-Tom was slipping into his clothes.

“I ask myself: Cautious, you mean anything of what you say or you just full of swamp gas? So I decide to come help you fellows because what you lost lot more precious than gold. I doen know, maybe we get killed this night, but I can take you to where pirates sleep. Help you much as I can.”

“Damn decent of you. Just show us where they are and Mudge and I will try and do the rest. This isn’t your fight. There’s no reason for you to risk your life.”

“Me, I ain’t got much life.” His face was sad. “Two year ago big storm hit swamp. Big wave come all the way in from sea, right through village. Most of us know it coming so go up in trees until wave go by, then climb down and fix up house.” His voice grew raspy. “My mate and two cubs way out picking oysters. They doen get back in time and I doen get out in time to warn them. Oysters get washed away, wife and babies get washed away.” He swallowed hard, his voice breaking. It was dead silent inside the cabin.

“So that’s why you want to ‘elp us?” Mudge finally murmured.

“That why I know what you feeling. Storm take my loved ones from me. Pirates take yours. Can’t do nothin’ about storm, maybe can do something about pirates. So you doen worry about oP Cautious, you hear?”

“We hear.” Jon-Tom considered. Could they believe the raccoon, put their trust in him completely? Was the story about losing his family just that, a clever story they were about to buy unknowingly?

The same thought had occurred to Mudge. “No offense, mate, but ‘ow do we know you ain’t making this tragedy up as you go along? ‘Ow can we be sure you ain’t plannin’ to sell somethin’ besides shellfish and shellac to these pirates?”

“Maybe I leave you find them on your own.” Cautious took a step toward the doorway. Mudge restrained him.

“Easy, guv’nor. Consider our position ‘ere.”

The coon hesitated, glanced from otterish visage to human. “Hokay. This time I forget you say something like what you said. You say it again and I disappear into trees.”

He led them out the back of the cabin. The village was silent, sleeping off the previous evening’s binge.

“Come on now, quick. I hear about your boat.”

“What’s the rush? Just because everyone else was intentionally evasive doesn’t mean they’d try and stop us.”

“No telling what they might do. Swamp folk like that. Party with you one night, put you in the gumbo next. Fox and others make good living off pirates. You sneak up on their camp and steal one of their prizes, maybe you jeopardize that living. Better go quiet.”

“Me feelin’ precisely.”Mudge pushed aside a branch. It snapped back to smack Jon-Tom in the gut. Murmured curses rose above the drone of the crickets.

“Funny boat,” Cautious commented when they reached the place where the zodiac was tied. “Sure like to see animal builder took skin from.”

“It’s an artificial fabric, not a skin.” Jon-Tom was looking anxiously in the direction of the village. There was no sign of pursuit. “It came from a polyethelene plant.”

“Must be some damn fine big leaves.” The raccoon gestured downstream. “We go that ways toward ocean some then cut back in through hidden channel. Try to sneak up on them from other direction or they see us for sure.” Mudge nodded. “You can bet your arse on that. The one runnin’ that crew’s the suspicious type.”

“What you say? You know this bunch of picaroons?”

“We’ve ‘ad occasion to chat with ‘em before.” Mudge paddled steadily down river. “Their Captain’s got a score to settle with us, so we’d just as soon snatch back me lady quiet-like and slip away same.”

“Oh ho. Gets to be interesting, this business.”

“Take Mudge’s word for it; you don’t want to make this bastard’s acquaintance.”

“Hokay. Had few dealings with them myself. Mostly fox, he go and do business with them. How you come to know them, eh?”

Jon-Tom and Mudge took turns relating to their guide the tale of their earlier encounter with Sasheem and the rest of Corroboc’s crew. By the time they had finished the story the sun had put in an appearance, peeping uncertainly over the tallest trees. Shafts of light sliced down through the vines and moss. They were paddling through a deep water inlet over a sandy bottom. “Good place for big boat, but we coming up on them from behind. We find a good spot to leave this funny-skinned craft and go through trees, get your lady, then run like crazy back same way. If lucky, I doen think they see us.”

Jon-Tom frowned at the sky. “We’ll have to wait a whole day until it’s dark again.”

“No problem.” He settled down in the bottom of the boat. “This good place for sleeping.”

“So close to their camp?”

“Doen worry. They never come in swamp. Stick to open water and their boat. Why you think they buy food from us instead of looking for it themselves?”

“What if they take Weegee and sail off?”

“You worry too much, man. You say they just got beaten off your big ship. Now they got to rest up and lick their wounds.”

“ ‘Ow about you, mate? Won’t they miss you back ‘ome?”

“Nobody is missed until they been gone two weeks maybe. Ever’body go hunting and fishing back in swamp for long time, nobody miss them. Miss you maybe, but not me. I bet they figure you get tired and leave early. Maybe fox and others suspicious, maybe they want to talk mote, but I think they all just relieved you gone. Now you not their problem anymore. They know you don’t know where to find pirates, so they forget you real soon.”

To Jon-Tom’s considerable surprise he found he had no trouble sleeping away most of the day. His body was more than willing to make up for all the sleep he hadn’t enjoyed out on the open ocean. When he woke again it was to see the sun setting behind the swamp and the nearby sea. He felt fully rested and ready to begin the tricky business of effecting Weegee’s rescue.

They secured the zodiac to a large hollow fastump and concealed it with palm fronds and moss. Then they started into the woods. Jon-Tom had the usual hard time ducking branches and stepping over protruding roots and was glad it wasn’t far to the pirate encampment. They heard it before they could see it.

Drunken laughter, shouts, blithe obscenities filled the air. Cautious gestured for them to slow down as they neared a place where much of the underbrush had been cleared away. It was an ideal anchorage. Morgels and cypress gave way to a wide sandy beach. The action of the current had cut a small inlet into the shore and a crude dock had been built out into the water. The ketch was moored to this ramshackle jetty. On the beach a single large one-story structure had been erected. It had the look of an old warehouse. Perhaps at one time some hopeful entrepreneur had tried to start a plantation in this part of the world, only to eventually abandon it and several smaller outbuildings to the unyielding swamp from whence it had subsequently been reclaimed by the pirates.

A few of the brigands were much closer than the beach. All were in an advanced state of intoxication. They were lying or standing around an isolated wepper tree, playing paddle ball with something hanging from one branch. Jon-Tom had to physically restrain Mudge from rushing forward.

Weegee’s wrists and ankles were bound together by a single rope. Her head hung toward the ground. She had not been gagged. As far as her tormentors were concerned this only added spice to the game. As they swung her dizzily back and forth she tried to take a mouthful of flesh out of each of her persecutors, who would dance aside as her teeth neared them, laughing and taunting one another. Two of them were utilizing long paddles both to protect their fingers and enhance the sport. The solid bang of wood on fur and flesh echoed across the clearing.

“Rotten bloody bastards.”

Jon-Tom kept his hand on his friend’s trembling shoulder. “Easy, Mudge. We’ve rested ail day. They haven’t. At the rate they’re collapsing they’ll all be asleep soon enough. Then we’ll get ‘em. Don’t look.”

“I ‘ave to look, mate. I ‘ave some faces to memorize.”

Jon-Tom’s appraisal of the pirates’ condition proved correct. Half an hour later the last one erect took a wild swipe at the swinging body of Weegee before crumpling to the ground. The onlookers waited another ten minutes to be sure the corsair’s stupor was all-encompassing before Cautious gave the word.

“We go get her away fast, you bet.”

“Right.” Jon-Tom rose and broke through the remaining brush. “And remember, Mudge; no unnecessary killing.”

The raccoon frowned at the man, then looked to the otter. “He always talk like that?”

“Don’t pay ‘im no mind. ‘E can’t ‘elp it. The poor sod’s the victim o’ a deformed set o’ ethics.”

Staying close together they emerged into the clearing. There was no sign of Sasheem or the rest of the crew. Probably sleeping on board the ketch or inside the main building, Jon-Tom reflected.

Weegee was unconscious, exhausted and dazed from hanging upside down for too many hours. Mudge greeted her with that delicate rapid-fire succession of kisses otters employ as he put a paw over her mouth to keep her from shouting out in surprise. She bit him gently.

“About time you got here.”

Mudge worked on the knots securing her wrists and ankles. “Wot made you so sure I was comin’?”

“Because I’m your only true love. You told me so, at least four dozen times on the ship.”

“Right, but I’ve an ignoble memory.”

“It’s good enough for me.” Mudge reached for his knife to cut the main rope and she hurried to protest. “Better not, unless you’re prepared to catch me. If I fall on my fundament it’s liable to shatter, considering the pounding it’s taken the past couple of days.”

“Creeps.” He used the point of the blade to work the knots free. Jon-Tom finished the job as the otter set her gently on her feet. Her muscles were so cramped she could hardly stand, let alone walk. As she fought for balance an old seadog came limping out of the main building. He was missing one leg and walked with a crutch. Jon-Tom recognized him as an original member of the pirate crew from their earlier sojourn on Corroboc’s ship; this was the one who had tried to warn the unfortunate captain of the danger Jon-Tom and his companions presented.

There was no time to retreat. The veteran saw them and began yelling at the top of his aged lungs. “Up, everybody up! By my tail, the water rat and the magician have come back for us!”

Mudge let Weegee balance against the raccoon, slipped his longbow off his back, and put a feathered shaft into the alarmist’s neck. Too late. The cry did none of Weegee’s recent tormentors any good because Cautious, utilizing a wicked little curved knife, rapidly made the rounds of the inebriated and cut their throats where they lay.

The only survivor was a lynx who had passed out unnoticed beneath a bush. He reached out to trip the retreating Jon-Tom and send him sprawling.

“Clumsy man,” Weegee chided him, “get on your feet!”

Not enough time, as pirates erupted from the warehouse. “This way quick or we are lost.” Cautious beckoned frantically from the undergrowth.

Jon-Tom rolled to his knees and stood, holding his ramwood staff out in front of him. Weegee and Cautious had already vanished into the vegetation and Mudge wasn’t far behind. He was alone in the middle of the clearing.

A great calm settled over him. Perhaps it was better that it end this way. Mudge had helped him so many times it seemed only fitting that Jon-Tom should perform a final service for the otter. After all, this was their world, not his. Better Mudge and Weegee should live out their lives where they belonged than sacrifice themselves in aid of an alien. He flicked the concealed switch in the staffs shaft and six inches of steel snapped out of- the base. “Come on then. What are you waiting for?” The onrushing brigands slowed to a halt, eyeing him warily. “I know “im.” The speaker was a muscular beaver with a patch over his left eye. “That’s the spellsinger, it is.” Murmurs of recognition came from those around him.

None wanted to be the first to challenge the tall human. Those who had sailed with Corroboc remembered the havoc Jon-Tom and his companions had wrought. They rapidly enlightened those newer recruits who hadn’t been on that earlier expedition.

The stand-off was purely mental. The instant Jon-Tom turned and tried to run they would realize he was afraid of them and cut him down in a minute. If he charged they might scatter in panic—but if just one stood his ground and fought back, the others would realize they had nothing to fear from their taller opponent. Nor could he allow the stalemate to continue indefinitely. Time favored numbers. Carefully he set the ramwood aside and swung the suar around in front of him. He was relying on the hope that enough time had passed for the pirates who remembered him to have forgotten the details of what his duar looked like. If he could conjure something, anything at all, even a small cloud of harmless gneechees, it might be enough to frighten his opponents away.

But before he could commence playing a new figure, taller and more massive than anyvof the other brigands, forced his way through the line. He halted a safe distance from the spellsinger. Half a dozen stilettoes were sheathed in the bandolier that crossed his broad chest. His tail twitched back and forth, back and forth, and only the first half was flesh, fur and blood.

“Greetings, man. I never expected to see you again.”

“Hello, Sasheem. Roseroar sends her regrets.”

“Regrets? What regrets would the tigress leave with me?”

“That she wasn’t able to bid you farewell in person.” The leopard chuckled, quite able to appreciate the bloodthirsty humor inherent in Jon-Tom’s remark. “I’m sure the big lady would have made a coat out of me if she’d had half the chance.” He examined the clearing, the rope dangling empty from the tree, the several sailors lying sprawled on the ground with their lives leaking from their slit throats. “You’d risk your life for a single female?”

“I see no reason to trouble you with my motives, which I doubt you’d understand. You remember me. You remember Roseroar. You should remember the others as well.”

“Ah, the otter with the touchy manner and toilet mouth. One arrives, two depart. A relationship?”

“Weegee was his,” Jon-Tom struggled for the right word, “fiancee.”

Sasheem nodded. “Some sense at last. Not a bad swap; a spiteful and sharp-toothed female for a spellsinger.”

“Who said anything about a swap? I’ll be leaving now.” He took a step backward.

Sasheem kept the distance between them unchanged. “No, I don’t think you will, spellsinger, or you would have gone already.” Sure enough, the sharp-eyed leopard had spotted that which had escaped the notice of his colleagues. “That’s not the same instrument you carried before. I know that a spellsinger must have a certain special instrument else he will be unable to perform his magic. Can it be that you have misplaced both?”

Jon-Tom strummed the suar, smiled thinly at the big cat. “Take another step closer and find out.”

“Careful, mate,” said the lynx on Sasheem’s flank. “Remember how he betwitched us the last time. Maybe he’s just taunting us. Mayhap this stringed snake he holds is as dangerous as the other.”

“If it is, then why is he standing there wasting his time talking to us while his friends put space between them?”

Jon-Tom was staring at him. “ ‘Mate.’ He called you mate. Aren’t you the captain now?”

Sasheem seemed surprised. “Captain, me? Of course I’m not the captain here. I’ve never aspired to captaincy.”

There was a commotion among the brigands in back. Jon-Tom watched as the pirates parted to let someone through.

“No. It can’t be. I saw Roseroar take you apart.”

Recent memory notwithstanding, it was a three-and-a-half-foot tall parrot that hopped out in front of the semicircle of respectful, edgy buccaneers to glare sourly at the dumbfounded spellsinger.

VII

Jon-Tom realized he was not going mad. The parrot was not Corroboc, though the relationship was unmistakeable. Though no expert in the distinguishing characteristics of fowl, there were too many similarities of aspect and posture between this bird and the late pirate commander for coincidence. At the same time the differences were as blatant as the similarities. Corroboc had boasted one false leg and an absent eye while this new arrival was missing neither. He was quite intact save for his left wing, which was splinted and bandaged.

“Captain Kamaulk.” Sasheem favored Jon-Tom with a toothy smile. “Brother to our lamented missing captain and inheritor of his titles and property.”

“Better he should’ve left you alone,” said the parrot, “and I could have stayed with my ledgers. Or did you maybe think my featherbrained fool of a brother ran this business by himself? Because pirating is a business, make no mistake of that. Corroboc was clever with a ship and a sword but not with figures. That end I handled. Now I am forced to manage both. So a mutual acquaintance of yours took him apart, har? We wondered what had happened to him. What a nice surprise that the guilty parties should choose to drop in. It seems we will have vengeance out of this last raid if not much profit. Your death will salve my poor brother’s heart.”

“He didn’t have a heart. Corroboc was the most vicious, evil, sadistic, venal low life it was ever my displeasure to encounter.”

Kamaulk looked pleased. “I’m sure that wherever he is now he’s delighting in your flattery, but it will do you no good. He’s dead and it’s up to me to decide your fate.” He rubbed his beak with his unsplinted wingtip. “What do you suggest, Sasheem?”

“Sell him in Snarken. Money’s better than vengeance. A spellsinger will bring much more on the open market than an ill-tempered lady. A fair trade, I calls it.”

“If he can be induced to cooperate.”

Jon-Tom listened dazedly to the conversation. He felt like a participant in a bad dream. There couldn’t be two Corrobocs. Nature wouldn’t permit such a dual abomination. Of course, Kamaulk wasn’t the same bird as his brother. Already it was clear that this more bookish of the unholy pair was less impulsive and more stable than his deceased sibling. That didn’t mean he’d hesitate to have him drawn and quartered if he decided it was in the best interest of the “business.”

“You claim he is a spellsinger. I don’t doubt your story, but if that is the case then why hasn’t he turned us all into toads or himself into an eagle?”

“I believe he has lost his instrument of power, sir.” Sasheem nodded toward the silent Jon-Tom. “The device he carries is not the one he used on us when he was a prisoner on your brother’s ship.”

“I don’t like these uncertainties. Figures are always certain. I cannot believe he is confronting us in this fashion without purpose.”

“I see what he up to!” A lanky dingo pointed frantically toward the inlet.

Everyone turned. Kamaulk flapped his wings, settled down on Sasheem’s shoulder. From this high perch he was able to gaze out across the river.

“I’ve never seen a small craft like that,” the leopard commented. “It must belong to the magician.”

“Broken loose from its moorin’s,” suggested one of the other pirates.

“No,” insisted the one who’d raised the alarm, “see, ‘tis all camouflaged like, filled with moss and twigs and such.”

“A diversion, designed to distract us?” The parrot cocked a querulous eye at Jon-Tom who, knowing nothing, said nothing.

“The others are hiding under there,” said the dingo. “The female prisoner and the others who helped her. It has to be.”

“Trying to slip past right under our noses. Be damned. An extra ration of grog for you, Gorswont.” Kamaulk snapped orders. “Oreyt, Tomooto: take down the ship’s boats and we’ll cut them off. They’ve no sail.”

The pirates rushed toward their ship, but not before the parrot instructed a lynx and three others to stay behind to watch Jon-Tom.

“Ware close the spellsinger. If he attacks, defend yourselves and call for aid. If he tries to flee, hamstring him.” Sasheem’s eyes narrowed. “How much power you have left I do not know, man, but we’ll most surely find out when we return with your companions. A little cooperation on your part may be all that keeps me from having your lady friend disemboweled before her lover’s eyes. Remember that.”

Jon-Tom watched as the leopard raced to join the rest of his mates with his captain riding his shoulder. Then his eyes fell as he examined his guards. They held their spears and swords uneasily.

Could he bluff them? Clearly they were discomfited at having been left behind to guard this master of unknown abilities. All four would have been much happier chasing after the drifting zodiac.

“Beware!” This admonition, delivered in his best courtroom tone, caused two of the guards to retreat a couple of steps. “My patience is at an end. Run while empathy lives in me or I will truly turn you all into toads as the first mate suggested.”

The lynx looked to his companions for support and held his ground. “Better a dead lynx than a dead toad. Sasheem and the Cap’n will kill us sure if we let you go.”

Jon-Tom studied the quartet. In addition to the lynx there was a broad-shouldered wolf carrying a razor spear that was half blade, a squirrel with a scimitar, and a spectacled bear who wielded a massive club. Spikes projected from its business end.

He could outrun the bear but not the wolf or the lynx. On the other hand, he could probably overpower the squirrel and maybe the other two, but the bear could fell him with one swipe. Kamaulk had chosen the group of guards with care.

A bold try on Mudge’s part to disguise the zodiac and try drifting past the pirate’s camp, but it hadn’t worked. Kamaulk and his crew would run them down before they could reach the sea and raise sail. A gallant effort. Feeling slightly giddy, he raised the edge of his right hand to his brow.

“I salute thee, Mudge, but even the master of tricks and ruses can’t win ‘em all.”

As the side of his hand touched his forehead a small tree fell square on the bear’s head. Bruin eyes rolled up like small window shades and he toppled over in a heap.

“Magic!” The squirrel let out a squeal and turned to run—right into a knife thrown from the bushes. Never one to squander a heady opportunity, Jon-Tom slammed the butt end of his ramwood staff into the side of the wolfs skull. Mudge brought the lynx down with an arrow before he could get ten yards toward the jetty.

Cautious and-Weegee emerged to greet him. Hardly a minute had passed since his unexpectedly efficacious salute. Meanwhile the rest of the pirates were paddling furiously down river in their exuberance to overtake the drifting zodiac and its cargo of leaves and moss.

“Thanks,” he told Cautious. “Hi, Weegee. Short time no see.”

She smiled up at him. “I’d like to put this habit of getting separated behind us, tall man.”

He looked over his friends’ heads. “Pretty damn smart. I thought you were out there trying to sneak past, too.”

Her eyes dropped. “Actually, we had kind of a noisy argument about it. I’m a little ashamed to admit I tried to talk Mudge out of trying to rescue you.”

“Don’t give it another thought. I know how otter minds work. I once had to journey across half a world with a dozen of your kind. I figure if I survived that, I’m the next best thing to invulnerable.

“You’re a dear thing, for a human.”

Mudge rejoined them, having lingered over the dispatching of the unfortunate lynx. He was panting hard. “Aye, tried to talk old Mudge out o’ savin’ ‘is mate, she did, but I wouldn’t think o’ leavin’ you to the tender mercies o’ Sasheem and ‘is bird-boss. ‘Avin’ blown a dozen opportunities to abandon you to a well-deserved fate before today, I figured I might as well keep me record consistent.”

“You all crazy, you people. Ever’body know otters crazy, but not humans.” Cautious was shaking his head dolefully.

“I’ve been breathing otter fur too long.” Jon-Tom patted Mudge on the shoulder, then nodded at the river. “What now? They’re almost to the boat.”

“Going be plenty mad when they find crocodile dung in the bottom instead of us.”

“We thought that after expendin’ all that effort they deserved to find somethin’,” Mudge explained blithely.

“They’re going to be a lot madder when they get back here and find these four.” Jon-Tom gestured at the bodies of the four guards. “We’d better not hang around to watch.”

“Agreed.” The raccoon pointed into the swamp. “Not enough time to steal big boat. Take too long to get sails up and maybe they got somebody left on board to watch. They think we try and run toward nearest town. That be my village. So we go other way, south, and pretty soon by and by they give up and forget about us.”

“South. What’s south of here?”

“Nearby, nothing. Farther away, who know? Maybe another village. Maybe we find somebody to sell us a boat. Maybe we borrow one. But can’t go back to my home. That be first place they check, you bet. Kamaulk a smart bird. Also I think maybe fox plenty mad at me by now. So if it okay, I tag along.” He jerked a thumb in Mudge’s direction. “Otter here, he say you trying to get to Chejiji. I’ve heard about that place from other travelers, you bet. Always wanted to go there but never had reason. Got one now, by golly. Need to keep head out of stewpot.”

“You really think they’ll give up the chase after a while? I don’t know this Kamaulk, though he seems to be a lot like his unmentionable brother, but this is twice we’ve left Sasheem looking foolish. He won’t like it.”

“Likes got nothing to do with it. He not in charge. Pirates know ocean pretty well. Me,” and he tapped his gray-furred chest with a thumb, “I know swamps pretty well. Ground this way,” and he started toward the trees, “is higher and dryer. We make pretty damn good time, you bet, and soil still damp enough to soak up our footprints. They have to be better trackers than I think they are if they try to follow Cautious in swamp.”

Mudge jogged along behind the raccoon. “Right. Suppose we give ‘em the slip? Then what? We can’t walk all the way to bloomin’ Chejiji.”

“I tell you we find boat. If not, I make one maybe.”

“We could borrow one, like you said.” He was speaking to Cautious but looking at Mudge as he spoke. The otter’s reply astonished him.

“Nope. No more o’ that for me, mate. I’m givin’ up thievin’, I am.”

“What’s that? You sure you didn’t catch the butt end of that lynx’s sword on your skull?”

The otter looked slightly embarrassed. “Tweren’t entirely my doin’, mate.” Jon-Tom looked sharply at Weegee, who continued to stare resolutely and noncommitally straight ahead. “An’ it ain’t final. But I’m givin’ it serious consideration.”

Cautious interrupted to suggest they save their breath for running, as it was important they put as much distance between themselves and their soon to be furious pursuers as possible before daybreak. In the dim moonlight the raccoon quickly and unhesitatingly chose the firmest, most direct path through the dense forest. Nor was Cautious’s wetland expertise the only thing they had going for them. Having slept away the day, Jon-Tom and his companions were fully rested, whereas the pirates had spent the entire day awake and the evening drinking. They would give out a hundred yards into the trees.

Weegee did not enjoy the advantage of a full day’s rest. When even her boundless otterine energy threatened to run dry they paused long enough to rig a stretcher of saplings and reeds. Jon-Tom and Mudge carried her through the dense vegetation as Cautious continued to lead the way.

Kamaulk was sure to cut the chase short, Jon-Tom reflected. The parrot was a practical sort. Corroboc, had he been alive and present, would have driven his men to the point of collapse in pursuit of the escapees.

But they couldn’t take the chance that the pirate captain would act sensibly. They pressed on until a few hours before daylight. By then he and Mudge were too tired from carrying Weegee’s stretcher to run any longer. Cautious agreed to a stop and all were asleep within minutes of each other.

They’d pulled it off, Jon-Tom mused tiredly as he drifted into unconsciousness. As he fell asleep a pair of parrots kept winking in and out of his mind’s eye; one less a leg and eye, the other intact save for a splinted wing.

He rolled over and exhaled, trying to get comfortable on the damp ground. “Good thing Kamaulk’s wing was hurt or he could have flown over the zodiac close enough to see there wasn’t anyone under the camouflage. Lucky break.”

“Lucky my derriere.” Weegee let out a snort. “Right after they tied me to that frigging tree he waddled over to check me out. Sort of inspecting the merchandise, you might say, with an eye toward future sales. He got a little intimate and I bit the shit out of his wing.”

A steady high-pitched whistle emanated from the dark shape lying next to her. Mudge was already sound asleep. “I understand. You bit him because he was fondling you?”

“Hell no. I bit him because he was insulting me. Sonofasnake underestimated my value by at least fifty gold pieces, the green-feathered little turd.”

“Oh.” He closed his eyes again, feeling himself fading rapidly. A leaf or something settled on his chest. Or something.

He sat up fast. Bright yellow eyes with black slitted pupils mooned back at him. He let out a yelp as the fat little lizard-like creature stuck out its tongue at him in a natural expression of curiosity and not derision. It was barely six inches long and Jon-Tom immediately perceived his howl of surprise as a loud overreaction.

The thing rose straight into the air. It was able to do so because in place of arms and legs its body rested on four miniature rotors. Six feet off his chest it stopped, hovering like a cross between a hummingbird and a toy helicopter. A look around revealed dozens of the intensely colored insecti-vores flitting among the trees.

His shout had roused the rest of his exhausted companions. Red-eyed, they studied the flock of helipoppering lizards as they dove and darted through the swamp. Each displayed several tiny patches of luminescence along its flanks. Running lights, Jon-Tom mused.

They were unfamiliar to Mudge and Weegee, but Cautious expressed surprise at the ignorance of his traveling companions.