Braglob’s lower jaw dropped. Colin clobbered him with the bag of bone and stone a second time, and the wolverine keeled over to land chin first in the center of the circle as the sack exploded, sending the contents flying.
Mudge ran forward, bent to examine their opponent’s face. “Out cold. Well struck, mate. That’s what I calls predictin’ the future.”
“Yes, I thought a saw a period of extended rest in store for our combative friend here. It’s not easy to read the runes through the leather.” He eyed the shattered sack dolefully. “This will be hard to replace.”
“I’ll pay for the sewin’,” said Mudge grandly. “Wot say we leave ‘ere and find ourselves the nearest seamstress? Preferably one with talented ‘ands.” He gave the koala a hand in recovering the scattered runes.
“Should we finish him once and for all?” Dormas gave Jon-Tom’s ramwood staff a nudge. He didn’t like the idea of killing an unconscious opponent, but he looked to Clothahump for advice.
To his considerable relief the wizard agreed with his feelings. “My own prediction is that he will sleep for the rest of the day. This I base on my own reading of clever Colin’s runes.” There was a hint of a twinkle in the turtle’s eye. “When he recovers, he will be mad again, only it will be a different and far less threatening kind of mad. If he is guilty of anything, it is of acting like one of his own kind. I know wolverines. Braglob will not come after us. They have short memories as well as short tempers, and this one has a great deal of reality to catch up with. When he comes ‘round, he will have other things on his mind. Besides which, his species has no taste for an extended hunt and we will be well on our way.
“No, I think our misguided friend will be more interested in returning to his home and settling scores with his old tormentors rather than with us. Besides which, I am opposed to any unnecessary killing.”
Mudge had tired of hunting for bits of bone and wood and had been listening silently to the wizard’s declamation. Now he could no longer restrain himself.
“Unnecessary killin’? This oversized cowflop tries to destroy the whole world and then us in particular, an’ you say snuffin’ ‘im would amount to unnecessary killin’? Me, I never saw a killin’ so necessary!”
“You heard Clothahump,” Jon-Tom warned his friend. “There’ll be no bloodshed here.”
“Oh, who am I to argue with ‘Is Sorcerership’s ethics? I ain’t no grand master of magic. I’m just a simple gambler, I am. I just like to cover me bets right is all, especially when it’s me life that’s been pushed into the pot. ‘No unnecessary killing.’ If I’ve ‘card that once, I’ve ‘eard it a thousand times from the both of you twits. I’m sick of it, you lot! Don’t you understand that there ain’t no such thing as an unnecessary killin’? It defines itself, it does. I calls it takin’ out insurance, is wot I calls it.”
“Dormas, are you ready?” The hinny nodded. “Sorbl?” The owl landed atop the pile of supplies and responded with an agreeable hoot. “Let’s go, then.” He and Clothahump led them up the hallway, past the wolverine’s unconscious form.
“Oh, yes, let’s go, by all means,” Mudge grumbled as he shoved both paws into the pockets of his shorts and stomped off in their wake. “Nobody wants me advice, anyway.” His grousing echoed through the corridor as they retraced their steps to the world outside.
Jon-Tom forced himself to sound casual as he spoke to Talea. “You’ll come back to Lynchbany with us, won’t you?” He held his breath while awaiting her reply.
She said nothing for several minutes, staring straight ahead and looking solemn, but finally could contain the smile she’d been holding back no longer. “Of course, I’m coming with you, you silly spellsinger. Where else would I go in this bleak and barren country?”
He swallowed. “Maybe—maybe you’ll stick around a little longer this time? Not,” he added hastily, “that I’m trying to put any kind of restraints on you or anything. I know how much you value your independence.”
Her smile seemed to shove the clouds back to the moun-taintops as they emerged from the hallway onto the trail outside. “You know, Jon-Tom, anything can get old. Anything can become boring. Even independence.”
He had composed a lengthy and carefully considered reply when he caught Clothahump grinning at him. He understood what the wizard was trying to tell him immediately. There were times when be talked too much and ended up talking himself into a predicament from which he couldn’t extricate himself and in which he need not have foundered in the first place. So he just nodded down at Talea while adopting his most mature and farsighted expression.
“I understand.”
She appeared to find this the ideal response because she rose on tiptoes, grabbed him firmly around the neck, and bent him forcefully to her. He held the kiss until his back began to hurt.
Finally he straightened, caught his breath, and turned to regard the poorly constructed fortress in which they’d encountered so much wonder and danger. His ears still rang faintly from the force of the perambulator’s departure. It was a sight and sound he would never forget, a memory he would be able to call upon during times of darkness to rejuvenate and inspire his spirits. It had been his good fortune to look upon the majesty of the universe.
Hell, he’d jammed with it.
They made excellent progress as travelers always do when they are on their way home, and camped that evening on the far side of the mountain pass.
“Poor Braglob,” Jon-Tom murmured. “May he finally find contentment and happiness within himself.”
“ ‘Appiness ‘e may find.” Mudge scratched at one ear.
“But contentment? Not bloody likely. I never saw a contented wolverine. Those folks are always upset about somethin’. Even when they’re makin’ love, they’re yellin’ and screamin’ at one another. Fortunately there ain’t many of ‘em around. Probably because they don’t get along any better in bed than they do in society.”
Jon-Tom turned to face Clothahump. The wizard was leaning against a log on the opposite side of the campfire. His eyes were half shut, and he appeared to be contemplating the night sky, a broad sweep of stars and constellations very different from those Jon-Tom had grown up with.
“What do you think happened to the perambulator, sir?”
“What?” The turtle glanced over at his young charge. “Went on its way, of course. Across the cosmos. Out of this universe and into another. I was just thinking: What if one could be controlled across such distances and brought back? What might we learn of reality? What images might we gaze upon, what mysteries might we solve?” He sighed deeply.
“That is a burden you will suffer under yourself one of these days, my boy. The pain of not knowing, the ache of ignorance, the compulsion to know what lies on the far side of the hill, while realizing that no matter how much you learn, there will always be another hill to surmount. That is the curse on a seeker of knowledge, the curse of never being satisfied.
“When I was very young and apprenticed to the famous sorcerer Jogachord, I would ask him new questions constantly until finally, tired of being pestered, he would say to me, ‘Does there have to be an answer for everything?’ And I would reply in utmost earnest, ‘Yes!’ Then he would smile at me and say, ‘Apprentice, with that attitude you will go far—provided no one kills you first.’ “
“The curse o’ never bein’ satisfied? I suffer from that meself,” Mudge declared. “Only, it don’t involve idiocies like ‘too much knowledge’.”
“We all know what it involves, Mudge,” said Talea dryly. “You don’t have to burden us with the details.”
The otter looked hurt. “Now, ‘ow do you know wot I was goin’ to say, luv?”
“Because given the slightest opportunity, you always talk about the same thing, water rat. You have a one-track mind.”
“Aye, but wot a pleasant track it is, especially when it leads to—”
“Mudge,” Jon-Tom said exasperatedly.
The otter put up both paws
defensively. “All right, mate. I can see that you lot don’t share me favorite topic o’ conversation. You’ll just ‘ave to suffer along for the rest o’ the evenin’ without ‘earin’ about me glorious exploits concernin’—oop, forgot. I ain’t supposed to talk about that.”
A sudden thought made Jon-Tom sit up straight. “Hey, if Colin can see into tomorrow, I wonder if he can predict if I’ll ever get home or not?”
Clothahump shrugged as best he could without shoulders. “Anything is possible, my boy. It might be worthwhile to find out.”
“It’d be a damned sight more than worthwhile.” He let his gaze wander around the campsite. Dormas was sleeping soundly off to one side. Talea lay curled up next to him, her face a portrait of false innocence, the outline of her body a delicious sine curve against the ground. Mudge sat nearby, his paws behind his head and his cap pulled down over his eyes.
But where was their rune-reader? Come to think of it, where was Sorbl? He rose, nervously surveyed the encroaching night, and murmured to Clothahump. “Braglob? You think he’s been tracking us after all?”
“No, no, my boy. It is most unlikely. In any case, he would have been detected by now. The wolverine scent is a strong one, and there are sensitive noses among us.” He climbed to his feet and joined Jon-Tom hi scanning the forest. “But your concern is not misplaced. I, too, wonder where our friend and my apprentice have taken themselves. Sorbl! You good-for-nothing famulus, where are you?”
Jon-Tom cupped his hands to his mouth. “Colin! Colin, answer us!”
“Now wot? I can’t talk about love an’ now I can’t sleep.” The otter jumped up. “The people I get mixed up with!”
They spread out but didn’t have to search far. The two missing members of their party lay beneath the great spreading branches of a cocklegreen tree. They were singing softly to each other of their contentment and of life’s disappointments. The almost-empty bottle that Sorbl was clutching in one flexible wingtip provided an explanation both for their disappearance as well as the impromptu concert.
Clothahump wrenched it from his apprentice’s grasp and held it upside down. A few golden drops tumbled from the mouth. He shook it at the thoroughly inebriated owl.
“You useless bag of feathers, we accomplished what we set out to do! You were supposed to stop drinking. That was our agreement. Whatever was left was to be conserved for medicinal purposes only!”
“Thash whet”—the owl swallowed and appeared to having some difficulty speaking—”thash whet it was ushed for, Mashter.” He promptly fell over backward. “You don’t have to hit me, Mashter.”
“Disgusting.” Clothahump threw the empty bottle into the bushes. “And that wants to become a wizard.” He turned and marched angrily back toward the camp.
“I’ll say ‘tis disgustin’. It bloody well stinks.” Mudge leaned close to me owl’s face. “Why didn’t you come and get me if you were goin’ to ‘ave yourselves a bleedin’ party?”
“Didn’t—didn’t want to dishturb you.”
“And, besides,” Colin said, his words grave and slow, “there really wasn’t enough for three.”
Mudge glared over at the koala. “An’ you call yourself a friend?” He rose and stalked off in the wizard’s wake, leaving Jon-Tom alone with the two revelers. He rose and walked over to kneel next to the koala.
“Colin?”
“Who?”
“Hey, that’s my line,” chortled Sorbl. He and Colin started cackling hysterically.
Jon-Tom waited a minute or two before putting a hand on the koala’s shoulder and shaking him. “Colin, listen to me. This is serious. I need to know if you can read my future. I need to find out if I’ll ever be able to go home again, back to my own world.”
“Well, I might be able to,” the koala replied with enforced solemnity. “I just might. Except for one thing.”
“What one thing?” A hand came down on his shoulder, and he looked up into Talea’s moonlit face. She was smiling down hopefully at him.
Colin raised himself up until his lips were close to Jon-Tom’s ear. “I can’t read runes tonight.”
“You can’t? But you’ve read them at night before.”
“I know. But I can’t read them tonight.”
“Why not?”
The koala put a thick finger to his lips, leaned close again. “Because Mudge and I threw them in that river we passed this afternoon.” His face contorted, and he and Sorbl fell to laughing uncontrollably again.
Jon-Tom gaped at him. “You did what!”
“Threw ‘em in the river. Never did much care for rune-reading, anyways. Folks always bothering you, asking you the damnedest things, never leaving you alone. The hell with it. I’m going home and into my brother-in-law’s eucalyptus-leaf pressing business, like my sister always wanted me to. That’s a nice, sensible, respectable occupation.”
“You couldn’t have waited one more day, could you?” He sat heavily back on his heels. “I don’t suppose you can read the future without runes?”
“What d’you think I am, some kind of magician?” The koala was rapidly falling asleep.
Talea reached over to run a hand through Jon-Tom’s hair. Her presence made him feel very much better. “Hush and don’t take it to heart, Jonny-Tom. For some of us the future is not to know.” She put her lips to his ear. “But I can predict some very good things coming to you in the near future.” Her voice dropped even lower, and Jon-Tom couldn’t help but grin as she continued whispering to him.
He was still upset, though, and told Colin so. The koala frowned, struggling to retain consciousness.
“As a matter of fact, I did read the runes one last time before we cast ‘em into the current of fate, so to speak. Sort of a farewell prediction.”
Jon-Tom bent forward. “Whose future did you read? Not mine, or you would’ve said so already. Mudge’s? Talea’s?”
“Nope.”
“Clothahump’s?” The koala shook his head. “Sorbl’s, then?”
“Nope. None of those. I was interested in where the perambulator was off to, after listening to you and the old one going on and on about how it can go anywhere and everywhere. I got curious, wondered if maybe it was going to come back to our world and start up the troubles all over again.”
Jon-Tom shook his head. “That’s nothing to worry about, unless by some unbelievable coincidence it lands in Braglob’s vicinity again. Though since he isn’t crazy anymore, even that isn’t very threatening. We don’t have anything to worry about anymore on that score.”
“Maybe most of us don?t, but you might.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because it’s on its way to your world. It’s going to stick around there for a while and do its dance. Things there are going to go a little crazy, maybe for a few years instead of a few months. I couldn’t see a time line clearly. Why, it’s probably there already, right now, even as we’re sitting here talking about it. And I’m afraid it’s gone and gotten itself stuck. That’s what the runes said, anyway.” He let his head back down on his hands, rolled over. “Now go away and let me sleep. All of a sudden I’m kind of tired.”
“No, wait!” Jon-Tom shook him again. “I’ve got to know in case I do get back. Maybe it’s stuck someplace where it can’t do any real harm. You’ve got to tell me where it’s going to go!”
Colin murmured something under his breath, blinked sleepily up at the insistent Jon-Tom. “Where? Oh, some little town called Columbia, in a district or state called Washington.”
Jon-Tom let out a relieved sigh. “That sounds pretty harmless. Way up in the north woods somewhere.”
“Or,” Colin mumbled uncertainly as he drifted back to sleep, “was it someplace called Washington, in the district of Columbia?”
“Colin? Colin?” Jon-Tom finally stopped shaking the erstwhile rune-reader. He was sound asleep and snoring loudly. “I wish I knew which was right. It may be there already, undetected and unseen, twisting and turning, working its mischief.�
��
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do about it.” Talea was easing him backward, planting small but intense kisses on his neck and chest as she did so.
Soon he was gazing thoughtfully up at the stars. “What the hell,” he finally muttered, “they’d never notice the difference there, anyways.”
Then he was staring up at Talea instead of the stars, and not an iota of beauty had been lost in the transition . . . .
The Paths Of The Perambulator Page 27