Still sampling the air, the elephant took another step toward them. Like Naike, Jon-Tom sought a way past. The mongooses and otter might be quick enough to dodge the probing trunk, but dashing between those massive legs was another proposition entirely. Anyone attempting it would get no second chance to correct a mistake in judgment. It was something to be tried only as a last resort.
Which, he mused as the prodigious guard backed them inexorably toward the unyielding barrier which had slammed down behind them, was a possibility they might have to consider all too soon.
“We’re done!” moaned Pauko despondently.
Mudge had his bow out and took a careful shot, but the arrow failed to penetrate the leather armor.
“Don’t make him mad,” Heke urged the otter. Mudge turned a disbelieving eye on the mongoose nearest him.
“Don’t make ’im mad? Why? So ’e won’t kill us as much?” He looked fretfully at his old friend. “Much as it pains me to admit it, we’ve got only one ’ope.” As he confessed this, he found himself wishing that he’d hung on to some of the sound-dampening moss he’d utilized back in the swamp.
Having decided that it was useless to try to parry trunk or tusk with a mere sword, Jon-Tom was already strumming vigorously on the duar. Built of laminated wood for added strength and inscribed with haughty admonitions, the unyielding gate loomed large behind them. He had no time to spend on becoming cleverness.
Mudge reminded him of this fact in his usual inimitable fashion. “Sing something, stupid!” the otter screamed even as he notched another futile arrow against his bowstring.
This time his feathered shaft pierced a delicate ear. Their tormentor responded with a startled wail of pain. “That hurt! Just for that I’m going to stomp your legs first and leave your heads for last!”
“We mean no one in this household any harm!” Naike explained desperately. “We wish only to recover our Princess.”
The elephant trumpeted derisively. “Another party of princess rescuers! They come periodically. All end up as fodder for the swamp scavengers. As will you. Your puny weapons do not frighten me, nor do you look rich enough to buy me off. Not that you could anyway. Master Manzai takes care of his own, and I enjoy being part of his retinue.” Lips flexed in a pachydermal grimace. “And every once in a while, I get to stomp bothersome intruders.”
The trunk swiped suddenly, forcing Naike to jump backward. Anything slower than a mongoose would have been snatched up.
“Quick,” complimented the elephant. “All of you look quick, except the human. It won’t matter. You can’t run around me, and if you try to run under me, I’ll sit on you. They don’t have time to scream when I sit on them.”
Lyrics. He needed appropriate lyrics! Aware that he was fast running out of time, Jon-Tom strove furiously to think of something apropos.
Pertinent or not, he began to sing.
Mudge goggled at him. “Wot’s that, mate? Wot nonsense are you blatherin’?” When the spellsinger ignored him, Mudge turned to the others. “Does any o’ this make any sense to any o’ you lot?”
A slack-jawed Pauko stared back at him. The mongoose’s eyes were dimming.
The warm refulgence that issued from the duar’s nexus expanded rapidly to fill the space between the rescuers and the guard. It impacted on the huge, flapping ears like blue fog, causing them to flick forward. An expression which could only be described as elemental goofiness took possession of the elephant’s features.
Slumping, it tottered against the right-hand wall, which groaned but did not collapse beneath the weight. The flexible trunk bobbed loosely, like a fishing line cast in a millrace.
For good measure Jon-Tom invented two additional stanzas. Only when he’d concluded the last of them did he turn to congratulate his companion.
“Mudge, you’re brilliant! It worked!”
“Duh, wot?” Whiskers drooping, upper body swaying, the otter gaped in dull-eyed bemusement up at his friend.
“I said that you’re brilliant.” His enthusiasm tempered by his friend’s peculiar response, Jon-Tom leaned down and forward” to study the otter’s face. “Mudge, what’s wrong with you?”
“Duh-eee? Nuttin’s wrong wid me, mate.” His bow dangled limply from one hand.
“Come on, all of you!” Jon-Tom indicated the dumb-dazzled guard. “Can’t you see the spellsong worked? He’s incapacitated, though I don’t know for how long. Let’s go.” He stared at them. “What’s wrong with you all?”
The mongooses were wandering about in a collective daze. Heke and Pauko were locked in an addlepated minuet, each attempting unsuccessfully to step past the other, only for the two of them to run repeatedly into each other every time they tried to pass. A befuddled Karaukul was engaged in an absorbed inspection of his own fingers, as if questioning not only their presence but their origin. Even Naike was bumping his head gently but repeatedly against the gate behind them, trying to batter his way through while doing little more than putting an unbecoming dent in the fur of his forehead.
It was left to an anxious Jon-Tom to cajole and shepherd them one at a time past the guard, who was now mumbling to himself as gelatinous drool dripped from his mouth.
Emerging into a spacious rotunda furnished for casual entertaining, the spellsinger searched until he found the hoped-for wall switch. Thrown, it dropped a duplicate of the first gate down between themselves and the befuddled elephant. Jon-Tom hoped the barriers were strong enough to keep their would-be executioner trapped in the now isolated corridor.
He didn’t know how long the spell would last. When it wore off, the infuriated elephant was sure to rouse the entire household. Before that happened they had to find and free the Princess and return to the safety of the trackless swamp.
But first he had to round up the wandering mongooses and Mudge and devise an antidote to the previous spellsong. This wasted a fair amount of precious time, but he had no choice. Eventually, otter and soldiers found themselves restored.
“What sort of sly sorcery was that?” Naike felt of his forehead where he’d been bashing it against the first barrier. “What did you do to us?”
“I intended it only for the guard’s benefit. It wasn’t meant to affect you.” He glanced guiltily in Mudge’s direction. “Sometimes my spellsinging tends to be more omnidirectional than I’d like.”
“Sometimes, ’ell.” Alone among all of them, only the otter realized what had happened.
“It was a good idea.”
“Your ideas are often good, mate. ’Tis your execution that’s frequently found wantin’.”
“I just did what you suggested.”
The otter frowned uncertainly. “Wot I suggested?”
“You told me to sing something stupid.”
Mudge pawed at his face with both hands even as he turned pleading eyes on the four soldiers. “See? See wot I’ve ’ad to cope with goin’ on past these twenty years? Be grateful ’e didn’t turn the lot o’ us into newts. Or even oldts.”
“It surely differs from any sorcery I have ever heard tell of,” the Lieutenant admitted.
“But it is effective,” added the dour Karaukul.
Jon-Tom was a bit miffed. “The important thing is that we’re all all right and past the guard.”
Heke glanced uneasily at the wooden gate. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. Let’s find your Princess and get out of here.”
Naike had his nose high in the air, sniffing. “I believe I detect her scent in this very room, though it is heavily masked by that of many other individuals.”
“Just as long as none o’ it reeks o’ elephant.” Mudge was working the atmosphere with his own nostrils. Given such scent-sensitive companions Jon-Tom knew it would be futile to attempt any sniffing of his own.
They spread out to sample the air in the rotunda, gradually achieving a convergence of opinion which led them down another, narrower corridor. This time nothing materialized to challenge their presence. The passageway ope
ned into a second rotunda that was a smaller but higher-ceilinged duplicate of the first.
As they neared the dimly lit chamber Naike bid them slow. A series of barred rooms radiated westward from the center of the domed room. Faint music could be heard emanating from several. Here even Jon-Tom could smell the perfume. On the far side of the rotunda still another corridor led off into darkness.
Seated at a table in the center of the room a pair of female raccoons jousted at what initially appeared to be a variant of chess but which, on closer inspection, revealed game pieces of quite different and obscene design. The intention of the game escaped him, nor did he choose to expend much curiosity on trying to puzzle it out.
The furnishings which surrounded them verged on the opulent. Fine silk cushions and overstuffed pillows lay scattered everywhere. Conspicuous luxury notwithstanding, the locks on the radiating doors were solid and heavy, as were the gilded bars on the small windows set into each door.
“Aleaukauna must be in one of those cells,” Naike whispered.
“First on the left.” Karaukul’s nose was the most sensitive of the group. “There are many interesting smells. Some strange, yet—”
“Never mind them,” snapped the Lieutenant laconically. “Aleaukauna is the only one who concerns us.”
“What about the attendants?” Heke indicated the preoccupied raccoons.
“I could dazzle ’em with me charm,” Mudge suggested blithely.
Jon-Tom was quick to respond. “Better we try something with a chance of working.”
“Like another o’ your site-specific spellsongs?” the otter shot back.
“It would seem the obvious choice.” Naike missed the sarcasm completely. Or perhaps he was merely avoiding it. “Why not put them to sleep, as you did with the gardener?”
“I didn’t have to worry about messing that spellsong up,” Jon-Tom replied. “He was our captive. If I failed he wasn’t going anywhere.” He studied the two naturally masked females. “If I try it on this pair and it doesn’t work but only alerts them to our presence, they could take off and wake the whole household.”
“Then it would seem that more direct measures are called for.” The Lieutenant removed a silken scarf from the pouch slung at his side. Holding an end in each hand, he twirled it twice. “Heke, you and Pauko take the one on the left. Karaukul, you come with me.”
“’Ere now, guv, wot about us?” Mudge wondered.
“Do as you see fit, but keep clear. This sort of activity falls comfortably within our province.”
Before man or otter could say anything else, the four soldiers burst into the rotunda. Though not quite as agile as Mudge, they were even faster on their feet. By the time either of the two attendants had a chance to react to their presence, they found themselves stretched out on the floor, bound and gagged. Though they struggled furiously, they were no match for the four travel-toughened soldiers. Furious eyes gazed out at Naike from above silken gags.
Feeling clumsier than ever in the presence of so much speed and quickness, Jon-Tom kept well out of the way until the mongooses had concluded their business and plugged their ears. Only then did he croon the lullaby he’d used on the gardener. It worked equally well on the two attendants. Deep in sleep, they were propped up in their respective chairs by the soldiers. Anyone passing by who happened to look in on them would assume they had fallen asleep at their game.
Wasting no time in admiring their handiwork, Naike removed the ornamental key ring from the waistband of the eldest attendant and hurried to the first cell. The third key fit the lock precisely. There was no response from within as he pushed it aside. They crowded forward, Jon-Tom pulling the door shut soundlessly behind them.
Without question it was the most sumptuous prison he had ever seen. Thick draperies two stories high covered the vaulted windows at the far end of the chamber. A stained-glass skylight depicting streams and woodlands dominated the painted ceiling, allowing admittance to the light of the rising moon.
On their right squatted a massive yet elegant bathtub built up out of blocks of solid travertine and malachite. Gold fixtures in the shape of dolphins and seals gleamed from the far side. Where the material had been brought from and at what expense Jon-Tom could not imagine.
Thick cushions covered much of the floor, cresting like waves against a rocky shore wherever furniture rested. As they crept farther into the room, it grew progressively wider, as if they were advancing outward from the center of a pie.
Mudge was first to catch sight of the enormous bed, carved from wood as red as blood. It seemed to float gracefully above the richly carpeted floor, overtopped by a canopy of pink and green silk shot through with gold thread. Sitting up in it now and blinking sleepily at them was a lithe, supple gray-brown form. There was more concern than panic in her query.
“Who is it, who’s there?”
At the sound of her voice the four soldiers rushed forward to prostrate themselves at the side and foot of the bed.
“Your most exalted and supreme Highness!” Naike’s voice was constricted with emotion. “I am Lieutenant Naike of the Clan C’Huritoupa. These are my troops.” He proceeded to name each of them before turning back to her. “All good and true soldiers of Harakun. We have dreamed of this moment for many months. Now we are here, and at your disposal. As are our allies and friends, the adventurer Mudge and the great spellsinger Jon-Tom.” He was sufficiently emboldened by their accomplishment to meet her gaze directly.
“Your mother, the Queen, has all but despaired of your safe return. She misses you desperately, as do your sisters and brother.”
The Princess nodded. She was wide awake now, and thinking hard. “That I regret, though not the confrontation which led to my present irksome situation. I take it you are here to effect my rescue?”
“No.” Having had his long look at the royal self, Mudge was now anxiously watching the door. “We thought we might ’ave your company at a nice tea party, we did, and then be on our ’appy-go-lucky way.”
“Be nice, Mudge.” Jon-Tom chided his companion. “She’s been under a lot of stress.”
“Oi, I can see that from the ’orrific conditions to which she’s been subjected.” The otter kicked at a satin pillow stuffed with the finest down, his boot sinking into it up to the ankle.
Meanwhile she had slipped out of the bed and into a wrap that was like a snowstorm of pale blue chiffon. Jon-Tom observed that her shape was slightly slimmer, her coloring a shade lighter than that of the soldiers, though the dark bands on her lower body and tail were equally distinctive. Mudge was eyeing her afresh with something other than indifferent respect.
Same old Mudge. Jon-Tom smiled to himself. Otters never changed.
Aleaukauna rested a paw on Naike’s shoulder. “You have come a long way to rescue me. I did not think I would need rescuing, but then I did not expect to have to deal with one as deceitful as my captor. Your reward shall be commensurate with your deeds.” She bestowed an affectionate gaze upon the quartet of bright-eyed, eager soldiers. “But first there is much that needs be done.”
“Truly yes.” The Lieutenant nodded toward the door. “This place is defended from the inside out, making escape difficult.”
“I have seen much of it,” she told him. “Though my movements were controlled, my eyes were not. I think I can find us a safe way out.”
Heke started for the portal. “Then let’s be on our way, Your Highness, before the sleeping spell Jon-Tom laid on your guards wears off or another comes to check on you.” Pausing at the doorway, he peered cautiously through the small barred window. “Still asleep,” he informed his companions.
Eyes like polished onyx lit from within met Jon-Tom’s own. It was a look of complete confidence and utter lack of inhibition. The combination rocked him.
“A real spellsinger,” she murmured admiringly.
“Aye,” declared Naike proudly. “And his brave companion.”
Stepping forward, Mudge took the Princess’s
delicate hand and bestowed upon its back a whiskery kiss that Jon-Tom thought lingered long enough to exceed the bounds of propriety.
“Mudge …” he began warningly.
The otter glanced back reassuringly. “I know, mate, I know. We’re only ’ere to ’elp with the rescue.” Grinning ingratiatingly, he turned back to the Princess. “That don’t mean we should overlook our bloomin’ manners, it don’t. I ain’t never met a real princess before.”
More amused than anything else, she regally withdrew her hand. “Evidently.”
“You have to excuse my friend.” Jon-Tom stepped up. “He’s … not shy.”
“Fortune favors the bold,” she commented with a smile.
A frowning Naike interposed himself between Mudge and Aleaukauna. “The night wanes, and with it our margin of safety. If you truly know a circumspect path out of this place, Your Highness, we should pursue it as quickly as possible.”
She nodded. Gathering her chiffon about her she started for the door, the Lieutenant hovering at her side.
“We’ll have you back at the palace in a month’s time.”
“I know that you will, Lieutenant, bold and competent as you and your troops are. However, I cannot leave until certain obligations I have set upon myself are fulfilled.”
Heke and Pauko exchanged a baffled look. Naike spoke uncertainly. “Your Highness, I’m afraid I don’t understand. What obligations?”
“I am of royal blood. As such I have a duty not only to Harakun and to my family, but to others who share that status.”
“Others?” Naike was trying to fight off the notion that was swelling in his mind.
They all fell within range of her sweetly imperious gaze, Mudge and Jon-Tom included. She had very long eyelashes, Jon-Tom noted.
“What I mean is that I could not in good conscience seek safety for myself if it meant abandoning my sisters to continued imprisonment.”
“Why the ’ell not?” Mudge muttered under his breath. “Sounds like a reasonable course o’ action to me.”
From his position near the door Heke pleaded deferentially. “Your Highness, I am only a poor soldier, but it seems to me that we have no time here to spare on diversions, however noble the cause. Jon-Tom’s spell could fail at any moment, or other guards could come and discover us. We need to be away from here, and quickly!”
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