“That too,” Jon-Tom told her.
Mudge leaned close and whispered. “‘E’s a bit confused about everything, see?” The otter tapped the side of his head.
“Oh.”-Quorly looked properly sympathetic.
Jon-Tom endured everything in silence, partly because he was used to Mudge and his brand of humor and partly because he was too happy to be alive and safe to quibble about being subjected to a little casual abuse.
“How did you finally get me out of there?” He rubbed at his forehead. “All I remember is something dark and wide blotting out the light and then the dome breaking.”
Mudge managed the difficult task of strutting while standing still. “Me sainted mother always told me that if I ever found meself in a fight with somebody bigger than me, to find meself a rock big enough to make things equal. So the lot o’ us did some ‘untin’ until we found a really nice ‘unk o’ stone lyiri loose on one o’ the larger islands ‘ereabouts. No easy job in this muddy slop, it were.
“We wrestled it into the toughest fishin’ net they’d brung with “em, and then the bunch o’ us swam over with it this mornin’ and dropped it square on top o’ their precious dome.” He grinned at the memory. “Busted it all to rell.”
“It could have crushed me, too,” Jon-Tom murmured thoughtfully.
Mudge shrugged. “ ‘Ad to take a couple o’ chances, mate. As soon as they saw us comin’, which was mighty late,,for which I’m grateful, the Plated Pricks started organizin’ a defense. But the last thing they expected were an attack, and they didn’t make a very good job o’ ‘andlin’ it. For one thing there ain’t the bug alive that can outswim one o’ us otters. Ain’t much o’ anythin’ that can, especially when we put our minds to a specific job.
“And if we’d caught you accidentally under our little gift, well, you wouldn’t ‘ave been any worse off than if we ‘adn’t dropped the rock at all.”
“True enough,” Jon-Tom had to admit.
“We were a little worried,” Quorly told him, “that it might not be big enough to break your prison.”
“Sure made a mess o’ it,” said Norgil with satisfaction. “It was fun! We swam circles around ‘em, though we did ‘ave that bad time when we couldn’t find you inside.”
“The surge of water when the dome collapsed pushed me over the side,” Jon-Tom explained.
“Right, mate,” said Mudge. “Memaw spotted you and then we lowtailed it out o’ there before those bugs we didn’t crack on the ‘eads could get their wits together. Oh, and you remember our charmin’ ‘ost, the speaker? I ‘ad the distinct pleasure o’ seein’ ‘is ‘ead caught under our rock. As ‘e were the only one o’ that lot who seemed to ‘ave any brains much, I don’t think they’ll be comin’ after us anytime soon.”
Jon-Tom digested this, nodded. When he finally stood, the movement prompted waves and shouts of greeting from the rest of the band. “You really think we’re safe here?”
“Ought to be,” Quorly told him. “Besides them losin’ their leader, as Mudge just said, we took a roundabout ways back to our camp and ‘id our scents well. And we’re a long ways from their town.” She shook her head, her words full of disbelief. “Plated Folk, right ‘ere in the Lakes District. Who would ‘ave thought it possible?”
“Lakes District? Then we’re not in the Wrounipai anymore?”
She gestured northward. “Boundary kind o’ wanders about, but we’re right on the edge.”
“How do you tell where one stops and the other starts?”
“Use our noses,” she informed him. “When it smells clean we know we’re in the Lakes, When it starts stinkin’ we know we’re in the Wrounipai.”
Jon-Tom considered this, said almost inaudibly, “I don’t know how we can thank you for what you’ve done.”
She shrugged. “No big deal. Like Norgil says, it were kind o’ fun. Got to do somethin’ once in a while for excitement or life gets downright borin’.”
Jon-Tom shook Norgil’s hand, then Mudge’s, and moved to do the same with Quorly. She ignored his outstretched palm, threw both paws around his neck, and yanked him down with surprising strength to plaster a couple of dozen short, sharp kisses on his face. He fought to pull clear. It was like being attacked by a wet machine gun.
Mudge thoroughly enjoyed his friend’s discomfiture. “Now, don’t go gettin’ all flustered, mate. That’s just the way we otters is. Real friendly- and affectionate-like.” He hugged Quorly to him. “Ain’t that right, luv?” She generated that exceptional giggle again and Jon-Tom eyed her warily lest she ambush him a second time. He tried to visualize her giggling as she rammed one of the Plated Folk through the thorax with her fishing spear.
“Come on then, mate, and meet the rest o’ the gang.” Mudge put one arm around Jon-Tom’s waist and guided him toward the camp, kept the other locked securely around Quorly.
It was more like dumping him into a blender full of nuts, Jon-Tom mused as he tried to sort out his mob of new friends. The hyperkinetic fishing party swarmed over him, prodding, poking, hand-shaking, kissing, and asking questions at a rate only slightly this side of supersonic. Over the past months he’d finally managed to learn how to cope with one otter. Trying to deal simultaneously on a coherent basis with eleven of them was beyond the capability of any sane being. So he finally gave up trying and let their inexhaustible energy and excitement wash over him in a flood of fur, faces, and emotion.
Some were taller and thinner than Quorly; none were as heavyset as Norgil. They were divided evenly between male and female. Everyone mixed freely, and while several shared obvious bonds, none were joined in a formal relationship akin to marriage.
Leader of this anarchistic amalgam was an elderly silver-tinged female named Memaw. She examined the resurrected human with a sharp eye.
“Well,” she finally declaimed in an elegant tone, “you are a bit short of fur and long in the leg, but then, I’m long in years and short of tooth and I get by.” She grinned up at him, her mouth displaying an alarming absence of the full complement of otterish orthodontics. Jon-Tom doubted if it slowed her down. Watching Memaw, he doubted much of anything would slow her down.
“You’re welcome to join us.”
“I appreciate your offer, ma’am. Mudge and I, we. . .” He broke off, staring past her. Stacked neatly against the inner wall of one of the lean-tos, dry and apparently unharmed, were his ramwood staff; his backpack; and most important of all, his irreplaceable duar. “You saved our stuff!”
“Naturally, mate,” said Mudge. “Or did you think I went lookin’ for you first?” Appreciative laughter rose from the assembled otters.
“No wonder you get along so well with this bunch,” Jon-Tom shot back, “they even laugh at your execrable jokes.”
“Wot’d ‘e say?” Knorckle asked Splitch. He was the biggest and strongest of the band, barely half a foot shorter than Jon-Tom. Splitch, on the other hand, was the picture of petite furred femininity.
“I don’t know. Mudge says he was studying to be a solicitor.”
“Oh,” Knorckle grunted, as though that explained everything.
Mudge stepped in Jon-Tom’s path. ‘“Old on a minim, guv, let’s not practice any singin’ now, wot? We just made friends ‘ere. Don’t want to go drivin” ‘em off already, do we?”
Memaw wagged a warning finger under Mudge’s nose. “Now, you be nice to your human friend, even if he is a bit slow at times! He’s had a more difficult time of it than you have, he has, having nearly been killed by those dreadful Plated Folk.” She turned and smiled maternally up at Jon-Tom. “Don’t you worry none, young one. I’ll see that this other youngster minds his tongue while he is around me.”
“It’s all right, Memaw. I’m used to it. It’s just Mudge’s manner. Sarcasm’s as natural to him as breathing.”
“Humph. Sharp teeth I don’t mind, but I can’t stand a sharp tongue. Nevertheless, if you don’t mind, then I will stay out of it.”
“Look, about what
you said about us joining your hunting party, that’s real nice of you, and I like fishing as much as the next guy, but I’m afraid we can’t accept.” There were a few moans of disappointment, none of which came near to matching the anguished expression that came over Mudge’s face.
“Aw, mate, can’t we at least stay with ‘em for a little while? It’s a pleasant change to be among friends and safe for a change.” He stepped forward, took Jon-Tom by the arm, and led him away from the cluster, making him bend over so he could whisper in his friend’s ear.
“There’s food ‘ere for the askin’, guv. We’re safe from the Plated Folk, and there’s plenty o’ good companionship, laughter, and song; and besides”— he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur— “the three youngest ones-—Quorly, Splitch, and Sasswise—they’re as hot as that pool you busted the Mulmun in. I’m tellin’ you, mate, all we ‘ave to do is—”
Jon-Tom rose, stared coldly down at the otter. “I might have known that your reasons would all derive from your baser instincts, Mudge. You’re acting on the advice of your glands instead of your brain.”
“You bet your arse I am, mate, and if you think you’re gonna drag me away from this crowd o’ willin’ lovelies so we can go parley with some ill-dispositioned magician in a strange city, you’re sadly off.”
“Maybe they’ll come with us, show us the way.”
Mudge shook his head violently. “Not a chance. This is a ‘untin’ party, remember? They move all over the country, only go into the smaller towns to trade. Never make it into the big cities like Quasequa.”
“Never?” Jon-Tom turned and strolled back to his milling, chattering saviors. Mudge trailed along behind him, hurrying to catch up and tugging anxiously at his friend’s sleeve.
“Now, wait a minute, lad, wot be you goin’ to say now? Just that they’re friendly-seemin’ now don’t mean you can’t make enemies o’ the lot o’ them with a misplaced word ‘ere and there. Listen to me, mate!”
Jon-Tom ignored him, halted in front of Memaw. “Your offer is beguiling, but we really can’t go with you. You see, we are on the final leg of a vitally important mission.”
Mudge put both hands over his face and fell backward with a groan. “Oh, blimey. ‘E’s goin’ to tell ‘em everythin’, ‘e is. . . the bleedin’ idiot!”
The spellsinger proceeded to do precisely that.
His audience listened raptly until he finished.
“. . . And so,” he concluded, “that’s why I’m afraid we can’t take you up on your offer. We have a job to do, much as I’d love to exchange it for a few months of hunting and fishing.”
The otters immediately fell to arguing and discussing among themselves. The vehemence of their debate took Jon-Tom a bit aback, but all the ear-pulling and nose-biting and cursing seemed, remarkably enough, to eventually produce a consensus free of dissension.
Drortch spoke first, fiddling with her necklace as she did so. It was fashioned of some heavy, silvery braid which shone in the sun. “Wot can the two of you do against the rulers o’ Quasequa?”
“Whatever we can. Whatever we must. There may be no danger at all, no problem to deal with if this Markus the Ineluctable and I turn out to be on the same wavelength. If we can communicate with each other and reach an understanding, then we can do all the fishing we want.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Frangel slowly. “Not from wot I’ve ‘card o’ this bloke. Word is this Markus ‘as been ‘avin’ taxes raised not only in the city but in all the outlyin” districts as well.”
“That would mean the tax on our catch would be raised,” muttered Wupp angrily.
“Well, we ain’t never paid no taxes to Quasequa and we ain’t never goin’ to!” declaimed Flutzasar-angelik.
“Right.;. yea!. . . never. . .!” The rest of the band took up the first cry of defiance.
Memaw raised a paw for silence. “Where’d you hear of all this, Frangel?”
“When we were leavin’ Quasequa the last time we were in for supplies. Couple o’ blokes on a street corner were reading the paper aloud.”
Jon-Tom pursed his lips as he stared down over his nose at Mudge. “So they never go into the city, eh?”
The otter offered up a wan smile by way of reply, hunted for a hole big enough to crawl into.
“What else did you hear?” Memaw prompted the younger otter.
Frangel licked his lips. “I ‘card that this Markus is goin’ to demand assurances o’ allegiance. Not to Quasequa, mind you, but to him direct.”
“Wot an outrage!. . . Never ‘appen. . . got a snowball’s chance in the Greendowns if ‘e thinks ‘e can force that on everybody. . . 1”
Memaw turned to Jon-Tom and the cries died down. “You have still failed to properly answer Drortch’s question, young human. If you are not on the same ‘wavelength’—whatever that may be—as this Markus the Ineluctable, how do you propose to convince him to stop his activites should he prove unresponsive to your initial entreaties?”
“Naturally, our response will depend on his. If he proves stubborn and uncooperative, well, I have a mandate from the great wizard Clothahump, my instructor, to do whatever I think is in the best interests of the people of Quasequa. As Mudge has told you, I am something of a spellsinger. The Plated Folk knew that, which is why they wanted me so badly.”
“Bugs ain’t got no taste,” Mudge grumbled. He stood off to one side, looking surly and refusing to participate in the discussion.
“Assuming your powers are functioning, you truly believe you can overcome this magician? It is rumored he is extraordinarily powerful. He defeated the famous Oplode the Sly.”
“Like I said,” Jon-Tom told her, with a quiet confidence he didn’t feel, “we’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
He moved through them to pick up his backpack, slung it over his shoulders, did the same with the duar, and gripped the ramwood staff. Then he looked significantly toward a solitary figure standing away from the others.
“Mudge?”
“Wot!” the otter growled, not looking back at him.
“It’s time we were on our way.”
The otter shook his head sadly. “Ain’t it always?” He let out a sigh, moved to follow as Jon-Tom started toward the beach.
Behind them the hunting party congressed intently, heads sticking together in a circle, looking for all the world like an undersized rugby scrum.
Frangel stuck his head up first. “‘Ang on there, ‘uman! We’re comin’ with you.”
Jon-Tom paused, turned. “That’s damn decent of you, and we’d sure like the company; but this isn’t your fight, and you’re not operating under the kind of obligation that I am.”
“Screw your obligation!” said Quorly. “We’re not gonna stand ‘ere and let ourselves be taxed like that.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jon-Tom told her. “No taxation without representation!”
“And we don’t want none o’ that neither!” Sasswise said angrily.
Jon-Tom swallowed and let his simile go down in flames. Quorly sashayed over to him.
“Anyway, you’re not goin’ to do anythin’ without our help, Jonny-Tom.”
“And why not?”
“‘Cause you ain’t got no boat anymore.”
All that bouncing around must have caused him to bump his head a few times, he reflected. That was one minor fact he’d managed to overlook.
“I admit we could use a raft or something. The Plated Folk made a mess of ours. Could we borrow one of yours?”
“Don’t be a fool.” She winked at him and joined the scattering of her companions.
Jon-Tom watched dizzily as they broke camp, packed, and prepared to depart. The entire process took about five minutes. There was only the one craft in any case, a large, low-gunwaled boat that bobbed at anchor on the other side of the island. Gear was stowed neatly below the single deck. Jon-Tom followed them aboard, already out of breath. And he hadn’t done anything but watch.
&nbs
p; “But why?” he asked Quorly. “Why risk yourselves to help us?”
“Lots o’ reasons,” she told him, “the principal one bein’ that we’re bored. Even catchin’ fish can get old, you knows.”
Jon-Tom tried to adopt a serious mien as he stepped on board. “This isn’t a game. If I can’t get along with this Markus, it could be dangerous for all of us.” He remembered Pandro’s description of the attack by faceless demons almost certainly sent in pursuit of him by the magician. “I know he’s capable of using violence against those he thinks mean him ill.”
“Tough titty.” The delicate little Splitch spat over the side. “If ‘e gives you any trouble, we’ll just ‘ave to show ‘im the error o’ ‘is ways, won’t we? A little danger’ll add some spice to the visit.”
Jon-Tom could only look on admiringly as they pushed off from shore. There wasn’t a concerned expression in the bunch. On the contrary, they acted and sounded excited, as if they were looking forward to the coming confrontation.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Save your breath for this Markus the Ineluctable,” Knorckle told him as he settled himself behind an oar. Muscles bulged in his short arms. “From wot Frangel says, you’ll be needin’ it. This magician bloke sounds like a thoroughly disagreeable person.” Murmurs of agreement sounded from his companions.
Jon-Tom searched the center of the boat. There was no mast and no means for raising one, only the two sets of oars. He hunted for an unoccupied bench.
“Now what are you about, young human?” Memaw had taken up a position next to the stern rudder.
“I like to pull my own weight.”
“Kind of you, but I’m afraid there aren’t any empty places. Each of us knows what to do. So just make yourself comfortable until we get to Quasequa.”
“All right, but I won’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it.” She smiled cheerfully at him. “Now, sit down, stay out of our way, and behave yourself.”
“Yes ma’am.” He did as he was told.
Everyone except Splitch, who was lookout, bent to their oars. Turning neatly under Memaw’s guidance, the boat began to move south. Jon-Tom sat and fidgeted for as long as he could stand it before muttering to the helmsman.
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