“I think you’re way off base, Mudge. But if it’s troubling you that much, why don’t you ask him what he’s doing here?”
“Uh, well, you see, lad, you’re so much better versed in the diplomatic arts that I, I was kind o’ ‘opin’ that you’d put the question to ‘im.”
“I see. Because I’m more diplomatic, is that it?” The otter nodded. “Not because if he takes offense, it’ll be me he runs through with that saber of his?”
The otter looked outraged. “ ‘Ow could you think such a thing o’ me, mate?”
“I don’t know.” Jon-Tom put his whittling aside as he rose. “Repeated experience, maybe.”
Mudge sidled up close. “ ‘E’s not wearin’ that long sword just now, but we’d best keep an eye on that pack o’ ‘is.”
Jon-Tom frowned. “The knapsack? Why?”
“You just ‘aven’t learned much about observation, ‘ave you? ‘Aven’t you noticed ‘ow protective ‘e is of it? No tellin’ wot ‘e’s got inside besides a bottle full o’ stink-oil.”
That much was true. Colin had been excessively protective of the pack, to the point of refusing to let Dormas carry it for him until he’d fully recovered from the effects of his near suffocation. He insisted on carrying it himself, despite the fact that he was still coughing and choking from time to time. The more Jon-Tom thought about it, the more peculiar the koala’s presence and actions seemed. He broke off that unpleasant train of thought abruptly.
“There you go, making me paranoid like you.”
“A little ‘ealthy paranoia can add ten years to your life, mate. You can ‘andle it. I’ve seen you in action. ‘Tis your solicitor’s training. Me, I’d just make ‘im mad, most likely.
But not you. Don’t go accusin’ ‘im o’ nothin’, or challengin’ ‘im. Just work it into the conversation, like. I’ll be right behind you if ‘e takes offense.”
“You’re such a comfort to me, Mudge.”
“Wot are friends for, lad?”
With Mudge sauntering along beside him Jon-Tom strode into the shade of the tree. The otter bent to inspect the grass, then turned to work his way behind the seated koala, trying to render his movements as inconspicuous as possible.
Not inconspicuously enough, apparently, for as experienced a fighter as Colin to let it pass without notice. He said nothing, but he put down the cup he’d been sipping from so he would have both hands free. He did not turn to look at Mudge but remained aware of the otter’s position nonetheless.
Dormas was talking while Sorbl listened from his perch on a low-hanging branch. The owl was standing on one leg. Now he shifted to the other, a habit he’d picked up from a friend of his, a member of the stork family.
Dormas looked over at Jon-Tom. “We were just talking about the country to the east of here. Colin tells me there are high mountains, then open plains before you get to his home, which lies farther south.”
Mudge picked up a seed cone, inspected it with apparent indifference. “You’ve come quite a distance, then.”
“A long ways, yes,” Colin replied. “Considerably farther than the rest of you.”
Jon-Tom rubbed his chin. “You know, we don’t mean to pry, but it wouldn’t be natural for us not to wonder what someone like you is doing up in country like this, so far from the kind of terrain you’d be likely to find agreeable, and traveling by yourself as well.”
“I like to travel,” Colin told him. “Since not many of my fellows like to, I’m forced to travel alone.”
“I see.” Silence.
Mudge looked over at Jon-Tom and, when nothing else was forthcoming, said exasperatedly, “Well, go on, mate!”
“Go on where, Mudge?”
The otter spat into the grass, moved to confront the koala. “So you like to travel, wot? Funny sort o’ country to be travelin’ in. This ain’t exactly a tourist mecca up ‘ere, and the local yokels not wot I’d call ‘ospitable. You couldn’t ‘ave any other business ‘ere besides just travelin’, now could you?”
“What sort of business could one have in this empty land?”
“Couldn’t o’ put it better meself.” Mudge’s fingers felt for the hilt of his short sword. “Come on now, mate. You don’t expect us to believe you’ve come to this part o’ the world just to ‘ave a look-see at the scenery?”
“Why not? Isn’t that what you’re doing? You don’t seem equipped for anything else.”
“Now ‘ow would you know wot sort o’ equipment we might be carryin’?”
A slight smile creased the koala’s broad face. “I make it my business to notice such things.”
“Do you, now? That brings us back to the nature o’ your mysterious business again. We can’t seem to get away from that, can we?” His fingers locked around the sword hilt.
Colin let his eyes drop to Mudge’s waist. “No need to get excited, pilgrim.” He let his gaze flick over the otter’s face, then Jon-Tom’s and Dormas’s. “Right. I’ll tell you, but you aren’t going to believe me.”
“Try us.” Mudge smiled wolfishly at him.
The koala’s voice grew reminiscent. “This all started many months ago. Longer than I care to think. I was hard at work at my true profession—”
Jon-Tom interrupted him. “You have more than one profession?”
“Two, yes. The first is”—and here he stared hard at Mudge— “that of bodyguard. That’s how I support myself. I’m pretty good at it.” The otter’s hand moved away from the handle of his sword. “But it’s not my true profession, my real calling. Go ahead and laugh if you will, but I am a caster of runes.”
“What’s that?” said a new voice, sounding surprised. Everyone looked to their left. Clothahump had emerged from the isolation of his self-imposed trance. Now he blinked, stretching and yawning as he came out of his shell. He stuck out his legs, stood, and walked over to join the rest of them, wiping at his eyes with one hand. “A rune-caster, you say?”
“I say.” Colin turned and reached for his knapsack. Jon-Tom and Mudge tensed, but all the koala extracted was a small sack of brown leather secured at the top with an intricate knot. Several arcane symbols decorated the sides of the sack, having been stitched in with heavy silver thread. Jon-Tom recognized none of them.
“The tools of the trade,” the koala explained.
“I can see why you’d chose work as a bodyguard.” Mudge sniffed derisively. “Throwin’ runes ain’t much of a profession. Some would say ‘tis more in the nature of a con game.”
The koala stiffened slightly, and when he next spoke, there was an edge to his voice. “There are more charlatans than truth-speakers who throw, that much is true. I am no charlatan. Anyone can cast. It’s the reading that requires skill. I have practiced for many years, have thrown thousands of times. I was apprentice to Solace Longrush the quokka.”
“I know that name. I thought he was dead,” Clothahump murmured.
“He is. Died ten years ago. Was casting one day, saw his own death in the runes, gathered everything up, put his house in order, walked to the cemetery he’d chosen, and fell right over into an open grave. Damnedest thing you ever saw.” He jiggled the leather bag. Faint clinking noises could be heard as small objects within bounced oif one another. “His runes. He left them to me.”
“That’s why you’re so protective of your gear,” Jon-Tom said, and was rewarded with a nod. “I’ve never met a rune-caster before. What do you cast for?”
“Whether someone should make a left turn or go right, whether or not a marriage is likely to succeed, when and where to plant what kinds of crops, that sort of thing. Pays the bills.” He leaned forward. “But what Solace Longrush did that no other rune-caster could do, and what I’ve tried to learn from him, is how to predict the future.”
Mudge laughed without shame: a brisk, sharp, barking sound. Dormas let out a loud snort. Sorbl fought back a smile of his own.
“Told you that you wouldn’t believe me.” The koala did not appear miffed by their reaction. U
ndoubtedly he was used to skepticism.
As soon as Colin had made his confession Jon-Tom had turned to look at Clothahump. The wizard was neither laughing nor smiling. Instead he was studying their guest with utter seriousness.
“And how,” he inquired, “does practicing your true profession bring you to this isolated part of the world?”
“Like I said, I’ve been traveling for many, many months. What started me on my journey was a cast I was making for a local farmer. He wanted me to find the best place on his land to dig a new well. I had thrown six times and thought I had a pretty good spot picked out for him, but I pride myself on being thorough and giving value for money. So I threw a seventh and last time.” He swallowed. “Ten runes lined up in a pattern I’d never seen before. I gave the farmer his location and rushed off to the local Sorcerer’s Guild library, spent hours trying to find a schematic that resembled the pattern I’d thrown. Finally did.”
“And?” Jon-Tom prompted him anxiously, by now thoroughly engrossed in the koala’s tale.
“The pattern signified an imminent world change. But not an immediate one. The change indicated was the kind that takes place in stages, each one more severe than the next. It was also clear that if these gradual changes were not stopped, they were going to culminate in a final change of apocalyptic proportions.”
“The pattern did not by any chance happen to suggest the nature of this final change?” Clothahump asked him.
“I’m not sure. Patterns are precise, but reading is not an exact science. As near as I could tell, though, it had something to do with the size of the sun.”
“Size?” Mudge squeaked.
Colin nodded somberly. “The pattern suggested intensifying local changes, ending in an abrupt expansion of the sun to many times its present size. I think a change like that would make us long to stand above something as chilly as the savage’s fire.”
“Nova.” Jon-Tom squinted through the branches at the placid midday sun above. “A perturbation strong enough to affect the helium-fusion cycle. It would make the sun go nova. I wonder if the sun in my own world would be affected?”
“Wot’s all this rot?” Mudge muttered. “Wot’s a bloomin’ nova and wot’s it ‘ave to do with the sun, and wotever it is, we’ve only this chap’s word for it, anyways. And wot’s it got to do with the question?”
“That’s why I’m here. To see if I can’t prevent that cataclysmic change. The runes didn’t tell me how it could be done, but they showed me where it would have to be accomplished. I’m on my way there.” He mistook their silence for disbelief. “I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
“On the contrary,” Clothahump told him quietly, “we believe you more man you believe yourself. Because, you see, the answer to our question is also the answer to yours. We are bent on the same task. By different methods we come to this place, intent upon achieving the same end.”
Colin regarded each of them in turn, silently, seeing the truth in their faces. “So that’s it. The runes were more thorough than I thought. I did not expect the help they predicted to appear so soon.”
“Now ‘old on a minimum, mate,” Mudge urged him. “If anyone’s goin’ to ‘elp anyone ‘ere, ‘tis you who are bound to ‘elp us.”
“It doesn’t matter, Mudge,” Jon-Tom told him irritably. “We’re all here for the same reason.”
“True.” The koala sounded disappointed. “The runes were thorough but not accurate. As I read them they spoke of aid in the form of an army of several thousand seasoned warriors.” He shook off his disappointment. “But if I’m to have the company of a quintet of oddities instead, so be it.”
Mudge made a sound low in his throat. “Just who are you callin’ an oddity, fat face?”
“Quiet, river rat.” Clothahump turned back to Colin. “Then your reading of the runes is not always precise?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s the nature of runes. You can’t make perfect predictions with imperfect materials, and there’s no such thing as a perfect rune. Half a year back I lost two months traveling in the wrong direction before I knew I was off on the wrong track.”
“That’s all right.” Jon-Tom was naturally sympathetic. “I’m a spellsinger myself, and there’ve been one or two occasions when the results of my spellsinging were other than what I intended.” He immediately turned a warning look on Mudge, but the otter’s thoughts were elsewhere, and he missed the opportunity to insert the expected sarcastic comment.
“We shall help one another,” Clothahump announced firmly. “Your company and what assistance you can provide will be welcome. I know what is causing these changes and approximately where it is located. By cooperating we may define our approach more accurately.”
It was clear that Colin was impressed. He glanced up at Jon-Tom. “Tell me, tall man, does he speak the truth?”
“Most of the time. This time.”
“Casting is something I have never practiced,” the wizard was saying, “because of its notorious inaccuracy. But it may be that you will have the chance to supplement our collective abilities when such aid is needed most. In any event, a strong sword arm is always welcome in such an enterprise as this. We will seek to resolve this danger together.”
“I’ll be glad of the company. We koalas are sociable types. Traveling solo hasn’t been easy.” He hesitated. “Not appearing to contradict you, old one, but by the reading, we haven’t much time left. We may not get there in time.”
“We may not get there at all,” Clothahump admitted, “but it is a waste of time to wonder about time. With due respect to your talent, where a perambulator is involved, time itself is mutable. We may have more time left to us than your reading would lead you to believe.”
“I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.”
Clothahump lifted his gaze past them, toward the lower slopes of the mountains that defined the northern horizon. “My greatest fear at this moment is that despite his madness, whoever has trapped the perambulator in this world is beginning to learn how to manipulate those perturbations.”
“That might not be all bad,” Jon-Tom commented. “If he learns how to do that, maybe he can keep the sun from going nova.”
“Should he want to.”
“But if that happens, then he’ll be killed along with everyone else. That’s—”
“Crazy. Precisely, my boy. If the imprisoner is both mad and unhappy, what better solution than suicide on a grandiose scale? My immediate concern is that we may see perturbations directed at us specifically. It seems incredible but it cannot be ruled out.”
“You’re not bein’ very reassurin, Your Masterness.”
“The truth rarely is, Mudge.”
“Truth. Bleedin’ slippery stuff. We still ain’t ‘ad no proof that you’re anything more than a sack o’ ‘ot air, big-ears.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed, and he put his hand on his sword. “You calling me a liar, pilgrim?”
“Don’t try that shit on me, mate. I believe you can ‘andle that sword. That ain’t wot we need proof of.” He eyed his companions. “Listen, you gulliable lot, don’t you want some proof this bloke ain’t workin’ for the one whose arse we’re after before we invite ‘im to share our camp?”
“Mudge, sometimes you—” Jon-Tom started to say, but Colin raised a hand to cut him off.
“No. The otter’s right. Impolite, but right. You deserve more conclusive proof than fast talk.” He placed the leather sack on the ground in front of him and knelt. Jon-Tom paid close attention but for the life of him couldn’t discern how the koala unfastened the incredibly complex series of knots so quickly. Making certain the drawstrings were stretched out straight, Colin carefully unfolded the leathern square.
The resultant revelation was something of a disappointment. Jon-Tom didn’t know what to expect: brilliantly faceted gemstones perhaps or eerily glowing bits of metal. What the pouch contained was a few pieces of wood, some colored stones and old bones, and a few strips of dyed cloth.
> “That’s it?” Mudge wanted to know.
“Have you ever seen a set of runes before, otter? Not imitations or fakes, but the real things? Some of these have been handed down from caster to caster.” He leaned forward to nudge a few of the pieces with a finger. “These here are hundreds of years old.”
“I can smell the power.” Clothahump waddled over and asked Colin to identify each rune in detail. Meanwhile Mudge eased over next to Jon-Tom.
“You know, mate, this ‘ere meetin’ may turn out to ‘ave beneficial consequences after all.”
“It certainly will, if Colin’s telling the truth about his abilities.”
“No, no, not that.” The otter looked exasperated, then excited. “I mean, ‘ave a look at that junk! I can see meself now.” The otter’s mental wlieels were spinning fast. “All I’ve got to do when we gets back to civilization is trip on down to the local dump and fill me up a little leather bag with the first interestin’ crap I stumble over. Then I can go around predictin’ the future. The only thing wot puzzles me is ‘ow I never thought of it before.”
“Mudge, this isn’t a scam. This is for real.”
“Scam, reality, wot’s the difference? The whole universe is a scam, perpetrated by some supreme deity, maybe. ‘Tis one’s perception of it that matters. Anyway, if a lot o’ soft-’eaded twits take me for a rune-caster, who am I to dispute their opinions? I’d ‘urt their feelin’s by confessing, I would. Folks don’t care whether a prediction of the future is accurate or not. They just want someone to tell ‘em wot to do so they won’t ‘ave to think. Besides, I’ll only make predictions about wot I’m expert at: sex an’ money.”
“Sex and money, sex and money. What are you going to think about when you reach a ripe old age, Mudge? Assuming you ever do reach a ripe old age, about which achievement I have serious doubts.”
The otter solemnly raised one paw. “I’ll change me ways then, mate. Despite wot you might think, I’ve given that day plenty o’ thought. You’ll see. When I’m bent over an’ white-whiskered, with a streak o’ silver down me back, it’ll be different. I’ll spend all me time thinkin’ about money an’ sex.”