At least this was a fit world in which to pursue dreams. At the moment, though, he was supposed to be pursuing medicine. He clung to that thought as he turned down the tiny side street.
True to the marten’s information he heard sounds of singing and raucous laughter. But instead of a single small oil lamp there were big impressive ones flanking the door, fashioned of clear beveled crystal.
Above the door was a swinging sign showing a finely coiffed hound clad in feathers and jewels. She was gazing back over her furry shoulder with a distinctly come-hither look, and her hips were cocked rakishly.
There was a small porch. Standing beneath the rain shield, Jon-Tom knocked twice on the heavily oiled door. It was opened by a three-foot-tall mouse in a starched suit.
Sound flooded over Jon-Tom as the doormouse looked him over.
“Step inside and enjoy, sir,” he finally said, moving aside.
Jon-Tom nodded and entered. The doormouse closed the door behind him.
He found himself in a parlor full of fine furniture and a wild assortment of creatures representing several dozen species. All were cavorting without a care as to who they happened to be matching up with. There were several humans in the group, men and women. They moved freely among their intelligent furry counterparts.
Jon-Tom noted the activity, listened to the lascivious dialogue, saw the movement of hands and paws, and suspected he had not entered a bar. No question what kind of place this was. He was still surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. It was a logical place to look for Mudge.
Still, he didn’t want to take the chance of embarrassing himself. First impressions could be wrong. He spoke to the doormouse.
“I beg your pardon, but this is a whorehouse, isn’t it?”
The mouse’s voice was surprisingly deep, rumbling out of the tiny gray body. “All kinds we get in here,” he muttered dolefully, “all kinds. What did you think it was, jack? A library?”
“Not really. There aren’t any books.”
The doormouse showed sharp teeth in a smile. “Oh, we have books, too. With pictures. Lots of pictures, if that’s to your taste, sir.”
“Not right now.” He was curious, though. Maybe later, after he’d found Mudge.
“You look like you’ve been a-traveling, sir. Would you like something to eat and drink?”
“Thanks, I’m not hungry. Actually, I’m looking for a friend.”
“Everyone comes to the Elegant Bitch in search of a friend.”
“You misunderstand. That’s not the way I mean.”
“Just tell me your ways, sir. We cater to all ways here.”
“I’m looking for a buddy, an acquaintance,” Jon-Tom said in exasperation. The doormouse had a one-track mind.
“Ah, now I understand. No divertissements, then? This isn’t a meeting house, you know.”
“You’re a good salesman.” Jon-Tom tried to placate him. “Maybe later. I have to say that you’re the smallest pimp I’ve ever seen.”
“I am not small and I am not a pimp,” replied the doormouse with some dignity. “If you wish to speak to the madam …”
“Not necessary,” Jon-Tom told him, though he wondered not only what she’d look like but what she’d be. “The fellow I’m after wears a peaked cap with a feather in it, a leather vest, carries a longbow with him everywhere he goes, and is an otter. Name of Mudge.”
The doormouse preened a whisker, scratched behind one ear. For the first time Jon-Tom noticed the small earplugs. Made sense. Given the mouse’s sensitivity to sound, he’d need the plugs to keep from going deaf while working amid the nonstop celebration.
“I recognize neither name nor attire, sir, but there is one otter staying with us currently. He would be in room twenty-three on the second floor.”
“Great. Thanks.” Jon-Tom almost ran into the mouse’s outstretched palm. He placed a small silver piece there and saw it vanish instantly.
“Thank you, sir. If there is anything I can do for you after you have met with this possible friend, please let me know. My name is Whort and I’m the majordomo here.”
“Maybe later,” Jon-Tom assured him as he started up the carved stairway.
He had no intention of taking the doormouse up on his offer. Not that he had anything against the house brand of entertainment. His long separation from Talea plagued him physically as well as mentally, but this wasn’t the place to indulge in any lingering fancies of the flesh. It looked fancy and clean, but you never could tell where you might pick up an interesting strain of VD, and not only the human varieties. In the absence of modern medicine he didn’t want to have to count on curing a good dose of the clap with a song or two.
So he restrained his libido as he mounted the second-floor landing and hunted for the right door. He was interrupted in his search by a sight that reminded him this was a real place and not a drug-induced excursion into a dreamland zoo.
A couple of creatures had passed him, and he’d paid them no mind. Coming down the hall toward him now was an exceptionally proportioned young woman in her early twenties. She was barely five feet tall and wore only a filmy peach-colored peignoir. The small pipe she smoked did little to blur the image of prancing, bouncing femininity.
“Well, what are you staring at, tall-skinny-and-handsome?”
It occurred to Jon-Tom this was not intended as a rhetorical question, and he mumbled a reply that got all caught up in his tongue and teeth. Somehow he managed to shamble past her. Only the fact that Clothahump lay dying in his tree along with any chance Jon-Tom had of returning home kept him moving. His head rotated like a searchlight, and he followed the perfect vision with his eyes until she’d disappeared down the stairs.
As he forced himself down the hall, that image lingered on his retinas like a bright light. Sadly, he found the right door and knocked gently, sparing a last sorrowful glance for the now empty landing.
“Mudge?” He repeated the knock, was about to repeat the call, when the door suddenly flew open, causing him to step back hastily. Standing in the opening was a female otter holding a delicate lace nightgown around her. Her eyebrows had been curled and painted, and the tips of her whiskers dipped in gold. She was sniffling, an act to which Jon-Tom attached no particular significance. Otters sniffled a lot.
She took one look at him before dashing past his bulk down the hallway, short legs churning.
Jon-Tom stared after her, was about to go in when a second fur of the night came out, accompanied by an equally distraught third otter. They followed their sister toward the stairs. Shaking his head, he entered the dark room.
Faint light flickered from a single chandelier. Golden shadows danced on the flocked wallpaper. Nothing else moved. Two curved mirrors on opposing walls ran from floor to ceiling. An elegant china washbasin rested on a chellow-wood dresser. The door to the john stood half-agape.
A wrought-iron bed decorated with cast grapevines and leaves stood against the far wall. The headboard curved slightly forward. A pile of sheets and pillows filled the bed, an eruption of fine linen. Jon-Tom guessed this was not the cheapest room in the house.
From within the silks and satins came a muffled but still familiar voice. “Is that you, Lisette? Are you comin’ back to forgive me, luv? Wot I said, that were only a joke. Meant nothin’ by it, I did.”
“That would be the first time,” Jon-Tom said coolly.
There was silence, then the pile of sheets stirred and a head emerged, black eyes blinking in the darkness. “Cor, I’m ’aving a bloody nightmare, I am! Too much bubbly.”
“I don’t know what you’ve had,” Jon-Tom said as he moved toward the bed, “but this is no nightmare.”
Mudge wiped at his eyes with the backs of his paws. “Right then, mate, it is no nightmare. You’re too damned big to be a nightmare. Wot the ’ell are you doin’ ’ere, anyways?”
“Looking for you.”
“You picked the time for it.” He vanished beneath the linens. “Where’s me clothes?”
>
Jon-Tom turned, searched the shadows until he’d located the vest, cap, pants and boots. The oversized bow and quiver of arrows lay beneath the bed. He tossed the whole business onto the mattress.
“Here.”
“Thanks, mate.” The otter began to flow into the clothes, his movements short and fast. “’Tis a providence, it is, wot brings you to poor ol’ Mudge now.”
“I don’t know about that. You actually seem glad to see me. It’s not what I expected.”
Mudge looked hurt. “Wot, not ’appy to see an old friend? You pierce me to the quick. Now why wouldn’t I be glad to see an old friend?”
Something funny going on here, Jon-Tom mused warily. Where were the otter’s usual suspicious questions, his casual abusiveness?
As if to answer his questions the door burst inward. Standing there backlit by the light from the hall was a sight to give an opium eater pause.
The immensely overweight lady badger wore a bright red dress fringed with organdy ruffles. Rings dripped from her manicured fingers, and it was hard to believe that the massive gems that encircled her neck were real. They threw the light back into the room.
A few curious customers crowded in behind her as she raised a paw and pointed imperiously at the bed.
“There he is!” she growled.
“Ah, Madam Lorsha,” said Mudge as he finished his dressing in a hurry, “I ’ave to compliment you on the facilities of your establishment.”
“That will be the last compliment you ever give anyone, you deadbeat. Your ass is a rug.” She snapped her fingers as she stepped into the room. “Tork.”
Bending to pass under the sill was the largest intelligent warmlander Jon-Tom had yet encountered. It was a shock to see someone taller than himself. The grizzly rose at least seven and a half feet, wore black-leather pants and shirt. He also wore what appeared in the bad light to be heavy leather gloves. Their true nature was revealed all too quickly.
Now, Jon-Tom did not know precisely what had transpired in the elegant room or beyond its walls or between his furry friend who was slipping on his boots in a veritable frenzy and the badger who was clearly the owner of the house of ill repute, but he suspected the sight of the full-grown grizzly adjusting the brass knuckles over his immense paws did not bode well for the future.
“I understand your concern, luv,” said Mudge as he casually recovered his bow and quiver, “but now that me mate’s ’ere everything will be squared away.”
“Will it, now?” she said. The grizzly stood rubbing one palm with a massive fist and grinning. His teeth were very white. The badger eyed Jon-Tom. “Does he mean to say that you’ll pay his bill?”
“Pay his bill? What do you mean, pay his bill?”
“He’s been up here for three days without coming down, enjoying my best liquor and girls, and now he tells them he hasn’t got a silver to his bastard name.”
Jon-Tom glared back at Mudge. The otter shrugged, didn’t appear in the least embarrassed. “Hey, at least I was honest about it, mate. I told ’em I was broke. But it’s all right, ain’t it? You’ll pay for me, won’t you?”
“You are his friend?” inquired the badger.
“Well, yeah.” He brought out the purse Clothahump had given him and jiggled it. The gold inside jingled musically, and the badger and the bear relaxed.
She smiled at him. “Now that’s more like it … sir. I can see that you are a gentleman, though I don’t think much of your choice of friends.” Mudge looked wronged.
“How much does he owe you?”
She didn’t even have to think. “Two hundred and fifty, sir. Plus any damages to the linen. I’ll have to check.”
“I can cover it,” Jon-Tom assured her. He turned to look darkly at Mudge, hefting his ramwood staff. “If you’d be kind enough to give me a moment alone with him, I intend to take at least some of it out of his hide.”
The badger’s smile widened. “Your pleasure is mine, sir.” Again she snapped her fingers. The grizzly let out a disappointed grunt, turned, and ducked back through the doorway.
“Take your time, sir. If you need anything helpful—acid, some thin wooden slivers, anything at all—the house will be delighted to supply it.”
The door closed behind her. As soon as they were alone, Jon-Tom began to search the room. There was only one window, off to the left. He tried to open it, found it wouldn’t budge.
“’Ere now, mate,” said Mudge, ambling over, “wot’s the trouble? Just pay the old whore and let’s be gone from ’ere.”
“It’s not that simple, Mudge. That money is from Clothahump, to pay for our passage at least as far as Snarken. And I lied about the amount. No way is there two hundred and fifty there.”
Mudge took a step backward as Jon-Tom strove to puzzle out the window. “Just a minute there, mate. Wot’s that about payin’ our way? Snarken, you said? That’s all the way across the Glittergeist, ain’t it?”
“That’s right.” Jon-Tom squinted at the jamb. “I think this locks from the outside. Clever. Must be a way to break through it.”
Mudge continued backing toward the bed. “Nice of you to come lookin’ for me, mate, but I’m afraid I can’t go with you. And you say ’is wizardship is behind it?”
“That’s right. He’s sick and I have to go get him some medicine.”
“Right. Give the old reptile me best wishes, and I ’ope he makes a speedy recovery. As for me, I’ve some travelin’ to do for me ’ealth, and salt air doesn’t agree with me lungs.”
“You’re not going anywhere unless it’s with me,” Jon-Tom snapped at him. “You take one step out that door and I’ll call the madam. I saw the look in her eyes. She’d enjoy separating your head from the rest of you. So would that side of beef that came in with her.”
“I ain’t afraid of no bag of suet wot communicates in grunts,” Mudge said.
Jon-Tom turned from the window. “Then maybe I ought to call them. I can always find someone else to accompany me.”
Mudge rushed at him. “Take it easy, mate, ’old on. To Snarken, you say?”
“Maybe beyond.”
“Ain’t no place beyond Snarken.”
“Yes there is. Little town not too far inland from there.” He fumbled between the windowpanes, was rewarded by a double clicking sound. “Ah.”
He lifted the window slowly. Halfway up, something loud and brassy began to clang inside the building.
“Shit! There’s an alarm spell on this thing!” The sounds of pounding feet came from the hall.
“No time for regrets, mate, and you’d best not stand there gawkin’.” Mudge was over the sill in a flash and shinnying down the rainpipe outside. Jon-Tom followed more slowly, envying the otter his agility.
By the time they reached the pavement, faces had appeared at the open window.
“You won’t get away from me, otter!” Madam Lorsha yelled, shaking her fist at them as they ran up the side street. At any moment Jon-Tom expected to hear the grizzly’s footsteps behind them, feel huge paws closing around his throat. “I’ll hunt you to the ends of the world! No one runs out owing Madam Lorsha!”
“Funny what she said about the ends of the world,” Jon-Tom murmured as he followed the otter down endless alleyways and turns. He was sure Mudge had memorized this escape route before stepping inside the brothel. “That’s where we’re going.”
“There you go again, mate,” said Mudge, “usin’ them words like we and us.”
“I need your help, Mudge.”
They reached a main street and slowed to a walk as they joined the crowd of evening strollers. Timswitty was a good-sized town, much bigger than Lynchbany. It was unlikely Madam Lorsha’s thugs would be able to find them. Jon-Tom tried to hunch over and mask his exceptional height.
“Clothahump is deathly ill, and we must have this medicine. I’m not any happier about making this trip than you are.”
“You must be, mate, because I’m not goin’ to make it. Don’t get me wrongo. You jus
t ’elped me clear out of a bad spot. I am grateful, I am, but she weren’t worth enough to make me put me life on the line for you, much less for that old word-poisoner.”
They edged around a strolling couple. “I need someone who knows the way, Mudge.”
“Then you needs some other bloke, mate. I ain’t never been to Snarken.”
“I mean someone who knows the ways of the world, Mudge. I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been here, but that’s nothing compared to what I don’t know. I need your good advice as well as your unconventional knowledge.”
“Sure you do.” Mudge puffed up importantly in spite of knowing better. “You think you can flatter me into goin’, is that it? Or did you think I’d forgotten your intentions to be a solicitor in your own world? Don’t take me for a fool, mate.”
“I have to have someone along I can trust,” Jon-Tom went on. The otter’s expression showed that was one ploy he wasn’t expecting.
“Now that ain’t fair, guv’nor, and you knows it.”
“There will also,” Jon-Tom added, saving the best for last, “be a good fee for helping me.”
That piqued the otter’s interest. “’Ere now, why didn’t you come out and say that t’ begin with instead of goin’ on with all this twaddle about ’ow ’is poor old ’ardheaded curmudgeonly ’oliness was ’aving an attack of the gout or whatever, or ’ow badly you need me unique talents.” He moved nearer and put a comradely arm around Jon-Tom’s waist, as high as he could comfortably reach.
“You ’ave a ’ell of a lot to learn about life, guv’nor.” He rambled on as the evening fog closed in comfortingly around them, explaining that though he didn’t know how it was in Jon-Tom’s world, here it was gold that spoke clearest and bought one’s trust. Not words.