Jon-Tom was glad she wasn’t looking at him when she said that. “I’m sure we’ll run across something edible.” He turned to the otter. “What about our pursuit, Mudge?”
The otter responded with his ingratiating, amused bark. “Why, them sorry twits will be all night just tryin’ t’ get their stories straight. From wot I saw on our way out, most of ’em were your typical city guard and likely ain’t in Zancresta’s personal service. It’d be that arse’ole Chenelska who’d be put in charge o’ organizin’ any kind o’ formal chase. By the time ’e gets the word, gets ’is conflictin’ reports sorted out, and puts together anythin’ like a formal pursuit, we’ll be well out o’ it.”
“Then you don’t think they’ll be able to track us down?”
“I’ve been seein’ to the coverin’ o’ our tracks ever since we left that cesspool o’ a town, mate. They won’t find a sign o’ us.”
“What if they do come after us, though? We can’t conceal all of Roseroar’s petite footprints.”
Mudge assumed a crafty mien. “Aye, that they might, guv. They’ll likely comb a wide front to the south, knowin’ that we’re to be headin’ for the ol’ Tailaroam. They can run up every tree in the Bellwoods without findin’ sign o’ us, because we ain’t goin’ t’ go south. We’ll fool ’em inside out by goin’ west from ’ere. We’re so far north o’ the river we might as well do it anyhows.”
Jon-Tom struggled to recall what he’d been taught of the local geography. “If you go far enough west of here, the forest disappears and you’re into the Muddletup Moors.”
“You got it, mate. No one would think t’ave a looksee for us there.”
“Isn’t that because no one ever does go in there?”
“That’s right. Wot better place o’ safety t’ flee to?”
Jon-Tom looked doubtful as he sat back against a fallen trunk. “Mudge, I don’t know about your thinking.”
“I’m willin’ enough to entertain alternative suggestions, m’lord warbler, but you’re ’ardly in shape for some straight arguin’.”
“Now, that I won’t argue. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
“In the mornin’, then. Night to you, mate.”
The thunder woke Jon-Tom. He blinked sleepily and looked up into a gray sky full of massive clouds. He blinked a second time. White clouds were common enough in this world, just as they were in his own. But not with black stripes.
He tried to move, discovered he could not. A huge furry arm lay half on and half off his chest while another curved behind his head to form a warm pillow. Unfortunately, it was also cutting off the circulation to his throbbing left arm.
He tried to disengage himself. As he did so the thunder of Roseroar’s purring was broken by a coughing snarl. She stirred, but her arms did not budge.
Another shape moved nearby. Mudge was sitting up on the bed of leaves he’d fashioned for himself. He looked over toward Jon-Tom as he stretched.
“Well, don’t just sit there, damn it. Give me a hand here!”
“Wot, and interrupt a charmin’ domestic tableau like that?”
“Don’t try to be funny.”
“Funnier than that?” He pointed at the helpless spellsinger. “Couldn’t be if I tried, mate.”
Glaring at him, Jon-Tom tried again to disengage himself, but the weight was too much for him. It was like trying to move a soft mountain.
“Come on, Mudge. Have a heart.”
“Who, me? You know me better than that, mate.” As he spoke Roseroar moved in her sleep, rolling partly across Jon-Tom’s midsection and chest. He gasped and kicked his legs in a frantic attempt to extricate himself. The tigress purred thunderously atop him.
Mudge took his time getting to his feet, ambled lazily over to eye the arrangement thoughtfully. “Our dainty lady friend sounds ’appy enough. Best not to disturb ’er. I don’t see wot you’re fussin’ about. It’s not like she’s got a ’and over your mouth. From where I stands it looks almost invitin’, though I can’t say as ’ow I’d trade places with you. I’d be lost under ’er.”
Jon-Tom put a hand on the tigress’s face and pushed. She stirred, moved slightly, and nearly bit his fingers off. He withdrew his hand quickly. She’d moved enough for him to breathe again, anyway.
“Any signs of pursuit?”
“’Aven’t smelled or ’eard a thing, mate. I think they’re still too disorganized. If they are lookin’ for us, you can be sure ’tis to the south o’ Malderpot and not ’ere. Still, the sooner we’re on our way, the better.” He turned, began gathering up his effects.
“Come on now, lad. No time to waste.”
“That’s real funny, Mudge. How am I supposed to get her off me?”
“Wake ’er up. Belt ’er one, mate.”
“No thanks. I like my head where it is. On my shoulders. I don’t know how’d she react to something like that in her sleep.”
Mudge’s eyes twinkled. “Be more interestin’ to see wot she might do while she’s awake.”
There was no need to consider extreme action, however. All the talking had done its job. Roseroar snorted once and opened those bottomless yellow eyes.
“Well, good morning, man.”
“Good morning yourself. Roseroar, I value your friendship, but you’re breaking my arm.”
Her expression narrowed. “Suh, are you insinuatin’ that ah am too heavy?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Somewhere off in the bushes Mudge was attending to necessary bodily functions while trying to stifle his laughter. “Actually, I think you’re rather svelte.”
“Svelte.” Roseroar considered the word. “That’s nice. Ah like that. Are you saying I have a nice figure?”
“I never saw a tiger I didn’t think was attractive,” he confessed, honestly enough.
She looked mildly disappointed as she rolled off him. “What the fuzz-ball said is true. Yo ah at least half solicitah.”
Jon-Tom rolled over and tried shaking his left arm, trying to restore the circulation at the same time as he was dreading its return. Pins and needles flooded his nerves and he gritted his teeth at the sensation.
“I did study some law in my own world. It might be my profession someday.”
“Spellsinging’s better,” she rumbled. “Svelte?”
“Yeah.” He sat up and began pulling on his boots.
“Nice. Ah think ah like yo, man.”
“I like you, too, Roseroar.”
“Svelte.” She considered the new word thoughtfully. “Want to know man word fo yo?” She was putting on her armor, checking to make sure each catch and strap was fastened securely. She grinned at him, showing six-inch fangs. “Cute. Yo ah kind o’ cute.”
“Gee.” Jon-Tom kept his voice carefully neutral as he replied. “That’s nice.”
Mudge emerged from the woods, buttoning his shorts. “Gee, I always thought you were cute, too, mate.”
“How’d you like your whiskers shoved up your ass?” Jon-Tom asked him softly.
“Calm down, mate.” Somehow Mudge stifled his laughter. “Best we get goin’ westward. We’ve given ’em the slip for the nonce, but sooner o’ later the absence o’ tracks o’ mention of us south o’ ’ere will hit ’im as distinctly peculiar and they’ll start ’untin’ for us elsewhere.”
Jon-Tom slung the duar over his shoulder and hefted his staff. “Lead on.”
Mudge bowed, his voice rich with mock servility. “As thy exalted cuteness decrees.”
Jon-Tom tried to bash him with the staff, but the otter was much too fast for him.
V
IT TOOK SEVERAL DAYS for them to reach the outskirts of the Moors, a vast and, as far as anyone knew, uninhabited land which formed the western border of the Bellwoods and reached south all the way to the northern coast of the Glittergeist Sea. After a day’s march into the Moors’ depths, Mudge felt safe enough to angle southward for the first time since fleeing the city.
Transportation across the ocean was going to present
a problem. No ports existed where the ocean met the southern edge of the Moors, and Jon-Tom agreed with the otter that it would be a bad idea to follow the shoreline back eastward toward the mouth of the Tailaroam. Chenelska would be sure to be looking for them in ports like Yarrowl.
As for the Moors themselves, they looked bleak but hardly threatening. Jon-Tom wondered how the place had acquired its widespread onerous reputation. Mudge could shed little light on the mystery, explaining only that rumor insisted anyone who went into the place never came out again, a pleasant thought to mull over as they hiked ever deeper into the foggy terrain.
It was a sorry land, mostly gray stone occasionally stained red by iron. There were no trees, few bushes, a little grass. The sky was a perpetual puffy, moist gray.
Fog and mist made them miserable, except for Mudge. Nothing appeared to challenge their progress. A few mindless hoots and mournful howls were the only indications of mobile inhabitants, and nothing ever came close to their camps.
They marched onward into the heart of the Muddletup, where none penetrated. As they moved ever deeper into the Moors the landscape began to change, and not for the better. The last stunted trees disappeared. Here, in a place of eternal dampness and cloud cover, the fungi had taken over.
Enormous mushrooms and toadstools dripped with moisture as Jon-Tom and his companions walked beneath spore-filled canopies. Some of the gnarled, ugly growths had trunks as thick as junipers, while others thrust delicate, semi-transparent stems toward the sodden sky. There were no bright, cheerful colors to mitigate the depressing scene, which was mostly brown and gray. Even the occasional maroon or unwholesomely yellow specimen was a relief from the monotonous parade of dullness.
Some of the flora was spotted, some striped. One displayed a checkerboard pattern that reminded Jon-Tom of a non-Euclidian chessboard. Liverworts grew waisthigh, while lichens and mosses formed a thick, cushiony carpet into which their boots sank up to the ankles. Clean granite was disfigured by crawling fungoid corruption growing on its surface. And over this vast, wild eruption of thallophytic life there hung a pervasive sense of desolation, of waste and fossilized hope.
The first couple of days had seen no slowing of their progress. Now their pace began to degenerate. They slept longer and spent less time over meals. It didn’t matter what food they took from their packs or scavenged from the land: everything seemed to have lost its flavor. Whatever they consumed turned flat and tasteless in their mouths and sat heavy in their bellies. Even the water which fell fresh from the clouds had acquired a metallic, unsatisfying aftertaste.
They’d been in the Moors for almost a week when Jon-Tom tripped over the skeleton. Like everything else lately its discovery provoked little more than a tired murmur of indifference from his companions.
“So wot?” muttered Mudge. “Don’t mean a damn thing.”
“Ah’m sitting down,” said Roseroar. “Ah’m tired.”
So was Jon-Tom, but the sight of the stark white bone peeping out from beneath the encrusting rusts and mildews roused a dormant concern in his mind.
“This is all wrong,” he told them. “There’s something very wrong going on here.”
“No poison, if that’s wot you’re thinkin’, mate.” Mudge indicated the growths surrounding them. “I’ve been careful. Everythin’ local we’ve swallowed ’as been edible, even if it’s tasted lousy.”
“Lucky yo,” said Roseroar. “No game at all fo me. Ah find mahself reduced to eating not just weeds, but this crap. Ah declah ah’ve nevah been so bored with eating in all mah life.”
“Boring, tired, tasteless … don’t you see what’s happening?” Jon-Tom told them.
“You’re gettin’ worked up over nothin’, mate.” The otter was lying on a mound of soft moss. “Settle yourself down. ’Ave a sip o’ somethin’.”
“Yes.” Roseroar slipped off her swordbelt. “Let’s just sit heah and rest awhile. There’s no need to rush. We haven’t seen a sign of pursuit since we left that town, and ah don’t think we’re likely to encounter any now.”
“She’s right, mate. Pull up a soft spot and ’ave a sit.”
“Both of you listen to me.” Jon-Tom tried to put some force into his voice, was frightened to hear it emerge from his lips flat and curiously empty of emotion. He felt sad and utterly useless. Something had begun to afflict him from the day they’d first set foot in the Moors. It was something more than just boredom with their surroundings, something far more penetrating and dangerous. It was a grayness of the heart, and it was digging its insidious way deeper and deeper into their thoughts, killing off determination and assurance as it went. Eventually, it would ruin their bodies as well. The skeleton was proof enough of that. Whatever was into them was patient and clever, much too calculating, it occurred to Jon-Tom, to be an accident of the environment.
He tried to find the enthusiasm to fight back as he turned to scream at the landscape. “Who are you? Why are you doing this to us? What is it you want?”
He felt like a fool. Worse, he knew his companions might think he was becoming unhinged. But they said nothing. He would’ve welcomed some outcry of skepticism. Instead, the sense of hopelessness settled ever deeper around them.
Nothing moved within the Moors. Of one thing he was fairly confident: this wasn’t wizardry at work. It was too slow. He had to do something, but he didn’t know what. All he could think of was how ironic it would be if, after surviving Malderpot, they were to perish here from a terminal case of the blahs.
So he was startled when a dull voice asked, “Don’t you understand it all by now?”
“Who said that?” He whirled, trying to spot the speaker. Nothing moved.
“I did.”
The voice came from an eight-foot-tall mushroom off to his left. The cap of this blotchy ochre growth dipped slightly toward him.
“Not that I couldn’t have,” said another growth.
“Nor I,” agreed a third.
“Mushrooms,” Jon-Tom said unsteadily, “don’t talk.”
“What?” said the first growth. “Sure, we’re not loquacious, but that’s a natural function of our existence. There isn’t much to talk about, is there? I mean, it’s not just a dull life, man, it’s boring. B-o-r-i-n-g.”
“That’s about the extent of it,” agreed the giant toadstool against which Roseroar rested. She moved away from it hastily, showing more energy than she had in the previous several days, and put a hand to the haft of each sword.
“I mean, give it some thought.” The first mushroom again, which was taking on something of the air of a fungoid spokesman. Jon-Tom saw no lips or mouth. The words, the thoughts, came fully formed into his mind through a kind of clammy telepathy. “What would we talk about?”
“Nothing worth wasting the time discussing,” agreed another mushroom with a long, narrow cap in the manner of a morrel. “I mean, you spend your whole existence sitting in the same spot, never seeing anything new, never moving around. So what’s your biggest thrill? Getting to make spores?”
“Yeah, big deal,” commented the toadstool. “So we don’t talk. You never hear us talk, you think fungoids don’t talk. Ambulatories are such know-it-alls.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the second mushroom. “Nothing matters. We’re wasting our efforts.”
“Wait.” Jon-Tom approached the major mushroom, feeling a little silly as he did so. “You’re doing something to us. You have been ever since we entered the deep moors.”
“What makes you think we’re doing anything to you?” said the spokesthing. “Why should we make the effort to do anything to anyone?”
“We’ve changed since we entered this land. We feel different.”
“Different how, man?” asked the toadstool.
“Depressed. Tired, worn-out, useless, hopeless. Our outlook on life has been altered.”
“What makes you think we’re responsible?” said the second mushroom. “That’s just how life is. It’s the normal state of existence. You
can’t blame us for that.”
“It’s not the normal state of existence.”
“It is in the Moors,” argued the first mushroom.
Jon-Tom held his ground. “There’s some kind of telepathy at work here. We’ve been absorbing your feelings of hopelessness, your idea that nothing’s worth much of anything. It’s been eating at us.”
“Look around you, man. What do you see?”
Jon-Tom turned a slow circle. Instead of the half-hoped-for revelation, his gaze swept over more of what they’d seen the past dreary days—rocks, mushrooms, lichens and mosses, mist and cloud cover.
“Now, I ask you,” sighed the first mushroom, “is that depressing or what? I mean, it is de-press-ing.”
Jon-Tom could feel his resolve slipping dangerously. Mudge and Roseroar were half-asleep already. He had the distinct feeling that if he joined them, none of them would ever wake up again. The sight of white bone nearby revitalized him. How long had it taken the owner of that skeleton to become permanently depressed?
“I guess you might consider your existence here depressing.”
“Might consider?” moaned the toadstool. “It is depressing. No maybes about it. Like, I’m a fungus, man. That’s depressing all by itself.”
“I’ve eaten some mushrooms that were downright exciting,” Jon-Tom countered.
“A cannibal, too,” said the tall toadstool tiredly. “How depressing.” It let out a vast telepathic sigh, a wave of anxiety and sadness that rolled over Jon-Tom like a wave.
He staggered, shook off the cobwebs that threatened to bind his mind. “Stop that.”
“Stop what? Why sweat it? Just relax, man. You’re full of hurry, and desire, and all kinds of useless mental baggage. Why knock yourself out worrying about things that don’t matter? Nothing matters. Lie down here, relax, take it easy. Let your foolish concerns fly bye-bye. Open yourself to the true blandness of reality and see how much better you’ll feel for it.”
Jon-Tom started to sit down, wrestled himself back to an upright stance. He pointed toward the skeleton.
“Like that one?”
“He was only reacting sensibly,” said the toadstool.