HE HAD IN MIND to make an early start, but it was mid-morning before Talea finally let him crawl out of the bed. The pale brown sheets were all twisted around her as she lay sprawled in the middle of the mattress, watching him as he dressed. She looked like a vanilla swirl in the middle of a chocolate sundae.
“Maybe I could put off leaving for another week or two.”
She laughed at that as she sat up, shaking out covers and her shoulder-length red hair. “I don’t think so. Another night’s ‘rest’ and neither one of us will be able to walk.”
He slipped on his boots, shaky as he balanced first on one leg, then the other. “You know where my old backpack is?” She nodded. “Give me one change of clothing, plenty of dried jerky for noshing on between towns, and anything else you think I’ll find useful. That and my staff, and I’ll have Mudge ready to go by the time you have everything packed.”
“Pity you can’t leave your staff here.”
“Sorry. I might need it on the trip.” He ducked the pillow she threw at him. “What’s left of the duar’s already packaged for the trek. You can tie it to the top of my pack.” He tested one boot, then the other. “I feel naked going off like this, without that instrument resting against my ribs.”
She put her head down on the remaining pillow. “I wish you weren’t going, Jonny-Tom. But since you are, I’m going to think every day what a safe, relaxing time you’ll be having. You’ll make the best possible ship connections and you’ll be back here weeks early.” She rolled her eyes ceilingward. “Just don’t forget to put out the garbage when you leave.”
He made a face as he left the room.
The spiral staircase was located just off the parlor. As he climbed toward the attic he went over what he was going to say to Mudge. Getting the otter out of the house was going to be harder than pulling a tooth.
“Mudge?” He raised the trap door and peered into the room. “Mudge, you awake yet?” No reply. The sharply slanted roof forced him to stay in the center of the chamber. It was filled with piles of gifts, many of which had been forced on him by the grateful citizens of Ospenspri, the city he and Clothahump had recently rescued from the deleterious effects of the wandering perambulator. Most remained unopened. A single porthole allowed sunlight to enter from outside.
Beneath the glass stood a beautiful brass and turquoise bed which had been a wedding gift from one of Lynchbany’s most prominent citizens, an old friend of Clothahump’s. The reason it reposed in the attic instead of downstairs in the master bedroom was that despite its exquisite workmanship it was impractical, having been built for the shorter humans inhabiting this world. It fit Talea perfectly, but his longer legs hung over the end. They decided to keep it anyway. Some day there might be one or two little spellsingers who’d need a place to sleep. So they’d reassembled it in the attic.
Presently it was occupied by a single furry shape not unlike a large rug in need of washing. Mudge’s head lay beneath the covers facing the foot of the bed. His flexible rear end protruded from the sheets and stuck up in the air, the tail twitching spasmodically like an undersized brown flag in response to the otter’s depraved dreams. Mudge didn’t live quietly and he didn’t sleep quietly, something else Talea held against him. He tended to bounce around in the bed despite the muffling effects of Clothahump’s best silencing spells. Worse, he tended to walk in his sleep. He also talked in his sleep, which led to the discovery that he spouted more obscenities when unconscious than he did when he was awake.
Jon-Tom bent over to regard his somnolent houseguest. “Mudge? Mudgey-Wudgey? Time to get up.” He yelled at the buried head. “Wake up, dammit!”
The otter’s rear end subsided slowly like a leaky balloon. A head emerged from the bunched sheets near the foot of the bed. Brown eyes blinked sleepily up at him.
“Cor’, wot a bloody racket. Wot’s up, mate?”
“Me, and now you, and soon business.”
The otter frowned, smacking his lips. “Now wot sort o’ business might any civilized person be ’avin’ so early in the mornin’?
“Mudge, it’s almost lunchtime.”
“Lunch?” The otter’s eyes snapped all the way open. He was instantly and fully awake, exploding from the bed to slide supplely and with extraordinary speed into his clothes. “Why din’ you say so? Missed breakfast already, ’ave I? Well, we’ll make up for it some’ow. Tell me then, lad, wot succulent viands ’as the beauteous Talea prepared for us this charmin’ midday?”
“Nothing to swallow this morning but a bitter pill, Mudge. A bunch of thugs broke into the wizard’s tree earlier and tried to rob him. I woke up, snuck over there, and routed them.”
“’Tis a true selfless ’ero you are, mate. ’Aven’t I always said so?”
“No, you’ve always said that I was a prime idiot for sticking my nose into other people’s troubles, but that’s beside the point. I fell on my duar and broke it.”
That gave the otter pause. “Broke the duar, you say? Bad?”
“Reduced it to fragments. Clothahump says it can only be fixed, if it can be fixed at all, by a master craftsman named Couvier Coulb who lives in a town called Strelakat Mews.”
The otter sniffed, his whiskers twitching. “Never ’eard of it.” He bent over to gaze into a small mirror, preening himself. “Well, we all ’ave our little unexpected errands to run from time to time.”
“We sure do. You’re coming with me.”
“Wot?” Mudge looked up from the mirror, placed his feathered green felt cap on his head between his ears. “Before lunch?”
“No,” Jon-Tom replied in exasperation, “we can eat first.”
“Well that’s all right then.” Fully clad, the otter sauntered toward the staircase. “Where is this Strelakat place? Up near Malderpot? Or east over by Polastrindu?”
“Neither. It lies inland from the southern shore of the Glittergeist.”
“Wot, down near Yarrowl?” Mudge hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, that’s not but a few days journey by public conveyance. I could use a bit of a change o’ scenery. Join me in a quick swim?”
“Mudge, Strelakat Mews lies somewhere in the jungle south of the city of Chejiji, which is clear across the ocean. When I said the southern shore, I meant the southern shore.”
Mudge cocked a suspicious eye on his friend. “Do you know ’ow far that is, mate?”
“I have an idea.”
“Then here’s another idea for you to ’ave: count me out. I’ve ’ad me fill o’ travelin’ to far distant lands, I ’ave, especially in your company. Nasty things tend to ’appen to folks taggin’ along with you, Jon-Tom.”
“There’ll be no trouble this time. We’re just taking a trip to get a duar repaired. We’re not marching off to save the world this time.”
“Get this straight, mate: we ain’t marchin’ anywhere. Besides, I ain’t got the stomach for another ocean voyage. One with you were enough to last me a lifetime. I’ll just stay right ’ere.”
“I didn’t want to bring this up, Mudge, but you’ve been staying ‘right here’ ever since Talea and I got married.”
“Right, and don’t think I ’aven’t appreciated the ’ospitality. I’ve enjoyed every day and every meal, just as I’ve enjoyed the company.”
“Talea seems to feel otherwise,” he said quietly.
