neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

Their impudent departure started a minor rush. Even the spectacled bear lumbered off to join his defecting friends.

“Even you, Sinwahh, put to flight by infants!” The coati’s sneers trailed them remorselessly. “All of you ‘brave’ robbers, terrified by three cubs and some strange music. Cowards, weaklings! Offspring of discount whores! You’ll not share in our bounty!”

“Is there any bounty, o revered leader Charming?” The one raccoon who’d stayed behind was uncertain.

“Aye,” wondered the ringtail who’d remained. “The sloth looked like nothing but a simple merchant.”

The coati turned violently on his small constituency, all that remained of his once powerful band. “You believe that? Then you’re no better than those spineless fools who’ve fled. What ‘simple merchant’ merits rescue by three spellsingers, even young ones? Do you imagine that the newcomers risked their lives out of the goodness of their hearts, or from some imagined debt to the trader?” He spun ‘round to glare at the northern stretch of now empty road.

“There’s mote at stake here than pots and pans. There’s something in that wagon worth dying for. A lifetime’s savings in gold, perhaps, or precious stones garnered in Glittergeist trade. Or something even more valuable we cannot imagine. Something worm the concern of young wizards.” He turned back to his two anxious companions.

“You are right, Sisarfi. That wagon is not worth the attention of common thieves. But I am not common, and by cleaving to me and my leadership you bask in the glory of my uncommonness.”

“Uh, thanks.” Though obviously confused, the ringtail instinctively sensed it would be impolitic to seek further clarification. He rubbed at the place on his head where his left ear used to be. It had been sacrificed many years before in a badly bollixed attempt at robbing a riverboat.

“Those fools.” Chamung turned his gaze to the road leading south. “They’ll find no profit in Lynchbany. They’ll starve. It’s a town overrun with thieves, and half of them don’t even have Guild cards. All profit entails some risk, and we’re not afraid of a little risk, are we? Come!” He stalked determinedly toward the road, aiming north. “We’ll have our profit, and revenge for our poor brother Jachay as well! Already my mind ferments with provocative scenarios for entertaining disembowelments.”

The ringtail and raccoon exchanged a distinctly hesitant look before following.

CHAPTER 7

The wagon wound its way through the bellwoods until a barely visible leftward branching in the road that Buncan would not even have guessed was there drew Gragelouth to the west. As their new route was not merely less traveled but practically nonexistent, their progress was slow. The terrain remained relatively level and firm.

The Bellwoods did not so much meld into the Moors as give way abruptly. One moment they were traveling among healthy oaks and sycamores, belltrees and glissando bushes, accompanied by the singing of crywail lizards and the hum of insects, and the next found them passing between cinder-gray groves and the inert hulks of long-dead trees.

These quickly surrendered the soil to an astonishingly fecund and fevered forest of giant mushrooms, toadstools, and shelf fungi, an overgrown morass of macabre mycelium that throbbed with an unwholesome internal phosphorescence. The cloud-flecked blue sky of the Bellwoods had been obliterated by a pervasive gray-green gloom that disheartened the soul as well as the eye.

Somewhere above the pestilent fog Buncan knew that the sun still shone brightly, the clouds still collided and coalesced amiably in a blue sea. It was vital to cling to that image as they plodded through the baleful olive-green twilight.

Water seeped lugubriously from the crowns of gigantic mushrooms and other fungi. Ghostly white growths loomed before them, diseased of appearance, loathsome of smell. Buncan drew his cape a little tighter around his neck. Even the otters were subdued. The dampness didn’t bother them, but the gloom did. The dour surroundings muted their irrepressibly cheerful sibling banter as effectively as the soggy earth hushed the creaky wheels of Gragelouth’s wagon.

“So these are the Muddletup Moors,” Buncan commented uneasily, not because it was necessary but because the continued silence was unbearable. Peculiar hisses and squeakings emanated from the undermorass, while phosphorescent shapes darted within, hinting at unpleasant horrors just beyond the range of ready vision. Displaying a subdued but unshakable sense of assurance (or hope), Gragelouth picked their way through the intimidating vegetation.

“I’ve ‘eard all about the Moors, I ‘ave.” Squill knelt on the cushions behind the driver’s bench, peering between Buncan and Gragelouth. Like his enthusiasm, his smile was forced. Moisture beaded up on the tips of his whiskers. “Mudge talked about ‘em a lot. ‘E’s been through ‘ere an’ back an’ come out tail intact every time.”

“E just never said wot a really depressin’ place it is,” Neena added unhelpfully.

“Therein lies the true danger of the Moors.” Gragelouth shifted the reins in his thick fingers, his gaze darting nervously to left and then right. “It infiltrates the mind and weakens the will to resist, to go on. Eventually you give up and just stop. Then the spores come, and the white tendrils, and enter your body. They grow in you and on you and use you up, until nothing is left but a collapsed skeleton. That, too, is eventually returned to the muck.”

“Glad to see you don’t let it bother you,” commented Neena dryly.

Squill’s expression was sullen. “I ‘ave to admit this ain’t the ‘appiest place I’ve ever been.”

The atmosphere of the Moors was already beginning to get to them, Buncan realized with a start. The all-pervasive aura of depression and hopelessness pressed down relentlessly.

“How about a song?”

“Cor, that’s a good idea, Bunkles.” Neena levered herself up from the cushions. “Somethin’ merry an’ ‘olesome.”

“No spellsinging,” Gragelouth admonished them. He eyed Buncan’s duar warily. “I thought it was agreed that was only for emergencies. I admit I am depressed, but not mortally so. Not yet.”

“No spellsinging,” Buncan agreed. “Just something to buoy us up and beat back this gloom.”

“That could be useful,” the merchant reluctantly conceded.

“Right.” Buncan struck the strings, flinging frisky chords into the brooding ah- like a noble casting gold pieces at an impecunious crowd. Behind him the otters began to harmonize playfully.

“Got no time to be sad today

There’s a time to be sad and a time to play

Place to be cryin’, place to be dyin’

We’re gonna get outta here ‘cause we be tryin’

To motivate this wagon on its way.”

The music drifted out across the Moors, penetrating and pushing aside the gloom as if it were a dirty, rotting curtain. The weight of the oleaginous air they were breathing lightened perceptibly, while the nearest sphacelated fungi seemed to recoil from the unrelenting cheerfulness, a perception that turned out to be anything but imaginary.

“Will you stop playing that music?” pleaded the growth on their immediate right.

“Blimey, Mudge were right.” Neena examined the giant toadstool. “They can communicate when they want to.”

“How can you sing?” declaimed a chorus of shelf fungi from nearby, “when there’s no hope left? When all is doomed?”

A cluster of mushrooms no higher man a dray lizard’s belly chimed in. “When existence defines itself through unending misery.”

“If you put it like that,” Buncan found himself muttering. A paw came down hard on his shoulder.