neetha Napew - Son Of Spellsinger

Raising a hand for silence, the figure standing at the head of the table solemnly addressed his colleagues. His words were clearly audible to the quartet huddled in the narrow corridor.

“We shall now vote.”

At that command they all threw back then- hoods and stood revealed in the steady lamplight as representatives of the same tribe, though many individual clans were represented.

Hares, Buncan realized. They were all hares.

“Why hares?” he found himself whispering aloud. “Why should they be the Dark Ones, the dabblers in evil? Why them?”

“I know. I know because I’ve listened to them rage, because I’ve watched their frenzies, I have.” Mowara’s beak was close by Buncan’s ear. “It’s because they’re sick of being thought of as cute and harmless. Ten thousand years and more of accumulated resentment has pushed this lot over the edge, it has. They’re tired of being cuddled and stroked by everyone else. It’s respect they want, and they ami to get it through sorcery.”

Puzzlement mottled Neena’s expression. “But they are cute and cuddly. ‘Tis the way they were designed. They can’t ‘elp it, the bloody fools. Would they rather be like the skunk tribe, wot nobody wants to get near? Wot’s wrong with this lot?”

“I told you,” Mowara whispered. “They’re so mad they’ve gone bad. Collective self-loathing. I think it’s one reason why they’re so set on creating new creatures, I do. Twisting and warping reality. Their anger has driven them insane.”

Buncan found himself staring at the nominal leader of the ten. His fur was predominantly dark brown, with white, unhealthy-looking splotches. With his wild eyes and buck-teeth that had been filed to sharp points, he looked anything but cute and cuddly.

“We will throw the blasphemers back!” he was declaiming.

“Fling them over the falls!” another added enthusiastically.

“This, too, can be incorporated into the Plan.” The leader ran a finger along the edge of the strange table. “Once this band of simple villagers has been defeated, there will be none to stand against us in the mountains. We can make servants and slaves of those who survive, and use them as the base for our planned corporate expansion. Mergers and takeovers can then proceed apace.” He let his gaze rove over his followers. “All those in favor?”

“Aye!” the chorus of acolytes resounded.

The leader nodded his approval. “See that it is so recorded in the minutes.” Lifting both hands, he tilted back his head and closed his eyes. His colleagues did likewise as he intoned The Words. “Stock manipulation. Insider trading. Currency exchange”

The room grew dark save for a singular greenish glow which seemed to emanate from the ceiling. The assembled monks murmured softly to themselves.

“They’ve certainly tapped in to something,” Duncan whispered. “Some kind of gloom-laden power I’ve never encountered before.” He wished silently that Clothahump were there.

Mowara shifted nervously from foot to foot on Buncan’s shoulder. “That’s Droww doing the invoking. He’s the biggest fanatic of the lot.”

The chanting rose in volume and the greenish glow intensified, until with a triumphant shout of “Leveraged hostile buyout!” the assembled monks vanished in a cloud of bilious smoke.

Buncan exhaled slowly. “That’s very impressive.”

“Where’ve they got to?” Neena wanted to know.

“Not far, not far, if experience is an indicator.” Mowara shifted to Buncan’s other shoulder. “To the Vault is my guess, it is, to prepare some special poison. Come, and we’ll find them.” Spreading aged but still competent wings, he fluttered off back up the corridor.

They had to avoid a single, pitiful guard: a transformed sugar glider whose wings hung about her in tatters. A prehensile tongue dangled from the misshapen head of what had once been a graceful gazelle. The sight turned Buncan’s stomach.

“Tread softly here.” Mowara settled once more onto Buncan’s shoulder. “This is the kitchen where decay is prepared.”

The corridor opened onto a vast chamber dominated by a lofty bowl-shaped ceiling. Lamps glowed in holders set high on stone walls. They stood on an upper floor looking down into a circular pit within which slablike tables and numerous cages were visible. The tables held much elaborate thauraa-turgical apparatus fashioned of glass and metal.

Buncan recognized the monks from the Board room. Hoods back, they were bustling about the exotic apparatus and cages, mixing fluids and measuring powders. Droww stood at an intricately inscribed wooden pulpit which supported a huge, open book. There was also a knobbed panel attached to its own small window. This pulsed with light and unseen schematics. The leader of the Kilagurri monks gripped the sides of the podium while watching his faithful at work.

“There, in the back.” Neena gestured insistently at the far side of the pit. “By the Black River itself!”

Buncan let his gaze follow her lead. She was pointing at the last row of stacked cages. These held not deformed monstrosities, not unfortunate travelers, but cubs: the young of numerous tribes. Even at a distance he could make out an infant flying fox and immature osprey huddled fearfully together. Both their wings had been clipped to forestall any chance of their flying to freedom.

Other cages held juvenile roos and platys, possums and tiger cats, dingoes and koalas, along with equally disconsolate representatives of outlying tribes such as small felines, rodents, a black bear cub, and an especially wretched sifaka. It was a panorama of collective misery heartbreaking to see, and for the first time he was glad as well as proud to have offered his help to Wurragarr’s band.

There were also two human children crammed into a cage too small for them to stand up in. While he wasn’t and never had been a tribal chauvinist, their plight still affected him more powerfully than that of any of the other captives. That was only to be expected, he thought.

An angry knot formed in his stomach. At that moment the wizard Droww and his fellow hares did not look in the least bit cute or cuddly.

Though he knew sorcery was involved, the mechanics of the physical intermelding baffled him. Aside from wondering why anyone would want to, how could you combine the characteristics of a human child and a flying fox or wallaby? He couldn’t shake loose of the question as his gaze shifted to the abominations jammed into some of the other cages.

“What you doing here?”

Whirling, Buncan saw exactly the sort of brute he feared.

Except for the protruding, black-tipped snout it had the face and arms of a young human, but the remainder of the body was wholly roo. Enormous, oversize feet, stout lower body tapering to a narrower chest, powerful tail, high leathery ears; all reminded him more of Wurragarr than his own tribe. The creature regarded them belligerently, a large club easily balanced in both hands, light chain mail hanging from the smooth shoulders.

“Get ‘im!” yelled Squill without hesitation. He and Neena were on top of the creature instantly. Buncan was right behind them as Mowara darted back and forth overhead, whistling encouragement.

Buncan wrenched the club out of the creature’s grasp while avoiding a kick that if it had connected would have taken his head off. The rooman fought back as best it could, but was no match for the combination of Buncan’s strength and the otter’s agility. In moments they had it pinned on its side. Neena’s face burned where she’d caught a glancing blow from the muscular, madly flailing tail, but otherwise they were all three unharmed. Straddling the prone neck, Squill raised his sword.

“Go ahead; kill me,” the rooman mumbled.