neetha Napew - The Paths Of The Perambulator

“You still don’t!” Jon-Tom yelled joyfully back to him as he bent over the otter’s prone form. Mudge’s feathered cap had been knocked off by the impact. It lay several feet away. Blood stained the fur on the back of the otter’s skull. But appearances, to Jon-Tom’s great relief, were deceiving.

“He’s breathing. Sorbl, your hearing’s better than any of ours.”

The owl nodded and put a pointed ear against the otter’s chest. When he looked up at the rest of them, he was smiling knowingly. “Beating like a celibate’s after a four-day orgy. He’s no more dead than I am.”

“Let me have a look.” Colin slipped both arms under Mudge. Showing off the considerable strength in his compact body, he easily carried the unconscious otter back to where they’d been sitting when the branch had fallen. Jon-Tom hunted through the medicine pack on Dormas’s back and brought out a narrow bottle full of golden liquid.

“Really,” said a distressed Sorbl, smacking his beak, “couldn’t you make do with some of the cheaper brand, Jon-Tom?”

“Sorbl! I’m surprised at you!”

“I mean,” the owl muttered, “it’s not as if he’s dead or anything.”

What a crew, Jon-Tom mused as he bent over the motionless otter and let a few potent drops tumble into the open mouth. Mudge coughed, his body spasmed, a second cough, and he was sitting up sputtering. Jon-Tom was the first thing he saw.

“Wot are you tryin’ to do, mate, drown me? Ohhhh.” Gingerly he touched the back of his head. “Crikey! It feels like somebody dropped a bloomin’ tree on me.”

“Close enough, even if it wasn’t blooming,” Jon-Tom told him. Indeed, the branch that had struck the otter only a glancing blow was bigger in circumference than many of the smaller trees surrounding them.

“Just nicked you, pilgrim.” Colin was inspecting the back of the otter’s head. “Fortunately. Like I said, rune reading’s not a precise art.”

“I’ll give you a dose o’ precise, you walkin’ ‘airball.” He tried to lunge at the koala. The pain in his head held him back. When he touched himself again, his hand came away covered in crimson. “I’m bleedin’ to death while you sit there and lecture me.”

“Quit whining,” Dormas snapped. “Jon-Tom, there are bandages in the bottom of the medicine kit.” He nodded, rummaged around until he located a roll of sterilized linen, then began wrapping it around the otter’s head.

“Ow! Take it easy back there, mate. That’s no steak you’re wrappin’, you know.”

“I’m being as gentle as I can, Mudge.”

“Likely, that is.” He glared at Colin. “I ain’t sure if I buy your whole story, guv’nor, but you’ve scored a point or two in its favor, that’s certain.”

Colin sniffed. “You could have been killed, you poor excuse for a coat. I’d think you’d be giving thanks.”

“You do, do you? If you’re such a hotsy-totsy reader o’ the future, ‘ow come you didn’t see that branch fixin’ to break? ‘Ow do we know you didn’t plan it that way?”

“I don’t care for your implications, pilgrim. That blow’s affected your reasoning. Or maybe it hasn’t. In any case, how could I have known that you’d react to my prediction by retreating right underneath that tree?”

“Use your head, Mudge,” Jon-Tom admonished him.

“Not right now, mate, if you don’t mind. I admit I ain’t figured that one out yet.”

“That’s about enough, water rat,” said Dormas firmly.

“You’re pissing in the wind. Mr. Colin strikes me as a perfect gentleman. We should be glad to have him along.”

“Speak for yourself, four-legs.”

“Mudge, think a minute.” Jon-Tom split the end of the bandage and began knotting it around the otter’s forehead. “If Colin wanted to kill you, he could have laughed at you when the branch hit you on the head. He didn’t. His first reaction was identical to ours: He ran to try to help you.”

“You bloody solicitors are all alike, just stinkin’ of logic an’ reasonableness. I’ve about ‘ad me fill of it—ouch, damn it!”

“If you’d give your mouth a rest, your jaw muscles wouldn’t put so much of a strain on the back of your head.” He tied the knot firmly. “There. I thought that branch might’ve knocked some sense into you. I guess it would take a giant sequoia.”

“What might that be?” Clothahump inquired.

“An extremely large tree that comes from my world. Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Once, in my younger days when I was traveling in southern lands, I—’

“If you don’t mind,” said Mudge, “could we drop the botanical travelogue until we see if me ‘ead’s goin’ to fall off?”

“I do not think we need fear for the integrity of your skull, Mudge, as opposed to, say, its contents.” Clothahump was regarding the injured otter benignly. “As has been demonstrated on more than one occasion, it is unquestionably the strongest part of your anatomy, having both the impermeability and density of solid lead.”

“Right. ‘Ere I lie, wounded near to death, an’ instead o’ sympathy an’ compassion, I get insults.”

“You could be dead, Mudge,” Jon-Tom told him again. “Colin’s reading might have been completely, instead of partially, accurate.”

“Like your spellsingin’. Much more o’ that kind o’ good fortune an’ I’ll save the gods the trouble by cuttin’ me own throat.”

Colin was recovering his runes, packing them just so in the center of the leather square. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have cast and, having cast, should have said nothing.”

“No. It wouldn’t have mattered,” Jon-Tom told him. “And I guess we were all a little bit suspicous of you.”

Colin pulled the four corners of the leather together and secured them with his intricate series of knots. “It’s a sad day when a koala’s word is no longer believed.”

“With the fate of an unknown portion of the cosmos at stake,” Clothahump said, “you must concede a little caution on our part.”

“Your caution? What about me? What proof do I have that you’re a wizard or that the tall, bald body is a spellsinger?”

“I drove off your captors, remember?”

“I remember hearing a sound so awful, it made me wish for the fire at the time. That’s not magic, that’s torture.”

It was worth the bruise to Jon-Tom’s ego to hear Mudge laugh again.

“So I don’t sound like Nat King Cole, but I’m not that bad.”

Clothahump frowned. “I do not recognize the line. What kingdom does he reign over?”

“The kingdom of scat,” Jon-Tom replied impatiently. “Look, are we in a hurry or not?”

“We are indeed. We should move.”

“Sure, why not?” groused Mudge. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we’ll all be lyin’ quiet in our graves. Fine bunch to be off tryin’ to save the world! A wizard who knows where the enemy lies, more or less. A reader o’ the future who knows wot’s goin’ to ‘appen, more or less. An’ let’s not forget a spellsinger who can conjure up the means to defend us from wotever we may face—more or less. ‘Ow could a poor tagalong like me be anything but confident about the outcome?”

“That’s the spirit, Mudge,” Jon-Tom told him. “It’s good to know that if we get overconfident about anything, you’ll be right there with your undying pessimism to get us back on track.”

“You can be sure o’ that, mate.” He scanned the ground nearby. “Hey, where’s me cap?”

“I’ll get it.” Sorbl half flew, half hopped over to the giant fir, hunted around the sides of the fallen branch for a moment, then returned with something limp and green hi his beak. This he passed to Mudge.