neetha Napew - The Paths Of The Perambulator

“The woman I love is stronger than that, but she doesn’t have to be a barbarian ax murderess, either.”

Silence between them. Then her pout gave way to a scintillating smile. “They say that opposites attract, don’t they? Didn’t you tell me that once?”

“Yeah, and on reflection I think it was a pretty stupid thing to say. All I know is that I love you with all my heart, and if you want to carry a sword during the wedding, well, hell, that’s all right with me, so long as it doesn’t intimidate the wedding master.”

“Wedding master.” She looked uncertain. “You said you wouldn’t push, Jon-Tom.”

“No one is going to do any pushing except up this hillside.” Clothahump regarded them sternly. “We have rested long enough. It is time now for us to make an end of this matter, lest it make an end of us. There is no telling what we may encounter inside these walls. Talea likely saw nothing because it was intended that she not. All of you must be prepared for an attack of the most outrageous possibilities.

“We have journey far but have the longest way yet to go. And there is no telling when the next severe perturbation will occur. Let us make haste to find the perambulator and set it free.”

“I’m ready, by m’luv’s legs,” Mudge announced loudly. “Lead on, short, shelled, and stubborn! I’m with you for ‘avin’ an end to this business. There’re ladies waitin’ to be loved and liquor waitin’ to be drunk, an” I’m sick an’ tired o’ livin’ off the land when the land ain’t very accommodatin’.”

“You ain’t the only one, water rat,” said Dormas. “I’d hate to miss the opening trot of the social season.”

With Clothahump and Jon-Torr in the lead they advanced toward the single doorway above.

Though they were ready for anything, and Colin anc. Mudge were spoiling for another fight, the actual assault on the falling-down fortress was more of an anticlimax than any of them could have foreseen. Mudge reached the doorway first. The double doors were fashioned of hand-hewn wood, and not very well seasoned wood at that. They were high but otherwise unimposing. There were no guards to challenge them, no perturbed monstrosities to confront them. Nothing, in fact, to object to their entrance.

Mudge put a paw on the latch, pushed down, and shoved hard. The door swung inward a foot, two feet—and there was a loud crack. Everyone tensed, and the otter jumped a yard straight backward, but it wasn’t the sound of something attacking. The door had fallen from its top hinge. It swayed there, hanging precariously from the bottom loop of iron.

The otter slowly advanced to peer inside. “Well?” Clothahump prompted him.

“Scrag me for a Lynchbany tax collector, Your Sorcererness, if the bleedin’ place ain’t as deserted as a mausoleum!”

When they entered, they found the outer hall as silent and empty as a tomb, just as Mudge had indicated. But it hadn’t been that way for very long. Benches lay overturned, chairs were smashed against walls, candle standards had been twisted like candy. A few decorative banners hung listlessly from the curved ceiling while others were scattered in shreds across the stone floor. Several had been piled in a corner to form a crude bed. A couple of matching couches were missing all their cushions. They found those a few yards farther on. All of them had had their stuffing torn out and thrown around the hallway.

There were gouges in the floor and on the walls. Half-eaten food and other debris was scattered over everything. Dark stains on some of the furniture and floor at first suggested grisly goings-on. They turned out to be from spilled wine, not blood.

“Well, this is encouraging.” Jon-Tom studied the hallway ahead. It curved slightly to the right. Evidently Mudge didn’t share his opinion. The otter let out a derisive snort.

“Why? Because it proves that the bastard we’re fightin’ is a lousy ‘ousekeeper? Some’ow that don’t reassure me.” The otter’s eyes kept darting from filthy corners to shadowed eaves high overhead as they advanced deeper into the fortress.

“No. Because it hints that he might have exhausted his resources trying to stop us outside,” Jon-Tom replied. “Maybe he’s thrown everything at us he could think of and he’s run for cover.”

“I do not think so.” Clothahump indicated the destruction around them. “Look around you. Banners torn down to form makeshift bedding, chairs broken up to build fires in the middle of the floor: such a life-style would make sense only to a madman, and a madman would not have the sense to retreat. Nor do I think that after having defended his sanctuary so violently he would simply give up and run away. I admit that I did not expect us to enter so easily, but that is yet another indication that we are up against an unbalanced mind. What we see here is hardly the result of poor housekeeping.”

“You can bet on that,” Colin agreed. “It looks like there’s been a war here.” He pointed out places where a blade of some kind had cut not only into the furniture but into the stones of the wall itself. “Definite signs of fighting but no blood, no lingering aroma of death. I wonder who was fighting whom in here? You think others have preceded us and failed?” It was a sobering thought, one they hadn’t considered until now.

“I doubt it,” Clothahump murmured. “I know of no one skilled enough to detect this location and get here prior to us. That you arrived in the same territory at approximately the same time was due only to your unique ability to read some of the future.”

The koala turned his gaze back to the devastation they were striding through. “Then who’s been fighting here?”

“Our unknown opponent. I strongly suspect he has been doing battle with himself, as is not uncommon among the insane. I wonder how long he has been assailed by unseen demons and imaginary terrors?”

Sorbl fluttered along overhead, having to work hard to stay airborne in the confined space of the hallway. “Master, what kind of maniac opposes us for leagues and leagues, only to abandon the defense of his own home?”

“That is largely what we have come to find out, apprentice.”

“Look there!” Dormas came to an abrupt halt.

“Where?” Jon-Tom joined the others in looking around anxiously.

“Road apples!” the ninny muttered. “Sometimes I regret not having any hands. It’s hard to point with a hoof. Up there, off to the left ahead of us. I could swear I saw something move.”

“Come on, then!” Mudge sprinted down the hallway, skidded to a sudden halt. “Wot the ‘ell am I doing?” He waited for his companions to catch up to him before resuming, at a more prudent pace, his advance. And he permitted Jon-Tom and Colin to take the lead.

Clothahump noted that solid rock had replaced thatch and wood overhead. “We are inside the mountain proper now. This redoubt is much larger than it appears from outside. I wonder who raised it, and when. The exterior walls are of relatively recent construction, but this is old. Precalibriac, I should say. It wears the poorly constructed walls outside like a mask.”

Sorbl backed ah- nervously. “Master, I hear something.”

Weapons were readied, muscles tensed. “How many of ‘em?” Mudge inquired of their aerial scout.

“It did not sound like people moving about.” The owl sounded agitated. “It sounded like—like someone humming. Very loudly.”

“Which way?” Jon-Tom asked him. The hallway forked ahead of them. The right-hand tunnel bent away, dark and downward. He didn’t like the looks of it. The passageway on the left was weakly lit by a single torch. He was relieved when Sorbl suggested that they should go that way. Better to confront any opponent in the light than his own fears in the dark.