neetha Napew - The Paths Of The Perambulator

“How do you feel?”

“Very strange, man.” The wolverine lifted the hem of what once had been a fine piece of clothing. “Why am I clad in rags like this? Wait—I remember now. Yes, I remember.” He raised his eyes to meet Jon-Tom’s. “Something about changing the world. I was going to change the world so that I would feel comfortable with it.”

“But you don’t have to do that anymore, do you? There’s no longer any reason to live in a crazy world because you’re no longer unbalanced yourself. You’re cured, Braglob. Your madness departed with the perambulator. A little spellsinging goes a long way.”

Mudge had rejoined Colin, leaned close to whisper to the koala. “Cured, ‘e says. Look at ‘em standin’ there grinnin’ at each other. If you ask me, the both of ‘em are nuts.”

Braglob listened, and as he listened, he was nodding slowly. “It is true. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing or why. I remember only that I was afraid. I’ve always been afraid. Eventually my fears drove me from my family, my friends, my home. To this place, where I resolved to deal with my fears by changing the world. I had to do that, don’t you see? It was the only way.

“My companions laughed at and tormented me until I fled to this remote region to escape their taunts. Even the smallest citizens, the rats and the mice and voles, threw things at me and chased me from their company. So I came here to practice my art. I studied hard. And I trapped the perambulator! Something the books said could not be done. I, Braglob, did this,” He searched the chamber behind Jon-Tom. “And now it is gone isn’t it?”

Jon-Tom nodded. “Gone like your madness and the fear that drove you mad. You couldn’t live with your private terrors, could you? You couldn’t deal with being a wolverine and a coward at the same time.”

“You understand, then. But I am no longer fearful. I feel as I should. The fears are gone, every one of them, along with the pain and the hurt that was with me every day, here.” He rubbed the back of his head and neck. “I feel—normal.” His smile vanished.

“But I was going to change the world. I can’t do that now. I was going to rule it. Tell me, man, is it better to live a sane but ordinary life or to be a mad emperor?” He reached for the massive battle-ax, which lay where he’d tossed it aside. “You have given me back my sanity but have stolen my dreams.”

Jon-Tom took a step backward, his gaze shifting rapidly from the ax to Braglob’s face. This was not turning out as he’d anticipated. Not only was the wolverine acting in a less than thankful manner, he seemed downright displeased about something.

“You could have left me alone to work out my problems on my own,” Braglob growled.

“Left you alone? You mean, you were enjoying being a coward?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you’re saying you were happy as a madman?”

“No, but I didn’t know that I was mad. I knew only that I was going to rule the world, or at least that I had the power to alter and affect it. Now I have no power at all.” He held the battle-ax lightly in one paw.

“You don’t need that now that you’ve had your sanity returned to you.”

“A wolverine who has no need of power? What alien philosophy is that? I had power and you stole it from me. But you are right. You did cure me. I am quite myself now. Quite.”

It suddenly struck Jon-Tom that having disposed of the perambulator and its perturbations, as well as having cured its captor, they now had to decide how to deal with an angry, intelligent, six-foot-tall wolverine with, so to speak, an ax to grind. Yes, Braglob was himself once more, with the temperament typical of a member of his species.

“Uh-oh, ‘ere we go again.” Mudge disengaged himself from Colin and made a dash to recover his sword and longbow. Dormas turned around so that her hind legs were facing the slowly advancing Braglob.

“Be reasonable. You’re not thinking straight,” Jon-Tom told the quietly furious wolverine. “There are six of us and only one of you.”

Braglob was not impressed. “Six against one wolverine. Fair enough odds, man.”

Jon-Tom didn’t want a fight. It was crazy. There was no reason for a fight. The perambulator, the real cause of all the trouble and the reason they had made the long journey to this obscure mountain valley, had been sent on its merry way. It was ridiculous to think that they had accomplished all that they’d set out to do, only to be faced with an entirely new and unexpected danger in the form of this now-healthy, belligerent Braglob character. It made no sense, no sense at all. He wasn’t going to stand for it!

However, he still had to convince Braglob of that.

“I could have lived with it,” the wolverine was muttering angrily. “I could have coped. We wolverines live all our lives on the edge of madness as it is. But power is hard to get and harder to hold. You took it from me.”

Jon-Tom was trying to think of what to say next when a small, squat shape stepped past him. “Your problem,” Colin said as he fumbled with his pack, “is that you’re not completely cured yet.”

Holding the menacing ax high overhead, Braglob halted and turned his attention to this new arrival. “What do you mean, not cured?”

“It’s obvious. You’re still a coward.”

The wolverine’s eyes grew wide, and his nostrils flared. “Still a coward, am I? I’ll show you who’s a coward, fat-bear. I’ll smash you like a bug.”

Colin held up a hand. “You’re still afraid. Not of me, or of any of the rest of us, but of the future. You don’t know what it holds in store for you now that you’ve become yourself again, and it frightens you. When you were mad, you didn’t give it a thought. Now you have to.”

“Everyone is a little fearful of the future,” Braglob snapped. “You as well as I. That is not cowardice, it is common sense. There is nothing that can be done about it.”

“On the contrary.” Colin extracted his familiar silver-and-black leather bag and stepped boldly forward. “I am a reader of runes. As a practitioner of the art, you know what that means. I can foretell the future. I can tell yours.” He shook the bag so that Braglob could hear the pile of runes rattle within.

The wolverine hesitated. “No one can foretell the future. All rune-casters are charlatans and cheats.”

“Not all. A few of us have the skill. None of us is perfect, but I’m pretty good.”

“It’s a trick. You’re trying to shield yourselves from my wrath.”

“Snakeshit. You can sit close and watch me. If I try anything that looks phony to you, I’ll be in easy reach. Maybe if I tell your future and it looks good to you, you’ll consider letting us leave without any bloodshed.”

A long pause. Then the ax descended—to hang loosely at the wolverine’s side. “Very well.” He gestured past Colin with his free hand. “You see five tunnels leading from this chamber in addition to the one I am standing in. Only one other leads to freedom. The other four are dead ends.” He sat down opposite Colin, blocking the hallway with his bulk.

“You can’t slip out past me, and the odds against you finding the other exit on a first try are slight indeed. You will remain here as hostages to my disappointment until I have decided whether to reward this fat-bear or grind all of you underfoot.”

“Fair enough.” Colin sat down close to Braglob.

“Let’s rush ‘im, mate,” Mudge whispered to Jon-Tom. “ ‘E’s big an’ tough and ‘e might get one or two of us, but the rest would get away clean. An’ if we ‘it ‘im fast enough, we might all of us make it. Let’s ‘ave at ‘im while ‘e’s sittin’ down an’ preoccupied.” His fingers began to slide slowly toward his sword.