neetha Napew - The Paths Of The Perambulator

In the center of the room the glow bulb was at full intensity. Clothahump was no longer floating inches above his chair but was seated firmly on the hard wood. He was holding tightly to the arms with both hands and breathing hard. When he was convinced it wasn’t going to disappear on him, Jon-Tom let go of the wall and stumbled toward the wizard to see if he could be of any help. He was sweating profusely in the heat of the cellar. Except that it wasn’t hot. It was the same temperature that it had been when they’d arrived.

He was sweating from the cold, the cold of where they’d been. That’s why it seemed hot to him now. He hadn’t been aware of the cold at the time. You didn’t feel hot and cold on the far side of nothing. You didn’t feel anything at all.

He shivered.

“How are you doing, sir?”

The wizard glanced up at him, gathered himself, and let out a long sigh. Then he smiled reassuringly. “All right. Right as can be expected. I don’t travel as well as I used to. Did you see it?”

“I saw something. I don’t know what.” He stared at the glow bulb sitting atop its staff, drinking in the pale, reassuring luminescence. Never had he been so grateful to be in a hole in the ground. “I think it might have been the perambulator.”

“What else could it have been?” Clothahump’s strength was returning and, with it, his enthusiasm. He pushed back the chair, stood next to the light, and stretched. “Consider yourself privileged, my boy. I don’t believe anyone has seen a perambulator in living memory. They don’t hang around long enough to be seen, and even when they do, you might not realize what it is you’re looking at. I confess it’s appearance surprised me.”

“The way it kept changing, you mean?”

“Oh, no. Change is the very soul of a perambulator. What I did not expect was for it to be so beautiful.” He glanced past the tall young human. “Sorbl? You still with us?”

The famulus was standing and rubbing his backside. He grimaced at the wizard. “Unfortunately yes, Master.”

“Good. Get your feathers in gear. We’re going back upstairs.”

“I lost the scroll, Master. It was torn from my feathers. There was nothing I could do.”

“It matters not. I can replace it at any time. I have access to an endless supply. Now, quickly, I need for you to begin packing for our journey.”

The famulus staggered toward the glow bulb and pulled the staff out of the ground. “You don’t need to convince me, Master. Anything to get out of this place.” He started for the tunnel that led upward.

Clothahump extended an arm. “A little support if you please, my boy. I am feeling a mite queasy.”

“I’m not surprised. I don’t feel too steady myself.” He put his right arm around the back of the wizard’s shell, steadying him as they followed in Sorbl’s wake.

As soon as they were in the tunnel proper and climbing, Clothahump called a halt while he recovered his glasses from the uppermost drawer of his plastron. He studied the six-sided lenses at arm’s length. “Fogged up, my boy.” He produced a cloth and began to clean them. “That was quite a transposition.”

Jon-Tom found himself gazing worriedly back down the tunnel. Nothing was coming after them, nothing pursued them from the depths of the cellar. How could it? They had been alone down there. There had been nothing with them.

“I know where we must go now, my boy.” The wizard tapped the side of his head. It made a loud clicking sound, shell on shell. “A long ways but not a difficult one.”

I’ve heard that before, Jon-Tom muttered, but only to himself. What he said was, “Anyplace I’d know?”

“I think not. It lies far to the north, north of the Bellwoods, past Ospenspri and Kreshfarm-in-the-Keegs, farther north than you have ever been. Farther north than civilized people care to travel. We will have to hurry. In another month winter will be upon us, and travel in such country will become impossible. We must free the perambulator before the snows begin. And there is a new problem.”

“Another one?”

“I fear it is so. I had thought the perambulator frozen by some freak of nature, trapped here by some crack or fallen into some hole in the interdimensional fabric of existence. Such is not the case.”

Jon-Tom felt the coldness returning. He remembered the pressure of those unseen eyes, heard again that singular wild howl.

“Its presence here isn’t an accident, then.”

“No, my boy,” the wizard said somberly. “It has been stopped here intentionally, deliberately, with purpose aforethought. It seems incredible, but the truth often is. I can scarce believe it myself.”

“I can’t believe it at all. From everything you’ve told me about it I don’t see how anyone could catch it, much less restrain it.”

“Nor do I, yet it is clear to me that this is what has happened. There is a formidable and sinister power at work here. I could not do such a thing. Something, someone, has caught the perambulator and is holding it prisoner in this time-space frame. If it is not freed, it could not only alter our world permanently, it could eventually destroy it in its attempts to get free.”

“Then whoever is restraining it could also be destroyed.”

“Just so,” agreed the wizard, nodding.

“That’s crazy,” Jon-Tom said firmly.

“Ah. Now you begin to have some understanding of what we are up against.”

Jon-Tom said nothing for the remainder of their climb back to the surface.

III

It didn’t take long for him to finish packing. A very good friend of his had told him that he who travels light travels best, and Jon-Tom had adhered to that advice ever since. On this world speed was more important than comfort, flexibility a better companion than a spare pair of pants.

He found Sorbl in the wizard’s study, packing vials and packets under Clothahump’s supervision.

“I’m all set,” he told his mentor.

“Good, my boy, good.” He was showing mild frustration as he pawed through a cabinet. “Where did I put those measuring spoons? We will be ready to depart as soon as I’m finished here.”

Jon-Tom leaned against the wall nearby. “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday as we were leaving the cellar. About what we’re ‘up against’? If I’m following what you said correctly, whoever or whatever has trapped the perambulator is not stable.”

“You’re almost right.” He unearthed a set of tiny spoons bound together by a bright golden ring, looked pleased with himself, and passed it to Sorbl. “Whoever it is, is not unstable; they are crackers, crazy, nuts, bonkers, looney tunes, living in cloud-cuckoo land. Do I make myself clear or do you require further elaboration?”

“No, I think I get the point,” Jon-Tom said dryly.

“It is important that you do. It is important that we all do. Because it is highly unlikely that we will be able to reason with this whatever-it-is. It is difficult to fight someone who may not even be conscious of the fact that they are engaged in a fight.” He pulled a tall metal box from another drawer and opened the lid with unusual care. Straining, Jon-Tom could see that it was filled with padding.

Clothahump extracted a single small wooden box, opened it to inspect the contents, which consisted of one glass vial full of oily green fluid. Satisfied, he closed the box and secured the lid, handed it with both hands to Sorbl.

“Place this in the center of your backpack, and whatever you do, don’t drop it.”

Sorbl gingerly accepted the box, cradling it in both flexible wingtips. “What would happen if I did drop it, Master?”

Clothahump leaned toward his apprentice. “Something so horrible, so vile, so unimaginably awful that in more than two hundred years I have not acquired sufficient vocabulary to describe it.”