neetha Napew - Spellsinger

prick?"

"That it wouldn't be the first time we've been surrounded, luv."

"Oh."

"There's one way to find out." Caz moved to the small door set in one of the

huge sliding panels hung from the west wall. He opened it and conversed with

someone unseen. Presently the beaver officer they'd first encountered outside

the city appeared. He looked unhappy, tried to avoid their stares.

"I underthand you would like an evening meal."

"That's right," said Caz.

"They will be brought in immediately. The betht the city can offer." He started

to leave. Caz restrained him.

"Just a moment. That's a very kind offer, but some of us would prefer to find

our own dinery." He picked absently at his tail, whiskers twitching. "That's all

right, isn't it?" He took a step toward the open door.

The officer reluctantly moved to block his path. "I'm truly thorry, thir." He

sounded as if he meant it. "But Major Ortrum gave thrict inthructions on how you

were to be quartered and fed. Your thafety ith of much conthern to the

authoritieth. They are worried that thertain radical foolth among the population

might try to attack you."

"Their concern for our health is most kind," replied Caz, "but they needn't

worry. We can take care of ourselves."

"I know that, thir," admitted the officer, "but my thuperiorth think otherwithe.

Ith for your own protecthion." He backed out, closing the door tightly behind

him.

"That's it, then," snapped an angry Talea. "We're under house arrest. I knew

they were up to something."

Flor was playing with her knife, cleaning her long nails and looking quite

ravishing as she leaned against a wall, legs crossed and her black cape framing

her figure.

"That's easily fixed. Un poco sangre and we'll go where we please, ¿no es

verdad? Or we could wake up Jonny-Tom's fire-breathing compadre and make

charcoal of that door." She gestured at the huge sliding panels with the knife.

"These aren't the enemy, Flor. Now is a time for diplomacy," he told her. "In

any case, I can't risk leaving Falameezar."

Black eyes flashed at him and she stood away from the wall, jabbed the knife

into the wood. "Maybe so, but I'm like Talea in this. I don't like being told

where I can and can't go even if it supposedly is for my own 'protection'! I had

twenty years of older brothers and sisters telling me that. I'll be damned if

I'm going to let some oversized stuffy coon dictate the same thing to me now."

"Tch, tch... children, children."

They all turned. The squat figure of Clothahump was watching them, clucking his

tongue in disapproval.

"You will all be valuable on the battlefield in the war to come, but that war is

not yet, nor here. The fleshpots of the city do not interest me in the least,

so," and he smiled up at Jon-Tom, "I will remain here to satisfy our large

companion's desire for conversation."

"Are you sure... ?" Jon-Tom began.

"I have listened closely to much of your chatter, and you have instructed me

well. The underlying principles to which this dragon adheres so fanatically are

simple enough to manipulate. I can handle him. Besides, it is the nature of

wizards and dragons to get along with one another. There are other things we can

talk about.

"But you should all go, if you so desire. You have done all I have asked of you

so far and deserve some relaxation. So I will occupy the attention of the dragon

when required, and will aid you in slipping away."

"I don't know." Jon-Tom studied the snoring figure of the dragon. "He has a

pretty probing, one-track mind."

"I will endeavor to steer our talk away from eeonomics. That seems to be his

main interest. After you have departed I shall bar the door from the outside...

a simple bit of levitation. With the bars in place and the sounds of

conversation inside, the other guards will assume all are still here.

"That shouldn't be too 'ard to do, wot?"

Mudge jumped. The wizard had mimicked his voice perfectly.

A dark form descended from the rafters. "What about me, Master?" Pog looked

imploringly at him.

"Go with them if you will. I will have no need of you here tonight. But stay

away from the brothels. That's what got you into this in the first place,

remember. You will end up indenturing yourself to a second master."

"Not ta worry, boss. And thanks!" He bowed in the air, dipping like a diving

plane.

"I don't believe you, but I will not hold you back and let the others go. Moral

desiccation," he muttered disgustedly. Pog simply winked at Jon-Tom.

"You said you'd help us get out. What are you going to do," Flor wondered,

"dissolve the wall?"

Clothahump frowned at her as much as his hard face would allow. "You

underestimate the resources available to a sophisticated worker of miracles such

as myself. If I were to do as you suggest, it would be immediately evident to

those watching us what had taken place. Your temporary departure must go

unnoticed.

"When it is but a little darker I will allow you to pass safely and unseen into

the city."

So it was that several hours later the little group of sightseers stood

clustered in a narrow side street. Oil lamps flickered in the night mist. Light

struggled to escape from behind closed shutters. Around them drifted the faint

sounds of a city too big and bustling to go to sleep at night.

Behind them, across the deserted square, bulked the shadowy, barnlike barracks

in which they'd been confined only moments earlier.

Jon-Tom had expected Clothahump to do something extraordinary, such as

materializing them inside another building.

Instead, the wizard had moved to another small side door. His gift for mimicry,

magical or otherwise, had been used to throw the studied voice of one snoozing

guard. Through the use of ventriloquism he had cast rude aspersions on the

ancestry of the other guard. Violently waking up his supposedly insulting

companion, this victim and his associate soon fell to more physical discussion.

At that point it was a simple matter for Caz and Talea to slip up behind them

and via the judicious application of some loose cobblestones, settle the

argument for the duration of the evening.

It was not quite the miraculous manipulation of magic Jon-Tom had expected from

Clothahump, but he had to admit it was efficient.

No one troubled them or challenged them as they walked down the deserted

thoroughfare. Citizens were voluntarily or else by directive giving the barracks

area a wide berth.

Soon they began encountering evening pedestrian traffic, however, and despite

the size of Jon-Tom and Flor, they attracted little attention. Talea and Mudge

had never been inside a city the size of Polastrindu. They were trying hard to

act blasé, but their actual feeling was awe.

Jon-Tom and Flor were equally ignorant of the city's customs, though not of its

size, and so was Pog. So it was left unspoken that Caz would lead them. After a

while Jon-Tom felt almost comfortable walking the rain-soaked streets, his cape

up over his head. With its overhanging balconies and flickering oil lamps it was

not unlike Lynchbany. The principal difference was the increased volume of

bickering and fighting, of the sounds of loving and playing and cursing and

crying cubs that issued from behind doors and windows.

As in Lynchbany the uppermost garret levels were inhabited by the various

arboreal citizens. Bats like Pog, or kilt-clad birds. Night-fliers filled the