To trip over an explosive pinecone?
It was too bizarre a notion to countenance.
Nonetheless, this was not his world, and he refrained from kicking any more fallen cones as they trudged onward. One fell from an overhanging branch, making him jump. Mudge started to giggle, stifled it, and hid his face when Jon-Tom threw him a murderous look. He picked the cone up and turned it over. The top ring of seed shells was present. Fortunately.
He tossed it angrily aside. When he got home, he’d dispose of this stupid theory during his first visit to the mountains.
He just wouldn’t kick any cones first, he told himself thoughtfully.
Evening revealed an unexpected talent on the part of their tireless packer. In addition to an acerbic wit and strong back, it also developed that Dormas was the owner of a superb, lilting soprano voice. Not to mention a lifetime of songs and ballads, which she proceeded to deliver to them while seated around the fire. Enthusiastic applause punctuated the conclusion of the impromptu recital. The hinny looked away, unexpectedly embarrassed.
“I don’t do it often,” she told them, “but frankly, you lot bore me, and I’d rather hear myself sing than listen to you babble.”
“I’d rather listen to you sing too,” Jon-Tom told her. Then he frowned. Something was not right. Not radically wrong but not right, either. “Odd. I feel peculiar all of a sudden.” He held up a hand. His hand, definitely, and yet—somehow changed.
“Another perturbation.” Sorbl spoke from his evening perch in a nearby tree and he, too, did not sound quite right. Jon-Tom let his gaze wander around the firelit circle.
There was Sorbl, the same and yet not. There Mudge, also somehow subtly different. What kind of perturbation was this? And still the peculiar softness that had come over him.
Not quite like an upset stomach. Something more complete, less transitory. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Then he did put his finger on it, in several places.
“Oh, my God.” He looked anxiously up at Clothahump. “This is one change that better not last too long.”
“I have been taking note of the most recent alteration with a great deal of interest.” The wizard’s appearance had changed only slightly. His voice, however, had undergone the same kind of shift as Jon-Tom’s. It was still penetrating, still authoritative, but an octave higher.
Moans came from Mudge and then Sorbl as they discovered the nature of the latest outrage perpetrated by the perambulator upon their personal reality.
“It is not nearly as radical a change as many we have previously experienced,” Clothahump calmly pointed out. “Some perturbations result in changes far more subtle than others.”
Dormas was studying her altered physiognomy intently. “Fascinating. I always wondered what it would be like. Seems kind of clumsy, though. I wouldn’t want it to be permanent, either.”
“The degree of change varies according to the species, of course,” the wizard reminded them all.
“This is what you call a ‘subtle’ perturbation?” Jon-Tom barely recognized the voice that spoke as his own.
There was nothing complex or indeterminate about this latest perturbation. The effects were quite clear. Each and every one of them had shifted sex. Without warning the hopeful expedition had become a quartet of ladies accompanied by a single male.
“When’s it goin’ to change back?” Mudge was moaning. Squeaking, rather, in his new, high voice. “ Tis only another temporary change. Ain’t that right, Your Sorcerership?”
“There is no way of telling how long this particular perturbation will last, Mudge. No way at all.” Jon-Tom noted that the pattern of red on his shell had changed to a distinctive mauve.
“It bloody well better not last long. Damn lucky we ain’t in Ospenspri. I couldn’t show me face, I couldn’t.”
“Something wrong with being female, water rat?” said Dormas in a tone that was all stallion.
Jon-Tom tried to ignore his own voice as he explained. “You’d have to know Mudge better to understand what he’s going through right now, Dormas. I’m afraid this particular metamorphosis has hit him harder than any of us.”
“Come on, Your Lordship.” The otter was pleading with Clothahump. “We saw wot you did back in Ospenspri, changin’ that black cloud an’ all. Couldn’t you work just a wee bit o’ magic and put us right? I don’t know as ‘ow I can ‘andle this for very long. I’ve a weak constitution, I do.”
“It is not a life- or even situation-threatening perturbation,” Clothahump declared formally. “Hardly worth the danger entailed by a serious conjuration. You will just have to be patient, like the rest of us, and wait for the change back to occur naturally.”
“Aye, but wot if it don’t? Wot if it takes days, or even weeks? Cor, I can’t stay like this for weeks.” He turned on Jon-Tom. “Wot say, mate? Use your duar there to sing us a change-back song, will you? Just one little ditty?”
“I’m no more comfortable in this guise than you are, Mudge, but I agree with Clothahump. It’s not worth chancing any dangerous spells.” A sudden thought had him grinning. “Just sit back and enjoy the fire—beautiful.”
Mudge didn’t find the suggestion funny. “Look, mate, a joke’s a joke, but this ain’t amusin’.”
“Amusing? I’d say it’s more like poetic justice. Who says fate has no sense of humor?”
“I’m warning you, you skinny ape. Watch it or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what? Scratch my eyes out?”
The otter growled and yanked his hat down sharply over his ears (or was it her ears?). His hat had changed along with his more personal accessories. Just as Jon-Tom’s had. Actually, he thought the dress he was now clad in rather attractive.
It is truly astonishing, he told himself, the situations that a sense of humor can carry one through.
The effects of the perturbation were most obvious in Mudge and himself, for in Clothahump, Sorbl, and Dormas’s species, the differences in appearance between male and female were not nearly so striking. Mudge continued to try to retreat into his hat, which had turned into a frilly broad-brimmed chapeau that might have been borrowed from some petite southern belle.
“Please do somethin’,” the otter whined, in a tone so pitiful Jon-Tom was moved to look hopefully at Clothahump.
“I could try, sir. It might be a good idea for me to make a stab at reversing the effects of one of these shifts when the change involved isn’t quite as severe as it might be.”
The wizard looked thoughtful. “Very well, my boy. But do be careful. It is not inconceivable that a badly thrown spell might make things worse.”
“ ‘Ow could things be any worse?” Mudge wanted to know. “Wot could be worse than this?”
“You really can be extraordinarily insulting, you know,” Dormas told him.
“Right now I’m just extraordinarily miserable, lass—or is it to be sir?”
“I don’t know myself,” she murmured. “Let’s see what your spellsinger can do about it.”
Jon-Tom took his time preparing and choosing, keeping Clothahump’s warning in mind. He tried to use songs by both the most masculine and feminine performers he could think of, ended up alternating lyrics by good old Elvis P. with some hot flashes by Tina Turner. The result left something to be desired musically but apparently not magically.
“There,” he said with a sigh, as he cleared his throat and put his duar aside. It had been fun to sing soprano for a while, but he was glad to have his own voice back, though not as glad as Mudge. Once the otter discovered that he was indeed himself again, he bounded from his position by Sorbl’s tree and danced frenziedly around the fire. Only exhaustion finally brought him to a halt.
‘ Tis a true abomination wot’s forcin’ this poor perambulator to wreak such obscene havoc. I’ll personally put ‘im out of ‘is misery when I see ‘is rotten face, I will.”
“I personally hope it is that easy,” Clothahump commented quietly. “Now I suggest that we retire, early as it may be. We will need all our reserves in the event the morrow brings fresh surprises. The next perturbation may require even stronger magic to counter.”