It didn’t take a two-hundred-year-old wizard to see what the otter was hinting at. “You’re reaching, Mudge. In the first place, there was no guarantee that we would have taken the risk of rescuing Colin. In the second, distance has no eifect on the perambulator’s perturbing effects. You can’t be too close to be affected, and you can’t get far enough away to escape it. And lastly, Colin just doesn’t seem the type an insane sorcerer would choose for a servant. He’s too independent. That’s not a put-on. It’s the soul of his personality.”
“Then it don’t strike you as suspicious that in this dangerous and cold northern land where we ain’t encountered so much as a decent restaurant for days, we suddenly ‘ave a run-in with someone whose species prefers much warmer country? Not to mention that ‘e’s runnin’ around ‘ere all by ‘is lonesome.”
“Of course, I’m curious as to what he’s doing up here. He’s probably just as curious about us.”
“Then why ain’t ‘e asked about it? And why ain’t he told us what ‘e’s doin’ “ere?”
“Maybe,” Jon-Tom suggested, “it’s none of our business.”
“Cor, don’t ‘and me that one, mate! We saved ‘im from the cook fire, if ‘e is as independent as you think. ‘E owes us an explanation.”
“What if he’s on some kind of private pilgrimage, something religious, say?”
“Wot, ‘im? The wanderin’ preacher o’ the Church o’ Leather and Studs? Now who’s reachin’, mate?”
“I think you’re way off base, Mudge. But if it’s troubling you that much, why don’t you ask him what he’s doing here?”
“Uh, well, you see, lad, you’re so much better versed in the diplomatic arts that I, I was kind o’ ‘opin’ that you’d put the question to ‘im.”
“I see. Because I’m more diplomatic, is that it?” The otter nodded. “Not because if he takes offense, it’ll be me he runs through with that saber of his?”
The otter looked outraged. “ ‘Ow could you think such a thing o’ me, mate?”
“I don’t know.” Jon-Tom put his whittling aside as he rose. “Repeated experience, maybe.”
Mudge sidled up close. “ ‘E’s not wearin’ that long sword just now, but we’d best keep an eye on that pack o’ ‘is.”
Jon-Tom frowned. “The knapsack? Why?”
“You just ‘aven’t learned much about observation, ‘ave you? ‘Aven’t you noticed ‘ow protective ‘e is of it? No tellin’ wot ‘e’s got inside besides a bottle full o’ stink-oil.”
That much was true. Colin had been excessively protective of the pack, to the point of refusing to let Dormas carry it for him until he’d fully recovered from the effects of his near suffocation. He insisted on carrying it himself, despite the fact that he was still coughing and choking from time to time. The more Jon-Tom thought about it, the more peculiar the koala’s presence and actions seemed. He broke off that unpleasant train of thought abruptly.
“There you go, making me paranoid like you.”
“A little ‘ealthy paranoia can add ten years to your life, mate. You can ‘andle it. I’ve seen you in action. ‘Tis your solicitor’s training. Me, I’d just make ‘im mad, most likely.
But not you. Don’t go accusin’ ‘im o’ nothin’, or challengin’ ‘im. Just work it into the conversation, like. I’ll be right behind you if ‘e takes offense.”
“You’re such a comfort to me, Mudge.”
“Wot are friends for, lad?”
With Mudge sauntering along beside him Jon-Tom strode into the shade of the tree. The otter bent to inspect the grass, then turned to work his way behind the seated koala, trying to render his movements as inconspicuous as possible.
Not inconspicuously enough, apparently, for as experienced a fighter as Colin to let it pass without notice. He said nothing, but he put down the cup he’d been sipping from so he would have both hands free. He did not turn to look at Mudge but remained aware of the otter’s position nonetheless.
Dormas was talking while Sorbl listened from his perch on a low-hanging branch. The owl was standing on one leg. Now he shifted to the other, a habit he’d picked up from a friend of his, a member of the stork family.
Dormas looked over at Jon-Tom. “We were just talking about the country to the east of here. Colin tells me there are high mountains, then open plains before you get to his home, which lies farther south.”
Mudge picked up a seed cone, inspected it with apparent indifference. “You’ve come quite a distance, then.”
“A long ways, yes,” Colin replied. “Considerably farther than the rest of you.”
Jon-Tom rubbed his chin. “You know, we don’t mean to pry, but it wouldn’t be natural for us not to wonder what someone like you is doing up in country like this, so far from the kind of terrain you’d be likely to find agreeable, and traveling by yourself as well.”
“I like to travel,” Colin told him. “Since not many of my fellows like to, I’m forced to travel alone.”
“I see.” Silence.
Mudge looked over at Jon-Tom and, when nothing else was forthcoming, said exasperatedly, “Well, go on, mate!”
“Go on where, Mudge?”
The otter spat into the grass, moved to confront the koala. “So you like to travel, wot? Funny sort o’ country to be travelin’ in. This ain’t exactly a tourist mecca up ‘ere, and the local yokels not wot I’d call ‘ospitable. You couldn’t ‘ave any other business ‘ere besides just travelin’, now could you?”
“What sort of business could one have in this empty land?”
“Couldn’t o’ put it better meself.” Mudge’s fingers felt for the hilt of his short sword. “Come on now, mate. You don’t expect us to believe you’ve come to this part o’ the world just to ‘ave a look-see at the scenery?”
“Why not? Isn’t that what you’re doing? You don’t seem equipped for anything else.”
“Now ‘ow would you know wot sort o’ equipment we might be carryin’?”
A slight smile creased the koala’s broad face. “I make it my business to notice such things.”
“Do you, now? That brings us back to the nature o’ your mysterious business again. We can’t seem to get away from that, can we?” His fingers locked around the sword hilt.
Colin let his eyes drop to Mudge’s waist. “No need to get excited, pilgrim.” He let his gaze flick over the otter’s face, then Jon-Tom’s and Dormas’s. “Right. I’ll tell you, but you aren’t going to believe me.”
“Try us.” Mudge smiled wolfishly at him.
The koala’s voice grew reminiscent. “This all started many months ago. Longer than I care to think. I was hard at work at my true profession—”
Jon-Tom interrupted him. “You have more than one profession?”
“Two, yes. The first is”—and here he stared hard at Mudge— “that of bodyguard. That’s how I support myself. I’m pretty good at it.” The otter’s hand moved away from the handle of his sword. “But it’s not my true profession, my real calling. Go ahead and laugh if you will, but I am a caster of runes.”
“What’s that?” said a new voice, sounding surprised. Everyone looked to their left. Clothahump had emerged from the isolation of his self-imposed trance. Now he blinked, stretching and yawning as he came out of his shell. He stuck out his legs, stood, and walked over to join the rest of them, wiping at his eyes with one hand. “A rune-caster, you say?”
“I say.” Colin turned and reached for his knapsack. Jon-Tom and Mudge tensed, but all the koala extracted was a small sack of brown leather secured at the top with an intricate knot. Several arcane symbols decorated the sides of the sack, having been stitched in with heavy silver thread. Jon-Tom recognized none of them.