Mudge slipped around behind Jon-Tom so he could notch an arrow into his longbow without being seen—and coinci-dentally take cover behind the human’s lanky form.
Clothahump took a step forward. “I am Clothahump of the Tree, supreme among all wizards, and I tell you that we can’t leave just yet. You know that we can’t.”
The wolverine’s heavy brows drew together as he struggled to make sense out of this comment. It occurred to Jon-Tom that this Braglob was completely out of it. Not that it made him any less dangerous. If anything, the contrary was true.
“You have been warned!” Braglob waved the ax over his head. “I am master of the perambulator. I will cause it to turn all of you into pebbles. No, into tiny crawling things, into worms I can use for fishing. You will know your own slime.”
“You will do nothing of the kind,” Clothahump replied with impressive self-assurance, “or you would have done it already. You have repeatedly made attempts to prevent us from reaching this place, yet we stand here before you. There is nothing more you can do. I do not believe you control the perambulator. You can imprison it in a single sphere of space-time, but you cannot control it. Once I thought it might be possible. After seeing both it and you, I am convinced it is not, for it is more astonishing and awesome than I believed possible, and you are less so.”
“Liars, intruders, trespassers, interlopers, all of you!” The wolverine hunkered down, and Jon-Tom tensed, trying to interpose himself between the huge creature and Talea. The redhead would have none of that and kept trying to edge around in front of him. Difficult to be chivalrous, he mused, when the woman you are trying to protect is only worried about whether or not she will have the opportunity to use her sword.
Braglob again studied them without seeing them. Clothahump was right, Jon-Tom thought. He is completely crazy. Despite the near fatal encounters incurred during the long journey up from Lynchbany, despite all the trouble caused by the perambulator, he found that he was still able to muster a soup§on of sympathy for their opponent.
Physically he was more than impressive, but the torn clothes, the dirty fur, mitigated that impression. Braglob clearly hadn’t bathed or groomed himself or had a decent meal in no telling how long. Here was an antagonist more to be pitied than feared. An individual at war with himself, striking out at invisible opponents, fleeing from the tormentors that had invaded not his fortress but rather his own mind.
“Let the perambulator depart,” Clothahump was saying quietly, “and we will leave too. We need not fight. There is no argument, no enmity between us: only an accident of supernature. Let it go.”
‘Wo!” Braglob snarled, showing powerful teeth. “The pretty stays. It makes me feel good. It warms me with its company.”
“See,” the wizard whispered to his uneasy companions, “he finds the perturbations reassuring. They convince him he is no crazier than the rest of the world.”
“I am not insane!” the wolverine shrieked in a shrill voice. “It is you who are mad, who want me put away so I cannot challenge the simpering, sickening status quo you find so comforting. You and rest of the world.” And he encompassed it with a single sweeping gesture. “But the perambulator will fix that.” He adopted a sly expression, grinning at some private thought. “I will keep it here close to me. The changes will come more and more often. Soon they will be permanent.”
“Being mad,” said Clothahump slowly, “you can do one of two things. You can make the rest of the world as mad as yourself or”—and he held out a hand in friendship—”you can make yourself unmad. If you would but let us, we might be able to help you. If your madness can be cured, you will no longer feel the need to live in an insane world. You won’t be able to in any event, because before too long, the perambulator is going to perturb the sun itself. It will blow up and you will die, mad or sane, as quickly as the rest of us. Give it up, fellow practitioner of the art. Give it up.”
“Prevaricator within a box, come no closer, I warn you!” The wolverine skittered back into the corridor a few steps and gestured threateningly with the battle-ax. Clothahump ignored the warning and continued his measured approach, reaching out now with both hands.
“Come now, since you still retain enough sense to execute spells, you must realize in some part of your brain that you are gravely ill. Why won’t you let us help you?”
“No, please, stay away!” It was not a threat this time but a cry for help wearing the guise of an admonition, a desperate, pleading whine. The wolverine had backed himself up against a wall and held the ax out defensively in front of him. Jon-Tom was startled to see that the giant was trembling.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mudge muttered as Clothahump continued to talk to their nemesis in soothing, reassuring tones. “No wonder ‘e’s off ‘is nut.”
“What do you mean, Mudge?” Talea asked him.
“Cor, you mean you can’t any of you see it? No, I expect you can’t. ‘Tis plain enough to me as the tail on me backside. This ‘ere Braglob, for all ‘is size an’ sorcerous skill, ‘e’s a bloomin’ coward. And I ought to know one when I sees one. No wonder ‘e’s crazy. As big as ‘e is an’ a wolverine to boot, why, if I ‘ad that size and those muscles and that kind o’ natural fightin’ ability an’ skill at magicking and was still a coward, I’d probably be a bit unbalanced meself.”
“So that’s what it is.” Now that Mudge had pointed it out, Jon-Tom wondered how he could have missed seeing it right away. The wolverine’s whole posture and attitude since they’d encountered him was indicative not of defiance but of fear. He was afraid of them. All the threats he’d made since confronting them were just so much bluff.
That did not, however, mean that he was harmless. He flung the battle-ax aside and tried to crawl into the wall, wrapping his face in both arms as he turned away from them.
“No, don’t come any closer, get away!’
How much of a wizard he was, they might never know, but madness can amplify magic as surely as it can physical strength. Insane people have been known to do extraordinary things, from bending the bars on hospital room windows to ripping off straitjackets while fighting a dozen men at a time.
Clothahump was blown backward by a blast of pure terrified madness, fueled by cowardice and powered by fear. He did have just enough time to draw in his head and limbs as he was thrown into a wall opposite. As he lay there rocking back and forth and trying to recover from the concussion, Braglob turned his paranoia on the rest of them.
“Go away, don’t hurt me, leave me alone!” he sobbed.
The wind that struck them stank of madness. Dormas dug in and somehow managed to hold her ground. Colin had a low center of gravity to begin with. He immediately dropped to the ground and dug into the floor with his powerful claws.
But Mudge was lifted and tossed backward. Only his otterish acrobatic ability enabled him to tuck and roll. He was only slightly bruised as he reached out and grabbed onto one of Dormas’s hind legs. He hung on as the insane gale tore at him, trying to blow him away, stretching him out behind the ninny like a furry flag rippling on a pole.
Jon-Tom had the duar around in front of him and was playing before the first storm-breath struck. The main force of the gale split and passed to either side of him. Talea stood at his back, shielded by his body and the aura of immobility in which he’d wrapped himself. Her red hair streamed out behind her. What wind did get through the spellsong ripped at Jon-Tom’s clothes and blew dust in his eyes. But it was not strong enough to knock him off his feet.
Braglob slowly turned to stare at Jon-Tom, having at least temporarily vanquished all other opponents. “You! Why don’t you go away too? I want you to go away!” He waved both arms at Jon-Tom. A stronger gust of wind battered him, but he was able to hold his ground. “Why don’t you go away?”