Mudge ran forward, bent to examine their opponent’s face. “Out cold. Well struck, mate. That’s what I calls predictin’ the future.”
“Yes, I thought a saw a period of extended rest in store for our combative friend here. It’s not easy to read the runes through the leather.” He eyed the shattered sack dolefully. “This will be hard to replace.”
“I’ll pay for the sewin’,” said Mudge grandly. “Wot say we leave ‘ere and find ourselves the nearest seamstress? Preferably one with talented ‘ands.” He gave the koala a hand in recovering the scattered runes.
“Should we finish him once and for all?” Dormas gave Jon-Tom’s ramwood staff a nudge. He didn’t like the idea of killing an unconscious opponent, but he looked to Clothahump for advice.
To his considerable relief the wizard agreed with his feelings. “My own prediction is that he will sleep for the rest of the day. This I base on my own reading of clever Colin’s runes.” There was a hint of a twinkle in the turtle’s eye. “When he recovers, he will be mad again, only it will be a different and far less threatening kind of mad. If he is guilty of anything, it is of acting like one of his own kind. I know wolverines. Braglob will not come after us. They have short memories as well as short tempers, and this one has a great deal of reality to catch up with. When he comes ‘round, he will have other things on his mind. Besides which, his species has no taste for an extended hunt and we will be well on our way.
“No, I think our misguided friend will be more interested in returning to his home and settling scores with his old tormentors rather than with us. Besides which, I am opposed to any unnecessary killing.”
Mudge had tired of hunting for bits of bone and wood and had been listening silently to the wizard’s declamation. Now he could no longer restrain himself.
“Unnecessary killin’? This oversized cowflop tries to destroy the whole world and then us in particular, an’ you say snuffin’ ‘im would amount to unnecessary killin’? Me, I never saw a killin’ so necessary!”
“You heard Clothahump,” Jon-Tom warned his friend. “There’ll be no bloodshed here.”
“Oh, who am I to argue with ‘Is Sorcerership’s ethics? I ain’t no grand master of magic. I’m just a simple gambler, I am. I just like to cover me bets right is all, especially when it’s me life that’s been pushed into the pot. ‘No unnecessary killing.’ If I’ve ‘card that once, I’ve ‘eard it a thousand times from the both of you twits. I’m sick of it, you lot! Don’t you understand that there ain’t no such thing as an unnecessary killin’? It defines itself, it does. I calls it takin’ out insurance, is wot I calls it.”
“Dormas, are you ready?” The hinny nodded. “Sorbl?” The owl landed atop the pile of supplies and responded with an agreeable hoot. “Let’s go, then.” He and Clothahump led them up the hallway, past the wolverine’s unconscious form.
“Oh, yes, let’s go, by all means,” Mudge grumbled as he shoved both paws into the pockets of his shorts and stomped off in their wake. “Nobody wants me advice, anyway.” His grousing echoed through the corridor as they retraced their steps to the world outside.
Jon-Tom forced himself to sound casual as he spoke to Talea. “You’ll come back to Lynchbany with us, won’t you?” He held his breath while awaiting her reply.
She said nothing for several minutes, staring straight ahead and looking solemn, but finally could contain the smile she’d been holding back no longer. “Of course, I’m coming with you, you silly spellsinger. Where else would I go in this bleak and barren country?”
He swallowed. “Maybe—maybe you’ll stick around a little longer this time? Not,” he added hastily, “that I’m trying to put any kind of restraints on you or anything. I know how much you value your independence.”
Her smile seemed to shove the clouds back to the moun-taintops as they emerged from the hallway onto the trail outside. “You know, Jon-Tom, anything can get old. Anything can become boring. Even independence.”
He had composed a lengthy and carefully considered reply when he caught Clothahump grinning at him. He understood what the wizard was trying to tell him immediately. There were times when be talked too much and ended up talking himself into a predicament from which he couldn’t extricate himself and in which he need not have foundered in the first place. So he just nodded down at Talea while adopting his most mature and farsighted expression.
“I understand.”
She appeared to find this the ideal response because she rose on tiptoes, grabbed him firmly around the neck, and bent him forcefully to her. He held the kiss until his back began to hurt.
Finally he straightened, caught his breath, and turned to regard the poorly constructed fortress in which they’d encountered so much wonder and danger. His ears still rang faintly from the force of the perambulator’s departure. It was a sight and sound he would never forget, a memory he would be able to call upon during times of darkness to rejuvenate and inspire his spirits. It had been his good fortune to look upon the majesty of the universe.
Hell, he’d jammed with it.
They made excellent progress as travelers always do when they are on their way home, and camped that evening on the far side of the mountain pass.
“Poor Braglob,” Jon-Tom murmured. “May he finally find contentment and happiness within himself.”
“ ‘Appiness ‘e may find.” Mudge scratched at one ear.
“But contentment? Not bloody likely. I never saw a contented wolverine. Those folks are always upset about somethin’. Even when they’re makin’ love, they’re yellin’ and screamin’ at one another. Fortunately there ain’t many of ‘em around. Probably because they don’t get along any better in bed than they do in society.”
Jon-Tom turned to face Clothahump. The wizard was leaning against a log on the opposite side of the campfire. His eyes were half shut, and he appeared to be contemplating the night sky, a broad sweep of stars and constellations very different from those Jon-Tom had grown up with.
“What do you think happened to the perambulator, sir?”
“What?” The turtle glanced over at his young charge. “Went on its way, of course. Across the cosmos. Out of this universe and into another. I was just thinking: What if one could be controlled across such distances and brought back? What might we learn of reality? What images might we gaze upon, what mysteries might we solve?” He sighed deeply.
“That is a burden you will suffer under yourself one of these days, my boy. The pain of not knowing, the ache of ignorance, the compulsion to know what lies on the far side of the hill, while realizing that no matter how much you learn, there will always be another hill to surmount. That is the curse on a seeker of knowledge, the curse of never being satisfied.
“When I was very young and apprenticed to the famous sorcerer Jogachord, I would ask him new questions constantly until finally, tired of being pestered, he would say to me, ‘Does there have to be an answer for everything?’ And I would reply in utmost earnest, ‘Yes!’ Then he would smile at me and say, ‘Apprentice, with that attitude you will go far—provided no one kills you first.’ “
“The curse o’ never bein’ satisfied? I suffer from that meself,” Mudge declared. “Only, it don’t involve idiocies like ‘too much knowledge’.”
“We all know what it involves, Mudge,” said Talea dryly. “You don’t have to burden us with the details.”
The otter looked hurt. “Now, ‘ow do you know wot I was goin’ to say, luv?”
“Because given the slightest opportunity, you always talk about the same thing, water rat. You have a one-track mind.”
“Aye, but wot a pleasant track it is, especially when it leads to—”
“Mudge,” Jon-Tom said exasperatedly.