Weegee found herself prodded along by a four-and-a-half foot-tall monstrosity with not one but five stripes running raggedly down its spine. Two of them trailed off to one side instead of continuing on down the tail. One of the major incisors had twisted up and back until it resembled an ivory mustache growing from the upper lip, and both shrunken eyes had shifted over to the left side of the skull. Chipmunk as ogre, Jon-Tom thought. The sight was enough to shake one’s faith in nature. Yet none of their captors limped or looked diseased. All seemed healthy, certainly healthy enough to stomp anyone foolish enough to try and escape.
There was a capybara whose distinguishing characteristic was a complete absence of fur on its back and belly. Overhead flew a pair of ravens with three-foot wingspans and necks like stunted vultures. Several humans brought up the rear. They had megalocephalic skulls, hair growing in long strands from their forearms and calves, and pointed, protruding teeth. There was no sympathy to be had from that quarter, not even for a fellow human in distress.
“Wonder where they’re taking us?” he murmured.
“Ain’t it obvious, mate?” Mudge laid the sarcasm on thick and heavy. “We’re all off to the local snaffleball game. See, this lot o’ fancy dandies were a few lads short so they shanghaied us to fill out their roster.”
“I imagine they’’re taking us to their village,” opined Weegee.
“Don’t worry. I’ll use the suar on this simple-minded bunch and we’ll spellsing ourselves free like always.”
“Mate, did it ever occur to you that each time we gets away from some ‘ostile natives or other danger that the odds rise against us for the next confrontation? That we’ve been pushin’ our luck for more than a year now, we ‘ave, and that maybe ‘tis time for it to run out?”
“It can’t, Mudge. Not this close to Strelakat Mews. Not this near to success.”
“Cor, you an’ your bloody deathless optimism. Damned if I don’t think it’ll live on without you.”
“Hey you, good-looking.” A hunchbacked mink with one good eye stepped close to Mudge, eyeing him up and down. “Can I get you something? You want something maybe?”
“Want something? Why sure, lump-lass. I want to leave. I want a million gold pieces. I want two dozen lovely otterish houris to comb out me fur.”
“Watch those wishes.” Weegee bumped him from behind. “They may come back to haunt you someday.”
“Piffle.” Mudge looked at the female ogre. “I wouldn’t mind knowin’ what you lot intend doin’ with me and me friends “ere.”
“That’s up to the chief.” The mink grunted, spat indelicately into the nearest bush.
“How about a ‘int?”
The mink’s distorted brow clenched. There was a revelation, because she smiled brightly. “Food.” She shifted the spiked club she was carrying from one shoulder to the other.
“Hey, ‘ow’s that for an optimistic assessment o’ our chances, mate? Sound familiar, wot?”
“We’ll get out of this.” Jon-Tom stumbled, regained his balance. “You’ll see. We always do. We got away from the pirates, we got away from Cautious’s people, and we got away from the normal cannibals. We can get away from the abnormal ones, too.”
“Odds, mate, wot about the odds? They’re runnin’ against us. You can’t throw twelves forever.”
“I don’t need to throw anything but music. All I need is a few minutes with the suar.”
The otter sounded reflective. “You know, I almost welcome gettin’ stewed. I’m so sick an’ tired o’ marchin’ around the world with you, goin’ from one crisis to the next, that me enthusiasm’s just about run out.” He glanced back at Weegee and his tone softened. “O’ course, somethin’ new’s been added that I kind o’ ‘ate to miss out on.”
“Relax, Mudge. This doesn’t strike me as an especially dangerous bunch. Certainly they have no supernatural powers.”
“They don’t need none, not with all those teeth.” So primitive were their captors that they hadn’t bothered to construct even a rudimentary village. Instead they lived in a line of caves worn in the side of a sandstone cliff. As the hunting party approached, a horde of cubs came shambling out to grunt and chuckle at the captives. Two began throwing pebbles at Mudge, who dodged them as best he could and said sweetly, “Why don’t you two infants go make like a bird.” He nodded toward a twenty-foot-high overhang. Fortunately for the otter the preadolescent ogres were not possessed of sufficient intellectual capacity to comprehend his suggestion or the implications behind it.
The captives were arraigned before the largest of the caves so that the chief of the ogres might inspect them. As befitted a leader of. monsters he was an impressive specimen, this mutated bear, standing some seven feet tall. Add to his natural size an extended lower jaw, additional teeth, rudimentary horns, a sharp-edged protruding backbone and it was self-evident he had reached his position by means of something less refined than sweet reason. Strips of plaited vines swung from his massive shoulders together with strings of decorations fashioned from colored rocks and bones. He wore a matching headdress made from the skulls and feathers of numerous victims.
After a brief examination of the four captives he favored each with an individual sneer before turning to bark a query to the leader of the party which had brought them in.
“City folk.”
The bear nodded understandingly. “Damn good. City folk less filling, taste right.”
Mudge boldly took a step forward. “Now ‘old on a minim ‘ere, your inspired ugliness.” The otter barely came up to the chiefs thigh. “You can’t eat us.”
“Wanna bet?” growled the chief of the ogres.
Jon-Tom advanced to stand next to Mudge, demonstrating moral solidarity if not physical superiority. At least he didn’t get a crick in his neck looking into the giant’s eyes.
“Mudge is right, dammit. I’ve had it up to here with everybody we meet wanting to eat us instead of greet us. What happened to common courtesy? What’s happened to traditions of hospitality?”
The ogre chieftan scratched his flat pate. “What’s that you talking?”
“Wouldn’t you rather make friends with us?”
“Can’t eat friendship.”
Jon-Tom began walking up and down in front of the chief and his aides. “If half you people would learn to cooperate with one another instead of trying to consume your neighbors you wouldn’t have nearly as many problems nor spend half as much time fighting one another as you do now.”
“I like fighting.” The wolf ogre who’d helped capture them grinned hugely. “Like eating, too.”
“Everyone likes to eat. But it’s an accepted tenet of civilization that you don’t eat people who want to be friends with you. It makes for uneasy relationships.”
“Need vitamins and minerals.” The chief was clearly confused.
“This is a rich land.” Jon-Tom gestured at the wall of greenery surrounding them. “There’s plenty to eat here. You don’t have to eat casual travelers.” He shook a finger at the bear. “This business of attacking and consuming anyone who enters your territory is primitive and childish and immature, and to prove it I’m going to sing you a song about it.”
Mudge looked skyward and crossed mental fingers. Perhaps the unexpected verbal assault had stunned their captors, or maybe they were simply curious to hear what the afternoon meal wanted to sing, but none of the ogres moved to interfere with Jon-Tom as he slid his suar into position. Meanwhile the otter stepped back to whisper to his lady.
“ ‘E’s goin’ to try an’ spellsing this lot. I’ve seen ‘im do it before. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it works worse.”
Try Jon-Tom did. It’s doubtful he ever sang a sweeter and more beautiful set of tunes since being brought into Mudge’s world. And it was affecting the ogres. Anyone could see that. But magic had nothing to do with it. It was just Jon-Tom singing about love, about life and friendship, about common everyday kindness toward one’s neighbors and the understanding that ought to prevail among all intelligent species. As he sang he poured out all the contradictory feelings he held toward this world in which he found himself. Feelings about how it could be improved, how violence and anarchy could be restrained and how it could be transformed by cooperation into a paradise for one and all.