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"Ha! 'Ow does you find the pieces o' someone who's been blown to bits in a
heavily wooded area? The scavengers would clean up wot didn't get vaporized."
Jon-Tom lifted his eyes to stare resolutely straight ahead. "This is a
ridiculous conversation, and I refuse to continue with it."
"Are there lots o' pine trees in your world, mate? Trees like this?"
"Mudge"-Jon-Tom sighed-"there are millions of them, and many of them have been
cut down en masse for lumber and such. I never heard of anyone being blown up
while working as a logger."
"D'you think the trees are bleedin' stupid? They know they can't stop a whole
lot o' folks workin' in unison. So they tries to pick 'em off one at a time
when nobody else is around to see."
"I'm not listening to this anymore!" So saying, he stepped off to one side and
began picking the occasional ripe redberry, popping it angrily into his mouth.
The tart juice did nothing to sweeten his disposition. A quick glance showed
Clothahump smiling at him, and that made him even angrier.
Exploding pinecones! Inimical pine trees! The whole business was absurd.
Clothahump and Mudge were having fun at his expense. There were no such
mutated monstrosities on his world. Of course people disappeared in the
forest, in places like Oregon and Montana. People who were stupid enough to go
tramping through the wilderness all by their lonesome. They deserved to
stumble over a cliff, or into an unswimmable river, or . . .
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.
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"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
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humor?"
"I'm warning you, you skinny ape. Watch it or I'll-"
"Or you'll what? Scratch my eyes out?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]