Meals were terrible for the most part. The worst part of every trip. Occasionally, the cooks were men of inspiration, but more often they were whey-faced, dour individuals, who were unhappy in life and were determined to ruin as many other lives as humanly possible. Their foul cooking generally accomplished that mission with ease. Mika ate as few camp meals as possible, making do with small game roasted on spits.
"Gonna eat that?" asked Hornsbuck eagerly.
Mika passed him the bowl without comment and Hornsbuck shoveled the gloppy contents into his mouth along with parts of his beard which he spat out regularly along with a fine spray of food.
"Can't waste good food," grunted Hornsbuck, between mouthfuls. "A man needs something to stick to his ribs!"
Mika refrained from comment.
The evening passed almost too slowly for Mika. The men stayed awake for hours, talking and laughing around the campfire. Even the Guildsman was in a good mood and passed his wineskin freely, telling of his adventures across the whole of the known Oerth. Extraordinary stories about fabulous sea serpents encountered while sailing the turquoise depths of the Dramidj Ocean; of mystical meetings with the silver-hued, pointed-eared Olven Folk of the tiny kingdom of Celene; and of narrow escapes from painted savages in the jungles of Amedio. If the man were to be believed, he had led an interesting and charmed life. No wonder the Guild had chosen him to accompany the caravan.
Mika visited the sentries shortly after nightfall, Speaking with each and every man. Tam followed, greeting the other wolves in the usual manner, sniffing noses and genitals.
"How goes it?" he asked the sentry who stood watch at the northernmost edge of the forest.
"Quiet," replied the man. "Nothing stirring. Just as well, there is no moon tonight. But BlackClaw will tell me if there's anything out there."
Mika studied the big black wolf appreciatively while keeping his hands to himself. No man touched another man's wolf unbidden. A wolf would react before it thought and could easily sever a man's hand or slice a vein with its great canines. They might regret it later, but by then it would be a little too late for apologies.
Mika urged the men seated around the campfires to end their songs and get themselves off to their bedrolls. He wanted as many as possible to be asleep when he put his plan into effect.
Trying to look casual, Mika settled himself on a fallen phost log far enough from the fire that the eerie white glow was clearly visible. Then he opened the pouch and began leafing through the pages of the small leather-bound book, stifling the twinges of pain that came from seeing the tiny loops and curls of his father's neat handwriting.
"Pickles… pig warts… poltergeists… Here it is, polymorph," read Mika, his lips forming the words.
Looking up from time to time, he smiled at the men occasionally, but not in a manner that would invite company. Tam lay at his side watching with a mournful expression as Mika tried to commit the words of the spell to memory.
It was difficult. This was the part of magic that Mika always had the most trouble with. The words were confusing. Many of the words rhymed, yet most meant nothing when said individually. In and of themselves they were gibberish. It was only when you strung them together in the right order and said them with just the right intonation and emphasis that you got results. The speaker could only hope the Great She Wolf would guard his tongue and prevent him from forgetting a word or pronouncing it wrong.
If a word did come out wrong and the speaker was lucky, nothing terrible would happen. The spell would merely fail, canceled out by ineptitude. The only penalty would be being forced to learn it again, for all memory of the spell would vanish once it was used, even if used incorrectly.
It was when the speaker got the spell wrong and was not lucky that the trouble began. For then, in spite of the fact that some element of the spell was incorrect, the spell worked-but incorrectly, frequently heaping devastating consequences on the inept magic-user who had conjured the spell improperly.
These effects usually wore off within the time span allotted to the spell. But sometimes, in the interim, the magic-user or an innocent victim would be killed, maimed, or altered irrevocably as had almost happened when Mika changed Celia's mother into a cat. Celia might never have forgiven him if Tam had actually eaten the cat.
In spite of his boastful words, Mika was very worried that he might get the spell wrong. One had to be at least at the seventh level to use the Polymorph spell, which allowed one to change from a human form into that of an animal.
Seventh level was still several years away in ability. Years of intense study. But nothing else would do! If Mika turned himself into a great white snowy owl, he could slit the top of the wagon with his sharp beak and slip inside. Once he had explored the dark interior of the wagon with his superior owl vision, he would let himself out and fly away undetected. The plan was foolproof. Who would suspect an owl?
Tam nudged Mika's leg with his nose. All right, all right. So Tam would know, but fortunately, he couldn't tell.
The words marched round and round in his brain, till he could repeat them perfectly, well almost perfectly. Each time he thought he had the spell memorized, he would go blank and forget a phrase or blither and mix two words up front to back. But he kept at it, goading himself with the thought of the wagon.
Mika stared into the forest dreamily. Pearls. That had been his latest guess. Pearls from the kelp beds. Lustrous beads that he could drape round his woman, all around and under the sweet soft naughty places, a great long rope of pearls.
Mika sighed deeply, looking off into the dark night, seeing Celia in his mind's eye reclining on the green moss wearing nothing but a string of pearls. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Matin appeared on the moss next to Celia, reached out for the rope of pearls and… Mika straightened up with a frown on his face.
"Problems, Captain?" asked Klaren sympathetically, appearing unseen and unheard at Mika's side.
"What! Oh! Um, well, just thinking about tomorrow. Plans. Strategy. That sort of thing," Mika said brusquely.
"Sorry to intrude, sir. Just wanted to report that all is quiet. The last of the men have turned in and we'll be ready for an early start. You should try and get some rest, too, Captain. It's been a long day."
"Thanks, lad. I'll be turning in soon," said Mika, not mentioning what he would be turning into. "Sleep you well"
"And deep," he muttered beneath his breath as the young nomad nodded and turned away.
Mika continued to study the elusive words until he was quite sick of them. Finally, he shut the book, stuck it in his pocket and, hanging the precious pouch from his shoulder, toured the camp once more.
It was as Klaren had said, everyone was asleep. Even the Guildsman snored as heartily as Horns-buck, thanks no doubt to the largess of his wineskin.
Unfortunately, the wagon that was Mika's objective stood closest of all to the bonfire, which still blazed high against the damp of the evening.
Anyone or anything, even a great snowy white owl, that tried to enter the wagon would be easily seen.
Mika fretted, wishing that the circumstances were more to his liking. He considered waiting another night, possibly even longer, until conditions were more favorable, but his natural impatience, which always demanded immediate gratification, whispered, "Do it now. Do it now." And it was impossible to argue.
Mika and Tam walked deep into the forest, passing the second and then the third of the springs that had risen to the surface, then further still, forcing their way into the thickest, most tangled copse.