“ ‘Ere now, guv,” said Squill, interrupting without hesitation, “I’ve got plenty o’ confidence, I do. Feel free to compliment me.”
Gragelouth half-bowed in the otter’s direction. “My tribute was intended to include all.”
“Well, then.” Squill pushed out his lower lip. “See that it stays that way, guv.”
An otter, Buncan mused, was the only creature he knew of that could strut sitting down.
CHAPTER 18
Their enhanced confidence did not make the ta-mas any smaller or do anything to mute its rising temperatures. They took to resting and sleeping for long stretches during the middle of the day and trying to make up the time lost at night.
“Oi, guv’nor.” Squill clung cheerlessly in his iron seat. Even the bright feathers of his cap drooped listlessly in the heat. “ ‘Ow much more o’ this blasted country is there?”
Gragelouth shifted his attention from an unusually tall pinnacle. “No one really knows for certain. In that the good citizens of Poukelpo were being truthful. But our progress is steady. I would not think the crossing would require too many more weeks.”
“Weeks!” barked Neena. Her mouth hung open and she was respirating in short, rapid pants. “I don’t know if I can take many more days o’ this.”
“Do you wish to turn back and perhaps meet up with our cyclonic friends again?”
“No fear o’ that, guv.” Squill straightened slightly in his saddle. “They’ve been scattered, they “ave.”
“Getting a little tired myself.” Snaugenhutt punctuated his complaint with a frustrated snort. “This armor isn’t getting any lighter.”
Viz hopped down from his perch to bend over and peer into the rhino’s eye. “Quit complaining. If you’re thirsty there’s plenty of water. Or is it something other than water you’re worried about?”
“Put a beetle in it, bird. I’ll stay clean.”
“ ‘Aven’t ‘ad a swim in days. Otters like water, not sand.” Neena’s expression turned dreamy. “Big river, good friends, plenty o’ fish to catch. This bleedin’ Grand Veritable better be worth all this trouble.”
“More than that,” her brother added reproachfully, “it ‘ad better exist.”
“Do I detect a certain waning of enthusiasm?” Gragelouth murmured.
“Wanin’, ‘ell,” Squill groused. “It’s on bloody death’s door, it is.”
Buncan winced as Snaugenhutt hit a couple of bumps while loping down a dry ravine and back up the far side. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I couldn’t turn back now if I wanted to.”
“Why not, mate?” Squill asked him.
“Because it would mean admitting defeat.” The duar bounced lightly against his back.
The otter blinked. “Wot the ‘ell’s wrong with that? Anybody offers me a sack o’ fresh crawfish, I’ll admit defeat right now, I will.” Raising both arms melodramatically, he implored whatever gods might be watching. “ ‘Ere you! See, I admit defeat! I embrace it, I do. Now, ‘ows about somethin’ fresh to eat?” He held his arms aloft for another minute before lowering them.
“Gods must be busy. Strikes me as ‘ow they’re always busy.”
“We’re not turning back.” Buncan was firm.
“Ain’t we? ‘Ows about we put it to a vote, wot?” He glanced back along Snaugenhutt’s spine. “All those in favor o’ turnin’ back raise a ‘and.” He thrust his own skyward.
When it was not seconded he glared goggle-eyed at his sister. “ ‘Ere now, wot’s this? You were complainin’ more than all the rest o’ us put together.”
A chagrined Neena turned away from him. “Well, I been thinkin’ about wot Bunski there said about admittin’ defeat, an’ ‘avin’ to explain it to Mudge an’ Weegee an’ all, an’ I just ain’t so sure it’s a good idea to give up just now.”
“Is that bloody right?” Her brother’s exasperation was plain. “When is a good time, then?” When she didn’t reply he added, “So you’re in favor o’ continuin’ with this madness?”
“I didn’t say that. I . . . I abstain, I do.”
“Say wot? You can’t bleedin’ abstain.”
Her whiskers thrust forward belligerently. “I just did.”
Buncan reflected that only a couple of otters, sustained by their remarkable agility and superb sense of balance, could manage to engage in a serious tussle on the back of an ambling rhinoceros without falling off. At least things were back to normal.
As always, the scuffle concluded without any serious damage having been inflicted to either side. Squill settled back in his seat as though nothing had happened.
“Cor, mate, ‘ow about we try to spellsing up a nice, cool pool. Pick a likely-lookin’ depression in the rocks an’ make a job of it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Blimey, where’s the ‘arm, Buncan? Just enough for a quick swim. Wouldn’t take much o’ a spellsong.”
Buncan looked back at him. “I said no. We’ve been pushing our luck all along. We might need a spell like that for drinking water, and as I’ve said from the beginning, harmonic replication’s a pain.”
Squill took mild affront. “Ohhhh, ‘replication,’ is it? Who’s been studyin’ behind me back?”
Buncan returned his attention to the route ahead. “You don’t need a swim.”
“The ‘ell we don’t! Tis our natural right, it is. Tis in the bleedin’ tribal constitution.”
“Well, your constitution’s suspended until we leave the Tamas.” He made an effort to soothe his irritated companion. “Don’t think about it. If Gragelouth’s right, we’ll be out of this soon.”
Squill was not mollified. “Cor! If ‘Gragelouth’s’ right.”
Their frustration was muted by the country through which they were passing. If anything, the towering formations grew increasingly more impressive, infinitely varied in silhouette and color. Gigantic buttes rose from the desert floor, their flanks sculpted into fantastic shapes by eons of patient wind and water.
Acutely aware of the uncomfortable situation, Gragelouth made an effort to divert the otters from their discontent. “You two need to get your minds off our present condition. See those cliffs?” He pointed to the abraded walls of a dark volcanic plug which rose from the earth like a dead tooth. “Notice how the edge resembles the profile of a human face?” His fingers moved. “That rocky projection in the center is the nose. The brow rides higher, while beneath the nostrils are—”
Squill cut him off. “At the moment I’m not interested in anythin” that looks like a bleedin’ ‘uman.” His gaze burned into an indifferent Buncan’s back.
The merchant refused to be discouraged. “Very well. Look at that eroded pinnacle off to our rhat eroded pinnacle off to our rble that of a porcupine?”
Squill was reluctant to turn and look, but when his natural curiosity got the better of him he was surprised to discover that the merchant’s sense of the surreal was keen. He perked up slightly.
“Bugger me for a blistered bobcat if you ain’t ‘alf right, gray-face. It do right look like a member o’ the spiny tribe.”
Neena found herself drawn into the game in spite of herself. Anything to alleviate the endless boredom. It became a contest to see who could read the most outrageous or unlikely identities into, the deeply worn rock. Her identification of a pile of rubble as a crouching kudu was surpassed by Squill’s insistence that an isolated butte looked exactly like an armored mouse.
Before long everyone was finding recognizable shapes and forms in the passing scenery. More than anyone would have believed possible, the merchant’s game was helping to pass the time. As for Gragelouth, he was better at it than any of them, explaining that it was a pastime he’d been forced to indulge in on many a long, lonely journey.
The game was resumed in earnest the next morning, the merchant having drawn up a means for keeping score. Points were awarded for accuracy, imagination, and frequency. Snaugenhutt was pointing out what he asserted was a hawk hidden among a sandstone overhang when the silence of their surroundings was broken by shouts from the dry riverbed ahead.