authoritieth. They are worried that thertain radical foolth among the population
might try to attack you."
"Their concern for our health is most kind," replied Caz, "but they needn't
worry. We can take care of ourselves."
"I know that, thir," admitted the officer, "but my thuperiorth think otherwithe.
Ith for your own protecthion." He backed out, closing the door tightly behind
him.
"That's it, then," snapped an angry Talea. "We're under house arrest. I knew
they were up to something."
Flor was playing with her knife, cleaning her long nails and looking quite
ravishing as she leaned against a wall, legs crossed and her black cape framing
her figure.
"That's easily fixed. Un poco sangre and we'll go where we please, ¿no es
verdad? Or we could wake up Jonny-Tom's fire-breathing compadre and make
charcoal of that door." She gestured at the huge sliding panels with the knife.
"These aren't the enemy, Flor. Now is a time for diplomacy," he told her. "In
any case, I can't risk leaving Falameezar."
Black eyes flashed at him and she stood away from the wall, jabbed the knife
into the wood. "Maybe so, but I'm like Talea in this. I don't like being told
where I can and can't go even if it supposedly is for my own 'protection'! I had
twenty years of older brothers and sisters telling me that. I'll be damned if
I'm going to let some oversized stuffy coon dictate the same thing to me now."
"Tch, tch... children, children."
They all turned. The squat figure of Clothahump was watching them, clucking his
tongue in disapproval.
"You will all be valuable on the battlefield in the war to come, but that war is
not yet, nor here. The fleshpots of the city do not interest me in the least,
so," and he smiled up at Jon-Tom, "I will remain here to satisfy our large
companion's desire for conversation."
"Are you sure... ?" Jon-Tom began.
"I have listened closely to much of your chatter, and you have instructed me
well. The underlying principles to which this dragon adheres so fanatically are
simple enough to manipulate. I can handle him. Besides, it is the nature of
wizards and dragons to get along with one another. There are other things we can
talk about.
"But you should all go, if you so desire. You have done all I have asked of you
so far and deserve some relaxation. So I will occupy the attention of the dragon
when required, and will aid you in slipping away."
"I don't know." Jon-Tom studied the snoring figure of the dragon. "He has a
pretty probing, one-track mind."
"I will endeavor to steer our talk away from eeonomics. That seems to be his
main interest. After you have departed I shall bar the door from the outside...
a simple bit of levitation. With the bars in place and the sounds of
conversation inside, the other guards will assume all are still here.
"That shouldn't be too 'ard to do, wot?"
Mudge jumped. The wizard had mimicked his voice perfectly.
A dark form descended from the rafters. "What about me, Master?" Pog looked
imploringly at him.
"Go with them if you will. I will have no need of you here tonight. But stay
away from the brothels. That's what got you into this in the first place,
remember. You will end up indenturing yourself to a second master."
"Not ta worry, boss. And thanks!" He bowed in the air, dipping like a diving
plane.
"I don't believe you, but I will not hold you back and let the others go. Moral
desiccation," he muttered disgustedly. Pog simply winked at Jon-Tom.
"You said you'd help us get out. What are you going to do," Flor wondered,
"dissolve the wall?"
Clothahump frowned at her as much as his hard face would allow. "You
underestimate the resources available to a sophisticated worker of miracles such
as myself. If I were to do as you suggest, it would be immediately evident to
those watching us what had taken place. Your temporary departure must go
unnoticed.
"When it is but a little darker I will allow you to pass safely and unseen into
the city."
So it was that several hours later the little group of sightseers stood
clustered in a narrow side street. Oil lamps flickered in the night mist. Light
struggled to escape from behind closed shutters. Around them drifted the faint
sounds of a city too big and bustling to go to sleep at night.
Behind them, across the deserted square, bulked the shadowy, barnlike barracks
in which they'd been confined only moments earlier.
Jon-Tom had expected Clothahump to do something extraordinary, such as
materializing them inside another building.
Instead, the wizard had moved to another small side door. His gift for mimicry,
magical or otherwise, had been used to throw the studied voice of one snoozing
guard. Through the use of ventriloquism he had cast rude aspersions on the
ancestry of the other guard. Violently waking up his supposedly insulting
companion, this victim and his associate soon fell to more physical discussion.
At that point it was a simple matter for Caz and Talea to slip up behind them
and via the judicious application of some loose cobblestones, settle the
argument for the duration of the evening.
It was not quite the miraculous manipulation of magic Jon-Tom had expected from
Clothahump, but he had to admit it was efficient.
No one troubled them or challenged them as they walked down the deserted
thoroughfare. Citizens were voluntarily or else by directive giving the barracks
area a wide berth.
Soon they began encountering evening pedestrian traffic, however, and despite
the size of Jon-Tom and Flor, they attracted little attention. Talea and Mudge
had never been inside a city the size of Polastrindu. They were trying hard to
act blasé, but their actual feeling was awe.
Jon-Tom and Flor were equally ignorant of the city's customs, though not of its
size, and so was Pog. So it was left unspoken that Caz would lead them. After a
while Jon-Tom felt almost comfortable walking the rain-soaked streets, his cape
up over his head. With its overhanging balconies and flickering oil lamps it was
not unlike Lynchbany. The principal difference was the increased volume of
bickering and fighting, of the sounds of loving and playing and cursing and
crying cubs that issued from behind doors and windows.
As in Lynchbany the uppermost garret levels were inhabited by the various
arboreal citizens. Bats like Pog, or kilt-clad birds. Night-fliers filled the
sky and danced or fought in silhouette against the cloud-shrouded moon.
A group of drunken raccoons and coatis ambled past them. Their capes and vests
were liquor-stained. One inebriated bobcat tottered in their midst. She was
magnificently dressed in a long flowing skirt and broad-rimmed hat. With short
tail switching and cat-eyes piercing the night she looked as if she might just
have emerged from a stage version of Puss n' Boots, though the way her companion
coati was pawing her was anything but fairytalish.
They encountered a group of voles and opossums on their way to work. Having just
arisen from a long day's sleep, the workers were anxious to reach their jobs.
The revelers would not let them pass. There was shoving and pushing, much of it
good-natured, as the workers made their way at last up the street.
"Down this way," Caz directed them. They turned down a narrow, winding road. The
lighting was more garish, the noise from busy establishments more raucous.
Heavily made-up faces boasting extreme coloration of fur and skin only partly
due to cosmetics beckoned to them from various windows. By no means were all of