From: hutch@agora.rdrop.com (Steve Hutchison)
Date: 8 Apr 96 06:03:10 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [AI] AI6: Shared Host



[Admin] Parts of the dialogue in this preface are due to Jeff Simon, 
	and the character Jake Shade is his.


     In Generica a man sat on the ground by a bridge, calling a name
over and over.  The sound of his voice crept into the shadows, and
from the shadows crawled into the dreams of a few sleeping mice.  From
the dreams it crept across the silence of the realm of dreamers, and
caught the wind that blew between worlds of dream and chaos.

     In a world called "Earth" by some of the people who live there,
one of those people was in meditation.  It would be hard to say whether
he was a normal inhabitant there.  It had been some time since the human
race had found refuge from the end of their species by the magical ritual
that bonded them to other animals, and very few remained wholly "human"
in their outward form.  This one was very like an otter.

     He was floating on his back, in a lake in a heavily forested high
mountain region, in the sunlight.  His body was asleep, but he was not
unconscious.  In the dream-realm where his mind floated, he heard the
call and sighed.

     (Took him long enough,) he thought.

     The sound had a trail and he swam along the trail, as if he were
diving after a fish.  The light grew brighter as he approached Nexus,
and he floated at the edge of the light looking down at the figure
of the man, droning his call across the worlds.

     (I hate this part,) he said to himself, and found the mouse whose
dream had first let the call enter the world.  It moved, by his will,
out of the tunnel and to the river's edge, crawling on still-unformed
paws.  It was very young, only a half a day or so.

     The otter stepped into its body, chanting its own call to the
fire and water and air and earth that made up the physical reality.
The mouse-body expanded in the shadow under the bridge, taking on
a shape and size more familiar to the otter.  Once the body made
concessions with local reality, but before solidity set in, he
expanded the image to include the all-concealing black leather
cloak, hood, and robes, even gloves and a mask -- his first visit
to this place had made it clear that animal-folk were distrusted
more than dark strangers in weird clothing.

     He stepped out of the shadow and into the local reality just as
the chanting voice was starting to get ragged.

     The summoner turned out to be a human that the otter had known
briefly on his previous visit to this place -- and not coincidentally,
the one whose actions had caused his abrupt departure.

     "I thought it was you, Jake.  Why were you calling?"

     Jake Shade stood, his knees popping as he did so.  He stretched slowly,
working the kinks out.  He was several inches shorter than the new arrival,
but thicker, broader.

     "I need a favor.  A job, one that fits your unique physiotype."

     "My physiotype?  What's wrong with YOUR physiotype?"  The otter
wondered if Shade had summoned him for some trivial task.

     Shade walked over to the edge of the riverbank.  He looked up at the
bridge overhead while tiny currents lapped at the tips of his boots.

     "About a month ago, I . . . fell from this bridge and almost drowned. I
had to ditch most of my gear to stay afloat.  Something has come up, and
I have a need for two of the articles I lost.  I was hoping you could help me
recover them."

     The otter went to the riverside and sniffed.  Typical of a human city
where Nature hadn't yet rebelled -- it stank.

     "That river is filthy.  I suspect a large segment of the population is
dumping their garbage into the water."

     "Tell me about it," Shade replied.  "I swallowed about half of it.  I'm
amazed I didn't come down with some kind of horrible disease."

     The otter looked at him, and thought, 'what disease would want to get
mixed up with YOU,' but didn't say anything out loud -- the curse that Shade
carried was probably his own fault but it wouldn't be politick to tell him.

     "What will I be looking for down there, if you don't mind my asking?"

     "The objects I need you to find are two shortswords.  They should still
be within the sheaths and swordbelt."

     "What's wrong with the swords you've got?"  The otter peered at the
weapons that Shade carried -- two fairly decent swords with the karmic stain
of death on them, clearly well used and adequate to the task of a sword.

     "Nothing, if you don't mind ..."  The otter tuned out what Jake was
saying for a moment.  There was something watching and waiting, and he
cast his inner sight around looking for what it was. "...  tempering process
was done without the benefit of firecla-"

     "Jake," he interrupted, glancing at the pile of equipment sitting on
the ground nearby, "I've seen some of what you are lugging around in that
gray pack of yours.   Surely you can afford suitable replacements?"

     "It's gotta be these, buddy.  I wouldn't have called you if it wasn't
important."

     The thing on the pack smiled with razored, zig-zag fangs, and waved
in a friendly manner.  (don't tell jake i'm here, 'kay?) it said in the
voice of a cute little girl.  The otter blinked and focussed on the world
again.  He suppressed a shudder.  Most people didn't rate a personal Fate
railroading them thru life.  Jake must have done something especially
momentous.

     "Did you at least make an attempt to recover them yourself?" he said
to the Outlander, covering up for his distraction with a veneer of
irascibility.

     Shade hedged. "I've located them magically, yeah," he said. "They're 
about one hundred and twenty feet from this spot, almost directly under
the bridge."

     "If you can find them, why don't you just levitate them out?"  The
otter was suddenly suspicious -- Jake wanted him to retrieve weapons that
he couldn't touch himself -- something missing here.

     "If they were normal weapons I could just SHADOWDOOR them.  These
swords have special properties.  One of those properties is a resistance to 
magic, a resistance that makes it impossible to move them magically."
     
     The otter sighed, thinking about how much he'd have to anchor himself
to this reality in order to move magic-resistant objects.  "If they
are so important, I'm surprised you didn't swim after them yourself."

     Of course it was pretty plain why he wouldn't.  Any man with that
much muscle would sink like a rock.  Still, he was able to get out of the
water when he'd been sunk before.  The otter laughed at the unbidden image
of Shade sitting on the bottom of the river, trying to remember how to
swim while carrying two swords.

     "What's the matter, Jake?  Not too fond of swimming?  Forgotten how to
float, I bet."

     Shade looked once more at the river where he had come so close to 
drowning.  He supressed a shiver. "Call me superstitious, but I think diving 
in here again would be too much like tempting fate."  He looked at the hooded 
figure next to him with a trace of annoyance.  "Anyway, MY ancestors were
built for climbing trees, not sporting around chasing fish like some aquatic 
types I could mention."

     The otter laughed at the thought.  Jake didn't know the half of it.
     "Ancestors.  Yark.  Well, I'll do it, I suppose."

     The muscular warrior let out a sigh of relief.  For some reason this
struck the otter as funny and he barked out a laugh, then took off the
carefully conjured disguise.  There was nobody on this stretch of river
at this time of night, anyway, especially after whatever aversion spell
Jake had used.

     "Hold my robes, would you?  I don't want to get any mud on them."

     Jake held his robes while he went back to the river's edge.  It
still stank like forty sewers.

     "You're going to owe me one for this, Jake."  He dove into the water
and immediately sought out the clean current that flowed ten or so feet
below the surface.  He was thankful that he wasn't a fish.  The "taste"
of the water was less pungent as he got further down, but the current was
running hard, and he had to actually swim pretty hard to get to the place
where Jake had gone down -- and he was sensing curious Water Folk all
around him.

     (Help me find the poison-swords and I will take them up to the dry,)
he offered, and three of them led him to the place where the eddy currents
had deposited Jake's things.  His sensitive fingers found the pouch that
had come free along with the swords, and the decayed belt, and he took the
few small gems and coins from the pouch, and _shifted_ them into the dream
realm, then added their solidity to the body he wore.  The swords were
there, still in their sheaths, fastened to the belt, which was good because
he would still have had a hard time lifting them without disruption had he
been forced to touch them directly.

     He made his way directly to the surface, but waited until he had
clambered ashore before breathing in.  The water clunk fetidly to his fur.
He handed the slimy sword-belt to the Outlander.

     "That was disgusting," he said, and sent the water back to the river,
"not to mention a severe waste of resources.  I could understand being asked
for help with some difficult puzzle, but doing fetch-work for an over-muscled
under-bathed hairless ape..."  He stopped when he realized that Jake was
actually believing the spiel.

     "If you feel that way," Shade replied, "make sure that when you ask me to
repay this favor, it is something intellectually stimulating.  No scut-work."
               
     He twitched his whiskers, laughing.  "Oh no, Jake, fair is fair.  You
have to do it, no matter how distasteful the job may be."

     "You're a big weasel, not an otter," Shade grumbled under his breath,
handing back his gloves and mask.

     "What was that, Jake?"  He reached smoothly towards the swords, making
sure to broadcast an intention of throwing them in the river.

     "You're a bit greasy from that water," Shade lied blandly.

     "Must have some river in my ears," the furred Mage said, boxing one of his
ears to dislodge any water that remained.  "I thought I heard the croaking of 
the nearly extinct Bitching Bog Toad for a moment."

     Shade grinned and threw the otter's robe at him.  He put it on while
Jake dumped the river out of the sheaths.

     "Better oil those," the otter said, spotting a bit of rust starting
on the metal guard of the sheath.  Rust had a way of spreading.

     "These babies don't need it," Shade said, drawing one of the blades from
its sheath and running his hands lovingly over the dark metal.  The otter
wondered for a moment at the almost sexual touch, and heard the giggle from
the thing that he wasn't looking at, that rode on Jake's pack.

     He sneezed and spat out the taste of the river.  "You're lucky," he
said, "that there's not much current in the middle of the river where they
went down. They sank almost straight to the bottom.  They were entangled in
some weeds, not far from where they originally touched down."

     "Yeah."  Shade's voice was quiet.  "Lucky."  

     The otter heard the promise of death in that voice, and twitched his
ears.  "What's going on, Jake?  Why the sudden need for the Mage-killing
weapons?"

     "It's nothing, Lutra.  A friend of mine is in trouble.  I have to enlist
Luthor's aid in locating a group of renegade Magi and then go kill them.
You know, the usual thing."

     The otter blinked at the name -- Lutra, the name he used here so that
nobody could conjure him.  Hadn't worked with Jake.  His whiskers stood out
straight, then relaxed.  He stroked them casually and then drew his hood up,
neglecting to put on his leather mask for the moment.  His purple eyes glowed
in the darkness, contemplating the muscular outland warrior.

     "How is Luthor these days?" the otter asked, finally.

     "I don't know," Shade admitted.  "I've been kind of busy lately."

     "Yes," Lutra said softly.  "Falling off bridges, killing Mages.  The
usual thing.  Gets almost monotonous." 

     "I never thought about it in that way," Shade said after a moment.  "I
guess taking the same ride over and over again beats not riding at all."

     The otter pondered for a moment then decided that this kind of talk
deserved to take place over a pitcher of ale.

     "I'm going to the Dragons' Inn, since you were kind enough to summon
me back here.  I have a couple journals to retrieve."  Lutra pulled the soft
leather mask back over his face, so that only the eyes were visible.

     "Care to join me for some fish and chips?"

     "No thanks," Jake answered, still fondling the swords.  "I do have a
Mage or two that needs killing."

     The otter nodded, and padded off down the street.  The Dragon's Inn
was not that close, but not that far either, and he went inside.

     Aa'rden was sitting in his usual place, and Lutra sat across from him
without ceremony.

     "Where's my journals?"

     The grey man jumped.  "Uhm.  I'm sorry, they vanished, nothing left
of them but a bit of seaweed and a damp spot."

     Lutra narrowed his eyes.  "That's strange.  You weren't trying to
read anything you hadn't paid for, were you?"

     The slightly guilty headshake made a smile come to Lutra's face, though
the mask concealed it.  "Pay me then."

     The story buyer put five silvers on the table between them.  There
was a faint flex of magic, and Lutra reached into his robes and found the
journals there, where they should have been when he manifested into this
world.  He took them out.

     "Now, pay me for the next installment."

     Aa'rden placed more silver on the table.  Lutra handed the journal
over to the Story Buyer to copy.

     "Oh, and while you're at it -- I want some fish."

     "Of course."  A handwave brought the waitress, who took the order
as Aa'rden opened the journal and began to copy.

--

                            Apprentice Inept
                              Shared Host

                                  By:

                               Fox Cutter
                            Steve Hutchison


Journal of Frinklan the Obscure
'95 June 19

I was dead tired after the ritual.  Ha, ha.  That's a pun.  Getting
killed isn't easy, not if you want to survive it.

We spent the better part of the morning just cleaning up the
collateral damage.  Faith still doesn't have hands, and we're not
sure how that's going to work, either.  She's the biggest cat you've
ever seen, though.  No cat was ever this big, not even Smilodon
(not even the pair I met on the Nodak Canyons).  She was also very
hungry, and I had to do some scouting for food.  Nothing vegetable;
this had to be meat.  I thought about calling a few salmon, but
decided against it.   Mother Columby's always been a friendly river,
but she almost lost her salmon and it would be cruel to use magic
to take them, even though they've come back remarkably well.

I left Faith and Jinx to talk to Foxeris, and followed the trail
of a mule deer back from the water to where they were laired.  The
scrub brush was too thick here to use the bola, but it didn't seem
like I'd need it -- the deer was injured, from its tracks.  It
favored one leg, and there were smears of something that smelled
like rot, on one fairly thick scrag of brush.  I figured it was
getting gangrenous.

When I found the thing's "nest" in the scrub, it was clear what
had happened.  It was lying there, feverish, too weak to even run.
The leg was puffed up and stank of decay, and a few crows had
clearly been too impatient to wait.  One of them lay crushed by a
reflex kick from the other hoof.  It was still warm and I heard
the "caw-caw" that said the others were on their way back.  I put
my paw gently on its forehead and reached inward, finding the
deer-ghost.  "Let go, little one," I told it.  The vague dark shape
of a Reaper floated past, and it kicked once, and died.

I picked it up and (taking my knife from the belt which was my only
concession to clothing here in the hot wilderness) I cut off the
decayed leg, snapping bone.  The blood I cauterized with a fire
cantrip.  Leaving the crows their food, I muttered thanks to the
deer- ghost for letting me have the carcass, and made my way back
to the raft.  It was enough meat for me and Faith and Jinx --
Foxeris didn't like the smell of it so he didn't eat very much,
but I made part of the remaining horse-feed into a gruel that helped
him out.  It looked to me like he might have been coming down with
something.

He kept giving me weird looks, whenever he thought I wasn't looking.
Finally I put the journal back together, sealing the torn pages
with the reminder of their original one-ness, and told him about
the whole army bit.  I figured he'd either get used to it or I'd
have to renew the illusion.

Finally I left him with Jinx and went over to talk with Faith.
Most of our conversation was subvocal, because speech still hurt
her.

"So," I started, "It seems like I've finally paid back your favor
to me."

She snorted.  "some favor.  you came out of it with hands.  i still
feel like a horse."

"That's what I wanted to talk about," I answered her.  "I can still
do some more with the ritual, but it'll cost us more time."

"that's up to you, isn't it?  you were the one who had to be in
dales by the solstice."  Her tail twitched and I was reminded that
she was still the same size as the horse that this body had been.

"Faith, this isn't just about what I want.  I'm not sure why you
were dragged into this.  Sometimes," I shrugged, "I just get drawn
to weird situations, and you, trapped between life and death by
your daughter's precocious talent... that was pretty strange."

"i don't know, frinklan.  i would like to go back again.  at the
very least i would like to let my husband know that i am alive
again, to see if he wants to rejoin with me, but like this, with
a body so much like an animal, i cannot."

"You could send him a message."  I knew by this time that she would
not ask me, but that I would have to advance her transformation,
somehow.

"how?  the farm is warded, dreamsendings would not cross the fence.
oh, but i could send it thru the earth folk."

I nodded.  "We're on the wrong side of the river.  Earth Folk won't
cross the river.  Do you know any of the Air Dwellers?"

"only a few."

"That's more difficult.  Besides, they don't like to carry things
as heavy as letters."

"a letter?  i suppose," she pondered, settling her huge head onto
her front paws, "i suppose that a letter would be more convincing."

I pulled a sheet of onionskin out of the wax-sealed package in the
travel pouch, tipped my writing-claw in the ink, and nodded.

"Convincing isn't the word I'd use for it.  What do you want me to
write to them?"

She told me and I wrote it.  I'm not going to copy it here; private
mail is private and should not be given away to random people.

I finished writing, and sealed and waterproofed the letter.  Then
I did something I didn't expect to regret immediately: I sent it.

I put it on a rock, and I focussed my will and _looked_ at it, and
at the chain of accidents that would cause it to end up in the
mailbox at Honor Farms in four days.  And I pushed.

And the first accident happened -- I closed my eyes just before
the wind gusted and blew the letter away, and blew the banked fire
partly out.

Then the second accident happened.  Someone told me there are no
such things as dragons, but I've never believed that, and now I
knew why.

Four dragons, and they chose OUR campfire as the place to set down
and finish the argument they'd been having.  Why four dragons?
Well, something had to make that gust of wind that was strong enough
to carry the letter.

Of course, one of them knocked Foxeris into the river with his
tail.  That was a corollary to the second accident: something had
to disturb the Water Dwellers upriver.  I barely had time to yell
for him to duck.  When I started towards him, of course one of the
dragons saw me move, and picked me up.

Faith just froze in place, and I'm not sure where Jinx went.

I whispered an urgent sending to the downstream Water Dwellers to
keep Foxer from drowning, and then the dragon's eye was staring
into my face.

Big dragon.  Very big dragon.  His eye was about as big as my head.

*What an interesting morsel,* it thought at me.

_Put me down, scaley, or you'll find out just how interesting_ I
replied by touch-teep.  I couldn't very well talk -- it had me in
a grip that I could barely fight.

Oddly enough, it did put me down, rather surprised, I think.

*You talked.* it said in an accusing tone of ... voice.

"Yeah, I talked," I replied.  It seemed not to hear me.  Oh great.

"Faith, they're mind-talk-only," I said.  She nodded and looked up
at the one that had grabbed me.

-* i also ... talk ... *- she said wryly.  -* what do you want and
why have you come to our campfire uninvited? *-

The big one thrummed something to the others -- I could feel the
pressure waves in my bones but it was far too far below my range
of hearing.

In the dark and with just the embers from the fire, I couldn't see
them by regular light.  However, seeing in the dark is one of the
first tricks a mage learns.  Trouble is, using the Mage Sight to
see in the dark also distorts things a little.  You see things in
the Real World, not so much in the Physical, and the hint I'd seen
of these things in the Physical world wasn't anywhere near as scary
as what they looked like in Reality.

And one of these things had picked me up like a cub picking up a
doll.

I moved over next to Faith -- she was covering up her fear with a
strong front of feline aggressiveness, and I wanted to calm her
and be ready to throw up a ward if needed.  Not that my intrusion-wards
had been all that effective, with these things just knocking them
over without even slowing down.  Still, I have a war-ward that can
stop just about anything once.  Except...

This situation was beginning to make my whiskers itch.  Somehow it
was payback, or pay-ahead, and that meant I couldn't tweak the Chao
to make it come out right.  We had to pull ourselves out of this
whatever by our own wit and will.

Jinx was hiding behind Faith, and she yerfed a solemn sort of sotto
voce bark that meant nothing to me.

-*what do you want?*- I 'heard' Faith asking, and they all exchanged
glances between them.  Unfortunately it was only Faith I could
hear.  Apparently she was keeping them too busy to talk to me.
And, when she started into prolonged conversation, I lost track of
what she was saying to them.

Two of them moved off into the dark somewhere.  I tried to follow
but soon lost them in the darkness and wind.  My darksight wasn't
tremendously useful -- they seemed not to be reflective in the UV
ranges, or maybe they were too far away for my glow to reach.
After stumbling around in the brush trying to be stealthy for a
while, I decided just to wait and see if I could hear, or esp, what
was happening.  All I could sense was the pressure waves of their
conversation.  If I had been more of a telepath I might have picked
up the content.  Finally, after straining my synapses and finding
that I still don't have the strength, or sensitivity, or whatever
it is that Faith has, I gave up.

I checked, and the Chao was opaque to me, and I guessed that it
would remain that way until the end of this particular catastrophe.

Still, I knew that they were there.  The two that were at my campfire
acted like they hadn't left -- considering the size of the things
and the carrying power of that ultra-low frequency _thrum_ of
theirs, they might have considered themselves just a polite distance
away.  So I moved towards the fire, to see if I could get the gist
of what Faith was saying to them.  She was still earnestly explaining
something -- the best I could grasp out of the emotional ambience
was that we were no longer considered food, and that they wanted
something from us.

"What is it, what's going on?" I hissed.  She pawed the ground
impatiently, tail lashing, and whispered, "they got lost, i think.
they keep talking about food and when i ask what they want I get
a different answer each time."

"Maybe I can make sense out of it."

"touch-link, then?"

"Like when we were on the front."  I settled back half supported
by my tail and let one hand rest on her flank.  It was like pouring
hot coals into my head.  Roaring soundlessly, each of the two
dragons sitting motionless staring across the scattered embers of
our fire, and making no sense at all.

-*like listening to foghorns*-  Faith said to me.

*wait*  I said to her.  I let the argument wash across me, letting
everything else fall aside for the moment.  The things made sense
before, but the concepts were simple -- when it gets to what someone
wants, or why, or where they're from or where they're going, that
can get complex.  After what seemed like a few years, I started to
get some hint of it.

There were five of them, not just the four we'd seen.  They were
on some kind of mating flight, or possibly negotiating a treaty
between families, and it involved the five of them going on some
kind of hunt, or quest.  The one who kept the maps disappeared or
got lost or bored or two somethings ago, and the others had tried
to go to the end of their quest unguarded.  (Yes, they did mean
guarded, not guided.  That was one of the things that was confusing
Faith.)  At that point I knew what they wanted, and I was pretty
sure I wouldn't be able to help directly.

It would probably be against the rules anyway.  I told Faith.

*Find out if I'm right: They need to find their mapmaker.  They
also need food, but we can't feed them or help them out, because
it would spoil the hunt.*

She stared at the wheel-eyed monster and communication happened
that I couldn't quite perceive.  After a bit, she whispered their
answer, "they need a guide, or a map, but they seem to be divided
over what they should do with the mapmaker when they find it.  two
of them want to eat it but the other two just want to hurt it."

At that point, I was beginning to agree with them.  They needed a
guide or a map between the worlds, and there wasn't one around
here.

I knew where to look, though.  And, in two hours it would be
moonrise.  If we didn't start the second step of the transformation
ritual before then we wouldn't be able to do it at all, and Faith
would be stuck with her animalistic body for a long time.

I decided to gamble with the truth.  Faith was dubious, but again,
she told them my offer, and they seemed to accept it.

"this is dangerous," she hissed.  "you could burn out"

"Just do it," I told her, and she reared up and stuck a paw on
either side of my head and LINKED...  my head didn't explode, my
eyes didn't boil in their sockets, my teeth didn't all crumble at
once, and my bones weren't suddenly replaced by molten lead.  It
just felt that way.  Like I've said before, I'm at best an indifferent
telepath.  Faith, during our army days together, had proven to be
a very good telepath, though she was always better at receiving
than at sending.  I had begun to suspect that her recent trials
had changed that limitation, and this was proof enough.

The wheel-eye loomed close, and claws dug thru my mind, one image
after another flicking thru until one repeated -- an eagle, appearing
thru a rip in the air, then vanishing thru another rip in the air.
A demand coalesced into something coherent: "Where?" and after a
moment I was able to visualize a map of sorts, showing the place
where we had seen the eagle a week or so outside of Smoke Can.
There was a roar of triumph, and a blast of wind again that was
almost more than those wings could make.

The next thing I remember is that the horizon was bright, and Faith
and Jinx had set the four torches burning that set the perimeters
for the change-ritual.  I staggered to the cardinal east, and that
was enough -- the spell hit.  Just before we fell out of time, I
had a vision of four scaled forms slipping thru a hole in the air
that led to a city, and I'm not sure why but the phrase "rush hour"
was stuck in my mind.

It was a long night.  Almost three months.  When the sun rose,
Faith was sitting across the clearing from be.  Before I could get
a good look at her, something grabbed me from behind, and I heard
a rough voice, "Tie the both of them up."

A rag of some kind was thrown over my eyes, and by the smell I knew
that my past had started to catch up with me.

Well, four months, it _had_ been long enough for even the clumsiest
hedge-mage to figure out what I had done.  Still, I had hoped we
wouldn't be bothered by them again.

Foxeris' dear friend Canron, and his Weasel parents.

The bear that ran with their wolfpack hirelings, I also knew.
He muttered an apology as he tied my paws behind my back, and
I knew from the contact that he wasn't too happy about this
particular job.  His name was Rande, as I recalled.  He also knew
Alex Harloon (the human I planned to meet in Dales, so we could
get smashed on tequila for old times' sake).

There was some muttering and cursing, and a few shouts and howls
from the mercs in the wolfpack, and I was dragged down to my knees
by someone pulling on the rope that Rande had left around my neck.

"You, you, motherless piece of sea scum, you are going to REGRET that
breach of contract you perpetrated on us," said a feminine voice,
and I would have smiled except for the stink of that rag across my
eyes.  Apparently someone had bothered to do some research into me,
because they knew that I need to see to do most of my offensive
magic.  Or teke, as the case may be.

"Ah yes, Canron's dear darling mummy.  I never did properly meet you,
as I recall."  My tone was deliberately mocking, because I wanted her
to actually strike me.  "Tell me, was it as pleasant for you living
with your charming son underfoot all the time as it was for me knowing
that you would be?"

"Strike him," she said to someone, "Strike him repeatedly but don't do
any permanent damage."

"I wouldn't do that," I started to say before something heavy thudded
against my stomach.  I wondered if I should let out a whoof of air or
act injured -- clearly that was supposed to be a crippling punch.
But, I'm a whole lot stronger than I appear, and without my illusion
I don't appear terribly weak.  The punch was followed by several more,
to about the same effect, including an attempt to do me damage in a
way that would make my family life painful for a while.  Again I was
grateful to that "soldier" transformation in the army -- everything
of a vulnerable nature is kept pulled inside when I'm not using it.

But after the first punch I'd decided to make noises like I was being
hurt, just so that they wouldn't decide to go for parts that COULD be.

"Where's Faith gotten to," I wondered half-aloud, as whoever the fool
with the brass knuckles was, got tired.

"You're not doing anything to him," said the vulpine voice that I
recognized as Canron.  "He's faking."

"Just being polite," I answered.  There was a growl from one of the
wolfpack, and a masculine voice snapped, "Stop it, all of you."

The smell was clearly mustelid, the weasel stank of stale smoke and
not a small amount of frustration.  "You won't be able to hurt him,
Klarice 'darling', at least not without causing permanent damage,
and if Pinkerton's report is correct, he'll find a way to turn that
back onto us.  So stop wasting time."

"At last," I said.  "Someone with a functioning brain cell."

"You shut up too," he snapped.  "All right, Otter.  We've figured
out what you did with our spell, and we're here to get you to take
it off us."

"You mean, you release me from the contract?"

"Yes, we'll release you.  Shut up, Canron," he snarled.

"You do realize that's easier said than done."

"Why?"

"Because Foxeris has to be with me when I finish it."

I heard a single "yip" from nearby -- the bark of a fox, so Jinx
was watching from some safe place.  Probably the inside of my
pack, or Faith's saddlebag, since they both had mil-grade wards
on them that these mercs wouldn't be able to break quickly, and
these civilian contract-lawyer weasels not at all.

"Where is he then," Canron said, almost desperately.  "I can't
take much more of this."

"You could have come with me instead of sticking Foxeris with
the geas," I said.  "It's your own fault."

He didn't answer.

"Will one of you please take this stupid rag off my eyes," I said,
disgusted.  "I promise I won't take any hostile action except in
my own defense."

"No," Klarice said, "Don't trust him.  He'll find a way to get
around that promise, just like he got around the contract."

"I got around the contract because you lied about the intent of
the thing, and because you planned to breach it anyway.  You
advertised for a Wizard, why are you surprised when you get one?"

"I told you he wasn't an ordinary magician," Canron barked.

"How would you know," she shot back.  "You never paid attention
to anything we ever tried to teach you, how would you know a
magician from a sideshow juggler?"

Behind me, I heard Rande and two lupine voices muttering.

"If Faith is hurt, you're in more trouble than you think,"
I said.  "She's married to Honor of Honor and Duty Farm, the
folks who provide a third of the grain products that your fine
city of Smoke Can consumes.  Not to mention, they control the
road west to S'attle."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the male said.

"She was in the circle with me."

"What, the monster quadruped with the felandric torso?"

"Something like that," I said.  "I hope you don't blurt that
bit about monsters too loudly in her presence.  Her feelings
might be hurt."

Behind me I heard another mutter between Rande and the wolves
and in the distance, a howl.  Rande became more agitated, and
the wolves finally came to an agreement of some kind.

"All right, that's enough," Rande said.  "Kalden, we're ending
our contract with you, effective immediately."  He removed the
rag from around my eyes, and I got a good look at my campsite.

The clean short grass of the campground in early summer had been
replaced by the sunburnt ochre of the late summer, except inside
the ritual circle, where it was gone to plain dust.  Four large
paw-prints of a feline conformation but too huge, and my own
paw-and-tail mark, and the burned-away ritual candles, and my
pack and Faith's saddlebags both piled where I'd left them.

Canron and his two weasel parents were joined by a chain that
ran thru links on belts that all three wore.  I almost laughed
at that -- it _was_ a good solution for the problem of ensuring
that they stayed close together.

"Doesn't family togetherness make your heart feel warm," I
muttered to myself, and a YRK! came from my backpack.  Jinx
seemed to be amused.

The three looked very resentful, but the two wolves that I could
see had spears levelled and pointed at both weasels.

"Our legal beagle will see you about the balance of our retainer,"
one of the wolves growled.  "Next time, make sure it's not family
that you're hiring us to kill for you."

"KILL," I said.  "You hired mercs to _kill_ me?  If it wasn't that
I find your damned geas painful to live with, I'd make it permanent."

They at least had the good grace to look ashamed.  I stalked over
to my pack and pulled out a small knife and a bottle, and went to
the three of them.  A tuft of fur, three drops of blood from each,
and the soil from under their footpads went into the bottle.

The two weasels began to look nervous at this, and would have done
something, I'm sure, except that the wolves held their spears at
their throats while I took the "samples".  I spent about three
minutes meditating, and a minute or two chanting the terms of the
amendment I was putting into the geas.  I made sure that they did
understand it though: any attempt to harm me, directly or indirectly,
and both of them would go into sneezing and hiccups that wouldn't
end until my living hand touched them and I willingly recited the
release clause.

I stood, after marking the forehead of each with the rune binding
the geas.  "All right.  I'll find Foxeris.  You go on to Dales and
I'll meet you there.  These gentlewolves will escort you, and you
will pay them for their protection."

Rande looked at me with surprise.  "Don't you need some help finding
this Foxeris person?"

"No, I know where he is.  How's life in the mercs been treating you,
old grizzly?"

"Couldn't be better.  You know that Jorma died?"  He had been mated
to the Alpha bitch of this particular wolfpack, some years ago when
we first met on the plains.

"No, I'm sorry to hear that.  What was it?"

"Killed in battle, the way she wanted."

I nodded.  She had been a bloodthirsty one.

About that time, Faith returned with the three wolves who had gone
after her earlier.  I'd been correct in my guess that she bolted
and led them off while I dealt with the others.  Standard tactics
for guerrilla combat in a capture situation, for our company.

Five wolves and a bear -- Jorma's pack was down in size.  I felt
a little sad at that.  They had been twenty, before.

They had horses, back down towards the river.  Summer had made its
effects known and the river was down some distance below.
I pulled some of the pre-packaged horsemeat that we'd spelled to
keep from spoiling, out of the saddlebag, and split it with Faith.
This let me get a good look at her, though I had known what she
looked like, from the dreamtime.  Daylight is sometimes more blunt.

Her equine lines were gone, replaced by the graceful length of
a feline body, but one nearly the size of a horse.  The centaurian
structure still remained - at the point where a cat would have
a neck and head, a humanoid torso began, just above the hip on
a normal two-legger.  There was a sort of "unfinished" feel to how
she fit together, and her usual siamese coloration hadn't blended
completely with the roan of the horse.

I loaded her bags -- with working arms, she was able to help now,
though her fingers weren't quite right yet.  I waved her paws away
and just tightened the saddlebags into place.

"I'm going to have to go alone," I told her.  "You should continue
with the weasels and with Rande and the Reavars."

She protested, voice still not quite functional, 'what about jinx,
what about the ritual completing?'

"The last part can happen on its own, and it won't happen for four
days -- remember, autumnal equinox?  This is one of those things,
Faith.  Remember when you declared mate bond with Honor and I had
to leave because the disasters were chasing me?  Foxeris is going
to be hard to find, and I may have to do some very strange stuff
in my search.  I don't want you getting hurt further."

She finally nodded.  'obscure as ever.  take care of yourself.'

I didn't want Faith to see how upset I was, so I bent over my pack.
I pulled Jinx off of my journal, and gave her a bit of the meat
from the pack.  "I wish I could understand you," I said to her.

Faith shook her head, and followed the wolfpack and their three
'guests' down to the riverbed below -- they'd be in Dales within
two days, and I had to find the Place of Power that I smelled
near here.  My strongest hunch said that Foxeris would end up there.

Once they were gone, I went down to the river bank and pulled
my raft out of the brush.  It hadn't been damaged, and Jinx sniffed
around it until I dragged it over to the river.  I put the pack on
and gestured for her to climb aboard, and she disdainfully hopped
onto the pack, shunning the wood of the raft.  I shrugged and
shoved off.  Vixens.

The river was cold, and shallower than she'd been by quite a bit.
This seemed to have been a dry summer.  After only an hour I felt
my whiskers start to tingle.  The PLACE was near ... under me,
down in the crystal dark river, I saw the top of the ancient arch
and felt something _watching_ me; something writhed below and I
scrambled onto the raft as quickly as I could, but not quickly
enough.  The world lurched around us, as the giant tentacle
swiped at where I had been, bending the reality of the Manifest
World close to breaking.

I absently noted (while digging my claws into the raft) that it was
one of the Old Things, that had lived under the deeps of the earth
below the crust, until the Earth Folk with their renovations had
disturbed its place in the cool magma-bubble under Mt. A'adm.  It
swung again, and time and space bent.  I held on as tightly as I
could, and Jinx sank her teeth into my tail trying to hold on.

The air SNAPPED and suddenly I was on a turbulent river, then
suddenly again in a lava-strewn desert, then a third time and
the raft came down, hard, and I blacked out.

Looking back -- it's been quite a few pages since I started
this catch-up entry, since I woke on the sand bar with my
raft wrecked.

I've checked the constellations and the timing of Jupiter's
moons, and the location of the planets.  It is indeed June
of '95 at the Solstice again, and Foxeris is here, I can tell
by the warping of the Chao.  I still can't feel him across
the apprentice bond -- but that might be due to the fact that
I am, upriver, turning that curse back on the ones who bound
it to me, as a pleasant evening's diversion.

The trouble is, something feels wrong.  I'm not sure that this
is really "home" -- I suspect that we may have been thrown thru
a Portal somewhere along the way.  If so, then the Rules here
may be different.

Jinx has been trying to tell me to go to the north shore of
the river to find Foxeris.  I think I'll go look there, as
soon as my head stops hurting.

----

This story is posted to rec.arts.comics.creative, alt.fan.furry,
alt.pub.dragons-inn, and spk.literary.  It is copyrighted 1996
by Stephen Hutchison and Fox Cutter.  Permission is granted for
archive with rec.arts.comics.creative and alt.pub.dragons-inn, and
spk.literary.  All other rights, including repost, are reserved
to the authors.  This story may not be distributed for a fee except by
permission of the authors, and this copyright notice may not be
removed.

For the entire series to this point, point your web browser to
http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/Stories/AI/ai.html