smiled and said, “Frankly, I wouldn’t miss seeing what happens next for all the precious metal in Durpar.”
Pryce shook his head in amazement and grinned at the halfling. “What happens next, my dear Gheevy, is that we both get a good night’s sleep so we can follow up on the jackalwere’s clues in the morning.”
“Shall I meet you at your new place?” Wotfirr asked eagerly.
Pryce shook his head. “You have your job to consider. I’ll come to Schreders At Your Service and let you know what the plan is. All right?”
The halfling nodded, and the two parted company. Within ten paces, Covington already missed the little fellow’s company. It was amazing, he reflected, how important it was to have another person around to bounce ideas off, show another point of view, and just generally provide a balance. Without Gheevy he had no one in the city he could be completely honest with. He had always considered himself independent and self-sufficient, and he was surprised to realize what a burden that was getting to be.
He was also surprised to find out how tired he was. By the time he reached the cul-de-sac, his legs felt as if they were filled with sand. He turned into the tree trunk entrance, his eyes half-closing with weariness.
Once more the cloak clasp began to glow, and when he raised his eyelids, the inside door was swinging open. Pryce stepped inside the consummately comfortable dwelling, basking in the gentle radiance of a soft indoor night- light. He sighed at the beauty and easy livability of this place. Somehow, even if the inquisitrix came for him at sunrise with proof of his duplicity, it all seemed worthwhile for one night in the kind of dwelling he had always dreamed about.
Though his mind was inspired by the dwelling’s comfort, his body was still exhausted. His legs dragged him across the large, circular area formed by the tree trunk toward a huge branch opening some forty feet away. He could just barely make out the edge of a wide, rectangular bed around the corner of a wall, and his feet moved in that direction.
The sleeping quarters were, in their own way, as impressive as the library and living room. Everything helped create a feeling of drowsy invitation. The grain of the wooden walls was polished to a high luster, highlighting a myriad of whorled patterns he found very attractive. The brown of the wall rose to the black of the cone-shaped ceiling, where tiny flecks of white, silver, and gold twinkled like the night sky. Pryce thought he felt a cooling breeze, but that might have been his imagination playing tricks on him.
The bed itself looked warm and inviting, despite the mussed bed linens, and it blended with the environment perfectly. The rumpled bedcovers were deep purple and rounded, as if cloudlike pillows awaited beneath them. A sleepy smile spread across Covington’s face, and his eyelids lowered to half-mast as he headed for the bed and some much-needed rest.
He lay down beside a large, surprisingly firm cushion. Covington rolled up against it, wrapping his arms around it and pulling it toward him. Not surprisingly, it was soft to his touch. To his surprise, however, it also smelled wonderfulmusky, fleshy, and sweet, like the most beautiful woman he had ever known. If Geerling Ambersong slept in this enchanting bed every night, it was remarkable he ever got up.
In fact, Pryce thought, snuggling his head against the soft shape of the pillow, the incredible feeling reminded him of something. What was it again? He felt his consciousness begin to slip. He was already sinking into sleep when his subconscious shook his brain.
Pryce’s eyes snapped open. His grip on the pillow spasmed. Then the bed exploded.
Well, the bed didn’t actually explode, but it might as well have. The bedclothes erupted off the mattress, and something made a horrible sound. It started as a squeal, then mutated into an angry shriek, then ended in a piercing scream.
Pryce wasn’t so much thrown off as he threw himself off, trying desperately to escape from whatever was in the bed. He soared straight up some three and a half feet, his legs kicking wildly. Then he dived four feet to the side, sliding along the floor.
He hit the wall, standing, where he watched, wide-eyed, as something took shape over the bed. At first it looked like a fuzzy ball of mutating movement. Then limbs started to flail out, and hair spun in the air like striking snakes. Just as it seemed the misshapen creature would crash back down to the bed, strong arms and shapely legs appeared. Pryce saw that they were attached to a pleasantly rounded torso. No less amazing was the face that emerged from the wildly whipping hair… a face he recognized from somewhere…
They screamed each other’s names at the same time, then dived in different directions.
Pryce Covington tried to leap out of the bedroom altogether while Dearlyn Ambersong grabbed a seven-foot- long staff, with red horsehair cascading off the top. She jerked it up from where it leaned against the wall beside the bed, planting the base directly across Pryce’s solar plexus.
Covington woofed in response, his arms and legs going straight out. He flew backward, then struck the far right corner of the bed with his shoulders. He rolled backward and landed on his knees, allowing the momentum to keep him sliding away. Dearlyn, however, was already running across the mattress, spinning the pole so that the horsehair flew wide, revealing all manner of gardening implements knotted to the top by thin leather thongs.
“Garden tools?” Pryce marveled, but there was no time to consider the incongruity of their placement as she expertly thrust the staff forward. A garden trowel barely missed his nose. He stopped sliding and jerked his head back. His skull struck the sloping wall with a nasty thunk, but she continued to spin the staff wildly. Some small shears nearly pruned his neck.
Pryce forced the bottom of his legs, from the knees down, to straighten. He sat on the floor, letting his rear slide while his head kept going back. Suddenly he was lying on the floor by the bed, watching her spin the red horsehair, a small cultivator attempting to puncture both his corneas at the same time.
Pryce grabbed the bedclothes with his right hand and pulled with all his might. Not only did the maneuver propel him toward the bed, but it also pulled the comforter out from under Dear-Iyn’s feet. The cultivator and horsehair flew up, and she started to plummet down with a loud squeal.
Pryce somersaulted backward onto his feet just in time to see Dearlyn fall on the bed in a satisfying tangle of arms, legs, and garden tools. Covington found himself shaking, but also chuckling from a combination of tension and relief. Dearlyn Ambersong was extremely proficient with her staff. The unusual implement may have made her a great gardener, but it wasn’t bad as a weapon either. She could clearly use it to parry any weed she targeted, whether vegetable or human.
Here was a mystery he had better solve immediately. What was Dearlyn Ambersong doing in what he thought was his bed, and why the sudden attempt to “plant” him? Pryce clapped his hands to get her attention. “Now, just a minute, Miss Ambersong. I”
He didn’t have time to finish because all of a sudden the bed came at him. One second it was lying flat on the bed frame, and the next second it was flying at him like a giant flyswatter trying to squash a bug against the wall. Clearly the bed was magically powered!
Pryce threw himself to the side, executing a series of fast cartwheels toward the bedroom door. He spun out of the sleeping quarters just as the heavy bed hit the wall with a resounding slam.
He landed on his feet in the library, but he had no time to enjoy his escape because now the horsehair staff was coming at his face like the spear, the attached garden tools coursing behind it like a particularly dangerous set of stingers.
Pryce pivoted, turned his head, and let his knees buckle. He watched the pole fly by inches over his head as he did the limbo as fast as he could. A trailing cultivating tool scratched an itch on his nose as it rocketed past.
“Now, look here!” he cried, straightening up as the staff hit the far wall. But then a spell struck him in the chest, and he could say no more.
Pryce Covington felt as if a giant serpent had snapped its tail across his torso. He flew across the living room floor and crashed, seat first, into one of the mage’s heavy chairs. The power of the spell was more than enough to overturn it, sending Pryce head over heels into the fireplace.
Pryce was thankful that the fire was out. So was he, nearly.
Through a fog of confusion, pain, and soot, he could make out Dearlyn Ambersong, standing angrily in the doorway of the sleeping quarters, her fists on her hips. Pryce blinked, trying to focus on what appeared to be fur that covered her body from her neck to her ankles, and all the way down her arms to her wrists. What was she, another jackalwere?
