Chorus Skating by Alan Dean Foster Page B

tow you part o’ the way, mate, but not to the bank awaitin’ opposite. Not with carryin’ all the gear as well, especially that bleedin’ precious duar o’ yours.”
    â€œWe’ll look for an easier way across. Not that I couldn’t manage it if I had to. I’m still a pretty good swimmer.”
    â€œFor a rock,” the otter agreed.
    â€œYour tolerance level hasn’t improved with age. Want to have a high-jumping contest?”
    There being only the most limited development along the rocky south shore of the Tailaroam, they finally located not a ferry, but a genet with a boat. He was willing to take them across for what Jon-Tom thought was a reasonable fee and what a gagging Mudge insisted was outrageously exorbitant. Once they had been safely and efficiently deposited on the other side, Jon-Tom went so far as to insist that the otter return the fee he had efficiently pickpocketed from the startled boatman.
    â€œI don’t understand you.” Jon-Tom chastised his friend as they resumed their march along the far less traveled path south of the river. “We’re not youngsters scrabbling for change anymore. We can afford to pay for honest service. What you were trying to pull back there can only get us in trouble.”
    Mudge was only mildly abashed. “Old ’abits die ’ard, guv. I ’ave this aversion to lettin’ money, any amount o’ money, out o’ me ’ands.”
    â€œI understand, but it was my money.” Jon-Tom shifted his light pack against his shoulders.
    â€œâ€™Tis not the owner, but the principle o’ the matter,” the otter argued as they followed the insistent chords across the beach and into the trees that marked the southernmost march of the Bellwoods.
    While remaining heavily forested, the terrain soon grew hilly and difficult, gradual ascents alternating with steep slopes and fiendishly slippery ravines. They were entering the eastern reaches of the Duggakurra Hills, a rarely visited region noted for irksome terrain and little else. Streams and rivulets seemed to flow between every rock and boulder, tumbling remorselessly down from the towering mountains that lay wreathed in cloud far to the east, cutting their way through the solid granite as they groped blindly coastward, with gravity their indifferent and easily distracted guide. The endlessly winding gullies and arroyos made for hard walking, and the travelers had to pause frequently to rest.
    Whenever they stopped, the chords would gather anxiously nearby, ringing insistently lest they linger too long. Too long for what? Jon-Tom found himself wondering at the urgency.
    â€œHey you up there! Take it easy.” Sucking air as they crested yet another hill, Jon-Tom did not stop to wonder at the incongruity of attempting to hold intelligent converse with a musical sequence. “We’re not the hikers we used to be. Besides, we can’t travel as perfectly straight a course as a piece of music. We’re not made of light, you know.”
    â€œOi, music don’t give us wings, ya blitherin’ blast o’ bastard brass!” Slumping onto a broad, polished boulder, Mudge rubbed at his ankles and winced. On a long journey, the otter’s unflagging energy did not always compensate for his absurdly short legs. He would have found the going far easier on level ground.
    Also, he was becoming bored. The music tolerated no deviation in its course, chiding them sonically whenever they tried to find an easier way around the next ravine in their path. It cajoled and pleaded, urged and admonished. All most melodically, of course.
    â€œWhere d’you think these twisted tones are takin’ us, mate?”
    â€œHow should I know?” Jon-Tom flinched as his ankle voiced a complaint. Having resumed the march, they found themselves skittering down a rocky slope where evergreens gave way to tall, swooping sycamores, red cyanimores, and a