Spell of Intrigue | Page 4

chest, and then, grasping the towel still dangling around the Lion's neck and giving it a twist and a stiff enough yank to bring a flush of sudden purple to the Lion's face, and using his pull on the towel to amplify his vertical momentum, flipped himself head-over-heels over the Lion's shoulder as the Lion catapulted forward toward the floor.
Max landed atop the sideboard, carefully keeping his feet clear of the food. The clang of the Lion's sword against the floor was followed immediately by the familiar sound of the rest of the Lion joining it. "Acrobats, " said the Lion in a muffled voice. "I've always detested acrobats. Rabbits, the bunch of them, always hopping out of your way."
"I keep telling you," said Max, "agility can outmaneuver the mass of a broadsword any day."
The Lion sprang back to his feet with a fair show of agility on his own part and retrieved his slice of corned beef from its perch on a wall sconce. "Tell the world about it," he said. "Acrobatics are fine if everything falls out just right. If not, you've just set yourself up for the strike of death." As he swung back toward the sideboard, he saw Max standing on it, his arms folded, tapping one foot next to a bowl filled with roasted potatoes. "Oh, all right," the Lion said, "I'm finished for today. Go ahead and make yourself a sandwich.
"Never fit will," said a croaking voice from beneath the table, "this." Something black and leathery moved behind one of the table legs, virtually lost at the back of the cabin in the shadows cast by the single lamp hanging by a chain from the ceiling. A wooden crate grated raspingly along the deck boards under the table and then crunched up against the wall.
"It does seem, if I may be so bold, that we have been spending the majority of our effort on merely moving the household from one location to the next," another voice remarked from just outside the door. A large heap of books precariously bound up with a net appeared in the doorway, followed by the speaker, who was attempting to balance the volumes in a pair of unnaturally long and slender arms that appeared to be wrapped so securely around the bundle that they were bending not only at the elbows but also, although that was certainly an illusion, midway down the exaggerated forearms as well. The skin of the exposed forearms was colored a more than incidentally greenish hue.
A muttering black cloak emerged from underneath the table and scuttled off to the side as the taller figure let the books subside with a heavy thump onto its upper surface. The top of the cloak's hood was barely higher than the level of the tabletop, revealing that working under the table was no serious inconvenience to its wearer. "Job did take I not with sole purpose furniture to arrange," said the mutterer.
A third being, this one human, had been sitting at the table in question trying desperately to remain engrossed in deciphering a letter. This being looked up from the heap of netted books which had just entombed said letter to a depth precluding immediate recovery. "What was that, Haddo?" he said, with an air of resigned disorientation.
"The matter on which Master Haddo was commenting," said the green-skinned one, stretching out his kinked arms, "was that of the purely menial activities to which our employment with you has led us of late."
"Plainly can speak for myself I," Haddo croaked. "Intercessor for need nil is." The hood swiveled to peer accusingly upward, revealing a continued expanse of fuliginous black broken only by two glowing orange sparks at around the right position for eyes. "Speaks yet Wroclaw truth."
"Oh, come on now," said the man at the table. "You know the situation. You know I'm not real fond of it myself."
"Yet sit you table at," said Haddo, "while heavy bundles drag we."
"But I'm the boss," the Great Karlini pointed out. "I'm supposed to sit at tables and think. You're supposed to handle things like packing and lifting, that's what I hired you for."
Wroclaw gave a discreet cough. "Not quite true, if I may remind you, sir."
"Said not you, 'For all is one, and for one is all'?" Haddo grumbled indignantly.
"If you don't like the job, Haddo, you're not bound to it," said Karlini. "I don't own you; you're more than welcome to take off and go back to wherever you came from. Where was that, by the way?"
"Hinterlands," said Haddo. "Do not say I, to wish leave I. It the right of civilized beings is all complain to, admit you must."
"Then what do you want, Haddo? You want another raise?"
"Satisfying current contract is. Rightful appreciation wish I, or treatment of equality."
Karlini glanced