topped five and a half feet and many others stood shorter.
16
Alan Dean Foster
“So you his friend, hay? That make you sort of unique.
I wasn’t aware the otter had any friends. Only acquain-
tances and enemies.”
“No matter. I am his friend, and I need to get in touch
with him.”
“What for?”
“I am embarked on a journey in the service of the great
wizard Clothahump.”
“Ah, that old fraud.”
“He’s not a fraud. Haven’t you heard of the battle for
the Jo-Troom Gate?”
“Yea, yea, I heard, I heard.” She picked up the bucket
of wash water, the scrub brush sloshing around inside. “I
also know you never believe everything you read in the
papers. This journey you going on for him. It going be a
hard one, where someone might get deaded?”
“Possibly.”
“Hay, then I tell you where the otter is and you make
sure he go with you?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Good! Then I tell you where he is. Because I tell you
true, man, he owe me half a week’s rent. I just don’t want
to tell anyone else because maybe they get to him before
me. But this is better, much better. Worth a few days’
rent.”
“About that rent,” Jon-Tom said, jiggling the purse full
of gold Clothahump had given him to pay for his passage
across the Glittergeist.
The concierge waved him off. “Hay nay, man. Just
make sure he go with you on this dangerous journey. More
better I dream of him roasting over some cannibal’s spit in
some far-off land. That will give me more pleasure than a
few coins.”
“As you wish, madame.” Jon-Tom put the purse aside.
“Only, you must be sure promise to come back here