“You never gave it to me, guv’nor. I saw you put it up
yourself.” He sighed, sat down on a rock, and adjusted his
cap, leaning the feather down at its usual rakish angle.
“Can’t say as ‘ow I’m surprised. That Corroboc might
‘ave been a class-one bastard, but ‘e knew wot ‘e were
about when *e named that girl.”
“ArTve been suspicious of her motives from the begin-
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Alan Dean Foster
ning,” Roseroar added. “We should have sold the little
bitch in Snarken, when we had the chance.”
Jon-Tom found himself staring northwestward, through
the thinning forest toward the distant desert. “It doesn’t
make sense. And what about Jalwar? He’s gone, too, and
that makes even less sense. How can he get anywhere
without our help and protection?”
Mudge came and stood next to his friend, put a comforting
paw on his shoulder. “Ah, lad. ‘Ave you learned so little
o’ life since you’ve been in this world? Who knows wot
old Jalwar promised the girl? ‘E’s a trader, a merchant.
Obviously ‘e made ‘er a better offer than anything we ‘ave.
Maybe ‘e were bein’ marooned on that beach by ‘onest
folk ‘e’d cheated. This ain’t no world for takin’ folks on
faith, me friend. For all we know Jalwar’s a rich old
bugger in ‘is ‘ome town.”
“If he wanted Folly to help him, why would they take
the map? They wouldn’t need it to retrace the trail back to
Snarken.”
“Then it’s pretty clear they ain’t ‘eadin’ for Snarken,
mate.” He turned and stared down the barely visible path.
“And we ought to be able to prove it.”
Sure enough, in the dew-moistened earth beyond the