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He’d dragged both his belongings and himself as far from the hellish din as he
could manage without tumbling out of the relative safety of firelight into the somber darkness of the forest behind him.  And “dragged” was the correct term; thanks to an early morning kiss from the loving choppers of an irate draken, his right leg was presently experiencing an identity crisis between its normal, fairly fit self and grade B hamburger.

As nasty as the wound felt, though, its impact on Desmond’s attention was
considerably lessened thanks to the agony his ears experienced.  Gawd!  What a bloody, blithering racket!  Possibly if he weren’t half a musician himself, his sensitivity would be less…

No…he doubted it.  The truth of the matter was brutal and could be stated in respect to all human ears, whether bardic or tone-deaf:  Ducks Could Not Sing.

However, they did possess extraordinary lungs, and a blithe lack of knowledge about their own deficiencies.  They quacked happy, off-colour tunes at a volume that must amaze the trees, and which could only draw appreciative monster-types for miles around within fifteen minutes or less.  But he’d be buttered and sugared if he’d call the stuff singing; yanking a rusty nail from a board could produce more harmonious notes.  And why the inconsiderate quackers have to perch a foot from the campfire to yowl and whoop luridities of stout ale and frail harlots…or was it the other way around?  No matter…they didn’t bother to consider that others of more sense and less wind might wish to toast themselves a bit without permanent injury to their hearing…

Oh, well.  Desmond sighed and shifted with gloomy satisfaction, though ooching a bit at a wrong twist of leg.  His gritching was pure foul mood (ha!), for he usually hung with the damned ducks; some of his best friends.  Just in a snit at the moment, thanks to his aching leg, the cursed lack of aspirin in this latest world, and

other things

Well, at least he wouldn’t freeze.  Several yards of velvets that did not belong to him swathed the tall, deceptively slight form of his newest body (which he didn’t care much for, dash it; slanted yellow cat-eyes, tri-coloured hair and six-fingered hands were a bit much for a man of his essential shyness and practical temperament).

But then, the damned thing had better reflexes than he’d ever experienced before, unbelievably refined senses; those velvets; f’instance, felt so bloody sensuous…

The velvets.  The rich, smoky plum one, a coverlet snatched from the chambers of some drunkenly snoozing wizard of Chalcedeon; stitched with stars in threads of diamond, doubtless magical though he didn’t know how…

…and one of a grey like new-pearled dawn, spiderweb light.  He’d eased it from the slim shoulders of a darkhaired Elfmaiden as she lay smiling, her body a snapped flowerstem on a battlefield awash in scarlet…he still, sometimes, wondered what her name had been.

The third velvet, though less rich, a bit scruffy in fact, was his favorite…a tie-dyed affair, blue-violet storms exploding from a backing of honey yellow.  It had once been a curtain in his Berkeley flat.

Oh, he’d bloody well lived, he had.

Worse…sometimes, he almost remembered every minute of it.

I’ll find you, he whispered to himself.  Not to himself.

To the pale haired demon who’d touched him in mockery, then fled into another plane when the human enjoyed it rather than being traumatized.  What a wimp!

I’ll find you.  You can’t get rid of me that easy!