“You’ll never know if you don’t return to your own world, which you cannot do unless …”
“I know, I know,” Jon-Tom said tiredly. “Unless I make the trip to this Crancularn and bring back the medicine you need. Okay, so I’m stuck.”
“I would rather know that you had undertaken this journey with enthusiasm, willingly, out of a desire to help one who only wishes you well.”
“So would I, but you’ll settle for my going because I haven’t got any choice, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Clothahump thoughtfully, “I expect that I will.”
II
HE WASN’T IN THE best frame of mind the morning he set off. Not that anything was keeping him occupied elsewhere, he told himself sourly. He had no place in this world and certainly no intention of setting himself up in practice as a professional spellsinger.
For one thing, that would put him in direct competition with Clothahump. Although the wizard thought well of him, Jon-Tom didn’t think Clothahump would take kindly to the idea. For another, he hadn’t mastered his odd abilities to the point where he could guarantee services for value received, and might never achieve that degree of expertise. He preferred to regard his spellsinging as a talent of last resort, choosing to rely instead on his staff and his wits to keep him out of trouble.
In fact, the duar provided him with far more pleasure when he simply played it for fun, just like his battered old Fender guitar back home. Now he played it to ease his mind as he walked into town, strumming a few snatches of very unmagical Neil Diamond while wishing he had Ted Nugent’s way with strings. At the same time he had to be careful in his selections. Diamond was innocuous enough.
If he tried a little Nugent—say, “Cat Scratch Fever” or “Scream Dream”—there was no telling what he might accidentally conjure up.
At least the weather favored his journey. It was early spring. Deep within the Bellwoods, so named for the bell-shaped leaves which produced a tinkling sound when the wind blew through them, there was the smell of dew and new blossoms on the air. Glass butterflies flew everywhere, their stained-glass wings sending shafts of brilliant color twinkling over the ground. Peppermint bees striped in psychedelic hues darted among the flowers.
One hitched a ride on his indigo shirt. Perhaps it thought he was some kind of giant ambulatory flower. Jon-Tom examined it with interest. Instead of the yellow-and-black pattern he was accustomed to, his visitor’s abdomen was striped pink, lemon yellow, orange, chocolate brown, and bright blue. Man and insect regarded one another thoughtfully for a long moment. Deciding he was neither a source of pollen or enlightenment, the bee droned off in search of sweeter forage.
Lynchbany Towne was unchanged from the first time Jon-Tom had seen it, on that rainy day when he, a stranger to this world, had entered it accompanied by Mudge the otter. It was Mudge he sought now. He had no intention of striking out across the Glittergeist alone, no matter how much confidence Clothahump vested in him. There was still far too much of the ways and customs of this place he was ignorant of.
Mudge’s knowledge was of the practical and non-intellectual variety. Too, nothing was more precious to the otter than his own skin. He was sort of a furry walking alarm, ready to jump or take whatever evasive action the situation dictated at the barest suggestion of danger. Jon-Tom intended to use him the way the allies had used pigeons in World War I to detect the presence of poison gas.
Mudge would have considered the analogy unflattering, but Jon-Tom didn’t care what the otter thought. Despite his questionable morals and wavering sense of loyalty, the otter had been a great help in the past and could be so again.
Luck wasn’t with Jon-Tom, however. There was no sign of Mudge in the taverns he normally frequented, nor word of him in the eating establishments or gambling dens. He hadn’t been seen in some time in any of his usual haunts.
Jon-Tom finally found mention of him in one of the more reputable rooming houses on the far side of town, where the stink from the central open sewer was less.
The concierge was an overweight koala in a bad mood. A carved pipe dangled from her lips as she scrubbed the floor near the entrance.
“Hay, I’ve seen him,” she told Jon-Tom. Part of her right ear was missing, probably bitten off during a dispute with an irate customer.
“I’d laik to know where he gone to much as you, man. He skip away owing me half a week’s rent. That not bad as some have dun me, but I work hahd to run this place and every silver counts.”
“Only a few days’ rent, is it?” Jon-Tom squatted to be at eye level with the koala. “You know where he is, don’t you? You’re feeding me some story old Mudge paid you to tell anyone who came looking for him because he paid you to do so, because he probably owes everyone but you.”
She wrinkled her black nose and wiped her paws on her apron. Then she broke out in a wide grin. “You a clever one, you are, man, though strange of manner and talk.”
“I’m not really from around here,” Jon-Tom confessed. “Actually my home lies quite a distance from Lynchbany. Nor am I a creditor or bill collector. Mudge is my friend.”
“Is he now?” She dropped her scrub brush in the pail of wash water and rose. Jon-Tom did likewise. She reached barely to his stomach. That wasn’t unusual. Jon-Tom was something of a giant in this world where humans barely topped five and a half feet and many others stood shorter.
“So you his friend, hay? That make you sort of unique. I wasn’t aware the otter had any friends. Only acquaintances 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 someday and regale me with the gory details. For that I pay you myself.”
“I’ll be sure to make it my business,” Jon-Tom said dryly. “Now, where might I find my friend?”
“Not here. North.”
“Oglagia Towne?”
“Hay nay, farther west. In Timswitty.”
“Timswitty,” Jon-Tom repeated. “Thanks. You know what business he has there?”
She let out a short, sharp bark, a koalaish laugh. “Same business that otter he have any place he go: thievery, deception, debauchery, and drunkenness. I wager you find him easy enough you keep that in mind.”
“I will. Tell me. I’ve never been north of Lynchbany. What’s Timswitty like?”
She shrugged. “Like heah. Like Oglagia. Like any of the Bellwoods towns. Backward, crowded, primitive, but not bad if you willing stand up for your rights and work hard.”
“Thank you, madame. You’re sure I can’t pay you anything for the information you’ve given me?”
>
“Keep you money and make you journey,” she told him. “I look forward to hearing about the otter’s slow and painful death upon you return.”
“Don’t hold your breath in expectation of his demise,” Jon-Tom warned her as he turned to leave. “Mudge has a way of surviving in the damndest places.”
“I know he do. He slip out of heah without me smelling his going. I tell you what. If he don’t get himself killed on this journey of yours, you can pay me his back rent when you return.”
“I’ll do better than that, madame. I’ll make him pay it himself, in person.”
“Fair enough. You have good traveling, man.”
“Good day to you too, madame.”
Jon-Tom had no intention of walking all the way to Timswitty. Not since Clothahump had provided him with funds for transport. The local equivalent of a stagecoach was passing through Lynchbany, and he bought himself a seat on the boxy contraption. It was pulled by four handsome horses and presided over by a couple of three-foot-tall chipmunks who cursed like longshoremen. They wore dirty uniforms and scurried about, wrestling baggage and cartons into the rear of the stage.
Jon-Tom had the wrong notion of who was in charge, however. As he strolled past the team of four, one of the horses cocked an eye in his direction.
“Come on, bud, hurry it up. We haven’t got all day.”
“Sorry. The ticket agent told me you weren’t leaving for another fifteen minutes.”
The mare snorted. “That senile bastard. I don’t know what the world’s coming to when you can’t rely on your local service people anymore.”
“Tell me about it,” said the stallion yoked to her. “Unfortunately we were born with hooves instead of hands, so we still have to hire slow-moving fools with small brains to handle business details for us.”
“Right on, Elvar,” said the stallion behind him.
The discussion continued until the stage left the depot.
“All aboard?” asked the mare second in harness. “Hold on to your seats, then.”
The two chipmunks squatted in the rear along with the luggage, preening themselves and trying to catch their breath. There was no need for drovers, since the horses knew the way themselves. The chipmunks were loaders and unloaders and went along to see to the needs of the team, who, after all, did the real work of pulling the stage.
This would have been fine as far as Jon-Tom and the other passengers were concerned except that the horses had an unfortunate tendency to break into song as they galloped, and while their voices were strong and clear, not a one of them could carry a tune in a bucket. So the passengers were compelled to suffer a series of endless, screeching songs all the way through to Timswitty.
When one passenger had the temerity to complain, he was invited to get out and walk. There were two other unscheduled stops along the way as well, once when the team got hungry and stopped to graze a lush meadow through which the road conveniently cut, and again when the two mares got into a heated argument about just who boasted the daintier fetlocks.
It was dark when they finally pulled into Timswitty.
“Come on,” snapped the lead stallion, “let’s get a move on back there. Our stable’s waiting. I know you’re all stuck with only two legs, but that’s no reason for loafing.”
“Really!” One of the outraged travelers was an elegantly attired vixen. Gold chains twined through her tail, and her elaborate hat was badly askew over her ears from the jouncing the stage had undergone. “I have never been treated so rudely in my life! I assure you I shall speak to your line manager at first opportunity.”
“You’re talking to him, sister,” said the stallion. “You got a complaint, you might as well tell me to my face.” He looked her up and down. “Me, I think you ought to thank us for not charging you for the extra poundage.”
“Well!” Her tail swatted the stallion across the snout as she turned and flounced away to collect her luggage.
Only the fact that his mate restrained him kept him from taking a bite out of that fluffy appendage.
“Watch your temper, Dreal,” she told him. “It doesn’t do to bite the paying freight. Rotten public relations.”
“Bet all her relations have been public,” he snorted, pawing the ground impatiently. “What’s slowing up those striped rats back there? I need a rubdown and some sweet alfalfa.”
“I know you do, dear,” she said as she nuzzled his neck, “but you have to try and maintain a professional attitude, if only for the sake of the business.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jon-Tom overheard as he made his way toward the depot. “It’s only that there are times when I think maybe we’d have been better off if we’d bought ourselves a little farm somewhere out in the country and hired some housemice and maybe a human or two to do the dirty work.”
He was the only one in the office. The fox and the other passengers already had destinations in mind.
“Can I help you?” asked the elderly marten seated behind the low desk. With his long torso and short waist, the clerk reminded Jon-Tom of Mudge. The marten was slimmer still, and instead of Mudge’s jaunty cap and bright vest and pantaloons he wore dark shorts and a sleeveless white shirt, a visor to shade his eyes, and bifocals.
“I’m a stranger in town.”
“I suspect you’re a stranger everywhere,” said the marten presciently.
Jon-Tom ignored the comment. “Where would a visitor go for a little harmless fun and entertainment in Timswitty?”
“Well now,” replied the marten primly, “I am a family man myself. You might try the Golden Seal. They offer folksinging by many species and occasionally a string trio from Kolansor.”
“You don’t understand.” Jon-Tom grinned insinuatingly. “I’m looking for a good time, not culture.”
“I see.” The marten sighed. “Well, if you will go down the main street to Born Lily Lane and follow the lane to its end, you will come to two small side streets leading off into separate cul-de-sacs. Take the north close. If the smell and noise isn’t enough to guide you further, look for the small sign just above an oil lamp, the one with the carving of an Afghan on it.”
“As in canine or cloth?”
The marten wet his lips. “The place is called the Elegant Bitch. No doubt you will find its pleasures suitable. I wouldn’t know, of course. I am a family man.”
“Of course,” said Jon-Tom gravely. “Thanks.”
As he made his solitary way down the dimly lit main street, he found himself wishing Talea was at his side. Talea of the flame-red hair and infinite resourcefulness. Talea of the blind courage and quick temper. Did he love her? He wasn’t sure anymore. He thought so, thought she loved him in return. But she was too full of life to settle down as the wife of an itinerant spellsinger who had not yet managed to master his craft.
Not long after the battle of the Jo-Troom Gate, she had regretfully proposed they go their separate ways, at least for a little while. She needed time to think on serious matters and suggested he do likewise. It was hard on him. He did miss her. But there was the possibility she was simply too independent for any one man.
He held to his hopes, however. Perhaps someday she would tire of her wanderings and come back to him. There wasn’t a thing he could do but wait.
As for Flor Quintera, the cheerleader he’d inadvertently brought into this world, she had turned out to be a major disappointment. Instead of being properly fascinated by him, it developed that she lusted after a career as a sword-wielding soldier of fortune and had gone off with Caz, the tall, suave rabbit with the Ronald Colman voice and sophisticated manners. Jon-Tom hadn’t heard of them in months. Flor was a dream that had brought him back to reality, and fast.
At least this was a fit world in which to pursue dreams. At the moment, though, he was supposed to be pursuing medicine. He clung to that thought as he turned down the tiny side street.
True to the marten’s information he heard sounds of singing and raucous laughter. But instead of a single
small oil lamp there were big impressive ones flanking the door, fashioned of clear beveled crystal.
Above the door was a swinging sign showing a finely coiffed hound clad in feathers and jewels. She was gazing back over her furry shoulder with a distinctly come-hither look, and her hips were cocked rakishly.
There was a small porch. Standing beneath the rain shield, Jon-Tom knocked twice on the heavily oiled door. It was opened by a three-foot-tall mouse in a starched suit.
Sound flooded over Jon-Tom as the doormouse looked him over.
“Step inside and enjoy, sir,” he finally said, moving aside.
Jon-Tom nodded and entered. The doormouse closed the door behind him.
He found himself in a parlor full of fine furniture and a wild assortment of creatures representing several dozen species. All were cavorting without a care as to who they happened to be matching up with. There were several humans in the group, men and women. They moved freely among their intelligent furry counterparts.
Jon-Tom noted the activity, listened to the lascivious dialogue, saw the movement of hands and paws, and suspected he had not entered a bar. No question what kind of place this was. He was still surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. It was a logical place to look for Mudge.
Still, he didn’t want to take the chance of embarrassing himself. First impressions could be wrong. He spoke to the doormouse.
“I beg your pardon, but this is a whorehouse, isn’t it?”
The mouse’s voice was surprisingly deep, rumbling out of the tiny gray body. “All kinds we get in here,” he muttered dolefully, “all kinds. What did you think it was, jack? A library?”
“Not really. There aren’t any books.”
The doormouse showed sharp teeth in a smile. “Oh, we have books, too. With pictures. Lots of pictures, if that’s to your taste, sir.”
“Not right now.” He was curious, though. Maybe later, after he’d found Mudge.
“You look like you’ve been a-traveling, sir. Would you like something to eat and drink?”
“Thanks, I’m not hungry. Actually, I’m looking for a friend.”