The Paths Of The Perambulator

For once all seemed right with the world, even if the world in question happened to be the one to which he had been unwillingly transported, Jon-Tom reflected with a resigned sigh. It was a perfectly gorgeous autumn morning. Bright sunshine warmed his face, his stomach was giving him no trouble, and there was a delicious bite to the air.

Not only did all seem right with the world, he was also feeling especially good about himself. His studies had progressed to the point where even the wizard Clothahump was willing to concede, albeit reluctantly, that with continued practice and attention to detail Jon-Tom might actually be worthy of the sobriquet of Spellsinger. The wizard had been in a particularly good mood lately. Some of that could be attributed to the fact that his apprentice, the owl Sorbl, had sworn off liquor after coming out of a three-day drunk. While he was lying unconscious on the floor of a tavern, the owl’s drinking buddies had amused themselves by pulling out most of his tail feathers. The result left the apprentice sufficiently mortified to embark on a return to the long-forgotten state known as sobriety, of which he had not been an inhabitant for some time.

Even the wizard’s bowels were behaving, for which Jon-Tom was equally grateful. There is no more pitiful sight than a turtle with the trots.

There was only one problem. His fine morning mood notwithstanding, Jon-Tom couldn’t shake a vague feeling of unease. It wasn’t anything specific, nothing he could put a claw on, but it had been nagging at him most of the morning. It was unconscionable for something so intangible to spoil his mood.

Nothing like a good breakfast to banish lingering sensations of discontent, he mused as he bent over his tray. But though the annelids were fresh and the dried anemone crunchy and well seasoned, the food failed to alleviate his discomfort.

He turned toward the single window that let light into the cave, his eyestalks twisting for a better view. Beyond and below, the waves smashed energetically against the sheer granite cliff. The damp air of his cavern was perfumed with the sharp smell of salt and seawater. Dried algae and kelp decorated the floor and walls.

Both suns were already high in the sky. The largest gleamed deep purple through the clouds, while its smaller companion shed its normal pale green light on the coastline. The purple clouds reflected his mood but were not responsible for it.

Turning away from the feeding tray, he used a lesser claw to wipe edible tidbits into his mouth. The tension caused his eyestalks to clench, and he made a deliberate effort to relax.

Nerves, he told himself firmly. Nothing but nerves. Except that he had no reason to be nervous. If all was right with the world, what was there to be nervous about? He sighed deeply, shook himself, preened his eyestalks. Nothing helped. Something, somewhere, was seriously wrong.

A hiss behind him made him shift from contemplation of his continued unease to the passageway that led out of his cave. The hiss was followed by a rasping noise and a formal greeting. Moving lithely on six chitinous legs, Clothahump shuffled into the chamber. As befitted his age, his shell was twice the diameter of Jon-Tom’s, though Jon-Tom was more intimidated by the wizard’s intellect than by his size.

His mentor’s eyes bobbed and danced on the ends of foot-long stalks that, like Jon-Tom’s, were a pale turquoise blue. Upon entering sideways, the wizard assumed a stance next to the window where he could inhale the full rush of salt-stained air. Settling his legs beneath him, he gestured with his primary claw.

“A question for you, my boy. How are you feeling this morning? Anything troubling you? Headache, nausea perhaps?”

“Nothing.” Jon-Tom’s eyestalks dipped and bobbed eloquently. “I feel great. It’s a beautiful day.” He hesitated. “Except . . .”

“Except what?” the wizard prompted him.

“Nothing, really. It’s only that since I woke up this morning, well—it’s hard to define. I don’t feel a hundred percent, and I should. There’s something, a funny feeling of—I don’t know. I just don’t feel right.”

“You feel that something is not as it should be, but you are unable to define what it is?”

“Yes, exactly! You’ve been feeling the same thing?”

“Yes, indeed. I believe it woke me up.”

Jon-Tom nodded excitedly. “Me too. But I can’t pin it down.”

“Really? I should think you would have been able to by this time.”

Before Jon-Tom could respond, a three-foot-long centipede wandered into the chamber. It peered mournfully up at Clothahump before glancing over at Jon-Tom. He recognized the famulus immediately.

Sorbl. You’ve been drinking again. I thought you’d sworn off the stuff.”

“Sorry.” The centipede staggered toward the depression in the middle of the chamber. “But when I got a look at myself in the mirror this morning, well, you can imagine.”

“I can? Imagine what?”

The centipede returned its sorrowful stare to its master. “Hasn’t he figured it out yet?”

“Figured what out yet?”

“You don’t notice anything unusual?” the famulus asked in disbelief.

“Unusual? No, I don’t . . .” And then it hit him as sharply as if he’d stuck his finger in an electric socket. That was his problem: he wasn’t noticing. Noticing, for example, what was wrong with the wizard’s assistant. Sorbl was an owl, approximately three feet in height, with wings to match and vast yellow eyes, usually bloodshot. What he was not was a three-foot-long centipede.

“Holy shit, Sorbl—what happened to you?”

The centipede gaped at him. “What happened to me? How about what’s happened to you? Or haven’t you taken a look at yourself yet this morning?”

Not possessing the right equipment for frowning, Jon-Tom settled for clicking his lesser claw several times to indicate the extent of his confusion. Then he took the time to inspect himself.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was in its proper place. His six legs were folded neatly beneath him, his primary and lesser claws held out in front. His eyestalks enabled him to study every part of his body. Oh, his palps were still a mite grungy from breakfast, and his shell could use a cleaning, but other than that, everything appeared to be in good working order.

“You still don’t know what’s wrong, do you?” Clothahump sounded more curious than accusatory.

“No, I don’t.” Jon-Tom was growing irritated by the repeated question. “I don’t know what happened to transform Sorbl, but I can’t be expected to . . .”

Transform. The word meant something important in the context of this morning’s unease. Change. Alter. Different.

Something went click inside his head. It was as if his eyes were lenses in a camera belonging to another individual entirely and that individual had just released the shutter.

He took another look at himself; a good look, a long look. Then he started to tremble, which is not easy to do when one is mounted on six legs and is sitting down besides. The internal vibrations were impressive. Nausea? Clothahump had inquired about it upon entering. He was in the process of having his question fulfilled.

Wishing for a sudden onset of blindness, Jon-Tom stared around the chamber. Sorbl was not all that had been transformed. For openers, the wizard Clothahump did not live in a rocky, moisture-drenched cave that looked out over an ocean. He lived in a giant oak tree whose interior had been dimensionally enlarged by one of the sorcerer’s spells. The oak grew in the middle of a forest called the Bellwoods, not by the shore of some unknown sea that foamed red instead of white against the rocks.

There was also the matter of the sun’s absence and its replacement by two unhealthy-looking orbs of green and purple. Clothahump himself was a turtle many hundreds of years old, not an arthropod of unknown origin. For that matter, he himself, Jon-Tom, nee Jonathan Thomas Meriweather, was a young man six feet two inches tall, a bit on the slim side, with shoulder-length brown hair and a thoughtful expression. He looked weakly down at himself for a second time. Nothing had changed since this revelation had struck him.

He was still a giant blue crab.

“You would think, my boy,” declared Clothahump in that sometimes maddeningly condescending tone of his, “that you would have noticed the change before this, but 1 suppose readjustment takes more time when it occurs immediately upon awakening.”

“Readjustment?” He was very near panicking. “What the hell’s going on? What’s happened to you? What happened to Sorbl? What . . . .” He started to gesture with a claw, and as soon as he saw it hovering in front of him, he quickly drew it back against his body as if the very movement might make it disappear. “What’s happened to everything?”

“Well, my boy.” The wizard spoke while nonchalantly preening one eyestalk with his secondary claw, acting as though it were a task he performed regularly every morning. “It would appear that we are confronted by a problem of grave dimensions.”

“Oh, no,” Jon-Tom moaned. At least, he thought he moaned. It emerged as a kind of sibilant hiss. “Why must it always be a problem of grave dimensions? Can’t we ever be confronted by a problem of lighthearted dimensions? A problem of mild dimensions? A problem requiring only simple, straightforward solutions?”

“You are becoming hysterical, my boy.”

“I am not becoming hysterical,” Jon-Tom snapped. “Sarcastic and mad and maybe a little crazy, but not hysterical.”

At that moment the enormous blue crab, which had been listening patiently to him, vanished. So did the algae- and kelp-strewn wall of the cave, and the roar of the ocean outside, and the thick tangy odor of salt spray. The purple and green light that had illuminated the chamber was replaced with a warm, indistinct transparency. Clothahump the wizard, the real Clothahump, was sitting facing him on a stool not six feet away and regarding his young guest calmly.

Behind the wizard was the soft blond-brown wood that formed the interior walls of the great tree. The cave, too, had gone, to be replaced by the familiar surroundings of his own room. There was his bed, there his desk and chair, over in the corner the simple washbasin and spigots. Rising on shaky legs, he crossed to the basin, turned the cold water tap on full, and splashed it freely over his face and arms. As he dried himself he felt with relief the soft smooth skin that covered his arms. The hard chitinous shell was gone. He touched his head, felt the recently washed shoulder-length hair.

I am me again, he thought with exquisite relief.

The world was normal once more. Or was it? What of the problem the wizard had alluded to? Jon-Tom knew that the turtle did not refer to such matters lightly, and he’d already been subjected to an intimate illustration of the seriousness of the problem.

Well, no matter. They would handle it, as they had handled such matters before. Clothahump would know how to cope, what to do. Oh, he would moan and groan and gripe about the loss of his precious time, but he would take care of things, and Jon-Tom, as always, would learn from the experience. Surely any sorcerer who could conceive a strategy for defeating the Plated Folk at the Jo-Troom Gate and who could provide hot and cold running water in the heart of an oak tree could cope with this small matter of waking up in another world in the body of a giant blue crab?

Only—what if it happened again?

With some amazement he saw that his hands were trembling.

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound cool and failing because his voice was also shaking, “look at my hands. How about that? Maybe I am a little hysterical.”

Clothahump responded with a disapproving clucking sound, though his expression was full of sympathy. “Delayed reaction.” He reached into one of the drawers built into his plastron, spent a moment searching, and removed a small foil packet. He tossed the contents into the air while reciting a spell new to Jon-Tom.

“Suffer the shakes to cease and desist,

Soothe the disquiet and stir.

The neural pathways now should consist

Of quiet not unlike a cat’s purr

Tallium, condralium

Come forth endorphins and valium!”

Immediately a feeling of great contentment and well-being spread through Jon-Tom’s entire body. The relief was so sudden and complete that he didn’t mind the fact he could no longer stand erect. Sorbl caught him just in time, helped him over to his bed.

“I may have overdone it a bit,” Clothahump muttered.

“No, no, I feel fine,” Jon-Tom assured him. “Just—fi-ine.”

The wizard was nodding to himself. “Definitely overdid it. You are enjoying yourself too much.” And he made some signs in the air while Jon-Tom struggled to protest.

His head cleared and his hands remained steady. He tried not to show his disappointment.

“Uh, what was that stuff, sir?”

The turtle wagged a warning finger at him. “This is no time for pharmacological experimentation, my boy. You are not mature enough to utilize such spells in proper moderation. Your head needs to be clear, and what brain you have to be functioning optimally. Or have you forgotten already what I just told you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Unable to conceal his boredom, he sat up on the bed, put his hands on his knees. “Another serious problem. Big deal.”

Clothahump eyed him carefully. “I definitely should have used a less powerful spell. Well, any remaining aftereffects will wear off quickly enough.”

“Too bad,” Jon-Tom muttered. “Look, I’ve heard it all before, sir. But I just can’t get excited anymore. Especially since you’re obviously capable of handling this particular problem.”

“Is that so?” Clothahump peered at him through six-sided glasses. “What makes you think I will be able to handle it?”

“You already have.” Jon-Tom blandly waved a hand at his room. “You put everything right again. I mean, I’m myself again, and you’re you, and the world is what it ought to be. Everything is as it should be.”

“Indeed that is so,” the wizard conceded, “except that I am distressed to admit that none of it was my doing.”

Jon-Tom blinked at him. “You mean you didn’t bring things back to normal?”

“Absolutely not, my boy, any more than I bent them askew in the first place.”

“Then,” Jon-Tom said, much more slowly, “it could happen again? I could turn back into a giant blue crab?”

“Oh, yes, most certainly. At any moment. And myself also, just as Sorbl could turn back into that crawly thing he was, and this comfortable tree back into a damp cave, and—”

“All right, all right.” The thought of returning to that skittering crablike shape, smelling of alienness and sea-stink, was enough to shock Jon-Tom out of his boredom. “But I don’t understand. Things like that don’t just ‘happen.’’

“Ah, but we have indisputable evidence that it did, my boy. Furthermore, should it happen again, the effects could be quite different.”

‘What do you mean ‘different’?” Jon-Tom asked uneasily, inspecting his room as though signs and portents of any impending change might be lying there on his chair or hanging from his clothes rack next to his extra shirt.

“I mean that next time the world might become less recognizable still. At any moment, without warning of any kind.”

Jon-Tom considered this. “It wasn’t an illusion, then? I actually changed. You and Sorbl actually changed.”

“Quite so. The entire world was transformed. You did not imagine that you were a large blue crab. You became a large blue crab.”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought that maybe—” He broke off.

“Maybe what, my boy?”

Jon-Tom found it difficult to meet the wizard’s gaze. “That you were playing some kind of elaborate joke. You’re always testing me.”

“A not unreasonable assumption on your part, save for the fact that I never engage in anything as juvenile as practical jokes. This was no test. I wish it were so.”

Jon-Tom nodded thoughtfully, then reached for the duar, which was hanging by its shoulder strap from one of his bed’s corner posts. He slipped the strap over his shoulder, cradled the instrument against his ribs.

Now it was the wizard’s turn to look discomforted. “What are you going to do with that, my boy?” While Jon-Tom’s control over his spellsinging had improved dramatically under the turtle’s tutelage, it was still far from precise. His ability to evoke marvelous things with his music was still matched only by his inability to control them.

“I’m just holding it,” Jon-Tom replied irritably. Did Clothahump still regard him as nothing more than an amateur? “Do you think that after all my practicing I still don’t know what I’m doing?”

“I could not have put it better myself.”

Jon-Tom was ready with a sharp retort, but he never voiced it. He was too busy staring at the little finger of his left hand. It had grown six inches and turned into a bobbing, weaving worm. It curled back over his palm and glared up at him out of tiny glittering gold eyes.

As quickly as it had appeared, it vanished. He wiggled the small finger again, swallowed.

“Yes, I saw it,” said Clothahump in response to Jon-Tom’s unasked question. “The changes vary in degree. Not all need be as drastic and complete as the one we awoke to. The whole world and everything in it can change, or only a small part can shift. One finger, for example. Our reactions to such changes depend on what we happen to be doing at the time the change occurs. We were fortunate that we were engaged in nothing more complex than eating breakfast when the first perturbation struck. The damage, not to mention the psychic shock, would have been much more severe had, for example, you been spellsinging or sitting on the John.”

“I get the idea,” Jon-Tom shook his head. “I’ve been exposed to a lot of magic since you brought me here, but I’ve never heard of anything half so powerful as this.”

“It has nothing to do with magic,” said the wizard firmly. “What has happened, what is happening, is the result of natural law.”

“Whatever.” Jon-Tom waved the comment off and took a second to make sure the object doing the waving was a normal five-fingered hand. “You call it natural law, I call it magic, somebody else calls it physics. The result is the same. Structures and functions are being altered against the will of those involved.” He let the fingers of his right hand strum lightly over the duar’s strings. A mellow, soft tone filled the room. Fortunately that was all, but Clothahump checked the corners of the chamber just to be certain.

“Yes. And there is no way of predicting when the changes will occur or how severe will be their effects. But it must be stopped. If nothing is done, the changes will continue with greater and greater frequency. They will also become more extreme.”

“How could I turn into anything weirder than a giant blue crab?”

“Look at yourself and reconsider that question,” said the wizard dryly. “I would rather live as a blue crab than as a tall mammal devoid of pigment.”

Jon-Tom had become inured to comments about his species defects and continued to lightly strum the duar. “So who’s out to get us, then?”

“No one is out to get us.”

“There’s no vast evil behind what’s happening? That’s a switch.”

“Not on the part of the cause of the disturbances, no,” Clothahump told him. “It is a natural phenomenon, like an earthquake.”

Jon-Tom knew better where earthquakes were concerned but decided not to interrupt the wizard with a digression. “You say ‘it.’ Everything that’s happened has a single cause?” His little finger tried to turn back into the worm again, but a sharp glance seemed to put a halt to the incipient transformation.

“That is correct.” Clothahump began to pace the bedroom. “It is producing blurs, alterations, changes in the composition of existence by inducing shifts in the atomic substructure of matter. It does this by emitting destabilizing bursts of energy of unbelievable intensity. The degree of change our universe experiences varies proportionately to the strength of each burst.”

“Our universe?” Jon-Tom swallowed.

Clothahump nodded somberly. “Did I not say it was a large problem? Fortunately such occurrences are as rare as they are serious. There are not that many perambulators around. And that, my boy, is the source of these unsettling alterations we are experiencing.” He squinted through his glasses. “You comprehend my meaning?”

“Oh, sure, absolutely. Uh, what’s a perambulator?”

“Well, it is one of two things. It is either a baby carriage or a perambulating prime. I believe we can safely exclude the first as the cause of what is happening. The other is difficult to define. It is reputed to be a part organic, part inorganic, part orgasmic creature that’s neither here nor there, only in this instance it’s both here and there. It drifts around, cavorting between an infinite number of possible universes as well as the impossible ones, inducing changes wherever it goes.”

“I see,” murmured Jon-Tom as he frantically tried to sort some sense out of the bits and pieces of seemingly contradictory nonsense the wizard had been spouting.

“There aren’t many of them,” Clothahump continued. “Normally they pass through our universe so quickly that the few disruptions they cause occur without attracting attention. Although it has never been done, it is theoretically possible to capture a perambulator, to restrain it, and to hold it in one place. As you can imagine, this would be very unsettling to something that is used to traveling freely between entire universes. Our theoretically restrained perambulator would be likely to respond by throwing off more frequent bursts of perturbating energy. This is what I believe has happened.”

“So what you’re saying,” Jon-Tom replied slowly, “is that we are in trouble because something that is capable of disturbing the entire fabric of existence is suffering the equivalent of an interdimensional attack of claustrophobia.”

“Your analysis is unnecessarily verbose, as usual, but you are essentially correct.”

“Wish I wasn’t. How do you stop something like that?” He was aware that his skin had suddenly turned a delicate shade of puce. Clothahump had gone bright pink. It only lasted a moment, and then his normal healthy skin color returned. “I understand the need for urgency. The world’s a tough enough place to try to make a go of it in without having to worry about its changing from day to day.”

“The solution is simple, though accomplishing it may prove otherwise. We must find the place where the perambulator has been frozen in space-time and free it to go on its way.”

Jon-Tom shook his head. “I still don’t understand how something that’s capable of traveling from one dimension or universe to another can be restrained. It’s not like catching a butterfly.”

Clothahump spread his hands. “I don’t know how it can be done, either, my boy. But something has done it. Or someone.”

The tall youth essayed a nervous grin. “Come on. Surely you don’t think someone like you or me is capable of doing something like that?”

“Anyone is capable of anything,” Clothahump informed him sternly. “There is nothing that can be imagined that cannot be done given enough time, devotion, intelligence, and blind luck.”

“So somebody has to find this thing, cope with whatever has it trapped, and free it before we all go nuts. Swell.” Again his fingers caressed the duar’s strings. “So why can’t somebody else do it for a change? Why not send a whole coterie of wizards after this thing?”

“Because, as you well know,” Clothahump said in his best lecturing tone, “I am the most powerful and important wizard there is, so it behooves me to act for the common good in instances where others would have not the slightest inkling how to proceed.”

Jon-Tom’s expression turned sour. “Uh-huh. And, of course, I have to go along with you because I’m sharing your house and your food and you’re the only chance I have of ever returning home.”

“And because you have a good heart, value my counsel, and suffer from an irresistible urge to help others who are in trouble,” the wizard added. “You also are an incorrigible show-off.”

“Thanks, I think. Well, at least all we’ll have to deal with are these damn changes. They’re disconcerting, but it’s not like they put us in any danger of bodily harm.”

“That remains to be seen,” said the wizard unencouragingly.

“Look, can’t you manage without me? Just this one time? On your own?”

Clothahump steepled his fingers and looked blandly skyward. “If the perambulator is not freed and the world changes too many times, the local structure of matter could become permanently distorted. We might lose a thing or two.”

“Like, for instance?”

“Like gravity.”

Jon-Tom took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll come. You’ve made it pretty clear that there’s no place to hide from this thing.”

“No place at all, my boy, any more than there is a place where you can hide from my criticisms.”

“You sure you want me along, what with my inaccurate spellsinging and all?”

“Do not take my little jibes to heart. You have accomplished some wonders with that instrument, and your voice and you may yet have the chance to do so again in the course of our journey. Besides, I’m getting on, and I need someone young and strong . . .”

“To help you over the rough spots, I know,” said Jon-Tom, having listened to the wizard’s lament many times before. “I said I’d come, didn’t I? Not that I have any choice. Not that any of us have any choice, I guess, with the stability of the world at stake. What’s this perambulator thing look like, anyway?”

Clothahump shrugged. “No one knows. It is said that it can look like anything, or nothing. A tree, a stone, a wisp of air. You and I define what we see in terms of what we are familiar with. We compare new sights to the nature we know. The perambulator is not a freak of nature; it is a freak of supernature.

“It is said that in shape and composition, structure, and outline it is like many individuals I know: unstable. There are ancient lines that insist it is pleasant to look upon. Nor is its character malign. It does not disturb from purpose or evil design. The perturbations are an unavoidable consequence of itself. It would be a very nice thing to encounter, I suspect, if it did not have this unfortunate habit of causing the universe in which it happens to be residing to go completely haywire.”

“And you’re sure that’s what we’re dealing with here?”

“Nothing else but a perambulator could perturb the world in such a fashion,” Clothahump assured him. The wizard had assumed the shape of an elderly moose with bright yellow wings. It needed the wings because he was sitting atop a hundred-foot-tall spruce. Jon-Tom looked at the dizzying drop beneath his own dangling, furry legs, and fought to hold on to the crown of his own tree. He saw no reason to disagree with the wizard’s assessment.

The perturbation lasted longer this time, almost three minutes, before the world snapped back to reality. Jon-Tom breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear that they had returned to the reality of Clothahump’s tree once again. Of course, in reality they had not moved, had never left it. Only reality had moved.

“You’re sure these are real changes we’re experiencing and not just some kind of clever mass delusions?”

“You would have found out had you fallen from that tree in which you had been squatting a moment ago,” Clothahump assured him. “You would have changed back, of course, except that you would now be lying spread all over this floor. You had been given wings, but could you have determined how to use them in the brief moment of falling?”

“I’m beginning to see why we have to find this perambulator and free it fast.” He walked over the washbasin and poured himself a glass of water from the jug standing on the shelf nearby. Except that instead of water, the glass filled with an alarmingly noisy bright blue liquid that fizzed and bubbled. He had the distinct impression that his drink was angry at him.

The glass slipped from his fingers. As it tumbled, the fizzing reached epic proportions. He dove for the far side of his bed while Clothahump retreated inside his shell. Propelled by the explosive blue fizz, the glass rocketed around the room, bouncing off suddenly rubbery walls and hunting furiously for the creature that had dared try to drink it. It barely missed Jon-Tom’s head as he scrambled beneath the bed.

Lacking either a butterfly net or a shotgun, they could only wait until the fizz lost its zip. This occurred at almost exactly the same moment when they slipped back to reality and the perturbation ceased. Occupied once more by ordinary water, the glass lost momentum in midair and shattered wetly against the footboard of the bed. Clothahump emerged from his shell while Jon-Tom warily crawled out from beneath the bed, keeping a watchful eye on the liquid debris lest the puddle try to bite him.

“Try the sink again, my boy. It should be all right now.”

Jon-Tom straightened. “Never mind. Suddenly I’m not thirsty anymore.”

“You’re going to have to keep your nerves under control. We all are. Why, we haven’t so much as begun, and things can only get worse before they get better.”

“That’s what I enjoy about assisting you, Clothahump. You’re always so reassuring about the outcome.”

“Tut, my boy,” the wizard chided him sternly, “you must remain calm in the face of chaos. If for no other reason than to maintain control over your spellsinging.”

“ ‘Keep control.’ ‘Stay calm’ Easy for you to say. You have some idea of what we’re up against, and you’re the world’s greatest sorcerer. Of course, you can keep your reactions under control. You’re sure of your abilities. I’m not. You know that you’ll be okay.”

Clothahump’s reply did nothing to boost Jon-Tom’s confidence.

“Are you kidding, my boy? I’m scared shitless.”

II

Jon-Tom had to bend his head to avoid bumping it on the ceiling. Clothahump had proven himself an accommodating host where his ungainly young human guest was concerned, but such accommodations did not extend to altering the tree-home spell to provide the dimensionally expanded interior with higher ceilings and doorways. Such spells were time-consuming and expensive, the wizard had informed him, and one did not mess with the details unless something happened to go wrong with the plumbing.

So he was compelled to bend low whenever moving from room to room. It wasn’t all bad, though. There were beneficial side effects. During the months of residing in the tree he’d become quite agile, and he could now take a blow to the forehead without so much as wincing.

He thought he was intimately familiar with every chamber and cubbyhole the tree possessed, but the tunnel Clothahump was presently leading him down was new to him. Not only was it alien in appearance, it seemed to be leading them downward.

Sorbl appeared, waiting for them. The famulus held a glowing bulb on the end of a stick. The light flickered unevenly, a clear sign that Sorbl had put the illumination spell on the bulb by himself.

“Here I am, Master.”

“Drunk again,” snapped the wizard accusingly. Sorbl drew himself up straight.

“No, Master. See, I am not swaying.” Indeed, Sorbl looked rock-steady. “I see you and Jon-Tom clearly.”

Jon-Tom looked at the famulus. Yes, the great yellow eyes were much less bloodshot than usual.

Clothahump nodded brusquely toward the glow bulb. “We won’t be neding that.”

“You are going down into the cellar, Master?”

“Cellar?” Jon-Tom let his gaze travel upward. “I didn’t know the tree had a cellar. How come you never showed it to me before, sir?”

“It is not a place that is used for storage. It is a place used only for certain things. There was no reason to use it—until now.”

The famulus extended the glow-bulb pole. “Here you are, Master. I’ll be going now.”

“Going? Going where? You’re coming with me, Sorbl. How do you ever expect to learn anything if you keep running off?”

“From books, Master.”

“Books are not enough. One must also gain experience.”

“But, Master, I don’t like the cellar.”

Clothahump looked disgusted and put his hands on his hips—well, on the sides of his shell, anyway. Being a member of the turtle persuasion, his hips were not visible.

“Sometimes I think you’ll never progress beyond famulus. But I am bound by our contract to try to hammer some knowledge into you. Keep the light if it reassures you.” He shook his head. “An owl that’s afraid of the dark.”

“I am not afraid of the dark, Master,” Sorbl replied quickly, seeming to gather some of his self-respect around him. “I’m just afraid of what’s down in the cellar.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jon-Tom, “is this something I ought to know about? What’s this all about? What are you so frightened of, Sorbl?”

The owlet gazed up at him out of vast yellow eyes. “Nothing.”

“Well, then,” asked a thoroughly confused Jon-Tom, “what’s there to be afraid of?”

“I told you,” the famulus reiterated, “nothing.”

“We’re not making a connection here,” said the exasperated Jon-Tom. He glanced at Clothahump. “What’s he so scared of?”

“Nothing,” the wizard informed him solemnly.

Jon-Tom nodded sardonically. “Right. I’m glad that’s cleared up.”

The wizard glared at his assistant. “Sorbl, you must stay with me. I may require your aid. We have to do this because it is the only way I can divine the location of the perambulator. That should be obvious to anyone.” He eyed Jon-Tom expectantly. “Shouldn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” said Jon-Tom without hesitation, simultaneously wondering what he was concurring with.

“Furthermore,” Clothahump went on, turning his attention back to Sorbl, “you will be accompanying me on the journey to come.”

“Me?” Sorbl squeaked. “But I’m still just a famulus, a lowly apprentice. And besides, someone will have to stay to look after the tree, pay the bills, take out the—”

“The tree can look after itself. I’m ashamed of you, Sorbl.” He gestured at Jon-Tom. “This lad is coming with me, so how can you think of staying behind?”

“It’s easy if I put my mind to it.”

“He comes from another world entirely and has no desire to apprentice in wizardry matters, yet by persevering he has developed into something not unlike a spellsinger. He should be an example to you. What happened to your ambition, your drive, your desire to experience and learn about the mysteries of the universe?”

“Can’t I just stay and take care of the laundry?” Sorbl pleaded hopefully.

“You are my apprentice, not my housekeeper,” Clothahump reminded him sternly. “If I’d wanted just a housekeeper, I would have contracted with someone far more comely and of the opposite sex. As my apprentice, you will follow and learn whether you like it or not. You signed the contract. At the time I thought you were doing so with half a brain. I did not realize you were in the afterthroes of a drunken stupor, nor did I know that was your preferred state of consciousness. But a contract is a contract. I will make a wizard of you even if it kills both of us in the process.”

“How about just one of us?” Sorbl muttered, but to himself.

“Besides,” Clothahump continued in a more conciliatory tone, “on this particular journey you can be especially useful.”

“I can? I mean, I can.”

“Indeed. During the perturbation we experienced this mom-ing, you displayed none of the panic one would have expected from one of your intellectual temperament.”

“Perturbation? What’s that?” Sorbl appeared genuinely bemused.

“Don’t you remember?” Jon-Tom stared at the owl. “The change. The tree turned into a cave, the forest outside into an ocean. Clothahump and I became giant blue crabs and you turned into some kind of squiggly centipede thing.”

“Oh, that.” Sorbl looked relieved. “For a moment I thought I’d missed something. You mean you saw it too? That’s a switch.”

“Sorbl,” Jon-Tom explained patiently, “the change was for real. The perturbation actually happened.”

“No kidding?” He glanced from wizard to spellsinger. “Really?” Both man and turtle nodded somberly. “Well, so what? I mean, what’s to get excited about?”

“You see?” Clothahump continued talking to Jon-Tom while examining his innocent-eyed famulus the way he would a new metal or something interesting found beneath a stump. “We are witness to the single beneficial effect of the long-term consumption of alcohol. Sorbl was not fazed by the perturbation because he exists in a state of perpetual perturbation already—though perhaps perpetual inebriation would be more accurate.”

“I get it,” Jon-Tom said. “You mean that since he lives with the D.T.’s every day, the sudden transformation of the world around him isn’t any more upsetting than anything he experiences during his regular binges?”

“I do not have regular binges,” protested Sorbl indignantly. “Each one is the result of glorious spontaneity.”

“And that is why, my good famulus,” Clothahump informed him, “you will be of such help on this journey, for nothing that overtakes us will faze you, since you are used to such transformations. So that you may remain in this benign state I will even permit you to bring along a supply of liquor, which I myself will allocate to you on a liberal daily basis. A cart runs best when properly lubricated, and so, it would appear, does a certain famulus.”

Sorbl couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His beak all but fell to his foot feathers.

“I will come, Master—since I have no choice in the matter, anyway.” He hesitated. “Did you really mean it when you said I would be allowed to bring along, ah, liquid refreshment?”

Clothahump nodded. “Much as the idea distresses me, it is important that you remain in the state to which you would like to become permanently accustomed. Your intake will be carefully moderated. You will be kept ‘happy’ but not unconscious.”

“No need to worry about that, Master!” The owl all but saluted. “I shall follow your instructions to the letter.”

“Hmmmm. We’ll see. And now that we have settled the matter of who is going where, let us continue on our way downward. We have little time to waste. If the perambulator is not freed as soon as possible, the frequency of the resultant perturbations will increase and we run the risk of becoming encased in permanent change.”

“I know, Master,” murmured Sorbl as he led the way down, “but the cellar.”

Clothahump gave him a shove. “I said there was no other way. And pick up your feet or I’ll set fire to your feathers and use you for light.”

Sorbl’s pace increased markedly.

The tunnel walls were composed of nothing more elaborate than packed earth. There was nothing in the way of visible support: no wooden beams, no concrete pillars, no metal flanges or masonry. Only the damp, thick-smelling soil. It muddied his boots. Tiny crawling things retreated from their advancing light, burrowing hastily into walls or floor. Maybe they didn’t need the light, as Clothahump had insisted, but Jon-Tom was very glad of its presence nonetheless.

Perhaps the tunnel’s stability was maintained by another of Clothahump’s complex dimensional spells, or perhaps this was merely part and parcel of the tree-home spell itself. The notion of a tree with a cellar was even more outre’ than the reality of one that had been dimensionally expanded.

Sorbl was several paces ahead of them now, so he was able to lean forward and whisper to the wizard. “He can’t hear us, so maybe now you can tell me what there is to be afraid of down here?”

“Sorbl already informed you: nothing.”

“Look, sir, I don’t want to appear dense, but could you be a little more specific?”

“Specificity is the soul of every explanation, my boy. A question: What is the shortest distance between two points?”

“A straight line, of course. I mean, I’m prelaw, and math was never my best subject, but I know that much.”

‘ “Then you know nothing, or rather, you don’t know about nothing, which is, of course, the shortest distance between any two points.”

Jon-Tom frowned. He was growing more confused, not less. “Nothing is the shortest distance between two points?”

“Ah!” The wizard looked pleased. “Now you have it. Of course, the shortest distance between two points is nothing. Obviously, if there is nothing between two points, then they must coexist side by side.”

Jon-Tom considered this. “I’m not sure that makes sense.”

“Does the logic follow?”

“Semantically speaking, yes, but mathematically speaking . . .”

“Pay attention. If there is nothing between two points, then there is nothing preventing them from being tangent to one another, is there? If the only thing that lies between us and the location of the unperambulating perambulator is nothing, then we should be able to find it quite easily.”

“But there is something between the perambulator and us: a great deal of distance. You said so yourself.”

“That’s right, I did.”

“Then how the blazes do you expect to find it by going down into this cellar?” an exasperated Jon-Tom demanded to know.

“Because if we go into the cellar, we will find there is nothing there. And on the other side of that nothing lies the perambulator. And everything else that is. But our concern at the moment is with the perambulator only.”

“I see,” said Jon-Tom, deciding to give up and wait to see what might actually await them down in the cellar.

They walked for what seemed like another hour but in reality was only another few minutes before the tunnel bent sharply to the left. It opened onto a small domed chamber which, as nearly as Jon-Tom could calculate, lay directly beneath the center of the great oak tree in which the wizard made his home. The floor of packed earth was smooth and clean. Something froze for an instant, momentarily stunned by Sorbl’s light. Then it scurried across the floor to vanish in a small hole in the opposite wall.

Thick gnarled branches protruded from the ceiling, twisting and curling overhead. Though entirely natural, they gave the dome the appearance of a room with a latticework ceiling. Small fibers protruded from the larger wooden coils, probing the air in search of nutrients and moisture.

Roots, Jon-Tom mused. A root cellar. Of course. I should have thought of that, he told himself. He said as much to Clothahump.

The wizard had settled himself in the chamber’s single piece of furniture. The sturdy chair occupied the exact center of the room.

“A root cellar, yes, and a very particular one.” He searched the ceiling a moment before pointing. “Up there is the root of envy. Over there the root of inspiration.” He turned slightly in his chair. “And up in that corner, that slightly golden-hued wood? That’s the root of all evil.”

Jon-Tom stared. Was that particular branch composed of golden-hued wood or wood-hued gold? Clothahump noticed the intensity of his stare and smiled.

“Don’t let it affect you so. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” He turned back around to face the center of the room once more. “Sorbl, since we have the globe, put it here.”

The famulus approached, jammed the light-supporting pole into the earth, and retreated back against a wall without Clothahump having to prompt him to do so. Jon-Tom moved to stand next to the apprentice. Clothahump crossed both arms over his plastron and closed his eyes, a sure sign that he was about to embark on a most powerful spell indeed. As further proof of the seriousness of his intentions, he muttered a few phrases, then removed his glasses and slipped them into their protective case in one of the uppermost drawers of his chest.

“What now?” Jon-Tom whispered to the owl. “What’s he going to call forth?”

Sorbl was standing as close to the wall as possible, heedless of dirtying his vest or feathers. He was staring wide-eyed at the wizard, who had entered into his preevoking trance.

“You already know. He’s going to call up nothing.”

“Oh, right, I forgot. Well, then, there’s ‘nothing’ to be afraid of, is there?” He meant it as a joke, but there was no suggestion of humor in the famulus’s reply.

“That’s right, that’s right! You do understand.”

Clothahump turned slowly to face them, his eyes still shut tight. From another drawer in his plastron he brought forth a small, tightly rolled scroll of paper. “Sorbl.”

“Y-yes, Master?” The famulus approached hesitantly.

“It is for you to read.” Jon-Tom noted with awe that the wizard’s voice had changed. It was slightly louder and a good deal more powerful, as though its owner had grown two hundred years younger in the space of a few moments of silent contemplation. There was much he wanted to know, but this was neither the time nor place to ask questions.

In any event, he suspected that Clothahump would soon show, if not describe, his intentions.

Sorbl carefully unrolled the top portion of the scroll, squinted at the lines thereon. “I don’t know if I can read it, Master. The print is very fine.”

“Of course you can read it,” Clothahump rumbled in his youthful voice. “Your other qualities require much work, but your natural vision is superior. Return to your wall if you wish, but when I raise my arm, you must begin.”

“As you say, Master.” Sorbl retreated until he stood very close to Jon-Tom once more. Man and owl waited to see what would happen next.

Clothahump slowly lifted both hands until his arms were pointing straight up into the dark air. To Jon-Tom’s amazement the arm continued to rise, pulling the wizard’s body with it until he was sitting in emptiness several inches above the seat of his chair. He drew his legs into his shell, pulled in his head until only the eyes were visible above the upper edge of his carapace. For protection? Jon-Tom wondered. His eyes darted around the chamber, found only dirt and emerging roots. There was nothing there to threaten them.

Exactly what the terrified Sorbl had been trying to tell him.

Clothahump began to speak, reciting in a peculiarly monotonous singsong. As he spoke, the blackness seemed to press tighter around them. It shoved and pushed and bullied the single light of the glow bulb until it was no more than a pinpoint of light struggling to hold back the encroaching darkness.

In that near total blackness sounds were amplified. Jon-Tom could hear the pounding of his own heart. His breathing grew shallow. The darkness that surrounded them was no normal dark. It did not have even the comfort of a moonless night about it, for there were no stars. It was a solid blackness, not merely an absence of light but a thing with weight and mass that pressed heavy on his throat and belly.

He found himself on the verge of panic, felt he was choking, suffocating, when a second light appeared and pushed aside the cloak of obsidian air just enough for him to breathe again. It came from the scroll that Clothahump had handed to his famulus. As Sorbl read the minuscule print, hesitantly at first, and then with increasing confidence, the light from the paper brightened.

“My friends,” the owl recited, “I come to you on this day seeking nothing but your votes. If elected, I promise to serve long and faithfully. I will endeavor to be the best governor Cascery Province has ever had. I will cut taxes and increase public spending. I will increase aid to the aged and strengthen our defenses. I will . . . I will . . .”

A puzzled Jon-Tom listened to the familiar litany of endless promises as Sorbl read on. The words the owl was reciting were not the ones he’d expected to hear. It sounded like nothing more than your standard political campaign promises. The same old assertions, the same old claims, no different in this world than in his own. Just so much political hot air, amounting, as it always did, to a lot of . . .

Nothing.

Clothahump was calling it up, invoking it, bringing it to this place of power. He was seeking the nothing that lay between them and the perambulator, so that he could pinpoint its location. That was what was closing in around them, trying to snuff them out with the full force of its awesome nothing self. He could feel it, a dry, cottony taste in his mouth. It crawled over him like a living blanket, trying to plug up his nostrils and force its way down his throat. Only the feeble light of the glow bulb and the stronger one emanating from the scroll kept it at bay.

There was one other possibility: he still carried his duar. For a moment he thought to sing something bright and cheery. Common sense told him to hold his silence. If his spellsinging could have been of any use, the wizard would have mentioned it. If he launched into a song now, unbidden, at what was obviously a crucial moment, the nothingness might overwhelm the wizard’s spell. And if nothing didn’t kill him, Clothahump surely would. So he stood quietly and watched, and tried to learn.

How could there be nothing in the room when there was obviously something? There was Clothahump’s chair, and the glow bulb on its staff, and the scroll, not to mention the three of them. It troubled him for a few moments, until Sorbl’s drone provided him with the answer.

It was a typical campaign speech, as boastful as any and stuffed to bursting with the usual lies and falsehoods. It was not merely nothing, it amounted to less than nothing, thereby canceling out those few somethings that occupied the cellar.

Not all the somethings, apparently. He stared hard into the darkness. There the glow bulb, there Sorbl and his scroll, in the center of the chamber the floating Clothahump and his earthbound chair—and suddenly, something more. Shapes. Formless, faint of silhouette and shifting of outline, but definitely there. Indistinct grayness swimming slowly through black jelly. They did not have color so much as they were slightly less black than their surroundings. Anthracite ghosts.

As he stared they became slightly less nebulous. Charcoal-gray heads held gray faces. Gray tongues expectantly licked black teeth. Nor were they silent, for they moaned softly, almost imperceptibly, to one another. Whether the sounds were the components of words or music or cries of pain, he couldn’t tell. They were the nothings that inhabited the Darkness.

Sorbl’s voice rose a little higher. He was straining to keep reading, from tension as well as fear, but he did not break. Clothahump continued his own recitation, his indecipherable words rising and falling in regular cadence.

The glow bulb brightened. Or perhaps the air around them merely became a little less stygian. The cellar had vanished. The roots, the moist dirt that had encased them so claustrophobically an instant before, was gone. He desperately wished for their return.

Because now they were surrounded by nothing.

They seemed to be drifting in a universe without boundaries, without definition. There was no warm earth walling them in, no sense of a great oak tree hugging the ground above. Nothing but distant lonely stars that beckoned forlornly to him, and few enough they were. He wished for sight of a nebula or two, but no great splashes of red and purple greeted his searching eyes. This was a region from which even the dust fled.

Somehow he managed to speak and was startled by the soft sound of his own voice. “Where are we? What is this place?”

“I told you, it is nothing,” Sorbl explained, interrupting his reading long enough to reply. “An instant, a passing thought, something imagined made real. We are beyond nothing now. This is the backside of chaos. Not a nice place to visit and you wouldn’t want to live here.” They were beginning to tilt, and he resumed his recitation quickly, reading twice as fast as before until they were facing upright again. Except that upright was only the vaguest of terms. You couldn’t stand straight relative to nothing.

Suddenly the glow bulb was joined by something new. It drew Jon-Tom’s attention immediately. In that place of floating nowhere it was vibrant with life and energy, spinning and twisting and changing with such dazzling speed, it made him blink as he tried to focus on it. With each blink it had assumed an entirely different appearance. It was alive, but not in the sense that he was. It lived but was not organic. Nor was it rock or metal. It was something else from somewhere else, and it obeyed no natural laws but its own.

He tried to define it, could not. It was a Klein bottle running the inside of a Mobius strip balanced on the head of a Schwarzchild Discontinuity. It danced and mutated, metamorphosed and slid from one unreality to another. It spun through nothingness at a billion miles a second and was brighter than a red giant. And there was something else, something he could not see that stayed in the background but very close by.

Something far more ordinary and yet touched by a tremendous energy and power.

It saw them.

Jon-Tom didn’t know how it saw them or with what. He sensed only the presence of unseen eyes, but he felt their touch as though he’d been struck by a pair of hammers.

The unseen observer let out an outraged howl. It must have done something, because that magnificent, indescribable, undefinable shape that was the perambulator suddenly twisted violently in on itself. The chaos around them crystalized. There was an explosive shattering sound, which threatened to implode Jon-Tom’s skull. His hands went to his outraged ears and his teeth ground against each other. Someone was pounding a crescendo on the kettledrum in which he’d suddenly taken up residence. He staggered and would have fallen except that there was nothing to fall onto.

Sorbl was picked up and thrown against a wall of emptiness. The scroll came apart in his wingtips, the fragments flying off in all directions. He tried desperately to hang on to a few scraps, to keep reading, but it was impossible. The nearest was a thousand parsecs away in seconds.

He hit the floor with a whump, landing hard on his tail feathers.

They were back.

Back in the cellar. Back among roots and dampness and dirt. Jon-Tom inhaled deeply, sucking in the thick humidity. It tasted of soil and water and living things. The cellar was rich with the perfume of life, the dirt of the wall he was clinging to, thick with the texture of reality.

In the center of the room the glow bulb was at full intensity. Clothahump was no longer floating inches above his chair but was seated firmly on the hard wood. He was holding tightly to the arms with both hands and breathing hard. When he was convinced it wasn’t going to disappear on him, Jon-Tom let go of the wall and stumbled toward the wizard to see if he could be of any help. He was sweating profusely in the heat of the cellar. Except that it wasn’t hot. It was the same temperature that it had been when they’d arrived.

He was sweating from the cold, the cold of where they’d been. That’s why it seemed hot to him now. He hadn’t been aware of the cold at the time. You didn’t feel hot and cold on the far side of nothing. You didn’t feel anything at all.

He shivered.

“How are you doing, sir?”

The wizard glanced up at him, gathered himself, and let out a long sigh. Then he smiled reassuringly. “All right. Right as can be expected. I don’t travel as well as I used to. Did you see it?”

“I saw something. I don’t know what.” He stared at the glow bulb sitting atop its staff, drinking in the pale, reassuring luminescence. Never had he been so grateful to be in a hole in the ground. “I think it might have been the perambulator.”

“What else could it have been?” Clothahump’s strength was returning and, with it, his enthusiasm. He pushed back the chair, stood next to the light, and stretched. “Consider yourself privileged, my boy. I don’t believe anyone has seen a perambulator in living memory. They don’t hang around long enough to be seen, and even when they do, you might not realize what it is you’re looking at. I confess it’s appearance surprised me.”

“The way it kept changing, you mean?”

“Oh, no. Change is the very soul of a perambulator. What I did not expect was for it to be so beautiful.” He glanced past the tall young human. “Sorbl? You still with us?”

The famulus was standing and rubbing his backside. He grimaced at the wizard. “Unfortunately yes, Master.”

“Good. Get your feathers in gear. We’re going back upstairs.”

“I lost the scroll, Master. It was torn from my feathers. There was nothing I could do.”

“It matters not. I can replace it at any time. I have access to an endless supply. Now, quickly, I need for you to begin packing for our journey.”

The famulus staggered toward the glow bulb and pulled the staff out of the ground. “You don’t need to convince me, Master. Anything to get out of this place.” He started for the tunnel that led upward.

Clothahump extended an arm. “A little support if you please, my boy. I am feeling a mite queasy.”

“I’m not surprised. I don’t feel too steady myself.” He put his right arm around the back of the wizard’s shell, steadying him as they followed in Sorbl’s wake.

As soon as they were in the tunnel proper and climbing, Clothahump called a halt while he recovered his glasses from the uppermost drawer of his plastron. He studied the six-sided lenses at arm’s length. “Fogged up, my boy.” He produced a cloth and began to clean them. “That was quite a transposition.”

Jon-Tom found himself gazing worriedly back down the tunnel. Nothing was coming after them, nothing pursued them from the depths of the cellar. How could it? They had been alone down there. There had been nothing with them.

“I know where we must go now, my boy.” The wizard tapped the side of his head. It made a loud clicking sound, shell on shell. “A long ways but not a difficult one.”

I’ve heard that before, Jon-Tom muttered, but only to himself. What he said was, “Anyplace I’d know?”

“I think not. It lies far to the north, north of the Bellwoods, past Ospenspri and Kreshfarm-in-the-Keegs, farther north than you have ever been. Farther north than civilized people care to travel. We will have to hurry. In another month winter will be upon us, and travel in such country will become impossible. We must free the perambulator before the snows begin. And there is a new problem.”

“Another one?”

“I fear it is so. I had thought the perambulator frozen by some freak of nature, trapped here by some crack or fallen into some hole in the interdimensional fabric of existence. Such is not the case.”

Jon-Tom felt the coldness returning. He remembered the pressure of those unseen eyes, heard again that singular wild howl.

“Its presence here isn’t an accident, then.”

“No, my boy,” the wizard said somberly. “It has been stopped here intentionally, deliberately, with purpose aforethought. It seems incredible, but the truth often is. I can scarce believe it myself.”

“I can’t believe it at all. From everything you’ve told me about it I don’t see how anyone could catch it, much less restrain it.”

“Nor do I, yet it is clear to me that this is what has happened. There is a formidable and sinister power at work here. I could not do such a thing. Something, someone, has caught the perambulator and is holding it prisoner in this time-space frame. If it is not freed, it could not only alter our world permanently, it could eventually destroy it in its attempts to get free.”

“Then whoever is restraining it could also be destroyed.”

“Just so,” agreed the wizard, nodding.

“That’s crazy,” Jon-Tom said firmly.

“Ah. Now you begin to have some understanding of what we are up against.”

Jon-Tom said nothing for the remainder of their climb back to the surface.

III

It didn’t take long for him to finish packing. A very good friend of his had told him that he who travels light travels best, and Jon-Tom had adhered to that advice ever since. On this world speed was more important than comfort, flexibility a better companion than a spare pair of pants.

He found Sorbl in the wizard’s study, packing vials and packets under Clothahump’s supervision.

“I’m all set,” he told his mentor.

“Good, my boy, good.” He was showing mild frustration as he pawed through a cabinet. “Where did I put those measuring spoons? We will be ready to depart as soon as I’m finished here.”

Jon-Tom leaned against the wall nearby. “I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday as we were leaving the cellar. About what we’re ‘up against’? If I’m following what you said correctly, whoever or whatever has trapped the perambulator is not stable.”

“You’re almost right.” He unearthed a set of tiny spoons bound together by a bright golden ring, looked pleased with himself, and passed it to Sorbl. “Whoever it is, is not unstable; they are crackers, crazy, nuts, bonkers, looney tunes, living in cloud-cuckoo land. Do I make myself clear or do you require further elaboration?”

“No, I think I get the point,” Jon-Tom said dryly.

“It is important that you do. It is important that we all do. Because it is highly unlikely that we will be able to reason with this whatever-it-is. It is difficult to fight someone who may not even be conscious of the fact that they are engaged in a fight.” He pulled a tall metal box from another drawer and opened the lid with unusual care. Straining, Jon-Tom could see that it was filled with padding.

Clothahump extracted a single small wooden box, opened it to inspect the contents, which consisted of one glass vial full of oily green fluid. Satisfied, he closed the box and secured the lid, handed it with both hands to Sorbl.

“Place this in the center of your backpack, and whatever you do, don’t drop it.”

Sorbl gingerly accepted the box, cradling it in both flexible wingtips. “What would happen if I did drop it, Master?”

Clothahump leaned toward his apprentice. “Something so horrible, so vile, so unimaginably awful that in more than two hundred years I have not acquired sufficient vocabulary to describe it.”

“Oh.” Sorbl turned to place the box in his open pack. “I will be very careful with it, Master.”

Clothahump moved toward Jon-Tom and began selecting volumes from a long shelf of mini-books nearby. The much taller human spoke while watching Sorbl pack. “What’s in the vial you gave Sorbl, sir? Some kind of acid or explosive?”

“Of course not,” the wizard replied softly. “Do you think I’d be fool enough to travel with dangerous liquids? It’s lime fizz.”

Jon-Tom’s brows drew together. “I guess I don’t understand.”

“You say that far too often, but your ignorance is mitigated by your honesty. Won’t you ever learn that to handle magic effectively you must learn to manipulate people as well as formulae? Without anything to worry about Sorbl will find ways to overindulge himself in the liquor I am permitting him to bring along—would that his deviousness extended to his studies. This will give him something to worry about.”

“I thought we had plenty to worry about already, but I see your point.” He watched while the wizard thumbed through tome after tome, replacing the majority in their places on the shelf, setting the rare selection aside for packing.

“What do you think our opponent is like? Besides dangerous, I mean.”

Clothahump considered. “If you’re out of your mind, there are two things that can be done to make you feel better. You can get yourself cured, or you can make everyone and everything else you have to deal with crazy. This is the first instance I can think of where a psychotic has attempted the latter course.

“It is clear that whoever is restraining the perambulator is doing so for a purpose, with a definite end in mind. That end appears to be turning the world upside down and inside out. For to an insane individual, an insane world might be quite comfortable. No one can accuse you of being mad if they’re mad too. No one can say that you’ve retreated into a world made up out of your own mental fabrications if they’re living in the same world. That is what we are going to have to deal with, my boy. The logic of the mad.”

As he concluded on the word mad, the wizard began to change. His body attenuated and lengthened. In seconds Jon-Tom found himself conversing with a large, furry yellow caterpillar. Nor was he leaning against the wall of the wizard’s study. The oak tree had been displaced by a giant silken globe within which hung strange objects of unknown origin and uncertain purpose.

All this he took in through two pairs of compound eyes. He felt uneasy, and from the waist down he had begun to itch. Using several legs operating in tandem, he began to scratch himself, digging for mites in his orange-and-brown fur. Over in the corner of the globe a small blue moth fluttered anxiously back and forth.

“So strange,” said the moth. “In this world, Master, you are larger than Jon-Tom. Here size must be a reflection of one’s age, for I am the smallest of all.”

“Reflection of intelligence, more likely,” snapped the wizard. “This is inconvenient. You are not alarmed by your new form?”

“Oh, no. I believe I have taken this shape before.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” muttered Jon-Tom, “and I hope we change back soon.” His stomachs were doing flip-flops, and the absence of a skeleton made him fearful of taking so much as a step, even though he knew that his squishy, soft body was unlikely to collapse around him. He was determined not to throw up, not only in order to save face before Clothahump but also because he had not the slightest interest in seeing what a four-foot-long orange-and-brown caterpillar might regurgitate.

So he sat there and scratched. Several minutes slid past. Five more. Now he was itching from nervousness and not mites. “What do we do?”

“There is nothing we can do.” Clothahump was preening multiple antennae. “We can only keep calm and wait it out.”

“It’s held a lot longer this time,” an uneasy Jon-Tom observed.

“Considerably. I have already pointed out that the duration of each perturbation might increase.”

“I don’t like this one. I like it even less than I did being a blue crab.” He tried to shift his position to a more comfortable one, with little success. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Try not to, my boy. I expected side effects to begin appearing, but we can do without that particular one. Though it might be interesting.”

“Like hell!” Jon-Tom bawled. He started to bend over.

Only to find himself back in the familiar oak-lined study again. He was himself again, tall and human and in possession of a solid internal superstructure. The interior of that superstructure, however, was still queasy, uncomfortable assurance that the transformation hadn’t been a dream. He rushed to the sink and ran cold water over his face and hands, sipping at it when he felt able to keep it down. It stayed down, as did his breakfast. He was pale when he looked up from the basin, gripping the rim with both hands for support.

“I can see where these perturbations can be more than just awkward.”

“Quite so.” Jon-Tom couldn’t tell if the wizard was disappointed that he hadn’t thrown up or not. “For example, if you were crossing a bridge and that bridge abruptly became a thin rope, you would have only an instant to assess your new status and adapt to it by balancing yourself or grabbing tight to the rope. Otherwise you would fall, and when the world snapped back to normal, you would find yourself in pieces, no less deceased for having perished during the perturbation. That would be awkward indeed.”

Sorbl joined them. “All is in readiness, Master.”

The wizard nodded. “About time. You have your pack, my boy, and I have mine.” He trundled over to the study exit and prepared to shoulder one of the two heavy packs the famulus had prepared. Jon-Tom wrestled his own onto his back and followed his mentor into the front hall.

He halted there, wondering why the thought hadn’t occurred to him earlier. “Wait a minute. Why are we walking? Surely we’re not going to foot it all the way to the Northern Plateau?”

“Of course not,” Clothahump assured him. “Once we get to Lynchbany we’ll rent ourselves a wagon or coach.”

“But that’s a pretty good hike in itself. Why walk even that far”—he swung his duar around in front of him—”when we can ride?”

“Uh-oh.” Sorbl’s eyes sought a discreet hiding place.

“Boy.” Clothahump harrumphed, “I’m not much in the mood to try any transportation spells. I’ve too many other things on my mind. Besides, there are one or two bits of sorceral knowledge I’ve managed to forget over the past two hundred years, and we’ve no time to waste looking up the necessary formulae.”

“I know you’re not being modest.” Jon-Tom was smiling fondly down at the old conjurer. “So I have to assume that you’re worn-out from dealing with the nothing.”

“I will not deny that the effort was fatiguing.” He was eyeing the duar uneasily. “I sense what you have in mind, but I am not certain you are up to it. I know that you have had a great deal of practice lo these past many months. Despite this, the precision of your spellsinging still leaves much to be desired.’’

Jon-Tom felt himself flush. “I don’t claim to be perfect. I never did. But I’m a hell of a lot sharper than I was when I first picked up this duar and started playing. And I have conjured up transportation before. Boats and rafts and one time M’nemaxa himself.”

Clothahump was nodding slowly. “I am aware of what you have accomplished, my boy, and you have much to be proud of, but the ability of calling up simple land transportation is a talent that seems to have escaped you.”

“You’re forgetting, sir. Remember when we first journeyed south to the Tailaroam River to seek transport upstream to Polastrindu? So that we could all travel together in ease and comfort, I called forth a fine L’borian riding snake.”

“You’re right. I had forgotten. I remember now, though— just as I remember that you were trying to conjure up something entirely different. You were as startled by the snake’s appearance as the rest of us.”

Jon-Tom looked away and coughed slightly. “So I was. But at least I produced something, and it turned out to be perfectly serviceable. This time I’m going to try for a L’borian riding snake. Having already conjured one previously, I ought to be able to produce it on demand.”

The wizard considered, said reluctantly, “I admit I was not looking forward to the long tramp into Lynchbany. I am of a mind to give my blessings to your attempts. If you are confident . . .”

“Of course, I’m confident.”

Clothahump sighed. “My legs feel older even than my head. We could avoid the sordid haggling that would surely ensue over the hiring of a coach. Very well, then. Let us see what you can produce. But let us move outside first. Some of this furniture is old.”

Jon-Tom followed, feeling several inches taller. Not literally this time, but emotionally, for no perturbation was affecting the world. This was the first time he had actually been requested to spellsing by the wizard, and he was determined not to let his benefactor and teacher down.

The morning was crisp and clear, with the first bite of fall in the air. Clothahump’s anxiety to hurry on their way was caused by the nearness of winter, when the paths to the Northern Plateau could become clogged with early snows. It was difficult to imagine everything cloaked in white, so brilliant were the red and gold hues of the forest.

They set their packs aside. Jon-Tom prepared himself while Clothahump placed a simple but effective lockspell on his front door. Then he and Sorbl stood off to one side while Jon-Tom walked out into the taller grass, away from the shade of the enormous old oak tree.

He let his fingers strum the duar’s double set of strings, adjusted the mass and tremble controls, and cleared his throat. Sorbl left his master’s side and tried to edge inconspicuously around behind the bulk of the tree. Clothahump was made of sterner stuff. He sympathized with his apprentice’s apprehension but held his ground.

Jon-Tom stood off by himself and let individual chords and notes tumble from the duar. This was not the first time he’d had to hesitate. The problem was that while he knew exactly what he wanted to bring forth, he didn’t know what song to employ. Snakes were not a popular subject of popular music.

There was a group that called itself Whitesnake, however. One of their tunes, anything related to transportation, might do it. He couldn’t think of anything more appropriate, and he was acutely conscious of an increasingly impatient Clothahump standing nearby and staring at him. Better to sing something, if only to loosen up, than to continue standing there looking like a complete fool. He closed his eyes, remembered the words, began tapping his right foot in time to the beat, and started to sing.

A slight fluttering in the air, more perceived than seen, caused him to open his eyes. One or two gneechees, those harbingers of magic, were teasing the fringes of his vision. They always appeared when his spellsinging was working. It was a good sign and spurred him to greater efforts with the duar. But while the gneechees remained, darting and dancing around the edge of reality, they did not appear in the hoped-for numbers. Neither did the long, scaly shape of the riding snake.

He sang harder still, peeling the riffs off the duar as smoothly as any Richie Blackmore might have wished. He strained and sang, and finally something did begin to materialize; a twisting, coiled form on the ground in front of him.

He would have smiled and called out to Clothahump and Sorbl but the spell was far from complete, and it was evident he still had a lot of singing to do. The famulus was confident enough to edge back around from behind the tree, since it appeared nothing was going to blast the earth out from beneath his feathers. Jon-Tom sang on and on. He was beginning to worry.

Not that anything remotely dangerous had appeared, but no matter how many verses he recited, the shape on the ground refused to expand. It was a beginning only. It remained nothing more than a beginning. He kept playing until both the song and his throat were wom-out. The last chord faded away into the trees. The pair of gneechees lit out for more congenial climes.

He approached what he had conjured. It was little more than a few feet long, only a thin shadow of the massive, powerful shape of a L’borian riding snake. But he had brought forth something. He hesitated, then reached down to pick it up. It was a snake, all right, but not one that would call L’bor home. Not only was it far too small, it was made of rubber.

Clothahump had walked up to join him, stared thoughtfully at the object over the top of his glasses. “It is well known among wizards, my boy, that even the fates have a sense of humor.”

“Son of a bitch.” Jon-Tom threw the rubber snake as far into the brush as he could. Anxiety had been replaced by anger. Not only had he failed in his declared intention, he’d gone and made a first-class fool of himself in front of his mentor. All those weeks of practice, all that careful studying of fingering methods and positions and sonic adjustments so he could call up something from an interdimensional novelty shop. Maybe the fates weren’t laughing at him, but something surely was, somewhere.

Clothahump sighed and called out to Sorbl, “Pick up your pack, famulus. Lynchbany has come no closer, and I don’t want to spend more than one night in these woods.”

“Wait—wait a minute. I’m not through.”

“You may not be through, my boy, but it appears that you are finished.”

“Just be patient, sir. One more attempt is all I ask.” So they wanted to see some spellsinging, did they? Spellsinging they were going to see! He was going to conjure up a L’borian riding snake or a reasonable facsimile, or bust a gut trying. Grim-faced, he turned away from both wizard and apprentice and settled on another song. His frustration and embarrassment gave added emphasis to each phrase he sang.

Both were powerful forces, though not the ones he would have chosen to fuel his magic, but there was no question about their eificacy. Instantly the transparent autumn morning seemed to darken around them. In the dim light the gneechees that had materialized stood out sharply. Not a couple this time but hundreds, enveloping singer and companions in a cloud of iridescent light. As usual, not one of the minuscule apparitions could be seen straight on. They could be perceived only out of the corner of one’s eye.

Jon-Tom wailed and twisted, sang and played. The fingers of his left hand danced a saraband over the upper strings while his right hand was a blur in front of the duar’s body. As he played, something new was taking shape and form in front of him, something substantial, something worthy of a spellsinger’s best efforts.

Sorbl retreated behind the tree again, and even Clothahump took an unwilling step backward. A foul-smelling wind blew outward from the solidifying manifestation. Its outlines did not flutter and break this time but grew steadily more visible. It grew and added weight and reality.

But the shape was still wrong. He hurried to bring the song to a conclusion, trying to see through the glowing mist that enveloped the object. It was not the object of his desires. It certainly was nothing like a L’borian riding snake. But neither was it a cosmic joke akin to the toy he had conjured up previously.

In shape it was more than recognizable; it was quite familiar. Certainly he had not expected to see anything like it. His throat was sore and his fingers numb from the effort he’d put into the song. Carefully, painfully, he slid the duar back around his shoulders so that the instrument rested against his back. Then he approached the product of his spellsinging. The lingering glow that attended to it was fading rapidly.

Sorbl flew out from behind the tree, circled the manifestation a couple of times, and then landed next to Jon-Tom. “What in the name of the seven aerial demons is it?”

Jon-Tom ignored him as he touched it. There was no burning sensation. Neither was it dangerously cold to the touch. The surface was smooth and shiny, like the skin of a L’borian riding snake. He walked completely around it, inspecting it from every possible angle as Clothahump joined them.

“As I feared, not what you wished for, my boy, but an interesting piece of work nonetheless. Though I recognize neither its origin nor composition, it is clear that it is a vehicle of some kind. For one thing it has wheels.” He tapped one. “They appear to be fashioned not of wood or metal but of some flexible alien substance.” He wrinkled his nose as best he was able. “It possesses a most disagreeable smell.”

“I know what it is, though,” Jon-Tom told him. “I didn’t think anything like it actually existed. I should say it’s considerably rarer than a L’borian riding snake. But it look like we’ll be riding to Lynchbany and beyond, after all. in style and I agree that it stinks, but at least we won’t have to walk.

“Where I come from there are books, magazines, other cheap publications, and they all have advertisements for this thing in them, but I never believed they actually existed, and I never heard of anyone actually obtaining one of them. The ads are for army surplus materials.”

“I do know what an army is,” said Clothahump thoughtfully, “but I have yet to encounter one that boasted a surplus of anything.”

“In my world,” Jon-Tom informed him, “armies exist for the sole purpose of acquiring the taxpayers’ money so they can spend it on things they don’t need and then turn around and sell the stuff to these surplus stores. The armies have less material and need more money than ever, and there are also more surplus stores each year than before. It’s a miraculous cycle that bears no relationship to anything else in nature.

“These publications I mentioned are always carrying ads for many things that are quite useful. In addition to what they actually have for sale, they also try to get your attention with items that I’m sure have never existed. The most famous of these is the army surplus jeep for twenty-five dollars.

“It’s impossible to sell a jeep for twenty-five dollars, but despite post office regulations, ads like that have been appearing for decades. But not one of those twenty-five-dollar jeeps ever existed. And now I know why. The only way to actually get one is by using magic. The wonderful aroma you’re inhaling, by the way, is the delightful fragrance of leaded gas. One of the more common smells on my world.”

“My profoundest sympathies,” said Clothahump, sniffing ostentatiously.

“I still can’t believe it,” Jon-Tom murmured as he stared at the uncovered, olive-drab, open-bodied stripped-down, but nonetheless serviceable twenty-five-dollar genuine army surplus jeep. His wonder was not misplaced, for true to his suspicions he was actually the first person in history to set eyes on one of those fantastic, mythical machines. There must be a special place for such things, he told himself. A special, near-impossible-to-locate corner of the cosmos where hundreds of twenty-five-dollar army surplus jeeps were arraigned side by side with such other imaginary beasts as vegetable choppers that worked with the lightest of pressures, bust-developing creams, two-dollar X-ray tubes that enabled adolescent boys to see through walls, and income tax forms that could be comprehended and filled out by human beings who had not yet obtained their Ph.D.’s in accounting.

He hefted his backpack and plopped it down in the backseat. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

Gothahump eyed the alien manifestation warily. “Are you sure this thing is safe?”

“We’re not likely to run the risk of meeting another one in a blind intersection,” Jon-Tom told him, “so I imagine it’s safe enough.”

“I would have preferred a snake.” Grumbling, the wizard clambered in on the passenger side, tried to make himself comfortable. “Odd sort of seat, but I expect it will have to do.”

Sorbl lifted himself oflf the ground and settled down on the back of the rear bench seat, which made a convenient and stable perch. He would probably be more comfortable bouncing over the rough terrain ahead, Jon-Tom reflected, than either of his flightless companions.

“Let’s see.” The dash was less than basic. The keys dangled from the ignition. He turned them, stomped the gas a couple of times, and waited. The engine turned over smoothly. He raced it a couple of times, enjoying the look of surprise on Clothahump’s face, then depressed the clutch and put it in gear. They started off fast, got approximately halfway around the tree, and stopped. The engine died. He frowned, wrenched the key a couple of times. The battery jolted the engine, but it refused to catch.

There was nothing magical about the reason. His gaze dropped to the ancient gas gauge. The needle was over past the E, as motionless as a corpse.

He took a deep breath. “Well, we almost got to ride. I came as close as I could, but even a L’borian riding snake needs fuel.”

Clothahump considered the mysterious gauge and the motionless needle contained therein. “I see. What does this thing eat?”

“Gasoline, like I told you.” Jon-Tom wore a sour expression. “What we’re smelling is the bottom of the tank.”

“Where do you get this gasoline stuff?” Sorbl asked him.

“Oh, anywhere,” he replied bitterly. “Hey, I’ll just walk up to the nearest Shell station and fill up a can.”

“You are not thinking, my boy.” Clothahump was shaking a stern finger at him. “You are feeling sorry for yourself. Wizards are not permitted the luxury of feeling sorry for themselves. An occasional pout, yes, but nothing more. It is bad for appearances. Now think. This gasoline: what does it consist of?”

“It’s a refined fuel.” Jon-Tom wondered even as he explained why he was taking the time. “It’s reduced from oil. You know, oil. Petroleum. A thick black liquid that oozes out of the ground. So what? Even if we could find some oil, it wouldn’t do us any good. I don’t happen to have a refinery in my pocket.”

“Speak for your own pockets, my boy.” There was a twinkle in the wizard’s eye. Reaching into one of the lower drawers in his plastron, he produced a single marble-sized black pill.

“Where is the ingestion point, the mouth?”

Frowning, Jon-Tom climbed out and moved to the rear of the motionless vehicle. “Over here, on the side.”

“Deposit this within.” Clothahump handed him the black pill. Jon-Tom took it, rolled it between his fingers. It had the consistency of rubber and the luster of a black pearl.

Well, why not? It couldn’t damage what they didn’t have. Wondering why he was bothering but having learned to trust the wizard’s abilities, he dropped the pill in the gas tank. There was a faint thunk as it struck bottom.

Clothahump raised his right hand and muttered to the sky.

Then he spat over the side. Jon-Tom thought, but couldn’t be sure, that the wizard’s sputum was distinctly black.

“Now try it, my boy.”

Shrugging, Jon-Tom slipped back behind the wheel and dubiously cranked the ignition. The engine rumbled a couple of times, caught weakly. He pumped the gas pedal, and the rumble became a steady roar. When he lifted his heel off the pedal, the jeep was idling smoothly. The needle on the gas gauge had swung over to “full.”

“What did you do—no, how did you do it? What was in that pill?”

“Petroleum, as you call it, is a common ingredient in many important potions,” the wizard informed him. “I merely utilized some concentrates and catalyzed them with an old spell used for adapting hydrocarbons. Nothing complicated. I have no idea how long the combination will suffice to power this machine, but it would appear that at least for now we shall indeed have transportation, thanks to your spellsinging and my magic.”

“If I ever find a way back home,” he told Clothahump, “I’d be much obliged for a sample of that pill and a transcription of the accompanying spell.’-’ He put the jeep in gear again, sent it rolling toward the nearby trade road that led into Lynchbany. “Ride we shall—unless there’s something else as yet undetected missing from this relic’s chassis.”

But as they bounced over the rocks and dirt toward the main wagon road, he realized he couldn’t be too severe with his creation.

After all, they’d gotten it for a song.

IV

The stripped-down jeep banged and rattled its way northward. Jon-Tom was convinced it had no suspension at all: just wheels attached to an axle that was directly bolted to the underbody. He wondered which would come apart first: the underside of the jeep or his own.

Clothahump was of two minds concerning Jon-Tom’s otherworldly procuration. While considerably less comfortable and reassuring than a L’borian riding snake, he had to admit that the jeep was faster. And it had no will of its own. When they startled a fifteen-foot-tall trouk lizard sunning itself in the road, the jeep did absolutely nothing to defend them. A L’borian snake would have quickly driven the monster away.

Instead they had to settle for an inglorious end-run around the awakened carnivore. The concomitant jolting nearly bounced the wizard out of his shell. In addition to these unexpected drawbacks, the hydrocarbon spell that kept the metal box’s belly sated was continuously running down and had to be periodically renewed. He reminded Jon-Tom that his resources were not unlimited. Before long they would reach the point where the machine would become useless because they could no longer fuel it.

The bone-jarring ride affected Sorbl least of all. When the bouncing and jouncing began to bother him, he simply spread his great wings, released his grip on the backseat, and took to the air, soaring effortlessly above the treetops while keeping track of his unfortunate companions below.

They encountered no more dozing carnivores, however, and the road began to smooth out as they drew nearer to Lynchbany. The autumn Bellwoods were beautiful to look upon, with many leaves still clinging to the trees and the ground between carpeted with umber and gold.

They were less pleasing to listen to, since the dying leaves that still hugged the branches sang out of tune when the wind blew through them. As Clothahump explained, the music of the bell leaves was a direct function of the seasons. An experienced woodsman could forecast the weather by listening to the music the trees played. The tree songs were sweet and melodious in springtime, languorous in the summer, and harsh and atonal as they dropped from their limbs in the fall. They struggled to blot out the discordant chorus from Lynchbany all the way past Oglagia Towne, until they left the woods just south of Ospenspri.

“Not as fine a sight as grand Polastrindu,” Clothahump told him, “but an attractive little city in its own right, sequestered among rolling hills at the northernmost fringes of civilization.” He was leaning forward expectantly, scanning the terrain ahead for their first sight of that lovely metropolis.

They were driving through herds of fat abismo lizards let out to graze on the last of summer’s grass. Off in the distance the landscape lifted toward the sky, the distant slopes the first manifestation of the high Northern Plateau. It struck Jon-Tom as strange that no herdsfolk were visible among the abismos, but perhaps they were trained to return to their barns at nightfall by themselves.

“Ospenspri is particularly famed for its orchards,” Clothahump was telling him. “Up here they grow the best apples and toklas in the warmlands.”

Jon-Tom kept both hands locked on the wheel. The long drive north from Lynchbany had been harder on the jeep than on any of them. While never exactly responding like a Porsche, its handling had become worse than ever. He’d driven the last couple of days haunted by visions of the wheel coming off in his hands just when they were attempting to round a sharp bend in the road. But the wheel stayed on the steering column.

Just get us into town, he whispered silently at the straining machine, and I’ll see that you get a formal funeral.

They swung around a hill crowned with pines and saw the cloud first. A massive black cloud. It was not moving. It just hung there in one place like a lump of sooty cotton that had been pinned to the sky. Directly above Ospenspri. Jon-Tom slowed but didn’t stop.

As for beautiful Ospenspri, the Ospenspri that Clothahump had never ceased describing to him ever since they’d left home, Ospenspri of the numerous streams and delicately arched bridges and many fountains, Ospenspri the flower of the north, it bore little relationship to the wizard’s word pictures.

Instead of tall, graceful buildings with fluted walls, the valley that lay beneath the black cloud was occupied by a succession of mud and adobe huts. Dirty water flowed down a few central canals. These joined together below the city to form a single river. What beggared comprehension was not the fact that the water above the city flowed clear and pure, but that it appeared to become fresh again the instant it left behind the city limits. It was as though the pollution it acquired within the city was unable to depart with the current.

Yet there was no sign of any kind of filtering or treatment system where the canals became river.

There were plenty of trees among the houses, as Clothahump had predicted. Every one of them was dead, and not from the onset of winter. They had been blighted by something far worse than inclement weather. On the slopes north of the city where grew the famed apple and tokla orchards there was nothing but twisted, spiny lumps of brown bark huddled together against the wind. No neatly tended rows of healthy trees with busy citizens working among them.

And hovering over it all, that single, ominous, unmoving black cloud.

Sorbl fluttered down to resume his perch on the frame of the backseat. “Are you sure we didn’t take a wrong turn somewhere, Master?”

“No, we did not take a wrong turn, you feathered twit.” But there was little venom in the wizard’s retort. He was staring in disbelief at the city spread out before them. “This is Ospenspri. There’s the Acomarry Hill, and there the three springs, each winding its own way into town.” He rose, leaning on the windshield for support. It groaned.

Behind them stood the autumnal forest of the Bell woods, shedding its leaves to the accompaniment of mournful but hardly malign notes. Ahead was once-beautiful Ospenspri, with its polluted waterways, devastated architecture, and clear air, dominated by that unnatural mass of cumulonimbus. When he spoke again, his tone was subdued.

“Drive on, lad. Something dreadful has overtaken this place and the people who make their home here. Perhaps we can do something to help. We are honor-bound to try.”

Jon-Tom nodded, took the jeep out of neutral. The tenuous transmission made gargling noises, and they lurched forward.

“What’s a tokla?”

“You never had a tokla, my boy?”

“I don’t think so.” He kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. “It doesn’t sound like anything that grows where I come from.”

“That is your loss, then, for it is a most delightful fruit. You can eat all you want because it shrinks inside your stomach.”

“You mean it shrivels up?”

“No. It shrinks before it is digested. In shape it is like this.” His hands described an outline in the air that reminded Jon-Tom of two pears joined together at their tops. “Each bite starts shrinking on its way down. By the time it hits your belly, it’s barely as big as a fingernail, but you’re sure you’ve eaten something as big as a loaf of bread.”

“Would that ever be a hit on the shelves back home,” Jon-Tom murmured. “The tokla fruit diet.”

“Diet? What’s a diet?” Sorbl asked.

“You don’t know what a diet is?”

“You always repeat questions, Jon-Tom. I don’t know why humans waste so much of their talking time. If I knew what a diet was, I wouldn’t have to ask you what a diet was, would I?”

“I think I like you better when you’re drunk, Sorbl.”

The owl shrugged. “I’m not surprised. I like me better when I’m drunk too.”

“A diet is when people intentionally restrict their intake of food in order to lose weight.”

The famulus twitched his beak. He was a little shaky on his unsteady backseat perch, but not so shaky that he couldn’t recognize an absurdity when he heard one.

“Why would anyone want to lose weight, when nearly everyone is working hard to put it on? Are you saying that among your people there are those who intentionally starve themselves?”

“To a certain degree, yes. They do so in order to make themselves look better. See, among the humans where I come from, the thinner you are, the more attractive you’re considered to be.”

Sorbl wiped at his mouth with a flexible wingtip. “Weird.”

“The multiplicity of peculiar notions your world is infected with never ceases to amaze me,” Clothahump put in. “I am glad 1 am exposed to them only through you. I do not think I could cope in person.”

Sorbl interrupted long enough to point. “Look. It’s not deserted.”

They were passing through the first buildings now, though the mud and wattle structures were hardly worthy of the term. Staggering listlessly through the filthy alleys were the citizens of Ospenspri. It was evident that whatever catastrophe had blasted their community had affected them personally.

As with all large cities, the population was a mixture of species, and all had been equally devastated. Felines and lupines, quadrupeds and bipeds, all wore the same dazed expressions. They shared something else besides a communal aura of hopelessness, a singular physical deformity that owed its presence to something other than defective genetics. Difficult to accept at first, the evidence overwhelmed the visitors as they drove on toward the main square.

Every inhabitant of Ospenspri, every citizen irrespective of age or species or sex, from the youngest cub to the eldest patriarch, had become a hunchback.

Clothahump adjusted his glasses, his expression solemn. “Whatever has happened here has crippled the people as well as their land. Turn right at this corner, my boy.”

Jon-Tom complied, and the jeep slowed as it entered an open circular courtyard. In its center stood a thirty-foot-high pile of mud and gravel. Water trickled forlornly down its flanks. It was surrounded by a fence fashioned of rotted wood and a few lumps of granite.

“Stop here.” Jon-Tom brought the jeep to a halt, watched as Clothahump climbed out to stare at the pitiful structure.

“What is it, sir?”

“The Peridot Fountain. Three years in the designing, twenty years in the construction. Fashioned by the Master Artisan’s Guild of Ospenspri. I’ve read of it all my life. This is where it should be, and this patently is not it. It is built of marble and copper tubing, of sculptured alabaster and peridots the size of my shell. Whatever has infected this place breaks beauty as well as backs.”

Many dispirited citizens had seen the strangers drive into the square, but only one retained enough curiosity and spirit to seek them out. The fox was old and bent like the rest of the populace. He had to lean hard on the cane he carried to support himself. The fur of his face was white with age and he was missing all the whiskers on the right side of his muzzle. A few of the others tried to hold him back, but he shook them off and advanced. The thought of death no longer frightened him. There are some older folks who are never touched by that particular fear, and the fox was one of them.

“Strangers, where do you come from? By your posture as well as your faces I know you are not from the city or its immediate environs.”

“We’re up from the south,” Jon-Tom told him. “From just south of Lynchbany.”

“A long way.” The fox was nodding to himself. He turned his attention to the jeep, walked slowly around it, felt of the metal with an unsteady hand. “A most peculiar method of transportation. I have never seen the like. I should like to compliment the blacksmith who fashioned it.”

“We make do with what we have.” Clothahump waddled around to confront him. “I am more concerned with what has happened here. I have never visited your city, but I feel as though I know it from all that I have read about it and been told by other travelers. The last description I was given was not so very long ago. Surely Ospenspri cannot have changed so much in such a short time.” He gestured at the sagging edifices surrounding the square, the dead or dying vegetation. “This has all the hallmarks of a sudden disaster, not one long in the making.”

The fox was eyeing him with interest. “You are perceptive, hard-shell. In truth, we lost everything in an instant. There was no warning. One moment all was well with our city and selves. The next—there was the cloud.” He jabbed skyward with his cane.

“See the evil thing hanging there? It does not drop rain and move on. It does not thunder or hail. No wind blows out of it save an ill one. It is as motionless as stone.”

“You have been unable to influence it?” Clothahump had his head tilted back and was studying the black mass.

“All the efforts of our best magicians have failed. Their spells either have no effect on it at all or else they pass right through it. It is only vapor, after all. How does one threaten vapor? We have invoked every agent in the meteorological pantheon, all to no avail.”

“It is not a climatic phenomenon that hangs over your city and your lives but a pall of supernature. Weather spells will have no effect on something like this.”

“The perambulator,” said Jon-Tom, with a sudden realization of what the wizard was getting at.

“Quite so, my boy.”

“But we’re inside the city now, and we haven’t changed.” He found himself straightening his back reflexively. “And the forest beyond the city limits wasn’t affected.”

“Not all the effects of the perambulator are global in scope, lad. Many perturbations, of varying degree, are highly localized. It is shifting and spinning and throwing off, upsetting energy all the time. Sometimes nothing larger than a plot of land a foot square is affected. Sometimes a grove of trees. Or, in this case, an entire community.

“But this is the severest perturbation we have yet encountered. Remember what I told you, that unless it is freed, the perambulator’s perturbations will grow steadily more intense, until we run the risk of being locked in permanent change. That is what has happened here in Ospenspri. The perturbation, of which I believe that cloud to be an indication, has settled in permanently. This part of the world has been damaged for good. Unless . . .”

“Unless you can do something about it—Master,” Jon-Tom finished respectfully.

The wizard nodded. “We must certainly give it our best effort.”

“ ‘Our’ best effort.” Jon-Tom moved to the back of the jeep and began unpacking his duar. Clothahump moved over to put a hand on the young man’s wrist.

“No, my boy. Leave this one to me. The citizens of this poor community have suffered enough.”

Jon-Tom swallowed his hurt. He knew nothing of the mechanism that had devastated Ospenspri, and he’d had many occasions on which to learn the error of false pride. It was time to abide by the turtle’s wish.

The fox watched them intently as Sorbl aided Clothahump in his preparations. A second distorted figure came hobbling over the dirt to join them. It made for Jon-Tom.

He turned to the newcomer as the bent shape drew close. “We’re friends. We’re going to try to help you. But my mentor there needs plenty of room to work his magic and— He stopped in mid-sentence, staring. Despite the hunchback, there was something almost familiar about the oncoming figure. That was absurd, of course, but still, that outline, those eyes, those whiskers . . .

“Don’t tell me to get lost, you ‘airy son of an ape!”

“Mudge?” Jon-Tom couldn’t take his eyes off the figure. It was nearer now, and he could see the speaker more clearly. Bent, duty, undistinguished—and unmistakable. “Mudge, it is you!”

“O’ course it’s me, you bloody oversized naked monkey! ‘Ave you gone blind? Me ‘ead ‘appens to be a mite nearer the ground at the moment, but it ain’t by choice, wot? Me face is still the same, though. So’s yours, I see. As ugly as ever.”

A warm feeling spread throughout Jon-Tom’s body. “Mudge, it’s good to see you again. Even under these circumstances.”

“Circumstances ain’t the ‘alf of it, mate.” The otter nodded toward the jeep. “There’s ‘is sorcerership, senile as ever, and ‘is sot of an apprentice. Would ‘e ‘ave any booze with ‘im, do you know? I could use a good stiff one, if ‘e ain’t drunk all the liquor betwixt ‘ere an’ the southern ocean. I never could understand those people wot drinks to excess.”

“That sounds pretty funny coming from you, Mudge.”

“Why? I never drink to excess, mate. Me body don’t know the meanin’ of the word. I just drink till I’m full. Then I piss it out and start over. So I never reach excess, wot? Tell me, wot are you and ‘is nibs doin’ so far from ‘is tree? I’d think you’d be hunkered down south, warm an’ cozy an’ waiting for winter.”

“Perhaps you’ve noticed something a bit out of the ordinary in the world these past few weeks?”

The otter chuckled, shook his head. “You always did ‘ave the gift of understatement, mate. Aye, you could say that, if you’d call the world goin’ totally mad a bit out o’ the ordinary.”

“How’d you get all the way up here, Mudge? Why are you in the same sorry state as the Ospensprites? Not that your usual state isn’t sorry, but this is different.”

“Just lucky, I guess, mate. Well, I ‘appened to be doin’ some work down in Malderpot—it ain’t such a bad place anymore since they ‘ad that recent change o’ government— and I ‘ad occasion to depart the vicinity in a bit of a ‘urry.”

“Who’d you cheat this time?”

“Wot, me cheat someone, mate? You sting me to the quick, you does.”

“Forget it,” Jon-Tom said dryly. They were both watching the jeep. Clothahump was assembling something out of pieces of wood salvaged from the crude fence enclosing the mud fountain, adding unrecognizable devices from his pack and what looked like a few kitchen utensils.

“ ‘Tis been an interestin’ month for old Mudge,” the otter went on. “Ever since this out-o’-the-ordinary’s took hold of us. You never know wot you’re goin’ to wake up facin’ in the mirror, much less wot you’re liable to find yourself in bed with. Why, there was the night in Okot I was dallyin’ with the most luscious capybara lady you ever set eyes on—you know I like ‘em big, mate.”

“You like anything that walks, talks, and is a member of the opposite sex, Mudge.”

“So I’m enthusiastic instead o’ discriminatin’. Anyways, there we were, just about to consummate the evenin’, when suddenly, right before me very eyes, not to mention beneath me chest, she turns into somethin’ with ‘alf a dozen extra see-alls, two ‘eads, and all the rest o’ the critical body parts badly out o’ place as well. O’ course I looked just about the same, but 1 tell you, mate, the damage to our respective libidos was nothin’ short o’ devastating.”

“I can imagine. Spare me the sordid aftermath.”

“That was the trouble, mate. Weren’t no sordid aftermath. Weren’t much foremath, either.” He sighed with the remembrance. “Anyways, was after that that I ‘ad me little difficulty in Malderpot and decided that wot with winter comin’ on an’ all, it was time for me to ‘ead south again. Fast. But I thought to take some time to linger up ‘ere in be-ooti-ful Ospenspri— and it were beautiful, you can take me word on that, mate.”

“So Clothahump has told me.”

“Right. So I’m doin’ a little sight-seein’, takin’ in the air and the good food and an occasional compliant an’ ‘opefully drunk lady or two, when all of a sudden another one o’ those bleedin’ suddenlike changes comes over me. An’ the ‘hole bloomin’ city and everyone in it as well. Only this time, a couple o’ minutes go by, and then a couple o’ ‘ours, and suddenly we’re realizin’ that the change is ‘ere to stay. First off everyone goes a little crazy, not that I blames ‘em. I went a mite bonkers meself. Then the panic goes away and this permanent depression kind o’ takes ‘old of you. Like wakin’ up one mornin’ to find someone’s stolen your balls while you were asleep.” He jabbed a thumb skyward.

“An” over it all, that bloody stinkin’ black cloud, sneerin’ down at us an’ mockin’ the memories o’ our former lives. Pretty pitiful, mate. So that’s ‘ow I come to be ‘ere talkin’ to you like this, all bent over and stove up like everyone else. I ‘ope ‘is wizardness can do somethin’ about it, because most o’ these folks are just about at the end o’ their rope.”

“If anyone can do anything, Clothahump can,” Jon-Tom replied with pride.

“Aye, if ‘e ‘asn’t forgotten ‘alf o’ wotever spell ‘e’s a mind to try. Two ‘undred years ago I wouldn’t worry, but ‘e ain’t the wizard ‘e used to be, you know.”

“None of us are what we used to be, Mudge.”

The otter spat sideways. “If you’re goin’ to go an’ get profound on me, lad, I’m goin’ to leave. I’ve ‘ad about enough solemn pronouncements this past week to last me a lifetime. Say”—he squinted sharply up at his old friend— “wot brings you up from the wizard’s cozy ‘ome to this cold part o’ the world, anyways?”

“The very thing that’s ruined this town. The same thing that’s causing similar changes all over the world. Unless something’s done to stop it, these perturbations, as Clothahump calls them, will keep getting worse.”

“I see. An’ you and mister Clothyrump aim to try and do something about ‘em? Wot’s behind it, lad? Some kind o’ runaway natural condition?”

“Yes and no. These kinds of changes happen all the time but usually on a much smaller scale and always with far less frequency. The problem is that someone or something is making sure that the cause of all the changes sticks around. Clothahump thinks whoever’s doing it is completely mad.” He nodded in the direction of the mountainous slope with its blighted orchards. “Whoever’s responsible is holed up with the perambulator, the change-inducer, somewhere north of here. That’s where we’re headed.”

Mudge eyed him in disbelief. “North of here? You can’t mean that, mate. You know wot the Plateau country can be like this time o’ year, wot with winter fixin’ to settle in? ‘Tis not a comfortin’ place to be, especially for a poor ‘uman like yourself wot ‘as no fur of ‘is own to protect ‘im from the cold winds and snows.”

“My comfort matters little when considered in the greater context. If this perambulator isn’t freed and its captor challenged, then the world risks permanent perturbation. A little cold will be a trivial danger by comparison. You know how serious it is, because Clothahump’s come all this way.”

“Instead of sendin’ just you, for a change, ‘is magicship ‘is riskin’ ‘is own precious arse, wot? I admit that’s a point, lad.” The stooped otter considered. “A perambulator, eh? So that’s wot’s causin’ all the trouble. And you call wot it’s doin’ ‘perturbing’ things.”

Jon-Tom nodded. “That’s right.”

“Then it’s only right an’ proper that you and ‘is sorceremess be the ones to be ‘untin’ it. I’ve always known old Clothybump to be more than a little permanently perturbed, and I’ve never been too sure o’ you, neither. Well, I expect that you’re doin’ wot ‘as to be done.” He tried to straighten, but his distorted spine fought against the effort. “I’m comin’ along, o’ course.”

“What?” Jon-Tom stared hard at the twisted, furry figure. He must be wrong. This couldn’t be Mudge.

“Aye. As you say, someone ‘as to stop this bleedin’ switchin’ and changin’ from gettin’ any worse. You can use all the ‘elp you can get, especially where you’re goin’. Besides, mate, wot would you do without me to bail you out of a tough spot?”

Jon-Tom had no ready reply. Nor could he mouth one upon a moment’s reflection. The otter’s words were as much of a shock to his system as the sight of the perturbed city. Mudge possessed an extensive and colorful vocabulary, but to the best of Jon-Tom’s knowledge, the word volunteer was as alien to the otter as celibacy.

“I’m not sure,” he finally said slowly. “Are you actually offering to help? Of your own free will? Without having to be coerced by Clothahump or myself?”

“Well, o’ course I am, lad.” Mudge looked hurt, a specialty among his vast repertoire of expressions. “Wot do you take me for?”

“Let’s see.” Jon-Tom ticked them off on his fingers as he recited. “A thief, a wencher, a coward, a scoundrel, a—”

Mudge hastened to interrupt the steady flow of derogatory appellations. “Let’s not be overenthusiastic, mate. O’ course I’m volunterin’. You’re goin’ to need me ‘elp. Neither you nor ‘is wizardship is wot you’d call a master at scoutin’ or fightin’, and that flyin’ bag of feathery booze old hard-shell calls ‘is famulus ain’t much better.”

“We’ve managed to make it this far.” It was Jon-Tom’s turn to be insulted.

“Luck always travels in the company o’ fools, wot? Nonetheless, I’ll come along if you’ll ‘ave me. Wot’s left o’ me, that is.”

The combination of the once vibrant otter’s wrenched appearance coupled with his apparently selfless eagerness to be of assistance caused moisture to begin forming at the corners of Jon-Tom’s eyes. He had to struggle to keep his voice from breaking as he replied.

“Of course, we’ll be glad of your company and your help, Mudge.”

The otter appeared both pleased and relieved. “That’s settled, then.” He nodded toward the mud fountain where Clothahump was engaged in the erection of his sorcerous apparatus, mixing the steady litany of a long spell with selected curses that he heaped on the bumbling, unsteady Sorbl. “Wot’s ‘e up to?”

“I don’t know,” Jon-Tom confessed. “He said that he was going to try to help these people, but he didn’t go into details. You know Clothahump: he’d rather show than tell.”

“Aye. That’s so innocent bystanders like you an’ me don’t ‘ave a chance to get out of the way.”

A few of the blasted inhabitants of Ospenspri had gathered to watch, but all remained on the fringe of the square. Only the aged fox was daring enough to stay and chat with them. Jon-Tom left him conversing animatedly with Mudge and walked over to see if he could help the wizard in his work.

“You certainly can, my boy,” the old turtle told him as he adjusted his glasses on his beak. Jon-Tom started to swing his duar off his back, and the wizard hastened to forestall him. “No, no, I do not have need of your singing. Could you hold this up here?”

Mildly mortified, Jon-Tom bit back the response he wanted to make and took hold of the folding wooden platform, steadying it on the cracked surface of the square. Mudge did not comment on this demotion with the expected flurry of jeers. Perhaps the otter’s disfigurement had sobered him.

He tried to make some sense out of the interlocking platform and failed. “What’s this setup for, anyway?”

Instead of answering, the sorcerer was walking a slow circle around the enigmatic apparatus, studying it intently from every angle, occasionally bending over or kneeling to check its position relative to the hills on the north side of the city. From time to time he would interrupt his circumnavigation to adjust this or that piece of metal or wood, then step back to resume his journey.

Having returned to the precise spot where he’d begun, he turned and marched over to his supply pack. A large box had been removed and now stood next to it. It contained half a dozen drawers. As Jon-Tom watched and struggled to contain his curiosity, the wizard began to mix powders taken from the six drawers in a small bowl. It took only a few minutes. Then he dumped the contents of the bowl into a small, deep metal goblet that hung suspended in the center of the structure Jon-Tom was steadying against the breeze.

“That cloud overhead,” the wizard explained, as though no time at all had elapsed since Jon-Tom had first asked his question, “is the localized center of the disturbance that continues to hold Ospenspri and its population fast in its perturbing grasp. If we can change its composition, not to mention its disposition, back to that of a normal cloud, I believe this also will result in a shift in the perturbation.”

Jon-Tom tilted his head back to gaze up at the threatening mass of black moisture billowing overhead. “How are you going to do that, sir?”

“The best way I know how, my boy, the best way I know how. Hold the platform firmly now.”

Jon-Tom tightened his grip on two of the wooden legs, at the same time frowning at his mentor. “This isn’t going to be dangerous, is it?”

“My boy, would I ever involve you in anything dangerous?” Before Jon-Tom had an opportunity to oifer the self-evident reply, the wizard had launched into a most impressive and forceful incantation, simultaneously passing his hands rapidly over the central goblet as he traced intricate geometric shapes in the empty air.

Harken to me, affronting front.

Winds that linger, false winter solstice.

Prepare to flee, to leave, to shunt

Aside thy paralyzed coriolis.

Disintegrate and break apart the lattice

That maintains thy present cumulostrarus status!

As the wizard recited, the goblet began to jiggle and bounce. Then it broke free of its leather bindings, and instead of falling to the hard ground below, it remained in place, dancing and spinning and beginning to glow. Jon-Tom could feel the powerful vibrations through the supporting sticks. The apparatus seemed far too fragile to contain the rapidly intensifying ramble that was emanating from the base of the goblet, but somehow the aracane concatenation held together.

The goblet was glowing white-hot. The ground began to tremble. He held his position as the few observers who had clumped on the outskirts of the square scattered into the mud huts. The ramble became a deafening roar in his ears. He felt as if he were standing under a waterfall. Clothahump’s words faded into inaudibility.

The wizard abruptly brought both hands together over his head. A small thunderclap rolled across the square. Sorbl was knocked from his perch atop the jeep’s windshield. Jon-Tom gritted his teeth and held on, the concussion making his ears ring, his fingers beginning to go numb.

Through half-closed eyes he saw something bright and shiny rocket skyward from the mouth of the goblet. The whistling sound of the miniature comet’s ascension was quickly swallowed up by the roiling blackness above. Clothahump was shading his eyes with one hand. He spoke absently, clearly concentrating on the place where the shiny object had vanished into the bottom of the great cloud.

“You can let go now, my boy.”

With relief Jon-Tom did so, joining the wizard in gazing skyward while he tried to rub some feeling back into his hands.

The cloud let out a rumble that was a vaster echo of the one the goblet had generated. It was less explosive, more natural, and the sound of it lingered not unpleasantly in the ear. It was preceded by something akin to lightning but not of it, a more benign electrical relative. The pale white pulsation that lit the underside of the cloud spread quickly to its edges. A second rumble came from the far side. It sounded like a question.

“What did you do, sir?”

“The only thing I knew how, my boy, the only thing I knew how.”

“What happens now? Something wondrous and magical?”

“If we’re lucky, yes.”

Unable to keep his head tilted back any longer, Jon-Tom turned his attention to the now-silent jumble of wooden poles and metal strips that had been used to precipitate the glittering whatever-it-had-been into the sky. The leather strips that had originally supported the metal goblet had been vaporized. The goblet itself now lay on the ground, a blob of half-melted pewter. In contravention of every law of physics, the fragile wooden apparatus remained standing. The explosion that had flung the shiny object skyward should have blown the collage of dowels to bits; the heat that had melted the goblet should have fired it like kindling. Jon-Tom shook his head in amazement. Truly Clothahump was a master of elegant supernatural forces.

Mudge, who had limped over to join him, nodded at the construction. “Weird, ain’t it?” His black nose twitched as he leaned toward it. “One o’ these days I ‘ave to ask ‘is conjureness why magic always stinks.”

“Mudge, you could steal the wonder from a fairy castle.”

“Castles stink too; marble floors soak up odors. An’ I’ve met some pretty slovenly fairies.”

Trying to ignore him, Jon-Tom bent over and reached for the goblet. Thunder continued its querulous exhortations overhead, and a prickly dampness could be felt in the air. He touched the melted metal carefully. It was cool against his palm.

Removing it, he turned the barely recognizable lump over in his hands. Not just cool but ice-cold, despite the intense heat it had recently endured. And Mudge was right; there was a peculiar smell attending to the metal. He stuck a finger inside, rubbed it against the bottom of the curve. When he removed it, it was smeared with black and glittering sparkles. He held it to his nose and sniffed.

Mudge made a face. “Wot is it, guv’nor?”

“I’m not sure.” He eyed the sky again. “It smells and looks something like silver iodide. Where I come from, something similar is used for seeding clouds.”

The otter gave him a sideways look. “We seed the ground ‘ere, mate, not the clouds. You’re not makin’ any sense.”

But Jon-Tom knew better. He looked over to where the patiently waiting Clothahump stood motionless, still shading his eyes and inspecting the sky. You clever, sharp old codger you, he thought, and found that he was smiling.

Then something wondrous and magical began to happen, exactly as the wizard had indicated it should, and Jon-Tom found that he was not just smiling, he was laughing. Laughing, and feeling good enough to kick up his feet in a celebratory jig.

It began to rain.

The rumbling from the cloud had sounded querulous at first, then confused, but now it was booming and roaring with unperturbed assurance. He stood there with the rain pelting his upturned face, luxuriating in the clean, pure, undistorted moisture.

Well, maybe just a little distorted.

Mudge grabbed the goblet. “ ‘Ere now, let me ‘ave a sniff o’ that, you dancin’ ape. Something’s not right ‘ere.” He inhaled deeply. Then his eyes grew wide. “Bugger me for a wayward clergyman! That’s brandy, mate, and top-quality stuff too! Maybe there’s a drop or two left in the bottom to whet old Mudge’s whistle, wot?” He started to tilt the melted goblet to his lips.

Jon-Tom quickly snatched it back. “Whoa! Silver iodide’s a strong poison, Mudge. Or maybe it was silver chloride? No matter.” He sniffed himself, looked puzzled. “It’s not brandy, anyway. It’s bourbon.”

The otter leaned forward, and now he looked equally confused. “Peculiar, mate. I get chocolate liqueur this time.”

And Jon-Tom again, “Sour mash—or vodka. Say, what’s going on here?”

Clothahump was trying to keep his glasses dry against the downpour that was soaking them. “It’s none of those, my boy. The particular ingredient to which you refer and which you are having such difficulty identifying is far more basic, not to mention expensive. I would never utilize it so freely were it not for the seriousness of this moment of mercy. It is very scarce, very hard to come by, and very much in demand, and not only by those of us who dabble in the sorcerous arts. We call it Essoob.” He glanced upward again, studying the storm with a critical eye.

It was raining steadily. The thunder had worked itself out, and now there was only the steady patter of rain against the ground. There was no wind and the big drops came straight down.

“Never heard of it,” Jon-Tom confessed.

“Essence of Booze. I determined that we needed not only to prime this particular cloud but to shock it back to normality. I also had to utilize something that would mix well with water.”

Mudge was standing with his head back and his mouth open, swallowing and smacking his lips. “Well, I’ll be a shrew with a migraine! Drink up, mate! We’ll likely never stand in a storm the likes o’ this ever again!” Sorbl, too, was partaking of the alcoholic rain, had been since the descent of the first drops. That explained the owl’s unusual silence, Jon-Tom mused. The famulus was drifting peacefully in some imbiber’s heaven.

Cautiously he parted his lips and sucked in the moisture that was running off his nose. Creme de me’nthe. A second slurp brought home the taste of Galliano, a third of Midori, or something like it.

Enough, he told himself firmly. He was not thirsty and had no desire to be unconscious.

“Oasafin!” Mudge was babbling. “Terraquin. Coosage, guinal, essark, goodmage, sankerberry wine!” The otter was lying on his back in the mud, his arms and legs spread wide but not as wide as his mouth.

And he wasn’t the only one, for the unique properties of the downpour Clothahump had induced had not passed unnoticed among the other inhabitants of Ospenspri. They came stumbling out of their mud and wattle houses, in pairs and trios at first, then in a delighted, exuberant rush. Even those citizens who considered themselves teetotalers participated, for they could hardly pass on such a wonderful piece of sorcerous business and leave it to their less inhibited neighbors to tell them all about it when it was over.

As the aromatic rain continued to fall it began to have an affect on the desiccated trees and shriveled plants. Flowers bloomed from seemingly dead stalks. Bushes put out new, fresh green growth. Up in the ruined orchards the apple and tokla trees straightened; their limbs lifted and erupted in a burst of green. They did not put forth fruit, for it was too late in the season, but next year’s harvest would surely be spectacular.

The rain worked its most wondrous transformation out in the fields of late autumn wheat. The flattened, burned stalks lifted skyward, and the dry heads grew swollen with golden kernels. Not merely gold in color but in promise. Because for months thereafter, any bread baked from that season’s threshing was famed throughout the Bellwoods and even beyond.

Renowned and marveled at, bread and long rolls alike, for their texture and color and most especially of all, the faintly alcoholic flavor each bite imparted to the palate.

Through the rain and the fog that accompanied it, Jon-Tom could witness the transformation of Ospenspri and its inhabitants. The city itself seemed to straighten as it returned to health, buildings and citizens alike drawing strength from the rain and the concomitant metamorphosis of the cloud. As that black mass of moisture lightened, so did the mood of the city and the lands surrounding it. As he stared, Ospenspri changed from an island of devastation and despair to the jewel of the north.

The mud huts vanished, to be replaced by finely wrought structures of hardwood and dressed stone. The mud seemed to dissolve beneath his feet, leaving behind yard-square paving blocks of ocher-streaked white marble. Close by, the mud spring was transformed into a graceful spire of filagreed arches. Water spurted or trickled from dozens of nozzles. Set among the marble sculptures that comprised the fountain were hundreds of the brilliant green garnets called peridots, which gave the square its name.

The storm was beginning to abate, the black cloud to break up. Once the dissolution had begun, it proceeded rapidly. For the first time in weeks the sun shone brightly on the tormented city. The thirsty earth soaked up what precipitation managed to escape the tubs and rain barrels of the inhabitants. Having spent its force, the cloud and the perturbation it had sheltered faded away with equal alacrity.

Nor was the city all that returned to normal. Mudge had straightened and now danced a wild saraband on the marble edge of the towering fountain. But Jon-Tom found his attention drawn to the one citizen of Ospenspri who had greeted them.

No longer crooked and bent, the old fox stood tall and proud before Clothahump. He was bigger than Mudge, and his silver-streaked ears were on a level with Jon-Tom’s shoulders. As both wizard and spellsinger looked on, he performed a deep, profound bow. In place of the dirty rags he’d been wearing when he’d initially approached the visitors, he now wore a splendid suit of dark brown edged with green velvet and fastened with hardwood buttons inlaid with brass. A peculiarly narrow hat of green felt and leather rested between his ears.

“I am Sorenset,” he informed them, “a senior member of the ruling council of Ospenspri.” Another bow toward Clothahump. “We are laid low by the weight of your genius, sir, and raised up again through your timely assistance. I am honored to reflect the glory of the greatest of wizards.”

“The people of Ospenspri have always been famed for the accuracy of their observations,” Clothahump said blithely. “I only did what any traveler of my stature would have done.”

“But which none could do until now.” Sorenset closed his eyes and stared at the sun, luxuriating in its feel against his face. “The curse has been lifted. Ospenspri has suffered before, but such calamities have wrought their damage and then moved on. We began to fear that the black cloud was destined to stay with us forever.”

“It could return, in the same guise or another.”

Sorenset dropped his face and stared at the wizard. “Do not say such things. Have you not banished the cloud?”

“Yes, but not its cause. Until we can do that, no morning will be the same as the one that has preceded it, and none of us can go to sleep with any assurance that we will wake up recognizing what we are. It is to remedy this matter that the three of us have undertaken this journey from our home in the South.”

Sorenset nodded somberly. “Anything that you require that can be found in Ospenspri will be provided. We will help in any way that we can. You have restored our bodies, our city, and our souls.”

He turned toward the beautiful homes and apartments, no longer poor structures of mud and wattle, which fronted on the central square. Laughter, shouts of relief, and other sounds of merriment poured from open windows and doors. The cries might have been deafening except that many of Ospenspri’s restored citizens had ingested too much of the flavorful downpour and now lay savoring their restoration in stuporous slumber on porches and doorsteps, streets and benches.

Mudge leapt off the fountain enclosure and wrapped his arms around Jon-Tom, hooting and barking with delight. Jon-Tom staggered under the weight and collapsed to the ground with the otter on top of him. He wasn’t angry. He could only grin. The otter’s high spirits were infectious. Besides, he’d done more than taste of the alcoholic precipitation himself. He was feeling pleasantly giddy.

As for the wizard’s famulus, Sorbl was flying in tighter and tighter circles around the spire of the fountain, until his wings and coordination finally gave out. Mudge and Jon-Tom had to drag him from the pool.

As befitted their station, Sorenset and Clothahump observed this display of youthful celebration with a tolerant eye. “It appears that it is left to us to proceed with practical matters.”

“I am not displeased,” Clothahump told the fox. “We will not be interrupted with foolish questions. I will lay out our needs for you. They are modest in scope. We will also require proper lodging for the night, assuming any innkeeper has recovered sufficiently to serve us.”

“I know just the place,” Sorenset replied. “The finest establishment in the city. When the owners learn who their guests will be, they will be even more effusive in their praise than I. This I will attend to myself, in the name of the council and the people of a grateful Ospenspri.”

The music that the orchestra was playing for the enjoyment of the diners was soft and light, all flutes and strings. Such sounds ordinarily would have driven a hard-rock guitarist like Jon-Tom from the building. But after all they’d been through on the long journey northward, he found he was glad of the respite from anything harsh, including sounds. He was particularly fascinated by the multireeded flute the bobcat was tootling on and the thirty-stringed lyre the well-dressed gibbon was stroking. The latter made the double strings of his duar seem simple by comparison. But then, the gibbon had arms that trailed on the ground when he walked. No human could match his reach.

On the other hand, he told himself as he regarded his duar fondly, it wasn’t an easy matter to bring forth chords from strings that tended to blur into another dimension when you were playing on them, either.

It seemed that everyone in Ospenspri wanted to thank the city’s saviors personally. Sorenset politely but firmly warded off the multitude of well-wishers, explaining that their visitors were exhausted and still had many leagues to travel.

The deluge of hosannas was mitigated more than a little by the perturbation that struck later that afternoon. It was not as damaging to the spirit as the black cloud and it lasted less than ten minutes, but it was a sobering reminder to all that the world was still a long way from returning to a state of normalcy. Everyone became a multihued butterfly, each building a cocoon of varying size and shape. There was much nervous flapping of brilliantly colored wings before the perturbation ended and the real world returned with a snap.

It certainly took the edge off Clothahump’s achievement. Sorenset no longer had to fend off citizens who wanted to kiss the wizard’s feet.

“Ungrateful wretches.” The turtle sipped his soup. “It’s not enough that for them I turn their town right side up. They want me to tip the world for them.”

“Don’t be too hard on them.” Jon-Tom was finishing his own meal, savoring the subtle spices and the tender meat that now rested comfortably in his belly. After weeks of hasty meals followed by continuous jouncing in the old jeep, the meal at the inn had reminded him that eating could be a delight as well as a necessity. “They don’t understand what’s going on. We’re probably the only ones in the world who do—along with whoever’s restraining the perambulator, of course.”

“Ignorance is no excuse for bad manners,” grumped the wizard. But Jon-Tom had managed to soothe him somewhat.

Sorenset and several other members of the city council joined them at the oval table. A pouty Clothahump allowed Jon-Tom to tell their story and explain what they intended to try. The rulers of Ospenspri listened politely.

“One thing is certain.” The flying squirrel, Talla, was president of the council and wore his medals on the flaps of skin that connected his wrists to his ribs. “The vehicle in which you arrived will not take you where you wish to go. Between here and the northern reaches you will have to climb.”

“What about riding snakes?” Jon-Tom asked.

The squirrel shook his head. “No L’borian could survive the conditions on the Plateau. It’s far too cold.”

“Then we will have to continue on foot.” Clothahump was tapping the table with the fingers of both hands. “A daunting prospect, yet one that does not concern me a tenth so much as whatever we will encounter at the end of our journey.”

“What do you suggest?” Jon-Tom asked again.

Sorenset considered. “Ospenspri is home to many independent transporters. But to go north of the Plateau at this tune of year, I don’t know. All we can do is inquire if any quadruped is willing to undertake such a journey. You will have all the supplies you need, but we cannot compel a citizen to risk a life against his will.”

“Of course not,” said Clothahump.

“I will go and make inquiries right now.” A nervous bandicoot excused himself from the gathering and hurried toward the door.

“Even a single horse willing to carry our supplies would be a great help,” Clothahump said, “though I am not sanguine about one volunteering.”

“What, after you saved the whole city?” Jon-Tom observed.

The wizard gave him a knowing look. “My boy, when you have lived as long as I have, you come to learn that among the virtues, altruism is not the most common.”

The contemplative silence that followed this wise observation was interrupted by a loud smacking sound from the table behind the conference oval. Jon-Tom turned a disapproving eye on Mudge. Only the top of the otter’s head was visible. His face was buried in the midsection of a two-foot-long broiled fish. Jon-Tom tilted back in his chair and whispered.

“Do you have to eat with your mouth open?”

Mudge promptly stopped munching to squint at his friend. Bits of meat and skin hung from his teeth and jaws, and his face was shiny with oil. “Well now, guv’nor, if you can show me ‘ow to eat with me mouth closed, I’ll ‘ave a shot at it. Otherwise, be a good chap and bugger off.” He plunged his face back into the hollowed-out fish and took an enormous bite, loudly crunching up meat, skin, and bones.

“That’s not what I meant.” Jon-Tom struggled to remain patient. “It’s the noise you’re making.”

Again the otter glanced up. “Wot of it?”

“It’s disconcerting. You should eat quietly and chew with your mouth closed.”

Mudge sighed in amazement. “You ‘umans. The notions you come up with. Mate, I couldn’t eat like that even if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Because me mouth ain’t flat against me face like an ape’s, that’s why. ‘Tis easy for you to keep your cud restrained behind your cheeks, but my jaws protrude. See?” He stuck his face close to Jon-Tom’s, and the spellsinger recoiled from the overpowering odor of fish. “The sound comes out both sides o’ me face. Tis a matter o’ design, not preference.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” He sat silently for a moment while the otter resumed gorging himself. His forehead twisted in contemplation, and then he spoke sharply. “Hey, now wait a minute—” He didn’t get the chance to finish the thought. Clothahump was speaking again.

Only, this time the wizard’s words were directed not to the attentive members of Ospenspri’s ruling council but to the newest member of the expedition.

“You.”

Silence. It finally penetrated Mudge’s food-sodden consciousness that everyone was looking at him. He turned, managed to mumble around a mouthful of food.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you, river rat.” Behind the six-sided glasses the wizard’s gaze was intense. Jon-Tom watched with interest. Something serious was up.

Mudge could sense it too. Carefully he positioned the remainder of his fish on its plate and commenced an ostentatious licking of his fingers. “What can I do for your magicness?’’

“Jon-Tom tells me that you have volunteered to accompany us northward to aid us in our endeavor.”

“Urn. Well, if Jonny-Tom says that’s wot I said, then 1 guess I said it.”

Clothahump leaned forward. “I am curious to know why. It is uncharacteristic of you.”

“I’ll let that one by, guv’nor.” He began to preen his whiskers. “It’s like I told Jon-Tom. You ‘elped me like you ‘elped everyone else. I’m meself again. I’d ‘ave ‘ated to ‘ave gone through life bent over under that bloody cloud. You saved me. So I figure I owes you. I couldn’t very well ‘ave continued in me profession all twisted and gnarled like I was.”

“Your profession?” The wizard’s eyebrows would have lifted if he’d had any. “Are you referring to your practice of pickpocketing and general thievery?”

“ ‘Ere now, sir, is that any way to treat an old friend who volunteers ‘is ‘elp out o’ the goodness of ‘is ‘eart to accompany you on a journey no doubt as dangerous as your usual travels? If all you can do is sit there and insult me, maybe I—”

“I do not mean to belittle your generous offer. I merely am trying to define your motives. I suspect you are in this because you sense the scope of the danger and, possessing a crude sort of native intelligence, realize that the safest place to be is as close as possible to me.”

Jon-Tom spoke softly to his friend. “Is he right, Mudge?”

“Mate, you do me a disservice. You both do me a disservice. Seems like every time I volunteers to ‘elp you blokes without regard for the safety of me own person, all you can do is question me motivation. I can’t tell you ‘ow much it ‘urts me.”

“It will hurt you a great deal more if you insinuate yourself into our company only for your own selfish reasons. My concern, however, is not so much with your motivations as with your allegiance once we have reached our destination. I cannot afford to have you running off at a critical moment. I must be able to rely on all my companions.” Before Mudge could prefer the inevitable protest, Clothahump was pointing a heavy finger at him. Behind those thick glasses the wizard’s eyes seemed to have darkened from their natural brown to a deep, glowing crimson.

“Swear, son-of-a-stream, miscreant offspring of a midden maiden, that you come on this journey of your own free will, that you will do what is required of you as a companion in peril, and that you will do so without thought or regard for your own safety, for the good of all the inhabitants of the warmlands.” A red haze had enveloped the table and the awed patrons of the inn. Everyone had turned to watch.

“Swear this to me now, by the blood that flows in your veins, by the intellgence that may hide in your brain, and by the desire that rules your loins.”

“Okay, okay,” said Mudge disgustedly, putting up both paws defensively. “Take it easy! Jump me tail if I don’t think you like overdoin’ these things, Your Wizardship. Be that as it may, I swear.”

The red haze dissipated into the walls of the inn, and Clothahump’s eyes regained their normal placid hue. Satisfied, he settled back into his chair. It was higher than most in order to raise his midsection to table level. He picked up a fork and jabbed at the soggy mass of colorful river-bottom greens that had been served earlier.

“Very well. I accept your oath and your company. Needless to say, the consequences of reneging on your agreement are too horrible to mention.”

“I know.” Mudge sighed. He did not appear in the least upset or, for that matter, impressed. “All that fuss over nothing.” He picked up his fish, was about to bite into it again when Jon-Tom leaned close.

“That’s the first time Clothahump’s made you swear an oath.”

“Wot of it, mate?”

“It doesn’t give you much leeway for slinking off on side trips the way you like to when we’re traveling. You’ll have to toe the line pretty tightly or something dreadful’s likely to happen to you.”

“I know that, lad. Tis no big deal.” He chomped down on the fish. Bones splintered under his sharp teeth.

Still Jon-Tom was not satisfied. “Mudge, this isn’t like you. You’ve changed.”

“Who, me? I ‘aven’t changed a bit, mate. The truth o’ the matter is that I’m bein’ agreeable because it suits me, not old armor-britches over there. I’ve ‘ad a taste or two o’ these perambulations and wot ‘is wizardship says about the safest place in the world bein’ close to ‘is arse is mighty near the truth.”

“I can’t argue with that myself,” Jon-Tom admitted. “It’ll be good to have you with us, especially when we have to confront whoever’s trapped it.”

Mudge paused, the fish halfway to his mouth. “Wot are you babblin’ on about, mate? Once His Magicsty there frees this perbambulator or wotever the ‘ell it is, we can all come a-skippin’ ‘ome safe an’ clear, right?”

“Maybe not. We still have to deal with the instigator of this crisis, and there’s no telling what he, or it, is like or how it’ll react to our attempts to intervene. Freeing the perambulator will assure that the world is saved, but it won’t do anything for us. We still have to get away from whoever’s restrained it. I imagine that psychotic will be more than a little upset when his plans are ruined.”

“I see now.” The otter carefully returned the remnants of the fish to his plate. “I think I’ve ‘ad enough. Nothin’ was said about dealin’ with no psychotic monster once this ‘ere peramutraitor was freed to go on its way.” He started to rise.

Jon-Tom put a hand on one furry shoulder. “Your oath, Mudge.”

“Oath? I don’t recall anything in me oath that says I ‘ave to stay at this table. So if you’ll all excuse me.” He pushed his chair back quickly and made a dignified dash for the bathroom.

Sorbl was sitting on a perch behind the oval conference table. “What’s wrong with the water rat?” He plucked another fried lizard from the brochette stuck into one end of the perch and gulped it down. “Did he eat too fast? He certainly ate enough.”

“I’ve never known Mudge to get sick from overeating,” Jon-Tom told the owl. “I think he’s just realized what he’s gotten himself into, and he’s choking on his oath.”

Sorbl nodded sadly. “Those can be hard to swallow. Few of us truly have the foresight to consider all the consequences of our actions. My signing on as wizard’s famulus, for example.”

“What was that? Did you say something, Sorbl?” Clothahump was glaring up at his apprentice.

“I said that Jon-Tom’s singing was an example to us all, Master.” The owl belched politely and smiled.

V

The inn’s beds were as well prepared as the food, and they all enjoyed their soundest sleep in weeks. As usual, Clothahump was awake and making notes before Jon-Tom arose. Sorenset met them for breakfast. The fox looked tired.

“There is much to be done in the city. Some people are still suffering from the aftereffects of the perturbation, as you call it. Not to mention the aftereffects of that remarkable rainstorm. I have some good news for you. When you have finished your meal, I am to escort you to the transport barracks.”

“You found us a volunteer, then?” Sorenset nodded and Clothahump looked satisfied. “Good. That will speed us up considerably.”

“Not quite a volunteer, exactly.” The fox looked apologetic.

“What do you mean ‘not quite’? Did you find us someone willing to haul our supplies or not?”

“It’s likely. The problem is, I’m not sure you’ll find this particular transporter to your taste. She’s something of an iconoclast, very strong-willed, and apt to cancel a contract at the smell of the slightest ill wind.”

“She?” Clothahump grunted. “No matter. As long as she has a strong back and legs. As for the possibility of some imagined personality conflict, that does not concern me. I am the most agreeable person in the world, quite able to get along with anyone I have to work with.”

A strange noise came from the far side of the table. Clothahump’s gaze narrowed as he eyed his apprentice. “Something in your breakfast not to your liking, Sorbl?”

“Gnuf—no, Master,” the owl managed to choke out. He was holding a thick napkin over his face, though whether to shield his mouth or hide his expression, no one could tell.

“Fine. We must meet this sturdy transporter and settle upon a contract immediately. We’ve no time to waste.”

“But, guv’nor,” Mudge protested, “I ‘aven’t finished me breakfast yet.”

Jon-Tom rose and pulled the otter’s chair away from the table. “Come on, Mudge. You heard Clothahump. The way you’re gorging yourself this morning, you’d think you hadn’t had supper last night.”

The otter wiped at his whiskers. “ ‘Ardly enough to keep a shrew alive. One little fish and I didn’t ‘ave time to finish that proper.”

“The fish was nearly as big as you. Let’s go.”

“Right then, ‘ave it your way.” Grumbling, the otter jumped out of his chair. “But wait until I catch you ‘ungry someday.” He slipped his arrow quiver and bow over his back while Jon-Tom picked up his duar and ramwood staif. Together they followed Clothahump and Sorenset out into the street while Sorbl glided along overhead.

The fox led them past the central square, now restored to its original beauteous state, through busy commercial streets, and into the industrial end of Ospenspri. It took that long for Mudge to cease complaining.

The stables that comprised the transportation barracks were spacious and well maintained, with ample roads between them to allow for the movement of cleaning crews and feed delivery wagons. The buildings were owned, Sorenset told them, by an old and revered family of heavy horses, one of whom sat (or rather stood) on the city council. There were triple-sized stalls available for married teams and families, with quarters to either side for studs and mares.

At the head of each line of stalls was an office where the inhabitants’ business was transacted by hired help. This necessary arrangement was common to the warmlands, for while a percheron could do heavy work all day, managing a ledger with hooves was a next-to-impossible task. So capuchins and baboons and similarly dexterous individuals did the paperwork for them.

Sorenset led them past the fancier accommodations toward the back where a number of less elaborate but still spotlessly clean stalls faced a small stream. Such stable space was usually occupied by free-lancers: those haulers and packers who preferred to work alone rather than in teams. Here hay was more in evidence in the feed delivery bays than oats or alfalfa.

Around a corner and down a pathway shaded by ancient wool wood trees, they found themselves facing a shuttered stall front and door. To the left of the double door was an oversize mailbox, a large round depository whose contents could be removed with equal ease by hands or lips. Above the box was a brass nameplate on which a single name was engraved in incongruously elegant script:

DORMAS.

Sorenset smiled at them before pushing the door-bell button. Something clanged inside, was followed by a deep yet unmistakably feminine voice. It sounded slightly irritated.

“Get lost! I ain’t in the mood.”

Mudge was nodding approvingly. “Ah, a lady after me own ‘eart.”

Sorenset looked embarrassed as he cleared his throat. “It’s me, Sorenset of the council, acting the part of guide.”

“I don’t care if it’s the Grand Randury of the Moshen Theatre Ensemble acting the part of the spasmed duck! I’m not interested in company.” A pause, then, “Oh—wait a minute. I do know you. You’re the one who told me about the southerners trekking north who needed someone to haul for them up onto the Plateau?”

Sorenset fought to retain his dignity as he replied. “I am. Of the city council. Could we come in, please?”

“Suit yourself. Door’s open.”

Sorenset pulled on the latch and swung the heavy wooden barrier aside, held it open while his charges filed through.

Wearing a beige blanket and standing before them was their volunteer. Jon-Tom’s eyebrows drew together as he frowned at the animal.

“You’re not a horse.”

Dormas immediately cocked a jaundiced eye at the fox. “Who’s this fountain of wit?”

“Oh, indeedy, my kind of lady,” said Mudge with a delighted chuckle as he crossed his legs and leaned back against the wall. Sorbl closed the door behind him.

“You’re a mule,” Jon-Tom added.

She turned her gaze from their guide back to him. “You don’t know much of anything, do you, human?” She went on to explain as if to an idiot. “For your information I am not a mule. I am a ninny.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And about time too.” She looked back to Sorenset. “You told me I’d be traveling in the company of wizards and warriors, not idiot children.”

“Now look,” Jon-Tom began, “I don’t think—”

“A mule,” she explained, interrupting him, “is the offspring of a donkey and a horse, or more specifically, of a jackass and a mare. Whereas a hinny is the offspring of a stallion and a female donkey. Either of which is preferable to being the fruit of the union of a couple of hairless apes. The wonder of it is,” she added, looking him up and down, “is that so much could spring from so little effort.”

He made hurried placating gestures. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Quadrupedal biology isn’t one of my specialties.”

“Nor is diplomacy, apparently.”

“I said I was sorry. My name’s Jon-Tom. This is the great wizard Clothahump, his famulus Sorbl, and my friend and traveling companion, Mudge. We’re delighted that you’ve volunteered to help us.”

“Help you, hell.” She snorted once, glanced over at Clothahump. “It’s pretty clear that you’re the leader of this lot of mental defectives, hard-shell or not. The man’s too green, the owl too tipsy, and the water rat has shifty eyes. You’re acclaimed by default.”

“De fault of an unfair fate, I calls it,” murmured Mudge, low enough so that Clothahump couldn’t hear him.

“The fox told me I’d be paid in accordance with the danger involved. With winter threatening to bust open over our heads any day now, that’s danger enough.”

“I concur, and your recompense shall reflect that,” Clothahump told her.

She appeared somewhat mollified by this ready agreement. “Well, that’s better. Didn’t mean to appear contrary.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Sorbl, fluttering his wings. He’d found a proper perch on a crossbeam.”

“Me too,” added Jon-Tom. “I apologize for any offense I may have caused. I assure you it was unintentional. I still have a lot to learn about this world.”

“Urn. I’m Dormas. None of us can help what we are.”

“How’s tricks, good-looking? I’m Mudge.” The otter added a cheery whistle.

“Shifty eyes, but I like you, otter. You don’t walk two inches above the ground.” She shifted her attention back to the council fox. “Get lost, Sorenset. I’ve got dealings to quantify. And thanks for the business. You’ll get your cut later.”

“My cut?” The fox was already retreating toward the door. “Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He bestowed a wan smile on the saviors of the city. “I really do have to run anyway. Good-bye and good luck.” He departed with unseemly haste.

“And now it’s time to settle on a few details,” Dormas said brightly.

“Details? I thought Sorenset had taken care of those,” Clothahump said.

“Naw. Just brought us together, he did. Come in back and let’s sit a spell.”

The back room was a revelation. There was a finely worked straw bed whose contents were obviously changed and scented daily, a gilded water trough, and the usual assortment of equine-type accoutrements. There was also a large amount of artwork, much of it consisting of finely wrought renderings of rolling hills and lush meadows, but also several paintings of mountain scenery. Jon-Tom was particularly taken by one that showed their hostess flanked by a pair of mountain goats. All three had a hoof raised to wave at the recording artist.

“Speed painter did that one for me. What do you think? Not a bad likeness.”

Mudge had strolled over to join Jon-Tom in inspecting the picture. “Looks like it were painted quite a few years ago.”

“Hmph.” Another snort as she turned and walked over to an oversize filing cabinet. Using lips and teeth, she opened the second drawer, sorted through the material inside, and pulled out a sheet of paper as thick as cardboard. This was placed on a nearby desk, between four raised pieces of wood that served to hold it in position.

“I can do moderately well with a toothpen, but anyone with hands and fingers can do better. It’s my standard contract. I’ve already had it modified to reflect our destination. Check it out.”

Clothahump waddled over, adjusted his glasses, and began to read. “I would think, madam, that judging from your age and circumstances, you are hardly in a position to dictate terms.”

“Is that a fact? Now let me tell you something, double-breather. I don’t need this job. I like living back here because this is where my friends are, because I like to look out at the creek, and because I can’t stand the way the swells in the high-rent district put on like their shoes are hammered out of gold. I’ve no need of external ornamentation, either on my body or in my home, to justify my competence to others. I’ve got plenty in the barracks bank, and I don’t ever have to work again unless it suits me. If you think you can do better, go up and down the lines and try to find somebody else to pack your junk up onto the Plateau this time of year.”

“If you’re so well-off,” Jon-Tom asked her, “why’d you volunteer to take us on in the first place?”

“Because, my dough-faced young human, I appreciate what you did in raising the curse from our city, and I believe in what you’re trying to do, according to what Sorenset told me. And unlike most of my colleagues, I have a broad mind as well as a broad back, not to mention a modicum of ethics. I think you deserve help—albeit at a fair price.

“Besides, I can always use some petty cash.” Jon-Tom felt as though he were being lectured by a maiden aunt. “And there’s nothing to hold me here. I like to travel for my own entertainment and elucidation, not just on business. There’s nothing to draw me back here, if this should turn out to be my last gallop. I’m between books.”

“Books? You read a lot, huh?” Jon-Tom asked.

She shook her head. “You have a fine facility for seeking out the inaccurate. I am a writer, and one with quite a reputation. Though you don’t strike me as the type to delve into a heavy romance, especially one featuring four-legged protagonists—though you never can tell about an individual’s reading preferences. I take it you haven’t heard of the authoress Shiraz Sassway?”

“I’m afraid not, though I haven’t had a chance to do much light reading lately,” Jon-Tom told her. “I’ve been studying hard.”

“Shame.” She looked wistful. “I’ll have to give you a copy of my latest when we return. Long-legged Love’s Lust Lost. I’m told it’s very big in the south.”

“Maybe you and I could do some research some time, luv—with other company, o’ course.” Mudge gave her a lecherous wink.

“I don’t do much research anymore, water rat. I draw instead upon previous experiences. I had an industrious youth. It’s all behind me now.”

“I’ll bet it was behind you most of the time,” Mudge put in, making sure he was out of biting range.

It was Clothahump who spoke next, however. “There are more clauses in this one document than in a binding between a witch and its familiar.”

“I’ve been cheated once or twice. Nothing personal, wiz. Don’t you read your contracts?” She looked thoughtful as she enumerated a few favorite phrases. “Packs to be arranged and bound according to my design, not yours. Weight to be predetermined—no last-minute additions, not even a sandwich. The usual hazardous-duty bonus clauses. In return, you get everything I can give. I can carry more than any horse and move faster than any donkey. I can climb grades that would give your average packhorse a stroke on the spot, and I can do it blindfolded if necessary. I can do all that on less food, which I’m not as particular about. Plain wild grains and grasses suit me when I’m packing. I’m a good scavenger, and I can survive on stuff you’d use to brace your house with.

“You’re going north. I can handle the cold better than any horse except maybe a Pryzwalski, and there ain’t any in this neck of the woods. Plus you get the benefit of all my experience. I’ve been around. I’m not citified like some of these tenderfoots who haul produce from door to door out in the suburbs.”

“W’re not exactly innocents abroad ourselves,” Jon-Tom told her.

“Glad to hear it. I’m not in the nursing business, colt. Oh, and one more thing. Absolutely no riding unless someone gets hurt too bad to hoof it. I’m a packer, not personal transport, and I don’t intend to change my ways now. If that’s what you have in mind, you need to move upstall and talk to the Appaloosas and pintos.”

“We’ll walk,” Clothahump declared. “We’ve done so before and we can do so now. There is nothing wrong with our feet, albeit that we are reduced to traveling on two instead of four. I promise you that you will only be required to haul our supplies. We will haul ourselves.” He indicated the contract.

“But before I put my name to this, I must in turn be certain of your commitment. We may well find ourselves in mortal danger at the hands of an opponent whose face and name remain a mystery to us and whose motivation is driven by an unknown madness. In addition we must somehow deal with an incredibly powerful and dangerous phenomenon that is not of this universe. Issues of great gravity are at stake here. We will in all likelihood have to face dangerous moments together, and at such times we must stand as one. I cannot have any member of our small party backing out at such times, whether for personal reasons or because of some footnote on a piece of paper.”

Dormas drew herself up until she looked every bit as proud as an Arabian. “I won’t be the one to break when push comes to pull and the Black Wind threatens to sweep us away. You can rest assured on that.” Her dark eyes swept over them to settle on Mudge. “What about you, otter? You’re not afraid?”

Mudge had resumed his place against the wall. He’d appropriated a sliver of straw from the Hinny’s bed and was chewing on it as he examined the claws of his right paw.

“Well now, lass, actually I’m terrified out o’ me gourd. But I’ve seen wot ‘Is Socerership can do, as well as me not-too-bright but well-meanin’ spellsinger friend ‘ere, and I ‘ave confidence in the both o’ them. This perambulator’s perturbin’ strikes me as a worldwide problem. Since there ain’t no runnin’ aways from it, I figure we might as well ‘ave a try at puttin’ it right. I’ve been through this sort o’ thing with this one”—and he jerked a thumb in Jon-Tom’s direction—”a couple o’ times previous. Not that I’m gettin’ used to ‘avin’ me precious self regularly threatened with dismemberment, but I ain’t surprised when somethin’ takes a try at it.

“See, I’m beginnin’ to feel that me fate is some’ow bound up with this ‘ere spellsinger chap and that I might as well trot along with ‘im. You know, sort of like bein’ in an accident where two wagons smash into one another at this intersection, and the owners can’t get themselves untangled?”

“That’s not a very sweet metaphor, Mudge,” Jon-Tom groused.

“It ain’t a very sweet relationship, mate.” He turned back to Dormas. “Anyways, seein’ as ‘ow there ain’t no place to run to for gettin’ away from the effects o’ this perambudiscombobulator, I figure I might as well tag along. Maybe there’ll be some profit in it, wot?”

“I see. Strong feelings are involved as well as strong reasons. I like that. Hand me that pen there, in the wall holder.”

Clothahump passed it over. Taking it in her teeth, she signed the contract with an unexpected flourish. The wizard nodded approvingly. Then he touched his signet ring to the blank place below her name, leaving behind the imprint of a turtle shell cut by a large letter C.

Dormas studied the signet admiringly. “A neat trick.”

“Cheaper than buying new pens,” the wizard told her. “I’d have one made up for you and sell you the necessary permanent ink spell, but your hoofprint would cover half the page. Your solicitor wouldn’t like that. He’d have less room to complain in the margins.”

She smiled, deposited the contract in a drawer, and closed it with a nudge of her muzzle. “Really, I’m not as cantankerous as I seem. On the trail you’ll find me an agreeable and pleasant companion.”

“Another one like ‘Is Magicness,” Mudge whispered to Jon-Tom. “Spirits preserve us!”

“When do we start climbing?”

“Tomorrow morning, if you are amenable.”

“Fine. I’ll be up with the sun. We can pack and be off fast.”

“Another go-getter,” Mudge muttered glumly. “Won’t I ever fall in with sensible folks wot knows ‘ow to take their time and their lives easy?”

“It’s pretty hard to relax when the stability of the entire world is at stake, Mudge.”

The otter stretched and yawned. “I don’t know as ‘ow it’s all that stable now, mate. Not that it matters very much. You know what they say: ‘Everyone’s crazy but me and thee, and I ain’t so sure about thee.’’

Jon-Tom studied him with a shrewd and familiar eye. “All that blather about your duty to Clothahump and your fellow beings—you’re really coming along to protect youself, aren’t you?”

“I never denied that were part o’ the reason behind me decision, guv. Anyways, things are slow ‘ere in Ospenspri, especially since that cloud come over the city, and you know ‘ow quickly yours truly can get dead-bored. Leavin’ aside ‘ow ‘ard it is to ‘old a set o’ dice properly when your back’s all bent out o’ shape.”

“I might have guessed. You wouldn’t be coming along if you weren’t broke as well as worried about your own skin.”

Mudge winked at him. “Mate, I wouldn’t go to a friend’s funeral if I didn’t think I’d ‘ave a shot at the ‘ankerchief concession. You know me that well, at least.”

“I guess I should be relieved. For a while there I wondered if the perturbation had affected your brain as well as your body.”

“Wot, me? Why, lad, old Mudge is as sturdy as the mountains, as free-runnin’ as the river Tailaroam, and as steady as the ground under our feet.”

At that moment the ground beneath their feet vanished. So did the sky above. Jon-Tom observed that he was floating in slighty murky blue-green water, staring at something that looked like a small barracuda. Off to his right was a bloated sunfish. Next to it drifted an armored throwback to the time when fish comprised the planet’s dominant life-form.

For a moment he struggled to catch his balance. He relaxed when it became clear that he was neither sinking nor drowning. He flexed his fins experimentally; first the dorsal, then the lateral, ventral last of all. The piscean analogs of Mudge, Dormas, and Clothahump stared back at him.

A new arrival zipped past his face. It was small, brightly colored, and fast. It began swimming rapid circles around Clothahump. “This is a bit much,” said the Sorbl-fish.

“Try to be calm,” Jon-Tom advised him. “We’ve been through worse.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sorbl shot back. “The master spends much time in water, and likewise your otterish friend, but I’m used to spending my time above the surface, not beneath it.”

“You think you’re the only one who’s stuck with a difficult psychological adjustment? I’m not exactly aquatic by nature, let alone by design, and Dormas even less so.”

“But you have been in water before,” the blue-striped darter protested. “I have cousins who have—cormorants and ducks and such—but I’ve never been beneath the waves in my life. I find it exceedingly distressing.”

“Oh, don’t put on such a show, you feathered twit!” This from the immediately recognizable floating version of Mudge. “I’ think I’m comfortable with fins instead o’ feet? Besides, if this ‘ere ocean were colored amber instead o’ blue-green, you’d probably feel right at ‘ome since you spend ‘alf your time moonin’ about near the bottom o’ a bottle, anyways.”

“I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown and he adds insults,” grumbled the apprentice.

“Take it easy.” Jon-Tom spoke absently, fascinated by the alien environment in which he found himself. “The perturbation will end soon enough.”

“Oh, it will, will it? You’re certain of that, are you? Are you going to spellsing it back to reality with that fine instrument you’re carrying?”

Jon-Tom noted that where his duar ought to have hung there was only a broad strip of olive-green seaweed.

“Or,” Sorbl continued, “is the Master going to return the world to normal again by means of his potions and spells? Remember what happened to Ospenspri. If it has happened again, but differently this time, we will remain in this wet, stifling water world forever, locked into the forms we presently are inhabiting.” He darted through the water, zipping around Clothahump, then Mudge and Dormas.

“I don’t care what anyone says. It’s not like flying. It’s like—”

Before Sorbl had a chance to explain what it was like, a by now familiar snap took place somewhere in the vicinity of Jon-Tom’s optic nerves. His fins were gone and he was standing, as before, on the floor of Dormas’s stall. The hinny blinked at him, then at Clothahump. Mudge stumbled but caught himself before he fell. Sorbl was not so fortunate. He’d been racing wildly through the water when the perturbation ceased and had crashed headfirst into the wall. Now he sat on the floor, his great golden eyes half closed, holding the top of his head with the tips of both wings. But he was smiling through the pain. He had wings again, and the only water in sight occupied the lower portion of Donnas’s drink-big basin.

“I warned you,” said Clothahump evenly. “These perturbations can be dangerous even when they do not become permanent. During a change it is important not to make any sudden moves or take any risks. I think you will all agree that the reason for demonstrating such caution is self-explanatory.” He gestured to where Sorbl was climbing unsteadily to his feet. “Thank you for the example, famulus.”

“You can take your example,” Sorbl started to say, but wisely chose not to finish the suggestion.

“We have been further enlightened, and everything is settled,” the wizard concluded. He extended a thick hand. Donnas nudged it, and the bargain was sealed.

“Tomorrow morning, early,” she reminded them. “Where’re you staying?”

Clothahump gave her the name of the inn. “We will want to pack and be on our way immediately after breakfast.”

“Suits me fine, hard-shell.”

“I am looking forward to a fruitful collaboration and the eventual success of our mutual enterprise.”

“And I’m looking forward to using the John,” she replied. “So if you boys will excuse me?” She turned and moved toward a curtained partition near the back of the room.

Thus dismissed, they left to return to their own accommodations, to prepare themselves for the long, difficult climb that would begin when they bade farewell to Ospenspri on the morrow. By now the descriptions of the city’s saviors had been widely circulated among the citizenry, and they found that they were the center of polite attention as they strolled up the busy streets.

Most of it was focused on Clothahump, whose shell seemed to swell as he soaked up the stares and the occasional mild applause. The wizard wasn’t one to shrink from the opportunity to bask in the glow of his own radiance. Sorbl drifted along overhead, flying a straighter course than usual, sobered by his recent brief incarnation as a subsurface water dweller. So Mudge was able to sidle up close to Jon-Tom to chat without fear of being overheard.

“Tell me true, mate; wot do you think our chances are?”

“Chances of wot—I mean, of what, Mudge?”

“Don’t play games with me, lad. We’ve been through too much together. You know wot I means. Our chances o’ goosin’ this perbabutater, or wotever it turns out to be, back to where it belongs?”

“According to Clothahump it will leave of its own accord once the restraints restricting its movement have been removed. The danger we face is from whoever is keeping it trapped in our world. Since I’ve no idea what we’re up against there, I can’t very well tell you what the odds are of our defeating it.”

Mudge looked crestfallen. “I can always depend on you for encouragement and succor, mate.”

“We’ll make out all right, Mudge. We always have.”

“That’s wot worries me. I keep worryin’ that the police are goin’ to catch up with me one o’ these days. Or an old lover. Or someone who lost to me at cards. But the thing I worry most about catchin’ up with old Mudge is the bloody law o’ averages, and I fear that on this trip it may be dogging me tail a mite too near for comfort.”

“Come on. Where’s the optimistic, always cheerful Mudge I know best?”

“Back down the road to Lynchbany about a hundred leagues or so.”

“Consider this: On our previous journeys we’ve had to deal with whatever danger threatened us by ourselves. Clothahump’s with us this time. Between his knowledge and my spellsinging we can handle anything that’s thrown against us.”

“Some’ow that don’t inspire me confidence, mate.” Mudge was silent for a long moment, then jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Wot about our ladyship back there? She appears to ‘ave as strong a back as she does a tongue, but she’s gettin’ on in years. We’ll find ourselves in a fine pickle if the old tart ups and quits on us in the middle o’ the back o’ beyond. I’m not one for haulin’ a pile o’ supplies up a steep grade.”

“Dormas will be fine. And we’re all getting on in years, Mudge.” Jon-Tom spoke from the rarefied heights of one who has yet to turn twenty-five. “I’ve found that this world tends to age you rapidly.”

“It does if you lead the kind o’ life we’ve led this past year or so,” Mudge readily agreed. “I expect you’re right about the old darlin’, but I can’t ‘elp wishin’ we ‘ad a bit more o’ the mundane ‘elp o’ extra arms and fighters. Pity you can’t run out and find that dragon friend o’ yours.”

“What, Falameezar? The last time I saw him he was swimming steadily southward from Quasequa. You know how far that is from here. And he wouldn’t do too well up in the Plateau country. He likes warm water and warmer air, and from what Clothahump’s told me of where we’re headed, we’re going to find precious little of either.”

“Cold won’t bother me. We otters are as at ‘ome in cold temperatures as hot. ‘Tis you I worry about, lad.”

“Why, Mudge? I appreciate the concern.”

“Concern, ‘ell. If your buns freeze to the ground, that’s one less sword arm I’ve got standin’ at my side, not to mention the loss o’ your spellsingin’, which some’ow does seem to work from time to time. You ‘aven’t a bit o’ decent fur on you to protect you from the cold.”

Jon-Tom stared straight ahead. “I’ll be okay as long as we beat the onset of winter in the mountains.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then you can haul my frozen carcass back here, dump it in a hundred-gallon martini, and drink to my demise. You worry too much. I feel as strong as an ox.”

“Aye, and with a brain to match. I wish I were feelin’ as well meself.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m just not feelin’ meself is all.”

“It couldn’t have anything to do with your life-style by any chance?”

“I admit that ‘as occurred to me, mate. So I’ve decided to cut down on wenchin’, eatin’, and drinkin’.”

“Your timing’s good. You won’t have the chance to indulge to excess on any of those on this trip.”

“Aye, that’s me point. That’s why I don’t feel well. Because I’m goin’ to ‘ave to cut down on wenchin’, and eatin’—”

“And drinking,” Jon-Tom finished for him, shaking his head. “And I thought there might be something seriously wrong with you.” Disgusted, he increased his stride.

“Why, mate,” Mudge asked, looking honestly puzzled as he hurried to keep up with his tall friend, “wot could be worse than that?”

“Than what?” Jon-Tom snapped at him.

“Than moderation o’ course.”

VI

True to her word, Dormas not only kept up with them as they left Ospenspri behind the following morning but, despite her heavy load, was impatient to take the lead. So frequently did she make the request that Clothahump had to remind her of his own advanced age and of the fact that two legs, no matter how strong, could never keep pace with four.

Jon-Tom was sure she was showing what she could do if she wanted to, in order to establish herself as a qualified member of the expedition right from the start. In any case, after the first long, hard day of walking, there were no more comments about her age or hauling ability from Mudge or anyone else. Jon-Tom recalled her initial reaction when they’d finished loading her outside the inn.

“Is that all? Hell, you boys don’t need a hinny to haul this stuif for you. A couple of pack rats would’ve done as well.”

Despite her admonition against riding, she did allow Sorbl to rest from time to time atop the uppermost sack. Resting, she explained, was not riding. Jon-Tom got a kick out of watching the owl bob back and forth atop the mountain of supplies, clinging to a strap with his clawed feet and looking like nothing else but a feathered hood ornament. He would ride that way for a moment or two before rising toward the clouds to resume his aerial patrol of the terrain below.

Donnas’ s endurance had a salutary effect on Clothahump’s companions as well. They were spared the usual unending litany of complaints about the wizard’s sore feet, his rheumatism, and the weight of his shell. Instead, he held his peace, ground his beak in silence, and said nothing as they traversed the difficult places. Jon-Tom was glad of his long legs. Mudge possessed neither long legs, wizardry determination, wings, or an extra pair of walking limbs. He compensated for these deficiencies with typically unflagging otterish energy.

North of Ospenspri the woods were mostly uninhabited. As they climbed higher they began to lose the Belltrees themselves, along with the more familiar oaks and sycamores. Evergreens took their place. Jon-Tom thought he recognized sugar and pinon pine as well as blue spruce. There were also more exotic varieties, including one stalwart growth whose three-inch-long needles were as sharp as a porcupine’s quills. Mudge identified the most dangerous growths and led his companions carefully around them. They couldn’t harm the armored Clothahump, but a casual misstep could turn any of the rest of the marchers into green pincushions.

With Sorbl scouting overhead and Clothahump relentless in his examination of the forest floor, Jon-Tom found he was able to relax and enjoy the hike. The evergreens, the bare rock, the pinecones that littered the ground reminded him of Oregon or Montana.

As they climbed out of the lowland forest onto the Plateau, he amused himself by kicking twigs and pinecones out of their path. He was about to boot aside a particularly large cone when he found himself knocked to the ground. He rolled over, furious and confused.

“What’s the big idea, Mudge?” The otter had tackled him from behind. Carefully he checked his precious duar, let out a sigh of relief when he’d concluded his anxious inspection. “You could have busted this!”

“Better it than you, mate.” The otter nudged the feather that adorned his cap back over his head. It had fallen forward over one eye when he’d jumped at Jon-Tom’s legs. Clothahump, Sorbl, and Dormas stood nearby, watching.

Mudge indicated the huge pinecone, careful not to touch it. “Wot about you, Your Wizardship? You recognize this charmin’ little gift o’ the forest primeval?”

Clothahump squinted through his glasses at the seemingly innocent cone that lay in the middle of the path. “Your eyes are as sharp as your tongue, river rat.” He lifted his gaze to Jon-Tom. “You should be thanking your friend instead of shouting at him.”

“For what?” Jon-Tom was still irritated, still saw no reason for the abruptness of the otter’s action. After all, it was only an ordinary—

He halted in mid-thought. He’d learned little enough of this world in the time he’d been marooned in it, but one thing he had learned early on was that there was little in it that could be defined as ordinary.

“Everybody loves pine nuts. Some o’ me near relations will do just about anything for a handful.” Mudge stood surveying the cone. “I’ve been nibblin’ on ‘em meself as the occasion permitted. ‘Tis a fine and ‘andy snack for travelers in a ‘urry like ourselves.”

Jon-Tom was brushing dirt from the sleeves of his indigo shirt. “What’s so special about this one?”

“The trees ‘ave their ways o’ makin’ sure that at least some of the seeds they scatter aren’t disturbed by ‘ungry passersby, mate, be they intelligent like meself or dumb like the forest browsers and yourself.” Leaning forward, he slowly inspected the cone from every conceivable angle before gingerly picking it up in both hands. Turning, he showed it to the others, handling it as delicately as a hollow egg.

Jon-Tom leaned close. “Looks like a normal pinecone to me.”

“O’ course it does, lad. ‘Tis supposed to. But look ‘ere.” He pointed with a finger, not touching the cone. “See there? The top ring o’ seed covers is missin’, wot? It didn’t get knocked off in the fall, and it weren’t eaten by some traveler. The tree pulled it out when it dropped the cone.”

“I still don’t understand. So what?”

“So this is wot, mate. Wot ‘appens if you picks it up and tries to make a meal o’ its seeds or kicks it playful like.” He turned, drew back his arm, and threw the cone as far as he could over a pile of boulders.

There was a second of silence followed by a substantial explosion. Jon-Tom flinched. Orange flame seared the sky, shadowed by black smoke. As the smoke began to dissipate Mudge turned to face him, paws on hips.

“Just a discouragin’ shock to the would-be seed-eater. It would’ve blown your bloomin’ leg off, mate.”

“I—I didn’t know, Mudge.” His throat was dry as he stared at the fading smoke. “It’s a damn good thing the pinecones on my world aren’t like that.”

Mudge resumed the march, falling in step behind Clothahump and Dormas. “Oh, I expect there’re some like that everywhere, lad.”

“No, you’re wrong about that. I’ve never heard of anyone being killed by an exploding pinecone.”

The otter cocked a challenging eye at him. “Don’t you ‘ave curious folk wot goes a-travelin’ through woods like these and never comes out again?”

“Of course we do. But they perish from hunger or thirst or snakebite or something like that. Not from stepping on exploding pinecones.”

“ ‘Ow do you know, mate, if you never find ‘em?”

“We find most of them.”

The otter was persistent. “But wot about those who just up an’ disappear?”

“Well, they’re presumed to have fallen off a mountainside or died in a cave or something.”

“Ha! ‘Ow does you find the pieces o’ someone who’s been blown to bits in a heavily wooded area? The scavengers would clean up wot didn’t get vaporized.”

Jon-Tom lifted his eyes to stare resolutely straight ahead. “This is a ridiculous conversation, and I refuse to continue with it.”

“Are there lots o’ pine trees in your world, mate? Trees like this?”

“Mudge”—Jon-Tom sighed—”there are millions of them, and many of them have been cut down en masse for lumber and such. I never heard of anyone being blown up while working as a logger.”

“D’you think the trees are bleedin’ stupid? They know they can’t stop a whole lot o’ folks workin’ in unison. So they tries to pick ‘em off one at a time when nobody else is around to see.”

“I’m not listening to this anymore!” So saying, he stepped off to one side and began picking the occasional ripe redberry, popping it angrily into his mouth. The tart juice did nothing to sweeten his disposition. A quick glance showed Clothahump smiling at him, and that made him even angrier.

Exploding pinecones! Inimical pine trees! The whole business was absurd. Clothahump and Mudge were having fun at his expense. There were no such mutated monstrosities on his world. Of course people disappeared in the forest, in places like Oregon and Montana. People who were stupid enough to go tramping through the wilderness all by their lonesome. They deserved to stumble over a cliff, or into an unswimmable river, or . . .

To trip over an explosive pinecone?

It was too bizarre a notion to countenance.

Nonetheless, this was not his world, and he refrained from kicking any more fallen cones as they trudged onward. One fell from an overhanging branch, making him jump. Mudge started to giggle, stifled it, and hid his face when Jon-Tom threw him a murderous look. He picked the cone up and turned it over. The top ring of seed shells was present. Fortunately.

He tossed it angrily aside. When he got home, he’d dispose of this stupid theory during his first visit to the mountains.

He just wouldn’t kick any cones first, he told himself thoughtfully.

Evening revealed an unexpected talent on the part of their tireless packer. In addition to an acerbic wit and strong back, it also developed that Dormas was the owner of a superb, lilting soprano voice. Not to mention a lifetime of songs and ballads, which she proceeded to deliver to them while seated around the fire. Enthusiastic applause punctuated the conclusion of the impromptu recital. The hinny looked away, unexpectedly embarrassed.

“I don’t do it often,” she told them, “but frankly, you lot bore me, and I’d rather hear myself sing than listen to you babble.”

“I’d rather listen to you sing too,” Jon-Tom told her. Then he frowned. Something was not right. Not radically wrong but not right, either. “Odd. I feel peculiar all of a sudden.” He held up a hand. His hand, definitely, and yet—somehow changed.

“Another perturbation.” Sorbl spoke from his evening perch in a nearby tree and he, too, did not sound quite right. Jon-Tom let his gaze wander around the firelit circle.

There was Sorbl, the same and yet not. There Mudge, also somehow subtly different. What kind of perturbation was this? And still the peculiar softness that had come over him.

Not quite like an upset stomach. Something more complete, less transitory. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Then he did put his finger on it, in several places.

“Oh, my God.” He looked anxiously up at Clothahump. “This is one change that better not last too long.”

“I have been taking note of the most recent alteration with a great deal of interest.” The wizard’s appearance had changed only slightly. His voice, however, had undergone the same kind of shift as Jon-Tom’s. It was still penetrating, still authoritative, but an octave higher.

Moans came from Mudge and then Sorbl as they discovered the nature of the latest outrage perpetrated by the perambulator upon their personal reality.

“It is not nearly as radical a change as many we have previously experienced,” Clothahump calmly pointed out. “Some perturbations result in changes far more subtle than others.”

Dormas was studying her altered physiognomy intently. “Fascinating. I always wondered what it would be like. Seems kind of clumsy, though. I wouldn’t want it to be permanent, either.”

“The degree of change varies according to the species, of course,” the wizard reminded them all.

“This is what you call a ‘subtle’ perturbation?” Jon-Tom barely recognized the voice that spoke as his own.

There was nothing complex or indeterminate about this latest perturbation. The effects were quite clear. Each and every one of them had shifted sex. Without warning the hopeful expedition had become a quartet of ladies accompanied by a single male.

“When’s it goin’ to change back?” Mudge was moaning. Squeaking, rather, in his new, high voice. “ Tis only another temporary change. Ain’t that right, Your Sorcerership?”

“There is no way of telling how long this particular perturbation will last, Mudge. No way at all.” Jon-Tom noted that the pattern of red on his shell had changed to a distinctive mauve.

“It bloody well better not last long. Damn lucky we ain’t in Ospenspri. I couldn’t show me face, I couldn’t.”

“Something wrong with being female, water rat?” said Dormas in a tone that was all stallion.

Jon-Tom tried to ignore his own voice as he explained. “You’d have to know Mudge better to understand what he’s going through right now, Dormas. I’m afraid this particular metamorphosis has hit him harder than any of us.”

“Come on, Your Lordship.” The otter was pleading with Clothahump. “We saw wot you did back in Ospenspri, changin’ that black cloud an’ all. Couldn’t you work just a wee bit o’ magic and put us right? I don’t know as ‘ow I can ‘andle this for very long. I’ve a weak constitution, I do.”

“It is not a life- or even situation-threatening perturbation,” Clothahump declared formally. “Hardly worth the danger entailed by a serious conjuration. You will just have to be patient, like the rest of us, and wait for the change back to occur naturally.”

“Aye, but wot if it don’t? Wot if it takes days, or even weeks? Cor, I can’t stay like this for weeks.” He turned on Jon-Tom. “Wot say, mate? Use your duar there to sing us a change-back song, will you? Just one little ditty?”

“I’m no more comfortable in this guise than you are, Mudge, but I agree with Clothahump. It’s not worth chancing any dangerous spells.” A sudden thought had him grinning. “Just sit back and enjoy the fire—beautiful.”

Mudge didn’t find the suggestion funny. “Look, mate, a joke’s a joke, but this ain’t amusin’.”

“Amusing? I’d say it’s more like poetic justice. Who says fate has no sense of humor?”

“I’m warning you, you skinny ape. Watch it or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what? Scratch my eyes out?”

The otter growled and yanked his hat down sharply over his ears (or was it her ears?). His hat had changed along with his more personal accessories. Just as Jon-Tom’s had. Actually, he thought the dress he was now clad in rather attractive.

It is truly astonishing, he told himself, the situations that a sense of humor can carry one through.

The effects of the perturbation were most obvious in Mudge and himself, for in Clothahump, Sorbl, and Dormas’s species, the differences in appearance between male and female were not nearly so striking. Mudge continued to try to retreat into his hat, which had turned into a frilly broad-brimmed chapeau that might have been borrowed from some petite southern belle.

“Please do somethin’,” the otter whined, in a tone so pitiful Jon-Tom was moved to look hopefully at Clothahump.

“I could try, sir. It might be a good idea for me to make a stab at reversing the effects of one of these shifts when the change involved isn’t quite as severe as it might be.”

The wizard looked thoughtful. “Very well, my boy. But do be careful. It is not inconceivable that a badly thrown spell might make things worse.”

“ ‘Ow could things be any worse?” Mudge wanted to know. “Wot could be worse than this?”