increased his pace.
"Uh, 'ere now, mate, maybe we'd all be better off
walkin' after all."
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THE DAY or THE DISSONANCE
247
"Nonsense. We are still not far enough away from
Hathcar's troop to chance slowing down."
"That's debatable. Besides, there's no need for you to
keep on carryin' us about like this. Don't want to make
you uncomfortable or nothin'."
"It sounds to me as though you are the one who is
feeling uneasy, otter."
"Wot, me? Not me, guv'nor. It's just that I—"
"What's wrong with you, Mudge?" Jon-Tom asked
him. "I thought you'd be glad of the chance to rest your
precious feet."
"Relax, otter," the stallion said. "You are not my type.
Now if you happened to be a Percheron, or a Clydesdale,
or maybe a shire..." He let the images trail off.
"If you have to worry about something, think about
Hathcar," Jon-Tom instructed the otter.
Mudge did so, though he still kept a wary eye on their
mount. Later, his confusion was broken by the sound of
distant thunder. Or perhaps it was only a bellow of
outrage.
Silky's parents kept the money already paid to them by
Hathcar, and as Jon-Tom surmised, the cuscus did not try
to take it back by force from the heavily defended town.
There seemed no way for him to vent his rage and
frustration until it occurred to him that since the girl had
truly done her best, if anything she actually deserved a
bonus.
So it was that while Silky did not get her much-desired
candy, she was the only girl in the village who could look
forward to the coming winter confidently, clad as she was
in her brand-new wolfskin coat.
The travelers stopped in late afternoon. The roast that
Mudge had risked his life to salvage was almost gone, but
Roseroar soon brought in enough fresh food for all. Drom
nibbled contentedly at a nearby field of petal pedals. Each
blue-and-pink flower produced a different musical note
when it was munched.
Mudge ate close to Jon-Tom. "Don't it bother you,
mate?"
"Don't... doesn't what bother me?"
The otter nodded toward the unicorn. " 'Im."
Jon-Tom bit into his steak. The meat was succulent and
rich with flavor. "He saved us once and might save us
again. As for his personal sexual preferences, I could care
less. He'd be downright inconspicuous on Hollywood
Boulevard."
"Well, maybe you're right. Now, me, I knew it from
the first. The way 'e minced out of the woods toward us."
Drom overheard, lifted his muzzle, and said with digni-
ty, "I do not mince, otter. I prance." He looked at
Jon-Tom. "You really believe your former acquaintances
will beat you to Crancularn and to the medicine you have
come for?"
"I hope not, but I fear it. They stole our only map."
"That is a small loss. Do not regret it." The unicorn
crunched a clump of purple ortnods with petals the shade
. of enameled amethyst. The flowers hummed as they were
consumed. "I can guide you there."
"We were told it moves around."
"Only in one's imagination. There are those who stum-
ble through it without seeing it, or circle 'round it as if
blind. So they say it has moved. It does not move, but to
find it you must wish to. I know. I was told by those who
could know. I will lead you to Crancularn."
"That's bleedin' wonderful," Mudge confessed aloud.
He was mad at himself. There was no reason for him to be
nervous or wary in the unicorn's presence. Drom was a
likable chap, wasn't he, and Mudge didn't look in the least
like a shire horse, did he? And hadn't he always been told
never to look a gift unicorn in the mouth? He was upset
with himself.
Hadn't the four-legs carried himself and Jon-Tom all this
way from Hathcar's territory without complaining? Why,
with him galloping along and the rest of them taking turns
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Alan Dean Poster
riding him, they might yet overtake that prick Jalwar and
his whore of a helpmate Folly.
They made rapid progress westward, but still there was
no sign of their former friends.
When they finally found themselves on the outskirts of
Crancularn itself, Jon-Tom found it hard to believe. He'd
half come to think of the town as existing only in
Clothahump's imagination. Yet there it was.
Yes, there it was, and after too many close calls with
death, after crossing the Muddletup Moors and the Glittergeist
Sea and innumerable hills and vales, he was more than a
little discouraged by the sight of it.
The setting was impressive enough: a heavily forested
slope that climbed the flank of a slowly smoking volcano.
The town itself, however, was about as awe-inspiring as
dirty, homey Lynchbany. Tumble-down shacks and ram-
shackle two-and three-story buildings of wood and mud
crowded close to one another as if fearful of encountering the
sunlight. A dirty fog clung to the streets and the angular,
slate-roofed structures. As they headed toward the town, a
familiar odor made his nostrils contract: the thick musk of
the unwashed of many species mixed with the stink of an
open sewer system. His initial excitement was rapidly
fading.
Massive oaks and sycamores grew within the town
itself, providing more shade where none was required and
sometimes even shouldering buildings aside. Jon-Tom was
about to ask Drom if perhaps they might have come to the
wrong place when the unicorn reared back on its hind
hooves and nearly dumped him and Mudge to the ground.
Roseroar snarled as she assumed a defensive posture.
Coming straight at them, belching smoke and bellowing
raggedly, was a three-footed demon. A rabbit rode the
demon's back. This individual wore a wide-brimmed felt
hat; a long-sleeved shirt of muslin, open halfway; and a
short mauve skirt similar to the kilts favored by the
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
249
intelligent arboreals of this world. His enormous feet were
unshod.
The demon slowed as it approached. Jon-Tom drew in a
deep breath as it stopped in front of him and hastened to
reassure his companions. "It's all right. It can't harm
you."
"How do yo know, Jon-Tom?" Roseroar kept her hands
on her sword hilts.
"Because I know what it is. It's a Honda ATC Offroad
Three-wheeler." He admired the red-painted demon. "Au-
tomatic too. I didn't know Honda made an ATC with
automatic."
"Funny name for a demon," Mudge was muttering.
"Hiya," said the rabbit cheerfully, revving the engine.
"Can I help you folks?"
"You sure can." Jon-Tom pointed at the ATC. "Where'd
you get that?"
The rider raced the motor and Drom shied away. "From
the Shop of the Aether and Neither. Where else?"
Jon-Tom felt a burst of excitement. Maybe Clothahump
was right. The inexplicable presence of the ATC in this
world was proof enough that powerful magic was at work
here.
"That's where we want to go."
"Figures," said the rabbit. "Nice of you to drop in. We
don't get a lot of visitors here in Crancularn. For some
reason, travelers avoid us."
"Might be your wonderful reputation," Mudge told
him.
The rabbit eyed them appraisingly. "Strangers. Don't
know if Snooth will serve you. She don't get much
business from outsiders." He shrugged. "Ain't none of my
business, your business."
"Who's Snooth?" Jon-Tom asked him.
"The proprietress. Of the Shop of the Aether and
Neither." He looked back over his shoulder, pointed. "Go
through town and stay on the north trail that winds around
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Alan Dean Poster
the base of the mountain. Snooth's place is around the side
a ways." He turned back to inspect them a last time.
"You're a weird-looking bunch. I don't know what
you've come to buy, but you'll need all the luck you can
muster to pry anything out of Snooth's stock. And no, you
can't have one of my feet to help you." He put the
all-terrain vehicle in gear and roared off into the woods,
the ATC popping and growling.
"I still say it were a demon," Mudge muttered.
"No demon, just a machine. From my world."
"Ah'd dislike being a resident o' yoah world, then, Jon-
Tom." Roseroar made a face. "Such noise. And that
smell!"
It had to have been conjured, Jon-Tom knew. Conjured
by a magic even more powerful than Clothahump's. His
heart raced. If this Snooth could bring something as solid
as the ATC into this world, something lifted from a
dealership in Kyoto or L.A. or Toronto, then perhaps she
could also send things back to such places.
Things like himself.
He didn't dare dwell on that possibility as they made
their way through town. For the most part, the busy, bored
citizenry ignored them. Many of them were using or
playing with otherworldly devices. Jon-Tom began to have
second thoughts about his chances of being sent home.
Maybe this Snooth was no sorceress but just some local
shopkeeper who happened to have stumbled onto some
kind of one-way transdimensional gate or something.
Mudge pointed out a traveling minstrel. The diminutive
musical mouse was plinking out a very respectable polka
not on a duar or handlebar lyre or bark flute but on a
Casiotone 8500 electronic keyboard. Jon-Tom wondered
what the mouse was using for batteries.
Not all the devices in use were recognizably from his
own world. The sign over a fishmonger's stall was a
rotating globe of red and white lambent light that spelled
out the shop's name and alternated it with that of the
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
251
owner. There appeared to be nothing supporting the globe.
As they stared, the globe twisted into the shape of a fish,
then into the outlines of females of various species in
provocative poses. Sex sells, Jon-Tom reminded himself.
Even fish. He walked over to stand directly underneath the
globe. There was no source of support or power, much less
a visible explanation for its photonic malleability. One
thing he was sure of: it hadn't come from his own world.
Neither had the device they saw an old mandrill using to
cut wood. It had a handle similar to that of a normal metal
saw, but instead of a length of serrated steel the handle was
attached to a shiny bar no more than a quarter-inch in
diameter. The baboon would hitch up his gloves, choose a
piece of wood, put both hands on the handle and touch the
thin bar to the log. It would cut through like butter.
There were other worlds, then, and this Snooth appar-
ently had access to goods from many of them. As they
made their way through the town, he thought back to his
companion's reaction to the ATC. To someone unfamiliar
with internal combustion devices on a world where magic
held sway, it certainly must have looked and sounded like
a demon. Crancularn was full of such alien machines. No
wonder it had acquired an unwholesome reputation.
But the townsfolk themselves were open and friendly
enough. In that they were no different from the inhabitants
of the other cities and villages Jon-Tom had visited. As for
their blase" acceptance of otherworldly devices, there was
nothing very extraordinary about that. People, no matter
their shape or size or species, were infinitely adaptable.
Only a hundred years ago in his own world, a hand-held
television or calculator watch would have seemed like
magic even to sophisticated citizens, who nonetheless
would have made use of them enthusiastically.
For that matter, how many of his contemporaries actual-
ly understood what made a computer tick or instant replay
possible? People had a way of just accepting the workings of
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Alan Dean Foster
everyday machinery they didn't understand, whether it was
powered by alkaline batteries or arcane spells.
Then they were leaving the town again, fog drifting lazily
around them. They had attracted no more than an occa-
the fertile lower slopes of the volcano, which simmered
quietly and unthreateningly above them.
Inquiries in town had produced no mention of visitors
resembling Jalwar or Folly. Either the two had lost their
way or else with Drom's aid they had already passed the
renegade pair in the woods. Jon-Tom experienced a pang of
regret. He still wasn't completely convinced of Folly's
complicity in the theft of the map.
No time for that now. The rabbit on the ATC implied
they might have trouble purchasing what they wanted from
this Snooth. Jon-Tom struggled to compose a suitably ef-
fective speech. AH they needed was a little bit of medicine.
Nothing so complex as a malleable globe or toothless saw.
His hand went to the tiny vial dangling from the chain
around his neck. Inside was the formula for the desperately
needed medicine. He hadn't brought it this far to be turned
away empty-handed.
There was no sign, no posted proclamations to advertise
the shop's presence. They turned around a cluster of oaks,
and there it was, a simple wooden building, one story
high. It was built up against the rocks. A single wooden
door was set square in the center of the storefront, which
was shaded by a broad, covered porch.
A couple of high-backed rocking chairs sat on the
porch, unoccupied. Wooden shingles in need of repair
covered the sloping roof that likewise ran up into the
rocks. Jon-Tom estimated the entire building enclosed no
&n
bsp; more than a thousand square feet of space. Hardly large
enough for store and home combined.
As they drew close, a figure emerged from inside and
settled into the farther rocking chair. The chair creaked as
it rocked. The tall kangaroo wore a red satin vest which
THE DAY op THE DISSONANCE
253
blended with her own natural rust color and, below, a kilt
similar in style to the rabbit's. There were pockets and a
particularly wide one directly in front to permit the owner
access to her pouch. Jon-Tom stared at the lower belly but
was unable to tell if the female was carrying a joey, though
once he thought he saw something move. But he couldn't
be sure, and since he was ignorant of macropodian eti-
quette, he thought it best not to inquire.
She also wore thick hexagonal granny glasses and a
heavy necklace of turquoise, black onyx, and malachite. A
matching bracelet decorated her right wrist, and she puffed
slowly on a corncob pipe which was switched periodically
from one side of her mouth to the other.
He halted at the bottom of the porch steps, "Are you the
one they call Snooth?"
"I expect I am," the kangaroo replied, "since I'm the
only one around here by that name." She took her pipe
from her lips and regarded them thoughtfully. "You folks
aren't from around here. What can I do for you?"
"We've undertaken one hell of a shopping trip," Jon-
Tom told her.
She sighed. "I was afraid of that. Just when I got
myself all nice and comfortable. Well, that's par for the
course."
Jon-Tom's eyes grew wide. "That's an expression of
my world."
"Is it? I traffic with so many I sometimes get confused.
Sure as the gleebs are on the fondike."
Jon-Tom decided to tread as lightly as possible, bearing
the rabbit's admonition in mind. "We don't want to
disturb you. We could come back tomorrow." He tried to
see past her, into the store. "You haven't by any chance
had a couple of other out-of-town customers in recently,
have you? An old ferret, maybe accompanied by a human
female?" He held his breath.
The kangaroo scratched under her chin with her free
hand. "Nope. No one of that description. In fact, I haven't
r
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Alan Dean Foster
had any local out-of-town customers stop by in some
time."
Forbearing to inquire into the nature of a local out-of-
towner, which seemed to Jon-Tom to be a contradiction in