Spellsinger 03 - The Day of the Dissonance

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  terms, he permitted himself a moment of silent exultation.

  They'd done it! With Drom's help they'd succeeded in

  beating Jalwar to Crancularn. Now he could relax. The

  object of their long, arduous journey was almost in his

  grasp.

  He turned to leave. "We don't want to upset your siesta.

  We'll come back tomorrow."

  A small brown shape pushed past him. Mudge took

  up an aggressive stance on the lowest step. "Now let's

  'old on a minim 'ere, guv'nor." The otter fixed the

  proprietress with a jaundiced eye. "This 'ere dump is

  the place I've been 'earin' about for weeks? This

  cobbled-together wreck is the marvelous, the wondrous,

  the magnificent Shop o' the Aether and Neither? And

  you're the owner?"

  The kangaroo nodded.

  "Well," announced Mudge in disgust, "it sure as 'ell

  don't look like much to me."

  "Mudge!" Jon-Tom angrily grabbed the otter by his

  shoulder.

  The kangaroo, however, did not appear upset. "Ap-

  pearances can be deceiving, my fuzzy little cousin." She

  turned to face Jon-Tom as she stood on enormous, power-

  ful feet. She was as tall as he was. The rickety porch

  boards squeaked under her weight.

  "I can tell just by looking at you that you've come a

  long ways to do your shopping. Except for the Crancularni-

  ans, most of my customers travel far to buy from me,

  some by means most devious. Some I sell to, others I do

  not." She turned and pointed toward a thin scrawl on a

  worn piece of wood that was nailed over the doorway. The

  sign said:

  THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE 255

  WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYTHING

  "It's not for ourselves that we come seeking your

  help," Jon-Tom told her. "We're here at the behest of a

  great wizard who lives in the forest of the Bellwoods, far

  across the Glittergeist Sea. His name's Clothahump."

  "Clothahump." Eyes squinted in reflection behind the

  granny glasses. She put out a hand, palm facing down-

  ward, and positioned it some four feet above the porch.

  "Turtle, old gentleman, about yea high?"

  Jon-Tom nodded vigorously. "That's him. You've met

  him?"

  "Nope. But I know of him by reputation. As wizard's

  go, he's up near the top." This revelation impressed even

  the skeptical Mudge, who'd always thought of Ciothahump

  as no better than a talented fakir verging on senility who

  just happened to get lucky once in a while. "What's

  wrong with him?"

  Jon-Tom fumbled with the vial around his neck, removed

  the small piece of paper from within. "He says he's dying,

  and he's in terrible pain. He says this can cure him."

  Snooth took the fragment, adjusted her glasses, and read.

  Her lips moved as she digested the paper's information. "Yes,

  yes...I believe I have this in stock." She glanced back at

  Jen-Tom. "Your devotion to your mentor does you credit."

  Which made him feel more than a little guilty, since the

  main reason he'd undertaken the journey was to protect his

  only chance of returning home by ensuring Clothahump's

  continued good health.

  "You overpraise my altruism."

  "I think not." She stared at him in the most peculiar

  fashion. "You are better than you give yourself credit for.

  That is why you would make a good adjudicator. Your

  good instincts outweigh your common sense."

  For the second time since arriving at the store Jon-Tom's

  eyes widened. "How did you know that I was studying to

  be a lawyer?"

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  Alan Dean Foster

  "Lucky guess," said Snooth absently, dismissing the

  matter despite Jon-Tom's desire to pursue it further. She

  held out the paper with the formula written on it. "May I

  hold on to this?"

  Jon-Tom shrugged. "Why not? It's the medicine we

  need."

  Snooth tucked the paper neatly into her pouch. Again

  Jon-Tom thought he saw something moving about within.

  If Snooth was carrying a joey, it was evidently either too

  immature or too shy to show itself.

  "Come on in." She turned and pushed wide the door.

  Her visitors mounted the steps and crossed the porch.

  The front room of the building was furnished in simple

  kaleidoscopic style. To one side was another rocking chair,

  only instead of being fashioned of wood it was composed

  of transparent soap bubbles clinging to a thin metal frame.

  The bubbles were moving in slow motion and looked fragile

  and ready to burst.

  "Surely you don't sit in that?" Roseroar said.

  "Wouldn't be much use for anything else. Like to try

  it?"

  "Ah couldn't," the tigress protested. "Ah'd bust it as

  well as mah tail end."

  - "Maybe not," said the kangaroo with quiet confidence.

  Reluctantly, Roseroar accepted the challenge, turning to

  set herself gently into the chair. The soap bubbles gave

  under her weight but did not break, nor did the thin metal

  frame. And the bubbles kept moving, massaging the chair's

  new occupant with a gentle sliding motion. A rich throbbing

  purr filled the room.

  "How much?" Roseroar inquired.

  "Sorry. That's a demo model. Not for sale."

  "Come on, Roseroar," Jon-Tom told her. "That's not

  what we came for." She abandoned the caressing chair

  sadly.

  As they crossed the room, Jon-Tom had time to notice a

  circular recording device, a heatless stove, and a number

  THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE

  257

  of utterly alien machines scattered among the familiar.

  Snooth led them through another doorway barred by opaque

  ceramic strips that hung in midair and into a back store

  room filled with broken, jumbled goods. A bathroom was

  visible off to the left.

  A second suspended curtain admitted them to the store.

  Jon-Tom's brain went blank. He heard Roseroar hiss

  next to him and even the always voluble Mudge was at a

  loss for words. Drom inhaled sharply in surprise.

  As near as they could tell, the shop filled the whole

  inside of the mountain.

  XV

  Ahead of them was an aisle flanked by long metal shelves.

  The multiple shelving rose halfway to the forty-foot-high

  ceiling and was crammed with boxed, crated, and clear-

  packaged goods. Jon-Tom saw only a few empty slots. The

  shelving and the aisle between ran away into the distance

  until all three seemed to meet at some distant vanishing

  point.

  He turned and stared to his left. Shelves and aisles

  marched off into the distance as far as he could see. He

  looked right and saw a mirror image of the view on his left.

  "I never dreamed..." he began, only to be interrupted

  by the proprietress.

  "Oh, but you have dreamed, shopper. Everyone dreams."

  She gestured with a negligent wave. "There are a lot of

  worlds in the plenum. Some produce a lot of goods for

  sale, others only a few. I try to keep
up with what the major

  dimensions are doing. It isn't an easy job, being a shopkeeper.

  There's one place where time runs backwards. Plays hell

  with my inventory."

  Jon-Tom continued to gape at the endless rows. "How

  258

  THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE

  259

  do you know what you've got here, let alone where it's

  located?"

  "Oh, we're very up-to-date in the store." From a side

  pocket she extracted a length of bright blue metal six

  inches long and two and half an inches thick. A transparent

  facing ran the length of it. There were no buttons or

  switches visible.

  "Pocket computer." She showed it to Jon-Tom. As he

  watched, words scrolled rapidly across the face. Lan-

  guages and script changed as he stared. Twice Snooth

  turned it vertically and the words scrolled from top to

  bottom. Several times they reversed and traveled from

  right to left. Once there were no letters at all, only colors

  changing in sequence. Once there was only music.

  "Thought-activated. Handy little gadget. Bought it from

  a place whose location can't be determined, only inferred.

  Very talented folks there. See?"

  A chemical formula appeared on the transparent facing

  and froze in position. A long numerical sequence appeared

  below it.

  "Down this way." Snooth hopped off to her left, even-

  tually turned down an aisle.

  Roseroar stared at the endless ranks of goods. "How

  many shelves do y'all have down heah?"

  "Can't really say," the kangaroo replied. "It changes

  all the time."

  "You run this whole place by yourself?" Jon-Tom asked her.

  She nodded. "You get used to it. I like stockwork, and

  the perks are good."

  "How far is the medicine?"

  "Not far. Only about half a day's hop. Any longer and

  I'd have paused to pack us a meal or dig out a scooter."

  "Is that anything like the Honda ATC we saw one of

  your customers riding around outside of town?"

  "That'd be Foharfa's toy. He's going to break his neck

  on that thing one of these days. No, a scooter's just an

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  Alan Dean Poster

  inertialess disc. You guide it by sensing your relationship

  to the local planetary magnetic field."

  Jon-Tom swallowed. "I'm afraid I don't have a license

  to drive anything like that."

  "No matter. I'm enjoying the walk."

  "Can we buy one to get us 'ome, maybe?" Mudge

  asked hopefully.

  "Sorry. I've none in general stock. Besides, I make it a

  rule not to let certain goods travel beyond Crancularn. The

  world's a complicated enough place as it is. You can

  overtechnologize magic if you're not careful."

  "Looks like your business is rather slow," observed

  Drom.

  Snooth shrugged in mid-hop. "I'm not looking to get

  rich, unicorn. I just like the business, that's all. Besides,

  it's a good way to keep up with what's going on in the

  greater cosmos. Goods are better than gossip and more

  honest reflections of what's happening elsewhere than

  official news pronouncements and zeeways."

  "Must be 'ard on profits," Mudge commented.

  "That depends on what kind of profit you're trying to

  make, otter."

  Jon-Tom eyed the kangaroo uneasily. "That's a funny

  thing for a shopkeeper to say. Are you sure you aren't

  some kind of sorceress yourself?"

  "Who, me?" Snooth appeared genuinely shocked. "Not

  I, sir. Too many responsibilities, too many regulations

  attached to the profession. I prefer my present employ-

  ment, thank you. And the cost-of-living in Crancularn is

  low." A pause, then, "What about this ferret and girl you

  referred to earlier?"

  "They were traveling with us," Jon-Tom explained.

  "We had an unfortunate parting of the ways."

  "Unfortunate, 'ell!" Mudge rumbled. "The dirty bug-

  gers stole our map, they did, and it were only by dint o'

  good luck and this spellsinger's determination and this

  one-horn's knowledge o' the lay o' the land that we ...!"

  THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE

  261

  Snooth interrupted him, smiling at Jon-Tom. "So you

  are a spellsinger? I noticed the duar you carry right off, but

  I imagined you to be no more than a traveling musician."

  "I'm still an amateur," Jon-Tom confessed. "I'm still

  learning how to control my abilities."

  "I think one day you will, though I sense you still have

  along way logo."

  "It's just that it's so new to me. The magic, not the

  music. Everything's so new to me. I'm not of this world."

  "I know. You smell of elsewhere. Do not let your

  transposition faze you. Newness is life's greatest pleasure

  and delight." She indicated the shelves wailing them in.

  "Every new product I encounter is a source of wonder-

  ment to me."

  "1 wish I could share your enthusiasm. But I can't help

  my homesickness. You can't, by any chance, send me

  home by the same means you use to stock your goods?"

  he asked hopefully.

  "I am truly sorry," Snooth told him softly, and it struck

  him that she was. "This is only a receive-and-disperse

  operation. I can only ship products, not people."

  Jon-Tom slumped. "Well, it's no more than what I

  expected. Clothahump said as much."

  "You must tell me about your travels. Oddly, I know

  more about many other worlds than about this one. The

  result of being tied to my business."

  So partly to please her and partly to help relieve his own

  disappointment, Jon-Tom regaled her with a recitation of

  the adventures they had experienced during their long

  journey. It took at least the half day Snooth had claimed

  before she finally called the march to a halt. Jon-Tom

  looked down the aisle. They stili were not in sight of its

  end.

  Strange medications filled bottles and jars and contain-

  ers of unfamiliar material. The twenty-foot-high shelves

  they had halted before represented a cosmological phar-

  macopia. Jon-Tom made out pills and drops, salves and

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  Alan Dean Foster

  unguents, bandages and bindings, scattered among less

  recognizable items.

  Snooth regarded the shelving for a moment, consulted

  her blue metal bar, and hopped a few yards farther down

  the aisle. Then she climbed one of the motorized ladders

  that ran from the topmost shelf to tracks cut in the stone

  floor and ascended the shelving halfway.

  "Here we are," she said, sounding gratified. She opened

  an ordinary cardboard box and removed a small plastic

  container. "Only one. I'll have to restock this item. I don't

  have the room to keep more than one of any item on the

  shelves. There are instructions on the side which I presume

  your wizard will know how to interpret."

  "I'm sure he will," Jon-Tom said, reaching relievedly

  for the container.

  "Stop right there, please."

>   Jon-Tom whirled. Roseroar growled and reached for her

  swords as Mudge tried to ready his longbow.

  "Don't!"

  A figure emerged from behind a translucent crate

  containing frozen flowers and came toward them. In his

  hands Jalwar held something resembling a multiple cross-

  bow. At least three dozen lethal-looking little darts were

  clustered in concentric circles at the tip of the weapon.

  "Poison. Enough to kill all of you at once. Even you,

  mistress of long teeth." Roseroar continued to glower at

  the new arrival, but let her paws fall slowly from the hilts

  of her swords.

  "A wise decision," Jalwar told her.

  Jon-Tom was staring past him. "Folly. Where's Folly?"

  When the ferret did not immediately reply, Jon-Tom felt a

  surge of excitement despite the precariousness of the

  situation. "So she didn't go with you voluntarily, did

  she!"

  "No." Jalwar made the admission indifferently. "But

  she came, and that was all I required. I needed assistance

  in hauling rudimentary supplies, and she struck me as the

  THE DAY or THE DISSOJKAJVCE

  263

  easiest of all of you to manipulate. As a beast of burden

  she proved adequate." He smiled thinly, enjoying himself.

  "Then, too, the destruction of innocence has always appealed

  to me, and she still had a little left."

  Jon-Tom struggled to restrain himself. He didn't for a

  second doubt the lethality of those multiple darts or Jalwar's

  willingness to employ them.

  "Where is she? What have you done with her?"

  "In good time I will tell you, my impetuous blind

  friend." The ferret cocked an eye toward Snooth. "So that

  is the precious medicine our friend Clothahump requires so

  desperately. How interesting. I suddenly feel the need for

  some medication myself. You, proprietress! I'll take that

  container, if you don't mind."

  "Take a 'elluva lot more than that to cure wot ails you,

  mate," said Mudge insultingly.

  "You think so, do you? Yet I am not so sick that I have

  failed to outwit you all. I did not think you would make it

  here without the map, and in my confidence I slowed my

  approach. I thought in any event that with the aid of my

  help I would always know your location. Indeed, without

  that help I would not have been able to rush in close on

  your heels and track your progress within this place from

  two aisles over."

  "What help?" Jon-Tom asked warily.

  "Now, be that the right tone with which to greet an old