Exceptions to Reality

by Alan Dean Foster

  Scarfing finger food as fast as he could evaluate it with eyes and nostrils, Mudge was distracted from his gorging by the tapping of a furry forefinger on his shoulder. A ready retort on his lips, he turned—only to find himself struck dumb by the sight that confronted him.

  The girl’s otter costume was not only superbly rendered; it was, in a word, compelling.

  Twirling a whisker, he slowly put aside the piled-high plate of goodies he had commandeered from the table. “Well now. And wot might your name be, darlin’?”

  Peering through the eye cutouts in the papier-mâché head, the girl’s gaze reflected a mix of admiration and disbelief. “And I thought I had the best giant otter costume in England!” Her eyes inspected every inch of him, scrutinizing thoroughly. “I’ve never seen such good seamstress work. I can’t even see the stitches or where you’ve hidden the zipper.” Her eyes met his. “Costumers are good about sharing their secrets. Could you spare a couple of minutes to maybe give me some pointers?”

  Mudge considered his platter. Food, girl. Food, girl.

  Cookies…

  IV

  On stage Jon-Tom found himself, despite his reservations, slipping into the freewheeling spirit of the occasion. Participants were dancing in front of him, twirling in costume, reveling in his music-making. So self-absorbed were they that they failed to see the small black ball of vapor that emerged from the center of the duar to flash offstage and vanish in the direction of the farthest doorway. Judging from its angle of departure, Jon-Tom guessed it to be heading fast in the direction of the Underground stairway from which he and his companions had emerged earlier that same evening. Raising his voice excitedly while continuing to strum, Jon-Tom sought to alert his companions.

  “Mudge, Stromagg! I think I’ve done it!” Ignoring the applause of the flute player, who took up the refrain, and the admiring stare of butterfly girl, Jon-Tom leaped off the stage and plunged into the crowd. There was no telling how long the revitalized, recharged tunnel would last. He and his friends had to make use of it before the thaumaturgic alteration was accidentally discovered by some unknowing late-night pedestrians.

  Stromagg was not hard to locate. The bear had by now gathered a small army of awed acolytes around him. They looked on in jaw-dropping astonishment as the grizzly continued to chugalug inhuman quantities of beer with no apparent ill effects.

  Well, maybe a few.

  Arriving breathlessly from the stage, Jon-Tom looked around uncertainly. “Stromagg, it’s time to leave. We have to go—now. Where’s Mudge?”

  Weaving slightly, the more than modestly zonkered ursine frowned down at him and replied, in the tone of one only slightly interested, “Duhhh?”

  “Oh great!” Latching on to the grizzly’s arm, Jon-Tom struggled to drag him away from the crowd. Behind him, tankards and glasses and Styrofoam cups rose in admiring salute. “We’ve got to get out of here while we have the chance.”

  There was no sign of Mudge on the auditorium floor, nor out in the hallway, nor in an annex costume room. Confronting a participant made up as an exceedingly stocky, slime-dripping alien, Jon-Tom fought to keep Stromagg from keeling over.

  “This may sound funny, but have you seen a five-foot-tall otter come this way?”

  “Nothing funny about it,” the gray-green alien replied in an incongruously high-pitched voice. It jerked a thumb down the hall. “Matter of fact, I just saw two of ’em.”

  “Two?” Jon-Tom’s confusion was sincere. Then realization dawned, and he broke into a desperate sprint. “Mudge!”

  He found his friend in the third room he tried: an empty office. Bursting in, he and Stromagg discovered Mudge and the otter other in a position that had nothing to do with passing along the finer points of advanced amateur costuming. Jon-Tom’s outrage was palpable.

  “Mudge!”

  Rising from the couch, his friend looked back over his shoulder, not in the least at a loss.

  “’Ello, mate.” He indicated the figure beneath him. “This ’ere is Althea. She’s psychic. We been discussin’ matters of the moment, you might say.”

  Stark naked except for otter mask and furry feet, the girl struggled to cover herself as best she could. Though surprised by the unexpected intrusion, she did not appear particularly distressed. Rather the contrary. Ignoring her, an angry Jon-Tom confronted his companion.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Aren’t matters complicated enough as it is?”

  Hopping off the long couch and into his short pants, the otter proceeded to defend himself. “Back off, mate. Me and Althea ’ere weren’t ’avin’ no problems. It were all perfectly consentable, it were.”

  “That’s right.” Rising in all her admirable suppleness, she reached out with one hand to grab hold of Mudge’s right ear. “And now that I’ve fulfilled my half of the bargain, it’s time to see how your outfit is put together, like you promised.” She pulled hard.

  Yelping, Mudge twisted around as his ear was yanked. “Owch! ’Ave a care there, darlin’. I need that.”

  Looking puzzled, the girl’s gaze descended. Grabbing a fistful of fur in the otter’s nether regions, she pulled again. Once more the otter let out a hurt bark. A look of confusion crossed her countenance, to be replaced by one of revelation, followed by one of shock. As this panoply of expression transformed her lovely face, Jon-Tom was half carrying Mudge, who was engaged in trying to buckle the belt of his shorts, toward the doorway where Stromagg kept tipsy watch.

  “Omigod!” the girl suddenly screamed, one hand rising to her mouth, “it’s not a special effect!”

  Wearing a hurt look as he was hauled out the door, an offended Mudge called back, “I resent that, luv!”

  Hearing the girl’s screams, a group of heavily armed attendees had begun to gather at the far end of the hallway. While any band of professionals from Lynchbany would have made short work of the lot, several of the costumed cluster did appear to be more than a little competent at arms. Certainly there was nothing slipshod or fragile about the assortment of swords and axes they carried.

  “This way!” With the increasingly outraged costumers following, Jon-Tom led his friends around the corner of the hallway that encircled the auditorium, searching for an exit that led back out onto the rain-washed side street.

  “Here, you three.” Up ahead, a hotel security guard in a freshly pressed suit and tie had materialized to block their path. “What’s this I hear about you freaks causing trouble wi—” His slightly pompous accusation was cut off in midsentence as Stromagg stiff-armed him into the nearest wall, cracking plaster directly beside a painting of a skinny lord seated astride a decidedly astringent thoroughbred.

  Bursting back out into the street, Jon-Tom led the way back toward the Underground station. It was darker than ever outside, but at least the rain had let up. An oncoming car had to screech to a halt to avoid slamming into the fleeing trio.

  Within the vehicle, a well-dressed middle-aged couple stared as the tall, medievally clad spellsinger; giant otter in feathered cap, vest, and short pants; and rapidly sobering, heavily armored grizzly bear thundered past. They were followed soon after by an enraged mob of weapon-waving fans dressed as everything from a giant spider to a female Mr. Spock missing one ear. Peering through the windshield in the wake of this singular procession, the husband slowly shook his head before commenting knowingly to his equally bewildered spouse. Pressing gently on the accelerator, he urged the car forward.

  “I’m telling you, dear. There’s no question about it. The city gets worse every year.”

  Looking back over his shoulder, Mudge began to make insulting faces at their pursuers. He would have dropped his pants except that Jon-Tom threatened to brain him with the flat of his own sword. As usual, the otter reflected, the often dour spellsinger simply did not know how to have fun.

  “There!” Jon-Tom pointed in the direction of the softly glowing split circle. A sphere of black mist was just visible plunging down the portal.
<
br />   Racing past a brace of startled subway travelers, he and Stromagg hurtled down the stairs in pursuit of the ebony globe. Mudge chose to slide gleefully down the central banister, looking back up the stairwell to flash obscene gestures in the direction of their pursuers. The outraged howl these sparked were unarguable proof that his intricate scatological gesticulations transcended species.

  Alongside the automatic gates that led to the boarding platform, a startled security officer looked up in the direction of the approaching commotion.

  “See here, you lot need to slow down and—”

  Accelerating to pass Jon-Tom, Stromagg shoved the officer aside. Grabbing one in each paw, he ripped two of the barriers out of the floor and flung them ceiling-ward. From one, old-style subway tokens rained down on the fleeing trio.

  Lying off to one side amid the rubble, cap and uniform askew, the unlucky guard looked up dazedly. “Of course, if it’s an emergency…”

  Slowing as they reached the subway platform, a panting Jon-Tom looked back to see that pursuit had slowed as the angry fans were slowed by the debris. Meanwhile Mudge was fairly dancing with belligerence.

  “Pulin’ ’umans! Shrew-pricked candy lobbers!” He had his short sword out and was stabbing repeatedly at empty air. “I’ll skewer the bleedin’ lot o’ them!”

  “You aren’t going to skewer anyone.” Climbing down off the platform onto the tunnel track, Jon-Tom started north, in the direction taken by the floating ball of black mist-magic. His companions followed. Unlimbering his duar as they plunged into the feebly illuminated tunnel, he began to play softly. The steadily intensifying glow from the instrument served to show the way.

  Sword rescabbarded, hands jammed in pockets, Mudge kicked angrily at the occasional rock or empty soda can underfoot. “’Tis an unaccommodatin’ world yours is, mate. Unfriendly an’ worse—no sense o’ fellowship.” Then he remembered the other otter, and a small smile played across his mouth.

  As if recalling a fond and distant thought, Stromagg peered into the darkness ahead. “Beer?”

  A light appeared, growing brighter as it came toward them. A light, and a roaring they had heard once before. Startled, Jon-Tom began to backtrack. Literally.

  “Oh shit.”

  Mudge made a face. “More incomprehensible spellsinger lyrics?”

  “Run!” Turning, Jon-Tom broke into a desperate sprint. How far up the tunnel had they come? How far was it back to the passenger platform?

  As the light of the oncoming train bore down on them, he fumbled with the duar and with memories of train-related songs. There was the theme from the film Trainspotting—no, that probably wouldn’t work. He could not remember the words to “A Train a-Comin’.” Heavy metal, punk, ska, even industrial had little use for trains.

  He was frantically seeking efficacious lyrics as the train bore down on them. The engineer saw the wide-eyed trio running in front of his engine and threw on the brakes. An ear-piercing screeee! echoed from the walls of the tunnel. Too little, too late.

  Jon-Tom found himself stumbling, going down. As he fell, he saw something directly beneath him. It was not the empty candy wrappers or stubbed cigarettes or torn, useless lotto tickets that drew his attention. It was a flat circle of softly seething black mist, lying neatly between but not touching the tracks or the center rail. He let himself fall, hoping his companions would see what was happening to him, hoping they would follow.

  Of course, it might simply be a lingering patch of black fog, rising from the heat of the tracks.

  He felt himself thankfully, blissfully, continuing to fall long after he should have struck the ground.

  Seeming to pass directly over his head, barely inches from his ear, the roar of the train faded. He hit the ground, rolled, and opened his eyes. They were still in his head, which was in turn still attached to his shoulders. These were good signs. Sitting up, he rubbed the back of his neck and winced. Reaching around behind him, he found that the precious duar had taken a battering from the fall but was still intact.

  Nearby, Mudge cast a pain-racked eye at his friend. “That’s it, mate. I’ve bleedin’ ’ad it, I ’ave. Gimme me share o’ old Wolfham’s gold and I’ll be quietly on me way.” Behind him a groaning Stromagg was just starting to regain consciousness.

  Looking away from the angry otter, Jon-Tom found himself staring. “Don’t you think you ought to have a look around, first?”

  “Why? Wot the bloody ’ell should I…” The otter broke off, joined his friend in gawking silently.

  Namur Castle rose from a narrow ridge of rock surrounded on all sides by sheer precipices. A wooden bridge crossed from the mountainside on which man and otter found themselves to a small intervening pinnacle, from where a second, slightly narrower bridge arched upward to meet a high wooden doorway. Towering granite spires rose on all sides, while a tree-lined flat-topped plateau dominated the distant horizon. Jon-Tom and his companions were enthralled. It was an impressive setting.

  The London Underground, bemused pedestrians, and wild-eyed pursuing costumers were nowhere to be seen.

  Starting across the first bridge, a cautious Mudge glanced over the single railing. Like a bright blue ribbon dropped from a giant’s hand, a small river wound and twisted its way through the deep canyon beneath. They reached the intervening pinnacle and crossed the second bridge, whereupon they found themselves confronting a massive, iron-bound door.

  Tilting back his head, Mudge rested hands on low hips and muttered to his friend and companion. “Wot now, Mr. Spelltwit, sor? You goin’ to sing us up a key, or wot?”

  An annoyed Jon-Tom contemplated the barrier. “Give me a minute, Mudge. I got us here, didn’t I?”

  The otter snorted softly. “Oi, that you did—though one might complain about the roundaboutness o’ the route you chose. ‘London,’ it were called?” He shook his head dolefully. “Give me Lynchbany any day.”

  While man and otter argued, the silent Stromagg approached the impediment, spent a moment contemplating the wood and iron, then balled both paws into fists the size of cannonballs. Raising them high over his head and rising on tiptoes—a sight in itself to behold—he brought both fists down and forward with all his considerable weight behind them. The center of the door promptly imploded in a cloud of shattered slats and splinters. Dust rose from the apex of the destruction.

  Approaching cautiously, Mudge peered through the newly made opening. “So much for a bloomin’ key.”

  The interior of the foyer was dim, illuminated only by light shining through high windows. Nothing moved within, not even a piebald rat. Mudge’s sensitive nose was working overtime, his long whiskers twitching.

  “Sure you got the right towerin’, forebodin’ castle ’ere, mate?”

  Jon-Tom continued through the high vestibule, eyed the sweeping double stairway at the far end of the great room. “I sang for one and one only. This has to be the right place.”

  Still, he found himself wondering and worrying until their explorations eventually brought them to an expansive, exquisitely decorated bedchamber. Rainbow-hued light poured in through stained-glass windows, burnishing the furnishings with gold and turning the canopied, lace-netted bed at the far end to filigreed sunshine.

  The woman who slept thereon might or might not be a princess, but she was certainly of ravishing beauty. She was sleeping peacefully on her back, her hands folded across her chest, a soft smile on her full lips. Slapping away Mudge’s fingers, Jon-Tom considered the somnifacient figure thoughtfully.

  “Something familiar about this…”

  V

  “Not to mention somethin’ irregular.” Mudge contemplated the unconscious female with mixed emotions. “That Wolfsheep didn’t say anythin’ about ’is beloved bein’ in a coma. ’Ow are you supposed to sing ’er a song o’ love if she can’t bleedin’ ’ear you?”

  The soft shussh of leather on stone made the trio turn as one. Standing in the doorway was their erstwhile employer, but it was a Wolfram t
ransformed. No longer the supplicating elder, he seemed to have grown taller in stature and broader of frame. His formerly simple cloth cloak glistened in the stained-glass light, and the vitreous globe atop his staff flickered with caged lightning. His entire being and bearing radiated barely restrained power.

  “So you have done that which I could not.” Stepping into the room, he ignored them to focus his attention on the figure lying supine in the bed. “Ignorant sots. Did you really think that I, Wolfram the Magnificent, the All-Consuming, Master of the Warmlands, would consign the future of the Mistress of the Namur to your puerile attentions?”

  As he replied, Jon-Tom slowly edged his duar around in front of him. “Somehow I knew you’d say something like that.”

  A belligerent Mudge stepped forward. “If you’re so bloody all-whatever, guv’nor, then wot did you need us poor souls for?”

  The sorcerer gazed down contemptuously. “Isn’t it obvious? The bonds that conceal this place are such as I cannot penetrate. It needs the attention of a kind of magic entirely different from what I propound, powerful as that may be. It required someone such as an innocent spellsinger to blaze a path here and divert any dangers that might lie along the way. This so that I could follow safely in your wake—as I have done.”

  “Then,” Jon-Tom said, indicating the exquisite figure reposing serenely in the bed, “this isn’t your beloved?”

  “Oh, but she is.” Wolfram smiled thinly from behind his narrow, pointed beard. “It is just that she does not know it yet. You see, whoever touches the princess in such a way as to rouse her from her sleep shall make of her a perfect match to the one who does the touching, and shall have her to wife, thus acquiring dominion over this portion of an important realm and its concurrent significant interdimensionality.”

  “Is that all?” Mudge was studying his fingernails. “’Tis okay by me, guv.”

  “Oh no it isn’t.” Jon-Tom advanced to stand alongside the otter. “If an interdimensionality is involved here, it means that this piece of whiskery double-crossing scum might be able to make trouble in my world as well.”