The Day of the Dissonance

by Alan Dean Foster

  The stranger was clad in beige shorts and vest and wore sandals instead of boots. A plain, floppy hat lay trampled in the sand nearby, next to a small leather sack. Several other similar sacks lay scattered along the beach. All looked empty.

  Gradually the elderly ferret’s breathing slowed. He opened his eyes, saw Jon-Tom, then looked around wildly.

  “Easy, easy, friend. They’re gone. We saw to that.”

  The ferret gave him a disbelieving look, then turned his gaze toward the beach. His eyes settled on the scattered leather sacks.

  “My stock, my goods!” He broke away from Jon-Tom, who watched while the oldster went through each sack, one at a time. Finally he sat down on the sand, one sack draped across his lap. He sighed listlessly, threw it aside.

  “Gone.” He shook his head sadly. “All gone.”

  “Wot’s all gone, senior?” Mudge prodded one of the sacks with a boot.

  The ferret didn’t look up at him. “My stock, my poor stock. I am. . . I was, a humble trader of trinkets, plying my trade along the shores east of here. I was set upon by those worthless brigands”—he nodded seaward, to where the retreating boat had raised sail and was disappearing toward the horizon—”who stole everything I have managed to accumulate in a short, unworthy life. They kept me and forced me to do their menial work, to cook and clean and wash for them while they preyed upon other unsuspecting travelers.

  “They said they would let me go unharmed. Finally they tired of me, but instead of returning me to a place of civilization they brought me here to this empty, uninhabited shore, intending to maroon me in an unknown land where I might starve. They stole what little I had in this world, taunted me by leaving my stock bags, and would have stolen my life as well at the last moment had you not come along, for I was refusing to be abandoned.”

  “Don’t give us too much credit,” Jon-Tom advised him. “Our being in a position to rescue you was an accident.”

  “You can say that again, mate,” growled the disgusted Mudge as he slung his bow back over his shoulder.

  Jon-Tom ignored the otter. “We’re glad we could help. I don’t like seeing anyone taken advantage of, especially senior citizens.”

  “What?”

  “Older people.”

  “Ah. But how can I thank you, sir? How can I show my gratitude? I am destitute.”

  “Forget it.” The ferret’s effusiveness was making Jon-Tom uncomfortable. “We’re glad we could help.”

  The ferret rose, wincing and putting one hand against his back. “I am called Jalwar. To whom do I owe my salvation?”

  “I’m Jon-Tom. I’m a spellsinger. Of sorts.”

  The ferret nodded gravely. “I knew at once you were mighty ones.”

  Jon-Tom indicated the disgruntled Mudge. “That ball of fuzzy discontent is my friend Mudge.” The otter grunted once. “And this tower of cautionless strength is Roseroar.”

  “I am honored to be in your presence,” said the ferret humbly, proceeding to prostrate himself on the beach and grasping Jon-Tom’s boots. “I have nothing left. My stock is gone, my money, everything save the clothes I wear. I owe you my life. Take me into your service and let me serve you.”

  “Now, wait a minute.” Jon-Tom moved his boots out of the ferret’s paws. “I don’t believe in slavery.”

  “ ‘Ere now, mate, let’s not be ‘asty.” Mudge was quick to intervene. “Consider the poor suck—uh, this poor unfortunate chap. ‘E’s got nothin’, ‘e ‘asn’t. ‘E’ll need protection, or the next bunch ‘e runs into will kill him for sure, just for ‘is clothes.” He eyed the ferret hopefully.

  “Wot about it, guv? Can you cook?”

  “I have some small talent in the kitchen, good sir.”

  “Mudge. . .” Jon-Tom said warningly. The otter ignored him.

  “You said you washed clothes.”

  “That I did, good sir. I have the ability to make even ancient attire smell sweet as clover again, with the slightest of cleansing materials. I am also handy at repairing garments. Despite my age, I am not a weakling. I can more than carry my weight.”

  Mudge strutted about importantly. “ ‘Ere then, friend, I think we should take pity on you and admit you to our company, wot”?”

  “Mudge, you know how I feel about servants.”

  “It wouldn’t be like that at all, Jon-Tom. ‘E does need our protection, and ‘e’ll never get out o’ this place without our ‘elp, and ‘e’s more than willin’ to contribute ‘is share.”

  The ferret nodded enthusiastically. “Please accept my service, good sir. . . and madame. Allow me to accompany you. Perhaps being proximate to such mighty ones as yourselves will improve my own ill fortune.”

  “I’ll bet you were a good trader,” Jon-Tom commented.

  “Okay, you can come with us, but as an equal. Not as a servant or slave. We’ll pay you a decent wage.” He remembered the purse filled with gold, stolen by Zancresta’s thugs. “As soon as we can afford it, that is.”

  “Food and shelter and protection is all I ask, great sir.”

  “And stop calling me sir,” said Jon-Tom. “I’ve introduced you to everyone by name.”

  “As you wish, Jon-Tom.” The ferret turned to look down the beach. “What do we now? I presume you are bound to the east, for if one walks long enough one will come ‘round again to the lands bordering the Bellwoods and the River Tailaroam, where civilization is to be encountered.”

  “Don’t I wish,” Mudge grumbled.

  Jon-Tom shook his head. “We don’t go to the east, Jalwar. We go southwest, to Snarken.”

  “Across the Glittergeist? Sir. . . Jon-Tom. . . I have lived long and seen much. The voyage to Snarken is long and fraught with danger and difficulty. Better to begin the long trek to the mouth of the Tailaroam. Besides, how could one take ship from this deserted land? And north of here lie the Muddletup Moors, where none may penetrate.”

  “We penetrated,” said Mudge importantly.

  “Did you? If you say it so, I doubt it not. Still, this far north places us well away from the east-west trade routes. We will encounter no vessels here.”

  “You won’t get any arguments from me on that score, mate,” said Mudge. “Best to do as you say, go back to the Bellwoods and the Tailaroam and start over. Likely Chenelska’s give up on us by now.”

  “No,” said Jon-Tom firmly. “I am not going back and I am not starting over. We’ve come too far.”

  Mudge squinted up at him. “Well now, you’ve just ‘eard this wise old chap. ‘Ow do you propose to get us across that?” He pointed to the broad, sailless expanse of the Glittergeist. “I like to swim, lad, but I prefer swimmin’ across water I can cross.”

  “What can yo do, Jon-Tom?” Roseroar asked him.

  He stood fuming silently for a moment before blurting out, “I can damn well conjure us up a boat, that’s what!”

  “Uh-oh.” Mudge retreated toward the trees, searching for a boulder of appropriate size to conceal himself behind.

  “ ‘Is nibs is pissed off and ‘e’s goin’ to try spellsingin’ again.”

  Roseroar eyed the otter curiously. “Isn’t that his business, fuzzball?”

  “That may be wot some calls it. Me, I’d as soon brush a crocodile’s teeth than ‘elp ‘im with ‘is work.”

  “Ah don’t understand. Is he a spellsinger or not?”

  “ ‘E is,” Mudge admitted. “Of that there’s no longer any doubt. ‘Tis just that ‘e ‘as this disconcertin’ tendency to misfire from time to time, and when it ‘appens, I don’t want to be in the line o’ fire.”

  “Go on, Roseroar,” Jon-Tom told her. “Get back there and hide behind a rock with him.” He was mad at the otter. Hadn’t he, Jon-Tom, helped to bring about the great victory at the Jo-Troom Gate? Purely by accident of course, but still. . .

  “No sun,” said the tigress, offended. “If n y’all don’t mind, I’ll stand right heah.”

  “Good for you.” Jon-Tom unlimbered his duar, turned
away to confront the open sea, where soon he hoped to see a proper ship riding empty at anchor. Turning also kept Roseroar from seeing how nervous he was.

  Once before on a far-distant river he’d tried to bring forth a boat to carry himself and his companions. Instead, he’d ended up with Falameezar, the Marxist dragon. That misplaced conjuration had produced unexpectedly benign results, but there was no guarantee he’d be as fortunate if he fouled up a second time.

  It was too late to back down now. He’d already made his boast. He felt Roseroar’s gaze on the back of his neck. If he backed down now he’d prove himself an incompetent to Mudge and a coward to the tigress. He had to try.

  He considered several songs and discarded them all as unsuitable. He was beginning to grow frantic when a song so obvious, so simple, offered what seemed like an obvious way out, His fingers tested the duar’s strings and he began to sing.

  Flecks of light sprang to instant life around him. It was as though the sand underfoot had come to glowing life.

  The lights were Gneechees, those minute ultrafast specks of existence that were drawn irresistibly to magic in motion. They coalesced into a bright, dancing cloud around him, and as usual, when he tried to look straight at any of them, they vanished. Gneechees were those suggestions of something everyone sees out of the corner of an eye but aren’t there when you turn to look at them.

  But he sensed their presence. So did Roseroar and the others. It was a good sign, an indication that the spellsinging was working. Certainly the tune he played seemed harmless enough, even to the wary Mudge, whose opinion of Jon-Tom’s musical tastes differed little from that of the average PTA president.

  The otter had to admit that for a change the otherworldly ditty Jon-Tom was reciting was easy on the ears, even if the majority of the words, as was true of all of Jon-Tom’s songs, were quite incomprehensible.

  Jon-Tom had chosen the song as much out of desperation as need. The song was “Sloop John B,” by the Beach Boys. Given their present needs, it was a logical enough choice.

  Nothing happened right away. But before long, Jalwar was making protective signs over his face and chest while cowering close to Mudge for protection, while the otter waited nervously for the unexpected to manifest itself.

  Despite her own awe at what was taking place on the beach, Roseroar stood her ground.

  Mudge was worrying needlessly. For once, for the very first time, it looked like Jon-Tom’s efforts were to be rewarded with success. For once it appeared that his spellsong was going to produce only what he wanted. The otter moved hesitantly out from behind the shelter of the boulder, while simultaneously holding himself ready to rush for the trees at the first hint of trouble.

  “Bugger me for a blue-eyed bandicoot,” he muttered excitedly. “The lad’s gone an’ done it!”

  Rocking gently in the waves just beyond the breaking surf was a single-masted sloop. The stern faced shoreward and on the name-plate everyone could clearly make out the words JOHN B.

  Jon-Tom let the last words of the song trail away. With it went the Gneechees and the cloud of blue fog from which the boat had emerged. It bobbed gently at anchor, awaiting them.

  Roseroar put a proud paw on Jon-Tom’s shoulder. “Sugah, bless man soul if it isn’t a spellsingah yo are. That’s a fine-looking ship, for all that her lines are strange to me, and ah’ve sailed many a craft.”

  Jon-Tom continued to pluck fitfully at the duar as if fearful that the sloop, solid as she looked, might disappear at any moment in a rush of fog.

  “Glad you think so. Me, I’ve never been on anything bigger than a surfboard in my life.”

  “Not to worry. Ah don’t recognize the mannah of ship, but if she sails, ah can handle her.”

  “So can I.” Jalwar appeared behind them, “In my youth I spent much time sailing many kinds of ships.”

  “See?” said Mudge, joining them on the beach. “The old fur’s provin’ ‘imself valuable already.”

  “Okay.” Jon-Tom nodded reluctantly. “Let’s see what she’s like on board.”

  Mudge led them out to the boat, as at home in the water as he was on land. The others followed. By the time Jon-Tom reached the bottom of the boarding ladder, the otter had completed a preliminary inspection.

  “She’s fully stocked, she is, though the packin’s bloody strange.”

  “Let me have a look.” Jon-Tom went first to the galley.

  Cans and packages bore familiar labels like Hormel, Armor, Oscar Mayer, and Hebrew National. There was more than enough food for an extensive journey, and they could fish on the way. The tank for the propane stove read full. Jon-Tom tried a burner, was rewarded with a blast of blue flame that caused Roseroar to pull back.

  “Ah don’t see no source of fire.”

  “The ship arrives already fully spelled for traveling,” Jalwar murmured appreciatively. “Impressive.”

  “In the song she’s supposed to be on a long voyage,” Jon-Tom explained.

  There was a diesel engine meant to supplement the sails.

  Jon-Tom didn’t try it. Let it wait until they were becalmed.

  Then he could dazzle them with new magic.

  “Roseroar, since you’re the most experienced sailor among us, why don’t you be captain?”

  “As you wish, Jon-Tom.” She squeezed through the hatchway back onto the deck and began familiarizing herself with the unusual but not unfathomable rigging. As with any modern sailing ship, the sloop would almost run the sails up and down the masts all by itself. It didn’t take the tigress long to figure it out.

  An electric winch made short work of the anchor.

  Roseroar spun the wheel, the sloop hove around with a warm breeze filling its sails, and they headed out to sea.

  Within an hour they had left the gravel beach and the Muddletup Moors with its confused fungoid inhabitants far behind.

  “Which way to Snarken?” she asked as she worked the wheel and a hand winch simultaneously. The mainsail billowed in the freshening wind.

  “I don’t know. You’re the sailor.”

  “Sailor ah confess to, but ah’m no navigator, man.”

  “Southwest,” Mudge told her. “For now that’s good enough.”

  Roseroar adjusted their heading, brought it in line with the directions supplied by the compass. “Southwest it is.”

  The sloop changed directions smoothly, responding instantly to the tigress’s light touch on the wheel.

  Feeling reasonably confident that at last all was right with the world, Jon-Tom reprised the song and for good measure added a chorus of the Beach Boys’ “Sail On, Sail On, Sailor.” The sun was warm, the wind steady, and Snarken seemed just over the near horizon.

  Putting up the duar, he escorted Jalwar down to the galley, there to explain the intricacies of the propane stove and such otherworldly esoterica as Saran Wrap and can openers to their designated chef. That and the rest of a fine day well done, he allowed himself to be first to bed.

  To be awakened by rough hands shaking him violently.

  “Get up, get up, spellsinger!”

  Feeling very strange, Jon-Tom rolled over, to find himself staring into the worried face of the ferret.

  “What. . . whash wrong?” He was startled by the sound of his own voice, unnaturally thick and slurred. And the boat seemed to be rolling in circles.

  “We are in bad trouble, spellsinger. Bad trouble.”

  Jalwar disappeared.

  Jon-Tom sat up. It took three tries. Then he tried to get out of the bunk and discovered he couldn’t tell the floor from the ceiling. The floor found him.

  “Wot was that?” said a distant voice.

  He struggled to get up. “I don’t. . .” He reached for the railing of the lower bunk and tried to pull himself upright.

  “Wheresh the. . . ?” Somehow he managed to drag himself to a standing position. He stood there on shaky knees that felt determined to go their own way, exclusive of any contrariwise instructions from his brain.
r />   “Whash wrong with me?” he moaned.

  Two faces appeared in the doorway, one above the other.

  Both were blurred.

  “Shee-it,” said Roseroar. “He’s drunk! Ah didn’t see him get into any liquor.”

  “Nor did I,” said Mudge, trying to push past her.

  “Give me room, you bloody great amazon!” He put his hands on Jon-Tom’s shoulders and gripped hard. Jon-Tom staggered backward.

  “Blister me for a brown vole if you’re not. Where’d you find the hootch, guv’nor?”

  “What hoosh?” Jon-Tom replied thickly. “I didn’t. . .”

  The floor almost went out from under him. “Say, whoosh driving thish bush?”

  A disgusted Mudge stepped back. “Can’t abide anyone who can’t ‘old ‘is booze.”

  “Leave him fo now,” said Roseroar. “We’ll have to handle this ourselves.” They turned to leave.

  “Hey, wait!” Jon-Tom yelled. He took a step forward, and the boat, sly and tricky craft that it was, deliberately yanked the floor out from under him. He slammed into the door, hung on for dear life.

  Mudge was right, he realized through the glassy haze that had formed over his eyeballs. I am drunk. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember imbibing anything stronger than orange juice at supper. After reprising a couple of choruses of “Sloop John #.” to make sure the boat didn’t dematerialize out from beneath them in the middle of the night, he’d gone to bed. Jalwar was awake and alert.

  Everyone was except him.

  Suddenly he found himself in desperate need of a porthole, barely located one in time to stick his face out and throw his guts all over the equally upset ocean. When he Finally finished puking he was soaking wet from the spray. He felt a little less queasy but not any soberer.

  Somehow he managed to slam the porthole shut and refasten it. He staggered toward the gangway, pulled himself toward the deck.

  Wind hit him hard the instant he stepped out on the teak planking, and rain filled his vision. Roseroar was holding the wheel steady with grim determination, but Mudge and Jalwar were having a terrible time trying to wrestle the mainsail down.

  “Hurry it up!” the tigress roared, her voice barely audible above the storm, “or we’ll lose it fo sure!”