The Time Of The Transferance

by Alan Dean Foster

  “AH right, but this looks like a completely different kind of village.”

  He was right about that. The owners of the outriggers were in no wise similar to the primitives who’d sold them back to the pirates. On the other hand, Mudge’s caution proved well-founded as observation revealed they were not the type of folks to spend their time helping old ladies across the creek, either.

  Most revealing was the high-walled wooden corral that dominated the center of the village. It did not look especially sturdy, but the tops of the walls curved inwards and were lined with sharp thorns. The intent was clear: to prevent anyone inside from climbing out. Presently the corral had a single occupant.

  Each villager wore a single massive necklace from which hung long, brightly colored interlocking leather strips. Hammered breastplates of thin metal were secured to the leather. The individual in the corral was attired in a similar garment, but Jon-Tom didn’t think he wore it voluntarily. For one thing the leather was dyed dead black. There were no bright colors, no additional adornments of beads or quills. For another, he was pacing restlessly back and forth as he tried various sections of the wall. Nor was he related to canus or lupus.

  Jon-Tom recognized the pattern. Appaloosa, and a handsome member of the breed he was. This world’s breed, for only ih fantasy did any stallion of his own world sport broad wings like those attached to the shoulders and ribs of the corral’s inhabitant.

  “Look there.” Cautious was pointing toward a big fire pit. Two spits were suspended over the shallow excavation. Villagers were filling it brimful with wood and coconut husks to make a hot blaze.

  It looked as though the community was preparing for a large luau. But was the flying stallion secured in the corral to be an honored guest or the main course?

  “What do you make of it?’’ Jon-Tom asked his companions.

  “From the way that ‘orse is runnin’ back and forth and nudgin’ at those posts I’d say e’d rather pass on tonight’s supper,” said Mudge. “But there’s one thing that don’t make no sense.”

  Jon-Tom found himself nodding in agreement. Indeed, you’d have to be blind not to have noticed it already. For while the walls of the corral curved inward and were topped with sharp things, the enclosure remained open to the sky. The nervous fluttering of the stallion’s wings showed they were not broken or otherwise visibly damaged. Therefore the inexplicable question remained.

  If he was in the kind of danger he appeared to be in, why didn’t he simply spread those powerful appendages and fly away?

  XI

  “That black collar they’ve got on him must be some kind of ceremonial harness.” Weegee was as puzzled by the apparent dichotomy of the stallion’s imprisonment as the rest of them. “Even if it was solid lead I don’t see it weighing him down enough to prevent him from taking off. He’s a big, strong animal.”

  “Make no sense for sure,” Cautious agreed.

  ‘ Tis all to our advantage.” Mudge pointed to a long outrigger with a sturdy mast set in the center. “Look at that beauty. If we can make off with ‘er we’ll ‘ave ourselves a leisurely cruise to Chejiji in no time. This is goin’ to be a cakewalk. While they’re ‘avin’ themselves their barbecue me an Weegee will swim across an* slip that pretty from its moorin’s. We can do this stream underwater easy.”

  Jon-Tom made no effort to hide his shock. “Mudge, we can’t just run off and let them cannibalize a beautiful animal like that.”

  “Who says?” He nodded toward Weegee. “That’s my idea o’ a beautiful animal, not somethin’ with hooves instead o’ toes.”

  “But what about the commonality of intelligence among the warm blooded? Have you forgotten that one of our best friends on our previous journey was a quadruped?”

  “I ain’t forgot old Dormas. Who could? But she ain’t set for the banquet tonight and I don’t know that winged stallion from nothin’. Just because ‘e’s got wings don’t make Mm anythin’ special.”

  Cautious looked upset. “It ain’t right. Ain’t right that those who can speak an’ think should try eat each other.”

  “ ‘Ow do you know that ‘orse can speak an’ think? Maybe ‘e’s a dumb throwback. Sure as ‘ell’s somethin’ wrong with ‘im. Otherwise why don’t ‘e up and fly away? Maybe ‘e’s livin’ out a deathwish.”

  Jon-Tom watched the stallion as he endlessly paced the interior of his prison. “We could fly to Chejiji a lot faster than we could sail there. You’re right, Weegee, about his size. A flying percheron. He’s big enough to carry all of us.”

  “I don’t like bein’ off the ground, mate. I get airsick, I do, if I ‘ave to climb to the top o’ a small tree. You’re pissin* into the wind anyways. ‘E’s in there and we ain’t. Tonight we ‘elp ourselves to a boat and slip out o’ ‘ere an’ tomorrow mornin’ we’ll be out on the open sea. Worst you’ll ‘ave out o’ this is a bad dream or two.”

  “Logically you’re right, Mudge. Emotionally you’re all wrong.”

  The otter found this amusing. “Now there’s a switch, wot?”

  “How about this, then? Suppose we cross the stream and free him while the villagers are busy preparing for their feast.”

  “ ‘Ow about we tie an’ gag you an’ dump you in the boat, and untie you when you’ve come back to your senses.”

  “I’m going in after him. Are either of you with me?”

  The otters exchanged a glance. Weegee dropped her eyes and said nothing. Disappointed, Jon-Tom looked to the last member of their little party.

  “What about you, Cautious?”

  “Just my name, that. I go with you, man.” He looked back toward the village and the corral. “This not right for sure.”

  “You’re both out o’ your bleedin’ minds. Jon-Tom, you ask too much this time, you do.”

  Jon-Tom pleaded with his friend. “It won’t be dangerous. Cautious and I will sneak up there when no one’s watching and cut the ropes securing several of those corral posts. Then we’ll run him out of there. Meanwhile you and Weegee can be stealing a boat. We’ll meet you where the stream flows into the lagoon. Cautious and I and maybe the stallion will swim back to join you. We’ll all be out to sea before anyone in there realizes that their main course has departed for parts unknown.”

  “That’s fine, mate. You write it down. We’ll make copies to pass out to them cannibals in there just so’s they know for sure ‘ow they’re supposed to play their bloomin’ parts.”

  They waited until the sun fell behind the palms. Mudge watched as Jon-Tom and Cautious started across the stream.

  “You better make it downstream on time, mate. I ain’t ‘angin’ around waitin* on you. Not this time. You ‘ear me?” But Jon-Tom’s ears’were full of water and he didn’t hear. Or maybe he did hear but chose not to reply.

  “Bloody idiots. I tried to warn “em.”

  Weegee put a paw on his shoulder. “They’ll make it. Don’t worry.”

  “Worry? Why the ‘ell should I worry about them? They’ve got plenty o’ time. We’ve got plenty o’ time.” He turned to embrace her but she pushed him away.

  “Not to be distracted we don’t. Let’s go get that boat.”

  She trotted toward the water. Grumbling, Mudge followed.

  A single drum kept up an unvarying, monotonous rhythm that imbedded itself in Jon-Tom’s consciousness. He would hear it in his dreams for days thereafter, he knew—assuming this improvised rescue attempt came off successfully. With Cautious leading they picked their way through the reeds, dripping wet from having swum the stream. It was a warm evening and Jon-Tom felt refreshed instead of chilled. More than ever he knew they were doing the right thing.

  They stopped behind a hut, crouching low. “See anything?”

  “Most people over making preparations for big fire,” the raccoon whispered. “Here I don’t see anything and nobody. We go quick now.”

  They raced across a small open area and found themselves standing next to the corral. The stallion saw them, glanced a
nxiously back over a shoulder, and trotted toward them. His voice was deep and resonant.

  “Who are you, where’d you come from?”

  “Friends.” Jon-Tom tried to see past the horse. “How’d you come to be in this fix?” Cautious was already using a knife on the thick ropes which held the corral posts together.

  “I was traveling to visit friends. A terrible storm struck one night and the small craft I was traveling on foundered. I fear many of my shipboard companions were not strong swimmers. There were high waves and then rocks. I washed ashore alone and came this way looking for help. Instead I found these terrible people.”

  Cautious had freed one of the posts. Jon-Tom helped the raccoon tie it down quietly.

  “You’d better hurry.” The stallion was looking toward the fire pit. “My name is Teyva, by the way. Hurry or they will eat you as well. This is a terrible land.”

  “Depend which part you live in.” Cautious strained against the knife.

  “Why don’t you just fly out of here?” Jon-Tom indicated the black leather collar. “Surely that doesn’t weigh that much.”

  The stallion glanced down at the ring around his neck. “No, it’s not heavy. I think the meaning is more ceremonial than anything else. This is what they place on the people they plan to eat. The fence is too high for me to jump.”

  “I didn’t say jump, I said fly. Why don’t you fly away?”

  Teyva looked at the ground and his voice fell. “I can’t.”

  “Have this in a minute.” Cautious grunted as he pulled on the post. “Why not.”

  “I just can’t.”

  Something struck Jon-Tom in the small of the back, propelling him into the corral through the gap he and Cautious had opened. The raccoon sailed in alongside him. Man and coon rolled to their feet in time to see a dozen grinning, well armed villagers starting to put the posts back in place. Cautious’s knife lay next to the feet of a muscular wolf. He picked it up and stuck it into his belt. They’d approached so quietly neither Jon-Tom or Cautious had heard them until heavy feet landed in their backs.

  Now they resecured the posts. Their tongues hung out as they regarded their new prisoners. Not a word was spoken.

  “Plenty quiet people for sure.” Cautious started forward. “I can climb this fence, I think.” He started forward until an arrow landed in the ground a foot in front of his big toe. Jon-Tom looked up into the trees. There wasn’t much visible among the branches. Intimations of bows and flashing eyes.

  “That’s where they came from. That’s why we didn’t hear them sneaking up behind us. They’ve probably been watching us ever since we came out of the river, trying hard not to laugh.”

  “Plenty dangerous people all right. Think nobody watching, they watching all the time.”

  “Not wasteful, though.” Jon-Tom nodded at the arrow. “That could have gone through your foot.” He turned away from the corral wall. “Pretend we’re stuck, that we’ve given up.”

  “We are and maybe I have.” The raccoon sat down heavily.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re just as helpless as I am,” said Teyva.

  “There’s a six-inch blade concealed in the bottom of my staff.” Jon-Tom gestured with his ramwood stick. “And I have an instrument in my pack.”

  “I don’t think music will help.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m a spellsinger.”

  “You’ll never be able to spellsing yourself out of here, man. You won’t have time.”

  Jon-Tom turned, studied the dark silhouettes of the trees. “Maybe, maybe not. Is that why you haven’t flown off? Because you’re afraid they’ll put an arrow through you before you can get above the treetops?”

  The stallion turned away. “Oh no, that doesn’t worry me. I could be up and gone before the quickest among them could take aim. They don’t worry about that, though, because they know I can’t fly out of here. Because they know what’s wrong with me.”

  Jon-Tom rested a hand on the enormous wing which lay folded back against the stallion’s right flank. He could feel the muscles beneath, the play of tendons the size of his thigh. The horse looked strong enough to fly off with a grand piano strapped to his back.

  “You look all right to me. If you’re not worried about being shot down and there’s nothing wrong with you then why the hell don’t you fly out of this lizard coop?” He tugged appraisingly on one of the leather straps that hung down the stallion’s sides, the black leather that was the mark of a chosen victim. “If as you say there’s something wrong with you, I sure as hell can’t see it.”

  “That’s not surprising. It’s not something that shows.” Teyva swallowed in embarrassment. “You see, I am afraid of heights.”

  Jon-Tom stared open-mouthed at the stallion. Sometimes he wondered if he wasn’t fated to personally make the acquaintance of every psychologically damaged individual in Mudge’s world.

  As for the villagers, they were delighted to welcome two new additions to the night’s feasting. To make them feel at home they busied themselves adding two new small spits to the pair of larger ones. The fire pit was widened. The main course would now be preceded by two appetizers. Surely a benign providence had smiled on them, blessing them with fresh food which walked right up and practically begged to be consumed.

  Why, one of them wouldn’t even have to be skinned.

  Jon-Tom studied the posts from the inside. The blade hidden in the base of his ramwood staff would make short work of the ropes holding them together, but it would also expose him to the attentions of the bow-wielders in the trees overhead. He doubted they’d allow him enough time to cut his way through.

  “We in stew for sure.”

  “Maybe not. Mudge and Weegee are still out there.”

  The coon blew his nose. “Nothing plus nothing gives nothing. I think we better try and figure way out of here ourselves. Don’t think you ought to count on your otter.”

  “He’s come back for me before.”

  “Did he have new lady with him at that time?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then you ain’t talking ‘bout same otter no more. Which you think he choose between? New life with her or old friendship with you?”

  Instead of making that choice Jon-Tom wandered over to Teyva. The stallion paid him no mind as he inspected the arrangement of leather straps that dangled from neck and back, and wondered if their captors would try dressing him in similar garb. In his heart Mudge was coming to save him, but his mind agreed with Cautious. They’d better try and figure a way out by themselves—and fast. Teyva represented the best chance of making an escape. Work on him instead of the fence.

  “A flying horse that’s afraid of heights. Doesn’t make any sense.”

  The stallion glanced back at him. “Neither does a spellsinger from another world, but you’re here.”

  Jon-Tom adopted his best professorial tone, the kind he used when tutoring befuddled first-year law students. “Why don’t you stop staring at that fire pit and relax? I’ve had some experience in matters like this. Maybe if we work on it we can find a cure for what’s ailing.your mind.”

  “I am relaxed. Just as relaxed as anyone can be when they’re preparing to be the main course at a cannibal feast. As for your curing me, man, you are welcome to try, but I must warn you that as things stand now I begin to get nervous rearing on my hind legs because it puts my head so far from the ground. On the ship I spent all my time in my room because I couldn’t bear to look over the railing. The surface of the ocean was too far below.”

  Not good, Jon-Tom told himself. “Have you always been this way?”

  “As far back as I can remember. When I was a colt I used to run and hide from my playmates because I couldn’t bear to watch them soaring freely through the air, playing tag with storm clouds, while my own inner fears bound me to the earth. Oh, I tried to fly, man. Believe me I tried!” He unfurled his magnificent mottled wings and flapped them vigorously,
but as soon as two hoofs rose more than an inch off the ground he immediately tucked his feathers against his body. He had a wild look in his eye and was shivering visibly. Clearly the mere thought of flying was anathema to him.

  Cautious was shaking his head, watching. “Damndest thing I ever see.”

  “Don’t help,” Jon-Tom said sharply to the raccoon. He turned back to Teyva, smiling comfortingly. “When did you first realize you were afraid of flying, as opposed to actually being physically incapable of flight?”

  The stallion spoke shyly, “Oh, I knew that from way back. If you’re searching for some pivotal event, some deep dark secret of my past, you don’t have to look far. When I was very young I was told, though I can scarce remember, that I had begun to fly on a training tether, as is the custom with young colts. Apparently, and I can hardly credit this though I am assured it is so, I was braver than most. I tried to fly right out of the stable that was my home. Right over the stable door I went like a shot, a door about your height, man.”

  “What happened?”

  “I tripped.” He shuddered visibly. “My legs hit the top of the low door. One hoof caught on the latch and the rest of me tumbled over the other side.”

  “Bruised yourself pretty good?”

  “Not at all. You see, the tether was around my neck and the door was taller than I was. So I was trapped against it, hanging from my neck. I tried to right myself by flapping my wings but they were pinned between my back and the door. I hung there against it slowly strangling until a mare who was a friend of my dame happened to come strolling by. She bit the tether in half, but by that time I had blacked out. That memory has remained with me always. Now if I try to fly all the fear and pain comes rushing back in on me and I feel as though I am strangling. You see, there is no great mystery about it. Just as there is nothing I can do about it.”

  Jon-Tom nodded. “Perfectly understandable.”

  Teyva eyed him in surprise. “It is?”

  “Certainly. You can’t fly if you’re grounded by a childhood terror. Many people know the cause of their irrational fears. They simply have no idea how to overcome them. The first thing you have to realize is that your fear is irrational. That all took place a long time ago, when you were barely an infant. You have to convince yourself there’s nothing wrong with your mind, just as you know there’s nothing wrong with your wings, your legs or any other part of your body.” He took a couple of steps forward until he was practically eyeball to eyeball with the stallion.