my musical training and something I've picked up in this
world."
"Nonetheless, it cannot be denied. You have the gift."
For an instant it was as if the years had left the ferret
and a different being entirely was standing next to the
mainmast looking down at Jon-Tom. He blinked once, but
when he looked again it was just the same Jalwar, aged
and stooped and tired. The ferret turned away and stum-
bled toward the bow to see if he could help Mudge or
Roseroar.
The tigress had the rigging well in hand, and at Jon-
Tom's direction, Mudge was breaking out the sloop's
spinnaker. Behind them, furious faces lined the port side
of the pirate ship. Rude gestures and bloodthirsty curses
filled the air. Above all sounded a thunderous cackling
from Corroboc. The faces fled the railing, to reappear
elsewhere on the ship as the crew swarmed up the masts.
Oars began to dip as dull-eyed galley slaves took up the
cue provided by whip and drum. The big ship began to
come about.
But this time the sloop was sailing with the wind to
port. The square-rigged pirate craft could not tack as well
as the modern, fore-rigged sloop, nor could it overtake
them on oar power. Still, with the galley slaves driven to
collapse, it looked for a moment as if Corroboc might still
close the distance between vessels. Then Mudge finally
puzzled out the rigging that lifted the spinnaker. The
racing sail ballooned to its full extent, filled with wind,
and the sloop fairly leaped away from its pursuers.
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
133
"We made it, we're away!" Jon-Tom shouted gleefully.
Mudge joined him in the stern. The otter balanced
precariously on the bobbing aft end railing, turned his back
to the pirate ship, and pulled down his pants. Bending
over, he made wonderfully insulting faces between his
legs. The pirates responded with blood-chilling promises
of what they'd do if they caught the sloop, but their words,
like their ship, were rapidly falling astern.
"Yes, we made it." Jalwar glanced speculatively up at
the billowing sails. "If the wind holds."
As soon as his audience had dropped out of sight,
Mudge ceased his contortions and jumped to the deck,
buttoning his shorts.
"We'll make it all right, guv'nor." He was smiling
broadly as he gave Jon-Tom a friendly whack on the back.
"Bake me for a brick, mate, but you sure 'ad me fooled!
'Ere I was expectin' you to conjure up somethin' like a
ten-foot-tall demon to demolish them bastards, and instead
you slickered me as well as them."
"I knew that if I tried anything overt, Corroboc would
have me riding a pike before the day was out." Jon-Tom
adjusted their heading.
"Aye, that 'e would. Crikey but that were a neat slip o'
thought, puttin' 'em all gentle to beddy-bye like you did,
and then freein' up the monster missus there." He nodded
in Roseroar's direction.
"Actually I'd intended to go looking for the key,"
Jon-Tom told him, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"When I realized I didn't have the slightest idea where
Corroboc's keyring was hidden I knew the only chance we
had left was to free Roseroar."
The tigress stepped down from the mast to join them,
staring back over the stern. "Ah only wish ah'd had a few
minutes to mahself on that boat." Her eyes narrowed and
she growled low enough to chill the blood of her compan-
ions. "That fust mate, fo example. Wouldn't he have been
surprised when he'd woke up without his—"
134
Alan Dean Poster
"Roseroar," Jon-Tom chided her, "that's no way for a
lady to talk."
She showed sharp teeth, huge fangs. "That depends on
the lady, don't it, Jon-Tom?" Suddenly she pushed past
him, frowning as she squinted into the distance.
"What's wrong?" he asked, turned to look aft.
She spoke evenly, unafraid, and ready.
"Looks like we ain't finished with ol' Corroboc yet."
IX
"Gel below, Jalwar," Jon-Tom told the ferret. "You'll be
of no use to us on deck."
"I must disobey, sir." The oldster had picked up a long
fishing gaff and was hefting it firmly. "I am not going
back onto that floating purgatory. I'd rather die here."
Jon-Tom nodded, held his staff ready in front of him. In
planning and executing their subtle flight from the pirate
ship he'd forgotten one thing. Forgotten it because he'd
been in mis strange world so long he'd come to think of it
as normal. So when he'd planned their escape he hadn't
considered that they might have to deal with the fact that
Corroboc and several of his crew could fly.
There were only six of them. The captain must have
threatened all of them with dismemberment to force so
small a group to make the attack. Behind the parrot flew a
couple of big ravens, a hawk, and a small falcon. They
were armed with thin spears and light swords.
Jon-Tom set the sloop on automatic pilot, which left him
free to join the fight. Jalwar thought the flashing red light
of this new magic fascinating.
The fliers were fast and agile. Corroboc in particular
135
136
Alan Dean Foster
might be short an eye and a leg, but there was nothing
wrong with his wings. He dove and twisted as he thrust,
keeping just out of range of his former prisoner's weapons.
Nevertheless, it soon became clear that the pirates were
overmatched.
Corroboc's strategy was good. It called for his crew to
stay just beyond sword range while striking with their
needlelike spears. It might even have worked except for
the one joker in the sloop's deck. With his longbow,
Mudge gleefully picked off first the falcon and then wounded
one of the ravens.
This forced the attackers to close with their quarry, and
their agility couldn't compensate for their relatively small
size. One of Roseroar's spinning swords sliced the wounded
raven in half. Then another of Mudge's arrows pierced the
hawk's thin armor. When he saw that he couldn't hope to
win either at long range or in close, Corroboc ordered a
retreat.
"Have a care for your gullets, scum!" the parrot shouted
at them as he danced angrily in the air just out of arrow
range. "I swear your fate be sealed! The oceans, nay, the
whole world be not big enough to hide you from me.
Wherever you run to old Corroboc will find you, and when
he do, you'll wish you'd never been borned!"
"Blow it out your arse, mate!" Mudge followed this
with a long string of insulting comments on the captain's
dubious ancestry. Roseroar listened with distaste.
"Such uncouthness! Ah do declah, it makes me queasy
all ovah. Ah do so long fo the refined conversation of
civilized company."
The otter overheard and ca
st a dignified eye back at her.
"Cor! I'll 'ave you know, me elephantine kitten, that me
language is as fucking refined as anyone's!"
"Yes," she agreed sweetly. "Ah surely don't know how
ah could have thought otherwise."
Jon-Tom stepped between them. "What are you two
THE DAY or THE DISSONANCE
137
arguing about this time? We won, and we're safely on
course again."
A shaky, no longer cocky voice came from the gangway.
"What... what did we win? Who won?"
Jon-Tom remembered Folly. "Take the wheel, Roseroar."
"Jon-Tom, if n yo want mah opinion, ah think—!"
He disengaged the autopilot. The boat heeled sharply to
port, and Roseroar was forced to grab the wheel to keep it
from spinning wildly.
Jon-Tom searched the gangway, finally discovered Folly
huddled far back in a lower bunk. Within the sloop's
clean, quiet confines she looked suddenly fragile. The iron
collar was an ugly dark stain around her pale neck.
He studied it thoughtfully. The sloop was well stocked.
If he searched, he was certain he could find a hacksaw or
something with which to cut the metal.
"Relax, calm yourself." He spoke gently, soothingly.
"You're free. Just as I promised. Well, not completely
free," he corrected himself, smiling encouragingly. "You're
still stuck with us. But you can forget about Corroboc.
You'll never have to worry about him again. I spellsang
them to sleep. You too. While they all slept, we escaped."
Her reply was halting. "Then... you are a wizard.
And I doubted you."
"Forget it. Sometimes I doubt it myself." She was
swaying on the bunk and he was suddenly concerned.
"Hey, you don't look so good."
"I'm so tired...." She put her hand to her forehead
and fell over into his arms. He was acutely aware of her
nakedness. Not to mention her smell. Corroboc's ship was
no paragon of good hygiene. Folly likely hadn't bathed
since she'd been taken captive.
He slipped a supportive arm around her back. "Come
with me." He helped her stumble toward the ship's head.
"We'll let you get cleaned up. Then we'll find some way
to get that chunk of iron off you. While you're showering
138
Alan Dean Poster
I
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
139
I'll see if I can find something for you to wear. There must
be clothes in one of the ship's storage lockers."
"I thank you for your kindness, sir."
He smiled again. "That's better. Just call me Jon-Tom."
She nodded, leaning against him. For a minute he thought
she was going to break down in his arms. She didn't. Not
then, and not later. The first thing she'd lost on Corroboc's
ship was the ability to cry.
While she washed, he searched the ship's cabinets. One
contained familiar clothing. Familiar to him, but not to any
of his companions. He made a few selections and left them
outside the shower, along with a hacksaw and a file.
He'd expected to see an improvement, but he was still
shocked when she reappeared on deck later that afternoon.
She'd removed the iron collar. Her hair was combed out
and pulled back behind her. She stood there and looked
down at herself uneasily.
"I must look passing strange in these peculiar garments.'*
"You'll get no argument on that from me, luv." The
flabbergasted Mudge moved closer to inspect the odd
attire. "Strange sort o' material." He ran a paw over one
leg, reached higher. " 'Ere too."
"That's not material," she said angrily, knocking his
questing fingers away.
Mudge grinned as he dodged. "Fine-feelin' material to
me, luv."
"You try that again, water rat, and I'll..."
Jon-Tom ignored them. The argument wasn't serious.
Mudge was being his usual obnoxious self, and he thought
Folly realized it. Besides which he was busy enough trying
to sort out his own jumbled feelings.
Folly was gorgeous. There was no other word for it.
Young, but beautiful, standing there on the deck in old
JLevi's and a worn sweatshirt that had SLOOP JOHN B.
printed across the back. She looked so achingly normal, so
much like any girl he might encounter on the beach back
home, that for a moment he was afraid he would be the
one to cry.
Only the fading but still visible bruises on her face and
the ring the collar had left around her neck reminded him
of where he'd found her. He would have to hunt for the
sloop's first-aid kit. Or maybe he could think of a good
healing song, something more effective here than bandages
and ointments,
Roseroar gave the new arrival a cursory once-over and
snorted. "Skinny little thing. Yo humans..." She turned
her gaze to the stars mat were coming out. Jalwar was
already asleep somewhere below, the poor old ferret exhausted
by the strenuous events of the past few days. The horizon
astern was clear, the pirate ship having dropped out of
sight long ago. The wind off the waves still blew them
steadily toward Snarken, a goal temporarily lost and now
within reach again.
Snarken itself proved easy to locate. As soon as they
sailed within fifty miles of the city there was a perceptible
increase in the volume of surface traffic around the sloop.
bound for the same destination and follow them in.
A long range of hills that rolled down to the sea was
split by a wide but crowded inlet. Once through they found
themselves in a spacious bay ringed by lush green slopes
that climbed several hundred feet above the harbor. Still
higher land was visible off in the distance.
Wharves and docks crowded together on the far side of
the bay. These were home to dozens of vessels that docked
here from lands known and alien. Snarken was the princi-
pal port on the Glittergeist's southwestern shore.
Jon-Tom steered them through the merchantmen, in
search of an empty dock. Many of the wharves were
constructed of stone. The rocks were smooth and rounded,
evidence mat they had been carried down to the beach by
glaciers some time far in the past. The stones were
cemented tightly together and topped with planks.
14O
Alan Dean Foster
They finally located an open slip. Mudge dickered with
the dockmaster until a fee was settled on. This brought up
the matter of their Malderpot-induced impecuniousness. A
solution was found in the form of several stainless steel
hammers taken from the sloop's toolbox. These the avari-
cious dockmaster eagerly accepted in payment.
"What do you think, Mudge?" Jon-Tom asked the otter
as they walked up the pier. "Will he leave the ship
alone?"
"An 'onest bloke's easy enough to spot, bein' a rare sort
o1 bird. She'll be safe in our absence. For one thing, the
greedy bugger's terrified of 'er."
Jon-Tom nodded, paused as they stepped off the pier
onto the cobblestone avenue that fronted the harbor. Lizard-
drawn wagons piled high with goods clanked and rumbled
all around them. Strange accents and aromas filled the air.
"That bit o' business do bring one problem to mind,
mate."
"What's that, Mudge?"
"Wot are we goin' to do for money? We can't keep
tradin' away ship's tools."
Jon-Tom rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Right you are.
We're going to have to buy supplies for the trek to
Cranculam, too. We're going to need a lot."
"I'll say!" said Folly impatiently. "I need some real
clothes. I can't walk around in this silly otherworldly stuff.
People will laugh at me. Besides"—she ran her hands over
the too-tight seat of her jeans—"it binds me most strangely."
Mudge stepped toward her. " 'Ere now, luv, let me 'ave
a looksee. Might be we could loosen this 'ere...."
She jumped away from his outstretched fingers. "Keep
your hands to yourself, water rat, or you're liable to lose
them."
Mudge pursed his lips hurtfully, turned to Jon-Tom.
"Now, 'ere's an idea, mate. Why don't we sell 'er? That
were probably the best idea that ever occurred to that
rancid bag o' feathers Corroboc. Now that she's cleaned
THE DAY OF THK DISSONANCE
141
up 'alfway decent, she'd likely bring a nice bit o' change.
It would solve two of our problems at once, wot?"
Despite his speed, the otter barely succeeded in ducking
under Jon-Tom's swing. The chase shifted to a cluster of
big wooden barrels, but Jon-Tom was unable to run the
tireless otter down. He wore him out pretty good, though.
"Take it easy, mate." Both man and otter fought to
catch their breath. Mudge looked out from behind a barrel.
"Let's not kill each other over it. It were just a thought."
"Okay. But let's not have any more idiotic talk about
selling Folly or anyone else."
The object of this exhausted discussion gazed curiously
up at her rescuer. "Why don't you sell me? I'm nothing to
you. I'm nothing to anyone except myself. Don't think I'm
being ungrateful. I wouldn't have lived another month on
that ship. I want to help you. I can't think of any other
way to repay you for your kindnesses." She threw a
warning glance the otter's way. Wisely, Mudge said nothing.
"All I have, though, is myself. If you need money so