"This way," the tigress told him. She took his hand and
pulled him bodily through the milling, swarming crowd, a
striped iceberg breasting a sea of fur. Somehow Mudge
managed to keep up.
Then they found themselves by the city wall, followed
it until they came to stone stairs leading upward. Jon-Tom
let loose of Roseroar's paw and led the way.
Would the sand wave fill the moat? If so, what would
happen afterward?
A few others already stood watching atop the wall. They
were calm and relaxed, so Jon-Tom assumed there was no
danger. Everyone in the city was handling the situation too
well for there to be any danger.
One blase guard, a tall serval wearing a high turban to
protect his delicate ears, stood aside to let them pass.
"Mind the vibration, visitors," he warned them
They reached the top and stared out over the desert.
Beyond the moat, the world was turning upside down.
There was no sign of the far mountains they had left
many days ago. No sign of any landmark. Not a rock
protruded from the ground. There was only the sand sea
rising and rushing toward the city in a single wave two
hundred feet high, roaring like a billion pans of frying
bacon. Jon-Tom wanted to reach back and put his hand on
the guard, to ask what was going to happen next. Since
none of the other onlookers did so, he held his peace and
like them, simply stood and gaped.
The massive wave did not fall forward to smash against
the puny city walls. It began to slide into the dark moat,
pouring in a seemingly endless waterfall into the unbelievable
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
217
excavation. The wave was endless, too. As they watched
it seemed to grow even higher, climbing toward the clouds
as its base disappeared into the moat.
The thunder was all around him, and he could feel the
sandstone blocks quivering underfoot. Jon-Tom turned.
Across the roofs of the city, in all directions, he could see
the wave. The city was surrounded by rushing sand hun-
dreds of feet high and inestimable in volume, all of it
cascading down into the depths which surrounded Redrock.
Thirty minutes passed. The wave began to shrink. Un-
countable tons of sand continued to pour into the moat,
which still showed no sign of filling up. Another thirty
minutes and the torrent had slowed to a trickle. A few
minutes more and the last grains tumbled into the abyss.
Beyond, the moon illuminated the skeleton of the de-
sert. Bare rock stood revealed, as naked as the surface of
the moon. Between the city and the mountains, nothing
lived, nothing moved. A few hollows showed darkly
in the rock, ancient depressions now emptied of sand and
gravel.
A soft murmur rose from the onlookers as they turned
away from the moat and the naked desert to face the center
of the city. Jon-Tom and his companions turned with them.
In the exact center of Redrock a peculiar glassy tower
stood apart from the sandstone buildings. All eyes focused
on the slim spire. There was a feeling of expectation.
He was about to give in to curiosity and ask the guard
what was going to happen when he heard something
nimble. The stone under his feet commenced quivering. It
was a different tremor this time, as though the planet itself
were in motion. The rumbling deepened, became a roar-
ing, then a constant thunder. Something was happening
deep inside the earth.
"What is it, what's going on?" Roseroar yelled at him.
He did not reply and could not have made himself heard
had he tried.
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Alan Dean Foster
Sudden, violent wind blew hats from heads and veils
from faces. Jon-Tom's cape stretched out straight behind
him like an iridescent flag. He staggered, leaned into the
unexpected hurricane as he tried to see the tower.
The sands of the Timeful Desert erupted skyward from
the open mouth of the glass pillar, climbing thousands of
feet toward the moon. Reaching some predetermined height,
the silica geyser started to spread out beneath the clouds.
Jon-Tom instinctively turned to seek shelter, but stopped
when he saw that none of the other pilgrims had moved.
As though sliding down an invisible roof, the sand did
not fall anywhere within the city walls. Instead, it spread
out like a cloud, to fall as yellow rain across the desert. It
continued to fall for hours as the tower blasted it into the
sky. Only when the moon was well past its zenith and had
begun to set again did the volume decrease and finally
peter out.
Then the geyser fell silent. The chatter of the refugees
and the cityfolk filled the air, replacing the roar of the
tower. A glance revealed that the bottomless moat was
empty once again.
Beyond the wall, beyond the moat, the Timeful Desert
once more was as it had been. All was still. The absence
of life there despite the presence of water was now explained.
"Great magic," said Roseroar solemnly.
"Lethal magic." Mudge twitched his nose. "If we'd
been a few minutes longer we'd be out there somewhere
with our 'earts stopped and our guts full o' sand."
Jon-Tom stopped a passing fox. "Is it over? What
happens now?"
"What happens now, man," said the fox, "is that we
sleep, and we celebrate the end of another Conjunction.
Tomorrow we return to our homes." She pushed past him
and started down the stairs.
Jon-Tom resorted to questioning one of the guards. The
muskrat was barely four feet tall and wore his fur cut
fashionably short.
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
219
"Please, we're strangers here." He nodded toward the
desert. "Does this happen every year?"
"Twice a year," the guard informed him, bored. "A
grand sight the first time, I suppose."
"What's it for? Why does it happen?"
The muskrat scratched under his chin. "It is said that
these are the sands of time. All time. When they have run
their course, they must be turned to run again. Who turns
them, or why, no one knows. Gods, spirits, some great
being somewhere else who is bored with the task, who
knows? I am no sorcerer or scholar, visitor." He turned to
leave.
"Let 'im go, mate/' said Mudge. "I don't care wot it's
about. Runnin' for me life always tires me out. Me for a
spot o' sleep and somethin' to drink." He started down the
stairs. Jon-Tom and Roseroar followed.
"What do yo think happens heah?" the tigress asked
him.
"I imagine it's as the guard told us. The desert is some
kind of hourglass, holding all time within it." He gazed
thoughtfully at the sky. "I wonder: if you could stop the
mechanism somehow, could you stop time?" He turned
toward the glassy tower. "I'd sure like to have a look
inside that."
"Best not to," she told him. "Yo might find something.
Yo might find your own time."
He nodded. "Anyway, we have other fish to fry."
"Ah beg yo pahdon?"
"Jalwar and Folly. If everyone else is forced to seek
sanctuary here from the Conjunction, they would also. If
they weren't caught by the sand, they should be some-
where here in the city."
"Ah declah, Jon-Tom, ah hadn't thought o' that!" She
scanned the courtyard below.
"Unless," he went on, "they were far enough ahead of
us to have already crossed the desert."
"Oh," She looked downcast, then straightened. "No
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Alan Dean Foster
mattah. We'll find them." She began looking for an empty
place among the crowds. Probably the few city inns were