LITTLE MORTAL?"
"Do you still have the medicine, Snooth?" The kanga-
roo nodded, opened a fist to show the precious container.
A hand the size of a bus lowered to block her from
Jon-Tom's sight.
"THE MEDICINE YOU MAY TAKE. IF YOU CAN SATISFY
ME. AND YOU HAVE SEEN WHAT HAPPENS TO MERE MOR-
TALS WHO DISPLEASE ME."
Jon-Tom was beginning to understand why Crancularn
had acquired a less than favorable reputation among travel-
ers in this part of the world, in spite of the miracles it
offered for sale.
"YOU THINK LONG, MORTAL. Do NOT THINK TO TRICK
ME BY SOME FOOLISHNESS SUCH AS ASKING ME TO SHRINK
MYSELF INTO A BOTTLE." A hand hovered above them and
Folly flinched. "I DON'T NEED TO CHANGE MY SIZE TO
SHOW MY POWER. ALL I NEED TO DO IS PUT MY THUMB ON
YOUR HEAD."
"Whatever happened to the customer's always right?"
Jon-Tom shot back.
The djinn hesitated. "WHAT OTHERWORLDLY IDIOCY is
THAT?"
"Just good business practice."
"A MORTAL WITH A KNACK FOR BUSINESS." The djinn
looked interested. "I WILL LET YOU PAY WITH YOUR
BUSINESS, THEN, AND PERHAPS YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS
WILL LEAVE HERE WITH YOUR BONES INTACT. YOU ARE A
SPELLSINGER. I HAVE HEARD MANY SPELLS INGERS, BUT
NONE THAT PLEASED ME. I DO NOT THINK I KNOW OF ONE
FROM YOUR WORLD. SlNG ME A SPELLSONG OF YOUR
WORLD, WORM. SlNG ME A SONG THAT WfLL AMUSE ME,
INTRIGUE ME. SlNG ME SOMETHING DIFFERENT. THEN,
AND ONLY THEN, WILL I LET YOU TAKE THE MEDICINE
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Alan Dean Poster
AND GO!" The djinn folded arms with thick muscles like
the trunks of great trees.
"THINK CAREFULLY ON WHAT YOU WILL SING. I GROW
IMPATIENT QUICKLY AND WILL NOT ALLOW YOU A SEC-
OND CHANCE."
Jon-Tom stood sweating and thinking furiously. What
song could he possible sing that would interest this off-
spring of magic, who had access to the goods of thousands
of worlds? What did he know that might be offbeat and
just weird enough to have some effect on a djinn?
Off to his left Roseroar stood watching him quietly.
Mudge was muttering, something like a prayer. Folly paced
anxiously behind him while Drom pawed at the floor and
wished he were outside where he'd at least have a running
chance.
Feathers caressed his neck. "You can do it, colleague."
Charrok was smiling confidently at him.
Mystical. It had to be overtly mystical, yet not so
specific as to anger the djinn into thinking Jon-Tom was
trying to trick him. What did he know that fit that
description? He was just a hard rocker when he wasn't
studying law. All he knew were the hits, the platinum
songs.
There was only one possibility, one choice. A song full
of implications instead of accusations, mysterious and not
readily comprehended. Something to make the djinn think.
He let his fingers slide over the duar's strings. His throat
was dry but his hoarseness was gone.
"Watch it, mate," Mudge warned him.
To his surprise Jon-Tom found he could smile down at
the otter. "No sweat, Mudge."
"Wot can you sing for 'im 'e don't already 'ave,
guv'nor?" The otter waved at hand at the endless shelves
crammed with goods from dimensions unknown. "Wot
can you give 'im in song 'e don't already own?"
"A different state of mind," Jon-Tom told him softly,
and he began to sing.
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
285
He was concerned that the duar would not reproduce the
eerie chords correctly. He need not have worried. That
endlessly responsive, marvelously versatile instrument du-
plicated the sounds he drew from memory with perfect
fidelity, amplifying them so that they filled the chamber
around him. It was a strange, quavering moan, a galvaniz-
ing cross between an alien bass fiddle being played by
something with twelve hands and the snore of a sleeping
brontosaurus. Only one man had ever made sounds quite
like that before, and Jon-Tom strained hands and lips to
reproduce them.
"If you can just get your mind together," he crooned to
the djinn, "and come over to me, we'll watch the sunrise
together, from the bottom of the sea."
The words and sounds made no sense to Roseroar, but
she could sense they were special. Bits and pieces of
broken light began to illuminate the chamber around her.
Gneechees, harbingers of magic, had appeared and were
swarming around Jon-Tom in all their unseeable beauty.
It was a sign the song was working, and it inspired
Jon-Tom to sing harder still. Harun al-Roojinn leaned
forward as if to protest, to question, and hesitated. Behind
the fiery yellow eyes was a first flicker of uncertainty.
Jon-Tom sang on.
"First, have you ever been experienced? Have you ever
been experienced?" The djinn drifted back on nonexistent
heels. His great burning eyes began to glaze over slightly,
as if someone were drawing wax paper across them.
"Well, I have," Jon-Tom murmured. The notes bounced
off the walls, rang off the ears of the djinn, who seemed to
have acquired a pleasant indifference to those around him.
Jon-Tom's own expression began to drift as he contin-
ued to sing, remembering the words, remembering the
chords. A brief eternity passed. It was Mudge who reached
up to break the trance.
"That's it, mate," he whispered. He shook Jon-Tom
hard. "C'mon, guv, snap out o' it." Jon-Tom continued to
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Alan Dean Foster
play on, a beatific expression on his face. The djinn
hovered before him like some vast rusty blimp, hands
folded over his chest, great claws interlocked, whispering.
"BEAUTIFUL ... Beautiful... beautiful..."
"Come on, mate!" The otter turned to Roseroar, who
was swaying slowly in time to the music, her eyes blank.
A thin trickle of drool fell from her mouth. Mudge tried to
kick her in the rump, but his foot wouldn't reach that high.
So he settled for slapping Folly.
"What... what's happening?" She blinked. "Stop hit-
ting me." She focused on the drifting djinn. "What's
happened to him? He looks so strange."
" 'E ain't the only one," Mudge snapped. " 'Elp me
wake the rest of 'em up."
They managed to revive Drom and Charrok and Roseroar,
but Jon-Tom stubbornly refused to return to reality. He was
as locked into the deceptively langorous state of mind he'd
conjured up as was the target of his song.
"Wake «/>!" Roseroar demanded as she shook him. He
turned to her, still playing, and smiled broadly.
"Wake up? But why? Everything's so beautiful." He
looked half through her. "Did I ever tell you how beautiful
you are?"
Roseroar was taken aback by that one, but only for a
moment. "Tell me later, sun." She threw him over her left
shoulder and started for the door, keeping a wary eye on
the stoned djinn.
"Just a second." Drom paused at the portal and snatched
the container of medicine from Snooth's fingers.
"Hey, what about my payment, sonny?"
"You've already been paid, madame." The unicorn
used his horn to point at Harun al-Roojinn."Collect from
him." Drom trotted out, through the storeroom of broken
devices, through the living area, and out the front door to
join his friends.
Snooth watched him go, hands on hips, her expression
grim.
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
287
"Tourists! I shouid've known they'd be more trouble
than they're worth." She stomped out onto the porch and
watched until they'd vanished into the woods. Then she