I'm going to die here.
I want to go HOME!
Oddly enough, it was a more distant fear that finally began to return him to
normal. The assault of paranoia began to fade as he considered his surroundings.
A dark street not unlike many others, pavement, mist chill inside his nose; no
fear in any of those. And what of his companions? A scintillating if irascible
redhead and an oversized but intelligent otter, both of whom were allies and not
enemies. Better to worry about Clothahump's tale of coming evil than his own
miserable but hardly deadly situation.
"What's the matter, mate?" Mudge stared at him with genuine coneern. "You're not
goin' t' faint on me again, are you?"
"Just queasy," said Talea sharply, though not nearly as sharply as before. "It's
a nasty business, this."
"No." Jon-Tom shook away the last clinging rags of fear. They vanished into the
night. "It's not that. I'm fine, thanks." His true thoughts he kept to himself.
She looked at him uncertainly a moment longer, then turned back to the door as
Mudge said, "I 'ear somethin'."
Footsteps sounded faintly from just inside. There was a rattling at the
doorknob. Inside, someone cursed a faulty lock.
Their attention directed away from him, Jon-Tom dissected the fragment of
Clothahump's warning whose import had just occurred to him.
If something could bring a great evil from his own world into this one, an evil
which none here including Clothahump could understand, why could not that same
maleficent force reverse the channel one day and thrust some similar
unmentionable horror on his own unsuspecting world? Preoccupied as it was with
petty politics and intertribal squabbles between nations, could it survive a
powerful assault of incomprehensible and destructive magic from this world? No
one would believe what was happening, just as he hadn't believed his first
encounters with Clothahump's magic.
According to the aged wizard, an evil was abroad in this place and time that
would make the minions of Nazism look like Sunday School kids. Would an evil
like that be content at consuming this world alone, or would it reach out for
further and perhaps simpler conquests?
As a student of history that was one answer he knew. The appetite of evil far
exceeds that of the benign. Success fed rather than sated its appetite for
destruction. That was a truth that had plagued mankind throughout its entire
history. What he had seen around him since coming here did not lead him to think
it would be otherwise with the force Clothahump so feared.
Somewhere in this world a terror beyond his imagining swelled and prepared. He
pictured Clothahump again: the squat, almost comical turtle shape with its
plastron compartments; the hexagonal little glasses; the absentminded way of
speaking; and he forced himself to consider him beyond the mere physical image.
He remembered the glimpses of Clothahump's real power. For all the insults Pog
and Mudge levied at the wizard, they were always tinged with respect.
So on those rounded--indeed, nonexistent--shoulders rested possibly not only the
destiny of one, but of two worlds: this, and his own, the latter dreaming
innocently along in a universe of predictable physics.
He looked down at his watch, no longer ticking, remembered his lighter, which
had flared efficiently one last time before running out of fuel. The laws of
science functioned here as they did at home. Mudge had been unfamiliar with the
"spell," the physics, which had operated his watch and lighter. Research here
had taken a divergent path. Science in his own, magic in this one. The words
were similar, but not the methodology of application.
Would not evil spells as well as benign ones operate to bewildering effect in
his own world?
He took a deep breath. If such was the case, then he no longer had a safe place
to run to.
If that was true, what was he doing here? He ought to be back at the Tree, not
pleading to be sent home but offering what little help he could, if only his
size and strength, to Clothahump. For if the turtle was not senile, if he was
correct about the menace that Jon-Tom now saw threatened him anywhere, then
there was a good chance he would die, and his parents, and his brother in
Seattle, and...
The enormity of it was too much. Jon-Tom was no world-shaker. One thing at a
time, boy, he told himself. You can't save worlds if you're locked up in a
filthy local jail, puking your lunch all over yourself because the local cops
don't play by the rules. As you surely will if you don't listen to Mudge and
help this lovely lady.
"I'm all right now," he muttered softly. "We'll take things easy, pursue the
internal logic. Just like researching a test case for class."
"Wot's that, mate?"
"Nothing." The otter eyed him a moment longer, then turned back to the door.
Life is a series of tests, Jon-Tom reminded himself. Where had read that? Not in
the laws of ancient Peru, or in Basic Torts or California Contracts. But he was
ready for it now, for whatever sudden turns and twists life might throw at him.
Feeling considerably more at peace with himself and the universe, he stood
facing the entrance and waited to be told what to do next.
The stubborn knob finally turned. A shape stood inside, staring back at them.
Once it had been massively proportioned, but the flesh had sagged with age. The
arms were nearly as long as the otter's whole body. One held a lantern high
enough to shower light down even on Jon-Tom's head.
The old orangutan's whiskers shaded from russet to gray. His glasses were round
and familiar, with golden metal rims. Jon-Tom decided that either wizardly
spells for improving eyesight were unknown or else local magic had not
progressed that far.
A flowing nightgown of silk and lace and a decidedly feminine cast clad that
simian shape. Jon-Tom was careful not to snicker. Nothing surprised him anymore.
"Weel, what ees eet at thees howar?" He had a voice like a rusty lawnmower. Then
he was squinting over the top rims of the glasses at Talea. "You. Don't I know
you?"
"You should," she replied quickly. "Talea of the High Winds and Moonflame. I did
a favor for you once."
Nilanthos continued to stare at her, then nodded slowly. "Ah yes, I reemeember
you now. Taleea off thee poleece records and thee dubeeous reeputation,'" he
said with a mocking smile.
Talea was not upset. "Then along with my reputation you'll recall those six
vials of drugs I got for you. The ones whose possession is frowned upon by the
sorceral societies, an exclusion extended even to," she coughed delicately,
"physicians."
"Yees, yees, off course I reemeember." He sighed resignedly. "A deebt ees a
deebt. What ees your probleem that you must call mee op from sleep so late?"
"We have two problems, actually." She started for the wagon. "Keep the door
open."
Jon-Tom and Mudge joined her. Hastily they threw aside the blanket and wrestled
out the two unlucky victims of Talea's nighttime activities. The muskrat was now
snoring noisily and healthily, much to Jon-Tom's relief.
Nilanthos stood aside, holding the lamp aloft while the grisly delivery was
hauled inside. He peered anxiously out into the street.
"Surgeree ees een back."
"I... remember." Talea grunted under her half of squirrel-quette burden. Blood
dripped occasionally onto the tiled floor. "You offered me a free 'examination,'
remember?"
The doctor closed and locked the door, made nervous quieting motions. "Sssh,
pleese. If you wakeen thee wife, I weel not bee able to canceel my half off thee