know if Snooth will serve you. She don't get much
business from outsiders." He shrugged. "Ain't none of my
business, your business."
"Who's Snooth?" Jon-Tom asked him.
"The proprietress. Of the Shop of the Aether and
Neither." He looked back over his shoulder, pointed. "Go
through town and stay on the north trail that winds around
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Alan Dean Poster
the base of the mountain. Snooth's place is around the side
a ways." He turned back to inspect them a last time.
"You're a weird-looking bunch. I don't know what
you've come to buy, but you'll need all the luck you can
muster to pry anything out of Snooth's stock. And no, you
can't have one of my feet to help you." He put the
all-terrain vehicle in gear and roared off into the woods,
the ATC popping and growling.
"I still say it were a demon," Mudge muttered.
"No demon, just a machine. From my world."
"Ah'd dislike being a resident o' yoah world, then, Jon-
Tom." Roseroar made a face. "Such noise. And that
smell!"
It had to have been conjured, Jon-Tom knew. Conjured
by a magic even more powerful than Clothahump's. His
heart raced. If this Snooth could bring something as solid
as the ATC into this world, something lifted from a
dealership in Kyoto or L.A. or Toronto, then perhaps she
could also send things back to such places.
Things like himself.
He didn't dare dwell on that possibility as they made
their way through town. For the most part, the busy, bored
citizenry ignored them. Many of them were using or
playing with otherworldly devices. Jon-Tom began to have
second thoughts about his chances of being sent home.
Maybe this Snooth was no sorceress but just some local
shopkeeper who happened to have stumbled onto some
kind of one-way transdimensional gate or something.
Mudge pointed out a traveling minstrel. The diminutive
musical mouse was plinking out a very respectable polka
not on a duar or handlebar lyre or bark flute but on a
Casiotone 8500 electronic keyboard. Jon-Tom wondered
what the mouse was using for batteries.
Not all the devices in use were recognizably from his
own world. The sign over a fishmonger's stall was a
rotating globe of red and white lambent light that spelled
out the shop's name and alternated it with that of the
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
251
owner. There appeared to be nothing supporting the globe.
As they stared, the globe twisted into the shape of a fish,
then into the outlines of females of various species in
provocative poses. Sex sells, Jon-Tom reminded himself.
Even fish. He walked over to stand directly underneath the
globe. There was no source of support or power, much less
a visible explanation for its photonic malleability. One
thing he was sure of: it hadn't come from his own world.
Neither had the device they saw an old mandrill using to
cut wood. It had a handle similar to that of a normal metal
saw, but instead of a length of serrated steel the handle was
attached to a shiny bar no more than a quarter-inch in
diameter. The baboon would hitch up his gloves, choose a
piece of wood, put both hands on the handle and touch the
thin bar to the log. It would cut through like butter.
There were other worlds, then, and this Snooth appar-
ently had access to goods from many of them. As they
made their way through the town, he thought back to his
companion's reaction to the ATC. To someone unfamiliar
with internal combustion devices on a world where magic
held sway, it certainly must have looked and sounded like
a demon. Crancularn was full of such alien machines. No
wonder it had acquired an unwholesome reputation.
But the townsfolk themselves were open and friendly
enough. In that they were no different from the inhabitants
of the other cities and villages Jon-Tom had visited. As for
their blase" acceptance of otherworldly devices, there was
nothing very extraordinary about that. People, no matter
their shape or size or species, were infinitely adaptable.
Only a hundred years ago in his own world, a hand-held
television or calculator watch would have seemed like
magic even to sophisticated citizens, who nonetheless
would have made use of them enthusiastically.
For that matter, how many of his contemporaries actual-
ly understood what made a computer tick or instant replay
possible? People had a way of just accepting the workings of
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Alan Dean Foster
everyday machinery they didn't understand, whether it was
powered by alkaline batteries or arcane spells.
Then they were leaving the town again, fog drifting lazily
around them. They had attracted no more than an occa-
sional cursory glance from the villagers. Huge trees hugged
the fertile lower slopes of the volcano, which simmered
quietly and unthreateningly above them.
Inquiries in town had produced no mention of visitors
resembling Jalwar or Folly. Either the two had lost their
way or else with Drom's aid they had already passed the
renegade pair in the woods. Jon-Tom experienced a pang of
regret. He still wasn't completely convinced of Folly's
complicity in the theft of the map.
No time for that now. The rabbit on the ATC implied
they might have trouble purchasing what they wanted from
this Snooth. Jon-Tom struggled to compose a suitably ef-
fective speech. AH they needed was a little bit of medicine.
Nothing so complex as a malleable globe or toothless saw.
His hand went to the tiny vial dangling from the chain
around his neck. Inside was the formula for the desperately
needed medicine. He hadn't brought it this far to be turned
away empty-handed.
There was no sign, no posted proclamations to advertise
the shop's presence. They turned around a cluster of oaks,
and there it was, a simple wooden building, one story
high. It was built up against the rocks. A single wooden
door was set square in the center of the storefront, which
was shaded by a broad, covered porch.
A couple of high-backed rocking chairs sat on the
porch, unoccupied. Wooden shingles in need of repair
covered the sloping roof that likewise ran up into the
rocks. Jon-Tom estimated the entire building enclosed no
more than a thousand square feet of space. Hardly large
enough for store and home combined.
As they drew close, a figure emerged from inside and
settled into the farther rocking chair. The chair creaked as
it rocked. The tall kangaroo wore a red satin vest which
THE DAY op THE DISSONANCE
253
blended with her own natural rust color and, below, a kilt
similar in style to the rabbit's. There were pockets and a
particularly wide one directly in front to permit the owner
access to her pouch. Jon-Tom stared at the lower belly but
was unable to tell if the female was carrying a joey, though
once he thought he saw something move. But he couldn't
be sure, and since he was ignorant of macropodian eti-
quette, he thought it best not to inquire.
She also wore thick hexagonal granny glasses and a
heavy necklace of turquoise, black onyx, and malachite. A
matching bracelet decorated her right wrist, and she puffed
slowly on a corncob pipe which was switched periodically
from one side of her mouth to the other.
He halted at the bottom of the porch steps, "Are you the
one they call Snooth?"
"I expect I am," the kangaroo replied, "since I'm the
only one around here by that name." She took her pipe
from her lips and regarded them thoughtfully. "You folks