"Lad, you say you are a student?"
"That's right."
"A student en'geeneer, perhaps?"
"Sorry. Prelaw. And I don't think amateur electric guitar qualifies me, either.
I also work part time as a janitor at... wait a minute, now." He looked worried.
"My official title is sanitation engineer."
Clothahump let out a groan of despair, sank back on the couch. "So ends
civilization."
Pog let loose of the bookcase shelf and flew high above them, growling
delightedly. "Wonderful, wonderful! A wizard of garbage!" He dove sharply,
braked to hover in front of Jon. "Welcome oh welcome, wizard most high! Stay and
help me make all da dirt in dis dump disappear!"
"BEGONE!" Clothahump thundered in a tone more suited to the throat of a mountain
than a turtle. Jon-Tom and Mudge shook as that unnatural roar filled the room,
while Pog was slammed up against the far side of the tree. He tumbled halfway to
the floor before he could right himself and get shaky wings working again. He
whipped out through a side passage.
"Blasphemer of truth." The turtle's normal voice had returned. "I don't know why
I retain him...." He sighed, adjusted his spectacles, and looked sadly at
Jon-Tom.
"Tis clear enough now what happened, lad. I was not precise enough in defining
the parameters of the spell. I am an old turtle, and very tired. Sloppy work has
earned its just reward.
"Months it took me to prepare the conjuration. Four months' careful rune
reading, compiling the requisite materials and injunctives, a full cauldron of
boiled subatomic particles and such--and I end up with you."
Jon-Tom felt guilty despite his innocence.
"Not to trouble yourself with it, lad. There's nothing you can do now. I'll
simply have to begin again."
"What happens if you don't succeed in time, sir? If you don't get the help you
think you'll need?"
"We'll probably all die. But it's a small matter in the universal scheme of
things.
"That's all?" asked Jon-Tom sarcastically. "Well, I do have work to get back to.
I'm really sorry I'm not what you expected, and I do thank you for fixing my
side, but I'd really appreciate it if you could send me back home."
"I don't think that's possible, lad."
Jon-Tom tried not to sound panicked. "If you open this portal orwhatever for me,
maybe I could find you the engineer you want. Any kind of engineer. My
university's full of them."
"I am sure of that," said Clothahump benignly. "Otherwise the portal would not
have impinged on the fabric of your world at the place and time it did. I was in
the proper fishing ground. I simply hooked the wrong subject.
"Sending you back is not a question of choice, but of tune and preparation.
Remember that I told you it takes months to prepare such a conjuration, and I
must rest as near to a year as possible before I risk the effort once more. And
when I do so, I fear it must be for more important things than sending you back.
I hope you understand, but it will not matter if you do not."
"What about another wizard?" Jon-Tom asked hopefully.
Clothahump sounded proud. "I venture to say no other in all the world could
manipulate the necessary incantations and physical distortings. Rest assured I
will send you back as soon as I am able." He patted Jon-Tom paternally with one
hand and wagged a cautionary finger at him with the other.
"Never fear. We will send you back. I only hope," he added regretfully, "I am
able to do so before the crisis breaks and we are all slaughtered." He whispered
some words, absently waved his wand.
"Dissemination vanish, Solar execration banish. Wormwood high, cone-form low,
Molecules resume thy flow."
Light returned, rich and welcome, to the dimensionally distorted interior of the
tree. With the darkness went the feeling of unclean things crawling about
Jon-Tom's back. Lizard songs sounded again from the branches outside.
"If you don't mind my saying so, your magic isn't at all what I expected,"
Jon-Tom ventured.
"What did you expect, lad?"
"Where I come from, magic formulae are always done up with potions made from
things like spiders' legs and rabbits' feet and... oh, I don't know. Mystic
verbs from Latin and other old languages."
Mudge snorted derisively while Pog, peering out from a doorway, allowed himself
a squeaky chuckle. Clothahump merely eyed the pair disapprovingly.
"As for spiders' legs, lad, the little ones underfoot are no good for much of
anything. The greater ones, on the other hand... but I've never been to
Gossameringue, and never expect to." Clothahump gestured, indicating spiders as
long as his arm, and Jon-Tom held off inquiring about Gossameringue, not to
mention the whereabouts of spiders of such magnitude.
"As for the rabbits' feet, I'd expect any self-respecting rabbit to cut me up
and use me for a washbasin if I so much as broached the idea. Words are
time-proven by experimentation, and agreed upon during meetings of the
sorcerers' grand council."
"But what do you use then to open a passage from another dimension?"
Clothahump edged conspiratorially close. "I'm not supposed to give away any
Society secrets, you understand, but I don't think you'd even remember. You need
some germanium crystals, a pinch of molybdenum, a teaspoon of californium... and
working with those short-lived superheavies is a royal pain, I'll tell you. Some
regular radioactives and one or two transuranics, the acquisition of which is a
task in itself."
"How can you locate...?"
"That's other formulae. There are other ingredients, which I definitely can't
mention to a noninitiate. You put the whole concatenation into the largest
cauldron you've got, stir well, dance three times moonwise around the nearest
deposit of nickel-zinc and... but enough secrets, lad."
"Funny sort of magic. Almost sounds like real science."
Clothahump looked disappointed in him. "Didn't I already explain that to you?
Magic's pretty much the same no matter what world or dimension you exist in.
Only the incantations and the formulae are different."
"You said that a rabbit would resist giving up a foot. Are rabbits intelligent
also?"
"Lad, lad." Clothahump settled tiredly into the couch, which creaked beneath
him. "All the warm-blooded are intelligent. That is as it should be. Has been as
far back as history goes. All except the four-foot herbivores: cattle, horses,
antelopes, and the like." He shook his head sadly. "Poor creatures never
developed useful hands from those hooves, and the development of intelligenee is
concurrent with digital dexterity.
"The rest have it, though. Along with the birds. None of the reptiles save us
turtles, for some reason. And the inhabitants of Gossameringue and the
Greendowns, of course. The less spoken about them, the better." He studied
Jon-Tom.
"Now since we can't send you home, lad, what are we going to do with you...?"
III
Clothahump considered several moments longer. "We can't just abandon you in a
strange world, I suppose. I do feel somewhat responsible. You'll need some money
and a guide to explain things to you. You, otter, Mudge!"
The otter was intent on a huge tome Pog was avidly displaying. "Both of you get
away from the sex incantations. You wouldn't have the patience to invoke the
proper spirits anyhow. Serve you both right if I let you make off with a formula
or two and you messed it up right clever and turned yourselves neuter."
Mudge shut the book while Pog busied himself dusting second-story windows.
"What d'you want o' me, your wizardness?" an unhappy Mudge asked worriedly,