He was still a giant blue crab.
“You would think, my boy,” declared Clothahump in that sometimes maddeningly condescending tone of his, “that you would have noticed the change before this, but 1 suppose readjustment takes more time when it occurs immediately upon awakening.”
“Readjustment?” He was very near panicking. “What the hell’s going on? What’s happened to you? What happened to Sorbl? What . . . .” He started to gesture with a claw, and as soon as he saw it hovering in front of him, he quickly drew it back against his body as if the very movement might make it disappear. “What’s happened to everything?”
“Well, my boy.” The wizard spoke while nonchalantly preening one eyestalk with his secondary claw, acting as though it were a task he performed regularly every morning. “It would appear that we are confronted by a problem of grave dimensions.”
“Oh, no,” Jon-Tom moaned. At least, he thought he moaned. It emerged as a kind of sibilant hiss. “Why must it always be a problem of grave dimensions? Can’t we ever be confronted by a problem of lighthearted dimensions? A problem of mild dimensions? A problem requiring only simple, straightforward solutions?”
“You are becoming hysterical, my boy.”
“I am not becoming hysterical,” Jon-Tom snapped. “Sarcastic and mad and maybe a little crazy, but not hysterical.”
At that moment the enormous blue crab, which had been listening patiently to him, vanished. So did the algae- and kelp-strewn wall of the cave, and the roar of the ocean outside, and the thick tangy odor of salt spray. The purple and green light that had illuminated the chamber was replaced with a warm, indistinct transparency. Clothahump the wizard, the real Clothahump, was sitting facing him on a stool not six feet away and regarding his young guest calmly.
Behind the wizard was the soft blond-brown wood that formed the interior walls of the great tree. The cave, too, had gone, to be replaced by the familiar surroundings of his own room. There was his bed, there his desk and chair, over in the corner the simple washbasin and spigots. Rising on shaky legs, he crossed to the basin, turned the cold water tap on full, and splashed it freely over his face and arms. As he dried himself he felt with relief the soft smooth skin that covered his arms. The hard chitinous shell was gone. He touched his head, felt the recently washed shoulder-length hair.
I am me again, he thought with exquisite relief.
The world was normal once more. Or was it? What of the problem the wizard had alluded to? Jon-Tom knew that the turtle did not refer to such matters lightly, and he’d already been subjected to an intimate illustration of the seriousness of the problem.
Well, no matter. They would handle it, as they had handled such matters before. Clothahump would know how to cope, what to do. Oh, he would moan and groan and gripe about the loss of his precious time, but he would take care of things, and Jon-Tom, as always, would learn from the experience. Surely any sorcerer who could conceive a strategy for defeating the Plated Folk at the Jo-Troom Gate and who could provide hot and cold running water in the heart of an oak tree could cope with this small matter of waking up in another world in the body of a giant blue crab?
Only—what if it happened again?
With some amazement he saw that his hands were trembling.
“Hey,” he said, trying to sound cool and failing because his voice was also shaking, “look at my hands. How about that? Maybe I am a little hysterical.”
Clothahump responded with a disapproving clucking sound, though his expression was full of sympathy. “Delayed reaction.” He reached into one of the drawers built into his plastron, spent a moment searching, and removed a small foil packet. He tossed the contents into the air while reciting a spell new to Jon-Tom.
“Suffer the shakes to cease and desist,
Soothe the disquiet and stir.
The neural pathways now should consist
Of quiet not unlike a cat’s purr
Tallium, condralium
Come forth endorphins and valium!”
Immediately a feeling of great contentment and well-being spread through Jon-Tom’s entire body. The relief was so sudden and complete that he didn’t mind the fact he could no longer stand erect. Sorbl caught him just in time, helped him over to his bed.
“I may have overdone it a bit,” Clothahump muttered.
“No, no, I feel fine,” Jon-Tom assured him. “Just—fi-ine.”
The wizard was nodding to himself. “Definitely overdid it. You are enjoying yourself too much.” And he made some signs in the air while Jon-Tom struggled to protest.
His head cleared and his hands remained steady. He tried not to show his disappointment.
“Uh, what was that stuff, sir?”
The turtle wagged a warning finger at him. “This is no time for pharmacological experimentation, my boy. You are not mature enough to utilize such spells in proper moderation. Your head needs to be clear, and what brain you have to be functioning optimally. Or have you forgotten already what I just told you?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Unable to conceal his boredom, he sat up on the bed, put his hands on his knees. “Another serious problem. Big deal.”
Clothahump eyed him carefully. “I definitely should have used a less powerful spell. Well, any remaining aftereffects will wear off quickly enough.”
“Too bad,” Jon-Tom muttered. “Look, I’ve heard it all before, sir. But I just can’t get excited anymore. Especially since you’re obviously capable of handling this particular problem.”
“Is that so?” Clothahump peered at him through six-sided glasses. “What makes you think I will be able to handle it?”
“You already have.” Jon-Tom blandly waved a hand at his room. “You put everything right again. I mean, I’m myself again, and you’re you, and the world is what it ought to be. Everything is as it should be.”
“Indeed that is so,” the wizard conceded, “except that I am distressed to admit that none of it was my doing.”
Jon-Tom blinked at him. “You mean you didn’t bring things back to normal?”
“Absolutely not, my boy, any more than I bent them askew in the first place.”
“Then,” Jon-Tom said, much more slowly, “it could happen again? I could turn back into a giant blue crab?”
“Oh, yes, most certainly. At any moment. And myself also, just as Sorbl could turn back into that crawly thing he was, and this comfortable tree back into a damp cave, and—”
“All right, all right.” The thought of returning to that skittering crablike shape, smelling of alienness and sea-stink, was enough to shock Jon-Tom out of his boredom. “But I don’t understand. Things like that don’t just ‘happen.’’
“Ah, but we have indisputable evidence that it did, my boy. Furthermore, should it happen again, the effects could be quite different.”
‘What do you mean ‘different’?” Jon-Tom asked uneasily, inspecting his room as though signs and portents of any impending change might be lying there on his chair or hanging from his clothes rack next to his extra shirt.
“I mean that next time the world might become less recognizable still. At any moment, without warning of any kind.”
Jon-Tom considered this. “It wasn’t an illusion, then? I actually changed. You and Sorbl actually changed.”
“Quite so. The entire world was transformed. You did not imagine that you were a large blue crab. You became a large blue crab.”
“I wasn’t sure. I thought that maybe—” He broke off.
“Maybe what, my boy?”
Jon-Tom found it difficult to meet the wizard’s gaze. “That you were playing some kind of elaborate joke. You’re always testing me.”
“A not unreasonable assumption on your part, save for the fact that I never engage in anything as juvenile as practical jokes. This was no test. I wish it were so.”