The wizard ignored him. Trying to remember exactly how he’d returned to reality, Jon-Tom tried to reposition his fingers the same way on the duar. Taking a deep breath, he strummed a few chords without having the slightest idea what he might be playing,
It didn’t sound very pleasant, but maybe that was part of it. The wizard blinked, much as Jon-Tom had blinked. A startled expression came over his face.
“What, who’s that, what?” He finally focused on Jon-Tom, who was standing over him looking concerned. “Oh, it’s you, my boy. What is it?”
“Clothahump, where are you? Right now, this instant?”
“Now? Why, I am in the Library, of course! The great Library. What a wonder it is! I am so glad you have found it, too, my boy. I shall require all the help I can get in the many years ahead.” He displayed the weathered hunk of shale he was holding. “See, I have found the key already. Here is the first page of the index, clearly defined for any who cares to look, and easy even for the uninitiated to read.” He started to wave it toward something in front of him. He paused halfway through the wave, staring straight ahead as if paralyzed.
“Clothahump? Sir, are you all right?”
Another moment of silence, followed by a whisper of resignation. “There is no Library here, is there?”
“No, sir.” The wizard’s expression was pitiful to behold. “I’m sorry, sir. It was an illusion. I experienced one myself. I still don’t know if I came out of it because it had run its course or because I happened to hit the right notes on the duar.”
“Not an illusion, my boy.” The turtle swallowed hard. “A perturbation. Another cursed, damnable, cheating perturbation. You didn’t see it, then? The Library?”
“No, sir. My illusion was different. I was standing on a stage, performing, at the summit of my profession. A beautiful dream. The fulfillment of all my most heartfelt desires. I had everything I’d ever wanted.”
“And I as well. This time the perturbation drew on our innermost selves for its trickery.” He looked down at the piece of shale, then irritably tossed it aside. “We are all fools.”
“No, sir. Being fooled doesn’t make us fools. The perambulator affects geniuses as well as idiots.”
Clothahump smiled up at him. “You are trying to make me feel better, my boy. It isn’t working, but it is appreciated. Give me a hand up.” Jon-Tom did so. Then the wizard gave vent to as great a display of frustration as Jon-Tom had ever seen. Clothahump often grew incensed at others. Sorbl in particular. But never at himself. So Jon-Tom understood the depth of the wizard’s disappointment when he kicked the shale hard, sending it bouncing down the trail.
“I feel better for that. My foot does not, but the rest of me does. I was in a Library, my boy. Such a library as has never existed. It contained within its shelves all the knowledge of everything that is, ever was, and ever would be. A Library of the past, the present, and the future. All the answers were contained within its walls. That’s what I’ve dreamed about, what I’ve wanted all my life, my boy. A little wisdom and a few answers. It is not nice to be cheated by a phenomenon of un-nature.” He sighed deeply. “What of the others?”
Jon-Tom gestured to his left, then up toward Colin’s branch. “As you can see, sir, they’re still all suffering from their individual perturbations. Their respective illusions must have a stronger hold on them than yours or mine did on us.”
“Do not flatter yourself that your will or knowledge of reality is any stronger. You needed the music to bring me back to myself. I suspect you needed it to shock you back as well.”
Jon-Tom shrugged. “You’re probably right, sir. A little rock goes a long way.”
The wizard growled. “Don’t talk to me about rocks. Come, we have work to do. You use your spellsinging and I will employ my magic.”
Jon-Tom chose to revive Dormas. She was deeply embarrassed despite his assurances that she shouldn’t feel that way. They had all of them been equally bewitched. Nonetheless, she insisted on trotting off to recover and to suffer in peace. She also spent more than an hour walking back and forth through the forest, searching for the emerald meadow of clover and flowers and finding only dirt and scrub. Thus satisfied, she located a small mountain pool and thoroughly doused herself. From all the rolling about she’d done in her imaginary field, she was filthy from forehead to fetlock. The dirt washed off, but the anger and embarrassment did not.
Jon-Tom set about trying to put their supplies back into some kind of order while Clothahump sought to magic some reality into his famulus. When magic didn’t quite do the trick, the wizard began slapping the owl back and forth across his muddy beak. Perhaps it was the lingering magic, perhaps the slaps, or maybe the combination. In any case, Sorbl returned to them. Returned to them as drunk as if his perturbation had been real. Apparently certain mental effects were not as easily shaken off.
Finishing with the supplies, Jon-Tom climbed the big pine and got a firm grip on Colin. The koala was mumbling mantras to himself as he chewed on the pine needles, and Jon-Tom had to shake him hard while trying to play the right notes on the duar. Colin must have had a stronger grasp on reality than the rest of them because he snapped back immediately.
Unfortunately Jon-Tom had pushed a little too hard. The koala went over sideways right out of the tree and landed with a disquieting thunk on the hard ground below. He was also tougher than any of them, for he rolled over and was on his feet in seconds, looking around as though nothing had happened. The pose was an illusion itself. A moment later Colin staggered and sat down hard, put his face in his hands.
This was not because he had suffered a concussion from the fall, as Jon-Tom first feared. Just as Sorbl had retained the effects of his imaginary imbibing, so had Colin kept the by-product of chewing handfuls of eucalyptus leaves. As he explained to Jon-Tom, they were mildly narcotic. That was why koalas eating them full-time were always so sleepy and slow-moving. It would take awhile for the effect to wear off.
As for Mudge, once Clothahump got over the shock of his first sight of the otter, it took the two of them and Colin to pull him off his log. Whereupon they braced themselves for a confession of embarrassment that would put Dormas’s to shame. The otter’s response, however, was somewhat different. As soon as events had been explained to him, he let out a string of expletives and oaths and execrations such as this part of the world had never heard. The air trembled around them.
When he ran out of steam, not to mention insults and wind, he gave the remnants of the devastated log a swift kick, sending splinters flying, and stalked off to sulk by his lonesome.
“You’d think the degenerate water rat would be ashamed of himself,” Colin commented.
“I don’t think Mudge knows the meaning of the word. I think he’s upset because we brought him out of his dream. He’ll get over it, but it’ll take awhik.”
True to Jon-Tom’s word, the otter pouted for another hour, then shambled back to help with the repacking of the supplies. Not a word was said until the last bedroll was back in place, the last container of food strapped down and secure. Then he glanced up at his tall friend.
“Did you ‘ave to do it, mate? Bring me back, I mean?”
“What do you think, Mudge?” Jon-Tom checked the position of a sack of spare clothing on the hinny’s back. “It was just a perturbation, an illusion. It wasn’t real. I miss my own dream too. I had to bring you back.”
“I know that. We ‘ave a job to do an’ we’re all of us in this together. But did you ‘ave to bring me back so soon7”
“There’s no telling what might’ve happened if I’d waited any longer.” He worked on another strap that looked a little loose. Dormas glanced back at him.
“Take it easy back there, man. That’s not your shoe you’re tying, you know.”