“Gone deaf, too. I said I were tryin’ to catch up on me sleep, mate. Do I boot you out o’ bed when you’re sleepin’ late?”
Jon-Tom took a deep breath as he stepped back. “I think you’d better take a good look at yourself, Mudge.”
“Cor, wot is it this time?” The flower bed sat up slowly. “No fur? Too much fur?” He glanced downward and his voice became an outraged squeak. “Oh me god, now wot’s ‘appened to me?”
What had happened was as obvious as it was unprecedented. During the night Mudge’s fur had returned to its normal length and consistency but with one notable exception. The slight thickening they had noticed at the tip of each bristle had blossomed into—well, into blossoms. Each bristle was tipped with a brightly hued flower. Other than being a bit thicker and tougher than most, the petals appeared perfectly flower-like.
Weegee found more than a dozen different types. “Daisies, bluebells, yellowlips, murcockles, redbells, twoclovers— why Mudge, you’re beautiful. And you smell nice, too.”
“I don’t want to be beautiful! I don’t want to smell nice!” The apoplectic otter was dancing in an angry circle and waving his arms at the injustice of it all. Petals flew off him as he flailed at the air. He looked like a piece of a Rose Parade float making a break for freedom. Eventually he ran out of steam and settled down in a disconsolate lump—a very pretty lump, Jon-Tom mused.
“Woe is me. Wot’s to become o’ poor Mudge?”
“Take it easy.” Jon-Tom put an arm around a flowered shoulder. A happy bee buzzed busily atop one ear. “I’m sure this conditon will pass quickly just like all the others. And to think you’re always calling me a blooming idiot.”
Mudge let out a shriek and charged his friend, but Jon-Tom had anticipated the attack and dodged out of the way. Normally Mudge would have run him down, but he was so encumbered by his floral fur that Jon-Tom was able to elude him.
“Vicious,” he mumbled. “Vicious an’ evil an’ sarcastic, you grinnin’ ape.” He looked down at himself, spreading his arms. “Positively ‘umiliatin’.”
“Look at it this way,” Jon-Tom told him from a safe distance, “if we have to hide from any pursuers you’re already perfectly camouflaged.”
“Jokes. ‘Ere I’m sufferin’ terrible an” me best friend ‘as to make jokes.”
Jon-Tom put his chin in hand and studied the otter with exaggerated seriousness. “I don’t know whether we should have you mowed or fertilized.”
Even Weegee was not immune. “Don’t worry, dearest. I’ll make sure to water you twice a week.”
Mudge sat down on flowery hindquarters. “I ‘ate the both o’ you. Individually an’ with malice aforethought. Also afterthought.”
“Now Mudgey....” Weegee moved to caress him but he pulled away.
“Don’t you touch me.” He didn’t retreat a second time, however.
She began plucking petals from one of his blooms. “He loves me, he loves me not.”
By the time she’d finished plucking him there wasn’t a petal left on his back. Nor did the flowers rebloom. The bristles that moments earlier had doubled as stems stayed bare.
“See, Mudge? Under the flowers your fur is normal.” Together they began removing the rest of the blossoms.
There was a lot of hair and a lot of petals and plucking kept them busy the rest of the way to Strelakat Mews. By the time they were approaching the outskirts of the town Mudge looked and felt like his old self again. The mysterious (if colorful) disease had run its course. A good thing, too, since Mudge and Weegee were worn out from three days of continuous plucking.
There was no road sign, no warning. They didn’t so much march into Strelakat Mews as stumble into it.
Jon-Tom had been too preoccupied with other matters to envision the town in his mind, so he wasn’t prepared for the enchanting reality. Neither were his companions. It cast an immediate spell over all of them. All the dangers and travails of the long journey were behind now. They could relax, take it easy, and let themselves succumb to the charm of this unique community carved out of the middle of the Mews.
At the edge of the town the jungle had been pruned rather than merely cleared away. Those trees and bushes which put forth large flowers had been left intact to lend their color and fragrance to the periphery. No one pointed this out to Mudge as he was still somewhat sensitive where the matter of blossoms was concerned. Any mention of flowers tended to tilt him to the homicidal.
A single cobblestone street wound its way through town, its very existence as astonishing as the precision with which the stones had been set. Jon-Tom could only try to imagine where the townsfolk had quarried perfect cobblestones in the middle of the jungle.
The first shop they passed was a bakery, from which such wonderful smells issued that even the grumpy Mudge began to salivate. As was true of every establishment they passed, the exterior reflected the inhabitant’s occupation. The roofing shingles resembled slabs of chocolate. Surely the window panes were fashioned of spun sugar, the doors and paneling of gingerbead, and the lintels of strudel. Ropes of red licorice bound candy logs together. Yet all was illusion, as Mudge discovered when he tried to steal a quick lick of spongecake fence only to discover it was made of wood and not flour.
A master sculptor’s residence was hewn from white marble which had been buffed to such a high polish not even a solitary raindrop could cling to it. Woodworkers’ homes were miracles of elaborate carving, baroque with curlicues and reliefs. Seamless joints were covered with fruitwood veneers. Such work was normally reserved for the fashioning of fine furniture.
A painter’s house was a landscape of mountains and clouds set down amidst green jungle. A rainbow seemed to move across the face of the building.
“Magic,” said Cautious.
“Not magic. Superior artistry. Superior skill and craftsmanship.”
They passed a mason’s house, an infinity of tiny colored stones set in an almost invisible matrix. A furniture maker’s establishment resembled a giant overstuffed settee surmounted by a dining room table. But nowhere did they see a storefront or home that suggested its owner was a maker of musical instruments.
They finally had to stop outside the house of a master weaver. Jon-Tom rang the bell set in the door of woven reeds, a rectangle of brown against walls of dyed wool, alpaca and qiviot. The weaver was a four-foot-tall paca, built like a pear and clad in a simple tunic. She rested against the door jamb while she pondered the stranger’s story.
“I don’t know that you should bother Couvier Coulb,” she said at last.
Jon-Tom relaxed slightly. At least they’d come to the right place. He said as much to the weaver.
“Oh, this is the right place, yes.” She looked into his eyes, studied his face. “You’ve come a long way. And you say you are a spellsinger?”
Jon-Tom slid the sack containing the remnants of his duar off his shoulder and exhibited the contents. “Yes. My mentor, the wizard Clothahump, said that in all the world only Couvier Coulb might have the skill necessary to repair my duar.”
“A magical device.” She eyed it curiously. “Not many of us here deal with magic, though visitors think otherwise. Shomat the baker now, he can make decorations dance atop his cakes and spin spun sugar webbing spiders mistake for their own. Couvier Coulb knows also a trick or two.” She sighed, apparently arriving at a conclusion to some unspoken internal argument. “I can show you where he lives.” She stepped out onto the cotton porch and pointed.
“You go to the end of the main street. A trail turns to the left. Don’t take that one. Take the one after it. The house you want lies at its end a short walk from town, back in the trees beside a waterfall. You can’t mistake it for anyone else’s place.