“The music our little friends produce emerges through the tiny holes in the collector plate. When I am in the mood I place another filter atop it. This filter shrinks down to a tube which I then insert into one of these bottles. Thus do I collect music. Much of it I do not recognize, but that does not keep me from enjoying it. I have become something of an expert on the music of other worlds and dimensions. The gneechees move freely among many. Listen.” He pulled the stopper.
The sound of a symphony orchestra again filled the workshop. Brass rumbled and strings queried. As Coulb began to close the stopper the music reversed itself, playing backward as it was drawn back into the bottle by some unimaginable suction.
“I have been able, by dint of hard work and much study, to identify music and composers.” He squinted at the label. “That was part of the second movement of the Fourteenth Symphony by a gneechee who called himself Beethoven.”
Jon-Tom could hardly breathe. “He wrote only nine symphonies.”
“While he was alive, yes.” Coulb wagged a finger at his guest. “In the gneechee form we all eventually come to inhabit he has continued to compose. Originally from your world, it seems. Let’s see what else I have from the same plane.” He chose another bottle and cracked the stopper.
An oceanic orchestral surge swamped Jon-Tom’s senses. Coulb let him listen a little longer this time, until the last note of the overwhelming crescendo had receded into the far reaches of time and space. It continued to echo in Jon-Tom’s brain.
The kinkajou checked his label. “This one must have been an interesting fellow. It took three bottles to hold all of this composition. Another of your symphonies, this one the Twelfth, by a Gustav Mahler.” He climbed to the top row of drawers, examined the contents of another. “Here is one of my favorites: Prist’in’ikie’s Tanglemorf for Gluzko and Eelmack.”
The sounds that now assailed Jon-Tom’s ears were utterly alien. Atonal without being disorganized, dissonant without being harsh, and extremely complex.
“I don’t know that composer.”
“Doesn’t surprise me, young man. I’m not sure I know the dimension. Gneechees do get around.”
“You’ve heard the kind of music I play. The Beethoven and the Mahler were wonderful but—don’t you maybe have something a little lighter from my neck of the woods?”
“Lighter? Like your own music, you mean?” Jon-Tom nodded. Coulb descended the ladder, opened another new drawer and chose a bottle. The glass was a rich, dark purple.
It contained sounds that were as familiar as they were new and unmistakable. Only one man had ever been able to make such sounds with an electric guitar. It was full of raw, disciplined power.
“Let me guess,” Jon-Tom whispered. “Jimi Hendrix?”
“Yes.” Coulb peered through his thick glasses at the label. “From the Snuff an’ Stuff double album. Bored yet?”
“I don’t think new music could ever bore me, sir. I even liked that Pristinkeewinkie stuff.” He stared silently at the cabinet. It must hold thousands of songs and symphonies and other posthumous unheard compositions by hundreds of long-deceased musicians.
“Call me Couvier. We have a lot to listen to.”
The house shook all that day and on into the night as Coulb played for Jon-Tom pieces of Bartok’s opera, A Modern Salammbo, selections from Wagner’s second Ring cycle, and most of a heartrending album by Jim Morrison.
And when kinkajou and man fell asleep, it was to the haunting strains of Janis Joplin’s “Texas Eulogy.”
Both woke with the sun. Jon-Tom thanked the old kinkajou profusely. Coulb shrugged it off. “Any time you feel the need to refresh your soul with new music, come and visit. The enjoyment ‘one gains from listening is doubled when shared.”
“If I could get back home and then return here with a good cassette recorder and a crateful of blank tape I could set the music world on its ear forever.”
“Ah, but you can’t hear anything if you’re standing on your ear.” Coulb laughed softly. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Jon-Tom?” He blinked sleepily despite his recent rest. The sun was rising higher outside and the nocturnal craftsman would be wanting to retire, his guest knew.
“Just one thing. Can you recommend someone to guide us safely back to Chejiji? Preferably by a roundabout route? We had a minor altercation with some locals on our way here and I’d rather not have to deal with them again.”
“Ah, the ogres. Yes, we can find someone to escort you around their territory. I wish you could stay longer. I have so much music to share with you.”
“I’ll be back, I promise. I’ve got to come back here with a tape recorder.”
“I could loan you some bottles.”
“I’d feel safer with a recorder. It won’t break as easily if I fall on it.” He grinned ruefully.
Together they exited the workshop. “What will you do once you get back to Chejiji?”
“Try to charter a boat to take my friends and I back to a certain section of the eastern Glittergeist. We found what I think is a permanent gate between our worlds. If it’s still there I’m going back for that recorder—and other things.”
“Then I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you again. And hearing you play.” Man and kinkajou shook hands.
True to his word Coulb had Amalm locate someone to lead them safely through the Mews. There Weegee suggested they look up Teyva before bothering with an uncertain ship and unreliable crew.
They located the flying stallion in an aerial stable on the far side of town. He was delighted to see them again. With his fear of flying permanently cured, he readily agreed to carry them back to the eastern swamplands. Nor did he have to strain to transport them alone. Having won a substantial amount at cards, he called in his debts among his friends. So Jon-Tom and his companions each had their own mount.
From the air most forest looks alike, but eventually Mudge’s sharp eyes spotted a certain tree, and from the tree they managed to locate the rocky ledge and the subterranean orifice it concealed. They landed, and while the flying horses chatted of alfalfa wine and cloud dancing Jon-Tom made his final preparations.
He was taking his duar and ramwood staff, neither of which should draw any unusual attention. His iridescent lizard-skin cape he would leave behind. As for the rest of his unusual clothing he had concocted various explanations with which to satisfy the curious until he could purchase sneakers, jeans and a shirt to match. It shouldn’t take long to convert Clothahump’s gold coins into ready cash at any pawn shop.
Cautious was regarding him fondly. “You be careful for sure now.”
“You too. What are you going to do now?”
“I think maybe my hometown friends still pretty mad at me, you bet. So I think I go back with your otter fella and see what this Bellwood country is like.”
.”We’ll be waiting for your return.” Was Weegee crying? “I’ll have a talk with your lady Talea, female to female, and explain what you’re about. How will you make it home when you come back this way, Jon-Tom? You don’t know how long you’re going to be and Teyva can’t wait here forever.”
“I don’t expect him to wait at all. Mudge and I have traveled a fair portion of the world. I’m not worried about getting home from here.” He took a last look around, checked to make sure he had several torches handy. “I guess that’s everything. Teyva and his friends will fly you back to the Bell woods and....”
A large furry mass struck him square in the chest. He staggered backward with Mudge clinging to him. The otter was sobbing uncontrollably.
“You ain’t comin’ back!” Black nose and whiskers were inches from his face and tears were pouring down fuzzy cheeks. “I know you ain’t. Once you get back to your own world through that bloody ‘ole in the ground you’ll be back in familiar surroudin’s, back among your own kind, an’ you’ll forget all about us. About poor ol’ Mudge, an’ Weegee, and that senile ‘ardshell Clothahump who needs you to look after ‘im in ‘is old age, and even about Talea. You’ll get back to where everythin’s comfortable an’ safe an’ relaxin’ an’ you won’t be comin’ back ‘ere.” He grabbed the vee of Jon-Tom’s indigo shirt and shook him.