The Day of the Dissonance Read online

  “I don’t care if we do,” Jon-Tom moaned, putting both hands to the sides of his head, “just let’s not shout about it, shall we?”

  “Tell it to the sky, spellsinger,” pleaded Jalwar.

  “Yeah, use your magic, mate,” added Mudge. “Turn this bloomin’ weather back to normal!” Jon-Tom noticed that both of them were soaked. “Get rid of this bloody bedamned storm!”

  “Anything, anything,” he told them, “if you’ll just stop shouting.” He staggered and nearly went careening overboard, just managed to save himself by grabbing on to a stay. “I don’t unnershtand. It wash so calm when I went to bed.”

  “Well ‘tis not calm now, mate,” snapped Mudge, wrestling with the heavy, wet sail.

  “Ah’ve nevah seen a storm like this come up so quickly.” Roseroar continued fighting with the wheel.

  “The words,” Jalwar muttered. “The words of the spellsinging! Don’t you remember?” He looked straight at Jon-Tom. “Don’t you remember the words?”

  “But ish just the chorush,” Jon-Tom groaned. “Jusht the chorush.” He mumbled them again. “ ‘Thish ish the worsht trip, I’ve ever been on.’ I didn’t mean that part of the shong.”

  The ferret was nodding. “So you sang. The spirits cannot distinguish between what you sing and mean and what you sing and do not mean. They have a way of taking everything literally.”

  “But ish not the worsht trip I’ve ever been on!”

  Jon-Tom stood away from the rail on rubbery legs and screamed his protest at the skies that threatened to swamp them. “Ish not!”

  The skies paid him no heed.

  For hours they battled the winds. Twice they were in danger of being swamped. They were saved only by the unmagical efforts of the sloop’s pump. Somehow Jon-Tom got it started, though the effort made him upchuck all over the engine room. That wouldn’t happen again, though. His stomach was empty.

  If only it would feel empty.

  Soon after they pumped out the second holdful of water, the storm began to abate. An hour later the mountainous seas started to subside. And still there was no real relief, because thunder and lightning gave way to a thick, impenetrable fog.

  Mudge was leaning on the rail, grumbling. “We’d better not be near any land, mates.” He glanced upward.

  A faint glow suffused the upper reaches of the fog bank, which had not thinned in the slightest. “I know you’re up there, you great big ugly yellow bastard! Why don’t you bum this driftin’ piss off so we can see to be on our way!”

  “The words of the song,” Jalwar murmured. Mudge snarled at him.

  “And you pack in it, guv’nor, or I’ll do it for you.”

  It was morning. Somewhere the sun was up there, probably laughing at them. The compass still showed the way, but the wind had vanished with the storm, and none of Jon-Tom’s feeble coaxing could induce the shiny new diesel engine to perform.

  The restored sail hung limp against the mast. The sloop was floating through glassy, smooth, shallow water. A sandy bottom occasionally rose dangerously close to the keel, only to fall away again into pale blue depths each time it looked like they were about to ground. Roseroar steered as best she could, and with an otter and a ferret aboard there was at least no shortage of sharp eyesight.

  But as the day wore on and the fog clung tenaciously to them, it began to look as if Jon-Tom’s song was to prove their simultaneous salvation and doom. The wind remained conspicuous by its absence. Sooner or later the shallows would close in around them and they would find themselves marooned forever in the midst of a strange sea.

  The tension was taking its toll on everyone, even Roseroar.

  Their spellsinger, who had conjured up this wonderful craft, was of no use to anyone, least of all himself.

  Thankfully he no longer threw up. Yet despite his unarguable abstinence from any kind of drink, he remained falling-down drunk. Smashed. Potted.

  If anything, his condition had worsened. He strolled about the deck muttering songs so incomprehensible and slurred none of his companions could decipher them.

  Just as a precaution, Mudge had sequestered Jon-Tom’s duar in a safe place. He’d gotten them into this situation while sober. It was terrifying to contemplate what might happen if he started spellsinging while drunk.

  “We have one chance,” Jalwar finally declared.

  “Wot’s that, guv’nor?” Mudge sat on the port side of the bow, keeping his eyes on the threatening shallows.

  “To turn around. We aren’t that far yet from the beach where this unfortunate turn of events began. We can return there, land, or use this craft, provided the wind will return, to take us back to the mouth of the Tailaroam and civilization.”

  “I’m tempted, guv, but ‘e’ll never stand for it.” He nodded back to where Jon-Tom lay sprawled on his back on the deck, alternately laughing and hiccuping at the fog.

  “How can he object to stop us?” wondered Jalwar. “He has the gift, but no control over it.”

  “That may be, guv. I’m sure as ‘ell no expert on spellsingin’, but this I do know. ‘E’s me friend, and I promised ‘im that I’d see ‘im through this journey to its end, no matter wot ‘appens.”

  Besides which, the otter reminded himself, if they returned without the medicine, there would be no rich reward from a grateful Clothahump. Mudge had endured too much already to throw that promise away now.

  “But what else can we do?” Jalwar moaned. “None of us is a wizard or sorcerer. We cannot cure his odd condition, because it is the result of his own spellsinging.”

  “Maybe it’ll cure itself.” Mudge tried to sound optimistic. He watched sadly as Jon-Tom rolled over on the center cabin and tried to puke again. “I feel sorry for ‘im. ‘Tis clear ‘e ain’t used to liquorish effects.” As if to reinforce the otter’s observation, Jon-Tom rolled over again and fell off the cabin, nearly knocking himself out on the deck.

  Lifting himself to a sitting position, he burst out laughing.

  He was the only one on the boat who found the situation amusing.

  Mudge shook his head. “Bleedin’ pitiful.”

  “Yes, it is sad,” Jalwar agreed.

  “Cor, but not the way you think it is, mate. ‘Ere ‘e is, sufferin’ from one o’ the finest binges I’ve ever seen anybody on, and ‘e ain’t even had the pleasure o’ drinkin’ the booze. Truly pitiful.” A glance downward showed sand looming near.

  “Couple o’ degrees to starboard, luv!” he called stemward.

  “Ah heah y’all.” Roseroar adjusted the boat’s heading.

  The sandy bottom fell away once again.

  “It’ll wear off,” the otter mumbled. “It ‘as to. Ain’t nobody can stay drunk this long no matter ‘ow strong a spell’s been laid on ‘is belly. I wonder when ‘e did it?”

  “The same tune he did everything else,” Jalwar explained.

  “Don’t you remember the song?”

  “You mean that part about it bein’ ‘the worst trip I’ve ever been on’?”

  “Not just that. Remember that he made the tigress captain because she was the best sailor among us? That would leave him as next in command, would it not?”

  “Beats me, mate. I’m not much on ships and their lore.”

  “He reduced himself to first mate,” Jalwar said positively. “That was in the song, too. A line that went something like “The first mate, he got drunk.’ “

  “Aye, now I recall.” The otter nodded toward the helpless spellsinger, who remained enraptured by a hysteria perceptible only to himself. “So ‘e spellsung ‘imself into this condition without even bein’ aware o’ doin’ it.”

  “I fear that is the case.”

  “Downright pitiful. Why couldn’t ‘e ‘ave made me first mate? I’d ‘andle a long drunk like this ten times better than ‘e would. ‘E’s got to come out of it sometime.”

  “I hope so,” said Jalwar. He glanced at the sky.

  “Perhaps we will lose this infernal fog, anyway. Th
en we might pick up a wind enabling us to turn back.”

  “Now, I told you, guv,” Mudge began, only to be interrupted by a shout.

  What stunned him to silence, however, was not the fact of the shout but its origin. It came from the water off to starboard.

  It was repeated. “Ahoy, there! You on the sloop! What’s happenin’!”

  “What’s happenin’?” Roseroar frowned, tried to see into the fog. “Jon-Tom, wake up!” The sails continued to luff against the mainmast.

  “Huh? Wash?” Jon-Tom laughed one more time, then struggled to stand up.

  “Ahoy, aboard the sloop!” A new voice this time, female.

  “Wash. . . whosh that?” He stumbled around the center cabin and tried to squint into the fog. Neither his eyesight nor his brain was functioning at optimum efficiency at the moment.

  A second boat materialized out of the mist. It was a low-

  slung outboard with a pearlescent fiberglass body. Three . . . no, four people lounged in the vinyl seats. Two couples in their twenties, all human, all normal size.

  “What’s happenin’, John B.” asked the young man standing behind the wheel. He didn’t look too steady on his feet himself. A cooler sat between the front seats, full of ice and aluminum cans. The cans had names like Coors and Lone Star on them.

  Jon-Tom swayed. He was hallucinating, the next logical step in his mental disintegration. He leaned over the rail and tried to focus his remaining consciousness on the funny cigarette the couple in the front of the boat were passing back and forth.The other pair were exchanging hits on a glass pipe.

  The big outboard was idling noisily. One girl leaned over the side to clean her Foster Grants in the ocean. Next to the beer cooler was a picnic basket. A big open bag of pretzels sat on top. The twisted, skinny kind that tasted like pure fried salt. Next to the bag was a two-pound tin of Planter’s Redskin Peanuts, and several brightly colored tropical fruits.

  He tried to will himself sober. If anything could have cleared his mind, it should have been the sight of the boat and its occupants. But the uncontrollable power of his own spellsinging held true. Despite everything he tried, the self-declared first mate still stayed drunk. He swallowed the words on his tongue and tried a second time.

  “Who. . . who are you?”

  “I’m Charlie MacReady,” said the boat’s driver cheerily, through a cannabis-induced fog of his own. He smiled broadly, leaned down to speak to his girlfriend. “Dig that getup that guy’s got on. Must’ve been a helluva party!”

  Jon-Tom briefly considered his iridescent lizard-skin cape, his indigo shut, and the rest of his attire. Subdued clothing. . . for Clothahump’s world.

  The girl in the front was having a tough time with her sunshades. Maybe she didn’t realize that the glasses were clean and that it was her eyes that needed washing out.

  She leaned over again and nearly tumbled into the water.

  Her boyfriend grabbed the strap of her bikini top and pulled hard enough to hold her in the boat. Unfortunately, it was also hard enough to compress certain sensitive parts of her anatomy. She whirled to swing at him, missed badly thanks to the effects of what the foursome had been smoking all morning. For some unknown reason this started her giggling uncontrollably.

  Jon-Tom wasn’t laughing anymore. He was battling his own sozzled thoughts and magically contaminated blood-

  stream.

  “Who are you people?”

  “I told you.” The boat’s driver spoke with pot-induced ponderousness. “MacReady’s the name. Charles MacReady.

  I am a stockbroker from Manhattan. Merrill Lynching.

  You know, the bull?” He rested one hand on the shoulder of the suddenly contemplative woman seated next to him.

  She appeared fascinated by the sheen of her nail polish.

  “This is Buffy.” He nodded toward the front of the boat. “The two kids up front are Steve and Mary-Ann.

  Steve works in my office. Don’t you, Steve?” Steve didn’t reply. He and Mary-Ann were giggling in tandem now.

  The driver turned back to Jon-Tom. “Who are you?”

  “One hell of a good question,” Jon-Tom replied thickly.

  He glanced down at his outrageous costume. Is this what happens when you get the DTs? he wondered. Somehow he’d always imagined having the DTs would involve stronger hallucinations than a quartet of happily stoned vacationers loaded down with pot and pretzels.

  “My name. . . my name. . .” For one terrible instant there was a soft, puffy blank in his mind where his name belonged. The kind of disorientation one encounters in a cheap house of mirrors at the state fair, where you have to feel your way through to the exit by putting your hands out in front of you and pushing through the nothingness of your own reflections.

  Meriweather, he told himself. Jonathan Thomas Meri-

  weather. I am a graduate law student from UCLA. The University of California at Los Angeles. He repeated this information slowly to the driver of the boat.

  “Nice to meet you,” said MacReady.

  “But you, you, you, where are you? Where are you from?” Jon-Tom was aware he was half crying, but he couldn’t stop himself. His desperation overwhelmed any suggestion of self-control.

  The song, the song, that seemingly innocuous song so full of unforeseen consequences. First the boat, then the storm and his drunkenness, and now . . . where in the song had the sloop John B. been going?

  The stockbroker from Manhattan pointed to his right. “Just out for the afternoon from the Nassau Club Med.

  You know, man. The Bahamas? You lost out of Miami or what?” He jiggled the chain of polyethelene beads that hung from his neck.

  “Wanna come back in with us?”

  “It can’t be,” Jon-Tom whispered dazedly. “It can’t be this easy.” The song he’d repeated over and over, what was the phrasing? “Around Nassau Town we did roam. . . I wanna go home, I wanna go home. . . this is the worst trip, I’ve ever been on.”

  “I wanna go home,” Jon-Tom sang in his mind. “Around Nassau Town. Yes. . . yes, we’ll follow you back! We’ll follow you back.” He clung to the rail for dear life, his eyes locked on the big Evenrude rumbling at the stern of the ski boat.

  “You coming over here or you just going to follow us in?”

  “We’ll follow you,” Jon-Tom mumbled. “We’ll follow.” He turned to the helm. “Roseroar, put on all sail. . . no, wait.” It was still windless. “The engine. I’ll get that engine started and we’ll follow them in!” He took a wild step toward the hatchway, felt himself going backward over the rail, tumbling toward a waiting pane of glass that wasn’t there.

  An immense paw had hold of him, was pulling him back on deck. “Watch yourself, sugah,” Roseroar told him quietly. She’d cleared the distance to him from her position at the wheel in one leap.

  Now she stared across the water. “Who are these strange folk? Ah declare, ah can’t make top no bottom of their words.”

  “Tell them,” Jon-Tom moaned weakly toward the ski boat, “tell them who you are, tell them where we are!”

  But Charles MacReady, stockbroker on vacation, seven days, six nights, $950 all-inclusive from LaGuardia, not counting the fact that he expected to get laid tonight, did not reply. He was staring at the boat where seven feet of white tigress dressed in leather and brass armor stood on hind legs staring back at him.

  Giggling rose from the floorboards in the front of the boat. MacReady’s girlfriend had progressed from an intimate examination of her nails to her toes, which she was regarding now with a Buddha-like glassy stare.

  MacReady dazedly flipped the butt of the sansemilla stick over the side as though it had been laced with cyanide and said clearly, “Holy shit.” Then he sat down hard in the driver’s seat and fired up the big outboard.

  “No wait,” Jon-Tom screamed, “wait!” He tried to dive over the side, and it took all of Roseroar’s considerable strength to prevent him from drowning himself. In his current state he couldn�
�t float, much less swim.

  “Easy there, Jon-Tom. What’s gotten into y’all?”

  He wrenched away from her, tore down the hatchway into the hold, and fumbled with the diesel. It took three tries but this time it started up. Then he was running, crawling back up the stairs and flying for the steering wheel console. The compass rocked. He stabbed a button.

  A gargling came from underneath the ship, hesitated, died.

  He jabbed the button again. This time the sound was a whir, whir.

  Mudge raced back from the bow. “Wot the bloody ‘ell is goin’ on back ‘ere?”

  Roseroar stood aside, guarding the railing, and eyed the otter uncertainly. “There ah people in a boat. We must be neah some land.”

  “I ‘card. That’s bloody marvelous. They goin’ to lead us in?”

  “I think they’re frightened of something,” Roseroar told him.

  Jon-Tom was crying, crying and jabbing away at the starter. “You don’t understand, you don’t understand!”

  The sound of the ski boat’s outboard was fading with distance. Still the engine refused to turn over.

  Then there was a deep growl. Roseroar jumped and grabbed the rail as the boat began to move.

  “Where are they?” Jon-Tom cried, trying to steer and search the fog at the same time. “Which way did they go?”

  “I do not know, Jon-Tom,” said Jalwar helplessly. “I did not see.” He pointed uncertainly into the fog off the bow. “That way, I think.”

  Jon-Tom increased their speed and the diesel responded efficiently. They couldn’t be far from the town of Nassau.

  The foursome from New York had been out for the afternoon only. Hadn’t the stockbroker said so? Besides, they wore only swim suits and carried little in the way of supplies. Surely he was near enough to hit the island! And from Nassau it would be a short flight to the Florida coast.

  To home, to Miami, Disneyworld, hotels, and soap operas on TV in the afternoon. Images shoved purposefully into the back of his mind sprang back to the fore: home.

  He was home.

  So crazed was he with hope and joy that he didn’t think what the reaction would be to his arriving in Nassau with the likes of Mudge and Jalwar and Roseroar in tow. But none of that mattered. None.