Jon-Tom couldn’t bring himself to cast the empty can aside. “We didn’t emerge in the most impressive neighborhood, for which we can all be grateful. The culture shock on both sides would’ve been too much to handle.” He took a deep breath, gestured toward the entrance to the cavern. “I think the rest of you’d better keep out of sight over there until I see if anybody’s home.”

Mudge frowned. “Why? We got bad breath or somethin’?”

“You don’t understand. In my world, people like you and Weegee and Cautious don’t talk.”

“Oh, right you are, mate. You told me that before.”

“What’s he talking about?” Weegee asked.

Mudge put his arm around her and directed her toward the cave. “I’ll explain it all to you, luv. It beggars understandin’, it does.”

As soon as his friends had concealed themselves Jon-Tom stepped up on the porch of the building which was at least as old as the wiring he’d encountered below. Clearly this was not one of the tourist highspots of the Lone Star state. He rapped twice on the screen door before noticing the small sign set inside.

GONE BOWLING – BACK IN A WEEK

Someone who knew how to relax, he reflected. On a hunch he opened the unsecured screen door and tried the door knob. Locked. He hunted around the opening. Displaying either country trustworthiness or bucolic naivete, the owner had left a key on top of the nearby light. He had to jiggle it in the lock but soon had the door open.

The sight froze him. So long, it had been so unbelievably long. So many extraordinary things had happened to him that he found himself paralyzed by the sight of the ordinary.

It was all real, from the souvenir postcards in the wire rack atop the candy counter to the telephone and cash register and rack of antlers. With difficulty he restrained himself from tearing into the neat rows of Milky Ways and Baby Ruths and Hershey’s with almonds.

The den of the old house had been converted into a greeting room for tourists. Snug and lined with pine, it fronted a single bedroom and a small unimpressive kitchen which nonetheless held out the promise of the first familiar food he’d seen in a year. He forced himself to stay clear of the refrigerator and pantry until he’d thoroughly checked the rest of the premises. There was a bathroom and a garage out back. The garage was empty.

A shout brought him back to the front porch. Mudge was peering around the edge of one of the doors that led to the cave. “Is it safe or ain’t it, mate? Do we come on in or run back down?”

“It’s okay, there’s nobody here now. Come on in.”

The otters and Cautious were fascinated by the plethora of unfamiliar objects that filled the old house. The kitchen in particular was a treasure house of alien delights, not the least of which took the form of half a dozen cans of Chicken of the Sea tuna. After Jon-Tom instructed him in the use of a can opener Mudge went a little berserk.

An hour later he was patting his bulging belly. “One thing about your world, mate: ’tis fillin’.” He held up a small oblong can. “Wot’s in ’ere?”

Jon-Tom had the lights on in the kitchen. It was getting pitch dark outside. “Sardines. Slow down. We don’t want to eat everything at once and I don’t know how I’m going to pay the owner for what we’ve eaten.”

“We’ll leave ’im an IOU.”

“You leave an IOU? That’d be a first.” He sipped slowly from a cold bottle of RC. Pure luxury sloshed down his throat. “It’s funny. All the spells Clothahump and I have tried over the past year, all the arcane tomes we’ve consulted, and here we stumble across a permanent link between our worlds because we’re running for our lives from a bunch of two-bit pirates.”

“If it is permanent and doesn’t close down on us while we’re sitting here stuffing our faces,” Weegee said darkly.

Jon-Tom lowered the bottle from his lips. “I think that gate’s been there as long as the cave itself. The terminated cable running through the passage shows that it’s been open between worlds for a number of years, anyway. Think of it! We can travel back and forth between my world and yours at will. Columbus was a piker compared to us.” He chuckled at the thought. “I can’t wait to see the reaction when you and Mudge and Cautious appear on the Six O’Clock News.”

“Now wot might that be?”

Jon-Tom was explaining network news to the otter as he fried himself some bacon and eggs. The explanation was inelegantly interrupted by a voice from the kitchen doorway.

“Nobody runs out on Kamaulk twice in a row and lives to brag about it, not even if they run all the way to another world.”

IX

JON-TOM DROPPED the skillet. Sizzling bacon and runny eggs splashed over his boots. Kamaulk stood framed in the lower half of the doorway, holding a small crossbow in his wings. Behind him Sasheem held a throwing knife in each paw.

“Crap!” Mudge glanced at his friend. “Guess you’re right, mate. I expect the passage between our worlds is permanent enough. Would ’ave to be. Proof of it is that sewage flows both ways.”

Kamaulk hopped into the kitchen, his eyes flicking over the strange sights and familiar former acquaintances with equal alacrity. “Demonic contrivances. There’s money in demonic contrivances. There’s much here that can be turned to profit.”

Jon-Tom forbore from pointing out that the household goods the parrot was eyeing enviously didn’t belong to him. Somehow he didn’t think appealing to the pirate’s sense of fair play would garner them much credit. Mudge was trying to sneak his paw down to the longbow lying near his feet when a stiletto slammed into the table two inches from his belly.

“Don’t try that again.” Sasheem stepped into the room. “I’ve no patience left where any of you are concerned. Try me one more time and no matter what the captain says I’ll put the next one between your eyes. Or hers.” He favored Weegee with a cursory nod.

“Nice to see you again, lass.” The voice was colder than the ice cubes in the refrigerator’s freezer compartment. It came from the beaver who slipped into the room beneath Sasheem’s arm. A thick bandage was wrapped around his head. It was the guard who’d been assigned to watch them last night. His expression was not pleasant. “I’ve pleaded with the Cap’n to let me take charge of you special. I’ve a few kicks you lent me I’d like to return.”

“Belay that for now, Woshim. You haven’t earned anything here.”

“But Cap’n, you said . ...”

“Not now,” Kamaulk snapped. “A fascinating place you’ve led us to. We will need a suitable guide to show us the best way to profit.”

“I’ll guide you to the garbage dump.”

“You’ll do better than that, spellsinger. By my tail feathers you will. Or your friends will die one by one, as slowly and painfully as Sasheem can make it. You will stay here to explain this world to me. We will take the others back with us as hostage to your good intentions. We marked the path with care. Tracking you through that cave was not easy.”

“How did you track us?”

Mudge snorted. “Ain’t you lived long enough in our world to figure that by now, mate?” He tapped his glistening black nose.

Jon-Tom had forgotten. In the pristine atmosphere of the cave their scents must have lingered in the air like road markers. Even so it had taken guts for Kamaulk and his crew to follow them through that black underworld, up the obviously alien concrete stairway. How many of them had that kind of courage? He tried to see past Sasheem into the den. How badly were they outnumbered? Surely the whole crew hadn’t agreed to follow their captain into darkness.

Of one thing he was certain: If Kamaulk was able to march Mudge, Weegee and Cautious back to their world he’d have a permanent hold on Jon-Tom. He’d have to do exactly as the pirate directed in order to keep his friends alive. Eventually Kamaulk would grow sated with the products of Jon-Tom’s world, or else he’d figure out some way to derive what he wanted from it without any help. Then Jon-Tom and the others would become expendable. He had to do something now.

As bemused and amazed as they were by this new world they’d stumbled into, Jon-Tom didn’t think Kamaulk was dazed enough to allow him to try a song on the suar. For that matter he had no idea if his spellsinging would work in his own world. As he thought furiously, time and opportunity were slipping away. The pirates were divesting their captives of their rewon weapons. With sorrow Mudge watched his longbow and short sword taken by other hands. Jon-Tom was relieved of his ramwood staff and suar. Their backpacks were not touched. Apparently Kamaulk was convinced they contained nothing likely to present a significant danger to him or his crew.

The parrot was inspecting the gas range, determined not to show hesitation or fear in front of his troops. He sniffed at the stove, picked up the skillet Jon-Tom had dropped and placed it back on the open burner.

“Cooking device. Very interesting.” He peered beneath the skillet. “Where does the fire come from?”

“Gas.”

This brought forth laughter from several of the pirates. Kamaulk made a face and whipped out a long stiletto with a hollowed handle. “Do you take me for a fool?” He ran the tip of the blade up one leg of Jon-Tom’s pants, not cutting the material but letting him feel the edge. “I said I didn’t want to kill you. That does not mean I am adverse to marking you a little.”

Jon-Tom found he was starting to sweat. “Dammit, it’s a gas stove!”

“Even Kizewiz doesn’t make that much gas.” A bulky anteater guffawed from his place in the doorway.

“It’s not that kind of gas. See?” He reached for one of the stove controls and almost lost a finger as Kamaulk brought the blade down against the plastic.

“Be careful what you do, man. I am sure you can guide me in the use of these devices with nine fingers as well as with ten.”

Very slowly Jon-Tom adjusted the flame. “See how it works? A special kind of gas enters the house through pipes and runs into this stove. You use a small fire to light the gas.”