“I don’t know.” The image of the decrepit otter still lingered on his retinas. What might the mirror tell him about himself?

“Go on,” said Cautious, displaying unaccustomed assertiveness. “We all done it, you got to do it too. You not afraid of what maybe you see, are you?”

“Yes I am.”

“Take the plunge, mate. Probably you’ll just see a straight reflection, like Cautious did.”

Now that all three of his companions had chanced the mirror he could hardly back out. So he settled himself in the chair, lifted his eyes and stared nervously into the glass.

His lower jaw dropped and he moved his head from side to side, but it didn’t change what he saw in the mirror.

“You okay, Jon-Tom?” Weegee was eyeing him with concern. He didn’t reply and she looked to Mudge. “What’s the matter? What’s gone wrong?”

“Maybe nothin’, luv. Maybe ’tis just somethin’ we ain’t smart enough to understand.” He held her tightly. “Not every answer in life’s an easy one.”

There was no image in the mirror, no image at all. Cautious leaned forward and saw himself, and you could see the otters standing a little further back, but Jon-Tom might as well have been invisible. The raccoon helped him up from the chair. Still stunned, he leaned against the dressing table, consciously avoiding any contact with the beveled glass that dominated the center.

“But what does it mean? Does it mean I’m not really here? That I don’t really exist?” He felt his chest, his legs. “I feel real. I feel like I’m here.”

Mudge tried to be helpful. “Maybe it means the real you hasn’t made itself known yet. Maybe there’s somethin’ that ’as to be added to make you complete. Hell, I’ve always thought you weren’t all there.”

“Mudge, this is no time to be funny. I’m scared.”

“Then that’s the best time to be funny. ’Ere, let’s think about somethin’ else for a while. I don’t think you ’ave to worry about fadin’ away.” He searched the chamber and his gaze fastened on the golden goblet. “Wot you want to bet this ’ere bit o’ crenulated crockery talks?” He picked it up, as he had once before, but though he held it tightly no glow issued from its hammered sides and no words from its depths.

“You lose,” Weegee told him.

“Can’t lose when you bet against yourself, luv.” He sniffed the clear contents. “Smells like rainwater. Must’ve dripped from the ceilin’. Pity it couldn’t be somethin’ a mite stronger.”

“As dry as my throat is all of a sudden I’m not going to be particular.” Jon-Tom took it from the otter and after a quick look to ensure himself nothing besides water had fallen into it from the ceiling he downed the contents gratefully.

He was about to put it back on the dressing table when the bowl filled with a pulsating blue smoke.

“Knoweth all that I am the One True Goblet. Knoweth all who standeth before me that I will provide sustenance for the thirsty of mind as well as throat.”

“Interesting.” Jon-Tom turned the empty goblet around in his fingers. “I wonder what it means, ‘sustenance for the mind’?” He looked into its depths anew and they heard the voice a second time.

“Beware the Moqua plants.”

The blue smoke dissipated. In its wake it left a fresh drink of water.

“Now ain’t that somethin’,” said Mudge. “‘Beware o’ the Moqua plants.’”

“What’s a Moqua?”

The otter formed a circle with thumb and forefinger. “Got little bells on it about like this that fill up with tiny bugs. Got nasty bites, they do.” There was contempt in his voice. “I didn’t need no talkin’ utensil to tell me that. But I do need a drink. Pass ’er over.”

Jon-Tom handed the otter the goblet and Mudge drained it in a single long swallow. “Water’s good even if the advice leaves somethin’ to be desired.”

It spoke again. “Avoid the lugubrious lescar.”

Mudge made a face. “That one’s got me stumped. Any o’ you lot know wot a lugubrious lescar is?” Weegee and Cautious shook their heads.

“Hurry up in there.” Teyva sounded genuinely impatient.

“Just another minute.” Jon-Tom glanced at his companions. “Nobody knows what a lugubrious lescar is?”

“Never ’eard o’ it,” confessed Mudge.

“Well we’d better stay out of its way, whatever it is.” He studied the vessel, peered over the rim at the lady of the troup. “Weegee?”

“Strange, but I feel a sudden thirst.” She smiled at him as she took the goblet.

“At least we come out o’ this with somethin’ useful.” Mudge watched her as she sipped. “Melted down, there must be a quarter pound o’ gold in that cousin to a tankard.”

Jon-Tom was shocked. “Mudge, how can you think of melting something so unique and magical just for its monetary content?”

“Because I think o’ just about everythin’ in terms o’ its monetary content, that’s ’ow.”

“You could be dying of thirst in the desert and that bottomless water supply could keep you alive.”

“Aye, and I could be fallin’ down broke in Polastrindu an’ the gold in it would keep me drunk forever.”

“Jon-Tom’s right,” Weegee chided him. “You don’t melt magic.” She’d finished draining the goblet. As it refilled itself for the third time they heard the voice again.

“Buy IBM at 124.”

Jon-Tom blinked. Could it be that the goblet’s range extended to his world as well? He took the goblet from Weegee and stowed it carefully in his pack.

“We’ll decide what to do with this later, but I think it definitely has its uses. Let’s go before Teyva decides to depart without us.”

They crawled back beneath the fallen beam. Teyva’s nostrils flared. “I smell water. I could use a drink.”

Jon-Tom sighed. “Cautious, would you get him the goblet?” The raccoon obliged, held it for the stallion while he drank, and then repacked it. As he was putting it away Jon-Tom thought he heard it again.

“The solution to the national debt is to…” but the remainder was smothered by the supplies in his pack.

Easy come, easy go, he thought. Better it should tell them how to get to Strelakat Mews.

By the morning of the next day Teyva’s wing beats had slowed considerably and the flying horse was beginning to show the strain of carrying four passengers for hundreds of miles. If the stallion were to give out unexpectedly they would land in the ocean. How much farther was it to Chejiji?

“I’m sorry,” said Teyva, “but all of a sudden I don’t feel so good. Uh, you wouldn’t happen to have any more of that white powder on you, would you?”

“It wouldn’t matter. What your system needs now is food. You’re coming down, Teyva. At this point another jolt would do real damage. Can you go on?”

“I don’t know.” The stallion was shaking his head repeatedly. “Real tired all of a sudden. Weak.” He dipped sharply, fought to regain altitude. “Going down.” His voice was slurred.

“Look!” Cautious was leaning out over nothingness and pointing. “Is that real or am I blind?”