Just ahead a narrow strip of land protruded into the sea. A wide beach lined the green peninsula like lace on an old lady’s collar. The far side of the peninsula was dotted with irregular brown and red forms. Buildings, Jon-Tom thought excitedly. It could only be fabled Chejiji. It had to be Chejiji.

“We’ll have to swim for it.” Teyva continued to lose altitude.

“Like hell. We’ve haven’t come all this way and overcome everything we have to arrive soaking wet. Lock your wings, Teyva. Just lock them out straight. You don’t have to work to fly. We can glide in.”

“I’ll try.” The vast multicolored wings slowed and extended fully. They descended in a slow curve, soaring on the hot air rising from the warm bay below.

For a few minutes Jon-Tom feared they’d land in the shallow water on the near side of the peninsula. Then Teyva struck a thermal rising from an exposed section of reef and they lifted like a hot-air balloon, barely clearing the tops of the tallest trees. Exhausted, the stallion set down on the edge of the harbor district, causing something of a commotion as the shadow of his great wings passed over startled pedestrians.

Jon-Tom and his companions dismounted quickly. “How do you feel?” he asked Teyva.

“Like my wings are about to fall off. In fact, like everything is about to fall off.”

“You don’t look too good, either. I think we’d better get you to a doctor.”

“Let ’im find ’is own doctor.” Mudge was in no mood to coddle. “I’m starvin’, I am.”

“Mudge,” said Weegee wamingly. He gave her the sour eye.

“I know you can pronounce me name properly, luv. No need to keep demonstratin’ the fact.”

She smiled sweetly. “Be nice to Teyva, dear, or I’ll give you a kick.”

“Well matched, them couple.” Cautious turned to gaze at the tall stone and tile buildings that lined the harbor front. “Never seen a city like this. Come to think of it, I never seen a big city ever.”

The stucco walls, tiled roofs, turrets and battlements suggested a cross between an old Moorish town on the Costa Brava and a leftover set from the film South Pacific. They intercepted a ferret wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat and short pants. He was carrying half a dozen fishing poles and attendant paraphernalia which he kept shifting from shoulder to shoulder as they inquired about a doctor.

“For which among you?” Bright sunlight made him squint as Jon-Tom gestured toward Teyva. “A quadruped specialist, then. I recommend Corliss and Marley.” He turned and pointed. “Go along the Terrace to the first brick road and turn left. Their office, as I recall, lies not far up that street.”

“Great, thanks.” Jon-Tom shook the ferret’s paw and they headed south.

They found the brick road easily, but Teyva was now so weak he could barely make it up the steep incline, his wings fluttering spasmodically against his sweaty withers. Corliss and Marley’s office was a one-story yellow stucco structure topped by a green tile roof. It had a sweeping view of the bay beyond. A few fishing boats were visible out in the calm waters.

Corliss was a nimble-fingered gibbon with an empathetic bedside manner. His long arms and delicate fingers probed the length and breadth of Teyva’s body while his partner Marley stood nearby staring through thick glasses and making notations on a pad. One didn’t have to be a member of the profession to figure out that Corliss was the manipulative end of the partnership and Marley the brains. After all, Marley was a goat, and it’s rather difficult to perform surgery without any fingers.

When Corliss had concluded his inspection the pair consulted. Then the gibbon stepped aside, Marley put down his mouth-stylus, and they voiced their diagnosis simultaneously.

“Worst case of wing-strain we’ve ever seen.” Marley continued on his own.

“What did you do, make the poor fellow fly halfway across the Glittergeist?”

Jon-Tom coughed into his fist. “Something like that. But we didn’t make him do it. He volunteered.”

The goat consulted his notes. “And his blood pressure, verra strange.” He glanced up at the stallion through those half-inch thick lenses. “Are you on enna kind of medication?”

“Ah, no.” Teyva looked away. “That is, nothing of a long-term nature.”

“Long-term nature?” The physician looked at the stallion’s companions. “What does ’e mean, nothing of a long-term nature?”

Mudge started to reply but Weegee slapped a paw over his mouth. Jon-Tom took a step forward. “Our lives were at stake. Teyva here suffered from a fear of flying ever since colthood. We had to resort to the use of a stimulant to break him of that fear.”

“Weel you broke him of it, I’d say, judging from the way those wings look. Severe sprain, both of them.” He shook his head at the stallion. “No flying for you for a while, my friend.”

“Absolutely verboten.” Corliss was examining Teyva’s right eye, having added drops to dilate the pupil. “Nor would I take any more of that stimulant if I were you. Not if you want to fly anywhere soon except into a shallow grave.”

Jon-Tom felt uncomfortable. “Like I said, we had no choice. Everything happened pretty fast. I had no time to measure out a dose.”

This failed to placate the gibbon. “As a doctor I have little sympathy for anyone who employs strong drugs without a prescription.”

Mudge couldn’t stand it anymore, broke away from Weegee’s restraining paw. “Look ’ere, knuckles, we were about to be potted an’ we didn’t ’ave time for careful consideration o’ the possible consequences.”

Teyva gazed sorrowfully at Jon-Tom. “I am sorry I will not be able to do as I hoped and fly you all the way to Strelakat Mews, but I think I had best abide by the doctors’ decision.”

Jon-Tom walked up to pat him on the neck. “That’s all right. You’ve done more than enough by bringing us this far, Teyva. We can walk the rest of the way.”

Marley looked up from his papers. “Strelakat Mews? What business could you have in Strelakat Mews?”

Jon-Tom indicated the sack containing the fragments of his duar. “I’m a spellsinger by trade. My instrument is badly broken and my mentor, the wizard Clothahump, insists that the only craftsman in the world capable of repairing it properly is a fellow named Couvier Coulb who lives in the Mews.”

“That may be, that may be.” Corliss was writing on a pad of his own. “I wouldn’t know, not being a musician myself.”

“Where might we find someone to guide us to this dump?” Mudge asked.

“You can’t,” Marley told the otter. “It’s said the inhabitants of Strelakat Mews can do wondrous things, but nobody goes there.”

“Then how can they know that?”

Corliss shrugged expressively, pursing his thick lips. “Who knows how tourists come up with the things they do? Myself, I am not one for the jungle. I much prefer the coast.”

“Lovely,” growled the otter. “More creepers an’ cannibals.”

“No cannibals, I’d say.” Marley’s goatee twitched as he shook his head. “Not between here and the Mews, I shouldn’t think.”

“Other things, though,” said Corliss.

“What other things?” Jon-Tom inquired.

“Don’t know. Tourist talk. Traveler tales. Me, I stick to the coast.”

“All right then.” Jon-Tom’s exasperation was beginning to show. “If we can’t find anyone to guide us to this place, can you tell us if there’s at least someone who can point us in the right direction?”

The physicians exchanged a look. “Try Trancus the outfitter,” Marley suggested. “He’s the one who would know.”

“He’s also,” Corliss added sagely, “the only one I would trust.”

XIII

TRANCUS THE OUTFITTER was a wombat, overweight as were most of his kind. His features seemed to sit loosely in pockets and folds of firm flesh covered by dense black fur. At first he tried to discourage them but when they continued to insist, he agreed to provide them with directions.