“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?”
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.
