“Jokes. ’Ere I’m sufferin’ terrible an’ me best friend ’as to make jokes.”
Jon-Tom put his chin in hand and studied the otter with exaggerated seriousness. “I don’t know whether we should have you mowed or fertilized.”
Even Weegee was not immune. “Don’t worry, dearest. I’ll make sure to water you twice a week.”
Mudge sat down on flowery hindquarters. “I ’ate the both o’ you. Individually an’ with malice aforethought. Also afterthought.”
“Now Mudgey . …” Weegee moved to caress him but he pulled away.
“Don’t you touch me.” He didn’t retreat a second time, however.
She began plucking petals from one of his blooms. “He loves me, he loves me not.”
By the time she’d finished plucking him there wasn’t a petal left on his back. Nor did the flowers rebloom. The bristles that moments earlier had doubled as stems stayed bare.
“See, Mudge? Under the flowers your fur is normal.” Together they began removing the rest of the blossoms.
There was a lot of hair and a lot of petals and plucking kept them busy the rest of the way to Strelakat Mews. By the time they were approaching the outskirts of the town Mudge looked and felt like his old self again. The mysterious (if colorful) disease had run its course. A good thing, too, since Mudge and Weegee were worn out from three days of continuous plucking.
There was no road sign, no warning. They didn’t so much march into Strelakat Mews as stumble into it.
Jon-Tom had been too preoccupied with other matters to envision the town in his mind, so he wasn’t prepared for the enchanting reality. Neither were his companions. It cast an immediate spell over all of them. All the dangers and travails of the long journey were behind now. They could relax, take it easy, and let themselves succumb to the charm of this unique community carved out of the middle of the Mews.
At the edge of the town the jungle had been pruned rather than merely cleared away. Those trees and bushes which put forth large flowers had been left intact to lend their color and fragrance to the periphery. No one pointed this out to Mudge as he was still somewhat sensitive where the matter of blossoms was concerned. Any mention of flowers tended to tilt him to the homicidal.
A single cobblestone street wound its way through town, its very existence as astonishing as the precision with which the stones had been set. Jon-Tom could only try to imagine where the townsfolk had quarried perfect cobblestones in the middle of the jungle.
The first shop they passed was a bakery, from which such wonderful smells issued that even the grumpy Mudge began to salivate. As was true of every establishment they passed, the exterior reflected the inhabitant’s occupation. The roofing shingles resembled slabs of chocolate. Surely the window panes were fashioned of spun sugar, the doors and paneling of gingerbead, and the lintels of strudel. Ropes of red licorice bound candy logs together. Yet all was illusion, as Mudge discovered when he tried to steal a quick lick of spongecake fence only to discover it was made of wood and not flour.
A master sculptor’s residence was hewn from white marble which had been buffed to such a high polish not even a solitary raindrop could cling to it. Woodworkers’ homes were miracles of elaborate carving, baroque with curlicues and reliefs. Seamless joints were covered with fruitwood veneers. Such work was normally reserved for the fashioning of fine furniture.
A painter’s house was a landscape of mountains and clouds set down amidst green jungle. A rainbow seemed to move across the face of the building.
“Magic,” said Cautious.
“Not magic. Superior artistry. Superior skill and craftsmanship.”
They passed a mason’s house, an infinity of tiny colored stones set in an almost invisible matrix. A furniture maker’s establishment resembled a giant overstuffed settee surmounted by a dining room table. But nowhere did they see a storefront or home that suggested its owner was a maker of musical instruments.
They finally had to stop outside the house of a master weaver. Jon-Tom rang the bell set in the door of woven reeds, a rectangle of brown against walls of dyed wool, alpaca and qiviot. The weaver was a four-foot-tall paca, built like a pear and clad in a simple tunic. She rested against the door jamb while she pondered the stranger’s story.
“I don’t know that you should bother Couvier Coulb,” she said at last.
Jon-Tom relaxed slightly. At least they’d come to the right place. He said as much to the weaver.
“Oh, this is the right place, yes.” She looked into his eyes, studied his face. “You’ve come a long way. And you say you are a spellsinger?”
Jon-Tom slid the sack containing the remnants of his duar off his shoulder and exhibited the contents. “Yes. My mentor, the wizard Clothahump, said that in all the world only Couvier Coulb might have the skill necessary to repair my duar.”
“A magical device.” She eyed it curiously. “Not many of us here deal with magic, though visitors think otherwise. Shomat the baker now, he can make decorations dance atop his cakes and spin spun sugar webbing spiders mistake for their own. Couvier Coulb knows also a trick or two.” She sighed, apparently arriving at a conclusion to some unspoken internal argument. “I can show you where he lives.” She stepped out onto the cotton porch and pointed.
“You go to the end of the main street. A trail turns to the left. Don’t take that one. Take the one after it. The house you want lies at its end a short walk from town, back in the trees beside a waterfall. You can’t mistake it for anyone else’s place.
“Be quiet in your approach. If there is no response when you knock on the door, please leave as silently as you came.”
Jon-Tom was carefully repacking the pieces of his duar. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t be here unless it was an emergency.”
“You do not understand. You see, I fear you may have come too late. Couvier Coulb is dying.”
XV
MUDGE KICKED PEBBLES FROM his path as they made their way down the street. “Great, just great. We slog ’alfway across the world to get your bleedin’ instrument fixed an’ the only bloke wot can maybe do it up an’ croaks on us.”
“We don’t know that. He isn’t dead yet.” Jon-Tom shifted his pack higher on his back. “The weaver said he was dying, not that he was deceased.”
“Dyin’, dead, wot’s the difference. You think ’e’ll be in any kind o’ shape to work? The inconsiderate schmucko could’ve waited a couple of weeks till we’d finished our business before gettin’ on with ’is.”
“I’m sure if he’d known we were coming he would have postponed his fatal illness just to accommodate us.”
“Precisely me point, mate.”
Jon-Tom looked away. Just when he thought the otter might be turning into a halfway decent person he’d up and say something like that. Though by the standards of this world his behavior was hardly shocking.
They found the second trail and turned into the trees. It was a short hike to the house of Couvier Coulb. They were able to hear it before they could see it because the house itself reflected the mood of its master. This morning it was playing a funeral dirge, which was hardly encouraging. The melancholy music permeated the air, the earth, their very bones, filling them with sadness.
The walls of the house were composed of pipes: some of bamboo, others of dark grained wood, still others of gleaming metal. The ropes which bound them together vibrated like viola strings. Bright beams thrummed with the sonority of massed muffled trumpets. The waterfall which tumbled over a nearby cliff splashed in percussive counterpoint to the melody the house was playing. Sight and sound affected all of them equally. Even Mudge was subdued.
“This ’ere chap may not know ’ow to cure ’imself, but ’e sure as ’ell knows ’ow to make music. Rather wish ’e weren’t dyin’. I’d give a gold piece to see this place when ’e were ’ealthy.”
