being somewhere else who is bored with the task, who
knows? I am no sorcerer or scholar, visitor.” He turned to
leave.
“Let ‘im go, mate/’ said Mudge. “I don’t care wot it’s
about. Runnin’ for me life always tires me out. Me for a
spot o’ sleep and somethin’ to drink.” He started down the
stairs. Jon-Tom and Roseroar followed.
“What do yo think happens heah?” the tigress asked
him.
“I imagine it’s as the guard told us. The desert is some
kind of hourglass, holding all time within it.” He gazed
thoughtfully at the sky. “I wonder: if you could stop the
mechanism somehow, could you stop time?” He turned
toward the glassy tower. “I’d sure like to have a look
inside that.”
“Best not to,” she told him. “Yo might find something.
Yo might find your own time.”
He nodded. “Anyway, we have other fish to fry.”
“Ah beg yo pahdon?”
“Jalwar and Folly. If everyone else is forced to seek
sanctuary here from the Conjunction, they would also. If
they weren’t caught by the sand, they should be some-
where here in the city.”
“Ah declah, Jon-Tom, ah hadn’t thought o’ that!” She
scanned the courtyard below.
“Unless,” he went on, “they were far enough ahead of
us to have already crossed the desert.”
“Oh,” She looked downcast, then straightened. “No
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Alan Dean Foster
mattah. We’ll find them.” She began looking for an empty
place among the crowds. Probably the few city inns were
already full to overflowing with the wealthy among the
refugees. The city gates were open and some were already
filing back out into the desert.
“Yo know, somethin’ just occurred to me, Jon-Tom.