Spellsinger 03 – The Day of the Dissonance by Foster, Alan Dean

know if Snooth will serve you. She don’t get much

business from outsiders.” He shrugged. “Ain’t none of my

business, your business.”

“Who’s Snooth?” Jon-Tom asked him.

“The proprietress. Of the Shop of the Aether and

Neither.” He looked back over his shoulder, pointed. “Go

through town and stay on the north trail that winds around

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the base of the mountain. Snooth’s place is around the side

a ways.” He turned back to inspect them a last time.

“You’re a weird-looking bunch. I don’t know what

you’ve come to buy, but you’ll need all the luck you can

muster to pry anything out of Snooth’s stock. And no, you

can’t have one of my feet to help you.” He put the

all-terrain vehicle in gear and roared off into the woods,

the ATC popping and growling.

“I still say it were a demon,” Mudge muttered.

“No demon, just a machine. From my world.”

“Ah’d dislike being a resident o’ yoah world, then, Jon-

Tom.” Roseroar made a face. “Such noise. And that

smell!”

It had to have been conjured, Jon-Tom knew. Conjured

by a magic even more powerful than Clothahump’s. His

heart raced. If this Snooth could bring something as solid

as the ATC into this world, something lifted from a

dealership in Kyoto or L.A. or Toronto, then perhaps she

could also send things back to such places.

Things like himself.

He didn’t dare dwell on that possibility as they made

their way through town. For the most part, the busy, bored

citizenry ignored them. Many of them were using or

playing with otherworldly devices. Jon-Tom began to have