recalled the song he’d sung prior to “Eye of the Tiger.”
“By any chance would your name be Sage, Rosemary, or
Thyme?” Somehow Scarborough didn’t seem a possibility.
“Close enuf. Ah am called Rcseroar.”
Jon-Tom nodded to himself. Once again his songs and
his desires had gotten themselves thoroughly mixed. He
took a deep breath, repeated the gist of a by now familiar
story.
56
Alan Dean Foster
DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
57
“We’re trying to help a wizard who is dying. Because
of that a jealous wizard is trying to prevent us from doing
so. He had us captured, brought here, and locked up.”
“That’s no business of mine,” said the tigress. “Yo
really think man eyes are pretty?”
“Extremely so.” Why didn’t Mudge chip in with a
word or two? he wondered. He was better at this sort of
thing. But the otter hugged his comer of the cell and kept
his mouth shut. Jon-Tom plunged on. “Like topaz.”
“Yo have a gift of words as well as music, don’t yo?
Well, let me tell yo, ah am not subject to the simple
flattery of the male of any species!”
“Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean for you to think I
was intentionally flattering you, or anything like that. I just
made a simple statement of fact.”
“Did y’all, now? Where do yo have to go to help this
dying friend of yours?”
“Across the Glittergeist Sea.”
“So ah’m that fah west, am ah?” She shook her head in
wonder. “It’s a peculiah world we live in.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Jon-Tom muttered.
“Ah’ve nevah been to an ocean, much less the
Glittergeist.” She looked out through the bars. “So that’s