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

displayed a checkerboard pattern that reminded Jon-Tom of

a non-Euclidian chessboard. Liverworts grew waist-high,

while lichens and mosses formed a thick, cushiony carpet

into which their boots sank up to the ankles. Clean granite

was disfigured by crawling fungoid corruption growing on

its surface. And over this vast, wild eruption of thallophytic

life there hung a pervasive sense of desolation, of waste

and fossilized hope.

The first couple of days had seen no slowing of their

progress. Now their pace began to degenerate. They slept

longer and spent less time over meals. It didn’t matter

what food they took from their packs or scavenged from

the land: everything seemed to have lost its flavor. What-

ever they consumed turned flat and tasteless in their

THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE

69

mouths and sat heavy in their bellies. Even the water

which fell fresh from the clouds had acquired a metallic,

unsatisfying aftertaste.

They’d been in the Moors for almost a week when

Jon-Tom tripped over the skeleton. Like everything else

lately its discovery provoked little more than a tired mur-

mur of indifference from his companions.

“So wot?” muttered Mudge. “Don’t mean a damn

thing.”

“Ah’m sitting down,” said Roseroar. “Ah’m tired.”

So was Jon-Tom, but the sight of the stark white bone

peeping out from beneath the encrusting rusts and mildews

roused a dormant concern in his mind.

“This is all wrong,” he told them. “There’s something

very wrong going on here.”

“No poison, if that’s wot you’re thinkin’, mate.” Mudge

indicated the growths surrounding them. “I’ve been care-