"You have a natural magic talent that surpa.s.ses any of the spells your uncle could teach you. You evoke sympathy, affection, even obedience in animals."

"Holy cow!" he said, then winced, scrunching his shoulder; the mouse-queen was tickling his ear. "You mean all I have to do it say jump and they'll ask how high?"

"It's hardly that simple," I said, twitching one ear. "Obviously, the less intelligent the animal, the more profound the effect." I fixed my pupils on the simpering mouse, who was, of course, unaware that she had been insulted. "Why don't you see if she can be any use in finding the sock?"

"Hey! Great idea," said Jack. He pulled the one blue sock out of his pocket and held it up. "Queenie! I have to find the mate to this sock! First, we'll start by having all your people carry all the blue socks here and make a big pile, then you can all help me go through them until we find the right one. Whaddaya say?"

He plucked her from his shoulder and held her in his hands allowing her to sniff over the sock. She looked mighty puzzled, and I knew why. For a fellow who was an animal empath, Jack knew appallingly little about his field.

"What a clever idea, Jack," I purred sarcastically, "but mice are color blind."

"Uh-oh." He scooped up the mouse and put her back on his shoulder and gazed despairingly around at the wide Valley of Lost Socks. He stuffed the magic sock back in his jeans, sat down again, and then suddenly put his fists to his head. "Think, b.u.t.terflya"is there anyone else here in your weird Some Place who could help us? Some animal in huge numbers, like the mice, but with color vision?"

I blinked. The boy did have a head on his shoulders after all. "Songbirds," I said. "On the Mountain of Lost Notes." I licked my lips. Winged prey was more challenging than the four-footed kind.

"Great! Let's go. And don't forget, b.u.t.terfly, when we get there, don't chase the birds!"

I glared at him, but he didn't notice, and I wondered again just what were the limits of his talent. "Chirpy-birds place is that way," the mouse chittered. "I will show you, dear master!" She nudged Jack's chin and peered at me saucily from her perch on his collar. I bared my fangs at her, and she disappeared behind his neck.

"Listen!" Jack said as he puffed along. Wading through several miles of knee-deep sock piles was taxing for one slightly out-of-shape wizard's apprentice, and boring for a tortoisesh.e.l.l tom.

"I've heard them for quite a while," I said with my nose in the air. Unpleasant, thin chirping noisesa"anyone who calls bird sounds music has never heard a really good caterwaul chorus.

Before us loomed a forbidding gray mountain, like a great mound of concrete formed in the shape of scoop on scoop of slate-gray ice cream. Poking up from its surface like hedgehog spines were numerous tall, black poles, between which were strung five black lines that snaked their way from pole to pole like telegraph wires all the way to the mountain top. The birds in their profusion of colors, scarlet, blue and yellow, flitted from line to line, pecking off the musical notes that hung there like ripe black cherries. As we approached the mountain, I watched a small sapphire-colored bird pluck and swallow four notes in succession, then open his mouth and give forth with the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth. Well, who can expect originality from a birdbrain?

Mindful, in my benevolence, of Jack's plea not to chase the birds, I decided to amuse myself otherwise. I leaped to the top of the nearest pole and launched myself out onto the top line like a tightrope artist, then with one paw began knocking the notes to the ground with a flourish, delighting in the jazzy sounds that resulted as they hit the rocky surface of the mountain. This was better than a back fence jam session!

"b.u.t.terfly!" Jack shouted, and my reflexes took over, landing me at his feet. He gave me a really insolent looka"as if he were a cat himself and my equal!a"and turned his attention to the sapphire blue bird. Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he gave a shrill whistle and cried, "Here, birdie!"

The bird flew at once to his shoulder, and he raised a finger to give if a perch. "Fantastic! b.u.t.terfly, how come I never got this kind of response before? I mean, animals have always liked me, even old Samanthaa"but this!"

My eyes were glued to the bird, who was repeating the Beethoven again. I slowly switched my tail. "Some Place is a magical realm. I think you'll have to work very hard to develop your talent to the point where you'll get such results in the mundane world."

The bird exhibited only slightly more dignity than the mouse had done. It flew in delighted circles about Jack's head, serenading him with the annoying Beethoven repet.i.tion. Fortunately this was only a prelude to the business for which we had come; to Jack's inquiries it replied excitedly that it and its fellows would be thrilled to aid us in our search. Only moments later the entire flock lifted into the pink air and headed for the valley, where, the blue bird a.s.sured us, the job would be virtually completed by the time we walked back.

The creature kept its word, amazingly enough (you can never tell with birds; their little minds fly in a thousand directions at once.) Long before we reached it, we saw a baby-blue mountain looming in the center of the valley. I flicked a whisker and looked at Jack for his reaction, but he seemed undaunted, tramping cheerfully along through the socks and whistling Beethoven. When we came to the base of the battlecruiser-sized pile of blue socks, Jack waved happily to the cloud of birds cl.u.s.tered above, and called out confidently as the last few blue socks were added to the summit.

"Thanks, fellas!" he said, and they flew off to their mountain again, with the exception of the little blue bird, who swooped to a perch on one of Jack's shoulders, the other still being occupied by the mouse, to whom he now displayed the magic sock again. He pointed out the sigils of invisibility woven into the side.

"Take it from the bottom up, Queeniea"you and the rest of the mice."

The mountain of socks began to vibrate as the hosts of mice swarmed round its base, pulling out socks one by one, examining them quickly and scampering away to lay them in reject piles all around. My whiskers began to twitch as I watched their activity; it was so unbearably boring to merely watch and not chase. Jack sat down and stroked my back as we waited.

The pile grew smaller, and Jack grew less confident. "Mrrrff," I growled, annoyed because his distraction had made him less attentive about stroking my fur. He scratched under my chin.

At last the ground lay bare, the socks redistributed to form something resembling the rim of a baby blue moon crater. As Jack slowly stood up, the blue bird whistled a rather halfhearted rendition of the Beethoven.

"Oh, master!" the mouse queen said tearfully, "What poor servants my people have been to you! Oh, great beastlord, pray forgive us!"

Jack spewed out a long series of curses, such as "Beelzebub's belly blubber!" which, having been learned from his wizard uncle, would be considered quite picturesque by human standards, but which were unimpressive to the feline ear. The mouse wept, and the bird sang his dirgelike phrase again.

Revolted by the lot of them, I turned my bored gaze outward to the horizon, and was startled to see an approaching clamor of birds, who seemed to be harrying some earthbound creature toward us through the foot-deep layer of socks. I focused all six senses on the approaching thing, and soon reached an unpleasant conclusion.

"Oh, Bastet save us! It's a dog," I said disgustedly. Still pursued by the birds, the ugly canine stumbled along as best it could through the socks, pitching forward frequently onto its nose, and falling at last m a dirty-yellow heap at Jack's feet. In its mouth was a blue sock.

"Is that it?" Jack cried, his hopeful expression suddenly rekindleda The dog dropped the sock and leaped up barking, "Yessir! Nosir! Threebagsfullsir!" and hurled himself with joyous s...o...b..ring at Jack's face.

The mouse shrieked, and the bird gave out shrill, quick repet.i.tions of the Beethoven phrase, making it sound like a stuck phonograph.

"Geddown!" Jack yelled, and scooped up the sock. The dog fell back whimpering, and Jack patted its ugly head as he examined the sock. "Good boy."

"b.u.t.terfly!" he cried, "this is it but just look at it!"

I peered at the sock, and it was immediately apparent what had happened; the dumb mutt had chewed on it till the invisibility sigils had become almost unrecognizable.

Jack pulled off one shoe and sock and tried the magical one; there was no doubt. The spell on the sock was ruined.

"Well, that does it," said Jack. "Know any good circuses I can run away and join, b.u.t.terfly?"

"How easily you humans are discouraged," I said. "The sock has lost its magical properties, has it not?"

"Yeah, exactly, and I'm gonna lose my head when Uncle Hugh finds out!"

"The point is," I said patiently, "everything that is lost eventually ends up Some Place. If we look long enough, we're bound to find the invisible power which the sigils had previously bound to the sock."

"b.u.t.terfly," Jack said slowly, "are you telling me that we have to look for invisibility?"

"I believe I said that," I sniffed.

"b.u.t.terfly, how can you possibly find something invisible? Invisibility itself?"

"Look here," I said, "if you're ever going to be more than the amateur wizard that your uncle is, then you'd better learn to free yourself from the habit of rigid thinking. After all, he didn't even tell you about the existence of Some Place, did he?"

"Yeah, well, I've been thinking of looking for a new mastera"and that's not the only reason."

I twitched my tail in annoyance. "One thing at a time."

Jack sighed and said, "Okay, I'll bite. How do we look for what we can't see?"

"First, let's see the sigils on the other sock," I suggested.

He laid the pair out together so we could look at the line of mystic characters running from cuff to ankle. "They were both the same?"

He nodded. "He commissioned them. Socks were cheaper than a cloak, though I hear they wear out faster."

I sniffed. One can only pity those who have neither their own magic nor their own fur and must manufacture subst.i.tutes for both.

"So you know nothing of the spell for their making, I take it. Well, there's always more than one way to skin a mouse," I said, and glanced at the little rodent perched on Jack's collar. She ducked quickly inside his shirt. "First we've got to repair the fabric of the sigils; then we'll see about recapturing the invisibility spell itself."

We waded through the socks again, but this time in the opposite direction, toward the Plain of Lost Civilizations. We had reached the outskirts of the marbled splendor of the Ancient Greek quarter, where I planned to lead the party (alas, the dog, bird and mouse were still with us) into the Religion and Mythology section, when Jack sat down for a rest.

"b.u.t.terfly," he said with a yawn, "I don't think we're going to make it back in time to put all that laundry away before Uncle Hugh gets home in the morning."

"Don't be absurd," I said. "What do you think it is that people lose more of than anything else?"

"I dunnoa"socks, from the look of the valley."

"Time, you rodent-brain," I said. "There's enough lost time floating around in the clouds up there to last you a lifetime. We'll simply recover some on our way home."

"Wow!" his green eyes went wide. "However, I suggest we move on now."

"Okay," he said, "Heel, Yeller," he added to the ugly yellow mutt, which it did, just as if Jack had trained it from a pup. I shuddered. The talent manifest in my naive young human neighbor was of greater proportions than I had imagined.

I managed to drag Jack through the streets of Lost Greek Civilization without stopping to talk with every Tom, d.i.c.k and Herodotus, for, as Jack had discovered to his delight, language barriers do not exist in Some Place, the air being saturated with the lost pre-Babel universal mutual comprehension. Eventually we arrived at our destination, a modest house in the Origins street of the Mythological section, where I instructed Jack to knock and enter.

"Don't go blundering ahead before your eyes adjust," I advised him. My own more versatile vision revealed a mazelike array of shimmering webbing draped about the interior, and the walls hung with unbelievably lifelike tapestries. Amid all the gossamer stood a large and dusty loom, and a similarly disused spinning wheel.

"Oh, now who is it?" a creaky voice complained. "Don't you wizard tourists ever get tired of gawking at poor unfortunate people who happen to have incurred the wrath of the G.o.ds?"

"How do you do, Miss Arachne?" I purred, and a line descended quickly from the ceiling, suspending a large black spider at Jack's eye level.

"Well, what have we here? You're a good-looking young fellow."

"Uh, thanks," Jack gulped.

"I suppose you think I'm ugly just because I'm a spider," she said bitterly.

"Oh, hey, Ia""

"Well, you're right," sobbed the spider. "You have no idea what a pretty girl I was before Athena did this to me!"

"If you don't recall the story, Jack," I said, "Arachne here challenged the G.o.ddess Athena to a weaving contest. It seems Athena is a sore loser."

"Gosh, I'm sorry, Arachne," he said, and stuck out his palm. The spider just hung there for a moment.

"People don't usually like spiders to crawl on them," she said suspiciously.

"But Arachne, you're not really a spider," he said.

"Well," she said, opening and closing her mandibles, "that's true. But what about that bird?"

"Huh? Oh, Blue Boy won't hurt you. Don't touch the spider, birdie, she's a lady."

"Tweet tweet tweet tweeeee!" said the bird, and the spider crawled cautiously onto Jack's thumb.

"We have a problem only your skills can solve, Arachne," I said. "Show her the sock, Jack."

The spider scuttled around and peered down at me from Jack's thumb. "Well, look at thata"a tortoisesh.e.l.l tom! Is he your familiar, Wizard Jack?"

I opened my mouth for a hiss, but Jack quickly said, "He's just a friend. And I'm afraid I'm just an apprentice." He pulled out the socks and explained the situation.

"Oh, that's easy," said Arachne. "I can have it done in two shakes of a cat's tail." My whiskers twitched, but I said nothing. "But drat ita"I was hoping you were a wizard and could help me get back my true form."

"From Athena?" I said skeptically. "Not even a master magician can compete with a G.o.ddess."

"Well, she's only a retired G.o.ddess nowadaysa"I thought there might be a chance," Arachne pouted.

"Of course we'll help youa"won't we, b.u.t.terfly?" said Jack.

I stared at him, my pupils dilating in astonishment, but for some reason I couldn't think of an appropriately catty reply. Before I knew it, the spider was working away at the sock, and we were back in the street.

"Which way to Athena's place?" asked Jack, gawking about in all directions, until he caught sight of the Acropolis. All the lost glory of the Parthenon sparkled from its heightsa"the ruins that exist in the here-and-now mundane world are less than a mere shadow of it.

My tail was swishing as furiously as a fly swatter. "All right, Jack," I said. "This is what we'll have to do. In half an hour we walk back into Arachne's, reclaim the sock, and tell her all she has to do is get herself up to the Parthenon and she'll be disenchanted. Then we snag ourselves a bit of lost time and beat it."

"b.u.t.terfly!" I winced at the outrage in his voice. "Now, what's our best bet? Do we try to strike some kind of bargain with Athena, or do we try to trick her into turning Arachne back?"

"Our best bet is to cut our losses and run," I said dryly.

"Oh, come on, b.u.t.terfly, she can't be all that bad. It seems to me that I remember Athena was one of the better Olympians."

"That's not saying much," I snorted, then put on my radar. If any local deities had heard me, we would really be up to our ears in damp kitty litter.

"But we owe Arachne something for fixing the sock," Jack said.

"Your trouble, Jack, is that you haven't learned to think like a cat. Try ita"you'll see, things work out much better when you look out for number one."

He gaped at me, then got angry, if you can imagine. It's astounding how such insignificant creatures as humans (and such a poor specimen of the race as a pudgy teenage sorcerer's apprentice!) can muster such amazing delusions about their own moral stature.

"You know, b.u.t.terfly, for all that you're a tortoisesh.e.l.l tom, you really aren't any better than Samantha!"

"I beg your pardon?" I sat up straight. "What could a mouse-brained biped like you possibly know about the comparative worth of felines?"

"Oh, well, I suppose I can't expect morality from you, can I? But I did think you had as much pride as an ordinary alley cat. I didn't think you would back down from a challengea"much less be scared of a mere G.o.ddess."

My tail went lashing around like helicopter blades. "If you think, just because you're an animal empath, a tortoisesh.e.l.l tom will let you get away with a cheap trick like insulting his pride, then think again! So long, Jack!" I spat, and disappeareda"not from the plane of Some Place, but from Jack's view. It was only with difficulty that I suppressed the satisfied grin which, like the Cheshire cat's, could betray the presence of my otherwise invisible form.

"b.u.t.terfly!" Jack looked about frantically. "Come back here, you louse of a cat!" He heaped a number of curses on my name, but of course as it was only my ordinary, everyday name and not my secret name, the curses were entirely ineffectual. "Shoot! How do I get home now?" he asked the dog.

"Track!" the beast responded, and demonstrated by sticking his nose to the ground and starting to follow our trail back toward Arachne's place. I levitated and sat hovering in the air several feet above his head, and suddenly he started running in a confused circle. Even Jack couldn't help being disgusted at this display of idiocy.

"Oh, bother," he said. "All right, gang, the first thing is to try and help Arachne. Maybe she can tell me how to get home afterward. I guess without b.u.t.terfly we'll have to try the direct approacha"we'll go beg for Athena's mercy."

And with that the whole idiotic group set off for the Parthenon. I could scarcely believe my eyes.

I followed them closely, still invisiblea"not, you understand that I had given up on the Feline First Law of Self-Preservation; it was just that I was indulging in another common mode of cat behavior: curiosity. Don't say ita"I know. It kills cats with alarming frequency.

"h.e.l.lo?" Jack called into the empty templea"empty save for the G.o.ddess' gigantic ivory and gilt statue. "Athena? Are you here?"