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with.”
    â€œSimple is as simple does,” the otter muttered under his breath.
    â€œI do not know if this is a matter fixable,” Clothahump professed, “or if so, if it is even worth pondering over.”
    â€œTell me,” asked Jon-Tom eagerly.
    The wizard composed himself. “It appears to involve a minor disturbance in the musical firmament. Nothing to titillate one, I’m afraid.”
    Jon-Tom slumped. “A musical disturbance? That’s it?”
    â€œI warned you.”
    â€œThis disturbance. You’re sure it’s not destroying a village somewhere, or undermining the stability of a mountain, or driving to madness some ferocious being?”
    â€œAfraid not.”
    â€œIt hardly sounds worth wasting a spellsong on. A task for a minor adept, at most.”
    â€œTake it or leave it, lad.”
    Jon-Tom considered. “There’s nothing else?” Clothahump shook his head, whereupon his young partner looked resigned. “All right, then: Tell me about it.”
    â€œIt’s actually a bit more specific than just a disturbance. I’ve succeeded in isolating the condition, or rather, it appears to have isolated itself. As to an esthetic evaluation, that is beyond me. As you know, I have something of a tin ear. Or would, if I had ears.” He chuckled at his own joke.
    â€œThat’s our Clothahump,” attested Mudge softly. “A regular barrel o’ unrestrained mirth.”
    â€œYes, well.” Somewhat less than overwhelmed by companionable hilarity, the wizard regained his aplomb. “I suppose you should have a look at it.”
    â€œA look at it?” Jon-Tom’s eyebrows lifted.
    Rising from his chair, Clothahump beckoned for them to follow him deeper into the convoluted maze that was the tree’s interior.
    The subject of his terse discourse idled in an alcove hollowed out of an internal wall near the back of a workshop, soaking up numinous ambiance like a lizard on a hot rock. As the trio approached, the collage of scintillating motes oscillated, momentarily catching and throwing back the subdued light. It was a ghostly luminescence, Jon-Tom mused: a glimmering not-there existing at the outermost limits of visual perception, a faint phosphorescence that skated so lightly on the thin ice of one’s corneas that the relevant rods and cones barely remarked on its presence.
    Like the shadow of an aurora, it hovered before them. Then the motes seemed to twitch briefly and reposition themselves. As they did so, a musical tone sounded in the room. It was pleasant, plaintive, and fleeting.
    â€œI can’t see it very well,” Jon-Tom declared, “but it’s lovely. What is it?”
    â€œMusic, of course,” said the wizard. “What did you think it was? An acoustical alignment. A harmonic convergence. A sonorous synchronicity.”
    â€œI don’t follow. I heard the tone, but that doesn’t tell me what it is. ”
    â€œI’ve just told you, lad. It’s music.”
    â€œI’ll be recruited for a eunuch,” Mudge exclaimed. “I’ve ’eard plenty o’ music in me time, but I ain’t never actually seen any before.”
    Jon-Tom regarded the wispy ovoid with great interest as it chimed afresh. “I didn’t know you could see music.”
    â€œIt’s normally not this straightforward.” Clothahump squinted through his glasses. “Usually conditions have to be exactly right. Even so, it’s slippery stuff to try and get a visual fix on.”
    Taking a step forward, he extended a stubby hand. The mote-mass hesitated, then began to curl freely about his fingers, bathing them in halftones. They cast, Jon-Tom noted, no shadow.
    â€œIt appears to be a portion of a much larger musical thought,” the wizard informed them. “I have done some research and find it to consist of a number of unvarying chords which are continuously re-forming