a learned discussion, half balderdash and half science: which
is to say, fine magic. Jon-Tom and Flor tried to follow, largely
in vain.
Talea leaned on the bow railing, her gaze fixed on the
blackness ahead and around them. The cool wind continued,
ruffling her hair and making her wonder what lay ahead,
concealed by the screen of night.
For days they drifted downstream in darkness; water above,
water below, floating through an aqueous tube toward an
uncertain destination. Jon-Tom was reminded of a corpuscle
in the bloodstream. After all the talk of Zaryt's "Teeth" and
of traveling into the "belly" bf the mountain, he found the
analogy disquieting.
From time to time they would anchor in midstream and
supplement their supplies from the river's ample piscean
population. Occasionally Bribbens and Mudge would make
exploratory forays into the upper river. They would climb the
mast, Mudge helping the less adapted boatman. A small float
attached to an arrow was shot into the underside of the current
overhead. The float was inflated until it held securely. Then
the cord trailing from it would be tied to the mast. Bribbens
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and the otter would then shinny up it, to disappear into the
liquid ceiling.
With them went small sealed oil lamps fitted with handles.
These provided light in the darkness, a necessity since even
such agile swimmers as the two explorers could become lost
in the deep waters.
On the twelfth day, when the monotony of the trip had
become dangerously settled, Bribbens slid down the line in a
state of uncharacteristic excitement.
"I think we're through," he announced cheerily.
"Through? Through where? Surely not the mountains."
Clothahump frowned. "It could not be. The range is too
massive to be so narrow. And the legends..."
"No, no, sir. Not through the mountains. But the airspace
above the upper river has suddenly expanded from but a few
inches to one many feet high. There is a substantial cave, far
more interesting to look at than this homogeneous tunnel. We
can travel above now, and there's some light as well."
"What kind of light?" Flor wanted to know.
"You'll see."
Preparations were made. Buoyant material did not have to
be dragged or shoved downward this time. Instead, they
simply had to raise it to the upper stream and insert it,
whereupon it would instantly bob to the second surface.
Mudge was waiting to slip a line on such packages and drag
them to shore.
When all their stores had been transferred, the nonaquatics
climbed the mast rope and pushed themselves into the upper
river. It was far easier to ascend than that first uncertain dive
had been.
Jon-Tom broke the surface with wind to spare. He remained
there a while, treading water as he inspected the cavern into
which the river emerged.
The boatman had understated its size in his usual phlegmat-
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THE HOUR Or THE GATE
ic fashion. The cave was enormous. Off to his left Jon-Tom
could see the abrupt cessation of the solid stone wall that had
formed a tight lid on the upper stream for so many days.
Little debris drifted this far on the river, and what few pieces
and bits of wood tumbled by were worn almost smooth from
the continual buffeting against that unyielding overhang.
More amazing were the cavern walls. They appeared to be
coated with millions of tiny lights. He swam lazily toward the
nearby beach, crawled out and selected a towel with which to
dry himself, and moved to inspect the nearest glowing rocks.
The lights were predominantly gold in hue, though a few
odd bursts and patches of red, blue, green, and yellow were
visible. The bioluminescents were lichens and fungi of many
species, ranging from mere colored smears against the rock to
elaborate mushrooms and step fungi. Individually their lumen
output was insignificant, but in the millions they illuminated
the cavern as thoroughly as an evening sun.
He was kneeling to examine a cluster of bright blue
toadstools when a vast rush and burble sounded behind him.
river monster rising from the depths. It was only their boat.
The first days on board he'd wondered at the purpose of
great collapsed intestines, carefully scraped and dried, that
lined the little craft's hold. Now he knew. Having been
inflated in turn they'd given the boat sufficient lifting power
to rise like a balloon from the lower river right up to the
surface of its twin.
Now it bobbed uncertainly as Bribbens rushed to open the
valves sealing each inflated stomach before they could lift the
ship from its second surface to the ceiling of the cavern.
Water ran off the decks and out the seacocks. Mudge pumped
furiously to purge the remaining water from the hold.
Dry and dressed, the passengers were soon traveling once
more eastward. The scenery had improved greatly. Jon-Tom
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hoped the cavern would not shrink around them and force
them again down to the dull surface of the understream.
He needn't have worried. Instead of compacting, the cav-
ern grew larger. It seemed endless, stretching vast and fluo-
rescent ahead of them.
Phosphorescent growths made the river an artist's palette,
oils of many colors all run together and anarchically brilliant.
Gigantic stalactites drooped like teeth from the distant ceil-
ing. Some were far larger than the boat. They drifted past
huge panels of flowstone, frozen rivers of stained calcite.
Helictites curled and twisted from the walls, twitching at
gravity like so many crystalline whiskers. Fungi flashed from
diem all.
On both sides they could see passages branching from the
main cavern. Jon-Tom had a powerful urge to grab a lamp
and do some casual spelunking. But Clothahump reminded hiru
there would be ample exploring to do without deviating frori
their course. So long as the river continued to run eastward
they would keep to the boat.
The size and magnificence of the cavern kept him fror.i
thinking about the composition of the Sloomaz-ayor-le-Weenti:
It was disconcerting to sail along a river that flowed not o.-
rock or sand but on air.
"How do you know it even has a solid bottom?" Plor onc,-
asked their boatman. "Maybe it's a triple—or quadruple--
river?"
Bribbens rested in his seat at the stem, one arm draped
protectively across the steering oar.
"Because I've been in and out of it many times, lady.
Anyway, no matter where you are on the river the anchors
always bite into the second bottom."
Here and there the warm glow of the bioluminescents
would fade and then vanish. At such times they had to rely on
106
THE HOUR OF THE GATE
me lamps for light until they reached another fluorescent
section.
It didn't bother Pog. He'd finally recovered from his
lengthy grumpiness. To him the darkness was natural, and he
enjoyed the stretches of no-light. They could hear him swooping
and darting beyond the range of the boat's lamps, playing
dodgem with the cave formations. Sometimes he'd leave the
boat for long stretches of time, much to Clothahump's dis-
pleasure and concern, only to have his internal sonar unerringly
bring him back to the ship many hours later.
"Beautiful," Jon-Tom was murmuring as he watched the
glowing shapes drift past. "It's absolutely beautiful."
Talea stood next to him and eyed the dark openings that
branched off from the main cavern. Sometimes these gaping
holes would come right down to the river's edge.
"Funny idea of beauty you have, Jon-Tom. I don't like it at
all."
"Humans got no appreciation of caves," said Pog with a
snort, weaving in the air above them. "Dis all wasted on ya
except da spellsinger dere, an' dat's da truth!"
"Can I help it if I prefer light to dark, freedom to
confinement?" she countered.
"Amen," said Flor heartily.
For both women the initial loveliness of the formations had
been surrendered to the superstitious dread most people hold
of deep, enclosed places. Jon-Tom was the only one with a
real interest in caves, and so he was somewhat immune to
such fears. To him the immense shapes, laid down patiently
over the ages by dripping water and dissolved limestone,
were as exquisite as anything the world of daylight had to
offer.
Flor and Talea were not alone in their nervousness, however.
"I think I liked it better inside the rivers," Mudge said one
morning. "Leastwise there a chaploiew where 'e was, wot?"
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He indicated the darkness of a large, unilluminated sic
passage with a sweep of one furry arm. "Don't care much tc
this place atall. I ain't ready t' be buried just yet."
"Superstition," Clothahump muttered. "The bane (
civilization."
As for their boatman, he remained as calm as if he'd bee
sailing familiar waters.
"Does this place have a name?" Jon-Tom asked him
watching a clump of bright azure mushrooms on the shore,
"Only in legend." Bribbens looked away for a moment.
An impossibly long tongue flicked out and snared something
which Jon-Tom saw only as a ghost of glittering, transparent
wings and body.
The frog smacked his lips appraisingly. "No color, but the
flavor isn't bad." He nodded at the cavern. "In stories and
legends of the riverfolk this is known as the Earth's Throat.''
"And where does it go?" Bor asked him.
Bribbens shrugged. "Who knows? Your hard-shelled men
tor believes it to travel much of the way through the mow
tains. Perhaps he's right. I prefer to think we'll come ou
there instead of, say, the earth's belly."
"That doesn't sound very nice." Nearby Talea fingered the
haft of her knife as though she could intimidate the surrounding
darkness with it.
Or whatever else might be out there....
108
VII
They were beginning to think they might complete the
passage through the Teeth (or at least to the end of the river)
without mishap. Long days of idle drifting, the boat carried
smoothly by the current, had lulled the fears they'd acquired
on the Swordsward.
Pog, his hearing more acute than anyone else's, was first to
note the noise.
"Off key," he explained in response to their queries, "but
it's definitely somebody's idea of song. More than one of
whatever it is, too."
"I'm sure of it." Caz's long ears were cocked alertly
toward the northern shore. They twitched in counterpoint to
his busy nose.
It was several minutes more before the humans could hear
the subject of their companion's intense listening. It was a
rhythmic rising and falling, light and ethereal as an all-female
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choir might produce. Definitely music, but nothing recogniz-
able as words.
It was occasionally interrupted by a few moments of vivace
modulation that sounded like laughter. Jon-Tom could appre-
ciate the peculiar melodies, but he didn't care for the laughter-
chords one bit.
Bribbens interrupted their listening, his tone quiet as al-
ways but unusually urgent. "Tiller's not answering properly."
Indeed, the boat was drifting steadily toward the north
shore. There was a gravel beach and rocks: not much of a
landing place. Muscles strained beneath the boatman's slick
skin as he fought the steering, but the boat continued to
incline landward.
Soon they were bumping against the first rocks. These
obstacles poked damp dark heads out of the water around the
boat.
Flor stumbled away from the railing on the opposite side
and screamed. Jon-Tom rushed to join her. He stared over the
side and recoiled instinctively.
Dozens of shapes filled the water. They had their hands on
the side of the boat and were methodically pushing at it evec
though it was already half grounded on the rocky bottom.
"Steady now," said Talea wamingly. She stood at the bow,
her knife and sword naked in the glow-light, and pointed tc
me land.
A great number of creatures were marching toward the
boat. They were identical to the persistent pushers in the
water. All were approximately five feet tall and thin to the
point of emaciation. They were faintly human, memories of
almost-people parading in unison.
Two legs and two arms. They were nude but smooth-
bodied and devoid of external sex organs. For that matter they
displayed nothing in the way of differentiating characteristics
They might have been stamped from a single mold.
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THK HOVR OF THE GATE
Their white flesh was truly white, blank-white, like milk
and bordering on translucence. Two tiny coal-pit eyes sat in
the puttylike heads where real eyes ought to have been. There
were no pupils, no ears or nostrils, and only a flat slit of a
mouth cutting the flesh below the eye-dots. Hands had short
fingers, which along with the legs looked jointless as rubber.
In time to the music they marched toward the ship, waving
their arms slowly and hypnotically while singing their moan-
ing, methodical song.
Jon-Tom looked to Clothahump. The wizard looked baf-
fled. "I don't know, my boy. None of the legends says
anything about a tribe of albino chanters living in the Throat."
He called to the marchers.
"What are you called? What is it you want of us?"
"What can we do for you?" Flor asked, adding something
unintelligible in Spanish.
The singers did not respon
d. They descended the slight
slope of the beach with fluid grace. The ones in the lead
began reaching, clutching over the railing.
Two of them grabbed Talea's right arm. "Ease back
there," she ordered them, pulling away. They did not let go
and continued to tug at her insistently.
Several other pale singers were already on the deck and
were pulling with similar patient determination at Jon-Tom
and Mudge.
" 'Ere now, you cold buggerers, take your bloody 'ands off
me!" The otter twisted free.
So didJTalea and Jon-Tom. Yet the pale visitors wordlessly
kept advancing, groping for the strangers.
Another sound quietly filled the cavern. It seeped across
the river and dominated the rise and fall of the expressionless
choir. A deep, low moaning, it was in considerable contrast
to the melody of the white singers. It was not at all nice. In
fact, it seemed to Jon-Tom that it embodied every overtone of
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Alan Dean Foster
menace and malignance one could put into a single moan. It
issued from somewhere back in the black depths, beyond
where the singers had come from.
"That's about enough," said Bribbens firmly. He hefted
his backup steering sweep and began swinging it at the
singers stumbling about on deck. Two of them went down
with unexpected lack of resistance. Their heads bounced like
a pair of rubber balls across the deck. The black eyespots
never twitched and they uttered not a word of pain. Their
singing, however, ceased. One of the skulls bounced over the
railing and landed in the water with a slight splash, to sink
quickly out of sight.
A shocked Bribbens paused to stare at the decapitated
corpses. There was no blood.
"Damn. They aren't alive."
"They are," Clothahump insisted, struggling awkwardly in
the grasp of three singers who were trying to wrestle his
heavy body off the ship, "but it is not our kind of alive."
"I'll make them our kind of dead." Talea's sword was
moving like a scythe. Three singers fell neatly into six halves.
They lay on the deck like so many lumps of white clay,
motionless and cold.
Jon-Tom hurried to assist Clothahump. "Sir, what do you
think we... ?"
"Fight for it, my boy, fight! You can't argue with these
things, and I have a feeling that if we're taken from this boat
we'll never see it again." He had retreated inside his shell,