little while earlier.
"put out the word to all the ends of the scuttleteau, to the
uppermost flanks of the mountains and the bottoms of the
rivers, to all the believers in the weave and to all who would
defend their webs against the plated folk, that a temporary
alliance has been struck with the people of the warmlands to
help them drive the plated beasts back into their putrid hole of
a homeland once and for all!"
"it shall be done, my lady," said the herald quickly. She
dismissed him with a wave of one leg and he hurried away to
do the bidding.
"we will move as soon as we have word from your
messenger ananthos," she told them. "we will go hopefully
with a known route and will try our best if none such is
available, but i will not send the best of the weave over the
high snows to a cold death."
"We know that," said Clothahump gratefully. "You can't
be expected to sacrifice yourselves to no purpose. But don't
worry. We'll convince these people to show us a way."
Jon-Tom did not think it a judicial time to mention the
possibility that such a path might not exist.
"it is in your claws now. i will have this ananthos found
and will give him my personal instructions and the scarf of
ambassadorial rank. will you require an escort?"
"We've gotten this far on our own," Talea pointed out.
"From what you say these Ironclouders aren't hostile, just
stubborn." She patted the sword at her hip. "We can take
care of ourselves."
"i did not mean to imply otherwise, i will see that you are
well supplied with food and—" She broke off at the twisted
expression on Flor's face, one that was sufficiently intense
and abrupt to transcend interspecies differences, "perhaps
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Alan Dean Foster
you had best see to your own provisioning, at that. list what
you wish and i will see it is provided, i had forgotten for a
moment that you partake of nourishment in a fashion some-
what different from ours."
"Our marital habits are a little different, too." Jon-Tom
glanced significantly toward the bejeweled boudoir.
"so i have heard, honor is a strange thing, sometimes it is
better to die happy and honored than to live miserably and
unrespected. and you do not consider the effects such repeat-
ed matings have on my own mind. a burdensome thing, i am
not permitted a lifetime of happiness but instead short periods
followed by regretful melancholy, tradition must be upheld,
however." She waved a leg magnanimously.
"all that is required will be provided, i only hope that we
have sufficient time to prepare and that we are granted a path
by which to proceed."
"We are most grateful," said Clothahump, bowing slightly.
"You are a Grand Webmistress indeed."
"it is no compliment to say that one can see the truth."
She waved several legs. "good fortune to you, newfound
friends."
The visitors began to file out of the chamber. Jon-Tom go
halfway to the portal, then turned and walked back to her.
"the audience is at an end," Oil told him somewhat less
than politely.
"I'm sorry. But I have to know something. Then I'll leav<
you to your privacy."
Fathomless eyes regarded him quietly, "ask then."
"Why did you single me out to talk with, instead o
Clothahump or Caz or one of the others?"
"why? oh, because of your delightful and inspiring selec
tion of garb. it marks you clearly as a superior being to your
companions, wizardly talents notwithstanding."
Turning, she walked rhythmically back to stand below the
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
royal bower. Reattaching fresh silk to the dangling cable, she
promptly climbed up and disappeared behind the barrier of
gems and silken embroidery.
Jon-Tom was left to consider his bright black leathern
pants, the matching boots and dark shirt.
It was only much later, as they were departing Gossameringue
with Ananthos in the lead, that Jon-Tom had the startling and
unsettling thought that the Grand Webmistress might have
been considering him as material for something besides
conversation....
XI
It was terrible in the mountains.
Higher peaks towered to east and west, but as they moved
south they were traversing the wmdswept flanks of Zaryt's
Teeth, where they merged with the lower but still impres-
sive mountains from which the greater heights sprang. It
was bitingly cold. Soon they were walking not on rock or
earth but on snow so dry and fresh it crunched like sugar
underfoot.
On the third day after leaving the Scuttleteau and its gentle
rivers and warm forests they encountered snow flumes. The
day after that they were stumbling through a modest blizzard.
Oil's fears that the southern range might prove unnegotiable
seemed well founded.
Mudge and Caz suffered least of all, in contrast to their
companions who did not enjoy the benefits of a personal far
coat.
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Alan Dean Poster
Everyone profited from the example set by the stoic
Bribbens. Though highly susceptible to the cold he trudged
patiently along, silent and uncomplaining. Oftentimes his
bulbous eyes were all that could be seen outside the thick
clothing the Weavers had provided. He kept his discom-
forts to himself, and so his companions were shamed into
doing the same.
Working with only rumor and supposition, the least reliable
of guides, Ananthos somehow managed to pick a path
southward.
They had made little progress in five days of hard marching
when Jon-Tom had his idea. A temporary camp was estab-
lished in the shelter of a small cave. Jon-Tom and Plor led the
others in the hunt for suitable saplings and green vines. These
were then woven together with spider silk dispensed by
Ananthos.
With the aid of the new snowshoes their pace improved
considerably. So did their spirits, boosted not only by their
improved method of travel but by the hysterical image Ananthos
presented as he shuffled along on six of the carefully wrought
shoes, picking his way as uncertainly and carefully as a water
sender trying to cross a pool of mud.
They also improved Bribbens' morale. While they kept him
no warmer, the enormous shoes on his webbed feet gave him
tremendous stability.
Jon-Tom moved up to march alongside Ananthos. It was
the morning of their eighth day in the mountains.
"Could we have missed it?" His breath made a cloud in
front of his face. The cold fought implacably for a rout&
through his clothes. The crude parka hastily fashioned by the
Weavers was no substitute for a goose-down jacket. There
was a real danger of freezing to death if they didn't find
warmer country soon.
"i don't think so." An
anthos indicated the precious scroll
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THE HOUR OF THK GATE
he kept in a protective, watertight tube strapped to his rear
left leg. "i can only rely on the chart the court historians
made for us. no weaver has been this far south in many
years, there was no reason for doing so and, for obvious
reasons, no desire to do so."
"Then how can you be so sure we haven't passed it?"
"i can be only as sure as the charts, but the tales say if one
but continues south, as we have, following the lowest route
through the mountains, he will come upon the iron cloud, that
is, if the tales are true."
"And if there is an iron cloud at all," Jon-Tom mumbled.
A leg touched his waist, but Ananthos' reassurances were
stolen by the wind.
Despair is sometimes the preface to hope. On the ninth
day the weather took pity on them. The snow ceased, the
storm clouds betook themselves elsewhere, and the temper-
ature wanned considerably, though it did not rise above
freezing.
As if to compensate they were confronted with another
danger: snow blindness. The brilliant Alpine sun ricochetted
off snowbanks and glacier fronts, turning everything to shock-
ing, adamantine white.
They managed to fashion crude shades from Ananthos'
supply of scarves. Even so they were forced to keep their
gaze to the ground and their senses at highest alert, lest the
next snowbank turn out to be just the fatal side of some nearly
hidden chasm.
Another day and they started downward.
Two weeks after departing Gossameringue they found the
iron cloud.
They were climbing a slight rise, bisecting a saddle be-
tween two slopes. For days they had seen little color but
varying shades of white, so the highly reflective black that
suddenly confronted them was physically shocking.
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Across a rocky slope of crumbled granite patched with
snow was a mountainside that appeared to have been deluged
with frozen tar. It was encrusted with ice and snow in
occasional crevices.
Clearly the immense, smooth masses of black which
jutted like an oily waterfall from the flank of the mountain-
side were composed of material much tougher than tar.
They resembled a succession of monstrous bubbles piled
one atop another without bursting. Holes pockmarked the
blackness.
It was the metallic luster that led Flor to exclaim in
surprise, "Por dios, es hematite."
"What?" Jon-Tom turned a puzzled expression on her.
"Hematite, Jon-Tom. It's an iron ore that occurs naturally
in formations like that," and she pointed to the mountainside,
"though I never learned of any approaching such size. The
formation is called mammary, or reniform, I think."
"What is she saying?" asked Clothahump with interest.
"That the 'iron' part of the name Ironcloud is taken from
reality and not poetry. Come on!"
They descended the gentle slope on the other side of the
saddle and made their way across the stony plateau. The huge
black extrusion hung above them, millions of tons of near-
iron as secure as the mountain itself. Viewed against the
surrounding snow and sky, it did indeed look much like a
cloud.
But where were the fabled inhabitants, he wondered? What
could they be like? The holes which pierced the masses
overhead hinted at their possible abode, but though the party
surveyed them intently there was no hint of motion from
within.
"It looks abandoned," said Talea, staring upward.
"Don't see a soul," Pog commented from nearby.
They slid their burdensome backpacks off while examining
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the inaccessible caves above. Climbing the granite wall was
out of the question. Not only did the massive formation
overhang but the smooth iron offered little purchase. Without
sophisticated mountaineering gear there was no way they
could reach even the lowest of the caves.
It was clear enough how the invisible inhabitants managed
the feat, however. From the rim of each cave opening hung a
long vine. Knots were tied in each roughly six inches apart.
The profusion of dangling vines, swaying gently in the
mountain breeze, gave the formation the look of a dark man
with a beard.
The problem arose from the fact that the shortest cable-vine
was a good two hundred feet long. No one thought themself
capable of the combination of strength and dexterity neces-
sary to make the climb. Talea considered it, but the thinness
of the vine precluded the attempt. Whoever used the vines
weighed a good deal less than any in the frustrated party of
visitors.
Mudge was agile, but he wasn't fond of climbing. Ananthos
was clearly too large to enter the hole, though he stood the
best chance of rising to the height.
"We waste time on peripheral argument," Clothahump
finally snorted at them, when he was at last able to get a word
in. "Pog!"
Everyone looked around, but the bat was nowhere to be
seen.
" 'Ere 'e is!" Mudge pointed toward a large boulder.
They ran to the spot to find the bat squatting resolutely on
the gravel behind the rock. He looked up at them with
determined bat eyes. „
"No way am I going up dere and sticking my nose in one
of dose black pits. No telling what might take a notion to bite
it off."
"Come now, mate," said Mudge reasonably, adjusting his
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parka top, "be sensible. You're the only arboreal among us.
If I didn't think that vine'd bust under me weight, I'd give a
climb a good try. But why the 'ell should one o' us 'ave t'
risk that, when you could be up there and back in a bloody
minute or two without so much as strainin' your wings?"
"An accurate evaluation of our situation." Caz positioned
his monocle tighter over his left eye. He'd steadfastly refused
to surrender the affectation, even at the risk of losing the
monocle in the snow. "You know, you really should have
been up there and back already, on your own initiative."
"Initiative, hell!" Pog flapped his wings angrily. "One
more display of 'initiative' from dis crazy bunch and we'll
find ourselves meat on somebody's table."
"Now Pog," Clothahump began wamingly.
"Yeah, I know, I know, boss. Go to it or ya'll turn me into
a human or worse." He sighed, unfurled his wings experi-
mentally.
"perhaps i could get up there—at least if i can't fit inside,
i could attach to a hole above and hang down to, look in."
Ananthos sounded awkward, wanting to contribute.
"You know that surface is too slick for you to get a hold
on, and if you could you probably couldn't get in and move
around in there. Your leg span is too wide. Besides, I think
Pog should have a
chance at this." Clothahump was firm.
"A chance at what? Meeting my maker in a cold hole in da
sky?"
Ananthos looked pained, but Jon-Tom gave Pog encour-
agement with his eyes.
"If you're all determined den to see poor Pog get his throat
laid open, I expect I'll have ta be about da business. I warn
ya, dough, if I don't come back alive I'll come back dead and
haunt ya all to an early grave."
"Don't take any chances, Pog," Jon-Tom advised him.
"Probably you won't find anything, or anyone. Just fly up
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and check out one or two caves, see if this place is really as
deserted as it looks. If it is, maybe you'll leam the reason
why."
"Maybe one of da reasons is hiding in one of dose caves!"
snapped the worried bat, gesturing upward with a wing
thumb.
"If so then don't hang around to argue with it," said
Talea. "You're going up to look, not to fight. Get your butt
back down here as fast as you can."
Pog hovered just above the ground, lit on top of the boulder
he'd been hiding behind. "No need ta worry 'bout that, Talea
lady." He pulled his knife from its back sheath and slipped it
between his jaws.
"Wish me luck," he mumbled around the blade.
"There is no need for luck when intelligence and good
judgment are exercised," said Clothahump.
Pog made a rude noise, flapped his wings, and launched
himself from the crest of the rock. He dropped, skimmed
inches above sharp gravel, and then began to climb, using the
warm currents rising from the bare plateau to ascend in a
steady spiral.
"You think he'll be okay?" Flor shielded her eyes from the
glare and squinted at the sky where a black shape was
growing gradually smaller. Pog now looked like a toy kite
against the pure blue curtain overhead.
"Instinct is a powerful aid to self-preservation."
"Oh?" she said with just a hint of sarcasm. "What book
did that come out of?"
Jon-Tom was also leaning back and looking toward the lip
of the iron cloud. He just swallowed Flor's remark.
Hemarist, da tall human lady had called it. No, dat
wasn't right. Hema... Hematite. Like in a tight spot, which
is what you gots yourself into, Pog thought to himself. He
was high above the rocky plain now. The figures of his
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companions were sharp and distinct against the gray gravel. He
could tell they were watching him.