Waiting ta see how I get it, he thought miserably.
He circled before the lowest of the globular projections.
His personal sonar told him nothing moved inside any of the
several caves he'd flown past. That at least was a promising
sign. Maybe the place was deserted.
Black iron, huh? It looked like a vast black face to him,
with no eyes but lots of little mouths ready to swallow you,
swallow you whole. Pretty soon he was going to have to stick
his head into one of 'em.
Why couldn't ya have listened ta your mudder, he berated
himself, and gone inta da mail soivice, or crafts transport; or
aerial cop work?
But nah, ya had ta fall hard for a pretty piece o' fluff who
won't give ya da time o' night, den get stinking drunk and
apprentice yourself ta a half senile, sadistic, hard-shelled,
hard-headed old fart of a wizard in da faint hope he'll
eventually turn ya inta something more presentable ta you
lady love.
He thought of her again, of the smoothly elegant blend of
feathers from back to tail, of the slightly cruel yet delicate
curve Of beak, and of those magnificent, piercing yellow eyes
which turned his guts to paste when they passed over him.
Ah, Uleimee, if ya only knew what I'm suffering for ya!
He caught himself, broke the thought like a ceramic cup. If
she knew what you was suffering she wouldn't give a flyin'
fuck about it. She's the type who appreciates results, not
well-meaning failures.
So gather what's left of your small store of courage, bat,
and be about your job. And don't think about whether when
your time's up, old Clothamuck will have forgotten da formu-
la for transforming ya.
But, oh my, dat cave mouth looming just ahead is dark!
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Empty, dough. His eyes as wen as his sonar told him that. He
fluttered next to the opening for a while, wrestling with the
knowledge that if he didn't explore at least one of the caves
his mentor would simply force him to return and try again.
He drifted cautiously inside. He sensed the echo of his
wing beats pushing air off the tunnel walls. Then he settled
down to walk.
The floor of the cave was carpeted with clean straw, carefully
braided into intricately patterned mats. They appeared to be
in good repair. If this iron warren was abandoned, it hadn't
been so for long.
The tunnel soon expanded into a larger, roughly oval-
shaped chamber. It was filled with a peculiar assortment of
furniture. There were lounges but no chairs, and high-backed
perches. The lounges suggested creatures that walked, as did
the climbing vines dangling outside each cave opening, but
the high-backs pointed to arboreals like himself. He shook his
head. Deductive thinking was not his strong suit.
The utensils were also confusing rather than enlightening.
A little light reached the chamber from the cave opening, but
his sonar was still searching the surroundings as though it
were pitch dark. His heart beat almost as rapidly. Finish dis,
he told himself frantically. Finish it, and get out.
Several additional chambers branched from the back of the
one he was studying. He would begin with the one immedi-
ately on his right and work his way through them. Then
Clothahump couldn't say he'd made only a superficial inspec-
tion and order him to return.
It turned out to be a pantry-kitchen arrangement. It was
discouraging to find that whoever had lived in the cave was
omnivorous. In addition to instruments for preparing meat
and fruit there was also a surprising garbage pile of small
insect carcasses and empty nuts.
It was an eclectic and indiscriminate diet. Perhaps it also
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included bats. He shuddered, drew his wings tighter around
his small body. One more room, he told himself. One more,
and den if da boss wants more info he can damn well climb
up and look for himself.
He entered the next chamber, found more furniture and
little else. He was ready to leave when something tickled his
sonar. He turned.
A pair of huge, glowing yellow eyes stared down at him.
luminous orbs was as big around as a human face. Pog
stuttered but couldn't squeeze out word or shout.
"Hooooooo," said the voice beneath those fathomless eyes
in a long, querulous, and slightly irritated tone, "the hell are
yoooooo?"
Pog was backing toward the chamber exit. Something
sharp and unyielding pricked his back.
"Tolafay asked you a question, interloper! Better answer
him." The new voice was completely different from the first,
high and almost human.
Pog glanced over his shoulder, saw eyes not as large as the
first pair he'd encountered but larger still in proportion to the
body of their owner. Four yellow eyes, four malevolent little
angry suns, swam in a dizzying circle around his head. He
started to slump.
The sharp thing moved, poked him firmly in the side.
"And don't faint on us, interloper, or I'll see your body
leaves your gizzard behind...."
'^What the devil's keeping him?" Jon-Tom stared with
concern up at the cave where Pog had vanished.
"Maybe they go very deep into the mountainside," Talea
suggested hopefully. "It may take him a while to get all the
way in and all the way out again."
"Perhaps." Bribbens stared longingly at a small creek that
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
flowed from the base of an icefall across the barren little
plateau. "How I long for a boat again." He lifted one of his
enormous, snowshoed feet.
"Walking's beginning to get to me. No fit occupation for a
riverman."
"If it's any consolation I'd rather be on a boat myself just
now," said Jon-Tom.
Then Mudge was gesturing excitedly upward. "Ease off it,
mates! 'Ere 'e comes!"
"And damned if he hasn't got company." Talea unsheathed
her sword, stood ready and waiting for whatever might drop
out of the sky.
Pog drifted down toward them, a black crepe-paper cutout
against the bright sky. He was paced by a similar silhouette
several times more massive, with a distinctly animate lump
attached to its back.
Dozens of other fliers poured from the perforated cloud-
cliff like water from a sieve. They did not descend but instead
blended together to create a massive, threatening spiral above
the plateau.
Talea reluctantly placed her sword back in its holder.
"Doesn't look like they've hurt Pog. We might as well
assume they're friendly, considering how badly we're
outnumbered."
"Characteristic understatement, flame-fur." Caz's monocle
waltzed with the sun as he craned his neck to inspect the
soaring whirlpool overhead. "I make out at leas
t two hundred
of them. Size varies, but the shape is roughly the same. I
think they're all owls. I've never heard of such a concentrated
community of them as this, not even in Polastrindu, which
has a respectable population of noctural arboreals."
"It is odd," Clothahump agreed. "They are antisocial and
zealously guard their privacy, which fits with what the Weav-
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ers told us about the psychology of Ironcloud's inhabitants.
Yet they appear to have established a community here."
Pog touched down on the high boulder he'd so recently
tried to hide behind. The flier shadowing him braked ten-foot
wings. The force of the backed air nearly knocked Flor oft
her feet.
The creature took a couple of dainty steps, ruffled its
feathers, and stood staring at them. The high tufts atop She
head identified this particular individual as a Great Homed
Owl. Jon-Tom found himself more impressed with those great
eyes, like pools of speculative sulfur, than by the creature's
size.
The lump attached to its back, which even Caz had not
been able to identify, now detached itself from the light,
high-backed saddle it had been straddling. It slid decorative
earmuffs down to its neck, unsnapped its poncho, and leaned
against its companion's left wing.
Now the spiral high above started to break up. Most of she
fliers returned to their respective caves in the hematite. A few
assumed watchful positions.
Jon-Tom eyed the lemur standing close to the owl. It was
no longer a mystery who made use of the thin, knotted vines
fringing the cave mouths. With their diminutive bodies and
powerful prehensile fingers and toes, the lemurs could travel
up and down the cables as easily as Jon-Tom could circle an
oval track.
Pog glided down from the crest of his boulder and sauntered
over to rejoin his friends. "Dis guy's called Tolafay." He
gestured with a wingtip at the glowering owl. "His skymate's
named Malu."
The lemur stepped forward. He was barely three feet tall.
"Your friend explained much to us."
"Yes. Quite a story it was, tooooo." The owl smoothed the
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THE HOUK OF THE GATE
folds of its white, green, and black kilt. "I'm not sure how
much of it I believe," he added gruffly.
"We have managed to convince half a world," replied
Clothahump impatiently. "Time grows short. Civilization
teeters on the edge of the abyss. Surely I need not repeat our
whole tale again?"
"I don't think you have to," said Malu. He indicated the
watchful Ananthos. "The mere fact that a Weaver, citizen of
a notoriously xenophobic state, is traveling as ally with you is
proof enough that something truly extraordinary is going on."
"look who is calling another 'xenophobic,'" whispered
Ananthos surlily.
"It had better be extraordinary," the owl grumbled. He
used a flexible wing tip to wipe one saucer-sized eye. "You've
awakened all of Ironcloud from its daily rest. The populace
will require a reasonable explanation." He blinked, shielding
his face as the sun emerged from behind a stray cloud.
"How you can live with that horrid light burning your eyes
is something I'll never understand."
"Oh very well," said Clothahump with a sigh. "You will
convey details of our situation to your leader or mayor or—"
"We have no single leader," said the owl, mildly outraged.
"We have neither council nor congress. We coexist in peace,
without the burdens imposed by noisome government."
"Then how do you make communal decisions?" Jon-Tom
asked curiously.
The owl eyed him as though he represented a lower
species. "We respect one another."
"There will be a feasting tonight," said Malu, trying to
lighten the atmosphere. "We can discuss your request then."
"That's not necessary," said Flor.
"But it is," the lemur argued. "You see, we can welcome
you either as enemies or as guests. There will be a feasting
either way."
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"I believe I follow your meaning." Caz spoke drily, eyeing
Tolafay's razor-sharp beak, which was quite capable of snap-
ping him in half. "I sincerely hope, then, that we can look
forward to being greeted as guests...."
They gathered that evening in a chamber far larger than
any of the others. Jon-Tom wondered at the force, technolog-
ical or natural, which could have hollowed such a space in the
almost solid iron.
It was dimly lit by lamp but more brightly than usual in
deference to the Ironclouders' vision-poor visitors. Trophy
feathers and lizard skins decorated the curving walls. Nearly
a hundred of the great owls of all species and sizes reveled in
music and dance along with their lemur companions.
Their guests observed the spectacle of feathers and fur with
pleasure. It was comfortably warm in the cave, the first time
since departing Gossameringue any of them had been really
warm.
The music was strange, though not as strange as its
sources. Nearby a great white barn owl stood in pink-green
kilt playing a cross between a tuba and a flute. It held the
instrument firmly with flexible wing tips and one clawed foot,
balancing neatly on the other while pecking out the melody
with a precision no mere pair of lips could match.
Owls and lemurs spilled out on the great circular iron floor,
dancing and spinning while their companions at the huge
curved tables ate and drank their fill. It was wonderful to
watch those great wings spinning and flaying at the air as the
owls executed jigs and reels with their comparatively tiny but
incredibly agile primate companions. Claws and tiny padded
feet slipped and hopped in and around each other without
missing a beat.
The night was half dead when Jon-Tom leaned over to ask
Ror, "Where's Clothahump?"
"I don't know." She stopped sipping from the narrow-
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
mouthed drinking utensil she'd been given. "Isn't he magnif-
icent?" Her eyes were glowing almost as brightly as those of
an acrobat performing incredible leaps before their table, his
long middle fingers tracing patterns in the air. A beautiful
female sifaka joined him, and the dance-gymnastics contin-
ued without a pause.
Jon-Tom put the question to the furry white host on his
other side.
"I don't know either, my friend," said Malu. "I have not
seen the hard-shelled oldster all evening."
"Don't worry yourself, Jon-Tom." Caz looked at him from
another seat down. "Our wizard is rich in knowledge, but not
rich in the ability to enjoy himself. Leave him to his private
meditations. Who knows when again we will have an oppor-
tunity for such rare entertainment as this?" He gestured
grandly toward the dancers.
But the concern took hold of Jon-Tom's thoughts and
would not let go. As he surveyed the room, he saw no sign of
Pog, either. That was still more unusual, familiar as he was
with the bat's preferences. He should have been out on the
floor, teasing and flirting with some lithesome screech owl.
Yet he was nowhere about.
Jon-Tom's companions were having too good a time to
notice his departure from the table. In response to his ques-
tions a potted tarsier with incredibly bloodshot eyes pointed
toward a tunnel leading deeper into the mountainside. Jon-
Tom hurried down it. Noise and music faded behind him.
He almost ran past the room when he heard a familiar
moaning: the wizard's voice. He threw aside the curtain
barring the entryway.
Lying on a delicate bunk that sagged beneath his weight
was the wizard's bulky body. He'd withdrawn arms and legs
into his shell so that only his head protruded. It bobbed and
twisted in an unnerving parody of the head movements of the
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Weavers. Only the whites of his eyes showed. His glasses lay
clean and folded on a nearby stool.
"Hush!" a voice warned him. Looking upward Jon-Tom
saw Pog dangling from a lamp holder. The flickering wick
behind him made his wings translucent.
"What is it?" Jon-Tom whispered, his attention on the
lightly moaning wizard. "What's the matter?" The echoes of
revelry reached them faintly. He no longer found the music
invigorating. Something important was happening in this little
room.
Pog gestured with a finger. "Da master lies in a trance
I've seen only a few times before. He can't, musn't be
disturbed."
So the two waited, watching the quivering, groaning shape
in fascination. Pog occasionally fluttered down to wipe mois-
ture from the wizard's open eyes, while Jon-Tom guarded the
doorway against interruptions.
It is a terrible thing to hear an old person, human 01
otherwise, moan like that. It was the helpless, weak sound a
sick child might make. From time to time there were snatches
and fragments of nearly recognizable words. Mostly, though,
the high singsong that filled the room was unintelligible
nonsense.
It faded gradually. Clothahump settled like a fallen cake.
His quivering and head-bobbing eased away.
Pog flapped his wings a couple of times, stretched, and
drifted down to examine the wizard. "Da master sleeps