"That's why Clothahump tried to find an engineer to
combat Eejakrat's 'new magic,' " Jon-Tom muttered. "And
283
Alan Dean Foster
he got me instead. And you." He gazed helplessly at her.
"What are we going to do? I don't know anything about
computers."
"I know a little, but it's not a matter of knowing anything
about computers. Machine, man or insect, it has to be
destroyed before Eejakrat can finish his new formula."
"What the fuck could that devil have dug out of its
electronic guts?" He looked back down at Clothahump.
"Don't understand..." murmured the wizard. "Beyond
my ken. But Eejakrat knows how to comply. It worries him,
but he proceeds. He knows if he does not the war is lost."
"Someone's got to get over there and destroy the computer
and its mentor," Jon-Tom said decisively. He called to the
rest of their companions.
Mudge and Caz ambled over curiously. So did Bribbens,
and Pog fluttered close from his perch near the back of the
wall. Hastily, Jon-Tom told them what had to be done.
"Wot about the Ironclouders, wot?" Mudge indicated the
diving shapes of the great owls working their death up the
Pass. "I don't think they'd 'old you, mate, but I ought to be
able to ride one."
"I could go myself, boss." Clothahump turned a startled
gaze on the unexpectedly daring famulus.
"No. Not you, Pog, nor you, otter. You would never make
it, I fear. Hundreds of bowmen, a royal guard of the
Greendowns' most skilled archers, surround Eejakrat and the
Empress. You could not get within a quarter league of the
deadmind. Even if you could, what would you destroy it
with? It is made of metal. You cannot shoot an arrow through
it. And there may be disciples of Eejakrat who could draw
upon its evil knowledge in event of his death."
"We need a plane," Jon-Tom told them. "A Huey or some
other attack copter, with rockets."
Clothahump looked blankly at him. "I know not what you
284
THE HOUR OF THE GATE
describe, spellsinger, but by the heavens if you can do
anything you must try."
Jon-Tom licked his lips. The Who, J. Geils, Dylan: none
sang much about war and its components. But he had to try
something. He didn't know the Air Force song....
"Try something, Jon-Tom," Flor urged him. "We don't
have much time."
Time. Time's getting away from us. There's your cue,
man. Get there first. Worry about how to destroy the thing
then.
Trying to shut the sounds of fighting out of his thoughts, he
ran his fingers a couple of times across the duar's strings. The
instrument had been nicked and battered by arrows and
spears, but it was still playable. He struggled to recall the
melody. It was simple, smooth, a Steve Miller hallmark. A
few adjustments to the duar's controls. It had to work. He
turned tremble and mass all the way up. Dangerous, but
whatever materialized had to carry him high above the com-
bat, all the way to me end of the Pass.
Anyway, Clothahump's urgency indicated that there was
little time left now either for finesse or fine tuning.
Just get me to that computer, he thought furiously. Just get
me there safely and I'll find some way to destroy it. Even
pulling a few wires would do it. Eejakrat couldn't repair the
damage with magic ... could he?
And if he was killed and the attempt a failure, what did it
matter? Talea was dead and so was much of himself. Yes, that
was the answer. Crash whatever carries you and yourself into
the computer. That should do it.
Time was the first crucial element. Though he did not
know it, he was soon to leam the other.
Time... that was the key. He needed to move fast and he
didn't have time to fool with machines that might or might
285
Alan Dean Poster
not work, might or might not appear. Time and flight. What
song could possibly fill the need?
Wait a minute! There was something about time and flight
His fingers began to fly over the strings as he threw back
his head and began to sing with more strength than ever he
had before.
There was a tearing sound in the sky, and his nostrils were
filled with the odor of ozone. It was coming! Whatever he'd
called up. If not the sung-for huge bird, perhaps the British
fighter nicknamed the Eagle, bristling with rockets and rapid-
fire cannon. Anything to get him into the air.
He sang till his throat hurt, his fingers a blur above the
strings. Reverberant waves of sound emerged from the quivering
duar and the air vibrated in sympathy.
A deep-throated crackling split the sky overhead, a sound
no kin to any earthly thunder. It seemed the sun had drawn
back to hide behind the clouds. The fighting did not stop, but
warmlander and insect alike slowed their pace. That ominous
rumble echoed down the walls of the Pass. Something ex-
traordinary was happening.
Vast wings that were of starry gases filled the air. The
winter day turned warm with a sudden eruption of heat. Hot
air blew Ion-Tom against the rampart behind him and nearly
over, while his companions scrambled for something solid to
cling to.
Atop the wall the remaining warmlander defenders scattered
in terror. On the cliffsides the Weavers scuttled for hiding
places in the crevices and crannies as a monstrous fiery form
came near. It touched down on the mountainside where the
remaining half of the wall was worked into the naked rock,
and twenty feet of granite melted and ran like syrup.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" roared a voice that could raise a
sunspot. The remaining stones of the wall trembled, as did
286
THE HOUR OF THE GATE
the cells of those still standing atop it. "WHAT HAVE YOU
WROUGHT, LITTLE HUMAN!"
"I..." Jon-Tom could only gape. He had not materialized
the plane he'd wished for or the eagle he'd sung to. He had
called up something best left undisturbed, interrupted a jour-
ney measurable in billions of years. It was all he could do to
gaze back into those vast, infinite eyes, as M'nemaxa, barely
touching the melting rock, fanned thermonuclear wings and
glared down at him.
"I'm sorry," he finally managed to gasp out, "I was only
trying..."
"LOOK TO MY BACK!" bellowed the sun horse.
Jon-Tom hesitated, then took a cautious step forward and
craned his neck. Squinting through the glare, he made out a
dark metallic shape that looked suspiciously like a saddle. It
was very small and lost on that great flaming curve of a spine.
"I don't... what does this mean?" he asked humbly.
"IT MEANS A TRANSFORMATION IN MY ODYSSEY; A SHORT-
CUT. LITTLE MAN BENEATH THE STARS, YOU HAVE CREATED A
SHORTCUT! I CAN SEE THE END OF MY JOURNEY NOW. NO
LONGER
MUST I RACE AROUND THE RIM OF THE UNIVERSE. ONLY
ANOTHER THREE MILLION YEARS AND I WILL BE FINISHED. ONLY
THREE MILLION, AND I WILL KNOW PEACE. AND YOU, MAN, ARE
TO THANK FOR IT!"
"But I don't know what I did, and I don't know how I did
it," Jon-Tom told him softly.
"CONSEQUENCE IS WHAT MATTERS, CAUSATION IS BUT EPHEM-
ERAL. EMPYREAN RESULTS HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED, LITTLE MAN
OF NOTHINGNESS.
"AS YOU HAVE HELPED ME, SO I WILL HELP YOU. BUT I CAN
DO ONLY WHAT YOU DIRECT. YOUR MAGIC PUTS THIS SHIELD ON
MY BACK, SO MOUNT THEN, GUARDED BY ITS SUBSTANCE AND
BY YOUR OWN MAGIC, AND RIDE. SUCH A RIDE AS NO CREATURE
287
Alan Dean Foster
OF MERE FLESH AND BLOOD HAS EVER HAD BEFORE NOR WILL
HENCE!"
Jon-Tom hesitated. But eager hands were already -urging
him toward the equine inferno.
"Go on, Jon-Tom," said Caz encouragingly.
"Yes, go on. It must be the spellsong magic that's protect-
ing us," said Hor, "or the radiation and heat would have
fried all of us by now."
"But that little lead saddle, Hor..."
"The magic, Jon-Tom, the magic. The magic's in the
music and the music's in you. Do it!"
It was Clothahump who finally convinced him. "It is all or
nothing now, my boy. We live or we die on what you do. This
is between you and Eejakrat."
"I wish it wasn't. I wish to God I was home. I wish.. .ahhh,
fuck it. Let's go!"
He could not see a barrier shielding the streaming nuclear
material that was the substance of M'nemaxa, but one had to
be present, as Hor had so incontrovertibly pointed out. He
cradled the battered duar against his chest. That barrier had
momentarily lapsed when M'nemaxa had touched down, and
a thousand tons of solid rock had run like butter. If it lapsed
again, there would not even be ashes left of him.
A series of stirrups led to the saddle, which was much
larger up close than it had appeared from a distance. He
mounted carefully, feeling neither heat nor pain but watching
fascinated as tiny solar prominences erupted from M'nemaxa's
epidermis only inches from his puny human skin.
It was little different in the saddle, though he could feel
some slight heat against his face and hands.
"Just a minim, guv'," said a voice. A small gray shape
had bounded into the saddle behind him.
"Mudge? It's not necessary. Either I'll make it or I
won't."
288
THE HOUR Or THE GATE
"Shove it, mate. I've been watchin' you ever since you
stuck your nose int' me business. You don't think I could let
you go off on your own now, do you? Somebody's got t'
watch out for you. This great flippin' flamin' beastie can't be
'urt, but a good archer might pick you off 'is back like a
farmer pluckin' a bloomin' apple." He notched an arrow into
his bowstring and grinned beneath his whiskers.
Jon-Tom couldn't think of anything else to say: "Thanks,
Mudge. Mate.'i"
"Thank me when we get back. I've always wanted t' ride a
comet, wot? Let's be about the business, then."
The serpentine fiery neck arched, and the great head with
its bottomless eyes stared back at them. "COMMAND, MAN!"
"I don't know..." Mudge was prodding him in the ribs.
"Shit... giddy up! To Eejakrat!"
Whether the message was conveyed by the word or the
mental imagery connected with it no one knew. It didn't
matter. The vast wings seared the earth and a warm hurricane
blasted those who were beneath. Those wings stretched from
one side of the canyon to the other, and the honclouders,
seeing it race toward mem, scattered like gnats.
A swarm of dragonfly fighters rose to meet them, the
Empress' private aerial guard. They attacked with the mind-
less but admirable courage of their kind.
Mudge's bow began its work. The soldiers riding me
dragonflies fell from their mounts and none of their arrows
reached the sun riders. Those that were launched impacted on
me body or wings or neck of M'nemaxa and were vaporized
with the briefest of sizzling sounds.
"Hy past them!" Jon-Tom ordered. "Down, over there!"
He gestured toward the blunt butte rising fingeriike near the
rear of the Pass. Beyond lay the mists of the Greendowns.
Jon-Tom's attention shifted to concentrate on a single
figure standing before a pile of materials and a semicircle of
289
Alan Dean Foster
metal forms. Dragonflies and riders tried to break through to
do battle with swords, but wings and hooves touched them,
and their charred remnants fell earthward like so many sizzling
lumps of smoking charcoal.
The imperial bodyguard sent a storm of arrows upward.
Not one passed the belly of that flaming body. Jon-Tom was
watching Eejakrat. He held his own spear-staff tightly, ready
to pierce the sorcerer through.
Then his attention was diverted. In the air above the
computer floated two faintly glowing pieces of stone. They
were so tiny he noticed them only because of their glow.
Behind the sorcerer danced the fearful, iridescent green shape
of the Empress Skrritch.
What devastating magic so terrified the imperturbable
Clothahump? What was Eejakrat about to risk in hopes of
winning a lost war?
"Down," he ordered M'nemaxa. "Down to the one
surrounded by maggots and evil, down to destroy!"
A whispery sorceral mumbling, rapid and desperate, sounded
from the crest of the butte. Eejakrat had panicked. He was
rushing the incantation, as others had done before him,
though he knew nothing of them. The two glowing shards of
stone moved through the air toward the onrushing spirit fire
and its mortal riders, and toward each other. Stones and spirit
would meet at the same point in the sky.
They were no more than fifty yards from it and as many
more from the butte's summit when M'nemaxa suddenly gave
forth a thunderous whinny. The infinite eyes glowed more
brightly than the stones as the two came almost together a
couple of yards in front of them.
There was a faint, hopeless scream from Eejakrat below, a
desperate croaking Jon-Tom deciphered: "Not yet... too near,
too close, not yet!"
290
THE HOUR OF THE GATB
Then the world was spinning farther and farther below
them like a flower caught in a whirlpool.
Gone was the Troom Pass. So too was the butte where
Eejakrat had gesticulated frantically before the Empress Skrritch.
So were the milling mob of Plated Folk plunging to war and
the insistent battle cries of the warmlanders.
Gone were the mists of the distant Greendowns and noi-
some distant Cugluch, gone too the mountain crags that
towered above insignificant warriors. Soon the blue sky itself
vanished behind them.
They still rode the spine of the furiously galloping M'nemaxa,
but they rode now t
hrough the emptiness of convergent
eternity. Stars gleamed bright as morning around them,
unwinking and cold and so close it seemed you could reach
out and touch them.
You could touch them. Jon-Tom reached out slowly and
plucked a red giant from its place in the heavens. It was warm
in his palm and shone like a ruby. He cast it spinning back'
free into space. A black hole slid past his left foot and he
pulled away. It was like quicksand. He inhaled a nebula,
which made him sneeze. Behind him Mudge the otter seemed
a distant, diffuse shape in the stars.
He breathed infinity. The wings and hooves of M'nemaxa
moved in slow motion. A swarm of motile, luminescent dots
gathered around the runners, millions of lights pricking the
blackness. They danced and swirled around the great horse
and its riders.
Where the world had no meaning and natural law was
absent, these too finally became real. Gneechees, Jon-Tom
thought ponderously. Only now I can see them, I can see
them.
Some were people, some animals, others unrecognizable;
the afterthoughts, the memories, the souls and shadows of all
291
Alan Dean Foster
intelligent life. They were all the colors of the rainbow, a
spectrum filled with life, both mysterious and familiar.
He began to recognize some of the forms and faces. He
saw Einstein, he saw his own grandfather. He saw the moving
lips of now dead singers he had loved, and it was as if their
music swelled around him in the ultimate concert. He noted
that the faces he saw were not old, and showed no trace of
death or suffering. In fact the famous physicist's eyes glittered
like a child's. Einstein had his violin with him. Hendrix was
there, too, and they played a duet, and both smiled at Jon-Tom.
Then he saw a face he knew well, a face full of fire and
light. He concentrated on that face with all his strength,
trying to pull it into his brain through his eyes. The face was
distinct and warm; it seemed to float toward him instinctively.
His whole being glowed with love as it neared him, and
suddenly when it touched his lip a flame ignited inside him
and he almost lost his seat. It was the Talea gneechee, he
knew, and he surrounded it with his entire will.
"We must go back. Now!" he roared at the fiery stallion.
"YOU MUST KNOW THE WORDS, LITTLE MAN, OR REMAIN
WITH ME UNTIL THE END OF MY JOURNEY."
What song? Jon-Tom thought. There seemed no music