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    Spellsinger 02 - The Hour of the Gate

    Page 31
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      equal to the immensity of space and stars all around him.

      Every song he had ever heard dried up on his tongue.

      The Talea gneechee seemed to stir someplace deep inside

      him, and he looked out at the cold blue distance ahead. It was

      time to go back where he belonged. He couldn't be specific,

      but he suddenly had a real sense of where he belonged in life

      and he knew he could get there.

      His mouth opened and his fingertips caressed the duar. A

      new sound rose, a new voice came both from the duar and

      from his mouth, and though he had never heard it before he

      knew it was, finally, his true voice.

      Stars spun faster around him, the universe seemed wrenched

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      THE HOUR OF THE GATE

      for an instant. His head throbbed and his throat burned with

      the strange wordless song that poured from him like a river a

      million times stronger than any earthly river.

      Now blue sky hurried toward them, then the snowy caps of

      mountains. The boundary was back—the luscious, palpable

      limit of existence. He felt more alive than he had ever in his

      life.

      "Cor, wot a friggin' ride!" Mudge's joyous voice came

      from behind him.

      "Love you, Mudge!" screamed Jon-Tom, ecstatic to hear

      that familiar sound.

      "You're crazy—where the 'ell we been?"

      Everywhere, Jon-Tom thought, but there was no way to say

      it.

      ' 'THE COURSE OF MY JOURNEY HAS BEEN FOREVER CHANGED,''

      bellowed M'nemaxa. "I HAVE HAD TO CHANGE MY DIRECTION

      BECAUSE OF THE EVIL IN YOUR WORLD AND NOW MY ROUTE IS

      ALMOST THROUGH. COME WITH ME TO THE OUTSIDE, LITTLE

      MAN, YOUR WORLD IS FULL OF DOOM. I WILL SHOW SUCH

      THINGS AS NO MORTAL SHALL EVER AGAIN SEE."

      "Wot's 'e talkin' about, guv'nor?"

      "Eejakrat's magic, Mudge. Clothahump knew mat they

      could not control it, and it has created devastation so utter

      that even M'nemaxa had to detour around it. It's happened

      before, but in my world. Not here. Look."

      The mushroom cloud that billowed skyward from the far

      end of the Troom Pass was not large, but it was considerably

      darker and denser than any of the mists behind it.

      Below them now the last of the Plated Folk army, those

      who'd been lucky enough to be trapped in the middle of the

      Pass, were surrendering, turning over their weapons and

      going down on all sixes to plead for mercy.

      Beneath the now fading mushroom cloud that marked the

      failure of Eejakrat's imported magic, me butte he'd stood

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      Alan Dean Poster

      upon had vanished. In its place there was only an empty,

      radioactive crater. The bomb Eejakrat had been in the process

      of creating had been a relatively clean one. What remained

      would serve as a warning to future generations of Plated Folk.

      It would block the Pass far more effectively than had the

      Jo-Troom Gate.

      Raming wings slowed. Mudge was deposited gently back

      on top of the wall. Jon-Tom thanked the flaming being but

      would not return with him.

      "THREE MILLION YEARS!" M'nemaxa boomed, his neighing

      shaking boulders from the cliffsides of the canyon.

      "ONLY THREE MILLION. THANK YOU, LITTLE HUMAN. YOU

      ARE A WIZARD OF UNKNOWN WISDOM. FAREWELL!"

      The vast fiery form rose into the air. There was an

      earsplitting explosion that rent the fabric of space-time. The

      gap closed quickly and M'nemaxa had gone, gone back to

      resume his now truncated journey, gone back to the every-

      where otherplace.

      Bodies, furred and otherwise, swarmed around the returnees—

      Caz, Flor, Bribbens holding his bandaged right arm where

      he'd taken a sword thrust. Pog fluttered excitedly overhead,

      and warmlander soldiers mixed queries with congratulations.

      The battle had ended, the war was over. Those Plated Folk

      who had not perished in the modest thermonuclear explosion

      at the far end of the Pass were being herded into makeshift

      corrals.

      Jon-Tom was embarrassed and nervous, but Mudge glowed

      like M'nemaxa himself from me adjulation of the crowd.

      When the excitement had died down and the soldiers had

      gone to join their companions below, Clothahump managed to

      make his way up to Jon-Tom.

      "You did well, my boy, well! I'm quite proud of you." He

      smiled as much as he could. "We'll make a wizard of you

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      THE HOUR Or THE GATS

      yet. If you can only leam to be a bit more specific and precise

      in your formulations."

      "I'm learning," Jon-Tom admitted without smiling back.

      "One of the things I've learned is to pay attention to what lies

      behind a person's words." He and the wizard stared into each

      other's eyes, and neither gave ground.

      "I did what I had to do, boy. I'd do it again."

      "I know you would. I can't blame you for it anymore, but

      I can't like you for it, either."

      "As you will, Jon-Tom," said the wizard. He looked past

      the man and his eyes widened. "Though it may be that you

      condemn me too quickly."

      Jon-Tom turned. A petite, slightly baffled redhead was

      walking toward them. He could only stare.

      "Hello," Talea said, smiling slightly. "I must have been

      unconscious for days."

      "You've been dead," said a flabbergasted Mudge.

      "Oh cut it out. I had the strangest dream." She looked

      down at the canyon. "Missed all the fighting, I see."

      "I saw you.. .out there," Jon-Tom said dazedly. "Or a

      part of you. It came to me and I knew it was you."

      "I wouldn't know about that," she said sharply. "All I

      know is that I woke up in a tent surrounded by corpses. It

      scared the shit out of me." She chuckled. "Did worse to the

      attendants. Bet they haven't stopped running.

      "Then I asked around for you and got directions. Is it true

      what everyone's saying about you and M'nemaxa and..."

      "Everything's true, nothing's false," Jon-Tom said. "Not

      anymore. Whatever entered me I sent back to you, but it

      doesn't matter. What is is what matters, and what is, is you."

      "You've gotten awfully obscure all of a sudden, Jon-

      Tom."

      He put his hands on her shoulders. "I suppose we have to

      stay together now.'' He smiled shyly, not able to explain what

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      Alan Dean Foster

      had happened in Elsewhere. She looked blank. "Don't you re-

      member what you said to me back in Cugluch?" he asked.

      She frowned at him. "I don't know what you're talking

      about, but that's nothing new, is it? You always did talk too

      much. But you're wrong about one thing."

      "What's that?"

      "I do remember what I said back in Cugluch," and she

      proceeded to give him the deepest, longest, richest kiss he'd

      ever experienced.

      Eventually she let him go. Or was it the other way around?

      No matter.

      Caz and Hor sat on the ramparts nearby, hand in paw.

      Jon-Tom shook his head, wondering at that blindness that

      conceals what is most obvious. Bribbens
    had disappeared,

      doubtless to make arrangements for reaching the nearest river.

      Falameezar was able to help the boatman with that, being a

      river dragon. That is, he was when he wasn't too busy

      reeducating his rodent charges about their responsibilities and

      rights as members of the downtrodden proletariat. Clothahump

      had gone off to discuss the matters of magic with the other

      warmlander wizards.

      "What now, Jon-Tom?" Talea looked at him anxiously. "I

      guess now that you've mastered your spellsinging you'll be

      returning to your own world?"

      "I don't know." He studied the masonry underfoot. "I'm

      not so sure you could say I've mastered spellsinging." He

      plucked ruefully at the duar. "I always seem to get what I

      need, not what I want. That's nice, but not necessarily

      reassuring.

      "And for some reason being a rock star or a lawyer doesn't

      seem to hold the attraction it once did. I guess you could say

      I've had my horizons somewhat expanded." Like to include

      infinity, he told himself.

      296

      THE HOUK OF TBK GATE

      She nodded knowingly. "You've grown up some, Jon-

      Tom."

      He shrugged. "If experiences can age you, I ought to be

      the equivalent of Methuselah by now."

      "I'll see what I can do about keeping you young...." She

      ran fingers through his hair. "Does that mean you'll be

      staying?" She added quietly, "With me, maybe? If you can

      stand me, that is."

      "I've never known a woman like you, Talea."

      "That's because there aren't any women like me, idiot."

      She moved to kiss him again. He edged away from her,

      preoccupied with a new thought.

      "What's the matter? Not coy enough for you?"

      "Nothing like that. I just remembered something that's

      been left undone, something that I promised myself I'd try to

      do if given the chance."

      They found Pog hanging from a spear rack in the middle of

      the remaining wall. The warmlanders were beginning to

      disperse, those not remaining behind to guard the Plated Folk

      forming into their respective companies and battalions pre-

      paratory to beginning the long march home. Some were

      already on their way, too tired or filled with memories of dead

      companions to sing victory songs. They were traveling west

      toward Polastrindu or southward to where the river Tailaroam

      tumbled fresh and clear from the flanks of the Teeth.

      The sun was setting over the fringes of the Swordsward.

      The poisonous silhouette of the mushroom cloud had long

      since been carried away by the wind. Their kilts flashing as

      brightly as their wings, squads of aerial warmlanders in

      arrowhead formations were winging back toward their home

      roosts. A distant line of silk-clad shapes showed where the

      Weavers were wending their way northward along the foot-

      hills, and a dark mass was just disappearing over the northern

      crest of the mountains in the direction of fabled h-oncloud.

      "Hello, Pog."

      297

      Alan Dean Foster

      "Hi, spellsinger," The bat's voice was subdued, but Jon-

      Tom no longer had to ask why. "Some job ya did. I'm proud

      ta call ya my friend."

      Jon-Tom sat down on a low bench near the spear rack.

      "Why aren't you out there celebrating with the rest of the

      army?"

      "I attend to da needs of my master, you know dat. I wait

      for his woid on what ta do next."

      "You're a good apprentice, Pog. I hope I can leam as well

      as you."

      "What's dat supposed ta mean?" The upside-down face

      turned to stare curiously at him.

      "I'm hoping that Clothahump will accept me as an appren-

      tice wizard." The duar rested in his lap and he strummed it

      experimentally. "Magic seems to be the only thing I have any

      talent for hereabouts. I'd damn well better leam how to

      discipline it before I kill myself. I've just been lucky so far."

      "Da master, da old fart-face, says dere's no such ting as

      luck."

      "I know, I know." He was slowly picking out a tune on the

      duar. "But I'm going to have to work like hell if I'm going to

      attain half the wisdom of that senile little turtle." He started

      to hum the song that had come to him back in the tent on that

      day of fury not long ago, when a certain famulus had been

      thoughtful enough to comfort him and lay down the life laws.

      "I appreciated what you said to me that time in the tent,

      when I came out of the stupor Clothahump was forced to put

      me into. You see, Pog, Clothahump cared about me because

      he knew I might be able to help him. Caz and Ror and

      Bribbens cared about me because we were dependent on one

      another.

      "But the only ones who cared about me personally, really

      cared, turned out to be Talea, and you. We've got a lot in

      common, you and I. A hell of a lot in common. I never saw it

      298

      . THE HOUR Or THE GATE

      before because I couldn't. You were right about love, of

      course. I thought I wanted Hor." Talea said nothing. "What I

      ,really wanted was someone to want me. That's all I've ever

      jwanted. I know that's what you want, too."

      ( Now he began to sing out, loud and clear. Suddenly there

      was a shimmering in the air around the bat. It was evening

      now, and the wall was growing dark. Camp fires were

      beginning to spring up on the plain where Plated Folk and

      wannlander for the first time in thousands of years were

      beginning to talk to one another.

      "Hey, what's going on?" The bat dropped from his perch,

      righted himself, and flapped nervous wings.

      The bat shape was flowing, shifting in the evening air.

      "That was my falcon song, Pog. I've got to get my

      spellsinging specific, Clothahump says. So I'm giving you

      the transformation you wanted from him."

      Talea clung tight to Jon-Tom's arm, watching. "He's

      changing, Jon-Tom."

      "It's what he wants," he told her softly, also watching the

      transformation. "He gave me understanding when I needed it

      most. This is what I'm giving in return. The song I just sang

      should turn him into the biggest, sleekest falcon that ever

      split a cloud."

      But the shape wasn't right. It was all wrong. It continued

      to change and glow as Jon-Tom's expression widened in

      disbelief.

      "Oh God. I should've waited. I should've held off and

      waited for Clothahump's advice. I'm sorry, Pog!" he yelled

      at the indistinct, alien outline.

      "Wait," said Talea gently. Her grip tightened on his arm

      and she leaned into him. "True, it's no falcon he's becoming.

      But look—it's incredible!"

      The metamorphosis was complete, finished, irrevocable.

      299

      Alan Dean Foster

      "Never mind, never mind, never mind!" sang (fae trans-

      formed thing that had been Pog the bat. The voice was all

      quicksilver and light. "Never mind, friend Talea. Be true to

      Clothahump, Jon-Tom. You'll get a wing on it, you will."

      A flock of
    fighters, eagles perhaps, crossed the darkling

      sky from east to west. A few falcons were scattered among

      them. Perhaps one was Uleimee.

      "Meanwhile you've made me very happy," Pog-that-once-

      was assured the spellsinger.

      Jon-Tom realized he'd been holding his breath. The trans-

      formation had stunned him. Talea called to him softly and he

      turned and found her waiting arms.

      Above them the change which had been Pog searched with

      keen eyes among the winged shapes soaring toward the

      distant reaches of the warmlands. It saw a particular female

      falcon emerging with others of her kind from a thick cloud,

      saw with eyes far sharper than those of any bat, or owl, or

      falcon.

      Leaving the two humans to their own destinies, and rising

      on suddenly massive wings, the golden phoenix raced for that

      distant cloud, the sun setting on its back like a rare jewel.

      300

      FB2 document info

      Document ID: 1d7209fd-c8d5-4291-8e84-08b6bdc47e90

      Document version: 1

      Document creation date: 20.12.2011

      Created using: calibre 0.8.18 software

      Document authors :

      Foster, Alan Dean

      About

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