“Please, Oll,” Jon-Tom said, “rank will mean nothing to these Ironclouders if what you say of their nature is correct. And Ananthos is familiar with us. We know we can get along with one another.”
“a sound recommendation, i suppose.” She sighed and that whole globular black mass quivered. “it is the common soldiers who will decide this battle to come, as they do all such battles. perhaps it is fitting that one of their rank be our ambassador. as you say, it will likely not matter to the ironclouders.
“very well. you may have this ananthos. he will go with you as would one of my own children. uzmentap!”
“yes my lady, yes my lady?” A tiny adult spider scurried into the chamber, the same one who had admitted them a 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 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 somewhat 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 repeated 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 got halfway to the portal, then turned and walked back to her.
“the audience is at an end,” Oll told him somewhat less than politely.
“I’m sorry. But I have to know something. Then I’ll leave you to your privacy.”
Fathomless eyes regarded him quietly. “ask then.”
“Why did you single me out to talk with, instead of Clothahump or Caz or one of the others?”
“why? oh, because of your delightful and inspiring selection 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 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 windswept flanks of Zaryt’s Teeth, where they merged with the lower but still impressive 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 flurries. The day after that they were stumbling through a modest blizzard. Oll’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 fur coat.
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 discomforts 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 established in the shelter of a small cave. Jon-Tom and Flor 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 strider 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 route 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.” Ananthos indicated the precious scroll 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 temperature warmed considerably,
though it did not rise above freezing.
As if to compensate they were confronted with another danger: snow blindness. The brilliant Alpine sun ricocheted off snowbanks and glacier fronts, turning everything to shocking, 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 between 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.
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 mountainside 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 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 mere 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 necessary 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 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 warningly.
“Yeah, I know, I know, boss. Go to it or ya’ll turn me into a human or worse.” He sighed, unfurled his wings experimentally.
“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 encouragement 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 and check out one or two caves, see if this place is really as deserted as it looks. If it is, maybe you’ll learn 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 companions were sharp and distinct against the gray gravel. He could tell they were watching him.
Waiting ta see how I get it, he thought miserably.
He circled before the lowest of the globular projections. His personal sonar tol
d 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 tune’s up, old Clothamuck will have forgotten da formula for transforming ya.
But, oh my, dat cave mouth looming just ahead is dark! Empty, dough. His eyes as well 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 Spellsinger Adventures Volume One: Spellsinger, the Hour of the Gate, and the Day of the Dissonance Page 49