confounding his would-be abductors.
Above the shouts of the boat's defenders and the singsong
of their horribly indifferent assaulters came a reprise of that
ominous, basso groaning. It was definitely nearer, Jon-Tom
thought, and redoubled his efforts to clear the deck.
He was swinging the club end of his staff in great arcs,
indiscriminately lopping off heads, arms, legs. The singers
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broke like hardened clay, but the dozens dismembered were
replaced by ranks of thoughtless duplicates, still droning their
eerie anthem.
"Get us out in the current!" Talea was trying to keep the
white bodies away from the bow.
With Mudge shielding him from clutching fingers Bribbens
put down his oar and returned to the main sweep. Though he
leaned on it as hard as he could, and though the current was
with them, they still couldn't move away from the shore.
Jon-Tom leaned over the side. Using his reach and the long
club he began clearing bodies from the waterline. White
bands pulled possessively at him from behind, but Flor was
soon at his side swinging her mace, cutting them down like
pale shrubs. Most of them ignored her. Possibly it had
something to do with her white leather clothing, he mused.
He concentrated on swinging the club in long arcs, knocking
away heads or pieces of boneless skull with great rapidity.
Their slight resistance barely slowed the force of his swings.
When the heads were knocked loose the bodies simply
ceased their shoving and slid below the surface. A few
bobbed on the current and drifted like styrofoam down the
river.
The singing continued, undisturbed by the bloodless slaugh-
ter, by screams of anger or despair. Rising louder around the
boat was that rich, bellowing moan. It had become loud
enough now to drown out the chorus. A few fragments of
rock fell from the cavern roof.
Finally enough of the bodies had been swept from the side
of the boat for it to drift once more out into the river. Like so
many termites supple white singers continued to march down
toward the water. They walked until the water was up to their
chests and began swimming slowly after the boat.
Breathing hard, Jon-Tom leaned back against the railing,
holding tight to his staff for additional support. All of the
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original swimmers who'd forced the craft in to shore had
been knocked away or decapitated. Now that they were out
again in midstream, the current kept them well ahead of their
lugubrious pursuers.
"I don't understand what—" He was talking to the boat-
man, but Bribbens wasn't listening. He'd suddenly locked the
steering oar in position and was unbolting smaller ones from
the deck.
"Paddle, man! Paddle for your life!"
"What?" Jon-Tom looked back at the shore, expecting to
see the horde of singers clumsily stumbling after them across
the rocks.
Instead his gaze fastened onto something that stifled the
scream welling up in his throat and turned it into that peculiar
choking noise people make at times of true horror. A vast,
glowing gray mass filled the cavern shore behind them. It
came near to touching the ceiling. Where large formations
rose the gray substance flowed over or around it, displaying a
consistency partly like cloud and then like lard. Its moans
rattled the length of the cavern and echoed back from distant
walls.
It looked like a fog wrapped with mucus, save for two
enormous, pulsing pink eyes. They stared lidlessly down at
the tiny fleeing ship and the stick figures frozen on its deck.
Bits of its flanks were in constant motion. These portions
of mucus slid toward the ground. As they did so their color
paled to a now familiar white. Tumbling like the eggs of
some gigantic insect, they dropped off the huge slimy sides
onto the rock and gravel. There they rolled over and stood
upright on newly formed legs. Simultaneously a section of
their smooth faces parted and a fresh voice would join
intuitively in the awful mellifluous chorus of its duplicates.
Something hard and unyielding struck Jon-Tom in his
midsection. Looking down he saw the hardwood oar Bribbens
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had shoved at him. The glaring frog face moved away, to pass
additional oars to the rest of his passengers.
Then he was back at his sweep, rowing madly and yelling
at his companions. "Paddle, damn you all, paddle!"
Jon-Tom's feet finally moved. He leaned over the side and
ripped with the oar at the dark surface of the river. It was
difficult going and the leverage was bad, but he rowed until
his throat screamed with pain and a deep throbbing pounded
against his chest.
Yet that horror lurching and tumbling drunkenly along the
shore just behind them put strength in weakened arms. Talea,
Ror, Caz, and Mudge imitated his efforts. Pog had hidden
behind his wings, where he hung from the spreaders, a
shivering droplet of black membrane, flesh, and fear. Clothahump
stood and watched, watched and mumbled.
A thick gray pseudopod reached across the river, emerging
from the slate-colored moving mountain. It slapped violently
at the water only yards from the stem of the fleeing vessel.
For all its nebulous horror, the substance of the monster was
teal enough. Water drenched those on board.
Black almost-eyes glistened wetly as white grub-things
continued peeling from the pulsating bulk of the beast.
Jon-Tom frowned; someone had spoken above the reverberant
bellowing. He looked across at Clothahump.
"The Massawrath." The wizard noticed Jon-Tom staring at
him, and he repeated the name. "I have seen it in visions, my
boy, suspected it in trances, but to have located its lair... Is it
not appalling and unique? Do you not recognize any of this?"
"Recognize...? Clothahump, have you gone mad? Or
have we all? Or is it just that... that..."
He hesitated. For all its utterly alien appearance, there was
truly something almost familiar about the apparition.
Again the pseudopod slapped at them. There was a broken
groan from the boat. The tip of the massive appendage had
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struck just to Clothahump's left, tearing away railing along
with a bit of the deck. The turtle had instinctively withdrawn
and rolled several yards bowward. There he stuck out arms
and legs once more and struggled to his feet while Bribbens
rowed harder than ever and quietly cursed the abomination
pursuing them.
Several partly formed white shapes had fallen from the end
of the pseudopod. They lay on deck, their uncompleted limbs
thrashing slowly. Among them was a head that had not grown
a proper body and a lower torso the chest region of which
tapered to a point.
Jon-Tom pulled in his oar and began kicking the disgusting
things over the side. The last one clutched and pulled at him.
It had arms but no legs. He was forced to touch it. Somehow
he kept down his nausea and pulled it away from his legs.
The white, rubbery flesh was cold as ice. He lifted it and
heaved it over the railing, its weak grip sliding along his arm.
It splashed astern while the Massawrath hunched its way over
boulders and stalagmites, pacing just aft of the racing ship
and gibbering mindlessly.
"If the river narrows and brings us in reach, we're fin-
ished." Talea spoke in a high, nervous voice and wrestled
with the long oar.
"What is it?" Jon-Tom wiped his hands on his pants but
the clamminess he'd picked off the flesh wouldn't dry. He
raised his oar and shoved it back into the water.
"The Massawrath," Clothahump repeated. His hurried
tumble across the deck apparently hadn't affected him. "She
is the Mother of Nightmares. This is her lair, her home."
Jon-Tom tried not to watch the loping gray slime. Bits of
congealed white, animated puddings, continued to drip from
those vast flanks, climb to their feet, and march for the water.
They remained at least twenty yards astern though they kept
up their pursuit. They did not have the muscular strength (if
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they had muscles, Jon-Tom thought) to overtake the boat. An
anny of fellow singers surged and marched around the base of
the Massawrath. Some were indifferently squished beneath
the vast mass, others shoved aside into the water.
"And what are the white things?" Flor forced herself to
ask.
Clothahump peered over his glasses at her in evident
surprise. "Why child, what would you expect the Mother of
Nightmares to produce, except nightmares? I asked if you
recognized them. Having no dreams to invade they are
presently unformed, shapeless, incipient. Here in their place
of birthing they are partly solid. When they pass out and into
the minds of thinking creatures they have become thin as
wind. Their lives are brief, empty, and full of torment."
"Wha-at?" Caz swallowed, tried again. "What does the
blasted thing want with us?" The fur was as stiff on his neck
as the nails of a yogi's board.
"Nightmares need dreams to feed on," explained the
wizard. "Minds on which to fasten. What the Massawrath
Mother feeds on I can only imagine, but I am not ready to
offer myself to find out. I do not think it would be pleasant to
be nightmared to death. Mayhap she feeds on the loose minds
of the mad, carried back to her by those fragments of
nightmare offspring that survive longer than a night. It is said
the insane never awaken."
It continued to trail them, roaring and moaning. Pale things
fell like white sweat from her back and sides. Occasionally a
fresh appendage, gray and wet, would extend out toward
them. It did not again come close enough to contact the boat.
Jon-Tom remembered Talea's frantic warning: if anything
forced them nearer the Massawrath's shore they would be
better off killing each other.
Another worry was the vibration he'd been feeling for more
than a few minutes. Though it steadily intensified, it seemed
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to have no connection with the pursuing Mother of Night-
mares. Soon a vast thunder filled his ears, powerful enough to
reduce even the Massawrath's moan to a faint wailing.
Still it grew in volume. Now the maddened gray hulk
struck out at the boat with dozens of pseudopods of many
lengths. They raised water from the river and dropped dozens
of slimy nightmares behind the boat.
The roaring grew louder still, until it and the vibration
underfoot merged and were one. Exhausted from wrestling
with the steering sweep, Bribbens leaned across it and tried to
catch his breath. Then he frowned, staring over the bow.
Several minutes went by and an expression of great calm
came over his face.
Jon-Tom relaxed on his own oar and panted uncontrollably.
"You... you recognize it?"
"Yes, I recognize it." The boatman looked happy, which
was encouraging. He also looked resigned, which was not.
"Every boatman knows the legends of the Sloomaz-ayor-le-
Weentli. It could only be one thing, you know.
"At least the Massawrath will not have us. This will be a
cleaner, surer death."
"What death? What are you talking about?" Talea and the
others had shipped their own oars as their pursuer fell back.
Bribbens reached out with an arm and gestured across the
bow. Ahead of them a thick fog was becoming visible. It
boiled energetically and spread a cloud across the roof of the
great cavern.
"dothahump?" Jon-Tom turned back to me wizard. "What's
he raving about?"
"He is not raving, my boy." The stocky sorcerer had also
turned his attention away from the fading horror behind them.
"He told you once, remember? It is why the Massawrath
cannot follow and why she flails in rage at us. She cannot
cross Helldrink."
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Thunder deafened Jon-Tom, and he had to put his hands to
his ears. He felt the noise through the deck, through his legs
and entire body. It pierced his every cell.
Fog and roaring, mist and thunder drew nearer. What did
mat say? It's speaking to you, he told himself, announcing its
presence and declaring its substance. It was familiar to
Bribbens, who'd never seen it. Should it therefore also be
recognizable to him?
Waterfall, he thought. He knew it instantly.
Hurrying to the storage lockers, he tried to think of a
saving song. The duar was in his hands, clean and dry,
waiting to be stroked to life, waiting to sing magic. He
draped straps over his neck, felt the familiar weight on his
shoulders.
One final tune long cables of gray mucus reached out for
mem. The Massawrath had extended itself to the utmost, but
its reach still fell short. Quivering with frustration, it hunkered
down on the rocks now well behind the boat, the volcanic pits
of its eyes glaring balefully at those now beyond its grasp.
Ahead fog boiled ceilingward like wet flame.
Jon-Tom stared mesmerized at the mist and hunted through
his repertoire for an appropriate song. What could he sing?
That they were nearing a waterfall was all too clear, but what
kind of waterfall? How high, how wide, how fast or... ?
Desperately he belted out several choruses from half a
dozen different tunes relating to water. They produced no
visible result. The boat's course and speed remained unchanged.
Even the gneechees seemed to have deserted him. He'd come
to expect their almost-presence whenever he'd strummed
magic, and their absence panicked him.
Nothing ahead now but swirling vapor. Then Talea curs
ed
loudly. Caz gave a warning shout and locked his arms around
the railing while Mudge put his head on the deck and covered
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his eyes with his hands, as though by not seeing he might not
be affected.
A faint mumbling rose behind Jon-Tom. Helpless and
confused, he spared a second to look around.
Clothahump was standing by the steering sweep, next to a
stoic Bribbens. The wizard's short, stubby arms were raised,
the fingers spread wide on his left hand while those on the
right made small circles and traced invisible patterns in the
air.
With a snap the mainsail rose taut, the luff rope zipping up
me mast with a whirr though no hand had touched the
rigging. A terrified Pog reacted to the ascending sail by
letting loose the spreader he'd been hanging from. A power-
ful updraft caught him, and he had to flap furiously to regain
his perch. This time he clung flat to the spreader, arms and
legs wrapped as tightly about the wooden cross member as
his wings were around his body.
Clothahump's murmur changed to a stentorian, wizardly
monotone. Now the wind blew hard in their faces, rough and
threatening where the gentle on-bow breeze of previous days
had been a comfortable companion.
The roar that permeated his entire body had numbed
Jon-Tom's hearing completely. But his vision still functioned.
They were almost upon a cauldron of spray and fog. Water
particles danced in the air and became one with the river. He
wanted to close his eyes, but curiosity kept them open. They
no longer could see or hear the Massawrath.
A harder gray loomed immediately ahead, a definitive axis
around which the mist boiled and filmed: the edge. The little
boat crossed it... and kept going. All the while Clothahump
continued his recitation. Even his charged voice was lost in
the aqueous thunder, though Jon-Tom thought he could make
out the part of the chant that made mention of "hydrostatic
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immunatic even keel please." The boat now eased out on the
turgid air.
With the cold, distant interest of a parachutist whose chute
has failed to open, Jon-Tom let the duar lie limp against him
and moved to the railing. He looked over the side.
A thousand feet deep, the waterfall was. No, five thou-
sand. It was hard to tell, since it disappeared into mist-
Spellsinger 02 - The Hour of the Gate Page 12