Spellsinger 02 - The Hour of the Gate

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by Foster, Alan Dean;


  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."

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  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

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  . 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.

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  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

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  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

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