midsection. Looking down he saw the hardwood oar Bribbens
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
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 The turtle had instinctively withdrawn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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THE HOUR Or THE GATE
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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Alan Dean Poster
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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THE HOUK Or THE GATE
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 cursed
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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Alan Dean Foster
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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"tm HOUR OF THE GATE
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-
shrouded depths. It might have dropped less than a thousand
feet, or for all he could tell it might have plunged straight to
the heart of the earth. Or to hell, if its legend-name was
accurate.
Instead, the depths seemed to hold a fiery, red-orange glow.
It arose from a distant whirlpool point.
As me boat continued to cruise smoothly across emptiness,
he finally saw the source of much of the thunder. There was
not just one waterfall, but four. Others crashed downward to
port and starboard, and the fourth lay dead ahead. These
sibling torrents were each as broad and fulsome as the one the
boat had just crossed. Four immense cascades converged
above the Pit and tumbled to a hidden infinity called Helldrink.
They were vast enough to drain all the oceans of all the
worlds.
The boat lurched, and everyone grabbed for something
solid. They'd reached the middle of the Drink and had
encountered the vortex of spray and upwelling air that dwelt
there. The little vessel spun around twice, a third time, in that
confluence of moist meterologics, and then was spun free by
the vortex's centrifugal power. It continued sailing steadily
across the chasm.
Ahead the far waterfall loomed closer. The bow made
contact with the water, the keel slipped in. They were sailing
steadily now upstream, against the current. Wind rising from
the Drink now blew at them from astern instead of in their
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faces. The sail billowed and filled for the first time since
they'd entered the Earth's Throat.
Clothahump suddenly leaned back against the railing. Hi'
hands dropped and his voice faltered. The boat slowed. For
an awful moment Jon-Tom thought the wind wouldn't be
enough to cancel the insistent force of the swift current. Only
Bribbens' skill enabled them finally to resume their forwara
progress.
Gradually they picked up speed, until the awesome pounding
of the falls had fallen to a gentle rumbling echo. They were
traveling upstream now, the wind steady behind them. The
same luminescent growths lined portions of cavern wall and
ceiling. They were in a subterranean chamber no different
from the one they had fled.
Emotionally wrung, Jon-Tom leaned over the side of the
boat and gazed astern. By now the last mists had been
swallowed by distance. No Massawrath clone waited here to
challenge them.
It did not have to. Never again could it send its pale white
children to haunt the sleep of at least one traveler. Having
been exposed, Jon-Tom was now immune. The encounter had
innoculated him against nightmare. One who has looked upon
the Mother of Nightmares cannot be frightened by her mere
minions of ill sleep.
Clothahump had slumped to the deck. He sat there rubbing
his right wrist. "I am out of shape," he muttered to no one in
particular. His attention rose to the mast. Pog was twisted
around the upper spreaders like a black coil.
The bat was slowly unwrapping himself. His malaria-like
shivers faded, and he spoke in a querulous whisper. "Oint-
ments, Master? Unguents and balms for ya arm, maybe a blue
pill for ya head?"
"You okay?" Jon-Tom gazed admiringly down at the
exhausted wizard.
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
"I will be, boy." He spoke hoarsely to his famulus.
"Some ointment, yes. No pill for my head, but I will have
one of the green ones for my throat. Five minutes of nonstop
chanting." He sighed heavily, glanced back to Jon-Tom.
"Keep in mind, my boy, that a wizard's greatest danger is
not lack of knowledge nor the onset of senility nor such
forgetfulness as I am now prone to. It's laryngitis."
Then everyone was swarming happily around him. Except
me unperturbable, steady Bribbens. The boatman remained at
his post, eyes directed calculatingly upstream. They had left
the boat in his hands, and he left the congratulating in theirs.
It was later that Mudge found Jon-Tom seated near the bow
and staring morosely ahead. Strong wind from behind lifted
his bright green cape, and he tucked it around and between
his upraised knees. The duar lay in his lap. He plucked
disconsolately at it as multihued formations passed in glowing
revue.
" 'Ere now, lad," said the otter concernedly, leaning over
and squeak-sniffing, "wot's the matter, then? That Massawatch-
oriswhatever's behind us now, not comin' down at us."
Jon-Tom drew another chord from the instrument, smiled
faintly up at the otter. "I blew it, Mudge." When the otter
continued to look puzzled, he added, "I could've done the
same thing as Clothahump, but I couldn't come up with the
right music." He looked down at the duar.
"I couldn't think of a single appropriate tune, not even a
chord. If it had all been up to me," he said with a shrug,
"we'd all be dead by now."
"But we ain't," Mudge pointed out cheerfully, "and that
be the important thing."
"Our cheeky companion is correct, you know." Caz had
come up behind them both. Now he stood opposite Mudge,
looking at the seated human. His paws were behind his back
and folded just above the putfball of a tail. "I doesn't matter
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who does the saving. Just as friend Mudge says, the fact that
we are saved is the important thing. Remember, it was you
who tamed the great Falameezar that fiery night in Polastrindu.
Not Clothahump. You want to hold all the glory for yourself?"
When he saw that the irony was lost on Jon-Tom he added,
"We all work for the same end. It matters nothing who does
what so long as that end is achieved. It shall be, unless some
of us put our personal feelings and desires above it."
Mudge looked a little uncomfortable at the rabbit's bluntness.
" 'E's right, mate. We can't be thinkin' o' ourselves in this
business." The last was said with a straight face. "You'll
'ave plenty o' opportunity t' demonstrate your wonderfulnes'
t' the ladies when this all be done with." He winked anG
whistled knowingly before leaving for the stem.
Caz considered giving the self-pitying human a comforting
pat, decided Jon-Tom might regard it as patronizing, and left
to join Mudge.
Jon-Tom, sitting by himself, muttered aloud, "The ladie
have nothing to do with it." He watched the cavern wall'
glide past. Gentle spray licked his face, kicked up from the
bow as the boat made its way upstream.
They didn't, he insisted to himself, resting his chin o.
folded hands. He'd only been worried about the general
welfare.
Then he grinned, though there was no one to see him. The
trouble with studying law is that you develop a tendency u
bullshit yourself as well as your counterparts. What about thi
theory that all great events, all the turning points of histor
had in some measure or another been motivated by matters (
passion? Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Washingtc
... the sexual theory of history explained a hell of a lot c
things economics and social migration and such did not.
It was quite a different kind of history that balanced on thi^
outcome of their little expedition. Jon-Tom had never accorded
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THE HOUR Or THE GATE
the theory much credit anyway. Yet though meant at least
partly in jest, Mudge's words forced home to him how often
emotional yearnings coupled with the basic desires of the
body could overwhelm those usually thought of as rational
creatures.
So he was sitting there moping about nothing except
himself. That was selfish and stupid. Maybe it had affected
the thinking of Napoleon and Tiberius and others, but it
wouldn't affect him. It was a damn good thing Clothahump
had found the words that had escaped his human companion.
His moroseness fading, he strummed softly on the duar. A
flicker of dancing motes haunted his left elbow. When he
turned to inspect them, they'd gone. Gneechees.
What still did worry him was the thought that the next time
he might be called upon to sing some magic, he might be as
mentally paralyzed as he'd been when nearing Helldrink. He
would have to fight that.
It wasn't the thought of death or the failure of their mission
that troubled him as he sat there and played. It was a fear of
personal failure, a fear that had haunted him since he'd been a
child. It was the fear which had driven him to pursue two
different careers without being able to choose between them.
And though he didn't realize it, it was the fear which had
driven more men and women to greatness than far more
rational motivations....
125
VIII
Several days later the cathedral hove into view. It was not a
cathedral, of course. But it might have been. No one could
say. That turned out not to be as confusing as it seemed.
To Jon-Tom it looked like a cathedral. The ceiling of the
great underground chamber in which it rose was several
hundred feet high. Towers and turrets nearly touched that far
stone roof. At that distance massive stalactites, each weighing
many tons, resembled pins hanging from a carpet.
The bioluminescents were especially dense here and the ;
chamber and its far reaches so brightly lit that it took me '
travelers several minutes to adjust to that unexpectedly vi- |
brant organic glow.
It was more like a hundred cathedrals, Jon-Tom thought,
all executed in miniature and piled one atop the other. Care
and fine craftsmanship were apparent in every line and curve
of the labyrinthine structure. Thousands of tiny colored win-
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Alan Dean Foster
dows gleamed on dozens of levels. The edifice filled much of
the huge chamber.
It was a measure of the distances his mind had crossed that
it was only incidental to him that the building shone a rich,
metallic gold. Of course, that might only be a result of
extensive use of gilt paint. Still, he vowed privately to keep a
close watch on their avaricious otter.
The term miniature was applicable to more than just the
building. When it became clear to them that the inhabitants of
the strange boat were not hostile, the builders began to show
themselves.
No more than four inches tall, the little people were
covered with a rich umber fur that suggested sable. This fur
was quite short, and long, fine hair of the same shade grew
on the heads of male and female alike. Hordes of them started
emerging from tiny doors and cubbyholes. Most resumed
working on the building. Acres of scaffolding bristled on
battlements and turrets and towers. One group of several
dozen were installing a massive window all of a yard high.
Bribbens eased the boat in toward shore. At closer range
they could make out thousands of golden sculptures adorning
the building, gargoyles and worm-sized snakes and things
only half realized because they originated in other dimen-
sions, from a different biological geometry. Unlike the gneechees,
these wonderful creations could be viewed, if not wholly
perceived.
As the boat drifted still closer the thousands of tiny
workers began milling uncomfortably, clustering close by
doorways and other openings. Ion-Tom hailed them from his
position at the bow, trying to assuage their worries.
"We mean you no harm," he called gently. "We're only
passing through your lands and admire your incredible build-
ing. What's it for?"
From the crest of a water-caressed rock a fur-covered
128
THE HOUR OF THE GATE
nymph all of three and a half inches tall shouted back at him.
He had to strain to understand the tiny lady.
"It is the Building," she told him matter-of-factly, as
though that should be explanation enough to satisfy anyone.
"Yes," and he lowered his voice still further when he saw
that his normal tone was painfully loud to her, "but what is
the building for?"
"It is the Building," the sprite reiterated. "We call it
'Heart-of-the-World.' Does it not shine brightly?"
"Very brightly," Talea said appreciatively. "It's very beau-
tiful. But what is it for?"
The down-clad waif laughed delicately. "We are not sure.
We have always worked on the Building. We always will
work on the Building. What else is there to -life but the
Building?"
"You say you call it 'Heart-of-the-World.'" Jon-Tom stud-
ied the radiant walls and glistening spires. At first he thought
it had been made of real gold, then stone covered with gilt
paint. Now he wasn't sure. It might be metal of another kind,
or plastic, or ceramic, or some unimaginable material he
knew nothing of.
"Perhaps it is the very heart of the world itself," the little
lady offered in suggestion. She smiled joyfully, showing
perfect minuscule teeth. "We do not know. It beats with light
as a heart does. If our work were to be stopped, perhaps the
light would go out of the world."
Jon-Tom considered saying more but found reason and
reality at odds with one another, mixed up like a dog and a
cat chasing each other around a pole, getting nowhere. He
looked helplessly to Clothahump for an explanation. So did
his companions.
"Who can say?" The wizard shrugged. "If it is truly the
architecture of the heart of the world, then at least we can tell
others that the world is well and truly fashioned."
129
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•&,
Alan Dean Foster
"Thank you, sir." The sprite leaped nimbly to another rock
further upstream to keep pace with them. "We do our best.
We have become very adept at adding to and maintaining the
Building."
"Make sure," Jon-Tom called to her, "that its glow never
goes out!" They were passing into a, narrower section of the
river cavern, leaving the unnamed little folk and their enig-
matic, immense construct behind.
"Who knows," he said quietly to Flor, "if it is the heart of
the world, then they'd better not be disturbed in their work.
That's a hell of a responsibility. And if it's not, if it's only a
building, an obsession, it's too beautiful to let die anyway."
"I never thought the heart of the world would be a
building," she said.
"Aren't we all structures?" With the Massawrath and
Helldrink safely far behind he was feeling alive and expan-
sive. He'd always been that way: high ups and abyssal
downs. Right now he was up.
"Each of us develops piece by piece. We're full of careful-
ly built rooms and halls, audience chambers and windows,
and we're populated with changing individualistic thoughts. I
never imagined the heart of the world would be a building,
though." He stared back down the tunnel. It was growing
dark, the radiant growths vanishing as they were prone to at
unexpected intervals.
"In fact, I never thought of the world as having a heart."
The last rich light from the distant chamber was lost to
sight as they rounded a slight bend in the river. Bribbens was
lighting the first lamp.
"That's a nice thought, Jon-Tom. If only having a heart
meant you would be happy."
"I suppose it often means the opposite." But when the
import of her last comment finally penetrated, she had left
him to chat with their stolid steersman.
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
Jon-Tom hesitated, thought about pursuing it further by
rejoining her to say, "Flor, are you trying to tell me some-
thing?" But he was as afraid of showing ignorance if he was
interpreting her wrongly as he was of failure.
So he sat himself down in the nickering light and began to
clean and tune his duar. As he tightened or loosened the
strings, a gneechee or two would appear behind him, peering
over his shoulder. He knew they were there and did his best
to ignore them.
They were compelled to run on lamplight. Gradually the
immense cave formations, the helictites and flowstone and
such, began to grow smaller. In the narrowing confines of the
river channel the rush and roar reverberated louder from the
walls. The continuing absence of the familiar fluorescent
fungi and their cousins was becoming unsettling.
No one liked the darkness. It reminded them too much of
sleep, and that reminded them of the now distant but never to
be forgotten sight of the Massawrath. More importantly, their
lamp oil was running out. Bribbens had prepared well, but he
hadn't expected to journey for long in total darkness. The
now sorely missed bioluminescents were all that had kept
them from traveling in black. Soon it appeared they might
have to do so, relying on Pog's abilities to guide them, unless
the light-producing vegetation reappeared.
A hand was shaking him. It was too small to be part of the
Massawrath, too solid to be one of its children. Nevertheless
he had an instant of terror before coming awake.
"Get up, Jon-Tom. Move your ass!" It was the urgent
voice of Talea.
"What?" But before he could say anything more she'd
moved on to the next sleeping form. He heard her banging on
an echoing surface.
"Wake up, wizard. You lazy old wizard, wake up!" She
sounded worried.
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Alan Dean Foster
"I still admit to 'old' but not the other." A grumbling
Clothahump clambered to his feet.
Jon-Tom blinked, fought to dig sleep from his eyes. It was
hard to see anything in the reduced light from the lamps.
Bribbens was trying to conserve their dwindling supply of oil.
Then he saw the cause of her anxiety. In the blackness
ahead was a writhing sheet of flame, completely blocking the
river. It hung in the air there, a dull, thick orange-silver that
did not move. The others awoke and moved to the bow to
examine it. All agreed it was a most peculiar kind of fire.
As they cruised closer no rise in temperature or indeed any
heat at all could be felt. The orange-silver hue did not
change.
"Can it be another structure like the Heart-of-the-Wbrld
building of the little folk?" Flor licked her lower lip and
stared anxiously forward.
"No, no. The color is all wrong, supple shadow, and there
is no sign of separation; levels, floors, or windows." Caz
faced the wizard. "What is your opinion of it, sir?"
"Just a moment, will you?" Clothahump sounded irritable.
"I'm not fully awake yet. Do you children think I have your
physical resiliency simply because my brain is so much more
active? Now then, this surely cannot be dangerous." He
called back to Bribbens. "Steady ahead, my good boatman."
"Don't have much choice." The frog snapped off his reply
as he tightened his grip on the steering sweep. "Tunnel's
become too narrow for us to turn 'round in. Some of the
rocks hereabouts look sharp. I don't want to chance 'em, so
it's steady ahead unless it turns desperate."
The boatman was forced to raise his voice to a near shout
to make himself understood. The rush of air in the pipe of a
cave argued noisily with the increased force of me current.
They watched silently while mat cold flame came nearer.
Then there was another, dimmer light haloing it, and the
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orange-silver no longer blocked their progress. The new light
came from tiny shining points that flickered unevenly, but not
like gneechees. These were both visible and motionless.
"Well, shit." Mudge put hands on hips and sounded
thoroughly disgusted with himself. " 'Tis a prize pack o'
idiots we be, mates."
Jon-Tom didn't understand immediately, but it didn't take
long until he knew the reason for the otter's embarrassment.
When he did so he felt equally ashamed of his own fear.
The orange-silvery color was familiar enough. Then they
emerged from the cavern. The great rising orb of moon no
longer shone directly down into the Earth's Throat.
"We made it." He hugged a startled Talea. "Damned if
we didn't!"
The character of the land they had emerged into was very
different from that of the Swordsward and the river country of
Bribbens' home. It was evident they had climbed a consider-
able distance.
Behind them towering crags reached for the stars. Clouds
capped them, though they were not as thick as those on the
eastern flanks of the range. No open plains or low scrub
bordered the river here. There was no fragrant coniferous
forest or high desert.
Mountains rose all around the little river valley in which
they found themselves. Despite the altitude the country dis-
played the aspect of more tropical climes. It was warm but
not hot, nor was it particularly humid. Jon-Tom thought of a
temperate-zone climax forest.
Vines and creepers leaped from tree to tree. A thick
undergrowth prevented them from seeing more than a few
yards inland on either shore.
It was with relief that Jon-Tom inhaled the fresh air,
fragrant with the aroma of flowers and green things. Though
hardly tropical, the climate was more pleasant despite the
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altitude than any place he'd yet been. Compared to the
bone-rattling winds of the Swordsward it was positively
Edenic.
"Fine country," he said enthusiastically. "I'm surprised
none of the warmlanders have tried to migrate here."
"Even if they knew this land existed they could not get
over the mountains," Clothahump reminded him. "Only a
very few in memory have ever made that journey. Even if
would-be settlers could survive the trip, kindly keep in mind
that this land is already occupied. Legend says the Weavers
dislike any strangers. Consider what their opinion would be
of potential colonists."
"And these are the people we're trying to make allies of?"
Flor wondered.
"They are not overt enemies," Clothahump told her,
shaking his head slowly. "Legend says they are content
enough here in their land. Yet I admit legend also insists they
hold no love for any but their own kind. It is said they like
most to keep to themselves and maintain their privacy.
"As near as I know we are the first folk to journey past the
mountain barrier in hundreds of years. Perhaps the legends no
longer hold true. It may be that in all that time the inhabitants
of the Scuttleteau have mellowed."
"They sure sound charming," said Flor apprehensively. "I
can't wait to meet them." Her voice rose in tone, and she
mimed a sardonic greeting. "Buenos dias, Sefior Weaver.
Como esta usted, and please don't eat me, I'm only a
tourist." She sighed and grimaced at me wizard. "I wish I
were as confident of success as you are."
"I'm 'ardly an optimist, meself," Mudge commented,
surveying the near shore and considering a warm swim.
"Oh well. Surely they will see the need," said Caz
hopefully, "to stand together against a common threat."
"That is to be hoped," the wizard agreed. "But we cannot
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be certain. We can only pray for a friendly welcome. Should
we actually achieve anything more than that, it would exceed
my wildest hopes."
There were some shocked looks in response to that. Jon-
Tom spoke for all of them. "You mean... you're not sure
you can persuade them?"
"My dear boy, I never made any such claim."
"But you gave me the impression..."
Clothahump held up a hand. "I made no promises. I
merely stated that there was little we could do if we remained
in Polastrindu and that we might have some chance of
securing another strong ally were we to successfully complete
this journey. I never said that reaching the Scuttleteau was a
guarantee we could do that. Nor did I ever display any
optimism about striking such an alliance. I simply declared
that I thought it would be a good idea to try."
"You stiff-backed, bone-brained old fart, you led us on!"
Talea was nearly too furious for words. "You cajoled us
through all that," and she pointed back toward the mouth of
the tunnel they'd recently emerged from, "through every-
thing we've suffered since leaving Polastrindu, without think-
ing we had any chance to succeed?"
"I did not say we did not have a chance." Clothahump
patiently corrected her. "I said our chances were slim. That is
different from nonexistent. When I say achieving such an
alliance would exceed my wildest hopes, I am merely being
realistic, not fatalistic. The chance is there."
"Why the fuck couldn't you have been 'realistic' back in
Polastrindu?" she growled softly. "Couldn't you have told us
how slight you thought our chances of success were?"
"I could have, but no one thought to ask me. As to the
first, if I had been more, shall we say, explicit in my
opinions, none of you would have come with me. Those who
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might have would not have done so with as much confidence
and determination as you have all displayed thus far."
Since this logic was irrefutable, no one chose to argue.
There was some spirited name-calling, however. The wizard
ignored it as one would have the excited chatter of children.
Pog found the situation unbearably amusing.
"Now ya see what I have ta deal wid, don'tcha?" He
giggled in gravely bat-barks as he swung gleefully from the
spreader. "Maybe now ya all'll sympathize wid poor Pog a
little bit more!"
"Shut your ugly face." Talea heaved a hunk of torchwood
at him. He dodged it nimbly.
"Now, now, Talea-tail. Late for recriminations, don'tcha
tink?" Again the rich laughter. "His Bosship has ya all
where he wants ya." A series of rapid-fire squeeks seeped out
as he delightedly lapped up their discomfort.
"It does seem you've been somewhat less than truthful
with us, sir," said Caz reprovingly.
"Not at all. I have not once lied to any of you. And the
odds do not lessen the importance of our trying to conclude
this alliance. The more so now that we have actually com-
pleted the arduous journey through the Earth's Throat and
have reached the Scuttleteau.
"Admittedly our chances of persuading the Weavers to join
with us are slight, but the chance is real so long as we are
real. We must reach for every advantage and assistance we
can."
"And if we die on the failure of this slight chance?" Flor
wanted to know.
"That is a risk I have resigned myself to accepting," he
replied blandly.
"I see." Talea's fingers dug into the wood of the railing.
She stared at the river as she spoke. "If we all die, that's a
risk you're prepared to take. Well, I'm not."
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"As you wish." Clothahump gestured magnanimously at
me water. "I herewith release you from any obligation to
assist me further. You may commence your swim homeward."
"Like hell." She peered back at Bribbens. "Turn this
deadwood around."
The boatman threw her a goggle-eyed and mournful look.
"How much can you pay me?"
l&T >»
"I see." He turned his attention back to the river ahead. "I
take orders only from those who can pay me." He indicated
Clothahump. "He paid me. He tells my boat where it is to
go. I do not renege on my business agreements."
"Screw your business agreements, don't you care about
your own life?" she asked him.
"I honor my commitments. My honor is my life." This
last was uttered with such finality that Talea subsided.
"Commitments my ass." She turned to sit glumly on the
deck, glaring morosely at the wooden planking.
"I repeat, I have not lied to any of you." Clothahump
spoke with dignity, then added by way of an afterthought, "I
should have thought that all of you were ready to take any
risk necessary in this time of crisis. I see that I was mistaken,"
It was quiet on the boat for several hours. Then Talea
looked up irritably and said, "I'm sorry. Bribbens is right.
We all made a commitment to see this business through. I'll
Stick to mine." She glanced back at the wizard. "My fault. I
apol... I apologize." The unfamiliar word came hard to her.
There were murmurs of agreement from the others.
"That's better," Clothahump observed. "I'm glad that
you've all made up your minds. Again. It was time to do so
because," and he pointed over the bow, "soon there will be
no chance of turning back."
Completely spanning the river a hundred yards off the bow
was a soaring network of thick cables. They made a silvery
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shadow on the water, a domed superstructure of glistening
filaments in the intensifying morning light.
Waiting and watching with considerable interest from their
resting places high up in the cables were half a dozen of the
Weavers.
Clothahump knew what to expect. Caz, Mudge, Talea,
Pog, and Bribbens had some idea, if through no other means
than the stories passed down among generations of travelers.
But Jon-Tom and Flor possessed no such mental buffering.
Primeval fear sent a shudder through both of them. It was
instinctive and unreasoning and cold. Only the fact that their
companions showed no sign of panic prevented the two
otherworlders from doing precisely that.
The six Weavers might comprise a hunting party, an official
patrol, or simply a group of interested river gazers out for a
day's relaxation. Now they gathered near the leading edge of
the cablework.
One of them shinnied down a single strand when the boat
began to pass beneath. Under Bribbens' directions and at
Clothahump's insistence, Mudge and Caz were taking down
.the single sail.
"No point in making a show of resistance or attempting to
pass uncontested," the wizard murmured. "After all, our
purpose in coming here is to meet with them."
Unable to override their instincts, Jon-Tom and Flor moved
to the rear of the boat, as far away from their new visitor as
they could get.
That individual secured the bottom of his cable to the bow
of the little boat. The craft swung around, tethered to the
overhead network, until its stem was pointing upstream.
Having detached the cable from the end of his abdomen,
the Weaver rested on four legs, quietly studying the crew of
the peculiar boat with unblinking, lidless multiple eyes. Four
arms were folded across his cephalothorax. His body was
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bright yellow with concentric triangles decorating the under-
side of the sternum. His head was a beautiful ocher. The slim
abdomen had blue stripes running down both the dorsal and
ventral sides.
Complementing this barrage of natural coloration was a
swirling, airy attire of scarves and cloth. The material was
readily recognizable as pure silk. It was twisted and wrapped
sari-style around the neck, cephalothorax, abdomen, and
upper portions of the legs and arms. Somehow it did not
entangle the Weaver's limbs as he moved.
It was impossible to tell how many pieces of silk the visitor
was wearing. Jon-Tom followed one feathery kelly-green
scarf for several yards around legs and abdomen until it
vanished among blue and pink veils near the head. A series of
bright pink bows knotted several of the scarves together and
decorated the spinneret area. Mandibles moved idly, and
occasionally they could see the twin fangs that flanked the
other mouth-parts. The Weaver was a nightmare out of a Max
Ernst painting, clad in Technicolor.
The nightmare spoke. At first Jon-Tom had trouble under-
_ standing the breathy, faint voice. Gradually curiosity over-
threw his initial ten-or, and he joined his companions in the
bow. He began to make sense of the whispery speech, which
reminded him of papers blowing across stepping-stones.
As the Weaver talked, he tested the cable he'd spun himself
from bridge to boat. Then he sat down, having concluded his
prayer or invocation or whatever it had been, by folding his
four legs beneath him. His jaw rested on the upper tarsals and
claws. The body was three feet long and the legs almost
doubled that.
"it has been a long time," said the veiled spider, "fa-
beyond my lifetime, beyond i think the memory of any
currently alive, since any of the wamuand people have visiteo
the scuttleteau."
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Jon-Tom tried to analyze the almost nonexistent inflection.
Was the Weaver irritated, or curious, or both?
"no one can cross the mountains." A pair of arms gestured
toward the towering peaks that loomed above them.
"We did not come over the mountains," said Clothahump,
"but through them." He nodded toward the river. "We came
on this watercourse through the Earth's Throat."
The spider's head bobbed from side to side. "that is not
possible."
"Then how the hell do you think we got here?" Talea said
challengingly, bravery and bluster overcoming common sense.
"it may be that..." The spider hesitated, the whispery
tones little louder than the Breeze wafting across the ship.
Then faint, breathy puffs came from that arachnoid throat. It
was a laughter that sounded like the wind that gets lost in
thick trees and idles around until it blows itself out.
"ah, sarcasm, a trait of the soft-bodied, i believe, what do
you wish here on the scuttleteau?"
Jon-Tom felt himself drawn to the side by Caz while the
wizard and Weaver talked. The rabbit gestured toward the
sky.
The other five Weavers now hung directly above the boat
from short individual cables. It was obvious they could be on
the deck in seconds. They carried cleverly designed knives
and bolas that could be easily manipulated by the double
flexible claws tipping each limb.
"They've been quiet enough thus far," said Caz, "but
should our learned leader's conversation grow less than ac-
commodating, we should anticipate confronting more than
one of them." His hand slid suggestively over the knife slung
at his own hip, beneath the fine jacket.
Jon-Tom nodded acknowledgment. They separated and
casually apprised the others of the quintet dangling ominously
over their heads.
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When Clothahump had finished, the spider moved back
against the railing and regarded them intently. At least, that
was the impression Jon-Tom received. It was difficult to tell
not only how he was seeing them mentally, but physically as
well. With four eyes, two small ones and two much larger
ones mounted higher on his head, the Weaver would be hard
to surprise.
"you have come a long way without being sure of the
nature of your eventual reception, to what purpose? you have
talked much and said little, the mark of a diplomat but not
necessarily of a friend, why then are you here?"
Above, the Weaver's companions swayed gently in the
breeze and caressed their weapons.
"I'm sorry, but we can't tell you that," said Clothahump
boldly. Jon-Tom moved to make certain his back was against
the mast. "Our information is of such vital importance to the
Weavers that it can only be related to the highest local
authority."
"nothing a warmlander can say is of any importance to the
weavers." Again came that distant, whistling laugh, blowing
arrogantly across the deck.
"Nilontfwml" roared Clothahump in his most impressive
sorceral tone. Vibrations rattled the boat. Whitecaps snapped
on the crests of sudden waves, and there was a distant rumble
of thunder. The five watchers in the net overhead bounced
nervously on their organic tethers while the Weaver in the
boat stiffened against the rail.
Clothahump lowered his arms. One had to stare hard at the
inoffensive-appearing little turtle with the absurd spectacles to
believe that voice had truly issued from that hard-shelled
body.
"By my annointment as Sorcerer-Majestic of the Last
Circle, by the brow of EIrath-Vune now long dust, by all the
oaths that bind all the practitioners of True Magic back to the
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beginnings of divination, I swear to you that what I have to
say is vital to the survival of Weaver as well as warmlander,
and that it can be imparted only to the Grand Webmistress
herself!"
That pronouncement appeared to shake their visitor as
badly as had the totally unexpected demonstration of wizardly
power.
"most impressive in word and action," the spider husked.
"that you are truly a wizard cannot be denied." He recovered
some "octupul" poise and executed a short little bow, crossing
all four upper limbs across his chest.
"forgive my hesitation and suspicions and accept my
apologies should i have offended you. my name is ananthos."
"Are you in charge of the river guards, then?" Plor
indicated the five remaining armed Weavers still drifting in
the wind overhead.
The spider turned his head toward her, and she fought hard
not to shudder, "your meaning is obscure, female human, we
do not 'guard' the bridge, there are not any who would harm
it, and none until now come out of the hole into which the
river dies."
"Then why are you here at all? Why the bridge?" Jon-Tom
didn't try to conceal his puzzlement.
"this is," and the Weaver gestured with one limb at the
network of silken cables and its watchful inhabitants, "a
lifesaving grid. it was erected here to protect those young and
ignorant weavers who are fond of playing in the river lamayad
and who sometimes tend to drift too close to the hole which
kills the water, were they to vanish within they would be
forever lost.
"did you think then we were soldiers? there is no need for
soldiers on the scuttleteau. we have no enemies."
"Then a revelation is in store," muttered Clothahump so
low the Weaver did not hear him.
"the bridge is to help protect infants," ananthos finished.
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"Now don't that soothe a beatin' 'eart!" Mudge whispered
disbelievingly to Jon-Tom. "A fearsome lookin' lot like this
and 'e says they've no soldiers. Wot a fine pack o' allies
they'll make, eh?"
"They've got weapons," his companion argued, "and
they look like they know how to use them." He raised his
voice and addressed the Weaver. "If this is nothing more than
a station for rescuing wayward children, then why do you and
your companions carry weapons?"
Ananthos gestured at the surrounding forest, "to protect
ourselves, of course, even great fighters may be overwhelmed
by a single large and powerful foe. there are beasts on the
scuttleteau that would devour all on this craft and the craft
itself in a single gulp. because we do not maintain an army to
confront nonexistent enemies does not mean we are fleet-
limbed cowards who run instead of fight, or did you think we
were all eggsuckers?" He bared his respectable fangs.
"the confident and strong have no need of an army. each
weaver is an army unto itself."
"It is about armies and fighting that we come," said
Clothahump, "and about such matters that we must speak to
the Webmistress."
Ananthos appeared as upset as a spider could possibly be.
"to bring warmlanders into the capital is a great responsibili-
ty. by rights of history and legend i should turn you around
and send you back into the hole from whence you emerged.
and yet"—he struggled with the conflict between prescribed
duty and personal feelings and thoughts—"i cannot dismiss
the fact that you have made an impossible journey for reasons
i am not equipped to debate, if it is of the importance you
insist, i would fail did i not escort you to the capital, but to
see the grand webmistress herself..."
He turned away from them, whether from embarrassment
or indecision or both they could not tell.
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"Why don't you," said Caz helpfully, "take us int
protective custody, convey us to the capital under guard, an
turn us over to your superiors?"
Ananthos looked back at him, his head bobbing in that od_
side-to-side motion that was half nod and half shake. He
spoke in a whispery, grateful hush.
"you have some understanding of what it means to be
responsible to someone placed higher than oneself, warmlander
of the big ears."
"I've been in that uncomfortable situation before, yes,"
Caz admitted drolly, polishing his monocle.
"i bow to your excellent suggestion."
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IX
He leaned back and called breathily upward, "arethos,
imedshud! intob coom." Two of the watchful Weavers dropped
to the deck, their spinnerets snipping off the cables trailing
from their abdomens. They studied the warmlanders with
interest.
"these will accompany us on the journey, for i can hardly
claim to have you in restriction, as your tall white friend has
suggested, all by myself, yet i am charged with the watchfiuness
on this bridge and cannot leave it deserted, so three of us will
accompany you and three remain here.
"we shall proceed upstream, a day's journey from here,
the river lamayad splits, several days further it splits again.
against that divide, set against the breath, is our capital, my
home."
He added wamingly, "what happens then is no longer my
responsibility, i can make no promises as to the nature of your
reception, for i am low in the hierarchy, most low, for all that
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no weaver lies in the mud and none soars above the others.
our hierarchy is a convenience and necessary to governing,
and that is all.
"as to an audience with the grand webmistress..." his
voice trailed away meaningfully.
"Diplomacy moves best when it moves cautiously," said
Caz, "and not in dangerous leaps."
"For now it will be more than enough if you see us to the
capital, Ananthos," Clothahump assured him.
The spider seemed greatly relieved, "then my thoughts are
clear, i am neither helping nor hindering you, merely refer-
ring you to those in the position to do so." He turned and
ceremoniously detached the cable holding the bow of the
motionless boat.
Bribbens had remained by his oar during the discussion.
Now he leaned gently on it as once again the wind began to
fill the sail. The boat turned neatly on its axis as the cry of
"ware the boom!" rang out from the steersman. Soon they
had passed beneath the intricate webwork spanning the river
and were once again traveling upstream.
"i've never seen a warmlander." Ananthos was standing
quite close to Jen-Tom, "most interesting biology." Despite
ten thousand years of primitive fears, Jon-Tom did not pull
away when the spider reached out to him.
Ananthos extended a double-clawed leg. It was covered
with bristly hairs. The delicate silk scarves of green and
turquoise enveloping the limb mitigated its menacing appear-
ance. The finger-sized claws touched the man's cheek, pressed
lightly, and traveled down the face to the neck before with-
drawing. Somehow Jon-Tom kept from flinching. He concen-
trated on those brightly colored eyes studying him.
"no fur at all like the short bewhiskered one, except on
top. and soft... so soft!" He shuddered, "what a terrible
fragility to live with."
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
"You get used to it," said Jon-Tom. It occurred to him mat
the spider found him quite repulsive.
They continued studying each other. "That's beautiful
silk," the man commented. "Did you make it yourself?"
"do you mean, did i spin the silk or manufacture the scarf?
in truth i did neither." He waved a leg at the others, "we
differ even more in size than you seem to. some of our
smaller cousins produce far finer silk than a clumsy oaf like
myself is capable of. they are trained to do so, and others
carefully weave and pattern their produce." He reached down
and unwrapped a four-foot turquoise length and handed it to
Jon-Tom.
A palmful of feathers was like lead compared to the scarf.
He could have whispered at it and blown it over the side of
the boat. The dye was a faint blue, as rich as the finest
Persian turquoise with darker patches here and there. It was
the lightest fabric he'd ever caressed. Wearing it would be as
wearing nothing.
He moved to hand it back. Ananthos' head bobbed to the
left. "no. it is a gift." Already he'd refastened two other long
scarves to compensate for the loss of the turquoise. Jon-Tom
had a glimpse of the intricate knot-and-clip arrangement that
held the quasi-sari together.
"Why?"
Now the head bobbed down and to me right. He was
beginning to match head movements to the spider's moods.
What at first had seemed only a nervous twitching was
becoming recognizable as a complex, highly stylized group of
suggestive gestures. The spiders utilized their heads the way
an Italian used his hands, for speech without speaking.
"why? because you have something about you, something
i cannot define, and because you admired it."
"I'll say we've got something about us," Talea grumbled.
"An air of chronic insanity."
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Ananthos considered the comment. Again the whispery
laughter floated like snowflakes across the deck. "ah, humor!
humor is among the warmlander's richest qualities, perhaps
the most redeeming one."
"For all the talk of hostility our legends speak of, you
seem mighty friendly," she said.
"it is my duty, soft female," the Weaver replied. His gaze
went back to Jon-Tom. "please me by accepting the gift."
Jon-Tom accepted the length of silk. He wrapped it muffler-
like around his neck, above the indigo shut. It didn't get
tangled in his cape clasp. In fact, it didn't feel as though it
was there at all. He did not consider how it might look
sandwiched between the iridescent green cape and purpled
shirt.
"I have nothing to offer in return," he said apologetically.
"No, wait, maybe I do." He unslung his duar. "Do the
Weavers like music?"
Ananthos' answer was unexpected. He extended two limbs
in an unmistakable gesture. Jon-Tom carefully passed over
the instrument.
The Weaver resumed his half-sit, half-squat and laid the
duar across two knees. He had neither hands nor fingers, but
the eight prehensile claws on the four upper limbs plucked
with experimental delicacy at the two sets of strings.
The melody that rose from the duar was light and ethereal,
alien, atonal, and yet full of almost familiar rhythms. It
would begin to sound almost normal, then drift off on strange
tangents. Very few notes contributed to a substantial tune.
Ananthos' playing reminded Jon-Tom more of samisen music
than guitar.
Flor leaned blissfully back against the mast, closed her
eyes, and soaked up the spare melody. Mudge sprawled
contentedly on the deck while Caz tried, without success, to
tap time to the disjointed beat. Nothing soothes xenophobia
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so efficiently as music, no matter how strange its rhythms or
inaudible the words.
An airy wail rose from Ananthos and his two companions.
The three-part harmony was bizarre and barely strong enough
to rise above the breeze. There was nothing ominous in their
singing, however. The little boat made steady progress against
the current. In spite of his unshakable devotion to his job,
even Bribbens was affected. One flippered foot beat on the
deck in a futile attempt to domesticate the mystical arachnid
melody.
It might be, Jon-Tom thought, that they would find no
allies here, but he was certain they'd already found some
friends. He fingered the end of the exquisite scarf and
allowed himself to relax and sink comfortably under the
soothing spell of the spider's frugal fugue....
It was early in the morning of the fourth day on the
Scuttleteau that he was shaken awake. Much too early, he
mused as his eyes opened confusedly on a still dark sky.
He rolled over, and for a moment memory lagged shockingly
behind reality. He started violently at the sight of the furry,
fanged, many-eyed countenance bending over him.
"i am sorry," said Ananthos softly, "did i waken you too
sharply?"
Jon-Tom couldn't decide if the Weaver was being polite
and offering a diplomatic way out or if it was an honest
question. In either case, he was grateful for the understanding
it allowed him.
"No. No, not too sharply, Ananthos." He squinted into the
sky. A few stars were still visible. "But why so early?"
Bribbens' voice sounded behind him. As usual, the boat-
man was first awake and at his duties before the others had
risen from beneath their warm blankets. "Because we're
nearing their city, man."
Something in the frog's voice made Jon-Tom sit up fast. It
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Alan Dean Foster
was not fear, not even worry, but a new quality usually absent
from the boatman's plebian monotone.
Pushing aside his blanket, he turned to look over the bow,
matching Bribbens' gaze. Then he understood the strange
new quality he'd detected in the boatman's voice: wonderment.
The first rays of the sun were arriving, having mounted the
mountain shield soaring ahead of the boat. In the distance lay
a range of immense peaks more massive than Zaryt's Teeth.
Several crags vanished into the clouds, only to reappear
above them. Jon-Tom was no surveyor, but if the Teeth
contained several mountains higher than twenty thousand feet
then the range ahead had to average twenty-five.
More modest escarpments dominated the north and south.
Swathed in glaciers and clouds, the colossal eastern range
also displayed an additional quality: dark smoke and occa-
sional liquid red flares rose from several of the peaks. The
towering range was still alive, still growing.
The sparks and smoke that drifted overhead came from a
massif much closer than the eastern horizon, however. Quite
close a black caldera rose from surrounding foothills to a
height a good ten thousand feet above me river, which banked
to the south before it. Ice and snow crowned the fiery
summit. --
Snow gave way to conifers and hardwoods, they in turn
surrendered to the climax vegetation of the variety which
flanked the river, and that at last to a city which crept up and
clung to the volcano's flanks. Small docks spread thin wooden
fingers out into the river.
"my home," said Ananthos, "capital and ancestral settle-
ment from which the first weavers laid claim to the scuttleteau
and all the lands that abut it." He spread four forearms, "i
welcome you all to gossameringue-on-the-breath."
The city was a marvel, like the scarf. The similarities did
not end there, for like the scarf it was woven of fine silk.
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THE HOUK OF THE GATE
Morning dew adhered to struts and suspensions and flying
buttresses of webwork. Roofs were hung from supports strung
lacily above instead of being supported by pillars from be-
neath. Millions of thick, silvery cables supported buildings
several stories high, all agleam with jewels of dew.
Other cables as thick as a man's body, spun from the
spinnerets of dozens of spiders, secured the larger structures
to the ground.
On the lower, nearer levels they could discern dozens of
moving forms. It was clear the city was heavily populated.
Spreading as it did around the base of the huge volcano and
climbing thousands of feet up its sides, it appeared capable of
housing a population in the tens of thousands.
There was enough spider silk in that single city, if it could
be unwrapped to its seminal strands, to cocoon the Earth.
Once Jon-Tom had spent an hour marveling at a single
small web woven by one spider on an ocean coast. It had
been speckled with dew from the morning fog.
Here the dew seemed almost choreographed. As the first
rising rays of the sun struck the city, it suddenly turned to a
labyrinth of platinum wires and diamond dust. It was too
bright to look at, but the effect faded quickly as the dew
evaporated. The sun rose higher, the enchanting effect dissi-
pating as rapidly as the sting fro.m a clash of cymbals. Left
behind was a spectacle of suspended structures only slightly
less impressive.
Gossameringue was all spheres and ellipses, arches and
domes. Jon-Tom could not find a sharp angle anywhere in the
design. Everything was smooth and rounded. It gave the
city a soft feeling which its inhabitants might or might not
reflect.
As the sun worked its way up into the morning sky, the
little boat put in at the nearest vacant dock. A few early
morning workers turned curious multiple eyes on the unique
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cargo of warmlanders. They did not interfere. They only
stared. As befitted their historical preference for privacy,
these few Weavers soon turned to their assigned tasks and
ignored the arrivals. It troubled Clothahump. A people fanatic
about minding its own business does not make a ready ally.
Under Ananthos' escort they left the boat and crossed the
docks. Soon they had entered a silk and silver world.
"This mission had best be successful," said Caz as they
began to climb. He placed his broad feet carefully. The
roadway was composed of a fine checkerboard of silk cables.
They were stronger than steel and did not quiver even when
Jon-Tom experimentally jumped up and down on one, but if
one missed a rung of the gigantic rope ladder and fell
through, a broken leg was a real possibility.
After a while caution gave way to confidence and the party
was able to make faster progress up the side of the mountain.
"I'll settle for just getting out of here alive," Talea
whispered to the rabbit.
"Precisely my meaning," said Caz. He gestured back the
way they'd come. The river and docks had long since been
swallowed up by twisting, contorting bands of silk and silken
buildings. "Because we'd never find our way out of here
without assistance."
It was not all silk. Some of the buildings boasted sculp-
tured stone or wood, and there was some use of metalwork.
Windows were made of fine glass, and there was evidence of
vegetable matter being employed in sofas and other furniture.
Though the Weavers were not arboreal creatures, their
construction ignored the demands of gravity. The whole city
was an exercise in the aesthetic applications of geometry. It
was difficult to tell up from down.
Caz was right, Jon-Tom thought worriedly. Without Weav-
er help they would never find their way back to the river.
They climbed steadily. Wherever they passed, daily rou-
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tines ground to a halt as the populace stared dumbfoundedly
at creatures they knew only from legend. Ananthos and his
two fellow guards took an aggressive attitude toward those
few citizens who tried to touch me warmlanders.
The only ones who weren't shoved aside were the curious
hordes of spiderlings who swarmed in fascination around the
visitors' legs. Most of these infants had bodies a foot or more
across. They were a riot of color underfoot; red, yellow,
orange, puce, black, and more in metallic, dull, or iridescent
shades. They displayed stripes and spots, intricate patterns
and simple solids.
It was difficult to make sense of the extraordinary variety
of colors and shapes because the predominant sensation was
one of wading through a shallow pond made of legs. With
remarkable agility the youngsters scrambled in and between
the feet of the visitors, never once having a tiny leg kicked or
stepped on.
They reserved most of their attention for Talea, Flor, and
Jon-Tom. Bribbens and Clothahump they ignored completely.
Nor were they in the least bit shy.
One scrambled energetically up Jon-Tom's right side, pull-
ing thoughtlessly at his fortunately tough cape and pants. It
rode like a cat on his right shoulder, chattering breathily to
its less enterprising companions. Jon-Tom tried hard to think
of it as a cat.
The adolescent displayed a cluster of painted lines that ran
from its mandibles back between its eyes and down the back
of its head. The cosmetics did not give Jon-Tom a clue as to
its sex. He thought of brushing it away, but it behooves a
guest to match the hospitality of his hosts. So he left it alone,
resolutely ignoring the occasional reflexive flash of poisonous
fangs.
The spiderling sat there securely and waved its foot-long
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legs at disapproving adults and envious brethren. It whispered
in a rush to its obliging mount.
"where do you come from? you are warm, not cold like
me prey or the creatures of the forest, you are very tall and
thin and you have hair only atop your head and there very
dense." The youngster's partly clad abdomen brushed rhyth-
mically against the back of Jon-Tom's neck. He assumed it
was a friendly gesture. The fur on the spiderling's bottom
was as soft as Mudge's.
"you have funny mouths and your fangs are hidden, may i
see them?"
Jon-Tom patiently opened his mouth and grimaced to show
his teeth. The spiderling drew back in alarm, then moved
cautiously closer.
"so many. and they're white, not black or brown or gold.
they are so flat, save two. how can you suck fluids with
them?"
"I don't use my fangs—my teeth—to suck fluids," Jon-
Tom explained. "What liquid I do ingest I swallow straight.
Mostly I eat solid food and use my teeth to chew it into
smaller pieces."
The youngster shuddered visibly, "how awful, how grue-
some! you actually eat solid, unliquified flesh? your fangs
don't look up to the task. i'd think they'd break off. ugh,
ugh!"
"It can be tough sometimes," Jon-Tom confessed, recalling
some less than palatable meals he'd downed. "But my teeth
are stronger than yours. They're not hollow."
"i wonder," said the spiderling with the disarming honesty
common to all children, "if you'd taste good."
"I'd hope so. I'd hate to think I've lived all these years
just to give some friend an upset stomach. I'd probably be
pizza-and-coke flavored."
"i don't know what is a pissaoke." The infant bared tiny
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THE if OUR OF THE GATE
fangs, "i don't suppose you'd let me have a taste? your elders
aren't watching." He sounded hopeful.
"I'd like to oblige," Jon-Tom said nervously, "but I
haven't had anything to eat yet today and might make you
sick. Understand?"
"oh well." The youngster didn't sound too disappointed.
"i don't guess i'd like you sucking out one of my legs,
either." He quivered at the thought, "you're a nice person,
warmlander. i like you." Jon-Tom experienced the abdomen
caress once again. Then the spiderling jumped down to join
his fellow scamperers.
"luck to you, warmlander!"
"And to you also, child," Jon-Tom called hastily back to
him. Ananthos and several responsible bystanders were final-
ly shooing the spiderlings away. The children waved and
cheered in excited whispers, like any others, their multiple,
multicolored legs waving good-byes.
A greater weight pressured his left arm and he looked
around uncertainly. It was no disrespectful spiderling, howev-
er. Flor's expression was ashen, and she slumped weakly
against him. He quickly got an arm under her shoulders and
gave her some support.
"What's wrong, Flor? You look ill."
"What's wrong?" Fresh shock replaced some of the paleness
that had dominated her visage. "I've just been poked, probed,
and swarmed over by a dozen of the most loathesome,
disgusting creatures anyone could..."
Jon-Tom made urgent quieting motions. "Jesus, Flor. Keep
your voice down. These are our hosts."
"I know, but to have them touch me all over like that."
She was trembling uncontrollably. "Aranqs... uckkkk! I hate
them. I could never even stand the little ones the size of my
thumb, for all that Mama used to praise them for catching the
cockroaches. So you can imagine how I feel about these. I
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could hardly stand it on the boat." She moved unsteadily
away from his arm. "I don't know how much more of this I
can take, Jon-Tom," and she gestured at Ananthos, who was
marching ahead of them.
They turned up another, broader web-road. "What matters
isn't what they look like," Jon-Tom told her sternly, "but
what's behind their looks. In this case, intelligence. We need
their help or Clothahump wouldn't have herded us all this
way." He eyed her firmly.
"Think you can manage by yourself now?"
She was breathing deeply. The color was returning to her
face. "I hope so, compadre. But if they climb over me like
that again..." A brief reprise of the trembling. "I feel
so.. .so icky."
" 'Icky' is a state of mind, not a physiological condition."
"Easy for you to say, Jon-Tom."
"Look, they probably don't think much of the way we
look, either. I know they don't."
"I don't care what they think," she shot back. "Santa
Maria, I hope we finish with this place quickly."
"Oh, I don't know." He noted the way in which the rising
sun, bright despite the intensifying cloudiness, sparkled off
the millions of cables and the silken buildings and webwork
walkway they were climbing. "I think it's kind of pretty."
"The fly complimenting the spider," she muttered.
"Except that the flies are here hunting for allies."
"Let's hope they are allies."
"Ahhh, you worry too much." He gave her an affectionate
pat on the back. She forced a grin in response, thankful for
his moral support.
Jon-Tom's attention returned forward, and to his surprise
he found himself staring straight into Talea's eyes. The
instant their gazes locked she turned away.
He decided she probably hadn't been looking at him.
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Probably trying to memorize their path in case they had to try
and flee. Such preparation and suspicion would be typical of
the redhead. It did not occur to him that the glance might
have been significant of anything else.
They had climbed several thousand feet by the afternoon.
Ahead loomed an enormous structure. How many spiders,
Jon-Tom wondered, had labored for how many years patiently
spinning the silk necessary to create those massive ramparts
of hardened silk and interlaced stone?
The royal palace of Gossameringue was made largely of
hewn rock cemented together not with mortar or clay or
concrete but layer on layer of spider silk. Turrets of silver
bulged from unexpected places. The entire immense structure
was suspended from a vast overhang of volcanic rock by
cables a yard thick. Those cables would have supported a
mountain. Though the wind was stronger here, high up the
volcanic flank, the palace did not move. It might as well have
been anchored in bedrock.
They entered a round, silk-lined tube and were soon walk-
ing through tunnels and hallways. It grew dark only slowly
inside since the glassy silk admitted a great deal of light.
Eventually torches and lamps were necessary, however, to
illuminate the depths.
They confronted a portal guarded by a pair of the largest
spiders yet seen. Each had a body as big as Jon-Tom's, but
with their loglike legs they spanned eighteen feet from front
to back.
They were a rich dark brown, without special markings or
bright colors anywhere on their bodies. The multiple black
eyes were small in comparison to the rest of the impressive
mass. Shocking-pink and orange silks enveloped torsos and
legs. There was also a set of white scarves tied around two
forelegs and the nonexistent necks. Huge halberds with intricately
carved wooden shafts rested between powerful forelegs.
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They didn't move, but Jon-Tom knew they were closely
scrutinizing the peculiar arrivals. For the first time since
they'd entered Gossameringue he was frightened. Thoughts
of the friendly spiderlings faded from his mind. It would have
been little comfort had he realized that the pair of impressive
guards before them were there precisely to intimidate visitors.
Ananthos turned to them. "you will have to wait here."
After conversing briefly with the two huge tarantulas he and
his two associates disappeared through the round entrance.
While they waited, the visitors occupied themselves by
inspecting the now indifferent guards and the gleaming silk
walls. The silk had been dyed red, orange, and white in this
corridor and shone wetly in the light of the lamps. Jon-Tom
wondered how far from the entrance they'd come.
Mudge sauntered over next to him. "I don't know 'ow it
strikes you, mate, but seems t' me our eight-legged friends
'ave been gone a 'ell of a long time now."
Jon-Tom tried to sound secure as well as knowledgeable.
"You don't just walk in on the ruler of a powerful people and
announce your demands. The diplomatic niceties have to be
observed. History shows that."
"More o' your studies, wot? Well, maybe it do take some
time at that. Never met a lot o' bureaucrats that did move
much faster than the dead. I expect they're all like that, slow
movin' an' slow thinkin', no matter 'ow many legs they got."
"Here they come," Jon-Tom told him confidently.
But it was not Ananthos and his familiar comrades who
emerged from the opening but instead a tall, very thin-legged
arachnid with a delicate body and eyes raised high on the
front of his skull. His forelegs were tied up in an intricate
network of blue silk ribbons and there were matching purple
ones on the rearmost limbs.
One wire-thin leg pointed at Caz, who stood nearest the
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portal, while dozens of spiders of varied size and color
suddenly poured from behind him.
"immobilize them and carry them down!"
"Hey, wait a minute." Jon-Tom was unable to get his staff
around before he'd been seized by half a dozen hooking legs.
Others thrust threatening spears and knives at his belly.
"There has been a mistake." Clothahump was already
disappearing around a comer, carried on his back.
"Put me down or I'll cut your smelly heads off!" All fire
and helpless frustration, Talea was being carted closely be-
hind the wizard.
Then Jon-Tom felt himself turned on his back and borne on
dozens of hairy legs, kicking and protesting with equal lack
of effect.
They went down into darkness. How far he couldn't guess,
but it wasn't long before they were dumped into a silk-and-
stone cell under the imperious direction of the emaciated and
beribboned spider in charge.
The silk lining the chamber was old and filthy. There were
no windows to let in light, only a few oil lamps in the
corridor beyond. Jon-Tom gathered himself up and moved to
inspect the cross-hatched webwork that barred their exit.
It was not sticky to the touch, but was quite invulnerable.
He leaned against it and shouted at their retreating captors.
"Stop, you can't put us in here! We're diplomatic visitors.
We're here to see the Grand Webmistress and...!"
"Save your wind, my friend." Caz stood at the outermost
comer of the cell, squinting up the silk ladder-steps. "They've
gone."
"Shit!" Jon-Tom kicked at an irregular, flattened piece of
shiny material. At first he thought it was a piece of broken
pottery. Closer inspection revealed it was a section of chitin.
It clattered off a stone set in the far wall.
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"God damn that sly-voiced Ananthos. He led us all th
way by making us believe he was our friend."
"He never said he was our friend." Bribbens sat against
wall, his head resting on his knees. "Merely that he w.
doing his duty. Get us this far, then it'd be up to us, he said
The frog chuckled throatily. "Certainly hasn't gone out of h
way to make it easy for us, looks like."
Talea was sniffing the air and frowning. "I don't know it
any of you have noticed it yet, but—"
There was a startled scream. Jon-Tom looked left. Flor had
been standing there. Now she'd fallen forward and landed
hard on the floor. Her foot had vanished through an opening
in the wall and the rest of her was slowly following....
160
x
They hadn't noticed the passageway when they'd been
chucked into the cell. There was no telling where it ran to or
what had hold of Hor. Blood oozed from beneath her nails as
she tried to dig her fingers into the floor.
Jon-Tom was first at her side. Without thinking, he leaned
over and heaved a head-sized rock at her foot. There was a
breathy exclamation of surprise and pain from beyond. She
stopped sliding.
Caz and Mudge half dragged, half carried her across the
cell. Whatever had hold of her had missed her leg, but her
boot was neatly punctured just behind the calf.
As he backed away from the opening several legs scram-
bled through. They were attached to a two-foot-wide bulbous
body of light green with blue stripes and spots. Jon-Tom took
note of the fact that it wore only one black silk scarf tied
around the left rear leg at the uppermost joint.
The visitor was followed closely by a second, smaller
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spider. This one was an electric maroon with a single large
gray rectangle on its abdomen. A third spider squeezed into
their cell, barely clearing the passageway. It was gray-brown
with white circles on cephalothorax and abdomen and had
shockingly red legs. All wore only the single black scarf on
identical limbs.
The three spiders stood confronting the wary knot of
warmlanders.
"what the hell," said the first spider who'd entered, in a
tone so high and flighty it was barely intelligible, "are you?"
"Diplomatic ambassadors," Clothahump informed them,
with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances.
The little arachnid bobbed his head in that maybe yes,
maybe no movement Jon-Tom had come to recognize, "may-
be you're diplomatic ambassadors to you," he said, "but
you're just food to us."
"they look nice and soft," said the big one in a slightly
deeper but still tenebrous voice. His body was a good three
feet across, bulky, and with three foot legs. "diplomats or
blasphemers, ambassador or storage-stealers, what difference
does it make?" He displayed bright red fangs, "dinner is
dinner."
"You think so? Touch one of us again," said Jon-Tom
wamingly, "and I'll shove your fangs down your throat."
The first spider cocked multiple eyes at him. "will you
now, half-limbed?" The latter was an apparent reference to
Jon-Tom's disproportionately fewer number of limbs, "tell
you a thing, if you can do that we'll treat you as something
more than dinner, if you can't"—he pointed with a leg
toward the shivering Flor—"we start with that one for an
appetizer."
"Why her, why not me?"
The spider could not grin, but conveyed that impression
nonetheless, "almost had a taste, she smells full of fluid."
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It was too much for the terrified arachniphobe, that casual
talk of being sucked dry like a lemon. She turned and
vomited.
"there, you see?" said the spider knowingly.
Jon-Tom quelled his own rising nausea. He ignored the
gagging sounds behind him to keep his attention on the big
red-legged spider. It had scuttled off to the side, away from its
companions.
"you can have me if you can get me," it taunted.
"Same goes for me," said Jon-Tom grimly. "Leave the
others out of this."
"we'll do that for a start." The spider was sitting back on
his hind legs, waving the four front limbs ritualistically as it
bobbed from side to side. Then it brought them down and
rushed forward.
It had been a while since Jon-Tom had practiced any
karate. Four years, in fact. But he'd become reasonably good.
before he'd quit. What he hadn't learned was how to attack
something with eight limbs. Not that they would matter if the
spider got those red fangs into him. Even if this particular
arachnid's venom wasn't very toxic, the shock alone might be
enough to kill.
The attacker's intent seemed to involve throwing as many
legs as possible at its prey in order to distract him while the
fangs bit home.
It was possible the spider wouldn't expect an attack. If the
eight limbs were confusing to Jon-Tom, then perhaps his
human length and long legs might equally puzzle the spider.
Besides, the best defense is a good offense, he reasoned.
So he ran at his opponent instead of away from it, keeping
his eyes on his target as he was supposed to and trying hard
to remember. Up on the opposite foot, kick out with the right,
left leg tucked under the other.
Agile claws reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. They
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scraped at Jon-Tom's neck and arms. They didn't prevent his
right foot from landing hard between the eight eyes (there
was no chin to aim for).
The impact traveled up Jon-Tom's leg. He landed awkwardly
on his left foot, stumbled, and fought desperately to regain
his balance.
It wasn't necessary. The spider had stopped in its tracks.
Making mewling noises horribly reminiscent of a lost kitten,
it sat down, rolled over on its back, and clawed at its face.
The leg movements slowed like a clock winding down.
Jon-Tom waited nearby, panting hard in a defensive posture.
The leg movements finally ceased. Green goo dripped from
between the eyes, which no longer shone in the lamplight.
The spider who'd entered the cell first scrabbled over to its
motionless, larger companion.
"damme," he breathed in disbelief, "you've killed jogand."
Jon-Tom caught his breath, frowned. "What do you mean,
I've killed him? I didn't kick him hard enough to kill him."
"dead for sure, for sure," said the smaller spider, turning a
respectful gaze on the man. Blood continued to seep from the
wound.
Fragile exoskeleton, Jon-Tom thought in relief and astonish-
ment. Come to think of it, he'd seen a lot of clubs here.
They'd be very effective against recalcitrant arachnids. In-
stead of a glass jaw, the spider possessed a glass body.
Or maybe he'd just slipped in a lucky blow. Either way...
He glared warily at the remaining pair. "No hard feelings?"
The first spider gazed distastefully down at his dead com-
panion. "jogand always was the impulsive type."
They were distracted by a clattering in the corridor. A
Spider they did not recognize approached the webwork silk
bars. He was not the skinny one with all the ribbons. As they
watched silently, he poured the contents of a pear-shaped
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THE HOUR Or THE GATE
bottle on a section of the bars. They began to dissolve like so
much hot jelly.
Another figure emerged from the shadows to stand just
behind the jailer: Ananthos.
"i am terribly sorry," he told them, waving many legs at
the cell. "this was done without higher orders or good
knowledge, the individual responsible has already been
punished."
"Blimey but if we didn't think you'd sold us over!" said a
relieved Mudge.
Ananthos looked outraged, "i would never do such a
thing, i take my responsibilities seriously, as you well should
know." Then he noticed the corpse on the cell floor, looked
back into the cell.
" 'Twere 'is wizardship there," said Mudge, indicating
Jon-Tom. Ananthos bowed respectfully toward the human.
"a good piece of work. i am sorrowful for the trouble
caused you."
A pathway large enough to allow egress had been made in
me bars. Ananthos' companions moved aside as the prisoners
exited.
The small spider tried to follow Clothahump out and was
promptly clobbered behind the head by one of the guards.
The spider shrank back into the cell.
"not you," muttered the guard, "warmlanders only."
"why not? aren't we part of their party now?" He hooked
foreclaws over the rapidly hardening new bars two of the
guards were spinning.
"you are common criminals," said Ananthos tiredly. "as
you must know, common criminals are not permitted audience
with the grand webmistress."
The little spider hesitated. His head cocked toward Jon-
Tom. "you're going to see the grand webmistress?"
"That's what we've come all this way for."
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"then we'll stay right here. you can't force us to come!'
And both spiders drew back behind the bleeding corpse of
their dead companion, scuttled for the tunnel leading to their
own cell.
Their sudden shift sparked uncomfortable thoughts in John
Tom's mind as he followed Talea's twisting form up the
stairwell they'd so recently been hustled down.
"What do you suppose he meant by that?" She looked
back down at him and shrugged.
"i told you i could do nothing for you beyond bringing you
to gossameringue," Ananthos explained, "it must be consid
ered that the webmistress not only might not assist you but
may condemn you to rejoin those rabble in their hole," and
he gestured with a leg back down the stairs.
"So we could find ourselves right back in jail?" asked
Flor.
"or worse." He continued to point downward with the
waving, silk-swathed leg. "i hope you will not hold what
occurred down there against me. a chamberiaine overstepped
her authority."
"We know it wasn't yc'ir fault," said Clothahump reassur-
ingly. Pog seemed about to add something but kept his mouth
shut at a warning glance from the wizard.
Before long they had retraced their ignominious descent
and stood before the high, arching doorway flanked by the
two immense guards. A small blue spider met them there. He
was full of apologies and anxiety.
When he'd finished bobbing and weaving, he beckoned
them to follow.
The chamber they entered was high and dark. A few
narrow windows were set in the rear wall. Only a couple of
lamps burned uncertainly in their wall holders, shedding
reluctant amber light on vast lounges and pillows of richly
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THE HOUR Or THE GATE
colored silk. It did not occur to anyone to wonder what they
were stuffed with.
More surprising was the large quantity of decorative art.
There were sculptures in metal and wood, in stone anc
embalmed spider silk. Gravity-defying mobiles stretched frorr
ceiling to floor. Some were cleverly lit from within by tin;
lamps or candles. Some of the sculpture was representational
but a surprising amount was abstract. Silken parallelograms
vied with stress patterns for floor space. The colors of both
sculptures and furniture were subdued in shade but bright of
hue: orange, crimson, black and purple, deep blues and
deeper greens. There were no pastels.
"the grand webmistress Oil bids you welcome, strangers
from a far land," the little spider piped, "i leave you now."
He turned and scurried quickly out the doorway.
"i must go also," said Ananthos. He hesitated, then
added, "some of your ideas mark you almost akin to the
eternal weave, perhaps we shall meet again some day."
"I hope so," said Jon-Tom, whispering without knowing
why. He watched as the spider followed the tiny herald in
retreat.
They walked farther into the chamber. Clothahump put
hands on nonexistent hips, murmured impatiently, "Well,
where are you, madam?"
"up here!" The voice was hardly stentorian, but it was a
good deal richer than the breathy weaver whispers they'd had
to contend with thus far; chocolate mousse compared to
chocolate pudding. It seemed the voice had slight but definite
feminine overtones, but Jon-Tom decided he might be
anthropomorphosizing as he stood there in the near darkness.
"here," said the voice once more. The eyes of the visitors
traveled up, up, and across the ceiling. High in the right-hand
comer of the chamber was a vast, sparkling mass of the finest
silk. It had been inlaid with jewels and bits of metal in
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delicate mosaic until it sucked all the light out of the two
feeble lamps and threw it back in the gaze of any fortunate
onlookers. The silk itself had been arranged in tiny abstract
geometric forms that fit together as neatly as the pieces of a
silver puzzle.
A vast black globe slid over the side of the silken bower.
On a thin thread it fell slowly toward the chamber floor, like a
huge drop of petroleum. It was not as large as the massive
tarantulas guarding the entryway, but it was far bulkier than
Ananthos and most of the other arachnid inhabitants of
Gossameringue. The bulbous abdomen was nearly three feet
across. Save for a brilliant and all too familiar orange-red
hourglass splashed across the underside of the abdomen, the
body appeared to be encased in black steel.
Multiple black eyes studied the visitors expressionlessly.
The spinnerets daintily snipped the abdomen free from the
trailing silk cable. Settling down on tiptoe, the eight legs
folded neatly beneath the body. Then the enormous black
widow was resting comfortably on a sprawling red cushion,
preening one fang with a leg tip.
"i am the grand webmistress OU," the polite horror
informed them. "you must excuse the impoliteness of cleaning
my mouth, but my husband was in for breakfast and we have
only just now finished."
Jon-Tom knew something of the habits of black widows.
He eyed the jeweled boudoir above and shuddered.
Clothahump, unfazed by the Grand Webmistress' appear-
ance, stepped briskly to the fore. Once again he laid out the
reason for their extraordinary journey. He detailed their expe-
riences on the Swordsward, in the Earth's Throat, related the
magical crossing of Helldrink. Even in his dry, mechanical
voice the retelling was impressive.
The Grand Webmistress Oil listened intently, occasionally
permitting herself a whispered expression of awe or apprecia-
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tion. Clothahump rambled on, telling of the peculiar new evil
raised by the Plated Folk and their imminent invasion of the
wannlands.
Finally he finished the tale. It was silent in the chamber for
several minutes.
011's first reaction was not expected, "you! come a little
nearer." She finally had to raise a leg and point, since it was
impossible to tell exactly where those lidless black eyes were
looking.
She pointed at Jon-Tom.
His hesitation was understandable. After the initial shock
of their appearance, he'd been able to overcome his instinc-
tive reactions to the spiders. He'd done so to a point where
he'd grown fond of Ananthos and his companions, to a point
where he could allow curious spideriings to clamber over his
body. Even the three antisocial types they'd encountered in
the cells below had seemed more abhorrent for their viciousness
than their shape.
But the dark, swollen body before him was representative
of a kind he'd been taught to fear since childhood. It brought
to the surface fears that laughed at logic and reason.
A hand was nudging him from behind. He looked down,
saw Clothahump staring anxiously at him.
"come, come, fellow," said the Webmistress. "i've just
eaten." A feathery, thick laugh, "you look as though you'd
be all bone, anyway."
Jon-Tom moved closer. He tried to see the Webmistress in
a matronly cast. Still, he couldn't keep his gaze entirely away
from the dark fangs barely hidden in their sheaths. Just a
graze from one would kill him instantly, even if the widow's
venom had been somewhat diluted by her increased size.
A black leg, different from any he'd yet encountered in
Gossameringue, touched his shouMtBr. It traveled down his
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arm, then his side. He could feel it through his shirt and
pants.
Close now, he was able to note the delicate and nearly
transparent white silks that encompassed much of the shining
black body. They had been embroidered with miniature scenes
of Gossameringue life. Attire impressive and yet sober enough
for a queen, he thought.
"what is your name, fellow?"
"Jon-Tom. At least, that's what my friends call me."
"i will not trouble you with my entire name," was the
reply, "it would take a long time and you would not remem-
ber it anyhow, you may call me Oil." The head shifted past
him. "so may you all. as you are not citizens of the
scuttleteau, you need show no special deference to me."
Again the clawed, shiny leg moved down his front. He did
not flinch, "do you also support the claims and statements of
the small hard-shelled one?" Another leg gestured at
Clothahump.
"I do."
"well, then." She rested quietly for a moment. Then she
glanced up once more at Jon-Tom. "why should we care
what happens to the peoples of the warmlands?"
"You have to," Clothahump began importantly, "because
it is evident that if—"
"be silent." She waved a leg imperiously at the wizard, "i
did not ask you."
Clothahump obediently shut up. Not because he was afraid
of me large, poisonous body but because pragmatism is a
virtue all true wizards share.
"now, you may answer," she said more softly to Jon-Tom.
History, he told himself, trying not to stare at those fangs
so near. Try to see in this massive, deadly form the same
grace and courtesy you've observed in the other arachnids
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you've met. To answer the question, remember your history.
Because if you don't...
"It's quite easily explained. Are not you and the Plated
Folk ancient enemies?"
"we bear no love for the inhabitants of me greendowns,
nor they for us," was the ready reply.
"Isrft it clear, then? If they are successful in conquering all
of the warmlands, what's to prevent mem from coming for
you next?"
There was dark humor lacing the reply, "if they do there
will be such a mass feasting as gossameringue has never
seen!"
Jon-Tom thought back to something Clothahump had told
him. "Oil, in thousands of years and many, many attempts
the Plated Folk have failed even to get past the Jo-Troom
Gate, which blocks the Pass leading from the Greendowns to
me warmlands."
"that is a name and place i have heard of, though no
weaver hasever been there."
"Despite this, Clothahump, who is the greatest of wizards
and whose opinion I believe in all such things, insists this
new magic me Plated Folk have obtained control of may
enable them to finally overthrow the peoples of the warmlands.
After hundreds of previous failures.
"If they can do that after thousands of years of failure,
why should they not do so to you as well? A thousand swords
can't fight a single magic."
"we have our own wizards to defend us," Oil replied, but
she was clearly troubled by Jon-Tom's words. She looked
past him. "how do i know you are all the wizard this fellow
says you are?"
Clothahump looked distressed. "Oh ye gods of blindness
that cloud the vision of disbelieving mortals, not another
demonstration!"
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Alan Dean Foster
"it will be painless." She turned and called to the shad-
ows. "ogalugh!"
A frail longlegs came tottering out from behind a high pile
of cushions. Jon-Tom wondered if he'd been listening back
there all along or if he'd just recently arrived. He barely had
the strength to carry the thin silks that enveloped his upper
body and ran in spirals down his legs.
He looked at Clothahump. "what is the highest level of the
plenum?"
"Thought."
"by what force may one fly through the airs atop a
broom?"
"Antigravity."
"what is the way of turning common base metals into
gold?"
Clothahump's contemptuous and slightly bored expression
suddenly paled.
"Well, uh, that is of course no easy matter. You require the
entire formula, of course, and not merely the descriptive term
applied to the methodology."
"of course," agreed the swaying inquisitor.
"Base metal Into gold, my... it has been a while since
I've had occasion to think on that."
Quit stalling, Jon-Tom urged the wizard silently. Give them
an answer, any answer. Then the truth will come out in the
arguing. But say something.
"You need four lengths of sea grass, a pentagram with the
number six carefully set in each point, the words for shifting
electron valences, and... and..."
The Grand Webmistress, the sorcerer Ogalugh, and the
other inhabitants of the chamber waited anxiously.
"And you need... you need," and the wizard looked up so
assuredly it seemed impossible he'd forgotten something so
basic for even a moment, "a pinch of pitchblende."
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THE HOUR Of THE GATE
Ogalugh turned to face the expectant Oil, spoke while
bobbing and weaving his head. "our visitor is in truth, a
wizard webmistress. how great i cannot say from three
questions, but he is of at least the third order." Clothahump
harrumphed but confined his protest to that.
"none but the most experienced and knowledgeable among
the weavers of magic would know the last formula." He
tottered over to rest a feathery leg on the turtle's shoulder.
"i welcome you to gossameringue as a colleague."
"Thank you." Clothahump nodded importantly, began to
look pleased with himself.
The longlegs addressed Oil. "it may be that these visitors
are all that they claim, webmistress. the fact that they have
made so perilous a journey without assurance of finding at its
end so much as a friendly welcome is proof alone of high
purpose, i fear therefore that the words of my fellow wizard
are truth."
"a troublesome thing if true," said the webmistress, "a
most troublesome thing if true." She eyed Jon-Tom. "there
has been hatred and enmity between the plated folk and the
people of the scuttleteau for generations untold, if they can
conquer the inhabitants of the warmlands then it may be, as
you say, that they can also threaten us." She paused in
thought, then climbed lithely to her feet.
"it will be as it must be, though heretofore it has never
been." She stood close by Jon-Tom, the hump of her abdo-
men nearly reaching his shoulder, "the weavers will join the
people of the warmlands. we will do so not to help you but to
help ourselves, better the children of the scuttleteau have
company in dying." She turned to face Clothahump.
"bearer of bad truths, how much time do we have?"
"Very little, I would suspect."
"then i will order the calling put out everywhere on the
Scuttleteau this very day. it will take time to assemble the best
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Alan Dean Foster
fighters from the far reaches, yet that is not the foremost of
our problems, it is one perhaps you might best solve, since
the proof of your abilities as travelers is not to be denied."
She studied the little group of visitors.
"how in the name of the eternal weave are we to get to the
jo-troom gate? we know only that it lies south to southwest of
the scuttleteau. we cannot go back through the earth's throat,
the way you've come to us. even if so large a group could
cross helldrink, my people will not chance the chanters."
"Offspring of the Massawrath," Caz murmured to Mudge.
"Can't say as I blame them. I'm still not sure it wasn't blind
luck that got us through there, not sensible actions."
"I don't want to go back myself," said Talea.
"Nor me, Master," said Pog, hanging from a strand of dry
silk overhead.
"Then it follows that if we cannot return by our first route
we must make a new one southward."
"through the mountains?" Ogalugh did not sound enthusiastic.
"Are they so impassable then?" Clothahump asked him.
"no one knows, we are familiar with the mountains of the
scuttleteau and to some small extent those surrounding us, but
we are not fond of sharp peaks and unmelting snows, many
would perish on such a journey, unless a good route exists, if
one does, we do not know of it."
"so it will be up to you, experienced travelers, to seek out
such a path," stated the queen.
"your pardon, webmistress," said the spindly sorcerer,
"but there are a people who might know such a way, though
they would have no need or use of it themselves."
"why must wizards always talk in riddles? whom do you
speak of, ogalugh?"
"the people of the iron cloud."
Rich, whispery laughter filled the chamber, "the people of
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THE. HOUR Of THE GATE
the iron cloud indeed! they will have nothing to do with
anyone."
"that is so, webmistress, but our visitors are experienced
travelers of the mind as well as the land, for have they not
this very instant convinced us to join with them?"
"we are but independent," Oil replied, "the people of the
iron cloud are paranoid."
"rumor and innuendo spread by unsuccessful traders who
have returned from their land empty-clawed, it is true they are
less than social, but that does not mean they will not listen."
He turned to face Jon-Tom.
"they are much like some of you, friend, like yourself, and
those two there," he pointed to Mudge and Caz, "and that
one above," and he pointed now at Pog.
"They sound most interesting," said Clothahump. "I con-
fess I know nothing of them."
"Are they good fighters?" Flor wondered. "Maybe we can
get more out of them than directions."
"they are great warriors," admitted Ogalugh readily, "but
you speak so facilely of making allies of them. you do not
understand, they are interested in nothing save themselves,
- will support no causes but their own."
"That's just what we were told to expect of the Weavers,"
Jon-Tom said with becoming boldness.
"but we are sensible enough to see advantage and necessi-
ty where they occur," Oil argued back. "the people of the
iron cloud, i am told, are unaffected by events elsewhere.
they are protected by their indifference and their isolation."
"Nothing is safe from the evil the Plated Folk build," said
Clothahump somberly.
"i am already convinced, wizard," she said. "convince
the ironclouders: not me. it will be enough if they can show
our fighters the way through the southern peaks."
"I have some small diplomatic skill," said Clothahump
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immodestly. "I believe we can persuade them to do that, at
least."
"perhaps, you must, or we can be of no help to you and
your peoples, no matter what the plated ones decide to do. we
will march when ready, but if we cannot find a way, we will
be forced to turn back.
"i will send from among the weavers a personal representa-
tive. perhaps the proof that we have joined with you will help
to convince the people of the iron cloud, in any case,
someone will be necessary to come back to report on the
results of your mission, be it successful or not."
"Not to preempt your prerogatives. Oil," said Caz careful-
ly. "but if we might be permitted to choose the repre-
sentative ... ?"
"Sure," said Jon-Tom quickly, turning to face the
Webmistress. "Would it be okay if a river guard named
Ananthos served as your representative?"
"ananthos... i do not know the name. a common river
guard, you say?"
"Yes. He's the one who brought us here."
"a common river guard of uncommon discernment, then.
but still, it should be someone of higher rank."
"Please, Oil," 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!"
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THE HOUR Of THE GATE
"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
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Alan Dean Foster
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 some-
what 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 repeat-
ed 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 go
halfway to the portal, then turned and walked back to her.
"the audience is at an end," Oil told him somewhat less
than politely.
"I'm sorry. But I have to know something. Then I'll leav<
you to your privacy."
Fathomless eyes regarded him quietly, "ask then."
"Why did you single me out to talk with, instead o
Clothahump or Caz or one of the others?"
"why? oh, because of your delightful and inspiring selec
tion 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
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
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....
179
XI
It was terrible in the mountains.
Higher peaks towered to east and west, but as they moved
south they were traversing the wmdswept flanks of Zaryt's
Teeth, where they merged with the lower but still impres-
sive 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 flumes. The
day after that they were stumbling through a modest blizzard.
Oil'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 far
coat.
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Alan Dean Poster
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 discom-
forts 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 estab-
lished in the shelter of a small cave. Jon-Tom and Plor 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
sender 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 rout&
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
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THE HOUR OF THK GATE
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 temper-
ature wanned considerably, though it did not rise above
freezing.
As if to compensate they were confronted with another
danger: snow blindness. The brilliant Alpine sun ricochetted
off snowbanks and glacier fronts, turning everything to shock-
ing, 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 be-
tween 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.
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Alan Dean Foster
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 mountain-
side 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
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THE HOUK Of THE GATE
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 there 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 neces-
sary 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
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Alan Dean Foster
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 wamingly.
"Yeah, I know, I know, boss. Go to it or ya'll turn me into
a human or worse." He sighed, unfurled his wings experi-
mentally.
"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 encour-
agement 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
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TBE HOUR OF THE GATE
and check out one or two caves, see if this place is really as
deserted as it looks. If it is, maybe you'll leam 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
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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 told 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 time's up, old Clothamuck will have forgotten da formu-
la for transforming ya.
But, oh my, dat cave mouth looming just ahead is dark!
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Empty, dough. His eyes as wen 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 utensils were also confusing rather than enlightening.
A little light reached the chamber from the cave opening, but
his sonar was still searching the surroundings as though it
were pitch dark. His heart beat almost as rapidly. Finish dis,
he told himself frantically. Finish it, and get out.
Several additional chambers branched from the back of the
one he was studying. He would begin with the one immedi-
ately on his right and work his way through them. Then
Clothahump couldn't say he'd made only a superficial inspec-
tion and order him to return.
It turned out to be a pantry-kitchen arrangement. It was
discouraging to find that whoever had lived in the cave was
omnivorous. In addition to instruments for preparing meat
and fruit there was also a surprising garbage pile of small
insect carcasses and empty nuts.
It was an eclectic and indiscriminate diet. Perhaps it also
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included bats. He shuddered, drew his wings tighter around
his small body. One more room, he told himself. One more,
and den if da boss wants more info he can damn well climb
up and look for himself.
He entered the next chamber, found more furniture and
little else. He was ready to leave when something tickled his
sonar. He turned.
A pair of huge, glowing yellow eyes stared down at him.
Their owner was at least seven feet tall and each of those
luminous orbs was as big around as a human face. Pog
stuttered but couldn't squeeze out word or shout.
"Hooooooo," said the voice beneath those fathomless eyes
in a long, querulous, and slightly irritated tone, "the hell are
yoooooo?"
Pog was backing toward the chamber exit. Something
sharp and unyielding pricked his back.
"Tolafay asked you a question, interloper! Better answer
him." The new voice was completely different from the first,
high and almost human.
Pog glanced over his shoulder, saw eyes not as large as the
first pair he'd encountered but larger still in proportion to the
body of their owner. Four yellow eyes, four malevolent little
angry suns, swam in a dizzying circle around his head. He
started to slump.
The sharp thing moved, poked him firmly in the side.
"And don't faint on us, interloper, or I'll see your body
leaves your gizzard behind...."
'^What the devil's keeping him?" Jon-Tom stared with
concern up at the cave where Pog had vanished.
"Maybe they go very deep into the mountainside," Talea
suggested hopefully. "It may take him a while to get all the
way in and all the way out again."
"Perhaps." Bribbens stared longingly at a small creek that
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
flowed from the base of an icefall across the barren little
plateau. "How I long for a boat again." He lifted one of his
enormous, snowshoed feet.
"Walking's beginning to get to me. No fit occupation for a
riverman."
"If it's any consolation I'd rather be on a boat myself just
now," said Jon-Tom.
Then Mudge was gesturing excitedly upward. "Ease off it,
mates! 'Ere 'e comes!"
"And damned if he hasn't got company." Talea unsheathed
her sword, stood ready and waiting for whatever might drop
out of the sky.
Pog drifted down toward them, a black crepe-paper cutout
against the bright sky. He was paced by a similar silhouette
several times more massive, with a distinctly animate lump
attached to its back.
Dozens of other fliers poured from the perforated cloud-
cliff like water from a sieve. They did not descend but instead
blended together to create a massive, threatening spiral above
the plateau.
Talea reluctantly placed her sword back in its holder.
"Doesn't look like they've hurt Pog. We might as well
assume they're friendly, considering how badly we're
outnumbered."
"Characteristic understatement, flame-fur." Caz's monocle
waltzed with the sun as he craned his neck to inspect the
soaring whirlpool overhead. "I make out at least two hundred
of them. Size varies, but the shape is roughly the same. I
think they're all owls. I've never heard of such a concentrated
community of them as this, not even in Polastrindu, which
has a respectable population of noctural arboreals."
"It is odd," Clothahump agreed. "They are antisocial and
zealously guard their privacy, which fits with what the Weav-
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ers told us about the psychology of Ironcloud's inhabitants.
Yet they appear to have established a community here."
Pog touched down on the high boulder he'd so recently
tried to hide behind. The flier shadowing him braked ten-foot
wings. The force of the backed air nearly knocked Flor oft
her feet.
The creature took a couple of dainty steps, ruffled its
feathers, and stood staring at them. The high tufts atop She
head identified this particular individual as a Great Homed
Owl. Jon-Tom found himself more impressed with those great
eyes, like pools of speculative sulfur, than by the creature's
size.
The lump attached to its back, which even Caz had not
been able to identify, now detached itself from the light,
high-backed saddle it had been straddling. It slid decorative
earmuffs down to its neck, unsnapped its poncho, and leaned
against its companion's left wing.
Now the spiral high above started to break up. Most of she
fliers returned to their respective caves in the hematite. A few
assumed watchful positions.
Jon-Tom eyed the lemur standing close to the owl. It was
no longer a mystery who made use of the thin, knotted vines
fringing the cave mouths. With their diminutive bodies and
powerful prehensile fingers and toes, the lemurs could travel
up and down the cables as easily as Jon-Tom could circle an
oval track.
Pog glided down from the crest of his boulder and sauntered
over to rejoin his friends. "Dis guy's called Tolafay." He
gestured with a wingtip at the glowering owl. "His skymate's
named Malu."
The lemur stepped forward. He was barely three feet tall.
"Your friend explained much to us."
"Yes. Quite a story it was, tooooo." The owl smoothed the
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folds of its white, green, and black kilt. "I'm not sure how
much of it I believe," he added gruffly.
"We have managed to convince half a world," replied
Clothahump impatiently. "Time grows short. Civilization
teeters on the edge of the abyss. Surely I need not repeat our
whole tale again?"
"I don't think you have to," said Malu. He indicated the
watchful Ananthos. "The mere fact that a Weaver, citizen of
a notoriously xenophobic state, is traveling as ally with you is
proof enough that something truly extraordinary is going on."
"look who is calling another 'xenophobic,'" whispered
Ananthos surlily.
"It had better be extraordinary," the owl grumbled. He
used a flexible wing tip to wipe one saucer-sized eye. "You've
awakened all of Ironcloud from its daily rest. The populace
will require a reasonable explanation." He blinked, shielding
his face as the sun emerged from behind a stray cloud.
"How you can live with that horrid light burning your eyes
is something I'll never understand."
"Oh very well," said Clothahump with a sigh. "You will
convey details of our situation to your leader or mayor or—"
"We have no single leader," said the owl, mildly outraged.
"We have neither council nor congress. We coexist in peace,
without the burdens imposed by noisome government."
"Then how do you make communal decisions?" Jon-Tom
asked curiously.
The owl eyed him as though he represented a lower
species. "We respect one another."
"There will be a feasting tonight," said Malu, trying to
lighten the atmosphere. "We can discuss your request then."
"That's not necessary," said Flor.
"But it is," the lemur argued. "You see, we can welcome
you either as enemies or as guests. There will be a feasting
either way."
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"I believe I follow your meaning." Caz spoke drily, eyeing
Tolafay's razor-sharp beak, which was quite capable of snap-
ping him in half. "I sincerely hope, then, that we can look
forward to being greeted as guests...."
They gathered that evening in a chamber far larger than
any of the others. Jon-Tom wondered at the force, technolog-
ical or natural, which could have hollowed such a space in the
almost solid iron.
It was dimly lit by lamp but more brightly than usual in
deference to the Ironclouders' vision-poor visitors. Trophy
feathers and lizard skins decorated the curving walls. Nearly
a hundred of the great owls of all species and sizes reveled in
music and dance along with their lemur companions.
Their guests observed the spectacle of feathers and fur with
pleasure. It was comfortably warm in the cave, the first time
since departing Gossameringue any of them had been really
warm.
The music was strange, though not as strange as its
sources. Nearby a great white barn owl stood in pink-green
kilt playing a cross between a tuba and a flute. It held the
instrument firmly with flexible wing tips and one clawed foot,
balancing neatly on the other while pecking out the melody
with a precision no mere pair of lips could match.
Owls and lemurs spilled out on the great circular iron floor,
dancing and spinning while their companions at the huge
curved tables ate and drank their fill. It was wonderful to
watch those great wings spinning and flaying at the air as the
owls executed jigs and reels with their comparatively tiny but
incredibly agile primate companions. Claws and tiny padded
feet slipped and hopped in and around each other without
missing a beat.
The night was half dead when Jon-Tom leaned over to ask
Ror, "Where's Clothahump?"
"I don't know." She stopped sipping from the narrow-
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
mouthed drinking utensil she'd been given. "Isn't he magnif-
icent?" Her eyes were glowing almost as brightly as those of
an acrobat performing incredible leaps before their table, his
long middle fingers tracing patterns in the air. A beautiful
female sifaka joined him, and the dance-gymnastics contin-
ued without a pause.
Jon-Tom put the question to the furry white host on his
other side.
"I don't know either, my friend," said Malu. "I have not
seen the hard-shelled oldster all evening."
"Don't worry yourself, Jon-Tom." Caz looked at him from
another seat down. "Our wizard is rich in knowledge, but not
rich in the ability to enjoy himself. Leave him to his private
meditations. Who knows when again we will have an oppor-
tunity for such rare entertainment as this?" He gestured
grandly toward the dancers.
But the concern took hold of Jon-Tom's thoughts and
would not let go. As he surveyed the room, he saw no sign of
Pog, either. That was still more unusual, familiar as he was
with the bat's preferences. He should have been out on the
floor, teasing and flirting with some lithesome screech owl.
Yet he was nowhere about.
Jon-Tom's companions were having too good a time to
notice his departure from the table. In response to his ques-
tions a potted tarsier with incredibly bloodshot eyes pointed
toward a tunnel leading deeper into the mountainside. Jon-
Tom hurried down it. Noise and music faded behind him.
He almost ran past the room when he heard a familiar
moaning: the wizard's voice. He threw aside the curtain
barring the entryway.
Lying on a delicate bunk that sagged beneath his weight
was the wizard's bulky body. He'd withdrawn arms and legs
into his shell so that only his head protruded. It bobbed and
twisted in an unnerving parody of the head movements of the
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Weavers. Only the whites of his eyes showed. His glasses lay
clean and folded on a nearby stool.
"Hush!" a voice warned him. Looking upward Jon-Tom
saw Pog dangling from a lamp holder. The flickering wick
behind him made his wings translucent.
"What is it?" Jon-Tom whispered, his attention on the
lightly moaning wizard. "What's the matter?" The echoes of
revelry reached them faintly. He no longer found the music
invigorating. Something important was happening in this little
room.
Pog gestured with a finger. "Da master lies in a trance
I've seen only a few times before. He can't, musn't be
disturbed."
So the two waited, watching the quivering, groaning shape
in fascination. Pog occasionally fluttered down to wipe mois-
ture from the wizard's open eyes, while Jon-Tom guarded the
doorway against interruptions.
It is a terrible thing to hear an old person, human 01
otherwise, moan like that. It was the helpless, weak sound a
sick child might make. From time to time there were snatches
and fragments of nearly recognizable words. Mostly, though,
the high singsong that filled the room was unintelligible
nonsense.
It faded gradually. Clothahump settled like a fallen cake.
His quivering and head-bobbing eased away.
Pog flapped his wings a couple of times, stretched, and
drifted down to examine the wizard. "Da master sleeps
now," he told the exhausted Jon-Tom. "He's worn
out."
"But what was it all about?" the man asked. "What was
the purpose of the trance?"
"Won't know till he wakes up. Got ta do it naturally.
Dere's nothin' ta do but wait."
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Jon-Tom eyed the comatose form uncertainly. "Are you
sure he'll come out of it?"
Pog shrugged. "Always has before. He better. He owes
me...."
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XII
Once there were inquiring words at the curtain and Jon-
Tom had to go outside to explain them away. Time passed,
the distant music faded. He slept.
A great armored spider was treading ponderously after
him, all weaving palps and dripping fangs. Run as he might
he could not outdistance it. Gradually his legs gave out, his
wind failed him. The monster was upon him, leering down at
his helpless, pinioned body. The fangs descended but not into
his chest. Instead, they were picking off his fingers, one at a
time.
"Now you can't play music anymore," it rumbled at him.
"Now you'll have to go to law school... aha ha ha!"
A hand was shaking him. "Da master's awake, Jon-Tom
friend."
Jon-Tom straightened himself. He'd been asleep on the
floor, leaning back against the chamber wall. Clothahump
was sitting up on the creaking wicker bed, rubbing his lower
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jaw. He donned his spectacles, then noticed Jon-Tom. His
gaze went from the man to his assistant and back again.
"I now know the source," he told them brightly, "of the
new evil obtained by the Plated Folk. I know now from
whence comes the threat!"
Jon-Tom got to his feet, dusted at himself, and looked
anxiously at the wizard. "Well, what is it?"
"I do not know."
"But you just said... ?"
"Yes, yes, but I do know and yet I don't." The wizard
sounded very tired. "It is a mind. A wonderfully wise mind.
An intelligence of a reach and depth I have never before
encountered, filled with knowledge I cannot fathom. It con-
tains mysteries I do not pretend to understand, but that it is
dangerous and powerful is self-evident."
"That seems clear enough," said Jon-Tom. "What kind of
creature is it? Whose head is it inside?"
"Ah, that is the part I do not know." There was worry and
amazement in Clothahump's voice. "I've never run across a
mind like it. One thing I was able to tell, I think." He
glanced up at the tall human. "It's dead."
Pog hesitated, then said, "But if it's dead, how can it help
da Plated Folk?"
"I know, I know," Clothahump grumbled sullenly, "it
makes no sense. Am I expected to be instantly conversant
with all the mysteries of the Universe!"
"Sorry," said Jon-Tom. "Pog and I only hoped that—"
"Forget it, my boy." The wizard leaned back against the
black wall and waved a weary hand at him. "I learned no
more than I'd hoped to, and hope remains where knowledge
is scarce." He shook his head sadly.
"A mind of such power and ability, yet nonetheless as dead
as the rock of this chamber. Of that I am certain. And yet
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Eejakrat of the Plated Polk has found a means by which he
can make use of that power."
"A zombie," muttered Jon-Tom.
"I do not know the term," said Clothahump, "but I accept
it. I will accept anything that explains this awful contradic-
tion. Sometimes, my boy, knowledge can be more confusing
than mere ignorance. Surely the universe holds still greater
though no more dangerous contradictions than this inventive,
cold mind." He reached a decision.
"Now that I am sensitized to this mind, I am confident we
can locate it. We must find out whose it is and destroy him or
her, for I had no sense of whether the possessor is male or
female."
"But we can't do dat, Master," Pog argued, "because as
you say dis brain is under da control of da great sorcerer
Eejakrat, and Eejakrat stays in Cugluch."
"Capital city of the Plated Folk," Clothahump reminded
Jon-Tom.
"Dat's right enough. So it's obvious dat we can't.. .we
can't..." The words came to a halt as Pog's eyes grew wide
as a lemur's. "No, Master!" he muttered, his voice filled
with dread. "We can't. We can't possibly!"
"On the contrary, famulus, it is quite possible that we can.
Of course, I shall first discuss it with the rest of our
companions."
"Discuss what?" Jon-Tom was afraid he already knew the
answer.
"Why, traveling into Cugluch to find this evil and obliter-
ate it, my boy. What else could a civilized being do?"
"What else indeed." Jon-Tom had resigned himself to
going. Could this Cugluch be worse than the Earth's Throat?
Pog seemed to think so, but then Pog was terrified of his own
shadow.
Clothahump's strength had returned. He slid off the bed,
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started for the doorway. "We must consult the rest of our
party."
"They may not all be in a condition to understand,"
Jon-Tom warned him. "We have generous hosts, you know."
"A night of harmless pleasure is good for the soul now and
then, my boy. Though it should never descend to unconscious-
ness. I am pleased to see that you have retained control of
yourself."
"So far," said Jon-Tom fervently, "but after what you've
just proposed, I may change my mind."
"It will not be so bad," said the wizard, clapping him on
the waist as they swung aside the concealing curtain and
moved out into the tunnel. "There will be some danger, but
we have survived that several times over."
"Yeah, but it's not like an innoculation," Jon-Tom muttered.
"We haven't become immune. We keep taking risks and
sooner or later they've got to catch up with us." He ducked to
avoid a low section of iron ceiling.
"We shall do our best, my boy, to see that it is later."
Pog remained behind, hanging quietly from the oil lamp in
the now empty room. He considered remaining behind
permanently. The Ironclouders would shelter him, he was
sure.
That would mean no transformation, of course. All that
he'd suffered at the wizard's hands, and mouth, would
have been for naught. Also, as the only arboreal of the
group, he knew how they depended on him for reconnaisance
and such.
Besides, better death than life cursed by unrequited love.
He let free of the lamp, dipped in the air, and soared oin
into the tunnel after the two wizards.
There was the anticipated debate and argument the nexl
morning. One by one, as before, the various members of the
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little group were won over by Clothahump's assurances,
obstinacy, and veiled threats.
Their course decided, it was time to ascertain the position
taken during the night by the inhabitants of Ironcloud. Five of
the great owls faced Ihe travelers on the plateau below the
cave city. Two were homed, two pale bam, and one a tiny
hoot, who was smaller than Pog but equal in dignity to his
massive feathered brothers. With them were five lemurs. The
sun was not yet up.
"We do not doubt your seriousness nor the truth you tell,"
Tolafay was saying, "nor the worth of your mission, but still
we doubted whether it was worth breaking a rule of hundreds
of years of noninvolvement in the arguments of others." He
gestured at Ananthos.
"Yet we share such feelings with the inhabitants of the
Scuttleteau and they have nonetheless agreed to help you. So
we will help, too." Murmurs of agreement came from his
companions.
"That's settled, then," said a satisfied Clothahump. "You
will be valuable allies in the coming war and—"
"A moment, please." One of the lemurs stepped forward.
He had a high, stiff collar and light vest above billowing
pantaloons of bright yellow. "We did not say that we'd be
your allies. We said we'd help.
"You asked us to give the Weavers permission to travel
through our country and to provide a route southward through
the mountains so they can reach the Swordsward and then
make their way to the Jo-Troom Gate you speak of. That's
what we'll do. We'll also try and find you a way to the
Greendowns. But we won't fight."
"But I thought—" Jon-Tom began.
"No!" snapped one of the other owls. "Absolutely no. We
simply can't do any more for yooooo. Don't ask it of us."
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"But surely—" A restraining hand touched Talea and she
quieted.
"It is more than we'd hoped for, friends. It will suffice."
Clothahump turned to face Ananthos. "We have the allies we
came to find."
"so you do," said the spider at last, "provided the army
can be assembled in time to make the march."
"I can only hope that it does," the wizard told him
solemnly, "because the fate of several worlds may depend on
it."
"Not Ironctoud," said another of the owls smugly. "Ironcloud
is impregnable to assault by land or air."
"So it is," agreed Caz casually, "but not by magic."
"We'll take our chances," said Tolafay firmly.
"Then there's nothing more to be said." Clothahump
nodded.
Wordlessly the Ironclouders departed, owl and primate
soaring to join their brethren high in the night sky. Great
wings and glowing eyes shone as the night hunters returned in
twos and threes to their black home. They filled the air
between earth and moon.
Another pair lifted from the plateau, heading for interior
darkness and a good, warm day's sleep. Jon-Tom could
only hope those homes would be as invulnerable as their
inhabitants believed from the eventual attacks of the Plated
Polk.
The last of the lemurs stared at them curiously while her
companion owl kicked impatiently at the ground. The sun had
peeked over the eastern crags and those great eyes were
three-quarters closed in half sleep.
"There's one tiling I'd like to know. How do you warmlanders
expect to penetrate Cugluch?"
"Disguise," Clothahump told her confidently.
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"You do not look much like Plated Folk," replied the
lemur doubtfully.
Clothahump shook a finger at her, spoke knowingly. "The
greatest disguise is assurance. We will be protected because
no Plated One would believe our presence. And where
assurance operates, magic is not far behind."
The lemur shrugged. "I think you are all fools, brave
fools, and soon-to-be-dead fools. But we will show the
Weavers the path they require and you the path to your
Deaths." She looked upward. "Your guides come."
.Two owls descended to join them. One motioned to the
waiting Ananthos. The Weaver trembled slightly as he made
his farewells.
"we shall meet at the gate," he told them. "that is, if I
survive this journey, i am not afraid of heights, but I have
never been in a high place where i could not break a fall by
attaching silk to some solid object, you cannot spin from a
cloud."
He climbed on the owl's back, waved legs at them. The
owl took a few steps, flapping mighty wings, and then soared
into the air of morning. He wore dark shades to protect him
from the sunlight.
They watched until the wings became a black line on the
horizon. Then the pair faded even from Caz's view.
The small hoot owl stood muttering to herself nearby. Her
kilt was black, purple, and yellow. "I'm Imanooo," she
informed them brusquely. "Let's get on with this. I'll point
you the way for two days, but that's all. Then you're on
your own."
The remaining lemur mounted his saddle. "I still think
you're all fools, but," he smiled broadly, "many a brave fool
has succeeded where a cautious genius has failed. Fly well."
He saluted with an arm wave as he and his friend rose
skyward.
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Alone in their cold-weather garb, the travelers watched
until the last pairing vanished into the hematite. Then Imanooo
rose and started off to the south, and they followed.
The path where there was no path carried them steadily
lower. The unvarying downhill hike was a welcome change
from the tortuous march to Ironcloud. The day after Imanooo
left them they began to discard their heavy clothing. Soon
they were down among trees and bushes, and snow was only
a fading memory.
Jon-Tom slowed his pace to stay alongside Clothahump.
The wizard was in excellent spirits and showed no ill effects
from the past weeks of marching.
"Sir?"
"Yes, my boy?" Eyes looked up at him through the thick
glasses. Abruptly Jon-Tom felt uncomfortable. It had seemed
so simple a while ago when he'd thought of it, a mere
question. Now it fought to hide in his throat.
"Well, sir," he finally got out, "among my people there's
a certain mental condition."
"Go on, boy."
"It has a common name. It's called a death wish."
"That's interesting," said Clothahump thoughtfully. "I
presume it refers to someone who wishes to die."
Jon-Tom nodded. ' 'Sometimes the person isn't aware of it
himself and it has to be pointed out to him by another. Even
then he may not believe it."
They walked on a while longer before he added, "Sir, no
disrespect intended, but do you think you might have a death
wish?"
"On the contrary, my boy," replied the wizard, apparently
not offended in the least, "I have a life wish. I'm only putting
myself into danger to preserve life for others. That hardly
means I want to relinquish my own."
"I know, sir, but it seems to me that you've taken us from
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THE HOUR Of THE GATS
one danger to another only to take successively bigger risks.
In other words, the more we survive, the more you seem to
want to chance death."
"A valid contention based solely on the evidence and your
personal interpretation of it," said Clothahump. "You ignore
one thing: I wish to survive and live as much as any of you."
"Can you be certain of that, sir? After all, you've already
lived more than twice a normal human lifetime, a much fuller
life than any of the rest of us." He gestured at the others.
"Would it pain you so much to die?"
"I follow your reasoning, my boy. You're saying that I am
willing to risk death because I've already had a reasonable
life and therefore have less than you to lose."
Jon-Tom didn't reply.
"My boy, you haven't lived long enough to understand
life. Believe me, it is more precious to me now because I
have less of it. I guard every day jealously because I know it
may be my last. I don't have less to lose than you: I have
more to lose."
"I just wanted to be sure, sir."
"Of what? The reasons for my decisions? You can be, boy.
They are founded upon a single motivation: the need to
prevent the Plated Masses from annihilating civilization.
Even if I did want to die, I would not do so until I had
expended every bit of energy in my body to prevent that
conflagration from destroying the warmlands. I might kill
myself if I suffered from the aberration you suggest, but only
after I'd saved everyone else."
"That's good to hear, sir." Jon-Tom felt considerably
relieved.
"There is one thing that has been troubling me a little,
however."
"What's that, sir?"
"Well, it's most peculiar." The wizard looked up at him.
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Alan Dean Foster
"But you see, I'm not at all certain that I remember the
formula for preparing our disguises."
Jon-Tom hesitated, frowned. "Surely we can't enter Cugluch
without them, sir?"
"Of course not," agreed Clothahump cheerfully. "I sug-
gest therefore that you consider some appropriate spellsongs.
You have seen one of the Plated Folk. That is what we must
endeavor to look like."
"I don't know if..."
"Try, my boy," said the wizard in a more serious tone,
"for if you cannot think of anything and I cannot remember
the formula, then I fear we will be forced to give up this
attempt."
Though he worked at it for the next several days, Jon-Tom
was unable to think of a single appropriate tune. Insects were
not a favorite subject for groups whose music he knew by
heart, such as Zepplin or Tull, Queen or the Stones or even
the Beatles, who, he felt sure, had written at least one song
about everything. He searched his memory, went through the
few classical pieces he knew, jumped from Furry Lewis to
Periin Husky to Foreigner without success.
The dearth of material was understandable, though. Love
and sex and money and fame were far more attractive song
subjects than bugs. The thinking helped to kill the time and
made the march more tolerable.
Never once did it occur to him that Clothahump might
have invented the request simply in order to keep Jon-Tom's
mind on harmless matters.
Three more days passed before they reached the outskirts
of the vast, festering lowlands that formed the Greendowns.
They rested on a slope and munched nuts, berries, and lizard
jerky while studying the fog and mist that enshrouded the
lands of the Plated Folk.
Conifers had surrendered the soil to hardwoods. These now
208
THE HOUR OF Tm GATE
fought to assert their dominance over palms and baobabs,
succulents and creepers. Occasionally a strange cry or whistle
would rise from the mist.
Jon-Tom finished his meal and stood, his leathern pants
sticking to his legs from the humidity. To the west towered
the snow-crowned crags of Zaryt's Teeth. It was difficult to
believe that a pass broke that towering rampart. It lay some-
where to the southwest of their present position. At its far end
was the Jo-Troom Gate and beyond that, a section of Swordsward
and bustling, friendly Polastrindu.
His own home was somewhat more distant, a trillion miles
away on the other side of time, turn right at the rip in the
fabric of space and take the fourth-dimensional offramp.
He turned. Clothahump was busy with wizard's business.
Pog assisted him.
"We'd better come up with something." Talea had moved
to stand next to him, stood looking down into the mist. "We
go down there looking like ourselves and we'll be somebody's
supper before the day's out."
"Aye, that's the truth, lass," agreed Mudge. " 'E'U 'ave t'
make us look like a choice slice o' 'ell."
"He already has, I think," was Caz's comment. "You'd
better straighten your antenna. The left one is pointing back-
ward instead of forward."
"I'll do that." Mudge reached up and was in the middle of
straightening the errant sensor when he suddenly realized
what had happened. " 'Cor, but that was quick!"
Clothahump rejoined them. Rather, they were joined by a
squat, pudgy beetle that sounded something like Clothahump.
Pale red compound eyes inspected them each in turn. Four
arms crossed over the striated abdomen.
"What do you think, my friends? Have I solved the
problem and allayed your fears, or not?"
When the initial shock finally wore off, they were able to
209
Alan Dean Foster
take more careful stock of themselves. The disguises seemed
foolproof. Talea, Ror, Mudge, and the rest now resembled
giant versions of things Jon-Tom usually smashed underfoot.
The middle set of arms moved in tandem with their owners
actual ones. Pog had turned into a giant flying beetle.
"Is that really you in there, Jon-Tom?" The thing with
Hor's voice ran a clawed hand over the pale blue chitin
encasing him.
"I think so." He looked down at himself, noted with
astonishment the multijointed legs, the smooth undercurve of
abdomen, the peculiar wave-shaped sword at his hip.
"Not too uncomfortable, my boy?"
Jon-Tom looked admiringly at the squat beetle. "It's a
wonderful job, sir. I feel like I'm inside a suit of armor, yet
I'm cooler than I was a few moments ago without it."
"Part of the spell, my boy," said the wizard with pride.
"Attention to detail makes all the difference."
"Speakin' o' attention t' detail, Your Mastemess," Mudge
said, " 'ow do I go about takin' a leak?"
"There are detachable sections of chitin in the appropriate
places, otter. You must take care to conceal bodily functions
of any kind from those we will be among. I could not
imagine Plated Folk jaws through which we might eat, for
example. Hopefully we can finish our business in Cugluch
and be out of it and these suits before very long."
"You remembered the formula well," Jon-Tom told the
wizard.
"Well enough, my boy." They left their packs and started
down the slope into the steaming lowlands. "One key phrase
eluded me for a time.
"Multioptics, eyes of glass,
sextupal reach in fiberglass,
210
THE HOUR OF THE GATS
hot outside but cool within,
suit of polymers I'll spin."
He proceeded to detail the formula that had provided such
perfectly fitted disguises.
"So these are foolproof, then?" Talea asked hopefully
from just ahead of them. It was difficult to think of the
black-and-brown-spotted creature as the beautiful, feisty Talea,
Jon-Tom mused.
"My dear, no disguise is foolproof," Clothahump replied
somberly.
"Dat's for damn sure." Pog fluttered awkwardly overhead
on false beetle wings.
"We are entering the Greendowns from me northern ranges,"
the wizard reminded them. "The Plated Folk cannot imagine
someone intentionally entering their lands. The only section
of their territories which might be even lightly watched is that
near the Pass. We should be able to mingle freely with
whoever we chance to encounter."
"That'll be the true test of these suits, won't it?" said Caz.
"Not whether we look believable to each other, but whether
we can fool them."
"The formula was as all-encompassing as I could fashion
it," said Clothahump confidently. "In any case, we shall
know in a moment."
They turned a bend in the animal path they'd been follow-
ing and came face to face with a dozen workers of that
benighted land. The Plated Folk were cutting hardwood and
loading the logs on a lizard-drawn sled. Unable to retreat, the
travelers marched doggedly ahead.
They were nearly past when one of the cutters, a foreman
perhaps, walked over on short spindly legs and gestured with
two of his four limbs. Jon-Tom marked the gesture for future
use.
"Hail, citizens! Whence come you, and wither go?"
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Alan Dean Foster
There was an uncomfortably long silence until Caz thought
to say, "We've been out on patrol."
"Patrol... in the mountains?" The foreman looked askance
at the snows beyond the forest's edge. He made a clicking
sound that might have passed for laughter. "What were you
patrolling for? Nothing comes from the north."
"We do not," said Caz, thinking furiously, "have to
provide such information to hewers of wood. However, there
is no harm in your knowing." His disguise gave his voice a
raspy tone.
"In her wisdom the Empress has decreed that every possi-
ble approach be inspected at least once in a while. Surely you
do not question her wisdom?" Caz put his hand on his
scimitar, and two limbs gripped the strange weapon.
"No, no!" said the insect foreman hastily, "of course not.
Now, of all times, the greatest secrecy must be preserved."
He still sounded doubtful. "Even so, nothing has come out of
these mountains in years and years."
"Of course not," said Caz haughtily. "Does that not prove
the effectiveness of these secret patrols?"
"That is sensible, citizen," agreed the foreman, his confu-
sion overcome thanks to Caz's inexorable logic.
The others had continued past while the rabbit had been
conversing with the foreman. That worthy snapped to atten-
tion and offered an interesting salute with both arms on his
left side. Caz mimicked it in return, his false middle arm
functioning smoothly in tandem with the real one.
"The Empress!" said the foreman with praiseworthy
enthusiasm.
"The Empress," Caz replied. "Now then, be on about
your business, citizen. The Empire needs that wood." The
foreman executed a sign of acknowledgment and returned to
his work. Caz tried not to move too hastily down the slope
after his companions.
212
THE HOUR Of THE GATS
The foreman returned to his cutters. One of the laborers
glanced up and asked curiously, "What was that all about,
citizen foreman?"
"Nothing. A patrol."
"A patrol, up here?"
"I know it is odd to find one in the mountains."
"More than odd, I should think." His antennae pointed
downhill toward the retreating travelers. "That is a peculiar
grouping for a patrol of any kind."
"I thought so also." The foreman's tone stiffened. "But it
is not our place to question the directives of the High
Command."
"Of course not, citizen foreman." The laborer returned
quickly to his work.
Wooded hillsides soon gave way to extensive cultivated
fields cleared from bog and jungle. Most were planted with a
tall, flexible growth about an inch in diameter that looked like
jaundiced sugar cane. Swampy plantings alternated with herds
of small six-legged reptiles who foraged noisily through the
soft vegetation.
They also encountered troops on maneuver, always marching
in perfect time and stride. Once they were forced off the
raised roadway by a column twelve abreast. It took an hour to
pass, trudging from east to west.
They passed unchallenged among dozens of Plated Folk.
No one questioned their disguises. But Clothahump grew
uneasy at their progress.
"Too slow," he muttered. "Surely there is a better way
than this, and one that will have the ex$a advantage of
concealing us from close inspection."
"What've you got in mind, guv'nor?" Mudge wanted to
know.
"A substitute for feet. Excuse me, citizen." The wizard
stepped out into the road.
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Alan Dean Foster
The wagon bearing down on him pulled to a halt. It was
filled with transparent barrels of some aromatic green liquid.
The driver, a rather bucolic beetle of medium height, leaned
over the side impatiently as Clothahump approached.
"Trouble, citizen? Be quick now, I've a schedule to keep."
"Are you by chance heading for the capital?"
"I am, and I've no time for riders. Sorry." He lifted his
reins preparatory to chucking the wagon team into motion
again.
"It is not that we wish a ride, citizen," said Clothahump,
staring hard at the driver, "but only that we wish a ride."
"Oh. I misunderstood. Naturally. Make space for your-
selves in the back, please."
As they climbed into the wagon, Jon-Tom passed close by
the driver. He was sitting stiffly in his seat, eyes staring
straight ahead yet seeing very little. Seeing only what
Clothahump wanted them to see, in fact.
Under the wizard's urging, the rustic whipped the team
forward. The mesmerization had taken only a moment, and
no one else had observed it.
"Damnsight better than walking." Talea reached awkwardly
down to draw one foot toward her, wishing she could massage
the aching sole but not daring to remove even that small
section of the disguise.
"Sure is," agreed Jon-Tom. He balanced himself in the
swaying, rocking wagon as he made his way forward.
Clothahump sat next to the driver. The insect ignored his
arrival.
"A great deal happening these days," Jon-Tom said by way
of opening conversation.
The driver's gaze did not stray from the road. His voice
was oddly stilted, as though a second mind were choosing the
words to answer with.
"Yes, a great deal."
214
THE HOUR Of THE GATS
"When is it to begin, do you think, the invasion of the
wannlands?" Jon-Tom made the question sound as casual as
he could.
A movement signifying ignorance from the driver. "Who
is to know? They do not permit wagon masters to know the
inner workings of the High Military. But it will be a great day
when it comes. I myself have four nestmates in the invasion
force. I wish I could be among them, but my district logisti-
cian insists that food supplies will be as important as fighting
to the success of the invasion.
"So I remain where I am, though it is against my desires.
It will be a memorable time. There will be a magnificent
slaughter."
"So they claim," Jon-Tom murmured, "but can we be so
certain of success?"
For a moment, the shocked disbelief the driver felt nearly
overcame the mental haze into which he'd been immersed.
"How can anyone doubt it? Never in thousands of years has
the Empire assembled so massive a force. Never before have
we been as well prepared as now.
"Also," he added conspiratorially, "there is rumor abun-
dant that the Great Wizard Eejakrat, Advisor to the Empress
herself, has brought forth from the realms of darkness an
invincible magic which will sweep all opposition before it."
He adjusted the reins running to the third lizard in right line.
"No, citizens, of course we cannot lose."
"My feelings are the same, citizen." Jon-Tom returned to
the rear of the wagon. Clothahump joined him a moment
later, as he was chatting softly to the others.
"If confidence is any indication of battleworthiness.'we're
liable to be in for a bad time."
"You see?" said Clothahump knowingly as he leaned up
against a pair of green-filled barrels, "that is why we must
215
Alan Dean Foster
find and destroy this dead mind that Eejakrat somehow draws
knowledge from, or die in the attempt."
"Speak for yourself, guv'," said Mudge. " 'E wot fights
an' runs away lives t' fight another day."
"Unfortunately," Clothahump reminded the otter quietly,
"if we fail, like as not there will not be another day."
216
XIII
Several days passed. Farms and livestock pastures began to
give way to the outskirts of a vast metropolis. Fronted with
stone or black cement, tunnels led down into the earth. On
the surface row upon row of identical gray buildings filled the
horizon, a vast stone curve that formed the outer wheel of the
capital city of Cugluch.
As they entered me first gate of many, they encountered
larger structures and greater variety. Faint pulses of light from
within cast ambivalent shadows on the travelers while the
echoes of hammerings resounded above the babble of the
chitinesque crowd. Once they passed a wagon emerging from
a large, cubical building. It was piled high with long spears
and pikes and halberds bound together like sheaves of grain.
The weapon-laden vehicle moved westward. Westward like
the troops they'd passed. Westward toward the Jo-Troom
Gate.
It had rained gently every day, but was far warmer than in
217
Alan Dean Foster
the so-called warmlands. Pat, limpid drops slid off their
hard-shelled disguises, only occasionally penetrating the well-
fashioned false chitin. Cooled by spell, those inside the insect
suits remained comfortable in spite of the humidity, dothahump.
as a good wizard should, had foreseen everything except the
need to scratch the occasional itch.
Only an isolated clump of struggling trees here and then
brought color to the monotonous construction of the city. It
was an immense warren, much of it out of sight beneath the
surface of the earth.
They pushed their way through heavier and heavier traffic,
increasingly military in nature. Clothahump guided the drive,
smoothly, directing them deeper into the city.
Wagonloads of troops, ant- and beetle-shapes predominant,
shoved civilian traffic aside as they made their way westward,
Enormous beetles eight and nine feet long displayed sharpened'
horns to the travelers. Three or four armed soldiers rode or
the backs of these armored behemoths.
Once a dull thump sounded from behind a large ova:
structure. Jon-Tom swore it sounded like an exploding shell
For an awful moment he thought it was the result of Eejakrat'a
unknown magic and that the Plated Folk had learned the ust
of gunpowder. His companions, however, assured him it wa?
only a distant rumble of thunder.
Buildings rose still higher around them. They were matched
by roads that widened to accommodate the increased traffic
Weaving ribbons of densely populated concrete and rock rose
six and seven stories above the streets, hives of frenetii
activity devoted now to destruction and death.
Sleep was in snatches and seconds that night. Clothahump
woke them to a soggy sunrise.
Ahead in the morning mist-light lay a great open square-
paved with triangular slabs of gray, black, purple, and blu"
stone. Across this expansive parade ground, populated no\v
218
THE BOVR OF THE GATE
only by early risers, rose a circular pyramid. It consisted of
concentric ring shapes like enormous tires. These tapered to a
smooth spire hundreds of feet high that pierced the mist like a
gray needle.
Half a dozen smaller copies of the central structure ringed
it at points equidistant from one another. There was no wall
around any of them, nor for that matter around the main
square itself.
Despite this the driver refused to go any further. His
determination was so strong even Clothahump's hypnotic
urgings failed to force him and his wagon onto the triangular
paving.
"I have no permit," he said raspily, "to enter the palace
grounds. It would be my death to be found on the sacred
square without one."
"This is where we walk again, my friends. Perhaps it is
best. I see only one or two wagons on the square. We do not
want to attract attention."
Mudge let himself over the back of the wagon. "Cor, ain't
that the bloody ugliest buildin' you ever saw in your life?"
They abandoned the wagon. Clothahump was last off. He
whispered a few words to the driver. The beetle moved the
reins and the wagon swung around to vanish up the street
down which they'd come. Jon-Tom wondered at the excuse
the unfortunate driver would offer when he suddenly returned
to full consciousness at his delivery point after nearly a week
of amnesia.
"It seems we need a permit to cross," said Caz appraisingly.
"How do we go about obtaining one?"
Clothahump sounded disapproving. "We need no permit. I
have been observing the pedestrians traversing the square,
and none has been stopped or questioned. It seems that the
threat is sufficient to secure the palace's exclusiveness. The
219
Alan Dean Foster
permit may be required within, but it does not seem vital for
walking the square."
"I hope you're right, sir." The rabbit stepped out onto the
paving, a gangling, thoroughly insectoid shape. Together they
moved at an easy pace toward the massive pyramidal palace.
As Clothahump had surmised, they were not accosted. If
anything, they found the square larger than it first appeared,
like a lake that looks small until one is swimming in its
center.
From this central nexus the spokes of Cugluch radiated
outward toward farmland and swamp. The city was far larger
than Polastrindu, especially when one considered that much
of it was hidden underground.
Thick mist clung to the crests of the seven towers and
completely obscured the central one. Nowhere did they see a
flag, a banner, any splash of color or gaiety. It was a somber
capital, dedicated to a somber purpose.
And the massive palace was especially dark and forebod-
ing. Here at least Jen-Tom had expected some hint of bright-
ness. Militaristic cultures were historically fond of pomp and
flash. The palace of the Empress, however, was as dull as the
warrens of the citizen-workers. Different in design but not
demeanor, he decided.
The lowest level of the circular pyramid was several stories
high. It was fashioned, as the entire palace complex no doubt
was, of close-fitting stone mortared over with a gray cement
or plaster. Water dripped down its curves to vanish into
gutters and drains lining the base. There was a minimum of
windows.
The triangular paving of the square ceased some fifteen
yards from the base of the palace. In its place was a smooth
surface of black cement. That was all; no fence, no hidden
alarms, no hedgerows or ditches. But on that black fifteen
220
THE HOUR Or THE GATE
yards, which encircled the entire palace, nothing moved save
the stiffly pacing guards.
They formed a solid ring, ten yards from the palace wall,
five yards apart. They marched in slow tread from left to
right, keeping the same distance between them like so many
wind-up toys. As near as Jon-Tom could tell they ringed the
entire palace, a moving chain of guards that never stopped.
At Clothahump's urging they turned southward. The guards
never looked in their direction, though Jon-Tom was willing
to wager that if so much as a foot touched that black cement,
the trespasser would suddenly find himself the object of
considerable hostile attention.
Eventually they stood opposite an arched triangular portal cut
from the flank of the palace. The entryway was three stories
high. At present its massive iron gates were thrown wide. A
line of armed beetles extended from either open gate out
across the cement to the edge of the paving. The unbroken
ring of encircling guards passed through this intercepting line
with precision. The moving guards never touched any of the
stationary ones.
"Now wot, guv'nor?" Mudge whispered to the wizard.
"Do we just walk up t' the nearest bugger an' ask 'im
polite-like if the Empress be at 'ome an' might we 'ave 'is
leave t' skip on in t' see the old dear?"
"I have no desire to see her," Clothahump replied. "It is
Eejakrat we are after. Rules survive by relying on the brains
of their advisors. Remove Eejakrat, or at least his magic, and
we leave the Empress without the most important part of her
collective mind."
He gazed thoughtfully at Caz. "You have laid claim to a
working knowledge of diplomacy, my boy, and have shown an
aptitude for such in the past. I am reluctant to perform a spell
among so many onlookers and so near to Eejakrat's influence.
I've no doubt he has placed alarm spells all about the palace.
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Alan Dean Foster
They would react to my magicking, but not to your words.
We must get inside. I suggest you employ your talent for
extemporaneous and convincing conversation."
"I don't know, sir," replied the rabbit uncertainly. "It's
easy to convince people you're familiar with. I don't know
how to talk to these."
"Nonsense. You did well with that curious woodcutter
whom we encountered during our descent. If anything, the
minds you are about to deal with are simpler than those you
are more familiar with. Consider their society, which rewards
conformity while condemning individuality."
"If you want me to, sir, I'll give it a try."
"Good. The rest of you form behind us. Pog, you stay
airborne and warn us if there is sudden movement from armed
troops in our direction."
"What does it matter?" said the sorrowful bat from inside
his disguise. "We'll all be dead inside an hour anyway." But
he spiraled higher and did as he was told, keeping a watchful
eye on the guards and any group of pedestrians who came
near.
Following Caz and Clothahump, me travelers made their
way toward the entrance. There was an anxious moment
when they stepped from paving to cement, but no one
challenged them. The guards flanking the approach kept their
attention on a point a few inches in front of their mandibles.
Then it was through the encircling ring, which likewise did
not react. They were a couple of yards from the entrance.
Jon-Tom had the wild notion that they might simply be able
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