Foster, Dean - Spellsinger 04 - The Moment Of The Magician

floor. The frightening cloud continued to pour forth

from the dark opening,

You could see through it, but the effort wa& dizzying.

Furthermore, there were shapes inside the cloud,

shapes that wrenched and heaved in agony at their

surroundings. They moaned softly as they fought to

escape their nebulous prison. The sound was chill-

ing.

Vapor reached the ceiling and began to spread out

sideways. Jon-Tom wanted to run, to get out of that

room. The threat that was Markus had been reduced

to insignificance by the cloud. Markus no longer

mattered. Only getting away, getting out of there,

getting away from that, mattered.

But a wispy tentacle of ichorous green brushed

his foot, and he found he couldn't move. It was Just a

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THE MOMENT OF THE MAOTCLUI

tiny thing, an airy caress. It paralyzed him in his

tracks.

And it was so cold.

Eyes in the cloud then, small and piercing, floating

above a round oval of a mouth. They hovered within

the fog, sleepy and indifferent. The shapes flashed

and slipped around eyes and lips as they fought to

escape.

The cloud spoke softly in a patient, irresistible

voice. Jon-Tom felt a chill strike him with each word.

"I've come for you. It is good that you called me."

Green vapor filled most of the room now. It was

starting to spread out along the wall behind him.

Soon it would engulf him completely. He knew what

would happen then. It would suck him up inside

itself, to join those other helpless, moaning stiapes.

Then he knew what it was that Markus had con-

jured up, had called forth out of the depths of his

fury and frustration. Instinct told him.

His body might be frozen to the spot, but he

found he could still talk. Maybe the vapor wanted

him to talk. Maybe that was a final gift it gave to all

that it swallowed up.

"You... you're Death, aren't you?"

An eloquent silence was his reply. Jon-Tom could

feel the cold dosing in around him, patient, irresistible.

"I didn't know you could see Death." The cloud

was thicker now, an icy green cold that began to

prick at his bare skin.

"Any man who cannot see Death approaching is

blind." The mouth-oval drifted closer. It was going

to touch his own lips. The kiss of Death.

Jon-Tom listened to his own voice and was terri-

fied at how feeble it had become. "But... you said

you came for me. and that 1 called you. I didn't call

you.

For an instant oblivion retreated. The wisps of

^

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304

green foulness drew back and the cold fell away.

Jon-Tom found he was shivering, and it was the first

time in his life he regarded it as a sign of health.

"You called me."

"No." He tried to raise a hand to his duar, but

his fingers suddenly weighed a thousand pounds

apiece. He tried the other one, straining with his

whole being. It rose, slowly, but it rose. He moved it

because he had to. He didn't try to touch the duar

this time. There was no point. Here was an opponent

his spellsinging could not defeat.

Fingers weak and trembling, he pointed through

the cloud.

"He called you."

"No," came a quavering voice from far across the

chamber. Markus cowered down on his throne, trying

to hide. "No, it wasn't me. I didn't call you!"

The eyes didn't free Jon-Tom from their relentlessly

peaceful gaze- Perhaps another pair appeared else-

where within the cloud. There was a pause, a brief

eternity while the room hung suspended in the void.

Then Death whispered, "Markie Kratzmeier, age

forty-eight, of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. You fell into

a dynamo. You were electrocuted instantly. You died."

"No!" Markus shook as he waved his wand errati

cally toward the cloud. He was hysterical now, his

eyes wide as the vapor moved to envelop him. "No, I

didn't diel I came here. I am here."

"You died," Death insisted softly. "I came for you

but you had gone. I couldn't find you. I do not enjoy

being cheated."

Then there was another sound in the room, a

sound that chilled Jon-Tom more thoroughly than

the touch of that annihilating fog. It was the sound

of Death laughing.

"And now you have called me back to you. And the

living say that life is full of little ironies."

THK MOMENT OF THE MAGICMJT

305

"NOI" Markus screamed. He fell to whimpering.

|"I didn't call you, I didn't. Go awaaay." The wand

.twitched feebly in the air. "I send you back to where

| you come from. 1 command you."

t The cloud was pulling away from the shivering

|Jon-Tom, dragging itself across the floor toward the

| throne. As it left him he found that he could move

i again. He started to head for the door, slowed

' thoughtfully. If Death wanted him, no door was

; going to stop it. Somehow he didn't think that was

. going to happen. What had happened was that he

had almost been the victim of a fatal case of mistaken

identity.

He turned. The fog had surrounded Markus

•completely. He could still hear the unfortunate

| magician. The shapes inside the cloud reached out

| to welcome him into their company. The torches

1 winked out and there was only the green light left to

['see by-

t There were no dramatic shrieks or screams. The

|whimpering from the throne simply stopped. Then

| the cloud began to retreat, sucked back down into

^the hat from which it had been summoned forth. An

^-innocent-looking black top hat that the late Markus

the Ineluctable had probably paid no more than ten

bucks for in some cheap magic shop in Jersey City.

Then it was gone. Fresh air hesitantly wafted into

^ the room. All that remained of Markus the Ineluctable,

the All-Powerful, Ruler of Quasequa and the Lakes

District, was a piece of white-tipped black plastic a

foot long.

Still shivering, Jon-Tom strode over to the throne

and picked up the wand. He tapped it against the

wood. It made a soft clicking noise. On the side was

the legend Made in Hong Kong. Handling it gingerly,

he descended to the floor and dropped it into the

open hat. It vanished.

Alan Dean Foster

306

Then he took a deep breath and did the hardest

thing he'd ever done in his life. He picked up the

hat. Carrying it carefully in his right hand, he walked

over to the window nearby and threw it as far as he

could. It sailed out into the night and he watched it

fall. When it hit the water it was too light to make an

audible splash. Either it would sink or the current

would carry it into the river that drained the Lake of

Sorrowful Pearls, and the river would take it out to

the Glittergeist Sea to sink in thousands of fathoms

of sunless, specterless water.

He found himself feeling sorry for Markle Kratz-

meier. But not for Markus the Ineluctable.

Something creaked behind him. He jumped.

"You okay, mate?" inquired a hesitant voice. Mudge's

face peeped uncertainly around the rim of the door.

Jon-Tom relaxed. "It's all right, Mudge. It's all

over. You can come in now." He swallowed. "Everyone

can come in now."

"Right, mate." But Mudge made a thorough sur-

vey of the empty throne room before he entered.

Weapons drawn, the rest of the band rushed in

around him.

Memaw crossed her arms over her chest. "Brrri

Young man, it's freezing in here. What happened?"

"Markus unintentionally called up an old friend of