Foster, Dean - Spellsinger 02 - The Hour of the Gate

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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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