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

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.

181

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

182

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.

183

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

184

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