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

"I know a little, but it's not a matter of knowing anything

about computers. Machine, man or insect, it has to be

destroyed before Eejakrat can finish his new formula."

"What the fuck could that devil have dug out of its

electronic guts?" He looked back down at Clothahump.

"Don't understand..." murmured the wizard. "Beyond

my ken. But Eejakrat knows how to comply. It worries him,

but he proceeds. He knows if he does not the war is lost."

"Someone's got to get over there and destroy the computer

and its mentor," Jon-Tom said decisively. He called to the

rest of their companions.

Mudge and Caz ambled over curiously. So did Bribbens,

and Pog fluttered close from his perch near the back of the

wall. Hastily, Jon-Tom told them what had to be done.

"Wot about the Ironclouders, wot?" Mudge indicated the

diving shapes of the great owls working their death up the

Pass. "I don't think they'd 'old you, mate, but I ought to be

able to ride one."

"I could go myself, boss." Clothahump turned a startled

gaze on the unexpectedly daring famulus.

"No. Not you, Pog, nor you, otter. You would never make

it, I fear. Hundreds of bowmen, a royal guard of the

Greendowns' most skilled archers, surround Eejakrat and the

Empress. You could not get within a quarter league of the

deadmind. Even if you could, what would you destroy it

with? It is made of metal. You cannot shoot an arrow through

it. And there may be disciples of Eejakrat who could draw

upon its evil knowledge in event of his death."

"We need a plane," Jon-Tom told them. "A Huey or some

other attack copter, with rockets."

Clothahump looked blankly at him. "I know not what you

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describe, spellsinger, but by the heavens if you can do

anything you must try."

Jon-Tom licked his lips. The Who, J. Geils, Dylan: none

sang much about war and its components. But he had to try

something. He didn't know the Air Force song....

"Try something, Jon-Tom," Flor urged him. "We don't

have much time."

Time. Time's getting away from us. There's your cue,

man. Get there first. Worry about how to destroy the thing

then.

Trying to shut the sounds of fighting out of his thoughts, he

ran his fingers a couple of times across the duar's strings. The

instrument had been nicked and battered by arrows and

spears, but it was still playable. He struggled to recall the

melody. It was simple, smooth, a Steve Miller hallmark. A

few adjustments to the duar's controls. It had to work. He

turned tremble and mass all the way up. Dangerous, but

whatever materialized had to carry him high above the com-

bat, all the way to me end of the Pass.

Anyway, Clothahump's urgency indicated that there was

little time left now either for finesse or fine tuning.

Just get me to that computer, he thought furiously. Just get

me there safely and I'll find some way to destroy it. Even

pulling a few wires would do it. Eejakrat couldn't repair the

damage with magic ... could he?

And if he was killed and the attempt a failure, what did it

matter? Talea was dead and so was much of himself. Yes, that

was the answer. Crash whatever carries you and yourself into

the computer. That should do it.

Time was the first crucial element. Though he did not

know it, he was soon to leam the other.

Time... that was the key. He needed to move fast and he

didn't have time to fool with machines that might or might

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not work, might or might not appear. Time and flight. What

song could possibly fill the need?

Wait a minute! There was something about time and flight

slipping, slipping into the future.

His fingers began to fly over the strings as he threw back

his head and began to sing with more strength than ever he

had before.

There was a tearing sound in the sky, and his nostrils were

filled with the odor of ozone. It was coming! Whatever he'd

called up. If not the sung-for huge bird, perhaps the British

fighter nicknamed the Eagle, bristling with rockets and rapid-

fire cannon. Anything to get him into the air.

He sang till his throat hurt, his fingers a blur above the

strings. Reverberant waves of sound emerged from the quivering

duar and the air vibrated in sympathy.

A deep-throated crackling split the sky overhead, a sound

no kin to any earthly thunder. It seemed the sun had drawn

back to hide behind the clouds. The fighting did not stop, but

warmlander and insect alike slowed their pace. That ominous

rumble echoed down the walls of the Pass. Something ex-

traordinary was happening.

Vast wings that were of starry gases filled the air. The

winter day turned warm with a sudden eruption of heat. Hot

air blew Ion-Tom against the rampart behind him and nearly

over, while his companions scrambled for something solid to

cling to.

Atop the wall the remaining warmlander defenders scattered

in terror. On the cliffsides the Weavers scuttled for hiding

places in the crevices and crannies as a monstrous fiery form

came near. It touched down on the mountainside where the

remaining half of the wall was worked into the naked rock,

and twenty feet of granite melted and ran like syrup.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" roared a voice that could raise a

sunspot. The remaining stones of the wall trembled, as did

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the cells of those still standing atop it. "WHAT HAVE YOU

WROUGHT, LITTLE HUMAN!"

"I..." Jon-Tom could only gape. He had not materialized

the plane he'd wished for or the eagle he'd sung to. He had

called up something best left undisturbed, interrupted a jour-

ney measurable in billions of years. It was all he could do to

gaze back into those vast, infinite eyes, as M'nemaxa, barely

touching the melting rock, fanned thermonuclear wings and

glared down at him.

"I'm sorry," he finally managed to gasp out, "I was only

trying..."

"LOOK TO MY BACK!" bellowed the sun horse.

Jon-Tom hesitated, then took a cautious step forward and

craned his neck. Squinting through the glare, he made out a

dark metallic shape that looked suspiciously like a saddle. It

was very small and lost on that great flaming curve of a spine.

"I don't... what does this mean?" he asked humbly.

"IT MEANS A TRANSFORMATION IN MY ODYSSEY; A SHORT-

CUT. LITTLE MAN BENEATH THE STARS, YOU HAVE CREATED A

SHORTCUT! I CAN SEE THE END OF MY JOURNEY NOW. NO

LONGER MUST I RACE AROUND THE RIM OF THE UNIVERSE. ONLY

ANOTHER THREE MILLION YEARS AND I WILL BE FINISHED. ONLY

THREE MILLION, AND I WILL KNOW PEACE. AND YOU, MAN, ARE

TO THANK FOR IT!"

"But I don't know what I did, and I don't know how I did

it," Jon-Tom told him softly.

"CONSEQUENCE IS WHAT MATTERS, CAUSATION IS BUT EPHEM-

ERAL. EMPYREAN RESULTS HAVE BEEN ACHIEVED, LITTLE MAN

OF NOTHINGNESS.

"AS YOU HAVE HELPED ME, SO I WILL HELP YOU. BUT I CAN

DO ONLY WHAT YOU DIRECT. YOUR MAGIC PUTS THIS SHIELD ON

MY BACK, SO MOUNT THEN, GUARDED BY ITS SUBSTANCE AND

BY YOUR OWN MAGIC, AND RIDE. SUCH A RIDE AS NO CREATURE

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OF MERE FLESH AND BLOOD HAS EVER HAD BEFORE NOR WILL

HENCE!"

Jon-Tom hesitated. But eager hands were already -urging

him toward the equine inferno.

"Go on, Jon-Tom," said Caz encouragingly.

"Yes, go on. It must be the spellsong magic that's protect-

ing us," said Hor, "or the radiation and heat would have