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

there, too, and they played a duet, and both smiled at Jon-Tom.

Then he saw a face he knew well, a face full of fire and

light. He concentrated on that face with all his strength,

trying to pull it into his brain through his eyes. The face was

distinct and warm; it seemed to float toward him instinctively.

His whole being glowed with love as it neared him, and

suddenly when it touched his lip a flame ignited inside him

and he almost lost his seat. It was the Talea gneechee, he

knew, and he surrounded it with his entire will.

"We must go back. Now!" he roared at the fiery stallion.

"YOU MUST KNOW THE WORDS, LITTLE MAN, OR REMAIN

WITH ME UNTIL THE END OF MY JOURNEY."

What song? Jon-Tom thought. There seemed no music

equal to the immensity of space and stars all around him.

Every song he had ever heard dried up on his tongue.

The Talea gneechee seemed to stir someplace deep inside

him, and he looked out at the cold blue distance ahead. It was

time to go back where he belonged. He couldn't be specific,

but he suddenly had a real sense of where he belonged in life

and he knew he could get there.

His mouth opened and his fingertips caressed the duar. A

new sound rose, a new voice came both from the duar and

from his mouth, and though he had never heard it before he

knew it was, finally, his true voice.

Stars spun faster around him, the universe seemed wrenched

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for an instant. His head throbbed and his throat burned with

the strange wordless song that poured from him like a river a

million times stronger than any earthly river.

Now blue sky hurried toward them, then the snowy caps of

mountains. The boundary was back—the luscious, palpable

limit of existence. He felt more alive than he had ever in his

life.

"Cor, wot a friggin' ride!" Mudge's joyous voice came

from behind him.

"Love you, Mudge!" screamed Jon-Tom, ecstatic to hear

that familiar sound.

"You're crazy—where the 'ell we been?"

Everywhere, Jon-Tom thought, but there was no way to say

it.

' 'THE COURSE OF MY JOURNEY HAS BEEN FOREVER CHANGED,''

bellowed M'nemaxa. "I HAVE HAD TO CHANGE MY DIRECTION

BECAUSE OF THE EVIL IN YOUR WORLD AND NOW MY ROUTE IS

ALMOST THROUGH. COME WITH ME TO THE OUTSIDE, LITTLE

MAN, YOUR WORLD IS FULL OF DOOM. I WILL SHOW SUCH

THINGS AS NO MORTAL SHALL EVER AGAIN SEE."

"Wot's 'e talkin' about, guv'nor?"

"Eejakrat's magic, Mudge. Clothahump knew mat they

could not control it, and it has created devastation so utter

that even M'nemaxa had to detour around it. It's happened

before, but in my world. Not here. Look."

The mushroom cloud that billowed skyward from the far

end of the Troom Pass was not large, but it was considerably

darker and denser than any of the mists behind it.

Below them now the last of the Plated Folk army, those

who'd been lucky enough to be trapped in the middle of the

Pass, were surrendering, turning over their weapons and

going down on all sixes to plead for mercy.

Beneath the now fading mushroom cloud that marked the

failure of Eejakrat's imported magic, me butte he'd stood

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upon had vanished. In its place there was only an empty,

radioactive crater. The bomb Eejakrat had been in the process

of creating had been a relatively clean one. What remained

would serve as a warning to future generations of Plated Folk.

It would block the Pass far more effectively than had the

Jo-Troom Gate.

Raming wings slowed. Mudge was deposited gently back

on top of the wall. Jon-Tom thanked the flaming being but

would not return with him.

"THREE MILLION YEARS!" M'nemaxa boomed, his neighing

shaking boulders from the cliffsides of the canyon.

"ONLY THREE MILLION. THANK YOU, LITTLE HUMAN. YOU

ARE A WIZARD OF UNKNOWN WISDOM. FAREWELL!"

The vast fiery form rose into the air. There was an

earsplitting explosion that rent the fabric of space-time. The

gap closed quickly and M'nemaxa had gone, gone back to

resume his now truncated journey, gone back to the every-

where otherplace.

Bodies, furred and otherwise, swarmed around the returnees—

Caz, Flor, Bribbens holding his bandaged right arm where

he'd taken a sword thrust. Pog fluttered excitedly overhead,

and warmlander soldiers mixed queries with congratulations.

The battle had ended, the war was over. Those Plated Folk

who had not perished in the modest thermonuclear explosion

at the far end of the Pass were being herded into makeshift

corrals.

Jon-Tom was embarrassed and nervous, but Mudge glowed

like M'nemaxa himself from me adjulation of the crowd.

When the excitement had died down and the soldiers had

gone to join their companions below, Clothahump managed to

make his way up to Jon-Tom.

"You did well, my boy, well! I'm quite proud of you." He

smiled as much as he could. "We'll make a wizard of you

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yet. If you can only leam to be a bit more specific and precise

in your formulations."

"I'm learning," Jon-Tom admitted without smiling back.

"One of the things I've learned is to pay attention to what lies

behind a person's words." He and the wizard stared into each

other's eyes, and neither gave ground.

"I did what I had to do, boy. I'd do it again."

"I know you would. I can't blame you for it anymore, but

I can't like you for it, either."

"As you will, Jon-Tom," said the wizard. He looked past

the man and his eyes widened. "Though it may be that you

condemn me too quickly."

Jon-Tom turned. A petite, slightly baffled redhead was

walking toward them. He could only stare.

"Hello," Talea said, smiling slightly. "I must have been

unconscious for days."

"You've been dead," said a flabbergasted Mudge.

"Oh cut it out. I had the strangest dream." She looked

down at the canyon. "Missed all the fighting, I see."

"I saw you.. .out there," Jon-Tom said dazedly. "Or a

part of you. It came to me and I knew it was you."

"I wouldn't know about that," she said sharply. "All I

know is that I woke up in a tent surrounded by corpses. It

scared the shit out of me." She chuckled. "Did worse to the

attendants. Bet they haven't stopped running.

"Then I asked around for you and got directions. Is it true

what everyone's saying about you and M'nemaxa and..."

"Everything's true, nothing's false," Jon-Tom said. "Not

anymore. Whatever entered me I sent back to you, but it

doesn't matter. What is is what matters, and what is, is you."

"You've gotten awfully obscure all of a sudden, Jon-

Tom."

He put his hands on her shoulders. "I suppose we have to

stay together now.'' He smiled shyly, not able to explain what

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had happened in Elsewhere. She looked blank. "Don't you re-

member what you said to me back in Cugluch?" he asked.

She frowned at him. "I don't know what you're talking

about, but that's nothing new, is it? You always did talk too

much. But you're wrong about one thing."

"What's that?"

"I do remember what I said back in Cugluch," and she

proceeded to give him the deepest, longest, richest kiss he'd

ever experienced.

Eventually she let him go. Or was it the other way around?

No matter.

Caz and Hor sat on the ramparts nearby, hand in paw.

Jon-Tom shook his head, wondering at that blindness that

conceals what is most obvious. Bribbens had disappeared,