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

doubtless to make arrangements for reaching the nearest river.

Falameezar was able to help the boatman with that, being a

river dragon. That is, he was when he wasn't too busy

reeducating his rodent charges about their responsibilities and

rights as members of the downtrodden proletariat. Clothahump

had gone off to discuss the matters of magic with the other

warmlander wizards.

"What now, Jon-Tom?" Talea looked at him anxiously. "I

guess now that you've mastered your spellsinging you'll be

returning to your own world?"

"I don't know." He studied the masonry underfoot. "I'm

not so sure you could say I've mastered spellsinging." He

plucked ruefully at the duar. "I always seem to get what I

need, not what I want. That's nice, but not necessarily

reassuring.

"And for some reason being a rock star or a lawyer doesn't

seem to hold the attraction it once did. I guess you could say

I've had my horizons somewhat expanded." Like to include

infinity, he told himself.

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THE HOUK OF TBK GATE

She nodded knowingly. "You've grown up some, Jon-

Tom."

He shrugged. "If experiences can age you, I ought to be

the equivalent of Methuselah by now."

"I'll see what I can do about keeping you young...." She

ran fingers through his hair. "Does that mean you'll be

staying?" She added quietly, "With me, maybe? If you can

stand me, that is."

"I've never known a woman like you, Talea."

"That's because there aren't any women like me, idiot."

She moved to kiss him again. He edged away from her,

preoccupied with a new thought.

"What's the matter? Not coy enough for you?"

"Nothing like that. I just remembered something that's

been left undone, something that I promised myself I'd try to

do if given the chance."

They found Pog hanging from a spear rack in the middle of

the remaining wall. The warmlanders were beginning to

disperse, those not remaining behind to guard the Plated Folk

forming into their respective companies and battalions pre-

paratory to beginning the long march home. Some were

already on their way, too tired or filled with memories of dead

companions to sing victory songs. They were traveling west

toward Polastrindu or southward to where the river Tailaroam

tumbled fresh and clear from the flanks of the Teeth.

The sun was setting over the fringes of the Swordsward.

The poisonous silhouette of the mushroom cloud had long

since been carried away by the wind. Their kilts flashing as

brightly as their wings, squads of aerial warmlanders in

arrowhead formations were winging back toward their home

roosts. A distant line of silk-clad shapes showed where the

Weavers were wending their way northward along the foot-

hills, and a dark mass was just disappearing over the northern

crest of the mountains in the direction of fabled h-oncloud.

"Hello, Pog."

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Alan Dean Foster

"Hi, spellsinger," The bat's voice was subdued, but Jon-

Tom no longer had to ask why. "Some job ya did. I'm proud

ta call ya my friend."

Jon-Tom sat down on a low bench near the spear rack.

"Why aren't you out there celebrating with the rest of the

army?"

"I attend to da needs of my master, you know dat. I wait

for his woid on what ta do next."

"You're a good apprentice, Pog. I hope I can leam as well

as you."

"What's dat supposed ta mean?" The upside-down face

turned to stare curiously at him.

"I'm hoping that Clothahump will accept me as an appren-

tice wizard." The duar rested in his lap and he strummed it

experimentally. "Magic seems to be the only thing I have any

talent for hereabouts. I'd damn well better leam how to

discipline it before I kill myself. I've just been lucky so far."

"Da master, da old fart-face, says dere's no such ting as

luck."

"I know, I know." He was slowly picking out a tune on the

duar. "But I'm going to have to work like hell if I'm going to

attain half the wisdom of that senile little turtle." He started

to hum the song that had come to him back in the tent on that

day of fury not long ago, when a certain famulus had been

thoughtful enough to comfort him and lay down the life laws.

"I appreciated what you said to me that time in the tent,

when I came out of the stupor Clothahump was forced to put

me into. You see, Pog, Clothahump cared about me because

he knew I might be able to help him. Caz and Ror and

Bribbens cared about me because we were dependent on one

another.

"But the only ones who cared about me personally, really

cared, turned out to be Talea, and you. We've got a lot in

common, you and I. A hell of a lot in common. I never saw it

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. THE HOUR Or THE GATE

before because I couldn't. You were right about love, of

course. I thought I wanted Hor." Talea said nothing. "What I

,really wanted was someone to want me. That's all I've ever

jwanted. I know that's what you want, too."

( Now he began to sing out, loud and clear. Suddenly there

was a shimmering in the air around the bat. It was evening

now, and the wall was growing dark. Camp fires were

beginning to spring up on the plain where Plated Folk and

wannlander for the first time in thousands of years were

beginning to talk to one another.

"Hey, what's going on?" The bat dropped from his perch,

righted himself, and flapped nervous wings.

The bat shape was flowing, shifting in the evening air.

"That was my falcon song, Pog. I've got to get my

spellsinging specific, Clothahump says. So I'm giving you

the transformation you wanted from him."

Talea clung tight to Jon-Tom's arm, watching. "He's

changing, Jon-Tom."

"It's what he wants," he told her softly, also watching the

transformation. "He gave me understanding when I needed it

most. This is what I'm giving in return. The song I just sang

should turn him into the biggest, sleekest falcon that ever

split a cloud."

But the shape wasn't right. It was all wrong. It continued

to change and glow as Jon-Tom's expression widened in

disbelief.

"Oh God. I should've waited. I should've held off and

waited for Clothahump's advice. I'm sorry, Pog!" he yelled

at the indistinct, alien outline.

"Wait," said Talea gently. Her grip tightened on his arm

and she leaned into him. "True, it's no falcon he's becoming.

But look—it's incredible!"

The metamorphosis was complete, finished, irrevocable.

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Alan Dean Foster

"Never mind, never mind, never mind!" sang (fae trans-

formed thing that had been Pog the bat. The voice was all

quicksilver and light. "Never mind, friend Talea. Be true to

Clothahump, Jon-Tom. You'll get a wing on it, you will."

A flock of fighters, eagles perhaps, crossed the darkling

sky from east to west. A few falcons were scattered among

them. Perhaps one was Uleimee.

"Meanwhile you've made me very happy," Pog-that-once-

was assured the spellsinger.

Jon-Tom realized he'd been holding his breath. The trans-

formation had stunned him. Talea called to him softly and he

turned and found her waiting arms.

Above them the change which had been Pog searched with

keen eyes among the winged shapes soaring toward the

distant reaches of the warmlands. It saw a particular female

falcon emerging with others of her kind from a thick cloud,

saw with eyes far sharper than those of any bat, or owl, or

falcon.

Leaving the two humans to their own destinies, and rising