neetha Napew - Spellsinger

shoulder. It burned him right through his indigo shirt and iridescent green

cape.

"Relax, Jon. Or Jon-Tom, as they call you." She smiled, and his initial

irritation at her appearance melted away. "I'm still the same person. You forget

that you really don't know anything about me. Oh, don't feel bad... few people

ever really do. I'm the same person I ever was, and now I've been given the

chance to enjoy one of my own fantasies. I'm sorry if I don't fulfill yours."

"But the disorientation," he sputtered. "When I first arrived here I was so

confused, so puzzled I could hardly think."

"Well," she said, "I guess I've read a little more of the impossible than you,

or dreamed a little deeper. I feel very much at home, compadre mio." She clipped

the double mace to her link belt, pushed back her cape, and sat down on the

floor. Even that simple motion seemed supernaturally graceful.

"I was explaining to Jon-Tom," Clothahump began, "that the shock or the

combination of the shock of the explosion and the magic we were working finally

showed me the source of the evil that threatens to overwhelm this world. Perhaps

yours as well, young lady," he said to Flor, "if it is not stopped here."

Talea and Mudge listened respectfully, Jon-Tom uncertainly, and Flor anxiously.

Jon-Tom divided his attention between the wizard's words and the girl of his

dreams.

At least, she had been the girl of his dreams. Her instant adaptation to this

strange existence made her seem a different person. Moreover, she seemed to

welcome their incredible situation. It left him feeling very inadequate. How

many days had it taken him to arrive at a mature acceptance of his fate?

The insecurity passed, to be replaced by a burst of anger at the unfairness of

it all, and finally by resignation. Actually, as Mudge had indicated, his

situation could have been much worse. If Flor was (as yet, he thought

yearningly) no more than a friend, she was a damn-sight more interesting to have

around than a fifty-year-old male engineer. And he'd made a friend of Talea as

well.

Decidedly, life could be worse. There was ample time for events to progress in a

pleasant and satisfying fashion. He allowed himself a slight inward smile.

After all, Flor's enthusiastic acceptance of the status quo might be momentary

posturing on her part. If what Clothahump believed turned out to be true things

were going to beeome much worse. They would all have to depend on each other. He

would be around when it was Flor's turn to do some depending. He accepted her as

she was and turned his full attention to Clothahump.

"It is the Plated Folk," the wizard was telling them as he paced slowly back and

forth before a tall rack of containers that had not been shattered. "They are

gathering in all their thousands, in their tens of thousands, for a great

invasion of the warmlands. Legions of them swarm through the Greendowns.

"I saw in an instant great battle-practice fields being constructed on the

plains outside Cugluch. Burrows for an endless horde are being dug in

anticipation of the arrival and massing of still more troops. I saw thousands of

the soulless, mindless workers putting down their work tools and taking up their

arms. They are preparing such an onslaught as the warmlands have never seen. I

saw--"

"I saw a double-jointed margay once, in a bar in Oglagia Towne," broke in Mudge

with astonishing lack of tact. For several minutes he'd been growing more and

more restless. Now his frustration burst out spontaneously. "No disrespect t'

these ominous foretellin's, Your Omnipotentness, but the Plated Folk 'ave

attacked our lands too many times t' count. Tis expected that they're t' try

again, but wot's the fear of it?" Talea's expression indicated that she agreed

with him. "They've always been stopped in the Troom Pass behind the Jo-Troom

Gate. Always they 'ave the kind o' impressive numbers you be recitin' t' us, but

their strategy sucks, and what bravery they 'ave is the bravery o' the stupid.

All they ever 'ave ended up doin' is fertili-zin' the plants that grow in the

Pass."

"That's true enough," said Talea. "I don't see that we have anything unusual to

fear, so I don't understand your worry."

The wizard stared patiently at her. "Have you ever fought the Plated Folk? Do

you know the cruelties and abominations of which they are capable?"

Talea leaned back in the chair fashioned from the horns of some unknown creature

and waved the question away with one tiny hand.

"Of course I've never fought 'em. Their last attack was sixty-seven years ago."

"The forty-eighth interregnum," said Clothahump. "I remember it."

"And what were the results?" she asked pointedly.

"After considerable fighting and a great loss of life to both sides, the Plated

Folk armies were driven back into the Greendowns. They have not been heard from

since. Until now."

"Meaning we kicked the shit out of 'em," Mudge paraphrased with satisfaction.

"You have the usual confidence of the untested," Clothahump muttered.

"What about the previous battle, and the one before that, and the thirty-fifth

interregnum, which the histories say was such a Plated fiasco, and all the

battles and fighting back to the beginning of the Gate's foundations?"

"All true," Clothahump admitted. "In all that time they have not so much as

topped the Gate. But I fear this time will be far different. Different from

anything a warmlander can imagine."

Talea leaned forward in the chair. "Why?"

"Because a new element has been introduced into the equation, my dear ignorant

youngling. A profound stress presses dangerously on the fabric of fate. The

balance between the Plated Folk and the warmlander has been seriously altered. I

have sensed this, have felt it, for many months now, though I could not connect

my unease directly to the Plated Ones. Now I have done that, and the nature of

the threat at once becomes clear and thrice magnified.

"Hence my desperate casting for one who could divine and perhaps affect this

alteration. You, Jon-Tom, and now you, my dear," and he nodded toward a watchful

Flores Quintera.

She shook black strands from her face, clasped both arms around her knees as she

stared raptly at him.

"Ahhh, I can't believe it, guv'nor," Mudge said with a disdainful sniff. "The

Plated Folk 'ave never made it t' the top o' the Gate as you say. If they did,

why, we'd annihilate 'em there at our leisure."

"The assurance of the young," murmured Clothahump, but he let the otter have his

say.

" 'Tis only because the warmlander fighters o' the past wanted some decent

competition that they sallied out from behind the Gate t' meet the Plated Folk

in the Pass, or there'd o' been even more unequal combat than history tells us

of. I'm surprised they keep a-tryin'."

"Oh, they will keep 'a-tryin', my fuzzy friend, until they are completely

obliterated, or we are."

"And you're so sure this great unknown whateveritis that you know nothin' about

'as given those smelly monstrosities an edge they've never 'ad before?"

"I am afraid that is so," said the wizard solemnly. "Yet I am admittedly no more

clear as to the nature of that fresh evil now than I was before. I know only

that it exists, and that it must be prepared for if not destroyed." He shook a

warning finger at Talea.

"And that, my dear, raises the other important advantage the Plated Folk have,

one which must immediately be countered. We of the warmlands are divided and