The Hour of the Gate

by Alan Dean Foster

  "Fight for it, my boy, fight! You can't argue with these things, and I have a feeling that if we're taken from this boat we'll never see it again." He had retreated inside his shell, confounding his would-be abductors.

  Above the shouts of the boat's defenders and the singsong of their horribly indifferent assaulters came a reprise of that ominous, basso groaning. It was definitely nearer, Jon-Tom thought, and redoubled his efforts to clear the deck.

  He was swinging the club end of his staff in great arcs, indiscriminately lopping off heads, arms, legs. The singers broke like hardened clay, but the dozens dismembered were replaced by ranks of thoughtless duplicates, still droning their eerie anthem.

  "Get us out in the current!" Talea was trying to keep the white bodies away from the bow.

  With Mudge shielding him from clutching fingers Bribbens put down his oar and returned to the main sweep. Though he leaned on it as hard as he could, and though the current was with them, they still couldn't move away from the shore.

  Jon-Tom leaned over the side. Using his reach and the long club he began clearing bodies from the waterline. White bands pulled possessively at him from behind, but Flor was soon at his side swinging her mace, cutting them down like pale shrubs. Most of them ignored her. Possibly it had something to do with her white leather clothing, he mused.

  He concentrated on swinging the club in long arcs, knocking away heads or pieces of boneless skull with great rapidity. Their slight resistance barely slowed the force of his swings.

  When the heads were knocked loose the bodies simply ceased their shoving and slid below the surface. A few bobbed on the current and drifted like styrofoam down the river.

  The singing continued, undisturbed by the bloodless slaughter, by screams of anger or despair. Rising louder around the boat was that rich, bellowing moan. It had become loud enough now to drown out the chorus. A few fragments of rock fell from the cavern roof.

  Finally enough of the bodies had been swept from the side of the boat for it to drift once more out into the river. Like so many termites supple white singers continued to march down toward the water. They walked until the water was up to their chests and began swimming slowly after the boat.

  Breathing hard, Jon-Tom leaned back against the railing, holding tight to his staff for additional support. All of the original swimmers who'd forced the craft in to shore had been knocked away or decapitated. Now that they were out again in midstream, the current kept them well ahead of their lugubrious pursuers.

  "I don't understand what-" He was talking to the boatman, but Bribbens wasn't listening. He'd suddenly locked the steering oar in position and was unbolting smaller ones from the deck.

  "Paddle, man! Paddle for your life!"

  "What?" Jon-Tom looked back at the shore, expecting to see the horde of singers clumsily stumbling after them across the rocks.

  Instead his gaze fastened onto something that stifled the scream welling up in his throat and turned it into that peculiar choking noise people make at times of true horror. A vast, glowing gray mass filled the cavern shore behind them. It came near to touching the ceiling. Where large formations rose the gray substance flowed over or around it, displaying a consistency partly like cloud and then like lard. Its moans rattled the length of the cavern and echoed back from distant walls.

  It looked like a fog wrapped with mucus, save for two enormous, pulsing pink eyes. They stared lidlessly down at the tiny fleeing ship and the stick figures frozen on its deck.

  Bits of its flanks were in constant motion. These portions of mucus slid toward the ground. As they did so their color paled to a now familiar white. Tumbling like the eggs of some gigantic insect, they dropped off the huge slimy sides onto the rock and gravel. There they rolled over and stood upright on newly formed legs. Simultaneously a section of their smooth faces parted and a fresh voice would join intuitively in the awful mellifluous chorus of its duplicates.

  Something hard and unyielding struck Jon-Tom in his midsection. Looking down he saw the hardwood oar Bribbens had shoved at him. The glaring frog face moved away, to pass additional oars to the rest of his passengers.

  Then he was back at his sweep, rowing madly and yelling at his companions. "Paddle, damn you all, paddle!"

  Jon-Tom's feet finally moved. He leaned over the side and ripped with the oar at the dark surface of the river. It was difficult going and the leverage was bad, but he rowed until his throat screamed with pain and a deep throbbing pounded against his chest.

  Yet that horror lurching and tumbling drunkenly along the shore just behind them put strength in weakened arms. Talea, Ror, Caz, and Mudge imitated his efforts. Pog had hidden behind his wings, where he hung from the spreaders, a shivering droplet of black membrane, flesh, and fear. Clothahump stood and watched, watched and mumbled.

  A thick gray pseudopod reached across the river, emerging from the slate-colored moving mountain. It slapped violently at the water only yards from the stem of the fleeing vessel. For all its nebulous horror, the substance of the monster was teal enough. Water drenched those on board.

  Black almost-eyes glistened wetly as white grub-things continued peeling from the pulsating bulk of the beast. Jon-Tom frowned; someone had spoken above the reverberant bellowing. He looked across at Clothahump.

  "The Massawrath." The wizard noticed Jon-Tom staring at him, and he repeated the name. "I have seen it in visions, my boy, suspected it in trances, but to have located its lair… Is it not appalling and unique? Do you not recognize any of this?"

  "Recognize…? Clothahump, have you gone mad? Or have we all? Or is it just that… that…"

  He hesitated. For all its utterly alien appearance, there was truly something almost familiar about the apparition.

  Again the pseudopod slapped at them. There was a broken groan from the boat. The tip of the massive appendage had struck just to Clothahump's left, tearing away railing along with a bit of the deck. The turtle had instinctively withdrawn and rolled several yards bowward. There he stuck out arms and legs once more and struggled to his feet while Bribbens rowed harder than ever and quietly cursed the abomination pursuing them.

  Several partly formed white shapes had fallen from the end of the pseudopod. They lay on deck, their uncompleted limbs thrashing slowly. Among them was a head that had not grown a proper body and a lower torso the chest region of which tapered to a point.

  Jon-Tom pulled in his oar and began kicking the disgusting things over the side. The last one clutched and pulled at him. It had arms but no legs. He was forced to touch it. Somehow he kept down his nausea and pulled it away from his legs. The white, rubbery flesh was cold as ice. He lifted it and heaved it over the railing, its weak grip sliding along his arm. It splashed astern while the Massawrath hunched its way over boulders and stalagmites, pacing just aft of the racing ship and gibbering mindlessly.

  "If the river narrows and brings us in reach, we're finished." Talea spoke in a high, nervous voice and wrestled with the long oar.

  "What is it?" Jon-Tom wiped his hands on his pants but the clamminess he'd picked off the flesh wouldn't dry. He raised his oar and shoved it back into the water.

  "The Massawrath," Clothahump repeated. His hurried tumble across the deck apparently hadn't affected him. "She is the Mother of Nightmares. This is her lair, her home."

  Jon-Tom tried not to watch the loping gray slime. Bits of congealed white, animated puddings, continued to drip from those vast flanks, climb to their feet, and march for the water. They remained at least twenty yards astern though they kept up their pursuit. They did not have the muscular strength (if they had muscles, Jon-Tom thought) to overtake the boat. An anny of fellow singers surged and marched around the base of the Massawrath. Some were indifferently squished beneath the vast mass, others shoved aside into the water. "And what are the white things?" Flor forced herself to ask.

  Clothahump peered over his glasses at her in evident surprise. "Why child, what would you expect the Mother of Nightmares to produce
, except nightmares? I asked if you recognized them. Having no dreams to invade they are presently unformed, shapeless, incipient. Here in their place of birthing they are partly solid. When they pass out and into the minds of thinking creatures they have become thin as wind. Their lives are brief, empty, and full of torment."

  "Wha-at?" Caz swallowed, tried again. "What does the blasted thing want with us?" The fur was as stiff on his neck as the nails of a yogi's board.

  "Nightmares need dreams to feed on," explained the wizard. "Minds on which to fasten. What the Massawrath Mother feeds on I can only imagine, but I am not ready to offer myself to find out. I do not think it would be pleasant to be nightmared to death. Mayhap she feeds on the loose minds of the mad, carried back to her by those fragments of nightmare offspring that survive longer than a night. It is said the insane never awaken."

  It continued to trail them, roaring and moaning. Pale things fell like white sweat from her back and sides. Occasionally a fresh appendage, gray and wet, would extend out toward them. It did not again come close enough to contact the boat.

  Jon-Tom remembered Talea's frantic warning: if anything forced them nearer the Massawrath's shore they would be better off killing each other.

  Another worry was the vibration he'd been feeling for more than a few minutes. Though it steadily intensified, it seemed to have no connection with the pursuing Mother of Nightmares. Soon a vast thunder filled his ears, powerful enough to reduce even the Massawrath's moan to a faint wailing.

  Still it grew in volume. Now the maddened gray hulk struck out at the boat with dozens of pseudopods of many lengths. They raised water from the river and dropped dozens of slimy nightmares behind the boat.

  The roaring grew louder still, until it and the vibration underfoot merged and were one. Exhausted from wrestling with the steering sweep, Bribbens leaned across it and tried to catch his breath. Then he frowned, staring over the bow. Several minutes went by and an expression of great calm came over his face.

  Jon-Tom relaxed on his own oar and panted uncontrollably. "You… you recognize it?"

  "Yes, I recognize it." The boatman looked happy, which was encouraging. He also looked resigned, which was not. "Every boatman knows the legends of the Sloomaz-ayor-leWeentli. It could only be one thing, you know.

  "At least the Massawrath will not have us. This will be a cleaner, surer death."

  "What death? What are you talking about?" Talea and the others had shipped their own oars as their pursuer fell back.

  Bribbens reached out with an arm and gestured across the bow. Ahead of them a thick fog was becoming visible. It boiled energetically and spread a cloud across the roof of the great cavern.

  "Clothahump?" Jon-Tom turned back to me wizard. "What's he raving about?"

  "He is not raving, my boy." The stocky sorcerer had also turned his attention away from the fading horror behind them. "He told you once, remember? It is why the Massawrath cannot follow and why she flails in rage at us. She cannot cross Helldrink."

  Thunder deafened Jon-Tom, and he had to put his hands to his ears. He felt the noise through the deck, through his legs and entire body. It pierced his every cell.

  Fog and roaring, mist and thunder drew nearer. What did mat say? It's speaking to you, he told himself, announcing its presence and declaring its substance. It was familiar to Bribbens, who'd never seen it. Should it therefore also be recognizable to him?

  Waterfall, he thought. He knew it instantly.

  Hurrying to the storage lockers, he tried to think of a saving song. The duar was in his hands, clean and dry, waiting to be stroked to life, waiting to sing magic. He draped straps over his neck, felt the familiar weight on his shoulders.

  One final tune long cables of gray mucus reached out for mem. The Massawrath had extended itself to the utmost, but its reach still fell short. Quivering with frustration, it hunkered down on the rocks now well behind the boat, the volcanic pits of its eyes glaring balefully at those now beyond its grasp.

  Ahead fog boiled ceilingward like wet flame.

  Jon-Tom stared mesmerized at the mist and hunted through his repertoire for an appropriate song. What could he sing? That they were nearing a waterfall was all too clear, but what kind of waterfall? How high, how wide, how fast or… ?

  Desperately he belted out several choruses from half a dozen different tunes relating to water. They produced no visible result. The boat's course and speed remained unchanged. Even the gneechees seemed to have deserted him. He'd come to expect their almost-presence whenever he'd strummed magic, and their absence panicked him.

  Nothing ahead now but swirling vapor. Then Talea cursed loudly. Caz gave a warning shout and locked his arms around the railing while Mudge put his head on the deck and covered his eyes with his hands, as though by not seeing he might not be affected.

  A faint mumbling rose behind Jon-Tom. Helpless and confused, he spared a second to look around.

  Clothahump was standing by the steering sweep, next to a stoic Bribbens. The wizard's short, stubby arms were raised, the fingers spread wide on his left hand while those on the right made small circles and traced invisible patterns in the air.

  With a snap the mainsail rose taut, the luff rope zipping up me mast with a whirr though no hand had touched the rigging. A terrified Pog reacted to the ascending sail by letting loose the spreader he'd been hanging from. A powerful updraft caught him, and he had to flap furiously to regain his perch. This time he clung flat to the spreader, arms and legs wrapped as tightly about the wooden cross member as his wings were around his body.

  Clothahump's murmur changed to a stentorian, wizardly monotone. Now the wind blew hard in their faces, rough and threatening where the gentle on-bow breeze of previous days had been a comfortable companion.

  The roar that permeated his entire body had numbed Jon-Tom's hearing completely. But his vision still functioned. They were almost upon a cauldron of spray and fog. Water particles danced in the air and became one with the river. He wanted to close his eyes, but curiosity kept them open. They no longer could see or hear the Massawrath.

  A harder gray loomed immediately ahead, a definitive axis around which the mist boiled and filmed: the edge. The little boat crossed it… and kept going. All the while Clothahump continued his recitation. Even his charged voice was lost in the aqueous thunder, though Jon-Tom thought he could make out the part of the chant that made mention of "hydrostatic immunatic even keel please." The boat now eased out on the turgid air.

  With the cold, distant interest of a parachutist whose chute has failed to open, Jon-Tom let the duar lie limp against him and moved to the railing. He looked over the side.

  A thousand feet deep, the waterfall was. No, five thousand. It was hard to tell, since it disappeared into mistshrouded depths. It might have dropped less than a thousand feet, or for all he could tell it might have plunged straight to the heart of the earth. Or to hell, if its legend-name was accurate.

  Instead, the depths seemed to hold a fiery, red-orange glow. It arose from a distant whirlpool point.

  As me boat continued to cruise smoothly across emptiness, he finally saw the source of much of the thunder. There was not just one waterfall, but four. Others crashed downward to port and starboard, and the fourth lay dead ahead. These sibling torrents were each as broad and fulsome as the one the boat had just crossed. Four immense cascades converged above the Pit and tumbled to a hidden infinity called Helldrink. They were vast enough to drain all the oceans of all the worlds.

  The boat lurched, and everyone grabbed for something solid. They'd reached the middle of the Drink and had encountered the vortex of spray and upwelling air that dwelt there. The little vessel spun around twice, a third time, in that confluence of moist meterologics, and then was spun free by the vortex's centrifugal power. It continued sailing steadily across the chasm.

  Ahead the far waterfall loomed closer. The bow made contact with the water, the keel slipped in. They were sailing steadily now upstream, against th
e current. Wind rising from the Drink now blew at them from astern instead of in their faces. The sail billowed and filled for the first time since they'd entered the Earth's Throat.

  Clothahump suddenly leaned back against the railing. Hi' hands dropped and his voice faltered. The boat slowed. For an awful moment Jon-Tom thought the wind wouldn't be enough to cancel the insistent force of the swift current. Only Bribbens' skill enabled them finally to resume their forwara progress.

  Gradually they picked up speed, until the awesome pounding of the falls had fallen to a gentle rumbling echo. They were traveling upstream now, the wind steady behind them. The same luminescent growths lined portions of cavern wall and ceiling. They were in a subterranean chamber no different from the one they had fled.

  Emotionally wrung, Jon-Tom leaned over the side of the boat and gazed astern. By now the last mists had been swallowed by distance. No Massawrath clone waited here to challenge them.

  It did not have to. Never again could it send its pale white children to haunt the sleep of at least one traveler. Having been exposed, Jon-Tom was now immune. The encounter had innoculated him against nightmare. One who has looked upon the Mother of Nightmares cannot be frightened by her mere minions of ill sleep.

  Clothahump had slumped to the deck. He sat there rubbing his right wrist. "I am out of shape," he muttered to no one in particular. His attention rose to the mast. Pog was twisted around the upper spreaders like a black coil.

  The bat was slowly unwrapping himself. His malaria-like shivers faded, and he spoke in a querulous whisper. "Ointments, Master? Unguents and balms for ya arm, maybe a blue pill for ya head?"

  "You okay?" Jon-Tom gazed admiringly down at the exhausted wizard.

  "I will be, boy." He spoke hoarsely to his famulus. "Some ointment, yes. No pill for my head, but I will have one of the green ones for my throat. Five minutes of nonstop chanting." He sighed heavily, glanced back to Jon-Tom.

  "Keep in mind, my boy, that a wizard's greatest danger is not lack of knowledge nor the onset of senility nor such forgetfulness as I am now prone to. It's laryngitis."