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 the 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 fumed: 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 mist-shrouded 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 the 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 the 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. His 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 forward 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 inoculated 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.”
Then everyone was swarming happily around him. Except the unperturbable, steady Bribbens. The boatman remained at his post, eyes directed calculatingly upstream. They had left the boat in his hands, and he left the congratulating in theirs.
It was later that Mudge found Jon-Tom seated near the bow and staring morosely ahead. Strong wind from behind lifted his bright green cape, and he tucked it around and between his upraised knees. The duar lay in his lap. He plucked disconsolately at it as multihued formations passed in glowing revue.
“’Ere now, lad,” said the otter concernedly, leaning over and squeak-sniffing, “wot’s the matter, then? That Massawatch-oriswhatever’s behind us now, not comin’ down at us.”
Jon-Tom drew another chord from the instrument, smiled faintly up at the otter. “I blew it, Mudge.” When the otter continued to look puzzled, he added, “I could’ve done the same thing as Clothahump, but I couldn’t come up with the right music.” He looked down at the duar.
“I couldn’t think of a single appropriate tune, not even a chord. If it had all been up to me,” he said with a shrug, “we’d all be dead by now.”
“But we ain’t,” Mudge pointed out cheerfully, “and that be the important thing.”
“Our cheeky companion is correct, you know.” Caz had come up behind them both. Now he stood opposite Mudge, looking at the seated human. His paws were behind his back and folded just above the puffball of a tail. “I doesn’t matter who does the saving. Just as friend Mudge says, the fact that we are saved is the important thing. Remember, it was you who tamed the great Falameezar that fiery night in Polastrindu. Not Clothahump. You want to hold all the glory for yourself?”
When he saw that the irony was lost on Jon-Tom he added, “We all work for the same end. It matters nothing who does what so long as that end is achieved. It shall be, unless some of us put our personal feelings and desires above it.”
Mudge looked a little uncomfortable at the rabbit’s bluntness. “’E’s right, mate. We can’t be thinkin’ o’ ourselves in this business.” The last was said with a straight face. “You’ll ’ave plenty o’ opportunity t’ demonstrate your wonderfulness t’ the ladies when this all be done with.” He winked and whistled knowingly before leaving for the stern.
Caz considered giving the self-pitying human a comforting pat, decided Jon-Tom might regard it as patronizing, and left to join Mudge.
Jon-Tom, sitting by himself,
muttered aloud, “The ladies have nothing to do with it.” He watched the cavern walls glide past. Gentle spray licked his face, kicked up from the bow as the boat made its way upstream.
They didn’t, he insisted to himself, resting his chin on folded hands. He’d only been worried about the general welfare.
Then he grinned, though there was no one to see him. The trouble with studying law is that you develop a tendency to bullshit yourself as well as your counterparts. What about the theory that all great events, all the turning points of history, had in some measure or another been motivated by matters of passion? Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Washington… the sexual theory of history explained a hell of a lot of things economics and social migration and such did not.
It was quite a different kind of history that balanced on the outcome of their little expedition. Jon-Tom had never accorded the theory much credit anyway. Yet though meant at least partly in jest, Mudge’s words forced home to him how often emotional yearnings coupled with the basic desires of the body could overwhelm those usually thought of as rational creatures.
So he was sitting there moping about nothing except himself. That was selfish and stupid. Maybe it had affected the thinking of Napoleon and Tiberius and others, but it wouldn’t affect him. It was a damn good thing Clothahump had found the words that had escaped his human companion.
His moroseness fading, he strummed softly on the duar. A flicker of dancing motes haunted his left elbow. When he turned to inspect them, they’d gone. Gneechees.
What still did worry him was the thought that the next time he might be called upon to sing some magic, he might be as mentally paralyzed as he’d been when nearing Helldrink. He would have to fight that.
It wasn’t the thought of death or the failure of their mission that troubled him as he sat there and played. It was a fear of personal failure, a fear that had haunted him since he’d been a child. It was the fear which had driven him to pursue two different careers without being able to choose between them.
And though he didn’t realize it, it was the fear which had driven more men and women to greatness than far more rational motivations… .
VIII
SEVERAL DAYS LATER the cathedral hove into view. It was not a cathedral, of course. But it might have been. No one could say. That turned out not to be as confusing as it seemed.
To Jon-Tom it looked like a cathedral. The ceiling of the great underground chamber in which it rose was several hundred feet high. Towers and turrets nearly touched that far stone roof. At that distance massive stalactites, each weighing many tons, resembled pins hanging from a carpet.
The bioluminescents were especially dense here and the chamber and its far reaches so brightly lit that it took the travelers several minutes to adjust to that unexpectedly vibrant organic glow.
It was more like a hundred cathedrals, Jon-Tom thought, all executed in miniature and piled one atop the other. Care and fine craftsmanship were apparent in every line and curve of the labyrinthine structure. Thousands of tiny colored windows gleamed on dozens of levels. The edifice filled much of the huge chamber.
It was a measure of the distances his mind had crossed that it was only incidental to him that the building shone a rich, metallic gold. Of course, that might only be a result of extensive use of gilt paint. Still, he vowed privately to keep a close watch on their avaricious otter.
The term miniature was applicable to more than just the building. When it became clear to them that the inhabitants of the strange boat were not hostile, the builders began to show themselves.
No more than four inches tall, the little people were covered with a rich umber fur that suggested sable. This fur was quite short, and long, fine hair of the same shade grew on the heads of male and female alike. Hordes of them started emerging from tiny doors and cubbyholes. Most resumed working on the building. Acres of scaffolding bristled on battlements and turrets and towers. One group of several dozen were installing a massive window all of a yard high.
Bribbens eased the boat in toward shore. At closer range they could make out thousands of golden sculptures adorning the building, gargoyles and worm-sized snakes and things only half realized because they originated in other dimensions, from a different biological geometry. Unlike the gneechees, these wonderful creations could be viewed, if not wholly perceived.
As the boat drifted still closer the thousands of tiny workers began milling uncomfortably, clustering close by doorways and other openings. Jon-Tom hailed them from his position at the bow, trying to assuage their worries.
“We mean you no harm,” he called gently. “We’re only passing through your lands and admire your incredible building. What’s it for?”
From the crest of a water-caressed rock a fur-covered nymph all of three and a half inches tall shouted back at him. He had to strain to understand the tiny lady.
“It is the Building,” she told him matter-of-factly, as though that should be explanation enough to satisfy anyone.
“Yes,” and he lowered his voice still further when he saw that his normal tone was painfully loud to her, “but what is the building for?”
“It is the Building,” the sprite reiterated. “We call it ‘Heart-of-the-World.’ Does it not shine brightly?”
“Very brightly,” Talea said appreciatively. “It’s very beautiful. But what is it for?”
The down-clad waif laughed delicately. “We are not sure. We have always worked on the Building. We always will work on the Building. What else is there to life but the Building?”
“You say you call it ‘Heart-of-the-World.’” Jon-Tom studied the radiant walls and glistening spires. At first he thought it had been made of real gold, then stone covered with gilt paint. Now he wasn’t sure. It might be metal of another kind, or plastic, or ceramic, or some unimaginable material he knew nothing of.
“Perhaps it is the very heart of the world itself,” the little lady offered in suggestion. She smiled joyfully, showing perfect minuscule teeth. “We do not know. It beats with light as a heart does. If our work were to be stopped, perhaps the light would go out of the world.”
Jon-Tom considered saying more but found reason and reality at odds with one another, mixed up like a dog and a cat chasing each other around a pole, getting nowhere. He looked helplessly to Clothahump for an explanation. So did his companions.
“Who can say?” The wizard shrugged. “If it is truly the architecture of the heart of the world, then at least we can tell others that the world is well and truly fashioned.”
“Thank you, sir.” The sprite leaped nimbly to another rock further upstream to keep pace with them. “We do our best. We have become very adept at adding to and maintaining the Building.”
“Make sure,” Jon-Tom called to her, “that its glow never goes out!” They were passing into a narrower section of the river cavern, leaving the unnamed little folk and their enigmatic, immense construct behind.
“Who knows,” he said quietly to Flor, “if it is the heart of the world, then they’d better not be disturbed in their work. That’s a hell of a responsibility. And if it’s not, if it’s only a building, an obsession, it’s too beautiful to let die anyway.”
“I never thought the heart of the world would be a building,” she said.
“Aren’t we all structures?” With the Massawrath and Helldrink safely far behind he was feeling alive and expansive. He’d always been that way: high ups and abyssal downs. Right now he was up.
“Each of us develops piece by piece. We’re full of carefully built rooms and halls, audience chambers and windows, and we’re populated with changing individualistic thoughts. I never imagined the heart of the world would be a building, though.” He stared back down the tunnel. It was growing dark, the radiant growths vanishing as they were prone to at unexpected intervals.
“In fact, I never thought of the world as having a heart.”
The last rich light from the distant chamber was lost to sight as they rounded a slight
bend in the river. Bribbens was lighting the first lamp.
“That’s a nice thought, Jon-Tom. If only having a heart meant you would be happy.”
“I suppose it often means the opposite.” But when the import of her last comment finally penetrated, she had left him to chat with their stolid steersman.
Jon-Tom hesitated, thought about pursuing it further by rejoining her to say, “Flor, are you trying to tell me something?” But he was as afraid of showing ignorance if he was interpreting her wrongly as he was of failure.
So he sat himself down in the flickering light and began to clean and tune his duar. As he tightened or loosened the strings, a gneechee or two would appear behind him, peering over his shoulder. He knew they were there and did his best to ignore them.
They were compelled to run on lamplight. Gradually the immense cave formations, the helictites and flowstone and such, began to grow smaller. In the narrowing confines of the river channel the rush and roar reverberated louder from the walls. The continuing absence of the familiar fluorescent fungi and their cousins was becoming unsettling.
No one liked the darkness. It reminded them too much of sleep, and that reminded them of the now distant but never to be forgotten sight of the Massawrath. More importantly, their lamp oil was running out. Bribbens had prepared well, but he hadn’t expected to journey for long in total darkness. The now sorely missed bioluminescents were all that had kept them from traveling in black. Soon it appeared they might have to do so, relying on Pog’s abilities to guide them, unless the light-producing vegetation reappeared.
A hand was shaking him. It was too small to be part of the Massawrath, too solid to be one of its children. Nevertheless he had an instant of terror before coming awake.
“Get up, Jon-Tom. Move your ass!” It was the urgent voice of Talea.
“What?” But before he could say anything more she’d moved on to the next sleeping form. He heard her banging on an echoing surface.
The Hour of the Gate: A Spellsinger Adventure (Book Two) (The Spellsinger Saga) Page 11
