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
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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 power-
ful 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
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"tm HOUR OF THE GATE
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 thou-
sand. 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 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 the current. Wind rising from
the Drink now blew at them from astern instead of in their
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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. "Oint-
ments, 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.
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"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
me 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