"I don't suppose we could try again."
The wizard shook his head. "Impossible. Even if I thought I could survive and
control another such conjuration, the last of the necessary powders and material
have been used. It would take months simply to find enough ytterbium to
constitute the necessary pinch the formula requires."
"I hope you're right about my abilities," Jon-Tom mumbled. "I don't seem to be
much good at anything here lately. I hope I can think of the right song when the
time comes." He frowned abruptly. "You said we have my abilities and 'something
more'?"
The wizard nodded, looked pleased with himself. "Sometimes a good shock is more
valuable than any amount of concentration. When I was thrown against the Tree
wall by the force of the trans-dimension dissipation, I had a brief but
ice-clear image. I now know who is behind the growing evil." He gazed
meaningfully up at the staring Jon-Tom.
"Tell me, then. Who and what are--"
But the turtle raised a restraining hand. "Best to wait until everyone has
returned. There is ample threat to all in this, and I shall not begin to play
favorites now."
So they waited while Jon-Tom watched the wizard. Clothahump sat quietly,
contemplating something beyond the ken of the others.
The women returned with Pog muttering irritably behind them. Jon-Tom was a
little shocked at the transformation that had come over the delicate flower of
his postadolescent fantasies.
In place of the familiar cheerleader's sweater and skirt Flor Quintera was clad
in pants and vest of white leatherlike material. The sharply cut vest left her
arms and shoulders bare, and her dark skin stood out startlingly against the
pale cream-colored clothing. A fringed black cape hung from her neck and matched
fringe-topped black boots. The long dagger (or short sword) hung from a black
metal belt and a double-headed mace hung from her right hand.
"What do you think?" She twirled the mace gracefully and thus indicated to
Jon-Tom why she'd selected it. It was not dissimilar to the baton she was so
accustomed to. The major difference was the pair of spiked steel balls at one
end, lethal rather than entertaining.
"Don't you think," he said uneasily, "it's a mite extreme?"
"Look who's talking. What's the matter, not what you'd like to see?" She turned
on her toes and did a mock curtsey. "Is that more ladylike?"
"Yes. No. I mean..."
She turned and walked over to him, laughing, and put a comforting hand on his
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