The Hour of the Gate Read online

  A pole was brought and neatly slipped between the bindings on Jon-Tom's ankles and the others at his wrists. He was lifted into the air. Clearing the ground by only a few inches, he was borne off at considerable speed through the grass. He could see at least half a dozen of his captors shouldering the pole, three at his feet and three above his head. Although his sense of speed was artificially accelerated by his proximity to the ground, he fervently prayed that his bearers' sense of direction was as efficient as their deltoids. The sharp grass did not seem to bother them.

  With a creak he saw the wagon turn and follow.

  He had resigned himself to a long period of jouncing and bumping, but it hardly seemed he'd been picked up when he was unceremoniously dumped on the ground. Flor was dropped next to him. One by one he watched as the rest of his companions were deposited alongside. They mashed down the grass so he could see them clearly, lined up like so many kabobs. The similarity was not encouraging.

  Clothahump had evidentally retreated into his shell in an attempt to avoid being moved. They had simply hefted him shell and all to carry him. When he finally stuck arms and legs out again, they were waiting with lassos and ropes. They managed to snare only a leg before he retreated in on himself.

  Mutterings issued from inside the shell. This produced excited conversation among the creatures. They kicked and punched at the impervious body frantically.

  The activity was directed by one of their number, who displayed a variety of metal ornaments and decorative bits of bone in hair and beard. Under his direction a couple of the creatures poked around inside the shell. They were soon able to drag the protesting, indignant turtle's head out. With the aid of others they shoved several bunches of dried, balled-up grass into his mouth and secured the gag tightly. Clothahump reached up to pull the stuffing out, and they tied his arms also. At that point he slumped back and looked exhausted.

  The creature resplendent in bone and metal jumped up and down happily, jabbing a long feather-encrusted pole at the now safely bound and gagged turtle. Evidently the fashion plate was the local witch doctor or wizard, Jon-Tom decided. He'd recognized that Clothahump had been starting a spell inside bis shell and had succeeded in rendering his opponent magically impotent.

  Jon-Tom lay quietly and wondered if they would recognize the sorceral potential of his singing, but the duar was inside the, wagon and he was firmly tied on the ground.

  Moans came from nearby. Straining, he saw another of their captors idly kicking Talea with considerable force. Each time she'd curse her tormentor he'd kick her. She would jerk in pain and it would be several minutes before she regained enough strength to curse him again.

  "Knock it off!" he yelled at her assailant. "Pick on somebody your own size!"

  The creature responded by leaving Talea and walking over to stare curiously down into Jon-Tom's face. He jabbered at him experimentally.

  Jon-Tom smiled broadly. "Same to you, you sawed-off shithead."

  It's doubtful the creature followed Jon-Tom's meaning, but he accepted the incomprehensible comment with equanimity and commenced booting the lanky youth in the side instead. Jon-Tom gritted his teeth and refused to give the creature the satisfaction of hearing him groan.

  After several kicks produced nothing but a steady glare, his attacker became bored and wandered off to argue with some of his companions.

  In fact, there appeared to be as much fighting taking place between members of the tribe as there'd been between them and their captives. Jon-Tom looked around and was astonished to see tiny structures, camp fires, and ugly, hairless smallei versions of the adults, which could only be children. Small green and blue lizards wore backpacks and suggested scaly mules. There was consistent and unrelenting activity taking place around the six bound bodies.

  Camp fires and buildings gave every appearance of having been in place for some time. Jon-Tom tried to estimate the distance they'd traveled.

  "Christ," he muttered, "we couldn't have been camped more than a couple of hundred yards from this town, and we never even saw them."

  "The grass conceals the Mimpa," Caz told him. Jon-Torr looked to his right, saw rabbit ears pointed in his direction "They move freely among it, completely hidden from most of their enemies."

  "Call 'em what you like. They look like trolls to me." Hi? brow twisted in thought. "Except I always thought troll? lived underground. Singularly unlovely bunch, too."

  "Well, I know naught of trolls, my friend, but the Mimpa live in the sward."

  "Like fleas," Mudge snorted from somewhere nearby "An' if I could get loose I'd start on a little deinfestation, wot!"

  Now Jon-Tom could just see the otter's head. His cap was missing, no doubt knocked off during the struggle for the wagon. The otter was jerking around as if he were wired, trying to break free.

  Of them all he was the only one who could match their captors for sheer energy, but he could not break the ropes.

  Jon-Tom turned his attention back to the rabbit. "Can you talk to them, Caz?"

  "I believe I can understand their language somewhat," was the reply. "A well-traveled animal picks up all sorts of odd knowledge. As to whether I can 'talk' to them, I don't think so. Talking takes two, and they strike me as particularly nonconversant with strangers." "How is it they speak a language we can't follow?"

  "I expect that has something to do with their being violently antagonistic to what we think of as civilized life. They're welcome to their isolation, so far as I am concerned. They are incorrigibly hostile, incorrigibly filthy, and bellicose to the point of paranoia. I sincerely wish they would all rot where they stand."

  "Amen to that," said Flor.

  "What are they going to do with us, Caz?"

  "They're talking about that right now." He gestured with an unbound ear. "That one over there with the spangles, the chap who fancies himself something of a local dandy? The one who unfortunately forestalled Clothahump's spell casting? He's arguing with a couple of his equals. Apparently they function as some sort of rudimentary council."

  Jon-Tom craned his neck, could just see the witch doctor animatedly arguing with two equally pretentious and noisy fellows.

  One of them displayed the mother of all Fu Manchu mustaches. It drooped almost to his huge splayed feet. Other than that he was entirely bald. The third member of the unkempt triumvirate had a long pointed beard and waxed mustachio, but wore his hair in a crew cut. Both were as outlandishly clad as the witch doctor.

  "From what I can make out," said Caz, "Baldy thinks they ought to let us go. The other two, Battop and Bigmouth, say that since hunting has been poor lately they should sacrifice us to the gods of the Sward."

  "Who's winning?" Flor wanted to know. Jon-Tom thought that for the first time she was beginning to look a little frightened. She had plenty of company.

  "Can't we talk to them at all?" he asked hopefully. "What about the one who had Clothahump gagged? Do you know hb real name?"

  "I already told you," said Caz. "His name is Bigmouth. Flattop, Baldy, and Bigmouth: that's how their names translate. And no, I don't think we can talk to them. Even if I knew the right words I don't think they'd let me get a word in edgewise. It seems that he who talks loudest without letting his companions make their points is the one who wins the debate."

  "Then if it's just a matter of shouting, why don't you give it a try?"

  "Because I think they'd cut out my tongue if I interrupted them. I am a better gambler than that, my friend."

  It didn't matter, because as he watched the debate-came tc an end. Baldy shook a threatening finger less than an inch from Bigmouth's proboscis, whereupon Bigmouth frowned and kicked the overly demonstrative Baldy in the nuts. As he doubled over, Rattop brought a small but efficient-looking club down on Baldy's head. This effectively concluded the discussion.

  Considerable cheering rose from the excited listeners, who never seemed to be standing still, a condition duplicated by their mouths.

  Jon-Tom wondered at the human
oid metabolism that could generate such nonstop energy.

  "I am afraid our single champion has been vanquished," said Caz.

  "I don't want to die," muttered Flor. "Not here, not in this place." She started reciting Hail Marys in Spanish.

  "I don't want to die either," Jon-Tom yelled at her in frustration.

  "This isn't happening," she was saying dully. "It's all a dream."

  "Sorry, Flor," he told her unsympathetically. "I've already been that route. It's no dream. You were enjoying yourself until now, remember?"

  "It was all so wonderful," she whispered. She wasn't crying, but restraining herself required considerable effort. "Our friends, the quest we're on, when we rescued you that night in Polastrindu… it's been just as I'd always imagined mis sort of thing would be. Being murdered by ignorant aborigines doesn't fit the rest. Can they actually kill us?"

  "I think they can." Jon-Tom was too tired and afraid even to be sarcastic. "And I think we'll actually die, and actually be buried, and actually be food for worms. If we don't get out from here." He looked across at Clothahump, but the wizard could only close his eyes apologetically.

  If we could just lower the gag in Clothahump's mouth when they're busy elsewhere, he thought anxiously. Some kind of spell, even one that would just distract them, would be enough.

  But while the Mimpa were uncivilized they were clearly not fools, nor quite so ignorant as Caz believed. That night they confidently ignored all their captives except the carefully watched Clothahump.

  At or near midnight they were all made the centerpiece of a robust celebration. Grass was cut down with tiny axes to form a cleared circle, and the captives were deposited near the center, amid a ground cover of foul-smelling granular brown stuff.

  Plor wrinkled her nose, tried breathing through her mouth instead. "Mierda… what have they covered the ground here with?"

  "I believe it is dried, powdered lizard dung," said Caz worriedly. "I fear it will ruin my stockings."

  "Part of the ceremony?" Jon-Tom had grown accustomed to strange smells.

  "I think it may be more than that, my friend. It appears to retard the growth of the Sward grasses. An efficient if malodorous method of control."

  Small fires were lit in a circle, uncomfortably near the bound prisoners. Jon-Tom would have enjoyed the resultant celebration for its barbaric splendor and enthusiasm, were it not for the fact that he was one of the proverbial pigs at the center of the banquet table.

  "You said they'd sacrifice us to the gods of the Sward." As he spoke to Caz he fought to retain both confidence and sanity. "What gods do they have in mind?" His thoughts were of the lithe, long-limbed predators they'd seen sliding ribbonlike through the grass their first week out of Polastrindu.

  "I have no idea as yet, my friend." He sniffed disdainfully. "Whatever, I'm sure it will be a depressing way for a gentleman to die."

  "Is there another way?" Even Mudge's usually irrepressible good humor was gone.

  "I had hoped," replied the rabbit, "to die in bed."

  Mudge let out a high whistle, some of his good spirits returning. "O' course, mate. Now why didn't I think o' that right off? This 'ole miserable situation's got me normal thinkin' paths crossed whixwize. And not alone, I'd wager."

  "Not alone your whixwized thoughts, or dying in bed?" asked Caz with a smile.

  "Sort o' a joint occasion is wot I'd 'ave in mind." Again the otter whistle, and they both laughed.

  "I'm glad somebody thinks this is fanny." Talea glared at them both.

  "No," said Caz more quietly, "I don't think it's very funny at all, glowtop. But our hands and feet are bound, I can reach no familiar salve or balm from our supplies though I am bruised all over. I can't do anything about the damage to my body, but I try to medicate the spirit. Laughter is soothing to that."

  Jon-Tom could see her turn away from the rabbit, her badly tousled hair even redder in the glow from the multiple fires. Her shoulders seemed to droop and he felt an instinctive desire to reach out and comfort her.

  Odd the occasions when you have insights into the personalities of others, he thought. Talea struck him as unable to find much laughter at all in life, or, indeed, pleasure of any kind. He wondered at it. High spirits and energy were not necessarily reflective of happiness. He found himself feeling sorry for her.

  Might as well feel sorry for yourself, an inner voice reminded him. If you don't slip loose of these pygmy paranoids you soon won't be able to feel sorry for anyone.

  Unable to pull free of his bonds, he started working his way across the circle, trying to come up against a rock sharp enough to cut diem. But the soil was thick and loamy, and he encountered nothing larger than a small pebble.

  Failing to locate anything else he tried sawing patiently at his ropes with fingernails. The tough fiber didn't seem to be parting in the least. Eventually the effort exhausted him and he slid into a deep, troubled sleep…

  IV

  It was morning when next he opened his eyes. Smoke drifted into the cloudy sky from smoldering camp fires, fleeing the still, swardless circle like bored wraiths.

  Once more the carrying poles were brought into use and he felt himself lifted off the ground. Flor went up next to him, and the others were strung out behind. As before, the journey was brief. No more than three or four hundred yards from the site of the transitory village, he estimated.

  Quite a crowd had come along to watch. The poles were removed. Mimpa gathered around the six limp bodies. Chattering among themselves, they arranged their captives in a circle, back to back, their legs stuck out like the spokes of a wheel. Arms were bound together so that no one could lie down or move without his five companions being affected. A large post was placed in the center of the circle, hammered exuberantly into the earth, and the prisoners shoulders bound to it.

  They sat in the center of a second clearing, as smelly as the first. The Mimpa satisfied themselves that the center pole was securely in the ground and then moved away, jabbering excitedly and gesturing in a way Jon-Tom did not like at the captives ringing the pole.

  Despite the coolness of the winter morning and the considerable cloud cover, he was sweating even without his cape. He'd worked his nails and wrists until all the nails were broken and blood stained the restraining fibers. They had been neither cut nor loosened.

  Along with other useless facts he noted that the grass around them was still moist from the previous night's rain and that his feet were facing almost due north. Clothahump was struggling to speak. He couldn't make himself understood around the gag and in any case didn't have the strength in his aged frame to continue the effort much longer.

  "We can move our legs, anyway," Jon-Tom pointed out, raising his bound feet and slamming them into the ground.

  "Actually, they have secured us in an excellent defensive posture," agreed Caz. "Our backs are protected. We are not completely helpless."

  "If any of those noulps show up, they'll find out what kind of legs I have," said Flor grimly, kicking out experimentally with her own feet.

  "Lucky noulps," commented Mudge.

  "What a mind you have, otter. La cabeza bizzaro." She drew her knees up to her chest and thrust out violently. "First predator that comes near me is going to lose some teeth. Or choke on my feet."

  Jon-Tom kicked outward again, finding the expenditure of energy gratifying. "Maybe they'll be like sharks and have sensitive noses. Maybe they'll even turn toward the Mimpa, finding them easier prey than us."

  "Mayhap," said Caz, "but I think you are all lost in wishful thinking, my friends." He nodded toward the muttering, watchful nomads. "Evidently they are not afraid of whatever they are waiting for. That suggests to me a most persistent and myopic adversary."

  In truth, if they were anticipating the appearance of some ferocious carnivore, Jon-Tom couldn't understand why the Mimpa continued to remain close by. They appeared relaxed and expectant, roughly as fearful as children on a Sunday School picnic. What kind of devouring "god"
were they expecting?

  "Don't you hear something?" At Talea's uncertain query everyone went quiet. The attitude of expectancy simultaneously rose among the assembled Mimpa.

  This was it, then. Jon-Tom tensed and cocked his legs. He would kick until he couldn't kick any more, and if one of those predators got its jaws on him he'd follow Flor's suggestion and shove his legs down its throat until it choked to death. They wouldn't go out without a fight, and with six of them functioning in tandem they might stand an outside chance of driving off whatever creature or creatures were coming close.

  Unfortunately, it was not simply a matter of throats.

  By straining against the supportive pole Jon-Tom could just see over the weaving crest of the Sward. All he saw beyond riffling tufts of greenery was a stand of exquisite blue- and rose-hued flowers. It was several minutes before he realized that the flowers were moving.

  "Which way is it?" asked Talea.

  "Where you hear the noise." He nodded northward. "Over there someplace."

  "Can you see it yet?"

  "I don't think so." The blossoms continued to grow larger. "All I can see so far are flowers that appear to be coming toward us. Camouflage, or protective coloration maybe."

  "I'm afraid it's likely to be rather more substantial than that." Caz's nose was twitching rapidly now. Clothahump produced a muffled, urgent noise.

  "I fear the kicking will do us no good," the rabbit continued dispiritedly. "They apparently have set us in the path of a Marching Porprut."

  "A what?" Flor gaped at him. "Sounds like broken plumbing."

  "An analogy closer to the mark than I think you suspect, night-maned." He grinned ruefully beneath his whiskers. "As you shall see all too soon, I fear."

  They resumed fighting their restraints while the Mimpa jabbering rose to an anticipatory crescendo. The assembled aborigines were jumping up and down, pounding the ground with their spears and clubs, and pointing gleefully from captives to flowers.