The Hour of the Gate Read online

  Flor slumped, worn out from trying to free herself. "Why are they doing this to us? We never did anything to them."

  "The minds of primitives do not function on the same cause-and-effect principles that rule our lives." Caz sniffed, his ears drooping, nose in constant motion. "Yes, it must be a Porprut. We should soon be able to see it."

  Another sound was growing audible above the yells and howls of the hysterical Mimpa. It was a low pattering noise, like small twigs breaking underfoot or rain falling hard on a wooden roof or a hundred mice consuming plaster. Most of all it reminded Jon-Tom of people in a theater, watching quietly and eating popcorn. Eating noises, they were.

  The row of solid Sward grass to the north began to rustle. Fascinated and horrified, the captives fought to see beyond the greenery.

  Suddenly darker vegetation appeared, emerging above the thin, familiar blades of me Sward. At first sight it seemed only another type of weed, but each writhing, snakelike olive-colored stalk held a tiny circular mouth lined with fine fuzzy teeth. These teeth gnawed at the Sward grass. They ate slowly, but there were dozens of them. Blades went down as methodically as if before a green combine.

  These tangled, horribly animate stems vanished into a brownish-green labyrinth of intertwined stems and stalks and nodules. Above them rose beautiful pseudo-orchids of rose and blue petals.

  At the base of the mass of slowly moving vegetation was an army of feathery white worm shapes. These dug deeply into the soil. New ones were appearing continuously out of the bulk, pressing down to the earth like the legs of a millipede. Presumably others were pulled free behind as the creature advanced across the plain.

  "'Tis like no animal I have ever heard of or seen," said Talea in disgust.

  "It's not an animal. At least, I don't think it is," Jon-Tom murmured. "I think it's a plant. A communal plant, a mobile, self-contained vegetative ecosystem."

  "More magic words." Talea fought at her bonds, with no more success than before. "They will not free us now."

  "See," he urged them, intrigued as he was horrified, "how it constantly puts down new roots in front. That's how it moves."

  "It does more than move," Caz observed. "It will scour me earth clean, cutting as neat and even a path across the Swordsward as any reaper."

  "But we're not plants. We're not part of the Sward," Hor pointed out, keeping a dull stare on the advancing plant.

  "I do not think the Porprut is much concerned with citizenship," said Caz tiredly. "It appears to be a most indiscriminate consumer. I believe it will devour anything unable or too stupid to get out of its path."

  Much of the Porprut had emerged into the clearing. The Mimpa had moved back but continued to watch its advance and the effect it produced in its eventual prey. It was much larger than Jon-Tom had first assumed. The front was a good twenty feet across. If the earth behind it was as bare as Caz suggested, then when the creature had finished with them they would not even leave behind their bones.

  It was particularly horrible to watch because its advance was so slow. The Porprut traveled no more than an inch or two every few minutes at a steady, unvarying pace. At that rate it would take quite a while before they were all consumed. Those on the south side of the pole would be forced to watch, and listen, as their companions closer to the advancing plant were slowly devoured.

  It promised a particularly gruesome death. That prospect induced quite a lot of pleasure among the watchful Mimpa.

  Jon-Tom dug his feet into the soft, cleared earth and kicked violently outward. A spray of earth and gravel showered down on the forefront of the approaching creature. The writhing tendrils and the mechanically chewing mouths the^ supported took no notice of it. Even if-the prisoners had their weapons and freedom, it still would have been more sensible to run than to stand and fight.

  It was loathesome to think you were about to be killed by something neither hostile nor sentient, he mused. There was nothing to react to them. There was no head, no indication of a central nervous system, no sign of external organs of perception. No ears, no eyes. It ate and moved; it was supremely and unspectaculariy efficient. A basic mass-energy converter that differed only in the gift of locomotion from a blade of grass, a tree, a blueberry bush.

  In a certain perverse way he was able to admire the manner in which those dozens of insatiable mouths sucked and snapped up even the least hint of growth or the tiniest crawling bug from the ground.

  "Fire, maybe," he muttered. "If I could get at my sparker, or make a spell with the duar. Or if Clothahump could speak." But the wizard's struggles had been as ineffective as his magic was powerful. Unable to loosen his bonds or his gag, he could only stare, helpless as the rest, as the thousandrooted flora edged toward them.

  "I don't want to die," Flor whispered, "not like this."

  "Now, we been through all that, luv," Mudge reminded her. " 'Tis no use worryin' about it each time it seems about t"appen, or you'll worry yourself t' death. Bloody disgustin' way t' go, wot?"

  "What's the difference?" said Jon-Tom tiredly. "Death's death, one way or the other. Besides," he grinned humoriessly, "as much salad and vegetables as I've eaten, it only seems fair."

  "How can you still joke about it?" Flor eyed him in disbelief.

  "Because there's nothing funny about it, that's how."

  "You're not making any sense."

  "You don't make any sense, either!" he fairly screamed at her. "This whole world doesn't make any sense! Life doesn't make any sense! Existence doesn't make any sense!"

  She recoiled from his violence. As abruptly as he'd lost control, he calmed himself. "And now that we've disposed of all the Great Questions pertaining to life, I suggest that if we all rock in unison we might be able to loosen this damn pole and make some progress southwestward. Ready? One, two, three…"

  They used their legs as best they could, but it was hard to coordinate the actions of six people of very different size and strength and would have been even if they hadn't been tied in a circle around the central pole.

  It swayed but did not come free of the ground. All this desperate activity was immensely amusing to the swart spectators behind them. As with everything else it was ignored b) the patiently advancing Porprut.

  It was only a foot or so from Jon-Tom's boots when the proverbial sparker he'd wished for suddenly appeared. Amid shouts of terror and outrage the Mimpa suddenly melted into the surrounding Sward. Something blistered the right side of Jon-Tom's face. The gout of flame roared a second time in his ears, then a third.

  By then the Porprut had halted, its multiple mouths twisting and contorting in a horrible, silent parody of pain while the falsely beautiful red and blue blooms shriveled into black ash. It made not a sound while it was being incinerated.

  A winged black shape was fluttering down among the captives. It wielded a small, curved knife in one wing. With this it sliced rapidly through their bonds.

  "Damn my ears but I never fought we'd find ya!" said the excited Pog. His great eyes darted anxiously as he moved from one bound figure to the next. "Never would have, either, if we hadn't spotted da wagon. Dat was da only ting dat stuck up above da stinking grass." He finished freeing Clothahump and moved next to Jon-Tom.

  Missing his spectacles, which remained in the wagon, Clothahump squinted at the bat while rubbing circulation back into wrists and ankles. The woven gag he threw into the Sward.

  "Better a delayed appearance than none at all, good famulus. You have by rescuing us done the world a great service. Civilization owes you a debt, Pog."

  "Yeah, tell me about it, boss. Dat's da solemn truth, an' I ain't about ta let civilization forget it."

  Free again, Jon-Tom climbed to his feet and started off toward the wagon.

  "Where are you going, boy?" asked the wizard.

  "To get my duar." His fear had rapidly given way to anger. "There are one or two songs I want to sing for our little friends. I didn't think I'd have the chance and I don't want to forget any of the words,
not while they're .still fresh in my mind. Wait till you hear some of 'em, Clothahump. They'll bum your ears, but they'll do worse to—"

  "I do not have any ears in the sense you mean them, my boy. I suggest you restrain yourself."

  "Restrain myself!" He whirled on the wizard, waved toward the rapidly carbonizing lump of the Porprut. "Not only were the little bastards going to feed us slowly to that monstrosity, but they were all sitting there laughing and having a hell of a fine time watching! Maybe revenge isn't in the lexicon of wizards, but it sure as hell is in mine."

  "There's no need, my boy." Clothahump waddled over and put a comforting hand on Jon-Tom's wrist. "I assure you I bear no misplaced love for our hastily departed aboriginal associates. But^as you can see, they have departed."

  In truth, as he looked around, Jon-Tom couldn't see a single ugly arm, leg, or set of whiskers.

  "It is difficult to put a spell on what you cannot see," said the wizard. "You also forget the unpredictability of your redoubtable talents. Impelled by uncontrolled anger, they might generate more trouble than satisfaction. I should dislike being caught in the midst of an army of, say, vengeful daemons who, not finding smaller quarry around, might turn their deviltry on us."

  Jon-Tom slumped. "All right, sir. You know best. But if I ever see one of the little fuckers again I'm going to split it on my spearpoint like a squab!"

  "A most uncivilized attitude, my friend," Caz joined them, rubbing his fur and brushing daintily at his soiled silk stockings. "One in which I heartily concur." He patted Jon-Tom on the back.

  "That's what this expedition needs: less thinking and more bloodthirstiness. Cut and slash, hack and rend!"

  "Yeah, well…" Jon-Tom was becoming a bit embarrassed at his own mindless fury. It was hardly the image he held of himself. "I don't think revenge is all that unnatural ac impulse."

  "Of course it's not," agreed Caz readily. "Perfectly natural."

  "What's perfectly natural?" Flor limped up next to them. Her right leg was still asleep. Despite the ordeal they'd just undergone, Jon-Tom thought she looked as magnificent as ever.

  "Why, our tall companion's desire to barbeque any of our disagreeable captors that he can catch."

  "Si, I'm for that." She started for the wagon. "Let's get our weapons and get after them."

  This time it was Jon-Tom who extended the restraining hand. Now he was truly upset at the manner in which he'd been acting, especially in front of the dignified, sensible Caz.

  "I'm not talking about forgiving and forgetting," he told her, shivering a little as he always did at the physical contact of hand and arm, "but it's not practical. They could ambush us in the Sward, even if they hung around."

  "Well we can damn well sure have a look!" she protested. "What kind of a man are you?"

  "Want to look and see?" he shot back challengingly.

  She stared at him a moment longer, then broke into an uncontrollable giggle. He laughed along with her, as much from nervousness and the relief of release as from the poor joking.

  "Hokay, hokay," she finally admitted, "so we have more important things to do, si?"

  "Precisely, young lady." Clothahump gestured toward the wagon. "Let us put ourselves back in shape and be once more on our path."

  But Jon-Tom waited behind while the others reentered the wagon and set to the task of organizing the chaos the Mimpa had made of its contents.

  Walking back to the cleared circle which had so nearly been their burial place, he found a large black and purple form bending over a burned-out pile of vegetation. Falameezar had squatted down on his haunches and was picking with one massive claw at the heap of ash and woody material.

  "We're all grateful as hell, Falameezar. No one more so than myself."

  The dragon glanced numbly back at him, barely taking notice of his presence. His tone was ponderously, unexpectedly, somber.

  "I have made a grave mistake. Comrade. A grave mistake." The dragon sighed. His attention was concentrated on the crisped, smoking remains of the Porprut as he picked and prodded at the blackened tendrils with his claws.

  "What's troubling you?" asked Jon-Tom. He walked close and affectionately patted the dragon's flank.

  The head swung around to gaze at him mournfully. "I have destroyed," he moaned, "an ideal communal society. A perfect communistic organism."

  "You don't know that's what it was, Falameezar," JonTom argued. "It might have been a normal creature with a single brain."

  "I do not think so." Falameezar slowly shook his head, looking and sounding as depressed as it was possible for a dragon to be. Little puffs of smoke occasionally floated up from his nostrils.

  "I have looked inside the corpse. There are many individual sections of creature inside, all twisted and intertwined together, intergrown and interdependent. All functioning in perfect, bossless harmony."

  Jon-Tom stepped away from the scaly side. "I'm sorry."

  He thought carefully, not daring to offend the dragon but worried about its state of mind. "Would you have rather you'd left it alone to nibble us to death?"

  "No, Comrade, of course not. But I did not realize fully what it consisted of. If I had, I might have succeeded in making it shift its path around you. So I have been forced to murder a perfect natural example of what civilized society should aspire to." He sighed. "I fear now I must do penance, my comrade friend."

  A little nervous, Jon-Tom gestured at the broad, endless field of the Swordsward. "There are many dangers out there, Comrade. Including the still monstrous danger we have talked so much about."

  It was turning to evening. Solemn clouds promised another night of rain, and there was a chill in the air that even hinted at some snow. It was beginning to feel like real winter out on the grass-clad plain.

  A cold wind sprang from the direction of the dying sun. went through Jon-Tom's filthy leathers. "We need your help, Falameezar."

  "I am sorry, Comrade. I have my own troubles now. You will have to face future dangers without me. For I am truly sorrowful over what I have done here, the more so because with a little thought it might have been avoided." He tamed and lumbered off into the rising night, his feet crushing dowr the Sward, which sprang up resiliently behind him.

  "Are you Sure?" Jon-Tom followed to the edge of the cleared circle, put out imploring hands. "We really need you, Comrade. We have to help each other or the great danger will overwhelm all of us. Remember the coming of the bosses of bosses!"

  "You have your other friends, your other comrades to assist you, Jon-Tom," the dragon called back to him across (he waves of the green sea. "I have no one but myself."

  "But you're one of us!"

  The dragon shook his head. "No, not yet. For a time I had willed to myself that it was so. But I have failed, or I would have seen a solution to your rescue that did not involve this murder."

  "How could you? There wasn't time!" He could barely see me dark outline now.

  "I'm sorry, Comrade Jon-Tom." Falameezar's voice was faint with distance and guilt. "Good-bye."

  "Good-bye, Falameezar." Jon-Tom watched until the dragon had completely vanished, then looked disappointedly at the ground. "Dammit," he muttered.

  He returned to the wagon. Lamps were lit now. Under their familiar, friendly glow Caz and Mudge were checking the condition of the dray team. Flor, Clothahump, and Talea were restocking their scattered supplies. The wizard's glasses were pinched neatly on his beak. He looked out and down as Jon-Tom, hands shoved into his pockets and gaze on the ground, sauntered up to him.

  "Problems, my boy?"

  Jon-Tom raised his eyes, nodded southward. "Falameezar's left us. He was upset at having to kill the damn Porprut. I tried my best to argue him out of it, but he'd made up his mind."

  "You did well even to try," said Clothahump comfortingly. "Not many would have the courage to debate a dragon's decision. They are terribly stubborn. Well, no matter. We shall make our way without him."

  "He was the strongest of us," Jon-Tom m
urmured disappointedly. "He did more in thirty seconds to the Porprut and the Mimpa than all the rest of us were able to do at all. No telling how much trouble just his presence prevented."

  "It is true we shall miss his brute strength," said the wizard, "but intelligence and wisdom are worth far more than any amount of muscle."

  "Maybe so." Jon-Tom vaulted into the back of the wagon. "But I'd still feel better with a little more bmte strength on our side."

  "We must not bemoan our losses," Clothahump said chidingly, "but must push ahead. At least we will no longer be troubled by the Mimpa." He let out an unwizardly chuckle. "It will be days before they cease running."

  "Do we continue on tonight, then?"

  "For a short while, just enough to leave this immediate area behind. Then we shall mount a guard, just in case, and continue on tomorrow in daylight. The weather looks unpleasant and we will have difficulty enough in holding to our course.

  "Then too, while I don't know how you young folk are feeling, I'm not ashamed to confess that the body inside this old shell is very much in need of sleep."

  Jon-Tom had no argument with that. Falameezar or no Falameezar, Mimpa or no Mimpa, he was dead tired. Which was a good deal better than what he'd earlier thought he'd be this night: plain dead.

  The storm did not materialize the next day, nor the one following, though the Swordsward received its nightly dose of steady rain. Plor was taking a turn at driving the wagon. It was early evening and they would be stopping soon to make camp.

  A full moon was rising behind layers of gray eastern clouds, a low orange globe crowning the horizon. It turned the rain clouds to gauze as it lifted behind them, shedding ruddy light over the darkening sward. Snowflakelike reflections danced elf steps on the residue of earlier rain.

  From the four patient yoked lizards came a regular, heavy swish-swish as they pushed through the wet grasses. Easy conversation and occasional laughter punctuated by Mudge's lilting whistle drifted out from the enclosed wagon. Small things rose cautiously to study the onward trundling wooden beast before dropping down into grass or groundholes.