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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
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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-
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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.
122
THE HOUR OF THE GATE
"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
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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
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and folded just above the putfball of a tail. "I doesn't matter
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Alan Dean Foster
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.
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