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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
49
Alan Dean Foster 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 irrepress-
ible 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. "0' 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.
50
THE HOUR Or THE GATE
"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
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
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 person-
alities 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 para-
noids 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....
Sl
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
S3
Alan Dean Foster 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 consid-
erable 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.
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