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"Ya slay me, ya know?" Pog said disgustedly. "Ya really think you'resomething
special."
"What?" Confused, Jon-Tom frowned at the bat.
"You heard me. I said dat ya link you're something special, don't ya? Ya tink
you're da only one wid problems?
At least you've got da satisfaction of knowing dat someone loved ya. I ain't
even got dat.
"How would ya like it if Talea were alive and every time ya looked at her, so
much as smiled in her direction, she turned away from ya in disgust?"
"I don't "
The bat cut him off, raised a wing. "No, hear me out.
Dat's what I have ta go trough every day of my life. bat's what I've been
going trough for years. 'It don't make sense,'
da boss keeps tellin' me." Pog sniffed disdainfully. "But he don't have ta
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experience it, ta live it. 'Least ya know ya was
259
Alan Dean Foster loved, Jon-Tom. I may never have dat simple ting. I may have
ta go trough da rest of my life knowin' dat da one I love gets the heaves
every time I come near her. How would you like ta live wid dat? I'm goin' ta
suffer until I die, or until she does.
"And what's worse," he looked away momentarily, sound-
ing so miserable that Jon-Tom forgot his own agony, "she's here!"
"Who's here?"
"Da falcon. Uleimee. She's wid da aerial forces. I tried ta see her once, just
one time. She wouldn't even do dat for me."
"She can't be much if she acts like that toward you," said
Jon-Tom gently.
"Why not? Because she's reactin' to my looks instead of my wondaful
personality? Looks are important. Don't let anybody tell ya otherwise. And I
got a real problem. And dere's smell, and other factors, and I can't do a damn
ting about 'em. Maybe da boss can, eventually. But promises don't do nuthin'
for me now." His expression twisted.
"So don't let me hear any more of your bemoanings.
You're alive an' healthy, you're an interesting curiosity to da females around
ya, an you've got plenty of loving ahead of ya. But not me. I'm cursed because
I love only one."
"It's kind of funny," Jon-Tom said softly, tracing a pattern on the blanket
covering his cot. "I thought it was Flor I was in love with. She tried to show
me otherwise, but I
couldn't... wouldn't, see."
"Dat wouldn't matter anyhow." Pog fluttered off the chair and headed for the
doorway.
"Why not?"
"Blind an' dumb," the bat grumbled. "Don't ya see anyting? She's had da hots
for dat Caz fellow ever since we
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THE HOUR OF THE GATE
fished him outa da river Tailaroam." He was gone before
Jon-Tom could comment.
Caz and Flor? That was impossible, he thought wildly. Or
.was it? What was impossible in a world of impossibilities?
Bringing back Talea, he told himself.
Well, if Clothahump could do nothing, there was still another manipulator of
magic who would try: himself.
Troops gave the tent a wide berth during the following days. Inside a tall,
strange human sat singing broken love songs to a Corpse. The soldiers muttered
nervously to them-
selves and made signs of protection when they were forced to pass near the
tent. Its interior glowed at night with a veritable swarm of gneechees.
Jon-Tom's efforts were finally halted not by personal choice but by outside
events. He had succeeded in keeping the body from decomposing, but it remained
still as the rock beneath the tent. Then on the tenth day after their hasty
retreat from
Cugluch, word came down from aerial scouts that the army of the Plated Folk
was on the march.
So he slung his duar across his back and went out with staff in hand. Behind
he left the body of one who had loved him and whom he could love in return
only too late. He strode resolutely through the camp, determined to take a
position on the wall. If he could not give life, then by God he would deal out
death with equal enthusiasm.
Aveticus met him on the wall.
"It comes, as it must to all creatures," the general said to him. "The time of
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choosing." He peered hard into Jon-Tom's face. "In your anger, remember that
one who fights blindly usually dies quickly."
Jon-Tom blinked, looked down at him. "Thanks, Aveticus.
I'll keep control of myself."
"Good." The general walked away, stood chatting with a couple of subordinates
as they looked down the Pass.
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Alan Dean Foster
A ripple of expectancy passed through the soldiers assem-
bled on the wall. Weapons were raised as their wielders leaned forward. No one
spoke. The only noise now came from down the Pass, and it was growing steadily
louder.
As a wave they came, a single dark wave of chitin and iron. They filled the
Pass from one side to the other, a flood of murder that extended unbroken into
the distance.
A last few hundred warmlander troops scrambled higher into the few notches cut
into the precipitous canyon. From there they could prevent any Plated Folk
from scaling the rocks to either side of the wall. They readied spears and
arrows. A rich, musky odor filled the morning air, exuded from the glands of
thousands of warmlanders. An aroma of anticipation.
The great wooden gates were slowly parted. There came a shout followed by a
thunderous cheer from the soldiers on the ramparts that shook gravel from the
mountainsides. Led by a phalanx of a hundred heavily armored wolverines, the
warmlander army sallied out into the Pass.
Jon-Tom moved to leave his position on the wall so he could join the main body
of troops pouring from the Gate. He was confronted by a pair of familiar
faces. Caz and Mudge still disdained the use of armor.
"What's wrong?" he asked them. "Aren't you going to join the fight?"
"Eventually," said Caz.
"If it proves absolutely necessary, mate," added Mudge.
"Right now we've a more important task assigned to us, we do."
"And what's that?"
"Keepin' an eye on yourself."
Jon-Tom looked past them, saw Clothahump watching him speculatively.
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THE HOUR Of THE GATE
"What's the idea?" He no longer addressed the wizard as
"sir."
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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