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This time he clung flat to the spreader, arms and legs wrapped as tightly
about the wooden cross member as his wings were around his body.
Clothahump's murmur changed to a stentorian, wizardly monotone. Now
the wind blew hard in their faces, rough and threatening where the gentle
on-bow breeze of previous days had been a comfortable companion.
The roar that permeated his entire body had numbed Jon-Tom's hearing
completely. But his vision still functioned. They were almost upon a cauldron
of spray and fog. Water particles danced in the air and became one with the
river. He wanted to close his eyes, but curiosity kept them open. They no
longer could see or hear the Massawrath.
A harder gray loomed immediately ahead, a definitive axis around
which the mist boiled and filmed: the edge. The little boat crossed it... and
kept going. All the while Clothahump continued his recitation. Even his
charged voice was lost in the aqueous thunder, though Jon-Tom thought he could
make out the part of the chant that made mention of "hydrostatic immunatic
even keel please." The boat now eased out on the turgid air.
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With the cold, distant interest of a parachutist whose chute has
failed to open, Jon-Tom let the duar lie limp against him and moved to the
railing. He looked over the side.
A thousand feet deep, the waterfall was. No, five thousand. It was
hard to tell, since it disappeared into mistshrouded depths. It might have
dropped less than a thousand feet, or for all he could tell it might have
plunged straight to the heart of the earth. Or to hell, if its legend-name was
accurate.
Instead, the depths seemed to hold a fiery, red-orange glow. It
arose from a distant whirlpool point.
As me boat continued to cruise smoothly across emptiness, he finally
saw the source of much of the thunder. There was not just one waterfall, but
four. Others crashed downward to port and starboard, and the fourth lay dead
ahead. These sibling torrents were each as broad and fulsome as the one the
boat had just crossed. Four immense cascades converged above the Pit and
tumbled to a hidden infinity called Helldrink. They were vast enough to drain
all the oceans of all the worlds.
The boat lurched, and everyone grabbed for something solid. They'd
reached the middle of the Drink and had encountered the vortex of spray and
upwelling air that dwelt there. The little vessel spun around twice, a third
time, in that confluence of moist meterologics, and then was spun free by 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 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 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.
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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. "Ointments, 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.
"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 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.
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