“Back through Witten and Fault? By yourself?”
“You broke their bloomin’ totem, not me. Besides, I’ve got some unfinished business back in Fault I wouldn’t mind taking care of.”
“If General Pocknet gets his paws on you, he’ll finish your business.”
Mudge shrugged. “So I’d circle around both towns. Then ‘tis back to the Bellwoods for me, back to Lynchbany and Timswitty and Dornay and real civilization. Back to. . .”
Even had Mudge not rambled on, it’s unlikely either of them would have seen the shadow. The swamp was a world of shadows, and one more was easily lost in the shifting, diffused light. The shadow blended in completely with trees and creepers.
But this shadow was different. It moved independently of those which blanketed the island, moved with purpose and exceptional speed. They didn’t see it until it was directly over them, and then it wa”s too late.
Mudge yelled a warning while Jon-Tom dove for his ram wood staff. The otter reached for his sword: no time for bow and arrows.
Then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared. Mudge lay panting hard on the sand, eyes wide, his sword held defensively in front of his chest even though there was nothing left to defend against. The danger had vanished along with the shadow.
In its place it left three things: Jon-Tom’s ramwood staff, his sword, and a single steel-gray feather. The feather was four inches wide and two feet long. It lay motionless near the otter, the only hard evidence of something which had come and gone with blinding speed.
Mudge picked it up, ran it through his paws. The quill was as thick around as his finger. He straightened his cap, which somehow had stayed on his head during the seconds-long fight, and gazed eastward. The shadow had disappeared in that direction, carrying Jon-Tom in a single brace of impossibly big talons.
The otter considered his situation in light of his recent declarations. The raft was intact, and in addition to his own weapons and supplies, he also had the spellsinger’s. He was uninjured.
Well, that was that, then. So much for one brave, ignorant, meddling, exasperating, immature spellsinger. There was no shame now in returning home. He would even report the debacle to the wizard Clothahump. Sure, he owed the unfortunate Jon-Tom that much. At least the youth wouldn’t be worrying about returning to his own world anymore. As for the wizard, he would accept his student’s demise philosophically, and there was no way he could blame it on the otter. It had happened too fast.
One minute Jon-Toni had been sitting there next to him, listening politely to his complaints, and the next he’d been carried off” by a dark cloud. Not Mudge’s fault, no sir. Couldn’t have been prevented.
He loaded the raft and stepped aboard, then pushed out into the water. At last he could start living his own life, without fear of being conscripted for some lethal journey halfway across a hostile world. He could get back to living like a normal person again, could sleep soundly once more without listening for strange sounds in the night.
Certainly there was nothing he could do. There wasn’t, was there? He pushed angrily against the shaft of the split-bladed paddle and wondered why his thoughts were so damn troubled.
Jon-Tom hung in the grasp of the powerful talons and did not struggle, hoping the enormous eagle which had carried him off preferred live food to dead. Because dead he’d certainly be if the bird let him fall. The Wrounipai flashed past far below.
He twisted as best he was able in the unyielding grip and examined his captor. The eagle had at least a twenty-foot wingspan. It carried him effortlessly. Like the much-smaller feathered inhabitants of this world, it wore a kilt which trailed backward over hips and tail and a vest with a peculiar zigzagging pattern of black on gray. The pattern was almost familiar to Jon-Tom, but he didn’t pursue it through his memory. At the moment he was not in a position to spend much time doing a detailed analysis of another creature’s clothing.
Since the bird showed no sign of stopping, Jon-Tom tried to make a detached survey of the terrain below. It was much as the Will-o’-the-Wisp had described: endless swamp and water stretching off in all directions spotted here and there with tiny islets.
A short while later their apparent destination hove into view. Some powerful tectonic disturbance had thrust a vast mass of black basalt straight up out of the earth. It was thickly overgrown with climbing trees and vines as thick as a man’s body.
An opening showed in the rock two-thirds of the way up its side. The eagle dove straight for it. For an instant Jon-Tom didn’t think those huge wings would make it, but the eagle just managed to squeeze through the opening without bashing Jon-Tom’s head or legs against the rock below.
The opening was not a cave. It was a tunnel leading to the interior of the butte. The inside was hollow.
The eagle flapped its wings twice before touching down on one foot. It flicked its prize away, almost contemptuously.
Jon-Tom rolled over several times, feeling gravel cut into his face. He suffered the pain and chose instead to do his best to protect the duar strapped to his back. When he finally rolled to a stop he was bruised and scratched, but otherwise in one piece.
Keeping one eye on the eagle, he rose to examine his surroundings.
The hollow place was not a volcanic throat, but rather the result of some convulsive fracturing. Six-sided stone columns rose toward the distant sky. Jon-Tom had seen them before, in pictures of the Giant’s Causeway in Scotland and the Devil’s Postpile in California’s High Sierra.
Where each column had broken, a natural perch was formed. These were occupied by numerous nests and homes. The floor of the great open shaft was a charnel house full of bones picked clean by razor-sharp beaks.
The occupants of the homes and the owners of the beaks were normal-sized avians. Not one stood more than four feet in height. With increasing interest, he noted kilts belonging to hawks and falcons, ospreys and fish hawks and vultures. They soared and swam through the air of the shaft, coming and going through the opening above and, less often, through the tunnel that had served as his own entrance. They all seemed to be talking at once. The multiple screeching was deafening.
Several of them walked or flew by to greet the giant who had brought him with a spirited, “Hail, Gyrnaught!” Each raised a right wingtip in salute. That also struck Jon-Tom as somehow familiar, but he didn’t pay overmuch attention to it. There were too many other things to try and absorb simultaneously, and he was too disoriented for deep thought.
For one thing, he was far more concerned about his immediate fate, since the giant eagle didn’t appear particularly interested in eating him. Not yet, anyway. The mountain of bones which covered the floor of the shaft was anything but reassuring.
The shadow towered over him again. The eagle was not quite as impressive as it had been with its wings outspread, but it was just as intimidating.
“Stand up straight!” the eagle commanded him. Still sore and cramped, Jon-Tom fought to comply with the request.
“They say, ‘Hail, Gyrnaught.’ You’re Gyrnaught?” A minuscule nod of head and beak. The eagle was big enough to bite him in two without straining itself.
“What do you want with me?”
“Not dinner. Flesh is cheap.” He gestured with a wing. “Welcome to the Raptor’s Lair. You have been brought here to serve, not to be served. If you prove yourself.”
“I don’t understand.”
Again the beak dipped, this time to gesture toward the duar. “An instrument. You are a musician?”
“Uh, yeah.” Somehow Jon-Tom felt this wasn’t the most opportune time to explain that he was also a spellsinger. He might want to demonstrate that talent later. In fact, it was all but a certainty. The longer he could keep that fact a secret from his captor, the better Jon-Tom’s chances of catching him unawares.
“I thought as much,” said Gyrnaught. “I have need of a musician.”
It was in Jon-Tom’s mind to comment that the eagle didn’t look much like a music lover, but he kept his though
ts to himself. Trying to still his trembling, he struggled to put up a bold front. The fact that he wasn’t on the evening’s menu helped.
“Quite a place you’ve got here.”
“Ah, this is but the beginning.” Gyrnaught was pleased. Good, Jon-Tom thought, gaining a little confidence. He can be flattered. To what extent remained to be seen. “This is only a temporary lair for my troops and myself. They are but the foam of a wave which will fly forth to dominate the whole world. Today this mountain, tomorrow the Wrounipai, later the world! The nest will reign for a thousand years!” The eagle’s eyes flashed as if focusing on something only it could see, and that, too, half reminded Jon-Tom of something.
“I don’t think I recognize the pattern on your kilt and vest.”
“You could not, for it is not of this world. I brought it here from another place many years ago. It has taken me this long to organize just this small striking force.” He made a disgusted noise. “The raptors of this world are difficult to convince of the truth.”
“Really? Another world? That’s interesting. See, I’m from another world myself.”
The eagle’s eyes narrowed. “Say you so? What were you in your world?”
“A student of law and a singer of songs,” he admitted truthfully.
“I have need of song. As for law, I make my own.”
“What were you?” Jon-Tom asked hastily, to change the subject.
“I?” The eagle gazed down at him proudly. “I was a symbol. I was everywhere, in thousands of replications. In stone and steel and brass. In symbols as small as this”—and he held the two great wingtips barely an inch apart—”and in granite monoliths bigger than you can imagine. I was a symbol everywhere and all people bowed down to me.
“But,” he went on angrily, “they saw me only as a symbol. They did not stop and pause and consider when they chose one of their own to be a symbol over me. From that moment on my powers were lost. I could not manifest my true self. When their substitute symbol was ground into the dust, only I, of many thousands of me, escaped destruction. While in symbols I was destroyed, in this world I found myself set free. Here I am whole again and can start the work properly, myself.” He gestured at the raptors swarming through the shaft, the light dancing on their wings.
“My soldiers will rule above all others. It is destined to be so, destined for the strong to rule over the weak. We of beak and claw shall dictate to those who only can walk. It is right. It is destiny.”
It all came together in Jon-Tom’s mind. He’d studied too much history for it to escape him for long.
He’d seen Gyrnaught before, in metal and stone standards. Just as the eagle said. Seen him in pictures rising above obscene parade grounds, atop cold inhumane structures, a frozen caricature of evil.
“I know you,” he said. “It was before my time, but I know what you stand for.”
Gyrnaught looked pleased. “A historian as well as a musician. You will prove even more valuable to the nest. Tell me, then, do you know the Horst Wessel song?”
“No. Like I said, it was before my time. But I know the kind of music you want. What I want to know is, why should I sing for you? Why should I help you spread your old evil to this new world when your infection has already been cleared from mine?”
“Because if you don’t, I will bite off your head and swallow it like a pumpkin.”
Jon-Tom moved the duar around in front of him. “Can’t argue with that kind of logic.”
“Ah, you are going to be reasonable, then. That is good. If you continue to be reasonable, you will continue to live. Besides, you should be proud that the nest has need of your services.”
“What is it, exactly, that you want?” Jon-Tom sighed.
Gyrnaught gestured at his fellow avians. “These are difficult to inspire. I have not yet been able to convince all of them that they are destined to rule all others, that they belong to the master race.”
“Why? Because they have wings and the rest of us don’t?”
“Naturally. It is only right for the higher to rule the lower. I will see to it that all the raptors of this world flock to my banner.”
“There aren’t enough of you. You’re just a few species among many.”
Gyrnaught looked smug. “We will enlist others to serve under us, and they will do the heavy dying. They will be proud to when they see what the new order is to be.”
“You haven’t got a chance, any more than your human counterpart did.”
“He was a fool, and only a human. I am confident.’ That beak moved close, but Jon-Tom stood his ground. There was no place to retreat to anyway. “And now we shall see if there is truth to your words. Sing, stir the hearts of my followers, and you will live long.”
Jon-Tom did so, though it stung badly. He rationalized his efforts by assuring himself he was only stalling for time. Stalling until Mudge arrived to spirit him out of this place. Then they’d figure out a means of stopping this disease that had crossed over from his own world before it could spread.
He sang all the marches he could think of. The raptors were drawn to the music, dipping low to listen. There was a screech of approval at the conclusion of each martial melody.
When Jon-Tom’s lungs finally gave out, Gyrnaught put a friendly wing over him. Jon-Tom felt suddenly unclean.
“You did well, musician! Put aside your otherworldly, primitive moral conceits and join me. I am not ungrateful to those who pledge their lives to me.”
Jon-Tom wanted to tell the eagle precisely what he thought of him and his totalitarian philosophy, but he had sense enough to shrug and say instead, “Maybe you’ve got something here. Maybe it could work in this world if not in the one we’ve left behind.”
“That’s the spirit.” Gyrnaught patted him on the back, nearly knocking Jon-Tom down. “The others moved too fast and became insane. But I am not insane, and I will not force my wing. Our advance and conquest will be patient, but inexorable. This time the cause will not fall.” He looked around.
“Over there is a small cave. A good place for you, unless you would prefer a higher perch.”
Jon-Tom let his gaze travel up the vertical walls of the shaft. “I’d never get up or down. I think I’ll stay close to the ground.”
“A poor, earthbound creature. But you see, with me, you can fly! In truth, good singer, you will be able to lord it over your fellows. Think on that.”
Another crushing pat and Gyrnaught walked off to talk with his underlings.
Smooth, Jon-Tom thought. He has the charisma down pat. The odor of the charnel house was powerful in Jon-Tom’s nostrils, an echo of similar, greater slaughterhouses from his own world’s recent history. That could not be repeated here, must not be repeated.
But he had to be careful. Gyrnaught was no fool. He would listen carefully to anything Jon-Tom might sing until he was more confident of his pet human’s loyalty. So he had to be careful until he could do something.
He just wasn’t sure what.
One thing struck him forcefully as the days passed within the shaft: the ease with which Gyrnaught had taken control of the minds and spirits of this world’s raptors. They drilled efficiently on the ground and in the open air overhead, seemingly having readily abrogated their traditional independence in favor of Gyrnaught’s rule. It just wasn’t like them, according to those Jon-Tom had met in his travels.
One day he asked an osprey about it. To his surprise, the bird informed him that when left to themselves, the hawks and falcons and other birds of prey often questioned the wisdom of Gyrnaught’s philosophy. They weren’t sure they really wanted to conquer the world. But in his presence they were helpless. The force of the eagle’s personality and the strength of his arguments overwhelmed any hesitant opposition. Furthermore, anyone who questioned it was never seen again. So there was no organized opposition to his plans.
The osprey left Jon-Tom much encouraged. Maybe they weren’t confident enough to oppose him, but at least not all of the raptors had s
igned over their souls to Gyrnaught. That uncertainty could be exploited, but not gradually. Gyrnaught would surely trace any such dissension to its source, and that would be the end of Jonathan Thomas Meri weather.
No, it would have to be fast, a sudden collapse of will if not outright opposition. Trouble was, all the songs he knew were full of life and delight and fun. He didn’t know any music darker than the martial bombast Gyrnaught himself favored. Nor could he think of anything potentially disruptive which would work fast enough. And he didn’t think he had much time. His renditions of old marches were quickly losing their edge as his own disenchantment manifested itself, and Gyrnaught was getting suspicious. One day soon the eagle might decide to go hunting for a new musician.
He was sitting in his private alcove on the bed of straw that had been provided for his comfort, chatting with a small falcon named Hensor.
“Tell me again,” he asked the raptor, “why you all follow Gyrnaught so blindly and willingly. Because he’s bigger than the rest of you?”
“Of course not,” said Hensor. “We follow because he is smarter and knows what’s best for the rest of us. He knows how to make us act as a single talon able to strike death into the hearts of any who oppose us.”
“Yeah, but nobody’s opposing you.”
“All oppose us. All who do not bow down to the rule of the master race.”
“Well, suppose everyone else did bow down to you?”
“They won’t.” Hensor spoke with confidence. “We’ll have to knock it into their heads. Gyrnaught says so.”
“I’m sure he’s right, but just suppose, just for a moment, that everyone did bow down to you. Then what?”
“Then we would rule without bloodshed. Except for the inferior races, of course, who would have to be disposed of.”
Jon-Tom felt a chill but continued politely. “Who would rule?”
“We would, the raptors would. Under Gyrnaught’s enlightened leadership, of course.”
“I see.” Jon-Tom shifted on the straw. “Suppose all this comes to pass, suppose you conquer the whole world under Gyrnaught’s direction. Then what happens?”