Every eye turned to him. He was glad it was dark
so they couldn't see how nervous he was- A song—
what would be the right song?
johnny Cash's "Fol&om Prison Blues" created no
openings -in the stone walls, nor did any song of
prisons or chain gangs. He started to sweat despite
the coolness. Mudge sat down, looking resigned.
He'd been through this before. Opiode looked disap-
pointed and the rest of the party confused. It hurt
Jon-Tom's recall, though his playing was as smooth
as ever.
"Wot's wrong?" Quorly leaned over Mudge and
snuggled close. "Nothin's 'appenin'."
Mudge ran fingers lightly over her fur. tt Tis just
the way it works sometimes. 'E's a spellsinger for
sure, but 'e's still new to 'is profession and don't quite
*ave the *ang o' it quite. Sometimes the magic works
and sometimes it don't. And sometimes you just 'ave
to be patient."
"I'll try," she murmured worriedly, "but Opiode
said we didn't have a lot of time."
Jon-Tom sang until he began to grow hoarse, and
still the singing produced no results. Only a few idle
gneechees, who didn't hang around long enough for
him to finish a single tune.
More to cheer himself than out of any hope of
doing anything, he launched into a spirited ren-
THE MOMEWT OP TBB MAQSCIAS
287
dition of Def Lepard's "Rock of Ages." StBl no magical
escape hatches appeared, no stairways or corridors.
He got something else, though. ^
The otters stirred. Awed whispers rose from die
Quorum members. Opiode's eyes narrowed, and he
stroked his chin as he tried to analyze the meaning
of this bizarre conjuration. Powerful sorcery it was,
but of what kind, and what could it portend?
Only Mudge knew the origin of the shifting, glow-
ing shapes that had appeared and now danced glee-
fully around the spellsinger's feet. He knew because
he'd encountered them once before.
"Wot did you call 'em, mate?" he asked softly,
staring along with the others.
The duar continued to produce thunderous, ring-
ing chords. "Geolks," Jon-Tom shouted at him, "but
what are we going to do with them?"
XVII
The exquisite phosphorescent worm-forms continued
to multiply, until they occupied much of the floor
and most of the walls. They twisted and flowed
through the stone in a peculiar cadence all their
own, sometimes in time to the rhythm of the duar,
sometimes in time to one utterly alien. The chamber
was alive with living rainbows.
Jon-Tom concluded a brazen chorus, kept playing
as he spoke. "Hello! Do you remember me?"
"It is good to see you again, music-maker.'* The
speaker might have been the same one who'd con-
versed with Jon-Tom back among the karst pinnacles
in the Wrounipai, or it might have been another.
There was no way of knowing for certain- Color was
no clue. "Singing still, we see."
"Yes, but not freely. We're trapped in this place."
He tried to alter the melody subtly, to substitute his
words for Lepard's lyrics. "Trapped in this awful
dark place."
"Awful? What is the difference between one vacu-
um and another?" the worm asked him.
"Freedom of movement. Something you take for
granted. Can you help us out of here? I'll play
whatever you like for as long as you want if you'll just
288
THB MOKEWT W TOS MAQICIAM
289
help us get out of here. There's an opening higher
up. Can you make something we can climb?"
"What is 'climb'?" inquired a coolly curious geolk.
The other prisoners looked on in mesmerized silence.
"What is 'out'? We like your emptiness but your
movements concern us not."
There had to be something they could do, he
thought desperately. What could the geolks do? They
could move freely through solid rock, come and go
as they pleased and...
They could make earthquakes.
"Find a crack in this wall... in the rock that sur-
rounds us. Link together as I saw you do before. Feel
"Nothing to do with us," the geolks insisted distantly.
"To tremor we have to work together, and right now
we do not feel like working together."
"Don't feel like working together?" a new voice
said. Jon-Tom continued to sing while trying simul-
taneously to quiet Falameezar, but the dragon's politi-
cal consciousness was up and he refused to be shushed.
If anything, he looked inspired.
"Leave this to me, comrade. This is a matter of
organization"
"But you don't understand, Falameezar," Jon-Tom
said desperately. "These aren't your usual folks. They
won't—"
"Workers of the world, arise!" Falameezar bellowed.
"Join together in solidarity and nothing can stop
you!"
"Nothing can stop us now," a bright blue geolk
replied. "And we are not workers."
Falameezar would have none of it, continued to
lambast the glowing shapes with the profoundest
barrage of Marxist rhetoric Jon-Tom had ever heard.
It made absolutely no sense to him, but it seemed to
hypnotize the geolks.
Alan Dean Foster
290
"Make Vladimir Ilyich proud of you," Falameezar
rumbled. "Show the world what true collective action
can do!"
Whether it was Jon-Tom's music or the dragon's
rhetoric or a combination of both, the geolks started
to line up on the far wall, twisting and curling
against one another.
"Get back, everybody," Mudge warned the onlookers.
"And don't be surprised no matter wot 'appens. Be
ready" He grinned at his friend the spellsinger. "Bugger
me for a blue-eyed bandicoot if I don't think we're
gettin' out o* 'ere!"
Still the geolks continued to gather, until the oppo-
site wall of the well chamber was alive with blinding
light- Jon-Tom had to close his eyes to shut out the
intense glow.
Falameezar roared something about the worker's
imperative at the same time that Jon-Tom and his
duar thundered out the opening words of Quiet
Riot's "Cum On Feel the Noize." The earth trembled
as the huge rope of geolks convulsed. The concus-
sion knocked Jon-Tom off his feet, and even Falameezar
was tossed sideways.
His head rattling, he tried to keep playing, tried to
do it as fluidly as Jimi or Robin Trower or Eddie van
Halen would have. Finally he had to stop because the
dust in his nostrils was choking him.
He opened his eyes to a different kind of light,
The geolks were gone, and so was much of the far
wall. Light washed over the bottom of the well be-
cause the right side of the roof had collapsed. In
place of wall and roof was a pile of rubble that
reached all the way
to the main floor above.
Falameezar shoved his way clear of the talus. "Free!
Free from the imperialist neo-colonialist yoke!" He
started pawing up the steep slope. "Where is he, lead
me to him!"
THE MOMENT OF TUB MAGICIAN 291
"Easy, easy, comrade!" Jon-Tom struggled to catch
up to the angry dragon- "If he sees you, he'll only
put you to sleep again."
"No, he will not," said Falameezar decisively. "The
people are awake to reality now, and not4ing can put
them to sleep again." Flame and smoke billowed
from his jaws. ^'I'll reduce the fascist dictator to a
cinder." He started climbing again.
"Don't underestimate him!" Jon-Tom shouted
up at the dragon, but to no avail. Falameezar
wasn't dumb, but he was more than a litde impulsive,
especially when the revolutionary fever was on
him.
Shouts sounded from the floor above, and they
found themselves looking up at Markus's guards.
Their expressions were more than a little fearful as
they stared down into the gaping hole that had
materialized practically under their feet. If that
wasn't enough to send them running, the sight of
Falameezar climbing rapidly toward them finished
the job. The floor cleared with gratifying swift-
ness.
"but I'll have to handle Markus. Somehow."
"You can do it. mate. You're the only one who
can," Mudge said.
Jon-Tom looked grim. "Maybe I can convince the
geolks to concentrate in his spine. Hell, we'll get him!
I just managed a Marxist earthquake, didn't I?" He
looked past the otter, waved to the others. "All right,
let's go!"
Yelling and barking enthusiastically, the otters
followed him up the slope. Opiode and the Quorum
members trailed at a discreet distance. They were
administrators, not fighters.
Falameezar was searching the intact part of the big
room, hunting for fascists. Occasionally a guard or
Alan Dean Foster
292
two would peer through a doorway, Only to be sent
fleeing by a ferocious blast of flame. Falameezer
launched into a spirited rendition of the "Internation-
ale." He was out of tune and had the words aU wrong,
but Jon-Tom wasn't about to correct him. The scaly
Marxist was having too good a time incinerating
capitalist dupes.
"We've got to Find Markus as fast as possible,
before he can get his wits together. Fatameezar will
keep his guards occupied." He looked at Trendavi,
the deposed premier. "Can you show us the way to
his tower?"
The aged pangolin nodded. "Without fail, my
friends." He led them through a still-standing door.
Occasionally they encountered some of Markus's
guards, but while the otters were usually outanned
and outweighed, they were never intimidated. Guards
broke and ran without Fighting. No doubt word of
the escape was already racing through the Quorumate,
and no solider wanted to risk the chance of encounter-
ing a bunch of hyperkinetic fanatics who might be
backed up by a Fire-breathing, if somewhat verbose,
dragon.
"This way," Trendavi told them, turning to his left.
Then they were outside, on the parapet Jon-Tom
had been marched across not so long ago, racing
toward Markus's sanctuary.
"He has outsmarted himself," Opiode commented
as they slowed. The members of the Quorum were
near collapse from the run, but not. the salamander.
His eyes glittered. "None can approach from three
sides, but by the same token there is only this way
out."
"I'm going in," Jon-Tom told them. "The rest of
you stay behind me"
"I was about to suggest that meself," said Mudge.
They rushed forward. There was no sign of the
TUB MOMEWT Of THE MAGJCIAJf 293
two armed lions who had flanked the entrance when
Jon-Tom had been brought here before.
Actually, now that the final confrontation was at
hand, Jon-Tom wasn't quite sure how to proceed. He
didn't tell his companions that.
Attack. Always keep the opposition off balance.
That was how he'd been taught and that was what he
intended to do- The advice had come, not from a
class on warfare, but on courtroom procedure. Jon-
Tom didn't see why it wouldn't apply as well on the
battleField as in the courtroom.
Each inner door opened at their touch, until they
confronted a door-sized slab that did not. Instead of
moving aside, it leaned forward and growled. Black
leather armor gleamed in the torchlight. Prugg ges-
tured threateningly with his enormous club.
"You stop," the bodyguard growled menacingly.
Frangel tried to dart past the bear. The club
descended with frightening speed and dented the
rock where the otter had been a split-second earlier.
Only Frangel's exceptional quickness saved him. Any-
one slower than an otter would have been smashed
to pulp.
That was the signal for the rest of the band to
charge- Dodging Prugg's lethal swings, they darted
all around him, poking and prodding with their
spears and swords while yelling encouragement to
each other-
"Get 'im!... take 'is bloomin* 'ead off!... kill 'imi... get
the ugly bastard down!"
"Knock 'im over, tear 'is throat out!" a solitary
voice yelled from behind Jon-Tom. The spellsinger
turned, tapped Mudge on the shoulder.
•/ "Kill? Tear his throat out?" he said dangerous-
ly-
Mudge put his paws behind his back and tried to
Aim Dean FoBter
294
smile. "1 was just sort o' coverin' our rear, mate.
Don't want to be taken from behind, we don't"
"Guarding our rear, my ass!"
*'0i, that's wot 1 said, weren't it?"
There were times when Jon-Tom could tolerate his
friend's shameless displays ot cowardice. This wasn't
one of them. Not with petite warriors like Sasswise
and Splitch fighting to make a path for him.
Actually, he went a little crazy.
"You rotten, smelly, no-good...!" Reaching down,
he grabbed Mudge by the tail and the ruff of his
neck. The otter's feet bicycled through the air as he
fought to free himself.
"Hey, take it easy, mate!"
"Get in there and fight alongside your cousins,
damn you!"
Jon-Tom threw the Otter forward, harder than he
intended. He was too mad to judge his strength. To
his horror, Mudge performed a single somersault
and landed neatly on top of Prugg's head. The
otter's impact shoved the bear's helmet down over
his eyes, temporarily blinding him. Seeing this, Quorly
lowered her head and charged underneath a deadly
but badly aimed swing to hit the bodyguard head-
first between pillarlik
e tegs. Prugg let out a low
grunt, bent over, and tried to find Mudge, who was
frantically retreating down the bear's back. The club
fell to the floor.
Memaw, Knorckle, and Wupp immediately dropped
their own weapons in favor of the club. Turning the
business end toward their opponent, they rushed
forward at full speed, short legs churning, and made
loud contact with the leather helmet Mudge had so
recently abandoned. The impact sent them tum-
bling.
Prugg let out a strange low sigh and sort of keeled
THJB MOMEMT OF TUB UAOICIAM 29B
over, like a falling redwood. He hit the floor with a
muffled brrouummmf, out cold.
Jon-Tom and the others raced past while the club-
wielders tried to collect themselves.
The last door beckoned. Were they in time? Hadf
they moved fast enough? Or was Markus the Ineluc-
table waiting just inside, prepared to strike all of
them dead with whatever new evil he had drawn into
this world?
Jon-Tom pushed on the latch. Somewhat to his
surprise, the door was not locked. The otters crowd-
ed in around him.
At the far end of the Room, Markus the Ineluctable,
nee Markle Kratzmeier, sat waiting on his throne.
He looked different somehow. He'd straightened his
bow tie and his white shirt gleamed. He did not seem
particularly upset by the intrusion.
"Heard what was going on, kid. Didn't think you'd
get this far. Congratulations." He tried to see past
Jon-Tom, out into the hall, searching for his bodyguard.
"Sleeping," Jon-Tom told him wolfishly. "My friends
here took care of that."
"Let me at the bald bastard!" yelled Drortch. Jon-
Tom had to put out an arm to restrain her.
"This looks easy. 1 don't think it's going to be"
"No, it ain't, kid." said Markus quietly as he rose.
Standing there on the dais, silhouetted by torchlight,
he did not look anything like the cheap stage magi-
cian from Perth Amboy that he'd once been. There
was a dark radiance about his person, a palpable
aura of evil. It poured down from the throne to
cascade over the onlookers clustered in the doorway,
and several of the otters reflexively shrank back.
Markus stepped off the dais. He was wearing white
gloves now, Jon-Tom noticed, and his shoes had been
polished to a blinding sheen. Still brown, though.
Aim Dean Foster
296
The speUunger held his ground as the magician
raised his plastic wand.
"Oops." Mudge did his own disappearing act,