“In any event,” Red Orc said, “I will no longer be playing cat-and-mouse with you.”
“I will try to do what you want me to do, and I won’t attempt to escape,” Kickaha said. Probably Red Orc did not believe him any more than Kickaha believed Red Orc. But Red Orc described in detail how he had gotten into and out of the Caverned World.
Los, Red Orc’s father, had gated his son from the family world to a cave on Anthema. Red Orc still did not know exactly where the Antheman gate was. But Los could have had more than one on that planet.
He and Ijim had found the gate from Anthema to Zazel’s World because his father had provided his son with a map. But that had been cryptic and very difficult to figure out, and he might never have been able to read it.
“I was able to leave the Caverned World because Dingsteth showed me the gate out,” Red Orc said. “However, it allowed exit but not entrance. The same was true for the gate by which I got from Anthema to Zazel’s World. You will have to find a gate that is at present unknown. Or, if you can find it, use the gate Ijim and I used. I’ve been trying so long to find it again, and I’ve been so obsessed with it that I’m going around in a circle. I need someone to search for it whose view is fresh. Someone who’s also ingenious, or at least has the reputation for being so. Thus, I’m asking you to volunteer for the venture.”
“Give me the Horn,” Kickaha said. “That can open any gate, and it reveals weak places in walls among the universes.”
“You can’t stop joking, can you?”
Kickaha said, “No. Very well. I must know more about these gates and the worlds in which they’re located. And other items, too.”
After an hour, Red Orc left the room, though the evil that Kickaha imagined as emanating from him still hung in the air. What the Thoan required was clear. His secret motives were not. For one thing, Red Orc had been in Zazel’s World when he was eighteen years old. That was at least twenty thousand Terrestrial years ago. What had he been doing in the meantime? Why hadn’t he stormed the fort, so to speak, and invaded the Caverned World to get the data he wanted? Or had he tried again and again and always failed? If the Thoan had tried many times to do that, then he was indeed desperate. It would be almost impossible to succeed where the Thoan had failed, yet he was turning over the job to a despised leblabbiy.
Almost impossible. But Kickaha was convinced that as long as something was one-thousandth of one-thousandth of one-half percent possible, he could do it. Though he sometimes laughed at his own egotism, he believed that he was capable of everything but the impossible, and he was not so sure that he could not defeat those odds, too.
During the next three days, Kickaha did not see his captor. He exercised as vigorously as possible in this large room, which was not large enough, ate well, and mostly chafed and fumed and sometimes cursed. The beautiful servant made it evident through signs that she would bed him if he so desired. He refused her. Not until he was certain that Anana was dead could he even consider another woman.
He indulged in fantasy scenes about how Anana could have lived through the flash flood. And Red Orc, searching in his aircraft up and down the chasm, might have missed her because she was in a cave or under a ledge, or because he just did not see her even if she was in the open.
After a while, he quit imagining these scenarios. He would just have to wait and see.
The afternoon of the third day, Red Orc entered the chamber. His beamer was in his holster, and a sheath hanging from his belt carried a long dagger. In his right hand was a large bag. Behind him came five armed bodyguards, one of them a bowman. He did not greet his captive but said, “Come with me.” The men grouped around him. Kickaha was conducted from the room and through a series of exotically decorated halls, all empty of natives. Then he was taken into a vast room blazing with the light of a thousand torches. The ceiling was six or seven stories high. Its gold-plated walls bore many figures of animals and human beings, all outlined in jewels. It had no furniture. At the far end was a gigantic bronze statue of a man with an enormous upright phallus, four arms, and a demon’s face. Twenty feet before it was an altar with a block of stone at its base. The block was stained with old blood. A stone platform half its height surrounded it, and stone steps led up to it.
“Am I to be sacrificed?” Kickaha said, grinning.
The Thoan’s smile seemed to be carved from granite.
“Not as part of a religious rite.”
He spoke in the mellifluous native tongue, and the guards marched out through the main door. One of them shut the door and slammed a huge bolt shut. The bang sounded to Kickaha like a note of doom. But he had met many dooms and defeated them.
Red Orc said, “Go to the block, walk up the steps, and stand by the block.”
When Kickaha turned around to face the Thoan, his back almost touching the stone, which still was higher than his head, he saw Red Orc swinging the bag backward. Then the bag soared up and landed with a thump near Kickaha’s feet.
“Empty the bag,” the Thoan said loudly. His words echoed.
Kickaha removed a beamer, a bundle of batteries, a long knife, a canteen full of water, and a smaller bag. He dumped its contents: a bundle of clothes, a belt holding a holster and a sheath, a pair of shoes, a smaller knife, and a box of compressed rations.
“There is no battery in the beamer,” Red Orc said. “After you reach your next destination, you can put the battery in it.”
“And after you’re out of knife range,” Kickaha said. “You’re taking no chances.”
“I’m not as reckless as you, leblabbiy. You have your instructions and as much useful information as I am able to give you. Rebag those items, them climb up on the top of the stone.”
When Kickaha was standing up on the top of the block, he looked at the Thoan. He was smiling as if he was deeply enjoying the procedure. He called, “I would really prefer to keep you prisoner, work my pleasure on you, and eventually drink your ashes down as I did my father’s. But I am pragmatic. I give you sixty days to complete your mission, and-“
“Sixty days?” Kickaha bellowed. “Sixty days to do what you couldn’t do in ten thousand years!”
“That’s the way it’s going to be! By the way, Trickster! Here’s an additional incentive for you to return to me! Your traitor bitch, Anana, is in the room next to the one you occupied!”
He paused, then shouted, “Or am I lying?”
Kickaha felt as if a giant icicle had slammed through him. Before he could unfreeze, he heard Red Orc scream out a code word.
The hard stone beneath his feet became air, and he dropped straight down.
9
HIS RIGHT HAND SHOT OUT TO CATCH THE SIDE OF THE PIT that gaped below him. His fingertips scraped along the stone shaft just below the edge. A gate, not a trapdoor, had opened to swallow him. How typical of Red Orc not to warn him that he was going to fall!
Holding the bag in his left hand close to his side, he struggled to maintain his vertical attitude. The light that had come through the gate was cut off. Total darkness was around him as he pierced the air. The shaft down which he hurtled must have narrowed by now. Its circular wall seemed to be an inch away from his body. Then he became aware that it was twisting. The soapy texture of the stone kept the skin of his back from burningso far.
By then, he had begun counting seconds. Twenty of them passed. He had dropped perhaps five seconds before starting to time his descent. Four more passed before the shaft began curving gently and then became horizontal. The darkness was tinged with a dusklike light. It quickly became brighter.
Oh-oh, he thought. Here it comes!
He cannonballed from the hole. Above him was a wall of stone lit by a strong light. He began twisting around so that he could land on his feet. As he did so, he saw that he was in a chamber of stone about twenty feet wide and thirty feet high. What he had thought was a wall was a ceiling. Below him was a pool of water, and he was about to strike it. Though he tried to go in feet first, he crashed on his side with enoug
h force to plunge him to the bottom. He struggled upright despite his halfdaze and shoved upward toward the light. With the bag still in his hand, he swam to the side of the pool. It was only several inches above the water, and thus it was easy to drag himself onto the rock floor.
“Damn!” he said loudly.
His voice came back hollowly. After sitting up to catch his breath and to look around, he stood up. The light was sourceless-nothing new to him. It showed three tunnel openings in the walls. Kickaha undid the string on the bag and removed most of its contents. Though he was wet, he donned the snug jockey shorts and long-sleeved shirt. After drying his feet with the short kilt, he put that on and then the socks and the shoes. These were much like tennis shoes. It did not take him long to fasten the belt around his waist, sheath the beamer and knife, and attach the bag to the belt.
“It’s been fun, so far.”
Not much fun was his uncertainty about Anana’s fate. The demon son of a bitch Thoan had given him a brief joy when he had said that Anana was still living. Then he had blown out the joy as if it were a candle when he said that he might be lying. That, of course, was said to bedevil Kickaha throughout his mission.
Red Orc was left-handed. Was that a clue that the left tunnel was the right one to take? Or were they all the right ones? It would be like Red Orc to do that.
He entered the tunnel on his left. It was filled with the same sourceless and shadowless light as the room, though the illumination was no stronger than twilight. He walked slowly, wary of any signs of traps, although it seemed to him that Red Orc would have deactivated these. He would not want to stop the mission just after it had begun. Not even Red Orc was that crazy.
After an estimated fifteen minutes, the tunnel turned to the left and then, after ten minutes, to the right. Soon it straightened out. Presently, he came to a brightly lit chamber. He laughed.
Just as he had anticipated, three tunnels opened into it and only one tunnel led from it. Red Orc had set it up so that the person who had to choose one of three in the room of the pool would torment himself with anxiety. That Red Orc had not given him instructions on choosing the correct tunnels meant that the Thoan was not going to make it too easy for him.
The stone wall seemed to be unbroken, but some part of it could hold a disguised TV receiver. The Thoan might be watching him now. If he were, he would be grinning.
Kickaha gave the invisible watcher the finger.
He walked more swiftly than before down the single tunnel. It, too, was filled with a dusky light. After about a mile, the light began to get brighter. Within forty or so steps, he was in a straight tunnel. Bright daylight was at its end. When he stepped out of its mouth, he was on a ledge on the side of a mountain. It towered straight up, its surface smooth, and below the ledge it was just as straight and smooth. If he cared to jump into the river at the foot of the mountain, he would fall an estimated thousand feet. A wind blew cold up the face of the mountain.
Where was the gate?
Some seconds later, he felt warm air on his back. He turned to see a shimmering area ten feet within the tunnel. Beyond it were the vague shapes of chairs and tables.
“Play your little game, Red Orc,” Kickaha murmured.
He started to walk toward the shimmering but stopped after a few steps. Another shimmering wall had appeared in front of the first and blanked it out.
This was the first time he had ever experienced that.
“Now what?”
Through this gate, he could dimly see what looked like the trunk of a tree at one side beyond the wavering curtain. He could make out nothing other than that. He shrugged and, beamer in hand, leaped through the gate. He landed in a crouch and looked around him. When he saw nothing threatening, he straightened up.
Trees twice the size of sequoias were around him. A red-and-greenstriped plant, something like Spanish moss, hung from the branches of many trees. Now and then, a tendril twitched. The ground was covered with a soft, thick, pale-yellow moss. Large bushes bearing reddish berries grew here and there. The forest rang with many types of melodious birdcalls. Around him was a soft dappled light and a cool air, which made him quite comfortable.
He waited for a while for someone to appear. When they did not, he walked on into the forest, not knowing or caring if he was going deeper into it or approaching its edge. Since he lacked directions from Red Orc, he would do what seemed best to him or go wherever his whim led him.
He was thinking about the puzzling appearance of the second gate in the tunnel when a man stepped out from behind a giant tree. Kickaha stopped, but not one to be caught easily from behind, glanced to his rear, too. No one was there. The man was as tall as he, had long straight black hair done in a Psyche knot, wore no clothes, and was barefoot. The crimson feather of a large bird stuck out of his hair, and his cheeks were painted with slanting parallel bars: green, white, and black. A long blue band that fell halfway to his knees was tied around his penis. He was unarmed and was holding up his hand, palm outward, in a peace gesture.
Kickaha advanced toward the man, who smiled. The high cheekbones, the snub nose, and the epicanthic folds were definitely Mongolian. But the eyes were hazel.
The stranger called out in a Thoan that differed from the standard speech but was understandable. “Greetings, Kickaha!”
“Greetings, friend!” Kickaha said. But he was on guard again. How in hell could this man have known his name?
“I am Lingwallan,” the man said. “You won’t need that weapon, but you may keep it if you prefer to. Please follow me.” He turned and started to walk in the same direction Kickaha had been going.
Kickaha, after catching up with him, said, “What is this world? Just where on it are we? Where are we going? Who sent you?”
“If you’ll be patient, you’ll soon have the answers to your questions.”
Kickaha saw no reason to balk. If the man was leading him into an ambush, he had an unconventional way of doing it. But it was effective. His “guest” was too curious to reject the invitation. Besides, he had a hunch that he was in no danger. Not that his hunches had always been right.
During the several-miles-long hike, Kickaha broke the silence once. “Do you know of Red Orc?”
Lingwallan said, “No.”
They passed a band of some deerlike animals feeding on the mossy stuff. They raised their heads to look once, then resumed grazing. After a while, the two men passed near a young man and young woman, both nude. These sat with their backs against the trunk of a tree. Between the woman’s navel and pubes was a triangle painted in green. The man sported a long orange ribbon tied around his penis. He was playing a primitive kind of flute; she was blowing on a curved wooden instrument that had a much deeper tone. Whatever tune the two were playing, it was a merry one. It also must have been erotic, if the male’s erection was an indicator.
Kickaha put the beamer into the holster. Presently they heard the loud and shrill voices and the laughter of children playing. A moment later, they stepped into a very broad clearing in the center of which was a tree three times as large as a sequoia and swarming with birds and scarletfaced monkeys. Round houses with cone-shaped roofs made from the branches and leaves of a palmlike plant formed nine concentric circles around the tree. Kickaha looked for the gardens usually found on Earth among preliterate tribes but saw none.
There were also none of the swarming and stinging insects that infested such Terrestrial hamlets.
When he and Lingwallan had stepped out of the forest into the light cast by a sun that had passed beyond the treetops, a silence fell over the place. It lasted only several seconds. Then the children and the adults surged forward, surrounding the two. Many reached out to touch Kickaha. He endured it because they obviously were not hostile.
His guide conducted him through an aisle formed by the wider separation of houses. When they got to the inner circle, the crowd stopped, though its chatter did not. Before then, Kickaha had seen the windows cut into the trunk of the B
robdingnagian tree and the large arched entrances at its base. Except for the arch directly in front of him, all the apertures were crowded with brown faces.
In the arch stood a giantess wearing only a necklace that flashed on and off and a green hipband. A huge red flower was in the hair on one side of her head. She held a long wooden staff on which carved snakes seemed to crawl upward.
Though almost seven feet tall, her body would make any man’s knees turn to jelly. Her face would bring him to his knees. Kickaha felt a warmth in his loins. She seemed to radiate almost visible rays. No man, no matter how insensitive and excited, would dare to try to board her without her permission. Truly, she not only looked like a goddess, she was surrounded by a goddess’s invisible aura.
Her leaf-green eyes were bright in the golden-skinned face. Their color is just like mine, Kickaha thought, though my handsomeness is not in the same league as her beauty.
Lingwallan ran ahead of Kickaha and sank to one knee at her feet. She said something, and he rose and ran back to Kickaha.
“Manathu Vorcyon bids you to come to her. She says that she does not expect you to bow to her.”
“Manathu Vorcyon!” Kickaha murmured. “I should have known.”
Almost all of the Lords he had encountered he considered to be deeply evil. They were really only human beings, as he well knew, despite their insistence that they were a superior breed to Homo sapiens in kind and in degree. They cruelly exploited their human subjects, the leblabbiys.
But Manathu Vorcyon, according to the tales he had heard, was an exception. When she had created this universe and peopled it with artificial human beings, she had devoted herself to being a kind and understanding ruler. The leblabbiys of her world were said to be the happiest of people anywhere in the thousands of universes. Kickaha had not believed this because all except two of the Lords he had met were intolerably arrogant and egotistic and as bloody-minded as Genghis Khan, Shaka, or Hitler.
Wolff and Anana were two Thoan who had become really “human.” But both had been, at one time, as ruthless and murderous as their kin.