At the end of a two-mile crawl, they came to a group of bushes near the riverbank. These were three feet high and mushroom in shape, the upper part spreading out far from the slender base. The branches were thick and corkscrew and, like the trees, grew fuzz. At close range, the fuzz looked more like slender needles. There were also large dark-red berries in clusters at the ends of the branches.
Wolff picked one and smelled it. The odor reminded him of pecan nuts. The skin was smooth and slightly moist.
He hesitated about biting into the berry. Again, it was Vala who dared the strange food. She ate one, exclaiming all the while over its deliciousness. A half-hour went by, during which she ate six more. Wolff then ate several. The others picked them off. Palamabron, the last to try them, complained that there were not many left for him.
Vala said, “It is not our fault that you are such a coward.”
Palamabron glared at her but did not answer. Theotormon, thinking that here he had found someone who would not dare to answer him back, took up the insults where Vala left off. Palamabron slapped Theotormon in the face. Theotormon bellowed with rage and leaped at Palamabron. His feet slipped out and he skidded on his face into Palamabron’s legs. Palamabron went down like a bowling pin. He slid sidewise, out of reach of Theotormon’s flailing flipper. Both made a frenzied but vain effort to get at each other’s throat.
Finally, Wolff, who had not shared the scornful laughter of the others, called a halt. He said, “If these time-wasting displays of childishness continue, I’ll put a stop to them. Not with the beamer, since I don’t care to use up power on the likes of you. We’ll just go on without you or send you away. We have to have unity and a mimimum of discord. Otherwise, Urizen will have the pleasure of seeing us destroy ourselves.”
Theotormon and Palamabron spat at each other but quit their struggles. Silently, in the pale purple shade of the moon overhead, they continued to slide their feet forward. The night had brought an end to the silence. They heard bleatings as of sheep and bellowings as of cattle from a distance. Something roared like a lion. They passed another clump of bushes and saw small bipedal animals feeding off the berries. These were about two and a half feet tall, brown-furred, and lemur-faced. They had big rabbit ears and slit eyes. Their upper legs ended in paws; their lower, in suction discs. They had short scarlet tails, like a rabbit’s. On seeing the human beings, they stopped eating and faced them, their noses wiggling. After being convinced that the newcomers were no danger they resumed eating. But one fellow kept his eyes on them and barked like a dog at them.
Presently, a four-legged animal the size of a Norwegian elkhound came around a low hill. It was shaggy as a sheep-dog, yellowish, and built like a fox. At the ends of its feet were thin skates of bone on which it raced towards the bipeds. These barked in alarm and all took off in a body. They made swift progress, despite the pads, but the skate-wolf was far faster. The leader of the bipeds, seeing that they had no chance, dropped behind until he was even with the slowest of his charges. He shoved against the laggard, knocking him over, then he ran on. The sacrifice screamed and tried to get back up on its suckers, only to be knocked down again by the snarling skate-wolf. There was a brief struggle, ending when the wolfs’ jaws closed on the biped’s throat.
Wolff said, “There’s your explanation for the scratches we’ve seen now and then on the surface. Some of these creatures are skaters.”
He was silent for a while, thinking that skates would enable them to make much better progress.
They passed another long-necked, hyena-bodied, deer-antlered beast. This one did not offer to bother them. It bit into a rock of the vitreous substance, ripped out a chunk, and chewed upon it. It kept its eye upon them, groaning with delight at the taste of the rock, its stomach rumbling like defective plumbing in an old house.
They went on and soon came within three hundred yards of a herd of the creatures, all grazing upon the rocks. There were young among them, awkwardly chasing each other in play or nursing from the mothers. Some of the bulls bray-wailed at the intruders, and one kept pace with them for a while. They passed antelope-like animals, marked with red diamond-shapes on white and with two horns that intertwined. Bone skates grew at the end of their legs.
Wolff began to look for a place to sleep. He led them into a semi-amphitheater, a level between four hills. “I’ll stand first watch,” he said. He designated Luvah as next and Enion after him. Enion protested, asking by what authority Wolff could pick him.
“You can refuse to take your share of responsibility, if you wish,” Wolff said. “But if you sleep when your turn comes, you may wake up in the jaws of that.”
He pointed past Enion’s shoulder, and Enion whirled so swiftly he lost his footing. The others looked in the direction in which Wolff’s finger was pointing. On top of one of the hills, a huge maned animal was glaring down at them. Its head was that of a short-snouted crocodile and its body was cat-shaped, the feet ending in broad cups.
Wolff put the beamer on half-power and shot. He flicked the actuation plate briefly and aimed towards the hairs of the mane. The hairs crisped and smoked, and the beast roared, turned, and disappeared beyond the hill.
Wolff said, “Now, somebody has to be officially given authority. So far, we’ve avoided, that is, you’ve avoided, a decision. You’ve more or less let me run things. Mostly because you’re too lazy or too occupied with your own petty problems to face this issue. All right, now’s the time to settle this. Without a leader whose orders will be immediately obeyed in emergencies, we’re all lost. So what do you say?”
“Beloved brother,” Vala said, “I think that you have shown that you’re the man to follow. I vote for you. Besides, you have the beamer, and that makes you the most powerful of all. Unless, of course, some of us have hidden weapons we’ve not displayed as yet.”
“You’re the only one who has enough clothes to conceal weapons,” he said. “As for the beamer, whoever is on guard will have it.”
They all raised their eyebrows at this. He said, “It’s not because I trust your loyalty. It’s just that I don’t think any of you would be quite stupid enough to try to keep it for yourself or try to take off on your own. When we resume the march, I expect to get the beamer back.”
All then voted, except for Palamabron. He said that he did not have to vote, since it was obvious that he would be overruled by the majority, anyway.
“Surely brother, you were not going to nominate yourself,” Vala said. “Even you, with all your hideous egotism, could not think of that.”
Palamabron ignored her. To Wolff he said, “Why am I not one of the sentinels? Don’t you trust me?”
“You can stand first watch tomorrow night,” Wolff replied. “Now, let’s all get some sleep.”
Wolff sat guard while the others slept on their hard beds of white rock. He listened to the distant animal cries: the bray-wails, roars, and some new sounds, a shrill fluting, a plaintive sobbing, a whistling. Once, something beat out a gonging, and there was the flutter of wings overhead. He rose to his feet now and then and slowly pivoted around to cover all points of the compass. At the end of a half-hour, he woke up Enion and gave him the beamer. He had no watch to determine the time, any more than the others did, but, like them, he knew the measured passage of time. As a child, he had gone through a species of hypnosis which enabled him to clock the seconds as accurately as the most precise of chronometers.
For a while, he did not sleep. He was worried about the first watch of the next night, when Palamabron would be entrusted with the beamer. Of all the Lords, he was the most unstable. He hated Vala even more than the others. Could he withstand the temptation to kill her while she slept? Wolff decided he would have a talk with Palamabron in the morning. His brother must understand that if he killed her, he would have to kill them all. This he could do with the beamer, but he would be alone from then on. This was a curious thing. Though the Lords could not stand to be with each other, they could stand the idea of being alo
ne even less. In other circumstances, they would want no one but themselves, of course. In these, they shared a dread of their father and some comfort in having companions in misery and peril.
Just before he went to sleep, he had an idea. He swore. Why had he not thought of it? Why had not the others? It was so obvious. There was no need to creep and slip along on the ground. With boats, they could travel swiftly and much more surely. They would be safe from the predators. He would see what they could do about this in the morning.
He was propelled from sleep at dawn by shouting. He sat up to see Tharmas shooting at a maned beast, one just like the liongator he had scared off by singeing its hair. The beast came down the hill swiftly, plop-plopping as its suction pads pulled free. Behind it lay three dead mates. The survivor came within ten feet and then dropped, its snout cut half off.
Tharmas held the beamer while he stared at the carcass. Wolff shouted at him to turn the power off. The ray was drilling into the side of the hill. Tharmas suddenly realized what he was doing and deactivated the weapon. By then, most of the charge was gone. Groaning, Wolff took the beamer back. Now he was down to his final power pack.
The others went to work swiftly. They took turns with the knives of Theotormon and Vala and stripped the tough hides off the dead beasts. This was slow work, both because of their ineptness and because they kept sliding on the glassy surface. And they could not refrain from arguing with him, saying that all the hard work was for nothing. Where would he get the framework for the boats he planned? Even if he could use these hides as coverings for the boats, there were not enough to go around.
He told them to shut up and keep on working. He knew what he was doing. With Luvah, Vala, and Theotormon, he shuffled off to the nearest bushes. Here it was necessary to use more power to kill an animal that was eating the berries and refused to give up its claim. It was like a Chinese dragon. It hissed and struck threateningly at them before they got within its range. Its skin was as thick and ridged as armor plate and could be penetrated only by a beam at full-power. Even its eyes were protected. When Wollf shot at these, the ray struck transparent coverings. The creature began waving its head wildly so that Wolff could not keep the beam on one spot. Eventually, he cut through the armor back of the head, and it turned over and died, exposing the serrated plates and tiny suction discs on which it made progress.
“If this keeps up, we’ll be out of power,” he said to the others. “Pray that that time does not come.”
Wolff tested the toughness of the bark of the bushes and found it to be strong indeed. Chopping down the bushes and slicing off lengths to make a framework for the rough coracles he had in mind would be long hard work and ruin the sword. It was then, glancing at the caterdragon—as he called it—that he saw a ready-made vessel. Well, not quite finished, but it should need less work to complete than the original boat he had in mind.
The sword, driven by his powerful arm, was equal to the task of separating the caterdragon’s locomotion plates from the body armor. Thereafter, the sword and the knife cut up the internal organs. By then the other Lords were with them, and they took turns at the work. All were soon covered with blood, which also ran over the area and made the surface eve more frictionless. Several of the liongators, attracted by the odor of blood, and then driven frantic by it, attacked. Wolff had to expend more power in killing them.
The only possible sources for paddles were the 9-shaped branches on the trees. The bark of these resisted the edge of the sword. Again, Wolff had to use his beamer. He cut enough branches to make ten paddles, three extra, since Theotormon could not handle one with his flippers. The needles came off easily when cut with a knife.
They had a rather flexible canoe, sixty feet long. The only openings to worry about were the mouth and nostrils. These were disposed of by bending the hollow front part back and up and tying a small boulder to it with Vala’s cloak. The weight of the boulder stopped the forward part from straightening out and thus kept it above the water level—they hoped. Again, Wolff had to use some more power to burn off the pieces of gristle and the blood that adhered to the inside walls of the armor-plate. Then, walking on their knees, the Lords shoved their makeshift boat towards the river.
Near the edge of the river, they rose to their feet and got into the dragonboat by falling over the sides and into the bottom. They did so by teams of twos, one on each side, to keep the craft from falling to one side. When all but Wolff and Vala had gotten in, the two urged the boat down. Fortunately, there was a very gentle incline. As the craft picked up a little speed, Wolff and Vala clung to the sides and the others pulled them aboard.
The night-bringing moon crossed the horizon, and the dragoncraft floated with the current. Two Lords stayed on paddle-duty to keep the boat straight while the others tried to sleep. The moon passed, and after it came the bright purple of the naked skies. The river was smooth, disturbed only by tiny waves and ripples. They passed through canyons and came out again between rolling ground. The day passed without incident. They complained about the stench from the meat and blood they had not been able to clear away. They made jokes as each had to rid himself of food and drink. They spoke grouchily of their lack of sleep the previous night. They talked about what might face them when—or if—they ever found the gate that would lead them into the palace of their father.
A day and a night floated by. Several hours after the second dawn, they came around a wide bend of the river. Ahead was a rock that split the river, a dome of white about thirty feet high. On top of it, side by side, was a pair of towering and golden hexagonal frames.
CHAPTER TEN
From the edge of the river, where the dragonboat was beached, Wolff studied the problem. It was useless to try to climb the near-perpendicular and near-frictionless rock without some aids. A rope had to be thrown up to catch on something. The hexagons were too wide to try to settle a noose around them.
A gappling hook might do the job. It could be presumed that the other side of the gate—that which opened onto another planet, he hoped—would hold a grapple.
The hides of animals could be cut and tied or sewn together to make a rope, although the strips would have to be tanned to give them flexibility. The metal for the hooks was a big problem.
There might be metal somewhere in this world, perhaps not too far away. But getting to it across the land would be a slow process. So, there was only one thing to do, and he did not expect that the two most vital in this particular project would be cooperative.
Nor were they. Vala did not want to give up her sword and Theotormon refused to part with his knife.
Wolff argued with them for several hours, pointing out that if they did not give up their weapons, they would be dead in time anyway.
Wolff said, after Theotormon’s violent refusal, “Very well. Be pig-headed. But if the rest of us find a way to get through the gate, we will not take you with us. I swear it! You will be pushed back into this pale world of icestone, and you will stay here until an animal devours you or you die of old age.”
Vala looked around at the Lords who sat in a circle about her. She smiled and said, “Very well. You may have my sword.”
“You won’t get my knife, I promise you that,” Theotormon said.
The others began to scoot on their buttocks towards him. He stood up and tried to run past them. His huge feet gave him a better grip on the white stuff than the others could manage, but Wolff reached out and clutched his ankle, and he went down. He fought as best he could, submerged under the pile of bodies. Eventually, weeping, he gave up. Then, muttering, scowling, he went off to sit down on the river’s edge by himself.
With some chalky stone he found Wolff traced lines on Vala’s sword. He set the beamer at full power and quickly cut out triangles. He then arranged the three pieces and set several round pieces of the sword on top of them. With the beamer at half-power he fused the three prongs and round pieces into a single unit. After plunging these into cold water, he heated the prongs in the
ir middles and hammered them into slightly hooked shapes. He curved another strip of sword with heat and hammered and fused this onto the top of the prong so that a rope could be tied around it.
Since he did not have to use Theotormon’s knife, he gave it back to him. He cut the end of Vala’s sword into a point and thus provided her with a somewhat short sword. As he pointed out, it was better than nothing.
Making the rope took several days. It was not difficult to kill and flay the animals and then cut out strips for rope lengths. Tanning presented difficulties. He searched for materials but could find nothing. Finally, he decided to grease the plaited rawhide with animal fat and hope for the best.
One dawn, as the empurpling shadow of the moon withdrew, the dragonboat was launched well above the gaterock. With the Lords behind him paddling backwards, Wolff stood up in the prow, and he cast the grapple upwards in an arc and released the rope after it.
The three-pronged device went through the gate and disappeared. He pulled in on it as the boat rammed into the base of the rock. For a second, he thought he had a hold. Then the grapple came flying out of the gate, and he fell back. He caught himself, but the uneasy equilibrium of the boat was upset. It turned over, and all went into the water. They clung to the upturned bottom, and Wolff managed to keep hold of the rope and grapple.
A half-hour later, they tried again.
“Try and try again,” Wolff told them. “That’s an old Earth saying.”
“Spare me your proverbs,” Rintrah said. “I’m soaked as a drowning rat and as miserable. Do you think there’s any use trying again?”
“What else is there to do? Let’s get at it. Give it the old college try.”
They looked at him uncomprehendingly and then reluctantly launched the boat again. Now Wolff made a more difficult cast. He threw for the very top of the hexagon. It was at least twelve feet high, which made the top of the frame forty-two feet above water. Nevertheless, he threw well, the prongs gripping the other side of the frame.