There was one advantage to their predicament. On a world as tiny as this one, they would not have to go far to find the next set of gates. But it did not seem likely that Urizen would make things so easy for them.
Wolff stepped back to the gate and tried to reenter it. As he had expected, it only permitted him to step through the frame and back onto the cylinder. He turned and tested its other side, only to find that equally unfruitful. Then he set out to look for the gates by walking around the circumference. And when he had gotten less than halfway around, he saw the two hexagons.
These were at one end and hung a few inches above the surface, the pale sky gleaming pinkly between the lower frame and the cylinder surface. With the others, he set out to walk towards it. He kept his eyes on the gates and tried not to see the whirling shifting objects around him.
Wolff was in the lead and so was the first to notice the unexpected behavior of the twin hexagons. As he came within fifty feet of them, they began to move away. He increased his pace; the gates did not maintain quite the same distance. When he broke into a run, they went more swiftly but still he gained a little. He stopped; the gates stopped. He made a dash at them, only to see them start off just as quickly. As he stepped up his speed, he gained on them.
The other Lords were behind him. Their feet slapped on the metallic surface, and their gaspings whistled through the atmosphere. Wolff stopped again. The gates halted. The other Lords, except Vala, gathered around him and babbled.
“Los! First he starves us to death … then runs us to death.”
Wolff waited until he had recovered his breath, then said, “I think they can be caught. They began to slow down in their speed as I went faster. It’s a proportional decrease. But I don’t think I can go quickly enough and long enough to catch them. Who’s the fastest here?”
Luvah said, “I could always beat the rest of you in a foot race. But now I am so tired and weak …”
“Try,” Wolff said.
Luvah grinned uncertainly at him and inched towards the gates. Hovering, they moved away. He broke into a dash and presently was gone around the curve of the cylinder out of their sight. Wolff turned and ran in the opposite direction. After him came Vala. The dizzyingly close horizon jumped at him; he sped on and then he saw Luvah and the gates. Luvah was now within ten feet of them, but he was slowing down. And as his legs refused to move as he wished and his breath burned out of his lungs, the gates drew away.
Wolff came up behind the gates. When he was as close to them as Luvah, the gates slipped sideways, like wet soap between two hands. Vala came in at an angle towards them, but they veered off. The panting Lords stopped, forming three corners of a square with the gates at the remaining corner.
“Where are the others?” Wolff said.
Luvah jerked a thumb. Wolff looked around to see them straggling around the curve of this minute world. He called to them, his voice sounding eerie in the strangely propertied atmosphere. Luvah started to go forward but stopped at Wolff’s order.
Ariston, Tharmas, Rintrah, and Theotormon spread out. Under Wolff’s directions, they formed a pentagon with the gates at the ends of two legs of the figure. Then all began to close in on their quarry. They kept the same distance between them and advanced at the same pace. The gates oscillated back and forth but made no break.
With two minutes of slow and patient closing in, the Lords were able to seize half of the frames. This time Wolff did not bother to ask Vala which exit they should take. He went though the left.
The others came through on his heels and their look of dismay reflected his. They were on another cylinder, and down at the end was another pair of hexagons.
Again, they went through the tiring chase and the boxing in. Again, they stepped through a frame, the one to the right this time. Again, they were on another cylinder.
This occurred five times. The Lords looked at each other with fatigue-reddened and exhaustion-circled eyes. Their legs trembled, and their chests ached. They were covered with sweat and were as dry within as a Saharan wind. They could hardly keep their grips on the hexagons.
“We can’t go on much longer,” Rintrah said.
“Don’t be so obvious,” Vala said. “Try to say something original once in a while.”
“Very well. I’m thisty enough to drink your blood. And I may if I don’t get a drink of water soon.”
Vala laughed. “If you come close enough, I’ll broach you with this sword. Your blood may be thin and ill-smelling, but at least it should be wet enough.”
Wolff said, “Somehow, we always seem to take the gate that leads us everywhere but to Urizen. Perhaps we should split up this time. At least some might get to our father.”
The others argued about this, Vala and Luvah only abstaining. Finally, Wolff said, “I’m going through one gate with Vala and Luvah. The rest of you will go through the other. That’s that.”
“Why Vala and Luvah?” Theotormon said. He was squinting suspiciously, and his voice had a faint whine. “Why them? Do you three know something we don’t? Are you planning on deserting us?”
“I’m taking Luvah because he’s the only one I can trust—I think,” Wolff said. “And Vala is, as she’s pointed out more than enough times, the best man among you.”
He left them squabbling and, with his sister and Luvah, went through the left gate. A few minutes later, the others came through. They looked bewildered on seeing Wolff, Luvah, and Vala.
“But we went through the right-hand gate,” Rintrah said.
Vala laughed and said, “Our father has played us another grim jest. Both gates of a pair lead to the same cylinder. I suspect that they all will.”
“He’s not playing fair!” Ariston said. At this, Wolff and Luvah laughed, and presently the others, Ariston excepted, had joined him in his mirth.
When the howling—which had a note of despair in it—had died, Wolff said, “I may be wrong. But I think that every one of these thousands of cylinders in this—this birling world—has a set of gates. And if we continue the same behavior, we’ll go through every one of them. Only we’ll die before we get a fraction of the way. We must think of somethig new.”
There was a silence. They sat or lay on the hard gray shiny metal while they whirled around, the cylinders above them rotated about each other in a soundless and inricate saraband, and the twin hexagons at the end hovered and seemed to mock.
Finally, Vala said, “I do not think that we have been left without a way out. It would not be like our father to stop the game while we still have an atom of breath and of fight in us. He would want to drag out the agony until we broke. And I’m sure that he plans on allowing us eventually to find the gate that will conduct us into his stronghold. He must be planning some choice receptions for us, and he would be disappointed if he could not use them.
“So, I think that we have not been using our wits. Obviously, these gates lead only to other sets on other cylinders. That is, they do if we go through the regular way, through the side which is set with jewels. But what if the gates are bipolar? What if the other side would take us where we want to go?
Wolff said, “I tested the other side when we first came through.”
“Yes, you tested the initial gate. But have you tested any of the double gates?”
Wolff shook his head and said, “Exhaustion and thirst are robbing me of my wits. I should have thought of that. After all, it’s the only thing left to try.”
“Then let’s up and at them,’ Vala said. “Summon your strength; this may be our exit from this cursed birling world.”
Once more, they corraled the twin hexagons and seized them. Vala was the first to go through the side opposite the gem-set side. She disappeared, and Wolff followed her. On coming through and seeing another cylinder, he felt his spirits dissipate like wine in a vacuum. Then he saw the gate at the end and knew that they had taken the correct route.
There was only one golden hexagon. It, too, hovered a few inches above the surface. Bu
t it spun on its axis, around and around, completing a cycle every second and a half.
The others came through and cursed when they realized that they were still on a birling. But when they saw the single rotating gate, some brightened up; others sagged at the thought of facing a new peril.
“Why does it whirl?” Ariston said weakly.
“I really can’t say, brother,” Vala said. “But, knowing Father, I would suspect that the gate has only one safe side. That is, if we choose the right side, we’ll go through unharmed. But if we take the wrong side … You’ll observe that neither side has jewels; both are bare. So there’s no way of distinguishing one side from another.”
“I am so weary I do not care,” Ariston said. “I would welcome death. To sleep forever, free of this agony of body and mind, that is all I desire.”
“If you really feel that way,” Vala said, “then you should be the first to test the gate.”
Wolff said nothing, but the others added their voices to Vala’s urgings. Ariston did not seem so eager to die now; he objected, saying that he was not fool enough to sacrifice himself for them.
“You are not only a weakling but a coward, brother,” Vala said. “Very well, I will be the first.”
Stung, Ariston started, towards the spinning hexagon but stopped when a few feet from it. He stared at it and continued to stand motionless while Vala jeered him. She shoved him to one side so hard he staggered and fell on the gray surface. Then she crouched before the golden cycler and studied it intently for several minutes. Suddenly, she launched herself forward and went through the opening headfirst. The gate whirled on around.
Ariston arose without looking at the others or replying to their taunts. He walked up to the gate, bent his knees, and dived through.
And he came out on the other side and fell on the gray surface.
Wolff, the first to him, turned him over.
Ariston’s mouth hung open; his eyes were glazing; his skin was turning gray.
Wolff stood up and said, “He went through the wrong side. Now we know what kind of gate this is.”
“That bitch Vala has all the luck!” Tharmas said. “Did you notice which side she went through?”
Wolff shook his head. He studied the frame in the pink dusk. There were no markings of any kind on either side to distinguish one from the other. He spoke to Luvah, and they picked up Ariston’s body by the feet and shoulders. They swung it back and forth until, at Wolff’s shout, they released the corpse at the height of its forward swing. It shot through the frame and came out on the other side and fell on the surface.
Wolff and Luvah went to the other side and once more swung his body and then cast it through the frame. This time it did not reappear. Wolff said to Rintrah, “Are you counting?”
Rintrah nodded his head. Wolff said, “Lift your finger, and when the right side comes around, point it. Do it swiftly!”
Rintrah waited until two more turns had been made, then stabbed his finger. Wolff hurled himself through the frame, hoping that Rintrah had not made a mistake. He landed on Ariston’s body. There was the sound of sea and a red sky above. Vala was standing nearby and laughing softly as if she were actually enjoying their father’s joke.
They were back on an island of the waterworld.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The other Lords came through the gate one by one, Rintrah last. They did not look downcast as might have been expected. At least, they were on familiar grounds, almost home, one might say. And, as Theotormon did say, they could eat all they wanted.
The gate through which they had entered was the right one of an enormous pair. Both stood on a low hill. The immediate terrain looked familiar. After the Lords had gone to the shore to quench their thirst, they cooked and ate the fish that Theotormon caught. They set up a guard-rotation system and slept. The next day, they explored.
There was no doubt that they were back on the great island the natives called the “Mother of Islands.”
“Those gates are the same ones that started us off on the not-so-merry-go-round,” Wolff said. “We went through the right-hand one. So, the left one may lead to Urizen’s world.”
Tharmas said, “Perhaps … well, this is not the most desirable of worlds. But it is better to enjoy life here than to die or live in pain in one of Urizen’s cells. Why not forget that gate? There is food and water here and native women. Let Urizen sit in his seat of power forever and rot waiting for us to come to him.”
“You forget that, without your drugs, you will get old and will die,” Wolff said. “Do you want that? Moreover, there is no guarantee that Urizen will not come to us if we don’t go to him. No, you may sit here in a lotus-eater’s dream if you want, but I intend to keep fighting.”
“You see, Tharmas,” Vala said, smiling crookedly. “Jadawin has stronger reasons than we do. His woman—who is not a Lord, by the way, but an inferior breed from Earth—is a prisoner of Urizen’s. He cannot rest while he knows she is in our father’s hands.”
“It’s up to you to do what you want,” Wolff said. “But I am my own master.”
He studied the red heavens, the two huge-seeming planets that were in sight at this time, and a tiny streak that could have been a black comet. He said, “Why go through the front door, where Urizen expects us? Why not sneak through the back door? Or, a better metaphor, through a window?”
In answer to their questions, he explained the idea that had come to him when he looked at the other planets and the comet. They replied that he was crazy. His concepts were too fantastic.
“Why not?” he said. “As I’ve said, everything we need can be gotten, even if we have to go through the gates again. And Appirmatzum is only twenty-five thousand miles away. Why can’t we get there with the ship I proposed?”
“A balloon spacecraft?” Rintrah said. “Jadawin, your life on Earth has addled your wits!”
“I need the help of every one of you,” Wolff said. “It’s a huge undertaking. But it can be done.” Vala said, “Even if it can be accomplished, what’s to prevent our father from detecting our craft as it comes through the space between this world and his?”
“We’ll have to take the chance that he’s not set up detectors for spacecraft. Why should he? The only entrance to this universe is through the gate that he made himself.”
“But what if one of us is a traitor?” she said. “Have you thought that one of us may be in Urizen’s service and so spying for him?”
“Of course I’ve considered that. So has every one else. However, I can’t see a traitor putting himself through the extreme dangers that we just went through.”
“And how do we know that Urizen is not seeing and hearing everything right now?” Theotormon said.
“We don’t. That’s another chance we’ll have to take.”
“It’s better than doing nothing,” Vala said.
There was much argument after that with all the Lords finally agreeing to help him in his plan. Even the objectors knew that if Wolff succeeded, those who refused to aid him would be marooned on this island. The thought that their brothers might be true Lords again while the objectors would be no better than the natives was too much for them.
The first thing Wolff did was to find out the temper of the neighboring natives. To his surprise, he found that they were not hostile. They had seen the Lords disappear into the gate and then come out again. Only the gods or demigods could do this; therefore, the Lords must be special—and dangerous—creatures. The natives were more than happy to cooperate with Wolff. Their religion, a debased form of the Lords’ original religion, determined this decision. They believed in Los as the good God and in Urizen as the evil one, their version of Satan. Their prophets and medicine men maintained that some day the evil one, Urizen, would be overthrown. When that happened, they would all go to Alulos, their heaven.
Wolff did not try to set them straight on the facts, Let them believe what they wished as long as they helped him. He set everybody to work on the th
ings that could be done immediately and with materials available on this world. Then, he went through the gate that led to the other planets. Luvah went with him. Both were buoyed up by gas-bladders strapped to their backs and armed with short spears and bows and arrows. Through gate after gate they traveled, searching for the things that Wolff needed. They knew what to expect and what dangers to avoid. Even so, the adventures they met on this trip and the many trips thereafter were enough to have filled several books. But there were no more casualties.
Later, Vala and Rintrah accompanied Wolff and Luvah. They brought back chunks of the vitreous stuff from the world of the skating and suction-pad animals. From the Weltthier, they brought back piles of bird-droppings. These, added to the store of their own and the natives’ excrement, were to provide the sodium nitrate crystals in Wolff’s plan.
The mercury was gotten from the natives, who had large supplies picked up from the island after the showers that came with the black comets. The mercury droplets were religious objects and were given to Wolff only after he argued that they were to be used against Urizen. He discovered that one of the plants on the island was a source of wood alcohol. Other plants could be burned to give the charcoal he needed. And the planet of the tempusfudgers furnished sulphur.
Wolff had to have a platinum catalyst in the making of nitric acid. While on the cylinders of the birling world, he had thought that the cylinders might be composed of platinum or of a platinum alloy. This metal had a melting point of 1773.5 Centigrade and was resistant to cutting. Wolff had no means to melt it in the birling world or any tools sharp enough to cut out chunks from a cylinder. Luvah pointed this out, to which Wolff replied that they would use Urizen’s own devices for the job.
He took all the Lords with him, even though Theotormon and Tharmas strongly objected. They cornered the mobile twin gates and then pulled them to the edge of the cylinder. Here Theotormon found out why it was necessary for him to make the trip. His weight was needed to force the gates halfway down over the arc of the edge of the cylinder. The forces that kept the gates upright were strong but could not resist the combined weight and muscles of the Lords.
The World of Tiers Volume One: The Maker of Universes, the Gates of Creation, and a Private Cosmos Page 35
