The World of Tiers Volume Two: Behind the Walls of Terra, the Lavalite World, Red Orc's Rage, and More Than Fire

by Philip José Farmer

  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 naked 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-green striped 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 outwards, 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 scarlet-faced 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 Brobdingnagian 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.

  He walked up to Manathu Vorcyon. And then, despite his determination never to bow to any man or woman, he dropped to one knee. He could not help himself; he was overwhelmed with the feeling that she did shed the radiance of a goddess. Never mind that his brain knew that she was no more divinely born than he. His knee bent as if he had been conditioned to do so since childhood.

  Now that he was closer to her, he saw that her necklace was made of living fireflylike insects tied together.

  He started. Lingwallan’s voice had sounded loudly behind him.

  “Manathu Vorcyon! The Great Mother! Our Lady! The Grandmother of All! I present to you Kickaha!”

  “Rise, Kickaha, the many-angled man, the man of countless wiles, the man who is never at a loss!” Manathu Vorcyon said. Her voice was so melodious and powerful that it rippled his skin with cold. “Enter this house as my guest.”

  There were many things to note when he entered the great room just behind the entrance. The tree, though still flourishing, had been cut into to make rooms and winding staircases. Following just behind Lingwallan, he climbed one of the staircases. The lighting was only from the sun, in the daytime, anyway, but what devices transmitted it, Kickaha did not know. The furniture in the rooms he saw as he passed the doorless entrances was carved from the tree and was not removable. There were thick carpets and paintings and statuary and fountains in every room.

  But he was too eager to know why he had been whisked here by Manathu Vorcyon to take time to inspect the artifacts. After being shown into his own room, he showered by standing in a waterfall that ran alongside the outer wall and disappeared down many small holes in the floor. When he stepped out, he was toweled dry by a young woman who could win any Miss America contest on Earth. After drying him off, she handed him a pair of sandals. Thus dressed, making him think that sandals were probably formal wear here, he went down a polished staircase. Lingwallan met him and conducted him into the feasting room. It was large but unfurnished except for a very thick carpet. The ruler of this world sat cross-legged on it with her guest and two large but very good-looking men and two large and beautiful women. Manathu Vorcyon introduced them and then said, “They are my bedmates.”

  All at one time? Kickaha thought.

  She added, “They are also my lovers. There is, as you know or should know, a widely separated difference in meaning between bedmate and lover.”

  The food was brought by servants, including Lingwallan, who seemed to be a sort of head butler. The dishes held a variety of fruit and vegetables, some unfamiliar to Kickaha, and roasted pig, venison, and wild bird. The buttered bread was thickly coated with a jam that made his eyes roll and his body quiver with ecstasy.

  The goblets were formed from some sort of sea shell and held four different kinds of liquors. One contained water; one, a light and delicious wine; one, a watered-down whiskey; one, a liquor that he had never before tasted.

  He ate and drank just enough to satisfy his belly, though he went easy on the meat so that he could have another slice of bread with jam. Manathu Vorcyon nodded approvingly at his restraint. The truth was that he would have liked to get a big buzz on, not stuff himself. But this was not the time or place for that.

  What would be appropriate, he thought, would be to stop the small talk and get answers to his questions. The Great Mother seemed to be in no hurry, which could be expected from a woman who had lived more than thirty thousand years.

  After dinner, they went outside to watch a ceremony in honor of the guest. The dances were colorful and noisy, and the songs were full of references to myths and legends about which Kickaha knew nothing. Lingwallan, standing by his side, tried to explain what these were but gave up because he could not be heard above the din. Kickaha did not care about any of them. He wanted to get the inside information about his predicament from the one who should know, Our Lady, Manathu Vorcyon.

  Tired and bored though somewhat agitated, he went to bed in his room. After an hour of sighing, yawning, and turning to both sides on the thickly padded blankets on the floor, he managed to get to sleep. But he was awakened by a vivid dream in which he saw Anana’s face, looking very distressed, appear out of gray and menacing clouds.

  The next morning, after he had showered and had eaten and done all those things that are necessary but time-consuming, he went down the staircase and out of the tree to breakfast, served near the entrance. The giantess did not show up until after Lingwallan had conducted Kickaha through the hamlet and shown him all the sights and spoken of their history and meaning. Kickaha was disgusted. No matter what the universe, a guest had to go through a visiting fireman’s tour.

  However, he did learn what kind of Lord the giantess was. She was a benevolent despot. That is, she had determined what kind of environment the leblabbiys would live in and also what kind of society they would have. Jungles and forests and many rivers and lakes occupied most of the landmass. There were no deserts, though there were many low mountain ranges.

  Through the dense vegetation wandered small families or somewhat larger tribes. Hunting, fishing, and food-gathering occupied a few hours a day. Agriculture was limited to small gardens. Their leisure time was spent in conversation (the leblabbiys were very gabby), raising the young, council meetings, arts, athletic contests, and copulation. The latter was sometimes a public game, which was why male winners wore penis-ribbons and female winners had painted deltas on their stomachs. Those sporting blue, green, and orange awards had won first, second, and third places in the very popular competition.

  Women and men had equal rights. Instead of warring against other groups, the men and women engaged in intense and sometimes very rough athletic games with neighboring tribes.

  If Kickaha was to believe Lingwallan, Manathu Vorcyon’s subjects were as happy as human beings could be.

  Kickaha, who had lived among many preliterate tribes, knew that the closeness and security of tribal life demanded a rigid conformity. A rebel threatened cultural unity and was usually treated harshly. If he did not submit after harsh censure and then the silent treatment, he was exiled or killed. The rebel usually preferred being slain. Being ousted from the tribe was unendurable to the members.

  He asked Lingwallan about this.

  “Our Lady has decreed that innovators in the arts and technology are not to be discouraged. But explosive powder and firearms will not be tolerated, nor will engines needing fuels be made. She says that things of iron, except as art objects, breed poisons in the land, air, and water. She has told of us what is happening to your native planet, Earth I.”

  He paused, shuddered, then said, “We do not want that, and, if we did, She would not permit it.”

  “But there’s no chance for overpopulation here,” Kickaha said. “All Thoan maintain a limit on the number of births in every universe except those of Earth I and II. For instance, Jadawin, once Lord of the World of Tiers, reduced the rate of births among his subjects by making sure of an ample supply of an antifertility chemical in the waters.”

  “I know nothing of him or the other Lords,” Lingwallan said. “But Our Lady wisely made our bodies so that we are fertile only after long intervals.”

  “You don’t have murders or theft or hatred of neighbors or sex crimes?”

  Lingwallan shrugged and said, “Oh, yes. The Great Mother says that that is unavoidable since we are human beings. But the tribal councils settle arguments, from which there is no appeal except to Manathu Vorcyon. It’s very difficult to escape detection if you murder someone. It is rare, anyway. As for sex crime, that too is rare. The punishment
for sex with a child under the age of twelve is death. After that age, the couple who mate must do so only by a mutual agreement.”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “Treating a child brutally, physically, mentally, or emotionally, is punished with death or exile. But I have never heard of such a thing in any tribes I know. Children are our most precious possessions, if, that is, a child can be owned.”

  Kickaha did not ask him if he resented being dictated to by the Great Mother. He would have wondered about Kickaha’s sanity if the question had been uttered.

  “Everybody’s happy, in ecstasy?” Kickaha said. “It’s all advantage and no disadvantage?”

  Lingwallan shrugged, then said, “Where in this world or any others are there not disadvantages?”

  Kickaha knew that he would be bored if he stayed long here.

  Manathu Vorcyon greeted him at the main entrance to the tree and said, “We will talk now about Red Orc, you, and me. About many things.”

  She led him up the central staircase to the sixth story and through a doorless entrance into a large room. Against one wall was a twelve-foot-high mirror. On the only table was a silver pitcher and three silver goblets, all with figures of humans and beasts in alto-relief. One of these caught his eye. It was an image of the scaly man.

  Manathu Vorcyon told him to sit down on one of the two chairs in the room.

  “This place is taboo, except for me and my guests, of course. We won’t be interrupted.”

  After she sat down, she filled two goblets with a greenish liquor. She said, “Among other questions, you want to ask me just why and how you were transported from Red Orc’s place to here.”

  Kickaha nodded and then sipped the liquor. It tasted … only one way for him to describe it—like layers of sunlight, moonlight, and starlight liquefied. His heart beat faster; his head seemed to expand slightly; his body became pleasantly warm.