More Than Fire

by Philip José Farmer

  “Anana and I know about that,” Kickaha said. “We killed both of them.” Red Orc’s face crimsoned. Glaring, he shouted, “Do not speak unless I give you permission!”

  When he had regained his composure, he said, “I was faced with a problem. You had the Horn, or at least I assumed you still had it. The Horn changed normal conditions for those in a circuit. With it, you might escape even if caught in one. And then the alarms I had set up in the circuit sounded through the series of gates and registered in my base. I knew then that you and Anana had entered the gate from the planet of the Tripeds.

  “The gate-circuit chart I inherited from Ololothon after I killed him so many years ago showed that one of the brief stops would be on Alofmethbin. But it would be for only a few seconds. I gambled that you would recognize Alofmethbin and would run out of the area of influence of the gate before it could send you on. Or that you would be sounding the Horn at that time and that would nullify the action of the gate. And I was right, of course. I would have preferred that you be much closer to the sisters when you exited, but I had to work with what was available. Nor did I know, of course, whether or not there was a flaw near the gate.

  “For this reason, I could not erect a cage there to imprison you and Anana when you entered. You would only have to blow your Horn and you would escape through the flaw, if there was one. The probability that there would be was about fifty-fifty.”

  Kickaha opened his mouth to ask a question, thought better of it, and closed his lips.

  “I knew you would head in a straight line for the nearest gate, the one in the boulder. My usual good fortune held because I knew about the gate. Ololothon was on this planet several times when Wolff was its Lord, found four gates, and charted them. He connected the gate in the boulder to the pit.”

  Kickaha cleared his throat, then said, “Permission to speak?”

  Red Ore waved his hand.

  “What happened to Anana?”

  “I have a story to tell!” the Thoan said harshly. “It will enlighten you so that you will know whom you are up against! Now, be silent! Ololothon must have dug that pit shortly after the chasm was made by my father’s engine of destruction during my campaign against him on Wanzord. I found the pit a long time ago when I went briefly to the planet Wanzord. I like to prowl around universes and gather data that I may use later. You never know when it will be useful. Then, when you two disappeared from the circuit for a few hours, a delay that came too soon for you to be on the islet …”

  He paused, then said, “You used the Horn to escape the circuit before you got to the islet, of course. But you got caught in it again?”

  Kickaha nodded. Though he did not see how the Thoan could use knowledge of the scaly man’s existence to his own advantage, it was best to keep him ignorant. Never give anything away; you might regret it.

  “Few things make me anxious,” the Thoan said, “but I am not above admitting that your disappearance gave me a bad time. But I went ahead with my plan. However, there might be a flaw in the walls of the pit. It was not likely there was, but I could not take the chance. One blast from the Horn and you might escape through that. So, I placed a generator near the pit-you could not see it from the bottom of the pit-and set it to form a one-way gate completely around the pit and just below the surface of the rock wall. As long as that one-way gate shield was there, even the Horn could not open a flaw.”

  Red Orc paused.

  “Permission?” Kickaha croaked. His throat and mouth were very dry, but he’d be damned if he’d ask the Thoan for a glass of water.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why didn’t you just wait for night, while we were on the plains or in the forest, then swoop in in your aircraft and capture us?”

  “Because I take no chances unless I am forced to do so. You might have had enough time to use the Horn and escape through a flaw. Once you were in the pit, you could not escape. Your Horn could not get you out of it.”

  “But you overlooked the flash floods,” Kickaha said.

  The Thoan’s face became red again. He shouted, “I had not been on the planet long enough to know that there were floods caused by rainstorms! That planet is very dry! I never saw a cloud while I was there!”

  Kickaha said nothing. He did not want to goad the Thoan into doing something painful, such as burning his eye out with a beamer ray. Or God knew what else.

  “So!” Red Orc said. “I got a bonus! That Englishman, Clifton, apparently escaped from the floating palace of Urthona in the Lavalite World. But he fell at last into one of my traps in another world, and I shuttled him into the pit! All my most elusive enemies except for Wolff and Chryseis-were collected like fish in a net!”

  “Wolff? Chryseis?” Kickaha murmured.

  “Wolff and Chryseis!” Red Orc howled. His voice was so loud in the narrow area of the boat that Kickaha was startled again.

  The Thoan yelled, “They escaped! They escaped! I should have dealt with them as soon as I caught them!”

  “You don’t know where they are?” Kickaha said softly.

  “Somewhere on Earth!” the Thoan said, waving one hand violently. “Or perhaps they managed to gate through to another world! It does not matter! I will catch them again! When I do … !”

  He stopped, took a deep breath, and then smiled. “You can quit being so happy about them! I did find Anana!”

  Kickaha knew that Red Orc wanted him to ask about her. But he gritted his teeth and clamped his lips. The Thoan was going to tell him anyway.

  “Anana’s body, what was left of it, was sticking out from under a small boulder! I left her for the scavengers!”

  Kickaha shut his eyes while a tremor passed over him, and his chest seemed to have been pierced by a spear. But the Lord could be lying.

  When he felt recovered enough to speak in a steady voice, he said, “Did you bring back her head to show me?”

  “No!”

  “Did you photograph her body? Not that I’d believe a photo.” “Why should I do either?”

  “You’re lying!”

  “You will never know, will you?”

  Kickaha did not reply. After waiting for a few moments for his captive to say something, the Thoan returned to the pilot’s seat.

  Kickaha looked out through the canopy again. Though he saw no more vast chasms, he did see a world the surface of which had been swept clear of soil and vegetation. Yet new growth had managed to get a roothold here and there. Some species of birds, as he well knew, had survived, and he supposed that some animals had escaped the apocalyptic raging. Perhaps somewhere were small bands of humans. They must not be eating well, though.

  He became more angry than usual at the arrogance and scorn for life of the Lords. They would destroy an entire world and think little of doing it.

  It was a miracle that Anana was not like her own kind.

  In ten minutes, the vessel began to slow, then hovered in the air for a few seconds before sinking swiftly. It landed by a corrugated monolith of stone that bent halfway up in a thirty-degree angle from the horizontal. At its base was an enormous reddish boulder roughly shaped like a bear’s head. The Thoan squeezed several drops of a blue liquid from a container onto a small part of the sticky rope. A moment later, the rope became smooth and was easily loosened by Kickaha’s efforts. But the bonds tying his hands before him were still sticky.

  He was shepherded out of the vessel. After the Thoan had commanded the craft to close the canopy, he guided Kickaha toward the boulder. Then he spoke a code word, and part of the side of the boulder shimmered with bands of red and violet. Looking steadily at it hurt Kickaha’s eyes.

  “Go ahead,” Red Orc said.

  Kickaha entered the gate into a small chamber in the rock. The next second, he was in a large windowless room made of greenish marble and furnished with carpets, drapes, chairs, divans, and statuary. A few seconds later, part of the seemingly solid wall opened and Red Orc stepped inside the room.

  He motioned with the b
eamer. “Sit in that chair there.”

  After his captive had obeyed, Red Orc sat down in a chair facing Kickaha’s. He smiled, leaned back, and stretched out his legs.

  “Here we are in one of my hideaways on Earth Two.”

  “And?”

  “Are you hungry? You may eat and drink while I’m discussing a certain matter with you.”

  Kickaha knew he would be foolish to refuse just because his enemy offered it. He needed the energy to get free, if he was going to do that, and he had no doubt that he would. “When,” not “if,” was the way it was going to be.

  He said, “Yes.

  Orc must have given some sort of signal, or he had assumed that his captive would not refuse a meal. A door-sized section of the wall opened. A woman pushed in a cart on which were goblets, covered dishes, and cutlery. She was a black-haired, brown-eyed, and dark-skinned beauty. She wore only some sort of silvery and shimmering hip band from the front of which hung a foot-long fan-shaped band of the same material. A peacock feather was inserted into her hair. She stopped the cart by a table, bowed to Red Orc, transferred the food and drink to the table, and pushed the cart out of the room, her narrow hips swaying. The section swung shut.

  “You may not only have the best food and drink this planet offers, but her, too,” the Thoan said. “And others equally as beautiful and skilled in the bodily arts. If, that is, you accept my proposal.”

  Kickaha arched his eyebrows. Proposal? Then Red Orc must need his help in some project. Since he was not the man to draw back from danger, he had something near-suicidal in mind.

  Afterward? If there was an afterward?

  Kickaha held up his bound wrists and pointed a finger at the table. Red Orc told him to raise his arms high and to hold them as far apart as he could. Kickaha did so. There was approximately an inch between his wrists.

  “Hold steady,” the Thoan said, and he drew his beamer so swiftly his arm seemed to be a blur. A yellow ray lanced out; the bond was cut in half; the beamer was holstered. It was done within two eyeblinks.

  Very impressive, Kickaha thought. But he was not going to tell Red Orc that. And what kind of beamer projected a yellow ray?

  “I’ll be back when you’ve finished eating,” the Thoan said. “If you wish to wash first or need a toilet, utter the word `kentfass,’ and a bathroom will extrude from the wall. To make it go back into the wall, say the same word.”

  A curious arrangement, Kickaha thought. But Red Orc had a curious mind.

  The Thoan left the room. Though Kickaha did not have much appetite, he found that the food, which consisted of various vegetables, fruits, and different kinds of fish, was delicious. The wine was too heavy for his palate, but it did have an inviting don’t-know-what taste and went down easily. Afterward, he used the bathroom, which was decorated with murals of undersea life. It slid into the wall, and the wall section swung shut. Some of these sections must conceal gates.

  A few minutes later, the Thoan entered. Now he wore a longer robe and sandals. With him were three dark men wearing conical helmets topped by peacock feathers, short kilts, and buskins. All were armed with spears, swords, and knives. They took positions behind Red Orc, who had drawn up a chair shaped like a spider and sat down in it facing his captive. He was unarmed.

  “You must be very puzzled,” he said. “You’re asking yourself why I, a Lord, require the assistance of a leblabbiy?”

  “Because you’ve got something to do that’s too big for you to handle by yourself,” Kickaha said.

  Red Orc smiled. He said, “I suppose you’re wondering what your reward will be if you succeed in carrying out my desires. You also doubt that I’d keep my word to reward you.”

  “You have an astounding ability to read my mind.”

  “Sarcasm has no place here. I have never broken my word.”

  “Did you ever give your word?”

  “Several times. And I honored it, though my natural inclination is to break it. But there have been situations …”

  He was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Have you heard about Zazel of the Caverned World?”

  “Yes,” Kickaha said. “Anana …”

  He choked. Even speaking her name summoned up grief like a thick glutinous wave and burned his heart.

  After clearing his throat, he said, “Anana told me something about him. He created a universe that was a ball of stone in which were many tunnels and caves. Which, in my opinion, only a nut would do. According to her, Zazel was a melancholy and gloomy man, and he eventually killed himself.”

  “Many Lords have committed suicide,” Red Orc said. “They are the weaklings. The strong kill each other.”

  “Not fast enough for me. What does he have to do with us?”

  “When I was a youth, I mightily offended my father. Instead of killing me, he gated me through to a world unfamiliar to me and very dangerous. It was called Anthema, the Unwanted World. I wandered around on it, and then I met another Lord, Ijim of the Dark Woods. He had gated through to Anthema while being pursued by a Lord whose world he had tried to invade. For forty-four years he had tried to find a gate through which he could travel to another universe.”

  The Thoan paused. He looked as if he were recalling his hard times on that planet.

  He spoke again. “His long solitude had made him paranoiac. But we teamed up, though of course each of us was planning to kill the other if we escaped that very undesirable world. We did finally find a gate, but it had been placed by Los inside a structure built by some fierce predators. Nevertheless, we got inside, found the gate, and jumped through it. It was a shearing gate. That is, Los had set it up so that we had to calculate the few seconds when it was safe to enter. Otherwise, we would be cut in half.

  “Ijim was halved like an apple, and I lost some skin and a slice of flesh on the end of my heels and on my buttocks. After wandering through tunnels, I came to a very large cavern. There I met Dingsteth, a creature made by Zazel to be his overseer, or manager. After Zazel committed suicide, Dingsteth was the only sentient being in that vast ball of stone perforated with tunnels and large caverns.

  “Dingsteth was very naive. It did not kill me at once as it should have done. It wasn’t loneliness, a desire for companionship, that stopped it. It did not know what loneliness was. At least, I think it does not suffer from that emotion. There were certain signs …”

  Red Orc again became silent. He looked past Kickaha as if he were viewing a screen displaying images of the Caverned World. Then he spoke.

  “I found out from Dingsteth that the whole stone world was a computer, semi-protein and semi-silicon. It held enormous amounts of data put there by Zazel. Much of that data has been lost to the rest of us Lords.”

  The Thoan paused, licked his lips, and said, “So far, only I have entered Zazel’s World. Only I know of the priceless data-treasures contained in it. Only I know about the gate that gives access to it. Only I know about certain data that would give me complete power over the Lords and their universes.”

  “Which is?” Kickaha said.

  Red Orc laughed loudly. Then he said, “You are not only a trickster, you are a jester. It’s not necessary that you know what I am specifically looking for, and you know that. I know that, if you should somehow get into Zazel’s World, you will make a desperate effort to find out what I so greatly desire. I won’t tell you because I won’t take the slightest chance that knowledge of it should ever get to other Lords. And I certainly would not trust you with that knowledge.”

  “How can I tell anybody else about something I’m ignorant of?” Kickaha said.

  “You can’t. But some Lords might be able to guess what it is.”

  This reasoning did not seem entirely logical to Kickaha. But he could not expect the Thoan to be completely rational. Hatred and a passion for power had driven Red Orc insane. Or vice versa.

  Nor did he expect Red Orc to keep any promise or give any lasting reward. The Thoan knew that Kickaha would not give up revenge
for Anana’s death. Even if Anana had somehow survived, she had come near death because of Red Orc. That was unforgivable.

  He said, “What do you need me for?”

  “We know that I am using you as a pawn whom I will sacrifice if the occasion demands it. However, I swear by Shambarimen, Elyttria, and Manathu Vorcyon that if you succeed, you will be set free, and-“

  “Anana, too, if she didn’t die?”

  Irritation at the interruption flitted across Red Orc’s face. But he spoke evenly.

  “Anana, too.”

  Kickaha asked the Thoan what he wanted him to do.

  “Get into Zazel’s World. When you’ve done that, you can communicate with me, and I’ll come swiftly.”

  Kickaha bit a corner of his lip. “Why can’t you do it yourself?”

  Red Orc smiled and said, “You know why. It’ll be a dangerous project, and your chances of surviving are small. But if you die, I’ll know what killed you and avoid it. I can do that because I have the Horn. Besides, I’d like to determine if you are the greatest of Tricksters, which some Lords claim you are. My experience with you has impressed me even though you are a leblabbiy.”

  “You enjoy deadly games?”

  “Yes. So do you.”

  “You did catch me,” Kickaha said. “Several times.”

  “And up until now, you slipped away from me. When we were chasing you through the city of Los Angeles, I was playing with you. My hired criminals were not very bright, and luck favored you. And then I was caught in the Lavalite World and came too close to being trapped there forever. I suspect you were responsible.”

  Kickaha did not confirm that. Let him guess.