The World of Tiers, Volume 1

by Philip José Farmer

  Rintrah said, “What is that to the rest of us?”

  “Urizen will have flying craft,” Wolff said. “If he escapes the palace in one, he will pick us off. Even if we should hide from him, we would be doomed. He has merely to leave us here. Eventually, this world will be flooded. We will be trapped, perhaps to starve again. No, if you want to get away from here and back to your own universe, you will have to help me kill Urizen.”

  He said to Theotormon, “You were allowed a little freedom while you were his prisoner. If we could find the area you know, we could better avoid traps.”

  “There is an entrance at the bottom of the sunken garden, which is now a pool,” Theotormon said.

  “That would be the best way to enter. We can swim up to the levels that are not yet flooded. If we avoid contact with the floor and walls, we won’t set off the traps.”

  They plunged into the water and, hugging the sides of the pool to avoid the impact of the falling waters, swam around behind the cataract. If was easy to locate the door, since a current was roaring through it. They let it sweep them through until they came to a staircase. This was broad and built of sculptured red and black stone. They swam up it and after many turnings, came to another level. This, too, was flooded, so they continued their ascent. The next floor was inches deep in water and filling swiftly. The Lords climbed on up the stairs until they were on the fourth story.

  Urizen’s palace was like every Lord’s, magnificent in every respect. At another time, Wolff might have lingered to look at the paintings, drapes, sculptures, and treasures, loot of many worlds. Now he had but two thoughts. Kill Urizen and save his great-eyed wife, Chryseis.

  Wolff looked around before giving the word to advance. He said, “Where’s Vala?”

  “She was behind me a moment ago,” Rintrah said.

  “Then she’s in no trouble,” Wolff replied. “But we may be. If she’s sneaked off to join Urizen …”

  “We’d better get to him before she does,” Luvah said.

  Wolff led the way, expecting at every second a trap. There was, however, a chance that Urizen had not set any here. Undoubtedly, there would be defenses at every entrance. But Urizen may have thought himself safe here. Moreover, the water pouring through from above and below might have deactivated the power supplies. Whatever contingency Urizen had prepared himself for, he had never thought of another planet’s seas emptying themselves into his domain.

  Theotormon said, “The floor above is the one where I was kept prisoner. Urizen’s private apartments are also there.”

  Wolff took the first staircase they came to. He walked up slowly, looking intently for signs of traps. They came without mishap to the next floor and then stood for a moment. The closer they got to Urizen, the more nervous they became. Their hate was beginning to be tinged with some of the old awe they had felt for him when they were children.

  They were in a huge chamber, the walls of which were white marble. There were many bas-reliefs carved on them, scenes from many planets. One showed Urizen seated on a throne. Below him, a new universe was forming out of chaos. Another scene showed him standing in a meadow with children at play around him. Wolff recognized himself, his brothers, sisters, and cousins. Those had been happy times, even though there were shadows now and then to forecast the days of hate and anxiety.

  Theotormon said, “You can hear the. rumble of the water above. It won’t be long until this floor, too, is flooded.”

  “Chryseis is probably held in the same area in which you were prisoner,” Wolff said. “You lead the way there.”

  Theotormon, his rubbery legs acting as springs, went swiftly. He traced his way without hesitation through a series of rooms and halls that would have been a bewildering labyrinth to a stranger.

  Theotormon stopped before a tall oval entrance of scarlet stone with purplish masses that formed ragged silhouettes of winged creatures. Beyond was a great chamber that glowed a dull red.

  “That is the room in which I spent most of my time,” he said. “But I fear to go through the doorway.”

  Wolff extended his spear through the archway.

  Theotormon said, “Wait a minute. It may have a delayed reaction.”

  Wolff continued to hold the spear. He counted the seconds, estimating how far within the chamber he would have gone if he walked on in. There was a flare of light that blinded him and sent him reeling back.

  When he regained his sight, he saw that his spear was shorn off. Heat billowed out from the expanding air in the chamber, and there was the odor of charred wood.

  “Lucky for you that most of the heat was localized and went upward,” Theotormon said.

  The trap covered about twenty yards. Beyond that the room might be safe. But how to get past the death that waited?

  He stepped back some paces, cast the butt of the spear through the archway, and turned his back. Again, light burst forth, driving the shadows of the Lords down along the corridor and then sending a wave of heat out after them. Wolff turned and threw an arrow into the room and gave the archway his back again while he counted. Three seconds passed before the trap was sprung again.

  He gave an order and they returned to the level staircase, which was half below the rising waters. They put on their oxygen masks and dipped themselves into the water. Then they ran down the hall as swiftly as they could, hoping that the water would not dry off them. At the archway, Wolff tossed another arrow through. As soon as the light died, but before the heat had thoroughly dissipated, he dashed into the chamber. Behind him came Theotormon and Luvah. They had three seconds to cover twenty yards and a few feet. They made it. With the heat drying off the film of water on their suits and warming their backs. But they were through.

  Rintrah cast an arrow into the room, and he and Tharmas ran into the heat. Wolff had turned around to watch them as soon as the light disappeared. He cried out because Tharmas had hesitated. Tharmas did not heed his warning to wait and try again, perhaps because he did not hear it. He was racing desperately, his eyes wide behind the goggles. Wolff shouted to the others to turn away as Rintrah sped past him. There was another nova of light, a scream, and a thud. Heat billowed over the Lords; they smelled the charred fish skin of the suit and burned human flesh.

  Tharmas was a dark mass on the floor, his fingers and toes almost burned off.

  Without a word, the others turned away and went on through the room. Near its other archway, Theotormon led them through a very narrow doorway, although he did not do so until after it had been tested. They came into a hemispherical room at least one hundred yards across. Within the room were many large cages, all empty except for one.

  Wolff saw the occupant of the cage first.

  He cried out, “Urizen!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The cage was ten feet by ten. It was furnished only with a thin blanket on the floor, a pipe for drinking water, a hole for excretion, and an automatic food dispenser. The man within it was very tall and very thin. He had the face of a bearded and starved falcon. His hair fell down his back to his calves, and his beard hung below his knees. The black hairs were threaded with gray, by which Wolff knew that his father had been a long time in the cage. Even after the so-called immortality drugs were cut off, their effect lasted for years.

  Urizen advanced towards the bars but was careful not to touch them. Wolff warned the others back in a low voice. He walked up to the bars as if he meant to grip them. Urizen watched him with deep sunken and feverish eyes but did not open his mouth. A few inches from the bars, Wolff stopped and said, “Do you still hate us so much, Father, that you would let us die?”

  He raked the bars with the tip of an arrow; veins of light ran over the metal.

  Urizen smiled grimly and spoke in a hollow, painshot voice, “Touching the bars is only painful, not fatal. Ah, Jadawin, you were always a fox! No one but you could have gotten this far. No one but you and your sister, Vala, and perhaps Red Orc.”

  “So she did evade all your traps and sn
ared the snarer,” Wolff said. “She is indeed a remarkable woman, my sister.”

  “Where is she?” Urizen asked. “Did she die this time? I know that she was with you because she told me what she intended to do.”

  “She is in the palace and still to be reckoned with,” Wolff said. “All this time, she had us convinced that you were in the Seat of Power. She was playing with us, sharing our dangers, pretending to be our ally. I suspected her of working with you, but this … I never dreamed of.”

  “I am doomed,” Urizen said. “I cannot get out; you cannot open this cage to release me. Even if you wanted to, you could not. And I must die soon unless I can get help. Vala has implanted a slowly acting and painful cancerous growth within me. In fact, she has done this three times, only to remove it each time before I died and then nurse me back to health.”

  “I would be lying if I said I was sorry, and you know it,” Wolff said. “You are getting what you deserve.”

  “Moral lectures from you, Jadawin!” Urizen said. His eyes blazed with the old fire, and Wolff felt something within him quail. The dread of his father had not died yet.

  “I heard that you had changed much since your life on Earth, but I could not believe it. Now I know it is true.”

  “I did not come here to argue with you” Wolff said. “There is little time for talk left, anyway. Tell me, Father, how we can get to the control room safely. If you want vengeance, you must tell us. Vala is loose again and probably in the control room right now.”

  Urizen said, “Why should I tell you anything? I am going to die, but I will at least have the pleasure of knowing that you, Rintrah, Luvah, and Theotormon will die with me.”

  “Does it give you pleasure to know that Vala will triumph? That she will live on? That your body, too, will be stuffed and mounted in the trophy hall?”

  Urizen smiled bitterly. “If I tell you what you want, then Vala might die, but you would live. It is a loathsome choice to make. Either way, I lose.”

  “You may hate us,” Wolff said, “but we have never done anything to you. Yet Vala …”

  Theotormon said, “The seas will soon be flooding this level. Then we all die. And Vala, safe in her control room, will laugh. And she will take whatever vengeance she has been planning against Chryseis.”

  Wolff felt helpless. He could not threaten Urizen to make him talk. What more could he do to him than had been done?

  He said, “Let’s go. We can’t waste any more time.” To Urizen, he said, “Good-bye forever, Father. You must die and soon. You hold revenge against Vala in your heart, and if you would unlock your lips, you would get it. But hatred blinds you and makes you rob yourself.”

  Urizen called after them, “Wait!”

  Eagerly, Wolff returned to the cage. Urizen licked his lips and said, “If I tell you, will you do me one favor?”

  “I can’t free you, Father,” Wolff said. “You know we have no time to figure out how to do it. Moreover, even if I could, I wouldn’t. I would kill you before I would loose you upon the world.”

  “The favor I trade is exactly that,” Urizen said. “Death. I am suffering agonies, my son. My pride forbade me to say so until now. But one more minute of this life seems like a thousand years to me. If it were not for my pride, I would have gone down on my knees before you long ago, would have begged you to put me out of my torture. That I would never do. Urizen does not beg. But a trade, that is another thing.”

  “I agree,” Wolff said. “An arrow between the bars will do it.”

  Urizen whispered in a few words what they needed to know. He had just finished when there was laughter at the far end of the room. Wolff whirled to see Vala walking towards them. He fitted an arrow to a bow-string, knowing as he did so that Vala would not have shown herself unless she felt sufficiently protected.

  Then he saw through Vala to the wall behind her and knew that it was a projection. He hoped that she had not also overheard Urizen. If she had, she would be able to do what she wished with them.

  “I could not have done better if I had planned it this way,” her image said. “It is fitting, and my greatest desire, to have all of you die together. A happy family reunion! You may witness each other’s death struggles. How nice!

  “And I will be leaving this planet and this universe and may then trap the surviving brother, and my beloved sister, Anana. Only I will rest for a while and amuse myself with your Chryseis.”

  “You have failed so far, and you will continue to fail!” Wolff shouted. “Even if you kill us, you will not live long to enjoy your triumph! You know about the etsfagwo poison of the natives of the waterworld, don’t you? How it can be served in food and leaves no taste? How it goes through the veins and stays there for a long time with no ill effect? And then it suddenly reacts and doubles the victim up in terrible, pain that lasts for hours? And how there is no antidote?

  “Well, Vala, I suspected you of treachery. So I had the estfagwo put in your supper last night. It will soon take hold of you, Vala, and then you will not be able to laugh about us.”

  Wolff had not done this and until this moment had not even thought of doing so. But he was determined that if he died, Vala would pay for it with some hours of mental anguish.

  The image screamed with fury and desperation. It said, “You are lying, Jadawin! You would not do this; you could not! You are just trying to scare me!”

  “You will know whether I tell the truth or not in a very short time!” Wolff shouted. He turned to shoot the arrow through the bars of the cage to fulfill his promise to Urizen. As he shifted, he saw Vala’s image flicker out of existence. Immediately thereafter, a green foam spurted out of hidden pipes in the ceiling. It shot down with great force, spread out, rose to the knees of the Lords, and set them to coughing with its acrid fumes. Wolffs eyes watered, and he bent over. He leaned down to pick up the bow and arrow which he had dropped. The fumes made him cough even more violently.

  Suddenly, the foam was to his neck. He struggled to get through it and to the door at the far end, although there might be another trap waiting there. The foam rose above his head. He held his breath while he put his air-mask on. Then he lifted it a little from his face and blew out the foam it had collected. He hoped the others had enough presence of mind to think of their masks.

  Within a few steps of the exit, he felt the foam begin to harden. He strove against it, pushing as hard as he could. It continued to resist him, to reduce his progress to a very slow motion. Abruptly, the foam became a jelly and the green opacity cleared away. He was caught like a fly in amber.

  Wolff could not see the others, who were behind him. He was facing the archway towards which he had struggled. He tried to move his arms and legs and found that he could make a little progress. With a vast effort, he could shove himself forward less than an inch. Then the jelly, like a tide, moved him back again and settled around him. There was nothing he could do except wait for his air supply to run out. The breathing system was a closed system, one that reused air. If it had been an open system, he would have been dead already. The jelly closed in around so tightly that there would have been no place for the breathed-out carbon dioxide to go.

  He had perhaps a half-hour of life remaining. Vala would be laughing now. And Chryseis, great-eyed beautiful Chryseis, what was she doing? Was she being forced to watch this scene? Or was she listening to Vala’s descriptions of what Vala intended for her?

  Fifteen minutes passed by with his every thought seeking a way out. There was none. This was the end of over twenty five thousand years of life and the powers of a god. He had lived for nothing; he might as well never have been born. He would die, and Chryseis would die, and both would be stuffed and mounted and placed on exhibit in the trophy hall.

  No, that was not true, at least. Vala would have to abandon this place. The waters roaring through the permanent gate at the top level of the palace would ensure that. She would be denied this pleasure. His body, and Chryseis’, would lie beneath a sea, in darkness
and cold, until the flesh rotted and the bones were tossed back and forth by the currents and strewn about.

  The waters! He had forgotten that they were racing through the halls of the levels above and down the staircases. If only …

  The first rush half-filled the corridor beyond the archway and ripped out a chunk of jelly. The corridor was quickly filled, and the jelly began to dissolve. The process took time, however. The waters crept towards him, eating their way and turning the jelly into a green foam that was absorbed by the liquid. More than half an hour had passed since he had estimated that he had about thirty minutes of air left. He felt that every breath would be his last.

  The jelly became green foam and obscured his vision. The thick stuff melted away, and he was free. But now he was in as much danger as before. Submerged in water, he would drown as soon as the air ran out.

  He swam towards the others, whom he could see through a green veil. He yanked them loose from the jelly that still held them, only to find that Rintrah was dead. He had gotten his mask on in time but something had gone wrong. Wolff gestured at Theotormon and Luvah and swam towards the other exit. It opened to their only hope. To try to go through the door through which the seas were pushing was impossible because of the current. They were carried, like it or not, towards the other archway.

  Wolff dug at the jelly which clogged the doorway until it broke loose, and he was carried headlong into the next room. His brothers came at his heels and slid on their faces across the room and piled into him against the opposite wall. They rolled out of the stream and were on their feet. Wolff turned the air off and lifted his mask. He not only had to speak to them, but there would be a minute or two before the room filled in which they could conserve what little supply remained in the tanks.

  “Urizen told me that there is a secret door to a duplicate control room! He had it prepared in case somebody ever did get into the main control room! It has controls which will deactivate those of the main room! But to get to it, we have to go through the doorway with the heat-ray trap. He didn’t have time to tell me how to turn off the heat-rays! We’ll put our masks back on when the water gets too high and then go through. The water should knock the projectors out! I hope!’