World of Tiers 04 - Behind the Walls of Terra

by Farmer, Phillip Jose

  The voice was deep and resonant. Its pronunciation of English was that of a native, and its use of vocabulary seemed to be "right." The speaker did not introduce himself. His tone indicated that he did not need to do so, that just hearing him should convince anyone immediately of his identity. And of his power.

  Kickaha felt that this was truly Red Orc, and the longer he heard him the more he identified certain characteristics that reminded him of Anana's voice. There was a resemblance there, which was not surprising, since the family of Urizen was very inbred.

  "Finnegan! I have your friends Wolff and Chryseis and your lover, my niece, Anana. They are well. Nothing has happened to them, nothing harmful, that is. As yet! I drugged the truth from them; they have told me everything they know about this."

  Then it is good, Kickaha thought, that Anana does not know where the Horn of Shambarimen really is.

  There was a pause. Kickaha said, "I'm listening."

  "I should kill them, after some suitable attentions, of course. But they don't really represent any threat to me; they were as easily caught as just-born rabbits."

  A Lord always had to do some bragging. Kickaha said nothing, knowing that the Lord would get to the point when he became short-winded. But Red Orc surprised him.

  "I could wait until I caught you, and I would not have to wait very long. But just now time is of the essence, and so I am willing to make a trade."

  He paused again. Kickaha said, "I'm all ears."

  "I will let the prisoners go and will allow them to return to Jadawin's world. And you may go with them. But on several conditions. First, you will hand over the Horn of Shambarimen to me!"

  Kickaha had expected this. The Horn was not only unique in all the universes, it was the most prized item of the Lords. It had been made by the fabled ancestor of all the Lords now living, though it had been in the possession of his equally fabled son so long that it was sometimes referred to as the Horn of Ilmarwolkin. It had a unique utility among gates. It could be used alone. All other gates had to exist in pairs. There had to be one in the universe to be left and a sister, a resonant gate, in the universe to be entered. The majority of these were fixed, though the crescent type was mobile. But the Horn had only to be blown upon, with the keys of the Horn played in the proper coded sequence, and a momentary way between the universes would open. That is, it would do so if the Horn were played near a "resonant" point in the "walls" between the two worlds.

  A resonant point was the path between two universes, but these universes never varied. Thus, if a Lord used the Horn without knowing where the resonant point would lead him, he would find himself in whichever universe was on the other side, like it or not.

  Kickaha knew of four places where he could blow the Horn and be guaranteed to open the way to. One was at the gate in the cave near Lake Arrowhead. One was in Kentucky, but he would need Wolff to guide him to it. Another would be in his former apartment in Bloomington, Indiana. And the fourth would be in the closet in the basement of a house in Tempe, Arizona. Wolff knew that, too, but he had described to Kickaha how to get to it from Earth's side, and Kickaha had not forgotten.

  Red Orc's voice was impatient. "Come, come! Don't play games with me, Earthling! Say yes or say no, but be quick about it!"

  "Yes! Provisionally, that is! It depends upon your other conditions!"

  "I have only one." Red Orc coughed several times and then said, "And that is, that you and the others first help me catch the Beller!"

  Kickaha was shocked, but a thousand experiences in being surprised enabled him to conceal it. Smoothly, he said, "Agreed! In fact, that's something I had wished you would agree to do, but at that time I didn't see working with you. Of course, you had no whip hand then."

  So the Beller had either been caught by Orc's men and had then escaped or somebody else had captured him. That somebody else could only be another Lord.

  Or perhaps it was another Beller.

  At that thought, he became cold.

  "What do we do now?" he said, unwilling to state the truth, which was, "What do you wish now?"

  Orc's voice became crisp and restrainedly triumphant.

  "You will present yourself at Mrs. Cambring's house as soon as possible, and my men will conduct you here. How long will it take you to get to Cambring's?"

  "About half an hour," Kickaha said. If he could get a taxi at once, he could be there in ten minutes, but he wanted a little more time to plan.

  "Very well!" the Lord said. "You must surrender all arms, and you will be thoroughly examined by my men. Understood?"

  "Oh, sure."

  While he was talking, he had been as vigilant as a bird. He looked out the glass of the booth for anything suspicious, but had seen nothing except cars passing. Now a car stopped by the curb. It was a big dark Cadillac with a single occupant. The man sat for a minute, looked at his wristwatch, and then opened the door and got out. He sauntered toward the booth, looking again at his watch. He was a very well-built youth about six-foot-three and dressed modishly and expensively. The long yellow hair glinted in the sun as if it were flecked with gold. His face was handsome but rugged.

  He stopped near the booth and pulled a cigarette case from his jacket. Kickaha continued to listen to the instructions from the phone but he kept his eye on the newcomer. The fellow looked at the world through half-lidded arrogant eyes. He was evidently impatient because the booth was occupied. He glanced at his watch again and then lit his cigarette with a pass of the flame over the tip and a flicking away of the match in one smooth movement.

  Kickaha spoke the code which prepared the ring on his finger to be activated for a short piercing beam. He would have to cut through the glass if the fellow were after him.

  The voice on the phone kept on and on. It seemed as if he were dictating the terms of surrender to a great nation instead of to a single man. Kickaha must approach the front of the Cambring house and advance only halfway up the front walk and then stand until three men came out of the house and three men in a car parked across the street approached him from behind at the same time. And then . . .

  The man outside the booth made a disgusted face as he looked at his watch again and swung away. Evidently he had given up on Kickaha.

  But he only took two steps and spun, holding a snubnosed handgun.

  Kickaha dropped the phone and ducked, at the same time speaking the word which activated the ring.

  The gun barked, the glass of the booth shattered, and Kickaha was enveloped in a white mist. It was so unexpected that he gasped once, knew immediately that he should hold his breath, and did so. He also lunged out of the booth, cutting down the door with the ring. The door fell outward from his weight, but he never heard it strike the ground.

  When he recovered consciousness, he was in the dark and hard confines of a moving object. The odor of gas and the cramped space made him believe that he was in the trunk of a car. His hands were tied behind him, his legs were tied at the ankles, and his mouth was taped.

  He was sweating from the heat, but there was enough air in the trunk. The car went up an incline and stopped. The motor stopped, doors squeaked, the car rifted as bodies left it, and then the lids of the trunk swung open. Four men were looking down at him, one of whom was the big youth who had fired the gas gun.

  They pulled him out and carried him from the garage, the door of which was shut. The exit led directly into the hall of a house, which led to a large room, luxuriously furnished and carpeted. Another hall led them to a room with a ceiling a story and a half high, an immense crystal chandelier, black and white parquet floor, heavy mahogany furniture, and paintings that looked like original old masters.

  Here he was set down in a big high-backed chair and his legs were untied. Then he was told by one of the men to walk. A man behind urged him on with something hard and sharp against his back. He followed the others from the room through a doorway set under the great staircase. This led down a flight of twelve steps into a sparsely furnished room.
At one end was a big massive iron door which he knew led to his prison cell. And so it was, though a rather comfortable prison. His hands were untied and the tape was taken from his mouth.

  The beamer-ring had been removed, and the beamer-pen taken from his shirt pocket. While the big man watched, the others stripped him naked, cutting the shirt and his undershirt off. Then they explored his body cavities for weapons but found nothing.

  He offered no resistance since it would have been futile. The big man and another held guns on him. After the inspection, a man closed a shackle around one ankle. The shackle was attached to a chain which was fastened at the other end to a ring in the wall. The chain was very thin and lightweight and long enough to permit him to move anywhere in the room.

  The big man smiled when he saw Kickaha eyeing it speculatively and said, "It's as gossamer as a cobweb, my friend, but strong as the chain that bound Fenris."

  "I am Loki, not Fenris," Kickaha said, grinning savagely. He knew that the man expected him to be ignorant of the reference to the great wolf of the old Norse religion, and he should have feigned ignorance. The less respect your imprisoner has for you, the more chance you have to escape. But he could not resist the answer.

  The big man raised his eyebrows and said, "Ah, yes. And you remember what happened to Loki?"

  "I am also Logi," Kickaha said, but he decided that that sort of talk had gone far enough. He fell silent, waiting for the other to tell him who he was and what he meant to do.

  The man did not look quite so young now. He seemed to be somewhat over thirty. His voice was heavy, smooth, and very authoritative. His eyes were beautiful; they were large and leaf-green and heavily lashed. His face seemed familiar, though Kickaha was sure that he had never seen it before.

  The man gestured, and the others left the room. He closed the door behind him and then sat on the edge of the table. This was bolted down to the floor, as were the other pieces of furniture. He dangled one leg while he held his gun on his lap. It looked like a conventional weapon, not a gas gun or a disguised beamer, but Kickaha had no way of determining its exact type at that moment. He sat down on a chair and waited. It was true that this left the man looking down on him, but Kickaha was not one to allow a matter of relative altitude to give an-other a psychological advantage.

  The man looked steadily at him for several minutes. Kickaha looked back and whistled softly.

  "I've been following you for some time," the man suddenly said. "I still don't know who you are. Let me introduce myself. I am Red Orc."

  Kickaha stiffened, and he blinked.

  The man smiled and said, "Who did you think I was?"

  "A Lord who'd gotten stuck in this universe and was looking for a way out," Kickaha said. "Are there two Red Orcs, then?"

  The man lost some of his smile. "No, there is only one! I am Red Orc! That other is an impostor! A usurper! I was careless for just one moment! But I got away with my life, and because of his bad luck, I will kill him and get back everything!"

  "Who is that other?" Kickaha said. "I had thought ... but then he never named himself... he let me think . . ."

  "That he was Red Orc? I thought so! But his name is Urthona, and he was once Lord of the Shifting World. Then that demon-bitch Vala, my niece, drove him from his world, and he fled and came here, to this world, my world. I did not know who it was, although I knew that some Lord had come through a gate in Europe. I hunted for him and did not find him and then I forgot about him. That was a thousand years ago; I presumed he had gotten out through some gate I did not know about or else had been killed.

  "But he was lying low and all the time searching for me. And finally, only ten years ago, he found me, surveyed my fortress, my defenses, watched my comings and my goings, and then he struck!

  "I had grown careless, but I got away, although all my bodyguards died. And he took over. It was so simple for him because he was in the seat of power, and there was no one to deny him. How could there be anyone to say no to him? I had hidden my face too well. Anyone in the seat of power could issue orders, pull the strings, and he would be obeyed, since the Earthlings who are closest to him do not know his real name or his real face.

  "And I could not go to the men who had carried out my orders and say, 'Here I am, your own true Lord! Obey me and kill that fool who is now giving you orders!' I would have been shot down at once, because Urthona had described me to his servants, and they thought I was the enemy of their leader.

  "So I went into hiding, just as Urthona had done. But when I strike, I will not miss! And I shall again be in the seat of power!"

  There was a pause. Orc seemed to be expecting him to comment. Perhaps he expected praise or awe or terror.

  Kickaha said, "Now that he has this seat of power, as you call it, is he Lord of both Earths? Or of this one only?"

  Orc seemed set aback by this question. He stared and then his face got red.

  "What is that to you?" he finally said.

  "I just thought that you might be satisfied with being Lord of the other Earth. Why not let this Urthona rule this world? It looks to me, from the short time I've been here, that this world is doomed. The humans are polluting the air and the water and, at any time, they may kill off all life on Earth with an atomic war. Apparently, you are not doing anything to prevent this. So why not let Urthona have this dying world while you keep the other?"

  He paused and then said, "Or is Earth Number Two in as bad a condition as this one?"

  Red Orc's face had lost its redness. He smiled and said, "No, the other is not as bad off. It's much more desirable, even though it got exactly the same start as this one. But your suggestion that I surrender this world shows you don't know much about us, leblabbiy."

  "I know enough," Kickaha said. "But even Lords change for the better, and I had hoped . . ."

  "I will do nothing to interfere here except to protect myself," Orc said. "If this planet chokes to death on its man-made foulness, or if it all goes out in a thousand bursts of radiation, it will do so without any aid or hindrance from me. I am a scientist, and I do not influence the direction of natural development one way or another on the two planets. Anything I do is on a microscale level and will not disturb macroscale matters.

  "That, by the way, is one more reason why I must kill anyone who invades my universes. They might decide to interfere with my grand experiments."

  "Not me!" Kickaha said. "Not Wolff or Chryseis or Anana! All we want is to go back to our own worlds! After the Beller is killed, of course. He's the only reason we came here. You must believe that!"

  "You don't really expect me to believe that?" Orc said.

  Kickaha shrugged and said, "It's true, but I don't expect you to believe it. You Lords are too paranoid to see things clearly."

  Red Orc stood up from the table. "You will be kept prisoner here until I have captured the others and defeated Urthona. Then I'll decide what to do with you."

  By this, Kickaha knew, he meant just what delicate tortures he could inflict upon him. For a moment, he thought about informing Orc of the Horn of Shambarimen's presence on Earth in this area. Perhaps he could use it for a bargaining point. Then he decided against it. Once Orc knew that it was here, he would just get the information from his captive by torture or drugs.

  "Have you killed the Beller yet?" he said.

  Orc smiled and said, "No."

  He seemed very pleased with himself. "If it becomes necessary, I will threaten Urthona with him. I will tell Urthona that if he does not leave, I will let the Beller loose. That, you understand, is the most horrible thing a Lord could do."

  "You would do this? After what you said about getting rid of anybody that might interfere with the natural development?"

  "If I knew that my own death was imminent, unavoidable, yes, I would! Why not? What do I care what happens to this world, to all the worlds, if I am dead? Serve them right!"

  There were more questions to which Kickaha wanted answers, but he was not controlling the int
erview. Orc abruptly walked out, leaving by the other door. Kickaha strained at the end of the chain to see through it, but the door swung out toward him and so shut off his view.

  He was left with only his thoughts, which were pessimistic. He had always boasted that he could get loose from any prison, but it was, after all, a boast. He had, so far, managed to escape from every place in which he had been imprisoned, but he knew that he would someday find himself in a room with no exit. This was probably it. He was being observed by monitors, electronic or human or both, the chain was unbreakable with bare hands, and it also could be the conductor for some disabling and punishing agent if he did not behave.

  This did not prevent him from trying to break it and twist it apart, because he could not afford to take anything for granted. The chain was unharmed, and he supposed that any human monitors would be amused by his efforts.

  He stopped struggling, and he used the toilet facilities. Then he lay down on the sofa and thought for a while about his predicament. Though he was naked, he was not uncomfortable. The air was just a few degrees below his body temperature and it moved slowly enough so that it did not chill him. He fell asleep after a while, having found no way out, having thought of no plan that could reasonably work.

  When he awoke, the room was as before. The sourceless light still made it high noon, and the air had not changed temperature. However, on sitting up, he saw a tray with dishes and cups and table utensils on top of the small thin-legged wooden table at the end of the sofa. He did not think that anyone could have entered with it unless he had been drugged. It seemed more likely that a gate was embedded in the wooden top and that a tray had been gated through while he slept.

  He ate hungrily. The utensils were made of wood, and the dishes and the cups were of pewter and bore stylized octopuses, dolphins, and lobsters. After he ate, he walked back and forth within the range of the chain for about an hour. He tried to think of what he could do with the gate, if there was a gate inside that wooden table top. At the end of the hour, as he turned back toward the table, he saw that the tray was gone. His suspicion was correct; the top did contain a gate.