He forced himself to stay motionless. The animal must get over its suspiciousness soon, after which Wolff could resume his turtle-like approach.
Then, from behind a rock near the fudger, another beast appeared. It was gray except for red wolflike ears, had a long pointed face, a bushy tail, and was about midway in size between a fox and a coyote. It sprang at the tempusfudger, coming up from behind it just as it was looking the other way.
Its teeth closed on air. The fudger had disappeared, escaping the jaws by a fraction of an inch.
The predator also disappeared, vanishing before it struck the ground.
Three animals appeared, two fudgers and one predator. Wolff, who liked to tag unknown things, at once called it a chronowolf. For the first time, he was seeing the creature that nature-or Urizen-had placed here to keep the fudger from overpopulating this world.
Wolff now had time to figure out what was happening with the leapers. There had been two. Then there were none. Then, three. So the original fudger and the chronowolf had jumped ahead. But the fudger had stayed only a microsecond, and leaped back also. So that he had reproduced himself and now there were two for the wolf to chase.
Again, the animals vanished. They reappeared, four in number. Two fudgers, two chronowolves. The chase was on, not only in space but in the strange gray corridors of backwards-forwards time.
Another simultaneous jump into the tempolimbo. Wolff ran towards a boulder around which grew a number of bushes. He hurled himself down and then peered between the bushes.
Seven again. This time a wolf had come out of wherever he had been just behind his quarry. He hurled himself forward, and his jaws closed around the neck of the fudger. There was a loud crack; the fudger dropped dead.
Seven living, and one dead. A fudger had gone back and then forward again.
The living vanished. Evidently the wolf did not intend to stay behind and eat his kill.
Then six were jumping around the plain. Savagely, a wolf bit another wolf on the neck, and the attacked crumpled in death.
Nothing for three seconds. Wolff ran out and threw himself down on the ground. Although not hidden behind anything this time, he hoped that his motionlessness, combined with the terror of the fudgers and the bloodlust of the wolves, would make them not notice him,
Another wolf had been born out of time's womb. Parthenogenesis of chronoviators.
Two wolves launched themselves at each other, while the third watched them, and the fudgers hopped around in apparent confusion.
The observer predator became participant, not in the struggle between his fellows, but in the hunt. He caught a fudger by the throat as it hurtled by him in its blind panic.
A fudger and a wolf died.
The living flickered out again. When they came back into his sight, a wolf gripped a fudger's neck and cracked it.
Wolff slowly rose to his feet. At the exact moment that one of the wolves died, he hurled his stone at the winner. It must have caught the motion out of the corner of its eyes, since it vanished just before the stone would have struck. And when it shot out of the chute of time, it was going as swiftly as its four legs would take it towards the exit.
"I'm sorry to deprive you of the spoils of victory," Wolff called out after it. "But you can resume the hunt elsewhere."
He went to call the other Lords and to tell them that their luck had changed. Six animals would fill their bellies and furnish a little over for the next day.
There came the tune again when the Lords had been without food for three days. They were gaunt, their cheeks hollow, their eyes couched within dark and deep caves, their bellies advancing towards their spines. That day Wolff sent them out in pairs to hunt. He had intended to go alone but Vala insisted that he take Luvah with him. She would hunt by herself. Wolff asked her why she wanted it that way, and she replied that she did not care to be accompanied by only one man.
"You think you might become the victim of a cannibal?" Wolff said.
"Exactly," she said. "You know that if we continue to go hungry, it's inevitable that we'll start eating one another. It may even have been planned by Urizen. He would very much enjoy seeing us kill one another and stuff our bellies with our own flesh and blood."
"Have it your own way," Wolff said. He left with Luvah to explore a series of side-canyons. The two sighted a number of fudgers eating from bushes and began the patient, hours-long creeping upon them. They came within an inch of success. The stone, thrown by Wolff, went past the head of his intended victim. After that, all was lost. The fudgers did not even bother to take refuge in tune but leaped away and were lost in another canyon.
Wolff and Luvah continued to look until near the time for the moon to bring another night of hunger-torn sleeplessness. When they got back to the meeting-place, they found the others, looking very perturbed. Palamabron and his hunting-companion, Enion, were missing.
"I don't know about the rest of you," Tharmas said, "but I'm too exhausted to go looking for the damn fools."
"Maybe we should," Vala said. "They might have had some luck and even now be stuffing themselves with good meat, instead of sharing it with us."
Tharmas cursed. However, he refused to search for them. If they had had luck, he said, he would know it when he next saw their faces. They would not be able to hide their satisfaction from him. And he would kill them for their selfishness and greed.
"They wouldn't be doing anything you wouldn't if you had their chance," Wolff said. "What's all the uproar about? We don't know that they've caught anything. After all, it was only a suggestion by Vala. There's no proof, not the slightest."
They grumbled and cursed but soon were asleep with utter weariness.
Wolff slept, too, but awoke in the middle of the night. He thought he had heard a cry in the distance. He sat up and looked at the others. They were all there, except for Palamabron and Enion.
Vala sat up also. She said, "Did you hear something, brother? Or was it the wailing of our bellies?"
"It came from upriver," he said. He rose to his feet. "I think I shall go look."
She said, "I'll go with you. I cannot sleep any longer. The thought that they might be feasting keeps me angry and awake."
"I do not think the feasting will be on the little hoppers," he said.
She said, "You think. . ."
"I do not know. You spoke of the possibility. It becomes stronger every day, as we become weaker and hungrier."
He picked up his stick, and they walked along the edge of the river. They had little difficulty seeing where they were going. The moon brought only a half-darkness. Even though the walls of the canyon deepened the twilight, there was still enough light for them to proceed with confidence.
So it was that they saw Palamabron before he saw them. His head appeared for a moment above a boulder near the wall of the canyon. His profile was presented to them, then he disappeared. On bare feet, they crept towards him. The wind carried to them the noise he was making. It sounded as if he were striking one stone against another.
"Is he trying to make a fire?" Vala whispered.
Wolff did not answer. He was sick, since he could think of only one reason why Palamabron would want to build a fire. When he came to the huge rock behind which Palamabron was, he hesitated. He did not want to see what he thought he must when he came around the boulder.
Palamabron had his back to them. He was on his knees before a pile of branches and leaves and was knocking a piece of flint against a rock that was heavy in iron.
Wolff breathed a sigh of relief. The body beside Palamabron was that of a fudger. Where was Enion?
Wolff came up silently behind Palamabron, his stick raised high. He spoke loudly. "Well, Palamabron?"
The Lord gave a short scream and dived forward over the firepile. He rolled and came up on his feet, facing them. He held a very crude flint knife.
"It's mine," he snarled. "I killed it, and I want it. I have to have it. I'll die if I don't get to eat!"
&nbs
p; "So will we all," Wolff said. "Where is your cousin?"
Palamabron spat and said, "The beast! He's no cousin of mine. How should I know where he is? Why should I care?"
"You went out with him," Wolff said.
"I don't know where he is. We got separated while we were hunting."
"We thought we heard a cry," Vala said.
"It was a fudger, I think," Palamabrcn said. "Yes, it was. The one I killed a little while ago. I found it sleeping and killed it and it cried out as it died."
"Maybe," Wolff said. He backed away from Palamabron until he was at a safe distance. He continued on up the rivershore. Before he had gone a hundred yards, he saw the hand lying beside a boulder. He went around it and found Enion. The back of his head was crushed in; beside him lay the bloody rock that had killed him.
He returned to Palamabron and Vala. She was still there; the Lord and the fudger were gone.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Wolff said.
She shrugged and smiled. "I'm only a woman. How could I stop him?"
"You could have," he replied. "I think you wanted to enjoy the chase after him. Well, let me tell you, there won't be any. None of us have the strength to waste it climbing around here. And when he eats, he'll have enough strength to outclimb or outrun us."
"Very well," she said. "So what do we do now?"
"Keep on going and hope for the best."
"And starve!" she said. She pointed at the boulder which hid Enion's body. "There's enough food for all of us."
Wolff did not reply for a moment. He had not wanted to think about this, but, since he was faced with it, he would do what had to be done. Vala was right. Without this food, however horrible it was to think about it, they might well die. In a way, Palamabron had done them a favor. He had taken the guilt upon himself of killing for them. They could eat without considering themselves murderers. Not that killing would bother the rest of them. He, however, would have suffered agonies if he had been forced into a position where he had to slay a human being to survive.
As for the actual eating, he was now feeling only a slight repulsion. Hunger had deadened his normal horror against cannibalism.
He returned to wake the others while Vala picked up the rocks dropped by Palamabron. By the time they returned, she had not only started a fire but was intent on the butchering. Wolff held back for a moment. Then, thinking that if he was to share in the food, he should also share in the work, he took Theotormon's knife. The others offered a hand, but he turned them down. It was as if he wanted to punish himself by making himself do most of the grisly work.
When the meal was cooked, half-cooked, rather, he took his share and went around the boulder to eat. He was not sure that he could keep the meat down, and he was sure that if he watched the others eat, he would not be able to keep from vomiting. Somehow, it did not seem so bad if he were alone.
Dawn had found them still cooking. Not until the middle of the morning did they start traveling again. The meat that had not been eaten was wrapped in leaves.
"If Urizen was watching us," Wolff said, "he must really be laughing."
"Let him laugh," Vala said. "My turn will come."
"Your turn? You mean, our turn."
"You may do what you like. All I'm interested in is what I do."
"Typical of the Lords," said Wolff without elaborating. He watched her for a while after that. She had amazing vitality. Perhaps it was the food that had given her such a swift walk and had filled out her cheeks and arms. He did not think so. Even during the starvation, she had not seemed to suffer as much as the rest or to waste away as swiftly.
If anybody could survive to get at her father's throat, it would be Vala, he thought.
May I not be far behind her, he prayed. Not so much for vengeance on Urizen, though I want that, as to rescue Chryseis.
XII
THEY HAD BEEN WITHOUT FOOD FOR A DAY WHEN THEY EMERGED from the canyon. Before them, at the foot of a long gentle hill, was a plain that stretched to the horizon. A quarter of a mile away was a small hill, and on this were two giant hexagons.
They stopped to look dully at their goal. Wolff said, "I suggest we take one or the other gate immediately. Perhaps there may be food on the other side."
"If not?" Tharmas said.
"I'd rather die quickly trying to get through Urizen's defenses than starve slowly. Which, at the moment, looks as if it might. . ."
He let his voice trail off, thinking that the Lords felt low enough.
They followed him sluggishly up to the foot of the golden, gem-studded frames. He said to Vala, "Sister, you have the honor of choosing the right or the left entrance for us. Continue. Only be quick about it. I can hear my strength ebbing away."
She picked up a stone, turned her back to the gates, and cast the stone over her head. It sailed through the right gate, almost striking the frame.
"So be it," Wolff said. He looked at them and laughed. "What a crew! Brave Lords! Tramps rather! Sticks, a broken sword, a knife, and muscles shaking with weakness and bellies groaning for meat. Was ever a Lord attacked in his own stronghold by such a contemptible bunch?"
Vala laughed and said, "At least you have some spirit left, Jadawin. That may mean something."
"I hope so," he said, and he ran forward and jumped through the right gate. He came out under a deep-blue sky and onto ground that gave under his feet a little. The topography was flat except for a few steep hills, so rough and dark that they looked more like excrescences than mounds of dirt. He doubted they were dirt, since the surface on which he stood was not earth. It was brownish but smooth and with small holes in it. A foot-high stalk, thin as a pipestem cleaner, grew out of each hole.
Almost like the skin of a giant, he thought.
The only vegetation, if it could be called that, was a number of widely separated trees. These were about forty feet high, were thinly trunked, and had smooth, sharply pointed branches that projected at a forty-five degree angle upwards from the trunk. The branches were darker than the saffron of the main shaft and sparsely covered with blade-like leaves about two feet long.
The other Lords came through the gate a minute later. He turned and said, "I'm glad I didn't find anything I couldn't have handled without your help."
Vala said, "They all were sure that this time the gate would lead into Urizen's stronghold."
"And perhaps I'd trip a few traps before I went down," he said. "And so give the rest of you a chance to live a few minutes longer."
They did not reply. Wolff gazed reproachfully at Luvah, whose cheeks reddened.
Wolff tested the gate. It had either been deactivated or else was unipolar. He saw a long black line that could be the shore of a lake or sea. This world, unlike the one they had just left, gave no indications of the direction they must take. On the side, where he had first stepped, however, he had seen two rough dark hills very close together. These might or not be some sort of sign from Urizen. There was only one way to find out, which Wolff took without hesitation.
He set out on the slightly springy ground, the others trailing. The shadow of a bird passed before them, and they looked up. It was white with red legs, about the size of a bald eagle, and had a monkey face with a curving bird's beak instead of a nose. It swooped so low that Luvah threw his stick at it. The stick passed behind its flaring tail. It squawked indignantly and climbed away swiftly.
Wolff said, "That looks like a nest on that tree. Let's see if it could have eggs."
Luvah ran forward to recover his stick, then stopped. Wolff stared where Luvah was pointing.
The earth was rippling. It rose in inch-high waves and advanced towards the stick. Luvah turned to run, thought better of it, turned again, and ran to pick up the stick. Behind him, the earth swelled, rose up and up, and raced forward, like a surfer's wave.
Wolff yelled. Luvah whirled, saw the danger, and ran away from it. He ran at an angle, towards the end of the wave. Wolff came along behind it, not knowing what he could do to help L
uvah but hoping to do something.
Then the wave collapsed. Wolff and Luvah stopped. Abruptly, Wolff felt the earth rising below his feet and saw that another swelling had started some ten feet from Luvah. Both turned and raced away, the earth-or whatever it was-chasing after them.
They made it back to the area around the gate, which had been stable and would continue to be so-they hoped.
They got to the safety zone just in time to escape the sudden sinking of the land behind them. A hole, broad and shallow at first, appeared. Then it narrowed and deepened. The sides closed in on themselves, there was a smacking sound, and the hole reversed its original process. It widened out until all was smooth as before, except that the foot-high, thin growths sprouting from each depression kept on vibrating.
The Gates of Creation Page 12
