“Red Orc!” Eleth said viciously, and she spat on the ground. “There’s a man who needs killing!”
“After suitable torture,” Ona said. “He killed Uveth years ago and came close recently to killing us. It’s because of him that we’re stranded in this wretched wilderness.”
Anana let them rave and rant for a while about what they would do to Orc when they captured him. Then she said, “Tell us just how you came to be here.”
They stood by the pot, and Eleth was the first to speak. Ona ate while her sister talked, then Ona talked while Eleth ate. After fleeing Red Orc, not for the first time, they had managed to “take over” Nitharm, the universe in which they had taken refuge. “Take over” was a euphemism for slaying the Lord of Nitharm and his family. Since there were no male Thoan in that world, they had taken leblabbiys for lovers. This practice was acceptable by Thoan standards because their lovers were their slaves, not their equals, and were often replaced by others.
They had been happy there, they said. The only thing lacking to make their happiness complete was that they had not yet been able to find and kill their father. Then Red Orc had somehow evaded the traps they had set at the two gates into their world. He had taken them by surprise despite their security systems.
At this point in the story, Eleth had interrupted Ona.
“I told them many times that we should just close all gates and stay there forever. That would have kept any Lord from invading our world.”
“Yes, you fearful trembling sniveling little bitch!” Ona had said. “And just how then would we be able to go to other worlds and make sure that our father was dead!”
“Don’t call me names, assface!” Eleth fired back.
The rest of the story was longer than Kickaha wished to hear. But he and Anana let them ramble on since they might reveal something about themselves that could later be used against them.
Red Orc would have killed them if they had not happened to be very close to a gate to another world. They had been able to grab some weapons before they fled. After passing through a circuit of gates, they had come out on this level of the World of Tiers. Since then, they had been trying to survive while searching for another gate. This, they hoped, would not take them to another world but to the palace on top of the topmost monolith of the World of Tiers. There, they knew, was the structure that had been Jadawin’s, then Vannax’s, and, once again, Jadawin’s stronghold. They had heard that no Lord now lived there. Thus, they planned to become the new Lords.
Their story could be true, but, if so, certainly showed them as inept. Kickaha did not believe that they really were, though he knew that Red Orc was ingenious enough to defeat even the most competent.
Anana said, “Then you’ll be willing to join us in the fight against Red Orc?”
They agreed enthusiastically.
“What good will they be to us?” Kickaha said loudly. “We don’t need them! In fact, they’ll be a big liability!”
“You are wrong,” Ona said. “You need information, and we know many things about Red Orc that you don’t.”
Anana, who was aware of what Kickaha was doing, spoke. “That’s right, Kickaha. They must know about gates and his activities and strongholds we don’t know. Isn’t that right, daughters of Urizen?”
They spoke as one. “That is correct.”
“Very well,” he said. “We’re a band, and I’m the leader. What I order must be obeyed immediately and without question. If, that is, the situation calls for action at once. If it’s not pressing, I’m open to suggestions.”
Eleth, the blonde, looked hard at Anana. “He’s a leblabbiy.”
Anana shrugged and said, “He and I spun a flat stone marked on one side up into the air, and he called out the right side that fell uppermost on the ground. We had agreed beforehand that the one who did this would be the leader. In times of emergency, he is not to be questioned or disobeyed.
“As for his being a leblabbiy, what of it? He’s a better man than any Thoan I’ve ever met. You two should try to get over your absurd opinion of leblabbiys as inherently inferior to the Lords. It’s nonsense! Dangerous nonsense because it makes Lords underestimate them. By the time the Lord gets killed, he finds out how wrong he was. About Kickaha, anyway.”
Eleth and Ona said nothing, but their expressions showed disbelief.
“You’ll learn the hard way,” Anana said.
The sisters protested when Anana took their beamers.
“How can we protect ourselves?”
“You’ll be given them when we think you’re one hundred percent trustworthy,” he said. “Meantime, you can carry your axes, spears, and bows. We’ll camp here tonight. Come morning, we start that way.”
He pointed west.
“Why that way?” Eleth said. “Are you sure that’s the right direction? What if …?”
“I have my reasons,” Kickaha said, interrupting her. “You’ll know why when we get there.”
They would be heading toward a gate on this level that would transmit them to the palace. It would take them days to get there and, perhaps, days to find the gate after they got there. The area in which it was placed was immense, and he was not sure of its exact location. By the time the party reached it, he and Anana would know if the two women could be trusted. Or the sisters would be dead. Possibly, he and Anana would have been slain by them, though he much doubted that.
That night, around a small fire, they all lay down to sleep. The sisters had eaten well or, at least, much better than they had been eating. Kickaha had foraged in the woods and brought back various edible plants. He had also shot a large monkey, which had been roasted on a spit.
The sisters had washed their robes in the nearby creek and scrubbed off their body dirt, though they complained about the coldness of the water. The robes quickly dried on sticks thrust into the ground near the fire. When time for bedding down came, Kickaha took the first watch. The sisters slept near the fire in their thin but warm blankets. Anana, wrapped in her blanket, her head pillowed on her knapsack, lay close to the edge of the clearing. Kickaha stationed himself for a while on the opposite side of the clearing. After a while, he stepped into the forest and prowled around the clearing. He carried two beamers in his belt and another in his hand.
He looked out for big predators, of which one could be that huge, hairy creature he had glimpsed. He also kept an eye on the sisters. If they were going to attack their captors, they might try tonight. However, none of them stirred during his and Anana’s watches.
In the morning, when Urizen’s daughters wanted to leave the campsite together to empty their bowels in the forest, he insisted that they go one at a time. It was impossible to watch all of them at the same time unless they all went together. But he wanted them alone out among the trees. If a confederate was hanging out around there, he, she, or it might make contact with one of the two. Kickaha watched each of them, but he was hidden behind bushes.
No one approached Eleth while she was in the forest. While Ona was squatting, a raven waddled out from behind a big tree. No, not a raven, Kickaha thought. It’s the raven, the one who’s been following us. He watched as the big bird silently came from behind Ona and stood in front of her. She did not look surprised.
They spoke to each other briefly and in low tones. Kickaha was too far away to make out the words. He did not need to do so. A conspiracy was flourishing. But who besides the sisters and the raven was involved?
After the bird had gone back into the woods and Ona started back to camp, Kickaha followed the raven. The bird led him for less than a mile before it came to a clearing large enough for it to wing away. Kickaha plunged into the woods then to gather more plants and to catch several large insects that he knew were delicious eating. He got a perverse pleasure out of insisting that the sisters eat them.
“They contain several vital ingredients lacking in the other plants,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”
“You’re not trying to poison us, are yo
u?” Eleth said.
“Stupid, he doesn’t have to do that if he wants to kill us,” her sister said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Kickaha said, grinning.
“You demon!” Eleth said. “Just knowing that you might do it makes me want to throw up.”
“It’ll be good for you if you do,” Kickaha replied cheerfully. “Your stomach needs emptying after all that heavy meat-eating you’ve been doing.”
Ona giggled and said, “Don’t vomit in the pot. I’m really hungry.”
Kickaha did not trust Ona at all, but he liked her spirit.
On the way westward that day, Kickaha asked Eleth where the sisters had been heading after they had come through the gate.
“Nowhere in particular,” she said. “Of course, we got away from the area of the gate as swiftly as possible because Red Orc might be following us. Then we traveled in the direction of the monolith. If we didn’t find a gate on this level, we were going to climb the monolith, though we were not happy about having to do that. It looks formidable.”
“It is and then some,” he said. “It has the jawbreaking name of Doozvillnavava. It soars sixty thousand feet high or more. But it’s climbable. I’ve done it several times. Its face, which looks so smooth from a long distance, is full of caves and has innumerable ledges. Trees and other plants grow on its face, which also has stretches of rotten rock that crumbles underfoot. Predators live in its caves and holes and on its ledges. There thrive the many-footed snakes, the rock-gripping wolves, the boulder apes, the giant axe-beak birds, and the poison-dripping downdroppers.
“There are others I won’t mention. Even if you could climb to the plateau on top, you would then have to travel about five hundred miles through a vast forest teeming with many perils and, after that, a plain with no less dangerous creatures and humans. And then you’d come to the final monolith, atop which is Jadawin-Wolff’s palace. The climb is hard, and the chances that you’d evade the traps set there are very low.”
“We didn’t know the details,” Eleth said, “but we supposed that climbing the mountain would not be enjoyable. That’s why we were looking for a gate, though we knew we probably wouldn’t recognize one if we saw it. Most of them must be disguised as boulders and so forth. But some might be undisguised. You never know.”
During their journey so far, Kickaha had not taken the Horn of Shambarimen from its deerskin bag. If the sisters knew that he had it, they would not hesitate to murder him and Anana to get it. However, the time would soon come when he would have to use it.
Once a day, while the others rested, he or Anana climbed to the top of a high tree and scanned the country around them. Most of this consisted of the waving tops of trees. But, far away and toward the monolith, was a three-peaked mountain. This was his destination. At its foot was a huge boulder shaped like a heart, its point deep in the ground. This contained a gate to a gate that transmitted its occupant to the palace of the Lord of Alofmethbin. Though Kickaha had forgotten the codeword activating it, he had the Horn, the universal key.
If the raven was following them, it was keeping well hidden. And there had been no sign of the bearish creature. His brief encounter with it might have been accidental, though that did not seem probable.
Next day, during the noonday halt, he went out into the woods for a pit call but stayed there to watch. Presently, Eleth left the campsite, seemingly for the same reason he had left it. Instead of selecting a tree behind which to squat, she went deeper into the forest. He followed her at a distance. When he saw her stop in a small clearing, he hid behind a bush.
Eleth stood for a while haloed in a sunbeam shooting through a straight space among the branches overhead. She looked transfigured, as if she were indeed the goddess she thought she was. After a while, the raven waddled out from behind a bush. Kickaha began crawling slowly so that he could get within hearing distance. After a few minutes of very cautious progress in a semicircle, he stopped behind the enormous flying-buttress root of a giant tree.
“… repeats that you are not to kill them, no matter what the temptation, until he has found the gate,” the raven said.
“Which will be when?” Eleth said.
“He did not tell me, but he said that it will probably not be long.”
“What does he mean by ‘not long’?” she said. She looked exasperated. “A day? Two days? A week? This is a hard life. My sister and I long for a high roof, warmth, clean clothes, a shower, good things to eat, much time to sleep, and plenty of virile leblabbiy men.”
“I don’t know what he means by ‘not long,’” the raven said. “You’ll just have to do what he says. Otherwise …”
“Yes, I know. We will, of course, continue to obey his orders. You may tell him that—if you’re in communication with him.”
The raven did not reply. She said, “What about the oromoth?”
Kickaha did not know what an oromoth was. He would have to ask Anana about it.
“It is trailing you for your protection. It won’t interfere unless it sees that you’re in grave danger from those two.”
“If that happens,” Eleth said, “it may be too slow. Or it might be off taking a piss somewhere at that time.”
The raven sounded as if it were trying to imitate human laughter. When it stopped that, it said, “That’s the chance you have to take. That’s better than what will surely happen if you fail. I wouldn’t even think about betraying him by telling Kickaha and Anana what’s going on and throwing in your lot with theirs.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it!” Eleth said.
The raven laughed again and said, “Of course not! Unless you thought you’d have a better chance to come out on top! Just remember what he will do to you if you turn traitor!”
Eleth said, stonily, “Is there anything else you have to tell me? If not, get out of my sight, you stinking mess of black feathers!”
“Nothing else. But don’t think I’ll forget your insult! I’ll get my revenge!”
“You stupid snakebrain! We won’t even be in this world! Now, get the hell away from me!”
“You Thoan don’t smell so nice yourselves,” the raven said.
It turned and disappeared into the forest. Eleth looked as if she were about to follow it. But she turned and walked into the woods. As soon as Kickaha was sure that she could not see him, he rose, and he ran bent over along the edge of the clearing. Then he went more slowly and in a straight line. Presently, he saw the raven. It had entered a large clearing and was heading for a fallen tree lying half within the other trees and half into the clearing. The raven hopped up onto the trunk, clawed its way to the upper part, and began ascending that. Obviously, it planned on leaping off the end, which was about thirty feet above the ground, and flapping in a circle around the big clearing until it could get high enough to fly above the treetops.
Kickaha took the beamer from its holster. The weapon was already set on half-power. Just as the raven leaped from the end of the fallen tree, Kickaha aimed at the bird and pressed the trigger. A faintly scarlet narrow beam shot part of the raven’s right wing off. It squawked, and it fell.
Kickaha ran around the tree. The bird was flopping on the ground and crying out. He grabbed it from from behind by its neck and choked it. When its struggles had become feeble, he released it. It lay on the ground gasping for air, its legs upraised, its huge black eyes staring at him. If ravens could turn pale, it would have been as white as a snowbird.
He waved the beamer at the raven.
“What is your name, croaker?” he said harshly.
The bird struggled up onto its two feet.
“How do you like Stamun?”
“A good enough name. But what is yours?” Kickaha said. He stepped closer and shoved the end of the beamer close to the raven’s head. “Now is not the time for wisecracking. I don’t have much patience.”
While he spoke, he kept glancing around. You never knew what might be creeping up on you.
“Wayskam,” the raven
said.
“Who sent that message to Eleth?”
“Awrk!”
Kickaha translated that as an expression of surprise mingled with dismay.
“You heard us?”
“Yes, dummy. Of course I did.”
“If I tell you, will you let me live? And not torture me?”
“I’ll let you go,” Kickaha said, “and I won’t touch you.”
“You could not touch me and still could torture me,” it said.
“I won’t give you any pain,” Kickaha said. “Unlike the Lords, I take no pleasure in doing that. But that doesn’t mean I won’t make you talk if I have to. So, talk!”
The raven was doomed to be killed or to die of starvation. It could never fly with half of its right wing sheared off. But the bird was still in shock and had not thought of that.
Or could it, like Lords, regenerate amputated limbs?
It did not matter. It would not survive long enough in the forest to grow back the severed part.
“I’ll talk if you’ll take me back to your camp and nurse me until I can fly again. And then release me. Not that my life will be worth much if Red Orc finds out I betrayed him.”
The raven was thinking more clearly than Kickaha had expected it would. Also, its remark that it could, if given time, fly again showed that Eye of the Lord ravens could grow new parts.
“I promise I’ll take good care of you,” he said, “if you tell me the truth.”
“And will you protect me from the iron-hearted daughters of Urizen? Those bitches will try to kill me.”
“I’ll do my best,” Kickaha said.
“That’s all I can ask for. You have a reputation for being a trickster, but it is said that your word is as solid as Kethkith’s Skull.”
Kickaha did not know that reference, but its meaning was obvious.
“Talk! But keep to the point!”
Wayskam opened its beak. A squawk grated from it. Out of the corner of his eye, Kickaha saw something dim and moving. He jumped to one side and at the same time started to whirl. His beamer shot its scarlet ray, but it did not hit his attacker. Something—it looked like a paw moving so fast it was almost a blur—struck his right shoulder. He was slammed down onto the ground; pain shot through his shoulder. For a second, he was not fully conscious.
The World of Tiers, Volume 2 Page 74
