More Than Fire Read online

  “They contain several vital ingredients lacking in the other plants,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”

  “You’re not trying to poison us, are you?” 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 meateating 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 crumble 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 axebeak 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 code word 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.”

  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.

  However, his unconscious mind had taken over, and he automatically rolled away. The thing growled like the birth of thunder. Kickaha kept on rolling for several yards, then started to get up on a knee. The thing moved very swiftly toward him. Kickaha raised the beamer. A paw knocked it loose from his grip and numbed his hand. Then the creature was on him.

  Its sharp teeth closed on his shoulder, but it did not sink them deeply into his flesh. Its breath was hot, though it did not have the stink of a meateater. It quickly released the bite as a paw hooked itself under his crotch and lifted him up and away.

  Kickaha was vaguely aware that he was soaring through the air and that his groin was hurting worse than his shoulder. When he struck the ground, he blacked out.

  Through the slowly evaporating mists, Anana’s face passed from a dark blurry object into lovely features and bright black hair. Her face was twisted with concern, and she was crying, “Kickaha! Kickaha!”

  He said, “Here I am. Down but not out, I think.”

  He tried to get up. His knees could not keep their lock. He sank back onto his buttocks and gazed around. The creature was lying faceup and unmoving on the ground. The raven was not in sight.

  “You got here barely in time,” he said. “What were you doing? Following me?”

  She looked relieved but did not smile.

  “You were gone too long just to be urinating. And I smelled trouble. That’s nonsense, I suppose, but I have developed a feeling for the notquite-right. Anyway, I did go after you, and I got here just in time to see that thing throw you away as if you were a piece of trash paper. So, I beamed it.”

  Kickaha did not reproach her for killing a source of possibly very important information. She must have had to do it. “The bird?”

  “I never saw a bird. You mean the raven?”

  He nodded slightly. “The one I told you about. As we suspected, the sisters are working for Red Orc. Willingly or unwillingly, I don’t know which.”

  “Then Red Orc must know we’re here!”

  6

  “NOT NECESSARILY THE EXACT SPOT,” HE SAID. “WE CAN’T ASsume he’s keeping close tabs on us.”

  He told her how he had spied on Eleth and the raven, and how noiselessly and swiftly the bearlike thing had attacked him.

  “I’m glad you got here in the proverbial nick of time. But I think I would’ve gotten away from it and managed to kill it with the beamer.”

  “Your lack of confidence is pathetic,” she said, smiling. “You stay here and get your strength back. I’ll go after the raven. If I catch it, we’ll get the rest of its story out of it.”

  “Don’t look for it more than twenty minutes. If you haven’t caught it by then, you’ll never find it.”

  Before leaving, however, she ran to a small creek nearby and returned with her deerskin canteen full of fresh water. She poured water over his wounds, held the container to his lips so that he could drink deeply, then stood up.

  “There! That’ll hold you for a while.”

  She touched her lips with her thumb and forefinger together, forming an oval, and snapped the fingers of her other hand, a Thoan gesture symbolizing a kiss. Then she disappeared among the trees. He lay staring up into the bright green sky. After a while, he slowly and painfully got to his feet. Everything seemed to whirl around him, though he did not fall. His shoulder hurt more than his crotch did. His lower back was stiff and would be worse soon. He was bleeding from the shoulder, though not heavily, and from less deep claw marks on his belly and testicles.

  When he got to the corpse, he studied it-her-in detail. The first thing he noted, though, was that Anana had shot the beam through the forehead just above the eyes. Though she had had to take swift aim, she had coolly decided to pierce its brain and had done so.

  The creature was at least seven feet long and formed like a hybrid of woman and bear. The face lacked the ursine snout, but its jaws bulged out as if they would have liked to have become a bear’s. That forehead indicated that she was highly intelligent. The structure of her mouth and the teeth, however, showed that she might have had much trouble pronouncing human words. Whether or not she could speak well, she must have understood Thoan speech.

  It was then that Kickaha remembered some stories told by the Bear People, an Amerindian tribe on the second level. These were narratives he had thought were tribal myths until now. They spoke of creatures descended from a union between the original Great Bear and the daughter of the original human couple. Indeed, the Bear People claimed that they, like the Man-Bear, were descended from this couple. But this creature’s first ancestors must have been made in some Lord’s laboratory. Probably, the Thoan was Jadawin, he who became Wolff on Earth I.

  By now, the scavenging beetles and ants, attracted by the odor of decaying flesh, were scuttling across the clearing. Kickaha walked woozily into the forest and sat down near the edge of the clearing, his back against a giant above-ground root. He watched from there. Presently, Anana walked into the clearing for a few feet and looked around. Her stance showed that she was ready to dive back into the woods if she saw or heard anything suspicious.

  He hooted softly, imitating the call of a small tree-dwelling lemuroid. She hooted back. He got up stiffly and approached her.

  “The raven was already dead when I found it,” she said. “One of those giant weasels was eating it.”

  They talked for a few minutes. Having decided on their course of action, they started back to the camp. Kickaha’s plan to shock the sisters into confessing their part in Red Orc’s plan had been discarded. He had wanted to cut the head off th
e Man-Bear and to throw it down at the women’s feet. But he agreed with her that it was best to keep them in the dark. For a while, anyway.

  By the time they reached the camp, they had concocted a story to explain his wounds. Though a big cat had attacked him, he said, he had gotten away from it. Anana had supported him while he limped into camp. That needed no acting by him, nor did his lying on the ground and groaning with pain.

  “We’ll have to stay here until I’ve recovered enough to resume walking,” he said.

  Whether or not Eleth and Ona accepted his story, he had no way of determining. That they were Thoan made them suspicious of even the most simple and straightforward statement.

  Two days later, he was ready to go. Like all humans in the Thoan universes, except for the two Earths, he had remarkable powers of physical recovery. Except for faint scars, which would disappear entirely, his gashes normally eaten. A faster healing required more fuel.

  During this time, Anana trailed the sisters into the woods whenever they went there for privacy.

  “It’s obvious they’re trying to get into contact with the raven, and they’re upset because it isn’t showing up.”

  “Let them seethe in their sweat,” he said.

  “Their bickering and quarreling is getting on my nerves.”

  “On mine, too. They’re ten-thousand-year-old infants. They hate each other, yet they feel as if they have to stay together. Maybe it’s because each is afraid that the other will be happy if she isn’t around to make her life miserable.”

  She said, “Most Thoan couples are like that. Are Earth mates the same way?”

  “Too many.”

  He paused, then said, “I suppose you know both asked me to roll in the leaves with them.”

  She laughed, and she said, “They’ve asked me, too.”

  On the early morning of the third day, they broke camp and set out toward the target mountain. Two days afterward, they left the great forest. About two days’ journey across a vast plain was before them. They crossed it without harm, though they were attacked twice by the sabertooths, which dined chiefly on mammoths, and once by six of the moalike birds called axebeaks. And then they came to the foothills of the mountain named Rigsoorth.