More Than Fire

Their story could be true, but if so, it 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 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, gri

"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 i

"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."