More Than Fire

Kickaha walked up to her until his nose almost touched hers. He spoke even more loudly. "I overheard your raven, Wayskam, talking to Eleth! So

I know all! All!"

He thought, I don't by any means know all. But I'll scare them into confessing everything. If I can't, I'll let Anana loose on them. Her heart isn't as soft as mine. I hope I can stand the screaming.

The sisters said nothing. That he knew the name of the raven showed them that he was on to them.

"Your protector, the bear-woman," he said, "is dead. Anana killed it." Eleth smiled slightly and said, "Ah! It wasn't a big cat that clawed you!

It was. .."

"I didn't catch her name," Kickaha said. "Yes, she did tear me up a little. Anana shot her before I could do it."

Eleth still kept silence, but Ona said, "We couldn't help ourselves! We..."

Eleth screamed, "Shut up! They don't know anything! They're just trying to get you to talk!"

"Tell you what, Ona," Anana said. "You tell us everything-I mean everything, nothing left out-and I'll spare your life. As for Eleth ... She stabbed the beamer at Ona.

"Spill it all!"

Eleth spoke with a diamond-hard voice. No quaverings in her.

"If we talk, we'll die. If we don't talk, we'll die. It's better not to talk. Ona, I absolutely forbid you to say another word about it!"

"You think Red Orc'll save us now?" her sister said, sneering. "He'll pop up just in time to save us? How could he? Besides, what does he care about us? I think-"

"That's enough!" Anana said. "You've both said enough to damn yourselves. Not that we needed a word from you to know that. Eleth, you talk first. If you hold anything back, and Ona then reveals that you have been holding back, you die! Immediately!"

Eleth looked around as if she expected Red Orc to come riding down from the mountains to rescue her. No savior was in sight, and Eleth was realist enough to know that none was coming. She began talking.

It was much as Kickaha had expected it to be. The sisters had not, as they had claimed, escaped from Orc when he invaded their palace. They had been caught before they could get to a gate. Instead of killing them, Red Orc had forced them to be tools to catch Kickaha and Anana.

At this point, Anana snorted and said, "Forced? You, the iron-hearted daughters of Urizen, had to be forced to become our enemy?"

"We never claimed to be friends of yours," Eleth said. "But we would never have gone out after you."

"You're too lazy," Anana said.

"He did not tell us why he thought you were there," Eleth said. "We were not in a position to ask him questions about his methods and results."

The Lord had not been able to determine just where the two were on Whazzis. But he did find the only gate existing, the one that Kickaha and Anana eventually came to. The hexagon in the Tripeds' temple had long been there. Orc had recha

"He did say that it would lead to a certain area on the World of Tiers. When the alarm was set off-where, I do not know-Red Orc would know that the circuit had been entered. Of course, he could not be sure that some other Lord had not activated it. But he said that he was approximately ninety-percent sure that you two would do it."

"How could he be sure that we could survive all the traps?" Kickaha said.

"He apparently had great faith that you two would. He did pay you both a compliment. He said that if anybody could get through the circuit, you could."

"I had shambarimen's Horn."

"He never mentioned that."

"He wouldn't. If you'd known that, you would've been tempted to betray him and risk everything for this great treasure."

"You're right," Eleth said.

The Lord, or perhaps a servant of his, had gotten them somehow to the middle of the forest where Kickaha and Anana had found them. The sisters had been unconscious during the entire journey from their world to this.

"I can assure you that there is no gate in that forest," Kickaha said. "I know. I've seen the diagram of the gates, in Wolff's palace. You must have been sent through another gate somewhere on this world and then transported by air to the forest."

"There couldn't be gates of which you have no knowledge? Red Orc could not have opened a new gate?"

Kickaha shrugged.

The women had awakened among the trees. For fifty-five days, they had had to struggle to survive there. Orc had given them only a few necessities, the stuff they might have taken with them during a very hasty departure.

"We had almost given up on your getting here," Eleth said. "It wasn't certain that you would survive the circuit or that you would find us. But Red Orc, may he suffer the tortures of Inthiman, did not care if we starved to death or were killed by predators! We had decided we'd stay there five days more. If you hadn't shown up by then, we'd set out for Jadawin's palace."

"A noble ambition," Anana said. "But you had little chance to make it up the two monoliths."

Eleth did not have much to add to her story. She only said that she and her sister did not know why Red Orc wanted them to lead the two to this gate. Ona said that that was true.

Kickaha and Anana withdrew from the women to talk softly.

"They probably don't know why," he said. "Red Orc wouldn't tell them. What I'd like to know is how he knew about this gate."

"I'm not sure that he did or does know," she said. "He may be following us now to see where we go. When he sees us open the gate, he'll pounce."

She looked up the mountain slope and then down it and across the great plain.

"Or, if not he, then someone in his service," Kickaha said.

"He or whoever may be a hundred miles away. Across the plain or up there in an aircraft. One missile would wipe us out."

"He wouldn't blow us apart," Kickaha said. "He wants us alive. We're in a Hamietish situation. There're so many ifs and buts to consider, we're being paralyzed. Let's do something now, and ride out the consequences."

He blew the Horn again. Anana herded the sisters, who protested strongly but vainly, through the shimmering curtain in the rock. She stepped in on their heels. He dropped the Horn into the bag and leaped through the shimmering. On its other side was a hemispherical chamber. The floor was as covered with the opaque brightness as the walls. He could, however, feel bare and level rock under his feet.

Ona screamed and darted by Kickaha. He thrust out an arm to catch her. She ducked it and leaped back through the curtain. The upper part of her body had disappeared when the shimmering snapped off. Only part of her robe, her buttocks, her long legs, and some blood remained. Eleth shrieked and then began sobbing loudly.

Without warning, they were in another place, some sort of pit cut out of rock. Crouching, he spun around, his beamer ready, taking in all that was his new environment. There did not seem to be anything that demanded immediate defense or attack. A man whom Kickaha recognized stood at one end of the pit, but his open hands were held high above his head in a sign of peace.

Kickaha's gaze passed from him to examine the prison they were in. It was a hole twelve feet square and approximately ten feet deep. Straight above was a bright blue sky. The sun was out of sight, and the shadows of the vast cliff on one side were moving swiftly toward the opening of the hole.

They were in a pit at the bottom, or up on one side, of an immense abyss. Both sides went up at a thirty-degree angle from the horizontal, though they had many ledges and holes. Here and there on the walls, some puny trees grew, extending at forty-five-degree angles from the steep slopes. Great patches of some green mosslike stuff covered parts of the walls.

The heat was a vicious magical wand that tapped him and brought forth from his skin a spring of water. He estimated that the temperature was approximately 101°F.