More Than Fire

8

AT THE THOAN'S COMMAND, KICKAHA SLOWLY TOOK HIS BEAMer and knife out and threw them ten feet ahead of him. Very reluctantly, he cast the bag containing the Horn to a spot near the weapons. Red Orc, his face glowing with triumph shot with delight, picked up the bag with his right hand.

He gestured with his weapon. "Turn your back to me, reach for the sky, and get down on your knees. Stay in that position until I tell you otherwise."

Kickaha obeyed, but he was considering what his chances were if he leaped up, ran to the chasm's edge, and jumped. He might go out far enough to avoid the projecting parts of the side of the chasm and fall into the river. But would he survive the plunge into the water? Would the Thoan be able to shoot him before he got to the chasm's edge?

The answer to the first was no; to the second, yes. Anyway, he was crazy even to think of such a plan. But it might be better to die thus than to get what Red Orc could have in mind for him.

He never heard the man's footsteps. He did hear a slight hissing and feel something against his back. When he awoke, he was in the back seat of the vessel. A long sticky cord bound him around and around and secured him to the seat of the chair and its back. His wrists were tied together, and his feet were also bound. His head ached; his mouth was very dry. When he looked through the canopy, he saw that the boat was at least a thousand feet in the air and was heading northward.

Red Orc, seated before the control panel, was looking at the TV screen to one side and above him. He could see Kickaha in it. He rose, having set the vessel on automatic, and walked back in the narrow aisle between two rows of seats.

The Thoan stood about four feet from his captive. "You've always gotten away before this," he said. "But you've come to the end of the road."

Kickaha spoke huskily. "I'm still living."

"And you may live for quite a while. But you'll be wishing that you were dead. Perhaps. I really haven't decided what I'm going to do with you."

Kickaha glanced through the canopy and saw the chasm he had climbed or, perhaps, another chasm. At this point, it was at least forty miles wide and went down so far that he could not see the dark bottom. He did not think that erosion had caused this. There must have been one hell of a cataclysm at one time on this planet.

Apparently, Red Orc guessed what he was thinking. He said, "This is the planet Wanzord, created by Appyrmazul. My father, Los, and I fought each other here. Los had a weapon of terrifying destructive powers. I don't know where he got it. Probably he found it buried in some ancient vault. He used it on me and my forces, and I was forced to gate out, leaving my men behind me. That chasm was caused by Los's weapon."

"What happened to it?" Kickaha said. His voice rasped.

"My father won that campaign. Eventually, during an attack on his army, I got hold of the ravener, as it was called. But I had to destroy that ancient weapon. Luck went against me, I was forced to retreat, and I didn't want my father to have it. So, I blew it up.

"However, as you may have heard, the final victory was mine. I captured my father. After I'd tortured him almost enough to satisfy me, I killed him. A long time before that, I had cut off his testicles and eaten them, after I stopped him when he was trying to kill my mother. I should have slain him then. When his testicles regrew, he launched an all-out war against me.

"But in the end, I won, and I burned his body and mixed the ashes in a glass of wine and drank him down. That was not quite the end of him. The next day, I flushed him down the toilet."

Red Orc laughed maniacally. And maniac he is, Kickaha thought. But he's quite rational and logical in most matters. Very cu

"That's interesting and informative," Kickaha said. "But what about Anana, Clifton, and Eleth?"

Red Orc smiled as if he was pleased by what he was going to tell his prisoner.

"While you were struggling to get out of the chasm, I was looking for the others. Eleth's body was left on a large rock when the flood subsided. The face was torn off, and one side of her head was caved in and the scalp ripped from it. But enough of her blond hair was left to identify her. Thus ended the last of the iron-hearted daughters of Urizen. No one will mourn them.

"Clifton is probably buried under tons of silt and gravel. End of his story. He was in the pit because he was caught in one of my resonantcircuit traps and directed to the same terminal, the pit, to which you and your party were cha

"Urthona was killed just after we escaped from the palace and gated through to the World of Tiers. He got caught in his own trap, you might say. Cheated me out of killing him."

Red Orc raised his brows and said, softly, "Ah! One more of the very old Lords is dead. I am unhappy about that, but only because I wanted to be the one who killed him. Since he was my father's ally, I had him down in my books."

Kickaha said, "What about Anana?"

A ghost of a smile hovered over the Thoan's lips. He knew that Kickaha knew that he was delaying his account of her to torment him.

"Anana? Yes, Anana?"

Kickaha leaned forward, preparing himself for very bad news. But Red Orc said, "I had expected Ona to be caught in the pit, too, but I assume that something happened to her while she was with you. Or did she escape from you to wander around on Alofmethbin?"

"She died trying to escape. What about Anana?"

"You must be wondering just how you were trapped. Only I could have done it. The many obstacles and the little time to get the necessary things would have been too much for anyone else. Fortunately, the circuit in which you two were caught, originally set up by Ololothon, had a three-day delay holding you in one gate before you were sent forward again. That gave me the time I needed to bring in the necessary equipment in an airboat through a gate from my base. You have heard of Ololothon?"

"For Christ's sake!" Kickaha said in English. Then, speaking in Thoan, "You are going to drag out the suspense, aren't you? Although you've lived so long, you're juvenile as hell!"

"I am not above taking pleasure in small things," Red Orc said. "If you are almost immortal, you find that there are long intervals between pleasures, and these are short-lived. So, even the smallest pleasures are welcome, especially when they are unexpected."

He paused, meeting Kickaha's glare with his unwavering gaze.

Then he said, "Ololothon?"

"We were on his world, the planet of the Tripeds," Kickaha said. "You know that."

"I know it now," the Thoan said. "Before you told me, I had only suspected that you were there. But I could not be sure. What I was sure about was that if you took the only exit gate on Ololothon's world, you would be caught in the resonant circuit he set up. Long, long ago, after I invaded his palace and slew him, I studied the charts of his gates and recorded them to file in my bases. I might need to use them someday. And I was right: I did. Very few Lords, perhaps none, have such foresight."

Brag, brag, brag, Kickaha thought. However, he was interested in knowing just how the Thoan's plot had been carried out.

"Eleth and Ona were very clever. They managed to escape from my prison on my base while I was elsewhere. I suspected that they had bribed the guards, but I did not have time to torture the truth out of anyone. I killed all of them. However, the corruption might have spread throughout my palace. So, I completely depopulated it. I did not slay their children, of course. I made sure that they were adopted by a native tribe."