More Than Fire

"How can I tell anybody else about something I'm ignorant of?" Kickaha said.

"You can't. But some Lords might be able to guess what it is."

This reasoning did not seem entirely logical to Kickaha. But he could not expect the Thoan to be completely rational. Hatred and a passion for power had driven Red Orc insane. Or vice versa.

Nor did he expect Red Orc to keep any promise or give any lasting reward. The Thoan knew that Kickaha would not give up revenge for Anana's death. Even if Anana had somehow survived, she had come near death because of Red Orc. That was unforgivable.

He said, "What do you need me for?"

"We know that I am using you as a pawn whom I will sacrifice if the occasion demands it. However, I swear by Shambarimen, Elyttria, and Manathu Vorcyon that if you succeed, you will be set free, and-"

"Anana, too, if she didn't die?"

Irritation at the interruption flitted across Red Orc's face. But he spoke evenly.

"Anana, too."

Kickaha asked the Thoan what he wanted him to do.

"Get into Zazel's World. When you've done that, you can communicate with me, and I'll come swiftly."

Kickaha bit a corner of his lip. "Why can't you do it yourself?"

Red Orc smiled and said, "You know why. It'll be a dangerous project, and your chances of surviving are small. But if you die, I'll know what killed you and avoid it. I can do that because I have the Horn. Besides, I'd like to determine if you are the greatest of Tricksters, which some Lords claim you are. My experience with you has impressed me even though you are a leblabbiy."

"You enjoy deadly games?"

"Yes. So do you."

"You did catch me," Kickaha said. "Several times."

"And up until now, you slipped away from me. When we were chasing you through the city of Los Angeles, I was playing with you. My hired criminals were not very bright, and luck favored you. And then I was caught in the Lavalite World and came too close to being trapped there forever. I suspect you were responsible."

Kickaha did not confirm that. Let him guess.

"In any event," Red Orc said, "I will no longer be playing cat-and-mouse with you."

"I will try to do what you want me to do, and I won't attempt to escape," Kickaha said. Probably Red Orc did not believe him any more than Kickaha believed Red Orc. But Red Orc described in detail how he had gotten into and out of the Caverned World.

Los, Red Orc's father, had gated his son from the family world to a cave on Anthema. Red Orc still did not know exactly where the Antheman gate was. But Los could have had more than one on that planet.

He and Ijim had found the gate from Anthema to Zazel's World because his father had provided his son with a map. But that had been cryptic and very difficult to figure out, and he might never have been able to read it.

"I was able to leave the Caverned World because Dingsteth showed me the gate out," Red Orc said. "However, it allowed exit but not entrance. The same was true for the gate by which I got from Anthema to Zazel's World. You will have to find a gate that is at present unknown. Or, if you can find it, use the gate Ijim and I used. I've been trying so long to find it again, and I've been so obsessed with it that I'm going around in a circle. I need someone to search for it whose view is fresh. Someone who's also ingenious, or at least has the reputation for being so. Thus, I'm asking you to volunteer for the venture."

"Give me the Horn," Kickaha said. "That can open any gate, and it reveals weak places in walls among the universes."

"You can't stop joking, can you?"

Kickaha said, "No. Very well. I must know more about these gates and the worlds in which they're located. And other items, too."

After an hour, Red Orc left the room, though the evil that Kickaha imagined as emanating from him still hung in the air. What the Thoan required was clear. His secret motives were not. For one thing, Red Orc had been in Zazel's World when he was eighteen years old. That was at least twenty thousand Terrestrial years ago. What had he been doing in the meantime? Why hadn't he stormed the fort, so to speak, and invaded the Caverned World to get the data he wanted? Or had he tried again and again and always failed? If the Thoan had tried many times to do that, then he was indeed desperate. It would be almost impossible to succeed where the Thoan had failed, yet he was turning over the job to a despised leblabbiy.

Almost impossible. But Kickaha was convinced that as long as something was one-thousandth of one-thousandth of one-half percent possible, he could do it. Though he sometimes laughed at his own egotism, he believed that he was capable of everything but the impossible, and he was not so sure that he could not defeat those odds, too.

During the next three days, Kickaha did not see his captor. He exercised as vigorously as possible in this large room, which was not large enough, ate well, and mostly chafed and fumed and sometimes cursed. The beautiful servant made it evident through signs that she would bed him if he so desired. He refused her. Not until he was certain that Anana was dead could he even consider another woman.

He indulged in fantasy scenes about how Anana could have lived through the flash flood. And Red Orc, searching in his aircraft up and down the chasm, might have missed her because she was in a cave or under a ledge, or because he just did not see her even if she was in the open.

After a while, he quit imagining these scenarios. He would just have to wait and see.

The afternoon of the third day, Red Orc entered the chamber. His beamer was in his holster, and a sheath hanging from his belt carried a long dagger. In his right hand was a large bag. Behind him came five armed bodyguards, one of them a bowman. He did not greet his captive but said, "Come with me." The men grouped around him. Kickaha was conducted from the room and through a series of exotically decorated halls, all empty of natives. Then he was taken into a vast room blazing with the light of a thousand torches. The ceiling was six or seven stories high. Its gold-plated walls bore many figures of animals and human beings, all outlined in jewels. It had no furniture. At the far end was a gigantic bronze statue of a man with an enormous upright phallus, four arms, and a demon's face. Twenty feet before it was an altar with a block of stone at its base. The block was stained with old blood. A stone platform half its height surrounded it, and stone steps led up to it.

"Am I to be sacrificed?" Kickaha said, gri

The Thoan's smile seemed to be carved from granite.

"Not as part of a religious rite."

He spoke in the mellifluous native tongue, and the guards marched out through the main door. One of them shut the door and slammed a huge bolt shut. The bang sounded to Kickaha like a note of doom. But he had met many dooms and defeated them.

Red Orc said, "Go to the block, walk up the steps, and stand by the block."

When Kickaha turned around to face the Thoan, his back almost touching the stone, which still was higher than his head, he saw Red Orc swinging the bag backward. Then the bag soared up and landed with a thump near Kickaha's feet.

"Empty the bag," the Thoan said loudly. His words echoed.

Kickaha removed a beamer, a bundle of batteries, a long knife, a canteen full of water, and a smaller bag. He dumped its contents: a bundle of clothes, a belt holding a holster and a sheath, a pair of shoes, a smaller knife, and a box of compressed rations.

"There is no battery in the beamer," Red Orc said. "After you reach your next destination, you can put the battery in it."

"And after you're out of knife range," Kickaha said. "You're taking no chances."

"I'm not as reckless as you, leblabbiy. You have your instructions and as much useful information as I am able to give you. Rebag those items, them climb up on the top of the stone."