More Than Fire

When Kickaha had finished, Red Orc said, "I did not want to drag her into my affairs. Not yet, anyway. But she did it when she snatched you away from me. By the way, she did not gate you through to the forest because she was considerate of you and wanted you to have time to get adjusted to her world before she met you. She did so to protect herself. If I had implanted a small atom bomb in you and set it to explode as soon as you arrived in her world, she would have been beyond its range."

He laughed, then said, "But I don't have that capability. To make atom bombs, I mean. If I wanted to take the time and do the research to find the data for making one and then go through the long tedious process of mining the metals needed and building a reactor ... you get the idea."

He drummed his fingers for a moment before speaking again.

"Two days should be enough for you to recover. After that, ready or not, you will go out again. And this time I will launch you through a series of gates that I am sure Manathu Vorcyon has not trapped."

Kickaha had not yet eased his grief when he stepped through the gate the Lord had picked for him. At the second gate, he had time to slip a battery into his beamer before being shunted to the next station. Within three minutes, he had passed through five gates. One of these was in a cave high on a mountain. Before he was passed on, he glimpsed a valley at the bottom of which was a river. Near it was a tiny village and above that was a castle. He cried out with the joy of recognition. It was the keep of Baron von Kritz, an enemy of his when he had lived on the Dracheland level of the World of Tiers, the world he loved most. And then he was in the next station.

But this was not the place described by Red Orc. It was a windowless cell with a heavily barred jailhouse door, and it was bare of furniture except for a toilet, a washbowl with a soap dish, towels on a wall rack, and a pile of blankets in one corner.

It did have an occupant, whom Kickaha recognized at once though the man was unclothed.

Eric Clifton!

The Englishman was standing in a corner and looking confused.

Before either could say anything, Kickaha felt his senses leaving him. Clifton was now down on his knees, his face going slack. When Kickaha regained consciousness, he was lying on the floor. Like his cellmate, he was nude. And his beamer, holster, belt, and backpack were gone.

He struggled to his feet. Clifton was begi

The scaly man was standing outside the cell.

12

"I DID NOT THINK THAT ANYONE SAVE ME COULD HAVE BEEN spared death from the flood," Eric Clifton said softly behind him. "But it might have been better if you and I had perished in it. Now we are in the merciless hands of a demon from Hell, perhaps the Prince of Darkness himself. Our very souls are in extreme peril."

Kickaha was aware of the words, but he was too intent on studying his captor to take in their full meaning. Close up, the creature looked even more monstrous and dangerous than when in the "coffin." The massive muscles and thick skeleton were a Hercules'. The gold and green scales of his skin gleamed in the naked light above him. Around his neck from just below the jaw and to the shoulders were interlocking bands of bone on the surface of which were the snakish scales. And lines on his face revealed what Kickaha had not seen before. Bony plates underlay the scales there, too. But they seemed to be of thi

Now the scaly man opened his mouth to reveal long, sharp teeth like a lion's, though the canines were much shorter.

No fruit or vegetable eater, this thing, thought Kickaha. However, bears had a predator's teeth, and their diet was more vegetarian than carnivorous.

The long and very narrow tip of its tongue slid out like a reptile's. It was a green tendril extending from a red tongue that looked like a man's.

Its large, green eyes were set an inch or so farther back than in a human skull. Though they reminded Kickaha of a crocodile's, they had eyelids that blinked regularly.

Behind him, on the other side of the hall, were two cells similar to his. "How long have you been here?" he said softly to Clifton.

On hearing Kickaha's voice, the creature's flat ears moved outward and formed cups.

Clifton whispered, "Since two days ago. I came close to drowning in the flood, and I was much battered. But I did manage to grab a tree trunk and float far down the flood. I was swept over the edge of a great cataract but still survived, thanks to God and my guardian angel. However, I was carried to the very deeps of the chasm, so deep that its top was a very thin ribbon of light and I was in the darkness of the bowels of Hell. I like to have died of the heat and the moisture, but I strove to reach the shore of the waters, which had become a mere river again by then. I groped around blindly, and once more, God and my guardian angel bestowed salvation upon me."

The scaly man had moved forward, closed his huge hands on two bars, and was eyeing the captives intently. Kickaha was startled when he saw on the creature's right index finger the ring Clifton had worn in the pit. He turned swiftly and glanced at the Englishman's right hand. The ring was gone. He turned back to face the scaly man. If he had taken the ring from Clifton, he had made it larger so that it could fit his huge finger.

Kickaha said, "Cut the lengthy narrative. How did you get here?"

"God bless us all! I did not think we were short of time in this prison. To be brief, I climbed as high as I could, falling several times but only short distances, until, thoroughly exhausted, I found a ledge large enough for me to sleep on despite my fatigue."

"I told you to get to the point."

"When I awoke, I felt around the ledge and discovered that it projected from a cave. I heard ru

"That could have been many thousands of years ago," Kickaha said. "Probably a Lord named Ololothon did it."

"Yes. But I did not stay more than a few seconds on the projection of rock high on the mountain. I was gated to another place, then another, then another. That was the last stage. I arrived in this cell inside the circle you see drawn on the floor in that corner. I advise you not to enter that circle because somebody else might be gated through at any moment. If you were standing within it when that happened, an explosion might occur."

For the first time, Kickaha noticed the orange circular line in the corner. He said, "I doubt that would happen. If this cell is equipped with sensors, and most gates are, the gate would not be activated as long as anyone was already in that circle."

"But you don't know that there are sensors in this cell."

"What happened to your ring?"

"Oh, shortly after my arrival here, I became unconscious. I suppose it was gas released by the demon. That would account for my becoming unconscious immediately after I'd entered the cell. It would also account for both of us becoming senseless when you entered. That thing came into the cell afterward and removed our clothes and possessions. Anyway, when I woke up after arriving here, the ring was gone. He is now wearing it."