More Than Fire

'What do you mean?" Kickaha said.

"He hates himself, I am sure of that. By punishing us, he is punishing himself. Does that idea seem too farfetched to you?"

"It could be valid. But I don't know if it is. Right or wrong, it doesn't change a thing. You've swept this room for recording devices he might've planted?"

"Of course. So, that leaves me and Ashatelon and Wemathol. Those two are what my father wanted, men of action. I disappointed him because I was too passive. He didn't understand it. After all, I was his genetic duplicate. So why didn't I have his nature? He tried to explain it, but-"

Kickaha cut in. "We can always talk about that later. But if we don't stop your father dead in his tracks, and I do mean dead, we won't have a later time."

"Very well. He is now in the Caverned World, if what he told me is true, and I can never be sure about anything he tells me. He should be there a long time. Reactivating that world won't be easy. Our logical next step should be to attack him while he's there. First, if it's possible, we should seal up all gates there except the one we use for entrance. Don't you agree?"

Kickaha nodded. But while listening to Kumas, he could not keep from thinking about Anana. What if she could not love him again? It was then that an idea pierced him like an arrow made of light. If it worked, it would turn her against Red Orc.

He said, excitedly, "Kumas! Listen! We're going to fix your father. In one way, anyway. He seems to anticipate just about everything, but he won't have foreseen this. At least, I hope not. Here's what we're going to do before we leave."

An hour later, Kumas left the room to be with Anana. Kickaha watched them via a screen. By then, she was out of the pool and in a green semitransparent dress, her long black hair done up in a Psyche knot. She was reading from a small video set while sitting on a bench in the flower garden. She looked up when Kumas stopped before her. He handed her the cube he and Kickaha had prepared. He talked to her for a while, then walked away. Frowning, she held the cube in her hand for a long time.

Kickaha turned the screen off when Kumas walked into the room.

"Do you think she'll look at it?" he said.

Kumas shrugged his shoulders. But he said, "Would you be able to resist doing it?"

"That depends upon whether or not he made her promise not to listen to any derogatory comments about him. If he did, she probably won't watch it. But I'm betting the Bluebeard syndrome will overwhelm her. She'll drop the cube into the slot and turn on the screen. I hope so, anyway."

"Bluebeard syndrome?"

Kickaha laughed. He said, "Bluebeard was the villain in an old folktale. He married often and killed his wives and hung them up to dry in a locked room. But he had to go off on a trip, so he told his latest wife she could use the key he'd given her. It would open every room in the castle. But she was definitely not to unlock one room. Under no circumstances was she to do that. Then he took off.

"Naturally, her curiosity overcame her wifely duty to obey him. So, after fighting temptation for some time, she surrendered to it. She unlocked the room where the former wives hung from hooks. She was horrified, of course. She told the authorities, and that was the end of Bluebeard."

"We Thoan have a tale similar to that," Kumas said.

"If Red Orc just commanded her not to pay any attention to anything bad she hears about him from his sons, she'll do it anyway. But if she gave her word ... I don't know. In her mind, she's eighteen years old. The Anana I knew would hardly have waited until he had left her to find out just what it was he didn't want her to know. But eighteen-year-old Anana must have been a different woman from the older woman."

"We'll find out when we come back," Kumas said. "If we do come back."

17

"HERE WE ARE," KICKAHA SAID CHEERILY. "BACK IN THE LAND of the dead."

He and the three clones, the "sons," were in the tu

On entering the Great Mother's world, the party was in the forest surrounding the great tree in which she lived. Again, warriors appeared from the trees and led them to the palace-tree. After a series of conferences with her, they were sent on to Khruuz's universe. They landed in a room cut out of rock and with no windows or doors. A few minutes later, the gate passed them on to a prison cell. This was in Khruuz's underground fortress. The scaly man had set up a shunt in the gate-passages. This had allowed him to seal all the immediate entrances to his world. But they would be opened when Eric Clifton's instruments told him that the preliminary gate was occupied. Khruuz had gone to Zazel's World, and Clifton had been left behind to monitor the gates.

The Englishman had released them from their cell after he was sure that Kickaha was not the captive of Red Orc's sons. Kickaha had told him immediately of events to the minute he had left for here. Then Clifton had told his news about Khruuz.

"Or at least he started to go there," Clifton had said. "He intended to use the same route you used when you gated there."

"How long has he been gone?"

"Ten days." Clifton had rolled his eyes and looked mournful. "It seems to me that he should have been back five days ago. However, he might have tried to reactivate the world. I didn't know it was dead until you told me, and he wouldn't find out it was until he got there."

"I don't know what he's up to," Kickaha had said. "He should've waited for us. Maybe he thinks he can do just as well without us. I don't know." "You're suspicious?" Clifton had said.

"Khruuz has never proved that he's trustworthy. On the other hand, he's given me no reason to suspect him. He seems to be very friendly, and he sure needs us. Did need us, anyway. Maybe something's happened so he doesn't need us anymore. But what could he have up his sleeve?"

"His hatred for the human species?"

"He hates the Lords. He wouldn't be human if he didn't. But then, he's not human. Why should he have anything against us leblabbiys? We never did anything to him."

"We do look just like the Lords," Clifton had said. "Hatred is not by any means always rational."

"But he's never shown anything but friendliness toward you and me. He'd have to be a hell of an actor to repress his hatred all this time."

"That may be significant. I wouldn't blame him a bit if he frothed at the mouth when he spoke about them. But he seems to have a self-control cast in bronze. Is that in itself suspicious?"

"It could be," Kickaha had said. "But for the time being, there's nothing we can do about it. We go ahead without him."

An hour later, the war party had gated out to Zazel's World, not knowing what reception it might get at its destination. The tu

He said, "Somebody's had some success resurrecting this stone carcass."

"Let's hope the somebody is not Red Orc," Kumas said.

To avoid their confusing Red Orc with the clones in a situation where individual identity was crucial, the clones had changed the color of their hair to purple. They also wore orange headbands and carried light-blue backpacks.