More Than Fire

"You would like me to cast it aside. But no one will have seen this fight. Too bad, in a way. It should be celebrated in epic poetry. Perhaps it will be. But I will be the one who tells others of how it went."

"Always the cowardly liar," Kickaha said. "Use the dagger. I'll kill you anyway. You'll gain even more fame as the only man ever to be killed by the Horn."

Red Orc said nothing. He came at Kickaha with the knife. The Horn swung and struck the Thoan's wrist as he jabbed. But Red Orc did not drop the knife. Instead, he lunged again, and the blade entered Kickaha's chest. But it only made a shallow wound because Kickaha grabbed the man's wrist with one hand and banged Red Orc over the head with the Horn. Red Orc tore his wrist from the grasp, retreated for several seconds, breathing heavily, then attacked again.

This time, he used one arm as a shield against the bludgeoning while he thrust with his right hand. His dagger sliced across Kickaha's lower arm, but Kickaha brought the Horn down and then up and slammed its flaring end into Red Orc's chin. Though the Thoan must have been dazed by the blow, he managed to rake the edge of the blade across Kickaha's shoulder and then gash the hand holding the Horn. Kickaha dropped it; it clanged on the ground.

Red Orc stepped swiftly forward. Kickaha retreated.

"You can run now," the Thoan said hoarsely. "That is the only way you can escape me. For a while, anyway. I will track you down and kill you."

"You have a lot of confidence for a beaten man," Kickaha said.

He stooped to pick up the bloody marble chunk. For a few seconds after he had straightened up, he was dizzy. Too much blood lost; too many blows on the head. But Red Orc was in as bad a condition. Who won might depend upon who passed out first.

He wiped the blood from the marble chunk on his short trousers, and he held it up for Red Orc to see.

"It's been used twice, once by you, once by me. Let's see what the third time does. I doubt you'll be able to bat it again."

Red Orc, wincing, crouched, his knife held out.

"When I was a youth on Earth," Kickaha said, "I could throw a baseball as if it were a meteorite hurtling through space. And I could throw a curve ball, too. A scout once told me I was a natural for the big league. But I had other plans. They didn't work out because I came to the World of Tiers, and from there to other universes of the Lords. Let's see now how an Earthly sport is good for something besides striking out a batter."

He wound up, knowing that he was out of practice and that the irregularly shaped chunk was no lightweight ball. Also, he did not have much strength left. But he could summon it. And he was only ten feet from Red Orc.

The chunk flew spi

It thudded against Red Orc's head just above his hairline. The Thoan fell over on his side, dropping the dagger. His eyes and mouth were open; he did not move.

Kickaha picked up the dagger while keeping his one eye on the Thoan. Then he slammed his boot into the man's side. The body moved, but only because it had been kicked.

Kickaha knelt down and ripped off the man's shorts. He held up the testicles and prepared to cut them off. He might eat them raw. He did not know if he was up to it. But despite his exhaustion, he was still raging. This Thoan must suffer what he had intended to inflict upon his enemy.

Manathu Vorcyon's voice came to him. "Kickaha! You ca

Kickaha looked up at the Great Mother with his good eye. She was sitting on her airboat. But both were blurred. The good eye was not so good.

"The hell I'm not!" he said. His own voice seemed far away. "Watch me!"

He did it with one swipe. And then everything rushed away from him, and the darkness of nothing rushed in to fill the space.

23

KICKAHA'S WOUNDS WERE HEALED, AND A NEW EYE HAD GROWN in the socket. The latter process had taken forty days, during part of which time his eye had been a nauseating jellylike mass. But he was as fit and as whole as ever.

He sat near the edge of the monolith on which was the palace Wolff had once occupied as Lord of this world. Now and then, Kickaha sipped a purplish liquor from a cut-quartz goblet. He looked up at the green sky and yellowish sun and then at the vast panorama below him, unique among the many universes.

The palace was on top of a massive and soaring stone pillar, the highest point of this Tower of Babylon-shaped planet. It soared from the center of a circular continent, the Atlantis tier. This, in turn, was on top of a larger monolith, the Dracheland tier. Below this tier was the still larger tier that Kickaha called the Amerind, his favorite stomping grounds. Below this was the Okeanos level. A person on its edge would see nothing but space, empty except for the air filling it. If you jumped over the edge, you fell for a very long time. Where you ended up, Kickaha did not know.

Theoretically, if you had a very powerful telescope and the humidity was very low, you could see to the lowest tier, the outer part of it, anyway. He was content with the view he had.

Anana had survived the collapse of her prison suite, but when she was carried out of the room five days after Khruuz had gated the palace, she was severely injured and much dehydrated. Kickaha had stayed with her until she had recovered. Despite his nursing, she still had hated him.

Red Orc's wounds had healed themselves. Though not imprisoned, he was closely watched. Red Orc was no longer his name; it was now just Orc. He had not been given a choice of lifelong incarceration or having his memory shorn to the age of five. The Great Mother had worked with the Thoan's computer until she had found the access code that opened up all the files. She was probably the only one in the many universes who could have done it, and that took her a long time.

After the machine had been built, the Thoan was placed in a chair and subjected to the memory-stripping process. Now he was only five years old in mind. Those raising him, volunteer native house servants, would give him the love and attention every child required. Kickaha was not glad that he had not killed the man who had robbed him of the Anana whom Kickaha had known. But he could not hate the man who was no longer Red Orc. However, it would be a long time, if ever, before he would like him.

One problem with Anana had been solved. The machine had been used to strip her awareness of the events following immediately after Orc had taken away her memory.

The ethics of doing this without her consent had bothered Kickaha. But not very much. She was no longer in love with Orc because she did not remember him. And now she did not hate Kickaha. Never mind that she did not love him either. He had already started his campaign to win her back. How could he not succeed? Modesty aside, what other man in all the universes could compare with him?

The Great Mother had returned to her own world, but she and Kickaha would visit each other now and then.

He looked again at the view. Unsurpassed in beauty, in mystery, in promised adventure!

He would never again leave this world, the land area of which was larger than Earth's. To roam in it forever with Anana by his side would be to live in Heaven. Though it would be unlike Heaven in that it had a streak of Hell and he could be killed ... ah! that gave it its savor.

"My world!" he shouted. And while those words soared out over the planet, they were followed by a roar like a lion notifying everybody that this was his territory.