More Than Fire

He was not going to worry about that. When the time came to deal with it, he would. Just how, he did not know.

He rose, drank water from his deerskin canteen, and said, "If Wolff had sent that Eye, he would have told it to tell us that it was watching for us. And he would have told the Eye to give us directions to get to wherever he is. So it definitely was not sent by Wolff."

He paused, then said, "Do you want to go now?" He knew better than to order her to leave with him. She resented any hint of bossiness by others. After all, though more empathetic and compassionate than most of her kind, she was a Lord.

"It's time."

They put their knapsacks and quivers on their backs and started walking again. He thought: On top of the many thousands-of-feet-high monolith ahead of us is, probably, the level called Atlantis. And on top of that is the monolith, much more narrow and less lofty than the others, on top of which is the palace Wolff built.

Three hours passed while they strode toward the forest. By now, they could see that another hour would bring them to its edge. Kickaha stepped up his pace. She did not ask why he was in such a hurry now. She knew that he did not like being on the plain for very long. It made him feel too exposed and vulnerable.

After about ten minutes, Kickaha broke the silence between them.

"I suspect that no one had come through that gate in the tomb until we did. There were no signs of previous entry. And, surely, the thing in the tomb or whoever put him there had set up many safeguards. Why, then, were we able to use the gate?"

"What do you think?"

He said, "There was some reason we and only we were allowed in. Emphasis on the `allowed.' But why were we?"

"You don't know that we were the first there. You don't know that we were `allowed' in."

"True. But if someone else did get in, he or she didn't trigger the raising of the cube and, I bet, the resurrection of the scaly man." "You don't know that for sure."

"Yes, but I think that only someone with the Horn of Shambarimen could have penetrated that tomb."

She smiled and said, "Perhaps. But the scaly man must've put himself in that tomb eons before the Horn was made. He couldn't have known that the Horn would be made or that its frequencies would open the way to the tomb."

"How do you know that he didn't know it would be made? In his time, a device similar to the Horn could have been available."

She laughed and said, "No one can predict the future. Besides, what significance did our entering there have?"

"It started a chain of events that's only begun. As for predicting, maybe it's not a matter of predeterminism or predicting. Maybe it's a matter of probabilities. Don't forget that that chamber contains devices surveying many universes. I think that when certain events are observed, the scaly man is raised from the tomb. After that, I don't know."

"You don't know. That's it."

"Okay, you're probably right!" he said. "But if I'm right, I expect you to apologize and kiss my foot, among other things, and be humble and obedient thereafter to the end of eternity, amen."

"Your face is red! You're angry!"

"You're too skeptical, too blase, too jaded. And too almighty sure of yourself."

"We'll see. But if you're wrong, you can do to me what I was supposed to do to you."

They did not speak for some time afterward. While crossing the last few miles to the edge of the forest, detouring once to avoid a herd of giant bison, they looked back twice. The raven was still following them but was much lower.

"Definitely an Eye of the Lord," Kickaha said.

She said, "I know," laughed, and then said, "I've got to quit saying that."

They entered the shade of the thousand-foot-high sequoialike trees. The forest floor was thick with dead leaves. That was strange, since there was no change of season on this planet. But when he saw a few leaves flutter down from the trees, he realized that it shed old leaves and replaced them with new ones. A few other plants on Alofmethbin did that.

The undergrowth was sparse, though here and there, thorny bushes forced the two to go around them. Many small, blue-eyed creatures that looked like furry and wingless owls watched them from the safety of the brambles.

Monkeys, birds, and flying and gliding mammals screamed, hooted, and chittered in the branches. But in the immediate area of the humans, silence fell, only to be broken after they had passed.

Once a weasel the size of a Rocky Mountain lion looked around the side of a tree trunk at them but did not charge them. The two humans knew that a predator was there before the weasel revealed itself. The clamor in the area ahead of them had ceased.

Kickaha and Anana had already strung their bows. There was no predicting what dangerous man or beast dwelt in this twilit but noisy place. They had also loosened the straps of their knife scabbards.

They had gone a mile when they came to a clearing about sixty feet wide. This had been made by two sequoias that had fallen together. That had been a long time ago, judging by the rotte

"Okay," Kickaha muttered. "No doubt of it now. It's ahead of us but may not know it is. It may be waiting for us to come by here since we were walking in a more or less straight line. I don't know how it's kept its eye on us so far."

Since the raven was the size of a bald eagle, it could not flit from branch to branch.

"Maybe it knows where we're going," Kickaha said.

"How could that be? We don't know ourselves where we're going except in a general direction. And the woods are thick here. It couldn't have followed us. Oh, I see! It followed the silences falling around us."

They withdrew a few feet into the shade. Then he whispered, "Let's watch from here."

Presently, just as he had expected, he saw the big, black bird spiral down and land on a branch projecting from one of the fallen and decaying behemoths. Then it glided to the ground, its wings half-outspread, and walked toward them. Kickaha thought that it had come to the ground to find out where they were. It would hide and listen for the two humans.

But it could, at the moment, neither see them nor, in the still air, smell them. Kickaha and Anana were lucky that they had spotted it before it saw them.

Kickaha placed a finger to his lips, then whispered very softly in Anana's ear.

"It can see like a hawk and hear almost as well as a dog. Let's move on. We won't be quiet. It can follow us until we're ready to catch it."

"If it's sent by a Lord, that might mean that a Lord is in Wolff's palace."

"If there is, we'll be lucky to elude the traps there."

"Lots of ifs."

Kickaha pointed a finger at the huge, black bird and then touched his lips. Deliberately, he stepped on a dry branch. The loud crack made the raven whirl around and waddle swiftly to a hiding place behind a lowgrowing bush on the side of the clearing across from the two. No doubt, after they had passed it, it would return to the clearing and use it as a runway so it could take to the air again. But if it saw that the humans were walking slowly, it might just follow them on foot. Ravens, however, did not like to walk far.

Thinking that it had located them without being detected, it would be as smug as a raven could be. In this universe, as on most, smugness often caused a tumble into the dust.

"We must take it alive," Kickaha said.

"I know."

"For God's sake!" he said in English. Then, seeing her smile slightly, he knew that she was just having fun with him.

They crossed the clearing slowly, looking left and right and, now and then, behind them. If they did not behave cautiously, the raven would know that they were pretending carelessness to deceive an observer.