The Gates of Creation

VI

Even as wolff ran towards the bridge, another object ap­peared. Before he had reached the gondola, he saw two more. They made him prickle with uneasiness and a sense of strangeness. He could not identify the reason for this at first. But before he reached the gondola, he knew. The objects were not drifting with the wind but were coming in at right angles to it. Something was propelling them.

On the bridge, Dugar

Communication on the island-surface during a battle was by drum. Orders to those inside the island, stationed on the ports on the sides or the hatches at the bottom, were transmitted by another means. Throughout the abuta was a network of thin narrow pipes. These were fashioned from the bones of the girrel fish, and had the prop­erty of transmitting sound quite well. The abutal could use voice over the girrel-bones up to seventy-five feet. Past this distance, a code was rapped out by a tiny hammer.

Wolff watched Dugar

"No doubt," Vala replied. She looked out across the oceans and said, "There are six now. What are they?"

"Dugar

The gliders had been fastened to the lift-bladders. The pilots got into the cockpits while the "ground" crews fitted the explosive bladder-bombs to the wings. Then the wizard, clad in robes and a mask, passed along the gliders. He carried a double-ankh with which he blessed the pilots and their craft. Between each pair of gliders, he stopped to shake the double-ankh at the ufo and hurl maledictions. Dugar

Dugar

"There are eight now," Wolff said. The nearest was a half-mile away. Ball-shaped, it had a diameter of about three hundred yards. The fuzzy appearance had been caused by the many uneven projec­tions of plants. These grew out to conceal the gas-bladders that formed irregular concentric rings. On the surface of the spheroid nest were hundreds of tiny figures. An aerial dung-ball, Wolff thought.

Dugar

"Who are the Nichiddor?"

"There's one now, coming down to take a close look."

The wings were black-feathered and had a spread of at least fifty feet. They sprouted out from the five-foot wide shoulders, below which was a hairless human torso. The breast-bone projected several feet and under it was the abdomen with a human navel. The legs were thin and ended in huge feet that were mainly clawlike toes. A long black feathered tail spread out behind it. The face was human except for the nose. This extended like an elephant's proboscis for several feet and was as flexible. As the Nichiddor swept over them, it raised the proboscis and trumpeted shrilly.

Dugar

He watched the Nichiddor flap heavily away towards the nearest nest. The creatures were undoubtedly the work of Urizen, who had placed them here for his own amusement. They must be human be­ings-although not necessarily Lords-he had transmuted in the labo­ratory. They could have been abducted from other worlds than his; some might even be descended from Earthmen. Now they lived a strange life beneath red skies and a dark moon, born and raised on an aerial nest that drifted with the winds of this landless world. They lived largely on fish, which they caught as an osprey catches fish, with their talons. But when they came across a surface or air-island, they killed to eat raw human flesh.

By now Wolff could see why the nests were going against the wind. The hundreds of Nichiddors on it had gripped the plants in their talons and were flapping their wings in unison. The foul chariot of the skies was drawn by as strange birds as ever existed.

When the nest had come within a quarter-mile, the wings stopped beating. Now the other nests drew up slowly. Two settled down­wards; from these the Nichiddor would attack the bottom of the is­land. Two others veered around behind the island and then came on the other side. Dugar

Wolff asked him why he did not order the gliders to attack.

"If they were released before the main body of Nichiddor came at us," Dugar

"Wouldn't it be wisest, from the Nichiddors' viewpoint, to elimi­nate the gliders first?" Wolff asked.

Dugar

"Then again, I could be wrong. Perhaps the Nichiddor derive a certain pleasure from giving the gliders a fighting chance. Or perhaps they are as arrogant as sea-eagles, which will attack a shark that out­weighs them by a thousand pounds, a vicious creature that an eagle ca

The wind carried to the abuta the gabble of hundreds of voices and the trumpeting of hundreds of proboscises. Suddenly, there was a silence. Dugar

The silence was broken with the united scream of Nichiddor through their snaky noses. There was a clap as of thunder as they launched themselves from the nests and brought their wings together in the first beat. Dugar

The gliders dropped from their lifts, each towards the nest ap­pointed to it. Wolff looked at the dark hordes advancing and lost some of his confidence in his beamer. Yet, the Ilmawir had beaten off attacks by the Nichiddor before-although with great loss. But never before had eight nests ringed the abuta.

A great-winged white bird passed overhead. Its cry came down to him, and he wondered if this could be an eye of Urizen. Was his fa­ther watching through the eyes and brains of these birds? If so, he was going to see a spectacle that would delight his bloody heart.