The Lavalite World

"When was the last time?"

"Oh, about five hundred years ago, I think."

"Then you must have made another world for your headquarters. One more diversified, more beautiful, I'd imagine."

Urthona smiled. "Of course. Then I also am Lord of three more, worlds which I took over after I'd killed their owners. You remember your cousin Bromion, that bitch Ethinthus, and Antamon? They're dead now, and I, I rule their worlds!"

"Do you indeed now?" Anana said. "I wouldn't say you were sitting on any thrones now. Unless you call captivity, the immediate danger of death and torture, thrones."

Urthona snarled, and said, "I'll do you as I did them, my leblabbiy-loving niece! And I'll come back here and wipe out these miserable scum! In fact, I may just wipe out this whole world! Cancel it!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ANANA SHOOK HER head. "Uncle, I was once like you. That is, utterly unworthy of life. But there was something in me that gave me misgivings. Let us call it a residue of compassion, of empathy. Deep under the coldness and cruelty and arrogance was a spark. And that spark fa

Urthona stared and said, "What in The Spi

Anana felt like hitting him. But she said, "You wouldn't ever understand. Maybe I shouldn't say ever. After all, I came to understand. But that was because I was forced to be among the leblabbiy for a long time."

"And this leblabbiy, Kickaha, this descendant of an artificial product, corrupted your mind. It's too bad the Council is no longer in effect. You'd be condemned and killed within ten minutes."

Anana ran her gaze up and down him several times, her expression contemptuous. "Don't forget, uncle, that you, too, may be the descendant of an artificial product. Of creatures created in a laboratory. Don't forget what Shambarimen speculated with much evidence to back his statement. That we, too, the Lords, the Lords, may have been made in the laboratories of beings who are as high above us as we are above the leblabbiy. Or I should say as high above them as we are supposed to be.

"After all, we made the leblabbiy in our image. Which means that they are neither above nor below us. They are us. But they don't know that, and they have to live in worlds which we created. Made, rather. We are not creators, any more than writers of fiction or painters are creators. They make worlds, but they are never able to make more than what they know. They can write or paint worlds based on elements of the known, put together in a different order in a way to make them seem to be creators.

"We, the so-called Lords, did no more than poets, writers, and painters and sculptors. We were not, and are not, gods. Though we've come to think of ourselves as such."

"Spare me your lectures," Urthona said. "I don't care for your attempts to justify your degeneracy."

Anana shrugged and said, "You're hopeless. But in a way you're right. The thing to talk about is how we can escape."

"Yeah," McKay said. "Just how we going to do that?"

"However we do it," she said, "we can't go without the knife and the axe and the Horn. We'd be helpless in this savage world without them. The chief has the axe and the Horn, so we have to get them away from him."

She didn't think she should say anything about the knife in the jeans. They'd noticed it was gone, but she had told them she'd lost it during her flight from them.

A man untied their hobbles, and they resumed the march with the others. Anana went back to her language lessons with Nurgo.

When the tribe got to the pass, it stopped again. She didn't need to ask why. The country beyond the two mountains was black with clouds in which lived a hell of lightning bolts. It would be committing suicide to venture into it. But when a whole day and night passed, and the storm still raged, she did question the youth.

"The Lord sends down thunder and lightning into this country. He topples trees and slays beasts and any human who is foolish enough to dare him."

"That is why we only go into the sea-country when his wrath has cooled off. Otherwise, we would live there all the time. The land changes shape very slowly and insignificantly. The water is full of fish, and the trees, which do not walk, are full of birds that are good to eat. The trees also bear nuts, and there are bushes, which also do not walk, that are heavy with berries. And the game is plentiful and easier caught than on the open plains.

"If we could live there all the time, we would get fat and our children would thrive and our tribe would become more numerous and powerful. But the Lord, in his great wisdom, has decreed that we can only live there for a little while. Then the clouds gather, and his lightning strikes, and the land is no place for anyone who knows what's good for him."

Anana did not, of course, understand everything he said. But she could supply the meaning from what phrases she had mastered.

She went to Urthona and asked him why he had made such an arrangement in the sea-country.

"Primarily, for my entertainment. I liked to send my palace into that land and watch the fury of the lightning, see the devastation. I was safe and snug in my palace, but I got a joy out of seeing the lightning blaze and crack around me. Then I truly felt like a god.

"Secondarily, if it weren't for their fear of being killed, the humans would crowd in. It'd be fun to watch them fight each other for the territory. In fact, it was fun during the stormless seasons. But if there were nothing to keep them from settling down there, they'd never go back into the shifting areas."

"There are, if I remember correctly, twelve of those areas. The seas and the surrounding land each cover about five million square miles. So in an area of 200,000,000 square miles there are 60,000,000 square miles of relatively stable topography. These are never separated from the main mass, and the splitoffs never occur near the seas."

"The lightning season was designed to drive beast and human out of the sea-country except at certain times. Otherwise, they'd get overcrowded."

He stopped to point at the plain. Anana turned and saw that it was now covered with herds of animals, elephants, moosoids, antelopes, and many small creatures. The mountains were dark with birds that had settled on them. And the skies were black with millions of flying creatures.

"They migrate from near and far," Urthona said. "They come to enjoy the sea and the wooded lands while they can. Then, when the storms start, they leave."

Anana wandered away. As long as she didn't get very far from the camp, she was free to roam around. She approached the chief, who was sitting on the ground and striking the ground with the axe. She squatted down before him.

"When will the storms cease?" she said.

His eyes widened. "You have learned our language very quickly. Good. Now I can ask you some questions."

"I asked one first," she said.

He frowned. "The Lord should have ceased being angry and gone back to his palace before now. Usually, the lightning would have stopped two light-periods ago. For some reason, the Lord is very angry and he is still raging. I hope he gets tired of it and goes home soon. The beasts and the birds are piling up. It's a dangerous situation. If a stampede should start, we could be trampled to death. We would have to jump into the water to save ourselves, and that would be bad because our grewigg would be lost along with our supplies."