The Lavalite World

Halfway to the cha

She looked toward the pass. Coming down the slope from it was Tre

now under control. She was surprised to see that the heavy black clouds over the sea-country were fading away. And the lightning had stopped.

A minute later, several other grewigg and riders came over the top of the rise. By the time she got to the cha

Urthona had a strange expression. His green eyes were wide, and he looked pale.

"Anana! Anana!" he cried. "I saw it! I saw it!"

"Saw what?" she said.

He was trembling.

"My palace! It was on the sea! Heading out away from the shore!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OBVIOUSLY, IF HE'D been able to catch up to it, he wouldn't be here.

"How fast does it travel?" she said.

"When the drive is on automatic, one kilometer an hour."

"I don't suppose that after all this time you'd have the slightest idea what path it will take?"

He spread out his hands and shrugged his shoulders.

The situation seemed hopeless. There was no time to build a sailing boat, even if tools were available, and to try to catch up with it. But it was possible that the palace would circle around the sea and come back to this area.

"Eventually," Urthona said, "the palace will leave this country. It'll go through one of the passes. Not this one, though. It isn't wide enough."

Anana did not accept this statement as necessarily true. For all she knew, the palace contained devices which could affect the shape-changing. But if Urthona had any reason to think that the palace could come through this pass, he surely would not have told her about seeing it.

There was nothing to be done about the palace at this time. She put it out of her mind for the time being, but her uncle was a worrier. He couldn't stop talking about it, and he probably would dream about it. Just to devil him, she said, "Maybe Ore got to it when it was close to shore. He might be in the palace now. Or, more probably, he's gated through to some other world."

Urthona's fair skin became even whiter. "No! He couldn't! It would be impossible! In the first place, he wouldn't dare venture into the sea-land during the storm. In the second place, he couldn't get to it. He'd have to swim ... I think. And in the third place, he doesn't know the entrance-code."

Anana laughed.

Urthona scowled. "You just said that to upset me."

"I did, yes. But now that I think about it, Ore could have done it if he was desperate enough to risk the lightning."

McKay, who had been listening nearby, said, "Why would he take the risk unless he knew the palace was there? And how could he know it was there unless he'd already gone into the sea-land? Which he wouldn't do unless he knew ..."

Anana said swiftly, "But he could have seen it from the pass, and that might have been enough for him."

She didn't really believe this, but she wasn't too sure. When she walked away from her uncle, she wondered if Ore just might have done it. Her effort to bug Urthona had backfired. Now she was worried.

A few minutes later, the storm ceased. The thunder quit rolling; the clouds cleared as if sucked into a giant vacuum cleaner. The shaman and the chief talked together for a while, then approached Anana.

Tre

She didn't dare to show any hesitation. Her role called for her to be intimate with the Lord's plans.

If she guessed wrong, she'd lose her credibility.

"The wrath of the Lord is finished," she said. "It'll be safe now."

If the clouds appeared again and lightning struck, she would have to run away as quickly as possible.

The departure did not take place immediately, however. The animals that had bolted had to be caught, the scattered goods collected, and the ceremonies for the dead gone through. About two hours later the tribe headed for the pass. Anana was delighted to be in a country where there were trees that did not walk, and where thick woods and an open sea offered two ready avenues of flight.

The Wendow went down the long slope leading to sand beaches. The chief turned left, and the others followed. According to Nurgo, their destination lay about half a day's travel away. Their stronghold was about fifteen minutes' walk inland from the beach.

"What about the other tribes that come through the pass?" she said.

"Oh, they'll be coming through during the next few light-periods. They'll go even further up the beach, toward their camps. We were lucky that there weren't other tribes waiting at the pass, since the storms lasted longer than usual."

"Do you attack them as they pass by your stronghold?"

"Not unless we outnumber them greatly."

Further questioning cleared up some of her ignorance about their pattern of war. Usually, the tribes avoided any full-scale battles if it was possible. Belligerence was confined to raids by individuals or parties of three to five people. These were conducted during the dark-period and were mainly by young unblooded males and sometimes by a young woman accompanied by a male. The youth had to kill a man and bring back his head as proof of his or her manhood or womanhood. The greatest credit, however, was not for a head but for a child. To steal a child and bring it back for adoption into the tribe was the highest feat possible. Nurgo himself was an adopted child. He'd been snatched not long after he'd started walking. He didn't remember a thing about it, though he did sometimes have nightmares in which he was torn away from a woman without a face.

The caravan came to a place which looked just like the rest of the terrain to Anana. But the tribe recognized it with a cry of joy. Tre

The next few days were spent in fishing, gathering nuts and berries, eating, sleeping, and rebuilding the fort. Anana put some weight back on and began to feel rested. But once she had all her energy back, she became restless.

Urthona was equally fidgety. She observed him talking softly to McKay frequently. She had no doubts about the subject of their conversation, and McKay, reporting to her, gave her the details.

"Your uncle wants to take off at the first chance, But no way is he going to leave without the Horn."

"Is he pla

"He says that we, us two, him and me, that is, would have a better chance of surviving if you was to go with us. But he says you're so tricky you might get the upper hand on us when we sight the palace. So he can't make up his mind yet. But he's going to have to do it soon. Every minute passes, the palace is getting further away."

There was a silence. McKay looked as if he was chewing something but didn't know if he should swallow it or spit it out. After a minute, his expression changed.

"I got something to tell you."

He paused, then said, "Urthona told you and Kickaha that this Wolff, or Jadawin, and his woman-Chryseis?-had been gated to this world. Well, that's a lie. They somehow escaped. They're still on Earth!"

Anana did not reply at once. McKay didn't have to tell her this news. Why had he done so? Was it because he wanted to reassure her that he had indeed switched loyalties? Or had Urthona ordered McKay to tell her that so she would think he was betraying Urthona?