The Lavalite World

The gate was a single piece composed of upright poles to which horizontal and tanverse bars had been tied with leather cords. Instead of hinges, it was co

So far, no one had raised an outcry. The sentinel might wake at any moment. On the other hand, he might sleep all night. He was supposed to be relieved after a two-hour watch. There was no such thing as an "hour" in the tribe's vocabulary, but

these people had a rough sense of passage of time. When the sentinel thought that he'd stood watch long enough, he would descend from the platform and wake up the man delegated to succeed him. The beasts were passed through, the gate lifted and carried back, and the cords retied. The three mounted and rode off slowly in the half-light, heading down the hill. The moosoids grunted now and then, unhappy at being mounted at this ungodly hour. When the three were about a hundred yards from where they knew the first sentinel was placed, they halted. Anana got off and slipped through the brush until she saw the pale figure sitting with its back against the bole of a tree. Snores buzz-sawed from it.

It was an easy matter to walk up to the man and bring down the flat of her axe on top of his head. He fell over, his snores continuing. She ran back and told the two it was safe to continue. Urthona wanted to slit the man's throat, but Anana said it wasn't necessary. The guard would be unconscious for a long while.

The second sentinel was walking back and forth to keep himself awake. He strode down the hill for fifty paces or so, wheeled, and climbed back up the twenty-degree slope. He was muttering a song, something about the heroic deeds of Sheerkun.

In this comparative stillness, it would be difficult to make a detour around him without his hearing them. He had to be gotten out of the way.

Anana waited until he had turned at the end of his round, ran out behind him, and knocked him out with the flat of her axe. She went back and told the others the way was clear for a while.

When they could see the paleness of the white sand shore and the darkness of the sea beyond, they stopped. The last of the sentinels was in a giant tree near the beach. Anana said, "There's no use trying to get to him. But he can yell as loudly as he wishes. There's nobody to relay his message to the village."

They rode out boldly onto the sand. The expected outcry did not come. Either the sentinel was dozing or he did not recognize them and believed some of his tribesmen were there for a legitimate reason. Or perhaps he did recognize them but dared not question the agents of the Lord.

When they were out of his sight, the three stopped. After filling the waterbags, they resumed their flight, if a leisurely pace could be called a flight. They plodded on steadily, silent, each occupied with his or her own thoughts.

There didn't seem to be any danger from Tre

"Dawn" came with the first paling of the bands in the sky. As the light increased, they continued. They stopped only to excrete or to drink from the sea and to allow their beasts to quench their thirst. At dusk they went into the woods. Finding a hollow surrounded by trees, they slept in it most of the night through. They were wakened several times by the howling of dogs and roars of big cats. However, no predators came near. At "dawn" they resumed their journey. At "noon," they came to the place which would lead them up to the pass.

Here Anana reined in her moosoid. She made sure that she wasn't close to them before she spoke. Her left hand was close to the hilt of her sheathed knife-she was ambidextrous-and if she had to, she could drop the reins and snatch out her axe. The men carried flint-tipped spears and had available some heavy war-boomerangs.

"I'm going up to the pass and look over the valley from there," she said. "For Kickaha, of course."

Urthona opened his mouth as if to protest. Then he smiled, and said, "I doubt it. See." He pointed up the slope.

She didn't look at once. He might be trying to get her to turn her head and thus give him a chance to attack.

McKay's expression, however, indicated that her uncle was pointing at something worth looking at. Or had he arranged beforehand that McKay would pretend to do such if an occasion arose for it?

She turned the beast quickly and moved several yards away. Then she looked away.

From the top of the slope down to the beach was a wide avenue, carpeted by the rust-colored grass. It wasn't a manmade path; nature, or, rather, Urthona, had designed it. It gave her an unobstructed view of the tiny figures just emerging from the pass. Men on moosoids. Behind them, women and children and more beasts.

Another tribe was entering the sea-land.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"LET'S SPLIT!" McKay said.

Anana said, "You can if you want to. I'm going to see if Kickaha is with them. Maybe he was captured by them."

Urthona bit his lip. He looked at the black man, then at his niece. Apparently, he decided that now was no time to try to kill her. He said, "Very well. What do you intend to do? Ride up to them and ask if you can check them out?"

Anana said, "Don't be sarcastic, uncle. We'll hide in the woods and watch them."

She urged her gregg into the trees. The others followed her, but she made sure that they did not get too close to her back. When she got to a hill which gave a good view through the trees, she halted. Urthona directed his beast toward her, but she said, "Keep your distance, uncle!"

He smiled, and stopped his moosoid below her. All three sat on their grewigg for a while, then, tiring of waiting, got off.

"It'll be an hour before they get here," Urthona said. "And what if those savages turn right? We'll be between the Wendow and this tribe. Caught."

"If Kickaha isn't among them," she said. "I intend to go up the pass after they go by and look for him. I don't care what you want to do. You can go on."

McKay gri

The grewigg seized bushes and low treelimbs with their teeth, tore them off, and ground the leaves to pulp. Their empty bellies rumbled as the food passed toward their big bellies. The flies gathered above beasts and humans and settled over them. The big green insects were not as numerous here as on the plains, but there were enough to irritate the three. Since they had not as yet attained the indifference of the natives, their hands and heads and shoulders were in continuous motion, batting, jerking, shrugging.

Then they were free of the devils for a while. A dozen little birds, blue with white breasts, equipped with wide flat almost duckish beaks, swooped down. They swirled around the people and the beasts, catching the insects, gulping them down, narrowly averting aerial collisions in their circles. They came very close to the three, several times brushing them with the woods. In two minutes those flies not eaten had winged off for less dangerous parts.

"I'm glad I invented those birds," Urthona said. "But if I'd known I was going to be in this situation, I'd never have made the flies."

"Lord of the flies," Anana said. "Beezlebub is thy name."

Urthona said, "What?" Then he smiled. "Ah, yes, now I remember."