The Lavalite World

Urthona looked surprised. "Someone else got into here?"

"That tells me how much you know. Well, maybe I'll run across him some other time. Urthona, your niece has explained something about the energy converter that powers this floating fairy castle. She told me that any converter can be set to overload, but an automatic regulator will cut it back to override that. Unless you remove the regulator. I want you to fix the overload to reach its peak in fifteen minutes. You'll cut the regulator out of the line."

Urthona paled. "Why? You ... you mean to blow me up?"

"No. You'll be long gone from here when it blows. I intend to destroy your palace. You'll never be able to use it again."

Urthona didn't ask what would happen if he refused. Under the keen eye of Anana, he set the controls. A large red light began flashing on a console. A display flashed, in Lord letters, OVERLOAD. A whistle shrilled.

Even Anana looked uneasy. Kickaha smiled, though he was as nervous as anybody.

"Okay. Now open the gates to Earth and to Jadawin's world."

He had carefully noted the control which could put the overload regulator back into the line if Urthona tried any tricks.

"I know you can't help being treacherous and sneaky, Urthona," Kickaha said. "But repress your natural viciousness. Refrain from pulling a fast one. My beamer's set on cutting. I'll slice you at the first false move."

Urthona did not reply.

On the towering blank wall two circular shimmerings appeared. They cleared away. One showed the inside to a cave, the same one through which Kickaha and Anana had entered southern California. The other revealed the slope of a wooded valley, a broad green river at the foot. And, far away, smoke rising from the chimneys of a tiny village and a stone castle on a rocky bluff above it. The sky was a bright green.

Kickaha looked pleased.

"That looks like Dracheland. The third level, Abharhploonta. Either of you ever been there?"

"I've made some forays into Jadawin's world," Urthona said. I pla

"Take over from Jadawin? Forget it. Now, Urthona, activate agate that'll take you to the surface of your planet."

Urthona gasped and said, "But you said ... ! Surely ... ? You're not going to abandon me here?"

"Why not? You made this world. You can live in it the rest of your life. Which will probably be short and undoubtedly will be miserable. As the Terrestrials say, let the punishment fit the crime."

"That isn't right!" Urthona said. "You are letting Ore go back to Earth. It isn't what I'd call a first-rate world, but compared to this, it's a paradise."

"Look who's talking about right. You're not going to beg, are you? You, a lord among the Lords?"

Urthona straightened his shoulders. "No. But if you think you've seen the last of me ..."

"I know. I've got another think coming. I wouldn't be surprised. I'll bet you have a gate to some other world concealed in a boulder. But you aren't letting on. Think you'll catch me by surprise some day, heh? After you find the boulder-if you do. Good luck. I may be bored and need some stiff competition. Get going."

Urthona walked up to the wall. Anana spoke sharply. "Kickaha! Stop him!" He yelled at the Lord, "Hold it, or I'll shoot!" Urthona stopped but did not turn. "What is it, Anana?"

She glanced at a huge chronometer on a wall. "Don't you know there's still danger? How do you know what he's up to? What might happen when he gives the codeword? It'll be better to wait until the last minute. Then Ore can go through, and you can shut the gate behind him. After that, we'll go through ours. And then Urthona can gate. But he can do it with no one else around."

"Yeah, you're right," Kickaha said. "I was so eager to get back I rushed things."

He shouted, "Urthona! Turn around and walk back here!"

Kickaha didn't hear Urthona say anything. His voice must have been very soft. But the words were loud enough for whatever sensor was in the wall to detect them.

A loud hissing sounded from the floor and the ceilings and the walls. From thousands of tiny perforations in the i

Kickaha breathed in just enough of the metallic odor to make him want to choke. He held his breath then, but his eyes watered so that he could not see Urthona making his break. Red Ore was suddenly out of sight, too. Anana, a dim figure in the green mists, stood looking at him. One hand was pinching her nose and the other was over her mouth. She was signalling to him not to breathe.

She would have been too late, however. If he had not acted immediately to shut off his breath, he would, he was sure, be dead by now. Unconscious, anyway.

The gas was not going to harm his skin. He was sure of that. Otherwise, Urthona would have been caught in the deadly trap.

Anana turned and disappeared in the green. She was heading toward the gate to the world of tiers. He began ru

And then he saw, dimly, Urthona's back as he sped through the gate to the world which Kickaha loved so much.

Kickaha felt as if he would have to cough. Nevertheless, he fought against the reflex, knowing that if he drew in one full breath, he would be done for.

Then he was through the entrance. He didn't know how high the gate was above the mountain slope, but he had no time for caution. He fell at once, landed on his buttocks, and slid painfully on a jumble of loose rocks. It went at a forty-five degree angle to the horizontal for about two hundred feet, then suddenly dropped off. He rolled over and clawed at the rocks. They cut and tore into the chest and his hands, but he dug in no matter how it hurt.

By then he was coughing. No matter. He was out of the green clouds which now poured out of the hole in the mountain face.

He stopped. Slowly, afraid that if he made a too vigorous movement he'd start the loose stones to sliding, he began crawling upward. A few rocks were dislodged. Then he saw Anana. She had gotten to the side of the gate and was clinging with one hand to a rocky ledge. The other held the Horn. Her eyes were huge, and her face was pale.

She shouted, "Get up here and away! As fast as you can! The converter is going to blow soon!" He knew that. He yelled at her to get out of the area. He'd be up there in a minute. She looked as if she were thinking of coming down to help him, then she began working her way along the steep slope. He crawled at an angle toward the ledge she had grabbed. Several times he started sliding back, but he managed to stop his descent.

Finally, he got off the apron of stones. He rose to a crouch and, grabbing handsful of grass, pulled himself up to the ledge. Holding onto this with one hand, he worked his way as swiftly as he dared away from the hole.

Just as he got to a point above a slight projection of the mountain, a stony half-pout, the mountain shook and bellowed. He was hurled outward to land flat on his face on the miniledge.

The loose rocks slid down and over the edge, leaving the stone beneath it as bare as if a giant broom had swept it.

Silence except for the screams of some distant birds and a faint rumble as the stones slid to a halt far below. Anana said, "It's over, Kickaha."

He turned slowly to see her looking around a spur of rock.

"The gate would have closed the moment its activator was destroyed. We got only a small part of the blast, thank God. Otherwise, the whole mountain would've been blown up."

He got up and looked alongside the slope. Something stuck out from the pile below. An arm?

"Did Urthona get away?"

She shook her head. "No, he went over the edge. He didn't have much of a drop, about twenty feet, before he hit the second slope. But the rocks caught him."