Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 6 - More Than Fire

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Farmer, Philip Jose - World of Tiers 6

MORE THAN FIRE

To Lynn and Julia Carl, Gary Wolfe, and Deck Weil

"THIS'LL BE IT!" KICKAHA SAID. "I KNOW IT, KNOW IT! I CAN feel the forces shaping

themselves into a big funnel pouring us onto the goal! It's just ahead! We've finally made it!"

He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Though breathing heavily, he increased his pace.

Anana was a few steps behind and below him on the steep mountain trail. She spoke to herself in a low

voice. He never paid any attention to her discouraging-that is, realistic-words, anyway.

"I'll believe it when I see it."

Kickaha the Trickster and Anana the Bright had been tramping up and down the planet of the Tripeds

for fifteen years. Their quest was not for the Holy Grail but for something even better: a way to get out

of this backwater universe. It had to exist. But where was it?

Kickaha usually looked on the cheerful side of events. If they had none, he lit the darkness with his

optimism. Once he had said to Anana, "If your jail's an entire planet, being a yardbird isn't so bad."

Anana had replied, "A prison is a prison."

Kickaha had been carrying the key to unlock the gate leading to other worlds and to the mainstream of

life. That key was Shambarimen's Horn, the ancient musical instrument he carried in a deerskin pouch

hanging from his belt. During their wanderings on this planet, he had blown the Horn thousands of

times. Each time, he had hoped that an invisible "weak" place in the fabric of the "walls" separating two

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universes would open in response to the seven notes from the Horn and make itself visible. There were

thousands of such flaws in the walls.

But so far, he had not been in an area where these existed. He knew that every time he blew the Horn, a

flaw, a way out of their vast prison, might be a hundred yards away, just out of the activating range of

the Horn. As he had said, knowing that made him feel as if he owned a ticket in the Irish Sweepstakes.

The chances of his winning that would be very, very low.

If he could find a gate, an exit deliberately made by a Lord and often evident as such, he would have

won the lottery. The natives of this planet had heard rumors of gates, or what could be gates. Countless

rumors. Kickaha and Anana had followed these, sometimes for hundreds of miles, to their sources. So

far, they had found only disappointment and more rumors to set them off on another long trail. But

today, Kickaha was sure that their efforts would pay off.

The trail was leading them upward through a forest. Many of the giant trees smelled to Kickaha like

sauerkraut juice mixed with pear juice. The odor meant that the leaves at the tips of the branches would

soon be mutating into a butterflylike, but vegetable, creature. The brightly colored organisms would tear

themselves away from the rotting twigs. They would flutter off, unable to eat, unable to do anything but

soar far away before they died. Then, if they were not eaten by birds on the way, if they landed on a

hospitable spot, the very tiny seeds within their bodies would sprout into saplings a month later.

The many marvels on this planet made it easier to endure their forced stay on it, Kickaha thought. But

the longer they were here, the more time it gave their archenemy, Red Orc, to track them down. And

Kickaha also thought often of his friends, Wolff and Chryseis, who had been imprisoned by Red Orc.

Had they been killed by Red Orc, or had they managed to escape?

Kickaha, who on Earth had been named Paul Janus Finnegan, was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular.

The exceptional thickness of his powerfully muscled legs made him look shorter. He was deeply sun-

browned; his shoulder-length and slightly curly hair was red-bronze; his face was craggy, long-lipped,

and usually merry. His large wide-set eyes were as green as spring leaves.

Though he looked as if he were twenty-five years old, he had been born on Earth seventy-four years ago.

Buckskin moccasins and a belt were his only clothing. His belt held a steel knife and a tomahawk. On

his back was a small pack and a quiver full of arrows. One hand held a long bow.

Behind him came Anana the Bright, tall, black-haired, blue-eyed, and also sun-browned. She came from

a people who thought of themselves as deities, and she did look like a goddess. But she was no Venus. A

classical scholar seeing her slim and exceptionally long legs and greyhound body would think of the

hunting goddess, Artemis. However, goddesses did not perspire, and Anana's sweat ran from her.

She, too, wore only moccasins and a belt. Her weapons were the same as Kickaha's except for the long

spear in one hand, and she bore a knapsack on her back.

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Kickaha was thinking about the natives who had directed them up this path. They had seemed certain

that the Door to the Sleeper's Tomb was on top of the mountain. He hoped that the door was a gate. The

natives he had questioned had never been to the mountaintop because they did not have the goods to

give the Guardian of the Door for answers to their questions. But they knew somebody who knew

somebody who knew somebody who had visited the Guardian.

This was probably another disappointing journey. But they could not afford to ignore any rumor or tale

about anything that could be a Lord's gate. Anyway, what else did they have to do?

A little more than a decade and a half ago, he and Anana had escaped from the Lavalite World into the

World of Tiers. Then, he had been very confident that they would soon be able to do what must be done.

Their adventures on the Lavalite World, that planet of insecurity, instability, and constantly shifting

shape, had been harrowing. Kickaha and Anana had rested for several weeks after escaping from it to the

World of Tiers. Then, having renewed themselves with rest and fun, they had sought out and found a

gate that teleported them to Wolff's palace, now uninhabited. This was on top of the monolith on top of

the World of Tiers.

They had armed themselves in the palace with some of the weapons of the Lords, weapons superior to

anything on Earth. Then they had activated a gate that had previously passed them to a cave in a

Southern California mountain. This was the cave through which Kickaha had first come back to Earth

after many years of absence.

But when he and Anana had stepped through the gate, they had found themselves on a planet in this

artificial universe, the Whaziss world. The gate had been a one-way trap, and Kickaha did not know who

had set it up.

Kickaha had boasted more than once that no prison or trap could hold him long. Now, if those words

could be given substance, he would have to eat them. They would taste like buzzard dung sprinkled with

wood ashes.

Yesterday, he and Anna had stopped two-thirds of the way up the mountain and camped for the night.

They had continued their climb at dawn and thus should, by now, be close to the top.

Five minutes later, he heard the voices of children drifting down the path. Within two minutes, they

stepped over the edge of the small plateau.

The village in the middle of the plateau was much like others in this area. A circular wall of upright and

pointed logs enclosed approximately forty log houses with conical roofs. In the center of the village was

a temple, a two-story log building with a round tower on top and many carvedwood idols in and around

it.

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If the natives' stories were true, the temple could contain a gate. According to these, the building

contained a vertical structure of "divine" metal. Its thin beams formed a six-sided opening into the world

of the gods. Or, as some stories said, a door to the world of the demons.

The natives also said that the hexagon had been on the top of the hill before the natives were created by

the gods. The gods-or the demons had used the opening long before the natives came into being and

would use it long after the natives had become extinct.

The first one to tell Kickaha this story was Tsash. He was a priest of a deity that had once been very

minor but was now up-and-coming, and perhaps destined to be number one on this island the size of

Earth's Greenland.

Tsash had said, "The Door to the Other world is open. Anyone may step through it. But he will only find

himself on the other side of the six angled door and still in our world unless he can utter the magical

word. And there is no assurance that he who does know the word will like what he finds on the other

side."

"And just where is this door?" Kickaha had said.

Tsash had waved his hand westward. The gesture took in a lot of territory, since he was standing in a

temple on a cliff on the shore of the Eastern Sea.

"Out there. It is said that the Door is in a temple-dedicated to what god, I do not know-which is on a

hilltop. But then, all temples are on the tops of high hills or mountains."

"How many temples are there in this land?" Kickaha had said.

"Only the gods could count them, they are so numerous!"

He had lifted both four-fingered hands above his head, and he had cried, "Do not use the Door even if

you find the magical word to open it!

You may awake the Sleeper! Do not do that! You will die the Undying Death!"

"Which is what?" Kickaha had said.

"I do not know, and I do not wish to know!" Tsash had shouted.

Kickaha had asked more questions, but Tsash seemed to have submerged himself in prayer. His huge

eyes were closed, and the mouth under the green hair growing all over his face was murmuring

something rhythmic and repetitive.

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Kickaha and Anana had left the temple and set out westward. Fifteen years later, after going up and

down and around but always working toward the Western Sea, they were on another mountaintop with a

temple on it. Kickaha was excited. He believed that the long-sought gate was inside the building.

Despite the many failures and consequent disappointments,he allowed himself to believe that their quest

was at an end. Perhaps "allowed" was not the correct word. He had no control over his enthusiasms.

They came and went as they pleased; he was the conduit.

If Anana was delighted or expectant, she did not show it. Many thousands of years of life had rubbed

away much of her zest. Being in love with Kickaha and sharing his adventures had restored some of this-

far more, in fact, than she had expected. Time was a chisel that had reshaped the original substance of

her spirit. Yet it had taken that relentless dimension a long, long time to do it.

"This has to be it!" Kickaha said. "I feel it in the bones of my bones!"

She patted his right cheek. "Every time we get to a temple, our chances to succeed increase. Provided, of

course, that there is any gate on this planet."

The children playing outside the wall ran screaming toward them. Kickaha figured that they must have

been forewarned. Otherwise, they would have run screaming away from them. The children surrounded

the two and milled around, touching them, chattering away, marveling at the two-legged beings. A

moment later, a band of armed males chased the youngsters away. Immediately afterward, the priest

appeared in the village gate and waved a long wooden shaft at them. The outer end of this sported a

scarlet propellor spun by the wind. Halfway down the shaft was a yellow disc bearing on its surface

several sacred symbols.

Behind the priest came two minor priests, each whirling above his head a bull-roarer.

All the natives were naked. They were, however, adorned with bracelets and with ear-, nose-, and lip-

rings. Their heads and faces were covered with a short greenish fur except for the chin region.

And they were three-legged.

Ololothon, the Lord who had long ago made their ancestors in his biology factory, had been very cruel.

He had made the tripeds as an experiment. Then, having determined that they were functional though

slow and awkward, Ololothon had let them loose to breed and to spread over this planet. They had no

generic name for themselves, but Kickaha called them the Whazisses. They looked so much like the

illustrations of a creature called a Whaziss in a fantasy, Johnny Gruelle's Johnny Mouse and the Wishing

Stick, which Kickaha had read when very young.

Kickaha called out in the dialect of the locals, "Greetings, Krazb, Guardian of the Door and holiest priest

of the deity Afresst! I am Kickaha, and my mate is Anana!"

Word of mouth had carried the news of the funny-looking bipeds and their quest to Krazb many months

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file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/New%20Folde...0Jose%\20-%20World%20of%20Tiers%206%20-%20More%20Than%20Fire.txtFarmer,PhilipJose-WorldofTiers6MORETHANFIREToLynnandJuliaCarl,GaryWolfe,andDeckWeil1"THIS'LLBEIT!"KICKAHASAID."IKNOWIT,KNOWIT!ICANfeeltheforce\sshapingthemselvesintoabigf...

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Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 6 - More Than Fire

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