The World of Tiers Volume Two: Behind the Walls of Terra, the Lavalite World, Red Orc's Rage, and More Than Fire

by Philip José Farmer

  Then the floor came up at him. He struck it very hard, and it buckled and broke open against his fallen body. He was vaguely aware that the console was skittering over the floor, hurling aside Ashatelon, who had been standing at its corner. Something hit him hard in the back, and he lost consciousness. The last things he heard were a deep rumbling, a crashing like an avalanche, and his own feeble voice crying out.

  21

  Pain awoke him. His head, nose, neck, lower back, and right elbow hurt. His legs were numb from his hips downward. But they were not so deadened that he could not feel the heaviness pressing them down. All he could see through the helmet, which was covered with a very thin layer of white dust, was the tiled floor. A large crack in it was just below him. His nose was flattened against the front of his globed helmet. When he licked his lips, he tasted blood.

  The room was silent except for a single muffled groan from somewhere. He called out. Silence answered him.

  He tried to roll over, but his legs were pressed down against the floor. While struggling to pull himself free, he saw green boots sticking out from a pile of cement blocks mixed with fragments of various materials. They were lightly covered by the plaster dust covering everything in the room. But parts of the boots were not so veiled that he could not see that they were green. Ashatelon was the only one wearing green footwear.

  When he lowered his head and turned it to his right, his vision was blocked by a metal ceiling beam an inch from his helmet. Tom loose from its wall support, the beam had probably struck one side of his curved helmet. The impact had hurled him to one side so that his shoulder had just missed being crushed by the beam.

  He strove to drag himself forward to escape whatever it was that felt like a Titan’s thumbs pressing down on his legs. Not until he was breathing very hard and was exhausted did he stop. At least, he had managed to move forward several inches. Or was that wishful thinking?

  After lying still a few minutes, he began struggling again. He quit that when he suddenly saw the huge, dusty, light-blue boots of Manathu Vorcyon before him. Her voice filled his helmet.

  “Lie still, Kickaha. I’ll try to lift this beam from your legs.”

  The boots disappeared. Presently, after much grunting and many expletives, she said, panting, “I cannot do it. I will get my boat, if I can find it in this mess and use it to haul up the beam. There is a rope in the supply bag on the boat.”

  While she was gone, Wemathol came to Kickaha. He croaked when he spoke. “She told me to dig the debris from around the beam. Just lie still, Kickaha. You cannot do anything until she gets back.”

  “As if I didn’t know that,” Kickaha muttered. He longed for a tall glass of iced water.

  He heard scraping sounds and a loud panting for some time. Then Wemathol said, “There is a chance your legs might not be crushed. They were buried in debris before the beam fell on top of the pile.”

  “I can feel something now,” Kickaha said. “The numbness is going away.”

  The giantess came on an airboat. She had had to tear away a mass of debris before she could uproot it. It was not hers, but it was the only one she could find. She helped the clone dig out the debris on top of and around the massive beam. Then she got the rope through the space beneath it. Within a few minutes, it was lifted up far enough for Wemathol to drag Kickaha out from under it. She landed the boat and got off it to examine Kickaha.

  His legs would not yet obey him. He sat, leaning against the pile of debris, while Manathu Vorcyon felt his legs through the cloth. She reported that they did not seem to be broken, but she would have to examine them after his clothes were off. Then she said, “Ashatelon is dead.”

  “I’m surprised he is. He seemed to be a survivor.”

  “Time makes sure that nobody is.”

  Kickaha looked up at what was left of the ceiling. Only its outer part was left, but the collapsed story above that had plugged up the hole. Parts of it looked as if they would soon fall through. Moreover, the broken wall of this room had spilled out into the hallway. While he was looking at the damage, the building shifted slightly, and the other walls became even more cracked. The far end of the ceiling collapsed with a roar and a cloud of white plaster dust, plunging into the room and forming a great mound that reached up through the gaping hole.

  He said, “Maybe we should get out of here.”

  Before she could reply, Wemathol came into the room after exploring the hallway.

  “We’re not on Earth II!”

  Kickaha and the giantess spoke as if they were one person. “What? How do you know?”

  “I could see the sky through a small opening in a part of the hallway ceiling. A stone pillar must have fallen from the palace roof and pierced through all the floors of the rooms above. There is not much of the sky to see, but it is enough. It is green.”

  Kickaha said, “That means …”

  “It means,” the Great Mother said, “that Khruuz wrapped up the entire palace, perhaps some of the surrounding grounds, in a gate and transported it to this universe. That took great power. It would also take some time to be arranged. He must have set it up before he came to this room with Dingsteth. When the palace came through the gate, it was up in the air, by accident or design, and it fell. It could not have been very high above the surface or we would be dead.”

  “Just what I was going to say,” Kickaha said. He looked around. “Where’s Dingsteth?”

  “It’s either buried under a pile or it woke up before we did and walked off. It may have been in a daze. But I would assume that, if it did wander away, it will not get far because of its wounds.”

  “It was half flesh and half electronic circuits,” Kickaha said. “Its recovery powers must be greater than ours. Is there a trail of blood leading out of the room?”

  “No,” she said. “But Dingsteth was next to you when the palace collapsed. It should have been hit by the same beam that came close to smashing you.”

  “Or it’s seeking Khruuz so it can get revenge,” Wemathol said.

  “With its hands bound behind its back?” the giantess said.

  Kickaha cried, “Anana!” He tried to get up, but his legs were still too weak. At least they were showing signs of getting their strength back.

  The woman and the clone looked at each other but said nothing. They knew what Kickaha was envisioning: Anana in a suite of rooms inside the building but sealed off from the rest of it. The only access was through a gate. But the wall containing the gate activator could be buried under rubble.

  Red Orc would be in a similar situation. Kickaha was not worried about him.

  Manathu Vorcyon, however, was more concerned than he about the Thoan. She said, “It is possible that the collapse might not have buried them. It could have opened a way for Anana, and Red Orc, too, to get out of their rooms.”

  “Not very likely,” Wemathol said.

  “Anything is possible. But we cannot take a chance. We have to locate Khruuz and also determine if Red Orc did get away.”

  “Aren’t you going to look for Anana?” Kickaha said.

  “Later,” Manathu Vorcyon said. “Wemathol, you come with me. I am sorry, Kickaha, but we cannot wait for you to recover. Khruuz would not have stayed inside the palace when he gated it to this place. He would have taken another gate to it after it was transported. He would not care to be in the palace when it was transmitted to here, wherever this is. It is certain that he’ll be looking for us. I am surprised that he has not come back to this room by now.”

  “He’s somewhere around here, waiting to ambush us,” Wemathol said. He looked around nervously.

  The Great Mother decided that they should remove their tanks, backpacks, helmets, and suits.

  “They slow us down, and I doubt we have to guard against poison gas,” she said. When she and the clone had stripped down, they put on their weapons belts. Then they removed Kickaha’s suit and helped him strap on his belt. In addition to his weapons, the Horn of Shambarimen was attache
d to the belt.

  Wemathol removed the radio sets, which were attached by suction discs to the interior of the globed helmets. The three stuck these on their wrists.

  The air was dusty and getting hot. The palace must have landed in a tropical area, Kickaha thought.

  He watched the two ride away on the boat, which had two seats in tandem and was a very thin and lightweight metal structure supporting a small motor, a small storage space, and two rotatable beamers. The Great Mother was at the controls. Wemathol sat behind her. Kickaha was to stay behind the pile but keep on guard. His gate detector was in a small pouch hanging from the belt. A canteen was by him, and his beamer was in his hand, ready to shoot if the scaly man or Red Orc appeared. Though the room did not seem to be accessible behind him, he looked there now and then. The large masses of rubble might conceal an opening into the room approachable from the other side of the wall.

  All was silent except for the occasional creaks caused by the shifting parts of the ruins. Anybody in here with good sense should get out of the structure before all of it crashes, he thought. But anybody with good sense wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. And I still hurt very much.

  It seemed improbable that Khruuz could be tuned in to their radio frequencies, but it was best not to chance it. They were to use the radios only if a situation absolutely required it.

  He felt helpless. Though he usually was content to be alone, he would have been glad to hear a human voice. Also, that the entire building might collapse and bury him at any moment made time seem to stretch out like a glowing hot wire in a drawing machine. If it got too thin, it snapped. That would be when the debris suspended above him fell through the ceiling.

  He was beginning to sweat a lot from the increasing heat. However, the numbness of his legs seemed to be completely gone. Though they still pained him, he stood up. He was shaky but getting stronger. He drank deeply from the canteen Manathu Vorcyon had given him. A few minutes later, he walked out of the room. No use staying here. Not when Khruuz was prowling around out there and armed with God only knew what.

  The going was not so tough at first. Though what was left of the hallway was jammed halfway up to the open ceiling, he could scramble up, slipping sometimes, crawl through the space between the top of the mound and the ceiling, where there was ceiling, and slide down the other side of the mounds. A beam of pale light slanted from the opening Wemathol had mentioned. Kickaha looked up through it. No mistake. The sky was green.

  Beyond the hallway was a room the size of two Imperial palace ballrooms. But it was shattered. He was confronted with numerous obstacles: hillocks and dales of plaster chunks, pieces of wood, stone slabs and blocks, broken and unbroken marble pillars, marble chunks, and greater-than-life-sized stone statues. Many of the slabs and pillars and statues were sticking up at a slant from the mounds like cannons from the ruins of a fort. Also protruding were jagged broken-off legs and backs of chairs and tables; dented metal and wooden cabinets; broken bottles, the odors of spilled beer and wine making the air pungent; twisted and broken chandeliers; and warped frames of large paintings, the cloth fragments hanging from them. Getting over or around these made him sweat. The perspiration mingled with the white dust, covered his body and hair, and ran down into his eyes, stinging them. He thought that he must look like a pale ghost with scary red eyes.

  Now and then, he took the gate-detector out of a belt pouch and turned it on. The instrument lit up a dozen times. But he could not use the Horn now to open them. Khruuz might be within hearing range.

  The Great Mother had said that she and Wemathol would go to the northeast corner of the palace. From there, they would separate for individual searches. Once the scaly man was taken care of, they would find each other by radio. Kickaha headed toward the northeast section of the palace, but he was forced to take a circuitous path. Despite his strenuous climbing, his legs were gaining, not losing, strength.

  When he got to the tremendous heap of debris on the other side of the huge room, he seemed to have deviated from a straight path. Manathu Vorcyon and Wemathol had probably ascended through an opening to the second story and then to the third. But he could not even see entrances to the next room. Towering peaks of debris blocked his view.

  He began going up the slope of rubble but slid back now and then. The sliding material made noises. Near the top of the mound was an opening to a tunnel of sorts. It seemed to go through the pile and into the wall, which was somehow still standing. He used a tiny flashlight to illuminate the interior of the tunnel, which had been formed by accident. Two huge marble columns coming in almost parallel angles to each other but slanting somewhat downward had punched through the wall and stopped side by side. The big hole they must have made in the wall had been plugged up by a mass of large fragments. Stone slabs had crashed down to make a roof over the pillars. The pillars were not so close to each other that there was no space for him to move forward, molelike, between them. Some debris half-blocked the passageway, which pointed upward at about ten degrees from the horizontal. But he had room enough to pass the stuff half-blocking the tunnel behind him. Beyond the dark tunnel was light, feeble but brighter than that in this cramped space. If he could get through it to the next room, he would be coming out in a place an enemy lurking there would not expect. He began worming his way through it.

  Though he was making as little noise as possible, he was not quiet enough. For a second, he envisioned Khruuz standing to one side at the end of the tunnel, waiting for anyone who came through it. No. If the scaly man was there, he would shoot his beamer rays down its length when he heard noise in the tunnel and would slice his enemy. In any event, he, Kickaha, could not stop going forward. And why would the scaly man be there? He wouldn’t know there was a tunnel there.

  When he cautiously poked his head from the thirty-foot-long passageway, he saw that he was near the top of a mountain of debris. Most of the ceiling of this gigantic room had fallen through and, perhaps, some of the floor of the third story. He took his time looking at the ruins below him. If anyone was hiding down there, he would have to be behind a very large mound near the wall at the other side.

  His beamer in one hand, he slid down on his back. He silently cursed the noise he could not help making. When he got to the bottom, scratched and bleeding from small gashes and smarting from plaster dust in the wounds, he waited a while for an attack. None came. He went over smaller piles and then found behind the second mountainous ruin a gaping hole in the wall. It was large enough for a Sherman tank to pass through. In fact, it looked as if a tank had made the hole. He did not know what kept the rest of the much-cracked wall from collapsing.

  He stepped through the hole after sticking his head through it to scout the territory. Above him, all the stories had partly fallen through. Down here, the light was almost that of dusk. Up there, it was bright. He could see a much larger piece of the green sky than he had seen in the hallway.

  The heavens around the World of Tiers were the same color. Could Khruuz have gated the palace to the planet shaped like the Tower of Babylon? If so, why did he choose it? Or … No use speculating.

  A pile of timbers and stone stuck out several feet from a twenty-foot-high jumble to his left. He had just seen something stir in the darkness under the ledge. The shapeless mass, covered with white dust, could be a man. He looked closely at it and finally determined that it had its back to him. That might be a ruse. Whoever it was could have seen him, then turned away to make him think he saw a dead or badly injured person. When he heard Kickaha’s footsteps, he would twist his body to face him and would shoot. Maybe.

  Kickaha got into a sort of ready-made foxhole in the rubble and then fired a beam near the figure’s head. That would startle anyone who didn’t have absolute control of his nerves. But the man did not move. Kickaha got out of the hole with the least noise possible and walked slowly along a curve toward the ledge. When he got within twenty feet of it, he saw that the figure was neither Khruuz nor Red Orc. It
was Dingsteth. But his hands were no longer tied behind his back.

  The creature must have ceased bleeding. It certainly had left no trail. Kickaha still did not go directly to it. When he stopped by it, he was half-concealed by the pile. He leaned over and poked the back of its head with the end of his beamer. It groaned.

  “Dingsteth!” Kickaha said.

  It muttered something. He dragged it out from under the ledge and turned it over. Under the dust on its skin were many black spots. Burns? Unable to hear distinctly what it was saying, Kickaha glanced around, then got to his knees and put an ear close to Dingsteth’s mouth. Though his position made him feel vulnerable, he kept it.

  “It’s me, Kickaha,” he said softly.

  It said, “Khruuz … not believe that …”

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “Kickaha! Khruuz … when I said … not have data … in my brain … tortured me … did not believe me … took me along … got away … Zazel … proud of me.”

  “I’ll get help for you,” Kickaha said. “It may take some time …”

  He stopped. Dingsteth’s eyes were open. His mouth, filled with the diamond teeth, was still.

  He had to break radio silence. Manathu Vorcyon would want to know about this. He called her at once, and she replied at once. After he told her what had happened, she said, “I am still where I told you we were going. I sent Wemathol to look for you. If he does not find you at the end of ten minutes, he will return to me.”

  If Wemathol was going to take only ten minutes for the search, he would be in the airboat. After twelve minutes had passed, he used the radio to ask Wemathol to report. But the clone did not reply.

  Manathu Vorcyon’s voice came immediately. “Something may have happened to Wemathol! I will give him two more minutes to report.”

  Which is mostly up and down and around and along, he thought. Fifteen minutes later, he stopped to give his aching legs time to recharge. When he felt stronger, he got to his feet and plodded on. Shortly thereafter, he came to another large area. Parts of the roof had fallen down on it. The sun blazed down through the opening but was past its zenith. It shone near one end of the room where a winding staircase by the wall had somehow escaped being smashed. Its upper part, shorn of its banister, protruded from the peak of a very high mound. He climbed to its top, though not without slipping and sliding and making noise. The staircase, made of some hardwood, seemed to be stable. He went up it slowly, looking above and below him at every step.