The Gates of Creation

by Philip José Farmer

  Urizen advanced towards the bars but he was careful not to touch them. Wolff warned the others back in a low voice. He walked up to the bars as if he meant to grip them. Urizen watched him with deep-sunken and feverish eyes but did not open his mouth. A few inches from the bars, Wolff stopped and said, "Do you still hate us so much, Father, that you would let us die?"

  He raked the bars with the tip of an arrow; veins of light ran over the metal.

  Urizen smiled grimly and spoke in a hollow, pain-shot voice, "Touching the bars is only painful, not fatal. Ah, Jadawin, you were always a fox! No one but you could have gotten this far. No one but you and your sister, Vala, and perhaps Red Orc."

  "So she did evade all your traps and snared the snarer," Wolff said. "She is indeed a remarkable woman, my sister."

  "Where is she?" Urizen asked. "Did she die this time? I know that she was with you because she told me what she intended to do."

  "She is in the palace and still to be reckoned with," Wolff said. "All this time, she had us convinced that you were in the Seat of Power. She was playing with us, sharing our dangers, pretending to be our ally. I suspected her of working with you, but this ... I never dreamed of."

  "I am doomed," Urizen said. "I cannot get out; you cannot open this cage to release me. Even if you wanted to, you could not. And I must die soon unless I can get help. Vala has implanted a slowly acting and painful cancerous growth within me. In fact, she has done this three times, only to remove it each time before I died and then nurse me back to health."

  "I would be lying if I said I was sorry, and you know it," Wolff said. "You are getting what you deserve."

  "Moral lectures from you, Jadawin!" Urizen said. His eyes blazed with the old fire, and Wolff felt something within him quail. The dread of his father had not died yet.

  "I heard that you had changed much since your life on Earth, but I could not believe it. Now I know it is true."

  "I did not come here to argue with you," Wolff said. "There is little time for talk left, anyway. Tell me, Father, how we can get to the control room safely. If you want vengeance, you must tell us. Vala is loose again and probably in the control room right now."

  Urizen said, "Why should I tell you anything? I am going to die, but I will at least have the pleasure of knowing that you, Rintrah, Luvah, and Theotormon will die with me."

  "Does it give you pleasure to know that Vala will triumph? That she will live on? That your body, too, will be stuffed and mounted in the trophy hall?"

  Urizen smiled bitterly. "If I tell you what you want, then Vala might die, but you would live. It is a loathsome choice to make. Either way, I lose."

  "You may hate us," Wolff said, "but we have never done anything to you. Yet Vala. . ."

  Theotormon said, "The seas will soon be flooding this level. Then we all die. And Vala, safe in her control room, will laugh. And she will take whatever vengeance she has been planning against Chryseis."

  Wolff felt helpless. He could not threaten Urizen to make him talk. What more could he do to him than had been done?

  He said, "Let's go. We can't waste any more time." To Urizen, he said, "Good-bye forever, Father. You must die and soon. You hold revenge against Vala in your heart, and if you would unlock your lips, you would get it. But hatred blinds you and makes you rob yourself."

  Urizen called after them, "Wait!"

  Eagerly, Wolff returned to the cage. Urizen licked his lips and said, "If I tell you, will you do me one favor?"

  "I can't free you, Father," Wolff said. "You know we have no time to figure out how to do it. Moreover, even if I could, I wouldn't. I would kill you before I would loose you upon the world."

  "The favor I trade is exactly that," Urizen said. "Death. I am suffering agonies, my son. My pride forbade me to say so until now. But one more minute of this life seems like a thousand years to me. If it were not for my pride, I would have gone down on my knees before you long ago, would have begged you to put me out of my torture. That I would never do. Urizen does not beg. But a trade, that is another thing."

  "I agree," Wolff said. "An arrow between the bars will do it."

  Urizen whispered and in a few words told them what they needed to know. He had just finished when there was laughter at the far end of the room. Wolff whirled to see Vala walking towards them. He fitted an arrow to a bow-string, knowing as he did so that Vala would not have shown herself unless she felt sufficiently protected.

  Then he saw through Vala to the wall behind her and knew that it was a projection. He hoped that she had not also overheard Urizen. If she had, she would be able to do what she wished with them.

  "I could not have done better if I had planned it this way," her image said. "It is fitting, and my greatest desire, to have all of you die together. A happy family reunion! You may witness each other's death struggles. How nice!

  "And I will be leaving this planet and this universe and may then trap the surviving brother, and my beloved sister, Anana. Only I will rest for a while and amuse myself with your Chryseis."

  "You have failed so far, and you will continue to fail!" Wolff shouted. "Even if you kill us, you will not live long to enjoy your triumph! You know about the etsfagwo poison of the natives of the waterworld, don't you? How it can be served in food and leaves no taste? How it goes through the veins and stays there for a long time with no ill effect? And then it suddenly reacts and doubles the victim up in terrible pain that lasts for hours? And how there is no antidote?

  "Well, Vala, I suspected you of treachery. So I had the etsfagwo put in your supper last night. It will soon take hold of you, Vala, and then you will not be able to laugh about us."

  Wolff had not done this and until this moment had not even thought of doing so. But he was determined that if he died, Vala would pay for it with some hours of mental anguish.

  The image screamed with fury and desperation. It said, "You are lying, Jadawin! You would not do this; you could not! You are just trying to scare me!"

  "You will know whether I tell the truth or not in a very short time!" Wolff shouted. He turned to shoot the arrow through the bars of the cage to fulfill his promise to Urizen. As he shifted, he saw Vala's image flicker out of existence. Immediately thereafter, a green foam spurted out of hidden pipes in the ceiling. It shot down with great force, spread out, rose to the knees of the Lords, and set them to coughing with its acrid fumes. Wolff's eyes watered, and he bent over. He leaned down to pick up the bow and arrow which he had dropped. The fumes made him cough even more violently.

  Suddenly, the foam was to his neck. He struggled to get through it and to the door at the far end, although there might be another trap waiting there. The foam rose above his head. He held his breath while he put his air-mask on. Then he lifted it a little from his face and blew out the foam it had collected. He hoped the others had enough presence of mind to think of their masks.

  Within a few steps of the exit, he felt the foam begin to harden. He strove against it, pushing as hard as he could. It continued to resist him, to reduce his progress to a very slow motion. Abruptly, the foam became a jelly and the green opacity cleared away. He was caught like a fly in amber.

  Wolff could not see the others, who were behind him. He was facing the archway towards which he had struggled. He tried to move his arms and legs and found that he could make a little progress. With a vast effort, he could shove himself forward less than an inch. Then the jelly, like a tide, moved him back again and settled around him. There was nothing he could do except wait for his air supply to run out. The breathing system was a closed system, one that reused air and did not dissipate the carbon dioxide. If it had been an open system, he would have been dead already. The jelly closed in around so tightly that there would have been no place for the breathed-out carbon dioxide to go.

  He had perhaps a half-hour of life remaining. Vala would be laughing now. And Chryseis, great-eyed beautiful Chryseis, what was she doing? Was she being forced to watch this scene? Or was she listening to
Vala's descriptions of what Vala intended for her?

  Fifteen minutes passed by with his every thought seeking a way out. There was none. This was the end of over 25,000 years of life and the powers of a god. He had lived for nothing; he might as well never have been born. He would die, and Chryseis would die, and both would be stuffed and mounted and placed on exhibit in the trophy hall.

  No, that was not true, at least. Vala would have to abandon this place. The waters roaring through the permanent gate at the top level of the palace would ensure that. She would be denied this pleasure. His body, and Chryseis', would lie beneath a sea, in darkness and cold, until the flesh rotted and the bones were tossed back and forth by the currents and strewn about.

  The waters! He had forgotten that they were racing through the halls of the levels above and down the staircases. If only . . .

  The first rush half-filled the corridor beyond the archway and ripped out a chunk of jelly. The corridor was quickly filled, and the jelly began to dissolve. The process took time, however. The waters crept towards him, eating their way and turning the jelly into a green foam that was absorbed by the liquid. More than half an hour had passed since he had estimated that he had about thirty minutes of air left. He felt that every breath would be his last.

  The jelly became green foam and obscured his vision. The thick stuff melted away, and he was free. But now he was in as much danger as before. Submerged in water, he would drown as soon as the air ran out.

  He swam towards the others, whom he could see through a green veil. He yanked them loose from the jelly that still held them, only to find that Rintrah was dead. He had gotten his mask on in time but something had gone wrong. Wolff gestured at Theotormon and Luvah and swam towards the other exit. It opened to their only hope. To try to go through the door through which the seas were pushing was impossible because of the current. They were carried, like it or not, towards the other archway.

  Wolff dug at the jelly which clogged the doorway until it broke loose, and he was carried headlong into the next room. His brothers came at his heels and slid on their faces across the room and piled into him against the opposite wall. They rolled out of the stream and were on their feet. Wolff turned the air off and lifted his mask. He not only had to speak to them, but there would be a minute or two before the room filled in which they could conserve what little supply remained in the tanks.

  "Urizen told me that there is a secret door to a duplicate control room! He had it prepared in case somebody ever did get into the main control room! It has controls which will deactivate those of the main room! But to get to it, we have to go through the doorway with the heat-ray trap. He didn't have time to tell me how to turn off the heat-rays! We'll put our masks back on when the water gets too high and then go through. The water should knock the projectors out! I hope!"

  They placed the masks over their faces and crouched in a corner near the archway to gain protection from the full force of the current. The sea struck the wall opposite the archway and then raced off down the floor and through the door. Seeing that the water was not activating the rays, Wolff hurled his stone axe towards the door. Even through his closed lids, he saw the dazzle. When he opened his eyes, the water was boiling. The axe had been swept on through the arch.

  The waters rose swiftly, carrying the treading Lords up towards the ceiling. When there was only a foot of air between the sea and the ceiling, they put on their masks. Wolff dived as close towards the floor as he could get and began swimming. Suddenly, the air shut off. He held his breath and continued swimming. There was a glare of light that blinded him, and the water seemed to burn his exposed hands and back of neck. He bumped against the side of the arch and was borne out into the next room. Here he shoved his feet against the floor and propelled himself upward. He held his hands out to soften the impact against the ceiling, which he could not yet see.

  His head bumping against stone, he removed his mask and breathed in. His lungs filled with air, then water slapped him in the mouth and he coughed. His vision returned; Theotormon and Luvah were beside him. Wolff lifted his hand and pointed downward. "Follow me!"

  He dived, his eyes open, his hands sliding along the wall. There was a green jade statue, a foot high, once an idol of some people in some universe, squatting in a niche. Wolff rotated its head, and a section of the wall opened inwards. The three Lords were carried into the large room. They scrambled to their feet, and Wolff ran to a console and pulled on a red-handled lever. The door closed slowly against the pressure of the water, leaving a foot of water in the room. Identifying the console Urizen had told him about (there were at least thirty), Wolff pressed down a rectangular plate on which was an ideogram of the ancient writing once used by the Lords. He stepped back with the first smile he had had for a long tune.

  "Vala not only won't be able to use her controls any more," he said, "she's trapped in her control room as well. And all gates of escape in the room are deactivated. Only the permanent gates in the palace, like the gate to the waterworld, are still on."

  Wolff reached towards the button that would activate the view-screen in the other control room. He withdrew his hand and stood in thought for a moment.

  "The less our sister knows of the true situation, the better for us," he said. "Theotormon, come here and listen carefully."

  Wolff and Luvah hid behind a console and peered through a narrow opening between the console and its screen. Theotormon pushed the button with the end of his flipper. Vala was staring at him, her long hair dark-red with damp and her face twisted with fury.

  "You!" she said.

  "Greetings, sister," Theotormon answered. "Are you surprised to see me still living? And how do you feel knowing that I have sealed off your escape and rendered you powerless?"

  "Where are your brothers, your betters?" Vala said, trying to see past him into the room.

  "They're dead. Their airtanks gave out and so did mine. But this body that our father gave me enabled me to hold my breath until the water washed away your jelly."

  "So Jadawin is finally dead? I don't believe it. You are trying to play a trick on me, you stupid slug!"

  "You're in no position to call names."

  "Let me see his body," she said.

  Theotormon shrugged. "That's impossible. He's floating somewhere in the palace. I barely made it to this room myself. I can't go out to get him without flooding this room."

  Vala looked at the water on the floor and then she smiled. "So you're trapped, too. You fish-stinking idiot, you don't even have the brains of a fish! You just told me what your situation is!"

  Theotormon gaped. He said, "But. . . but. . ."

  "You may think you have me in your power," Vala said. "And so you do, in a manner of speaking. But you are just as much in mine. I know where the spacecraft is. It can get us off this planet and to another, which has a gate through which we can leave this universe. Now, what do you propose to do about this impasse?"

  Theotormon scratched the fur on his head with the tip of a flipper. "I don't know."

  "Oh, yes, you do! You're stupid, but not that stupid! You'll make a trade with me. You let me out, and I'll let you leave with me in the ship. There's no other way out for either of us."

  Wolff could not see Theotormon's expression, but he could deduce from his tone the cunningness and suspicion on his face.

  "How do I know I can trust you?"

  "You don't, any more than I can trust you. We'll have to arrange this so neither of us can possibly trip the other up. Do you agree?"

  "Well, I don't know. . ."

  "This control room won't be harmed if the seas get a mile high and sit forever on the palace. I have food and water enough for a year. I can just sit here and let you die. And then I'll figure some way to get out, believe me. I'll discover a way."

  "In that case," Theotormon said, "why don't you do it?"

  "Because I don't want to stay in this room for a year. I have too many things to do."

  "All right. Bu
t what about Chryseis?"

  "She comes with me. I have plans for her," Vala said.

  Her voice became even more suspicious. "Why should you care about her?"

  "I don't. I just wondered. Maybe . . . maybe you could give her to me. From what Jadawin said, she must be very beautiful."

  Vala laughed and said, "That would be one form of torture for her. But it isn't enough. No, you can't have her."

  "Then it's not a deal," Theotormon said. "You keep her. See how you like being cooped up with her for a year. Besides, I don't really think you can swim to the spacecraft The water pressure will be too much."

  Vala said, "You stupid selfish slimegut! You'd die yourself rather than let me have anything! Very well, take her then!"

  Wolff smiled. He had told Theotormon to bring up Chryseis and so take her mind off him. This business about Chryseis was just irrelevant enough and so Theotormonically selfish that she might be convinced that he was not hiding the truth.