“That means that Red Orc might know how to get into here,” Kickaha told Khruuz. “You used a series of gates to trap us and the Thoan’s clone. If he has detectors, and I think he does, he may get into here. Or he may send another clone, somebody, anyway, with a bomb a thousand times more powerful than the one the clone carried. Of course, he can’t know just where the clone went or what happened after he got here.”
By then, Khruuz had heard everything that Kickaha knew about Red Orc. He had also been told as much of the history of the Thoan people as Kickaha knew.
Khruuz spoke in his heavily accented and just barely understandable Thoan. His tongue-tendril now and then struck parts of his palate and formed sounds that were not in Thoan and probably only in his language.
“I have closed all the gates for the time being. That keeps anyone from coming in, but it also does not permit me to gather information from the outside.”
Khruuz had told Kickaha that parts of the outline of the legends about the Khringdiz were close to the truth. But the details were usually wrong. When the Thoan people had killed off all of the Khringdiz except for him, he had made this underground retreat. After being there for a while, he had stopped the molecular motion of his body and settled down for a very long “sleep.” The fuel to drive the machine for maintaining the chamber, to record the events on various parts of various universes, and to “awaken” him was nuclear power. When the fuel was almost gone, the machinery would bring him out of molecular stasis.
“By then,” Khruuz had said, “the probabilities that the situation would be considerably changed were high. The Lords might have died out. Their numbers were comparatively few at the time I went into stasis. And their descendants, if these existed after such a long time, might be different in culture and temperament. They could be much more tolerant and empathetic. Or some other sentient species, higher on an ethical level than the Lords, might have replaced the Thoan. In any event, whoever inhabited the universes might be willing to accept me, the last of the Khringdiz. If such was not the situation, I would have to deal with the evil as best I could.
“My fuel would have lasted for some time yet. But I had also set up the security system so that any intrusion into the chamber would awaken me. You entered, and I was brought out of stasis prematurely. But the process takes some time. It did not bring me out of stasis in time for me to speak to you. You got away because of the Horn. That, by the way, must contain machinery the design for which was stolen from my people. The Thoan did not have such technology.”
“What?” Kickaha had said. “The Horn was invented by the ancient Lord, Shambarimem!”
“This Shambarimem must have gotten the data from one of us, undoubtedly after he killed the Khringdiz who owned it. But instead of sharing it with his fellow Lords, he kept it secret. He incorporated it in the artifact that you called the Horn. That has to be what happened.”
“But there must have been other designs or even the machinery itself!” Kickaha had said. “If the devices for opening gates or flaws were used by the Khringdiz, surely some would have fallen into Thoan hands!”
“No. They were few and well guarded. They gave us an advantage over the Thoan because we could enter their gates and flaws. But those of us who survived the initial onslaught were too few to use the openers effectively. At last, only I survived. However, those who did have the openers must have destroyed or hidden all the designs and the machines before they were hunted down and killed. You know the rest of the story.”
“So, Shambarimem lied about inventing the Horn,” Kickaha had said. “There goes another legend into the dust!”
Khruuz had shrugged his massive shoulders in a quite human gesture. He had said, “From what you tell me and from my experience since being awakened, it’s evident that the Lords are still here and that very few have changed.”
Kickaha had said, “You’d like to get revenge, wipe them out?”
The scaly man had hesitated, then had said, “I can’t deny that I would be happy if all my original enemies, the Lords who existed when we were being exterminated, were to be killed and I was the one who did it. But that is impossible. I must somehow make peace with them. If I cannot do that, then I am doomed.”
“Don’t feel hopeless,” Kickaha had said. “I am the enemy of almost all Lords because they tried to kill me first. They must be killed before there will be peace in all the universes. You and I would make wonderful allies. How about it?”
The scaly man had said, “I will do my best to help you. You have my word on that, and, in the days when there were other Khringdiz, the word of Khruuz was enough.”
Kickaha had asked him if he knew how the Thoan came into being. Khruuz replied that his people would never have made beings so unlike themselves.
“Some questions have no answers,” Khruuz had said. “But our universe was not the only one. Somehow, the Thoan broke through the wall between our universes. Instead of treating us as if we were peaceful and nonviolent sentients, which we were, they behaved as if we were dangerous animals. We were treacherously attacked and, in the first blow, the Thoan wiped out more than three-quarters of us. We survivors were forced to become killers. The rest of the story you know.”
“And now?” Kickaha had said.
“When I opened a gate and connected it to a circuit, I had no way of knowing if the Thoan were still violent beings. So, I decided to collect various specimens. You two were the first to be caught. I did not know that you were not Thoan but from a planet that did not even exist when I took refuge. The third was a Thoan. You know what happened then.”
“We can help you, and you can help us,” Kickaha had said. “Red Orc must be killed. In fact, all those Lords who would slay us must be killed. But, first, I have to get into Zazel’s World before Red Orc does.”
“He really intends to destroy all of the universes and then make his own?”
“He says he does. He’s capable of doing it.”
Khruuz rolled his eyes and spat, his tongue-tendril straight out from his mouth. At that moment, he looked serpentine. Kickaha told himself to quit comparing Khruuz to insects and reptiles. The Khringdiz was as human as any member of Homo sapiens and much more human than many of them. At least, he seemed to be so. He could be lying and so hiding his true feelings.
Man, I’ve tangled with too many Lords! he thought. I’m completely paranoiac. On the other hand, being so has saved my life more than once.
Khruuz had promised to study the data re gates, which his bank contained. He had set his machines to scan that section, to abstract significant data, and to print it out. That took only two hours, but he had an enormous amount of data to read in the—to Kickaha—exotic alphabet of the Khringdiz.
“Most of this is what my people knew about gates,” the scaly man said. “But I assume that the Thoan made some advances in their use since I went into the long sleep. I was trying to get information on these when I had to close my gates. Unfortunately, Zazel must have made his Caverned World after that. However, we may yet find out something about his gate setup. Not until Red Orc is dealt with, though.”
“If we do that, we won’t have to worry about getting into Zazel’s World,” Kickaha said.
“Yes, we will. Some other Lord might get the creation-destruction engine data. The data should be in safe hands or destroyed. Though it makes me shudder to think of doing that to scientific data, it is better than chancing that it might be stolen or taken by violence.”
Kickaha thought for a moment, then said, “At one time, every Lord must have had the engine. Otherwise, how could they have made their own private universes? What made them all disappear? Why don’t at least some of them now have the data for making the engines?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Khruuz said. “I was out of the stream of the living for thousands of years. There may be some Lords who have the engines or the designs for them, but they don’t know it. As for your first question, I think that every Lord who successfully
invaded another’s universe destroyed his enemy’s creation-destruction engine. The successful invader would not want others who might invade during the owner’s absence to find one. And then another Lord would slay the previous invader. In time, very few engines would be left. But I really don’t know.”
Several weeks after this conversation, Khruuz summoned Kickaha and Clifton to a room they had never seen before. This was huge and had a domed ceiling. The ceiling and walls were black but strewn with tiny sparkling points and lines connecting them. They formed a very intricate web.
Khruuz waved a hand and said, “You see here the results of my data-collecting. The points are gate nodes, and the lines connecting them show the avenues traveled between and among gates. Those lines are drawn there just for the sake of the viewer. They separate the gates so that the viewer may more easily distinguish among them. Actually, the transit time between one gate and the next is zero.”
Kickaha said, “I saw a gate map once when I was with Jadawin in his palace. But it was nowhere nearly as complicated as this. Isn’t it something!”
Khruuz’s dark eyes regarded Kickaha. “Yes, it is something, as you say. But what is displayed is a map of all nodes known to me. Mostly, they’re Khringdiz gates, and the majority were opened into Thoan universes when my people were still battling the enemy. Thus, many of them connect with various Thoan gates, though the connection was done by accident.”
Khruuz admitted that he did not know where many of the nodes and routes were. If someone took these from Khruuz’s world, that person would have to go in ignorance to where the routes took him. And there were many nodes that intersected with closed-circuit routes.
“Is there a chance that a Khringdiz route might end at a gate leading into the Caverned World?” Kickaha said. “From what I’ve heard, there’s only one gate, or there was one gate, giving entrance to Zazel’s World. But what if there’s an ancient gate to it made by the Khringdiz?”
“There is a chance. But I don’t know what gate, if any, would take you there. It might take you a hundred years to travel every gate and route, and you still would not find the right one. Moreover, your chances of survival during this search would be very small.”
“But Red Orc must think that there is one. Otherwise, why would he have sent me out to find it?”
Eric Clifton said, “You should know by now that he seldom tells you the true reason for what he does.”
“I guess so. But he didn’t have to lie about that.”
During their time with Khruuz, Kickaha insisted that Clifton finish his often-interrupted narrative of how he had gotten into the Thoan universes.
“Where was I? Oh, yes! First, a recapitulation of the events leading up to the point at which the flash flood stopped my telling of the tale.”
Kickaha sighed and sat back. There was no hurry just now, but he wished Clifton were not so long-winded.
“The madman Blake described to his friend the vision he had had of the flea’s ghost, which you and I now know was of the Khringdiz. I was so fascinated by this that I drew a sketch of the scaly man as described by Mr. Blake. I showed it to my closest friend, a boy named Pew. He worked for a jeweler, a Mr. Scarborough. He showed my sketch to his employer, and Mr. Scarborough showed the drawing to a wealthy Scots nobleman, a Lord Riven, who then ordered that a ring be made based on the sketch. But poor stupid Pew stole the ring. Knowing that there would be a hue and cry and that he would be the most suspected, he gave the ring to me to hold for him. That shows you how brainless he was. At that time, I had not repented of my sins and sworn to God that I would no more lead a dishonest life.”
Kickaha, his patience gone despite the abundance of time he had, said, “Get on with it.”
“Very well. The constables searched for Pew, who had taken refuge with the gang of homeless street boys he had joined before working for Mr. Scarborough. But the constables found him, and he was killed while fleeing from them. A shot in the back of the head, I believe, sent the poor devil’s soul downward to Hell.
“That meant, as far as I was concerned, that I owned the ring. But I knew that much time would have to pass before I could chance selling it. And it would be better if I went to a far-off city before I attempted that transaction. But I could not quit my employer, Mr. Dally, the bookseller and printer, immediately. I would be suspected, and the constables might discover my association with George Pew. If I was convicted, I would hang.”
Baron Riven was determined to find the ring and the person who had stolen it. One of his agents questioned Clifton about the theft. The agent had unearthed the fact that Clifton was one of Pew’s closest friends, perhaps his only friend. Clifton was terrified, but he denied everything except knowing Pew. That was a lie Clifton knew would be eventually exposed. One night, shortly after the interview, he fled, his destination the city of Bristol. He planned to board any ship that would carry him out of England. He had no money, so he would have to find work aboard as a cabin boy. Or any job he could get.
“I snatched a purse and with the money got lodgings in a cheap dockside tavern,” he said. “I also applied at a dozen ships for work to pay for my passage. Finally, I got one as a cook’s helper aboard a merchantman.”
The night before he was to ship out, while he was walking the streets near the waterfront, he felt a hand on his shoulder and then a pinprick in his neck. He tried to run away, but his legs failed him, and he fell unconscious onto the cobblestones. When he awoke, he was in a room with Lord Riven and two men. He was naked and was strapped to a bed. The baron himself injected a fluid into one of Clifton’s arteries. Contrary to Clifton’s expectation, he stayed conscious. When Lord Riven questioned him about the ring, Clifton, despite his mental struggles, told him the truth.
“A truth drug,” Kickaha said.
“Yes, I know. My sack, containing my few worldly possessions, had been examined. The baron now wore the ring. I expected to be turned over to the constables and, eventually, hanged. But it turned out that the baron did not want the authorities to know about me or the ring. He ordered his men, very rough and brutal-looking scoundrels, to cut my throat. He tossed them some guineas and started to walk to the door with a splendidly decorated and large leather bag in his hand. But he stopped after a few steps, turned, and said, “I have a more severe punishment in mind for him. You two leave now!”
They did so quickly. Then he took out from his bag two large semicircular flat pieces of some silvery metal.
“Portable gates!” Kickaha said.
“Ah, then you know what I am talking about?”
“They’re the means I used to get into the universe of the World of Tiers,” Kickaha said.
“Ah! But I did not have the slightest idea then what their purpose or origin was. I thought that they were tools of torture. In a way, they were just that. He placed their ends close together on the floor so that they formed a slightly broken circle. Then he untied me. I was too terrified to resist, and I wet my pants again though I believe that I had emptied my bladder when I awoke tied to the bed.”
Lord Riven untied the Englishman, leaving his hands bound behind his back but his feet free. Then he picked up Clifton by the back of his neck with one hand. He carried him as if he were a small rabbit and stood him inside the two crescents. He told Clifton not to move unless he wanted to be cut in half.
“My teeth were chattering, and I was shaking violently. Though he had warned me not to speak, I asked him what he intended doing to me. He replied only that he was sending me directly to Hell instead of killing me first.”
Clifton believed that he was in the power of a devil, perhaps Satan himself. He begged for mercy, though he expected none. But Lord Riven bent down swiftly, shoved the ends of the semicircles together with his fingertips, stood up, and moved back several feet. For several seconds, nothing happened.
“Then the room and the baron disappeared. Actually, I was the one to disappear, as you well know. The next second, I was aware that I was in another
world. It did not look like Hell. There were no capering devils or flames issuing from the rocks. But I was indeed in Inferno. It was a dying planet in one of the worlds of the Lords.”
He paused, then said, “Remembering that calls up the absolute panic and horror possessing me then. But I managed to get my hands unbound, and I managed to live, though I experienced the torments of the damned.”
“What year was it that you gated through?” Kickaha said.
“The year of Our Lord 1817.”
“Then you’ve been about one hundred and seventy-five years in the Thoan worlds.”
“Good God! That long! I’ve been so busy most of the time.”
The Englishman sketched his life since then. He had been many places, had passed safely through many gates, had been a slave many times to both Thoan and humans, had been a chief of a small tribe, and had finally settled down into a comparatively happy life.
“But then I got an itch for adventure. I took a gate that led me eventually through many worlds until I fell into the trap, the pit, set up by Red Orc. I did not know whose it was until I saw the man who appeared in Khruuz’s cell and was blown to bits.”
He paused briefly, “That man looked exactly like Lord Riven.”
“I had guessed that,” Kickaha said. “The baron was Red Orc, living at that time on Earth I and disguised as a Scotch nobleman.”
13
Though Kickaha kept busy so that he would not think about Anana, he could not keep her out of his mind. With the images of her came anguish and fury. By now, the Thoan should have finished his memory-erasing on Anana, and she would think that she was only eighteen years old.
Red Orc would explain to her that she had had amnesia and was now in his care. Or that she had been given as his ward to him by her father and then had suffered a memory loss. He would make sure that she did not learn how many millennia had passed since that supposed event.
The World of Tiers, Volume 2 Page 84