Maker of Universes (10 page)

“First, whoever now is the Lord must die. Then I will find out if he had a new body or not. If the old Lord has left this universe, I will track him through the worlds and find him!”

“You can’t do that without the horn,” Kickaha said. “It and it alone opens the gate without a counter-device in the other world.”

“What have I to lose?” Podarge said. “If you are lying and betray me, I will have you in the end, and the hunt might be fun. If you mean what you say, then we will see what happens.”

She spoke to the eagle beside her, and it opened the gate. Kickaha and Wolff followed the harpy across the cave to a great table with chairs around it.

Only then did Wolff see that the chamber was a treasure house; the loot of a world was piled up in it. There were large open chests crammed with gleaming jewels, pearl necklaces, and golden and silver cups of exquisite shape. There were small figurines of ivory and of some shining hard-grained black wood. There were magnificent paintings. Armor and weapons of all kinds, except firearms, were piled carelessly at various places.

Podarge commanded them to sit down in ornately wrought chairs with carved lion’s feet. She beckoned with a wing, and out of the shadows stepped a young man. He carried a heavy golden tray on which were three finely chiseled cups of crystal-quartz. These were fashioned as leaping fish with wide open mouths; the mouths were filled with a rich dark red wine.

“One of her lovers,” Kickaha whispered in answer to Wolff’s curious stare at the handsome blond youth. “Carried by her eagles from the level known as Dracheland or Teutonia. Poor fellow! But it’s better than being eaten alive by her pets, and he always has the hope of escaping to make his life bearable.”

Kickaha drank and breathed out satisfaction at the heavy but blood-brightening taste, Wolff felt the wine writhe as if alive. Podarge gripped the cup between the tips of her two wings and lifted it to her lips.

“To the death and damnation of the Lord. Therefore, to your success!”

The two drank again. Podarge put her cup down and flicked Wolff lightly across the face with the ends of the feathers of one wing. “Tell me your story.”

Wolff talked for a long while. He ate from slices of a roast goat-pig, a light brown bread, and fruit, and he drank the wine. His head began reeling, but he talked on and on, stopping only when Podarge questioned him about something. Fresh torches replaced the old and still he talked.

Abruptly, he awoke. Sunshine was coming in from another cave, lighting the empty cup and the table on which his head had lain while he had slept. Kickaha, grinning, stood by him.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Podarge wants us to get started early. She’s eager for revenge. And I want to get out before she changes her mind. You don’t know how lucky we are. We’re the only prisoners she’s ever given freedom.”

Wolff sat up and groaned with the ache in his shoulders and neck. His head felt fuzzy and a little heavy, but he had had worse hangovers.

“What did you do after I fell asleep?” he said.

Kickaha smiled broadly. “I paid the final price. But it wasn’t bad, not bad at all. Rather peculiar at first, but I’m an adaptable fellow.”

They walked out of the cave into the next one and from thence onto the wide lip of stone jutting from the cliff. Wolff turned for one last look and saw several eagles, green monoliths, standing by the entrance to the inner cave. There was a flash of white skin and black wings as Podarge crossed stiff-legged before the giant birds.

“Come on,” Kickaha said. “Podarge and her pets are hungry. You didn’t see her try to get the gworl to plead for mercy. I’ll say one thing for them, they didn’t whine or cry. They spat at her.”

Wolff jumped as a ripsaw scream came from the cave mouth. Kickaha took Wolff’s arm and urged him into a fast walk. More jagged cries tore from eagle beaks, mingled with the ululations from beings in fear and pain of death.

“That’d be us, too,” Kickaha said, “if we hadn’t had something to trade for our lives.”

They began climbing and by nightfall were three thousand feet higher. Kickaha untied the knapsack of leather from his back and produced various articles. Among these was a box of matches, with one of which he started a fire. Meat and bread and a small bottle of the Rhadamanthean wine followed. The bag and the contents were gifts from Podarge.

“We’ve got about four days of climbing before we get to the next level,” the youth said. “Then, the fabulous world of Amerindia.”

Wolff started to ask questions, but Kickaha said the he ought to explain the physical structure of the planet. Wolff listened patiently, and when he had heard Kickaha out, he did not scoff. Moreover, Kickaha’s explanation corresponded with what he had so far seen. Wolff’s intentions to ask how Kickaha, obviously a native of Earth, had come here were frustrated. The youth, complaining that he had not slept for a long time and had had an especially exhausting night, fell asleep.

Wolff stared for awhile into the flames of the dying fire. He had seen and experienced much in a short time, but he had much more to go through. That is, he would if he lived. A whooping cry rose from the depths, and a great green eagle screamed somewhere in the air along the mountain-face.

He wondered where Chryseis was tonight. Was she alive and if so, how was she faring? And where was the horn? Kickaha had said that they had to find the horn if they were to have any success at all. Without it, they would inevitably lose.

So thinking, he too fell asleep.

Four days later, when the sun was in the midpoint of its course around the planet, they pulled themselves over the rim. Before them was a plain that rolled for at least 160 miles before the horizon dropped it out of sight. To both sides, perhaps a hundred miles away, were mountain ranges. These might be large enough to cause comparison with the Himalayas. But they were mice beside the monolith, Abharhploonta, that dominated this section of the multilevel planet. Abharhploonta was, so Kickaha claimed, fifteen hundred miles from the rim, yet it looked no more than fifty miles away. It towered fully as high as the mountain up which they had just climbed.

“Now you get the idea,” Kickaha said. “This world is not pear-shaped. It’s a planetary Tower of Babylon. A series of staggered columns, each smaller than the one beneath it. On the very apex of this Earth-sized tower is the palace of the Lord. As you can see, we have a long way to go.

“But it’s a great life while it lasts! I’ve had a wild and wonderful time! If the Lord struck me at this moment, I couldn’t complain. Although, of course, I would, being human and therefore bitter about being cutoff in my prime! And believe me, my friend, I’m prime!”

Wolff could not help smiling at the youth. He looked so gay and buoyant, like a bronze statue suddenly touched into animation and overflowingly joyous because he was alive.

“Okay!” Kickaha cried. “The first thing we have to do is get some fitting clothes for you! Nakedness is chic in the level below, but not on this one. You have to wear at least a breechcloth and a feather in your hair; otherwise the natives will have contempt for you. And contempt here means slavery or death for the contemptible.”

He began walking along the rim, Wolff with him.

“Observe how green and lush the grass is and how it is as high as our knees, Bob. It affords pasture for browsers and grazers. But it is also high enough to conceal the beasts that feed on the grass-eaters. So beware! The plains puma and the dire wolf and the striped hunting dog and the giant weasel prowl through the grasses. Then there is Felis Atrox, whom I call the atrocious lion. He once roamed the plains of the North American Southwest, became extinct there about 10,000 years ago. He’s very much alive here, one-third larger than the African lion and twice as nasty.

“Hey, look there! Mammoths!”

Wolff wanted to stop to watch the huge gray beasts, which were about a quarter of a mile away. But Kickaha urged him on. “There’re plenty more around, and there’ll be times when you wish there weren’t. Spend your time watching the grass. If it moves contrary to the wind, tell me.”

They walked swiftly for two miles. During this time, they came close to a band of wild horses. The stallions whickered and raced up to investigate them, then stood their ground, pawing and snorting, until the two had passed. They were magnificent animals, tall, sleek, and black or glossy red or spotted white and black.

“Nothing of your Indian pony there,” Kickaha said. “I think the Lord imported nothing but the best stock.”

Presently, Kickaha stopped by a pile of rocks. “My marker,” he said. He walked straight inward across the plain from the cairn. After a mile they came to a tall tree. The youth leaped up, grabbed the lowest branch, and began climbing. Halfway up, he reached a hollow and brought out a large bag. On returning, Kickaha took out of the bag two bows, two quivers of arrows, a deerskin breechcloth, and a belt with a skin scabbard in which was a long steel knife.

Wolff put on the loincloth and belt and took the bow and quiver.

“You know how to use these?” Kickaha said.

“I’ve practised all my life.”

“Good. You’ll get more than one chance to put your skill to the test. Let’s go. We’ve many a mile to cover.”

They began wolf-trotting: run a hundred steps, walk a hundred steps. Kickaha pointed to the range of mountains to their right.

“There is where my tribe, the Hrowakas, the Bear People, live. Eighty miles away. Once we get there, we can take it easy for awhile, and make preparations for the long journey ahead of us.”

“You don’t look like an Indian,” Wolff said.

“And you, my friend, don’t look like a sixty-six-year-old man, either. But here we are. Okay. I’ve put off telling my story because I wanted to hear yours first. Tonight I’ll talk.”

They did not speak much more that day. Wolff exclaimed now and then at the animals he saw. There were great herds of bison, dark, shaggy, bearded, and far larger than their cousins of Earth. There were other herds of horses and a creature that looked like the prototype of the camel. More mammoths and then a family of steppe mastodons. A pack of six dire wolves raced alongside the two for awhile at a distance of a hundred yards. These stood almost as high as Wolff’s shoulder.

Kickaha, seeing Wolff’s alarm, laughed and said, “They won’t attack us unless they’re hungry. That isn’t very likely with all the game around here. They’re just curious.”

Presently, the giant wolves curved away, their speed increasing as they flushed some striped antelopes out of a grove of trees.

“This is North America as it was a long time before the white man,” Kickaha said, “Fresh, spacious, with a multitude of animals and a few tribes roaming around.”

A flock of a hundred ducks flew overhead, honking. Out of the green sky, a hawk fell, struck with a thud, and the flock was minus one comrade. “The Happy Hunting Ground!” Kickaha cried. “Only it’s not so happy sometimes.”

Several hours before the sun went around the mountain, they stopped by a small lake. Kickaha found the tree in which he had built a platform.

“We’ll sleep here tonight, taking turns on watch. About the only animal that might attack us in the tree is the giant weasel, but he’s enough to worry about. Besides, and worse, there could be war parties.”

Kickaha left with his bow in hand and returned in fifteen minutes with a large buck rabbit. Wolff had started a small fire with little smoke; over this they roasted the rabbit. While they ate, Kickaha explained the topography of the country.

“Whatever else you can say about the Lord, you can’t deny he did a good job of designing this world. You take this level, Amerindia. It’s not really flat. It has a series of slight curves each about 160 miles long. These allow the water to run off, creeks and rivers and lakes to form. There’s no snow anywhere on the planet—can’t be, with no seasons and a fairly uniform climate. But it rains every day—the clouds come in from space somewhere.”

They finished eating the rabbit and covered the fire. Wolff took first watch. Kickaha talked all through Wolff’s turn at guard. And Wolff stayed awake through Kickaha’s watch to listen.

In the beginning, a long time ago, more than 20,000 years, the Lords had dwelt in a universe parallel to Earth’s. They were not known as the Lords then. There were not very many of them at that time, for they were the survivors of a millenia-long struggle with another species. They numbered perhaps ten thousand in all.

“But what they lacked in quantity they more than possessed in quality,” Kickaha said. “They had a science and technology that makes ours, Earth’s, look like the wisdom of Tasmanian aborigines. They were able to construct these private universes. And they did.

“At first each universe was a sort of playground, a microcosmic country club for small groups. Then, as was inevitable, since these people were human beings no matter how godlike in their powers, they quarreled. The feeling of property was, is, as strong in them as in us. There was a struggle among them. I suppose there were also deaths from accident and suicide. Also, the isolation and loneliness of the Lords made them megalomaniacs, natural when you consider that each played the part of a little god and came to believe in his role.

“To compress an eons-long story into a few words, the Lord who built this particular universe eventually found himself alone. Jadawin was his name, and he did not even have a mate of his own kind. He did not want one. Why should he share this world with an equal, when he could be a Zeus with a million Europas, with the loveliest of Ledas?

“He had populated this world with beings abducted from other universes, mainly Earth’s, or created in the laboratories in the palace on top of the highest tier. He had created divine beauties and exotic monsters as he wished.

“The only trouble was, the Lords were not content to rule over just one universe. They began to covet the worlds of the others. And so the struggle was continued. They erected nearly impregnable defenses and conceived almost invincible offenses. The battle became a deadly game. This fatal play was inevitable, when you consider that boredom and ennui were enemies the Lords could not keep away. When you are near-omnipotent, and your creatures are too lowly and weak to interest you forever, what thrill is there besides risking your immortality against another immortal?”