Henry Kuttner - The Well of The Worlds

“Dream or not,” he said, “we’d better face it. Alper, you can move against this current. See if you can stop us.”

Ponderously Alper swung his huge body before them in a reluctant effort. The smooth air-pressure carried them on, and himself with them, as easily as if he had not tried at all. Stepping aside, he took Klai’s wrist in a firm grip and braced his heavy legs. Her forward motion carried him along without a pause, his feet sliding on the ice-like floor.

Sawyer sighed. “Well, it was worth trying. What comes next, Klai? What’s out there beyond those curtains?”

“The city,” she said impatiently, still making futile, scrambling tries to resist the forward flowing air. “Khom’ad, my world. Oh, there’s so much to remember! It’s all hazy, even now. I know this much—Nethe’s dangerous!”

“Tell us what you remember about her,” Sawyer said. “Quick! There may not be much time.”

“She’s an Isier, an immortal, one of the race of gods who rule Khom’ad.

“They never grow old. Nothing can hurt them. Even the Goddess would rule forever, unless trouble came and her people blamed her for it.”

“Goddess?” Sawyer asked.

“Not really. Just an Isier like Nethe, only with great powers, and wearing the Double Mask and the Dark Robe. As Nethe will in three days, if she wasn’t lying. I wonder! In the time I’ve been gone, the troubles must have got worse in Khom’ad or Nethe couldn’t hope for a change of Goddesses.”

“Troubles?” Sawyer prompted. “Anything that will affect us when we come out? Tell me what you remember.”

“Trouble among the gods,” Klai said uncertainly. “How could we Khom know the reasons? But the Isier had begun to—to vanish like mist sometimes, and nobody knew why. And there were strange, ugly, frightening people who came up from the world below, and not even the Isier could kill them. Mostly, for the Khom, the trouble meant sacrifices, though. Many sacrifices. Far more than the Isier ever used to need. They’ll take me for an accepted sacrifice when we come to the end of this place, and I’ll go to feed the Firebirds in the next ceremony—”

“Maybe not,” Sawyer said. “There may be some other way. Tell us what the Firebirds are. Like that thing Alper has?”

She shook her head in confusion. “You saw the Firebirds. The ghosts. The flying things that take the uranium out of pitchblende. That was something new to me. In Khom’ad we knew nothing of the Firebirds—only that deep down in the Well of the Worlds, where the sacrifices are thrown, sometimes a flicker of wings moves. That’s why the Isier call it the Firebird Well, and the sacrifices feed the Firebirds. But in Khom’ad we never saw a real, living thing like those ghosts in the mine. Of course we didn’t know about uranium, either.”

She paused. “How strange it seems. Double memories all down the line. Everything double—Earth and Khom’ad.”

“And this thing?” Alper asked, holding up his hand with the gold bar.

“I don’t know. Nethe called it the Firebird. I suppose it’s a symbol, a talisman. Opened, it looks like them, doesn’t it? And it seemed to—summon them, did you think? You saw how the air shook and grew brighter when you held its wings open.”

“It opened the wall when we came through,” Alper said. “I know that—I saw it. But it seems to open one way only.”

“A key?” Klai asked uncertainly. “Between worlds? I wonder if that’s why Nethe wants it so badly. I’ll tell you this much—if she’s to be Goddess in three days, the Isier who’s Goddess now will try to kill her. She won’t give up the Double Mask without a struggle. Nethe will need that Firebird, if there’s any power in it—to help her.”

“There’s power,” Alper said in his thick, deep voice. “And I’ll keep it. If Nethe wants anything from me, she’ll have to—”

“Oh, you idiot,” Klai said wearily. “Nethe’s an Isier, a demigod. In my world you’ll be nothing but a human being, one of the Khom. Don’t you understand?”

Sawyer grinned suddenly. “You’ve been supping with the devil, Alper, you old Khom,” he said. “Now it looks like a damned short spoon you’re holding. Look here. We may need what help we can give each other. You’ve got to release me from this thing—this transceiver. It may be your only weapon against Nethe, if you could use it on her. But once you step out of this hall you’re at her mercy. You’ll need any help you can get.”

“No,” Alper said heavily, his small eyes glinting with suspicion. “I’m free here. I don’t have to leave the hall, the way you do. I’ll just keep the whiphand I’ve got over you and see what happens.”

Sawyer glanced at the curtains which rippled across the corridor’s end, very near them now. Faster and faster the smooth-flowing air swept them forward.

“Like the flow of electrons in a vacuum tube,” Sawyer thought suddenly, seeing the curtains sweep toward him. “You can’t move against the flow, if you happen to be an electron. This end of the tunnel’s the cathode, and—here we go!”

The curtains brushed their faces blindingly. The current of air blew them with final, gentle violence against the cathode. Then they stood bunking at the head of a broad, low flight of steps above an open square, with a stormy sunset lighting the sky above them. Sawyer’s knees felt unsteady. The current had released them and they were dizzyingly free to stand alone.

“This is it,” Klai said softly at his side. He heard the long unsteady breath she drew. “This is Khom’ad. And I’m back again. I’m—home.”

It was a noisy world. The steps led down to the crowded square, where the tall Isier, robed in flowing ice, moved majestically among swarms of the lesser breed called human. One of the Isier was playing a strange square drum, beating a wildly rhythmic tune, and a group of the gods around him swayed to the beat, their blank mask-faces turned outward.

Another knot of the double-faced people, vividly alive, argued fiercely over some sort of game at the foot of the steps, a singing note in their voices even as they brawled. One of the entranced newcomers paused below Sawyer on the steps, shook his masked head dizzily, then gave a sudden ringing shout and plunged down the stairs toward the group of gamblers. They opened noisily to receive him.

From a far corner a clash of metal sounded, rhythmic and accompanied by high, ululating shouts. The whole scene swirled with noise, double faces, the ripple of heavy ice-robes, rhythm and melody under a sky shot with dramatic cold light and shadow.

Among these tall, half-serpentine figures, ignored by them, the humans called Khom walked humbly. And Sawyer knew at last the race from which Klai had sprung. The same tilt of cheekbone and the set of the eyes which had so fascinated him looked up now from every face. They were dark people mostly, looking squat among their tall, supercilious gods. They wore dull, dun-colored tunics and long leggings under aprons and smocks. They walked carefully and stood back when the Isier passed.

Beyond this noisy crowd, at the edges of the square, Sawyer had a glimpse of intricately piled buildings, brick and stone, streets diving into rabbit-warren fastnesses and twisting out of sight. Down the dim tunnels and among the roofs, lights were beginning to go on in the darkening air. Far off, above the buildings, lifted a tremendous crown of towers like ice, or glass. They flashed diamond-bright in the fierce, cold light that slanted between the clouds.

“The Temple,” Klai murmured at his side. “You see? When the ceremony begins, the Opening of the Well, you can see the reflections of the Firebirds shining up to the very tops of the towers. Half the city’s lighted by it.”