Philip Farmer: The Gates of Creation

“A lucky thing for us you came when you did,” Vala said. “I don’t think we could have driven them off if you hadn’t arrived.”

Wolff shrugged. He ejected a power-pack and slipped another of the little cylinders into the breech. He had six left, and if this continued he would soon be out. But there was nothing he could do to conserve them.

The village was surrounded on the land side by about ninety abutal. Apparently, those who had dropped into the village had been wiped out, but the villagers were busy putting out fires. However, they no longer had to worry about attack from directly overhead. The Ilmawir island had been affected by the cutting of so many cables. It had slipped on downwind by a quarter-mile and only because a hundred other ropes and anchors had been used had it managed to keep from losing the surface-island altogether.

Wolff beamed the group of officers who were standing on top of the only hill near the village. Presently, the other abutal became aware of what was happening. Half left the siege to surround the hill. The area bristled with spears and arrows. The Lords would have been open to a concentrated fire of arrows, but they were protected behind a group of four white stone idols on the hill.

Vala said, “They’re on the defensive now. If they don’t know it now, they soon will. And that will be good for us. Perhaps…”

She was silent for a while. Wolff shot three men as they ran towards a hollow in the hill. He said, “Perhaps what?”

“Our beloved father left a message for us on this island. He told us some of what we have to do if we hope to get within his castle. Apparently, we have to find the gates which lead to him. There are none on this island. He says there is a pair on another island, but he did not say just where. We have to find them by ourselves, so I was thinking…”

A roar arose from the abutals, and the front lines rushed the hill. The archers sent a covering fire of at least thirty arrows per volley. Vala and Rintrah cowered behind an idol, as Wolff had told them to do. Much as he hated to expend his power, he was forced to do so. He put the beamer on full and shot over the heads of the front lines.

Smoke arose from vegetation and flesh alike as he described a circle with the white ray. The archers had had to expose themselves to get good shots, and so most fell.

Arrows rattled around Wolff, leaping off the stone idols. One creased his shoulder; another ricocheted off stone and flew between bis legs. Then, there were no more arrows. The abutal in the second ranks, seeing those crumple before them, smelling the fried flesh, wavered. Wolff began on them, and they fled back into the jungle.

“You were thinking?” he said to Vala.

“We could search a thousand years, using this island as our ship, and not find one island that has the gates. Perhaps that is Father’s idea. He would enjoy seeing us in a futile search, enjoy our despair. And the friction and murder that such long association would make inevitable among us. But if we were on an abuta, which would enable us not only to travel faster but to see far more from its altitude…”

“It’s a fine idea,” he said. “How do we talk the abutal into letting us accompany them? And what guarantee is there that they would not turn on us the first chance they got?”

“You have forgotten much about your younger sister. How could you, of all who have loved me, not remember how persuasive I can be?”

She stood up and shouted at the seemingly uninhabited jungle. For a while there was no response. She repeated her demands. Presently, an officer walked out from behind a frond. He was a tall well-built man in his early thirties, handsome behind the garish circles on his face. Besides the black chevrons down neck and shoulders, he was decorated with a painted seabird on his chest. This was an iiphtarz, and it indicated a commander of the glider force. Behind him came his wife, clad in a short skirt of red and blue seabird feathers, her red hair coiled on top of her head, her face painted with green and white lozenges, a necklace of fingerbones around her neck, an iiphtarz painted across her breasts, and three concentric circles of crimson, black, and yellow painted around her navel. As was the custom among the abutal, she accompanied her husband in battle. If he died, it was her duty to attack his killers until she slew them or died herself.

The two advanced up the hill until Wolff told them to come no further. Vala began talking, and the man began to smile. His wife, however, watched Vala closely and scowled throughout the conversation.

Dugarnn, the officer, capitulated only when certain terms had been agreed upon. He refused to leave the island until he had gotten at least part of what the Ilmawir had intended to take when they attacked. Vala did not hesitate to promise him that the defenders’ domestic fowl and animals (sea-rats and small seals) would be his prize of war. Moreover, the abutal could mutilate the corpses of their enemies and scalp them.

The surface-islanders, who called themselves Friiqan, objected when they heard these terms. Wolff told their leaders that if they did not accept, they would find the war continued. And he, Wolff, would take no sides this time. Surlily, they said they would do as he wished. The abutal stripped the villagers of everything they considered valuable.

The other Lords—Luvah, Enion, Ariston, Tharmas, and Palamabron—had been in the village when the attack started. They were very surprised to see him, and they could not hide their envy of his beamer. Only Luvah seemed glad to see him. Luvah, the runt of the lot, was sandy-haired and fine-featured except for a broad and full mouth. His eyes were a deep blue, and he had a faint milky way of freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks. He threw his arms around Wolff and hugged him and even wept a little. Wolff permitted the embrace because he did not believe that Luvah would take the chance to stab him. As children, the two had always been close, and had much in common, both being imaginative and inclined to let others do and think as they wished. In fact, Luvah had never indulged in the Lords’ deadly game of trying to dispossess or slay the others.

“How did our father manage to entice you out from your world, where you were safe and happy?” Wolff said.

Luvah grinned crookedly and said, “I might ask you the same thing. Perhaps he played the same trick on you as on me. He sent a messenger, a glowing hexaculum, and it said that it was sent by you. You wanted me to come visit you; you were lonely and wished to talk again to the one member of your family who did not want to kill you. So, after taking what I thought were good precautions, I left my universe. I entered what I thought was your gate, only to find myself on this island.”

Wolff shook his head and said, “You were always too impetuous, brother, too rash. Yet, I feel honored that you would forsake your safety to visit me. Only…”

“Only I should have been much more careful, more sure that the messenger was from you. At another time, I might have been. But at the moment the hexaculum arrived, I was thinking of you and longing for you. Even we Lords have our weaknesses, you know.”

Wolff was silent for a while, watching the exultant Ilmawir carry away fowl, animals, necklaces, and rings of sea-jade. Then he said, “We are in the most desperate situation we have ever faced, Luvah. The greatest peril, of course, is our father. But almost as deadly are those on whom we have to depend most. Despite their word of honor, they will always need watching. Now I propose that we support each other. When I sleep, you watch. When you sleep, I stand guard.”

Luvah smiled one-sidedly again and said, “And when you sleep, you will keep one eye open to watch me, heh, brother?”