Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Ahyak Rovac!' screamed Rolf Thelemite, bringing his sword around in a sweep that almost took off Drake's head by accident.

Drake turned and saw the steel archway mounted on the marble plinth had filled with a sheet of loudly humming silver. Guessing which Cause had led to this Effect, he scrambled the star-globe out of the golden cup.

The silver sheet filling the archway vanished. The hum died away to nothing. Those with swords slowly lowered them from the ready.'What have you got there?' asked Jon Arabin.

Silently, Drake offered up the star-globe. Arabin turned it over in his hands, then, face set in decision, put it into the golden cup again. One moment they could see through the arch to the mud, puddles and trees beyond. The next moment, the silver gleamed to life, perfect, humming and opaque.

'This is a Door,' said Rolf Thelemite, decisively. 'Not that I've ever seen one, but I'm sure enough from the descriptions.'

'A Door?' said Whale Mike slowly. 'Him look no door to me.'

'Not an ordinary door,' said Thelemite. 'This Door goes a long, long way. To some place off the horizon, like as not.'

'Aye,' said Ika Thole, 'and what place might that be? The horse devil's stable or the love god's twat?'

'Death if it's anything,' said Peg Suzilman. 'Like all the other weirdness here.'

'No,' insisted Thelemite. 'It's a Door, a one-step roadway to Elsewhere.''Aye,' said Jon Arabin, slowly. 'I've heard of such.'

'So have I,' said Ish Ulpin. 'In Chi'ash-lan there were rumours. The Door takes you round in a circle, one place to another. A globe set in any arch of the circle opens the circle complete.'

'Let's go through then,' said Slagger Mulps. 'It can't be worse than here.'

'Sure it. can't,' said Arabin. 'Go right ahead, Mulps me darling. Chance the circle then tell us your wounds.'

Suddenly, a rock hurtled through the Door, hit Yot in the face and sent him sprawling. It was followed by a human foot. Drake hastily scooped the star-globe out of its golden cup.

'Aye,' said Arabin, taking it from him. 'Thatwasamove smart enough. Stones first, then maybe spears afterwards.'

Meerkat picked up the foot. It was pale, bloodless and slightly wrinkled, as if it had been out in the rain for a while. He sniffed it. The meat smelt all right. The wide spacing of the toes suggested the owner had gone barefoot for a lifetime.

'I see,' said Ika Thole, as Meerkat pondered the foot and Yot fingered his rock-grazes tenderly. 'If we go through this Door, we get to a place where they've plenty of rocks and fresh-chopped feet to spare.''Eventually,' said Arabin. 'But we go other places first.''How so?'said Thole.'It's a circle, man,' said Thelemite.'I don't understand either,' said Drake.

'Say we open that Door,' said Thelemite. 'Say you stick your head and shoulders through. Your feet will be here and your head Elsewhere. Fine. You can grab hold of anything you fancy Elsewhere, then pull your head back in. But if you go right through the Door, leaving no part of yourself on this side – why, then you're in Elsewhere entirely. Then if you go through the Door again, you find yourself in yet another Elsewhere. And so on, right round in a circle, until you come back to where you started.''How many Elsewheres in a circle?' asked Drake.

'It varies,' said Thelemite. 'But the place with rocks and feet is the last place on this circle. If some rock-throwing foot-chopper poked his head through the Door from his place to here, then we couldn't use the Door to go anywhere until we'd pushed him back where he came from or pulled him through entirely.'

'If,' said Drake, 'if some foot-chopper grabbed one of us then pulled him back to where-'

'Let's not start making ourselves nightmares,' said Arabin. 'Let's think where this Door might go. Rolf? Any ideas?'

'The first place this Door goes to,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'It could be . . . why, Chi'ash-lan, or Stokos or-'

'Not Stokos,' said Drake. 'We've got nothing like this on the island.'

'Maybe not,' said Thelemite. 'But other places surely do.'Whale Mike took the foot from Meerkat.

'Him who threw this,' said Whale Mike, gesturing with it. 'We open Door, they jump through easily as throw through, that so?'

'Mike's got his head on, aye, that's for sure,' said Arabin. 'By opening this Door, we open every Door in the circle. Then everyone can move, friendly or otherwise.'

'But we're up against monsters as it is,' said Simp Fiche, in something like panic. 'Giant slugs! Man eaters! Why, they could be on us any moment!'

'Aye,' said Arabin, not concealing his contempt. 'Then we get up and walk away. Man, what kind of monster is a slug, however big? I'd rather face fifty thousand of them single-handed than try tackle one of the Neversh with fifty men at me back.'

'Whatever we decide,' said Salaman Meerkat, 'let's decide soon. I see something to east of us. One of our slow-slime monsters, by the looks.'Arabin got to his feet.

'Men,' said Arabin, 'we'll west a bit. Likely we can escape to safety. I never heard any whisper of slugs when I was in Lorp, and that was for a long time, and recently. So they don't range over all of Penvash – probably no distance from here at all. And if we can't escape, why, we circle back, slip between them – man, they don't run faster than vomit crawls – then try our Door.'

At that moment, there was a smashing-crashing of vegetation in the forest to west of them, west being the direction of safety. Into the clearing ran Bucks Cat, gasping in panic and horror.'Monsters!' shouted Cat.

He had tampered with a cause-and-effect panel in a ruinous building, inadvertently releasing a horde of monsters from imprisonment within a stasis-field.

The monsters charged into the clearing after Bucks Cat. They were trampling creatures built higher than a horse, with great big spikes projecting from flaring armour round their necks, and huge claws on their elephant-grey feet. Feet which kicked up showers of mud.'The Door!' shouted Arabin.

He slammed the star-globe into the golden cup. He scooped up Sully Yot and threw him bodily through the Door as it gleamed to life. Drake leaped onto the plinth, hesitated – then Arabin booted him in the arse, and he tumbled through. Simp Fiche went rabbiting after him, through the silver screen to Elsewhere.

Then a muscular warrior leaped out of the screen. He was armed with a spiked club. He was as pale as Ish Ulpin, as blond as Drake. Wore leather breeches ending just below the knee, and a thick sheepskin jacket. He was outnumbered, but struck out bravely with his club, but- Whale Mike grabbed both club and warrior, then threw both hard and far, so they crashed to earth in front of the monsters which were gaining on Bucks Cat. The warrior fell heavily, got to his knees – and was gored by a monster.

Other monsters crashed into the lucky one, fighting for a portion of the meat. Meanwhile, the men escaped. For Whale Mike, it was a squeeze – his shoulders, after all, were as wide as the Door – but he got himself through.Bucks Cat scrambled onto the plinth, panting.'In!' said Arabin.

And pushed him through the Door without bothering to make explanations. By the time the monsters had settled their disagreement over a dead foreign warrior, only Jon Arabin was left in the clearing.

Another warrior jumped through from the Place at the End of the Circle, wherever that might be. He looked around in astonishment. This warrior carried a sword.

'Enjoy paradise,' said Jon Arabin, booting the man in the crutch.

The man went down. Jon Arabin chopped him on the neck, seized his sword, then jumped through the Door himself.

Door, portal forming part of one of the Prompt Physical Communication Webs built during the Technic Renaissance and thereafter largely disused (though the Partnership Banks command a web secretly linking organizations as widely scattered as the Morgrim Bank of Chi'ash-lan, the Orsay Bank of Stokos, the Safrak Bank of the Safrak Islands, and the Singing Dove Pensions Trust of Tang).