“You never heard such squawks and screams and such thrashings around. All the fear they don’t have for other things is packed into a dread of water. This gworl went down, came up sputtering and yelling, and then managed to grab hold of the side of the gate. A gate has definite edges, you know, tangible if changing.
“I heard roars and shouts behind me. A dozen gworl with big and bloody knives were entering the room. I dived into the hole, which had started shrinking. It was so small I scraped the skin off my knees going through. But I got through, and the hole closed. It took off both the arms of the gworl who was trying to get out of the water and follow me. I had the horn in my hand, and I was out of their reach for the time being.”
Kickaha grinned as if relishing the memory. Wolff said, “The Lord who sent the gworl ahead is the present Lord, right? Who is he?”
“Arwoor. The Lord who’s missing was known as Jadawin. He must be the man who called himself Vannax. Arwoor moved in, and ever since he’s been trying to find me and the horn.”
Kickaha outlined what had happened to him since he had found himself on the Atlantean tier. During the twenty years (of Earth time), he had been living on one tier or another, always in disguise. The gworl and the ravens, now serving the Lord Arwoor, had never stopped looking for him. But there were long periods of time, sometimes two or three years on end, when Kickaha had not been disturbed.
“Wait a minute,” Wolff said. “If the gates between the tiers were closed, how did the gworl get down off the monolith to chase you?”
Kickaha had not been able to understand that either. However, when captured by the gworl in the Garden level, he had questioned them. Although surly, they had given him some answers. They had been lowered to the Atlantean tier by cords.
“Thirty thousand feet?” Wolff said.
“Sure, why not? The palace is a fabulous manychambered storehouse. If I’d had a chance to look long enough, I’d have found the cords myself. Anyway, the gworl told me they were charged by the Lord Arwoor not to kill me. Even if it meant having to let me escape at the time. He wants me to enjoy a series of exquisite tortures. The gworl said that Arwoor had been working on new and subtle techniques, plus refining some of the well established methods. You can imagine how I was sweating it out on the journey back.”
After his capture in the Garden, Kickaha was taken across Okeanos to the base of the monolith. While they were climbing up it, a raven Eye stopped them. He had carried the news of Kickaha’s capture to the Lord, who sent him back with orders. The gworl were to split into two bands. One was to continue with Kickaha. The other was to return to the Garden rim. If the man who now had the horn were to return through the gate with it, he was to be captured. The horn would be brought back to the Lord.
Kickaha said, “I imagine Arwoor wanted you brought back, too. He probably forgot to relay such an order to the gworl through the raven. Or else he assumed you’d be taken to him, forgetting that the gworl are very literal-minded and unimaginative.
“I don’t know why the gworl captured Chryseis. Perhaps they intend to use her as a peace-offering to the Lord. The gworl know he is displeased with them because I’ve led them such a long and sometimes merry chase. They may mean to placate him with the former Lord’s most beautiful masterpiece.”
Wolff said, “Then the present Lord can’t travel between tiers via the resonance points?”
“Not without the horn. And I’ll bet he’s in a hotand-cold running sweat right now. There’s nothing to prevent the gworl from using the horn to go to another universe and present it to another Lord. Nothing except their ignorance of where the resonance points are. If they should find one . . . However, they didn’t use it by the boulder, so I imagine they won’t try it elsewhere. They’re vicious but not bright.”