He ate hungrily. The utensils were made of wood, and the dishes and the cups were of pewter and bore stylized octopuses, dolphins, and lobsters. After he ate, he walked back and forth within the range of the chain for about an hour. He tried to think of what he could do with the gate, if there was a gate inside that wooden table top. At the end of the hour, as he turned back toward the table, he saw that the tray was gone. His suspicion was correct; the top did contain a gate.
There had been no sound. The Lords of the old days had solved the problems of noise caused by sudden disappearance of an object. The air did not rush into the vacuum created by the disappearance because the gate arrangement included a simultaneous exchange of air between the gate on one end and that at the other.
About an hour later, Orc entered through the door by which he had left. He was accompanied by two men, one of whom carried a hypodermic needle. They wore kilts. One kilt was striped red and black and the other was white with a stylized black octopus with large blue eyes. Other than the kilts, leather sandals, and beads, they wore nothing. Their skins were dark, their faces looked somewhat Mediterranean but also reminded him of Amerindians, and their straight black hair was twisted into two pigtails. One pigtail fell down the back and the other was coiled on the right side of the head.
Orc spoke to them in a language unknown to Kickaha. It did seem vaguely Hebrew or Arabic to him but that was only because of its sounds. He knew too little of either language to be able to identify them.
While the one with the crossbow stood to one side and aimed it at Kickaha, the other approached from the other side. Orc commanded him to submit to the injection, saying that if he resisted, the crossbow would shoot its hypodermic into him. And the pain that followed would be longlasting and intense. Kickaha obeyed, since there was nothing else he could do.
He felt nothing following the injection. But he answered all of Orc’s questions without hesitation. His brain did not feel clouded or bludgeoned. He was thinking as clearly as usual. It was just that he could not resist giving Orc all the information he asked for. But that was what kept him from mentioning the Horn of Shambarimen. Orc did not ask him about it nor was there any reason for him to do so. He had no knowledge that it had been in the possession of Wolff, or Jadawin, as Orc knew him.
Orc’s questions did, however, cause Kickaha to reveal almost everything else of value to him. He knew something of Kickaha’s life on Earth before that night in Bloomington when Paul Janus Finnegan had been accidentally catapulted out of this universe into . He learned more about Finnegan’s life since then, when Finnegan had become Kickaha (and also Horst von Horstmann and a dozen other identities). He learned about Wolff-Jadawin and Chryseis and Anana, the invasion of the Black Bellers, and other matters pertinent. He learned much about Kickaha’s and Anana’s activities since they had gated into the cavern near Lake Arrowhead.
Orc said, “If I did allow you and Anana and Wolff and Chryseis to go back to your world, would you stay there and not try to get back here?”
“Yes,” Kickaha said. “Provided that I knew for sure that the Beller was dead.”
“Hmm. But your World of Tiers sounds fascinating. Jadawin always was very creative. I think that I would like to add it to my possessions.”
This was what Kickaha expected.
Orc smiled again and said, “I wonder what you would have done if you had found out where I used to live and where Urthona now sits in the seat of power.”
“I would have gone into it and killed you or Urthona,” Kickaha said. “And I would have rescued Anana and Wolff and Chryseis and then searched for the Beller until I found him and killed him. And then we would have returned to my world; that is, to Wolff’s, to be exact.”