The Gates of Creation

Wolff cleared the attackers around the Lords again. They were all on their feet and swinging their swords, although covered with blood. Wolff called to them to form around him. While they kept off the winged men, he would shoot over them. He stood upon a pile of Nichiddor, his feet braced on the slippery corpses, and coolly resumed firing. Suddenly, he realized that he was down to his last two power packs. He had hoped to save some for Urizen’s stronghold, but there was nothing he could do to conserve them now. If he did not use the beamer, he and all that fought with him would die.

Vala, standing just in front of him, yelled. He looked upward where she was pointing. A dark object spanned the skies: a black comet. It had appeared while all were intent upon the fight.

The abutal near them also looked up. They gave a cry of despair and threw down their weapons. Ignoring the winged men, they ran towards the nearest hatches. The Nichiddor, after searching the skies for the cause of the panic, also reacted with terror. They launched themselves into the air to get to the nests or to escape to the protecting underside of the island.

Wolff did not throw down his beamer, but he was as frenzied as the others in their attempt to get to the closest cover. Dugarnn had told him of the black comets that occasionally visited the space above this planet. He had warned of that which always accompanied the comet.

As Wolff raced towards a hatch, there were small whistling noises around him. Holes appeared in the foliage of the walls; little curls of smoke rose from the sheathing of the maindeck. A Nichiddor, ten feet up, flapping his fifty-foot wings frantically, screamed. He fell to the deck, his skin pierced in several places, smoke coming from one wing. Another and another winged man dropped, and with them some abutal. The corpses jerked with the impact of the tiny drops.

Wolff’s beamer was knocked out of his hand by the blow of a drop of quicksilver. He stooped and picked it up and resumed his run. For a moment, he could not get into the hatchway because of the Lords jammed before it. They fought each other, cursed, and cried to Los. Some even cried out for their father, Urizen, or their long-dead mother.

For one wild second, Wolff thought of clearing the way for himself with the beamer. It was exactly what any of them, with the possible exception of Luvah, would have done. To stay out here was to be dead. Every bit of time counted.

Then whoever was the cause of the pile-up got through, and the others clawed and bit and scratched their way in.

Wolff went through the hatch in a dive, headfirst. Something touched his pants. His calf burned. There was a splashing noise, and hot mercury clung to the back of his head. He fell past the shallow ladder and hit the floor with his two hands, dropping the beamer before he hit. He absorbed most of the shock with his bent arms and then rolled over. He brought up against Palamabron, who was just starting down the second ladder. Palamabron yelled and pitched forward. Wolff, looking down the well, saw Palamabron on top of a pile of Lords. All were shouting and cursing. None, however, seemed to be hurt badly.

At another time Wolff would have laughed. Now he was too concerned with scraping the globules of hot mercury from his hair. He examined his leg to make sure that the hit there had only been glancing. Then he went on down the steps. It was best to get as far below as possible. If this were a heavy and steady mercury-drop shower, the entire upper decks could be destroyed. If the big gas-bladders were penetrated, good-bye forever to all.

VII

Vala greeted him in the twilight of a gangplank by a spheroid cell. She was laughing. Her laughter was not hysteria but genuine amusement. He was sure that if there were enough light, he would be able to see her eyes shining with mirth.

“I’m glad that you find this funny,” he said. He was covered with Nichiddor blood, which was rapidly being carried off by his heavy sweating, and he was shaking. “You were always a strange one, Vala. Even as a child, you loved teasing the rest of us and playing cruel jokes upon us. And as a woman, you loved blood and suffering -in others-more than you loved love.”

“So I am a true Lord,” she said. “My father’s daughter. And, I might add, my brother’s sister. You were just like me, dear Jadawin, before you became the namby-pamby human Wolff, the degenerate half-Earthling.”

She came closer, and, lowering her voice, said, “It has been a long time since I have had a man, Jadawin. And you have not touched a woman since you came through the gate. Yet I know that you are like a he-goat, brother, and that you begin to suffer when a day passes without taking a woman to bed. Can you put aside your so-evident loathing of me-which I do not understand-and go with me now? There are a hundred hiding places in this island, dark and warm and private places where no one will disturb us. I ask you, though my pride is great.”