The Gates of Creation

With some chalky stone he found, Wolff traced lines on Vala’s sword. He set the beamer at full power and quickly cut out triangles. He then arranged the three pieces and set several round pieces of the sword on top of them. With the beamer at half-power he fused the three prongs and round pieces into a single unit. After plunging these into cold water, he heated the prongs in their middles and hammered them into slightly hooked shapes. He curved another strip of sword with heat and hammered and fused this onto the top of the prong so that a rope could be tied around it.

Since he did not have to use Theotormon’s knife, he gave it back to him. He cut the end of Vala’s sword into a point and thus provided her with a somewhat short sword. As he pointed out, it was better than nothing.

Making the rope took several days. It was not difficult to kill and flay the animals and then cut out strips for rope lengths. Tanning presented difficulties. He searched for materials but could find nothing. Finally, he decided to grease the plaited rawhide with animal fat and hope for the best.

One dawn, as the empurpling shadow of the moon withdrew, the dragonboat was launched well above the gaterock. With the Lords behind him paddling backwards, Wolff stood up in the prow, and he cast the grapple upwards in an arc and released the rope after it.

The three-pronged device went through the gate and disappeared. He pulled in on it as the boat rammed into the base of the rock. For a second, he thought he had a hold. Then the grapple came flying out of the gate, and he fell back. He caught himself, but the uneasy equilibrium of the boat was upset. It turned over, and all went into the water. They clung to the upturned bottom, and Wolff managed to keep hold of the rope and grapple.

A half-hour later, they tried again.

“Try and try again,” Wolff told them. “That’s an old Earth saying.”

“Spare me your proverbs,” Rintrah said. “I’m soaked as a drowning rat and as miserable. Do you think there’s any use trying again?”

“What else is there to do? Let’s get at it. Give it the old college try.”

They looked at him uncomprehendingly and then reluctantly launched the boat again. Now Wolff made a more difficult cast. He threw for the very top of the hexagon. It was at least twelve feet high, which made the top of the frame forty-two feet above water. Nevertheless, he threw well, the prongs gripping the other side of the frame.

“I got it!” he said grinning. He pulled in on the rope to take up the slack. The boat slid on by the right side of the rock, rubbing against it. He ordered the men to continue backwatering, which they tried without success. The boat began to bend as the current wrapped it around the rock. Wolff, in the bow, knew that if he continued to be carried with the boat, he would slide the prongs sidewise off the top of the frame.

He clung to the rawhide rope and allowed the boat to be taken off from under him. Then Wolff was hanging onto the rope, his feet in the water. He lifted his feet to brace himself against the rock, only to have them slide away. He quit this method of climbing and hauled himself up, hand-over-hand, on the greasy rope. This was not easy to do, since the rock curved just gently enough to make the rope follow it closely, the tension being greatest just above his handhold. Without slack, he had to force his hands to slide between rope and rock.

He rose slowly. Halfway up, he felt the tension go. There was a crack, barely audible above the swirl of water at the rock-base. Yelling with disappointment, he fell back into the river.

When he was hauled out by Vala and Enion, he discovered that two of the prongs had broken across where they joined the top part. The pieces were now somewhere at the bottom of the river.

“What do we do now?” Palamabron snarled at him. “You have used up all our weapons and drained your beamer of much of its power. And we are no closer to getting through the gate than before. Less, I say. Look at us. Look at me. Spouting water like an old fish brought up from the abyss and weary, oh, Los, how weary!”

“Go fly a kite,” Wolff said. “Another old Earth saying.”

He stopped, eyes widening, and said, “I wonder…”

Palamabron threw his hands up into the air and said, “Oh, no, not another of your wonderful ideas!”

“Wonderful or not, they’re ideas,” Wolff said. “So far, I’m the only one who’s had anything to offer… besides whinings, complaints, and backbitings.”

He lay on his back for a while, staring up at the purple skies and chewing on a piece of meat Luvah had handed him. Was a kite a fantastic thought? Even if it could be built, would it work?

He discarded the kite. If one were made big enough to carry a heavy prong, it would not go through the hexagon. Wait a minute. What if the kite, dangling a hook on the end of a rope, were flown above the hexagon? He groaned and gave up the kite again. It just would not work.

Suddenly, he sat up and shouted. “It might do it! Two!”

“Two what?” Luvah said, startled out of his drowse.