“Maybe not,” Sawyer said. “There may be some other way. Tell us what the Firebirds are. Like that thing Alper has?”
She shook her head in confusion. “You saw the Firebirds. The ghosts. The flying things that take the uranium out of pitchblende. That was something new to me. In Khom’ad we knew nothing of the Firebirds—only that deep down in the Well of the Worlds, where the sacrifices are thrown, sometimes a flicker of wings moves. That’s why the Isier call it the Firebird Well, and the sacrifices feed the Firebirds. But in Khom’ad we never saw a real, living thing like those ghosts in the mine. Of course we didn’t know about uranium, either.”
She paused. “How strange it seems. Double memories all down the line. Everything double—Earth and Khom’ad.”
“And this thing?” Alper asked, holding up his hand with the gold bar.
“I don’t know. Nethe called it the Firebird. I suppose it’s a symbol, a talisman. Opened, it looks like them, doesn’t it? And it seemed to—summon them, did you think? You saw how the air shook and grew brighter when you held its wings open.”
“It opened the wall when we came through,” Alper said. “I know that—I saw it. But it seems to open one way only.”
“A key?” Klai asked uncertainly. “Between worlds? I wonder if that’s why Nethe wants it so badly. I’ll tell you this much—if she’s to be Goddess in three days, the Isier who’s Goddess now will try to kill her. She won’t give up the Double Mask without a struggle. Nethe will need that Firebird, if there’s any power in it—to help her.”
“There’s power,” Alper said in his thick, deep voice. “And I’ll keep it. If Nethe wants anything from me, she’ll have to—”
“Oh, you idiot,” Klai said wearily. “Nethe’s an Isier, a demigod. In my world you’ll be nothing but a human being, one of the Khom. Don’t you understand?”
Sawyer grinned suddenly. “You’ve been supping with the devil, Alper, you old Khom,” he said. “Now it looks like a damned short spoon you’re holding. Look here. We may need what help we can give each other. You’ve got to release me from this thing—this transceiver. It may be your only weapon against Nethe, if you could use it on her. But once you step out of this hall you’re at her mercy. You’ll need any help you can get.”
“No,” Alper said heavily, his small eyes glinting with suspicion. “I’m free here. I don’t have to leave the hall, the way you do. I’ll just keep the whiphand I’ve got over you and see what happens.”
Sawyer glanced at the curtains which rippled across the corridor’s end, very near them now. Faster and faster the smooth-flowing air swept them forward.
“Like the flow of electrons in a vacuum tube,” Sawyer thought suddenly, seeing the curtains sweep toward him. “You can’t move against the flow, if you happen to be an electron. This end of the tunnel’s the cathode, and—here we go!”
The curtains brushed their faces blindingly. The current of air blew them with final, gentle violence against the cathode. Then they stood bunking at the head of a broad, low flight of steps above an open square, with a stormy sunset lighting the sky above them. Sawyer’s knees felt unsteady. The current had released them and they were dizzyingly free to stand alone.
“This is it,” Klai said softly at his side. He heard the long unsteady breath she drew. “This is Khom’ad. And I’m back again. I’m—home.”
V
It was a noisy world. The steps led down to the crowded square, where the tall Isier, robed in flowing ice, moved majestically among swarms of the lesser breed called human. One of the Isier was playing a strange square drum, beating a wildly rhythmic tune, and a group of the gods around him swayed to the beat, their blank mask-faces turned outward.
Another knot of the double-faced people, vividly alive, argued fiercely over some sort of game at the foot of the steps, a singing note in their voices even as they brawled. One of the entranced newcomers paused below Sawyer on the steps, shook his masked head dizzily, then gave a sudden ringing shout and plunged down the stairs toward the group of gamblers. They opened noisily to receive him.
From a far corner a clash of metal sounded, rhythmic and accompanied by high, ululating shouts. The whole scene swirled with noise, double faces, the ripple of heavy ice-robes, rhythm and melody under a sky shot with dramatic cold light and shadow.
Among these tall, half-serpentine figures, ignored by them, the humans called Khom walked humbly. And Sawyer knew at last the race from which Klai had sprung. The same tilt of cheekbone and the set of the eyes which had so fascinated him looked up now from every face. They were dark people mostly, looking squat among their tall, supercilious gods. They wore dull, dun-colored tunics and long leggings under aprons and smocks. They walked carefully and stood back when the Isier passed.
Beyond this noisy crowd, at the edges of the square, Sawyer had a glimpse of intricately piled buildings, brick and stone, streets diving into rabbit-warren fastnesses and twisting out of sight. Down the dim tunnels and among the roofs, lights were beginning to go on in the darkening air. Far off, above the buildings, lifted a tremendous crown of towers like ice, or glass. They flashed diamond-bright in the fierce, cold light that slanted between the clouds.
“The Temple,” Klai murmured at his side. “You see? When the ceremony begins, the Opening of the Well, you can see the reflections of the Firebirds shining up to the very tops of the towers. Half the city’s lighted by it.”
Around them, on the steps, the emerging and awakening Isier still streamed down toward the square. And just below them, half-hesitating, Nethe stood looking back. Her vivid, dangerous face with its Etruscan smile and its enormous, snake-like eyes was luminous with anger, and perhaps with fear. She was glaring past them, at the curtains from which they had come. Turning, Sawyer saw Alper’s heavy face looking through the fluttering folds. He moved back when he met Nethe’s glare. Nethe hissed a furious burst of words in her own tongue and then twisted like a serpent, turning to glance down into the square.
Klai’s cold hand slipped trembling into Sawyer’s.
“Look,” she said in a frightened whisper. “The Goddess!” Suddenly she ducked her head and pulled the fur-lined hood of the coat she still wore over her face. “Maybe no one will know me!” she said frantically. “I’ll hide if I can. Oh, if only grandfather knew!”
Sawyer pressed her hand in useless consolation and looked down over the square at the double file of tall Isier figures which moved forward at a rapid stride through the crowd. They walked in a V-formation, opening up a way with the apex of their lines. The long robes swirled as they strode.
The apex of the oncoming V reached the foot of the steps. It opened. And the appalling figure of the Isier Goddess stepped forth…
For an instant complete disbelief made Sawyer’s mind reel. Disbelief of this whole dreamlike world. The ground did not exist under him, nor the sky overhead. He must still be in Fortuna; this incredible place called Khom’ad had no reality at all. In the whole drifting journey down the ice-tunnel he had been sure, under the surface of his mind, that at the far end they would come out into the open, snowy wastes around the Pile. Or into some cavern at best, down under the mine. But this was no cavern. The sky was open overhead, and the sun could be seen sinking in it. What sun? The sun that shone on Earth? Where was Khom’ad? Where—
The Goddess spoke, a deep and hollow and resonantly musical sound.