Maker of Universes by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online Page A

mountains. There, he could get some idea of what a climb entailed.
    “I am Chryseis,” she said. “The one you were talking about. You sound as if you had just come from Earth. Oh, tell me, is it true?”
    He sighed. These people did not lie, but there was nothing to keep them from believing that their stories were true. He had heard enough incredible things to know that they were not only badly misinformed but likely to reconstruct the past to suit themselves. They did so in all sincerity, of course.
    “I don’t want to shatter your little dream-world,” he said, “but this Chryseis, if she even existed, died at least 3000 years ago. Moreover, she was a human being. She did not have tiger-striped hair and eyes with feline pupils.”
    “Nor did I... then. It was the Lord who abducted me, brought me to this universe, and changed my body. Just as it was he who abducted the others, changed them, or else inserted their brains in bodies he created.”
    She gestured seaward and upward. “He lives up there now, and we don’t see him very often. Some say that he disappeared a long time ago, and a new Lord has taken his place.”
    “Let’s get away from here,” he said. “We can talk about this later.”
    They had gone only a quarter of a mile when Chryseis gestured at him to hide with her behind a thick purple-branched, gold-leaved bush. He crouched by her and, parting the branches a little, saw what had disturbed her. Several yards away was a hairy-legged man with heavy ram’s horns on top of his head. Sitting on a low branch at a level with the man’s eyes was a giant raven. It was as large as a golden eagle and had a high forehead. The skull looked as if it could house a brain the size of a fox terrier’s.
    Wolff was not surprised at the bulk of the raven, for he had seen some rather enormous creatures. But he was shocked to find the bird and the man carrying on a conversation.
    “The Eye of the Lord,” Chryseis whispered. She stabbed a finger at the raven in answer to his puzzled look. “That’s one of the Lord’s spies. They fly over the world and see what’s going on and then carry the news back to the Lord.”
    Wolff thought of Chryseis’ apparently sincere remark about the insertion of brains into bodies by the Lord. To his question, she replied, “Yes, but I do not know if he put human brains into the ravens’ heads. He may have grown small brains with the larger human brains as models, then educated the ravens. Or he could have used just part of a human brain.”
    Unfortunately, though they strained their ears, they could only catch a few words here and there. Several minutes passed. The raven, loudly croaking a goodbye in distorted but understandable Greek, launched himself from the branch. He dropped heavily, but his great wings beat fast, and they carried him upward before he touched ground. In a minute he was lost behind the heavy foliage of the trees. A little later, Wolff caught a glimpse of him through a break in the vegetation. The giant black bird was gaining altitude slowly, his point of flight the mountain across the sea.
    He noticed that Chryseis was trembling. He said, “What could the raven tell the Lord that would scare you so?”
    “I am not frightened so much for myself as I am for you. If the Lord discovers you are here, he will want to kill you. He does not like uninvited guests in his world.”
    She placed her hand on the horn and shivered again. “I know that it was Kickaha who gave you this, and that you can’t help it that you have it. But the Lord might not know it isn’t your fault. Or, even if he did, he might not care. He would be terribly angry if he thought you’d had anything to do with stealing it. He would do awful things to you; you would be better off if you ended yourself now rather than have the Lord get his hands on you.”
    “Kickaha stole the horn? How do you know?”
    “Oh, believe me, I know. It is the Lord’s. And Kickaha must have stolen it, for