Orc walked around the square, kicking bones out of the way. Then he cast one through the opposite side of the square. As he expected, it disappeared. Another bone thrust a few inches into the square and quickly withdrawn was unsheared. A second later, he repeated the same action. This time, all the bone extended past the middle of the gate had been sheared off. That part was not visible because it was in the other world.
Ijim was cursing. The sparks struck from the flints had not set fire to the pile. He said, "Sometimes, it takes a lot of time! But we may not have that!"
Orc was too intent on his tests to reply. He put a legbone in again and again, counting seconds, rientawon, rienshiwon, rienkawon, rienshonwon, riengushwon. Translated, one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five. When he had used up that bone, he began testing with another.
Ijim said, "Ah! Finally! Success!"
Orc turned to face him. The Lord of the Dark Woods was holding the end of a pine brand just above the fiery pile. The smoke from the flames was drifting slowly toward the nearest exit, which was the square of the gate.
"Listen carefully, Ijim. The trap seems to be a timeinterval shears. I don't think the timing is random. We have approximately a second and a half to get through. The field goes off just that long. We have to stand close and jump through. But we must raise our hands up and hold our elbows close to our body. Our legs must be in the same vertical plane as our bodies. Anything sticking out too far ahead of our bodies or too far behind will be cut off."
Ijim nodded, and he said, "One hop does it. It'll be awkward to do that and go through without bending our knees."
Ijim understood as well as Orc -- after all, he was many thousands of years older -- that each man would have to use a bone first to test and thus to estimate the time base on which to start counting before taking the hop. There would be nothing accurate or guaranteed about the counting. Mostly, it would be luck that would get them through safely.
"One chance only," Orc said. He started, then stared past Ijim.
"We won't have time to practice jumping before we make the real one. Give me a torch."
Ijim, who had been bent over while lighting the second torch, straightened up and whirled around. By then, the room near the archway was filled with forty or so kamanbur. They spread out, their heads hanging low, jaws open, teeth gleaming, saliva dripping, pincers clacking together, prehensile tails straight up but curling at the ends. Their yellow eyes were fixed on the men.
Orc saw directly down the mouth of one. Inside it were two hornlike projections. These would be the guns, as it were, out of which were shot the thin quick-drying strands. Ijim advanced to the pile of bones encircling the gate, shouted, and waved the torch at them. They shrank away from him. Then one of them, a large female, emitted a series of long and short whistles. The gray beasts formed a circle around the bone enclosure.
Orc said, "They may have figured out that they can come through the gate on the other side without being harmed. They could attack us from two sides."
He ran around the gate and swung the torch back and forth at the kamanbur. They moved back but not as far as when they had first been threatened.
Ijim screamed, "Let's do it now! I'll go first! You watch my back!"
Orc could not help wondering if Ijim was planning to shove him back through the gate when he jumped after him. The idea of doing that to Ijim had occurred to him, though he had rejected it. Why should Ijim do that? He would still need Orc. But the Lords, like the leblabbiy, did not always act logically.
Orc ran back to the other side. He waved his torch as he did so. Gray strands shot out from the mouths of those in the front rank. They fell short by a few inches. After the range-finding tests, the kamanbur moved about a foot closer to the Lords. By the time he reached Ijim, the Lord was burning off several strands wrapped around his legs. The quickly flaming strands stank like a mixture of garlic and rotten potatoes.
The leader whistled some more messages, and they retreated. Then a dozen advanced a few feet from the pack and crouched. They looked so much like runners at the blocks that Orc understood what they meant to do. They would dash forward in a body and, when very close, jump. While still in the air, they would expel the entangling strands. Their prey would not be able to burn them all away before the kamanbur fell upon them.
"Now!" Orc yelled.
Ijim turned around slowly. His eyes were as unmoving as glass balls set in cement. His lips, however, were writhing as he articulated very swiftly but not very clearly.
Orc groaned. Of all the times that the fugue had overcome Ijim, this was the worst.
There was nothing that Orc could do for him -- except one thing. It would give his uncle little chance to live, but it was better than nothing.
Orc snatched the torch from Ijim's hand and sent it whirling toward the crouched beasts. Whistling in alarm, they scattered as the torch fell near them. Orc grabbed Ijim and swung him around, then seized him by the waist and ran him forward. Ijim was still muttering when he was lifted and thrown through the gate.
There had been no time to stick a bone through the gate and withdraw it while counting. Orc had, however, lifted him up and cast him in as vertical an angle as he could manage.
Blood spurted from the empty air. Though the back portion of Ijim was severed, it had fallen on through. But not quickly enough to prevent some blood on this side of the gate, from shooting back. The leader whistled. The beasts rallied and formed ranks again. Another series of whistles launched them. Those on the other side of the gate were coming as swiftly as those on this side. If he did not act fast, he would be knocked down or entangled before he could leap through the square. They would pass through that side of the gate unharmed and prevent him from coming through on his side.
He threw the torch over the square. It spun in an arc and struck the lead kamanbur. It shied away, and others ran into it. The whistling was deafening.
Orc did not look behind him. A delay of a second might be fatal. Then again, it might be just the time he needed for success.
Yelling, he ran up to the gate, then stopped. He lifted his arms and held his legs as straight as he could. He was hoping that the kamanbur behind him would not get to him in time to knock him through the gate. Without pausing or taking enough time to check that his body attitude was as vertical as possible, he rose up on his toes.
He gave another yell as he hopped forward.
That was too much for Jim Grimson.
He had been striving to tear himself loose from Orc. Orc might make it; he might not. Jim did not want to chance it. If Orc died, he might die, too. Though he had risked all the dangers up to now, he could not face this one.
Abruptly, he was flashing through a lightless space. He could feel nothing except a vague sensation of speed. But he could hear whistles.
Then he was back in his room. The clock indicated that he -- rather, his astral soul or whatever it was -- had been gone for two hours and three minutes.
Chapter 21
THOUGH JIM'S LIFE as Orc had been exhausting and perilous, it was surrounded by a light different from the light of Belmont City. The suns of the other universes shed a soft and golden light. Earth's was still gritty and harsh.
If only he were not so tired, he would have returned at once to Orc. Should he fail to get into him, he would know that Orc was dead. That meant that he would have to choose another character with whom to integrate and to become. If, that is, he then chose to continue therapy. With Orc gone, what was there left for Jim Grimson?
It did not matter that other patients were now using Red Orc as their personae. Their Orc was the fictional Orc. He had been in the brain of the real Orc, son of the real Los and Enithannon.
What most delayed his return was his fear that Orc had been cut in two.
Would Orc have allowed that to stop him from going back if he were in Jim Grimson's skin? No!
Jim's birthday came. The only ones who celebrated w
ere Jim and his fellow patients, with Doctor Porsena showing up briefly during the muted festivities. His mother and Mrs. Wyzak sent cards and phoned him. His mother could not get away from her job to visit him. The cake that Mrs. Wyzak said she had left in the lobby got lost somewhere along the delivery route. Just his luck, Jim thought. And he was still too depressed and still too fearful to attempt reentry into Orc.
Two days after his birthday, he was called out from lunch in the dining hall. Gillman Sherwood, officer of the day, said, "It's your mother."
"Now?" Jim said. "She's supposed to be working."
Sherwood raised his eyebrows as if the thought of a mother who had to work was surprising.
Jim's heart was beating hard when he entered the visitors' room. Only very bad news would bring her here at this time. It had to be a death in the family. His sister? His father? If it was his father, his son was feeling far worse about Eric's death than he had imagined he would. He should not have such distress, a pang of terrible loss. But, after all, whatever had happened between them, Eric was his father.
By the time he had reached the entry, be was convinced that Eric Grimson had died. Booze? Accident? Suicide? Murder? Any of those was possible.
Eva Grimson rose from a chair as Jim strode through the doorway. She was in a print dress which fitted far too loosely and was too thin for cold weather. Her face had become more gaunt and lined. The darkness around the eyes was blacker. Though her worn brown cloth coat hid the thinness of her body, her birdlike legs showed that she must have lost weight everywhere. But she smiled when she saw her son.
Jim took her in his arms as he cried, "Mom! What's wrong?"
Eva began weeping. Jim felt even worse. He had seen his mother weep only a few times. "Is Dad all right?" he said.
She pushed herself away and sat down in the chair. "I'm sorry, Jim," she said. "So sorry. But your father. . ."
She began sobbing. He got down on his knees by her and put his arm around her heaving shoulders. "For God's sake! What is it?"
"Your father. . ."
"He's dead!" Jim said.
She looked surprised. Instead of answering immediately, she took a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes. Jim had the irrelevant thought that her tears would not destroy her makeup since she never used it.
After sniffling, she shook her head. "No. Is that what you thought? In a way, it might be. . ."
"Be what?"
She must have meant to say "better." But she would not allow herself to continue to have such thoughts, let alone voice them.
"Nothing. Your father. . . he insists that we move to Dallas! You know, in Texas!"
It took Jim several breaths before he could think clearly. His chest still felt tight. Then he said harshly, "He might as well be dead then! You, too! You. . . you. . . you're deserting me!"
She took his hand and pressed it against her wet cheek. She wailed, "I have to go with him! He's my husband! I have to go where he goes!"
"No, you don't!" Jim said. He jerked his hand away from hers. "Damn you and damn him! All the way to hell!"
Not until later, when he reran the scene in his mind, did he realize that he had almost never before spoken to his mother like that. No matter how angry he had been with her, he had almost always been gentle. She had been hurt enough by his father.
"For the sake of blessed Mary, mother of God, don't say that, Jim!"
She reached out to take his hand again, but he moved it away.
"He can't get a decent job here. It's killing him, you know that. He's heard. . . a friend told him -- you remember Joe Vatka? -- there's plenty of work in Dallas. It's a booming town, and. . ."
"What about me?" Jim said. He began pacing back and forth, his hands clenching and unclenching. "Don't I count? And who's going to pay for the insurance, for my therapy? Where am I going to live when I'm an outpatient? I don't want to give up therapy! This is my only chance to make it! I won't, I won't!"
"Please understand, son. I'm torn, I'm being pulled apart. But I can't let him go without me, and he says he will if I don't go, too. He is my husband. It's my duty!"
"And I'm your son!" Jim shouted.
Kazim Grasser, a black nurse, put his head in the room. "Everything OK? Any problem?"
"This is a family matter," Jim said. "I'm not going to get violent. Beat it!"
Grasser said, "OK, man, just take it easy," and he withdrew his head.
"And why doesn't he come here and tell me instead of sending you?" Jim bellowed at his mother. "Is he afraid to face me? Does he hate me so much he doesn't give a shit about me?"
"Please, Jim, no bad language," she said. "No, he doesn't hate you, Jim. Not really. But he is afraid to face you. He feels like he's a failure. . ."
"Which he is!"
". . . as a husband and a father and a provider. . ."
"Which he is!"
". . . and he thinks you would attack him. He says. . . he says. . ."
"Say it! That I'm crazy!"
Eva put out her hand. "Please, Jim. I can't stand much more of this. If it wasn't such a sin, unforgivable, I'd kill myself!"
"You do whatever you think is best for you," he said, and he walked out of the room. Her voice shrieked through the doorway, "Jim! Don't do that!" Though he hesitated, he did not turn back. When he got to his room, he sat down and cried. Loneliness was a tide that swept him away over the horizon, far from all human beings, to an island also called Loneliness.
Even in his grief, he thought that that phrase would make a great title for a song. "The Island Also Called Loneliness."
The brain was a funny thing. In the midst of deep-purple grief, it sent strange messages. Always working, working, working simultaneously on many different subjects, and why it semaphored reports about certain workings when the timing was wrong, no one knew.
Or was the timing wrong? Maybe the brain was trying to soften the grief by distracting itself from itself.
If so, the ruse worked only for a minute. Jim dived deep into black and cold waters and would not come up for some time. His fellow patients did their best for him. Doctor Scaevola, who had taken over for Doctor Porsena while he was gone to a three-day conference, tried to bring light to Jim. He failed.
That very evening, just after the group session, Jim was again called to the visitors' room. "Mr. and Mrs. Wyzak," the O.D. told him. "They aren't the bearer of good news, Jim. Not the way they look."
The Wyzaks stood up as he came in. Mrs. Wyzak burst into tears, ran to him, and enfolded him in her big strong arms. His face was crushed against her big breasts. He smelled a cheap perfume.
Mrs. Wyzak wailed, "Sam is dead!"
Jim reeled inside himself. He felt numb. Her voice became distant, and he seemed to be drowning in soft cotton candy. Everything was floating away except for the breathstealing cottony stuff. He could see through it as through many strips of gauze.
Nor could he cry. The tears that had flowed that afternoon were all he had. The spring had run dry, and only the stone from which the water had issued was left. It was cold, hard, and dry.
He sat down while Mrs. Wyzak told him about Sam. Mr. Wyzak sat voiceless, his head bent, his body sagging. Her story was brief. Sam had run away. He had hitchhiked several rides. The last one was with the driver of a semitrailer. No one knew why it had happened, but the rig had jackknifed, gone over the edge of a steep hill, and rolled many times to the bottom. The driver had been badly injured and was now in a coma. Sam had been thrown clear of the cab but was crushed by the trailer. The funeral would be in three days.
"I didn't want to just phone you," Mrs. Wyzak said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. "I wanted to be here when you got the news. You and Sam. . . you've been best friends since you started walking."
She began sobbing. Jim did all he could to console her though he did not share her heartache and grief. Nothing was getting through to him. Sam's death seemed to have taken place long ago.
When Doctor Porsena, after
his return from the conference, had his first private session with Jim, he worked on Jim's nonfeelings. Near the end of the hour, the doctor said, "It's possible that you're suffering from doubly intensified grief. You have a very vivid and visual-tactile-olfactory-auditory imagination. Your journeys in the World of Tiers are usually realistic and intense. There, you live as fully as you do here.
"What I'm saying is. . ."
He paused, waiting for Jim to supply the explanations, if he had any. Self-revelation was superior to that given by another. The light should come from within.
Jim could see the white fingers groping around in the blackness of his brain. What the hell did The Shaman expect from him? Did he think an eighteen-year-old screwup was Doctor Freud himself?
What was Porsena's key word? He gave such words to his patients, though they were embedded in the various strata of his sentences. If the patient could dig up the key and then figure out how to use it, he could open the door to another blaze of light.
Grief was a heavy liquid supposed to dilute memory. But being Orc had improved his memory considerably. It was as if some of the young Lord's near-photographic memory had rubbed off on Jim. He could recall almost verbatim everything Porsena had said during the session. So, run a scan. Let the cursor stop at the key word or phrase and highlight it.
"Ah!" Jim said. "Double!"
The Shaman smiled.
" 'Doubly intensified grief,' " Jim said. "You think I have an extra burden of grief. I got one load as Jim Grimson, and I got another as Orc. Both of us were rejected -- that's a mild word -- by our fathers. Both of us are in a bad fix. I don't know about both of us having just lost our best friend. I doubt Orc'll feel bad about Ijim dying."
Jim twisted his lips from one side to another. It was as if he thought that moving the mouth would activate his brain. Then the psychiatrist said, "Ijim is dead, as far as you know. Is he the only loss?"
"Uh, well. . . let's see. There's, there's. . . how about Orc himself?"
Red Orc's Rage Page 15
