Red Orc's Rage

by Philip José Farmer

  "Thanks. But what does that mean? You didn't say it was the right solution."

  "No," the doctor said, "but it is very probably the correct one. If you think it is, then it is. You're the person to know."

  He smiled, and he rose from his chair. "Time's up, Jim. See you next session."

  He flipped the intercom switch. "Winnie. Send in Sandy Melton, please."

  Reluctantly, feeling that there was so much more to discuss, Jim went into the waiting room, nodded at Winnie, and stepped into the hall. It was, for the moment, empty of people. Music came down the hall from a half-closed door. When he was closer to Sue Binker's room, he recognized Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, issued by Tomato Music, a record company that dared take chances on unconventional stuff.

  As he strode by the door, he glanced through the opening. He saw Sue Sinker's mantra on her wall. It was a looped cross, the ancient Egyptian ankh, formed by the Tiers series covers. One illustration, that from the British edition of A Private Cosmos, caught and held his eye. The background was an eerie landscape. In the foreground were Kickaha, holding the Horn of Shambarimem, and the laboratory-made harpy, Podarge. She was either attacking Kickaha or about to screw him. It was hard to tell.

  Whoosh!

  Subaudio sound.

  Jim was hurtling through the eye of the loop on top of the cross.

  The eye expanded to admit him.

  Before he could scream, he was in Orc.

  Behind him, or seeming to be behind him, was another unheard sound. It was the clang of an iron door shutting.

  Jim knew instantly (without knowing how he knew) that the young Lord was now called Red Orc. His many slayings of Lords and leblabbiys had earned him that title. He was standing on the edge of a high plateau in a flickering crimson light which came from the horizon and stained the blue sky. Around him were warriors, all of them leblabbiy, clad in green armor and scarlet feathers, their faces heavily tattooed. They were firing with howitzer-sized beamers at the horde below. The purple rays were blowing up the forest, earth, and men; huge trees and men's bodies were flying through the red-shot black smoke.

  That non-Lords were operating such technologically advanced weapons meant that the war between Orc and Los had made both sides desperate. Never before had the leblabbiy been allowed to use any but the most primitive weapons. The plains forces' (Los's) projectors were knocking off chunks of the cliff and precipitating groups of Orc's warriors with them to the ground four thousand feet below.

  Red Orc was very anxious about the flickering crimson light on the horizon. He thought that it must be made by a long-lost pre-Thoan weapon that Los had found during his long flight from his son. Orc now regretted more than ever that he had not killed Los at once after castrating him in Golgonooza. While Orc was attending to his mother, Los had escaped.

  Through the smoke, Orc saw the wall, vengeful as an angry god's eye, speeding toward the plateau. Mountainsized orange gouts were mixed with it, gouts that left behind them, where Orc could see through the smoke, vast craters. (The size of those on Earth's moon, Jim thought.) They would destroy Los's own Lord allies and leblabbiy auxiliaries before they reached Orc's army. Los, who must be far away over the horizon and operating this apocalyptic weapon, did not care. If he cracked the planet in half but killed his son, he would be happy.

  Orc turned and sprinted toward a gate he had set up for escape if things did not go well.

  Just as Red Orc leaped through it, Jim managed to tear himself loose by chanting the Siberian shamanic spell. He felt a pain as if he had been attached to Orc by an umbilical cord which had been yanked away from him, tearing off the tender flesh.

  The pain came and went swiftly. Jim heard two other noiseless noises: a whooshing and then a clanging. He had just enough time in transit to hope that he was back in his own body.

  He was not. But, though again in the young Lord, he was in another time and place. This world had belonged to Uveth the Vortex, one of Urizen's iron-hearted daughters and Los's ally in the apocalyptic struggle between Orc and his father. Orc had, after suitable torture, slain her. It was also many years after Orc had fled the cracking in two of the planet on which he had been fighting Los.

  He was locked in a sexual frenzy with his own child, Vala, named after his aunt. His ecstasy was so intense that his loins seemed to be interwoven with silken fires. A choir with voices too beautiful to be real sang around him.

  Jim detected the shadowy ghostbrain, but it was moving very slowly toward him. That pace, he figured later, was sluggish because Orc was so raptured that every atom of his being was caught up in it. Jim was also entangled in the silken and fiery threads, but he made the most desperately violent effort of his life. He slipped loose.

  He was in the ward hall and was just completing the step which he had started as he glimpsed Sue's mantra. His visits had taken only half a second of Earth time.

  He stopped, wheeled, closing one eye so that he could not see the mantra again, and headed back toward Doctor Porsena's office. The psychiatrist would not be available because he was in a session with Sandy Melton. But he had told Jim to go to him or a staff member at once if he ever had a flashback. Jim had verbally agreed, though, in his mind, he had pooh-poohed the idea that he would succumb to the siren call of the World of Tiers.

  Shaking, sweating, anxiety brooding in him like a big black bird over her black eggs, he ran to Doctor Tarchuna's office.

  Jim now believed that there was a hell. It was in Red Orc in the worlds of the Lords. But a heaven was also there, though one could not exist without the other.

  Jim wanted nothing of either one.

  "Holy Mother!" he shouted as he banged open the office door. "Help me! Help me!"

  Chapter 31

  DOCTOR PORSENA SAT in his office and considered the next session with Jim Grimson. It would be his last as an inpatient. On the same day, Jim would start living with the Wyzaks. Leaving the ward environment would frighten Jim. Departure was often as traumatic as entering the hospital. Jim, however, was much better equipped emotionally and mentally to withstand the shocks and troubles of the "world out there" than the night on which he had been admitted.

  Jim had been in great danger of being cocooned into his fantasy. A fully withdrawn patient, ceasing to respond to any stimuli outside his mind, he would have adventured inside his skull as Red Orc. Nor would he have been the Jim Grimson who was copartner in the Lord's physical and mental life. He would have been absorbed into Orc like water into a superdry sponge. Nothing of him would have been left.

  After his flashblack, Jim had stayed as an inpatient for an extra week. He had not been given intensive treatment until after he was tranquilized for several days. Then, no longer taking Thorazine, he had had as many private sessions as he had needed. Neither Jim nor the psychiatrist had slept much during this period. Porsena had kept up with the regular work schedule while treating Jim.

  In the meantime, The Scarlet Letterer had been caught while putting up on the wall one of his rest-room graffiti. This time, however, he had aspired higher. The wall was in Doctor Scaevola's office. The culprit was the deformed patient, Junior Wunier, no surprise to Porsena. Wunier had a very defiant attitude.

  Even though he promised never again to put up his epigrams, Wunier was punished by having some of his privileges suspended. He did not mind. For a brief time, he became a hero to the other patients.

  Jim's parents had not been able to make their final visit on the day scheduled. Porsena would not allow Jim, who was in no condition to handle a traumatic event, to see them. The psychiatrist was pleasantly surprised when Eric and Eva Grimson agreed to put off leaving for Texas until they could talk to him. That was over with now and with results that Porsena had not expected.

  Some elements in Jim's stories puzzled and disturbed the psychiatrist. These had caused him, though he felt slightly foolish doing so, to research these elements. He had not told Jim about it, nor did he intend to. Not for a long time and perhaps ne
ver.

  Jim's accounts of his adventures had faintly rung a bell in Porsena's mind. They were like chimes drifting over the horizon of a faery sea. To make certain that he had no grounds for doubt or unease, he had phoned an acquaintance, Doctor Mary Brizzi. She was not only an English-literature professor but an ardent reader of science fiction and fantasy. He had given her the names of Lords, places, and events recounted by Jim. He did not tell her that they came from a patient.

  "They're from William Blake's Didactic and Symbolical Works," Brizzi said. "But they're also in some of the World of Tiers series, as you know. However, Farmer also writes of Lords who are not in Blake's works. Using his creative imagination, I suppose. Farmer's description of the Lords' family relationships also differs in some respects from Blake's."

  And Jim's differs in some respects from both of those men, Porsena thought.

  "Blake's city of Golgonooza and certain Lords, such as Manathu Vorcyon, Ijim, and Zazel of the Cavemed World, are not mentioned in Farmer's series. He also has not, so far, anyway, written that Red Orc was once a man-serpent. In Blake's works, Red Orc is transformed for a while into a sort of snake-centaur. But not by Los, his father. I'll check it for you, but I think it was another Lord, Urizen, who did it. That part about Orc sweating jewels, that was in Blake, too.

  "There's an interesting interlude in the latest book in the series. Kickaha sees, at a distance, an old man dressed in strange garb, obviously not a Lord. I think that that old man is William Blake, and his identity will be revealed in the next novel, if there ever is any. Just how Blake, who died in 1827, could show up alive in the pocket universes of the Lords, I don't know. Maybe Farmer will explain it in the next book. What, if I may inquire, is your interest in these two myth-makers, since you're a psychiatrist?"

  "They figure in a paper I'm working on," Doctor Porsena said. "If the paper is published, I'll send you a copy."

  After he hung up, the doctor sat for a long time. He told himself: Take as a premise that parallel worlds and artificial pocket universes were a reality. Premise that there really are Lords. Premise also that Blake had somehow acquired some knowledge of these. Jim's theory that Farmer had learned of them through psychic "leaks" or "vibrations" in the walls between those worlds and Earth's might have some validity -- if the premise was valid. Accept for a moment that Blake had also gotten images or some kind of data through these leaks. They had formed the bases from which sprang his Didactic and Symbolical Works.

  Blake, an acknowledged genius and perhaps a madman, had mixed his knowledge of the Thoan worlds with Judaeo-Christian theology and other subjects. The result was the Works, a mishmash of truth and poetry and mysticism and allegory.

  But how could Farmer, an American writer born ninety-one years after Blake's death, have also tuned in, as it were, to much the same data? There were certain similarities in the lives of Blake, Farmer, and Grimson. All three had had vivid visions or strong hallucinations. Blake and Grimson had first experienced them when very young. Fanner had had them when he was an adult. He claimed to have seen ghosts on two occasions and to have had two mystical experiences. None of the three had been on drugs when these happened.

  Did this tenuous connection among the three mean anything? Were there parallel universes which all three had somehow "contacted"?

  No, no, no! He, Doctor Porsena, could not accept as valid either the premises or the conclusions therefrom. The most rational explanation was that Blake had originated his wild poetry with no help from vibrations, transmissions, or leaks. Fanner had based part of his series on Blake's works. And Jim Grimson had read at least some of Blake's words.

  But he did not remember having done so. After all, Jim admitted several times that he often read while he was stoned or drunk.

  Yet. . . there were the whiplash cuts. But there was no reason stigmata could not produce incisions in flesh.

  There was his claim to be expert in flint-working and to know certain data about advanced chemistry. These could be tested.

  Also, he claimed to be fluent in Thoan. That could be checked. No eighteen-year-old ignorant of linguistics could make up a language that would be self-consistent in syntax and vocabulary and pronunciation. Nor would he have a Lord word stock.

  There was one disturbing fact. Porsena's keen ear had noticed that, when Jim had rattled off those Thoan phrases, he had pronounced the "r" in Orc in a most un-English manner. It had sounded to Porsena like a Japanese "r," though not quite that. And his "t" when followed by a vowel had not been aspirated. That is, the little puff of air following the consonants had been missing. That was not Jim's native pronunciation.

  The doctor did not believe that Jim was faking anything. Jim really believed his stories. However, the human mind was capable of very strange and, indeed, unbelievable feats. If anyone should know that, a psychiatrist should.

  If the tests were to be done, they would be carried out discreetly. It would not be good for any psychiatrist's professional reputation if his colleagues thought that he was taking Jim's claims seriously. But if it did become known that such tests were being conducted, some kind of satisfactory explanation could be offered for doing them. Such as a study of the psychological bases for the patient's delusions, their history, and so forth. That was legitimate.

  For the time being, such a project would be in abeyance.

  What he had to concentrate on now was seeing that the patient was "cured" or in remission.

  Winnie's voice came over the intercom then.

  "Mister Grimson is here. Doctor."

  "Send him in, please."

  Jim entered the room and sat down after greeting the psychiatrist. On the whole, he looked healthy and confident. The dark rings around his eyes were gone. He was smiling. But Porsena knew that Jim could put up a convincing front. On the other hand, he might not be frightened. He might even be eager to live with the Wyzaks and have a near-normal life. His true attitude would be revealed during the session.

  "I still can't get over it!" Jim burst out. "Who'd've dreamed that my father'd suddenly be sorry for what he's done to me? I never imagined, no way, that he'd cry like a baby and get down on his knees and beg me to forgive him! I still can't believe that he really means it! Next time, he'll be the same old son of a bitch he's always been!

  "And I was overcome by emotion! I actually forgave him, and I meant it! Then! But I still hold a lot of things against him!"

  "I've not treated your father. Thus, I have only a superficial knowledge of his character and his motives. But my own experience and reading of case histories convince me that such reversals of behavior do occasionally occur."

  He was thinking that Eric's remorse and plea for forgiveness had a parallel in Blake's Works. Doctor Brizzi had told him that Los and Enitharmon had repented of their ill treatment of their son. They, like Eric, had hastened to make amends as best they could.

  Brizzi had been puzzled by Porsena's questions about Red Orc castrating his father and eating the testicles.

  "There's nothing like that in Blake. Nor in Farmer. Where did you run across a reference to that?"

  "It has to do with a fantasy of a patient of mine," Porsena said

  "Oh? Well, anyway, Los's testicles would have regenerated, grown back out, according to what Farmer says of the Lords' biological capabilities. Is your patient into Blake's or Farmer's works?"

  "Somewhat," Porsena said. "That's really all I may tell you about him."

  It seemed to him that the castration and cannibalism sprang wholly from Jim's wish-fantasies. Neither Blake nor Farmer was responsible for that. And it was, of course, a coincidence that both Jim's father in reality and Orc's parents in Blake should have apologized to their sons.

  The doctor said, "I'm sorry, Jim. I was thinking about something. You're sticking to your determination to stay with the Wyzaks? You haven't reconsidered your parents' offer to let you live with them once they're on their financial feet?"

  "No way. I'm staying here even after the therap
y is complete. My father may be sincere, for now, but I'm afraid that things'll fall into the same old sordid groove after a while. I will go see them for a while someday. Not now, not soon."

  In their conversation after that, Porsena stressed the difficulties and dangers the outpatient would run into.

  "Mrs. Wyzak should be a stabilizing influence on you. From what you've told me, she's a strong disciplinarian. You need someone like her. But she may regard you as an adopted son, one who'll replace her dead son. She could try to smother you with love and be less strict than she was with Sam. Spoil you, in other words, because she'll be afraid of losing you, too.

  "There's also the possibility that you'll identify her as your mother. You'll have to be careful about that. She is not your mother, whom you've blamed for not protecting you against your father. She's Mrs. Wyzak, a big-hearted woman who's taking you into her home. Keep all this in mind, and report to me how it's going there."

  "I will," Jim said. "I believe I can make it."

  They discussed Jim's "shedding" procedure, which had already started. Jim was using the technique some others had adopted. As therapy progressed, he would tear the covers off the first book in the series, then rip off pages until all were gone. After that, he would start on the second book and work through to the last one. But he would go a step further than the other patients. He would put the torn-out pages into a shredder.

  Jim and the psychiatrist had agreed that he would not reread any of the series. According to Jim, Porsena did not have to worry about that. He had found it hard enough to just look at the covers without being afraid of another flashback.

  "I don't ever want to go back into that evil son of a bitch!" Jim said.

  Then they talked about the means the patients used to enter the worlds. Many of them thought that the mantras and chants were magical tools. Part of the therapy was convincing the patients, in the latter stages of therapy, that the means were psychological, not magical.