The World of Tiers, Volume 2

by Philip José Farmer

  She was a dim figure crouching by him. “I’ve brought the bag and food,” she said softly. “But I’ve brought more than that.”

  She held up an object that he could not see clearly.

  “A beamer. Hold still. I’m going to cut your chain.”

  “You shouldn’t do that!” Orc said. “I thank you, but I can’t allow you to endanger yourself. My father will investigate thoroughly if I escape, and he’ll find out you did it, and he’ll kill you!”

  “Not if you kill him first,” she said.

  She started to rise. Orc heard a thud. She grunted and pitched forward, falling heavily across his legs. Above Orc loomed a vague shape, but he knew that it was Los. Vala, groaning, rolled over Orc’s legs, a hand pressing the back of her head. Then she started to rise.

  “Stay down, you treacherous slut!” Los said.

  Just beyond Orc’s father was a vague and bulky figure. It looked to Orc like a vehicle of some sort.

  “I should kill you, Vala!” Los shouted. “But I can understand why you felt sorry for him, believe it or not! After all, he is my son, though not much of one! I can remember how I loved him when he was a baby! But you have betrayed my hospitality! How do I know that you weren’t planning on letting him help you kill me!”

  He raved on, the gist being that, because he was merciful, he was permitting Vala and her husband to return to their universe. But they would do it at once and under guard. He would deal with his son, though they would never find out how he would do it. She would never see him again.

  Vala started to protest. He screamed at her to shut up or he would shoot her on the spot. After that, she said nothing except to murmur, “I’m sorry, Orc.” Los kept on ranting in the same manner for about five minutes. When he stopped, he bent over Vala and jammed the end of a cylinder into her arm. She collapsed immediately. Then he stuck the end against Orc’s chest. He became unconscious and so did Jim.

  Jim awoke at the same moment as Orc. Bright sunlight made Orc squint and, in a shadowy way, Jim also. The young Thoan was sitting on bare buttocks on a rock ledge. He was propped up against a vertical outcropping of stone. His hands were tied together behind him with rope. The ledge ended a foot beyond him. Below it was a precipitous slope of mountain, forested halfway down. At the bottom was a river snaking through an unbroken forest. Another mountain was on the other side of the river.

  The sky was blue, which meant that he was not in his native world. Not unless he had been unconscious long enough to let two days pass.

  Despite the blazing sun, he shivered from the cold air. There were patches of snow on the upper face of the mountain opposite him. He looked around then and saw that he was in a cave extending back from the ledge. Near him on the dirt floor was a square plastic sheet.

  He walked to the sheet, lowered himself to his knees, and bent over to look at the plastic piece. As he had expected, it bore his father’s handwriting.

  You are on Anthema, the unwanted world. If you are man enough to survive on it and find your way to the only other gate on this world, you may be able to get out of it. I give you a clue though you do not deserve it. The gate will be near a landmark resembling something you are wearing. But you will have to find the code allowing you to open the gate. That gate leads back to your own world.

  You only have to look for the gate on land, which cuts the territory of your search down to fifty million square miles. Though I should wish you bad luck, I do not. May you get what you deserve.

  Orc groaned. Anthema, the Unwanted World! Made by those mysterious beings who had existed before the Lords, who had made the original universe of the Lords and then created the Lords to populate it. Anthema was so crudely constructed that the Lords theorized that it had been the pre-Thoan’s first experiment in making artificial universes.

  No Lord had chosen to live there. Indeed, very few knew how to gate to it.

  Los must have put him in that vehicle and carried him to a gate in the palace or somewhere on his world. Then he had gated the vehicle with himself and Orc in it to this world. After arriving at Anthema via the interdimensional route, Los had used the vehicle to fly from the gate to this cave.

  And what was that about the clue being provided by something his son was wearing? Orc was naked.

  It was then that he felt the necklace and the object attached to it.

  He heaved himself up onto his feet. Now he could bend his neck and see the object, which rested just below his breastbone. Though it was upside down from his viewpoint, he could recognize it. It was a round gold medallion, one of his father’s, bearing a name, Shambarimem, and, below that, a raised relief of the Horn—a trumpet—of that legendary man. It was as close to a religious medal as a Thoan artifact could come.

  What kind of a clue was that? A mountain that looked like the Horn? Orc, knowing his father’s subtle nature, was sure that it was not as simple as that. In fact, the clue might not even be visual. Never mind. First, he had to get his hands free.

  That was done, though not soon. He went to the tiny monolith he had been sitting against, turned around, and bent his knees. He raised his arms, squatted even more, and set the rope on the rather blunt edge of a small ridge on top of the rock and near its side. The position was both tiring and painful, but he kept sawing until the rope was halfway worn through. After resting, he resumed the sawing. When he felt the rope part, he brought his hands before him and untied each with the other hand, no easy task. After reconnoitering the cave and finding nothing to indicate a gate, he surveyed the valley. The only life he saw consisted of some strange-looking and awkward flying creatures.

  He started climbing down the steep slope below the ledge. He had no reason to feel optimistic in this world certainly not made for him. His fury and desire for revenge would keep him going for a long time. But he could search the vast territory for a thousand years and still not find the landmark and the gate within or on or under or by it. He might even see the landmark and not know that it was what he was looking for.

  He had troubles. Oh, Shambarimem, did he have troubles!

  They came sooner than he expected. A loud shriek behind him froze him for a fraction of a second. A blow on his back knocked him forward. He heard giant wings beating. Pain as of very sharp and large claws stabbing his back made him scream.

  Jim Grimson was also startled. He heard the shriek, felt the hard impact, and yelled from the agony.

  The shock was too much for him. He was whisked out, up, and away far more swiftly than his previous journeys back to Earth. He awoke sitting on the chair in his room. He was shivering and sweating and somewhat numb. For a moment, the searing on his back from the terrible claws stayed with him. Then it faded.

  Despite his fear, he would have tried to get back into Orc if his energy had not been completely dynamited out of him. It was a long time before he could rise from the chair.

  CHAPTER 16

  Today, the group session members were even more inclined to argue than usual. Their digs were sharper, and they took offense more quickly. Was there something in the air like itching powder? Or was it that they had reached a certain stage in their therapy where their anger and frustration were closer to the surface? These were burrowing upward toward the skin like worms chased out of the intestine by strong medicine.

  Gillman Sherwood, the nineteen-year-old from Gold Hill, was getting more abuse than usual. Some of the group detested and distrusted him because his family was wealthy. Until now, he had responded with a slight smile and silence to the onslaught. That he would not defend himself made his attackers even more angry.

  Foremost among them was Al Moober, a sixteen-year-old who had never had any money until he had started dealing in drugs. His career had lasted six months. Then the cops had caught him. But he had been accused of being under the influence and of possession, not of selling. He especially had it in for Sherwood, one of his former customers, because he suspected that Sherwood had turned him in to the narcs.

  Sherwood
’s wrists were still bandaged from the deep slashes made when he had tried suicide. He had wanted to be a painter, but his parents had opposed that ambition. Both had agreed, when their son was only three years old, that he would go to Ohio State for his undergraduate education and then to Harvard for his law degree. After six months at Ohio, he had a “nervous breakdown.” He came out of the sanitarium three months later, went home, and refused to consider going back to college. His parents had kept up their pressure despite their doctor’s warnings. One night, Sherwood had used the blood from his wrist arteries to paint a nightmare vision on his palette. He had ended up in Porsena’s Tiersian therapy group.

  Moober had also told his fellow patients that Sherwood was bisexual and had added that Sherwood had made a pass at him. The girls thought that Sherwood was divinely handsome and looked much like a tall Paul Newman. Besides, he had made passes at several of them, and why would he go for a loathsome creature like Moober?

  Moober had persisted in trying to invalidate Sherwood’s descriptions of his adventures as Wolff, the hero Sherwood had chosen to emulate. Doctor Scaevola, today’s group leader, had tried to stop Moober from doing this, but Moober would not quit. Then Scaevola had told Moober that he would obey the rules or be sent to his room to think about how he would like being kicked out of the therapy.

  Moober had quit attacking Sherwood, though he was muttering to himself.

  Jim Grimson was only half listening to the others. For one thing, he had been shocked when he had seen Sandy Melton this morning. She was sitting at the far end of the dining hall with the group of mild schizoaffectives. Until then, Jim had not known that Sandy was in the hospital. He had heard nothing about what had happened to her after that evening at Dumski’s.

  He had waved to her. She had smiled at him and resumed talking to the girl next to her. Jim planned to talk to her when he got the chance.

  Another reason Jim had trouble concentrating was that he could not keep from wondering about what had happened to Orc after Jim had left him. His plight and his world seemed more real than this room and the people in it. These people did not know what real trouble was.

  He became aware that Doctor Scaevola was speaking to him and that the others were looking at him.

  “Your turn, Jim,” Scaevola said. “We’re all eager to hear what happened during your latest exploration.”

  Jim doubted they all were that eager. Most of them were too wrapped up in their own sojourns to care much about his. Or, at least, he thought that they were. He had learned something about himself in the short time he had been here. That was that he often attributed his own feelings to others, but there was often no match between the two. He must be more careful in the future not to assign to others his own thoughts and emotions.

  Group therapy was supposed to be in some respects like a book club. The members would talk about various characters in the series and how they felt about them. They would then tell how they would have changed the situations or the endings in the books. Also, they commented on how each person’s chosen character reflected the personality and the problems of the chooser. This interplay, however, was closely monitored by the group leader. It was not allowed to get to a point where the members were criticizing each other too harshly.

  One of the difficulties the members had, at this stage in therapy, was in giving full information about their experiences in the pocket universes. Jim shared this reluctance. Now, in answering Scaevola’s invitation, he gave only the sketchiest outline of his adventures. He held back because it seemed to him that they should be very private. Somehow, if the others got too far into Orc’s world, they would try to take over. His fellow patients would want his worlds just as the Lords desired the worlds of other Lords.

  Moreover, Jim was convinced that the universes the other members entered into were purely imaginary. Though vivid and very detailed, they were nevertheless just fantasies. He did not reveal this to the group, of course. To do so would be to invalidate the worlds of his fellow patients.

  Jim finished his somewhat halting and hesitant tale. Even as he spoke, he began to feel that it was made up. The others seemed to be looking doubtfully at him. Damn! They were invalidating him!

  Monique Bragg, a black girl, said, “Your father, I mean Orc’s father, struck you, Orc, a number of times. That sounds like your own father, Jim. He’s unpredictable and confusing, too, just like Los, the way he treats you. Cruel and severe a lot of times but, sometimes, kind and tender, like a real father should be. That’s bewildering to a kid.”

  “Which father you talking about?” Jim said. “My father in this world or the father in the other world?”

  Monique smiled, revealing big white teeth. “Both, you dummy. Only this Los isn’t like your real father in some ways. He’s a very handsome and powerful person, lord and master of all he surveys, you might say, not a worthless drunken bum like your real father.”

  “Monique!” Doctor Scaevola said softly but firmly. “Please refrain from personal remarks.”

  “Sure, Doc,” Monique said. “Only … I didn’t say anything about his father he hasn’t said. I was just pointing out certain things, how Los and this woman, Orc’s mother—Enitharmon?—resemble his own parents. They sort of reflect them, don’t you think? That’s what this is all about, anyway, isn’t it? How this world and the Tiersian are mirror images, wasn’t that what you said? Distorted mirrors.”

  “That’s an aspect,” Scaevola said, “but we don’t want to dwell too much on parallelisms, especially those that’re rather obvious. Unless you’re leading up to another point?”

  “Maybe it’s the differences that’re most important,” Monique said. “Like Orc’s mother seems to be under Los’s thumb just as Jim’s mother is. But she’s beautiful and powerful, and she can stand up to him. To a point, anyway. Maybe she’s going to rebel, even kill Los. That’s something your mother’d never do, right, Jim? But maybe you’re hoping she will some day. Is that so, Jim?”

  “How would I know?” Jim said heatedly. “I’m not making this up, you know! Things’ll go the way they go, not how I think they should go!”

  There was silence for a moment except for Moober’s brief snicker.

  Then Scaevola said, “Of course! Remember, we’re not writing stories. These things really do happen. Whether they exist inside your mind or outside your mind, they exist. A thought is as much an existent as a, uh …”

  “A fart!” Moober said loudly and doubled up with laughter.

  “Both evanescent but nevertheless existing in their own moment of glory or putridness,” Scaevola said.

  “Hey, there are millions of fathers and mothers more or less like mine on Earth,” Jim said. “So, there are some in the Lords’ worlds. Nothing strange about it. Quit the psychologizing, for Christ’s sake.”

  Brooks Epstein spoke up for the first time during the session. He was a tall, dark, and lean youth who wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. Though he was from Gold Hill, he had escaped the insults and disdain cast at Sherwood. Epstein’s father had been wealthy, but he had gone bankrupt and then killed himself. Epstein’s mother had just enough insurance to place her son in therapy at Wellington Hospital.

  “Quit psychologizing?” he said. “I thought we were here to do just that!”

  “We’re here to get therapy, get well, not sit around and analyze each other until we fall apart,” Jim said. “Analyzing is like disassembling. We’ll never put the pieces back together. Humpty Dumpty himself, you know.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Freud,” Epstein said. “Anyway …”

  The group broke up with almost everybody mad at everybody else. Doctor Scaevola tried to patch the rents and wounds and cool off their tempers before the session ended. This time, his soft words, reasonableness, and compromise had not worked. Some of the group were, so far, too timid to dare offend anybody. Others were inclined to be nasty, and the characters they had chosen to merge with were arrogant and ill-tempered. The staff members had to put the lid
on these patients now and then. At the same time, they had to keep from suppressing the youths so much that they erupted out of control or were in danger of losing their Tiersian identities.

  No matter how pugnaciously and offensively the members behaved, they were putting up a front. All had low self-esteem, a crippling part of their own personae. To gain a genuine self-esteem was one of the goals of the therapy but hard to achieve. To think of themselves as worthwhile, they had to become somebody else for a while.

  A few minutes after the session, Jim was told that he had a visitor, Sam Wyzak. Doctor Scaevola was not available just then, so Doctor Tarchuna had to give permission for Jim to see Sam. He sent it through the phone in his office. Eager, Jim strode to the small lobby reserved for visitors. A male nurse, Dave Gurscom, stood in the doorway and watched them.

  Sam rose from the chair when Jim entered the room. He smiled broadly and advanced toward his friend, his arms waving. They met in the middle of the room and embraced. Jim was very glad to see him, but he could not help wrinkling his nose at Sam’s odor. Since Jim had been in the hospital, he had been showering daily and had sent out his dirty laundry to his mother. He said nothing to Sam about his unwashed body and clothes. After all, the clothes Jim was now wearing had been donated by Sam. Without them, he would have been clad only in hospital-provided pajamas, a robe, and slippers.

  Sam lost his smile after they quit embracing. He sat down heavily on the chair.

  “Jim, I got some things to say to you, got to get some things clear. There’s a thing I got to do, and you won’t like it. Or maybe you will, I don’t know. But I’ve come to an impasse, as they say. Gotta go but don’t really want to.”

  “Go where?”

  “To California. Hollywood, to be exact. Gotta get the hell out of this cruddy place, the armpit of the universe. I’m in a bad fix. I’m in a rehab center for chemical dependents, for dope fiends, as my father says. The courts’re on my neck. The judge says I gotta straighten out, he don’t want me flunking, no way. He gets weekly reports from my folks and the school, and they just aren’t good enough. I’m still flunking my ass though I am trying hard to bring my grades up.”