“Right!”
“No one else was stranded here with you?”
“Not that I know,” Orc said.
“Put the arrow back in the quiver,” the man said. “Then stand up. I will come to you, though not very close, and I’ll have my spear ready. But I would prefer that we be friends.”
After some more talking, mostly to ensure that one did not have any advantage over the other, the man walked out from behind a tree. He was shorter than Orc but broader. He wore a tight-fitting fur cap and a fur loincloth. A leather belt tied together with thongs was around his waist. It held leather containers in which were a stone knife and a stone ax. His quiver and bow had been left behind. His skin was deep brown, his nose was flat and broad, and his lips were fully everted. The hair that fell out from under the cap was gleaming black and slightly wavy.
When he was twenty feet from Orc, he stopped. The dark brown eyes looked wary, though he was showing large white teeth in a big grin.
“You are Orc, son of Los and Enitharmon,” he said. “I am Ijim, son of Natho and Ocalythron.”
“Ijim of the Dark Woods?” Orc said.
“Yes, I am—was—Lord of the World of Dark Woods.”
“You are my great-great-granduncle,” Orc said.
“Which does not necessarily mean that we are friends,” Ijim said. “As they say in more than one world, you can choose your friends, but a cousin is a cousin, like it or not.”
While they kept the distance between them unchanged, Orc outlined his story. During this, he kept glancing to both sides and looking swiftly behind him. What Ijim said about his being alone might be true. But an overtrusting Lord was soon a dead one, according to the ancient saw.
Ijim said, “So, you are the son of the extraordinarily beautiful Enitharmon and of Los, the Eternal Prophet, the Possessor of the Moon! Such was he titled when he lived in the world he ruled before moving into his present one, long before Enitharmon became his wife and long before you were born. Here, briefly, is my story.”
A Lord, a woman named Ololon, had found a way to avoid the ingenious traps Ijim had set in the gate giving entrance to his world. Ololon had come close to slaying Ijim, but he had gotten away. However, while being pursued through a series of gates from one world to another, Ijim had been forced to take a gate which led he did not know where. It was one-way, and it opened, he soon found out, to Anthema. That was forty-four years ago. Since then, Ijim had been looking for the gate which would take him out of the Unwanted World.
Forty-four years! Jim Grimson thought. During that time, Ijim must surely have eaten the blue flakes. That meant a ghostbrain was now using his body and mind. So, it was not Ijim talking to Orc. It was a Thing.
Then he thought that that was not, in a sense, true. The ghostbrain had become Ijim, was thinking like Ijim, was, in effect, Ijim. The first Ijim was dead. The second Ijim was no different from the first. Thus, he was not one bit more sinister than the first one. That one had probably been sinister enough to satisfy anyone.
“As you said, nephew, neither of us has anything the other wants. Unless you desire Anthema!” He laughed wildly for some seconds, making Orc wonder if his long solitude had driven him crazy.
After wiping the tears of laughter with the back of his hand, Ijim said, “You can have it. I can’t leave soon enough. So, what do you say, nephew Orc? Shall we drop this mutual suspicion and work together as a dedicated and loving team?”
“As much as two Thoan can.”
“Good! Let us give each other the kiss of eternal friendship and not feel each other’s back for a soft spot in which to thrust a dagger while doing so!”
Orc thought that his uncle’s kiss was rather long, and he did not think that Ijim had to feel his buttocks for so long. Perhaps Ijim longed so for human contact that he did not want to let loose of human flesh without thoroughly warming himself with it. Also, Ijim may have lusted for only women while they had been easily available, but he was willing, after forty-four years of enforced abstinence, to take whatever came his way.
They walked back to the camp side by side. Ijim explained that he had seen Orc the day before. Instead of joyfully approaching Orc, however, he had stayed hidden. He had intended to study him for a while before announcing himself.
Orc said that it was quite a coincidence that the only two humans on a planet should cross paths.
“Not so much,” Ijim said. “I came here out of the same gate you did, the cave. I explored the cave but the gate was too well hidden, must’ve needed a code word to be revealed. After forty-four years of searching vainly for another gate and living like a beast all that time, I came back here. It seemed to me that the outgoing gate might be located close to the ingoing. Of course, I thought that when I first got here. I looked the local area over so closely and so many times that, even now, I can remember its every detail. But I was going to make another try. It couldn’t hurt. This time, though, since you have a clue on you, the Shambarimem medallion, we might have a good chance.”
“Seen anything around here that could be connected, however remotely, to a horn?” Orc said. “Not just visually, perhaps verbally or analogically, whatever?”
“Nothing. But then I wasn’t looking for a landmark which might be somehow linked to the image of a horn. Now, it’s different.”
After they got to the camp and talked some more, they went hunting together. Within twenty minutes, they had bagged a four-tusked piglike animal. Before eating it, Orc decided to swim in the river. Though he needed a bath, he also wished to find out if he could really trust Ijim. He left his weapons on the bank, but the dark man soon joined him. Satisfied that Ijim was, for the time being, anyway, a true partner, Orc got out of the water. Ijim stayed in. But he called out to Orc as Orc bent down to pick up his clothes. And Ijim laughed mightily. It seemed that he would never stop.
When he did, he said, “Don’t dress yet.”
“Why not?” Orc said. He was not sure what Ijim was up to.
“You can’t see it!” Ijim shouted, and he laughed some more.
“See what?”
“Oh, that Los!” Ijim said. “He played a funny trick on you, but it’s a sad one, too. Might have been sad for you, that is! Fortunately for both of us, Los did not foresee that you would find another Lord here.”
“What are you talking about? Get to the point, man!”
“You can’t see it!” the Lord of the Dark Woods cried out. “You might never have seen it, might’ve wandered forever over this terrible place and not seen it!”
“Are you going to hold me in suspense until I die from curiosity? Or will I have to choke it out of you?”
“There’s a map on your back!” Ijim cried. “Between your shoulder blades and going down to a point almost even with your hipbones!”
Grinning, he waded out of the river. Orc kept his back to him so he could study the map, if it was indeed a map. Orc was not sure that Los had not played a savage joke on him that was a double joke. The map could be misleading and lead all over the planet and end up in a place that did not have a gate. However, why would he put a fake map where his son would probably never see it?
After Ijim had dried off his nephew’s back with a piece of chamoislike skin, he turned him around to get the full light of the sun.
“What a sense of humor your father, may the silver arrows of Elynittria skewer his liver, has! Black, to be sure, blacker than Shambarimem’s depression the first time his Horn was stolen, but it’s worthy of evoking great laughter! On your back where you can’t see it, ho, ho, ho, aauueeegh!”
“Choke to death from laughter for all I care,” Orc snarled. “But first tell me what the map looks like. Better yet, draw it in the mud. I can transfer it to a parchment—after I make some.”
Ijim had danced around, bent over and hoohawing and then almost strangling from the phlegm in his throat. When he recovered, he stood behind Orc again.
“There’s a tiny black dot at the top of the map,” he said. �
�A drawing of an arrow sticks out from it. I assume that’s the beginning, the gate you and I came out of. There’s a curvy blue line starting from the end of the arrow. On both sides of it are black broken lines in the shape of triangles. The mountains forming the river valley. So, the blue curvy line is the river we both took when we left the gate. It ends by spreading out into the crooked lines. The mouth of the river and the sea it empties into, I suppose. Where we are now. There are a few blue wavy lines beyond the river’s end, but they’re shorter and sharper. Must indicate the sea. Wait a minute.”
After several seconds, he said, “I was looking for words to identify landmarks. There aren’t any, and I doubt the map is anywhere near scale. It’s a very rough and not at all satisfactory guide, but certainly better than none.
“Let’s see. Here’s a broken green line starting with a small arrow. It goes north of here since this estuary faces west, but there are no landmark signs along it. It then turns east, which should be inland. There is something where it turns! Let me look closely at it. It’s very small.”
Then he said, “Looks like the outline of an octopuslike animal. What in the name of Enion is that supposed to indicate?”
“We’ll find out when we get there,” Orc said sharply. His uncle, for some reason, was getting on his nerves. Yet, Orc should have been dizzy with happiness to have Ijim’s companionship and to have him discover the map. Perhaps, Orc thought, it was because he felt like a fool and Ijim was laughing at him because he was a fool. But then Ijim seemed to find everything funny.
As the days went by and they walked northward along the coast, Ijim’s too frequent and too easy laughter got on Orc’s nerves. Finally, he could endure it no longer. He stopped his uncle in the middle of his hysterical and inappropriate hee-hawing.
“Why do you do that?” he said harshly.
Ijim blinked, and he said, “Do what?”
“Giggle and shriek all the time like an inexperienced and shy young girl who’s nervous because she’s with a boy.”
Ijim looked sullen. “I didn’t know I was doing that. If I am, and I don’t admit I was, it’s because I’ve been alone for forty-four years, no human being to talk to.”
He began to whine. “You’d have some peculiar ways if you’d been as isolated as I was. Forty-four years! Think about that!”
“I suppose so,” Orc said. “But if I was as silly and maddening as you, I’d surely want someone to straighten me out.”
“Telling you that wouldn’t be dangerous, would it? Oh, no! Speak up, and die, right? You’re not the kind of person who’d take kindly to being insulted, right?”
Orc said nothing. After a few moments of silence, Ijim said, “Don’t be angry with me. I just met you after forty-four years of absolute solitude and already you’re yelling at me!”
“Just quit that insane laughing. Don’t laugh except when there’s something funny to laugh at.”
Ijim shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll try. But after forty-four years of suffering through every minute, every second …”
“And quit whining about ‘forty-four years’!” Orc roared. “I’m tired of hearing it! It’s over now! Quit living in the past! You’re not alone anymore!”
“I’d be better off,” Ijim said. He looked hurt and comically dignified at the same time.
For a long while after that conversation, Ijim sulked. Only when Orc addressed him did he reply, and he did so in as few words as possible. That angered Orc almost as much as the laughter did. And, twice, when he suddenly turned around, he caught Ijim sticking his tongue out at him and gesturing obscenely.
“Manathu Vorcyon!” Orc said the first time he surprised his uncle in the act. “You’re how many thousands of years old? Yet you behave like a spoiled child!”
“Can’t help it,” Ijim said. “Forty-four years of living …”
“Don’t say it!” Orc shouted. “One more time, and I swear I’ll leave you! You can be alone for forty-four more years! Forever, for all I care!”
For a long while, Ijim took care to avoid mentioning the length of his stay on Anthema. But he complained often and about the most trivial things. Such as stubbing his toe. He spent fifteen minutes talking about it and wondering bitterly why life had been so hard on him. Obstacles and injuries lay everywhere in his path.
At last, Orc said, “I’ve been treated unfairly, brutally, too, mostly by my father. You don’t hear a word about that from me, do you? It’s the way it is. Endure it. But try to do something about it. Try to change what you don’t like. And quit yapping about it!”
“Yes, but …”
“No buts!”
“You’re a hard man,” Ijim said. His eyes became wet, and he snuffled. “Not all of us are made of stone. Some of us are genuine human beings, flesh and blood with a heart that feels, whereas yours …”
“Grow up! Or is it too late for that?”
Jim, listening to this, was struck with a thought. Struck was right, right on! Holy Mother! Orc could just as well be talking about him, Jim Grimson! He had been complaining about his lot and feeling sorry for himself a good part of his life. And, until recently, he had really done nothing to solve the problems he’d been whining about.
Then another idea hit him like a brass-knuckled fist. Ijim! Pronounced EE-jeem. But, in his mind, spelled Ijim. I … Jim. The Dark Lord of the Woods was named I (am) Jim.
Was Ijim—and, hence, all of this—just a fantasy?
Had his unconscious mind given him the name and the character of Ijim to show him, circuitously, himself?
For a moment, he came close to losing his faith that the Tiersian universes were real. He suddenly felt sick and, at the same time, weightless. The world, as seen through Orc’s eyes, wavered and became cloudy. The light dimmed. He felt himself rising. He was headed back to Earth. But, though handless, he grabbed on to something—what, he did not know—and he held on. The light brightened; things became steady and clear again.
The Freudian significance of Ijim’s name was too obvious. It was just a coincidence. He knew that this world and all in it were as real, as hard, and as sharp-edged as his native universe.
For a while there, though …
Thirty-two days after Jim’s moment of dark doubt, Orc and Ijim came to the place indicated by the octopuslike mark on the map. They did not know they were there until they got to the end of a valley out of which a small river flowed into the sea.
Orc was trudging along the shore through water up to his ankles. Behind was Ijim, silent (for once) except for the splash-splash of his feet in the rising tide. There were many large black boulders about ten feet high in this area. Orc was passing between two separated by about twelve feet when he stopped. Then he yelled.
Something under the water had gripped his right ankle. And then it yanked him hard toward the nearest boulder. Suddenly, he was on his back and being dragged, the green and stinking surface scum washing into his mouth and over his eyes.
Ijim shouted, “What is it?”
He snatched his stone ax from his belt and leaped toward Orc. The young Lord had stopped yelling and was futilely struggling to loosen the thing gripping his ankle. He yelled again when a section of the boulder toward which he was being hauled slid down. Inside the rock was an assembly of green serrations as sharp as sawteeth and larger than a lion’s. Moreover, there were at least a hundred.
Then a brownish tentacle as thick as two fingers held together humped for a moment out of the water. Ijim, seeing that, screamed. He had also realized that the rock was really a plant or animal. And it meant to eat Orc.
Ijim screamed again. He jumped high. The clawed tip of another tentacle rose briefly from the spot he had just left. The Lord came down straddle-legged and hopped backward. The tentacle end thrashed around, groping for him.
Orc had by then gotten his flint ax from his belt and was chopping down on the tentacle pulling him. It was not easy to do since he had to sit up and lean far forward while being pulled along. He called,
“Ijim! Help me!”
The Lord of the Dark Woods turned and ran away and did not stop until he was at a safe distance.
Orc shouted, “You coward!” After that, he was too busy. Especially since a second tentacle had coiled around the thigh of his other leg. But he kept hacking until he felt the grip on his ankle give way. When he was within a few feet of the gaping mouth, he hewed apart the other tentacle. But he came close to being snared by other tentacles as he ran ankle-deep through the water to where Ijim danced in a frenzy of despair.
Panting, Orc said, “I should kill you!”
He raised his ax, dripping with water and a thick green saplike fluid. Ijim ran and did not stop until he was fifty feet away. He turned, and he shouted in a high-pitched and quavering voice, “I couldn’t help it! Forty-four years I’ve survived by running away! It’s a conditioned reflex by now! But I’m not really a coward! I’ll do better next time! You’ll see!”
“Next time?” Orc yelled. “There won’t be any next time!”
“Kill me then!” Ijim shrieked. “Find out what loneliness and no one to talk to mean! You’ll end up being just like me! And the next time you need me, you’ll be all alone! I won’t let you down, I swear! If I do, I’ll kill myself!”
He got down on his knees and lifted his hands toward Orc. “I’m begging you, don’t leave me here!”
Orc spat toward Ijim. But he said, “All right! One more chance! But don’t get near me for a long while!”
He went eastward, detouring the boulders by many yards. Ijim stayed behind him, and he did not come to Orc’s camping place that night. Orc could see him in the light of the fire. He was a shadow sitting with his back against a tree trunk. In the morning, Ijim approached him. He was smiling as if nothing had happened. But the rest of that day, he did nothing to irritate Orc.
CHAPTER 19
Dawn brought with its light a darkness.
Orc opened his eyes and could not see. His nose seemed to be clogged. His mouth was held shut by something, and something was pressing on his tongue.
The World of Tiers, Volume 2 Page 56