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Suddenly, he was in intense pain. He screamed voice-
lessly. Ore, however, was grinding his teeth together and
was not even moaning softly. He would not give his father
any satisfaction from hearing him cry out.
Ore was stretched out against a cross. His feet rested on
the ground, but his hands were nailed to the horizontal
arms. He did not think he could endure the agony for
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another second. Yet, he did.
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RED ORC'S RAGE
CHAPTER 28
NOT so JIM. He had suffered enough with and through
Ore. Enough was enough and more than enough. Despite
this, he managed to hang on for a minute. Ore was high on
the side of a mountain. Far far below, at the foot of the
mountain, was a broad lake fed by a river. On the lakefront
was Golgonooza, the new palace of Los, the City of Art. A
river ran on its far side. The buildings were of varicolored
metal, soft looking and all rising from the ground at a gentle
angle and then becoming steeper, but never entirely verti-
cal, until they got to perhaps a thousand feet. After that,
they went straight up for many hundreds of feet, then leaned
outward. They seemed to melt into each other at various
levels. Green, scarlet, orange, and lemon-colored vegeta-
tion grew on many of these. Much of this consisted of trees,
some of which grew at right angles to the vertical surfaces
of the buildings.
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Los had been working on the city-palace, on and off, for
240
several centuries. He planned it to be the most magnificent
of Thoan structures, greater than Urizen's Insubstantial
Palace.
Los had caught Ore just after he had entered a gate into
this world. Yesterday, he had crucified his son despite
Enitharmon's desperate pleas. Los was about to drive in the
second nail himself when he was attacked by her. Before
she had been knocked out, she had clawed his face bloody.
Now, Ore's mother was imprisoned somewhere in Golgo-
nooza.
Unable to withstand the pain any longer, Jim changed the
mantra, and he was back in his room. The time was still ten
minutes to eight. The minor hand had moved an almost
imperceptible degree. Shaking from the ordeal, he got a
drink of water in the bathroom and rested in the chair for a
while. Then, sharply aware that he was losing time and he
had many trips to go, he began droning, "ATA MATUMA
M'MATA!" This time, the chant did not have to go on so
long. Seven repetitions hurled him through the black hole.
The next time, he was sure, it would only take five. The trip
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after that would need only three. The remaining trips would
continue to take three. He did not know why. It just was that
way.
His time target was a year later. He landed in Ore in a
situation which would once have embarrassed him. But he
had been in the young Lord in too many similar circum-
stances to be taken aback. Ore was making violent love to
his aunt Vala. That, apparently, was how she desired it. A
gentle lover was not for her. Jim was caught up in the raging
maelstrom of lust and had no time or inclination to think
about the surroundings. Not until both were spent was Jim
able to do anything on his own. Though also suffering the
effects of the "little death," as some called postcoital
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PHILIP JOSE FARMER
lassitude, he was lively enough to note the immediate
environment.
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The two Lords were in a magnificently furnished bed-
room as large as a mansion. The walls and the pillars
crawled with changing colors. The windows were twice the
size of a football field. They, too, bore shifting colors, tints,
and hues. Now and then, they became transparent. Then,
Jim could see a black sky with many stars. Later, the top of
a planet came into view. As Jim discovered after a while
from Ore's and Vala's conversation, they were in a satellite
with a figure-eight orbit.
They had fled through various universes after Vala had
rescued Ore from the cross. They did not go to the world of
Luvah, Vala's husband, because Luvah and Vala had split i
up. Unlike most Lords, Luvah had not killed his spouse but |
had allowed her to try her luck at dispossessing another |
Lord of another world. .
Los, like a hound of heaven, had dogged his son and i
sister-in-law as they passed through gate after gate. Then
they had been separated they did not say why and Ore '"
had gone on. But they had found each other after many
adventures. This world was had been Ellayol's. After
getting through several gates set with many traps. Ore and
Vala had killed Ellayol, his wife, and his children.
This news deeply disturbed Jim. The Lords were so
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murderous, and Ore seemed to have lost whatever humane
feelings he had once had.
Vala and Ore had gated to this satellite to enjoy a lovers'
vacation. Shortly after learning this, Jim was on fire with
the same flames burning in the two. There was another rest,
and then they were at it again. This went on and on with not
much talk between the bouts nor many thoughts about the
past. When they started to gash each other with their
fingernails and to lick each other's blood, Jim loosed
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RED ORC'S RAGE
himself. Not, though, before "touching" the ghostbrain.
Jim still did not know if the thing had distenanted Ore's
intelligence or was taking it over as slowly as some cancers
ate up a body. What made him "shudder" when he touched
it was that it touched him back. Something had definitely
though briefly put its "finger" on him. Jim had been shot
with loathing then. Yet, he had had the feeling that there
was something vaguely familiar about it.
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