Red Orc's Rage by Philip Jose Farmer

Author:Philip Jose Farmer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780575119642
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2012-03-18T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

THE TWO LORDS had traveled an estimated three hundred miles since leaving the lakeshore. Yet they had seen nothing resembling the symbol on Orc's back.

Ijim's fugues were becoming more frequent and longerlasting. When he came out of them, he remembered nothing about them. In fact, he did not know that he had been in them. Orc, he said, was making up the whole business. He wanted to drive him crazy. Orc asked him why he would want to do that. Because, Ijim said, Orc was crazy, and the insane loved the company of their kind.

The young Lord realized that it was useless to continue arguing with his uncle. Ijim was the mad one in this twosome. Therefore, he would have to be watched carefully. Orc had thought that his uncle was going to refrain from violence until the gate was found. Now, he was not sure.

Jim Grimson was even more apprehensive than Orc. Ijim must die, and he must do it in Anthema. If he got to another world, he -- the thing in him -- might propagate its kind, and the next world and the next, all the worlds, might be taken over. Just how, Jim could not guess. The how no longer mattered. Ijim had to be killed here, and it would be best if his body and the thing possessing it were destroyed.

He knew that. Orc did not.

Ten days later, near high noon, the Lords were on top of a lofty ridge forming a wall along the right side of a river. They had been forced to climb up its slope and go along its back until they found more level ground. "For all we know," Orc told Ijim, "the landmark could be on the other side of the ridge."

And it was.

At the foot of the ridge was a plain stretching for perhaps forty miles. Another chain of mountains to the south bounded the plain. This contained scattered woods and rivers and creeks and some hilly country. A large, black, slowly moving object relatively near them was a herd of animals, grass-eaters.

"There it is!" Orc said. He pointed at a circular object about two miles from the foot of the ridge and close to a river so small it barely escaped being a creek. The structure glittered in the sun as if made of glass. Its outer walls, forming the circle, were high and thick. Enclosed by the circle was a cross-shaped structure. Its walls were as thick as the enclosing walls. Thinner walls ran parallel to the horizontal wall of the cross. The whole structure had to be that represented by the symbol on Orc's back.

"Great Mother of Us All!" Orc shouted, and he struck his hand against his forehead. "Mighty and wise Enion! How dumb can we be? We call ourselves Lords, and we're as mindless as worms! Why did we never connect the symbol on my back with that on the medallion! They both represent the grillwork in the end of Shambarimem's Horn!

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