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When Jim woke up, he remembered only one thing from
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PHILIP JOSE FARMER
the moment the house clicked and groaned. It was a vision,
the first in many years. He had seen a tall and naked youth
chained to a tree. He resembled nobody Jim had ever seen
before. Just within the borders of this vision was a hand
holding a huge silvery sickle. It did not move, but it was
obviously threatening. It was destined to sweep up and then
down, and Jim had no doubts about what it was going to cut
off.
The sickle also looked to him like a giant question mark.
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CHAPTER 1 3
November 9, 1979
JIM'S WARDROOM WALL now bore a large five-pointed star.
Each arm was composed of five illustrated paperback
covers taped to the wall. The topmost arm contained covers
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from Farmer's first book in the World of Tiers series. The
Maker of Universes. The second. The Gates of Creation,
formed the horizontal arm on the left. Going counterclock-
wise, the next arm held covers from the third novel, A Private
Cosmos. The next. Behind the Walls of Terra covers. The fifth
arm of the star was formed by The Lavalite World.
This was to be Jim's third serious attempt to get into a
Tiersian universe. The five-pointed star was his gateway.
Most patients called their gateway a mantra. The others, a
sigil. Tragil was Jim's name for his entrance device. By
combining both symbols in a portmanteau word, he made it
twice as powerful as an ordinary gateway.
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PHILIP JOSE FARMER
It was half past eight in the evening. His room lights were
out, but the insurance company building across the street
provided a twilight strong enough for him to see the tragil.
The door to his room was closed. Though it had no lock, it
displayed on its hallway side a taped notice that he was
"gating." He could hear, very faintly. Brooks Epstein
chanting in Hebrew in the next room.
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Jim sat in the chair that he had pulled up next to the bed.
Staring at the vacant space in the center of the star, he also
began chanting.
"ATA MATUMA M'MATA!"
Over and over, the words coming faster and faster and
getting louder and louder, he launched the ancient vocal
mantra at the center of the star, the round white blankness.
"ATA MATUMA M'MATA!"
Just as a laser structured wild-running photons into a
channeled beam, so the chant arranged force lines as a
blaster to open a hole in the wall between two universes.
It also was a carriage to transport the chanter through a
universe.
He had not found it easy to do. The first time, he had felt
himself borne by a soundless but very strong wind toward
and then through the hole. He was in a blackness which felt
very cold and, at the same time, very hot. These and the
sense of being lost and out of control had frightened him
even more than his childhood visions. He had lost his
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courage and striven to swim back against the wind. For a
few seconds, he had feared that he would not make it.
Then something had snapped like a rubber band stretched
too far, and he had awakened sitting in the chair. He was
shivering and moaning and sweating. The clock told him
that he had been gone for two seconds. Yet, he had had a
sense of many hours having passed.
That was the end of his first expedition.
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RED ORC'S RAGE
He had told about this during the group therapy the next
day. No one had scoffed at his experience or accused him of
cowardice. Anyone who did this would be sat upon at once
by the staff member supervising the group. It was strictly
against policy for anyone to voice disbelief in the narratives
of others. That could invalidate the belief of the traveler in
his or her journey and, thus, slow down or even end
progress in therapy. Besides, all had gone through obstacles
which were different in form but similar in emotional
content.
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The second time, he had conquered enough of his panic
and fright to persist. Up to a point, that is. The blackness
and the cold and heat had suddenly vanished. The wind
became much weaker. He was surrounded by walls lines
of force? that came up at many angles from some abyss
and down from a vast space. They glowed whitely and
intersected each other, then continued their extensions
through other walls. They formed a jigsaw puzzle in four,
maybe more, dimensions. But he could not grasp their
extra-dimensionalness, their essences. Across, along, and
up were dimensions that his brain knew. These other
extensions, however, were beyond his comprehension. Yet
he knew that they were there.
That was so weird that he almost surrendered to his fears
and went back "home" before he lost his way forever.
Abruptly, the walls fell away. They did not collapse as
walls on Earth would. They just disappeared in some
fashion he could not fathom. Their afterimages glowed
briefly, then were gone.
He was in one of the worlds of the Lords. He did not
know how he knew this. But he did. Though he was still
frightened, he was too curious to allow himself to be sucked
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up by the winds of return.
Though he could see, he was not in a body with flesh and
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PHILIP JOSE FARMER
organs. Perhaps he was an astral soul. It did not matter.
That he was out of Earth's universe and in a Lord's was
enough for him.
He seemed to be high above a planet which had the same
shape and size as Earth. The sun was green, however.
Later, he would find that the color of the sky varied
according to the day of the week. A week here was nine
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