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| 1993 French Edition, Art: Mick Van Houten |
Chapter 1
A short, oddly-shaped outcast named Jephraim Tallow wakes up to discover that his navel has disappeared. Additionally, for the last few months there had been blood in his mouth, but now there is none. That night at the river, he sights a magnificent golden barge briefly emerging from the mist. He promptly tells his despondent mother that she no longer exists and heads downriver in pursuit of it, hoping it will somehow explain why his navel is missing.
Chapter 2
Stopping at an inn for the night, the innkeeper Mr. Ollert and his wife try to warn Tallow from following the barge, reporting that the last person to do so was not heard from again. Tallow scoffs at these tales.
Chapter 3
The next day Tallow is brought before a judge and sent to an insane asylum “for his own good”. All of the other residents also seem to be there for trivial/nonsensical reasons. Tallow eventually kills his warden and escapes. At first upset at the violence of his act, his obsession for the barge pushes him down the river in a stolen boat.
Chapter 4
After a brief glimpse of the barge just ahead, Tallow’s boat becomes caught on a sandbar. Unable to free the boat by himself, he heads inland and becomes excited at the sight of a woman at a nearby house.
Chapter 5
The voluptuous Pandora does not recall seeing the barge pass. However, she takes Tallow back to her house, where she keeps two old servants. After dinner, Tallow professes his love to Pandora and she takes him upstairs.
Chapter 6
After a week passes (during which time Tallow learns how to make love and how to ride a horse), he thinks he sees the golden barge again. Shortly thereafter, a crowd of party-goers arrives at Pandora’s house, seeking shelter. The party devolves into an orgy. Tallow decides to continue his pursuit of the barge, and catches a glimpse of Pandora amidst a pile of naked bodies as he leaves her house.
Chapter 7
Pandora pursues Tallow to the river and climbs into his boat. Despite a moment of indecision, Tallow eventually throws Pandora overboard into the river, uncaring of whether she drowns or not.
Chapter 8
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| Art: James Cawthorn |
Chapter 9
Tallow goes to great lengths to save Mesmers from the city guards, even allowing an innocent man to be killed during one escape. When Mesmers criticizes Tallow for his crude actions, Tallow feels unappreciated and decides the man is a fool. He abandons the preacher and heads out into the city streets.
Chapter 10
Tallow is hunted by the police for three days, during which time he becomes desperate and pitiful. Mesmers finds him and nurses him back to health, restoring him back to his old selfish self. Finally, Tallow attempts to sneak to the river, but the police spot him. Tallow points Mesmers out in the crowd, and several innocent bystanders are killed in the resulting gunfire. Mesmers also dies, regretting that his act of compassion has resulted in his own downfall. Tallow escapes on a stolen motorboat down the river.
Chapter 11
Pandora uses her wiles on several rich men to raise funds in order to follow Tallow down the river. She is not sure if she wants to punish him, but she is obsessed with him.
Chapter 12
Tallow discovers an abandoned baby and tries to find a home for it. However, the nearby countryside is rampant with plague-ridden, impoverished vagrants who are burning bodies and buildings everywhere. He eventually returns to the river where he runs into a senile old man. He tells the senile old man to care for the baby and heads off onto the river, not entirely sure whether the old man understood him or not (and not caring).
Chapter 13
Tallow is captured by a band of rebels seeking to overthrow their country’s usurper (Natcho, their former commander). The rebel leader, Colonel Zhist, convinces Tallow to help them with his motorboat. Tallow takes the the rebels downstream to where Natcho is holding a carnival. Zhist asks Tallow to wait for them while they infiltrate the carnival.
Chapter 14
Tallow has a dream in which he is armed with an enchanted green sword. When attacked by a dragon, the sword heals his wounds. Eventually he is eaten by the dragon. In the carnival, Zhist meets Pandora, who has arrived in search of Tallow. Zhist recruits Pandora to his cause and she and Tallow are ordered to distract Natcho while Zhist’s freedom fighters capture the capitol. However, Tallow and Pandora are captured and tortured. While imprisoned, Tallow tells Pandora that he enjoys being an outsider. Pandora maintains that it is better to be with others. The two are eventually released and after some wandering find themselves in another time-space continuum. There, they meet alien guardians (described as being pale and tall with inhuman eyes) who are fighting against another force in order to maintain "a kind of balance". They tell Tallow that he is wasting his time looking for something which already exists inside himself and in his fellow man. While waiting for the aliens to lead him back to familiar lands, Tallow has an urge to walk into the sea, but Pandora convinces him not to, believing it to be a suicidal gesture. Tallow and Pandora later emerge from the alternate continuum and find that Zhist has in the meantime successfully overthrown Natcho’s forces.
Chapter 15
Zhist tells Tallow that his quest is pointless and will only prove that he cannot live as an outsider to mankind. Tallow ignores him and comes across a strange tortoise-like boy named Sharoom who is apparently also an outsider in the city. Obsessed with helping with the boy, Tallow forces him onto his motorboat. They somehow catch up to the golden barge, but Sharoom cannot see the barge which Tallow claims is right in front of him. Frustrated, Tallow takes the terrified tortoise-boy back to his village and then visits Pandora in the city. Pandora tells him that the neighboring Hyriomians are about to attack. Tallow thinks that if Zhist is killed in the war, then he may have an excuse to escape downriver once again.
Chapter 16
Tallow learns that Pandora is pregnant with his child. Later he causes the recently-liberated citizens to revolt against Zhist’s rule. Zhist is shocked at Tallow’s betrayal and tells him that he had only wanted to rule over the people in order to better their lives. Tallow maintains a more anarchist view and supports individual self-rule. Zhist is lynched by the mob. When Tallow asks Pandora for her support, she rejects him. After shooting and killing her, he tells the citizens of the city that Hyriomian invaders are coming and that they must destroy the city and then live out their lives in the hills.
Chapter 17
Continuing downstream, Tallow falls ill from his recent actions. He is taken in by the residents of a city named Melibone, who are forbidden to interfere with his journey, but invite him to remain in Melibone. They tell him that many have gone past their city following the golden barge. Tallow fights alternating waves of guilt, regret, frustration and obsession over the past incidents of his journey. He eventually comes to believe that he must continue to pursue the golden barge and departs Melibone.
Chapter 18
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| The Golden Barge, DAW 1980, art: John Pound |
Chapter 19
After Tallow follows the current down past rocky rapids, he knows that there is no turning back. He sights the barge as it makes its way out of the mouth of the river and into the open sea. Tallow is afraid of sailing into the open sea and wonders if he has wasted his life in this pursuit – he has become wretched and prematurely aged. In the end, he decides not to follow the barge into the sea, believing that he has already won his quest by having successfully eliminated all of his yearnings to follow the barge. However, a small voice inside him is skeptical. Uncertain still, he sees the golden barge disappear over the horizon.
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