Dancers at the End of Time (23 page)

"But where is Mrs. Amelia Underwood now, Lord Jagged?" Jherek Carnelian called, following after his friend, his pale grey suit (with the orange arrows) flapping as he moved through the air. "I thought you sent a message that you were bringing her back with you!"

"I? A message? No."

"Then where is she?"

"Why, in Bromley, I suppose. In Kent. In England. In 1896."

"Oh, Lord Jagged, you are
cruel!
"

"To a degree." Lord Jagged guided the swan back to where Jherek sat on the head of the statue which, in turn, rested its feet on the dome of the Old Bailey. It was an odd statue — blindfolded, with a sword in one hand and a set of golden scales in the other. "But did you not learn anything from your sojourn in the past, Jherek?"

"I experienced something, Lord Jagged, but I am not sure I
learned
anything."

"Well, that is the best way to learn, I think." Lord Jagged smiled again.

"It was you — the Lord Chief Justice — wasn't it?" Jherek said.

The smile broadened.

"You must get Mrs. Amelia Underwood back for me, Lord Jagged," Jherek told him. "If only so that she may see this." He spread both his hands.

"The Morphail Effect," said Lord Jagged. "It is an indisputable fact. Brannart says so."

"You know more."

"I am flattered. Have you heard, by the by, what became of Mongrove and Yusharisp, the alien?"

"I have been busy. I've heard no gossip at all."

"They succeeded in building a spaceship and have left together to spread Yusharisp's message throughout the universe."

"So Mongrove has left us." Jherek felt sad at hearing this news.

"He will tire of the mission. He will return."

"I hope so."

"And your mother, the Iron Orchid. Her liaison with Werther de Goethe is ended, I hear. She took up with the Duke of Queens, who had virtually retired from the world, and they are planning a party together. She will be the guiding spirit, so it should be successful."

"I am glad," said Jherek. "I think I will go to see her soon."

"Do. She loves you. We all love you, Jherek."

"And I love Mrs. Amelia Underwood," said Jherek meaningly. "Will I see her again, Lord Jagged?"

Lord Jagged patted the neck of his graceful swan. The bird began to flap away towards the East.

"Will I?" cried Jherek insistently.

And Lord Jagged called back over his shoulder: "Doubtless you will. Much can happen yet. After all, there are at least a thousand years before the End of Time!"

The white swan soared higher into the blue sky. From its downy back Lord Jagged waved.

"Farewell, my fateful friend. Adieu, my time-tossed leaf, my thief, my grief, my toy! Jherek, my joy, good-bye!"

And Jherek saw the white swan turn its long neck once to look at him from enigmatic black eyes before it disappeared behind a single cloud which drifted in that bland, blind sky.

Dressed in various shades of pale green, the Iron Orchid and her son lay upon a lawn of deeper green which swept gently down to a viridian lake. It was late afternoon and a warm breeze blew.

Between the Iron Orchid and her slender son lay a cloth of greenish-gold and on this were jade plates bearing the remains of their picnic. There were green apples, green grapes and artichoke hearts; there was asparagus, lettuce, cucumber and watercress; little melons, celery and avocados, vine leaves and pears, and, at one corner of the cloth, there stared a radish.

The Iron Orchid's emerald lips opened slightly as she reached for an unpeeled almond. Jherek had been telling her of his adventures at the Dawn of Time. She had been fascinated but not altogether comprehending.

"And you did find out the meaning of 'virtue,' my bones?" She hesitated over the almond and now considered a cucumber.

He sighed. "I must admit I am not sure. But I think it might have had something to do with

'corruption'." He laughed and stretched his limbs upon the cool grass. "One thing leads to another, mother."

"How do you mean, my love, 'corruption'?"

"It has something to do with not being in control of your own decisions, I think. Which in turn has something to do with the environment in which you choose to live — if you have a choice at all. Perhaps when Mrs. Amelia Underwood returns she will be able to help me."

"She will return here?" With a gesture of abandonment the Iron Orchid let her fingers fall upon the radish. She popped it into her mouth.

"I am certain of it," he said.

"And then you will be happy!"

He looked at her in mild surprise. "How do you mean, mother, 'happy'?"

"You have begun another fashion I fear, my dear." The Iron Orchid slid the sable sheets down her smooth skin and pushed them from the bed with her slender feet.

"I am so proud of you. What mother would not be? You are a talented and tasty son!"

Jherek sighed from where he lay on the far side of the bed, his face all but hidden in the huge downy pile of pillows. He was pale. He was pensive.

"Thank you, brightest of blossoms, most revered of metals."

His voice was small.

"But you still pine," she said sympathetically, "for your Mrs. Underwood."

"Indeed."

"Few could sustain such a passion so well. The world still awaits, eagerly, expectantly, the outcome.

Will you go to her? Will she come to you?"

"She said that she would come to me," Jherek Carnelian murmured. "Or so I understood. You know how difficult it is sometimes to make sense of a time traveller's conversation, and I must say that it was particularly confusing in 1896." He smiled. "It was wonderful, however. I wish you could have seen it, Iron Orchid. The Coffee Stalls, the Gin Palaces, the Prisons and all the other monuments. And so many people! One might doubt a sufficiency of air to give life to them!"

"Yes, dear." Her response was not as lively as it might have been, for she had heard all this more than once. "But your recreation is there, for all of us to enjoy. And others now follow where you led."

Realizing that he was in danger of boring her, he sat up in his pillows, stretching his fingers out before him and contemplating the shimmering power rings which adorned them. Pursing his perfect lips he made an adjustment to the ring on the index finger of his right hand. A window appeared on the far side of the room and through the window sunshine came leaping, warm and bright.

"What a beautiful morning!" exclaimed the Iron Orchid, complimenting him. "How do you plan to spend it?"

He shrugged. "I had not considered the problem. Have you a suggestion?"

"Well, Jherek, since you are the one who has set the fashion for nostalgia, I thought you might like to come with me to one of the old rotted cities."

"You are most certainly in a nostalgic mood, Queen of imaginative mothers." He kissed her softly upon the lids of her ebony eyes. "We are last there together when I was a child — you are thinking of Shanalorm, of course?"

"Shanalorm, or whatever it's called. You were conceived there, too, as I remember." She yawned.

"The rotted cities are the only permanency in this world of ours."

"Some would say they 
were
 the world." Jherek smiled. "But they do not have the charm of the Dawn Age metropoli, ancient as they are."

"I find them romantic," she said reminiscently. She threw jet arms around him, kissing him upon the lips with her mouth of midnight blue, her dress (living purple poppies) undulating and sighing. "What shall you wear, to go adventuring? Are you still in a mood for those arrowed suits?"

"I think not." (Privately, he was disappointed that she still favoured blacks and dark blues, for it indicated that she had not completely forgotten her relationship with doom-embracing Werther de Goethe.) He considered the problem for a moment and then, with a twist of a power ring, produced flowing robes of white spider-fur. His intention was to create a contrast, and it pleased her. "Perfect," she purred. "Come, let's board your carriage and be off."

They left his ranch (which was purposely preserved much as it had been when he had tried to prepare a home for his lost love, Mrs. Amelia Underwood, before she had been projected back to her own 19th century) and crossed the well-tended lawns, where his deer and his buffalo no longer roamed, through the rockeries, rose bowers and Japanese gardens which reminded him so poignantly of Mrs.

Underwood, to his landau of milky jade. The landau was upholstered inside with the skins of apricot-coloured vynyls (beasts now long extinct) and trimmed with green gold.

The Iron Orchid settled herself in the carriage and Jherek seated himself opposite, tapping a rail as a signal for the carriage to ascend. Someone (not himself) had produced a lovely, round yellow sun and gorgeous blue clouds, while below them rolled gentle grassy hills, woods of pine and clover-trees, rivers of amber and silver, rich and restful to the eye. There was miles and miles of it. They headed in a roughly southerly direction, towards Shanalorm.

They crossed a viscous white and foamy sea from which pink creatures, not unlike gigantic earthworms, poked either their heads or their tails (or both), and they speculated on its creator.

"Unfortunately, it is probably Werther," said the Iron Orchid. "How he strives against an ordinary aesthetic! Is this another example of his Nature, do you think? It certainly seems primitive."

They were glad to have the white sea behind them. Now they floated over high salt crags which glittered in the light of a reddish orb which was probably the real sun. There was a silence in this landscape which thrilled them both and they did not speak until it was passed.

"Nearly there," said the Iron Orchid, peering over the side of the landau (actually she had absolutely no clear idea where they were and had no need to know, for Jherek had given the carriage clear instructions). Jherek smiled, delighting in his mother's enthusiasms. She always enjoyed their outings together.

Caught by a gust of air, his spider-fur draperies lifted around him, all but obscuring his view. He patted them down so that their whiteness spread across the seat and at that moment, for a reason he could not define, he thought of Mrs. Underwood and his brow clouded. It had been much longer than he had expected. He was sure that she would have returned by now if she could. He knew that soon he must visit the ill-tempered old scientist, Brannart Morphail, and beg him for the use of another time machine. Morphail had claimed that Mrs. Underwood, subject as anyone else to the Morphail Effect, would soon be ejected from 1896 and might wind up in any period of time covered by the past million years, but Jherek was sure that she would return to this Age. After all, they were in love. She had admitted, at long last, that she loved him. Jherek wondered if Brannart, determined to prove his theory flawless, were actually blocking Mrs. Underwood's attempts to get to him. He knew that the suspicion was unfair, but it was already obvious that both My Lady Charlotina and Lord Jagged of Canaria were playing complicated games involving his and Mrs. Underwood's fates. He had taken this in good part so far, but he was beginning to wonder if the joke were not beginning to pall.

The Iron Orchid had noticed his change of mood. She leaned across and stroked his forehead.

"Melancholy, again, my love?"

"Forgive me, finest of flowers." With an effort he cleared his face of lines. He smiled. He was glad when, at that moment, he noticed violet light pulsing on the horizon. "Shanalorm looms. See!"

As she turned, her face was a black mirror reflecting the delicate radiation. "Ah, at last!"

They entered a landscape that none chose to change; not merely because it was so fine, but also because it might have been unwise to tamper with the sources of their power. Cities like Shanalorm had been built over the course of many centuries and they were very old. It had been said that they were capable of converting the energy of the entire cosmos, that the universe could be created afresh by means of their mysterious engines, but no one had ever dared to test this pronouncement. Though few had bothered to do so in the past couple of millennia (it was currently considered vulgar) it was certainly possible to make any number of new stars or planets. The cities would last as long as Time itself (which was not that long, if Yusharisp, the little alien who had gone into space with Lord Mongrove, was to be believed).

Beneath its canopy of violet light, which did not seem to penetrate to the city itself, Shanalorm lay dreaming. Some of its bizarre buildings had melted and remained in a semi-liquid state, their outlines still discernible; other buildings were festering — machine mould and energy-moss undulated across their shells, bright yellow-green, bile-blue and reddish-brown, groaning and whispering as it sought fresh seepages from the power-reservoirs; peculiar little animals, indigenous to the cities, scuttled in and out of openings which might have been doors and windows, through shadows of pale blue, scarlet and mauve, cast by nothing visible; they swam through pools of glittering gold and turquoise, feasting off half-metallic plants which in turn were nurtured by queer radiations and cryptically structured crystals. And all the while Shanalorm sang to itself, a thousand interweaving songs, hypnotic harmonies. Once, it was said, the whole city had been sentient, the most intelligent being in the universe, but now it was senile and even its memories were fragmented. Images flickered here and there among the rotting jewel-metal of the buildings; scenes of Shanalorm's glories, of its inhabitants, of its history. It had had many names before it was called Shanalorm.