Shadows Fall

by Simon R. Green

  Hard-packed snow leapt up below him and slammed into his feet. He fell sprawling and lay stretched out, trembling violently in reaction to the fall. The snow was wet and crunchy under his bare hands, but the solidness of it was a comfort, and the tremors left him as his breathing slowed. He got his feet under him and stood up, raising an arm to keep the flying snow out of his face. It was night, and the moon above him was a perfect silver circle, its bright shimmering light punching through the storm. The hard-packed snow supported his weight, but he had no idea how much snow there was between his feet and the ground below. The thought gave him a kind of vertigo, and he decided very firmly not to think about it again. He hugged himself tightly, trying to hold in what warmth he had left, but the bitter cold leached all the strength out of him. The frozen waste stretched away in all directions, disappearing into the swirling snow. Each way looked as futile as any other, and he might have stood there for ever, frozen in indecision, if Ash hadn’t appeared suddenly out of the storm to take him firmly by the arm.

  “First step’s a bastard, isn’t it?” said Ash, shouting to be heard over the roar of the storm. “Sorry about that. Stick with me. It isn’t far now.”

  He set off into the swirling snow, half leading and half pulling Hart with him. The cold didn’t seem to be bothering Ash at all, but then, Hart thought crazily, it wouldn’t. They trudged on, slipping and sliding on the uneven snow and battered by the howling wind, but a dark shape soon formed in the white glare ahead. The storm seemed to deepen, as though to deny them this new sanctuary, but Ash and Hart plunged on, fighting the wind for every step. Ash tried to shield Hart with his own body, but the knife-edged wind seemed to blow right through him. Hart hunched his shoulders, narrowed his eyes to slits, and fought on. He hadn’t come this far to be beaten by the weather. Ash had promised him there were answers to be found here, and he was going to have them, no matter what it took.

  The building suddenly loomed up before him, vast and overpowering, a great black shape with few details and bright lights shining out of high windows. Ash pulled Hart in close beside the nearest wall, and the battering wind died away, unable to bring its full strength to bear on them any more. Hart panted for breath, wincing as the cold stabbed his lungs. He’d never felt cold like it, and the thought slowly surfaced that they’d better find a way in soon, very soon, or frostbite would start gnawing on his extremities. He’d already lost all feeling in his hands and feet. Ash pulled him along the side of the wall a way, and then stopped and hammered on the wall with his fist. A door swung suddenly inwards, almost as though it had been waiting for them, and a warm golden glow spilled out into the night. Ash hauled Hart inside, and the door slammed shut behind them.

  Hart sank to his knees on the bare wooden floor, and groaned aloud as warmth flooded into him, forcing out the cold and bringing feeling back to his frozen extremities. Ash knelt down beside him and rubbed briskly at Hart’s hands, to get the blood moving again. Hart slowly straightened up, grimacing at the agony of returning circulation, and looked around him through watering eyes. He and Ash were kneeling in a huge, old-fashioned Hall, with tall wood-panelled walls, and a raftered ceiling high overhead. So high that Hart wouldn’t have been surprised to find owls nesting up there. Or bats. The Hall itself stretched away into the distance, but Hart’s attention fastened on to the stacked log fire crackling brightly in a great stone fireplace, only a dozen steps from the door. He staggered to his feet with Ash’s help, and moved over to stand directly before it. The warmth sank into him like cup after cup of the very finest coffee, filling him with a wonderful glow that forced out the last chill from his bones. Hart smiled beatifically, quite content to stay where he was indefinitely. Or even longer. But thoughts of the world and its pains returned, and he turned an accusing glare on Ash.

  “The first step’s a bastard?”

  “Ah,” said Ash. “Sorry about that. I would have warned you, but it isn’t usually that bad.”

  Hart looked at him sharply. “You mean that blizzard was… arranged, deliberately, to discourage us from coming here?”

  “It’s possible,” said Ash. “Time really doesn’t like visitors.” He shrugged and smiled vaguely, and looked around him. “The Hall changes sometimes too, though I’ve never worked out why. Time’s a whimsical sort, and his sense of humour often escapes me. Take a moment and get your breath back, James. There’s no need for any hurry here. In here, there’s all the time in the world.”

  Hart turned his back to the fire so that his backside could get the full benefit of the warmth. “This… Hall. Is it really the same building we saw in your snowscene?”

  “Oh yes. Perhaps it’s the same house inside all snow-scenes, if only people knew how to get inside them. This is All Hallows’ Hall, James, the house at the heart of the world. Take the left-hand path, and you’ll come to the Gallery of Frost. The right-hand path leads to the Gallery of Bone, and Old Father Time himself.”

  Hart looked at him thoughtfully. “The Gallery of Frost. The Forever Door.”

  “That’s right,” said Ash. “I can hear it calling me. It’s very clear here. Don’t ask me to take you there, James. I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “To me, or to you?”

  “Very good, James,” said Ash approvingly. “That combination of common sense and naked paranoia will serve you well in Shadows Fall. And no, I’m not going to answer your question. I only met you today, and already you know far too much about me. You must allow me to keep a few little surprises in reserve. But I’m feeling generous, so I’ll allow you one more question. If you’re quick.”

  “All right,” said Hart, determined to get some information out of him at least. “Why is it called the Gallery of Bone?”

  “Now that is a good question,” said Ash. “I wish I had more of an answer for you. Essentially, the Gallery of Bone is constructed from ancient fossilized bones, from a creature so ancient no one now knows what it was. Legend has it the bones came from a creature set to guard the Forever Door, in the days before Shadows Fall existed, and the world was a hell of a lot younger. No one knows how or why this creature came to die. Time might know, but if he does, he isn’t talking. Speaking of which, we’d do well to get a move on. Time knows we’re here, and the longer we keep him waiting the less likely it is he’ll feel like answering your questions.”

  Ash set off down the Hall at a determined pace. Hart glanced wistfully at the crackling fire, sighed once, and then set off after Ash. They walked together for a while in silence, the only sound in that vast Hall the quiet murmuring echoes of their footsteps. Light appeared around them from no readily detectable source, and moved along with them, so that they were always walking in a wide pool of golden light. The panelled walls slid smoothly past, innocent of any decoration or embellishment. Hart had been expecting a fair selection of old and valuable paintings and portraits; it seemed that kind of place. But the walls were bare and characterless, and there weren’t even any other doors or corridors leading off in other directions. There was only the Hall, and the light they moved in. Hart looked back over his shoulder once, but only once. Behind them there was nothing but an impenetrable darkness.

  They walked for a long time, or at least it seemed that way. There were no landmarks, and Hart wasn’t really surprised to find his watch no longer worked. He’d actually started to get a bit bored when a tall slim figure stepped suddenly into the light ahead of them. He stopped immediately, and the figure before him stopped too. Ash stood at his side and looked from one figure to the other with a calm knowing smile.

  The newcomer was a human form composed almost entirely of clockwork. Wheels turned and ratchets clicked, and there was a general whirring of working machinery and moving parts. The whole figure was a complex structure of interconnecting parts, fashioned in minute and intricate detail. Every bone and muscle and joint had its steel or brass counterpart, but there was no layer of skin to hide the mechanisms from view. The face was a delicate porcelain mask, with e
xquisite painted features. But the eyes were flat and blank, and the smile never wavered, and the overall effect was more inhuman than any steel mask could have been. The figure stood patiently before them, whirring quietly, as though waiting for some question or command.

  “Is this… Time?” said Hart finally.

  “No,” said Ash. “Just one of his servants. Step aside, and it’ll be on its way.”

  Hart did so, and the figure moved gracefully forward, walking with a style and efficiency no human form could ever equal. It quickly stepped out of the light and disappeared back into the gloom. Hart could hear it for a while, walking serenely in the dark, with no need for light or warmth or any other human weakness.

  “Automaton,” said Ash briskly. “Time makes them, piece by piece. Partly as a hobby, partly so he can have agents to walk abroad in the world and do his bidding. You’ll see more of them as we get closer to Time’s lair. Don’t let them worry you. They’re harmless; nothing more than glorified errand boys really.”

  “Are they… alive, in any way?” said Hart, as he and Ash continued on down the Hall.

  “Not really. They’re Time’s eyes and ears outside the Gallery. He rarely enters the real world any more, save for those occasions and ceremonies where it’s expected of him. He gets more and more insular and broody as he gets older, but he’s never been keen on company at the best of times. Still, he’ll want to see you. I think. Come on.”

  They continued on their way in their pool of light and more automatons came and went, their sightless eyes staring straight ahead, in the service of some unknown mission or command. And finally, Ash and Hart came to a door at the end of the Hall. It was huge, easily fifteen feet tall, fashioned of polished wood patterned with black iron studs. It towered above them, and Hart felt like a small child unexpectedly summoned to his headmaster’s office. He tried to stand a little taller, and deliberately crushed the feeling within him. He was a supplicant, not a child. Not any more. There was no handle or knob, so he reached out to knock, but the huge door swung smoothly open before he could touch it. Ash smiled briefly, and led Hart into the Gallery of Bone.

  The Gallery stretched away before them, with more floors above and below, falling away and rising above for as far as they could see into the warm honeyed light. Hart moved slowly forward after Ash, numbed and awed by the sheer scale of the place. He couldn’t see the end of the corridor he was walking down, and just trying to calculate the overall size of the Gallery made his head ache. Portraits lined both walls, an endless series of scenes and faces captured in delicate filigreed silver frames some six feet tall and three feet wide. He recognized one of the scenes, a slowly changing view of the Sarcophagus in the park. The mists had gone, but masses of crawling ivy covered the stone, as though centuries had passed since Hart last saw it. He looked at the next portrait, and saw people walking unconcernedly down a market street. There was nothing in their attitude to suggest they knew they were being watched. Ash coughed politely, and Hart looked round, startled. He realized he’d come to a complete halt, and hurried on to catch up with Ash, while trying to look as though he’d really meant to stop all the time.

  There were portraits without end, and Hart shook his head dazedly as he tried to grasp the scale of the Gallery. The endless prospects flowed past him like scenery viewed from a slow-moving train, and there were always new sights and wonders, places and people seen from far away or in such close-up detail that Hart felt as though he could just reach out and touch them. The scenes in the portraits were silent until he stood before them, and then sounds and voices would whisper in the Gallery, tantalizingly faint, as though they’d had to travel unimaginable distances to reach him.

  “Time doesn’t get out much,” said Ash easily, “But with the Gallery to keep him informed, he doesn’t have to. Every place and every person in Shadows Fall can be seen somewhere in the Gallery of Bone. You’d have to be crazy to keep track of it all, but then, that’s Time for you. If it was an easy job, anybody could do it.”

  Hart frowned. “Wait a minute. I don’t think I like the sound of that. What about people’s privacy?”

  “What about it?” said Ash. “Given that there are an almost infinite number of places, people and things that Time has to keep track of, what are the odds that he’s going to be watching you? And even if he was, that you’d be doing anything that was (1) interesting, and (2) something he hadn’t seen before? Mostly we all just assume he’s watching someone else, and mostly we’re right. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You keep saying that, but it doesn’t help. This place worries the hell out of me; it’s Big Brother with a vengeance.”

  “I prefer to think of him more as Big Uncle; well-meaning but preoccupied. Let me show you something that’ll take your mind off it. The portraits have other functions too. Take a look at this. You’ll like this.”

  Ash stopped before a particular portrait, and Hart stopped with him. The scene was a high-tech latticework of steel corridors jammed together like a honeycomb, with shadowy figures scuttling back and forth, too quickly and too briefly seen to be identified. The lights were painfully bright, too intense to be meant for human eyes, and there were no shadows anywhere. Here and there, intricate machines like living sculptures performed silent, unguessable tasks.

  “What is that place?” said Hart, his voice low, as though afraid he’d be overheard.

  “The future,” said Ash. “Or possibly the past. It doesn’t matter. Keep watching.”

  One of Time’s automatons came striding confidently down the harshly-lit corridor, its steel feet clapping loudly against the steel floor. It walked towards the portrait, already so close its painted eyes and smile could easily be seen. It soon filled the view, and Ash backed away. Hart realized suddenly what was about to happen, and stumbled backwards, his eyes still fixed on the portrait. A slow tension formed on the air, pressure building remorselessly until an uncomfortably warm breeze gusted out of the portrait and into the Gallery. It smelt of ozone and machine oil. The automaton stepped gracefully out of the portrait and down into the Gallery, and walked away without even bothering to glance at Hart and Ash. The warm breeze broke off abruptly, and all that was left was the disappearing automaton, and the last few traces of ozone and machine oil on the air.

  “How’s that for timing?” said Ash. “What were the odds we’d be in just the right place at the right moment to witness that?”

  “Yeah,” said Hart slowly. “What were the odds? They’d have to be astronomical. Much more likely that Time’s watching us, and has been for quite some while.”

  He looked quickly about him, as though expecting to see Old Father Time right there in the Gallery with them, but Ash just shrugged and shook his head. “Not necessarily,” he said easily. “Coincidence is one of Time’s favourite tools. Come on; we don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  “Will you stop saying that! It took me twenty-five years to get back here; it won’t hurt him to wait a few minutes longer. You’d think he was a King or something, the way you all jump at his name.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Ash. “You will, when you’ve had a chance to meet him. He really is rather special.”

  Hart sniffed, and looked after the disappearing automaton. “How many of those… things, does Time have?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows for sure, except Time himself. It takes him years to make one, but by all accounts his various selves have been making them for centuries. They’re his thoughts and his hands in the outside world, and in a sense they’re his children too. The only children he’ll ever have.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Ash looked at him expressionlessly. “Think about it, James. Time is immortal, or as near as makes no damn difference. How many children would a man have after a few thousand years? How many children would they have? No, James; there’ve never been any children and there never will be.”

  “Doesn’t he mind?”

  Ash shrugged. “He’s had a lot
of time to get used to the idea. But yes, of course he minds. Why do you think he keeps making automatons?”

  Hart looked at the portraits on the walls and then at the Gallery around him. He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it without sounding naive. So he said it anyway. “Leonard; is Time human?”

  “A fair question,” said Ash, “And one that has been troubling the minds of people in Shadows Fall for a good many centuries. He looks human enough, and he has enough human frailties to more than qualify, but he was never born and death can’t hold him. He appears as a baby, lives a man’s lifetime in one year and dies an old man, only to appear again from his own ashes. Some say he’s the ancient phoenix of legend, others that he is the very concept of Time itself, given shape and form and blood and bone. Everyone has an opinion, but no one knows, and Time isn’t talking. There’s only one thing that everyone agrees on where Old Father Time’s concerned.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He hates to be kept waiting. You walked right into that one, James.”

  “No I didn’t; it mounted the pavement and ran me down.”

  “Whatever,” said Ash. “Let’s go.”

  They walked along in silence for a way, their footsteps echoing hollowly in the empty Gallery. Scenes and faces came and went on the walls they passed, and occasionally a quietly whirring automaton would stride gracefully past on its master’s bidding. Hart began to wonder how much further he’d have to walk; it seemed like he’d spent most of the day travelling from one place to another, and his feet were killing him. He’d been walking for some time now, but like the Hall earlier, the Gallery seemed to go on for ever. He looked back the way they’d come, but there was no longer any sign of the door they’d entered through. The Gallery stretched away for as far as he could see in each direction, as though it had no beginning and no ending. The thought disturbed him, and he searched for something else to say that would distract him. He didn’t have to search far.