Dancers at the End of Time

by Michael Moorcock

  "We would still have been happy, doubtless," O'Kala Incarnadine chewed patiently at his hard tack, his voice somewhat bleating in tone, owing to his having remodelled his body into that of a sheep. "One does not need power, surely, to be happy?"

  "That was not exactly what I was trying to say." Li Pao's lovely yellow skin had turned very slightly pink. "You are immortal — yet you will still perish when the planet itself is destroyed. In perhaps two hundred years you will be dead. Do you want to die?"

  My Lady Charlotina yawned. "Most of us have died at some stage. Quite recently, Werther de Goethe hurled himself to his death on some rocks. Didn't you, Werther?"

  Dark-visaged Werther sipped moodily at his rum. He gave a sigh of assent.

  "But I speak of permanent death — without resurrection." Li Pao sounded almost desperate. "You must understand. None of you are unintelligent…"

  "I am unintelligent," said Mistress Christia, her pride wounded.

  "So you say." Li Pao dismissed her plea. "Do you want to be dead for ever, Mistress Christia?"

  "I have never considered the question that much. I suppose not. But it would make no difference, would it?"

  "To what?"

  "To me. If I were dead."

  Li Pao frowned.

  "We would all be better off dead, useless eaters of the lotus that we are." Werther de Goethe's jarring monotone came from the far side of the room. He glared down at his reflection in the floor.

  "You speak of only postures, Werther," the ex-member of the governing committee of the 27th century People's Republic admonished. "Of poetic roles. I speak of reality."

  "Is there nothing real about poetic roles?" Lord Jagged of Canaria strolled across the room, admiring the flowers which grew from the ceiling. "Was not your role ever poetic, Li Pao, when you were in your own time?"

  "Poetic? Never. Idealistic, of course, but we were dealing with harsh facts."

  "There are many forms of poetry, I understand."

  "You are merely seeking to confuse my argument, Lord Jagged. I know you of old."

  "I thought I aimed at clarification. By metaphor, perhaps," he admitted, "and that does not always seem to clarify. Though it works very well for some."

  "I believe you deliberately oppose my arguments because you half-agree with them yourself." Li Pao plainly felt he had scored a good point.

  "I half-agree with all arguments, my dear!" Lord Jagged's smile seemed a touch weary. "Everything is real. Or can be made real."

  "With the resources at your command, certainly." Li Pao agreed.

  "It is not exactly my meaning. You made your dream real, did you not? Of the Republic?"

  "It was founded on reality."

  "My scanty acquaintance with your period does not allow me to dispute that statement with any fire, I fear. Whose dream, I wonder, laid those foundations?"

  "Well, dreams, yes…"

  "Poetic inspiration?"

  "Well…"

  Lord Jagged drew his great robe about him. "Forgive me, Li Pao, for I realize that I have confused your argument. Please continue. I shall interrupt no further."

  But Li Pao had lost impetus. He fell into a sulking silence.

  "There is a rumour, magnificent Lord Jagged, that you yourself have travelled in time. Do you speak from direct experience of Li Pao's period?" Mistress Christia raised her head from its contact with Gaf's groin.

  "As a great believer in the inherent possibilities of the rumour as art," said Lord Jagged gently, "it is not for me to confirm or deny any gossip you might have heard, sweet Mistress Christia."

  "Oh, absolutely!" She gave her full attention back to Gaf's anatomy.

  Not without difficulty, Jherek held back from taxing Lord Jagged further on that particular subject, but Jagged continued:

  "There are some who would argue that Time does not really exist at all, that it is merely our primitive minds which impose a certain order upon events. I have heard it said that everything is happening, as it were, concurrently. Some of the greatest inventors of time machines have used that theory to advantage."

  Jherek, desperately feigning lack of interest, poured himself a fresh tot. When he spoke, however, his tone was not entirely normal.

  "Would it be possible, I wonder, to make a new time machine? If Shanalorm's or some other city's memories were reliable…"

  "They are not!" The querulous voice of Brannart Morphail broke in. He had added an inch or two to his hump since Jherek had last encountered him. His club foot was decidedly overdone. He came limping across the floor, his smock covered in residual spots of the various substances in his laboratories.

  "I have visited every one of the rotted cities. They give us their power, but their wisdom has faded. I was listening to your discourse, Lord Jagged. It is a familiar theory, favoured by the non-scientist. I assure you, none the less, that one gets nowhere with Time unless one treats it as linear."

  "Brannart," said Jherek hesitantly, "I was hoping to see you here."

  "Are you bent on pestering me further, Jherek? I have not forgotten that you lost me one of my best time machines."

  "No sign of it, then?"

  "None. My instruments are too crude to detect it if, as I suspect, it has gone back to some pre-Dawn period."

  "What of the cyclic theory?" Lord Jagged said. "Would you give any credence to that?"

  "So far as it corresponds to certain physical laws, yes."

  "And how would that relate to the information we were given by the Duke's little alien?"

  "I had hoped to ask Yusharisp some questions — and so I might have done if Jherek had not interfered."

  "I am sorry," said Jherek, "but…"

  "You are living proof of the non-mutability of Time," said Brannart Morphail. "If you could go back and set to rights the events brought about by your silly meddling, then you would be able to prove your remorse. As it is, you can't, so I would ask you to stop expressing it!"

  Pointedly, Brannart Morphail turned to Lord Jagged, a crooked, insincere grin upon his ancient features. "Now, dear Lord Jagged, you were saying something about the cyclic nature of Time?"

  "I think you are a little hard on Jherek," said Lord Jagged. "After all, My Lady Charlotina knew, to some extent, the outcome of her joke."

  "We'll speak no more of that. You wondered if Yusharisp's reference to the death of the cosmos — of the universe ending one cycle and beginning another — bore directly upon the cyclic theory?"

  "It was a passing thought, nothing more," said Lord Jagged, looking back over his shoulder and winking at Jherek. "You should be kinder, Brannart, to the boy. He could bring you information of considerable usefulness in your experiments, surely? I believe you feel angry with him because his experiences are inclined to contradict your theories."

  "Nonsense! It is his interpretation of his experiences with which I disagree. They are naïve."

  "They are true," said Jherek in a small voice. "Mrs. Underwood said that she would join me, you know. I am sure that she will."

  "Impossible — or, at very least, unlikely. Time does not permit paradoxes. The Morphail Theory specifically shows that once a time traveller has visited the future he cannot return to the past for any length of time; similarly any stay in the past is limited, for the reason that if he did stay there he could alter the course of the future and therefore produce chaos. The Morphail Effect is my term to describe an actual phenomenon — the fact that no one has ever been able to move backwards in Time and remain in the past. Merely because your stay in the Dawn Age was unusually long you cannot insist that there is a flaw in my description. The chances of your 19th-century lady being returned to this point in time are, similarly, very slight — millions to one. You could search for her, of course, through the millennia, and, if you were successful, bring her back here. She has no time machine of her own and therefore cannot control her flight into her future."

  "They had primitive time machines in those days," Jherek said. "There are many referen
ces to them in the literature."

  "Possibly, but we have never encountered another from her period. How she got here at all remains a mystery."

  "Some other time traveller brought her, perhaps?" Jherek was tentative, glad, at last, to have Brannart's ear. Privately, he thanked Lord Jagged for making it possible. "She once mentioned a hooded figure who came into her room shortly before she found herself in our Age."

  "Yet," said Morphail agitatedly, "I have told you repeatedly that I have no record of a time machine materializing during the phase in which you claim she arrived. Since I last spoke with you, Jherek, I checked carefully. You are in error — or she lied to you…"

  "She cannot lie to me, as I cannot to her," said Jherek simply. "We are in love, you see."

  "Yes, yes! Play whatever games amuse you, Jherek. Carnelian, but not at the expense of Brannart Morphail."

  "Ah, my wrinkled wonder-worker can you not bring yourself to display a little more generosity towards our venturesome Jherek? Who else among us would dare the descent into Dawn Age emotions?"

  "I would," said Werther de Goethe, no longer in the distance. "And with a better understanding of what I was doing, I would hope."

  "But your moods are dark moods, Werther," said Lord Jagged kindly. "They do not entertain as much as Jherek's!"

  "I do not care what the majority thinks," Werther told him. "A more select group of people, I am told, think rather more of my explorations. Jherek has hardly touched on 'sin' at all!"

  "I could not understand it, vainglorious Werther, even when you explained it," Jherek apologized. "I have tried, particularly since it is an idea which my Mrs. Underwood shared with you."

  "Tried," said Werther contemptuously, "and failed. I have not. Ask Mistress Christia."

  "She told me. I was very admiring. She will confirm —"

  "Did you envy me?" A light of hope brightened Werther's doomy eye.

  "Of course I did."

  Werther smiled. He sighed with satisfaction. Magnanimously he laid a hand upon Jherek's arm.

  "Come to my tower some day. I will try to help you understand the nature of sin."

  "You are kind, Werther."

  "I seek only to enlighten, Jherek."

  "You will find it difficult, that particular task," said Brannart Morphail spitefully. "Improve his manners, Werther, and I, for one, will be eternally grateful to you."

  Jherek laughed. "Brannart, are you not in danger of taking your 'anger' too far?" He made a movement towards the scientist, who raised a six-fingered hand.

  "No further petitions, please. Find your own time machine, if you want one. Persist in the delusion that your Dawn Age woman will return, if you wish. But do not, I beg you Jherek, involve me any further.

  Your ignorance is irritating and since you refuse the truth, then I'll have no more of you. I have my work."

  He paused. "If, of course, you were to bring me back the time machine you lost, then I might spare you a few moments." And, chuckling, he began to return to his laboratories.

  "He is wrong in one thing," Jherek murmured to Lord Jagged, "for they did have time machines in 1896, as you know. It was upon your instructions that I was placed in one and returned here."

  "Ah," said Lord Jagged, studying the cloth of his sleeve. "So you said before."

  "I am disconsolate," said Jherek, suddenly. "You give me no direct answers (it is your right, of course) and Brannart refuses his help. What am I to do, Jagged?"

  "Take pleasure in the experience, surely?"

  "I seem to tire so easily of my pleasures, these days. And when it comes to ways of enjoying current experiences, my imagination flags, my brain betrays me."

  "Could your adventures in the past have tired you more than you realize?"

  "I am certain it was you, Jagged, in 1896. It has occurred to me that even you are not aware of it!"

  "Oh, Jherek, my jackanapes, what juicy abstractions you hint at! How close we are in temperament. You must expand upon your theories. Unconscious temporal adventurings!" Lord Jagged took Jherek's arm and led him back to where the main party had gathered.

  "I base my idea," began Jherek, "on the understanding that you and I are good friends and that therefore you would not deliberately —"

  "Later. I will listen later, my love, when our duties as guests are done."

  And again Jherek Carnelian was left wondering if Lord Jagged of Canaria were not, under his worldly airs, quite as confused as himself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  To the Warm Snow Peaks

  Bishop Castle had arrived late. He made a splendid entrance, in his huge headdress twice as tall as himself and modelled on a stone tower of the Dawn Age. He had great, bushy red brows and long fine hair to match; it framed his saturnine features and fell to his chest. He wore robes of gold and silver and held the huge ornamental gearstick of some 21st-century religious order. He bowed to My Lady Charlotina.

  "I left my contribution overhead, most handsome of hostesses. There were no others there, merely some flotsam on the surface. Am I to assume that I have missed the regatta?"

  "You must, I am afraid." My Lady Charlotina came towards him and took his long hand. "But you shall have some of our naval fare." She drew him towards the barrels of rum. "Hot or cold?" she asked.

  As Bishop Castle sipped the rum My Lady Charlotina described the battles which had taken place that day on Lake Billy the Kid. "And the way in which Lady Voiceless's Bismarck sank my Queen Elizabeth was ingenious, to say the least."

  "Scuppered below decks!" said Sweet Orb Mace with a relish for words which were meaningless to her. "Hoisted by her holds. Spliced in her mainbrace! Belayed across the bows!" Her bright yellow, furry face became animated. "Rammed," she added, "under the water-line."

  "Yes, dear. Your knowledge of nautical niceties is admirable."

  "Admiral!" giggled Sweet Orb Mace.

  "Try a little less of the rum and a little more of the hard tack, dear," suggested My Lady Charlotina, leading Bishop Castle to her hammock. Not without difficulty, he seated himself beside her (his hat was inclined to topple him over if he were not singularly careful). Bishop Castle noticed Jherek and waved his gearstick in a friendly greeting.

  "Still pursuing your love, Jherek?"

  "As best I can, mightiest of mitres." Jherek left Lord Jagged's side. "How are your giant owls?"

  "Disseminated, I regret to say. I had it in mind to make a Vatican City in the same period as your London — I am a slave to fashion, as you know — but the only references I could find placed it on Mars about a thousand years later, so I must assume that it was not contemporary. A shame. A Hollywood I began came to nothing, so I gave up my efforts to emulate you. But when you are leaving, take a look at my ship. I hope you will approve of my careful research."

  "What is it called?"

  "The Mae West," said Bishop Castle. "You know it, I assume."

  "I do not! That makes it even more interesting."

  The Iron Orchid joined them, her features almost invisible in their glaring whiteness. "We were considering a picnic in the Warm Snow Peaks, Charlotina. Would you care to come?"

  "An exquisite idea! Of course I shall come. I think we have had the best of this entertainment now.

  And you, Jherek, will you go?"

  "I think so. Unless Lord Jagged…" He turned to look for his friend, but Jagged had disappeared.

  He shrugged, reconciling himself. "I would love it. It's ages since I visited the peaks. I had no notion that they still existed."

  "Weren't they something Mongrove made, in a lighter vein than usual?" Bishop Castle asked. "Has anyone heard from Mongrove, by the by?"

  "Not since he rushed off into space with Yusharisp," the Iron Orchid told him, glancing about the hall. "Where is the Duke of Queens? I had hoped he would wish to come with us."

  "One of his time travellers — he calls them 'retainers', I understand — came to him with a message.

  The message animated him. He left with his eye
s bright and his face flushed. Perhaps another traveller entering our Age?"

  Jherek refused to be moved by this news. "Did Lord Jagged go with him?"

  "I am not sure. I wasn't aware he had gone." My Lady Charlotina raised her slender eyebrows.

  "Odd that he did not pay his respects. All this rushing and mystery whets my curiosity."

  "And mine," said Jherek feelingly, but he was determined to remain as insouciant as possible and bide his time. If Amelia Underwood had come back, he would know soon enough. He rather admired his own self-control; he was even faintly astonished by it.

  "Isn't the scenery piquant?" said the Iron Orchid with something of a proprietorial air. On the slope where they had laid their picnic they could see for scores of miles. Below, there were plains and rivers and lakes of a rich variety of gentle colours. "So unspoiled. It hasn't been touched since Mongrove made it."

  "I must admit to a preference for his earlier work," agreed Bishop Castle, running sensual fingers through the glittering snow which spread across the flanks of the great eminences. It was primarily white, with just the subtlest hint of pale blue. A few little flowers poked their delicate heads above the surface of the snow. They were mainly indigenous to this sort of alpine terrain — orange vedigris and yellow bottlewurt were two which Jherek had recognized, and another which he guessed was some kind of greenish St. Buck's Buttons.

  Sweet Orb Mace, who had insisted on accompanying them, was rolling down the slope in a flurry of warm snow, laughing and shouting and rather destroying the tranquillity of the scene. The snow clung to her fur as she tried to get up and instead she slipped and slid further, hanging, helpless with mirth, over a precipice which must have been at least a thousand feet high. Then, the snows gave way and with a startled yell she fell.

  "What could have possessed Mongrove to go into space?" said My Lady Charlotina with a token smile in the general direction of the vanished Sweet Orb Mace. "I cannot believe that she could possibly have been your father, you know, Jherek, however good the disguise."

  "It was a very strong rumour at one time," the Iron Orchid said, stroking her son's hair and plucking little particles of snow from it. "But I agree, Charlotina, it would not be quite in Sweet Orb Mace's style.