Dancers at the End of Time

by Michael Moorcock

  There was a pause in the babble, for Werther's glum drone frequently had this effect, until Amelia said:

  "His warnings have some substance, it would seem."

  "What?" The Duke of Queens laughed heartily. "You are living denials of the Morphail Effect!"

  "I think not." She was modest, looked to Jherek to speak, but he gave her the floor. "As I understand it, Brannart Morphail's explanations are only partial. They are not false. Many theories describe Time — and all are provable."

  "An excellent summary," said Jherek. "My Amelia relates what we have learned, darling of Dukes, at the Beginning of Time. More scientists than Brannart concern themselves with investigating Time's nature. I think he will be glad of the information I bring. He is not alone in his researches, he'll be pleased to know."

  "You are certain of it?" asked Amelia, who had flickered an eye at his recent "my" (though without apparent displeasure).

  "Why should he not be?"

  She shrugged. "I have only encountered the gentleman in dramatic circumstances, of course…"

  "He is due?" asked Jherek of the Duke.

  "Invited — as is the world. You know him. He will come late, claiming we force him against his will."

  "Then he might know the whereabouts of Jagged." He appraised the hall, as if mention of the name would invoke the one he most wished to see. Many he recognized, not famous for their gregariousness, were here, even Lord Shark (or one of his automata, sent in his place) who styled himself "The Unknown"; even Werther de Goethe, who had sworn never to attend another party. Yet, so far, that last member of the End of Time's misanthropic triumvirate, Lord Mongrove, the bitter giant, in whose honour this celebration was being held, was not in evidence.

  Her arm was still in his. A touch drew his attention. "You are concerned for Jagged's safety?" she asked.

  "He is my closest friend, devious though he seems. Could he not have suffered our fate? More drastically?"

  "If so, we shall never know."

  He drove this worry from his mind; it was not his business, as a guest, to brood. "Look," he said, "there is My Lady Charlotina!"

  She had seen them, from above, and now flew to greet them, her golden robe-de-style, with its crystal beads, its ribbons and its roses, fluttering with the speed of her descent.

  "Our hero and heroine happily restored to us. Is this the final scene? Are sleigh-bells to ring, blue-bloods to sing, catharsis achieved, tranquillity regained? I have missed so much of the plot. Refresh me — regale us all. Oh, speak, my beauties. Or are we to witness a re-enactment?"

  Mrs. Underwood was dry. "The tale is not yet finished, I regret, My Lady Charlotina. Many clues remain to be unravelled — threads are still to be woven together — there is no clearly seen pattern upon the fabric — and perhaps there never will be."

  My Lady Charlotina's disbelieving laughter held no rancour. "Nonsense — it is your duty to bring about resolution soon. It is cruel of you both to keep us in such suspense. If your timing is not exact, you will lose your audience, my dears. First there will be criticism of fine points, and then — you could not risk this — uninterest. But you must bring me up to date, before I judge. Give me merely the barest details, if that is what you wish, and let gossip colour the tale for you."

  Smiling broadly, Amelia Underwood began to tell of their adventures at the Beginning of Time.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In Which The Iron Orchid is not Quite Herself

  Jherek still sought for Jagged. Leaving Amelia to spin a yarn untangled by his interruptions, he drifted a good distance roofward, until his love and the circle surrounding her were a pattern of dots below.

  Jagged alone could help him now, thought Jherek. He had returned expecting revelation. If Jagged had been playing a joke on them, then the joke should be made clear; if he manipulated a story for the world's entertainment — then the world, as My Lady Charlotina had said, was entitled to a resolution.

  The play continued, it seemed, though the author had been unable to write the final scenes. He recalled, with a trace of rancour, that Jagged had encouraged him to begin this melodrama (or was it a farce and he a sad fool in the eyes of all the world? Or tragedy, perhaps?) and Jagged therefore should provide help. Yet if Jagged were vanished forever, what then?

  "Why," said Jherek to himself, "I shall have to complete the play as best I can. I shall prove that I am no mere actor, following a road laid by another. I shall show I am a playwright, too!"

  Li Pao, from the twenty-seventh century, had overheard him. Insistently clad in blue overalls, the ex-member of the People's Governing Committee, touched Jherek to make him turn.

  "You consider yourself an actor in a play, Jherek Carnelian?"

  "Hello, Li Pao. I spoke confused thoughts aloud, that is all."

  But Li Pao was greedy for a discussion and would not be guided away from the subject. "I thought you controlled your own fate. This whole love-story business, which so excites the woman, did it not begin as an affectation?"

  "I forget." He spoke the truth. Emotions jostled within him, each in conflict with the other, each eager for a voice. He let none speak.

  "Surely," Li Pao smiled, "you have not come to believe in your role, as the ancient actors were said to do, and think your character's feelings are your own? That would be most droll." Li Pao leaned against the rail of his drifting gallery. It tilted slightly and began to sink. He brought it back until he was again level with Jherek.

  "However, it seems likely," Jherek told him.

  "Beware, Jherek Carnelian. Life becomes serious for you. That would never do. You are a member of a perfectly amoral society: whimsical, all but thoughtless, utterly powerful. Your actions threaten your way of life. Do I see a ramshackle vessel called Self-Destruction heaving its battered bulwarks over the horizon? What's this, Jherek? Is your love genuine, after all?"

  "It is, Li Pao. Mock me, if you choose, but I'll not deny there's truth in what you say. You think I conspire against my own peace of mind?"

  "You conspire against your entire society. What your fellows could see as your morbid interest in morality actually threatens the status quo — a status quo that has existed for at least a million years, in this form alone! Would you have all your friends as miserably self-conscious as me?" Li Pao was laughing. His lovely yellow face shone like a small sun. "You know my disapproval of your world and its pleasures."

  "You have bored me often enough…" Jherek was amiable.

  "I admit that I should be sad to see it destroyed. It is reminiscent of that Nursery you discovered, before you disappeared. I should hate to see these children face to face with reality."

  "All this —" the sweep of an arm — "is not 'reality'?"

  "Illusion, every scrap. What would happen to you all if your cities were to close down in an instant, if your heat and your light — the simplest of animal needs — were taken from you? What would you do?"

  Jherek could see little point in the question. "Shiver and stumble," he said, "until death came. Why do you ask?"

  "You are not frightened by the prospect?"

  "It is no more real than anything else I experience or expect to experience. I would not say that it is the most agreeable fate. I should try to avoid it, of course. But if it became inevitable, I hope I should perish with good grace."

  Li Pao shook his head, amused. "You are incorrigible. I hoped to convince you, now that you, of all here, have rediscovered your humanity. Yet perhaps fear is no good thing. Perhaps it is only we, the fearful, who attempt to instil our own sense of urgency into others, who avoid reality, who deceive others into believing that only conflict and unhappiness lead us to the truth."

  "It is a view expressed even at the End of Time, Li Pao." The Iron Orchid joined them, sporting an oddly wrought garment, stiff and metallic and giving off a glow; it framed her face and her body, which was naked and of a conventional, female shape. "You hear it from Werther de Goethe. From Lord Shark. And, of course, from Mongrove hims
elf."

  "They are perverse. They adopt such attitudes merely to provide contrast."

  "And you, Li Pao?" asked Jherek. "Why do you adopt them?"

  "They were instilled into me as a child. I am conditioned, if you like, to make the associations you describe."

  "No instincts guide you, then?" asked the Iron Orchid. She laid a languid arm across her son's shoulders. Apparently absent-minded, she stroked his cheek.

  "You speak of instincts? You have none, save the seeking of pleasure." The little Chinese shrugged.

  "You have need of none, it could be said."

  "You do not answer her question." Jherek Carnelian found himself a fraction discomfited by his mother's attentions. His eyes sought for Amelia, but she was not in sight.

  "I argue that the question is meaningless, without understanding of its import."

  "Yet…?" murmured the Iron Orchid, and her finger tickled Jherek's ear.

  "My instincts and my reason are at one," said Li Pao. "Both tell me that a race which struggles is a race which survives."

  "We struggle mightily against boredom," she said. "Are we not inventive enough for you, Li Pao?"

  "I am unconvinced. The prisoners in your menageries — the time-travellers and the space-travellers — they condemn you. You exploit them. You exploit the universe. This planet and perhaps the star around which it circles draws its energy from a galaxy which, itself, is dying. It leeches on its fellows. Is that just?"

  Jherek had been listening closely. "My Amelia said something not dissimilar. I could understand her little better, Li Pao. Your world and hers seem similar in some respects and, from what I know of them, menageries are kept."

  "Prisons, you mean? This is mere sophistry, Jherek Carnelian, as you must realize. We have prisons for those who transgress against society. Those who occupy them are there because they gambled — normally they staked their personal freedom against some form of personal gain."

  "The time-travellers often believe they stake their lives, as do the space-travellers. We do not punish them. We look after them."

  "You show them no respect," said Li Pao.

  The Iron Orchid pursed her lips in a kind of smile. "Some are too puzzled, poor things, to understand their fate, but those who are not soon settle. Are you not thoroughly settled, Li Pao? You are rarely missed at parties. I know many other time-travellers and space-travellers who mingle with us, scarcely ever taking up their places in the menageries. Do we use force to keep them there, my dear? Do we deceive them?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Only as we deceive one another, for the pleasure of it."

  Once more, Li Pao preferred to change ground. He pointed a chubby finger at Jherek. "And what of 'your Amelia'? Was she pleased to be manipulated in your games? Did she take pleasure in being made a pawn?"

  Jherek was surprised. "Come now, Li Pao. She was never altered physically — and certainly into nothing fishy."

  Li Pao put his finger to a tooth and sighed.

  The Iron Orchid pulled Jherek away, still with her arm about his shoulders. "Come, fruit of my loins.

  You will excuse us, Li Pao?"

  Li Pao's bow was brief.

  "I have seen Mrs. Underwood," the Iron Orchid said to Jherek, as they flew higher to where only a few people drifted. "She looks more beautiful than ever. She was good enough to compliment me on my costume. You recognize the character?"

  "I think not."

  "Mrs. Underwood did, when I reminded her of the legend. A beautiful little story I had one of the cities tell me. I did not hear all the story, for the city had forgotten much, but enough was gained to make the costume. It is the tale of Old Florence and the Night of Gales and of the Lady in the Lamp, who tended to the needs of five hundred soldiers in a single day! Imagine! Five hundred!" She licked purple lips and grinned. "Those ancients! I have it in mind to re-enact the whole story. There are soldiers here, too, you know. They arrived fairly recently and are in the menagerie of the Duke of Queens. But there are only twenty or so."

  "You could make some of your own."

  "I know, flesh of my flesh, but it would not be quite the same. It is your fault."

  "How, maternal, eternal flower?"

  "Great stock is placed on authenticity, these days. Reproductions, where originals can be discovered, are an absolute anathema. And they become scarcer, they vanish so quickly."

  "Time-travellers?"

  "Naturally. The space-travellers remain. But of what use are they?"

  "Morphail has spoken to you, headiest of blooms?"

  "Oh, a little, my seed. But all is Warning. All is Prophecy. He rants. You cannot hear him; not the words. I suppose Mrs. Underwood shall be gone soon. Perhaps then things will return to a more acceptable pattern."

  "Amelia remains with me," said Jherek, detecting, he thought, a wistful note in his mother's voice.

  "You keep her company exclusively," said the Iron Orchid. "You are obsessed. Why so?"

  "Love," he told her.

  "But, as I understand it, she makes no expression of love. You scarcely touch!"

  "Her customs are not as ours."

  "They are crude, then, her customs!"

  "Different."

  "Ah!" His mother was dismissive. "She inhabits your whole mind. She affects your taste. Let her steer her own course, and you yours. Who knows, later those courses might again cross. I heard something of your adventures. They have been furious and stunning. Both of you need to drift, to recuperate, to enjoy lighter company. Is it you, bloom of my womb, keeping her by your side, when she would run free?"

  "She is free. She loves me."

  "I say again — there are no signs."

  "I know the signs."

  "You cannot describe them?"

  "They lie in gesture, tone of voice, expression in the eyes."

  "Ho, ho! This is too subtle for me, this telepathy! Love is flesh touched against flesh, the whispered word, the fingernail drawn delicately down the spine, the grasped thigh. There is no throb, Jherek, to this love of yours. It is pale — it is mean, eh?"

  "No, giver of life. You feign obtuseness, I can tell. But why?"

  Her glance was intense, for her, but cryptic.

  "Mother? Strongest of orchids?"

  But she had twisted a power-ring and was falling like a stone, with no word of reply. He saw her drop and disappear into a large crowd which swarmed at about the halfway point, below.

  He found his mother's behaviour peculiar. She exhibited moods he had never encountered before.

  She appeared to have lost some of her wit and substituted malice (for which she had always had a delicious penchant, but the malice needed the wit to make it entertaining); she appeared to show a dislike for Amelia Underwood which she had not shown earlier. He shook his head and fingered his chin. How was it, that she could not, as she had always done in the past, delight in his delight? With a shrug, he aimed himself for a lower level.

  A stranger sped to greet him from a nearby gallery. The stranger was clad in sombrero, fancy vest, chaps, boots and bandoliers, all in blinding red.

  "Jherek, my pod, my blood! Why fly so fast?"

  Only the eyes revealed identity, and even this confused him for a second before he realized the truth.

  "Iron Orchid. How you proliferate!"

  "You have met the others, already?"

  "One of them. Which is the original?"

  "We could all claim that, but there is a programme. At a certain time several vanish, one remains. It matters not which, does it? This method allows one to circulate better."

  "You have not yet met Amelia Underwood?"

  "Not since I visited you at your ranch, my love. She is still with you?"

  He decided to avoid repetition. "Your disguise is very striking."

  "I represent a great hero of Mrs. Underwood's time. A bandit king — a rogue loved by all — who came to rule a nation and was killed in his prime. It is a cycle of legend with which you must be familiar."
<
br />   "The name?"

  "Ruby Jack Kennedy. Somewhere…" she cast about … "you should find me as the treacherous woman who, in the end, betrayed him. Her name was Rosie Lee." The Iron Orchid dropped her voice.

  "She fell in love, you know, with an Italian called 'The Mouser', because of the clever way he trapped his victims…"

  He found this conversation more palatable and was content to lend an ear, while she continued her delighted rendering of the old legend with its theme of blood, murder and revenge and the curse which fell upon the clan because of the false pride of its patriarch. He scarcely listened until there came a familiar phrase (revealing her taste for it, for she was not to know that one of her alter egos had already made it):

  "Great stock is placed on authenticity, these days. Do you not feel, Jherek, that invention is being thwarted by experience? Remember how we used to stop Li Pao from giving us details of the ages we sought to recreate? Were we not wiser to do so?"

  She had only half his attention. "I'll admit that our entertainments lack something in savour for me, since I journeyed through Time. And, of course, I myself could be said to be the cause of the fashion you find distressing."

  She, in her own turn, had given his statements no close attention. She glared discontentedly about the hall. "I believe they call it 'social realism'," she muttered.

  "My 'London' began a specific trend towards the recreation of observed reality…" he continued, but she was waving a hand at him, not because she disagreed, but because he interrupted a monologue.

  "It's the spirit, my pup, not the expression. Something has changed. We seem to have lost our lightness of touch. Where is our relish for contrast? Are we all to become antiquarians and nothing more?

  What is happening to us, Jherek. It is — darkening…"

  This particular Iron Orchid's mood was very different from that of the other mother, already encountered. If she merely desired an audience while she rambled, he was happy to remain one, though he found her argument narrow.

  Perhaps the argument was the only one held by this facsimile, he thought. After all, the great advantage of self-reproduction was that it was possible to hold as many different opinions as one wished, at the same time.