"A duel !" The Duke of Queens saw an opportunity to strike a pose. "I will advise you. My own skill with the foil is considered not unremarkable. I am sure Lord Shark would agree…"
"Boasting Duke!" The iron Orchid put a pale yellow hand upon Amelia's naked shoulder and a white one upon Jherek's Joseph-coat. "I am sure that we are as tired of the fashion for duelling as we are of the nineteenth century. Amelia must have seen enough, of such sport in her native Burnley."
"Bromley," said Jherek.
"Forgive me. Bromley."
"Oh, but the idea is appealing!" cawed Doctor Volospion, his pointed chin thrust forward from beneath the brim of his hat. He cocked an eye first at Jherek, then at Werther. "The one so fresh and healthy, the other so stale and deathly. It would suit you, Werther, eh? With your penchant for parable. A duel between Life and Death. Whoever shall win shall decide the fate of the planet!"
"I could not undertake such a responsibility, Doctor Volospion." It was impossible to tell either from Werther's tone or from his expression (a skull's are limited at the best of times) if he jested or was in earnest.
Jherek, who had never much cared for Doctor Volospion (the doctor's jealousy of Lord Jagged was notorious), affected not to have heard. His suspicion of Volospion's motives was confirmed with the next remark.
"Is it only Jagged then who is allowed to decide Man's fate?"
"We choose our own!" Jherek defended his absent father. "Lord Jagged merely supplies us with the means of choice. We should have none at all without him!"
"So the old dog is barked for by the pup." Doctor Volospion's malice was at its sharpest.
"You forget, Doctor Volospion," said the Iron Orchid sweetly, "that the bitch is here, too."
Volospion bowed to this; a withdrawal.
In a loud voice Amelia Underwood declared: "Shall we repair to the largest island? Refreshment awaits us."
"I anticipate inspiration," said Argonheart Po, with weighty gallantry.
The guests became airborne.
For a second Jherek and Amelia were left alone, confronting one another. His face was a question which she ignored. He made a movement towards her, certain that he saw pain and bewilderment behind those painted, unblinking eyes.
"Amelia…"
She was already rising.
"You punish me!" His hand went up, as if to catch at her fluttering gown.
"Not you, my love."
24. The Vision in the City
"We hear you have command of so many ancient arts, Mrs. Underwood. You read I understand?" Agape, Gaf the Horse in Tears, all foliage save for his face, one of Amelia's swiss rolls filling the twigs at the end of his left bough, rustled with enthusiasm. "And write, eh?"
"A little." Her amusement was self-conscious.
"And play an instrument?"
She inclined an artificial curl or two. "The harmonium."
The guests, each with a costume more outrageous than the next, filed in to stand on both sides of the long trestle tables, sampling the cups of tea, the cucumber sandwiches, the roast ham, the cold sausages, the strawberry flan, the battenbergs, the ginger cakes, the lettuce and the cress, all under the shade of the tall red and white striped marquee. Jherek, in a corner of the tent, nibbled a pensive teacake, ignored by all save Li Pao, who was complaining of his treatment during his brief return home. "They called me decadent, you know…"
"And you sew. Embroider, is it?" Bishop Castle carefully replaced a rattling, scarcely tasted, cup upon the trestle.
"I used to. There is little point, now…"
"But you must demonstrate these arts!" The Iron Orchid signalled to Jherek. "Jherek. You told us Amelia sang , did you not?"
"Did I tell you that? She does."
"You must persuade her to give us an air."
"A son?"
"A song, my seed!"
He looked miserably over to where Amelia gesticulated, laughing with Doctor Volospion. "Will you sing a hymn for us, Amelia?"
Her answering smile chilled him. "Not now, I think." The crimson-clad arms spread wide. "Has everyone enough tea?"
A murmur of satiation.
Werther advanced again, hovering, a white hand holding a silver cake-stand from which he helped himself, popping one pastry at a time into his clacking jaws. "Queen of Melancholy, come with me to my Schloss Dolorous, my dear and my darling to be!"
She flirted. At least, she attempted to flirt. "Oh, chivalrous Knight of Death, in whose arms is eternal rest — would that I were free." The eyelids fluttered. Was there a tear? Jherek could bear no more. She was glancing towards him, perhaps to test his reaction, as he bowed and left the tent.
He hesitated outside. The red cascades continued to fall from all sides into the lake. The obsidian islands slowly drifted to the centre, some of them already touching. In the distance he could see the time-traveller gingerly leaping from one to another.
He had a compulsion to seek solitude in the old city, where he had sought it as a boy. It was possible that he would find his father there and could gain advice.
"Jherek!"
Amelia stood behind him. There was a tear on either scarlet cheek. "Where are you going? You are a poor host today."
"I am ignored. I am extraneous." He spoke as lightly as he could. "Surely I am not missed. All the guests join your entourage."
"You are hurt?"
"I merely had it in mind to visit the city."
"Is it not bad manners?"
"I do not understand you fully, Amelia."
"You go now?"
"It occurred to me to go now."
She paused. Then: "I would go with you."
"You seem content" — a backward look at the marquee — "with all this."
"I do it to please you. It was what you wanted." But she accused him. The tears had fallen: no more followed.
"I see."
"And you find my new role unattractive?"
"It is very fine. It is impressive. Instantly, you rank with the finest of fashion-setters. The whole of society celebrates your talents, your beauty. Werther courts you. Others will."
"Is that not how life is led, at the End of Time — with amusements, flirtations?"
"I suppose that it is."
"Then I must learn to indulge in such things if I am to be accepted." Again that chilling smile. "Mistress Christia would have you for a lover. You have not noticed?"
"I want only you. You are already accepted. You have seen that today."
"Because I play the proper game."
"If you'll have it so. You'll stay here, then?"
"Let me and I'll come with you. I am unused to so much attention. It has an effect upon the nerves. And I would satisfy myself that Harold fares well."
"Oh, you are concerned for him."
"Of course." She added: "I have yet to cultivate that particular insouciance characteristic of your world."
Lord Jagged's swan was drifting down. The pale yellow draperies billowed; he was somewhere amongst them — they heard his voice.
"My dears. How convenient. I did not wish to become involved with your party, but I did want to make a brief visit, to congratulate you upon it. A beautiful ambience, Amelia. It is yours, of course."
She acknowledged it. The swan began to hover, Lord Jagged's face now distinct, faintly amused as it often was, looking down on them. "You are more at ease, I see, with the End of Time, Amelia."
"I begin to understand how one such as I might learn to live here, Mephistopheles."
The reference brought laughter, as it always did. "So you have not completely committed yourself. No wedding, yet?"
"To Jherek?" She did not look at Jherek Carnelian, who remained subdued. "Not yet."
"The same reasons?"
"I do my best to forget them."
"A little more time, that is all you need, my dear." Jagged's stare gained intensity, but the irony remained.
"I gather there is only a little left."
"It depends upon your
attitude, as I say. Life will continue as it has always done. There will be no change."
"No change," she said, her voice dropping. "Exactly."
"Well, I must continue about my work. I wish you well, Amelia — and you, my son. You have still to recover from all your adventures. Your mood will improve, I am sure."
"Let us hope so, Lord Jagged."
"Hi! I say there. Hi!" It was the time-traveller, from a nearby island. He waved at Jagged's swan. "Is that you, Jagged?"
Lord Jagged of Canaria turned a handsome head to contemplate the source of this interruption. "Ah, my dear chap. I was looking for you. You need help, I gather."
"To get off this damned island."
"And to leave this damned era, too, do you not?"
"If you are in a position…"
"You must forgive me for my tardiness. Urgent problems. Now solved." The swan began to glide towards the time-traveller, settling on the rocky shore so that he could climb aboard. They heard the time-traveller say: "This is a great relief, Lord Jagged. One of the quartz rods requires attention, also two or three of the instruments need adjusting…"
"Quite so," came Jagged's voice. "I head now for Castle Canaria where we shall discuss the matter in full."
The swan rose high into the air and disappeared above one of the cliffs, leaving Jherek and Amelia staring after it.
"Was that Jagged?" It was the Iron Orchid, at the entrance to the tent. "He said he might come. Amelia, everyone is remarking on your absence."
Amelia went to her. "Dearest Orchid, be hostess for a little while. I am still inexperienced. I tire. Jherek and I would rest from the excitement."
The Iron Orchid was sympathetic. "I will give them your apologies. Return soon, for our sakes."
"I will."
Jherek had already summoned the locomotive. It awaited them, blue and white steam drifting from its funnel, emeralds and sapphires winking.
As they climbed into the air they looked down on the scene of Amelia's first social creation. Against the surrounding landscape it resembled some vast and terrible wound; as if the Earth were living flesh and a gigantic spear had been driven into its side.
Shortly, the city appeared upon the horizon, its oddly shaped, corroded towers, its varicoloured halo, its drifting streamers and clouds of chemical vapour, its little grumblings and murmurings, its peculiar half-organic, half-metallic odour, filling them both with a peculiar sense of nostalgia, as if for happier, simpler days.
They had not spoken since they had left; neither, it seemed, was capable of beginning a conversation; neither could come to terms with feelings which were, to Jherek at least, completely unfamiliar. He thought that for all her gaudy new finery he had never known her so despairing. She hinted at this despair, yet denied it when questioned. Used to paradox, believing it the stuff of existence, he found this particular paradox decidedly unwelcome.
"You will look for Mr. Underwood?" he asked, as they approached the city.
"And you?"
He knew foreboding. He wished to volunteer to accompany her, but was overwhelmed by unusual and probably unnecessary tact.
"Oh, I'll seek the haunts of my boyhood."
"Isn't that Brannart?"
"Where?" He peered.
She was pointing into a tangle of ancient, rotten machinery. "I thought in there. But he has gone. I even glimpsed one of those Lat, too."
"What would Brannart want with the Lat?"
"Nothing, of course."
They had flown past, but though he looked back, he saw no sign either of Brannart Morphail or the Lat. "It would explain why he did not attend the party."
"I assumed that was pique, only."
"He could never resist an opportunity in the past to air his portentous opinions," said Jherek. "I am of the belief that he still works to thwart our Lord Jagged, but that he cannot be successful. The time-traveller was explaining to me, as I recall, why Brannart's methods fail."
"So Brannart is out of favour," said she. "He did much to help you at first." She chided him.
"By sending you back to Bromley? He forgets, when he berates us for our meddling with Time, that a great deal of what happened was because of his connivance with My Lady Charlotina. Waste no sympathy on Brannart, Amelia."
"Sympathy? Oh, I have little of that now." She had returned to her frigid, sardonic manner.
This fresh ambiguity caused further retreat into his own thoughts. He had surprised himself with his criticisms, having half a notion that he did not really intend to attack Brannart Morphail at all. He was inexpert in this business of accusation and self-immolation: a novice in the expression of emotional pain, whereas she, it now seemed, was a veteran. He floundered, he who had known only extrovert joy, innocent love; he floundered in a swamp which she in her ambivalence created for them both. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never announced her love and retained her stern reliance upon Bromley and its mores, left him to play the gallant, the suitor, with all the extravagance of his world. Were his accusations really directed at her, or even at himself? And did she not actually rack her own psyche, all aggression turned upon herself and only incidentally upon him, so that he could not react as one who is threatened, must thresh about for an object, another person, upon whom to vent his building wrath, as a beaten dog snaps at a neutral hand, unable to contemplate the possibility that it is its master's victim?
All this was too much for Jherek Carnelian. He sought relief in the outer world; they flew across a lake whose surface was a rainbow swirl, bubbling and misty, then across a field of lapis lazuli dotted with carved stone columns, the remnants of some peculiar two hundred thousandth-century technology. He saw, ahead, the mile-wide pit where not long since they had awaited the end of the world. He made the locomotive circle and land in the middle of a group of ruins wreathed in bright orange fire, each flame an almost familiar shape. He helped her from the footplate and they stood in frozen attitudes for a second before he looked deliberately into her kohl-circled eyes to see if she guessed his thoughts, for he had no words — to express them; the vocabulary of the End of Time was rich only in hyperbole. He reflected then that it had been his original impulse to expand his own vocabulary, and consequently his experience, that had led him to this present pass. He smiled.
"Something amuses you?" she said.
"Ah, no, Amelia. It is only that I cannot say what I wish to say —"
"Do not he constrained by good manners. You are disappointed in me. You love me no longer."
"You wish me to say so?"
"It is true, is it not? You have found me out for what I am."
"Oh, Amelia, I love you still. But to see you in such misery — it makes me dumb. The Amelia I now see is not what you are!"
"I am learning to enjoy the pleasures of the End of Time. You must allow me an apprenticeship."
"You do not enjoy them. You use them to destroy yourself."
"To destroy my old-fashioned notions. Not myself."
Perhaps those notions are essential. Perhaps they are the Amelia Underwood I love, or at least part of her…" He subsided; words again failed him.
"I think you are mistaken." Did she deliberately put this distance between them? Was it possible that she regretted her declaration of love, felt bound by it?
"You love me, still…?"
She laughed. "All love all at the End of Time."
With an air of resolve, she broke the ensuing silence. "Well, I will look for Harold."
He pointed out a yellow-brown metal pathway. "That will lead you to the place where you left him."
"Thank you." She set off. The dress and the boots gave her a hobbling motion; her normal grace was almost entirely gone. His heart went to her, but his throat remained incapable of speech, his body incapable of movement. She turned a corner, where a tall machine, its casing damaged to expose complicated circuits, whispered vague promises to her as she passed but became inaudible, a hopeless whore, quickly rebuffed by her lack of interest
.
For a moment Jherek's attention was diverted by the sight of three little egg-shaped robots on caterpillar tracks trundling across a nearby area of rubble deep in a conversation held in a polysyllabic, utterly incomprehensible language; he looked back to the road. She was gone.
He was alone in the city, but the solitude was no longer palatable. He wanted to pursue her, to demand her own analysis of her mood, but perhaps she was as incapable of expressing herself as was he. Did Bromley supply a means of interpreting emotion as readily as it supplied standards of social conduct?
He began to suspect that neither Amelia's society nor his, for all their differences, concerned themselves with anything but the surface of things. Now that he was in the city it might be that he could find some still functioning memory bank capable of recalling the wisdom of one of those eras, like the Fifth Confucian or the Zen Commonwealth, which had placed rather exaggerated emphasis on self-knowledge and its expression. Even the strange, neurotic refinements of that other period with which he had a slight familiarity, the Saint-Claude Dictatorship (under which every citizen had been enjoined to supply three distinctly different explanations as to their psychological motives for taking even the most minor decisions), might afford him a clue to Amelia's behaviour and his own reactions. It occurred to him that she might be acting so strangely because, in some simple way, he was failing to console her. He began to walk through the ruins, in the opposite direction to the one she had taken, trying to recall something of Dawn Age society. Could it be that he was supposed to kill Mr. Underwood? It would be easy enough to do. And would she permit her husband's resurrection? Should he, Jherek, change his appearance, to resemble Harold Underwood as much as possible? Had she rejected his suggestion that he change his name to hers because it was not enough? He paused to lean against a carved jade post whose tip was lost in chemical mist high above his head. He seemed to remember reading of some ritual formalizing the giving of oneself into another's power. Did she pine because he did not perform it? Or did the reverse apply? Did kneeling have something to do with it, and if so who knelt to whom?
"Om," said the jade post.
"Eh?" said Jherek, startled.
"Om," intoned the post. "Om."
The End of All Songs dateot-3 Page 21