Dancers at the End of Time

by Michael Moorcock

  "I am still Mrs. Underwood," she pointed out gently.

  The small mollusc began, tentatively, to crawl onto his foot. "And I am still Jherek Carnelian," he replied.

  She noticed the mollusc. "Aha! Perhaps this one is edible."

  As she reached down to inspect it, he stopped her with his hand on her shoulder. "No," he said.

  "Let it go."

  She straightened up, smiling gently at him. "We cannot afford to be sentimental, Mr. Carnelian."

  His hand remained for an instant on her shoulder. The worn, stiffened velvet was beginning to grow soft again. "We cannot afford not to be, I think."

  Her grey eyes were serious; then she laughed. "Oh, very well. Let us wait, then, until we are extremely hungry." Gaily, with her black buttoned boots kicking at the fine sand of that primordial shore, she began to stride along beside the thick and salty sea.

  "All things bright and beautiful," she sang, "all creatures great and small./ All things wise and wonderful:/ The Lord God made them all!"

  There was a certain defiance in her manner, a certain spirited challenge to the inevitable, which made Jherek gasp with devotion.

  "Self-denial, after all," she called back over her shoulder, "is good for the soul!'

  "Ah!" He began to run after her and then slowed before he had caught up. He stared around him at the calm, Silurian world, struck suddenly by the freshness of it all, by the growing understanding that they really were the only two mammals on this whole planet. He looked up at the huge, golden sun and he blinked in its benign glare. He was full of wonder.

  A little later, panting, sweating, laughing, he fell in beside her. He noticed that her expression was almost tender as she turned to look at him.

  He offered her his arm.

  After a second's hesitation, she took it.

  They strolled together through the hot, Silurian afternoon.

  "Now, Mrs. Underwood," he said contentedly, "what is 'self-denial'?"

  Book 3

  The End of all Songs

  The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof,

  (This is the end of every song man sings!)

  The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,

  Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;

  And health and hope have gone the way of love

  Into the drear oblivion of lost things,

  Ghosts go along with us until the end;

  This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.

  With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait

  For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:

  This is the end of all the songs man sings.

  Ernest Dowson

  Dregs

  1899

  CHAPTER ONE

  In Which Jherek Carnelian and Mrs. Amelia Underwood

  Commune, to some Degree, with Nature

  "I really do think, Mr. Carnelian, that we should at least try them raw, don't you?"

  Mrs. Amelia Underwood, with the flat of her left hand, stroked thick auburn hair back over her ear and, with her right hand, arranged her tattered skirts about her ankles. The gesture was almost petulant; the glint in her grey eye was possibly wolfish. There was, if nothing else, something over-controlled in the manner in which she perched primly upon her block of virgin limestone and watched Jherek Carnelian as he crouched, elbows and knees pressed in the sand of a Palaeozoic beach, and sweated in the heat of the huge Silurian (or possibly Devonian) sun.

  Perhaps for the thousandth time he was trying to strike two of his power-rings together to make a spark to light the heap of half-dried ferns he had, in a mood of ebullience long since dissipated, arranged several hours before.

  "But you told me," he murmured, "that you could not bear to consider … There! Was that a spark?

  Or just a glint?"

  "A glint," she said, "I think."

  "We must not despair, Mrs. Underwood." His optimism was uncharacteristically strained. Again he struck ring against ring.

  Around him were scattered the worn and broken fragments of fronds which he had earlier tried to rub together at her suggestion. As power-ring clacked on power-ring, Mrs. Underwood winced. In the silence of this Silurian (if it was Silurian) afternoon the sound had an effect upon her nerves she would not previously have credited; she had never seen herself as one of those over-sensitive women who populated the novels of Marie Corelli. She had always considered herself robust, singularly healthy. She sighed. Doubtless the boredom contributed something to her state of mind.

  Jherek echoed her sigh. "There's probably a knack to it," he admitted. "Where are the trilobites?"

  He stared absently around him at the ground.

  "Most of them have crawled back into the sea, I think," she told him coldly. "There are two brachiopods on your coat." She pointed.

  "Aha!" Almost affectionately he plucked the molluscoidea from the dirty black cloth of his frock-coat. Doubtfully, he peered into the shells.

  Mrs. Underwood licked her lips. "Give them to me," she commanded. She produced a hat-pin.

  His head bowed, Pilate confronting the Pharisees, he complied.

  "After all," she told him as she poised the pin, "we are only missing garlic and butter and we should have a meal fit for a French gourmet." The utterance seemed to depress her. She hesitated.

  "Mrs. Underwood?"

  "Should we say grace, I wonder?" She frowned. "It might help. I think it's the colour…"

  "Too beautiful," he said eagerly. "I follow you. Who could destroy such loveliness?"

  "That greenish, purplish hue pleases you?"

  "Not you?"

  "Not in food, Mr. Carnelian."

  "Then in what?"

  "Oh…" Vaguely. "In — no, not even in a picture. It brings to mind the excesses of the Pre-Raphaelites. A morbid colour."

  "Ah."

  "It might explain your affinities…" She abandoned the subject. "If I could conquer…"

  "A yellow one?" He tried to tempt her with a soft-shelled creature he had just discovered in his back pocket. It clung to his finger; there was the sensation of a kiss.

  She dropped molluscs and hat-pin, covered her face with her hands and began to weep.

  "Mrs. Underwood!" He was at a loss. He stirred the pile of fronds with his foot. "Perhaps if I were to use a ring as a prism and direct the rays of the sun through it we could…"

  There came a loud squeak and he wondered at first if one of the creatures were protesting. Another squeak, from behind him. Mrs. Underwood removed her fingers to expose red eyes which now widened in surprise.

  "Hi! I say — Hi, there!"

  Jherek turned. Tramping through the shallows, apparently oblivious of the water, came a man dressed in a seaman's jersey, a tweed Norfolk jacket, plus-fours, heavy woollen stockings, stout brogues. In one hand he clutched a stick of a peculiarly twisted crystalline nature. Otherwise he appeared to be a contemporary of Mrs. Underwood's. He was smiling. "I say, do you speak English of any kind?"

  He was bronzed. He had a full moustache and signs of a newly sprouting beard. He beamed at them. He came to a stop, resting his knuckles on his hips. "Well?"

  Mrs. Underwood was confused. "We speak English, sir. Indeed we are — at least I am — English, as you must be."

  "Beautiful day, isn't it?" The stranger nodded at the sea. "Nice and calm. Must be the early Devonian, eh? Have you been here long?"

  "Long enough, sir."

  "We are marooned," Jherek explained. "A malfunction of our time-craft. The paradoxes were too much for it, I suspect."

  The stranger nodded gravely. "I've sometimes experienced similar difficulties, though happily without such drastic results. You're from the nineteenth century, I take it."

  "Mrs. Underwood is. I hail from the End of Time."

  "Aha!" The stranger smiled. "I have just come from there. I was fortunate enough to witness the complete disintegration of the universe — briefly, of course. I, too, am originally from the nineteenth century. This wo
uld be one of my regular stops, if I were journeying to the past. The peculiar thing is that I was under the impression I was going forward — beyond, as it were, the End of Time. My instruments indicate as much. Yet here I am." He scratched his sandy hair, adding, in mild disappointment, "I was hoping for some illumination."

  "You are on your way, then, to the future?" Mrs. Underwood asked. "To the nineteenth century?"

  "It seems that I must be. When did you leave?"

  "1896," Mrs. Underwood told him.

  "I am from 1894. I was not aware that anyone else had hit upon my discovery during that period…"

  "There!" exclaimed Jherek. "Mr. Wells was right!"

  "Our machine was from Mr. Carnelian's period," she said. "Originally, I was abducted to the End of Time, under circumstances which remain mysterious. The motives of my abductor continue to be obscure, moreover. I…" She paused apologetically. "This is of no interest to you, of course." She moistened her lips. "You would not, I suppose, have the means of lighting a fire, sir?"

  The stranger patted the bulging pockets of his Norfolk jacket. "Somewhere. Some matches. I tend to carry as many necessities as possible about my person. In the event of being stranded … Here we are." He produced a large box of vestas. "I would give you the whole box, but…"

  "A few will do. You say you are familiar with the early Devonian."

  "As familiar as one can be."

  "Your advice, then, would be welcome. The edibility of the molluscs, for instance?"

  "I think you'll find the myalina subquadrata the least offensive, and very few are actually poisonous, though a certain amount of indigestion is bound to result. I, myself, am a slave to indigestion."

  "And what do these myalina look like?" Jherek asked.

  "Oh, like mussels, really. You have to dig for them."

  Mrs. Underwood took five matches from the box and handed it back.

  "Your time-craft, sir, is functioning properly?" Jherek said.

  "Oh, yes, perfectly."

  "And you are returning to the nineteenth century?"

  "To 1895, I hope."

  "Then you could take us with you?"

  The stranger shook his head. "It's a single-seater. The saddle barely accommodates me, since I began to put on weight. Come, I'll show you." He turned and began to plod through the sand in the direction from which he had come. They followed.

  "Also," added the stranger, "it would be unwise for me to try to take people from 1896 to 1895.

  You would meet yourselves. Considerable confusion would result. One can tamper just a little with the Logic of Time, but I hesitate to think what would happen if one went in for such blatant paradoxes. It would seem to me that if you have been treating the Logic so cavalierly it is no wonder — I do not moralize, you understand — that you find yourselves in this position."

  "Then you verify the Morphail Theory," Jherek said, trudging beside the time-traveller. "Time resists paradox, adjusting accordingly — refusing, you might say, to admit a foreign body to a period to which it is not indigenous?"

  "If a paradox is likely to occur. Yes. I suspect that it is all to do with consciousness, and with our group understanding of what constitutes Past, Present and Future. That is, Time, as such, does not exist…"

  Mrs. Underwood uttered a soft exclamation as the stranger's craft came in sight. It consisted of an open frame of tubular lengths of brass and ebony. There was ivory here and there, as well as a touch or two of silver, copper coils set into the top of the frame, immediately above a heavily sprung leather saddle of the sort normally seen on bicycles. Before this was a small board of instruments and a brass semi-circle where a lever might normally fit. Much of the rest of the machine was of nickel and crystal and it showed signs of wear, was much battered, dented and cracked in places. Behind the saddle was strapped a large chest and it was to this that the stranger made at once, undoing the brass buckles and pushing back the lid. The first object he drew out of the trunk was a double-barrelled shot-gun which he leaned against the saddle; next he removed a bale of muslin and a solar topee, and finally, using both hands, he hauled up a large wickerwork basket and dumped it in the sand at their feet.

  "This might be useful to you," he said, replacing the other objects in the trunk and securing the straps. "It's the best I can offer, short of passage home. And I've explained why that's impossible. You wouldn't want to come face to face with yourselves in the middle of Waterloo Circus, would you?" He laughed.

  "Don't you mean Piccadilly Circus, sir?" enquired Mrs. Underwood with a frown.

  "Never heard of it," said the time-traveller.

  "I've never heard of Waterloo Circus," she told him. "Are you sure you're from 1894?"

  The stranger fingered the stubble on his chin. He seemed a little disturbed. "I thought I'd merely gone full circle," he murmured. "Hm — perhaps this universe is not quite the same as the one I left. Is it possible that for every new time-traveller a new chronology develops? Could there be an infinite number of universes?" He brightened. "This is a fine adventure, I must say. Aren't you hungry?"

  Mrs. Amelia Underwood raised her beautiful brows.

  The stranger pointed at the basket. "My provisions," he said. "Make what use of them you like. I'll risk finding some food at my next stop — hopefully 1895. Well, I must be on my way."

  He bowed, brandishing his quartz rod significantly. He climbed onto his saddle and placed the rod in the brass groove, making some adjustments to his other controls.

  Mrs. Underwood was already lifting the lid of the hamper. Her face was obscured, but Jherek thought he could hear her crooning to herself.

  "Good luck to you both," said the stranger cheerfully. "I'm sure you won't be stuck here forever. It's unlikely, isn't it? I mean, what a find for the archaeologists, ha, ha! Your bones, that is!"

  There came a sharp click as the stranger moved his lever a notch or two and almost immediately the time machine began to grow indistinct. Copper glowed and crystal shimmered; something seemed to be whirling very rapidly above the stranger's head and already both man and machine were semi-transparent. Jherek was struck in the face by a sudden gust of wind which came from nowhere and then the time-traveller had gone.

  "Oh, look, Mr. Carnelian!" cried Mrs. Amelia Underwood, brandishing her trophy. "Chicken!"

  CHAPTER TWO

  In Which Inspector Springer

  Tastes the Delights of the Simple Life

  For the following two days and nights a certain tension, dissipating before the advent of the time-traveller but since restored, existed between the lovers (for they were lovers — only her upbringing denied it) and they slept fitfully, the pair of them, on either side of a frond-fondled limestone rock, having to fear nothing but the inquisitive attentions of the little molluscs and trilobites whose own lives now were free from danger, thanks to the hamper, crammed with cans and bottles enough to sustain a good-sized expedition for a month. No large beasts, no unexpected turn of the weather, threatened our Adam and our Eve; Eve, alone, knew inner conflict: Adam, simple bewilderment; but then he was used to bewilderment, and sudden moods or twists of fate had been the stuff of his existence until only recently — yet his spirits were not what they had been.

  They rose somewhat, those spirits, at dawn this morning — for the beauty, in its subtlety, excelled any creation of fin de cosmos artifice. A huge half-sun filled the horizon line so that the sky surrounding it shone a thousand shades of copper, while its rays, spread upon the sea, seemed individually coloured — blues, ochres, greys, pinks — until they reached the beach and merged again, as if at apex, to make the yellow sand glare rainbow white, turn the limestone to shimmering silver and make individual leaves and stems of the fronds a green that seemed near-sentient, it was so alive; and there was a human figure at the core of this vision, outlined against the pulsing semi-circle of dark scarlet, the velvet dress murky red amber, the auburn hair a-flame, the white hands and neck reflecting the hues, delicate hint of the palest of po
ppies. And there was music, sonorous — it was her voice; she declaimed a favourite verse, its subject a trifle at odds with the ambience.

  Where the red worm woman wailed for wild revenge,

  While the surf surged sullen 'neath moon-silver'd sky,

  Where her harsh voice, once a sweet voice, sang,

  Now was I.

  And did her ghost on that grey, cold morn,

  Did her ghost slide by?

  Rapt, Jherek straightened his back and pushed aside the frock-coat which had covered him through the night; to see his love thus, in a setting to match the perfection of her beauty, sent all other considerations helter-skelter from his head; his own eyes shone: his face shone. He waited for more, but she was silent, tossing back her locks, shaking sand from her hem, pursing those loveliest of lips.

  "Well?" he said.

  Slowly, through iridescence, the face looked up, from shadow into light. Her mouth was a question.

  "Amelia?" He dared the name. Her lids fell.

  "What is it?" she murmured.

  "Did it? Was it her ghost? I await the resolution."

  The lips curved now, perhaps a touch self-consciously, but the eyes continued to study the sand which she stirred with the sharp toe of her partly unbuttoned boot. "Wheldrake doesn't say. It's a rhetorical question…"

  "A very sober poem, is it not?"

  A sense of superiority mingled with her modesty, causing the lashes to rise and fall rapidly for a moment. "Most good poems are sober, Mr. Carnelian, if they are to convey — significance. It speaks of death, of course. Wheldrake wrote much of death — and died, himself, prematurely. My cousin gave me the Posthumous Poems for my twentieth birthday. Shortly afterwards, she was taken from us, also, by consumption."

  "Is all good literature, then, about death?"

  "Serious literature."

  "Death is serious?"

  "It is final, at any rate." But she shocked herself, judging this cynical, and recovered with: "Although really, it is only the beginning — of our real life, our eternal life…"