Dancers at the End of Time
Page 62
"I have Brannart's abandoned machine. It is an excellent one — the best he has ever produced. It is already stocked. You can set off as soon as you wish."
"I am not sure that life in the Palaeozoic is entirely to my taste," said Jherek. "I would leave so many friends behind, you see."
"And you would age, dear," added the Orchid. "You would grow infirm. I cannot imagine…"
"You said that we should have several hundred years, Lord Jagged?" Amelia began to rise.
"You would have a life-span about the same as Methusalah's, at a guess. Your genes are already affected, and then there would be the prevailing conditions. I think you would have time to grow old quite gracefully — and see several generations follow you."
"That is worthwhile immortality, Jherek," she said to him. "To become immortal through one's children."
"I suppose so…"
"And those children would become your friends," added his father. "As we are friends, Jherek."
"You would not come with us?" He had so recently gained this father, he could not lose him so soon.
"There is another alternative. I intend to take that."
"Could not we…?"
"It would be impossible. I am an inveterate time-traveller, my boy. I cannot give it up. There is still so much to learn."
"You gave us the impression there was nothing left to explore," said Amelia.
"But if one goes beyond the End of Time, one might experience the beginning of a whole new cycle in the existence of what Mrs. Persson terms 'the multiverse'. Having learned to dispense with time-machines — and it is a trick impossible to teach — I intend to fling myself completely outside the present cycle. I intend to explore infinity."
"I was not aware…" began the Orchid.
"I shall have to go alone," he said.
"Ah, well. I was becoming bored with marriage. After today, anyway, it could scarcely be called a novelty!"
Amelia went to stand beside a rock, staring landwards.
Jherek said to Jagged: "It would mean that we should be parted forever, then — you and I, Jagged."
"As to that, it depends upon my fate and what I learn in my explorations. It is possible that we shall meet. But it is not probable, my boy."
"It would make Amelia happy," said Jherek.
"And I would be happy," Lord Jagged told him softly. "Knowing that, whatever befalls me, you and yours will go on."
Amelia wheeled round at this. "Your motives are clear at last, Lord Jagged."
"If you say so, Amelia." From a sleeve he produced pale yellow roses and offered them to her.
"You prefer to see me as a man moved entirely by self-interest. Then see me so!" He bowed as he presented the bouquet.
"It is how you justify your decisions, I think," She accepted the flowers.
"Oh, you are probably right."
"You will say nothing, even now, of your past?"
"I have no past." His smile was self-mocking. "Only a future. Even that is not certain,"
"I believe," said Jherek suddenly, "that I weary of ambiguity. At least, at the Beginning of Time, there is little of that."
"Very little," she said, coming to him. "Our love could flourish, Jherek dear."
"We would be truly husband and wife?"
"It would be our moral duty." Her smile held unusual merriment. "To perpetuate the race, my dear."
"We could have a ceremony?"
"Perhaps, Lord Jagged —"
"I should be glad to officiate. I seem to remember that I have civil authority, as a Registrar…"
"It would have to be a civil ceremony," she said.
"We shall be your Adam and Bede after all, Jagged!" Jherek put his arm around his Amelia's waist.
"And if we keep the machine, perhaps we could visit the future, just to see how it progressed, eh?"
Lord Jagged shook his head. "If you go further forward, once you have stopped, you will immediately become subject to the Morphail Effect again. Therefore time travel will be impossible. You will be creating your future, but if you ever dare try to find out what the future will be like, then it will almost certainly cease to exist. You will have to reconcile yourself to making the most of one lifetime in one place. Amelia can teach you that." He stroked his chin. "There will be something in the genes, I suppose. And you already know much about the nature of Time. Ultimately a new race of time-travellers could exist, not subject to the Morphail Effect. It might mean the abolition of Time, as we have understood it up to now. And Space, too, would assume, therefore, an entirely different character. The experiment might mean —"
"I think that we shall try not to indulge in experiments of that sort, Lord Jagged." She was firm.
"No, no, of course not." But his manner remained speculative.
The Iron Orchid was laughing. She, too, had risen to her feet, her orchids whispering as she moved.
"At least, at the Beginning of Time, they'll be free from your further interference, Jagged."
"Interference?"
"And this world, too, may go its own way, within its limitations." She kissed her husband. "You leave many gifts behind you, cunning Lord of Canaria!"
"One does what one can." He put his hand into hers. "I would take you with me, Orchid, if I could."
"I think that temperamentally I am content with things as they are. Call me conservative, if you will, but there is a certain predictability about life at the End of Time which suits me."
"Well, then, all our temperamental needs are satisfied. Jherek and Amelia go to work as colonists, founding a whole new culture, a new history, a new kind of race. It should prove very different, in some aspects, from the old one. I travel on, as my restless brain moves me. And you, dearest Orchid, stay.
The resolution seems satisfactory."
"There might be others here," Amelia said, after an internal struggle with her conscience, "who might also wish to become 'colonists'. Li Pao, for instance."
"I had considered that, but it complicates matters. I am afraid that Li Pao is doomed to spend eternity in this particular paradise."
"It seems a shame," she said. "Could you not —?"
He raised a hand. "You accused me of manipulating Fate, Amelia. You are wrong — I merely offer a certain resistance to it. I win a few little battles, that is all. Li Pao's fate is now settled. He will dance with the others, at the End of Time." He made references to her quotation and as he did so he lifted his hat as if he acknowledged some previous point she had made. Jherek sighed and was glad of his own decision for, if nothing else, it would, as he had said, mean no more of these mysteries.
"Then you condemn them all to this terrible mockery of existence." Amelia frowned.
Jagged's laughter was frank. "You remain, in spite of all your experiences, a woman of your time, Amelia! Our beautiful Iron Orchid finds this existence quite natural."
"It has a simplicity, you see," agreed the Orchid, "which I did not find, for instance, in your age, my dear. I do not have the courage, I suppose, to confront such complications as I witnessed in 1896.
Though," she hastened to add, "I enjoyed my short visit thoroughly. I suppose it is mortality which makes people rush about so. This world is more leisurely, probably because we are not constrained by the prospect of death. It is, I would be the first to admit, entirely a matter of taste. You choose your work, your duty, and your death. I choose pleasure and immortality. Yet, if I were in your position, I should probably make the decisions you have made."
"You are the most understanding of mothers-in-law!" cried Amelia, hugging her. "There will be some things I shall regret leaving here."
The Iron Orchid touched Amelia's neck with a hand subtly coloured to match her costume; her tongue moistened her lower lip for an instant; her expression caused Amelia to blush. "Oh, indeed,"
breathed the Orchid, "there is much we might have done together. And I shall miss Jherek, of course, as I am sure will Jagged."
Amelia became her old, stern self. "
Well, there'll be little time to make all the arrangements necessary before we leave, if we go tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" said Jherek. "I was hoping…"
"It would be best to go as soon as possible," she told him. "Of course, if you have changed your mind and wish to remain with — your parents, and your friends…"
"Never. I love you. I have followed you across a world and through Time. I will go with you wherever you choose, Amelia."
Her manner softened. "Oh, my dear." She linked her arm in his.
Lord Jagged said. "I suggest we stroll along the beach for a bit." He offered an exquisite arm to Amelia and, after scarcely any hesitation at all, she took it. The Iron Orchid took Jherek's free arm, and thus joined, they began to walk along the pale yellow shore; as handsome and as happy a family group as any one might find in history.
The sun was starting to sink as Amelia stopped, dropped Jherek's arm and began to turn one of her power-rings, "I could not resist a last indulgence," she apologized.
The yellow beach became a white promenade, with green wrought-iron railings, stretching, it seemed, to infinity. The rocky interior became rolling green hills, a little golf-course. She created a red and white-striped bandstand, in which a small German band, not dissimilar to the larger one made by the Duke of Queens, began to play Strauss. She paused, then turned another ring, and there was a white and green rococo pier, with flags and bunting and variously coloured lamps decorating its iron-work, stretching out to sea. She made four deck-chairs, brilliantly striped, appear on the beach below the promenade. She created four large ice-cream cornets so that they had one each.
It was almost twilight now, as they continued to stroll, admiring the twinkling lights of the pier which were reflected in the calm, dark blue sea.
"It is beautiful," said the Iron Orchid. "May I keep it, when you have gone?"
"Let it be my monument," she said.
They all began to hum the tune of the waltz; Lord Jagged even danced a few jaunty steps as he finished his ice-cream, tilting his topper over one eye, and everyone laughed. They stopped when they came close to the pier. They leaned on the railings, staring out across the glistening water. Jherek put his arm about her shoulders; Lord Jagged embraced his own wife, and the distant band played on.
"Perhaps," said Jherek romantically, "we shall be able to make something like this in the Palaeozoic — not immediately of course, but when we have a larger family to build it."
She smiled. "It would be pleasant to dream about, at least."
The Iron Orchid sighed. "Your imagination will be a great loss to us at the End of Time, Amelia. But your inspiration will remain with us, at least."
"You flatter me too much."
"I think she is right," said Lord Jagged of Canaria, producing a pale yellow cigarette. "Would you mind, Amelia?"
"Of course not."
Lord Jagged began to smoke, looking upward at the infinite blackness of the sky, his features once again controlled and expressionless, the tip of his cigarette a tiny glowing ember in the gathering twilight.
The sun, which he and the cities had created, burned deepest crimson on the horizon and then was gone, leaving only a smear of dusky orange behind it; then that, too, faded.
"So you'll leave tomorrow," said Jagged.
"If it is possible."
"Certainly. And you have no fears? You are content with your decision?"
"We are content." Jherek spoke for them both, to reassure her.
"I was truly divorced from Harold," she said, "when he refused to let me return with him. And, after you have married us, Lord Jagged, I do not think I shall feel even a hint of guilt about any of my decisions."
"Good. And now…" Lord Jagged drew his wife from the rail, escorting her along the promenade, leaving the lovers alone.
"It is growing a little chilly," she said.
Jherek produced a cloak for her, of gold-trimmed ermine, and placed it around her shoulders. "Will this do?"
"It is a trifle ostentatious." She stroked the fur. "But since this is our last night at the End of Time, I think I can allow myself the luxury."
He bent to kiss her. Gently, she took his face in her hands. "There will he so much, Jherek, that we shall have to learn together. Much that I will have to teach you. But do not ever, my dear, lose that joyous spirit. It will be a wonderful example to our children, and their children, too."
"Oh, Amelia! How could I lose it, for it is you who make me joyful! And I shall be a perfect pupil.
You must explain it all to me again and I am sure that I shall learn it eventually."
She was puzzled. "What is it I must explain to you, my dear?"
"Guilt," he said.
They kissed.
About the Author
Michael Moorcock was born in London in 1939, and began editing amateur magazines at the age of eleven, writing, illustrating and printing them under the grandiose imprint of "MJM Publications". At fifteen he sold his first short stories and articles, and at sixteen he became editor of Tarzan Adventures, moving on later to edit the Sexton Blake Library.
He has earned his living as a writer / editor ever since, with a spell as a blues singer / guitarist in Northern Europe in the early '60s and some travelling in the USA, Scandinavia, Germany, France etc. In 1964 he became editor of New Worlds, then a conventional SF magazine, and managed to turn it into a showcase for speculative and experimental fiction, poetry and illustration, leading to awards from both the British SF Association and the Arts Council of Great Britain.
The various anthologies he has edited include The Best SF Stories from New Worlds series and The Traps of Time, and he has also published poetry, journalism, criticism and short stories in a variety of magazines and newspapers.
His novels range from fantasy and SF entertainments (the Elric stories, The Ice Schooner, The Warlord of the Air, etc.) to serious — though unconventional — fiction (Breakfast in the Ruins, the Jerry Cornelius stories, etc.). Virtually all his fiction is interconnected in some way (through re-appearing characters). Michael Moorcock won the SWFA Nebula Award in 1967 for Behold the Man.
He also records his own songs as well as performing with the rock band Hawkwind.
Acknowledgement
Apart from Alfred Austin's, all verses quoted in the text are the work of Ernest Wheldrake. The majority are from Posthumous Poems, published in 1881 and never reprinted.
Other Works by Michael Moorcock
Elric
THE STEALER OF SOULS
STORMBRINGER
THE SINGING CITADEL
ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ
THE SAILOR ON THE SEAS OF FATE
THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF
THE VANISHING TOWER
THE BANE OF THE BLACK SWORD
Corum
THE KNIGHT OF THE SWORDS
THE QUEEN OF THE SWORDS
THE KING OF THE SWORDS
THE OAK AND THE RAM
THE SWORD AND THE STALLION
Erekosë
THE ETERNAL CHAMPION
PHOENIX IN OBSIDIAN
THE CHAMPION OF GARATHORM
THE QUEST FOR TANELORN
Hawkmoon The History of the Runestaff
THE JEWEL IN THE SKULL
THE MAD GOD'S AMULET
THE SWORD OF THE DAWN
THE RUNESTAFF
The Chronicles of Castle Brass
COUNT BRASS
THE CHAMPION OF GARATHORM
THE QUEST FOR TANELORN
The Dancers at the End of Time
AN ALIEN HEAT
THE HOLLOW LANDS
THE END OF ALL SONGS
LEGENDS FROM THE END OF TIME
A MESSIAH AT THE END OF TIME
Other titles
THE TIME DWELLER
THE WINDS OF LIMBO
THE SHORES OF DEATH
THE BLOOD-RED GAME
THE FINAL PROGRAMME
BEHOLD THE MAN
THE BLACK CORRIDOR
&nbs
p; THE CITY IN THE AUTUMN STARS
THE DRAGON IN THE SWORD
THE ETERNAL CHAMPION
THE SILVER WARRIORS
Table of Contents
THE DANCERS AT THE END OF TIME
Enter the SF Gateway
Contents
Book 1 An Alien Heat
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE A Conversation with the Iron Orchid
CHAPTER TWO A Soirée at the Duke of Queens
CHAPTER THREE A Visitor Who is Less than Entertaining
CHAPTER FOUR Carnelian Conceives a New Affectation
CHAPTER FIVE A Menagerie of Time and Space
CHAPTER SIX A Pleasing Meeting: The Iron Orchid Devises a Scheme
CHAPTER SEVEN To Steal a Space-Traveller
CHAPTER EIGHT A Promise from Mrs. Amelia Underwood: A Mystery
CHAPTER NINE Something of an Idyll: Something of a Tragedy
CHAPTER TEN The Granting of Her Heart's Desire
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Quest for Bromley
CHAPTER TWELVE The Curious Comings and Goings of Snoozer Vine
CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Road to the Gallows: Old Friends in New Guises
CHAPTER FOURTEEN A Further Conversation with the Iron Orchid
Book 2 The Hollow Lands
CHAPTER ONE In Which Jherek Carnelian Continues to be in Love
CHAPTER TWO Playing at Ships
CHAPTER THREE A Petitioner at the Court of Time
CHAPTER FOUR To the Warm Snow Peaks
CHAPTER FIVE On the Hunt