Prelude to Eternity: A Romance of the First Time Machine

by Brian Stableford

  The music-stand had now been replaced by a stiff-backed but soft-cushioned chair with varnished wooden arms. Augustus Carp led his somniloquist to it, and propelled her into it with gentle but irresistible pressure. She seemed half asleep already, and Michael guessed that Carp had already employed his Mesmeric gift in order to calm her down and secure her acquiescence.

  Once all the other members of the house-party had taken their seats again, after an interval of ten minutes, Lady Langstrade undertook the second formal introduction, presenting Carp and the somniloquist to the audience. Carp bowed solemnly, but Jeanne Evredon did not so much as nod her head.

  The Mesmerist explained, more painstakingly than was necessary, that he was about to place his subject in a deep trance, in which condition she would lose her sense of self and would become a vehicle available to other voices. He asked his audience to regard the séance as an experiment in psychognosis rather than a theatrical performance or a purposeful exercise in communication.

  “If anyone has questions that they want to address to the somniloquist, I shall be happy to relay them in due course,” he said, “but I beg you to pose those questions in an orderly manner, and to be patient with my intermediation, in order to avoid confusion. I would like to think that any answers we obtain in the course of the séance will be honest and reliable, but I must warn you not to take that for granted. Psychognostic science is in its infancy, and we are still groping our way toward an understanding of the mysteries of the human mind, and the arcane of the universe to which the mind becomes responsive when it is in the somniloquistic state.

  “Whether the voices that speak through the mouths of magnetized somniloquists really include the voices of souls that have departed this Earth, as many people believe, I do not know. The implications of their frequent claims to be spirits speaking from the afterlife are somewhat compromised by the fact that they often appear to tell lies or make mistakes. Nor can I explain why predictions of the future issued by the magnetized are so often unreliable, although I suspect that the principal reason is that the future is as yet unmade, and that any hand of fate working within its making is direly unsteady in its work, ever liable to be frustrated by the whims of chance. Whatever information Mademoiselle Evredon is able to communicate to us this evening must, in consequence, be treated with a degree of skepticism, no matter how insightful or pertinent it may seem.”

  Having thus done his duty, Carp proceeded with his subject’s entrancement. Although he had only been working with Jeanne Evredon for a matter of weeks, he had obviously built up sufficient rapport with her to entrance her without difficulty, and he was merely completing a process already begun. The young Frenchwoman did not seem to offer any resistance to his sonorous commands, and relaxed very meekly into a state of torpor, slumping inertly against the supportive back of her chair.

  “Can you tell me your name?” Carp asked the somniloquist, seeking to demonstrate that she was, indeed fully entranced.

  “I have no name,” the magnetized woman replied, according to a familiar formula.

  “Do you know where you are?” Carps asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, unhelpfully.

  Carp was neither astonished nor annoyed by the excessively literal reply. “Please tell us where you are,” he instructed.

  “Inside the Maze,” the somniloquist replied, to everyone’s surprise. Michael felt as if his heart had skipped a beat.

  “Are you referring to the Langstrade Maze?” Carp asked, slightly puzzled.

  “Yes.”

  “We are now in the drawing-room of Langstrade Hall, a hundred yards west of the Maze. Can you see that now?”

  “We are inside the Maze,” the somniloquist repeated.

  Carp permitted himself a slight frown this time, but evidently thought it wise to let the matter lie. “Very well,” he said. “Is there anyone who would like to address the company gathered here, employing your voice as a medium?”

  “Yes.” Even though the answer was monosyllabic, it seemed that the timbre of the somniloquist’s voice had changed completely.

  “Please state your name,” said the Mesmerist.

  “I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth,” was the reply—rather paradoxically, it seemed, for the medium’s voice had shifted toward the baritone spectrum of the vocal scale, and no longer had anything feminine about it.

  “What is your name?” Carp asked again, evidently unsatisfied by a mere title.

  “I have no name,” the medium repeated, in her new voice. “I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

  “What do you have to say to us?” Carp asked

  “I apologize,” the voice said. “It is necessary. Time is; time was; time is past.”

  Michael knew that he had heard those words—or something very similar—before, but he could not place the quotation.

  “For what are you apologizing?” Carp asked. “Have you done harm to anyone here?”

  “Not yet,” was the reply to that.

  Carp frowned again, but he appeared to be more intrigued than annoyed. “Do you intend to do harm to anyone here?”

  “No. I shall protect everyone, to the best of my ability.”

  “But you expect harm to come to someone here?”

  There was no answer to that; Michael deduced that the question had not been sufficiently imperative.

  Carp rephrased the question. “Do you expect harm to come to anyone here?”

  “There is a risk,” the voice declared. “There is danger, which is of my making. I apologize for the danger. It is necessary.”

  “What kind of danger?” Carp demanded.

  “The danger of becoming lost. The danger of injury. The danger of annihilation.”

  “And which of us is under threat?” Carp wanted to know.

  “All of us,” the voice replied.

  Michael thought it significant that the voice had said “us” rather than “you”, but Carp did not pick up on that point. Instead, the Mesmerist said: “From where does the threat emanate?”

  “Everywhen,” was the reply.

  “What does that mean?” Carp asked.

  “What it means,” was the reply.

  Carp collected himself briefly, then said: “Does the danger come from Gregory Marlstone’s experiment in time-manipulation?”

  There was no answer to that. Again, Carp tried rephrasing the question. “Will the danger be averted if Marlstone does not activate his time machine tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  Carp frowned, and hesitated. Quentin Hope took advantage of the pause to say: “Ask the Mistress of the Labyrinth what the original purpose of prehistoric mazes was. Ask her whether they were intended to map out paths for ritual processions, or to trap demons.”

  Carp’ frown depended, and he did not seem at all disposed to accede to this request—but the voice seemed to be unaware of the protocol of Mesmeric interrogations, and did not wait for the question to be relayed, as custom demanded. “Both,” it answered.

  Hope laughed. “Very diplomatic,” he opined.

  Lady Phythian raised her hand to attract the Mesmerist’s attention. “Yes, Lady Phythian,” Carp said, gladly.

  “Would you ask the spirit, please, whether the Langstrade ghosts will walk tonight?” she asked.

  This time, Carp was certainly about to relay the question, but once again, the voice did not wait. “Yes,” it said.

  “Will the ghost of Harold Longstride be among them?” Escott hastened to put in.

  “Yes,” the voice replied, unequivocally.

  “Can you name the other ghosts that will walk tonight?” Hope asked.

  “Yes,” the voice replied. This time, a ripple of amusement ran through the audience.

  Carp attempted to seize back the initiative. “Ple
ase state the names of the other ghosts that will haunt the grounds of Langstrade Hall tonight,” he requested.

  “The Earl of Langstrade,” the voice stated, “Michael Laurel. Quentin Hope. James Escott. Gregory Marlstone. Lady Ariadne Phythian.…”

  By the time the voice reached the sixth name on its list, the audience had caught on to the fact that something odd was occurring—slightly belatedly, because the first name in the list could easily have referred to the first Earl rather than the present one. While a ripple of puzzlement replaced the ripple of amusement, the voice went on: “Cecilia Langstrade. Carmela Monticarlo. Pietro Locatelli. Emund Snurlson. Dedalus. Edward Kelley.…”

  Michael’s impression was that the voice might well have continued, but Carp had become annoyed. “This is absurd,” he said. “Several of the names you have listed are those of living people, and others are names of people who never existed. You are making fun of us, are you not?”

  “No,” replied the voice.

  “But if Hope and I are right in our conjectures regarding the Langstrade ghosts,” Escott said, as if he had just had a flash of inspiration, “then the names of living persons would be on the list, for what Lady Phythian saw would be images of ourselves displaced in time by Marlstone’s machine. Pietro Locatelli’s ghost has already walked this evening, after a fashion, thanks to Signor Monticarlo, while Emund Snurlson, Dedalus and Harold Longstride are everpresent, in spirit, in Lord Langstrade’s thoughts and endeavors. The truly surprising name on the list is.…”

  “I must call for order, gentlemen!” Carp said, raising his voice to interrupt. “This is not an argument in a railway carriage or an idle discussion in a smoking-room. It is an experiment in Mesmerism—my experiment in Mesmerism, and perhaps my last. I must demand, with all due respect, that you let me conduct it in my own way—in the appropriate way.”

  “Well, get on with it then!” exclaimed Quentin Hope, rather rudely.

  Carp pursed his lips, but he had obviously made up his mind to make a third attempt to discover the identity of the voice. “When you were alive,” he asked, maintaining his voice at a level sufficient to drown out the whispers that were running through his audience, “what was your name?”

  “I have no name,” the voice repeated, in a curt fashion that seemed to Michael to be a trifle mulish.

  “Are you, in fact, the spirit of a human being who once walked the Earth?” Carp asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “The Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

  “Are you a demon?”

  “No.”

  “A goddess?”

  This time, the voice hesitated, although Jeanne Evredon’s lips quivered, as if a reply might be trembling there.

  Carp waited, expectantly, but Escott lost patience again: “Why should Edward Kelley haunt Langstrade?” he called out.

  The mesmerist was obviously determined not to be put off again by Hope and Escott’s interventions, and spoke very sharply as he said to the magnetized somniloquist: “You will respond to my voice, and my voice alone! Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” said the somniloquist—although it was not obvious to Michael that the affirmative answer to the question implied consent to the instruction as well as a confirmation that the mysterious voice understood what had been said.

  “Ask her the question, then!” cried Hope.

  Carp gritted his teeth, but he evidently decided that the only way to retain control of the situation was to yield a little ground. “Why is Edward Kelley numbered among the ghosts of Langstrade?” he asked.

  “Because he is ambitious to commune with angels,” was the enigmatic reply.

  Carp immediately rounded on Hope and Escott. “In my experience, he said, “it is rarely fruitful to ask somniloquists questions that begin with why. Whatever the voices may be, they seem to have notions of causality and motivation that differ significantly from ours.”

  “Ask her which angel Kelley is ambitious to commune with here,” Escott shot back, unrepentantly.

  Carp was visibly agitated now, but the question obviously intrigued him, and he relayed it obediently.

  “Any that might care to reply,” the voice riposted.

  Carp did not wait for Escott to continue snapping at his heels. “Will anyone, in fact, reply to Kelley?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Michael Laurel and Quentin Hope.”

  That caused a stir. More heads turned toward Michael than toward Hope. The painter shrugged his shoulders slightly as he blushed, to signify that he did not understand the allegation any better than anyone else.

  “Are Laurel and Hope angels, then?” asked Carp, impatiently.

  “No,” replied the voice.

  “Does Edward Kelley take them for angels?”

  “He will. He does. He did.”

  “This is getting us nowhere, I fear,” Carp said, mopping his brown with his handkerchief. “If anyone except for Mr. Hope and Mr. Escott has a question to put to the voice, I beg him to do so now, for I fear that Mademoiselle Evredon may not be capable of sustaining her trance much longer. For her sake, I do not want to prolong the séance to the point at which she lapses into unconsciousness. Lord Langstrade, do you have a question that you would like me to ask?”

  “I do,” said Lord Langstrade. “Would you kindly ask the spirit who devised the plan of the Langstrade maze, and when.”

  Carp relayed the question to his subject.

  “Signor Monticarlo,” was the bizarre reply, “less than an hour ago. Pietro Locatelli, a hundred years ago. Dedalus, three thousand five hundred years ago.”

  It was Signor Monticarlo’s turn to look astonished and shrug his shoulders to express his complete lack of understanding. This time, however, Michael thought that he did have an inkling of the meaning of what the mysterious Mistress of the Labyrinth might mean. There was a sense in which the Locatelli capriccio corrected by Signor Monticarlo was the Maze, which now extended in time as well as space, thanks to the mysterious pulses emitted by Marlstone’s time machine. If certain moments in time really were capable of harmonic resonance, then the idea of the music, if not the actual sound, might be transmissible through time, appearing more than once in the past, in the form of an instantaneous spark of inspiration. Given that he had been able to internalize the maze having only glanced at it, others cleverer than he must have the same ability.

  “Lady Langstrade,” Carp said, addressing his hostess rather than her mother. “Would you like to ask a question?”

  “Yes,” said the Earl’s wife. “Would you ask the spirit, please, who killed Emund Snurlson in the year 822?”

  Carp nodded, approving of the precision of the question. He repeated it.

  “The second Earl of Langstrade,” was the reply.

  Hope burst out laughing yet again. “The fencing lessons didn’t go to waste after all, Milord!” he said. “While you were playing on the lawn as a boy, your pretended thrusts must have extended back in time over a thousand years, propelled by a gust of wind from Marlstone’s time machine!”

  Exactly like the composition of the Langstrade Maze, Michael thought.

  Lord Langstrade looked furious, but made no reply to Hope’s gibe.

  “Ask her whether the world as we know it is going to end tomorrow—just to set Escott’s mind at rest,” Hope continued, irrepressible in the wake of his jest. Almost everyone in the audience looked at him sharply, critical of his irreverence.

  There was obviously no way that the Mesmerist was going to make any further concessions to his tormentor-in-chief, so the question remained conspicuously unrelayed. Indeed, Carp was fighting so hard to control himself that he did not even ask whether anyone else in the audience had a question to answe
r, and raised his arm as if to signal that he was bringing the séance to a close.

  All of a sudden, though, Jeanne Evredon’s voice changed again, as if the self-declared Mistress of the Labyrinth had been abruptly displaced by a very different spirit, and a voice that seemed to be masculine, in spite of being higher in pitch than the previous one, said: “Catastrophe is inevitable, but the world might yet be saved.”

  Carp spun around. “What catastrophe?” he demanded

  “The invasion of the present by the future, and the past by the present,” the voice replied—and then continued, of its own accord: “The world as we know it might be saved, but if heroic action falls, the Era of Change will commence, and its dread empire will not easily be set aside.”

  “Who is speaking?” Carp demanded, sharply.

  “Michael Laurel,” was the reply.

  Michael felt his heart sink as his name was incongruously pronounced for the second time, feeling somewhat persecuted—but before the silent stares could become oppressive, the irritated Carp had launched himself back into the argumentative fray with a will.

  “Is the gentleman sitting at the end of the second row, beside Miss Cecilia Langstrade, the person to whom you are referring?” the Mesmerist demanded.

  “Not yet,” was the bewilderingly equivocal answer.

  Cecilia took it into her head then to come to the rescue then, although she must have known what a dire risk she was taking. “Dr. Carp,” she said, “would you kindly ask your medium who I am fated to marry?”

  A hush of a different sort fell upon the audience. Michael closed his eyes and prayed that the reply might be equally equivocal, if it was not to be in his favor. However unreliable the answer might be, in objective terms, he knew that it was bound to have an effect of some sort.