Dancers at the End of Time Read online

  "She risked much to speak in your defence," said Reverend Lowndes one day. "It was in all the newspapers. It is possible that she has compromised herself. I understand that she is a married woman."

  "I understand that," agreed Jherek. "But I suppose she is waiting for me to arrange our transport back to my own time."

  "Yes, yes," said Reverend Lowndes sadly.

  "I would have thought that Lord Jagged would have contacted me by now, but perhaps his own time machine is in need of repair," Jherek mused.

  "Yes, yes, yes." Reverend Lowndes opened his black book and began to read, his lips moving.

  Then he closed the book and looked up. "It is tomorrow morning, you know."

  "Oh? You have heard from Lord Jagged?"

  "Lord Jagger passed the sentence, if that is what you mean. He named the day as tomorrow. I am glad you are so composed."

  "Why should I not be? That is splendid news."

  "I am sure that the Lord knows how best to judge you." Reverend Lowndes raised his grey eyes towards the roof. "You have no need to fear."

  "None at all. Although the ride might be a rough one."

  "Yes indeed. I understand your meaning."

  "Ah!" Jherek leaned back on his bunk. "I am looking forward to seeing all my friends again."

  "I am sure they will all be there." Reverend Lowndes got up. "I will come early tomorrow morning.

  If you find it hard to sleep, the warders will join you in your cell."

  "I shall sleep very well, I'm sure. So my release is due around dawn?"

  "At eight o'clock."

  "Thank you for the news, Reverend Lowndes."

  Reverend Lowndes's eyes seemed to be watering, but he could not be crying, for there was a smile on his face. "You do now know what this means to me, Mr. Carnelian."

  "I am only too pleased to be able to cheer you up, Reverend Lowndes."

  "Thank you. Thank you." The Reverend left the cell.

  Next morning Jherek was given a rather heavy breakfast, which he ate with some difficulty so as not to offend the warders, who plainly thought they had brought him a special treat. All of them looked sad, however, and kept shaking their heads.

  The Reverend Lowndes turned up early, as he had said he would.

  "Are you ready?" he asked Jherek.

  "More than ready," Jherek replied cheerfully.

  "Would you like to join me in a prayer?"

  "If that is what you want, of course." Jherek kneeled down with Reverend Lowndes as he had often knelt before and repeated the words which Reverend Lowndes spoke. This time the prayer seemed to go on for longer than usual and Reverend Lowndes's voice kept breaking. Jherek waited patiently every time this happened. After all, what did a few minutes mean when he would soon be reunited with the woman he loved (not to mention his dearest friend)?

  And then they left the cell, with a warder on either side, and walked out into an unfamiliar forecourt which was surrounded on all sides by high blank walls. There was a sort of wooden dais erected in the forecourt and above this a tall beam supporting another horizontal beam. From the horizontal beam depended a thick rope with a loop at the bottom end. Another man, in stout black clothes, stood on the dais. Steps led up to it on one side. There was also a lever, near the man in black. Several other people were already in the forecourt. They, too, looked sad. Doubtless they had grown to like Jherek (even though he could not remember having seen several of them before) and did not want him to leave their time.

  "Is that the machine?" Jherek asked Reverend Lowndes. He had never expected to see a wooden time machine, but he supposed that they used wood for a lot of things in the Dawn Age cultures.

  Silently, Reverend Lowndes nodded.

  "I go up these steps, do I?"

  "You do."

  Reverend Lowndes accompanied Jherek as he climbed the steps. The man in black drew Jherek's hands behind him and tied them securely.

  "I suppose this is necessary?" Jherek remarked to the man in black, who had said nothing up to now. "I had a rubber suit last time."

  The man in black did not reply but turned to Reverend Lowndes instead. "He's a cool one. It's usually the foreigners scream and kick."

  Reverend Lowndes did not reply. He watched the man in black tie Jherek's feet.

  Jherek laughed as the man in black put the rough rope loop over his head and tightened it around his neck. The strands of the loop tickled.

  "Well," he said. "I'm ready. When are Lord Jagged and Mrs. Underwood arriving?"

  Nobody replied. Reverend Lowndes murmured something. One of the people in the small crowd below droned a few words.

  Jherek yawned and looked up at the blue sky and the rising sun. It was a beautiful morning. He had rather missed the open air of late.

  Reverend Lowndes took out his black book and began to read. Jherek turned to ask if Lord Jagged and Mrs. Underwood would be long, but then the man in black placed a bag over his head and his voice was muffled and he could no longer see anyone. He shrugged. They would be along soon, he was sure.

  He heard the Reverend Lowndes finish speaking. He heard a click and then the floor gave way beneath his feet. The sensation was not very different from that which he had had when travelling here in the time sphere. And then it seemed he was falling, falling, falling, and he ceased to think at all.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Further Conversation with the Iron Orchid

  The first thing Jherek considered as he came back to consciousness was that he had a very sore throat. He reached up to touch it, but his hands were still tied behind him. He disseminated the ropes and freed his hands and feet. His neck was chafed and raw. He opened his eyes and looked directly into the tattered multi-hued face of Brannart Morphail.

  Brannart was grinning. "I told you so, Jherek. I told you so! And the time machine didn't come back with you. Which means you've lost me an important piece of equipment!" His glee denied his accusations.

  Jherek glanced about the laboratory. It was exactly the same as when he had left. "Perhaps it broke up?" he suggested. "It was made of wood, you know."

  "Wood? Wood? Nonsense. Why are you so hoarse?"

  "There was a rope involved. A very primitive machine, all in all. Still, I'm back. Did Lord Jagged come to see you after I'd set off. Did he borrow another time machine?"

  "Lord Jagged?"

  My Lady Charlotina drifted over. She was wearing the same lily-coloured gown she had worn when he had left. "Lord Jagged hasn't been here, Jherek, my juice. After all, you'd barely gone before you returned again."

  "It proves the Morphail Effect conclusively," said Brannart in some satisfaction. "If one goes back to an age where one does not belong, then so many paradoxes are created that the age merely spits out the intruder as a man might spit out a pomegranate pip which has lodged in his throat."

  Again, Jherek fingered his own throat. "It took some time to spit me out, however," he said feelingly. "I was there for some sixty days."

  "Oh, come now!" Brannart glared at him.

  "And Lord Jagged of Canaria was there, too. And Mrs. Amelia Underwood. They seemed to have no difficulty in, as it were, sticking." Jherek stood up. He was wearing the same grey suit with the broad black arrows on it. "And look at this. They gave me this suit."

  "It's a beautiful suit, Jherek," said My Lady Charlotina. "But you could have made it yourself, you know."

  "Power rings don't work in the past. The energy won't transmit," Jherek told her.

  Brannart frowned. "What was Jagged doing in the past?"

  "Some scheme of his own, I take it, which hardly involved me. I understood that he would be returning with me." Jherek inspected the laboratory, looking in every corner. "They said Mrs.

  Underwood would join me."

  "Well, she isn't here, yet." My Lady Charlotina's couch drifted closer. "Did you enjoy yourself in the Dawn Age?"

  "It was often amusing," Jherek admitted, "though there were moments when it was quite dull. And other moments
when…" And for the third time he fingered the marks on his throat. "Do you know, Lady Charlotina, that many of their pastimes are not pursued from choice at all!"

  "How do you mean?" She leaned forward to peer at his neck. She reached out to touch the marks.

  "Well, it is difficult to explain. Difficult enough to grasp. I didn't understand at first. They grow old — they decay, of course. They have no control over their bodies and barely any over their minds. It is as if — as if they dream perpetually, moved by impulses of which they have no objective understanding. Or, of course, that could be my subjective analysis of their culture, but I don't think so."

  My Lady Charlotina laughed. "You'll never succeed in explaining it to me, Jherek. I have no brains, merely imagination. A good sense of drama, too."

  "Yes…" Jherek had forgotten the part she had played in bringing about the most recent events in his life. But so much time had passed for him that he could not feel any great bitterness towards her any more. "I wonder when Mrs. Amelia Underwood will come."

  "She said she would return?"

  "I gathered that Lord Jagged was bringing her back."

  "Are you sure you saw Jagged there?" Brannart asked insistently. "There has been no record of a time machine either coming or going."

  "There must be a record of one coming," Jherek said reasonably. "For I returned, did I not?"

  "It wasn't really necessary for you to use a machine — the Morphail Effect dealt with you."

  "Well, I was sent in a machine." Jherek frowned. He was beginning to review the most recent events of his own past. "At least I think it was a time machine. I wonder if I misinterpreted what they were trying to tell me?"

  "It is quite possible, I should think," put in My Lady Charlotina, "after all, you said yourself how difficult it was to grasp their conception of quite simple matters."

  A musing look crossed Jherek's face. "But one thing is certain…" He took Mrs. Amelia Underwood's letter from his pocket, remembering the words which Mr. Griffiths had read out to him, "I love you, I miss you, I shall always remember you." He touched the crumpled paper to his lips. "She wants to come back to me."

  "There is every chance that she will," said Brannart Morphail, "whether she desires it or not. The Morphail Effect. It never fails." He laughed. "Not that she will necessarily come to this time again. You might have to search through the whole of the past million years for her. I don't advise that, of course. It could mean disaster for you. You've been very lucky to escape this time."

  "She will find me," said Jherek happily. "I know she will. And when she comes I will have built her a beautiful replica of her own age so that she need never pine for home." He continued, confidentially, to tell Brannart Morphail of his plans. "You see, I've spent a considerable amount of time in the Dawn Age.

  I'm intimately acquainted with their architecture and many of their customs. Our world will never have seen anything like the creations I shall make. It will amaze you all!"

  "Ah, Jherek!" cried My Lady Charlotina in delight. "You are beginning to sound like your old self again. Hurrah!"

  Some days later Jherek had almost completed his vast design. It stretched for several miles across a shallow valley through which ran a sparkling river he had named the Thames. Glowing white bridges arched over the water at irregular intervals and the water was a deep, blue-green, to match the roses which climbed the pillars of the bridges. On both sides of the river stood a series of copies of Jones's Kitchen, Coffee Stalls, Prisons, Courts of Law and Hotels. Row upon row, they filled streets of shining marble and gold and quartz and at every intersection was a tall statue, usually of a horse or a hansom cab. It was really very pretty. Jherek had taken the liberty of enlarging the buildings a little, to get variety.

  Thus a thousand-foot-high Coffee Stall loomed over a five-hundred-foot-high Hotel. Farther on, a tall Hotel dwarfed an Old Bailey, and so on.

  Jherek was putting the finishing touches on his creation, which he simply called "London, 1896,"

  when he was hailed by a familiar, languid voice.

  "Jherek, you are a genius and this is your masterpiece!"

  Mounted upon a great hovering swan, swathed in quilted clothes of the deepest blue, a high collar framing his long, pale face, was Lord Jagged of Canaria, smiling his cleverest, most secret of smiles.

  Jherek had been standing on the roof of one of his Prisons. He drifted over and perched on the statue of a hansom close to where Jagged hovered.

  "It's a beautiful swan," said Jherek. "Have you brought Mrs. Underwood with you?"

  "So you know what I call her!"

  Jherek frowned his puzzlement. "What?"

  "The swan! I thought, gentle Jherek, that you meant the swan. That is what I call the swan, Jherek.

  Mrs. Amelia Underwood. In honour of your friend."

  "Lord Jagged," said Jherek with a grin. "You are deceiving me. I know your penchant for manipulation. Remember the world you built, which you peopled with microscopic warriors? This time you have been playing with love, with destiny — with the people you know. You encouraged me to pursue Mrs. Amelia Underwood. And most of the details of the rest of that scheme were supplied by you — though you made me believe they were my ideas. I am sure you helped My Lady Charlotina concoct her vengeance. You might even have had something to do with my safe arrival in 1896. Further, it's possible you abducted Mrs. Underwood and brought her to our age in the first place."

  Lord Jagged was laughing. He sent the great swan circling around the tallest buildings. He dived and he climbed and all the time he laughed. "Jherek! You are intelligent! You are — you are the best of us!"

  "But where is Mrs. Amelia Underwood now, Lord Jagged?" Jherek Carnelian called, following after his friend, his pale grey suit (with the orange arrows) flapping as he moved through the air. "I thought you sent a message that you were bringing her back with you!"

  "I? A message? No."

  "Then where is she?"

  "Why, in Bromley, I suppose. In Kent. In England. In 1896."

  "Oh, Lord Jagged, you are cruel! "

  "To a degree." Lord Jagged guided the swan back to where Jherek sat on the head of the statue which, in turn, rested its feet on the dome of the Old Bailey. It was an odd statue — blindfolded, with a sword in one hand and a set of golden scales in the other. "But did you not learn anything from your sojourn in the past, Jherek?"

  "I experienced something, Lord Jagged, but I am not sure I learned anything."

  "Well, that is the best way to learn, I think." Lord Jagged smiled again.

  "It was you — the Lord Chief Justice — wasn't it?" Jherek said.

  The smile broadened.

  "You must get Mrs. Amelia Underwood back for me, Lord Jagged," Jherek told him. "If only so that she may see this." He spread both his hands.

  "The Morphail Effect," said Lord Jagged. "It is an indisputable fact. Brannart says so."

  "You know more."

  "I am flattered. Have you heard, by the by, what became of Mongrove and Yusharisp, the alien?"

  "I have been busy. I've heard no gossip at all."

  "They succeeded in building a spaceship and have left together to spread Yusharisp's message throughout the universe."

  "So Mongrove has left us." Jherek felt sad at hearing this news.

  "He will tire of the mission. He will return."

  "I hope so."

  "And your mother, the Iron Orchid. Her liaison with Werther de Goethe is ended, I hear. She took up with the Duke of Queens, who had virtually retired from the world, and they are planning a party together. She will be the guiding spirit, so it should be successful."

  "I am glad," said Jherek. "I think I will go to see her soon."

  "Do. She loves you. We all love you, Jherek."

  "And I love Mrs. Amelia Underwood," said Jherek meaningly. "Will I see her again, Lord Jagged?"

  Lord Jagged patted the neck of his graceful swan. The bird began to flap away towards the East.

  "Wil
l I?" cried Jherek insistently.

  And Lord Jagged called back over his shoulder: "Doubtless you will. Much can happen yet. After all, there are at least a thousand years before the End of Time!"

  The white swan soared higher into the blue sky. From its downy back Lord Jagged waved.

  "Farewell, my fateful friend. Adieu, my time-tossed leaf, my thief, my grief, my toy! Jherek, my joy, good-bye!"

  And Jherek saw the white swan turn its long neck once to look at him from enigmatic black eyes before it disappeared behind a single cloud which drifted in that bland, blind sky.

  Dressed in various shades of pale green, the Iron Orchid and her son lay upon a lawn of deeper green which swept gently down to a viridian lake. It was late afternoon and a warm breeze blew.

  Between the Iron Orchid and her slender son lay a cloth of greenish-gold and on this were jade plates bearing the remains of their picnic. There were green apples, green grapes and artichoke hearts; there was asparagus, lettuce, cucumber and watercress; little melons, celery and avocados, vine leaves and pears, and, at one corner of the cloth, there stared a radish.

  The Iron Orchid's emerald lips opened slightly as she reached for an unpeeled almond. Jherek had been telling her of his adventures at the Dawn of Time. She had been fascinated but not altogether comprehending.

  "And you did find out the meaning of 'virtue,' my bones?" She hesitated over the almond and now considered a cucumber.

  He sighed. "I must admit I am not sure. But I think it might have had something to do with

  'corruption'." He laughed and stretched his limbs upon the cool grass. "One thing leads to another, mother."

  "How do you mean, my love, 'corruption'?"

  "It has something to do with not being in control of your own decisions, I think. Which in turn has something to do with the environment in which you choose to live — if you have a choice at all. Perhaps when Mrs. Amelia Underwood returns she will be able to help me."