The Ancient Shadows lfteot-3 Read online

  "Perhaps," he said, "the city was not like this when Man lived here?"

  "I must hope that."

  "Perhaps it pines."

  "The notion is ridiculous," she said sharply. As she had feared, the place was beginning to have a deteriorating influence upon her son. "Hurry."

  The hulls of three great ships, one in silver filigree, one in milk-jade, one in woven ebony, suddenly surrounded them, then faltered, then faded.

  She considered an idea that she had not passed through Time at all, but was being subjected by the Elders of Armatuce to a surprise Test. She had experienced four such tests since she had become an adult, but none so rigorous, so complex.

  She realized that she had lost the road. The purple pathway was nowhere to be seen; there was not a landmark which had retained its form since she had entered the city; the little niggardly sun had not, apparently, changed position, so offered no clue. Panic found a chink in the armour of her self-control and poked a teasing finger through.

  She stopped dead. They stood together beside a river of boiling, jigging brown and yellow gas which bounded with what seemed a desperate gaiety towards a far-off pit which roared and howled and gulped it down. There was a slim bridge across this river. She placed a foot upon the first smooth step. The bridge was a coquette; it wriggled and giggled but allowed the pressure to remain. Slowly she and the boy ascended until they were crossing. The bridge made a salacious sound. She flushed, but marched on; she caught a trace of a smile upon her boy's lips. And she shivered for a second time. In silhouette, throbbing crimson, the city swayed, its buildings undulating as if they celebrated some primitive mass. Were the buildings actually creatures, then? If so, did they enjoy her discomfort? Did she and her son represent the sacrifice in some dreadful post-human ritual? Had the last of the city's inhabitants perished, mad, as she might soon be mad? Never before had she been possessed by such over-coloured terrors. If she found them a touch attractive, nothing of her conscious mind would admit it. The bridge was crossed, a meadow entered, of gilded grass, knee-high and harsh; the sounds of the city died away and peace, of sorts, replaced them. It was as if she had passed through a storm. In relief she hesitated, still untrusting but ready to accept any pause in order to recover her morale, and found that her hand was rising and falling upon her son's shoulder, patting it. She stopped. She was about to offer an appropriate word of comfort when she noted the gleam in his eye, the parted lips. He looked up at her through his little visor.

  "Isn't this jolly, though, mama?"

  "J —?" Her mouth refused the word.

  "What tales we'll have to tell. Who will believe us?"

  "We must say nothing, save to the committee," she warned. "This is a secret you must bear for the rest of your boyhood, perhaps the rest of your life. And you must make every effort to — to expunge — to dismiss this — this…"

  "Twa-la! The time twavellers, doubtless. Even now Bwannaht seeks you out. Gweetings! Gweetings! Gweetings! Welcome, welcome, welcome to the fwutah!"

  Looking to her right she drew in such a sharp gasp of oxygen that the respirator on her chest missed a motion and shivered; she could scarce credit the mincing young fantastico pressing a path for himself with his over-ornamented dandy-pole through the grass, brushing at his drooping, elaborate eyebrows, which threatened to blind him, primping his thick, lank locks, patting at his pale, painted cheeks. He regarded her with mild, exaggerated eyes, fingering his pole as he paused.

  "Can you undahstand me? I twust the twanslatah is doing its stuff. I'm always twisting the wong wing, y'know. I've seahched evewy one of the thiwty-six points of the compass without a hint of success. You haven't seen them, have you? A couple of lawge hunting buttahflies? So big." He extended his arms. "No? Then they've pwobably melted again." He put index finger to tip of nose. "They'd be yellah, y'know."

  A collection of little bells at his throat, wrists and knees began to tinkle. He looked suddenly skyward, but he was hopeless.

  "Are you real?" asked Snuffles.

  "As weal as I'll evah be."

  "And you live in this city?"

  "Only ghosts, my deah, live in the cities. I am Sweet Ohb Mace. Cuwwently masculine!" His silks swelled, multicoloured balloons in parody of musculature.

  "My name is Dafnish Armatuce. Of the Armatuce," said she in a strangled tone. "And this is Snuffles, my son."

  "A child!" The dreadful being's head lifted, like a swan's, and he peered. "Why, the wohld becomes a kindehgahten! Of couwse, the otheh was actually Mistwess Chwistia. But weah! A gweat pwize foh someone!"

  "I do not understand you, sir," she said.

  "Ah, then it is the twanslatah." He fingered one of his many rings. "Shoroloh enafnisoo?"

  "I meant that I failed to interpret your meaning," said Dafnish Armatuce wearily.

  Another movement of a ring. "Is that bettah?"

  She inclined her head. She was still less than certain that this was not merely another of the city's phantasms, for all that it addressed them and seemed aware that they had travelled through Time, but she decided, nonetheless, to seek the help of Sweet Orb Mace.

  "We are lost," she informed him.

  "In Djer?"

  "That is the city's name?"

  "Oah Shenalowgh, pewhaps. You wish to leave the city, at any wate?"

  "If possible."

  "I shall be delighted to help." Sweet Orb Mace waved his hands, made a further adjustment to a ring, and created something which shone sufficient to blind them for a moment. Of course they recognized the black, spare shape.

  "Our time craft!" cried Snuffles.

  "My povahty of imagination is wenowned, I feah," said Sweet Orb Mace blithely. "It's all I could come up with. Not the owiginal, of coahse, just a wepwoduction. But it will sehve us as an aih cah."

  They entered, all three, to find fantasy within. Gone were the instruments and the muted lights, the padded couches, the simple purity of design, the austere dials and indicators. Instead, caged birds lined the walls, shuffling and twittering, their plumage vulgar beyond imagining; there was a carpet which swamped the legs to the calves, glowing a violent lavender, a score of huge clocks with wagging pendulums, a profusion of brass, gold and dark teak.

  Noting her expression, Sweet Orb Mace said humbly: "I saw only the extewiah. I had hoped the inside would sehve foh the shoht time of ouah flight."

  With a sob, she collapsed into the carpet and sat there with her visor resting upon her gauntlets while Snuffles, insensitive to his mother's mood, waggled youthful fingers and tried to get a macaw to reveal its name to him.

  "A mattah of moments!" Sweet Orb Mace assured her. He tapped at a clock with his cane and they were swinging upwards into the sky. "Do not, I pway you, judge the wohld of the End of Time by yoah impwession of me. I am weckoned the most bohwing being on the planet. Soon you shall meet people much moah intewesting and intelligent than me!"

  3. A Social Lunch at the End of Time

  "Look, mama! Look at the food!" The boy shuddered in his passion. "Oh, look! Look!"

  They descended from the reproduction time machine. They were in a long broad meadow of blue and white grass. The city lay several miles away, upon the horizon.

  "An illusion, my dear." Her voice softened in awe. "Perhaps your desires project…"

  He began to move forward, tugging at her hand, through the patchwork grass, with Sweet Orb Mace, bemused, behind, to where the long table stood alone, spread with dishes, with meats and fruits, pastes and breads. "Food, mama! I can almost smell it. Oh, mama!"

  He whimpered.

  "Could it be real?" he entreated.

  "Real or false, we cannot eat." No amount of self-control could stem the saliva gathering upon her palate. She had never seen so much food at one time. "We cannot remove our helmets, Snuffles." For a second, her visor clouded at her breath. "Oh…"

  In the distance the city danced to a sudden fanfaronade, as if exulting in their wonderment.

  "If you wish to beg
in…" murmured their guide, and he gestured at the food with his cane.

  Her next word was moaned: "Temptation…" It became a synonym, on her lips, for fulfilment. To eat — to eat and be replete for the first time in her life! To sit back from that table and note that there was still more to eat — more food than the whole of the Armatuce, if they ate absolutely nothing of their rations for a month, could save between them. "Oh, such wickedness of over-production!"

  "Mother?" Snuffles indicated the centre of the table.

  "A pie."

  They stared. As the voices of the Sirens entranced the ancient Navigators, so were they entranced by flans.

  "A vewy simple meal, I thought," said Sweet Orb Mace, uncomfortable. "You do not eat so much, in yoah age?"

  "We would not," she replied. "To consume it, even if we produced it, would be disgusting to us." Her knees were weak; resistance wavered. Of all the terrors she had anticipated in the future, this was one she could not possibly have visualized, so fearsome was it. She tried to avert her eyes. But she was human. She was only one woman, without the moral strength of the Armatuce to call on. The Armatuce and the world of the Armatuce lay a million or more years in the past. Her will drooped at this knowledge. A tear started.

  "You cannot pwoduce it? Some disastah?"

  "We could. Now, we could. But we do not. It would be the depths of decadence to do so!" She spoke through clenched teeth.

  She and the boy remained transfixed, even when others arrived and spoke in reference to them.

  "Time travellers. Their uniforms proclaim their calling."

  "They could be from space."

  "They are hungry, it seems. Let them eat. You were speaking of your son, maternal Orchid. This other self, what?"

  "He lives through her. He tells me that he lives for her, Jagged! Where does he borrow these notions? I fear for his — 'health', is it?"

  "You mean that you disapprove of his behaviour?"

  "I suppose so. Jherek 'goes too far'."

  "I relish the sound of your words, Iron Orchid. I never thought to hear them here."

  "In Djer?"

  "In any part of our world. My theories are confirmed. One small change in the accepted manners of a society and the result is hugely rich."

  "I cannot follow you, allusive lord. Neither shall I try … The strangers do not eat! They only stare!"

  "The twanslatahs," cautioned Mace. "They opahwate even now."

  "I fear our visitors find us rude."

  Dafnish Armatuce felt a soft touch upon her shoulder and turned, almost with relief, from the food to look up into the patrician features of a very tall man, clothed in voluminious lemon-coloured lace which rose to his strong chin and framed his face. The grey eyes were friendly, but she would not respond (daughter to father) as her emotions dictated. She drew away. "You, too, are real?"

  "Ah. Call me so."

  "You are not one of the illusions of that city?"

  "I suspect that I am at least as real as Sweet Orb Mace. He convinces you?"

  She was mute.

  "The city is old," said the newcomer. "Its whimsicalities proliferate. Yet, once, it had the finest of minds. During those agitated centuries, when beings rushed willy-nilly about the universe, all manner of visitors came to learn from it. It deserves respect, my dear time traveller, if anything deserves it. Its memory is uncertain, of course, and it lacks a good sense of its identity, its function, but it continues to serve what remains of our species. Without it, I suspect that we should be extinct."

  "Perhaps you are," she said quietly.

  His shoulders moved in a lazy shrug and he smiled. "Oh, perhaps, but there is better evidence supporting more entertaining theories." His companion came closer, a woman. "This is my friend the Iron Orchid. We await other friends. For lunch and so on. It is our lunch that you are admiring."

  "The food is real, then? So much?"

  "You are obsessed with the question. Are you from one of the religious periods?"

  She trusted that the child had not heard and continued hastily. "The profusion."

  "We thought it simple."

  "Mama!" Tugging, Snuffles whispered, "The lady's hand."

  The Iron Orchid, long-faced with huge brown eyes, hair that might have been silver filigree, peacock quills sprouting from shoulder blades and waist, had one hand of the conventional, five-fingered sort, but the other (which she flourished) was a white-petalled, murmuring goldimar poppy, having at the centre scarlet lips like welts of blood.

  "And I am called here Lord Jagged of Canaria," said the man in yellow.

  "Mama!" An urgent hiss. But no, she would not allow the lapse, though it was with difficulty she redirected her own gaze away from the goldimar. "Your manners, lad," she said, and then, to the pair, "This is my boy, Snuffles."

  The Iron Orchid was rapturous. "A boy! What a shame you could not have arrived earlier. He would have been a playmate for my own son, Jherek."

  "He is not with you?"

  "He wanders Time. The womb, these days, cannot make claims. He is off about his own affairs and will listen to no-one, his mother least of all!"

  "How old is your son?"

  "Two hundred — three hundred — years old? Little more. Your own boy?"

  "He is but sixty. My name is Dafnish Armatuce. Of the Armatuce. We…"

  "And you have travelled through Time to lunch with us." Smiling, the Orchid bent her head towards the child. Stroking him with the hand that was a goldimar, she cooed. He scarcely flinched.

  "We cannot lunch." Dafnish Armatuce was determined to set an example, if only to herself. "I thank you, however."

  "You are not hungry?"

  "We dare not breathe your atmosphere, let alone taste your food. We wish merely to find our machine and depart."

  "If the atmosphere does not suit you, madam," said Lord Jagged kindly, and with gentleness, "it can be adapted."

  "And the food, too. The food, too!" eagerly declared the Iron Orchid, adding, sotto voce , "though I thought it reproduced perfectly. You eat such things? In your own Age?"

  "Such things are eaten, yes."

  "The selection is not to your satisfaction?"

  "Not at all." Dafnish Armatuce permitted her curiosity a little rein. "But how did you gather so much? How long did it take?"

  The Iron Orchid was bewildered by the question. "Gather? How long? It was made a few moments before we arrived."

  "Wustically wavishing!" carolled Sweet Orb Mace. "A wondahfully wipping wuwal wepast!" He giggled.

  "Two or three other time travellers join us soon," explained Lord Jagged. "The choice of feast is primarily to please them."

  "Others?"

  "They are inclined to accumulate here, you know, at the End of Time. From what Age have you come?"

  "The year was 1922."

  "Aha. Then Ming will be ideal." He hesitated, looking deep into her face. "You do not find us — sinister?"

  "I had not expected to encounter people at all." The perfection of his manners threw her into confusion. She was bent on defying his charm, yet the concern in his tone, the acuteness of his understanding, threatened to melt resolve. These characteristics were in conflict with the childish decadence of his costume, the corrupt grotesquerie of his surroundings, the idle insouciance of his conversation; she could not judge him, she could not sum him up. "I had expected, at most, sterility…"

  He had detected the tension in her. Another touch, upon her arm, and some of that tension dissipated. But she recovered her determination almost at once. Her own hand took her son's. How could such a creature of obvious caprice impress her so strongly of his respect both for her and for himself?

  Watching them without curiosity, the Iron Orchid plucked up a plum and bit into it, the fruit and her lips a perfect match. Droplets of juice fell upon the gleaming grass, and clung.

  Her eyes lifted; she smiled. "This must be the first entrant."

  In the sky circled four gauzy, rainbow shapes, dipping and bank
ing.

  "Mine weah the fiwst," said Sweet Orb Mace, aggrieved, "but they escaped. Or melted."

  "We play flying conceits today," explained Lord Jagged. "Aha, it is undoubtably Doctor Volospion. See, he has erected his pavilion."

  The large, be-flagged tent had not been on the far side of the field a moment ago, Dafnish Armatuce was sure; she would have marked its gaudy red, white and purple stripes.

  "The entertainment begins." Lord Jagged drew her attention to the table. "Will you not trust us, Dafnish Armatuce? You cannot die at the End of Time, or at least cannot remain dead for very long. Try the atmosphere. You can always return to your armour." He took a backward pace.

  Good manners dictated her actions, she knew. But did he seduce her? Again Snuffles eagerly made to remove his helmet, but she restrained him, for she must be the first to take the risk. She raised hesitant hands. A sidelong glance at the dancing city, distant and, she thought, expectant, and then a decision. She twisted.

  A gasp as air mingled with air, and she was breathing spice, her balance at risk. Three breaths and she was convinced; from the table drifted the aroma of pie, of apricots and avocados; she failed to restrain a sob, and tingling melancholy swept from toe to tight brown curl. Such profound feeling she had experienced only once before, at the birth of her Snuffles. The lad was even now wrenching his own helmet free — even as he was drawn towards the feast.

  She cried, "Caution!" and stretched a hand, but he had seized a fowl and sunk soft, juvenile teeth into the breast. How could she refuse him? Perhaps this would be the only time in his life when he would know the luxury of abundance, and he must become an adult soon enough. She relented for him, but not for herself, yet even her indulgence of the child went hard against instinct.

  Chewing, Snuffles presented her with a shining face, a greasy mouth, and eyes containing fires which had no business burning in one of his years. Feral, were they?

  The Orchid trilled (artificial in all things, so thought Dafnish Armatuce): "Children! Their appetites!" (Or was it irony Dafnish Armatuce detected? She dismissed any idea of challenge, placing her hands on her boy's shoulders, restraining her own lust): "Food is scarce in Armatuce just now."