Dancers at the End of Time Read online

  Not that there was anything wrong with intentional vulgarity. Or even unintentional vulgarity, thought Jherek, in the case, for instance, of the Duke of Queens.

  He recalled the party with horror. "The poor Duke of Queens!"

  "His party was absolutely perfect. Not a thing went right." Lord Jagged left the window and wandered over the bumpy floor. "May I use this for a suit?" He gestured towards a stuffed mammoth which filled one corner of the room.

  "Of course," said Jherek. "I was never quite sure if it was in period, anyway. How clever of you to pick that." He watched with interest as Lord Jagged broke the mammoth down into its component atoms and then, from the hovering cloud of particles, concocted for himself a loose, lilac-coloured robe with the kind of high, stiff collar he often favoured, and huge puffed sleeves from which peeped the tips of his fingers, and silver slippers with long, pointed toes, and a circlet to contain his long platinum hair; a circlet in the form of a rippling, living 54th century Uranian lizard.

  "How haughty you look!" said Jherek. "A prince of fifty planets!"

  Lord Jagged bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment. "We are the sum of all previous ages, are we not? And as a result there is nothing that marks this age of ours, save that one thing. We are the sum."

  "I had never thought of it." Jherek swung his long legs from the bed and stood up.

  "Nor I, until this moment. But it is true. I can think of nothing else typical. Our technologies, our tricks, our conceits — they all imitate the past. We benefit from everything our ancestors worked to achieve. But we invent nothing of our own — we merely ring a few changes on what already exists."

  "There is nothing left to invent, my lilac lord. The long history of mankind, if it has a purpose at all, has found complete fulfilment in us. We can indulge any fancy. We can choose to be whatever we wish and do whatever we wish. What else is there? We are happy. Even Mongrove is happy in his misery — it is his choice. No one would try to alter it. I am rather at a loss, therefore, to follow where your argument is leading." Jherek sipped from his own beer barrel.

  "There was no argument, my jaunty Jherek. It was an observation I made. That was all."

  "And accurate." Jherek was at a loss to add anything more.

  "Accurate."

  Lord Jagged stood back to admire Jherek, still unclothed for the day.

  "And what will you wear?"

  "I have been considering that very question," Jherek put a finger to his chin. "It must be in keeping with all this — especially since I am to pay court to a lady of the 19th century. But it cannot be the same as yesterday."

  "No," agreed Lord Jagged.

  And then Jherek had it. He was delighted at his own brilliance. "I know! I shall wear exactly the same costume as she wore last night! It will be a compliment she cannot fail to notice."

  "Jherek," crooned Lord Jagged, hugging him, "you are the best of us!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Menagerie of Time and Space

  "The very best of us," yawned Lord Jagged of Canaria, lying back upon the couch of plush and ermine as Jherek, clad in his new costume, pulled the whistle of the locomotive which took off from the corral and left the West behind, heading for gloomy Mongrove's domain.

  The locomotive steered a course for the tropics, passing through a dozen different skies. Some of the skies were still being completed, while others were being dismantled as their creators wearied of them.

  They puffed over the old cities which nobody used any more, but which were not destroyed because the sources of many forms of energy were still stored there — the energy in particular, which powered the rings everyone wore. Once whole star systems had been converted to store the energy banks of Earth, during the manic Engineering Millennium, when everyone, it appeared, had devoted themselves to that single purpose.

  They travelled through several daytimes and a few nighttimes on their way to Mongrove's. The giant, save for his brief Hell-making fad, had always lived in the same place, where a sub-continent called Indi had once been. It was well over an hour before they sighted the grey clouds which perpetually hung over Mongrove's domain, pouring down either snow or sleet or hail or rain, depending on the giant's mood. The sun never shone through those clouds. Mongrove hated sunshine.

  Lord Jagged pretended to shiver, though his garments had naturally adjusted to the change in temperature. "There are Mongrove's miserable cliffs. I can see them now." He pointed through the observation window.

  Jherek looked and saw them. Mile high crags met the grey clouds. They were black, gleaming and melancholy crags, without symmetry, without a single patch of relieving colour, for even the rain which fell on them seemed to turn black as it struck them and ran in weeping black rivers down their rocky flanks.

  And Jherek shivered, too. It had been many years since he had visited Mongrove and he had forgotten with what uncompromising misery the giant had designed his home.

  At a murmured command from Jherek, the locomotive rolled up the sky to get above the clouds.

  The rain and the cold would not affect the aircar, but Jherek found the mere sight too glum for his taste.

  But soon they had passed over the cliffs and Jherek could tell from the way in which the cloud bank seemed to dip in the middle that they were over Mongrove's valley. Now they would have to pass through the clouds. There was no choice.

  The locomotive began to descend, passing through layer after grey layer of the thick, swirling mist until it emerged, finally, over Mongrove's valley. Jherek and Lord Jagged looked down upon a blighted landscape of festering marsh and leafless, stunted trees, of bleak boulders, of withered shrubs and dank moss. In the very centre of all this desolation squatted the vast, cheerless complex of buildings and enclosures which was surrounded by a great, glabrous wall and dominated by Mongrove's dark, obsidian castle. From the castle's ragged towers shone a few dim, yellowish lights.

  Almost immediately a force dome appeared over the castle and its environs. It turned the falling rain to steam. Then Mongrove's voice, amplified fiftyfold, boomed from the now partially hidden castle.

  "What enemy approaches to plague and threaten despondent Mongrove?"

  Although Mongrove's detectors would already have identified them, Jagged answered with good humour.

  "It is I, dear Mongrove. Your good friend Lord Jagged of Canaria."

  "And another."

  "Yes, another. Jherek Carnelian is well known to you surely?"

  "Well known and well hated. He is not welcome here, Lord Jagged."

  "And I? Am I not welcome?"

  "None are welcome at Castle Mongrove, but you may enter, if you wish."

  "And my friend Jherek?"

  "If you insist upon bringing him with you — and if I have his word, Lord Jagged, that he is not here to play one of his cruel jests upon me."

  "You have my word, Mongrove," said Jherek.

  "Then," said Mongrove reluctantly, "enter."

  The force dome vanished; the rain fell unhindered upon the basalt and the obsidian. For the sake of politeness, Jherek did not take his locomotive over the wall. Instead he brought the aircar to the swampy ground and waited until the massive iron gates groaned open just wide enough to admit the locomotive, which shuffled merrily through, giving out multicoloured smoke from its funnel and its bogies — a most incongruous sight and one which was bound to displease Mongrove. Yet Jherek could not resist it.

  Mongrove desired so much to be baited, he felt, and he desired so much to bait him that he let few opportunities go. Lord Jagged placed a hand on Jherek's shoulder.

  "It would improve matters and make our task the easier if we were to forgo the smoke, jolly Jherek."

  "Very well!" Jherek laughed and ordered the smoke to stop. "Perhaps I should have designed a more funereal carriage altogether. For the occasion. One of those black ships of the Four Year Empire would do. Oh, death meant so much to them in those days. Are we missing something, I wonder?"

  "I have wondered th
at. Still, we have all of us died so many times and been recreated so many times that the thrill is gone. For them — especially the heavy folk of the Four Year Empire — it was an experience they could have only three or four times at most before their systems gave out. Strange."

  They were nearing the main entrance of the castle itself, passing through narrow streets full of lowering, dark walls and iron fences behind which dim shapes could be seen moving occasionally. The large part of all this was Mongrove's menagerie.

  "He has added a great deal to it since I was last here," said Jherek. "I hadn't realised."

  "You had best follow my lead," said Lord Jagged. "I will gauge Mongrove's mood and ask, casually, if we can see the menagerie. Perhaps after lunch, if he offers us lunch."

  "I remember the last lunch I had here," Jherek said with a shudder. "Raw Turyian dungwhale prepared in the style of the Zhadash primitives who hunted it, I gather, on Ganesha in the 89th century."

  "You do remember it well."

  "I could never forget it. I have never questioned Mongrove's artistry, Lord Jagged. Like me, he is a stickler for detail."

  "And that is why this rivalry exists between you, I shouldn't wonder. You are of similar temperaments, really."

  Jherek laughed. "Perhaps. Though I think I prefer the way in which I express mine!"

  They went under a portcullis and entered a cobbled courtyard. The locomotive stopped.

  Rain fell on the cobbles. Somewhere a sad bell tolled and tolled and tolled.

  And there was Mongrove. He was dressed in dark green robes, his great chin sunk upon his huge chest, his brooding eyes regarding them from a head which seemed itself carved from rock. His monstrous, ten foot frame did not move as they dismounted from the aircar and, from politeness, allowed themselves to be soaked by the chill rain.

  "Good morning, Mongrove." Lord Jagged of Canaria made one of his famous sweeping bows and then tip-toed forward to reach up and grasp the giant's bulky hands which were folded on his stomach.

  "Jagged," said Mongrove. "I am feeling suspicious. Why are you and that wretch Jherek Carnelian here? What plot's hatching? What devious brew are you boiling? What new ruse are you rascals ripening to make a rift in my peace of mind?"

  "Oh, come, Mongrove — peace of mind! Isn't that the last thing you desire?" Jherek could not resist the jibe. He stood before his old rival in his new grey gown with his straw boater upon his chestnut curls and his hands on his hips and he grinned up at the giant. "It is despair you seek — exquisite despair.

  It is agony of soul such as the ancients knew. You wish to discover the secret of what they called "the human condition" and recreate it in all its terror and its pain. And yet you have never quite discovered that secret, have you, Mongrove? Is that why you keep this vast menagerie with creatures culled from all the ages, all the places of the universe? Do you hope that, in their misery, they will show you the way from despair to utter despair, from melancholy to the deepest melancholy, from gloom to unspeakable gloom?"

  "Be silent!" groaned Mongrove. "You did come here to plague me. You cannot stay! You cannot stay!" He covered his monstrous ears with his monstrous hands and closed his great, sad eyes.

  "I apologise for Jherek, Mongrove," said Lord Jagged softly. "He only hopes to please you."

  Mongrove's reply was in the form of a vast, shuddering moan. He began to turn to go back into his castle.

  "Please, Mongrove," said Jherek. "I do apologise. I really do. I wish there was some release for you from this terror, this gloom, this unbearable depression."

  Mongrove turned back again, brightening just a trifle. "You understand?"

  "Of course. Though I have felt only a fraction of what you must feel — I understand." Jherek placed his hand on his bosom. "The aching sorrow of it all."

  "Yes," whispered Mongrove. A tear fell from his huge right eye. "That is very true, Jherek." A tear fell from his left eye. "Nobody understands, as a rule. I am a joke. A laughing-stock. They know that in this great frame is a tiny, frightened, pathetic creature incapable of any generosity, without creative talent, with a capacity only to weep, to mourn, to sigh and to watch the tragedy that is human life play itself to its awful conclusion."

  "Yes," said Jherek. "Yes, Mongrove."

  Lord Jagged, who now stood behind Mongrove, sheltering in the doorway of the castle and leaning against the obsidian wall, gave Jherek a look of pure admiration and added to this look one of absolute approval. He nodded his pale head. He smiled. He winked his encouragement, the white lid falling over his almost colourless eye.

  Jherek did admire Mongrove for the pains he took to make his role complete. When he, Jherek, became a lover, he would pursue his role with the same dedication.

  "You see," said Lord Jagged. "You see, Mongrove. Jherek understands and sympathises better than anyone. In the past he has played the odd practical joke upon you, it is true, but that was because he was trying to cheer you up. Before he realised that nothing can hope to ease the misery in your bleak soul and so on."

  "Yes," said Mongrove. "I do see, Lord Jagged." He threw a huge arm around Jherek's shoulders and almost flung Jherek to the cobbled ground, muddying his skirts. Jherek feared for his set. It was already getting wet and yet politeness forbade him to use any form of force protection. He felt his straw hat begin to sag a little. He looked down at his blouse and saw that the lace was looking a bit straggly.

  "Come," Mongrove went on. "You shall lunch with me. My honoured guests. I never realised before, Jherek, how sensitive you were. And you tried to hide your sensitivity with rough humour, with coarse badinage and crude japes."

  Jherek thought many of his jokes had been rather subtle, but it was not politic to say so at the moment. He nodded, instead, and smiled.

  Mongrove led them at last into the castle. For all the winds whistling through the passages and howling along stairwells; for all that the only light was from guttering brands and that the walls ran with damp or were festooned with mildew; for all the rats glimpsed from time to time; for all the bloodless faces of Mongrove's living-dead retainers, the thick cobwebs, the chilly odours, the peculiar little sounds, Jherek was pleased to be inside and walked quite merrily with Mongrove as they made their way up several flights of unclad stone stairs, through a profusion of twisting corridors until at last they arrived in Mongrove's banqueting hall.

  "And where is Werther," asked Lord Jagged, "de Goethe, I mean? I was sure he left with you last night. At the Duke of Queens?"

  "The Duke of Queens." Mongrove's massive brow frowned. "Aye. Aye. The Duke of Queens. Yes, Werther was here for a while. But he left. Some new nightmare or other he promised to show me when he'd completed it."

  "Nightmare?"

  "A play. Something. I'm not sure. He said I would like it."

  "Excellent."

  "Ah," sighed Mongrove. "That space-traveller. How I would love to converse longer with him. Did you hear him? Doom, he said. We are doomed! "

  "Doom, doom," echoed Lord Jagged, signing for Jherek to join in.

  "Doom," said Jherek a little uncertainly. "Doom, doom."

  "Yes, dark damnation. Dejection. Doom. Doom. Doom." Mongrove stared into the middle distance.

  Jherek thought that Mongrove seemed to have picked up Lord Jagged's predilection for words beginning with "d."

  "You covet, then, the alien?" he said.

  "Covet him?"

  "You want him in your menagerie?" explained Lord Jagged. "That's the question."

  "Of course I would like him here. He is very morbid, isn't he? He would make an excellent companion."

  "Oh, he would!" said Lord Jagged, staring significantly at Jherek as the three men seated themselves at Mongrove's chipped and stained dining table. But Jherek couldn't quite work out why Jagged stared at him significantly. "He would! What a shame he is in My Lady Charlotina's collection."

  "Is that where he is? I wondered."

  "Lady Charlotina wouldn't give you the little alien, I suppose," sai
d Lord Jagged. "Since his companionship would mean so much to you."

  "Lady Charlotina hates me," said Mongrove simply. "Surely not!"

  "Oh, yes she does. She would give me nothing. She is jealous of my collection, I suppose."

  Mongrove went on, with gloomy pride: "My collection is large. Possibly the largest there is."

  "I have heard that it is magnificent," Jherek told him.

  "Thank you, Jherek," said the giant gratefully.

  Mongrove's attitude had changed completely. Evidently all he asked for was that his misery should be taken seriously. Then he could forget every past slight, every joke at his expense, that Jherek had ever made. In a few minutes they had changed, in Mongrove's eyes, from being bitter enemies to the closest of friends.

  It was plain to Jherek that Lord Jagged understood Mongrove very well — as well as he knew Jherek, if not better. He was constantly astonished at the insight of the Lord of Canaria. Sometimes Lord Jagged could appear almost sinister!

  "I would very much like to see your menagerie," said Lord Jagged. "Would that be possible, my miserable Mongrove?"

  "Of course, of course," said Mongrove. "There is little to see, really. I expect it lacks the glamour of My Lady Charlotina's, the colour of the Duke of Queens', even the variety of your mother's, Jherek, the Iron Orchid's."

  "I am sure that is not the case," said Jherek diplomatically.

  "And would you like to see my menagerie also?" asked Mongrove.

  "Very much," said Jherek. "Very much. I hear you have —"

  "Those cracks," said Lord Jagged suddenly and deliberately interrupting his friend, "they are new, are they not, dear Mongrove?"

  He gestured towards several large fissures in the far wall of the hall.