The Ancient Shadows lfteot-3 Read online

  "His destiny?" Dafnish rounded on Miss Ming. "You thought I meant that? "

  "Oh, you…" Miss Ming's blue eyes, bovine and dazed, began to fill.

  "I could change him to his original shape," began Lord Jagged, but Dafnish Armatuce shook her head in misery. "It is too late, Lord Jagged. What is there left?"

  "But this is intolerable for you." There was a hint of unusual emotion in Lord Jagged's voice. "This woman is not one of us. She acts without wit or intelligence. There is no resonance in these actions of hers."

  "You would still say evil does not exist here?"

  "If vulgar imitation of art is 'evil', then perhaps I agree with you."

  Dafnish Armatuce was drained. She could not move. Her shoulder twitched a little in what might have been a shrug. "Responsibility leaves me," she said, "and I feel the loss. Who knows but that I did use it as armour against experience." She sighed, addressing her son. "If adult you be, then make an adult's decision. Be an Armatuce, recall your Maxims, consider your Duty." She was pleading and she could not keep her voice steady. "Will you return with me to Armatuce? To Serve?"

  "To serve fools? That would make a fool of me, would it not? Look about you! This is the way the race is destined to live, mother. Here —" he spread decorated hands to indicate the world — "here is my destiny, too!"

  "Oh, Snuffles…" Her head fell forward and her body trembled with her silent sobbing. " Snuffles! "

  "That name's offensive to me, mother. Snuffles is dead. I am now the Margrave of Wolverhampton, who shall wander the world, impressing his magnificence on All! My own choice, the name, with Miss Ming's assistance concerning the details. A fine name, an excellent ambition. Thus I take my place in society, my only duty to delight my friends, my only maxim 'Extravagance In Everything!' and I shall give service to myself alone! I shall amaze everyone with my inventions and events. You shall learn to be proud of me, mama!"

  She shook her head. "All my pride is gone."

  Several ancient clocks began to chime at once, and through the din she heard Lord Jagged's voice murmuring in her ear. "The fabric of Time is particularly weak now. Your chances are at their best."

  She knew that this was mercy, but she sighed. "If he came, what point? My whole life has been dedicated to preparing for the moment when my son would become an adult, taking my knowledge, my experience, my Duty. Shall I present our Armatuce with — with what he is now?"

  The youth had heard some of this and now he raised a contemptuous shoulder to her while Miss Ming said urgently: "You cannot go! You must not! I did it for you, so that you could be happy. So that we could enjoy a full friendship. There is no obstacle."

  Dafnish's laughter drove the woman back. Fingers in mouth, Miss Ming cracked a nail with her teeth, and the shadow of terror came and went across her face.

  Dafnish spoke in an undertone. "You have killed my son, Miss Ming. You have made of my whole life a travesty. Whether that shell you call 'my son' survives or not, whether it should be moulded once more into the original likeness, it is of no importance any longer. I am the Armatuce and the Armatuce is me. You have poisoned at least one branch of that tree which is the Armatuce, whose roots bind the world, but I am not disconsolate; I know other branches will grow. Yet I must protect the roots, lest they be poisoned. I have a responsibility now which supersedes all others. I must return. I must warn my folk never to send another Armatuce to the End of Time. It is evident that our time-travelling experiments threaten our survival, our security. You assure me that — that the boy can live without his life-right, that remaining part of my being which, at my death, I would pass on to him, so that he could live. Very well, I leave him to you and depart."

  Miss Ming wailed: "You can't! You'll be killed! I love you!"

  The youth held some kind of hayfork at arm's length, inspecting its balance and workmanship, apparently unconcerned. Dafnish took a step towards him. "Snuffles…"

  "I am not 'Snuffles'."

  "Then, stranger, I bid you farewell." She had recovered something of her dignity. Her small body was still tense, her oval face still pale. She controlled herself. She was an Armatuce again.

  "You'll be killed! " shrieked Miss Ming, but Dafnish ignored her. "At best Time will fling you back to us. What good will the journey do you?"

  "The Armatuce shall be warned. There is a chance of that?" The question was for Lord Jagged.

  "A slight one. Only because the Laws of Time have already been transgressed. I have learned something of a great conjunction, of other layers of reality which intersect with ours, which suggests you might return, for a moment, anyway, since the Laws need not be so firmly enforced."

  "Then I go now."

  He raised a warning hand. "But, Dafnish Armatuce, Miss Ming is right. There is little probability Time will let you survive."

  "I must try. I presume that Sweet Orb Mace, who has my time ship, knows nothing of this disruption, will take no precautions to keep me in your Age?"

  "Oh, certainly! Nothing."

  "Then I thank you, Lord Jagged, for your hospitality. I'll require it no longer and you may let Snuffles go to Doctor Volospion's. You are a good man. You would make a worthy Armatuce."

  He bowed. "You flatter me…"

  "Flattery is unknown in Armatuce. Farewell."

  She began to walk back the way she had come, past row upon row, rank upon rank of antiquities, past the collected mementoes of a score of Ages, as if, already, she marched, resolute and noble, through Time itself.

  Lord Jagged seemed about to speak, but then he fell silent, his expression unusually immobile, his eyes narrowed as he watched her march. Slowly, he reached a fine hand to his long cheek and his fingers explored his face, just below the eye, as if he sought something there but failed to find it.

  Miss Ming blew her nose and bawled:

  "Oh, I've ruined everything. She was looking forward to the day you grew up, Snuffles! I know she was!"

  "Margrave," he murmured, to correct her. He made as if to take a step in pursuit, but changed his mind. He smoothed the pile of his tabard. "She'll be back."

  "She'll realize her mistake?" Saucer eyes begged comfort from their owner's creation.

  The Margrave of Wolverhampton had found a mirror in a silver frame. He was pleased with what he saw. He spoke absently to his companion.

  "Possibly. And if she should reach Armatuce, she'll be better off. You have me for a friend, instead. Shall I call you mother?"

  Mavis Ming uttered a wordless yelp. Impatiently the Margrave of Wolverhampton stroked her lank hair. "She would never know how to enjoy herself. No Armatuce would. I am the first. Why should sacrifices be made pointlessly?"

  Lord Jagged turned and confronted him. Lord Jagged was grim. "She has much, your mother, that is of value. You shall never have that now."

  "My inheritance, you mean?" The Margrave's sneer was not altogether accomplished. "My life-right? What use is it here? Thanks, old man, but no thanks!" It was one of Miss Ming's expressions. The Margrave acknowledged the origin by grinning at her for approval. She laughed through tears, but then, again, was seized:

  "What if she dies!"

  "She would have had to give it up, for me, when we returned. She loses nothing."

  "She passes her whole life to you?" said Jagged, revelation dawning. "Her whole life?"

  "Yes. In Armatuce but not here. I don't need the life-force. There she would be absorbed into me, then I would change, becoming a man, but incorporating her 'soul'. What was of use to me in her body would also be used. Nothing is wasted in Armatuce. But this way is much better, for now only a small part of her is in me — the part she infused when I was made — and I become an individual. We both have freedom, though it will take her time to realize it."

  "You are symbiotes?"

  "Of sorts, yes."

  "But surely," said Jagged, "if she dies before she transfers the life-right to you, you are still dependent on the life-force emanating from her being?"

 
"I would be, in Armatuce. But here, I'm my own man."

  Miss Ming said accusingly, "You should have tried to stop her, Lord Jagged."

  "You said yourself she was free, Miss Ming."

  "Not to destroy herself!" A fresh wail.

  "But to become your slave?"

  "Oh, that's nonsense, Lord Jagged." Another noisy blowing of the nose. "Your trouble is, you don't understand real emotions at all."

  His smile as he looked down at her was twisted and strange.

  "I loved her," said Miss Ming defiantly.

  8. The Return to Armatuce

  Alone in her machine, her helmet once more upon her head, her protective suit once again armouring her body, Dafnish Armatuce quelled pain, at the sight of Snuffles' empty chair, and concentrated upon her instruments. All was ready.

  She adjusted her harness, tightening it. She reached for the seven buttons inset on the chair's arm; she pressed a sequence of four. Green light rolled in waves across her vision, subtly altering to blue and then to black. Dials sang out their information, a murmuring rose to a shout: the ship was moving. She was going back through Time.

  She watched for the pink light and the red, which would warn her that the ship was malfunctioning or that it was off course: the colours did not falter. She moved steadily towards her goal. Her head ached, but that was to be expected; neuralgia consumed her body (also anticipated); but the peculiar sense of unease was new, and her stare went too frequently to the small chair beneath the main console. To distract her attention, she brought in the vision screen earlier than was absolutely necessary. Outside was a predominantly grey mist, broken occasionally by bright flashes or patches of blackness; sometimes she thought she could distinguish objects for fractions of a second, but they never stayed long enough for her to identify them. The instruments were more interesting. They showed that she moved back through Time at a rate of one minute to the thousand years. The instruments were crude, she knew, but she had already traversed seven thousand years and it would be many more minutes before she came to Armatuce. The machine had automatic devices built into it so that it would return to its original resting place a few moments after it had, so far as the observers in Armatuce were aware, departed. As best she could, she refused to let her thoughts dwell on her return. She would have to lie, and she had never lied before. She would have to admit to having abandoned her boy and she would know disgrace; she would no longer be required to serve. Yet she knew that she would serve, if only she were allowed to warn them against further expeditions into the future. She would be content. Yet still her heart remained heavy. It was obvious that she, too, had been corrupted. She would demand isolation, in Armatuce, so that she would not corrupt others.

  A shadow darkened the vision screens for a few seconds, then the grey, sparkling mist came back.

  She heard herself speaking. "It was not betrayal. He, too, was betrayed. I must not blame him."

  She had become selfish; she wanted her boy for herself, for comfort. Therefore, she reasoned, she did not deserve him. She must forget…

  The machine shuddered, but no pink light came. Physical agony made her bite her lip, but the machine maintained its backward course.

  It became difficult to breathe. At first she blamed the respirator, but she saw that it functioned perfectly. With considerable effort she made herself breathe more slowly, felt her heartbeat resume its normal rhythm. Why did she persist in experiencing that same panic she had first experienced at the End of Time — the sense of being trapped? No-one had known claustrophobia in Armatuce for centuries. How could they? Such phobias had been eliminated.

  Ten minutes had passed. She was tempted to increase the machine's speed, but such a step would be dangerous. For the sake of the Armatuce, she must not risk her chances of getting home.

  She recalled her son's disdainful words, remembered all the others who had told her that the sacrifices of the Armatuce were no longer valid. They had been valid once; they had saved the world, continued the race, passing life to life, building a huge fund of wisdom and knowledge. Like ants, she thought. Well, the ants survived. They and Man were virtually all that had survived the cataclysm. Was it not arrogant to assume that Man had any more to offer than the ant?

  Five more minutes went by. The pain was worse, but it was not so sharp. Her sight was a little blurred, but she was able to see that the machine's passage through Time was steady.

  Her moods seemed to change rapidly. One moment she was consoled and hopeful; at another she would sink into despair and be forced to fight against such useless emotions as regret and anger. She could not carry such things back to Armatuce! It would be Sin. She strove to recall some suitable Maxim, but none came to her.

  The machine lurched, paused, and then it continued. Another six minutes had gone by. The pain suddenly became so intense that she lost consciousness. She had expected nothing else.

  She awoke, her ears filled with the protesting whining of the time ship. She opened her eyes to pink, oscillating light. She blinked and peered at the instruments. All were at zero. It meant that she was back.

  Hastily, with clumsy fingers, she freed herself of her harness. The vision screen showed the white laboratory, the pale-faced, black-clad figures of her compatriots. They were very still.

  She operated the mechanism to raise the hatch, climbed urgently through, crying out: "Armatuce! Armatuce! Beware of the Future!" She was desperate to warn them in case Time snatched her from her own Age before she could complete her chosen task, her last Service.

  "Armatuce! The Future holds Despair! Send no more ships!" She stood half out of the hatch, waving to attract their attention, but they remained absolutely immobile. None saw her, none heard her, none breathed. Yet they were not statues. She recognized her husband among them. They lived, yet they were frozen!

  "Armatuce! Beware the Future!"

  The machine began to shake. The scene wavered and she thought she detected the faintest light of recognition in her husband's eye.

  "We both live!" she cried, anxious to give him hope.

  Then the machine lurched and she lost her footing, was swallowed by it. The hatch slammed shut above her head. She crawled to the speaking apparatus. "Armatuce! Send no more ships!" The pink light flared to red. Heat increased. The machine roared.

  Her mouth became so dry that she could hardly speak at all. She whispered, "Beware the Future…" and then she was burning, shivering, and the red light was fading to pink, then to green, as the machine surged forward again, leaving Armatuce behind.

  She screamed. They had not seen her. Time had stopped. She dragged herself back to the chair and flung herself into it. She tried to pull her harness round her, but she lacked the strength. She pressed the four buttons to reverse the machine's impetus, forcing it against that remorseless current.

  "Oh, Armatuce…"

  She knew, then, that she could survive if she allowed the machine to float, as it were, upon the forward flow of Time, but her loyalty to Armatuce was too great. Again she pressed the buttons, bringing a return of the pink light, but she saw the indicators begin to reverse.

  She staggered from her chair, each breath like liquid fire, and adjusted every subsidiary control to the reverse position. The machine shrieked at her, as if it pleaded for its own life, but it obeyed. Again the laboratory flashed upon the vision screen. She saw her husband. He was moving sluggishly.

  Something seemed to burst in her atrophied womb; tears etched her skin like corrosive acid. Her hair was on fire.

  She found the speaking apparatus again. "Snuffles," she whispered. "Armatuce. Future."

  And she looked back to the screen; it was filled with crimson. Then she felt her bones tearing through her flesh, her organs rupturing, and she gave herself up, in peace, to the pain.

  9. In Which Miss Ming Claims a Keepsake

  "Adaptability, surely, is the real secret of survival?" The new Margrave of Wolverhampton seemed anxious to impress his unwilling host. Lord Jagged had
been silent since Dafnish Armatuce's departure. "I mean, that's why people like my mother are doomed," continued the youth. "They can't bear change. She could have been perfectly content here, if she'd listened to reason. Couldn't she, Lord Jagged?"

  Lord Jagged was sprawled in an ancient steel armchair, refusing to give his affirmation to these protestations. Miss Ming had at last dried her eyes, hopefully for the final time. She inspected a 40th-century wall-hanging, feeling the delicate cloth with thumb and forefinger.

  "I mean, that whole business about controlling the population. It wasn't necessary in Armatuce. It hadn't been for hundreds of years. There was wealth everywhere, but we weren't allowed to touch it. We never had enough to eat! " This last, plaintive, remark caused Lord Jagged to look up. Encouraged, the margrave became expansive: "The symbiosis, the ritual passing on of the life-force from one to another. It came about because children couldn't be produced naturally. I was made in a metal tub! She threw in a bit of her — what? — her soul? Her 'self'? Call it what you like. And there I was — forced to remain, once I'd grown a little, a child for sixty years! Oh, I was content enough, certainly, until I came here and saw what life could be like. If it hadn't been for Miss Ming…"

  Lord Jagged sighed and closed his eyes.

  "Think what you like!" The margrave's silks rustled as he put a defiant hand to his hip. "Miss Ming's done me a lot of good, and could have done mother good, too. Whose fault is it? I was doomed to be linked to her until some complacent, ludicrous committee decided I could become an adult; but my mama would have to die so that I could inherit the precious — and probably non-existent — life-force! I'd have been a copy of her, little more. Great for her ego, eh? Lousy for mine."

  "And now you utter the coarse rhetoric of a Miss Ming!" Lord Jagged rose from his chair, an unusual bitterness in his tone. "You substitute the Maxims of the Armatuce for the catch-phrases which support a conspiracy of selfishness and greed. There is dignity here, at the End of Time, but you do not ape that, because your mother also had dignity. You are vulgar now, little Snuffles, as no child can ever be vulgar. Do you not sense it? Can you not see how that wretched inhabitant of Doctor Volospion's third-rate menagerie has used you, to further her own stupid, short-sighted ambitions? She lusted for Dafnish Armatuce and thought you stood between her and the object of her desires. So she turned you into this travesty of maturity, with no more wit or originality or intelligence than she, herself, possesses."