She became nervous. "Should we not seek out your friends?"
"If they have returned. Remember, the last we saw of them was in London, 1896. They vanished — but did they return? Our destinations were the same. Almost certainly the Morphail Effect sent them home — but we know that Brannart's theories do not apply to all the phenomena associated with Time."
"We'll not be served by further speculation," she pointed out. "You have your power-rings, still?"
He was impressed by her sense. "Of course!" He stroked a ruby, turning three of the oaks into a larger version of the power-boat of the Palaeozoic, but translucent, of jade. "My ranch awaits us — rest or roister, as we will! " He bowed low as, with a set expression upon her beautiful features, she advanced towards the boat. He brought up the rear. "You do not think the jewelled propeller vulgar?" He was eager for her praise. "It seemed a refinement."
"It is lovely," said she, distantly. With considerable dignity, she entered the vessel. There were benches, quilted with cloth-of-gold. She chose one near the centre of the craft. Joining her, he lounged in the prow. A wave of a hand and the boat began to rise. He laughed. He was his old self again. He was Jherek Carnelian, the son of a woman, the darling of his world, and his love was with him.
"At last," he cried, "our aggravations and adventures are concluded. The road has been a weary one, and long, yet at its end what shall we find but our own little cottage complete with cat and kettle, cream, crumpets, cranberries, kippers, cauliflower, crackers, custard, kedgeree for tea, sweet, my dear Amelia, sweet tranquillity! Oh, you shall be happy. You shall!"
Stiffly though she sat, she seemed more amused than insulted. She seemed pleased to recognize the landscapes streaming by below, and she did not chide him for his use of her Christian name, nor for his suggestions which were, of course, improper.
"I knew it!" he sang. "You have learned to love the End of Time."
"It does have certain attractions," she admitted, "after the Lower Devonian."
8. All Travellers Returned: A Celebration
9. The Past is Honoured: The Future Reaffirmed
10. In Which The Iron Orchid is not Quite Herself
"If they have returned. Remember, the last we saw of them was in London, 1896. They vanished — but did they return? Our destinations were the same. Almost certainly the Morphail Effect sent them home — but we know that Brannart's theories do not apply to all the phenomena associated with Time."
"We'll not be served by further speculation," she pointed out. "You have your power-rings, still?"
He was impressed by her sense. "Of course!" He stroked a ruby, turning three of the oaks into a larger version of the power-boat of the Palaeozoic, but translucent, of jade. "My ranch awaits us — rest or roister, as we will! " He bowed low as, with a set expression upon her beautiful features, she advanced towards the boat. He brought up the rear. "You do not think the jewelled propeller vulgar?" He was eager for her praise. "It seemed a refinement."
"It is lovely," said she, distantly. With considerable dignity, she entered the vessel. There were benches, quilted with cloth-of-gold. She chose one near the centre of the craft. Joining her, he lounged in the prow. A wave of a hand and the boat began to rise. He laughed. He was his old self again. He was Jherek Carnelian, the son of a woman, the darling of his world, and his love was with him.
"At last," he cried, "our aggravations and adventures are concluded. The road has been a weary one, and long, yet at its end what shall we find but our own little cottage complete with cat and kettle, cream, crumpets, cranberries, kippers, cauliflower, crackers, custard, kedgeree for tea, sweet, my dear Amelia, sweet tranquillity! Oh, you shall be happy. You shall!"
Stiffly though she sat, she seemed more amused than insulted. She seemed pleased to recognize the landscapes streaming by below, and she did not chide him for his use of her Christian name, nor for his suggestions which were, of course, improper.
"I knew it!" he sang. "You have learned to love the End of Time."
"It does have certain attractions," she admitted, "after the Lower Devonian."
8. All Travellers Returned: A Celebration
The jade air-car reached the ranch and hovered. "You see," said Jherek, "it is almost exactly as you last saw it, before you were torn away from me and tumbled back through Time. It retains all the features you proposed, familiar comforts of your own dear Dawn Age. You will be happy, Amelia. And anything else you wish, it shall be yours. Remember — my knowledge of your needs, your age, is much more sophisticated now. You will not find me the naive who courted you so long, it seems, ago!"
"It is the same," she said, and her voice was wistful, "but we are not."
"I am more mature," he agreed, "a better mate."
"Ah!" She smiled.
He sensed ambiguity. "You do not love another? Captain Bastable…"
She became wicked. "He is a gentleman of excellent manners. And his bearing — so soldierly…" But her eyes laughed at her words. "A match any mother would approve. Were I not already married, I should be the envy of Bromley — but I am married, of course, to Mr. Underwood."
Jherek made the car spiral down towards the rose-gardens and the rockeries he had created for her, and he said with some nervousness: "He said he would — what? — 'divest' you!"
"Divorce. I should have to appear in court — millions of years from here. It seems," (turning so that he should not see her face), "that I shall never be free."
"Free? Free? No woman was ever more free. Here is humanity triumphant — Nature conquered — all desires may be fulfilled — of enemies, none. You can live as you please. I shall serve you. Your whims shall be mine, dearest Amelia!"
"But my conscience," she said. "Can I be free from that?"
His face fell. "Oh, yes, of course, your conscience. I was forgetting it." The car sank to the lawn. "You did not leave it, then, behind? In Eden?"
"There? I had greater need of it, did I not?"
"I thought you suggested otherwise."
"Then condemn me as fickle. All women are so."
"You contradict yourself, but apparently without relish."
"Ha!" She was the first to leave the craft. "You refuse to accuse me, Mr. Carnelian? You will not play the game? The old game?"
"I did not know there was a game, Amelia. You are disturbed? The set of your shoulders reveals it. I am confused."
She rounded on him, but her face was softening. Her eyes held disbelief, fast fading. "You do not try me for my femininity? I am not accused of womanliness?"
"All this is meaningless."
"Then perhaps there is a degree of freedom here, at the End of Time, mixed with all your cruelties."
"Cruelties?"
"You keep slaves. Casually, you destroy anything which bores you. Have you no consideration for these time-travellers you capture? Was I not captured so — and put in a menagerie? And Yusharisp — bartered for me. Even in my age such barbarities are banished!"
He accepted her admonishment. He bowed his head. "Then you must teach me what is best," he said. "Is this 'morality'?"
She was overwhelmed, suddenly, by the enormity of her responsibility. Was it salvation she brought to Paradise, or was it merely guilt? She hesitated. "We shall discuss it, in the fullness of time," she told him.
They set foot upon the crazy paving of the path, between low yew-hedges. The ranch — Gothic red brick reproduction of her ideal Bromley villa — awaited them. A parrot or two perched on chimneys and gables; they seemed to flute a welcome.
"It is as you left it," he said. He was proud. "But, elsewhere, I have built for you a 'London', so that you shall not be homesick. It still pleases you, the ranch?"
"It is as I remember it."
He understood that he read disappointment in her tone.
"You compare it now with the original, I suppose."
"It has the essentials of the original."
"But remains a 'mere copy', eh? Show me…"
She had reached the porch, ran a hand over the painted timber, fondled a still-blooming rose (for none had faded since she had vanished), touched the flower to her nose. "It has been so long," she murmured. "I needed familiarity, then."
"You do not need it now?"
"Ah, yes. I am human. I am a woman. But perhaps there are other things which come to mean more. I felt, in those days, that I was in hell — tormented, mocked, abused — in the company of the mad. I had no perspective."
He opened the door, with its stained-glass panels. Potted plants, pictures, carpets of Persian design, dark paint, were revealed in the gloom of the entrance hall.
"If there are additions…" he began.
"Additions!" She was half amused. She inspected the what-nots and the aspidistras with a disdainful eye. "No more, I think."
"Too cluttered, now?" He closed the door and caused light to blossom.
"The house could be bigger. More windows, perhaps. More sun. More air."
He smiled. "I could remove the roof."
"You could, indeed!" She sniffed. "Yet it is not as musty as I supposed it would be. How long is it since you departed it?"
"That's difficult. We can only find out by conferring with our friends. They will know. My range of scents has much improved since I visited 1896. I agree that it was an area in which I was weak. But my palette is altogether enriched."
"Oh, this will do, Mr. Carnelian. For the present, at any rate."
"You cannot voice your disquiet?"
She turned kind eyes on him. "You possess a sensitivity often denied by your behaviour."
"I love you," he said simply. "I live for you."
She coloured. "My rooms are as I left them? My wardrobe remains intact?"
"Everything is there."
"Then I will rejoin you for lunch." She began to mount the stairs.
"It will be ready for you," he promised. He went into the front parlour, staring around him at this Collins Avenue of the mind, peering through the windows at the gentle green hills, the mechanical cows and sheep with their mechanical cow-boys and shepherds, all perfectly reproduced to make her feel at home. He admitted to himself that her response had bewildered him. It was almost as if she had lost her taste for her own preferred environment. He sighed. It had seemed so much easier, when her ideas were definite. Now that she herself found them difficult to define, he was at a loss. Antimacassars, horsehair furniture, red, black and yellow carpets of geometrical pattern, framed photographs, thick-leaved plants, the harmonium with which she had eased her heart, all now (because she seemed to have disapproved) accused him as a brute who could never please any woman, let alone the finest woman who had ever breathed. Still in the stained rags of his nineteenth-century suit, he slumped into an armchair, head on hand, and considered the irony of his situation. Not long since, he had sat in this house with Mrs. Underwood and made tentative suggestions for its improvement. She had forbidden any change. Then she had gone and all that he had left of her was the house itself. As a substitute, he had come to love it. Now it was she who suggested improvements (of almost exactly the kind he had proposed) and he felt a deep reluctance to alter a single potted palm, a solitary sideboard. Nostalgia for those times when he had courted her and she had tried to teach him the meaning of virtue, when they had sung hymns together in the evenings (it had been she, again, who had insisted upon a daily time-scale similar to that which she had known in Bromley), filled him — and with nostalgia came trepidation, that his hopes were doomed. At every stage, when she had been close to declaring her love for him, to giving herself to him, she had been thwarted. It was almost as if Jagged watched them, deliberately manipulating every detail of their lives. Easier to think that, perhaps, than to accept an arbitrary universe.
He rose from the chair and, with an expression of defiance (she had always insisted that he follow her conventions) created a hole in the ceiling through which he might pass and enter his own room, a haven of glittering white, gold and silver. He restored the floor to completeness and his ruby ring cleansed his body of Palaeozoic grime, placed wafting robes of white spider-fur about him, brought ease to his mind as it dawned on him that his old powers (and therefore his old innocence) were restored to him. He stretched himself and laughed. There was certainly much to be said for being at the mercy of the primeval elements, to be swept along by circumstances one could not in any way control, but it was good to return, to feel one's identity expand again, unchecked. Creatively, he knew that he would be capable of the best entertainments he had yet given his world. He felt the need for company, for old friends to whom he could retail his adventures. Had his mother, the magnificent Iron Orchid, yet returned to the End of Time? Was the Duke of Queens as vulgar as ever, or had his experiences taught him taste? Jherek became eager for news.
In undulating white, he left his room and began to cross the landing, crammed with nooks which in turn were crammed with little china figurines, china vases, china flowers, china animals, to the stairs. His emerald power-ring brought him delicate scents, of Lower Devonian ferns, of nineteenth-century streets, of oceans and of meadows. His step grew lighter as he descended to the dining room. "All things bright and beautiful," he sang, "all creatures great and small…"
A turn of his amber ring and an ethereal orchestra accompanied him. The amethyst — and peacocks stepped behind him, his train in their prim beaks, their feathers at full flourish. He passed an embroidered motto — he still could not read it, but she had told him its sense (if sense it were!): "What Mean These Stones?" he carolled. "What Mean These — tra-la-la — Stones?"
His spider-fur robes began to brush ornaments from the shelves at the side of the stairs. With scarcely any feelings of guilt at all, he widened the steps a little, so that he could pass more freely.
The dining room, dark, with heavy curtains and brown, gloomy furniture, dampened his spirits for only a second. He knew what she had once demanded — partially burned animal flesh, near-tasteless vegetables — and he ignored it. If she no longer dictated her pleasures, then he would offer his own again.
The table bloomed exotic. A reminder of their recent adventures — a spun-sugar water-scorpion glittering as a centre-piece — two translucent scarlet jellies, two feet high, in the image, to the life, of Inspector Springer. A couple of herds of animated marzipan cows and sheep (to satisfy her relish for fauna) grazing, in miniature, at the bases of the jellies. Everywhere: fronds of yellow, blue, pink, white, lilac and purple, of savoury, brittle pastry. Not a typical table, for Jherek usually chose for colour and preferred to limit himself to two, with one predominating — perhaps not a tasteful table, even — but a jolly one, that he hoped she would appreciate. Great green pools of gravy; golden mounds of mustards; brown, steaming custards, and pies in a dozen pastel shades; bowls of crystals — cocaine in the blue, heroin in the silver, sugar in the black —and tottering pyramids of porridge — a dish for any mood, to satisfy every appetite. He stood back, grinning his pleasure. It was unplanned, it was crowded, but it had a certain zest, he felt, that she would appreciate.
He struck the nearby gong. Her feet were already upon the stairs.
She entered the room. "Oh!"
"Lunch, my lovely Amelia. Flung together, I fear, but all quite edible."
She eyed the little marzipan ruminants.
He beamed. "I knew you'd like those. And Inspector Springer? Does he not amuse you?"
Fingers flew to lips; a sound escaped her nostrils. The bosom rose and then was slow to fall; she was almost as red as the jelly.
"You are distressed."
Eruption. She doubled, gasping.
"Fumes?" He stared wildly. "Something poisonous?"
"Oh, ho, ho…" She straightened, hand at back of hip. "Oh, ho, ho!"
He relaxed. "You are amused." He pulled back her chair, as she had trained him to do. She slumped down, still shaking, picking up a spoon. "Oh, ho, ho…"
He joined in. "Oh, ho, ho."
It was thus, before they had put a morsel to their mouths, that the Iron Orchid found them. They saw her in the doorway, after some time. She was smiling. She was resplendent.
"Dear Jherek, wonder of my womb! Astonishing Amelia, ancestress without compare! Do you hide from us all? Or are you just returned? If so, you are the last. All travellers are back — even Mongrove, you know. He has returned from space — gloomier, if anything, than before. We speculated. We expected your return. Jagged was here — he said that he sent you on, but that only the machine arrived, bereft of passengers. Some would have it — Brannart Morphail in particular — that you were lost forever in some primitive age — destroyed. I disbelieved, naturally. There was talk, earlier, of an expedition, but nothing came of it. Today, at My Lady Charlotina's, there was a rumour of a fluctuation — a time-machine had been sensed for a second or two on one of Brannart's instruments. I knew it must be you!"
She had chosen red for her chief colour. Her crimson eyes glittered with maternal joy at her son restored to her. Her scarlet hair curled itself here and there about her face, as if in ecstasy, and her poppy-coloured flesh seemed to vibrate with pleasure. As she moved, her perspex gown, almost the colour of clementines, creaked a little.
"You know there is to be a celebration?" she said. A party so that we may all hear Mongrove's news. He has consented to appear, to speak. And the Duke of Queens, Bishop Castle, My Lady Charlotina — we shall be there to give our tales. And now you and Mrs. Underwood? Where have you been, you rogues? Hiding here, or adventuring through History?"
Mrs. Underwood began: "We have had a tiring experience, Mrs. Carnelian, and I think…"
"Tiring? Mrs. What? Tiring? I'm not certain of the meaning. But Mrs. Carnelian — that is excellent. I never thought — yes, excellent. I must tell the Duke of Queens." She cruised for the door. "But I'll interrupt your meal no longer. The theme for the celebration is of course 1896 —" a gesture to Mrs. Underwood — "and I know you will both surpass yourselves! Farewell!"
Mrs. Underwood implored him: "We are not going?"
"We must!"
"It is expected?"
He knew secret glee in his own cunning. "Oh, indeed it is," he said.
"Then, of course, I shall go with you."
He eyed her crisp cream dress, her pinned auburn hair. "And the beauty of it is," he said, "that if you go as you are, the purity of your conception will outshine all others!"
She snapped a branch from a savoury frond.
"It is the same," she said, and her voice was wistful, "but we are not."
"I am more mature," he agreed, "a better mate."
"Ah!" She smiled.
He sensed ambiguity. "You do not love another? Captain Bastable…"
She became wicked. "He is a gentleman of excellent manners. And his bearing — so soldierly…" But her eyes laughed at her words. "A match any mother would approve. Were I not already married, I should be the envy of Bromley — but I am married, of course, to Mr. Underwood."
Jherek made the car spiral down towards the rose-gardens and the rockeries he had created for her, and he said with some nervousness: "He said he would — what? — 'divest' you!"
"Divorce. I should have to appear in court — millions of years from here. It seems," (turning so that he should not see her face), "that I shall never be free."
"Free? Free? No woman was ever more free. Here is humanity triumphant — Nature conquered — all desires may be fulfilled — of enemies, none. You can live as you please. I shall serve you. Your whims shall be mine, dearest Amelia!"
"But my conscience," she said. "Can I be free from that?"
His face fell. "Oh, yes, of course, your conscience. I was forgetting it." The car sank to the lawn. "You did not leave it, then, behind? In Eden?"
"There? I had greater need of it, did I not?"
"I thought you suggested otherwise."
"Then condemn me as fickle. All women are so."
"You contradict yourself, but apparently without relish."
"Ha!" She was the first to leave the craft. "You refuse to accuse me, Mr. Carnelian? You will not play the game? The old game?"
"I did not know there was a game, Amelia. You are disturbed? The set of your shoulders reveals it. I am confused."
She rounded on him, but her face was softening. Her eyes held disbelief, fast fading. "You do not try me for my femininity? I am not accused of womanliness?"
"All this is meaningless."
"Then perhaps there is a degree of freedom here, at the End of Time, mixed with all your cruelties."
"Cruelties?"
"You keep slaves. Casually, you destroy anything which bores you. Have you no consideration for these time-travellers you capture? Was I not captured so — and put in a menagerie? And Yusharisp — bartered for me. Even in my age such barbarities are banished!"
He accepted her admonishment. He bowed his head. "Then you must teach me what is best," he said. "Is this 'morality'?"
She was overwhelmed, suddenly, by the enormity of her responsibility. Was it salvation she brought to Paradise, or was it merely guilt? She hesitated. "We shall discuss it, in the fullness of time," she told him.
They set foot upon the crazy paving of the path, between low yew-hedges. The ranch — Gothic red brick reproduction of her ideal Bromley villa — awaited them. A parrot or two perched on chimneys and gables; they seemed to flute a welcome.
"It is as you left it," he said. He was proud. "But, elsewhere, I have built for you a 'London', so that you shall not be homesick. It still pleases you, the ranch?"
"It is as I remember it."
He understood that he read disappointment in her tone.
"You compare it now with the original, I suppose."
"It has the essentials of the original."
"But remains a 'mere copy', eh? Show me…"
She had reached the porch, ran a hand over the painted timber, fondled a still-blooming rose (for none had faded since she had vanished), touched the flower to her nose. "It has been so long," she murmured. "I needed familiarity, then."
"You do not need it now?"
"Ah, yes. I am human. I am a woman. But perhaps there are other things which come to mean more. I felt, in those days, that I was in hell — tormented, mocked, abused — in the company of the mad. I had no perspective."
He opened the door, with its stained-glass panels. Potted plants, pictures, carpets of Persian design, dark paint, were revealed in the gloom of the entrance hall.
"If there are additions…" he began.
"Additions!" She was half amused. She inspected the what-nots and the aspidistras with a disdainful eye. "No more, I think."
"Too cluttered, now?" He closed the door and caused light to blossom.
"The house could be bigger. More windows, perhaps. More sun. More air."
He smiled. "I could remove the roof."
"You could, indeed!" She sniffed. "Yet it is not as musty as I supposed it would be. How long is it since you departed it?"
"That's difficult. We can only find out by conferring with our friends. They will know. My range of scents has much improved since I visited 1896. I agree that it was an area in which I was weak. But my palette is altogether enriched."
"Oh, this will do, Mr. Carnelian. For the present, at any rate."
"You cannot voice your disquiet?"
She turned kind eyes on him. "You possess a sensitivity often denied by your behaviour."
"I love you," he said simply. "I live for you."
She coloured. "My rooms are as I left them? My wardrobe remains intact?"
"Everything is there."
"Then I will rejoin you for lunch." She began to mount the stairs.
"It will be ready for you," he promised. He went into the front parlour, staring around him at this Collins Avenue of the mind, peering through the windows at the gentle green hills, the mechanical cows and sheep with their mechanical cow-boys and shepherds, all perfectly reproduced to make her feel at home. He admitted to himself that her response had bewildered him. It was almost as if she had lost her taste for her own preferred environment. He sighed. It had seemed so much easier, when her ideas were definite. Now that she herself found them difficult to define, he was at a loss. Antimacassars, horsehair furniture, red, black and yellow carpets of geometrical pattern, framed photographs, thick-leaved plants, the harmonium with which she had eased her heart, all now (because she seemed to have disapproved) accused him as a brute who could never please any woman, let alone the finest woman who had ever breathed. Still in the stained rags of his nineteenth-century suit, he slumped into an armchair, head on hand, and considered the irony of his situation. Not long since, he had sat in this house with Mrs. Underwood and made tentative suggestions for its improvement. She had forbidden any change. Then she had gone and all that he had left of her was the house itself. As a substitute, he had come to love it. Now it was she who suggested improvements (of almost exactly the kind he had proposed) and he felt a deep reluctance to alter a single potted palm, a solitary sideboard. Nostalgia for those times when he had courted her and she had tried to teach him the meaning of virtue, when they had sung hymns together in the evenings (it had been she, again, who had insisted upon a daily time-scale similar to that which she had known in Bromley), filled him — and with nostalgia came trepidation, that his hopes were doomed. At every stage, when she had been close to declaring her love for him, to giving herself to him, she had been thwarted. It was almost as if Jagged watched them, deliberately manipulating every detail of their lives. Easier to think that, perhaps, than to accept an arbitrary universe.
He rose from the chair and, with an expression of defiance (she had always insisted that he follow her conventions) created a hole in the ceiling through which he might pass and enter his own room, a haven of glittering white, gold and silver. He restored the floor to completeness and his ruby ring cleansed his body of Palaeozoic grime, placed wafting robes of white spider-fur about him, brought ease to his mind as it dawned on him that his old powers (and therefore his old innocence) were restored to him. He stretched himself and laughed. There was certainly much to be said for being at the mercy of the primeval elements, to be swept along by circumstances one could not in any way control, but it was good to return, to feel one's identity expand again, unchecked. Creatively, he knew that he would be capable of the best entertainments he had yet given his world. He felt the need for company, for old friends to whom he could retail his adventures. Had his mother, the magnificent Iron Orchid, yet returned to the End of Time? Was the Duke of Queens as vulgar as ever, or had his experiences taught him taste? Jherek became eager for news.
In undulating white, he left his room and began to cross the landing, crammed with nooks which in turn were crammed with little china figurines, china vases, china flowers, china animals, to the stairs. His emerald power-ring brought him delicate scents, of Lower Devonian ferns, of nineteenth-century streets, of oceans and of meadows. His step grew lighter as he descended to the dining room. "All things bright and beautiful," he sang, "all creatures great and small…"
A turn of his amber ring and an ethereal orchestra accompanied him. The amethyst — and peacocks stepped behind him, his train in their prim beaks, their feathers at full flourish. He passed an embroidered motto — he still could not read it, but she had told him its sense (if sense it were!): "What Mean These Stones?" he carolled. "What Mean These — tra-la-la — Stones?"
His spider-fur robes began to brush ornaments from the shelves at the side of the stairs. With scarcely any feelings of guilt at all, he widened the steps a little, so that he could pass more freely.
The dining room, dark, with heavy curtains and brown, gloomy furniture, dampened his spirits for only a second. He knew what she had once demanded — partially burned animal flesh, near-tasteless vegetables — and he ignored it. If she no longer dictated her pleasures, then he would offer his own again.
The table bloomed exotic. A reminder of their recent adventures — a spun-sugar water-scorpion glittering as a centre-piece — two translucent scarlet jellies, two feet high, in the image, to the life, of Inspector Springer. A couple of herds of animated marzipan cows and sheep (to satisfy her relish for fauna) grazing, in miniature, at the bases of the jellies. Everywhere: fronds of yellow, blue, pink, white, lilac and purple, of savoury, brittle pastry. Not a typical table, for Jherek usually chose for colour and preferred to limit himself to two, with one predominating — perhaps not a tasteful table, even — but a jolly one, that he hoped she would appreciate. Great green pools of gravy; golden mounds of mustards; brown, steaming custards, and pies in a dozen pastel shades; bowls of crystals — cocaine in the blue, heroin in the silver, sugar in the black —and tottering pyramids of porridge — a dish for any mood, to satisfy every appetite. He stood back, grinning his pleasure. It was unplanned, it was crowded, but it had a certain zest, he felt, that she would appreciate.
He struck the nearby gong. Her feet were already upon the stairs.
She entered the room. "Oh!"
"Lunch, my lovely Amelia. Flung together, I fear, but all quite edible."
She eyed the little marzipan ruminants.
He beamed. "I knew you'd like those. And Inspector Springer? Does he not amuse you?"
Fingers flew to lips; a sound escaped her nostrils. The bosom rose and then was slow to fall; she was almost as red as the jelly.
"You are distressed."
Eruption. She doubled, gasping.
"Fumes?" He stared wildly. "Something poisonous?"
"Oh, ho, ho…" She straightened, hand at back of hip. "Oh, ho, ho!"
He relaxed. "You are amused." He pulled back her chair, as she had trained him to do. She slumped down, still shaking, picking up a spoon. "Oh, ho, ho…"
He joined in. "Oh, ho, ho."
It was thus, before they had put a morsel to their mouths, that the Iron Orchid found them. They saw her in the doorway, after some time. She was smiling. She was resplendent.
"Dear Jherek, wonder of my womb! Astonishing Amelia, ancestress without compare! Do you hide from us all? Or are you just returned? If so, you are the last. All travellers are back — even Mongrove, you know. He has returned from space — gloomier, if anything, than before. We speculated. We expected your return. Jagged was here — he said that he sent you on, but that only the machine arrived, bereft of passengers. Some would have it — Brannart Morphail in particular — that you were lost forever in some primitive age — destroyed. I disbelieved, naturally. There was talk, earlier, of an expedition, but nothing came of it. Today, at My Lady Charlotina's, there was a rumour of a fluctuation — a time-machine had been sensed for a second or two on one of Brannart's instruments. I knew it must be you!"
She had chosen red for her chief colour. Her crimson eyes glittered with maternal joy at her son restored to her. Her scarlet hair curled itself here and there about her face, as if in ecstasy, and her poppy-coloured flesh seemed to vibrate with pleasure. As she moved, her perspex gown, almost the colour of clementines, creaked a little.
"You know there is to be a celebration?" she said. A party so that we may all hear Mongrove's news. He has consented to appear, to speak. And the Duke of Queens, Bishop Castle, My Lady Charlotina — we shall be there to give our tales. And now you and Mrs. Underwood? Where have you been, you rogues? Hiding here, or adventuring through History?"
Mrs. Underwood began: "We have had a tiring experience, Mrs. Carnelian, and I think…"
"Tiring? Mrs. What? Tiring? I'm not certain of the meaning. But Mrs. Carnelian — that is excellent. I never thought — yes, excellent. I must tell the Duke of Queens." She cruised for the door. "But I'll interrupt your meal no longer. The theme for the celebration is of course 1896 —" a gesture to Mrs. Underwood — "and I know you will both surpass yourselves! Farewell!"
Mrs. Underwood implored him: "We are not going?"
"We must!"
"It is expected?"
He knew secret glee in his own cunning. "Oh, indeed it is," he said.
"Then, of course, I shall go with you."
He eyed her crisp cream dress, her pinned auburn hair. "And the beauty of it is," he said, "that if you go as you are, the purity of your conception will outshine all others!"
She snapped a branch from a savoury frond.
9. The Past is Honoured: The Future Reaffirmed
First there came a broad plane, a vast, level carpet of pale green; the jade power-boat sped low over this — then avenues approached — spaced to have their entrances arranged around the perimeter of a semi-circle; each avenue leading inwards to a hub. The air-car selected one. Cypresses, palms, yews, elders, redwoods, pines, shoe and plane trees, sped by on either side — their variety proclaiming that the Duke of Queens had not lost his vulgar touch (Jherek wondered, now, if he would have it otherwise). The focus became visible, ahead, but they heard the music before they recognized details of the Duke's display.
"A waltz!" cried Mrs. Underwood (she had renounced the sensible day dress for fine blue silk, white lace, a flounce or two, even the suggestion of a bustle, and the hat she wore was two feet across at the brim; on her hands, lace gloves, and in them a blue and white parasol). "Is it Strauss, Mr. Carnelian?"
In the tweeds she had helped him make, he leaned back against the side of the car, his face half-shaded by his cap. One hand fingered his watch-chain, the other steadied the briar-wood pipe she had considered fitting ("a manlier, more mature air, altogether," she had murmured with satisfaction, after the brogues were on his feet and the cravat adjusted, "your figure would be envied anywhere" and then she had become a fraction confused). He shook his head. "Or Starkey, or Stockhausen. I was never as familiar as I should have been with the early primitives. Lord Jagged would know. I hope he is there."
"He became almost garrulous at our departure," she said. "I wonder if he regrets that now, as people sometimes do. I remember once that the brother of a girl I knew at school kept us company for an entire vacation. I thought he disliked me. He seemed disdainful. At the end of the holiday he drove me to the station, was taciturn, even surly. I felt sorry for him, that he should be burdened. I entered the train. He remained on the platform. As the train left, he began to run beside it. He knew that I should probably never see him again. He was red as a raspberry as he shouted his parting remark." She inspected the silver top of her parasol.
He could see that there was a small, soft smile on her lips, which was all that was visible to him of her face, beneath the brim of the hat.
"His remark?"
"Oh!" She looked up and, for an instant, the eye which met his was merry. "He said 'I love you, Miss Ormont', that was all. He could only declare himself when he knew I should not be able to confront him again."
Jherek laughed. "And, of course, the joke was that you were not this Miss Ormont. He confused you with another."
He wondered why both tone and expression changed so suddenly, though she remained, it seemed, amused. She gave her attention back to the parasol. "My maiden name was Ormont," she said. "When we marry, you see, we take the name of our betrothed."
"Excellent! Then I may expect, one day, to be Jherek Underwood?"
"You are devious in your methods of clinging to your points, Mr. Carnelian. But I shall not be trapped so simply. No, you would not become Jherek Underwood."
"Ormont?"
"The idea is amusing, even pleasant." She checked herself. "Even the hottest of radicals has never suggested, to my knowledge, such a reversal." Smiling, she chewed her underlip. "Oh, dear! What dangerous thoughts you encourage, in your innocence!"
"I have not offended?"
"Once, you might have done so. I am shocked at myself, for not feeling shocked. What a bad woman I should seem in Bromley now!"
He scarcely followed, but he was not disturbed. He sank back again and made the pipe come alight for the umpteenth time (she had not been able to tell him how to keep it fuming). He enjoyed the Duke's golden sunshine, the sky which matched, fortuitously, his loved one's dress. Other air-carriages could be seen in other avenues, speeding for the hub — red and gold, plush and gilt, a fanciful reproduction of the Duke's only prolonged experience with the nineteenth century.
Jherek touched her hand. "Do you recognize it, Amelia?"
"It is overpoweringly huge." The brim of the hat went up and up, a lace glove touched her chin. "It disappears, look, in clouds."
She had not seen. He hinted: "But if the proportions were reduced…"
She tilted her head, still craning. "Some sort of American Building?"
"You have been there!"
"I?"
"The original is in London."
"Not the Cafe Royal?"
"Don't you see — he has taken the decor of the Cafe Royal and added it to your Scotland Yard."
"Police headquarters — with red plush walls!"
"The Duke comes near, for once, to simplicity. You do not think it too spare?"
"A thousand feet high! It is the tallest piece of plush, Mr. Carnelian, I may ever hope to see. And what is that at the roof — now the clouds part — a darker mass?"
"Black?"
"Blue, I think."
"A dome. Yes, a hat, such as your policemen wear."
She seemed out of breath. "Of course."
The music grew louder. He waved his pipe in time. But she was puzzled. "Isn't it a little slow — a little drawn out — for a waltz. It's as if it were played on those Indian instruments — or were they Arabic? More than a flavour of the Oriental, at any rate. High-pitched, too, in a way."
"The tapes are from one of the cities, doubtless," said Jherek. "They are old — possibly faulty. This is not authentic, then?"
"Not to my time."
"We had best not tell the Duke of Queens. It would disappoint him, don't you think?"
She shrugged compliance. "Yet it has a rather grating effect. I hope it does not continue throughout the entire reception. You do not know the instruments used?"
"Electronics or some such early method of music-making. You would know better…"
"I think not."
"Ah."
A degree of awkwardness touched the atmosphere and, for a moment, both strove to find a new subject and restore the mood of relaxation they had been enjoying till now. Ahead, at the base of the building, was a wide, shadowy archway, and into this other air-cars were speeding — fanciful vehicles of every description, and most based on Dawn Age technology or mythology: Jherek saw a hobby-horse, its mechanical copper legs making galloping motions in the air, a Model T, its owner seated on the section where the long vertical bar joined the short horizontal one, and he heard the distinctive sound of a clipper ship, but it had disappeared before he could see it properly. Some of the vessels moved with considerable speed, others made more stately progress, like the large, grey and white car — it could be nothing else but a London Pigeon — Immediately in front of them as the archway loomed.
"It seems the whole world attends," said Jherek.
She fingered the complicated lace on her bodice. She smoothed a pleat. The music changed; the sound of slow explosions and of something being dragged through sand surrounded them as their car entered a great hall, its ceiling supported by fluted arches, in which, evidently, they were to park. Elaborately dressed figures floated from their own air-cars towards a doorway into the hall above; voices echoed.
"It dwarfs King's Cross!" exclaimed Mrs. Underwood. She admired the mosaics, finely detailed, multicoloured, on walls and arches. "It is hard to believe that it has not existed for centuries."
"In a sense it has," said Jherek, aware that she made an effort to converse. "In the memories of the cities."
"This was made by one of your cities?"
"No, but the advice of the cities is sought on such matters. For all that they grow senile, they still remember a great deal of our race's history. Is the interior familiar to you?"
"It resembles nothing so much as the vault of a Gothic cathedral, much magnified. I do not think I know the original, if one exists. You must not forget, Mr. Carnelian, that I am no expert. Most aspects of my own world, most areas of it, are unknown to me. My experiences of London were not so varied, I would gather, as yours have been. I led a quiet life in Bromley, where the world is small." She sighed as they left the car. "Very small," she said, almost under her breath. She adjusted her hat and tossed her head in a manner he found delightful. At that moment she seemed at once more full of life and of melancholy than he had ever seen her. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before offering her his arm, but she took it readily, smiling, the sadness melting, and together they ascended to the doorway above.
"You are glad, now, that you have come?" he murmured.
"I am determined to enjoy myself," she told him.
Then she gasped, for she had not expected the scene they entered. The entire building was filled not by separated floors, but by floating platforms and galleries, rising higher and higher into the distance, and in these galleries and upon these platforms stood groups of people, conversing, eating, dancing, while other groups, or individuals, drifted through the air, from one platform to another, as, in her own world, people might cross the floor of a ball-room. High, high above, the furthest figures were tiny, virtually invisible. The light was subtle, supplying brilliance and shade, and shifting almost imperceptibly the whole time; the colours were vibrant, of every possible shade or tone, complementing the costumes of the guests, which ranged from the simplest to the most grotesque. Perhaps by some clever manipulation of the acoustics of the hall, the voices rose and fell in waves, but were never loud enough to drown any particular conversation, and, to Mrs. Underwood, seemed orchestrated, harmonized into a single yet infinitely variegated chorus. Here and there, along the walls, people stood casually, their bodies at right angles to those of the majority, as they used power-rings to adjust their gravity, enabling them to convert the dimensions of the hall (or at least their experience of those dimensions) to an impression of length rather than height.
"It reminds one of a medieval painting," she said. "Italian, are they? Of heaven? My father's house … Though the perspective is better…" Aware that she babbled, she subsided with a sigh, looking at him with an expression showing amusement at her own confusion.
"It pleases you, though?" He was solicitous, yet he could see that she was not unhappy.
"It is wonderful."
"Your morality is not offended?"
"For today, Mr. Carnelian, I have decided to leave a great deal of my morality at home." Again, she laughed at herself.
"You are more beautiful than ever," he told her. "You are very fine."
"Hush, Mr. Carnelian. You will make me self-conscious. For once, I feel in possession of myself. Let me enjoy it. I will —" she smiled — "permit the occasional compliment — but I should be grateful if you will forgo declarations of passion for this evening."
He bowed, sharing her good humour. "Very well."
But she had become a goddess and he could not help it if he were astonished. She had always been beautiful in his eyes, and admirable, too. He had worshipped her, in some ways, for her courage in adversity, for her resistance to the ways of his own world. But that had been bravery under siege and now, it seemed, she single-handedly gave siege to that same society which, a few months before, had threatened to engulf and destroy her identity. There was a determination in her bearing, a lightness, an air of confidence, that proclaimed to everyone what he had always sensed in her — and he was proud that his world should see her as the woman he knew, in full command of herself and of her situation. Yet there was, as well, a private knowledge, an intimate understanding between them, of the resources of character on which she drew to achieve that command. For the first time he became conscious of the depth of his love for her and, although he had always known that she had loved him, he became confident that her emotion was as strong as his own. Like her, he required no declaration; her bearing was declaration enough.
Together, they ascended.
"Jherek!"
It was Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, clad in silks that were almost wholly transparent, they were so fine, and plainly influenced by the murals she had had described to her by one of those who had visited the Cafe Royal. She had let her body fill out, her limbs had rounded and she was slightly, deliciously, plump.
"May it be Amelia?" she asked of Mrs. Underwood, and looked to both for confirmation.
Mrs. Underwood smiled assent.
"I have been hearing of all your adventures in the nineteenth century. I am so jealous, of course, for the age seems wonderful and just the sort of period I should like to visit. This costume is not of my own invention, as you have guessed. My Lady Charlotina was going to use it, but thought it more suitable for me. Is it, Amelia, authentic?" She whirled in the air, just above their heads.
"Greek…?" Amelia Underwood hesitated, unwilling to contradict. Then, it seemed, she realized the influence. "It suits you perfectly. You look lovely."
"I would be welcome in your world?"
"Oh, certainly! In many sections of society you would be the centre of attention."
Mistress Christia beamed and bent, with soft lips, to kiss Mrs. Underwood upon her cheek, murmuring, "You look magnificent, of course, yourself. Did you make the dress or did you bring it from the Dawn Age? It must be an original."
"It was made here."
"It is still beautiful. You have the advantage over us all! And you, too, Jherek look the very picture of the noble, Dawn Age hero. So manly! So desirable!"
Mrs. Underwood's hand tightened a fraction on Jherek's arm. He became almost euphoric.
Yet Mistress Christia was sensitive, too. "I shall not be the only one to envy you today, Amelia." She permitted herself a wink. "Or Jherek, either." She looked beyond them. "Here is our host!"
The Duke of Queens had seen a soldier, during his brief stay in 1896. But never had there been a scarlet tunic so thoroughly scarlet as the one he sported, nor buttons so golden, nor epaulettes so bright, nor belt and boots so mirror-gleaming. He had doffed his beard and assumed Dundreary sidewhiskers; there was a shako a-tilt on his massive head; his britches were dark blue and striped with yellow. His gloves were white and one hand rested upon the pommel of his sword, which dripped with braid. He saluted and bowed. "Honoured you could attend," he said.
Jherek embraced him. "You have been coached, dear friend! You look so handsome!"
"All natural," declared the Duke with some pride. "Created through exercise, you know, with the help of some time-travellers of a military persuasion. You heard of my duel with Lord Shark?"
"Lord Shark! I thought him a misanthrope entirely. To make Mongrove seem as gregarious as Gaf the Horse in Tears. What lured him from his grey fortress?"
"An affair of honour."
"Indeed?" said Amelia Underwood. "Insults, was it, and pistols at dawn?"
"I offended him. I forget how. But I was remorseful at the time. We settled with swords. I trained for ages. The irony was, however…"
He was interrupted by Bishop Castle, in full evening dress, copied from Mr. Harris, doubtless. His handsome, rather ascetic, features were framed by a collar that was perhaps a little taller than normally fashionable in 1896. He had disdained black and the coat and trousers were, instead, bottle-green; the waistcoat brown, the shirt cream-coloured. His tie matched his coat and the exaggeratedly high top-hat on his head.
"Jesting Jherek, you have been hidden too long!" His voice was slightly muffled by the collar covering his mouth. "And your Mrs. Underwood! Gloom vanishes. We are all united again!"
"Is it mannerly to compliment your costume, Bishop Castle?" A movement of her parasol.
"Compliments are the colour of our conversation, dear Mrs. Underwood. We are fulfilled by flattery; we feed on praise; we spend our days in search of the perfect peal of persiflage that will make the peacock in us preen and say 'Behold — I beautify the world!' In short, exquisite butterfly in blue, you may so compliment me and already do. May I in turn honour your appearance; it has detail which, sadly, few of us can match. It does not merely attract the eye — it holds it. It is the finest creation here. Henceforth there is no question but that you shall lead us all in fashion. Jherek is toppled from his place!"
She lifted an appreciative eyebrow; his bow was sweeping and all but lost him his hat, while his head virtually disappeared from view for a moment. He straightened, saw a friend, bowed again, and drifted away. "Later," he said to them both, "we must reminisce."
Jherek saw amusement in her eyes as she watched Bishop Castle rise to a nearby gallery. "He is a voluble cleric," she said. "We have bishops not unlike him in 1896."
"You must tell him, Amelia. What greater compliment could you pay?"
"It did not occur to me." She hesitated, her self-assurance gone for a second: "You do not find me callow?"
"Ha! You rule here already. Your good opinion is in demand. You have the authority both of bearing and of background. Bishop Castle spoke nothing but the truth. Your praise warmed him."
He was about to escort her higher when the Duke of Queens, who had been in conversation with Mistress Christia, turned back to them. "Have you been long returned, Jherek and Amelia, to the End of Time?"
"Hardly a matter of hours," said she.
"So you remained behind in 1986. You can tell us what became of Jagged?"
"Then he is not yet back?" She glanced to Jherek with some alarm. "We heard…"
"You did not meet him again in 1896? I assumed that was his destination." The Duke of Queens frowned.
"He could be there," said Jherek, "for we have been adventuring elsewhere. At the very Beginning of Time, in fact."
"Lord Jagged of Canaria conceals himself increasingly," complained the Duke, brushing at a braid. "When challenged, he proves himself a master of sophistry. His mysteries cease to entertain because he confuses them so."
"It is possible," said Amelia Underwood, "that he has become lost in Time; that he did not plan this disappearance. If we had not been fortunate, we should still be stranded now."
The Duke of Queens was embarrassed by his own pettishness. "Of course. Oh, dear — Time has become such a talking point and it is not one, I fear, which interests me greatly. I have never had Lord Jagged's penchant for the abstract. You know what a bore I can be."
"Never that," said Jherek affectionately. "And even your vulgarities are splendid."
"I hope so," he said with modesty. "I do my best. You like the building, Jherek?"
"It is a masterpiece."
"More restrained than usual?"
"Much."
The Duke's eye brightened. "What an arbiter we make of you, Jherek! It is only because of your past innovations, or because we respect your experience, too?"
Jherek shrugged. "I have not considered it. But Bishop Castle claims that art has a fresh leader." He bowed to his Amelia.
"You like my Royal Scotland Yard, Mrs. Underwood?" The Duke was eager.
"I am most impressed, Duke of Queens." She appeared to be relishing her new position.
He was satisfied. "But what is this concerning the Beginning of Time? Shall you bring us more ideas, scarcely before we can assimilate the old ones?"
"Perhaps," said Jherek. "Molluscs, you know. And ferns. Rocks. Hampers. Water-scorpions. Time Centres. Yes, there would be enough for a modest entertainment of some sort."
"You have tales for us, too!" Mistress Christia had returned. "Adventures, eh?"
Now more of the guests had sighted them and began to drift towards them.
"I think some, at least, will amuse you," said Amelia Underwood. Jherek detected a harder edge to her voice as she prepared to face the advancing crowd, but she had lost that quality when she next spoke. "We found many surprises there."
"Oh, this is delightful!" cried Mistress Christia. "What an enviable pair you are!"
"And brave, too, to risk the snares and vengeances of Time," said the Duke of Queens.
Gaf the Horse in Tears, a Gibson Girl to the life, a Sailor hat upon his up-pinned hair, leaned forward. "Brannart told us you were doomed, gone forever. Destroyed, even."
Sharp-featured Doctor Volospion, in a black, swirling cape and a black, wide-brimmed hat, his eyes glittering from the shadows of his face, said softly: "We did not believe him, of course."
"Yet our time-travellers disappear — vanishing from our menageries at an astonishing rate. I lost four Adolf Hitlers alone, just recently." Sweet Orb Mace was splendid in rubashka, tarboosh, pantaloons and high, embroidered boots. "And one of them, I'm sure, was real. Though rather old, admittedly…"
"Brannart claims these disappearances as proof that Time is ruptured." Werther de Goethe, a saturnine Sicilian brigand, complete with curling moustachios which rather contradicted the rest of the impression, adjusted his cloak. "He warns that we stand upon a brink, that we shall all, soon, plunge willy-nilly into disordered chronological gulfs."
There was a pause in the babble, for Werther's glum drone frequently had this effect, until Amelia said:
"His warnings have some substance, it would seem."
"What?" The Duke of Queens laughed heartily. "You are living denials of the Morphail Effect!"
"I think not." She was modest, looked to Jherek to speak, but he gave her the floor. "As I understand it, Brannart Morphail's explanations are only partial. They are not false. Many theories describe Time — and all are provable."
"An excellent summary," said Jherek. "My Amelia relates what we have learned, darling of Dukes, at the Beginning of Time. More scientists than Brannart concern themselves with investigating Time's nature. I think he will be glad of the information I bring. He is not alone in his researches, he'll be pleased to know."
"You are certain of it?" asked Amelia, who had flickered an eye at his recent "my" (though without apparent displeasure).
"Why should he not be?"
She shrugged. "I have only encountered the gentleman in dramatic circumstances, of course…"
"He is due?" asked Jherek of the Duke.
"Invited — as is the world. You know him. He will come late, claiming we force him against his will."
"Then he might know the whereabouts of Jagged." He appraised the hall, as if mention of the name would invoke the one he most wished to see. Many he recognized, not famous for their gregariousness, were here, even Lord Shark (or one of his automata, sent in his place) who styled himself "The Unknown"; even Werther de Goethe, who had sworn never to attend another party. Yet, so far, that last member of the End of Time's misanthropic triumvirate, Lord Mongrove, the bitter giant, in whose honour this celebration was being held, was not in evidence.
Her arm was still in his. A touch drew his attention. "You are concerned for Jagged's safety?" she asked.
"He is my closest friend, devious though he seems. Could he not have suffered our fate? More drastically?"
"If so, we shall never know."
He drove this worry from his mind; it was not his business, as a guest, to brood. "Look," he said, "there is My Lady Charlotina!"
She had seen them, from above, and now flew to greet them, her golden robe-de-style, with its crystal beads, its ribbons and its roses, fluttering with the speed of her descent.
"Our hero and heroine happily restored to us. Is this the final scene? Are sleigh-bells to ring, blue-bloods to sing, catharsis achieved, tranquillity regained? I have missed so much of the plot. Refresh me — regale us all. Oh, speak, my beauties. Or are we to witness a re-enactment?"
Mrs. Underwood was dry. "The tale is not yet finished, I regret, My Lady Charlotina. Many clues remain to be unravelled — threads are still to be woven together — there is no clearly seen pattern upon the fabric — and perhaps there never will be."
My Lady Charlotina's disbelieving laughter held no rancour. "Nonsense — it is your duty to bring about resolution soon. It is cruel of you both to keep us in such suspense. If your timing is not exact, you will lose your audience, my dears. First there will be criticism of fine points, and then — you could not risk this — uninterest. But you must bring me up to date, before I judge. Give me merely the barest details, if that is what you wish, and let gossip colour the tale for you."
Smiling broadly, Amelia Underwood began to tell of their adventures at the Beginning of Time.
"A waltz!" cried Mrs. Underwood (she had renounced the sensible day dress for fine blue silk, white lace, a flounce or two, even the suggestion of a bustle, and the hat she wore was two feet across at the brim; on her hands, lace gloves, and in them a blue and white parasol). "Is it Strauss, Mr. Carnelian?"
In the tweeds she had helped him make, he leaned back against the side of the car, his face half-shaded by his cap. One hand fingered his watch-chain, the other steadied the briar-wood pipe she had considered fitting ("a manlier, more mature air, altogether," she had murmured with satisfaction, after the brogues were on his feet and the cravat adjusted, "your figure would be envied anywhere" and then she had become a fraction confused). He shook his head. "Or Starkey, or Stockhausen. I was never as familiar as I should have been with the early primitives. Lord Jagged would know. I hope he is there."
"He became almost garrulous at our departure," she said. "I wonder if he regrets that now, as people sometimes do. I remember once that the brother of a girl I knew at school kept us company for an entire vacation. I thought he disliked me. He seemed disdainful. At the end of the holiday he drove me to the station, was taciturn, even surly. I felt sorry for him, that he should be burdened. I entered the train. He remained on the platform. As the train left, he began to run beside it. He knew that I should probably never see him again. He was red as a raspberry as he shouted his parting remark." She inspected the silver top of her parasol.
He could see that there was a small, soft smile on her lips, which was all that was visible to him of her face, beneath the brim of the hat.
"His remark?"
"Oh!" She looked up and, for an instant, the eye which met his was merry. "He said 'I love you, Miss Ormont', that was all. He could only declare himself when he knew I should not be able to confront him again."
Jherek laughed. "And, of course, the joke was that you were not this Miss Ormont. He confused you with another."
He wondered why both tone and expression changed so suddenly, though she remained, it seemed, amused. She gave her attention back to the parasol. "My maiden name was Ormont," she said. "When we marry, you see, we take the name of our betrothed."
"Excellent! Then I may expect, one day, to be Jherek Underwood?"
"You are devious in your methods of clinging to your points, Mr. Carnelian. But I shall not be trapped so simply. No, you would not become Jherek Underwood."
"Ormont?"
"The idea is amusing, even pleasant." She checked herself. "Even the hottest of radicals has never suggested, to my knowledge, such a reversal." Smiling, she chewed her underlip. "Oh, dear! What dangerous thoughts you encourage, in your innocence!"
"I have not offended?"
"Once, you might have done so. I am shocked at myself, for not feeling shocked. What a bad woman I should seem in Bromley now!"
He scarcely followed, but he was not disturbed. He sank back again and made the pipe come alight for the umpteenth time (she had not been able to tell him how to keep it fuming). He enjoyed the Duke's golden sunshine, the sky which matched, fortuitously, his loved one's dress. Other air-carriages could be seen in other avenues, speeding for the hub — red and gold, plush and gilt, a fanciful reproduction of the Duke's only prolonged experience with the nineteenth century.
Jherek touched her hand. "Do you recognize it, Amelia?"
"It is overpoweringly huge." The brim of the hat went up and up, a lace glove touched her chin. "It disappears, look, in clouds."
She had not seen. He hinted: "But if the proportions were reduced…"
She tilted her head, still craning. "Some sort of American Building?"
"You have been there!"
"I?"
"The original is in London."
"Not the Cafe Royal?"
"Don't you see — he has taken the decor of the Cafe Royal and added it to your Scotland Yard."
"Police headquarters — with red plush walls!"
"The Duke comes near, for once, to simplicity. You do not think it too spare?"
"A thousand feet high! It is the tallest piece of plush, Mr. Carnelian, I may ever hope to see. And what is that at the roof — now the clouds part — a darker mass?"
"Black?"
"Blue, I think."
"A dome. Yes, a hat, such as your policemen wear."
She seemed out of breath. "Of course."
The music grew louder. He waved his pipe in time. But she was puzzled. "Isn't it a little slow — a little drawn out — for a waltz. It's as if it were played on those Indian instruments — or were they Arabic? More than a flavour of the Oriental, at any rate. High-pitched, too, in a way."
"The tapes are from one of the cities, doubtless," said Jherek. "They are old — possibly faulty. This is not authentic, then?"
"Not to my time."
"We had best not tell the Duke of Queens. It would disappoint him, don't you think?"
She shrugged compliance. "Yet it has a rather grating effect. I hope it does not continue throughout the entire reception. You do not know the instruments used?"
"Electronics or some such early method of music-making. You would know better…"
"I think not."
"Ah."
A degree of awkwardness touched the atmosphere and, for a moment, both strove to find a new subject and restore the mood of relaxation they had been enjoying till now. Ahead, at the base of the building, was a wide, shadowy archway, and into this other air-cars were speeding — fanciful vehicles of every description, and most based on Dawn Age technology or mythology: Jherek saw a hobby-horse, its mechanical copper legs making galloping motions in the air, a Model T, its owner seated on the section where the long vertical bar joined the short horizontal one, and he heard the distinctive sound of a clipper ship, but it had disappeared before he could see it properly. Some of the vessels moved with considerable speed, others made more stately progress, like the large, grey and white car — it could be nothing else but a London Pigeon — Immediately in front of them as the archway loomed.
"It seems the whole world attends," said Jherek.
She fingered the complicated lace on her bodice. She smoothed a pleat. The music changed; the sound of slow explosions and of something being dragged through sand surrounded them as their car entered a great hall, its ceiling supported by fluted arches, in which, evidently, they were to park. Elaborately dressed figures floated from their own air-cars towards a doorway into the hall above; voices echoed.
"It dwarfs King's Cross!" exclaimed Mrs. Underwood. She admired the mosaics, finely detailed, multicoloured, on walls and arches. "It is hard to believe that it has not existed for centuries."
"In a sense it has," said Jherek, aware that she made an effort to converse. "In the memories of the cities."
"This was made by one of your cities?"
"No, but the advice of the cities is sought on such matters. For all that they grow senile, they still remember a great deal of our race's history. Is the interior familiar to you?"
"It resembles nothing so much as the vault of a Gothic cathedral, much magnified. I do not think I know the original, if one exists. You must not forget, Mr. Carnelian, that I am no expert. Most aspects of my own world, most areas of it, are unknown to me. My experiences of London were not so varied, I would gather, as yours have been. I led a quiet life in Bromley, where the world is small." She sighed as they left the car. "Very small," she said, almost under her breath. She adjusted her hat and tossed her head in a manner he found delightful. At that moment she seemed at once more full of life and of melancholy than he had ever seen her. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before offering her his arm, but she took it readily, smiling, the sadness melting, and together they ascended to the doorway above.
"You are glad, now, that you have come?" he murmured.
"I am determined to enjoy myself," she told him.
Then she gasped, for she had not expected the scene they entered. The entire building was filled not by separated floors, but by floating platforms and galleries, rising higher and higher into the distance, and in these galleries and upon these platforms stood groups of people, conversing, eating, dancing, while other groups, or individuals, drifted through the air, from one platform to another, as, in her own world, people might cross the floor of a ball-room. High, high above, the furthest figures were tiny, virtually invisible. The light was subtle, supplying brilliance and shade, and shifting almost imperceptibly the whole time; the colours were vibrant, of every possible shade or tone, complementing the costumes of the guests, which ranged from the simplest to the most grotesque. Perhaps by some clever manipulation of the acoustics of the hall, the voices rose and fell in waves, but were never loud enough to drown any particular conversation, and, to Mrs. Underwood, seemed orchestrated, harmonized into a single yet infinitely variegated chorus. Here and there, along the walls, people stood casually, their bodies at right angles to those of the majority, as they used power-rings to adjust their gravity, enabling them to convert the dimensions of the hall (or at least their experience of those dimensions) to an impression of length rather than height.
"It reminds one of a medieval painting," she said. "Italian, are they? Of heaven? My father's house … Though the perspective is better…" Aware that she babbled, she subsided with a sigh, looking at him with an expression showing amusement at her own confusion.
"It pleases you, though?" He was solicitous, yet he could see that she was not unhappy.
"It is wonderful."
"Your morality is not offended?"
"For today, Mr. Carnelian, I have decided to leave a great deal of my morality at home." Again, she laughed at herself.
"You are more beautiful than ever," he told her. "You are very fine."
"Hush, Mr. Carnelian. You will make me self-conscious. For once, I feel in possession of myself. Let me enjoy it. I will —" she smiled — "permit the occasional compliment — but I should be grateful if you will forgo declarations of passion for this evening."
He bowed, sharing her good humour. "Very well."
But she had become a goddess and he could not help it if he were astonished. She had always been beautiful in his eyes, and admirable, too. He had worshipped her, in some ways, for her courage in adversity, for her resistance to the ways of his own world. But that had been bravery under siege and now, it seemed, she single-handedly gave siege to that same society which, a few months before, had threatened to engulf and destroy her identity. There was a determination in her bearing, a lightness, an air of confidence, that proclaimed to everyone what he had always sensed in her — and he was proud that his world should see her as the woman he knew, in full command of herself and of her situation. Yet there was, as well, a private knowledge, an intimate understanding between them, of the resources of character on which she drew to achieve that command. For the first time he became conscious of the depth of his love for her and, although he had always known that she had loved him, he became confident that her emotion was as strong as his own. Like her, he required no declaration; her bearing was declaration enough.
Together, they ascended.
"Jherek!"
It was Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, clad in silks that were almost wholly transparent, they were so fine, and plainly influenced by the murals she had had described to her by one of those who had visited the Cafe Royal. She had let her body fill out, her limbs had rounded and she was slightly, deliciously, plump.
"May it be Amelia?" she asked of Mrs. Underwood, and looked to both for confirmation.
Mrs. Underwood smiled assent.
"I have been hearing of all your adventures in the nineteenth century. I am so jealous, of course, for the age seems wonderful and just the sort of period I should like to visit. This costume is not of my own invention, as you have guessed. My Lady Charlotina was going to use it, but thought it more suitable for me. Is it, Amelia, authentic?" She whirled in the air, just above their heads.
"Greek…?" Amelia Underwood hesitated, unwilling to contradict. Then, it seemed, she realized the influence. "It suits you perfectly. You look lovely."
"I would be welcome in your world?"
"Oh, certainly! In many sections of society you would be the centre of attention."
Mistress Christia beamed and bent, with soft lips, to kiss Mrs. Underwood upon her cheek, murmuring, "You look magnificent, of course, yourself. Did you make the dress or did you bring it from the Dawn Age? It must be an original."
"It was made here."
"It is still beautiful. You have the advantage over us all! And you, too, Jherek look the very picture of the noble, Dawn Age hero. So manly! So desirable!"
Mrs. Underwood's hand tightened a fraction on Jherek's arm. He became almost euphoric.
Yet Mistress Christia was sensitive, too. "I shall not be the only one to envy you today, Amelia." She permitted herself a wink. "Or Jherek, either." She looked beyond them. "Here is our host!"
The Duke of Queens had seen a soldier, during his brief stay in 1896. But never had there been a scarlet tunic so thoroughly scarlet as the one he sported, nor buttons so golden, nor epaulettes so bright, nor belt and boots so mirror-gleaming. He had doffed his beard and assumed Dundreary sidewhiskers; there was a shako a-tilt on his massive head; his britches were dark blue and striped with yellow. His gloves were white and one hand rested upon the pommel of his sword, which dripped with braid. He saluted and bowed. "Honoured you could attend," he said.
Jherek embraced him. "You have been coached, dear friend! You look so handsome!"
"All natural," declared the Duke with some pride. "Created through exercise, you know, with the help of some time-travellers of a military persuasion. You heard of my duel with Lord Shark?"
"Lord Shark! I thought him a misanthrope entirely. To make Mongrove seem as gregarious as Gaf the Horse in Tears. What lured him from his grey fortress?"
"An affair of honour."
"Indeed?" said Amelia Underwood. "Insults, was it, and pistols at dawn?"
"I offended him. I forget how. But I was remorseful at the time. We settled with swords. I trained for ages. The irony was, however…"
He was interrupted by Bishop Castle, in full evening dress, copied from Mr. Harris, doubtless. His handsome, rather ascetic, features were framed by a collar that was perhaps a little taller than normally fashionable in 1896. He had disdained black and the coat and trousers were, instead, bottle-green; the waistcoat brown, the shirt cream-coloured. His tie matched his coat and the exaggeratedly high top-hat on his head.
"Jesting Jherek, you have been hidden too long!" His voice was slightly muffled by the collar covering his mouth. "And your Mrs. Underwood! Gloom vanishes. We are all united again!"
"Is it mannerly to compliment your costume, Bishop Castle?" A movement of her parasol.
"Compliments are the colour of our conversation, dear Mrs. Underwood. We are fulfilled by flattery; we feed on praise; we spend our days in search of the perfect peal of persiflage that will make the peacock in us preen and say 'Behold — I beautify the world!' In short, exquisite butterfly in blue, you may so compliment me and already do. May I in turn honour your appearance; it has detail which, sadly, few of us can match. It does not merely attract the eye — it holds it. It is the finest creation here. Henceforth there is no question but that you shall lead us all in fashion. Jherek is toppled from his place!"
She lifted an appreciative eyebrow; his bow was sweeping and all but lost him his hat, while his head virtually disappeared from view for a moment. He straightened, saw a friend, bowed again, and drifted away. "Later," he said to them both, "we must reminisce."
Jherek saw amusement in her eyes as she watched Bishop Castle rise to a nearby gallery. "He is a voluble cleric," she said. "We have bishops not unlike him in 1896."
"You must tell him, Amelia. What greater compliment could you pay?"
"It did not occur to me." She hesitated, her self-assurance gone for a second: "You do not find me callow?"
"Ha! You rule here already. Your good opinion is in demand. You have the authority both of bearing and of background. Bishop Castle spoke nothing but the truth. Your praise warmed him."
He was about to escort her higher when the Duke of Queens, who had been in conversation with Mistress Christia, turned back to them. "Have you been long returned, Jherek and Amelia, to the End of Time?"
"Hardly a matter of hours," said she.
"So you remained behind in 1986. You can tell us what became of Jagged?"
"Then he is not yet back?" She glanced to Jherek with some alarm. "We heard…"
"You did not meet him again in 1896? I assumed that was his destination." The Duke of Queens frowned.
"He could be there," said Jherek, "for we have been adventuring elsewhere. At the very Beginning of Time, in fact."
"Lord Jagged of Canaria conceals himself increasingly," complained the Duke, brushing at a braid. "When challenged, he proves himself a master of sophistry. His mysteries cease to entertain because he confuses them so."
"It is possible," said Amelia Underwood, "that he has become lost in Time; that he did not plan this disappearance. If we had not been fortunate, we should still be stranded now."
The Duke of Queens was embarrassed by his own pettishness. "Of course. Oh, dear — Time has become such a talking point and it is not one, I fear, which interests me greatly. I have never had Lord Jagged's penchant for the abstract. You know what a bore I can be."
"Never that," said Jherek affectionately. "And even your vulgarities are splendid."
"I hope so," he said with modesty. "I do my best. You like the building, Jherek?"
"It is a masterpiece."
"More restrained than usual?"
"Much."
The Duke's eye brightened. "What an arbiter we make of you, Jherek! It is only because of your past innovations, or because we respect your experience, too?"
Jherek shrugged. "I have not considered it. But Bishop Castle claims that art has a fresh leader." He bowed to his Amelia.
"You like my Royal Scotland Yard, Mrs. Underwood?" The Duke was eager.
"I am most impressed, Duke of Queens." She appeared to be relishing her new position.
He was satisfied. "But what is this concerning the Beginning of Time? Shall you bring us more ideas, scarcely before we can assimilate the old ones?"
"Perhaps," said Jherek. "Molluscs, you know. And ferns. Rocks. Hampers. Water-scorpions. Time Centres. Yes, there would be enough for a modest entertainment of some sort."
"You have tales for us, too!" Mistress Christia had returned. "Adventures, eh?"
Now more of the guests had sighted them and began to drift towards them.
"I think some, at least, will amuse you," said Amelia Underwood. Jherek detected a harder edge to her voice as she prepared to face the advancing crowd, but she had lost that quality when she next spoke. "We found many surprises there."
"Oh, this is delightful!" cried Mistress Christia. "What an enviable pair you are!"
"And brave, too, to risk the snares and vengeances of Time," said the Duke of Queens.
Gaf the Horse in Tears, a Gibson Girl to the life, a Sailor hat upon his up-pinned hair, leaned forward. "Brannart told us you were doomed, gone forever. Destroyed, even."
Sharp-featured Doctor Volospion, in a black, swirling cape and a black, wide-brimmed hat, his eyes glittering from the shadows of his face, said softly: "We did not believe him, of course."
"Yet our time-travellers disappear — vanishing from our menageries at an astonishing rate. I lost four Adolf Hitlers alone, just recently." Sweet Orb Mace was splendid in rubashka, tarboosh, pantaloons and high, embroidered boots. "And one of them, I'm sure, was real. Though rather old, admittedly…"
"Brannart claims these disappearances as proof that Time is ruptured." Werther de Goethe, a saturnine Sicilian brigand, complete with curling moustachios which rather contradicted the rest of the impression, adjusted his cloak. "He warns that we stand upon a brink, that we shall all, soon, plunge willy-nilly into disordered chronological gulfs."
There was a pause in the babble, for Werther's glum drone frequently had this effect, until Amelia said:
"His warnings have some substance, it would seem."
"What?" The Duke of Queens laughed heartily. "You are living denials of the Morphail Effect!"
"I think not." She was modest, looked to Jherek to speak, but he gave her the floor. "As I understand it, Brannart Morphail's explanations are only partial. They are not false. Many theories describe Time — and all are provable."
"An excellent summary," said Jherek. "My Amelia relates what we have learned, darling of Dukes, at the Beginning of Time. More scientists than Brannart concern themselves with investigating Time's nature. I think he will be glad of the information I bring. He is not alone in his researches, he'll be pleased to know."
"You are certain of it?" asked Amelia, who had flickered an eye at his recent "my" (though without apparent displeasure).
"Why should he not be?"
She shrugged. "I have only encountered the gentleman in dramatic circumstances, of course…"
"He is due?" asked Jherek of the Duke.
"Invited — as is the world. You know him. He will come late, claiming we force him against his will."
"Then he might know the whereabouts of Jagged." He appraised the hall, as if mention of the name would invoke the one he most wished to see. Many he recognized, not famous for their gregariousness, were here, even Lord Shark (or one of his automata, sent in his place) who styled himself "The Unknown"; even Werther de Goethe, who had sworn never to attend another party. Yet, so far, that last member of the End of Time's misanthropic triumvirate, Lord Mongrove, the bitter giant, in whose honour this celebration was being held, was not in evidence.
Her arm was still in his. A touch drew his attention. "You are concerned for Jagged's safety?" she asked.
"He is my closest friend, devious though he seems. Could he not have suffered our fate? More drastically?"
"If so, we shall never know."
He drove this worry from his mind; it was not his business, as a guest, to brood. "Look," he said, "there is My Lady Charlotina!"
She had seen them, from above, and now flew to greet them, her golden robe-de-style, with its crystal beads, its ribbons and its roses, fluttering with the speed of her descent.
"Our hero and heroine happily restored to us. Is this the final scene? Are sleigh-bells to ring, blue-bloods to sing, catharsis achieved, tranquillity regained? I have missed so much of the plot. Refresh me — regale us all. Oh, speak, my beauties. Or are we to witness a re-enactment?"
Mrs. Underwood was dry. "The tale is not yet finished, I regret, My Lady Charlotina. Many clues remain to be unravelled — threads are still to be woven together — there is no clearly seen pattern upon the fabric — and perhaps there never will be."
My Lady Charlotina's disbelieving laughter held no rancour. "Nonsense — it is your duty to bring about resolution soon. It is cruel of you both to keep us in such suspense. If your timing is not exact, you will lose your audience, my dears. First there will be criticism of fine points, and then — you could not risk this — uninterest. But you must bring me up to date, before I judge. Give me merely the barest details, if that is what you wish, and let gossip colour the tale for you."
Smiling broadly, Amelia Underwood began to tell of their adventures at the Beginning of Time.
10. In Which The Iron Orchid is not Quite Herself
Jherek still sought for Jagged. Leaving Amelia to spin a yarn untangled by his interruptions, he drifted a good distance roofward, until his love and the circle surrounding her were a pattern of dots below.
Jagged alone could help him now, thought Jherek. He had returned expecting revelation. If Jagged had been playing a joke on them, then the joke should be made clear; if he manipulated a story for the world's entertainment — then the world, as My Lady Charlotina had said, was entitled to a resolution. The play continued, it seemed, though the author had been unable to write the final scenes. He recalled, with a trace of rancour, that Jagged had encouraged him to begin this melodrama (or was it a farce and he a sad fool in the eyes of all the world? Or tragedy, perhaps?) and Jagged therefore should provide help. Yet if Jagged were vanished forever, what then?
"Why," said Jherek to himself, "I shall have to complete the play as best I can. I shall prove that I am no mere actor, following a road laid by another. I shall show I am a playwright, too!"
Li Pao, from the twenty-seventh century, had overheard him. Insistently clad in blue overalls, the ex-member of the People's Governing Committee, touched Jherek to make him turn.
"You consider yourself an actor in a play, Jherek Carnelian?"
"Hello, Li Pao. I spoke confused thoughts aloud, that is all."
But Li Pao was greedy for a discussion and would not be guided away from the subject. "I thought you controlled your own fate. This whole love-story business, which so excites the woman, did it not begin as an affectation?"
"I forget." He spoke the truth. Emotions jostled within him, each in conflict with the other, each eager for a voice. He let none speak.
"Surely," Li Pao smiled, "you have not come to believe in your role, as the ancient actors were said to do, and think your character's feelings are your own? That would be most droll." Li Pao leaned against the rail of his drifting gallery. It tilted slightly and began to sink. He brought it back until he was again level with Jherek.
"However, it seems likely," Jherek told him.
"Beware, Jherek Carnelian. Life becomes serious for you. That would never do. You are a member of a perfectly amoral society: whimsical, all but thoughtless, utterly powerful. Your actions threaten your way of life. Do I see a ramshackle vessel called Self-Destruction heaving its battered bulwarks over the horizon? What's this, Jherek? Is your love genuine, after all?"
"It is, Li Pao. Mock me, if you choose, but I'll not deny there's truth in what you say. You think I conspire against my own peace of mind?"
Jagged alone could help him now, thought Jherek. He had returned expecting revelation. If Jagged had been playing a joke on them, then the joke should be made clear; if he manipulated a story for the world's entertainment — then the world, as My Lady Charlotina had said, was entitled to a resolution. The play continued, it seemed, though the author had been unable to write the final scenes. He recalled, with a trace of rancour, that Jagged had encouraged him to begin this melodrama (or was it a farce and he a sad fool in the eyes of all the world? Or tragedy, perhaps?) and Jagged therefore should provide help. Yet if Jagged were vanished forever, what then?
"Why," said Jherek to himself, "I shall have to complete the play as best I can. I shall prove that I am no mere actor, following a road laid by another. I shall show I am a playwright, too!"
Li Pao, from the twenty-seventh century, had overheard him. Insistently clad in blue overalls, the ex-member of the People's Governing Committee, touched Jherek to make him turn.
"You consider yourself an actor in a play, Jherek Carnelian?"
"Hello, Li Pao. I spoke confused thoughts aloud, that is all."
But Li Pao was greedy for a discussion and would not be guided away from the subject. "I thought you controlled your own fate. This whole love-story business, which so excites the woman, did it not begin as an affectation?"
"I forget." He spoke the truth. Emotions jostled within him, each in conflict with the other, each eager for a voice. He let none speak.
"Surely," Li Pao smiled, "you have not come to believe in your role, as the ancient actors were said to do, and think your character's feelings are your own? That would be most droll." Li Pao leaned against the rail of his drifting gallery. It tilted slightly and began to sink. He brought it back until he was again level with Jherek.
"However, it seems likely," Jherek told him.
"Beware, Jherek Carnelian. Life becomes serious for you. That would never do. You are a member of a perfectly amoral society: whimsical, all but thoughtless, utterly powerful. Your actions threaten your way of life. Do I see a ramshackle vessel called Self-Destruction heaving its battered bulwarks over the horizon? What's this, Jherek? Is your love genuine, after all?"
"It is, Li Pao. Mock me, if you choose, but I'll not deny there's truth in what you say. You think I conspire against my own peace of mind?"