Read Online Legends From the End of Time by Michael Moorcock, Tom Canty - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Moorcock, Tom Canty
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or yellow, through the great Hall of Antiquities, she carried her child, until she came to her own apartments, where mechanical servants received the boy, changed his clothes for night attire and put him to bed. She sat on a chair beside him, watching the servants move gently about the room, and she tenderly stroked his fair curls, so, save for colour, like her own (as was his face), and yearned a trifle for Armatuce and home. It was as she rose to go to her chamber, adjoining his, that she saw a figure standing in the entrance. She knew a second's alarm, then laughed. "Lord Jagged. You are back!"
He bowed. There was a weariness in his face she had never noted before.
"Was your journey hard?"
"It had its interests. The fabric of Time, those Laws we have always regarded as immutable…" He hesitated, perhaps realizing that he spoke to himself.
He was dressed in clothes of a pearly grey colour, of stiffer material than he usually preferred. She felt that they suited him better, were more in keeping with the temperament she detected behind the insouciant exterior. Did he stagger as he walked? She put out a hand to help, but he did not notice it.
"You have been travelling in Time? How can that be?"
"Those of us who are indigenous to the End of Time are more fortunate than most. Chronos tolerates us, perhaps because we have no preconceptions of what the past should be. No, I am weary. It is an easier matter to go back to a chosen point from one's own Era. If one goes forward, one can never go all the way back. Oh, I babble. I should not be speaking at all. I would tempt you."
"Tempt me?"
"To try to return. The dangers are the same, but the checks against those dangers are less rigid. I'll say no more. Forgive me. I will not say more."
She walked beside him, past her own rooms, down the brown and yellow corridor, eager for further information. But he was silent and determined to remain so. At his door he paused, leaning with one hand against the lintel, head bowed. "Forgive me," he said again. "I wish you good night."
She could not in all humanity detain him, no matter how great her curiosity. But the morning would come: here, at Canaria, the morning would come, for Lord Jagged chose to regulate his hours according to the age-old movements of the Earth and the Sun, and when it did she would demand her right to know if there was any possibility of return to Armatuce.
Thus it was that she slept scarcely at all that night and rose early, with the first vermilion flush of dawn, to note that Snuffles still slept soundly, to hover close by Jagged's door in the hope that he would rise early — though the evidence of last night denied this hope, she knew. Robot servants prowled past her, preparing the great house for the morning, ignoring her as she paced impatiently to the breakfast room with its wide windows and its views of fields, hills and trees, so like a world that had existed before Cataclysm, before Armatuce, and which none of her folk would ever have expected to see again. In most things Lord Jagged's tastes harked to the planet's youth.
The morning grew late. Snuffles appeared, hungry for the Dawn Age food the robots produced at his command, and proceeded to eat the equivalent of an Armatuce's monthly provisions. She had to restrain her impulse to stop him, to warn him that he must look forward to changing his habits, that his holiday could well be over. Dawn Age kipper followed antique kedgeree , to be succeeded by sausages and cheese , the whole washed down with primitive tea . She felt unusually hungry, but the time for her daily meal was still hours away. Still Jagged did not come, although she knew it was ever his custom, when at Canaria, to breakfast each morning (he had always eaten solid food, even before the fashion for it). She returned to the passage, saw that his door was open, dared to glance in, saw no-one.
"Where is Master?" she enquired of an entering servant.
The machine hesitated. "Lord Jagged has
He bowed. There was a weariness in his face she had never noted before.
"Was your journey hard?"
"It had its interests. The fabric of Time, those Laws we have always regarded as immutable…" He hesitated, perhaps realizing that he spoke to himself.
He was dressed in clothes of a pearly grey colour, of stiffer material than he usually preferred. She felt that they suited him better, were more in keeping with the temperament she detected behind the insouciant exterior. Did he stagger as he walked? She put out a hand to help, but he did not notice it.
"You have been travelling in Time? How can that be?"
"Those of us who are indigenous to the End of Time are more fortunate than most. Chronos tolerates us, perhaps because we have no preconceptions of what the past should be. No, I am weary. It is an easier matter to go back to a chosen point from one's own Era. If one goes forward, one can never go all the way back. Oh, I babble. I should not be speaking at all. I would tempt you."
"Tempt me?"
"To try to return. The dangers are the same, but the checks against those dangers are less rigid. I'll say no more. Forgive me. I will not say more."
She walked beside him, past her own rooms, down the brown and yellow corridor, eager for further information. But he was silent and determined to remain so. At his door he paused, leaning with one hand against the lintel, head bowed. "Forgive me," he said again. "I wish you good night."
She could not in all humanity detain him, no matter how great her curiosity. But the morning would come: here, at Canaria, the morning would come, for Lord Jagged chose to regulate his hours according to the age-old movements of the Earth and the Sun, and when it did she would demand her right to know if there was any possibility of return to Armatuce.
Thus it was that she slept scarcely at all that night and rose early, with the first vermilion flush of dawn, to note that Snuffles still slept soundly, to hover close by Jagged's door in the hope that he would rise early — though the evidence of last night denied this hope, she knew. Robot servants prowled past her, preparing the great house for the morning, ignoring her as she paced impatiently to the breakfast room with its wide windows and its views of fields, hills and trees, so like a world that had existed before Cataclysm, before Armatuce, and which none of her folk would ever have expected to see again. In most things Lord Jagged's tastes harked to the planet's youth.
The morning grew late. Snuffles appeared, hungry for the Dawn Age food the robots produced at his command, and proceeded to eat the equivalent of an Armatuce's monthly provisions. She had to restrain her impulse to stop him, to warn him that he must look forward to changing his habits, that his holiday could well be over. Dawn Age kipper followed antique kedgeree , to be succeeded by sausages and cheese , the whole washed down with primitive tea . She felt unusually hungry, but the time for her daily meal was still hours away. Still Jagged did not come, although she knew it was ever his custom, when at Canaria, to breakfast each morning (he had always eaten solid food, even before the fashion for it). She returned to the passage, saw that his door was open, dared to glance in, saw no-one.
"Where is Master?" she enquired of an entering servant.
The machine hesitated. "Lord Jagged has
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