The Ancient Shadows

Li Pao was appreciative of the argument, but something puzzled him. "You speak, Lord Jagged, as you sometimes do, as one from an earlier Age than this, for few here think in such terms, though they might speak as you did if they bothered to consider their position at all."

"Oh, well. I have travelled a little, you know."

"Are there none here," asked Dafnish Armatuce, "who have the will to work, to serve others?"

Lord Jagged laughed. "We seek to serve our fellows with our wit, our entertainments. But some would serve in what you would call practical ways." He paused, serious for a second, as if his thoughts had become a little private. He drew breath, continuing: "Werther de Goethe, perhaps, might have had such a will, had he lived in a different Age. Li Pao's, for instance. Where another sees dreams and beauty, Li Pao sees only disorder. If he could, or dared, he would make our rotting cities stable, clarify and formalize the architecture, populate his tidy buildings with workers, honest and humane, to whom Peace of Mind is a chance of worthy promotion and the prospect of an adequate pension, to whom Adventure is a visit to the sea or a thunderstorm during a picnic — and Passion is Comfort's equal, Prosperity's cohort. But shall I judge his vision dull? No! It is not to him, or to those who think as he, in his own Age, in your own Age, Dafnish Armatuce." Lord Jagged teased at his fine nose. "We are all what our society makes of us."

"When in Rome…" murmured Miss Ming piously. Something flapped by and received a cheer.

Jagged was impatient with Miss Ming. "Indeed." His cloak billowed in a wind of his own subtle summons, and he looked kindly down on Dafnish Armatuce. "Explore all attitudes, my dear. Honour them, every one, but be slippery — never let them hold you, else you fail to enjoy the benefits and be saddled only with the liabilities. It's true that canvas against the skin can be as sensual as silk, and milk a sweeter drink than wine, but feel everything, taste everything, for its own sake, and for your own sake, then no one thing shall be judged better or worse than another, no person shall be so judged, and nothing can ensnare you!"

"Your advice is well-meant, sir, I know," said Dafnish Armatuce, "and would probably be good advice if I intended to stay in your world. But I do not."

"You have no choice," said Miss Ming with satisfaction.

He shrugged. "I have told you of the Morphail Effect."

"There are other means of escape."

Miss Ming, by her superior smirk, felt she had found a flaw in Lord Jagged's argument. "Cancer?" she demanded. "Could we love cancer?"

He rose to it willingly enough, replying lightly: "You are obscure, Miss Ming, for there is no physical disease at the End of Time. But, yes, we could — for what it taught us — the comparisons it offered. Perhaps that is why some of our number seek discomfort — in order to comfort their souls."

Miss Ming simpered. "You argue cu

"Is it so dignified, my conversation, as to be termed Logic? I am flattered." One hand pressed gently against Dafnish Armatuce's back and the other against Li Pao's, rescuing them both. Miss Ming hesitated and then retreated at last.

Eight dragons waltzed the skies above while far away music played; the crowd grew quieter as it watched, and even Dafnish Armatuce admitted, to herself, that it was a delicate beauty they witnessed.

She sighed. "So this is Utopia, Lord Jagged, for you? You are satisfied?"

"Could I expect more? Many think the days of our universe numbered. Yet, do you find concern amongst us?"

"You sport to forget the inevitable?"

He shook his head. "We sported thus before we knew. We have not changed our lives at all, most of us."

"You must sense tension. You ca

"I do not think we live as you describe. Do you not strive, in your Age, for a world without fear?"

"Of course."

"There is no fear here, Dafnish Armatuce, even of total extinction."

"Which suggests you are far divorced from reality. You speak of the atrophy of natural instinct."

"I suppose that I do. There are few such instincts to be found among those who are native to the End of Time. You have no philosophers among your own folk who argue that those natural instincts might be the cause of the tragedy once described, I believe, as the Human Condition?"

"Of course. It is part of our creed. But we ensure that the tragedy shall never be played again, for we encourage the virtues of self-sacrifice and consideration of the common good, and we discourage the vices."

"Which suggests that they continue to exist. Here, they do not; there is no necessity for either vice or virtue."

"Yet if Hate dies, surely Love dies, too?"

"I think it has been rediscovered, lately. Love."

"A fad. I spoke with your Doctor Volospion. An affectation, nothing more." She gasped and shut her eyes, for two great suns had appeared, side by side, glaring scarlet, and drenched the gathering with their light.

Almost at once the suns began to grow smaller, rising away from the Earth. She blinked and recovered her composure, though weariness threatened her thoughts. "And Love of the sort you describe is no Love at all, for its attendants are Jealousy and Despair, and in Despair lies the most destructive quality of all, Cynicism."

"You think us cynical, then?"

She looked about her at the chattering press. One of their number, tall, bulky and bearded, festooned in feathers and furs, was being congratulated for what doubtless had been his display. "I thought so at first."

"And now?"

She changed the subject. "I have the impression, Lord Jagged, that you are trying to make this world palatable to me. What if I agree that there is something to be said for your way of life and turn the conversation to a problem rather closer to my heart? My husband, cousin to the Armatuce, and a Grinash on his mother's side, cares for me, as he cares for Snuffles, our son, and eagerly awaits our return, as does the committee which I serve (and which elected me to accomplish my voyage). I would go back to that Age, which you would find grim, no doubt, but which is home, familiar, security for us. You tell me that I ca

"You speak of caring for the common cause," interrupted Li Pao. "If you do, you will not make the attempt, for Time disrupts. Morphail warns us. And you risk death. If you tried to go back you might succeed, but you would in all probability flicker for only a moment, unseen, before being flung out again. The time stream would suck you up and deposit you anywhere in your future, in any one of a million less pleasant ages than this, or you could be killed outright (which has happened more than once). The Laws of Time are cruel."

"I would risk any danger," she said, "were it not for —"

"— the child," softly said Lord Jagged.

"We are used to sacrifice, the Armatuce. But our children are precious. We exist for them."

Darkness fell and ivory clashed and rattled above her as a great ship, made all of bone, its sections strung loosely together, its wings beating erratically, staggered upon a sea of faintly glowing clouds.

"What a splendid ending," she heard Lord Jagged say.