"One of his time travellers — he calls them 'retainers', I understand — came to him with a message. The message animated him. He left with his eyes bright and his face flushed. Perhaps another traveller entering our Age?"
Jherek refused to be moved by this news. "Did Lord Jagged go with him?"
"I am not sure. I wasn't aware he had gone." My Lady Charlotina raised her slender eyebrows. "Odd that he did not pay his respects. All this rushing and mystery whets my curiosity."
"And mine," said Jherek feelingly, but he was determined to remain as insouciant as possible and bide his time. If Amelia Underwood had come back, he would know soon enough. He rather admired his own self-control; he was even faintly astonished by it.
"Isn't the scenery piquant?" said the Iron Orchid with something of a proprietorial air. On the slope where they had laid their picnic they could see for scores of miles. Below, there were plains and rivers and lakes of a rich variety of gentle colours. "So unspoiled. It hasn't been touched since Mongrove made it."
"I must admit to a preference for his earlier work," agreed Bishop Castle, running sensual fingers through the glittering snow which spread across the flanks of the great eminences. It was primarily white, with just the subtlest hint of pale blue. A few little flowers poked their delicate heads above the surface of the snow. They were mainly indigenous to this sort of alpine terrain — orange vedigris and yellow bottlewurt were two which Jherek had recognized, and another which he guessed was some kind of greenish St. Buck's Buttons.
Sweet Orb Mace, who had insisted on accompanying them, was rolling down the slope in a flurry of warm snow, laughing and shouting and rather destroying the tranquillity of the scene. The snow clung to her fur as she tried to get up and instead she slipped and slid further, hanging, helpless with mirth, over a precipice which must have been at least a thousand feet high. Then, the snows gave way and with a startled yell she fell.
"What could have possessed Mongrove to go into space?" said My Lady Charlotina with a token smile in the general direction of the vanished Sweet Orb Mace. "I cannot believe that she could possibly have been your father, you know, Jherek, however good the disguise."
"It was a very strong rumour at one time," the Iron Orchid said, stroking her son's hair and plucking little particles of snow from it. "But I agree, Charlotina, it would not be quite in Sweet Orb Mace's style. Do you think she's all right?"
"Oh, of course. And if she forgot to use her gravity neutralizer, we can always resurrect her later. Personally, I am glad of the peace."
"I understood from Mongrove that he regarded it as his destiny to accompany Yusharisp," Bishop Castle said. "To warn the universe of its peril."
"I could never understand his pleasure in passing on such news," said My Lady Charlotina. "It could alarm some cultures, could it not? I mean, think of the timid creatures we have had to look after from time to time when they have visited us. Many of them are so frightened at seeing people who do not look like themselves that they rush off back to their own planets as soon as they can. If we do not, of course, select them for a menagerie. I suspect that Mongrove's motives were rather different. I suspect that he had become thoroughly bored with his gloomy role but was too proud to change."
"An acute insight, sextupedal siren," said Jherek. "It is probably accurate." He smiled, affectionately remembering the way in which he had tricked the giant when Mrs. Amelia Underwood had belonged to Mongrove's menagerie. Then he frowned. "Ah, those were pleasant days."
"You are not happy with this outing, Jherek?" My Lady Charlotina was concerned.
"I can think of nowhere I would rather be in this whole world," he said tactfully, producing a convincing smile.
Only the Iron Orchid was not entirely relieved to hear these words. She said quietly to him: "I am inclined to regret the appearance both of Yusharisp from Space and your Mrs. Underwood from Time. It could be imagination, but it seems to me at this moment that they introduced a certain flavour into our society which I find not entirely palatable. You were once the joy of us all, Jherek, because of the enthusiasm you carried with you…"
"I assure you, most considerate of mothers, that my enthusiasm burns within me still. It is merely that I have nothing on which to focus it at present." He patted her hand. "I promise to be more amusing just as soon as my inspiration returns."
Relieved, she lay back in the snow, crying out almost immediately: "Oh, look! It is the Duke of Queens!"
None could fail to recognize the air car which came lumbering over the peaks in their direction — a genuine ornithopter in the shape of a huge hen, clanking and clucking its way through the sky, sometimes dropping dangerously low and at other times soaring so high as to be almost invisible. Its wide wings beat mightily at the air, its mechanical head glared this way and that as if in horrible confusion. The beak opened and shut rapidly, producing a strange clashing noise. And there, just visible, was the Duke's head, adorned by a huge, wide-brimmed hat festooned with plumes, a hand waving a long silver spear, a scarlet cloak billowing about him. He saw them and, erratically, aimed his hen in their direction, coming in so close that they flung themselves into the snow so as to avoid being struck. The ornithopter spiralled upwards, then spiralled down again, landing at last, a few yards away and waddling towards them.
The Duke's beard fairly bristled with excitement. "It is a Hunt, my dears. Some of my beaters are not too far away. You must join me!"
"A Hunt, darling Duke — for what?" asked Bishop Castle, arranging his hat on his head.
"Another alien — same race as Yusharisp — spotted in these parts — spaceship and everything. We found the ship, but the alien had gone to ground somewhere. We'll find him soon. Bound to. Where's your car? Ah — Jherek's. That will do. Come along! The chase grows hot!"
They looked at one another enquiringly, laughingly. "Shall we?" said My Lady Charlotina.
"It will be fun," said the Iron Orchid. "Will it not, Jherek?"
"Indeed, it will!" Jherek began to race towards his landau, the other three at his heels. "Lead the way, hardiest of hunters. Into the air! Into the air!"
The Duke of Queens rattled his silver spear against his chicken's metal wattles. The chicken clucked and crowed and its wings began to beat again. "Ha ha! What sport!"
The chicken rose a few feet and then came down again, after a false start. Snow blew about in clouds around the ornithopter and from out of this blizzard there came the sound of the Duke's exasperated tones mingling with the almost embarrassed voice of the chicken as it tried to lift its bulk skyward. Jherek's landau was already circling the air before the Duke had managed to take off.
"He always regretted letting me have Yusharisp," said My Lady Charlotina. "The alien did not seem much of an addition to a menagerie at the time. One can understand his pleasure at discovering another. I do hope he is successful. We must do our best to help him, everyone. We must take the Hunt seriously."
"Without question!" said Jherek. More than the others, he welcomed the excitement.
"I wonder if this one bears the same dull tidings," said the Iron Orchid. Only she did not seem to be as entertained by their escapade as much as she might have been.
5
On the Hunt
From somewhere beyond a line of low, green hills there came the moan of a hunting harp.
The Duke's chicken was above and ahead of them, but they heard his thin voice crying:
"To the West! To the West!"
They saw him wave his spear in that direction, saw him desperately trying to turn his bird, which had begun to take on more than the suggestion of a list; so much that the Duke had great difficulty maintaining his seat.
A word from Jherek and the landau leapt forward, causing Bishop Castle to whistle with glee and hang hard onto his hat. The pleasure of the ladies was also keen; they leant far over the sides, threatening to fall, as they sought the elusive alien.
"Be careful, my dears!" called Bishop Castle above the wail of the wind. "
Remember that these aliens can sometimes be dangerous. They have all sorts of weapons, you know!" He raised a cautioning hand. "You could miss the fun, if killed or maimed, for there would not be time to resurrect you until the Hunt was finished."
"We shall be careful, Bishop — oh, we shall be!" My Lady Charlotina chuckled as she almost lost her grip on the landau's rail.
"Besides, Jherek has a gun to protect us, haven't you, produce of my lust?" The Iron Orchid pointed at a rather large object on the floor of the landau. "We were playing with it a day or two ago."
"A deceptor-gun is not exactly a weapon," said Bishop Castle, picking it up and squinting down its wide, bell-shaped funnel. "All it can produce is illusions."
"But they are very real, Bishop."
The Bishop had taken an interest in the antique. "One of the oldest examples I have seen. Notice that it even has its own independent power source — here, at the side."
The others, having absolutely no interest in the Bishop's hobby, pretended that they had not heard him.
"Gone away!" came the Duke's distant drone. "Gone away!"
"What can he mean?" said an astonished Lady Charlotina. "Jherek, do you know?"
"I believe he means we have become too greatly separated," Jherek offered. "I have been deliberately keeping back, to give him the pleasure of the first sighting. It is his game, after all."
"And quite a good one, really," said My Lady Charlotina.
They passed the hills, drawing closer to the Duke of Queens.
"His ornithopter seems, as it were, on its last wings," said Bishop Castle. "Should we offer him a lift?"
"I don't think he would thank us," said Jherek. "We must wait until he crashes."
They were flying over a landscape Jherek could not remember having seen before. It looked edible and was therefore probably something Argonheart Po had made. There were whole villages, after the Gentraxian fashion, set among wobbling clumps of golden trees.
"Mmm." The Iron Orchid smacked her lips. "I feel quite hungry again. Could we not taste…?"
"No time," Jherek told her. "I think I heard the harp again."
The sky suddenly darkened and they sped through absolute blackness for a moment. Below them, they could detect the sound of a savage sea.
"We must be quite close to Werther's tower," My Lady Charlotina suggested, rearranging one of her several breasts, which had come loose.
And sure enough when the sky lightened to reveal boiling black clouds, there was Werther's mile-high monument to his moody ego.
"Those are the rocks," said My Lady Charlotina, pointing at the base of the tower, "where we found his body — dashed to fragments. Lord Jagged resurrected him. It took ages to gather all the pieces."
Jherek remembered Sweet Orb Mace. If she had really fallen off the precipice, they should not leave her too long before restoring her.
The sun was shining again; the downs were green. "There's the Earl of Carbolic's 'Tokyo, 1901,' " cried the Iron Orchid. "What beautiful colours."
"All reproductions of the original sea-shells," Bishop Castle murmured knowingly.
The landau, dutifully following the Duke of Queens, veered suddenly and began to head towards the ground.
"He's down!" shouted Bishop Castle. "Near that forest over there."
"Is he hurt, Bishop?" The Iron Orchid was on the far side of the car.
"No. I can see him moving. He does not seem to be in a very good temper. He's hitting the ornithopter."
"Poor thing." My Lady Charlotina gasped as the landau bumped suddenly to earth.
Jherek left the carriage and began to walk towards the Duke of Queens. The Duke's hat was askew and one of his leggings was torn, but he was now, in all other respects, his normal self. He cast the spear aside, pushed back his hat, placed his hands on his hips and grinned at Jherek. "Well, it was a good chase, eh?"
"Very stimulating. Your ornithopter is useless?"
"Utterly."
The Duke of Queens felt it a point of pride to fly, for the most part, only authentic reproductions of ancient machines. He had often been counselled against the idea, but remained adamant — and much bruised.
"Can we take you back to your castle?" My Lady Charlotina asked.
"I'm not giving up. I'll continue the Hunt on foot. He'll be in those woods somewhere." The Duke inclined his head in the direction of the nearby elms, cedars and mahoganies. "My beaters will bring him towards us, if we're lucky. Will you come with me?"
Jherek shrugged. "Willingly."
They all began to march towards the woods and had gone a fair way before Bishop Castle lifted the deceptor-gun he still held in his hand. "I'm sorry, I still have your antique. Shall I take it back, Jherek?"
"Bring it with you," said Jherek. "It might be useful in snaring the alien if we see him."
"Good thinking," said the Duke of Queens approvingly.
The wood was silent but for the faintest rustle of the leaves and the soft sounds of their footfalls on green, glowing moss. The trees smelled rich and sweet.
"Oh, isn't it eerie?" said My Lady Charlotina in breathless delight. "A genuine old-fashioned Magic Wood. I wonder who made it."
Jherek noticed that the quality of the light had changed subtly, so that it was now a late summer evening; also the wood seemed to extend much further than he had at first supposed.
"It must be Lord Jagged's." Bishop Castle removed his hat and stood leaning against it for a moment. "Only he can capture this particular quality."
"It does have Jagged's touch," agreed the Iron Orchid, and she passed her arm through her son's.
"Then we must watch for mythical beasts," said the Duke of Queens. "Kangaroos and the like, if I know Jagged."
The Iron Orchid squeezed Jherek's arm. "I think it's getting darker," she whispered.
6
The Brigand Musicians
The foliage above their heads was now so thick that hardly any light came through at all. The silence had deepened and, scarcely realizing what they were doing, they all crept as quietly as possible over the moss, gently pushing aside the low branches which increasingly blocked their way.
My Lady Charlotina took Jherek's other arm, murmuring animatedly: "We are like the babes in the bush. Do you think we will be lost, Jherek?"
"It would be wonderful if we were," said the Iron Orchid, but Jherek said nothing. For some reason, the mysterious wood had a healing effect upon his emotions. He felt much calmer; more at ease than he had been for a long while. He wondered why the thought had occurred to him that he was, in this wood, somehow much closer to Mrs. Underwood. He peered through the shadowy gloom, half-expecting to see her in her grey dress and straw hat, standing beside the bole of a cedar or a pine, smiling at him, ready to continue where she had left off with what she termed his "moral education."
Only the Duke of Queens was unaffected by the atmosphere. He paused, tugging at his black beard, and he frowned.
"The beaters must have detected something," he complained. "Why haven't we heard them?"
"The forest does seem to be rather larger than we had at first supposed." Bishop Castle tapped his fingers against the barrel of the deceptor-gun. "Could we be walking in the wrong direction, I wonder?"
Jherek and the two ladies had also stopped. Jherek himself was in something of a trance. It had been in a wood not dissimilar to this one where Mrs. Amelia Underwood had kissed him, admitting, at last, her love for him — and from a wood like this one she had been whisked away, back to her own time. For a moment he considered the notion that Lord Jagged and My Lady Charlotina had planned a surprise for him, but it was obvious from My Lady Charlotina's behaviour that she had known nothing about this wood before they had discovered it. Jherek took a deep breath of the air. The predominant smell, he supposed, was of earth.
"What was that?" The Duke of Queens cupped a hand to his ear. "A harp, was it?"
Bishop Castle had abandoned his hat altogether now. He scratched his red locks, turning this way
and that. "I think you're right, my dear Duke. Music, certainly. But it could be birds."
"The song of the rabbit," gasped My Lady Charlotina, romantically clasping her various hands over her multitude of breasts. "To hear it in these woods is to become Primordial Man — experiencing the exact emotions He experienced all those millions of years ago!"
"You are in a lyrical mood indeed, my lady," lazily suggested Bishop Castle, but it was obvious that he, too, was infected by the atmosphere. He raised the hand in which he held the heavy deceptor-gun. "I think the sound came from that direction."
"We must go extremely quietly," said the Iron Orchid, "to be sure not to disturb either the alien or any wildlife." Jherek suspected that she did not care a jot about disturbing the animals — she merely desired the same uninterrupted peace which he had been enjoying. He confirmed her words by means of a grave nod.
A little later they detected a haze of dancing crimson light ahead of them and they proceeded with even greater caution.
And then the music began.
It dawned on Jherek, after a few moments, that this was the most beautiful music he had ever heard. It was profound, stately and very moving, it hinted at harmonies beyond the harmonies of the physical universe, it spoke of ideals and emotions which were magnificent in their sanity, their intensity and their humanity; it took him through despair and he no longer despaired, through pain and he no longer felt pain, through cynicism and he knew the exhilaration of hope; it showed him what was ugly and it was no longer ugly; he was dragged into the deepest chasms of misery only to be lifted higher and higher until his body, mind and feelings were in perfect balance and he knew an immeasurable ecstasy.
As he listened, Jherek, with the others, moved into the haze of crimson light; their faces were bathed in it, their clothing coloured by it, and they saw that it and the music emanated from a glade. The glade was occupied by a large machine and it was this which was the source of the crimson glow; it stood lopsidedly upon four or five spindly legs, one of which at least was evidently broken. The body was asymmetrical but essentially pear-shaped with little glassy protuberances, like flaws in a piece of ceramic, dotted about all over it; from an octagonal object at the tip, the crimson poured. Near the crippled machine stood or sat seven humanoid beings who were unmistakably space-travellers — they were small, scarcely half Jherek's size, and burly, with heads akin in shape to that of their ship, with one long eye containing three pupils which darted about, sometimes converging, sometimes equidistant, with large, elephantine ears, with bulbous noses. They were bewhiskered, unkempt and dressed in a variety of garments, none of which seemed congruent with another. And it was from these little men that the music came, for they held instruments of unlikely shapes, which they plucked or blew or sawed at with stumpy fingers. At their belts were knives and swords and on their wide, splayed feet were heavy boots; their heads were decorated with caps, scarves or metal helmets, adding to their practical appearance. Jherek found it difficult to equate the exquisite beauty of the music with the ruffians who produced it.