“Not really, no,” said Tommy.
“Then stop bothering me with questions. Make yourselves comfortable here. I’ll be back when I’m back.”
He stalked out of the Waiting Room, head held high, hands clasped behind his back, as though already thinking about more important things. Suzie and Tommy and I looked at each other.
“Did you understand even half of what he said?” Tommy asked plaintively.
“Not even close,” I said.
Suzie shrugged. “That’s why he’s Old Father Time, and we’re not. I never bother with the backgrounds of cases, you know that, Taylor. Just find me someone I can shoot, and I’ll be happy.”
“You might want to start here,” Tommy said nervously. “No-one seems at all happy to see us.”
We looked around the Waiting Room. It could have been any doctor’s waiting room, right down to the outdated magazines on the coffee table, but the people waiting were a strange collection, even for the Nightside. And all of them were scowling at us. They were waiting for their trips through Time to be approved, and they were all ready to get seriously unpleasant with anyone who looked to be getting preferential treatment. Suzie glared about her, and everyone started settling down again. Some of them even pretended to be interested in the magazines. Suzie has that effect on people.
Most of the people in Time’s Waiting Room were from other time-lines, past and future. They’d arrived in the Nightside after stumbling into Timeslips, and ended up stranded here when the Timeslips collapsed. Old Father Time always did his best to find such temporal refugees a way home, but apparently it was complicated business. It took time. And so they waited in the Waiting Room, until either Time came through with the goods, or they got fed up with waiting and made new homes for themselves in the Nightside.
There were Morlocks and Eloi, sitting at opposite ends of the room. There were knights in full plate armour, with force shields and energy lances. They politely volunteered that they came from a world where Camelot never fell, and Arthur’s legacy continued. They didn’t say anything about Merlin, so I thought it best not to either. There were big hairy Vikings, from a time-line where they colonized all of America, conquered the world, and the Dark Ages never ended. One of them made disparaging remarks about Suzie, and unnatural warrior women in general, and Suzie punched him right between the eyes. His horned helmet flew the length of the room, and he took no further interest in the proceedings. The other Vikings thought this was a great joke and laughed uproariously, which was probably just as well.
There were even future people, tall and spindly and elegant, with animal grace and streamlined features, as though someone had decided to engineer a more efficient, more aesthetic form of humanity. They ignored everyone else, staring at something only they could see. Two hulking steel robots stood unmoving in a corner, watching everything with glowing crimson eyes. They came from a future where Man died out, and robots built their own civilisation. They talked in staccato, metallic voices.
“Flesh-based creatures,” said one. “Obscene. Corrupt.” “Meat that talks,” said the other. “Abominations.” The knights in armour powered up their energy lances, and the robots fell silent.
Old Father Time finally returned, smiled vaguely round the Waiting Room, then beckoned for the three of us to follow him. He led us through a labyrinth of twisting stone passages with a ceiling so low we all had to stoop. Smoking yellow torches blazed in iron braziers, and small things scurried back and forth across the shadowy floor. Time paid them no attention, so I tried not to either.
We ended up, quite abruptly, in a shimmering white room, a room so white it was blinding, overwhelming. We all winced and shaded our eyes, except for Time. The room had no details. Even the door we’d entered through had disappeared. The white light was so dazzling it was hard to be sure of the room’s size or scale, the walls and ceiling so far away it was impossible to judge any distances. The white room felt like it went on forever, while at the same time the walls seemed to be constantly rushing in and out, contracting and expanding, regular as a heartbeat I could sense but not hear. Suzie and Tommy stuck very close to me, and I was glad of their human presence.
In the middle of the room, stark and alone, stood a single complex and rococo mechanism, its pieces and workings so intricate my mind couldn’t grasp all the details. It didn’t seem to belong in the white room. It looked like a dirty nail driven deep into white flesh. Its very presence was an insult. Old Father Time fussed busily over the mechanism, pushing back his sleeves to ease his arms deep inside it, making delicate adjustments only he understood, while muttering querulously to himself in a voice just below the level of understanding. Finally, he stepped back with a proud gesture and nodded vigorously. We could all feel the mechanism coming on-line, like a giant eye slowly opening and becoming aware of us.
I could feel the Time Winds blowing, hear their blustering roar tugging subtly at my soul. It sounded like the breathing of some long-forgotten god, rousing itself from sleep. It felt like the whole universe was turning around this single spot, this single moment. When the Time Winds blow, even the greatest Powers shudder and look to their defences. I wanted to turn and run, and keep running till I could forget everything I’d seen and learned and felt here, but I couldn’t let myself be weak. This was what I’d come here for.
Old Father Time looked round sharply. “Be still, all of you! There are strange fluctuations in the chronoflow, distortions I don’t understand. Something big is happening, or is going to happen. Or perhaps it has already happened, long ago, and the echoes are reverberating up through Time, changing everything. I should understand what’s happening … but I don’t. Which is in itself significant.” He looked at me sharply. “Do you wish to postpone your trip?”
“No,” I said. Suzie and Tommy said nothing.
Time spoke quickly, as though rushing to get everything in. “I have provided you with a process that will enable all of you to speak and understand any language or dialect you may encounter, and a glamour that will make you seem a part of whatever culture you may end up in. I wish I could be more specific, but where you’re going, nothing is certain.”
He was still talking, but now the roar of the Time Winds was drowning him out. I could feel them tugging at me, pulling me in a direction I could sense but not name. And then the three of us were falling, crying out to each other. The white room was gone, as though we’d dropped through it, like a stone through the bottom of a wet paper bag. We plummeted in a direction beyond understanding, wrapped in rainbows of colours I’d never seen before. We were falling, back, back towards something, somewhere, some-when…
Chapter Six
Past Very Much Imperfect
I appear to be standing in a dead dog,” said Tommy Oblivion. “And not in a good way.”
The distress in his voice was clear, but I had my own problems. The world had slammed back into focus around me, but my head was still spinning. I was surrounded by darkness and leaning against a rough brick wall. The air was hot and sweaty, but it was the smell that hit me hardest. A thick and ripe organic miasma that hung heavily on the close air, and the stench of smoke and sweat and shit filled my head no matter how much I shook it. I pushed myself away from the wall and made myself study my new surroundings.
Tommy and Suzie and I were standing in a dark narrow alleyway, lit only by a burning human body in a hanging iron cage. The flames had pretty much died down, flickering sullenly around the blackened corpse. The walls of the alley were rough brickwork, stained black with soot, and the ground was packed earth covered with a rich mixture of fresh shit and other appalling detritus. Someone had painted Dagon shall return! on the wall, and pretty recently, by the look of it. Tommy had backed away from what was left of his dead dog and was banging his boots determinedly against the wall. Suzie stared slowly around her, frowning.
“Wherever we are, Taylor, I don’t think it’s where we were meant to be.”
“You mean when we’re supposed
to be,” I growled, simply to be saying something. “Obviously, something’s gone wrong.”
I headed for the end of the alley and the street noises beyond. There was light up ahead, and the sounds of some kind of civilization. Suzie and Tommy hurried to catch up with me, the filthy ground sucking loudly at their feet. I stopped at the alley mouth, sticking to the shadows, and peered out into the street. Tommy and Suzie crowded in behind me. The street was busy, packed with mostly foot traffic, and if anything, the smell was even worse. There was a roar of constant chatter, intermixed with assorted animal noises, and the occasional crash of horse and oxen-drawn vehicles. We were definitely in the Past, but nowhere near far enough.
The buildings were mostly stone and timber, a mere two or three storeys high; basic blocky structures with a few lingering traces of Roman architecture. What style there was, was mostly Celtic with some Saxon, plus a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t recognize. There were no pavements, only two thick streams of human traffic on either side of a deeply churned dirt road. The traffic in the middle wasn’t moving much faster, being mostly horse-drawn wagons, and rough carts pulled by equally rough people. Hulking covered wagons groaned along, their heavy wooden wheels sinking deeply into the muddy road. There was mud and shit and filth everywhere, and flies hung in thick clouds on the smoky air. Now and again a better-dressed person would come riding through on a caparisoned horse, driving everyone else out of the way. And finally, a hunchbacked drover came along, riding a mule and driving a herd of miniature mammoths. They were about a foot or so high, cheeping cheerfully as they ploughed through the mud.
“Aw, cute,” said Suzie, unexpectedly. Tommy and I both looked at her, and she stared us down with great dignity.
We looked out into the street again. “Judging by the architecture, I’d say we’ve ended up somewhen in the sixth century,” said Tommy. “The Roman Empire has declined and fallen, and the dominant Celts are fighting a war against invading Saxons.” Suzie and I looked at him, and he bristled. “I’ve read a lot about this period. It’s really very interesting.”
“I don’t care if it’s downright fascinating, we shouldn’t be here,” said Suzie. “We’re at least five hundred years short of when we were supposed to arrive. Somebody screwed up.”
“It can’t be a mistake,” said Tommy. “Old Father Time doesn’t make mistakes. In fact, he is famous for not making mistakes.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “Somebody else interfered.”
Rage blinded me for a moment, and I hit out at the wall beside me, hurting my hand on the solid brick and not caring, almost relishing the pain. I tried to say something, but the anger flooding through me clenched my teeth, and it came out as a growl. Tommy started to back away. The rage pulsed in my gut like a red-hot coal, bending me over till I was glaring at the filthy ground. Hot, helpless tears burned in my eyes, and I hit out at the wall again.
Suzie moved in close beside me, murmuring quiet words, bringing me back with her calm, steady presence. I was breathing hard and rough, as though I’d just been hit; but Suzie’s reassuring presence slowly got through to me, and I straightened up again. I pushed the anger into the back of my head, to be released later, when I had someone to take it out on. I took a deep breath and nodded my thanks to Suzie. She nodded back. She understood.
I looked down the alley at Tommy, who stared back uncertainly. “It’s all right,” I said, in my best reasonable voice. “I got a little upset there, for a moment, but I’m all right now.”
“Of course you are,” said Tommy, moving slowly and somewhat reluctantly forward to join me. “It’s just that you looked … very different there, for a moment, old thing. I’d never seen you look like that. Like you could kill the whole world and not give a damn.”
I forced a short laugh. “You’ve been taking my legend far too seriously.”
Tommy stared at me dubiously, then looked out at the street scene again. “Well, if nothing else, the sixth-century Nightside does seem rather more peaceful than the one we’re used to.”
Even as he was saying that, one hand gesturing at the slow-moving traffic, something huge and crooked, wrapped in flapping rags and long strings of cured entrails, came stalking down the middle of the road on tall stilt legs, towering over everything else. It had a head like a horse’s skull, and long many-jointed arms that ended in vicious claws. It lurched down the street at some speed, cawing like a great bird, and everyone else hurried to get out of its way. One oxen-pulled wagon reacted too slowly, and the creature stamped it into the dirt road with one heavy leg. The wagon exploded under the pressure, throwing the driver forward, and the creature stamped on him, too, crushing him into bloody pulp. The oxen ran free, bellowing with fear, while the creature continued uncaringly on its way. A pack of child-sized bipedal rats rushed out of the alley mouth opposite us and swarmed all over the dead driver. They devoured the bloody mush with glee, stuffing it into their squeaking mouths with disturbingly human hands. In a matter of moments, there was nothing left of the driver but his bones, which the rats tidily gathered up and took with them as they hurried back into their alley mouth.
No-one paid any attention. The traffic kept moving, perhaps a little more urgently than it had before. On either side of the filthy road, men and women and others kept their heads down and pressed on, concerned only with their own business. Coming up the street from the other direction was a huge, flaming presence, taller than the surrounding buildings, burning so brightly it was hard to see what if anything was at the heart of the flames. It drifted through the crowds, crackling and smoking, but keeping its heat to itself. A giant millipede with a headful of snapping mouths scurried past, clinging to the sides of buildings. And a great ball of compacted maggots rolled sluggishly down the middle of the road, sucking up useful leavings from the churned-up mud. I looked at Tommy.
“Peaceful. Right. Come on, Tommy, you should know the Nightside is never peaceful for long.”
“I take it we are still in the Nightside?” Suzie said suddenly. “I mean, for all we know this kind of shit is normal in the sixth century.”
I pointed up at the night sky. Even through the drifting smoke, the crowded constellations of brilliant stars still burned like diamonds in the dark, and the oversized full moon looked down like a huge unblinking eye.
“All right,” said Suzie. “Let’s be logical about this. Who is there, powerful enough to intercept a journey through Time? Powerful enough to override Old Father Time himself and send us here? That’s got to be a pretty short list.”
“Just the one,” I said, feeling the anger pulse briefly again. “Lilith. Dear Mother. I should have known she’d be watching me. I think perhaps … she’s always watching me now.”
“Okay,” said Tommy. “That is seriously creepy. And I thought my family was weird … Why would Lilith want us here, in the sixth century?”
“To keep us away from the creation of the Nightside,” said Suzie. “Must be something there she doesn’t want us to see. Something we could use against her.”
“Then why not block our trip completely?” I said. “No, I think she wanted us here. Now. She wanted me to see the Nightside as it was, before restrictions and controls and the Authorities moved it away from what she intended it to be. The only place on Earth completely free from the pressures of Heaven and Hell.”
“Does Lilith exist here, now?” said Suzie.
“No. She would have been banished to Limbo by this time. I think.”
“You think?” said Tommy. “I really think this is something you need to be bloody certain about, old boy, before we take another step! I demand to know exactly what the situation is before I’ll even leave this alley!”
I raised an eyebrow. “Shame on you, Tommy Oblivion. I thought you existentialists didn’t believe in certainties?”
“There is a time and a place for everything,” said Tommy, with great dignity. “I vote for going home. Who else votes for going home?”
“Keep the noise down,??
? said Suzie, and Tommy hushed immediately.
“We can’t learn anything useful hiding in this alley,” I said. “We need to get out and around, talk to people. Find out exactly when this is. I have a sneaking suspicion I know why Lilith chose the sixth century. This is, after all, the time of King Arthur and Merlin, when old gods and stranger powers still walked openly in the Nightside.”
“Of course!” said Tommy, brightening up immediately. “Arthur and Camelot! The knights of the Round Table! The most heroic and romantic time in history!”
“Only if you’re into poverty, bad food, and body lice,” said Suzie. “You’re thinking of the mediaeval fantasies about Arthur, mostly written long after the fact by French aristos, who added all the knights in armour and damsels in distress. The real Arthur was only a barbarian warlord whose main innovation was using massed cavalry against the Saxons. This is a hard, dark, and brutal age, when most people lived short, squalid, and very hard-working lives, and the only people with a guaranteed future were the slaves.” She stopped, as she realised Tommy and I were staring at her. “All right, I saw a documentary, okay? I like documentaries. Anyone here have a problem with that?”
“Perish the thought,” I said. “If this really is the time of Camelot, I doubt they’d let the likes of us in anyway. What we have to find is a way out of here, and back in Time to where we need to be.”
“We can’t contact Old Father Time,” said Tommy. “He really was very clear about that, remember? In fact, we have to face the extremely real possibility that we could be stranded here. Forever. I mean, who is there in this time with the sheer power necessary to send people through Time? One way or the other?”
“Merlin,” I said. “The most powerful sorcerer of all. He still has his heart here, which means he’s in his prime. Yes … Merlin Satanspawn could send us any damn when he wanted to.”