"Well, dreams , yes…"
"Poetic inspiration?"
"Well…"
Lord Jagged drew his great robe about him. "Forgive me, Li Pao, for I realize that I have confused your argument. Please continue. I shall interrupt no further."
But Li Pao had lost impetus. He fell into a sulking silence.
"There is a rumour, magnificent Lord Jagged, that you yourself have travelled in time. Do you speak from direct experience of Li Pao's period?" Mistress Christia raised her head from its contact with Gaf's groin.
"As a great believer in the inherent possibilities of the rumour as art," said Lord Jagged gently, "it is not for me to confirm or deny any gossip you might have heard, sweet Mistress Christia."
"Oh, absolutely!" She gave her full attention back to Gaf's anatomy.
Not without difficulty, Jherek held back from taxing Lord Jagged further on that particular subject, but Jagged continued:
"There are some who would argue that Time does not really exist at all, that it is merely our primitive minds which impose a certain order upon events. I have heard it said that everything is happening, as it were, concurrently. Some of the greatest inventors of time machines have used that theory to advantage."
Jherek, desperately feigning lack of interest, poured himself a fresh tot. When he spoke, however, his tone was not entirely normal.
"Would it be possible, I wonder, to make a new time machine? If Shanalorm's or some other city's memories were reliable…"
"They are not!" The querulous voice of Brannart Morphail broke in. He had added an inch or two to his hump since Jherek had last encountered him. His club foot was decidedly overdone. He came limping across the floor, his smock covered in residual spots of the various substances in his laboratories. "I have visited every one of the rotted cities. They give us their power, but their wisdom has faded. I was listening to your discourse, Lord Jagged. It is a familiar theory, favoured by the non-scientist. I assure you, none the less, that one gets nowhere with Time unless one treats it as linear."
"Brannart," said Jherek hesitantly, "I was hoping to see you here."
"Are you bent on pestering me further, Jherek? I have not forgotten that you lost me one of my best time machines."
"No sign of it, then?"
"None. My instruments are too crude to detect it if, as I suspect, it has gone back to some pre-Dawn period."
"What of the cyclic theory?" Lord Jagged said. "Would you give any credence to that?"
"So far as it corresponds to certain physical laws, yes."
"And how would that relate to the information we were given by the Duke's little alien?"
"I had hoped to ask Yusharisp some questions — and so I might have done if Jherek had not interfered."
"I am sorry," said Jherek, "but…"
"You are living proof of the non-mutability of Time," said Brannart Morphail. "If you could go back and set to rights the events brought about by your silly meddling, then you would be able to prove your remorse. As it is, you can't, so I would ask you to stop expressing it!"
Pointedly, Brannart Morphail turned to Lord Jagged, a crooked, insincere grin upon his ancient features. "Now, dear Lord Jagged, you were saying something about the cyclic nature of Time?"
"I think you are a little hard on Jherek," said Lord Jagged. "After all, My Lady Charlotina knew, to some extent, the outcome of her joke."
"We'll speak no more of that. You wondered if Yusharisp's reference to the death of the cosmos — of the universe ending one cycle and beginning another — bore directly upon the cyclic theory?"
"It was a passing thought, nothing more," said Lord Jagged, looking back over his shoulder and winking at Jherek. "You should be kinder, Brannart, to the boy. He could bring you information of considerable usefulness in your experiments, surely? I believe you feel angry with him because his experiences are inclined to contradict your theories."
"Nonsense! It is his interpretation of his experiences with which I disagree. They are naive."
"They are true," said Jherek in a small voice. "Mrs. Underwood said that she would join me, you know. I am sure that she will."
"Impossible — or, at very least, unlikely. Time does not permit paradoxes. The Morphail Theory specifically shows that once a time traveller has visited the future he cannot return to the past for any length of time; similarly any stay in the past is limited, for the reason that if he did stay there he could alter the course of the future and therefore produce chaos. The Morphail Effect is my term to describe an actual phenomenon — the fact that no one has ever been able to move backwards in Time and remain in the past. Merely because your stay in the Dawn Age was unusually long you cannot insist that there is a flaw in my description. The chances of your 19th-century lady being returned to this point in time are, similarly, very slight — millions to one. You could search for her, of course, through the millennia, and, if you were successful, bring her back here. She has no time machine of her own and therefore cannot control her flight into her future."
"They had primitive time machines in those days," Jherek said. "There are many references to them in the literature."
"Possibly, but we have never encountered another from her period. How she got here at all remains a mystery."
"Some other time traveller brought her, perhaps?" Jherek was tentative, glad, at last, to have Brannart's ear. Privately, he thanked Lord Jagged for making it possible. "She once mentioned a hooded figure who came into her room shortly before she found herself in our Age."
"Yet," said Morphail agitatedly, "I have told you repeatedly that I have no record of a time machine materializing during the phase in which you claim she arrived. Since I last spoke with you, Jherek, I checked carefully. You are in error — or she lied to you…"
"She cannot lie to me, as I cannot to her," said Jherek simply. "We are in love, you see."
"Yes, yes! Play whatever games amuse you, Jherek. Carnelian, but not at the expense of Brannart Morphail."
"Ah, my wrinkled wonder-worker can you not bring yourself to display a little more generosity towards our venturesome Jherek? Who else among us would dare the descent into Dawn Age emotions?"
"I would," said Werther de Goethe, no longer in the distance. "And with a better understanding of what I was doing, I would hope."
"But your moods are dark moods, Werther," said Lord Jagged kindly. "They do not entertain as much as Jherek's!"
"I do not care what the majority thinks," Werther told him. "A more select group of people, I am told, think rather more of my explorations. Jherek has hardly touched on 'sin' at all!"
"I could not understand it, vainglorious Werther, even when you explained it," Jherek apologized. "I have tried, particularly since it is an idea which my Mrs. Underwood shared with you."
"Tried," said Werther contemptuously, "and failed. I have not. Ask Mistress Christia."
"She told me. I was very admiring. She will confirm —"
"Did you envy me?" A light of hope brightened Werther's doomy eye.
"Of course I did."
Werther smiled. He sighed with satisfaction. Magnanimously he laid a hand upon Jherek's arm. "Come to my tower some day. I will try to help you understand the nature of sin."
"You are kind, Werther."
"I seek only to enlighten, Jherek."
"You will find it difficult, that particular task," said Brannart Morphail spitefully. "Improve his manners, Werther, and I, for one, will be eternally grateful to you."
Jherek laughed. "Brannart, are you not in danger of taking your 'anger' too far?" He made a movement towards the scientist, who raised a six-fingered hand.
"No further petitions, please. Find your own time machine, if you want one. Persist in the delusion that your Dawn Age woman will return, if you wish. But do not, I beg you Jherek, involve me any further. Your ignorance is irritating and since you refuse the truth, then I'll have no more of you. I have my work." He paused. "If, of course, you were to bring me back the time machine you lost, then I might spare you a few moments." And, chuckling, he began to return to his laboratories.