Michael Moorcock
The Time Dweller
Tales of other worlds, other dimensions - strangely beautiful with rich surrealistic landscapes. Tales of doom, despair, horror, of dazzling invention and inspired genius. Including:
ESCAPE FROM EVENING: one man finds that there is only one, ironical escape in a sad dying world.
THE MOUNTAIN: the two last men on earth search for the last woman.
THE GOLDEN BARGE: what did a single murder matter when the golden barge sailed slowly onwards?
CONSUMING PASSION: a tale of a pyromaniac with a chilling difference.
THE PLEASURE GARDEN OF FELIPE GITTARIUS: what was a Roman doing in Berlin; found strangled in a garden of strange living plants?
THE TIME DWELLER
DUSK HAD COME to the universe, albeit the small universe inhabited by Man. The sun of Earth had dimmed, the moon had retreated and salt clogged the sluggish oceans, filled the rivers that toiled slowly between white, crystalline banks, beneath darkened, moody skies that slumbered in eternal evening.
Of course, in the sun's long life this stage was merely one interlude. In perhaps a few thousand years, it would flare to full splendour again. But for the meantime it kept its light in close rein, grumbling in its mighty depths and preparing itself for the next step in its evolution.
It had taken time in its fading and those few creatures who had remained on its planets had managed to adapt. Among them was Man, indefatigable; undeserving, really, considering the lengths he had gone to, in previous epochs, to dispose of himself. But here he was, in his small universe consisting of one planet without even the satellite which had slid away into space long since and, in its passing, left legends on his lips.
Brown clouds, brown light, brown rocks and brown ocean flecked with white. A pale rider on a pale beast thumping along the shore, the dry taste of ocean salt in his mouth, the stink of a dead oozer in his nostrils.
His name was the Scar-faced Brooder, son of the Sleepyeyed Smiler, his father and the Pinch-cheeked Worrier, his mother. The seal-beast he rode was called Urge. Its glossy coat was still sleek with the salt-rain that had recently ceased, its snout pointed eagerly forward and its two strong leg-fins thwacked the encrusted shore as it galloped along, dragging its razor-edged tail with scant effort. The Scar-faced Brooder was supported on his steed's sloping back by a built-up saddle of polished silicon that flashed whenever it reflected the saltpatches studding the ground like worn teeth. In his head, held at its butt by a stirrup grip, was his long gun, the piercer with an everlasting ruby as its life. He was dressed in sealskin dyed in sombre rust-red and dark yellow.
Behind him, the Scar-faced Brooder heard the sound of another rider, one whom he had tried to avoid since morning.
Now, as evening quietly flowed brown and misty into black night, she still followed, He turned his calm face to look, his mouth tight and white as the scar which rose from its corner to follow his left cheek-bone. She was in the distance, still, but gaining.
He increased his speed.
Brown clouds boiled low like foam across the dark sand of the flat, and their seals slapped loudly over the damp shore as she neared him.
He came to a pool of salt-thick water and Urge splashed into it. It was warm. Still she followed him, even into the water, so that he turned his steed and waited, half-trembling, until she rode up, a tall, well-formed woman with light brown hair long and loose in the breeze.
'Dearest Tall Laugher,' he told his sister,' for me there is no amusement in this game.'
Frowning, she smiled.
He pressed his point, disturbed, his calm face earnest in the fading brown light that was all the clouds would let pass.
'I wish to ride alone.'
'Where would you go, alone, when together we might be carried to more exotic adventure?'
He paused, unwilling and unable to answer.
'Will you come back?'
'I would prefer not to,'
A cold, silent wind began to buffet them as it came in suddenly from the sea. Urge moved nervously.
'You fear what the Chronarch might do?'
'The Chronarch has no love for me - but neither has he hatred. He would prefer me gone from Lanjis Liho, to cross the great salt plains of the west and seek my fortune in the land of fronds. He would not trust me with a small part of the Future, as you know, nor give a fraction of the Past into my safekeeping. I go to shape my own destiny!'
'So - you sulk!' she cried as the wind began to mewl.' You sulk because the Chronarch delegates no honours. Meanwhile, your loving sister aches and is miserable.'
'Marry the Big-brained Boaster! He has trust of Past and Future both!'
He forced his restless seal-beast through the thick water and into the night. As it moved, he reached into the saddle sheath and took out his torch to light his way. He depressed its grip and it blazed out, illuminating the surrounding beach for several yards around. Turning, he saw her for a moment in the circle of light, motionless, her eyes aghast as if he had betrayed her.
Oh, I am lonely now, he thought, as the wind blew cold and strong against his body.
He headed inland, over the salt-rocks, towards the west. He rode all night until his eyes were heavy with tiredness, but still he rode, away from Lanjis Liho where Chronarch, Lord of Time, ruled past and present and watched the future come, away from family, home and city, his heart racked with the strain of the breaking, his mind fevered fire and his body all stiff from the demands he made of it.
Into the night, into the west, with his torch burning in his saddle and loyal Urge responding to his affectionate whispering. To the west, until dawn came slowly up from behind him and covered the barren land with soft light.
A little further through the morning he heard a sound as of cloth flapping in the wind and when he turned his head he saw a green tent pitched beside a shallow crevasse, its front flap dancing. He readied his long piercer and halted Urge.
Drawn out, perhaps, by the noise of the seal-beast's movement, a man's head poked from the tent like a tortoise emerging from the recesses of its shell. He had a beak of a nose and a fish-like pecker of a mouth, his large eyes were heavy-lidded and a tight-fitting hood hid hair and neck.
'Aha,' said the Scar-faced Brooder in recognition.
'Hmm,' said the Hooknosed Wanderer, also recognizing the mounted man confronting him. 'You are some distance from Lanjis Liho. Where are you bound?'
'For the land of fronds.'
He resheathed his piercer and clambered down from the high saddle. He passed the tent, its occupant's head craning round to follow him and stared into the crevasse. It had been widened and deepened by human tools, revealing pieces of ancient wreckage.' What's this?'
'Nothing but the remains of a crashed spaceship,' replied the Hooknosed Wanderer in such obvious disappointment that he could not have been lying. ' My metal diviner found it and I had hoped for a capsule with books or film.'
'There were never many of those. I'd say they had all been gathered by now.'
'That's my belief, too, but one hopes. Have you breakfasted?'
'No. Thank you.'
The hooded head withdrew into the tent and a thin hand held back the flap. The Scar-faced Brooder bent and entered the cluttered tent. There was a great deal of equipment therein; the Hooknosed Wanderer's livelihood, for he sustained himself by bartering some of the objects he found with his metal diviner and other instruments.
'Apparently, you have no riding animal,' said the Scar-faced Brooder as he sat down and crossed his legs between a soft bundle and an angular statuette of steel and concrete.
'It was necessary to abandon her when my water was exhausted and I could find none to replace it. That is why I was heading for the sea. I am exceedingly thirsty, am suffering from salt-deficiency since I have no liking for the salt which grows in these parts.'