City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis (8 page)

“And if no coincidence will stretch that far?”

A strange and haunted look came onto his face. “Without the strong foundation of cause and effect to sustain oneself, one fades. One becomes a paradox, an apparition, and then a ghost, a shadow, a whisper, a memory, a forgotten dream, and eventually… nothing.”

He shook his head and opened up the door, “No more. You must go in; you know where the museum is. Wait there.”

“For what?”

“To see if you will change your mind.”

“Lee, I'm scared.”

“Then kiss me. But you still must go in.”

The corridor was tall and dark, and Catherine walked down the hall alone. To either side, moonlight glanced off standing racks of armor, displays of weapons and coats of arms, grim portraits, tall vases, and the polished wood of the banister.

She climbed the sweeping stair one hesitant step at a time, flinching at the echoes of her footsteps, staring up at the glitter of moonlight amidst the crystals of a darkened chandelier.  Then she walked down a hallway carpeted in plush red, until she came to the tall doors leading into the library.

The doors opened with a whisper of hinges.

To either hand, rows on rows and shelves on shelves of books rose up in the moonlit gloom. Wheeled ladders clung to high shelves. Overhead, balconies led to even higher shelves lost in the high-vaulted darkness.

At the far end of the room, windows two stories tall shimmered in the moon, their diamond-shaped panes embracing starlit pines beyond. The slanting silver light fell along the long table which stretched from door to window.

To either side of the tall windows, glass cabinets and shelves held old swords, busts and pottery, racks of ancient coins, stone arrowheads, strange rusted shapes of metal. Standing to either side of these cases, near doorways opening left and right, were manikins, garbed in embroidered jackets, faded with archaic dust, or wearing lace point dresses from another age. One manikin was outfitted in scale mail, plumed helm atop, with hoplon and tall spear nearby; another wore the once-bright uniform of Napoleon’s Hussars, a rusted sabre dangling at its side.

Catherine came slowly forward, her footsteps silent on the carpet. The smell of old books and old leather was around her. She pulled her fiancée’s long buff coat, which she still wore, more closely around herself, and she shivered.

There seemed to be an extra manikin standing near the museum, one dressed in a long vestment of metallic pale fabric, whose color the dim light did not reveal.

Catherine stopped. The woman in the metallic dress turned, and shimmers rippled up and down her dress front. Her face was thickened and lined with age, her features overpainted with makeup which could not hide the sagging lines of dull bitterness beneath.

Her hair was like a young woman's hair, lustrous and piled in intricate shining folds. It was neither dyed, nor was it a wig, it looked like real hair somehow made to look young by some art or method unknown to Catherine.

Next to the other woman's ears hovered two small ornaments, like earrings, except that they were not attached by any means Catherine could see. As the older woman turned her head, the floating ornaments kept station, turning as she turned.

“Mother?” Catherine asked.

“I hadn't remembered that I said that when I first saw myself. I suppose I look that old to you; pain ages a person, you know. Pain and disappointment.”

The older woman looked carefully at Catherine. She whispered to herself, “I could never have been so young and innocent…”

Catherine said in a tense, hollow voice, “You are my future self.”

“The family picks their wedding nights to bring their prospective brides to see themselves. It's the one date no one ever forgets.” Sarcasm edged her tone.

Catherine stiffened. Her stomach felt empty. “I don't think I want to hear what you're here to say.”

“No, you don't. I've come to tell you not to marry Lee.” The old woman's eyes narrowed, glistening with cynical wisdom. “You don't want to live through the fights, the reconciliations, the false hopes, the betrayals, the divorce. Just the bother of finding a church that permits divorce will leave scars, memories that don't die and won't shut up. ”

“This can't be true! I love him…”

Lines gathered around the corners of the older woman's mouth. “If there wasn't something he loved more, it might have worked. If he had been willing to work at it. Or even given an inch, just half an inch.”

Catherine shook her head. “I don't want to believe it… Wait a minute. If I listen to you, you'll eliminate yourself!”

“That's not how it works, dear. My world will change for the better. Perhaps I'll remember how it would have been, if I want to, like remembering a bad dream. I'm not that different than how I would have been had I not married Lee; I'll survive.” The elder Catherine laughed, a small, sad hiccup. “Of course, that's what he always says. He always thinks his changes will improve things, even when he starts to fade.”

Suddenly, the older woman eyes were glistening with tears. She turned away.

Catherine stood still, not knowing what to do or say. The library loomed dark around her.

The older woman said in a forced tone, “I had forgotten what I looked like, how full of hope I was. How foolish I was. And this place, this library, all those damned things on the wall.” She waved her hands toward the museum shelves.

The older woman turned. “You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you? They can only reach areas of time they know; Lee has to read these books—they're all history, you know—and run his hands over these artifacts to get into the mood to find the time they come from. Otherwise the mirror is just fog. He can't get into the future, unless he can clearly see how it will be.”

“What caused the… the divorce?”

“Come along.”

The older woman turned toward one of the doors and opened it. Rose-red light, as of the dawn, spilled through the open door. On that side of the door, the windows of the little reading room beyond showed twilight. Birdsong rang through the air. On this side of the door, it was midnight, and the windows here showed the same landscape, the same trees and statues, except for the stars floating in the black night.

Catherine stepped into the room. Here was a fire place, several chairs, a small table. The room was filled with rosy shadows. Along the ceiling flickering shadows leaped and flowed, but there was no fire in the grate.

The older woman stepped toward the window, and pointed. “Look.”

Outside, there was a bonfire roaring. Scraps of blackened paper, pages from books, floated and swirled in the boiling clouds. Covers of books cracked and burned in the mass of the fire. There were piles of other books upon the lawn and; a man who looked like Lelantos, except that his hair was white, was tossing books one at a time into the flames. Tears were trailing down his harsh, lined face.

“When is this?” Catherine said, looking out at the future version of Lelantos. The books were not alone. On the lawn next to the pile of unburnt books loomed the wreckage of slashed portraits, broken busts and other artifacts from the collection in the museum.

“Another date I won't forget,” the older woman said. “It is the time he really tried to give it up.”

“Time travel?”

“Lee can't find any future further forward than this. He couldn't imagine himself ever giving it up; he couldn't imagine what the house would look like without all his ancient artifacts cluttering it up. But every time he goes back in time, more paradoxes collect. He gets more forgetful. Once or twice it got so bad he turned insubstantial. That scared him. He went back, and, even though he couldn't touch anything, he managed to undo what he had done, and he was solid when he came back again. I don't mind when he does it for some good reason, like the investments when he plays the market, or to help us during the war—there's going to be a war in a few years, dear—but going back to the Middle Ages to play with Arthur and his knights, or when he's off to Troy to try to save Hector's life… I even think he sneaks off to watch gladiatorial games in Imperial Rome. In fact, I'm sure of it. He's addicted to bloodshed. He went back to watch the battle of Poitiers a dozen times. Once he told me that one of his brothers goes back to Hiroshima just before the atom bomb, and commits terrible crimes, horrid things, rape and torture, just to do them, just because he can get away with it, because all the evidence will be burnt away and no futures depend upon what will come out of it. But I don't think he was talking about a brother. He was talking about himself. He was trying not to smile when he told me. He can't quit. He'll never quit. And one day he'll just evaporate.”

At this point the older woman was openly in tears. Catherine was looking at her in fear and dread.

She thought: Is becoming this old wreck all I have to look forward to?

The older woman clutched her arm. “You've got to promise me you won't marry him! It's not worth it!”

“How can I know I'll be happier if I don't?”

“I've never met a version of us who never married him. Of course not,” her elder self said, wiping her eyes. “Those versions can't get back through time to meet us.” Her makeup had streaked and run, but then, of its own accord, flowed back up her face and corrected itself.

The older woman whispered, "But I can tell you that it can't be worse. There were some happy days in the beginning. Some good times. But they're not worth it. Well?”

Catherine said nothing. 

Outside, the older Lelantos threw another book on the fire.

The older woman said, “I'm warning you not to marry him. You're not going to listen to me, are you? You think you're so smart. You think you can do better. But I warned you.”

Outside, a white-haired man dressed in a uniform of gray and green, with some sort of glowing metallic dots shining on his military collar came walking out of the trees, leaning on a cane. When the older Lelantos raised another book to throw on the fire, the white-haired man raised his walking stick and stepped in the way. Catherine could see that it was yet another version of Lelantos.

“There he is, going to change his mind again!” the older woman screamed. She turned and ran out of the room.

Catherine stepped toward the door to follow.

By the time she reached the door, however, bright angled beams of sunlight were shining into the twilit room behind her. She came forward, blinking. The noon-light was reflected from the polish of the central table.

The museum cases were larger, and there were more manikins, some wearing fabrics and shining substances which Catherine had never seen before. There were woven metals and dresses which slowly pulsed with gentle holographic light. It unnerved her that these futuristic garments were faded, old, and worn.

A man in a dark blue suit was seated at a chair, his back to the table, facing the museum displays. He was dark-haired, handsome, and he wore spectacles. He seemed to be staring out the window with a blank look on his face, occasionally drumming his fingers in mid-air.

The suit had a long, split-tailed coat, vaguely colonial in cut, but pinstripe strands of silvery light slowly and gently flicked back and forth through the fabric as he moved, holographic. There were folds of white lace at his throat, and he wore a single glove.

What she thought at first were spectacles were actually two disks of glass which hovered, without support, on either side of his nose. On the disks little lights were flowing, diagrams and lines of script reflected backwards in the glass. On his right hand was a white silky glove, occasionally he gestured or pointed with it, or flickered his fingers as if he were typing.

She stood and watched this strange man for a long moment.

“You're one of Lee's family, aren't you? I know my older version didn't come back through time herself.”

He started and smiled. The resemblance to Lelantos was quite striking. “Excuse me, I was just playing a game.” He took the hovering circles of glass and slid them into a pocket in the wrist of the glove, which he took off, folded, and slipped into his cummerbund. “And yes, I brought her to see you. I am indeed one of the family!” The assertion seemed to amuse him.

He was staring at her and smiling, with an unsettling look of love and happiness in his eyes.

“What's your name?” Catherine asked.

“Nicholas. Nicholas Asteria.”

“Oh my god!” Catherine put her hands to her mouth, and stood there staring at him, her eyes wide. Then she gave out a breathless, gasping laugh. “I don't believe it! I don't believe it!” She lowered her hands. “Look at how handsome you are!”

He smiled and stood, and gave her a little bow. “You recognize me?”

“I've had the name Nicholas picked out since I was twelve.”

His smile grew broader. “Hello, Mother!” He moved forward and hugged her. Then he stepped back and looked her over, up and down. She wondered if her clothes looked odd and old-fashioned to him. But then he said: “You were really pretty when you were young, weren't you?”

She blushed. It was strange, and a little uncomfortable, but she was pleased nevertheless.

“I brought mother back to speak with you because she asked. But I wanted to speak to you myself.”

Catherine blinked. “Yes?”

“Marry him. Marry Dad. I like being your son.”

“I–I'm glad…”

“I'm not saying this for any selfish reason. I'll still exist if you don't. I'll just be a bastard or some one else's son. But… well, I love you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day.” He pointed toward the window, perhaps to indicate what date it was.

“Well… this is so strange. I don't know you. Is there anything I should know? Do we get along? I mean…” Catherine was at a loss for words.

He shrugged. “We argued a bit, when I grew up. Actually, we argued quite a lot. We even argued this morning, about you coming here to warn you not to get married. But I still would like to have been your son.”

She didn't know what to say.

“I just thought you should know that. Now come. Let me take you back.”

They walked through the library back to the hall. In the windows, flurries of snow blew against the panes. The hall was lit by a sourceless, gentle glow of energy. They entered the dining room. The chandeliers here gleamed with clear and sharp atomic light; the windows showed hundred-colored autumn leaves blowing past in a remorseless wind.