Table Of ContentAn Alien Heat
The Dancers at the End of Time
Book I
Michael Moorcock
Ace Books
Granada edition published 1981
Ace edition / July 1987
Copyright © 1972 by Michael Moorcock.
Cover art by Robert Gould.
ISBN: 0-441-13660-5
Other Books By Michael Moorcock
THE DRAGON IN THE SWORD
THE ETERNAL CHAMPION
THE SILVER WARRIORS
The Elric Saga
ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ
THE SAILOR ON THE SEAS OF FATE
THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF
THE VANISHING TOWER
THE BANE OF THE BLACK SWORD
STORMBRINGER
The Chronicles of Castle Brass
COUNT BRASS
THE CHAMPION OF GARATHORM
THE QUEST FOR TANELORN
The Books of Corum
THE KNIGHT OF THE SWORDS
THE QUEEN OF THE SWORDS
THE KING OF THE SWORDS
THE BULL AND THE SPEAR
THE OAK AND THE RAM
THE SWORD AND THE STALLION
The Dancers at the End of Time
AN ALIEN HEAT
THE HOLLOW LANDS
THE END OF ALL SONGS
LEGENDS FROM THE END OF TIME
Content
Dedication
Hothouse Flowers
Prologue
1 A Conversation With The Iron Orchid
2 A Soirée At The Duke Of Queens
3 A Visitor Who Is Less Than Entertaining
4 Carnelian Conceives A New Affectation
5 A Menagerie Of Time And Space
6 A Pleasing Meeting: The Iron Orchid Devises A Scheme
7 To Steal A Space-Traveller
8 A Promise From Mrs. Amelia Underwood: A Mystery
9 Something Of An Idyll: Something Of A Tragedy
10 The Granting Of Her Heart's Desire
11 The Quest For Bromley
12 The Curious Comings And Goings Of Snoozer Vine
13 The Road To The Gallows: Old Friends In New Guises
14 A Further Conversation With The Iron Orchid
Dedication
FOR
Nik Turner
Dave Brock
Bob Calvert
DikMik
Del Dettmar
Terry Ollis
Simon King & Lemmy of Hawkwind.
Hothouse Flowers
The silver lips of lilies virginal,
The full deep bosom of the enchanted rose
Please less than flowers glass-hid from frosts and snows
For whom an alien heat makes festival.
Theodore Wratislaw
1896
Prologue
The cycle of the Earth (indeed, the universe, if the truth had been known) was
nearing its end and the human race had at last ceased to take itself seriously.
Having inherited millennia of scientific and technological knowledge it used this
knowledge to indulge its richest fantasies to play immense imaginative games, to
relax and create beautiful monstrosities. After all, there was little else left to do.
An earlier age might have been horrified at what it would have judged a waste of
resources, an appalling extravagance in the uses to which materials and energies
were put. An earlier age would have seen the inhabitants of this world as
"decadent" or "amoral," to say the least. But even if these inhabitants were not
conscious of the fact that they lived at the end of time some unconscious
knowledge informed their attitudes and made them lose interest in ideals, creeds,
philosophies and the conflicts to which such things give rise. They found
pleasure in paradox, aesthetics and baroque wit; if they had a philosophy, then it
was a philosophy of taste, of sensuality. Most of the old emotions had atrophied,
meant little to them. They had rivalry without jealousy, affection without lust,
malice without rage, kindness without pity. Their schemes — often grandiose
and perverse — were pursued without obsession and left uncompleted without
regret, for death was rare and life might cease only when Earth herself died.
Yet this particular story is about an obsession which overtook one of these
people, much to his own astonishment. And because he was overtaken by an
obsession that is why we have a story to tell. It is probably the last story in the
annals of the human race and, as it happens, it is not dissimilar to that which
many believe is the first.
What follows, then, is the story of Jherek Carnelian, who did not know the
meaning of morality, and Mrs. Amelia Underwood, who knew everything about
it.
1
A Conversation With The
Iron Orchid
Dressed in various shades of light brown, the Iron Orchid and her son sat
upon a cream-coloured beach of crushed bone. Some distance off a white sea
sparkled and whispered. It was the afternoon.
Between the Iron Orchid and her son, Jherek Carnelian, lay the remains of a
lunch. Spread on a cloth of plain damask were ivory plates containing pale fish,
potatoes, meringue, vanilla ice-cream and, glaring rather dramatically, from the
centre of it all, a lemon.
The Iron Orchid smiled with her amber lips and, reaching for an oyster,
asked: "How do you mean, my love, 'virtuous'?" Her perfect hand, powdered the
very lightest shade of gold, hovered for a second over the oyster and then
withdrew. She used the hand, instead, to cover a small yawn.
Her son stretched on his soft pillows. He, too, felt tired after the exertions of
eating, but dutifully he continued with the subject. "I'm not thoroughly sure what
it means. As you know, most devastating of minerals, most enchanting of
flowers, I have studied the language of the time quite extensively. I must possess
every tape that still exists. It provides considerable amusement. But I cannot
understand every nuance. I found the word in a dictionary and the dictionary told
me it meant acting with 'moral rectitude' or in conformity with 'moral laws' —
'good, just, righteous.' Bewildering!"
He did take an oyster. He slid it into his mouth. He rolled it down his throat.
It had been the Iron Orchid who had discovered oysters and he had been
delighted when she suggested they meet on this beach and eat them. She had
made some champagne to go with them, but they had both agreed that they did
not care for it and had cheerfully returned it to its component atoms.
"However," he continued, "I should like to try it for a bit. It is supposed to
involve 'self-denial' " — he forestalled her question — "which means doing
nothing pleasurable."
"But everything, body of velvet, bones of steel, is pleasurable!"
"True — and there lies our paradox! You see the ancients, mother, divided
their sensations into different groupings — categories of sensations, some of
which they did not find pleasurable, it seems. Or they did find them pleasurable
and therefore were displeased! Oh, dearest Iron Orchid, I can see you are ready
to dismiss the whole thing. And I despair, often, of puzzling out the answer.
Why was one thing considered worth pursuing and another not? But," his
handsome lips curved in a smile, "I shall settle the problem in one way or
another, sooner or later." And he closed his heavy lids.
"Oh, Carnelian!"
She laughed softly and affectionately and stretched across the cloth to slip her
slender hands into his loose robe and stroke his warmth and his blood.
"Oh, my dear! How swift you are! How ripe and rich you are today!"
And he drew himself to his feet and he stepped over the cloth and he laid his
tall body down upon her and he kissed her slowly.
And the sea sighed.
When they awoke, still in each other's arms, it was morning, though no night
had passed. For their own pleasure someone had doubtless been engaged in
rearranging time. It was not important.
Jherek noticed that the sea had turned a deep pink, almost a cerise, and was
clashing dreadfully with the beach, while on the horizon behind him he saw that
two palms and a cliff had disappeared altogether. In their place stood a silver
pagoda, about twelve storeys high and glittering in the morning sun.
Jherek looked to his left and was pleased to see that his aircar (resembling a
steam locomotive of the early 20th century, but of about half the size, in gold,
ebony and rubies) was still where they had left it.
He looked again at the pagoda, craning his neck, for his mother still relaxed
with her head against his shoulder. His mother, too, turned to look as a winged
figure left the roof of the pagoda and flew crazily away towards the east,
swerving and dipping, circling back, narrowly missing the sharp edge of the
pagoda's crest, and at last disappearing.
"Oh," said the Iron Orchid getting to her feet. "It is the Duke of Queens and
his wings. Why will he insist that they are successful?" She waved a vague hand
at the departed duke. "Goodbye. Playing one of his solitary games, again, I
suppose." She looked down at the remains of the lunch and made a face. "I must
clear this away." With a wave of the ring on her left hand she disseminated the
lunch and watched the dust drift away on the air. "Will you be going there, this
evening? To his party?" She moved her slender arm, heavy with brown brocade,
and touched her forehead with her fingertips.
