The Time Traveler's Almanac (112 page)

“You and your sort, you travel everywhere. Even beyond the woods. You know things.”

The djinneya flashed her toothy smile. “That we do.”

“I would like to know the nature of time,” Augusta said. “I want to know why time can’t be measured properly here, and why everything moves around.”

The djinneya laughed. “Your kind doesn’t want to know about those things. You can’t bear it.”

“But I do. I want to know.”

The djinneya raised her thin eyebrows. “Normally, you are tedious creatures,” she said. “You only want trivial things. Is that person dead yet? Does this person still love that person? What did they wear at yesterday’s party? I know things that could destroy worlds, and all you wish to know is if Karhu from Jumala is still unmarried.” She scratched her chin. “I believe this is the first time one of your sort has asked me a good question. It’s an expensive one, but I shall give you the answer. If you really are sure.”

“I have to know,” said Augusta. “What is the nature of the world?”

The djinneya smiled with both rows of teeth. “Which one?”

*   *   *

Augusta woke up by the writing desk. The hangover throbbed behind her temples. She had fallen asleep with her head on an enormous stack of papers. She peered at it, leafing through the ones at the top.
There are eight worlds,
the first one said.
They lie side by side, in degrees of perfection. This world is the most perfect one.
Below these lines, written in a different ink, was:
There is one single world, divided into three levels which are partitioned off from each other by greased membranes.
Then in red ink:
There are two worlds and they overlap. The first is the land of Day, which belongs to the humans. The second is the land of Twilight, which belongs to the free folk, and of which the woods is a little backwater part. Both lands must obey Time, but the Twilight is ruled by the Heart, whereas the Day is ruled by Thought.
At the bottom of the page, large block letters proclaimed:
ALL OF THIS IS TRUE.

It dawned on Augusta that she remembered very clearly. The endless parties, in detail. The finding of the corpse, the short periods of clarity, the notes. The djinneya bending down to whisper in her ear.

*   *   *

A sharp yellow light stung Augusta’s eyes. She was sitting at her writing desk in a very small room with wooden walls. A narrow bed with tattered sheets filled the rest of the space. The writing desk stood beneath a window. On the other side of the glass, the woods bathed in light.

There was a door next to the bed. Augusta opened it, finding herself in a narrow hallway with another door at the end. A full-length mirror hung on the opposite wall. It showed a woman dressed in what had once been a blue surtout and knee pants. The fabrics were heavily stained with dirt and greenish mold and in some places worn through. Concentric rings of sweat radiated from the armpits. The shirt front was stiff with red and brown stains. Augusta touched her face. White powder lay in cracked layers along her nose and cheeks. Deep lines ran between her nose and mouth; more lines spread from the corners of her eyes. A golden chain hung from her breast pocket. She pulled on it, swinging the locket into her hand. It was ticking in a steady rhythm.

*   *   *

Augusta opened the other door and stepped out onto a landing. An unbearably bright light flooded over her. She backed into the hallway again, slamming the door.

“I told you. Your kind can’t bear that question.”

The djinneya stood behind her in the hallway, shoulders and head hunched under the low ceiling.

“What did you do?” Augusta said.

“What did
I
do? No. What did
you
do, Augusta Prima?” She patted Augusta’s shoulder. “It started even before you invited me, Augusta Prima. You tried to measure time in a land that doesn’t
want
time. You tried to map a floating country.”

The djinneya smiled. “The woods spit you out, Augusta. Now you’re in the land that measures time and draws maps.”

Augusta gripped the hand on her shoulder. “I want to go home. You have to take me home again.”

“So soon? Well. All you have to do is forget what you have learned.” The djinneya squeezed past Augusta and stepped out onto the porch, where she stretched to her full height with a sigh.

“Goodbye, Augusta,” she said over her shoulder. “And do try to hurry if you want to make it back. You’re not getting any younger.”

LIFE TRAP

Barrington J. Bayley

Barrington J. Bayley was born in Birmingham, England, and educated in Newport, Shropshire. He worked a number of jobs before joining the Royal Air Force in 1955. In the 1960s, Bayley became friends with Michael Moorcock, who described himself as “the dumb one in the partnership,” and joined science fiction’s New Wave movement. His short stories appeared regularly in Moorcock’s
New Worlds
magazine and then later in various
New Worlds
paperback anthologies. His first book,
The Star Virus,
was followed by more than a dozen other novels; his downbeat, gloomy approach to novel writing has been cited as influential on the likes of M. John Harrison, Bruce Sterling, and Iain M. Banks. His story “Life Trap” was first published in the collection
The Seed of Evil
in 1979.

Although we of the Temple of Mysteries have devoted our energies to the pursuit of life’s secrets, it has never been guaranteed that what we may learn will be in any way pleasant, or conducive to our peace of mind. What becomes known cannot be made unknown, until death intervenes, and all seekers after hidden knowledge run the risk of finding that ignorance was after all the happier state.

The experiment was conducted at midnight, this being the hour when the subject, by his own account, customarily knows greatest clarity of mind. This subject was in fact my good friend Marcus, Aspirant of the Third Grade of the Arcanum – the highest rank our hierarchy affords, entitling him, when the occasion arises, to wear the mantle of High Priest. The mixture had been prepared earlier in the day, and was a combination of ether, poppy, a certain mushroom, and other consciousness-altering drugs, all substances which, when taken singly or in various simpler compounds, produced effects already well known to us from our years of investigative labour. Never before, however, had we designed a concoction for so ambitious or so hazardous a purpose: to take the mind, while still fully conscious, beyond the point of death, and after an interval to return it to the living world.

Vainly I had begged Marcus to be less precipitous; to test the compound beforehand, possibly using partial samples on a candidate acolyte. But Marcus, adamant that nothing less than the full dose would be effective, consented only to test it on a dog belonging to our drug expert, Lucius the apothecary. When forced to inhale the fumes the animal became rigid and appeared to be dead for the space of about an hour. After this it quickly recovered, but for a further hour it showed some nervousness, barking and cringing when anyone came near. Eventually this, too, wore off, and Marcus announced that the symptoms were as would be expected.

On the appointed night Marcus and I were alone in the Temple, the others having left at Marcus’s own request. In the changing room I helped him into a robe of crisp clean linen on which the emblem of the Temple was sewn. Then, for a period, we sat together, while the water-clock dripped away the moments. We said little, for all aspects of the enterprise had already been thoroughly discussed.

The pan of the clock began to tremble. “Soon we may know the truth,” Marcus said with a smile.

“Or I shall lose a friend,” I replied.

Just then the balance tipped and the water-clock chimed the hour of midnight. We both rose.

I accompanied Marcus to the inner sanctum. As we went down the short corridor, flanked by two pillars, which leads to the door of the adytum, the possibility that I might be seeing him alive for the last time suddenly weighed heavily on me, but I tried to show no emotion. I opened the heavy oak door, whose edges are trimmed with lambswool so as to shut out extraneous noises, and we entered.

I looked around to ensure that everything was in place and the surroundings harmonious. For us, the inner sanctum serves the same function in our activities as the preliminary ritual of donning ceremonial garb: to help calm the mind and divert it from trivial thought. Hence everything is arranged to invoke the feeling of departure from the mundane. The room is oval in shape and painted in restful hues. On the walls are mandalas and one or two specially selected paintings. Earlier I had placed a vase of peonies on the small table of polished walnut.

The nostrum had already been left in a crucible over the brazier. While Marcus reclined himself on the couch I moved the brazier closer, so he would gain the direct benefit of the vapours, and lit the oil-soaked charcoal with a taper. Quickly the brazier began to blaze and the nostrum to bubble.

With no further glance at Marcus, I left.

*   *   *

The Temple of Mysteries subscribes to none of the traditional doctrines, since all of these are in varying degrees erroneous or at best blur the distinction between what is truly known and what is merely deduced or speculated upon. Our approach, once we have formulated an area of ignorance, is to try to gain the truth first-hand.

On the subject of what follows death, there are many proferred answers. The most pragmatic, of course, is that death is simply extinction. But most schools of thought claim some kind of survival, either in a different condition – in a spiritual realm or else by way of rebirth into another body – or actually in the same condition. The latter version, the bleakest of theories of this kind, represents time as a circle and says that following death we are born again into the same life as before, to repeat everything that has happened. Then again there is the doctrine that death means the end of individual consciousness, but that the mind is absorbed into a universal consciousness.

While sitting by myself in the changing room I reviewed these ideas as a means of taking my mind off Marcus. Close to an hour had passed, for the pan of the water-clock was again almost full, when I heard a hoarse shout from the inner sanctum, followed by the thud of falling furniture.

In seconds I had gained the corridor. As I did so the oak door flew open and Marcus staggered forth, his face grey. I rushed to assist him; he all but collapsed against me. His eyes, I noticed, were stricken and not glazed, as though he had seen something that horrified him.

Through the door, I saw that both the couch and the walnut table had been overturned. The brazier still glowed; but only a black stain on the crucible recorded the presence of the nostrum, whose fragrance yet drifted on the air.

I helped Marcus to the changing room and sat him down. He begged for wine. Though apprehensive of what its effect might be on top of so many drugs, I took a flask from the cupboard, uncorked it and poured him a goblet. He gulped it greedily, at which a little colour came to his cheeks.

“I shall be all right,” he said in answer to my solicitations. “Just give me a minute or so to recover.”

I stood by while he slumped in the chair, breathing heavily. At length I could forbear no longer. What, I enquired, had been the outcome of the experiment? Had it been successful? He groaned, and in sombre tones told me that it had; indeed (his voice fell to a mutter) the whole secret of death had been revealed to him. “Do not ask me to reveal this secret,” he said. “Better not to know.”

Astonished, I reminded him of the rule of our order forbidding any member to withhold from his brothers anything he has learned as a result of his work in the Temple, and again I eagerly pressed him to relate his new knowledge. He nodded resignedly and asked for more wine. Then, uttering a deep sigh, he related what is essentially the following.

*   *   *

Death (he said) is reversal. Reversal of consciousness, and reversal of time.

What do I mean by this? I will take consciousness first, for that is the first thing to be reversed. As we are now, our consciousness is within our bodies. I perceive you through my eyes, and within my brain I derive, through my senses, a picture of the outside world. Of myself I have no direct perception. I know myself only indirectly, through my relations with others, or through beholding myself in a mirror.

After death all this changes. Consciousness remains; but it is consciousness external to one’s body. It becomes an objective consciousness, similar to experiences of ecstasy we have had accounts of, where one sees oneself from outside. One watches while one’s body is laid out. One is present when it is placed on a bier and, accompanied by one’s friends and relatives, carried to the grave.

Then one seems to be present in the grave, watching the cast-off body decay for several months. From this there is no escape, for one’s consciousness is always where one’s body is. This, you might think, is a harrowing experience. But wait.

The reason why one becomes conscious of one’s dead body is that consciousness has momentum and, for a spell, coasts forward through time. But after a while the second reversal takes place.
Time reverses.

(Emptying his goblet, Marcus reached for the flask, ignoring my anxious glance in that direction.) Time reverses. Do you understand me? Time runs backwards. Death truly is the end of life, but only in the sense that a road ends in a particular place. After that one turns round and retraces one’s steps. One finds oneself watching as one’s corpse slowly mends, is taken up from the ground, is carried home, and comes to life. So one’s life resumes, from death to birth. Reversed time. Reversed consciousness.

Eventually birth must come again. The shock of this is like the shock of death, and indeed it is, for this reversed life, the same as death. And again one’s consciousness coasts past it, but made internal now, living as a shrinking foetus until time again reverses itself and the foetus expands again, and one is born, a new babe, seeing the world through the senses as before.