But a light distracted him, an opal shimmering beyond his breakfast nook, arrival in that receptor which his fine home afforded, linked to the master gate at Pyvrrhn.
A young man materialized there, opal and light and then solidity, a distraught young man.
“Harrh,” the youth said, disregarding the decencies of meeting, and strode forward unasked. “Harrh, is everything all right here?”
Harrh arose from the crystal table even before the shimmer died, beset by that old queasiness of things out of joint. This was Alhir from 390 Since the Gate, an experienced man in the force: he had used a Master Key to come here – had such access, being what he was.
“Alhir,” Harrh said, perplexed. “What’s wrong?”
“You don’t know.” Alhir came as far as the door.
“A cup of tea?” Harrh said. Alhir had been here before. They were friends. There were oases along the course of suns, friendly years, places where houses served as rest-stops. In this too Mhreihrrinn was patient. “I’ve got to tell you—No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’m through. I’ve made up my mind. You can carry that where you’re going. – But if you want the breakfast—”
“There’s been an accident.”
“I don’t want to hear.”
“He got past us.”
“I don’t want to know.” He walked over to the cupboard, took another cup. “Mhreihrrinn’s with the boys down at the beach. You just caught us.” He set the cup down and poured the tea, where Mhreihrrinn had sat. “Won’t you? You’re always welcome here. Mhreihrrinn has no idea what you are. My young friend, she calls you. She doesn’t know. Or she suspects. She’d never say. – Sit down.”
Alhir had strayed aside, where a display case sat along the wall, a lighted case of mementoes, of treasures, of crystal. “Harrh, there was a potsherd here.”
“No,” Harrh said, less and less comfortable. “Just the glasses. I’m quite sure.”
“Harrh, it was very old.”
“No,” he said. “I promised Mhreihrrinn and the boys – I mean it. I’m through. I don’t want to know.”
“It came from Silen. From the digs at the First Gate, Harrh. It was a very valuable piece. You valued it very highly. – You don’t remember.”
“No,” Harrh said, feeling fear thick about him, like a change in atmosphere. “I don’t know of such a piece. I never had such a thing. Check your memory, Alhir.”
“It was from the ruins by the First Gate, don’t you understand?”
And then Alhir did not exist.
Harrh blinked, remembered pouring a cup of tea. But he was sitting in the chair, his breakfast before him.
He poured the tea and drank.
He was sitting on rock, amid the grasses blowing gently in the wind, on a clifftop by the sea.
He was standing there. “Mhreihrrinn,” he said, in the first chill touch of fear.
But that memory faded. He had never had a wife, nor children. He forgot the house as well.
Trees grew and faded.
Rocks moved at random.
The time-menders were in most instances the only ones who survived even a little while.
Wrenched loose from time and with lives rooted in many parts of it, they felt it first and lived it longest, and not a few were trapped in back-time and did not die, but survived the horror of it and begot children who further confounded the time-line.
Time, stretched thin in possibilities, adjusted itself.
He was Harrh.
But he was many possibilities and many names.
* * *
In time none of them mattered.
* * *
He was many names; he lived. He had many bodies; and the souls stained his own.
In the end he remembered nothing at all, except the drive to live.
And the dreams.
And none of the dreams were true.
TRICERATOPS SUMMER
Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick is an American writer of novels and stories who has received the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards for his work. His stories have appeared in Omni, Penthouse, Amazing, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, High Times, New Dimensions, Starlight, Universe, Full Spectrum, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Many have been reprinted in year’s best anthologies, and translated into several foreign languages. His books include In the Drift, an Ace Special; Vacuum Flowers; Griffin’s Egg; Stations of the Tide; The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, a New York Times Notable Book; and Jack Faust. This story was first published by Amazon Shorts in 2005.
The dinosaurs looked all wobbly in the summer heat shimmering up from the pavement. There were about thirty of them, a small herd of what appeared to be Triceratops. They were crossing the road – don’t ask me why – so I downshifted and brought the truck to a halt, and waited.
Waited and watched.
They were interesting creatures, and surprisingly graceful for all their bulk. They picked their way delicately across the road, looking neither to the right nor the left. I was pretty sure I’d correctly identified them by now – they had those three horns on their faces. I used to be a kid. I’d owned the plastic models.
My next-door neighbor, Gretta, who was sitting in the cab next to me with her eyes closed, said, “Why aren’t we moving?”
“Dinosaurs in the road,” I said.
She opened her eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
Then, before I could stop her, she leaned over and honked the horn, three times. Loud.
As one, every Triceratops in the herd froze in its tracks, and swung its head around to face the truck.
I practically fell over laughing.
“What’s so goddamn funny?” Gretta wanted to know. But I could only point and shake my head helplessly, tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks.
It was the frills. They were beyond garish. They were as bright as any circus poster, with red whorls and yellow slashes and electric orange diamonds – too many shapes and colors to catalog, and each one different. They looked like Chinese kites! Like butterflies with six-foot wingspans! Like Las Vegas on acid! And then, under those carnival-bright displays, the most stupid faces imaginable, blinking and gaping like brain-damaged cows. Oh, they were funny, all right, but if you couldn’t see that at a glance, you never were going to.
Gretta was getting fairly steamed. She climbed down out of the cab and slammed the door behind her. At the sound, a couple of the Triceratops pissed themselves with excitement, and the lot shied away a step or two. Then they began huddling a little closer, to see what would happen next.
Gretta hastily climbed back into the cab. “What are those bastards up to now?” she demanded irritably. She seemed to blame me for their behavior. Not that she could say so, considering she was in my truck and her BMW was still in the garage in South Burlington.
“They’re curious,” I said. “Just stand still. Don’t move or make any noise, and after a bit they’ll lose interest and wander off.”
“How do you know? You ever see anything like them before?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I worked on a dairy farm when I was a young fella, thirty, forty years ago, and the behavior seems similar.”
In fact, the Triceratops were already getting bored and starting to wander off again when a battered old Hyundai pulled wildly up beside us, and a skinny young man with the worst-combed hair I’d seen in a long time jumped out. They decided to stay and watch.
The young man came running over to us, arms waving. I leaned out the window. “What’s the problem, son?”