Paths Not Taken

Six - Past Very Much Imperfect

"I appear to be standing in a dead dog," said Tommy Oblivion. "And not in a good way."

The distress in his voice was clear, but I had my own problems. The world had slammed back into focus around me, but my head was still spinning. I was surrounded by darkness and leaning against a rough brick wall. The air was hot and sweaty, but it was the smell that hit me hardest. A thick and ripe organic miasma that hung heavily on the close air, and the stench of smoke and sweat and shit filled my head no matter how much I shook it. I pushed myself away from the wall and made myself study my new surroundings.

Tommy and Suzie and I were standing in a dark narrow alleyway, lit only by a burning human body in a hanging

iron cage. The flames had pretty much died down, flickering sullenly around the blackened^ corpse. The walls of the alley were rough brickwork, stained black with soot, and the ground was packed earth covered with a rich mixture of fresh shit and other appalling detritus. Someone had painted Dagon shall return! on the wall, and pretty recently, by the look of it. Tommy had backed away from what was left of his dead dog and was banging his boots determinedly against the wall. Suzie stared slowly around her, frowning.

"Wherever we are, Taylor, I don't think it's where we were meant to be."

"You mean when we're supposed to be," I growled, simply to be saying something. "Obviously, something's gone wrong."

I headed for the end of the alley and the street noises beyond. There was light up ahead, and the sounds of some kind of civilization. Suzie and Tommy hurried to catch up with me, the filthy ground sucking loudly at their feet. I stopped at the alley mouth, sticking to the shadows, and peered out into the street. Tommy and Suzie crowded in behind me. The street was busy, packed with mostly foot traffic, and if anything, the smell was even worse. There was a roar of constant chatter, intermixed with assorted animal noises, and the occasional crash of horse and oxen-drawn vehicles. We were definitely in the Past, but nowhere near far enough.

The buildings were mostly stone and timber, a mere two or three storeys high; basic blocky structures with a few lingering traces of Roman architecture. What style there was, was mostly Celtic with some Saxon, plus a whole bunch of stuff I didn't recognize. There were no pavements, only two thick streams of human traffic on either side of a deeply churned dirt road. The traffic in the middle wasn't moving much faster, being mostly horse-drawn

wagons, and rough carts pulled by equally rough people. Hulking covered wagons groaned along, their heavy wooden wheels sinking deeply into the muddy road. There was mud and shit and filth everywhere, and flies hung in thick clouds on the smoky air. Now and again a better-dressed person would come riding through on a caparisoned horse, driving everyone else out of the way. And finally, a hunchbacked drover came along, riding a mule and driving a herd of miniature mammoths. They were about a foot or so high, cheeping cheerfully as they ploughed through the mud.

"Aw, cute," said Suzie, unexpectedly. Tommy and I both looked at her, and she stared us down with great dignity.

We looked out into the street again. "Judging by the architecture, I'd say we've ended up somewhen in the sixth century," said Tommy. "The Roman Empire has declined and fallen, and the dominant Celts are fighting a war against invading Saxons." Suzie and I looked at him, and he bristled. "I've read a lot about this period. It's really very interesting."

"I don't care if it's downright fascinating, we shouldn't be here," said Suzie. "We're at least five hundred years short of when we were supposed to arrive. Somebody screwed up."

"It can't be a mistake," said Tommy. "Old Father Time doesn't make mistakes. In fact, he is famous for not making mistakes."

"He didn't," I said. "Somebody else interfered."

Rage blinded me for a moment, and I hit out at the wall beside me, hurting my hand on the solid brick and not caring, almost relishing the pain. I tried to say something, but the anger flooding through me clenched my teeth, and it came out as a growl. Tommy started to back away. The rage pulsed in my gut like a red-hot coal, bending me over till I was glaring at the filthy ground. Hot, helpless tears burned in my eyes, and I hit out at the wall again.

Suzie moved in close beside me, murmuring quiet words, bringing me back with her calm, steady presence. I was breathing hard and rough, as though I'd just been hit; but Suzie's reassuring presence slowly got through to me, and I straightened up again. I pushed the anger into the back of my head, to be released later, when I had someone to take it out on. I took a deep breath and nodded my thanks to Suzie. She nodded back. She understood.

I looked down the alley at Tommy, who stared back uncertainly. "It's all right," I said, in my best reasonable voice. "I got a little upset there, for a moment, but I'm all right now."

"Of course you are," said Tommy, moving slowly and somewhat reluctantly forward to join me. "It's just that you looked ... very different there, for a moment, old thing. I'd never seen you look like that. Like you could kill the whole world and not give a damn."

I forced a short laugh. "You've been taking my legend far too seriously."

Tommy stared at me dubiously, then looked out at the street scene again. "Well, if nothing else, the sixth-century Nightside does seem rather more peaceful than the one we're used to."

Even as he was saying that, one hand gesturing at the slow-moving traffic, something huge and crooked, wrapped in flapping rags and long strings of cured entrails, came stalking down the middle of the road on tall stilt legs, towering over everything else. It had a head like a horse's skull, and long many-jointed arms that ended in vicious claws. It lurched down the street at some speed, cawing like a great bird, and everyone else hurried to get out of its way. One oxen-pulled wagon reacted too slowly, and the creature stamped it into the dirt road with one heavy leg. The wagon exploded under the pressure, throwing the driver forward, and the creature stamped on him, too, crushing him into bloody pulp. The oxen ran free,

bellowing with fear, while the creature continued uncar-ingly on its way. A pack of child-sized bipedal rats rushed out of the alley mouth opposite us and swarmed all over the dead driver. They devoured the bloody mush with glee, stuffing it into their squeaking mouths with disturbingly human hands. In a matter of moments, there was nothing left of the driver but his bones, which the rats tidily gathered up and took with them as they hurried back into their alley mouth.

No-one paid any attention. The traffic kept moving, perhaps a little more urgently than it had before. On either side of the filthy road, men and women and others kept their heads down and pressed on, concerned only with their own business. Coming up the street from the other direction was a huge, flaming presence, taller than the surrounding buildings, burning so brightly it was hard to see what if anything was at the heart of the flames. It drifted through the crowds, crackling and smoking, but keeping its heat to itself. A giant millipede with a headful of snapping mouths scurried past, clinging to the sides of buildings. And a great ball of compacted maggots rolled sluggishly down the middle of the road, sucking up useful leavings from the churned-up mud. I looked at Tommy.

"Peaceful. Right. Come on, Tommy, you should know the Nightside is never peaceful for long."

"I take it we are still in the Nightside?" Suzie said suddenly. "I mean, for all we know this kind of shit is normal in the sixth century."

I pointed up at the night sky. Even through the drifting smoke, the crowded constellations of brilliant stars still burned like diamonds in the dark, and the oversized full moon looked down like a huge unblinking eye.

"All right," said Suzie. "Let's be logical about this. Who is there, powerful enough to intercept a journey through Time? Powerful enough to override Old Father Time himself

and send us here? That's got to be a pretty short list."

"Just the one," I said, feeling the anger pulse briefly again. "Lilith. Dear Mother. I should have known she'd be watching me. I think perhaps ... she's always watching me now."

"Okay," said Tommy. "That is seriously creepy. And I thought my family was weird ... Why would Lilith want us here, in the sixth century?"

"To keep us away from the creation of the Nightside," said Suzie. "Must be something there she doesn't want us to see. Something we could use against her."

"Then why not block our trip completely?" I said. "No, I think she wanted us here. Now. She wanted me to see the Nightside as it was, before restrictions and controls and the Authorities moved it away from what she intended it to be. The only place on Earth completely free from the pressures of Heaven and Hell."

"Does Lilith exist here, now?" said Suzie.

"No. She would have been banished to Limbo by this time. I think."

"You think?" said Tommy. "I really think this is something you need to be bloody certain about, old boy, before we take another step! I demand to know exactly what the situation is before I'll even leave this alley!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Shame on you, Tommy Oblivion. I thought you existentialists didn't believe in certainties?"

"There is a time and a place for everything," said Tommy, with great dignity. "I vote for going home. Who else votes for going home?"

"Keep the noise down," said Suzie, and Tommy hushed immediately.

"We can't learn anything useful hiding in this alley," I said. "We need to get out and around, talk to people. Find out exactly when this is. I have a sneaking suspicion I know why Lilith chose the sixth century. This is, after all,

the time of King Arthur and Merlin, when old gods and stranger powers still walked openly in the Nightside."

"Of course!" said Tommy, brightening up immediately. "Arthur and Camelot! The knights of the Round Table! The most heroic and romantic time in history!"

"Only if you're into poverty, bad food, and body lice," said Suzie. "You're thinking of the mediaeval fantasies about Arthur, mostly written long after the fact by French aristos, who added all the knights in armour and damsels in distress. The real Arthur was only a barbarian warlord whose main innovation was using massed cavalry against the Saxons. This is a hard, dark, and brutal age, when most people lived short, squalid, and very hard-working lives, and the only people with a guaranteed future were the slaves." She stopped, as she realised Tommy and I were staring at her. "All right, I saw a documentary, okay? I like documentaries. Anyone here have a problem with that?"

"Perish the thought," I said. "If this really is the time of Camelot, I doubt they'd let the likes of us in anyway. What we have to find is a way out of here, and back in Time to where we need to be."

"We can't contact Old Father Time," said Tommy. "He really was very clear about that, remember? In fact, we have to face the extremely real possibility that we could be stranded here. Forever. I mean, who is there in this time with the sheer power necessary to send people through Time? One way or the other?"

"Merlin," I said. "The most powerful sorcerer of all. He still has his heart here, which means he's in his prime. Yes ... Merlin Satanspawn could send us any damn when he wanted to."

"If we could persuade him," said Suzie. "Right now, he doesn't know us from a hole in the ground. He has no reason to help us. What could we offer him in return for his services?"

"News of the future," I said. "Like, for example, that someone is going to steal his heart."

"Hold everything," Suzie said immediately. "We're not supposed to make changes, remember?"

'Telling him things we know are going to happen would only help to reinforce our Present," I said. "We don't actually have to tell him about the witch Nimue."

"Does that mean we get to go to Camelot after all?" Tommy said hopefully. "I've read all the books and seen all the films. I love those stories! There must be something to the legends, or they wouldn't have survived so long."

"Camelot is a long way from the Nightside," I said. "Geographically and spiritually. If there really are knights of the Round Table, they wouldn't come to a place like this on a bet. Merlin, however, probably feels right at home here. I think we need to visit the Londinium Club, the oldest private members' club in the world. Merlin used to be a Member."

"You're packed with useful information, aren't you?" said Suzie.

I grinned. "How do you think I've stayed alive this long?"

And so we left the safety of the alleyway, and stepped out into the street. The air was thick with greasy smoke from all the burning torches in their iron holders, standing in for the hot neon of our time. We all braced ourselves, ready to react swiftly and violently if we were recognised and set on as obvious strangers who didn't belong, but no-one paid us any attention at all. Old Father Time's glamour was clearly working, making us look like everyone else. And the roar of voices around us sounded like perfectly normal colloquial English, even though it patently wasn't.

We barged through the crowds, showing them the same lack of respect they showed us. We didn't want to stand out. The street was packed with people, though a large

percentage of them weren't human. There were elves in long, shimmering gowns, arrogant and disdainful. Demons out of Hell, scarlet imps with stubby horns and lashing tails, laughing nastily at things only they would find funny. A pack of tall bipedal lizards stalked through the crowd, wearing cured leather hides and brightly coloured scarves. The back of their jackets bore the legend Dagon Rules spelled out in silver studs. And even the humans were a pretty mixed bunch, representing races and cultures from all across the sixth-century world: Chinese, Indians, Persians, Romans, and Turks. It seemed like even here, the Nightside was still the place to be, to buy and sell all the dubious delights you couldn't get anywhere else. There were even a few obvious anomalies, people and others who clearly didn't belong in the sixth century. Since they didn't have Old Father Time's protecting glamour, they were probably dimensional travelers, or people who'd arrived accidentally, via Timeslips.

"Why are all the people here so much shorter, and well... ill-looking?" said Tommy.

"Poor diet," Suzie said briskly. "Vitamin deficiencies, never enough meat, or the money to buy it when there was. Plus no real medicines, and hard grinding work every day of your life, until finally you dropped in your tracks. I thought you said you were an expert on this period?"

"Only on the bits that interested me," Tommy admitted. "The romantic bits."

We carried on, sticking very close together. Everyone seemed to be carrying some kind of weapon. The smell was still appalling, and there was shit everywhere. There was no way of avoiding it, so we strode through it and tried not to think about the condition of our shoes. There were no drains, never mind sewers. And then everyone ducked as the whole street shook, and a massive dragon roared by overhead, like a low-flying jumbo jet. Most people didn't

even look up. Just business as usual, in the sixth-century Nightside. I didn't like it. The streets seemed much darker here, without the usual gaudy neon. There were the torches, and oil-lamps, lanterns, foxfire moss, and more burning bodies in their hanging iron cages, but still the night seemed darker here, the shadows deeper.

There was none of the passion, none of the sardonic joie de vivre, of my time. Most of the people around us seemed to slouch along, as though afraid of being noticed. Perhaps with good reason. Things that weren't at all human lurked watchfully in most of the alley mouths we passed. I looked down one and saw a circle of possessed babies, fiery halos burning over their soft heads, drawing complex mathematical figures in the dirt at their feet and laughing in coarse adult voices. I looked away before they could notice me. A hooded monk stepped out into the road, gesturing angrily for the traffic to get out of his way. He disappeared abruptly as a hidden hole opened up beneath his feet and swallowed him up before he even had time to scream. Across the road, a dead woman in brightly coloured silks caught my eye and bumped a hip suggestively. Her eyes were very bright in her cracked grey face. No. I really didn't like this Nightside.

The dead woman was fronting a brothel, where women of all kinds, and some things that were only nominally female, called out to the passing trade with loud, carrying voices, coarse and raucous. Some of them were offering services even I hadn't heard of. I didn't feel inclined to investigate. Tommy was staring straight ahead and actually blushing, so of course the whores concentrated on him. He hunched his shoulders, and tried to pretend he wasn't there, which should have been easy enough for an existentialist. Next door to the brothel was a dark and spooky little shop selling reliquaries-the bones of saints, fragments of the True Cross, and the like. Special offer that week was

apparently the skull of John the Baptist. Next to it was a smaller skull, labelled john the baptist as a child. People weren't all that bright, back in the sixth century. The shop also boasted a large collection of furniture and wood carvings, supposedly produced by Jesus, or his father Joseph, or the rest of the carpenter's family.

Even in the sixth century, it seemed the Nightside traders knew the only rule that mattered, that there's one born every minute.

Inns and taverns of varying quality abounded everywhere, probably because you needed a lot of booze to get you through the strain of living in the sixth century. I'd been there less than an hour, and already I felt like biting the neck off a bottle. There were also lots of churches everywhere I looked, probably for much the same reason. Apart from the many already fragmenting Christian churches, there were also temples dedicated to Dagon, the Madonna of the Martyrs, the Carrion in Tears, and Lucifer Rising. (This last usually known as the Hedge Your Bets church.) There were also any number of Pagan and Druidic shrines, based around grotesque wood carvings and distressingly large phallic symbols. Religion was very up front and in your face in the sixth century, with preachers of every stripe haranguing, the crowds from every street corner, preaching fire and brimstone and any number of variations on My god will be back any time now, and then you 'II be sorry! The better speakers got listened to respectfully, and everyone else got pelted with... well, shit, mostly.

"Jesus is coming back a week this Saturday!" bellowed one preacher as we passed. "Repent now and avoid the rush!"

There were other, darker, forces abroad in the Night-side. Beings and Forces hadn't been forcibly segregated to the Street of the Gods yet. And so they walked in glory down the same streets as the rest of us, often surrounded by

unearthly glows, radiating power and otherness. People hurried to get out of their way, and the slower-moving ones were often transfixed and sometimes physically transformed, just from sheer proximity to the Beings. One figure, a huge blocky shape with a great insect head, headed straight for us, only to turn aside at the last moment, actually stepping out into the road to avoid getting too close to me. It regarded me solemnly with its complex eyes, the intricate mouth parts moving slowly in what might have been a prayer.

"It sensed something about you," said Tommy.

"Probably that I'm in a really bad mood," I said. "I could have sworn the Londinium Club was around here somewhere, but it seems we're not necessarily where I thought we were."

"You mean we're lost?" said Tommy.

"Not lost, as such," I said. "Just... misplaced."

"We can't keep walking at random," Suzie said quietly. "Even with Old Father Time's glamour protecting us, you're still attracting attention, Taylor. Use your gift. Find the Londinium Club."

"You know I don't like to use my gift unless I have to," I said, just as quietly.

"Your Enemies aren't going to be looking for you in the sixth century," Suzie said sternly.

"We could ask people for directions," said Tommy.

"No we couldn't," said Suzie. "We want our arrival there to have the element of surprise. Use your gift, Taylor."

I thought about it. My Enemies had no reason to suspect I was here, sixteen hundred years in the Past, unless the future Suzie had told them about this little trip... but I couldn't keep thinking that way, or I'd go mad. So, I powered up my gift, opening the third eye deep in my mind, and Saw the world around me. There were ghosts everywhere, walking through the crowds and the buildings, pale, faded figures trapped in their temporal fugues, repeating

the same endless circle of action and mourning. There were huge spirit forms, bigger than houses, striding through the material world as though they were all that was real and the rest of us only phantoms. Massive, winged things that were neither angels nor demons flapped overhead in great clouds, holding rigid formations. Unknowable forces moving on unguessable missions. I pulled my drifting thoughts together, concentrated on the Londinium Club, and found it in a moment. We weren't as far from it as I'd thought, only a few minutes' walk. Which made me think: did Lilith know that? Had she chosen where as well as when to drop me back into the world? Was I supposed to go to the Club, to meet someone or learn something? More questions with no answer.

I shut down my gift, carefully pulling my mental defences back into place. Just at the end there, I'd felt... Something, starting to take notice of my presence. Not my Enemies. Something of this time, big and dark and brutally powerful. Just possibly ... Merlin Satanspawn.

I didn't mention this to the others. Just led them down the street, heading for the Londinium Club. But almost immediately our way was blocked by a ragged bunch of street thugs who appeared out of nowhere and had us surrounded in a moment. Ten of them, big and bulky swords for hire in scrappy chain mail and battered leather armor, with scarred faces and nasty smiles. They carried short-swords and axes, and long knives with blades so notched they were practically serrated. None of them topped five feet, but they all had barrel chests and arms bigger than my thighs. None of this lot had ever gone hungry. They were, however, filthy dirty, and they smelled awful. The leader was a swarthy man with a roughly cut mane of black hair. He smiled nastily, revealing several missing teeth.

"Well, well," he said easily. "Not often we gets nobility

in our part of town, do we, lads? So... clean, and well dressed. Slumming, are we, gents and lady? Looking for a bit of rough trade, perhaps? Well, they don't come much rougher than us, and that's a fact." His fellow thugs all laughed unpleasantly, some of them already looking at Suzie in a way I didn't like. If she killed them all, it would be bound to attract unwelcome attention. At least she hadn't drawn her shotgun yet.

"What do you want?" asked Suzie, and the leader looked at her uncertainly, taken aback by the cold, almost bored tone in her voice.

"What do we want, lady? What have you got? Just a toll, a little local taxation, for the privilege of passing through our territory."

"Your territory?" I said.

"Our territory, because we control it," said the leader. "Nothing and no-one moves through here, without paying us tribute."

"But..."

"Don't you argue with me, you tosser," said the thug, prodding me hard in the chest with a filthy finger. "Give us what we want, and we'll let you walk away. Piss us about, and we'll mess you up so bad people will puke just to look at you."

"How much is this going to cost us?" said Tommy, already reaching for his purse.

"Whatever coin you've got on you. Any goods we happen to take a liking to. And some quality time with this lady." The chief thug leered at Suzie. "I likes them big."

I winced on his behalf. I could feel Suzie's icy presence beside me, like the ticking of an activated bomb.

"That is a really bad idea," I said, in my best cold and dangerous voice. I relaxed a little as the thug turned his attention back to me. I could handle scumbags like him. I gave him my best hard stare. "You don't know who we are.

What we can do. So do the sensible thing and step aside, before we have to show you."

He laughed in my face, and his fellow thugs laughed with him. I was a bit taken aback. It had been a long time since anyone dared laugh in my face.

"Nice try, Taylor," said Suzie. "But they don't know your legend here. Let me deal with them."

"You can't kill them all," Tommy said immediately. "Kill them, and you kill all their potential future descendants. Who knows how many cumulative changes that could cause, back in our Present? Let me try my gift on them." He gave the leader his best winning smile. "Come, let us reason together."

"Shut your face, pretty boy," said the leader. He spat right into Tommy's face, and Tommy recoiled with a cry of disgust, his concentration shattered.

"So much for diplomacy," said Suzie, and she drew her shotgun with one easy movement.

The leader regarded the gun interestedly. "Whatever that thing is, it won't do you any good, lady. Me and the lads are protected, against all edged weapons and magical attacks. None of them can touch us."

Suzie shot the man in the face, blowing his head right off his shoulders. The body staggered back a few steps and collapsed. The other thugs looked at the body twitching on the ground, then slowly and reluctantly looked back at Suzie.

"Run away," I suggested, and they did. Suzie looked after them thoughtfully for a moment, then put her shotgun away again.

"There really wasn't any need for that," I said. "I could have dealt with them."

"Of course you could," said Suzie.

"I could!"

"You can deal with the next ones," said Suzie, as she set off down the street.

"I never get to have any fun," I said, following after. "He's going to sulk now, isn't he?" said Tommy, hurrying to catch up.

"Oh, big time," said Suzie Shooter.