Mistress Christia and Jherek Carnelian strolled arm in arm along the shore while the Everlasting Concubine chatted merrily on. Out on Lake Billy the Kid the ships were beginning to take up their positions. The sun shone down on blue, placid water; from here and there came the murmur of animated conversation and Jherek found his good humour returning as Mistress Christia drew to the close of her tale.

"I hope Werther was grateful," he said.

"He was. He is very sincere, Jherek, but in a different sort of way."

"I need no convincing. Tell me, did he —?" And he broke off as he recognized a tall figure standing by the water's edge, deep in conversation with Argonheart Po (who was, as always, wearing his tall chef's cap). "Excuse me, Mistress Christia. You will not think me rude if I speak to Lord Jagged?"

"You could never offend me, delicacy."

"Lord Jagged!" called Jherek. "How pleased I am to see you here."

Handsome, weary, his long, pale face wearing just a shade of a smile, Lord Jagged turned. He wore scarlet silk, with one of his usual high, padded collars framing a head of shoulder-length near-white hair.

"Jherek, spice of my life! Argonheart Po was just giving me the recipe for his ship. He assures me that, contrary to the gossip, it cannot melt for at least another four hours. You will be as interested as I to hear how he accomplished the feat."

"Good afternoon, Argonheart," said Jherek with a nod to the fat and beaming inventor of, among other things, the savoury volcano. "I was hoping, Lord Jagged, to have a word…"

Argonheart Po was already moving away, his hand held tightly by the ever tactful Mistress Christia.

"…about Mrs. Underwood," concluded Jherek.

"She is back?" Lord Jagged's aquiline features were expressionless.

"You know that she is not."

Lord Jagged's smile broadened a fraction. "You are beginning to credit me with prescience of some sort, Jherek. I am flattered, but I do not deserve the distinction."

Disturbed because of this recent, subtle alteration in their old relationship, Jherek bowed his head. "Forgive me, jaunty Jagged. I am full of assumptions. I am, in the words of the ancients, 'over-excited.' "

"Perhaps you have contracted one of those old diseases, my breath? The kind which could only be transmitted by word of mouth — which attacked the brain and made the brain attack the body…"

"Dawn Age science is your speciality, rather than mine, Lord Jagged. If you are making a considered diagnosis…?"

Lord Jagged laughed one of his rare, hearty laughs and he flung his arm around his friend's shoulders.

"My luscious, loving larrikin, my golden goose, my grief, my prayer. You are healthy! I suspect that you are the only one of us that is!"

And, his usual, cryptic self, he refused to expand on this statement, drawing Jherek's attention, instead, to the regatta, which had begun at last. A vile yellow mist had been spread across the sparkling sea, making all murky; the sun had been dimmed, and great, shadowy shapes crept, honking, through the water.

Jagged arranged his collar about his face, but he kept his arm round Jherek's shoulders. "They will fight to the death, I'm told."

"What else is it but decadence," said Li Pao, My Lady Charlotina's resident bore (and, like most time travellers, dreadfully literal-minded), "when you spend your days in imitation of the past? And it is not as if you imitated the virtues of the past." He brushed pettishly at his faded denim suit. He took off his denim cap and wiped his brow.

"Virtues?" murmured the Iron Orchid enquiringly. She had heard the word before.

"The best of the past. Its customs, its morals, its traditions, its standards…"

"Flags?" said Gaf the Horse in Tears, looking up from an inspection of his new penis.

"Li Pao's words are always so hard to translate," said My Lady Charlotina, their hostess. They had repaired to her vast palace under the lake and she was serving them with rum and hard tack. Every ship had been sunk. "You don't really mean flags, do you, dear?"

"Only in a manner of speaking," said Li Pao, anxious not to lose his audience. "If by flags we refer to loyalties, to causes, to a sense of purpose."

Even Jherek Carnelian, an expert in Dawn Age philosophies, could scarcely keep up with him. When the Iron Orchid turned to him in appeal to explain, he could only shrug and smile.

"My point," said Li Pao, raising his voice a fraction, "is that you could use all this to some advantage. The alien, Yusharisp…"

The Duke of Queens coughed in embarrassment.

"…had news of inescapable cataclysm. Or, at least, he thought it inescapable. There is a chance that you could save the universe with your scientific resources."

"We don't really understand them any more, you see," gently explained Mistress Christia, kneeling beside Gaf the Horse in Tears. "It's a marvellous colour," she said to Gaf.

"There are many here — prisoners of your whims, like myself — who, if given the opportunity, might learn the principles involved," Li Pao went on, "Jherek Carnelian, you are bent on rediscovering all the old virtues, surely you see my point?"

"Not really," said Jherek. "Why would you wish to save the universe? Is it not better to let it go its natural course?"

"There were mystics in my day," said Li Pao, "who considered it unwise to, as they put it, "tamper with nature." But if they had been listened to, you would not have the power you possess today."

"We would still have been happy, doubtless," O'Kala Incarnadine chewed patiently at his hard tack, his voice somewhat bleating in tone, owing to his having remodelled his body into that of a sheep. "One does not need power, surely, to be happy?"

"That was not exactly what I was trying to say." Li Pao's lovely yellow skin had turned very slightly pink. "You are immortal — yet you will still perish when the planet itself is destroyed. In perhaps two hundred years you will be dead. Do you want to die?"

My Lady Charlotina yawned. "Most of us have died at some stage. Quite recently, Werther de Goethe hurled himself to his death on some rocks. Didn't you, Werther?"

Dark-visaged Werther sipped moodily at his rum. He gave a sigh of assent.

"But I speak of permanent death — without resurrection." Li Pao sounded almost desperate. "You must understand. None of you are unintelligent…"

"I am unintelligent," said Mistress Christia, her pride wounded.

"So you say." Li Pao dismissed her plea. "Do you want to be dead for ever, Mistress Christia?"

"I have never considered the question that much. I suppose not. But it would make no difference, would it?"

"To what?"

"To me. If I were dead."

Li Pao frowned.

"We would all be better off dead, useless eaters of the lotus that we are." Werther de Goethe's jarring monotone came from the far side of the room. He glared down at his reflection in the floor.

"You speak of only postures, Werther," the ex-member of the governing committee of the 27th century People's Republic admonished. "Of poetic roles. I speak of reality."

"Is there nothing real about poetic roles?" Lord Jagged of Canaria strolled across the room, admiring the flowers which grew from the ceiling. "Was not your role ever poetic, Li Pao, when you were in your own time?"

"Poetic? Never. Idealistic, of course, but we were dealing with harsh facts."

"There are many forms of poetry, I understand."

"You are merely seeking to confuse my argument, Lord Jagged. I know you of old."

"I thought I aimed at clarification. By metaphor, perhaps," he admitted, "and that does not always seem to clarify. Though it works very well for some."