Nightside 05 - Paths Not Taken

of humanity. They ignored everyone else, staring at something only they could see. Two hulking steel robots stood unmoving in a corner, watching everything with glowing crimson eyes. They came from a future where Man died out, and robots built their own civilisation. They talked in staccato, metallic voices.
    "Flesh-based creatures," said one. "Obscene. Corrupt." "Meat that talks," said the other. "Abominations." The knights in armour powered up their energy lances, and the robots fell silent.
    Old Father Time finally returned, smiled vaguely round the Waiting Room, then beckoned for the three of us to follow him. He led us through a labyrinth of twisting stone passages with a ceiling so low we all had to stoop. Smoking yellow torches blazed in iron braziers, and small things scurried back and forth across the shadowy floor. Time paid them no attention, so I tried not to either.
    We ended up, quite abruptly, in a shimmering white room, a room so white it was blinding, overwhelming. We all winced and shaded our eyes, except for Time. The room had no details. Even the door we'd entered through had disappeared. The white light was so dazzling it was hard to be sure of the room's size or scale, the walls and ceiling so far away it was impossible to judge any distances. The white room felt like it went on forever, while at the same time the walls seemed to be constantly rushing in and out, contracting and expanding, regular as a heartbeat I could sense but not hear. Suzie and Tommy stuck very close to me, and I was glad of their human presence.
    In the middle of the room, stark and alone, stood a single complex and rococo mechanism, its pieces and workings so intricate my mind couldn't grasp all the details. It didn't seem to belong in the white room. It looked like a dirty nail driven deep into white flesh. Its very presence was an insult. Old Father Time fussed busily over the mechanism, pushing back his sleeves to ease his arms deep inside it, making delicate adjustments only he understood, while muttering querulously to himself in a voice just below the level of understanding. Finally, he stepped back with a proud gesture and nodded vigorously. We could all feel the mechanism coming on-line, like a giant eye slowly opening and becoming aware of us.
    I could feel the Time Winds blowing, hear their blustering roar tugging subtly at my soul. It sounded like the breathing of some long-forgotten god, rousing itself from sleep. It felt like the whole universe was turning around this single spot, this single moment. When the Time Winds blow, even the greatest Powers shudder and look to their defences. I wanted to turn and run, and keep running till I could forget everything I'd seen and learned and felt here, but I couldn't let myself be weak. This was what I'd come here for.
    Old Father Time looked round sharply. "Be still, all of you! There are strange fluctuations in the chronoflow, distortions I don't understand. Something big is happening, or is going to happen. Or perhaps it has already happened, long ago, and the echoes are reverberating up through Time, changing everything. I should understand what's happening ... but I don't. Which is in itself significant." He looked at me sharply. "Do you wish to postpone your trip?"
    "No," I said. Suzie and Tommy said nothing.
    Time spoke quickly, as though rushing to get everything in. "I have provided you with a process that will enable all of you to speak and understand any language or dialect you may encounter, and a glamour that will make you seem a part of whatever culture you may end up in. I wish I could be more specific, but where you're going, nothing is certain."
    He was still talking, but now the roar of the Time Winds was drowning him out. I could feel them tugging at me,
    pulling me in a direction I could sense but not name. And then the three of us were falling, crying out to each other. The white room was gone, as though we'd dropped through it, like a stone through the bottom of a wet paper bag. We plummeted in a direction beyond understanding, wrapped in rainbows of colours I'd never seen before. We were falling, back, back towards something, somewhere, some-when...

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