Free Elysia by Brian Lumley Page A

purplish light spills out!'

5 Great Thought Rider
    Time-clock: a totally inadequate misnomer, thought de Marigny, as he hurried with Hank and Moreen through the plateau's labyrinth to the dwelling-caves near the perimeter where the clock was temporarily housed. It did look like a clock at first glance, like a fine old grandfather in the somewhat macabre shape of a coffin, and it did have a dial and hands; but there any resemblance to a dock in the mundane sense of the word ended.
    Its weird ticking was quite irregular, its four hinds moved about the hieroglyphed dial in spastic patterns patently divorced from any chronological system known or even guessed at by man; it was certainly not an instrument for measuring the orderly passage of time at all but rather ignored and even transgressed temporal laws. And because time is part and parcel with space — the other side of the same coin, as it were — so the time-clock transgressed against spatial laws, too.
    In short, it was a vehicle for space-time travel, a gateway on all possible worlds and levels of existence, a not entirely mechanical magical carpet. Einstein would not have believed in the time-clock, and what he would have made of a gaseous intelligence riding the solar winds through space at half the speed of light ... who can say? But then again, a sea-urchin would probably experience the greatest difficulty believing in Einstein.
    De Marigny, on the other hand, did believe in the clock; each time he used it his life, Moreen's too, hung by the thread of that belief. He believed in it, and he trusted it, even though many of its complexities remained way beyond his grasp. This was hardly surprising; it had been that way for Titus Crow too, in his time. But the more de Marigny used the clock, the more he learned; a slow process, true, but a sure one. It was like being a learner-driver in the latest model of some high-technology motor-car; there was always a new button or switch one had never tried before, which might well be a device for steaming rain off the windows ... but might just as easily jettison the driver through the roof !
    Finally the three arrived at de Marigny's and Moreen's quarters, passed the Eskimo guard and keeper where he stood with a pair of massive, rumbling bears, and so into the chamber where the time-clock waited. Here small circular 'windows' looked out over the white waste, and on a bleak horizon Ithaqua crouched atop the derelict ice-breaker, watching the plateau just as Armandra had seen him in her trance. Time for only a cursory glance at the Wind-Walker, however, for here was an even greater wonder, and perhaps one just as fearful, in its way.
    For indeed the time-clock's panel stood open, its eerie purple light pouring out in rhythmic pulses from within. Just what this might signify was hard to say, but de Marigny could soon find out. 'Wait,' he said to Moreen and Hank as he stepped forward and made to enter the clock. Except
    Even as his hand gripped the frame of that narrow portal, so a figure materialized there and stepped out!
    Taken by surprise, de Marigny gasped, jumped back and almost collided with Hank and Moreen. Then he grasped and restrained the Warlord's hand where already , his knuckles were white, clenched on the haft of a bright pick-like weapon snatched from his broad belt.
    'No, Hank!' The Searcher cried then. 'There's no danger here. Can't you see who it is? Don't you recognize him? It's Titus Crow!'
    ; On legs suddenly weak as jelly de Marigny went to embrace the.newcomer — fell against nothing and staggered right through him. Crow was insubstantial as smoke, a mirage — a hologram!
    'A ghost!' Moreen gasped. 'Is this your Titus Crow, Henri? A phantom whose grave is the time-clock? Is that why it's shaped like a coffin?' And for all that she was only half-serious, still de Marigny sensed something of fear in her voice.
    Silberhutte, on the other hand, was quicker to grasp the true picture. ' Shh, Moreen!' he