Legends From the End of Time by Michael Moorcock, Tom Canty

dropped his lisp. "Good afternoon, time travellers. The twists and turns of these tunnels, are they not tremendously tantalising? Such a tangle of intricate transits!" The caverns echoed his alliterative Ts so as to seem filled with the ticking of a thousand tiny clocks. A bow; he offered her his arm. Desperate, she took it, uncaring, just then, that Snuffles remained behind with Miss Ming. She needed a respite, for both their sakes. "And how do you find the grottos?" he enquired.
    "Grotesque," she said.
    "Aha!" He brightened. "You see! You learn! Shall we ogle, the gorgeous gulfs together?"
    She failed to take his meaning. He paused, waiting for her response. None came. His sigh was politely stifled. The passage widened and became higher. There was a murmur of compliment, but the Duke of Queens silenced it with a modest hand.
    "This is a discovery, not an invention. I came upon it while I worked. You'll note it's limestone, and natural limestone was thought extinct."
    Their fingers went to the smooth, damp rock, and it received a reverential stroke.
    Sometimes in silhouette, sometimes gleaming and dramatic in the flamelight, the Duke of Queens indicated rock formations which must have lain here since before the Dawn Age: ghastly, smooth, rounded, almost organic in appearance, the limestone dripped with moisture, exuding a musty smell which reminded Dafnish Armatuce, and only Dafnish Armatuce, of a mouldering cadaver, as if this was all that remained of the original Earth, rotting and forgotten. It began to occur to her that it would be long before they were able to leave the caverns; the walls seemed, suddenly, to exert a pressure of their own, and she experienced something of the panic she had felt before, when the crowd had become too dense. She clung to Sweet Orb Mace, who would rather have gone on. She knew that she bored him, but she must have reassurance, some sort of anchor. The party moved: she felt that it pushed her where she did not want to go. She had a strong desire to turn back, to seek the place where they had entered the maze; she did half-turn, but was confronted by the grinning face of Miss Ming. She allowed herself to be carried forward.
    Sweet Orb Mace had made an effort to resume the conversation, on different lines. "…would not believe how jealous Brannart Morphail was. But he shall not have it. I was the first to discover it — and you — and while he is welcome to make a reproduction, I shall hold the original. There are few like it."
    "Like it?"
    "Your time machine."
    "You have it?"
    "I have always had it. It's in my collection."
    "I assumed it lost or destroyed. When I went back to seek it, it had gone, and no-one knew where."
    "I must admit to a certain deception, for I knew how desperately Brannart would want it for himself. I hid it. But now it is the pride of my collection and on display."
    "The machine is the property of the Armatuce," she said gently. "By rights it should be in my care."
    "But you have no further use for it, surely!"
    She did not possess sufficient strength for argument. She allowed him his assumption. From behind her there came an unexpected giggle. She dared to look. Miss Ming was bent low, showing Snuffles a fragment of rock she had picked up. Snuffles beamed and shook with laughter as Miss Ming indicated features in the piece of rock.
    "Isn't it the image of Doctor Volospion?"
    Snuffles saw that his mother watched. "Look, mama! Doctor Volospion to the life!"
    She failed to note the resemblance. The rock was oddly shaped, certainly, and she supposed that it might, if held at an angle, roughly resemble a human face.
    "I hadn't realized Doctor Volospion was so old!" giggled Ming, and Snuffles exploded with laughter.
    "Can't you see it, mama?"
    Her face softened; she smiled, not at the joke (for there was none, in her view), but in response to his innocent joy. Miss Ming's sense of humour was evidently completely compatible with her son's: the unbearable woman had succeeded