The Land Leviathan (A Nomad of the Time Streams Novel) by Michael Moorcock Page A

interfering, or only think we are...” She lifted her head and her wonderful eyes stared deep into mine. “Many concerns— responsibilities—and I am very tired, Mr. Moorcock. It is going to be a long century.”
    I was completely nonplussed and decided myself to finish the conversation. “Perhaps we can talk in the morning,” I said, “when we are both more rested.”
    “Perhaps,” she agreed. “You are going to bed?”
    “If you do not think it impolite. The dinner was splendid.”
    “Yes, it was good. The morning...”
    I wondered if she, like Bastable, was also a slave to opium. There was a trance-like quality in her eyes now. She could hardly understand me.
    “Until the morning, then,” I said.
    “Until the morning.” She echoed my words almost mindlessly.
    “Goodnight, Mrs. Persson.”
    “Goodnight.”
    I made my way back upstairs, undressed, lay myself down on the sleeping-mat and, it seemed to me, was immediately dreaming those peculiar, frightening dreams of the previous night. Again, in the morning, I felt completely refreshed and purged. I got up, washed in cold water, dressed and went downstairs. The room was as I had left it—the remains of the previous night’s dinner were still on the table. And I was suddenly seized with the conviction that everything had been abandoned hastily—that I had also been abandoned. I walked outside into a fine, pale morning. The rain had stopped and the air smelled fresh and clean. I looked for signs of activity and found nothing. The only life I could see in the village consisted of one horse, saddled and ready to ride. Soldiers, women and children had all disappeared. Now I wondered if, inadvertently, I had sampled some of Mr. Lu’s opium and had dreamed the whole thing! I went back into the house calling out:
    “Mrs. Persson! Mrs. Persson!”
    There were only echoes. Not one human being remained in the ruined village.
    I went out again. In the distance the low green hills of the Valley of the Morning were soft, gentle and glowing after the rain which must have stopped in the night. A large, watery sun hung in the sky. Birds sang. The world seemed to be tranquil, the valley a haven of perfect peace. I saw not one gun, one item of the spoils which the bandits had brought back with them. The cooking-fires were still warm, but had been extinguished. The mud was still thick and deep and there was evidence of many horses having left the village fairly recently.
    Perhaps the bandits had received intelligence of a large-scale counter-attack from General Liu’s forces. Perhaps they had left to attack some new objective of their own. I determined to remain in the village for as long as possible in the hope that they would return.
    I made a desultory perambulation of the village. I explored each of the remaining houses; I went for a walk along the main road out of the place. I walked back. There was no evidence for my first theory, that the village had been about to suffer an attack.
    By lunchtime I was feeling pretty hungry and I returned to the house to pick at the cold remains of last night’s supper. I helped myself to a glass of the missionary’s excellent Madeira. I explored the anterooms of the ground floor and then went upstairs, determined, completely against my normal instincts, to investigate every room.
    The bedroom next to mine still bore a faint smell of feminine perfume and was plainly Una Persson’s. There was a mirror on the wall, a bottle of eau-de-Cologne beside the sleeping-mat, a few wisps of dark hair in an ivory hairbrush on the floor near the mirror. Otherwise, the room was furnished as barely as the others. I noticed a small inlaid table near a window leading onto a small balcony which overlooked the ruins of the village. There was a bulky package lying on the table, wrapped in oilskin, tied with cord.
    As I passed it on my way to look out of the window I glanced at the package. And then I gave it very much of a second glance, for I had