Daemons Are Forever by Simon R. Green

Author:Simon R. Green
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf, azw3
Published: 2010-12-29T01:39:47.751000+00:00

Considering how my first attempt at meddling with time had gone, I wasn't sure I wanted to try

again. But need and duty and Jacob's encouragement drove me on. I still needed help, perhaps now

more than ever, and the only place left to look was among the future descendants of my family. And

besides, I always was stubborn. So I fired up Merlin's Glass again, and instructed it to show me the

future.

"Show me how the Hall will look, a hundred years from now," I said. That seemed safe enough.

The doorway opened, showing me a view of the Hall, standing tall and proud in its extensive

grounds. The old house looked a hell of a lot bigger. Whole new wings had been added, and a tall stone

tower on each corner. Airships of an unfamiliar design buzzed like sleek black wasps around the landing

field at the back, and there were children, hundreds of children, running free and happy across the sloping

lawns. And then the image changed abruptly, showing me another Hall. It was a ruin, broken stone and

crumbling brick, and all the windows dark. The grounds were a rioting jungle of strange and alien plants,

lapping right up against the sides of the Hall like a solid green tide. Creepers hung out of windows, trees

burst out through broken walls. And no sign of the family anywhere.

The image changed again. This time the Hall I knew was gone, replaced by a magnificent

high-tech structure, all gleaming steel and silver and huge flashing windows. Swirling energies coalesced

around tall shimmering towers, and strange machines hopped across the neatly manicured lawns. And the

whole place was surrounded by flying angels, full of a terrible beauty, singing songs of war, shining

brighter than the sun …

The images before me kept changing, flashing by faster and faster. All of them potential, possible

futures. All equally real, equally likely or unlikely. I commanded the Glass to stop, thought for a while,

and then told it to show me an image of the Hall, in a future where the family failed to stop the Invaders.

This time, the Hall stood alone and abandoned on an endless blasted plain. No signs of life

anywhere, from horizon to horizon, and the cloud-covered sky was empty. Dust fell slowly, endlessly,

undisturbed by even the slightest breath of a breeze. No sign of any living thing. Nothing moved. The sky

was a dark and sullen purple, like a bruise.

A dead world.

I felt cold. Chilled right down to the bone; to the soul. This was what would happen if the family

failed. If I failed.

I told the Glass to show me how this had happened. What the Invaders would do, when they

came. Images came and went before me, but I couldn't understand any of them. It was just too strange,

too different, too other. There were great shapes, living things big as mountains, radiating through more

than three physical dimensions. Just looking at them made my head hurt, made me feel sick. Time seemed

to slow down and speed up, landscapes rose and fell like tides, cities burned and the moon fell out of the

sky.

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