![]() Held there-what did Zyskyn say?-by inter-dimensional gravitation. This world, in its other space-time frame, is always close to Earth, contiguous. The main character explains the set-up to the aide whom he accidentally brought through the portal with him: Unlike some of those other timeless taverns, this one is pretty exclusive. Next to them was John Loring, a famous space-explorer of the 25th Century, and across from them the merry face of Francois Rabelais. Stout, pawky Benjamin Franklin sat beside the great Buddhist emperor Asoka. and the swarthy, slender man beside him was the Dutch philosopher Spinoza. The old Chinese was Lao-tse of the 6th Century B.C. Merrill learned that the handsome Zyskyn was a great scientist of the 31st Century Antarctican civilization. At the far end of the table, silent and brooding, sat a man wrapped in dark robe and cowl-like hood, a man with a pale, young-old face. ![]() ![]() A tall Roman in bronze sat beside a man in super-modern zipper garments, a grave, bearded man in Elizabethan ruff and hose beside a withered, ancient Chinese, a merry fellow in the gaudy clothes of 16th Century France beside a stout, sober man in the drab brown of an American Colonial. Grouped around the longest table, with their wine-cups standing unheeded upon it now, were the most motley group of men possible to imagine. A huge fireplace at one side held a leaping blaze, and its flickering light joined the reddish glow of torches in wall-sockets to illuminate the room. Most of the inn was a big common-room, stone-flagged, with heavy, timbered walls. There have been a lot of stories on that theme, but I believe the granddaddy of them all is Edmond Hamilton's 1945 Weird Tale "The Inn Outside the World", available at the Internet Archive (click here for download options). I know it was something I read, not a movie or something someone told me about.ĭoes this setting of a tavern with guests from all eras of history ring a bell with anyone? This would have been in a collection of short stories, but I don't remember a plot or storyline, which makes me think it might have been a sketch. On one night a person might go through a door (or find the door, if they knew what it looked like?), go through it, and end up talking with people from the 5th century B.C., from 1492 A.D., and a number of other time periods as well. People would enter from all different time periods. Some people might come there multiple times and others might only come once if they weren't well received. There was no explanation, but either the tavern or the tavern keeper (or some force) picked who could come there. It's a pub or tavern, and I think the interior was more like the medieval era than anything else. I don't remember a storyline, only the setting. This has been tickling my mind for a while and I'm not sure if it's an actual story, if it's from a series of short stories, or if it's just something I think I remember.
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