Constant Fire

10. In which the Fireclown attempts to deny any suggestion so far made that he is an Anachronism

My Lady Charlotina's words had failed, as was soon to be shown, to convince Mr Bloom. Yet there was something pathetic to his acts of destruction, something almost sad about the way he demolished the Duke of Queens' City of Tulips (each dwelling a separate flower) or laid waste Florence Fawkes' delightful little Sodom with all its inhabitants, including Florence Fawkes who was never, by an oversight, resurrected. It was in a half-abstracted mood that he brought a rain of molten lava to disrupt the party which Bishop Castle was giving for moody Werther de Goethe (and which, as it happened, was received with approval by all concerned, since Werther was one of the few to appreciate the Fireclown's point of view and died screaming of repentance and the like — though when he was resurrected almost immediately he did complain that the consistency of the lava was not all that it might have been — too lumpy, he thought). The Fireclown rarely appeared personally on any of these occasions. He seemed to have lost the will to enjoy intercourse with his fellows. Moreover there was scarcely anyone who found him very entertaining after the first demolition or two, largely because his wrath always took exactly the same form. Werther de Goethe sought him out and enthused. He found, he said, Mr Bloom deeply refreshing, and he offered himself as an acolyte. Mr Bloom had informed him that he would let Werther know when acolytes were needed, if at all. Lord Mongrove also visited the Fireclown, hoping for conversation, but the Fireclown told him frankly that his talk was depressing. My Lady Charlotina visited him, too, and came away refusing to tell anyone what had passed between herself and Mr Bloom, though she seemed upset. And when Mistress Christia followed close in the footsteps of her friend and was also rebuffed, Mr Bloom told her sombrely that he waited for one woman and one alone, the beautiful Mavis Ming.

Upon hearing this, Miss Ming shuddered and suggested that someone destroy the Fireclown before he did any more damage to the world.

If it had not been for the immense and unshakeable force-field around the Fireclown's ship there is no doubt that some of the denizens at the End of Time would have at least made an attempt to halt the Fireclown's inconveniencing activities. It was a type unfamiliar even to the rotting cities, who did their best to analyse it and produce a formula for coping with it, but failed, forgetting the purpose of half their experiments before they were completed and drawing no conclusions from those they did complete, for the same reason. In most cases they took a childish delight in the more spectacular effects of their experiments and would play with the energies they had created until growing tired and pettish and refusing to help any further.

The Fireclown had been unable to bring quite the holocaust he had promised, for things were rebuilt as soon as he had destroyed them, he had at least become a large flea upon the flank of society, wrecking carefully planned picnics, entertainments, artistic creations and games, so that precautions had to taken against him which spoiled the general effect intended. Force-fields had to be produced to protect property for the first time in untold thousands of years and even the Duke of Queens, that most charitable of immortals, agreed that his ordinary enjoyment of life was being detrimentally influenced by Mr Bloom, particularly since the destruction of his menagerie, the resurrection of which had greatly discommoded him.

There came such a twittering of protest as had never been heard at the End of Time and plans were discussed interminably for the ridding of the world of the pest, deputations were sent to his ship and were ignored, polite notes left at his airlock's entrance were either burned on the spot or allowed to drift away on the wind.

"It is quite ridiculous," said My Lady Charlotina, "that this puny prophet should be allowed to figure so largely in our lives. If only Lord Jagged were here, he would surely find a solution."

She spoke spitefully, for she knew that Doctor Volospion was in earshot. They were both attending the same reception, given on Sweet Orb Mace's new lawns which surrounded his mansion, modelled on one of the baroque juvenile slaughter houses of the late 200,006 century. From within sounded the most authentic screams, causing all to compliment Sweet Orb Mace on an unprecedented, for her, effort of imagination.

"Lord Jagged has undoubtably found that his interests are not best served by remaining at the End of Time," said Doctor Volospion from behind her.

She pretended surprise. "How do you do, Doctor Volospion?" She inspected his costume — another long sleeved robe, this one of maroon and white. "Hm."

"I am well, My Lady Charlotina."

"The Fireclown has made no attack upon you, yet? That is strange. Of all of us, it is you whom he actually appears to dislike."

Doctor Volospion lowered his eyes and smiled. "He would not harm Miss Ming, my guest."

"Of course!"

She swept silky skirts of brown and blue about her and made to move on, but Volospion stayed her. "I gather there has been much debate about this Fireclown."

"Far too much."

"He would be a marvellous prize for my menagerie."

"So that is why he mistrusts you!"

"I think not. It is because my logic defeats him."

"I did not know."

"Yes. I have probably had the longest debate of anyone at the End of Time with Bloom. He found that he could not best me in argument. It is sheer revenge, the rest. Or so I suspect."

"Aha?" My Lady Charlotina turned her fine and scented head so that she could smile pleasantly upon the Duke of Queens, strutting past in living koalas. "Then surely you can conceive a means of halting his activities, Doctor Volospion?"

"I believe that I have done so, madam."

She laughed, almost rudely. "But you decide to keep it to yourself."

"The Fireclown has a certain sensitivity. For all I know he has the means to overhear us."

"I should not have thought that, temperamentally, he was an ordinary eavesdropper."

"But I feel, nonetheless, that I should be cautious."

"So you'll not illuminate me?"

"To my regret."

"Well, I wish you luck with your plan, Doctor Volospion." She looked here and there. "Where is your guest, the Fireclown's quarry? Where is Miss Ming?"

He expressed secret glee. "Not here."

"Not here? She travels to meet her suitor at last?"

"No. On the contrary…"

"Then what?" My Lady Charlotina expressed cool impatience.

"Wait," said Doctor Volospion. "I protect her, as I promised. I am her True Knight. You heard me called that. Well I am doing my duty, My Lady Charlotina."

"You are vague, Doctor Volospion."

"Oh, madam, recall that encounter when we stood upon the cliff above Mr Bloom's ship!"

She drew her beautiful brows together. "You acted uncharacteristically, as I remember."

"You thought so."

"Oh," she was again impatient, "yes, yes…"

"Mr Bloom noticed, do you think?"

"He remarked on it, did he not?"

Doctor Volospion brought his hands together at his groin, his maroon and white sleeves swirling. He had an expression upon his pale, ascetic features of extreme self-satisfaction. "Miss Ming," he said, "is safe in my castle. A force-field, quite as strong as the Fireclown's, surrounds it. For her own good, she cannot leave its confines."

"You have locked her up?"

"For her own good. She agreed, for she fears the Fireclown greatly. I merely pointed out to her that it was the best way of ensuring that she would never encounter him."

"In your menagerie?"

"She is comfortable, secure and, doubtless, happy," said Doctor Volospion.

"True Knight, say you? Sorcerer, more accurately!" My Lady Charlotina for the first time showed admiration of Doctor Volospion's cunning. "I see! Excellent!"

Doctor Volospion's thin smile was almost joyous. His cold eyes sparkled. "I shall show you, I think, that I am no mere shadow of Jagged."

"Did anyone suggest…?"

"If anyone did suggest such a thing, he shall be proved in error."

She pursed her lips and looked at first one of her feet and then the other. "If the plan works…"

"It will work. The art of conflict is to turn the antagonist's own strengths against him and to draw out his weaknesses."

"It is one interpretation of the art. There have been so many, down all these millions of days."

"You shall see, madam."

"The Fireclown knows what you have done?"

"He has already accused me of it."

"Well, you shall have the gratitude of each of us if you succeed, Doctor Volospion."

"It is all I wish."

The ground shook. They both turned, to see a magnificent pink pachyderm lumbering towards them. The beast bore a swaying howdah in which were seated both Abu Thaleb and Argonheart Po.

Abu Thaleb, in quilted silks of rose and sable, leaned down to greet them. "My Lady Charlotina! I see music! And my old friend, Volospion. It has been so long…"

"I will leave you to this reunion," murmured My Lady Charlotina, and with a curtsy to the Commissar of Bengal she departed.

"Have you been all this time in your castle, Volospion?" asked Abu Thaleb. "We have not met since that time when we were all three together, Argonheart, you and I, when Mr Bloom's ship had first landed. I have looked for you at many a gathering."

"My attention, for my sins, has been much taken up with our current problem," said Doctor Volospion.

"Ah, if only there were a solution," rumbled Argonheart Po. "We should have realized, when my dinosaurs were incinerated…"

"It was the moment to act, of course," agreed Doctor Volospion. His neck grew stiff with craning and he lowered his head.

"It needs only Miss Ming," said Abu Thaleb, lowering himself over the side of the howdah and beginning to descend by means of a golden rope-ladder the side of his great beast, "to complete the original quartet."

"She cannot be with us. She remains in safety in my castle."

"Probably wise." Abu Thaleb reached the ground. He signed for Argonheart Po that his way was now clear. The monstrous chef heaved his bulk gingerly to the edge and put a tentative foot upon a golden rung. Doctor Volospion watched with some fascination as the corpulent figure, swathed in white, came down the pink expanse.

"It is my duty to protect the lady from any danger," Doctor Volospion said with a certain semblance of piety.

"She must be very much pleased by your thoughtfulness. She is so lacking in inner tranquillity that the trappings of security, physical and tactile, must mean much to her."

"I think so."

"Of course," said Abu Thaleb doubtfully, "this will confirm Mr Bloom's suspicions of you. Are you sure —?"

"I shall have to bear those suspicions, as a gentleman. I do my duty. If my actions are misinterpreted, particularly by Mr Bloom, that is no fault of mine."

"Naturally." Abu Thaleb dismissed his elephant. "But if Mr Bloom were to take it into his head to — um — rescue Miss Ming?"

"I am prepared."

Argonheart Po grunted. "You are looking paler than ever, Doctor Volospion. You should eat more."

"More? I do not eat at all."

"There is more to eating than merely sustaining the flesh," said Argonheart Po pointedly. "If it comes to that, none of us needs to eat, there are so many quicker ways of absorbing energy, but there is a certain instinctive relish to such old-fashioned activities which it is as well to enjoy. After all, we are all human. Well, most of us."

Abu Thaleb was upset by what seemed to him to be one friend's criticism of another. "Argonheart, my dear, we all have preferences. Doctor Volospion enjoys rather more intellectual pastimes than do we. We must respect his tastes."

Argonheart Po was quick to apologize. "I did not mean to infer…"

"I detected no inference," said Doctor Volospion with an extravagant wave of his hand. "My interests, as you must know, are specialized. I study ancient faiths and have little time for anything else. It is perhaps because I would wish to believe in something supernatural. However, in all my studies I have yet to find something which cannot be explained or dismissed either as natural or as delusion. I do, admittedly, possess one or two miraculous artefacts which would seem to possess qualities not easily defined by science, but I fear it is only a lack of knowledge on my part, and that these, too, will be shown to be the products of man's ingenuity."

Argonheart Po smiled. "If, one day, you will let me, I shall produce a culinary miracle for you and defy you to detect all the flavours and textures I shall put into it."

"One day, perhaps, I should be honoured, mighty King of the Kitchen."

And to Abu Thaleb's relief, the two parted amicably.

Doctor Volospion, alone for the moment, glanced about him. He seemed unusually content. A little sigh of pleasure passed between his normally tight-pressed lips. He could, on occasion, produce in himself a semblance of gaiety and now there was a lightness to his step as he moved to greet Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, changing his costume as he went, to brilliant damson doublet and hose, curling shoes, a hat with a high crown and an elongated peak which could be doffed to brush the turf with a flourish as he bowed low. "Beautiful Christia, Queen of my Heart, how I have longed for this opportunity to see you alone!"

Mistress Christia wore ringlets today of light red-gold, a translucent gown of sea-green antique rayon, bracelets of live lizards, their tails held between their tiny forepaws.

"Oh, Doctor Volospion, how you flatter me! I have heard that you keep the most sought-after beauty in the world imprisoned in one of your gloomy towers!"

"You have heard? Already? It is true." He pretended shame. "I cannot help it. I am sworn to do so."

"Is it fitting, then, that you dally with me — for my reputation —"

"Is enviable," he said.

She kissed his chilly cheek. "But I know you to be heartless."

"It is you, Mistress Christia, who gives me a heart."

"But you will lay it at another's feet, I know. It is my fate, always."

His attention was distracted, all at once. Sweet Orb Mace's juvenile slaughter house was blazing. And a look of joy crossed Doctor Volospion's face.

Mistress Christia was bemused. "You seem pleased at this? Poor Sweet Orb Mace and his lovely little house."

"Oh, no, no, that is not it, at all." He moved like a moth for the flames, his face lit by them. And then fire licked his body again and he was naked. There came a chorus from all around. Everyone was likewise unclad.

From out of the inferno stepped Emmanuel Bloom. He wore a black and white Pierrot costume.

"I have come," he trilled amiably, "to be worshipped. I strip you naked. Thus I will strip your souls." He looked at their bare bodies and seemed rather confounded by some of the sights.

Fussing, a number of the guests were already replenishing themselves. Costumes blossomed on flesh again.

"No matter," said the Fireclown, "I have made my moral point."

With a caress Doctor Volospion brought rippling velvet to his body, dark reds and greens glowed upon him. "Shall you never tire of these demonstrations?" he asked.

Emmanuel Bloom shrugged. "Why should I? It is my way of preaching to you. There are many excellent precedents for the method. A miracle and a parable or two work, as it were, wonders."

"You have converted no-one, sir," said My Lady Charlotina, in a huge china bell decorated with little flowers. Her voice tended to echo.

The Fireclown agreed with her. "It is taking longer than I expected, madam. But I am persistent, by nature. And patient, in my way."

"Well, sir, we lose patience," said Abu Thaleb. "I regret to say it, but it is true." He turned for confirmation to his friends. All nodded. "You see?"

"Is consensus truth?" the Fireclown wished to know. "Agree what you like between yourselves, for it will not alter what is so."

"It could be said that that which all are agreed upon is truth," mildly proposed Argonheart Po, who saw the chance of a metaphysical spat. "Do we not make the truth from the stuff of Chaos?"

"If the will is strong enough, perhaps," said Emmanuel Bloom. "But your wills are nothing. Mine is immeasurably powerful. You use gadgetry for your miracles. Do you see me using anything else but the power of my mind?"

"Your ship's force-field…" suggested Doctor Volospion.

"That, too, is controlled by my mind."

Doctor Volospion seemed unhappy with this information.

"And where is my soul mate?" inquired Mr Bloom. "Where is my consort? Where are you hiding her, Volospion? Eh, manikin? Speak!" He glared up at his smiling adversary.

"She is protected," said Volospion, "from you."

"Protected? She needs no protection from Emmanuel Bloom. So, you imprison her."

"For her own safety," said My Lady Charlotina. "It is what Miss Ming wants."

"She is deluded." The Fireclown displayed irritation. "Deluded by this conjuror and his jesuitry. Give her up to me. I demand it. If I can save no other soul in this whole world, I shall save hers, I swear!"

"Never," said Doctor Volospion, "would I give another human creature into your keeping. How could I justify my conscience?"

"Conscience! Pah!"

"She is secure," My Lady Charlotina glanced once at Doctor Volospion, "is she not? Locked in your deepest dungeon?"

"Well…" Doctor Volospion's shrug was modest.

"Ah, I cannot bear it! Know this, creeping jackal, sniggering quasi-priest, that I shall release her. I shall rescue her from any prison you may conceive. Why do you do this? Do you bargain with me?"

"Bargain?" said Doctor Volospion. "What have you that I should wish to bargain?"

"What do you wish from me?" The Fireclown had become agitated. "Tell me!"

"Nothing. You have heard my reasons for keeping Miss Ming safe from your threats…"

"Threats? When did I threaten?"

"You have frightened the poor woman. She is not very intelligent. She has scant self-confidence…"

"I offer her all of that and more. It is promises, not threats, I make! Bah!" The Fireclown set the lawn to smouldering and, as a consequence, many of the guests to dancing. At length everyone withdrew a few feet into the air, though still disturbed by rich smoke. Only the Fireclown remained on the ground, careless of the heat. "I can give that woman everything. You take from her what little pride she still has. I can give her beauty and love and eternal life…"

"The secret of eternal life, Mr Bloom, is already known to us," said My Lady Charlotina from above. She had some difficulty in seeing him through the smoke, which grew steadily thicker.

"This? It is a state of eternal death. You have no true enthusiasms any longer. The secret of eternal life, madam, is enthusiasm, nothing more or less."

"Enough?" said a distant Argonheart Po. "To sustain us physically?"

"To relish everything to the full, for its own sake, that's the answer." Mr Bloom's black and white Pierrot costume was almost invisible now in the boiling smoke. "Away with your charms and potions, your Shangri-Las, your Planets of Youth, of frozen cells and brain transfers! — many's the entity I've seen last little more than a thousand years before boredom shrivels up his soul and kills him."

"Kills him?" Argonheart's voice was even fainter.

"Oh, his body may live. But one way or another, boredom kills him!"

"Your ideas remain somewhat out of date," said My Lady Charlotina. "Immortality is no longer a matter of potions, enchantments or surgery…"

"I speak of the soul, madam."

"Then you speak of nothing at all," said Doctor Volospion.

There was no reply.

The Fireclown was gone.