Constant Fire

9. In which the Fireclown brings some small Salvation to the End of Time

It was, as it happened, My Lady Charlotina who first experienced the fiery wrath of Emmanuel Bloom.

Tiring (for reasons described elsewhere) of her apartments under Lake Billy the Kid, she had begun a new palace which was to be constructed in an arrangement of clouds above the site of the lake, so that it hovered over the water, reflecting both this and the sun. It was to be primarily white but with some other pale colours here and there, perhaps for flanking towers. She had spent considerable thought upon the palace and it was still by no means complete, for My Lady Charlotina was not one of those who can create a conception whole with the mere twist of a power ring; she must consider, she must alter, she must build piece by piece. Thus, in the clouds over Lake Billy the Kid, there were half-raised towers, towers without tops, domes with spires and domes that were turreted, there were gaps where halls had been, there were whole patches of space representing apartments which, at a whim, she had returned to their original particles.

Emerging from Lake Billy the Kid, after resting, My Lady Charlotina stood upon the shore, surrounded by comfortable oaks and cypresses, and arranged the mist upon the water into more satisfactory configurations, making it drift so high that it mingled with the clouds on which her new palace was settled, and she was about to eradicate a tower, which offended, now, her sense of symmetry, when there came a loud roaring sound and the whole edifice burst into flame.

My Lady Charlotina gasped with indignation. Her first thought was that one of her friends had misjudged an experiment and accidentally set fire to her palace, but she soon guessed the true cause of the blaze.

"The lunatic incendiary!" she cried, and she flung herself into the sky, not to go to her crackling palace (which was beyond salvaging) but to look down upon the world and discover the whereabouts of the Fireclown.

He was not a mile from the conflagration, standing on top of a great plinth meant to support a statue of himself which the Duke of Queens had never bothered to complete. He wore his black velvet, his bow tie, his shirt with its ruffles. He stood upon the plinth like a parrot upon its pedestal, shifting from side to side and flapping his arms at his sides as he studied his handiwork. He did not see My Lady Charlotina as, in golden gauze, she fluttered down towards him.

She paused, to hover a few feet above his head, she waited, watching him, until he became aware of her presence. She listened to him as he spoke to himself.

"Quite good. A fitting symbol. It will look well in any legends, I think. It is best for the first few miracles to be spectacular and not directed at individuals. I should not leave it too late, however, before rescuing the remains of any residents and resurrecting them."

She could not contain herself.

"I, sir, might have been the only resident of that castle in the clouds. Happily I had not arrived at it before you began your fire-raising!"

His little head jerked here and there. At last he looked up. "So!"

"The palace was to be my new home, Mr Bloom. It was impolite of you to destroy it."

"There were no inhabitants?"

"Not yet."

"Well, then, I shall be on my way."

"You make no attempt to apologize?"

Mr Bloom was amused. "I can scarcely apologize for something so calculating. You ask me to lie? I am the Fireclown. Why should I lie?"

She was speechless. Mr Bloom began to climb down a ladder he placed against the plinth. "I bid you good morning, madam."

"Good morning?"

"Or good afternoon — you keep no proper hours on this planet at all. It is hard to know. That will be changed," he smiled, "in Time."

"Mr Bloom, your purposes here are quite without point. Are we to be impressed by such displays?" She waved her hand towards the blazing palace. Her clouds had turned brown at the edges. "Time, Mr Bloom, is not what it was. Times, Mr Bloom, have changed since those primitive Dawn Ages when such 'miracles' might have provoked interest, even surprise, in the inhabitants of this world. Watch!" She turned a power ring. The fire vanished. An entire, if uninspired, fairy palace glittered again in the pristine clouds.

"Hum," said Mr Bloom, still on his ladder. He began to climb back to the top of the plinth. "I see. So Volospion is not the only conjurer here."

"We all have that power. Or most of us. It is our birthright."

"Birthright? What of my birthright?"

"You have one?"

"It is the world. I explained to Doctor Volospion, madam…" He was aggrieved. "Did he speak to no-one of my mission here?"

"He told us what you had said, yes."

"And you are not yet spiritually prepared, it seems. I left you plenty of time for contemplation of your fate. It is the accepted method, where Salvation is to be achieved."

"We have no need of Salvation, Mr Bloom. We are immortal, we control the universe — what's left of it — we are, most of us, without fear (if I understand the term properly)." My Lady Charlotina was making an untypical effort to meet Emmanuel Bloom halfway. It was probably because she had no strong wish to be at odds with him, since she was curious to know better the man who courted Miss Ming with such determination. "Really, Mr Bloom, you have arrived too late. Even a few hundred years ago, before we heard of the dissolution of the universe, there might have been some enjoyment for all, but not now. Not now, Mr Bloom."

"Hum." He frowned. He lifted a hand to his face and appeared to peck at his cuff. "But I have no other role, you see. I am a Saviour. It is all I can do."

"Must you save a whole world? Aren't there a few individuals you could concentrate on?"

"It hardly seems worthwhile. I am, to be more specific, a World Saviour — a Saver of Worlds. I have ranged the multiverse saving them. From all sorts of things, physical and spiritual. And I always leave the places I have saved spiritually regenerated. Ask any of them. They will all tell you the same. I am loved throughout the teeming dimensions."

"Then perhaps you could find another world…"

"No, this is the last. I left it long ago, promising that I would return and save it, as my final action."

"Well, you are too late."

"Really, madam, I cannot take your word for it. I am the greatest authority on such matters in the universe, to say the least. I am the Champion Eternal, Hero of a million legends. When Law battles Chaos, I am always called. When civilizations are threatened with total extermination, it is to me that they turn for rescue. And when decadence and despair rule an otherwise secure and prosperous world, it is for Emmanuel Bloom, the Fireclown, Time's Jester, that they yearn. And I come."

"But we did not call you, we require no rescuing. We are not yearning, I assure you, even a fraction."

"Miss Ming is yearning."

"Miss Ming's yearning is hardly spiritual."

"So you think. I know better."

"Well, then, I'll grant you that Miss Ming is yearning. But I am not yearning. Doctor Volospion is incapable, I am sure, of yearning. Yearning, all in all, Mr Bloom, is extinct in this Age."

"Forgotten, hidden, unheeded, but I know it is there. I know. A deep, unadmitted sadness. A demand for Romance. A pining for Ideals."

"We take up Romance from time to time, and we have an interest, on occasion, in Ideals — but these are passing enthusiasms, Mr Bloom. Even those of us most obsessed with such things show no particular misery when circumstances or changing fashion require that they be dropped."

"How shallow are those who dwell here now! All, that is, save Mavis Ming."

"Some think her the shallowest of us all." My Lady Charlotina regretted her spite, for she did not wish to seem malicious in Mr Bloom's eyes.

"It is often the case," he said, "with those who cannot see beyond flesh and into the soul."

"I doubt if there are many souls remaining among us," said My Lady Charlotina. "Since we are almost every one of us self-made creatures. There is even some speculation that we are not human at all, but sophisticated androids."

"It could be the explanation," he mused.

"I hope you will not be wholly frustrated," she said sympathetically, watching him climb down his ladder. "I can imagine what it is like to possess only one role."

She settled, like a butterfly, upon the vacated plinth.

He reached the ground and peered up at her, arms held stiffly, as usual, by his side, red hair flaring. "I assure you, madam," he piped, "that I am not in the least impressed by what you have told me."

"But I speak the truth."

"Unlike Volospion, who lies, lies, lies. I agree that you believe, like Miss Ming, that you speak the truth. But I see decadence. And where there is decadence there is misery. And where there is misery then must come the Fireclown, to bring laughter, joy, terror, to banish all anxieties."

"Your logic is, I fear, obsolete, Mr Bloom. There is no misery here, to speak of. And," she added, "there is no joy. Instead, we have a comfortable balance. It enables us to contemplate our own end with a certain grace."

"Hum."

"Surely this equilibrium is what all human morality and philosophy has striven for over the millennia?" she said, seating herself on the edge of the plinth and arranging her gold gauze about her legs. "Would you set the see-saw swinging again?"

He frowned. "No heights or depths here, eh?"

"For most of us, no."

"No Heaven and Hell?"

"Only those we create for our own amusement."

"No Terror and no Ecstasy?"

"Scarcely a scrap."

"How can you bear it?"

"It is the ultimate achievement of our race. We enjoy it."

"Are there none who —?"

"Those time travellers, space travellers, a few who have induced special anachronistic tendencies in themselves. Yes, there are some who might respond to you. A good few of them are not with us at present, however. The Iron Orchid's little son, Jherek Carnelian, his great love, Amelia Underwood, his mentor, Lord Jagged of Canaria, and perhaps a few others, one loses track. Doctor Volospion? Perhaps, for it is rumoured that he is not of this Age at all. Li Pao and various aliens who have visited us and stayed … Yes, from these you could derive a certain satisfaction. Some would undoubtably welcome you, for one reason or another…"

"It is usually for one reason or another," said the Fireclown frankly. "Men see me as many things. It is because I am many things."

"And all of them excellent, I am sure."

"But I must do what I must do," he said. "It is all I know. For I am Bloom the Destroyer, Bloom the Builder, Bloom the Bringer of Brightness, Bloom who Blooms Forever! And my mission is to save you all."

"I thought we had at least removed ourselves from generalities, Mr Bloom," she said a little chidingly.

He turned away, disconsolately so My Lady Charlotina thought.

"Generalities, madam, are all I deal in. They are my stock-in-trade. It is the gift I bring — to remove petty anxieties, momentary considerations, and to replace them with grandeur, with huge, simple, glorious Ideals."

"It is not a simple problem," she said. "I can see that."

"It must be a simple problem!" he complained. "All problems are simple. All!"

He disappeared into the soft trees surrounding the plinth. She heard his voice muttering for some while, but he made no formal farewell, for he was too much lost in his own concerns. A short time later she saw a distant tree burst into flame and subside almost at once. She saw a rather feeble bolt of lightning crash and split a trunk. Then he was gone away.

My Lady Charlotina remained on the plinth, for she was enjoying a rare sense of melancholy and was reluctant to let the mood pass.