A Messiah at the End of Time
By Michael Moorcock



Chapter One
In which your Auditor gives credit to his Sources
      The incidente involving Mr. Jherek Carnelian and Mrs. Amelia Underwood, 
their adventures in Time, the 
machinations of, among others, the Lord of Canaria, are already familiar to 
those of us who follow avidly any fragment 
of gossip coming back from the End of Time.
      We know, too, why it is impossible to learn further details of how life 
progresses there since the inception of 
Lord Jagged's grand (and some think pointless) scheme, details of which have 
been published in the three volumes 
jointly entitled The Dancers at the End of Time and in the single volume, 
companion to this, called Legends from the 
End of Time.*
      Time travelers, of course, still visit the periods immediately preceding 
the inception of the scheme: They bring 
us back those scraps of scandal, speculation, probable feet and likely lies 
which form the bases for the admittedly 
fanciful reconstructions I choose to term my "legends from the future" stories 
which doubtless would cause much 
amusement if those I write about were ever to read them (happily there is no 
evidence that the tales survive our present 
century, let alone the next few million years).
      If this particular tale seems more outrageous and less likely than any of 
the others, it is because I was gullible 
enough to believe the sketch of it I had from an acquaintance who does not 
normally journey so far into the future. A 
colleague of Miss Una Persson in the Guild of Temporal Adventurers, he does not 
wish me to reveal his name and this, 
happily, allows me to be rather more frank about him than would have been 
possible.
      My friend's stories are always interesting, but they are consistently 
highly-colored; his exploits have been 
bizarre and his claims incredible: if he is to be believed he has been present 
at a good many of the best known key 
events in history, including the era* cifixion of Christ, the massacre at Mei 
Lei, the assassination of Naomi Jacobsen in 
Paris and so on, and has often played a major role.
      From his base in West London (20th century, Sectors 3 and 4) my friend has 
ranged what he terms the 
"chronoflow," visiting periods of the past and future of this Earth as well as 
those of other Earths which, he would have 
us accept, coexist with ours in a complex system of intersecting dimensions 
making up something called the 
"multiverse."
      Of all the temporal adventurers I have known, my friend is the most ready 
to describe his exploits to anyone 
who will listen. Presumably he is not subject to the Morphail Effect (which 
causes most travelers to exercise the 
greatest caution regarding their actions and conversations in any of the periods 
they visit) mainly because few but the 
simple-minded, and those whose logical faculties have been ruined by drink, 
drugs or other forms of dissipation, will 
take him seriously.
      My friend's own explanation is that he is not affected by such details; he 
describes himself rather wildly as a 
"Chronic Outlaw" (a self-view which might give the reader some insight into his 
character). You might think he 
charmed me into believing the tale he told me of Miss Mavis Ming and Mr. 
Emmanuel Bloom, and yet there is 
something about the essence of the story that inclined me to believe it - for 
all that it is, in many ways, one of the most 
incredible I have ever heard. It cannot, of course, be verified readily 
(certainly so far as the final chapters are 
concerned) but it is supported by other rumors I have heard, as well as my own 
previous knowledge of Mr. Bloom 
(whose earlier incarnation appeared in a tale, told to me by one of my friend's 
fellow Guild Members, published 
variously as The Feclown and The Winds of Limbo, some years ago).
      The events recorded here follow directly upon those recorded in Legends 
from the End of Time and in effect 
take up Miss Ming's story where we left it after her encounter with Dafnish 
Armatuce and her son Snuffles.
      As usual, the basic events described are as I had them from my source. I 
have rearranged certain things, to 
maintain narrative tensions, and added to an earlier, less complete draft of my 
own which was written hastily, before all 
the information was known to me. The "fleshing out" of the narrative, the 
interpretations where they occur, many of the 
details of conversations, and so on, must be blamed entirely on your auditor.
      In the previous volume to this one I have already recounted something of 
the peculiar relationship existing 
between Miss Ming and Doctor Volospion: the unbearable bore and that 
ostentatious misanthrope.
      Why Doctor Volospion continued to take perverse pleasure in the woman's 
miserable company, why she 
allowed him to insult her in the most profound of ways - she who spent the 
greater part of her days avoiding any sort of 
pain - we cannot tell. Suffice it to say that relationships of this sort exist 
in our own society and can be equally 
puzzling.
      Perhaps Doctor Volospion found confirmation of all his misanthropism in 
her; perhaps she preferred this 
intense, if unpleasant, attention to no attention at all. She confirmed his view 
of life, while he confirmed her very 
existence.
      But it is the purpose of a novel, not a romance, to speculate in this way 
and it is no part of my intention to dwell 
too much upon such thoughts.
      Here, then, for the reader's own interpretation (if one is needed), is the 
tale of Miss Ming's transformation and 
the part which both Doctor Volospion and Emmanuel Bloom had in it.
      MICHAEL MOORCOCK Ladbroke Grove, November.
      
      
Chapter TwoIn which Miss Mavis Ming experiences a familiar Discomfort
      The Peculiar effect of one sun rising just as another set, causing shadows 
to waver, making objects appear to 
shift shape and position, went more or less entirely unobserved by the great 
crowd of people who stood, enjoying a 
party, in the foothills of a rather poorly finished range of mountains erected 
some little time ago by Werther de Goethe 
during one of his periodic phases of attempting to re-create the landscapes, 
faithful to the last detail, of Holman Hunt, 
an ancient painter Werther had discovered in one of the rotting cities.
      Werther, it is fair to say, had not been the first to make such an 
attempt. Werther, however, held to the creed that 
an artist should, so far as his powers allowed, put up everything exactly as he 
saw it in the painting. Werther was a 
purist. Werther volubly denied the criticisms of those who found such literal 
work bereft of what they regarded as true 
artistic inspiration, Werther's theories of Fidelity to Art had enjoyed a short-
lived vogue (for a time the Duke of Queens 
had been an earnest acolyte) but his fellows had soon tired of such narrow 
disciplines.
      Werther, alone, refused to renounce them.
      As the party progressed one of the suns eventually vanished while the 
other rose rapidly, reached zenith, and 
stopped. The light became golden, autumnal, misty. Of the guests but three had 
paused to observe the phenomenon; 
they were Miss Mavis Ming, plump and eager in her new dress, Li Pao, bland in 
puritanical denim, and Abu Thaleb, 
their host, svelte and opulent, splendidly overdressed.
      'Whose suns?" murmured Abu Thaleb appreciatively. "How pretty. And subtle. 
Rivals, perhaps..."
      'To your own creations?" asked Li Pao.
      'No, no-to one another."
      'They could be Werthers' suggested Miss Ming, anxious to return to their 
interrupted topic. "He hasn't arrived 
yet. Go on, Li Pao. You were saying something about Doctor Volospion."
      A fingered ear betrayed Li Pao's embarrassment. "I spoke of no one 
specifically, Miss Ming." His round, 
Chinese face became expressionless,
      'By association," Abu Thaleb prompted, a somewhat sly smile manifesting 
itself within his pointed beard, "you 
spoke of Volospion."
      'Ah! You would make a gossip of me. I disdain such impulses. I merely 
observed that only the weak hate 
weakness; only the wounded condemn the pain of others." He wiped a stain of 
juice from his severe blouse and turned 
his back on the tiny sun.
      Miss Ming was arch. "But you meant Doctor Volospion, Li Pao. You were 
suggesting..."
      A tide of guests flowed by, its noise drowning what remained of her 
remark, and when it had passed Li Pao 
(perhaps piqued by an element of truth) chose to show impatience. "I do not 
share your obsession with your protector, 
Miss Ming. I generalized. The thought can scarcely be considered a specific one, 
nor an original one. I regret it. If you 
prefer, I retract it."
      'I wasn't criticizing, Li Pao. I was just interested in how you saw him. I 
mean, he has been very kind to me, and I 
wouldn't like anybody to think I wasn't aware of all he's done for me. I could 
still be in his menagerie, couldn't I? But 
he showed his respect for me by letting me go-that is, asking me to be his guest 
rather than-well, whatever you'd call 
it."
      'He is a model of chivalry." Abu Thaleb stroked an eyebrow and hid his 
face with his hand. "Well, if you will 
excuse me, I must see to my monsters. To my guests." He departed, to be 
swallowed by his party, while Li Pao's 
imploring look went unnoticed.
      Miss Ming smoothed the front of Li Pao's blouse. "So you see," she said, 
"I was only curious. It certainly wasn't 
gossip I wanted to hear. But I respect your opinions, Li Pao. We are fellow 
'prisoners,' after all, in this world. Both of 
us would probably prefer to be back in the past, where we belong - you in the 
27th century, to take your rightful 
position as chairman or whatever of China, and me in the 21st, to, to..." 
Inspiration left her momentarily. She contented 
herself with a coy wink. "You mustn't pay any attention to little Mavis. There's 
no malice in her."
      'Aha." Li Pao closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
      Miss Ming's sky-blue nail traced patterns on the more restrained blue of 
his chest. "It's not in Mavis's nature to 
think naughty thoughts. Well, not that sort of naughty thought, at any rate!" 
She giggled.
      'Yaha?" It was almost inaudible.
      From somewhere overhead came the distant strains of one of Abu Thaleb's 
beasts. Li Pao raised his head as if to 
seek the source. He contemplated Heaven.
      Miss Ming, too, looked up. "Nothing," she said. "It must have come from 
over there." She pointed and, to her 
chagrin, her finger indicated the approaching figure of Ron Ron Ron who was, 
like herself and Li Pao, an expatriate 
(although in his case from the 140th century). "Oh, look out, Li Pao. It's that 
bore Ron coming over..."
      She was surprised when Li Pao expressed enthusiastic delight. "My old 
friend!"
      She was sure that Li Pao found Ron Ron Ron just as awful as everyone else 
did but, for his sake, she smiled as 
sweetly as she could. "How nice to see you."
      Ron Ron Ron had an expression of hauteur on his perfectly oval face. This 
was his usual expression. He, too, 
seemed just a little surprised by Li Pao's effusion. "Urn?"
      The two men contemplated one another. Mavis plainly felt that it was up to 
her to break the ice. "Li Pao was just 
saying - not about Doctor Volos-pion or anybody in particular - that  the weak 
hate weakness and won't - what was it, 
Li Pao?"
      'It was not important, Miss Ming. I must..." He offered Ron Ron Ron a thin 
smile.
      Ron Ron Ron cleared his throat. " No, please..."
      'It was very profound," said Miss Ming. "I thought."
      Ron Ron Ron adjusted his peculiar jerkin so that the edges were exactly in 
line. He fussed at a button. "Then 
you must repeat it for me, Li Pao." The shoulders of his jerkin were straight-
edged and the whole garment was made to 
the exact proportions of a square. His trousers were identical oblongs; his 
shoes, too, were exactly square. The fingers 
of his hands were all of the same length.
      'Only the weak hate weakness..." murmured Miss Ming encouragingly, 
"and..."
      Li Pao's voice was almost a shriek: "... only the wounded condemn the pain 
of others. You see, Ron Ron Ron, I 
was not-, "
      'An interesting observation." Ron Ron Ron put his hands together under his 
chin. "Yes, yes, yes. I see."
      'No!" Li Pao took a desperate step forward, as if to leave.
      'By the same argument, Li Pao," began Ron Ron Ron, and Li Pao became 
passive, "you would imply that a 
strong person who exercised that strength is, in fact, revealing a weakness in 
his character, eh?"
      'No. I..."
      'Oh, but we must have a look at this." Ron Ron Ron became almost animated. 
"It suggests, you see, that 
indirectly you condemn my efforts as leader of the Symmetrical Fundamentalist 
Movement in attempting to seize 
power during the Anarchist Beekeeper period."
      'I assure you that I was not..." Li Pao's voice had diminished to a 
whisper.
      'Certainly we were strong enough," continued Ron Ron Ron. "If the planet 
had not, in the meantime, been 
utilized as a strike base by some superior alien military force (whose name we 
never did learn), who killed virtually all 
opposition and enslaved the remaining third of the human race during the 
duration of its occupation-not much more 
than twenty years, admittedly - before they vanished again, either because our 
part of the galaxy was no longer of 
strategic importance to them or because their enemies had defeated them, who 
knows what we could have achieved."
      'Wonders," gasped Li Pao. "Wonders, I am sure."
      'You are kind. As it was, Earth was left in a state of semi-barbarism 
which had no need, I suppose, for the 
refinements either of Autonomous Hiveism or Symmetrical Fundamentalism, but 
given the chance I could have-,"
      'I am sure. I am sure." Li Pao's voice had taken on the quality of a 
laboring steam engine.
      'Still," Ron Ron Ron went on, "I digress. You see, because of my efforts 
to parley with the aliens, my efforts 
were misinterpreted-,"
      'Certainly. Certainly."
      '-and I was forced to use the experimental time-craft to flee here. 
However, my point is this..."
      'Quite, quite, quite..."
      Miss Ming shook her head. "Oh, you men and your politics. I..."
      But she had not been forceful enough. Ron Ron Ron's (or Ron's Ron's Ron's, 
as he would have preferred us to 
write) voice droned on, punctuated by Li Pao's little gasps and sighs. She could 
not understand Li Pao's allowing 
himself to be trapped in this awful situation. She had done her best, when he 
seemed to want to talk to Ron Ron Ron, to 
begin a conversation that would interest them both, knowing that the only thing 
the two men had in common was a past 
taste for political activity and a present tendency, in their impotence, to 
criticize the shortcomings of their fellows here 
at the End of Time. But now Li Pao showed no inclination at all to take Ron Ron 
Ron up on any of his points, which 
were certainly of no interest to anyone but the Symmetrical Fundamentalist 
himself. She knew what it was like with 
some people; if a string was pulled in them, they couldn't stop themselves going 
on and on. A lot of those she had 
known back home in 21st-century Iowa had been like that.
      Again, thought Mavis, it was up to her to change the subject. For Li Pao's 
sake as well as her own.
      '... they never did separate properly, you see," said Ron Ron Ron.
      'Separate?" Miss Ming seized the chance given her by the pause in his 
monologue. She spoke brightly. 
"Properly? Why, that's like my Swiss Cheese Plant. The one I used to have in my 
office? It grew so big! But the leaves 
wouldn't separate properly. Is that what happened to yours, Ron Ron Ron?"
      'We were discussing strength," said Ron Ron Ron in some bewilderment.
      'Strength! You should have met my ex. I've mentioned him before? Donny 
Stevens, the heel. Now say what you 
like about him, but he was strong! Betty - you know, that's the friend I told 
you about? - more than a friend, really..." 
She winked. "... Betty used to say that Donny Stevens was prouder of his 
pectorals than he was of his prick! Eh?" She 
shook with laughter. The two men looked at her in silence. Li Pao sucked his 
lower lip.
      'And that was saying a lot, where Donny was concerned," Mavis added. 
"Ushshsh..." said Li Pao. "Really?" Ron 
Ron Ron spoke in a peculiar tone. The silence returned at once. Dutifully Mavis 
tried to fill it. She put a hand on Ron 
Ron Ron's tubular sleeve.
      'I shouldn't tell you this, what with my convictions and all - I was 
polarized in '65, became an all-woman 
woman, if you get me, after my divorce - but I miss that bastard of a bull 
sometimes."
      'Well..." Ron Ron Ron hesitated.
      'What this world needs," said Mavis as she got into her stride, "if you 
ask me, is a few more real men. You 
know? Real men. The girls around here have got more balls than the guys. One 
real man and, boy!, you'd find my tastes 
changing just like that..." She tried, unsuccessfully, to snap her fingers.
      'Ssssss..." said Li Pao.
      'Anyway," Mavis was anxious to reassure him that she had not lost track of 
the original topic, "it's the same with 
Swiss Cheese plants. They're strong. Any conditions will suit them and they'll 
strangle anything that gets in their way. 
They use - they used to use, I should say - the big ones to fell other trees in 
Paraguay. I think it's Paraguay. But when it 
comes to getting the leaves to separate, well, all you can say is that they're 
bastards to train. Like strong men, I guess. In 
the end you have to take 'em or leave 'em as they come."
      Mavis laughed again, waiting for their responding laughter, which did not 
materialize. She was valiant:
      'I stayed with my house plants, but I left that stud to play in his own 
stable. And how he'd been playing! Betty 
said if I tried to count the number of mares he'd serviced while I thought he 
was stuck late at the lab I'd need a 
computer!"
      Li Pao and Ron Ron Ron now stood side by side, staring at her.
      'Two computers!" She had definitely injected a bit of wit into the 
conversation and given Li Pao a chance to get 
onto a subject he preferred but evidently neither of them had much of a sense of 
humor. Li Pao now glanced at his feet. 
Ron Ron Ron had a silly fixed grin on his face and was just grunting at her, 
even though she had stopped speaking. She 
decided to soldier on:
      'Did I tell you about the Bizzy Lizzie that turned out to be Poison Ivy? 
We were out in the country one day, this 
was before my divorce - it must have been just after we got married - either '60 
or '61 - no, it must have been '61 
definitely because it was spring - probably May..."
      "Look!"
      Li Pao's voice was so loud that it startled Mavis.
      'What?"
      'There's Doctor Volospion." He waved toward where the crowd was thickest. 
"He was signalling to you, Miss 
Ming. Over there!"
      The news heartened her. This would be her excuse to get away. But she 
could not, of course, show Li Pao how 
pleased she was. So she smiled indulgently. "Oh, let him wait. Just because he's 
my host here doesn't mean I have to be 
at his beck and call the whole time!"
      'Please," said Ron Ron Ron, removing a small, pink, even-fingered hand 
from a perfectly square pocket. "You 
must not let us, Miss Ming, monopolize your time."
      'Oh, well..." She was relieved. "Ill see you later, perhaps. By-ee." Her 
wink was cute; she waggled her fingers at 
them. But as she turned to seek out Doctor Volospion it seemed that he had 
disappeared. She turned back and to her 
surprise saw Li Pao sprinting away from Ron Ron Ron toward the foot of one of 
Abu Thaleb's monsters, perhaps 
because he had seen someone to whom he wished to speak. She avoided Ron Ron 
Ron's eye and set off in the general 
direction indicated by Li Pao, making her way between guests and wandering 
elephants, who were here in more or less 
equal numbers.
      'At least I did my best," she said. "They're very difficult men to talk 
to."
      She yawned. She was already beginning to be just a trifle bored with the 
party.
      


Chapter ThreeIn which Miss Ming fails to find Consolation
      The elephants, although the most numerous, were not the largest beasts 
providing the party's entertainment; its 
chief feature being the seven monstrous animals who sat on green-brown haunches 
and raised their heavy heads in 
mournful song.
      These beasts were the pride of Abu Thaleb's collection. They were perfect 
reproductions of the singing 
gargantua of Justine IV, a planet long since vanished in the general dissipation 
of the cosmos. (Earth, the reader will 
remember, had used up a good many other star systems to rejuvenate its own 
energies.)
      Abu Thaleb's enthusiasm for elephants and all that was elephantine was so 
great that he had changed his name to 
that of the ancient Commissar of Bengal solely because one of that legendary 
dignitary's other titles had been Lord of 
All Elephants.
      The gargantua were more in the nature of huge baboons, their heads 
resembling those of Airedale terriers (now, 
of course, long extinct) and were so large that the guests standing closest to 
them could not see them as a whole at all. 
Moreover, so high were these shaggy heads above the party that the beautiful 
music of their voices was barely audible.
      Elsewhere the commissar's guests ate from trays carried upon the backs of 
baby mammoths, or leaned against 
the leather hides of hippopotomi which kneeled here and there about the grounds 
of Abu Thaleb's vast palace, itself 
fashioned in the shape of two marble elephants standing forehead to forehead, 
with trunks entwined.
      Mavis Ming paused beside a resting oryx and pulled a tiny savory doughnut 
or two from its left horn, munching 
absently as the beast's huge eyes regarded her. "You look," she remarked to it, 
"as fed up as I feel." She could find no 
one to keep her company in that whole cheerful throng. Almost everyone she knew 
had seemed to turn aside just as she 
had been about to greet them and Doctor Volospion himself was nowhere to be 
seen.
      'This party," she continued, "is definitely tedious."
      'What a supehb fwock, Miss Ming! So fwothyf Soyellah!"
      Sweet Orb Mace, in flounces and folds of different shades of grey, 
presented himself before her, smiling and 
languid. His eyebrows were elaborately arched; his hair incredibly ringletted, 
his cheeks exquisitely rouged. He made a 
leg.
      The short-skirted yellow dress, with its several petticoats, its baby-blue 
trimmings (to match her eyes, her best 
feature), was certainly, Mavis felt, the sexiest thing she had worn for a long 
while, so she was not surprised by his 
compliment.
      She gave one of her little-girl trills of laughter and pirouetted for him.
      'I thought," she told him, "that it was high time I felt feminine again. 
Do you like the bow?" The big blue bow in 
her honey-blonde hair was trimmed with yellow and matched the smaller bows on 
her yellow shoes.
      'Wondahful!" pronounced Sweet Orb Mace. "It is quite without compahe!"
      She was suddenly much happier. She blew him a kiss and fluttered her 
lashes. She warmed to Sweet Orb Mace, 
who could sometimes be such good company (whether as a man or a woman, for his 
moods varied from day to day), 
and she took his arm, confiding: "You know how to flatter a girl. I suppose you, 
of all people, should know. I'll tell you 
a secret. I've been a bit cunning, you see, in wearing a full skirt. It makes my 
waist look a little slimmer. I'm the first to 
admit that I'm not the thinnest girl in the world, but I'm not about to 
emphasize the fact, am I?"
      'Wemahkable."
      Amiably, Sweet Orb Mace strolled in harness while Mavis whispered further 
secrets. She told him of the polka-
dot elephant she had had when she was seven. She had kept it for years, she 
said, until it had been run over by a truck, 
when Donny Stevens had thrown it through the apartment window into the street, 
during one of their rows.
      'I could have taken almost anything else," she said.
      Sweet Orb Mace nodded and murmured little exclamations, but he scarcely 
seemed to have heard the anecdote. 
If he had a drawback as a companion it was his vagueness; his attention wavered 
so.
      'He accused me of being childish," exclaimed
      Mavis putting, as it were, twice the energy into the conversation, to make 
up for his failings. "Ha! He had the 
mental age of a dirty-minded eleven-year-oldl But there you go. I got more love 
from that elephant than I ever got from 
Donny Stevens. It's always the people who try to be nice who come in for the 
nasty treatment, isn't it?"
      'Wather!"
      'He blamed me for everything. Little Mavis always gets the blame! Ever 
since I was a kid. Everybody's 
whipping boy, that's Mavis Ming! My father..."
      'Weally?"
      She abandoned this line, thinking better of it, and remained with her 
original sentiment. "If you don't stand up 
for yourself, someone'll always step on you. The things I've done for people in 
the past. And you know what almost 
always happens?"
      'Natuwally..."
      'They turn round and say the cruellest things to you. They always blame 
you for what they should really be 
blaming themselves. That woman - Dafnish Armatuce - well..."
      'Twagic."
      'Doctor Volospion said I'd been too easy-going with her. I looked after 
that kid of hers as if it had been my own! 
It makes you want to give up sometimes, Sweet Orb. But you've got to keep on 
trying, haven't you? Some of us are 
fated to suffer..."
      Sweet Orb Mace paused beside a towering mass of ill-smelling hairy flesh 
which moved rhythmically and shook 
the surrounding ground so that little fissures appeared. It was the gently 
tapping toe of one of Abu Thaleb's singing 
gargantua. Sweet Orb Mace stared gravely up, unable to see the head of the 
beast. "Oh, cehtainly," he agreed. "Pwetty 
tune, don't you think?"
      She lifted an ear, but shrugged. "No, I don't."
      He was mildly surprised.
      'Too much like a dirge for my taste," she said. "I like something catchy." 
She sighed, her mood returning to its 
former state. "Oh, dear. This is a very boring party."
      He became astonished.
      'This pwofusion of pachyderms bohwing? Oh, no! I find it fascinating, Miss 
Ming. An extwavagance of 
elephants, a genewosity of giants!"
      She could not agree. Her eye, perhaps, was jaundiced.
      Sweet Orb Mace, sensing her displeasure, became anxious. "Still," he 
added, "evewyone knows how easily 
impwessed I am. Such a poah imagination of my own, you know."
      She sighed. "I expected more."
      'Monsters?" He glanced about, as if to find her some. "Awgonheaht Po has 
yet to make his contwibution! He is 
wumohed to be supplying the main feast."
      'I didn't know." She sighed again. "It's not that. I was hoping to meet 
some nice person. Someone - you know - I 
could have a real relationship with. I guess I expected too much from that 
Dafnish and her kid - but it, well, turned me 
on to the idea. I'm unfulfilled as a woman, Sweet Orb Mace, if you want the raw 
truth of it."
      She looked expectantly at her elegantly poised escort.
      'Tut," said Sweet Orb Mace abstractedly, "tut, tut." He still stared 
skyward.
      She raised her voice. "You're not, I guess, in the mood yourself. I'm 
going to go home if things don't perk up. If 
you feel like coming back now - or dropping round later...? I'm still staying at 
Doctor Volospion's."
      'Weally?"
      She laughed at herself. "I should try to sound more positive, shouldn't I? 
Nobody's going to respond well to a 
faltering approach like that. Well, Sweet Orb Mace, what about it?"
      'It?"
      She was actually depressed now.
      'I meant..."
      'I pwcmised to meet O'Kala Incarnadine heah," said Sweet Orb Mace. "I was 
suah - ah - and theah he is!" 
carolled her companion. "If you will excuse me, Miss Ming..." Another elaborate 
bending of the body, a sweep of the 
hand.
      'Oh, sure," she murmured.
      Sweet Orb Mace rose a few feet into the air and drifted toward O'Kala 
Incarnadine, who had come as a 
rhinoceros.
      'The way I'm beginning to feel," said Miss Ming to herself, "even O'Kala 
Incarnadine's looking attractive. Bye, 
bye, Sweet Orb. No sweat. Oh, Christ! This boredom is killing!"
      And then she had seen her protector, her host, her mentor, her Guardian 
Angel, and with a grateful "Hi!" she 
flew.
      Doctor Volospion was sighted at last! He seemed at times like this her 
only stability. He it was who had first 
found her when, in her time machine, dazed and frightened, she had arrived at 
the End of Time. Doctor Volospion had 
claimed her for his menagerie, thinking from her conversation that she belonged 
to some religious order (she had been 
delirious) and had discovered only later that she was a simple historian who 
believed that she had returned to the past, 
to the middle ages. He had been disappointed but had treated her courteously and 
now allowed her the full run of his 
house. She did not fit into his menagerie, which was religious in emphasis, 
consisting of nuns, prophets, gods, demons, 
and so forth, and could have founded her own establishment, had she wished, but 
she preferred the security of his 
sometimes dolorous domicile.
      She slowed her pace. Doctor Volospion was hailing the Commissar of Bengal, 
whose howdah-shaped golden air 
car was drifting back to the ground (apparently Abu Thaleb had been feeding his 
gigantic pets).
      'Coo-ee!" cried Miss Ming as she approached.
      But Doctor Volospion had not heard her.
      'Coo-ee."
      He joined in conversation with Abu Thaleb.
      'Coo-ee, doctorl"
      Now the sardonic, saturnine features turned to regard her. The sleek black 
head moved in a kind of bow and the 
corners of the thin, red mouth lifted.
      She was panting as she reached them. "It's only little me!"
      Abu Thaleb was avuncular. "Miss Ming, again we meet. Scheherazade come 
among us." The dusky commissar 
was one one of the few regular visitors to Doctor Volospion's, perhaps the only 
friend of the doctor's to treat her kindly. 
"You enjoy the entertainment, I hope?"
      'It's a great party if you like elephants," she said. But the joke had 
misfired; Abu Thaleb was frowning. So she 
added with some eagerness: "I personally love elephants."
      'I did not know we had that in common."
      'Oh, yes. When I was a little girl I used to go for rides at the zoo 
whenever I could. At least once a year, on my 
birthday. My daddy would try to take me, no matter what else was happening..."
      'I must join in the compliments." Doctor Volospion cast a glinting eye 
from her toes to her bow. "You outshine 
us all, Miss Ming. Such taste! Such elegance! We, in our poor garb, are mere 
flickering candles to your super-nova!"
      Her giggle of response was hesitant, as if she suspected him of satire, 
but then an expression almost of 
tranquillity passed across her features. His flattery appeared to have a 
euphoric effect upon her. She became a fondled 
cat.
      'Oh, you always do it to me, Doctor Volospion. Here I am trying to be 
brittle and witty, cool and dignified, and 
you make me grin and blush like a schoolgirl."
      'Forgive me."
      She frowned, finger to lips. "I'm trying to think of a witticism to please 
you."
      'Your presence is uniquely pleasing, Miss Ming."
      Doctor Volospion moved his thin arms which were hardly able to bear the 
weight of the sleeves of his black and 
gold brocade gown.
      'But..."
      Doctor Volospion turned to Abu Thaleb. "You bring us a world of gentle 
monsters, exquisite commissar. Gross 
of frame, mild of manner, delicate of spirit, your paradoxical pachyderms!"
      'They are very practical beasts, Doctor Volospion." Abu Thaleb spoke 
defensively, as if he, too, suspected irony.
      People would often respond in this way to Doctor Volospion's remarks which 
were almost always, on the 
surface at least, bland enough.
      'Oh, indeed!" Doctor Volospion eyed a passing calf which had paused and 
was tentatively extending its trunk to 
accept a piece of fruit from the commissar's open palm. "Servants of Man since 
the Beginning of Time."
      'Worshipped as Gods in many eras and climes'..." added Abu Thaleb.
      'Gods! True. Ganesh..."
      Abu Thaleb had lost his reservations:
      'I have re-created examples of every known species! The English, the 
Bulgarian, the Chinese, and, of course, the 
Indian..."
      'You have a favorite?" Volospion heaved at a sleeve and scratched an 
eyebrow.
      'My favorites are the Swiss Alpine elephants. There is one now. Notice its 
oddly shaped hooves. These were the 
famous White Elephants of Sitting Bull, used in the Liberation of Chicago in the 
50th century."
      Miss Ming felt bound to interrupt. "Are you absolutely certain of that, 
commissar? The story sounds a bit 
familiar, but isn't quite right. I am an historian, after all, if not a very 
good one. You're not thinking of Carthage...?" She 
became confused, apparently afraid that she had offended him again. "I'm sorry. 
I shouldn't have butted in. You know 
what a silly little ignoramus I am..."
      'I am absolutely certain, my dear," said Abu Thaleb kindly. "I had most of 
the information from an old tape 
which Jherek Carnelian found for me in one of the rotting cities. The 
translation might not have been perfect, but..."
      'Ah, so Carthage could have sounded like Chicago, particularly after it 
has been through a number of 
transcriptions. You see Sitting Bull could have been-,"
      Doctor Volospion broke in on her speculations. "What romantic times those 
must have been! Your own stories, 
Miss Ming, are redolent with the atmosphere of our glorious and vanished past!" 
He looked at Abu Thaleb as he spoke. 
Abu Thaleb moved uncomfortably.
      Mavis Ming laughed. "Well, it wasn't all fun, you know." She sighed with 
pleasure, addressing Abu Thaleb. 
"The thing I like about Doctor Volospion is the way he always lets me talk. He's 
always interested..."
      Abu Thaleb avoided both their eyes.
      'Say what you like about him," she continued, "Doctor Volospion's a 
gentleman!" She became serious. "No, in a 
lot of ways the past was hell, though I must say there were satisfactions I 
never realized I'd miss till now. Sex, for 
instance."
      'You mean sexual pleasure?" The Commissar of Bengal drew a banana from his 
quilted cuff and began to peel 
it.
      Miss Ming appeared to be taken aback by this gesture. Her voice was 
distant. "I certainly do mean that."
      'Oh, surely..." murmured Doctor Volospion.
      Miss Ming found her old voice. "Nobody around here ever seems to be 
interested. I mean really interested. If 
that's what's meant by an ancient race, give me what you call the Dawn Ages-my 
time-any day of the week! Well, not 
that you have days or weeks, but you know what I mean. Real sex!"
      She seemed to realize that she was in danger of becoming intense and she 
tried to lighten the effect of her 
speech by breaking into what, in the Dawn Age, might have been a musical laugh.
      When her laughter - had died away, Doctor Volospion touched his right 
index finger to his left eyelid. "Can this 
be true, Miss Ming?"
      'Oh, you're a sweetie, Doctor Volospion. You make a girl feel really 
foolish sometimes. It's not your fault. 
You've got what we used to call an 'unfortunate tone' - it seems to make a 
mockery of everything. I know what it is. 
You don't have to tell me. You're really quite shy, like me. I've lived with you 
long enough to know..."
      'I am honored, as always, by your interpretation of my character. But I am 
genuinely curious. I can think of so 
many who concern themselves with little else but sexual gratification. My Lady 
Charlotina, O'Kala Incarnadine, Gaf 
the Horse in Tears and, of course, Mistress Christia, the Everlasting 
Concubine." He cast an eye over the surrounding 
guests. "Jherek Carnelian crucifies himself in pursuit of his sexual object..."
      'It's not what I meant," she explained, "You see they only play at it. 
They're not really motivated by it. It's hard 
to explain." She became coy. "Anyway, I don't think any of those are my types, 
actually."
      The Commissar of Bengal finished feeding his banana to a passing 
pachyderm. "I seem to recall that you were 
quite struck by My Lady Charlotina at one time, Miss Ming," he said.
      'Oh, that was-"
      Doctor Volospion studied something beyond her left shoulder. "And then 
there was that other lady. The time-
traveler, whom I rather took to, myself. Why, we were almost rivals for a while. 
You were in love, you said, Miss 
Ming."
      'Oh, now you're being cruel! I'd rather you didn't mention..."
      'Of course." Now he looked beyond her right shoulder. "A tragedy."
      'It's not that I-I mean, I don't like to think. I was badly let down by 
Dafnish - and by Snuffles, in particular. How 
was I to know that... Well, if you hadn't consoled me then, don't know what I'd 
have done. But I wish you wouldn't 
bring it up. Not here, at least. Oh, people can be so baffling sometimes. I'm 
not perfect, I know, but I do my best to be 
tactful, you know. To look on the bright side. To help others. Betty used to say 
that I ought to think more of my own 
interests. She said I wasn't selfish enough. Oh, dear - people must think me a 
terrible fool. When they think of me at 
all!" She sniffed. "I'm sorry..."
      She craned to look back, following Doctor Volospion's gaze.
      Li Pao was nearby, bowing briefly to Doctor Volospion, making as if to 
pass on, for he was apparently in some 
haste, but Doctor Volospion smilingly called him over.
      'I was complimenting our host on his collection," he explained to Li Pao.
      Abu Thaleb made a modest gesture.
      Miss Ming bit her lip.
      Li Pao cleared his throat.
      'Aren't they fine," said Doctor Volospion.
      'It is pleasant to see the beasts working," Li Pao said pointedly, "if 
only for the delight of these drones."
      Doctor Volospion's smile broaded. "Ah, Li Pao, as usual you refuse 
amusement! Still, that's your recreation, I 
suppose, or you would not attend so many of our parties."
      Li Pao bridled. "I come, Doctor Volospion, on principle. Occasionally 
there is one who will listen to me for a 
few moments. My conscience drives me here. One day perhaps I will begin to 
convince you of the value of moral 
struggle."
      An affectionate trunk nuzzled his oriental ear. He moved his head.
      Doctor Volospion was placatory. "But I am convinced, Li Pao, my dear 
friend. Its value to the 27th century is 
immeasurable. But here we are at the End of Time and we have quite different 
needs. Our future is uncertain, to say the 
least. The cosmos contracts and perishes and soon we must perish with it. Will 
industry put a stop to the dissolution of 
the universe? I think not."
      Miss Ming patted at a blonde curl.
      'Then you fear the end?" Li Pao said with some satisfaction.
      Doctor Volospion affected a yawn. "Fear? What is that?"
      Li Pao's chuckle was grim. "Oh, it's rare enough here, but I think you 
reveal at least a touch of it, Doctor 
Volospion."
      'Fear!" Doctor Volospion's nostrils developed a contemptuous flare. "You 
suggest that I-? But this is such a 
baseless observation. An accusation, even!"
      'I do not accuse, Doctor Volospion. I do not denigrate. Fear, where real 
danger threatens, is surely a sane enough 
response? A healthy one? Is it insane to ignore the knife which strikes for the 
heart?"
      'Knife? Heart?" Abu Thaleb lured the persistent elephant toward him, 
holding a bunch of grapes. "Do forgive 
me, Li Pao..."
      Doctor Volospion said softly: "I think, Li Pao, that you will have to 
consider me insane."
      Li Pao would not relent. "No! You are afraid. Your denials display it, 
your posture pronounces it!"
      Doctor Volospion moved an overloaded shoulder. "Such instincts, you see, 
have atrophied at the End of Time. 
You credit your own feelings to me, I think."
      Li Pao's gaze was steady. "I am not deceived,
      'Doctor Volospion. What are you? Time traveler or space traveler? You are 
no more born of this age than am I, 
or Miss Ming, here."
      'What-?" Doctor Volospion was alerted.
      'You say that you do not fear," continued the Chinese, "yet you hate well 
enough, that's plain. Your hatred of 
Lord Jagged, for instance, is patent. And you exhibit jealousies and vanities 
that are unknown, say, to the Duke of 
Queens. If these are innocent of true guile, you are not. It is why I know there 
is a point in my talking to you."
      'I wish not be condescended to!" Doctor Volospion glared.
      'I repeat - I praise these emotions. In their place-,"
      'Praise?" Doctor Volospion raised both his hands, palms outward, to bring 
a pause. His voice, almost a whisper, 
threatened. "Strange flattery, indeed! You go too far, Li Pao. The manners of 
your own time would never allow such 
insults."
      'I do think you've gone just a teeny bit too far, Li Pao." Mavis Ming was 
anxious to reduce the tension. "Why are 
you so bent on baiting Doctor Volospion. He's done nothing to you."
      'You refuse to admit it," Li Pao continued relentlessly, "but we face the 
death of everything. Thus I justify my 
directness."
      'Shall we die gracelessly, then? Pining for hope when there is none? 
Whining for salvation when we are beyond 
help? You are offensive at every level, Li Pao."
      Miss Ming was desperate to destroy this atmosphere. "Oh, look over there!" 
she cried. "Can it be Argonheart Po 
arrived at last, with the food?"
      'He is late," said Abu Thaleb, looking up from his elephant.
      Li Pao and Doctor Volospion both ignored her.
      'There is hope, if we work," said Li Pao.
      'What? This is unbelievable." Doctor Volospion sought an ally but found 
only the anxious eyes of Mavis Ming. 
He avoided them. "The end looms-the inevitable beckons. Death comes stalking 
over the horizon. Mortality returns to 
the Earth after an absence of millennia. And you speak of what? Of work? Work!" 
Doctor Volospion's laugh was harsh. 
"Work? For what? This age is called the End of Time for good reason, Li Pao! We 
have run our race. Soon we shall all 
be ash on the cosmic wind."
      'But if a few of us were to consider..."
      'Forgive me, Li Pao, but you bore me. I have had my fill of bores today."
      'You boys should really stop squabbling like this." Determinedly Mavis 
Ming adopted a matronly role. "Silly, 
gloomy talk. You're making me feel quite depressed. What possible good can it do 
for anyone? Let's have a bit more 
cheerfulness, eh? Did I ever tell you about the time I - well, I was about 
fourteen, and I'd done it for a dare - we got 
caught in the church by the Reverend Kovac - I'd told Sandy, that was my friend-
,"
      Doctor Volospion's temper was not improved. An expression of pure horror 
bloomed on Miss Ming's round face 
as she realized that she had made another misjudgment and caused her protector 
to turn on her.
      He was vicious. "The role of diplomat, Miss Ming, does not greatly suit 
you."
      'Oh!"
      Abu Thaleb became aware, at last, of the ambience. "Come now..."
      'You will be kind enough not to interfere, not to interject your absurd 
and pointless anecdotes into the 
conversation, Miss Ming!"
      'Doctor Volospion!" It was a shriek of betrayal. Miss Ming took a step 
backward. She became afraid.
      'Oh, she meant no harm..." Li Pao was in no position to mediate.
      'How," enquired Doctor Volospion of the shaking creature, "would you 
suggest we settle our dispute, Miss 
Ming? With swords, like Lord Shark and the Duke of Queens? With pistols? Reverb-
guns? Flame-lances?"
      Her throat quivered. "I didn't mean..."
      'Well? Hm?" His long chin peinted at her throat. "Speak up, my portly 
referee. Tell us!"
      She had become very pale and yet her cheeks flamed with humiliation and 
she did not dare look at any of them. 
"I was only trying to help. You were so angry, both of you, and there's no need 
to lose your tempers..."
      'Angry? You are witless, madam. Could you not see that we jested?"
      There was no evidence. Miss Ming became confused.
      Li Pao's lips were pursed, his cheeks were as pale as hers were red. 
Doctor Volospion's eyes were hard and fiery. 
Abu Thaleb gave vent to a troubled muttering.
      Miss Ming seemed fixed in her position by a terrible fascination. 
Mindlessly she stared at the eyes of her 
accuser. It seemed that her urge to flee was balanced by her compulsion to stay, 
to fan these flames, to produce the 
holocaust that would consume her, and her mouth opened and words fled out of it, 
high and frightened:
      'Not a very funny joke, I must say, calling someone fat and stupid. Make 
up your mind, Doctor Volospion. Only 
a minute or two ago you said how nice I looked. Don't pick on little Mavis just 
because you're losing your argument!"
      She panted. "Oh!"
      She cast about for friends, but all eyes were averted, save Volospion's, 
and those pierced.
      'Oh!"
      Doctor Volospion parted his teeth a fraction to hiss:
      'I should be more than grateful, Miss Ming, if you would be silent. For 
once in your life I suggest that you 
reflect on your own singular lack of sensitivity-,"
      'Oh!"
      '-on your inability to interpret the slightest nuance of social 
intercourse save in your own unsavory terms."
      'O-oh!"
      'A psychic cripple, Miss Ming, has no business swimming in the fast-
running rivers of philosophical 
discussion."
      'Volospion!" Li Pao made a hesitant movement.
      Perhaps Miss Ming did not hear his words at all, perhaps she only 
experienced his tone, his vicious stance. "You 
are in a bad mood today..." she began, and then words gave way to her strangled, 
half-checked sobs.
      'Volospion! Volospion! You round on that wretch because you cannot answer 
me!"
      'Ha!" Doctor Volospion turned slowly, hampered by his robes.
      Abu Thaleb had been observing Miss Ming. He spoke conversationally, 
leaning forward to stare at her face, his 
huge, feathered turban nodding. "Are those tears, my dear?"
      She snorted.
      'I had heard of elephants weeping," said Abu
      Thaleb with some animation, "or was it giraffes?-but I never thought to 
have the chance to witness..."
      His tone produced a partial recovery in her. She lifted a wounded face. 
"Oh, be quiet. You and your stupid 
elephants."
      'So, all our time travelers are blessed with the same brand of good 
manners, it seems." Volospion had become 
cool. "I fear we have yet to grasp the essence of your social customs, madam."
      She trembled.
      'Childish irony..." said Li Pao.
      'Oh, stop it, Li Pao!" She flinched away from him. "You started all this."
      'Well, perhaps..."
      Abu Thaleb put a puzzled tongue to his lower lip. "If..."
      'Oh," she sobbed, "I'm so sorry, commissar. I'm sorry, Doctor Volospion. I 
didn't mean to..."
      'It is we who are in the wrong," Li Pao told her. "I should have known 
better. You are a troubled young girl at 
heart..."
      Her weeping grew mightier.
      Doctor Volospion, Abu Thaleb and Li Pao now stood around her, looking down 
at her.
      'Come, come," said Abu Thaleb. He patted the crown of her head.
      'Oh, I'm sorry. I was only trying to help... Why does it always have to be 
me...?"
      Doctor Volospion at last placed a hand on her arm. "Perhaps I had best 
escort you home?" He was 
magnanimous. "You should rest."
      'Oh!" She moved to him, as if to be comforted, and then withdrew. "Oh, 
you're right! You're right! I'm fat. I'm 
stupid. I'm ugly." She pulled away from him.
      'No, no..." murmured Abu Thaleb. "I think that you're immensely 
attractive..."
      She raised a trembling chin. "It's all right." She swallowed. "I'm fine 
now."
      Abu Thaleb gave a sigh of relief. The other two, however, continued to 
watch her.
      She sniffed. "I just didn't want to see anyone having a bad time, hurting 
one another. Yes, you're right, Doctor 
Volospion. I shouldn't have come. I'll go home."
      Doctor Volospion replaced his hand to steady her. His voice was low and 
calming. "Good. I will take you in my 
air car."
      'No. You stay and enjoy yourself. It's my fault I'm very sorry."
      'You are too distraught."
      'Perhaps I should take her," said Li Pao. "After all, she is right. I 
introduced the original argument."
      'We all relieve our boredom in one way or another," said Doctor Volospion 
quietly. "I should not have 
responded as I did."
      'Nonsense. You had every reason..."
      'Boo-hoo," said Miss Ming. She had broken down again.
      Abu Thaleb said coaxingly: "Would yon like one of my little flying 
elephants, my dear, for your very own? You 
could take it with you."
      'Oh-ah-ha-ha..."
      'Poor thing," said Abu Thaleb. "I think she would have been better off in 
a menagerie, Doctor Volospion. Some 
of them feel much safer there, you know. Our world is too difficult for them to 
grasp. Now, if I were you..."
      Doctor Volospion tightened his grip. "Oh!"
      'You are too sensitive, Miss Ming," said Li Pao. "You must not take us 
seriously."
      Doctor Volospion laughed. "Is that so, Li Pao?"
      'I meant..."
      'Ah, look!" Doctor Volospion slowly raised a hand to point. "Here's your 
friend, Miss Ming."
      'Friend?" Red eyes were raised. Another sniff.
      'Your friend, the cook."
      It was Argonheart Po, in smock and cap of dark brown and scarlet, so 
corpulent as to make Miss Ming look 
slim. He advanced toward them with monumental dignity, pushing small elephants 
from his path. With a brief bow he 
acknowledged the company and then addressed Abu Thaleb.
      'I have come to apologize, epicurian commissar, for the lateness of my 
contribution."
      'No, no..." Abu Thaleb seemed weary of what appeared to be a welter of 
regrets.
      'There is an integral fault in my recipe," explained the Master Chef, 
"which I am loathe to disguise by any 
artifice..."
      The Commissar of Bengal waved a white-gloved hand. "You are too modest, 
Kaiser of Kitchens. You are too 
much a perfectionist. I am certain that none of us would detect any 
discrepency..."
      Argonheart Po acknowledged the compliment with a smile. "Possibly. But I 
would know." He confided to the 
others: "The cry of the artist, I fear, down the ages. I hope, Abu Thaleb, that 
things will right themselves before long. If 
not, I shall bring you those confections which have been successful, but I will 
abandon the rest."
      'Drastic..." Abu Thaleb lowered his eyes and shook his head. "Can we not 
help in some way?"
      'The very reason I came. I hoped to gain an opinion. If there is someone 
who could find it within himself to 
leave the party for a short while, to return with me and sample my creations, 
not so much for their flavor as for their 
consistency. It would not require much time, nor would it require a particularly 
sophisticated palate, but..."
      'Miss Ming!" said Doctor Volospion.
      'Me," she said.
      'Here is your chance to be of service."
      'Well," she began, "as everyone knows, I'm no gourmet. Not that I don't 
enjoy my chow, and of course 
Argonheart's is always excellent, but I'd like to help out, if I can." She was 
twice the woman.
      'It is not a gourmet's opinion I seek," Argonheart Po told her. "You will 
do excellently, Miss Ming, if you can 
spare a little time."
      'You would be delighted, wouldn't you, Miss Ming?" said Abu Thaleb 
sympathetically.
      'Delighted," she confirmed. She cast a wary glance at Doctor Volospion. 
"You wouldn't mind?"
      'Certainly not!" He was almost effusive.
      'A splendid idea," said Li Pao, blatantly relieved.
      'Well, then, I shall be your taster, Argonheart." She linked her arm in 
the cook's. "And I really am sorry for that 
silly fuss, everybody."
      The shook their heads. They waved their fingers.
      She smiled. "It did clear the air, anyway, didn't it? You're all friends 
again now."
      'Absolutely," said Li Pao.
      'Well, thats fine."
      'And you won't be wanting the little elephant?" Abu Thaleb asked. "I can 
always create another."
      'I'd love one, Abu. Another time, perhaps when I have a menagerie of my 
own. And power rings of my own and 
everything. I've nowhere to keep it while I stay with Doctor Volospion."
      'Ah, well." Abu Thaleb also seemed relieved.
      'I think," said Argonheart Po, "that we should go as quickly as possible."
      'Of course," she said, "you really must take me in hand, Argonheart, and 
tell me exactly what you expect me to 
do."
      'An opinion, I assure you, is all I seek."
      They made their adieux.
      'Well," she confided to Argonheart as they left, "I must say you turned up 
at just the right moment. Honestly, 
I've never seen such a display of temper! You're so calm, Argonheart. So 
unshakably dignified, you know? I did my 
best, of course, to calm everyone down, but they were just determed to have a 
row! Of course, I do blame Li Pao. 
Doctor Volospion had a perfectly understandable point of view, but would Li Pao 
listen to him? Not a bit of it. I 
suspect that Li Pao never listens to anyone but himself. He can be so 
thoughtless sometimes, don't you find that?"
      The Master Chef smacked his lips.
      
      
      
Chapter Four
In which Mavis Ming is once again disappointed in her Ambitions
      
      	Argonheart Po dipped his fingers into his rainbow plesiosaurus 
(sixty distinct flavors of gelatin) and withdrew 
it as the beast turned its long neck round to investigate, mildly, the source of 
the irritation.
      	The great cook put hand to mouth, sucked, and sighed.
      	'What a shame. Such an excellent taste. '
      	His creature, lumbering on massive legs that were still somewhat 
wobbly, having failed to set at the same time 
as the rest of its bulk, moved to rejoin the herd grazing some distance away on 
the especially prepared trees of pastry 
and angelica that Argonheart Po had designed to occupy them until it was time to 
drive them to the party which was 
only a mile or two off (the gargantua were plainly visible on the horizon).
      	'You agree, then, Miss Ming? The legs lack coherence. ' He licked a 
disappointed mouth.
      	'Isn't there something you could add? ' she suggested. ' those 
flippers were really meant for the sea, you 
know...'
      	'Mm? '
      	'It's not your fault, not strictly speaking. The design of the 
creature itself is wrong. You must be able to do 
something, Argonheart, dear. '		
      	'Oh, indeed. A twist of a power ring and all would be well, but I 
should continue to be haunted by the mystery. 
Was the temperature too high, for instance? You see, I allow for all the 
possibilities. My researches show that the 
animal could move on land. I wonder if the weight of the beast alters the atomic 
structure of the gelatin. If so, I should 
have prepared for it in my original recipe. There is no time to begin again. '
      	'But Argonheart...'
      	He shook his huge head. 'I must call the herd of the failures and 
present, I am afraid, only a partial spectacle. '
      	'Abu Thaleb will still be pleased, I'm sure. '
      	'I hope so. ' He voiced a stupendous and sultry sigh.
      	'It is nice to be out of the hurly-burly for a bit, ' she told him, 
her mind moving on to other topics.
      	'If you would care to rejoin the party now? '
      	'No. I want to be here with you. That is, if you have no objection 
to little Mavis watching a real artist at work. '
      	'Of course. '
      	She smiled at him. 'It's such a relief, yoa see, to be out here 
alone with a real man. With someone who does 
something. '
      	She simpered. 'What I mean is, Argonheart, is that I've always 
wanted...'
      	She gasped as he jumped, his hands flailing, to taste a passing 
pterodactyl. He missed it by several inches, 
staggered and fell to one knee.
      	'Cunning beasts, those. ' He picked himself up. 'My fault. I should 
have made them easier to catch. Too much 
sherry and not enough blancmange. '
      	She sidled up to him again. 'My husband, Donny Stevens, was a real 
man, for all his faults. '
      	Argonheart returned suddenly to his knees. He cupped his hands 
around something which wobbled, glinting 
green and yellow in the pale sunshine. 'Oh, this makes up for everything. See 
what it is, Miss Ming? '
      	'A dollop of jello? '
      	'Dollop? Dollop! ' He breathed upon it. He fondled the rounded, 
quivering surface. He spoke reverently. 'This 
is an egg, Miss Ming. One of my creations has actually laid an egg. Good 
heavens! I could breed them. What an 
achievement. ' His expression became seraphic.
      'A man like you is capable of anything, Argonheart. I often felt Donny was 
like that. I never thought I'd miss the 
bastard. '
      He was searching the ground for more eggs.
      'You remind me of him a little, ' she said softly. 'You are real, 
Argonheart. '
      Argonheart Po's only weakness was for metaphysical speculation. Miss Ming 
had captured his attention. 
Stroking his egg, he looked round. 'Mm? '
      Her breast rose and fell rapidly. 'A real man. '
      He was curious. 'You believe everyone else imaginary, then? But why should 
I be real when the others are not? 
Why should you be real? Reality, after all, can be the syllabub that melts upon 
the tongue, leaving not even a flavor of 
memory...'
      Her breathing became calmer. She turned to con template the half-melted 
remains of a completely unsuccessful 
stegosaurus.
      'I meant, ' she said, 'that Donny was a manly man. Stupid and vain, of 
course. But that's probably all part of it. 
And obsessed with his work-well, when he wasn't screwing his assistants. ' She 
kid her hand upon his trembling egg. 'I 
like you, Argonheart. Have you ever thought...?'
      But the chef's attention was wavering again as he bent to scoop up a 
little iguanadon. He placed his egg carefully 
upon a slab of marzipan rock and held the iguanodon out to her for her 
inspection.
      With a frustrated sigh she licked the beast's slippery neck. 'Too much 
lime for my taste. '
      She gave a theatrical shudder and laughed. 'Far too bitter for me, 
Argonheart, dear. '
      'But the texture? It was the texture, alone, I needed to know about. '
      The iguanodon struggled, squawking rather like a chicken, and was 
released. It ran, glistening, semi-transparent, 
green and orange, in a crazy path toward the nearby cola lake.
      'Perfect, ' she said. 'Firm and juicy. '
      He nodded sadly. 'The small ones are by far the most successful. But that 
will scarcely satisfy Abu Thaleb. I 
meant the monsters for him. The little beasts were only to set off the large 
ones - to set the scale, do you see. I was too 
ambitious, Miss Ming. I tried to produce too much and too many. ' His fat brow 
wrinkled.
      'You haven't been listening, Argonheart, dear, ' she chided. 'Argonheart? 
'
      Reluctantly he withdrew from his regrets. 'We were discussing the nature 
of reality. '
      'No. '
      'You were discussing what? Men? '
      She patted at the yellow flounces of her frock. 'Or their absence? ' She 
chuckled. 'I could do with one...'
      He had picked up a ladle in his plump, gloved hand. She followed him as he 
approached his lake, bent on a final 
taste.
      'A man? What could you do with one? ' He sipped.
      'I need one. '
      'A special kind? '
      'A real one. '
      'Couldn't you make something - someone, I mean - to suit you? Doctor 
Volospion would help. ' He looked 
across the tranquil surface, like molten amber. 'Delicious! '
      She seemed pained. 'There's no need, dear, to throw that particular 
episode in my face. '
      'Urn. Yet, I'm indulging myself, I fear. ' He stooped, dipped his ladle, 
drew it to his red lips, sampled self-
critically and nodded his head. 'Yes. The conception was too grandiose. Given 
another day I could put everything to 
rights, but poor Abu Thaleb expects... Ah, well! '
      'Forget all about that for a moment. ' Lust was mounting in her. She 
slipped a hand along his massive thigh. 
'Make love to me, Argonheart. I've been so unhappy. '
      He rubbed his several chins. 'Oh, I see. '
      'You knew all along, didn't you? What I wanted? '
      'Urn. '
      'You're so proud, Argonheart. So masculine. A lot of girls don't like fat 
men, but I do. ' She giggled. ' It's what 
they used to say about me. All the more to get hold of. Please, Argonheart, 
please! '
      'My confections, ' he murmured lamely.
      'You can spare a few minutes, surely? ' She dug her nails into his chest. 
'Argonheartl'
      'They could-'
      'You must relax sometime. You have to relax. It gives you a new 
perspective. '
      'Well, yes, that's true. '
      'Argonheart! ' She moved against him.
      'I certainly cannot improve anything now. Perhaps you are right. Yes...'
      'Yes! You'll feel so much better. And I will, too. '
      'Possibly...'
      'Definitely! '
      She pulled him toward a pile of discarded dark brown straw. 'Here's a good 
place. ' She sank into it, tugging at 
his gloved hand.
      'What? ' he murmured. 'In the vermicelli? '
      It was already beginning to stick to her sweating arms, but it was plain 
that such considerations were no longer 
important. 'Why not? Why not? Oh, my darling. Oh, Argonheart! '
      He drew off his gloves. He reached down and removed a strand or two of the 
vermicelli from her elbow and 
placed it neatly on her neck. He stood back.
      She writhed in the chocolate.
      'Argonheart! ' She mewed.
      With a shrug, he fell beside her in the chocolate.
      It was at the point where she had helped him to drag the tight scarlet 
smock up to his navel while wriggling her 
own blue lace knickers to just below her knees that they heard a shriek that 
filled the sky and saw the crimson 
spaceship falling through the dark-blue heavens in an aura of multi-colored 
flame.
      Argonhearfs belly quivered against her as he paused.
      'Golly! ' said Mavis Ming.
      Argonheart licked her shoulder, but his attention was no longer with her. 
He glanced back. The spaceship was 
still falling. The noise was immense.
      'Don't stop, ' she said. 'There's still time. It won't take long. '
      But Argonheart was already rolling over in the vermicelli, pulling his 
smock back into position. He stood up. 
Shreds of half-melted confectionery dropped from his legs.
      A dreadful wail escaped Miss Ming. It was drowned by the roar of the ship.
      With her fist she pounded at the vermicelli. It flew in all directions. 
She appeared to be swearing. And then, 
when the ship's noise had dropped momentarily to a muted howl, and as Mavis Ming 
drew up her underwear, her voice, 
disappointed, despairing, could be heard again.
      'What a moment to pick. Poor old Mavis. Isn't it just your luck! '
      
      
Chapter Five
In which certain citizens at the End of Time indulge themselves in Speculation 
as to the Nature of the Visitor from 
Space
      
      It was a spaceship from some mythical antiquity, all fins and flutes and 
glittering bubbles, tapering at the nose, 
bulbous at the base, where its rockets roared. It slowed as they watched, 
falling with a peculiar swaying motion, as if its 
engines malfunctioned, the vents first on one side and then on the other 
sputtering, gouting, sputtering again until, just 
before the ship reached the ground, the rockets flared in unison, bouncing the 
machine like a ball on a water jet, 
gradually subsiding until it had settled to earth.
      Miss Ming, observing it from her nest of chocolate worms, tightened her 
lips.
      Even after the ship had landed flame still roiled around its hull, 
sensuous: flame caressed the scarlet metal.
      The surrounding terrain sent up heavy black smoke, crackling as if to 
protest; the smoke curled close to the 
ground, moving toward the ship: eels attracted to wreckage.
      Miss Ming was in no temper to admire the machine; she glared at it.
      'It has a certain authority, the ship, ' murmured Argonheart Po.
      'A fine sense of timing, I must say! A little love-making would have 
improved my spirits no end and taken away 
the nasty taste of Doctor Volospion's tantrum. It isn't as if I get the chance 
every day and I haven't had a man for ages. I 
don't even know if one can still give me what I need! Even you, Argonheart...'
      She pouted, brushing at the nasty sticky stuff clinging to her petticoats. 
'I'm too furious to speak! '
      Argonheart Po helped her from the pile and, perhaps moved by unconscious 
chivalry, pecked her upon the 
cheek. The smell of burning filled the air.
      'Ugh," she said. 'What a stink, too! '
      'It is the least attractive of odors, ' Argonheart said.
      'It's horrible. Surely it can't just be coming from that ship? '
      The heat from the vessel was heavy on their skins. Argonheart Po, had his 
body been so fashioned, would have 
been sweating quite as much as Miss Ming. His sensitive nose twitched.
      'There is something familiar about it, ' he agreed, 'which I would not 
normally identify with hot metal. ' He 
perused the landscape. His cry of horror echoed over it.
      	'Ah! Look what it has donel Look! Oh, it is too bad! '
      	Miss Ming looked and saw nothing. 'What? '
      	Argonheart was in anguish. His hands clenched, his eyes blazed.
      	'It has melted half my dinosaurs. That is what is making the smoke! 
'
      	Argonheart Po began to roll rapidly in the direction of the ship, 
Mavis Ming forgotten.
      	'Hey! ' she cried. 'What if there's danger? '
      	He had not heard her.
      	With a whimper, she followed him.
      	'Murderer! ' cried the distressed chef. 'Philistine! ' He shook his 
fist at the ship. He danced about it, forced back 
by its heat. He attempted to kick it and failed.
      	'Locust! ' he raved. 'Ravager! Insensitive despoiled'
      	His energy dissipated, he fell to his knees in the glutinous mess. 
He wept,  'Oh, my monsters! My jellies! '
      	Mavis Ming hovered a short distance away. She wore the pout of 
someone who considered herself abandoned 
in her hour of need.
      	'Argonheart! ' she called.
      	'Burned! All burned! '
      	'Argonheart, we don't know what sort of creatures are in that 
spaceship. They could mean us harm! '
      	'Ruin,ruin,ruin...'
      	'Argonheart. I think we should go and warn someone, don't you? ' She 
discovered that her lovely shoes were 
stuck. As she lifted her feet, long strands of toffee-like stuff came with them. 
She waded back to a patch of dust still 
free of melted dinosaur.
      	Her attention focused upon the ship as curiosity conquered caution. 
'I've seen alien spacecraft before, ' she 
said. 'Lots of them. But this doesn't look alien at all. It's got a distinctly 
human look to it, in fact. '
      	Argonheart Po raised his mighty body to its feet and, with shoulders 
bowed, mourned his dead creations.
      	'Argonheart, don't you think it's got a rather romantic appearance, 
really? '
      	Argonheart Po turned his back on the source of his anger and folded 
his arms across his chest. He wore a 
martyred air, yet his dignity increased.
      	Mavis Ming continued to inspect the spaceship. A strange smile had 
replaced the expression of anxiety she 
had worn earlier. 'Come to think of it it's just the sort of ship I used to read 
about when I was a little girl. All the space 
heroes had ships like that. ' She became fey. 'Perhaps at long last my prayers 
have been answered, Argonheart. '
      	The Master Chef grunted. He was lost in profundity.
      	Miss Ming uttered her trilling laugh. 'Has my handsome space knight 
arrived to carry me off, do you think? To 
the wonderful planet of Paradise V? '
      	From Argonheart there issued a deep, violent rumbling, as of an 
angry volcano. 'Villain! Villain! '
      	She put a hand to her mouth. 'You could be right. It could easily 
carry a villain. Some pirate captain and his 
cut-throat crew. ' She became reminiscent. 'My two favorite authors, you know, 
when I was young - well, I'd still read 
them now, if I could - were J.R.R. Tolkein and A.A. Milne. Well, this is more 
like the movie versions, of course, but 
still... Oooh! Could they be rapists and slavers, Argonheart? '
      	She took his silence for disapproval. 'Not that I really want 
anything nasty to happen to us. Not really. But it's 
thrilling, isn't it, wondering? '
      	'I-,' said Argonheart Po. 'I-' Miss Ming, as she anticipated the 
occupants of the ship, seemed torn between poles 
represented in her fantasies by the evil, fascinating Sauron and the soft, jolly 
Winnie the Pooh.
      	'Will they be fierce, do you think, Argonheart? Or cuddly? ' She bit 
her lower lip. 'Better still, they might be 
fierce and cuddly! '
      	'Aaaaaah, ' breathed Argonheart. She looked at him in surprise. She 
appeared to make an effort to retrieve 
herself from sentiment which, she had doubtless learned, was not always socially 
acceptable in this world. She 
achieved the retrieval by a return to her previous alternative, her vein of 
heavy cynicism. 'I was only joking, ' she said.
      	'Sadist, ' hissed Argonheart. 'This might have been deliberately 
engineered. '
      	'Well," she said, having determined her new attitude, 'at least it 
might be someone to relieve the awful 
boredom of this bloody planet! '
      	Still bowed, her baffled and grieving escort turned from the 
blackened fragments of his culinary dreams to 
stare wistfully after his surviving stegosauri and tyrannosauri which, startled 
by the ship, were in rapid and uncertain 
flight in all directions.
      His self-control returned. He became a fatalist. His little shrug went 
virtually unnoticed by her.
      'It is fate," declared the Master Chef. "At least I am no longer in a 
dilemma. The decision has been taken from 
me."
      He began to wade, as best the sticky glue would allow him, toward her.
      'Couldn't you round them up?" she asked. "The ones who survived?"
      'And make only a partial contribution? No. I shall find Abu Thaleb and 
tell him he must create something for 
himself. A few turns of a power ring, of course, and he will have a feast of 
sorts, though it will lack the inspiration of 
anything I could have prepared for him." A certain guilt, it seemed, inspired 
him to resent the object of his guilt and 
therefore made him feel somewhat aggressive toward Abu Thaleb.
      He reached Miss Ming's side. "Shall we return to the party together?"
      'But what of the ship?"
      'It has done its terrible work."
      'But the people who came in it?"
      'I forgive them," said Argonheart with grandiose magnaminity.
      'I mean-don't you want to see what they look like?"
      'I bear them no ill-will. They were not aware of the horror they brought. 
It is ever thus."
      'They might be interesting."
      'Interesting?" Argonheart Po was incredulous.
      'They might have some news, or something."
      Argonheart Po looked again upon the spaceship. "They are scarcely likely 
to be anything but crude, ill-mannered 
rogues, Miss Ming. Surely they must have seen, by means of their instruments, my 
herds?"
      'It could be a crash landing."
      'Perhaps." Argonheart Po was a fair-minded chef. He did his best to see 
her point. "Perhaps."
      "They might need help."
      He cast one final glance about the smoking detritus and said, with not a 
little violence, "Well, I hope that they 
find it."
      "Shouldn't we...?"
      'I return to find Abu Thaleb and tell him of the disaster."
      'Oh, very well, I suppose I shall have to come with you. But really, 
Argonheart, you're looking at this is a rather 
selfish way, aren't you. This could be a great event. Remember those other 
aliens who turned up recently? They were 
trying to help us, too, weren't they? It would be lovely to have some nice news 
for a change..."
      She reached for his arm, so that he might escort her through the glutinous 
pools.
      At that moment there came a grinding noise from the vessel. Both looked 
back.
      A circular section in the hull was turning. "The airlock," she gasped. 
"It's opening." The door of the airlock 
swung back, apparently on old-fashioned hinges, to reveal a dark hole from 
which, for a few seconds, flames poured.
      'They can't be human," she said. "Not if they live in fire."
      No further flames issued from within the ship but from the darkness of the 
interior there came tiny flashes of 
light from time to time.
      'Like fireflies," whispered Mavis Ming. "Or eyes," said Argonheart, his 
attention held for the moment.
      'The feral eyes of wild invaders." Miss Ming seemed to be quoting from one 
of her girlhood texts.
      An engine murmured and the ship shivered. Then, from somewhere inside the 
airlock, a wide band of metal 
began to emerge.
      'A ramp," said Mavis Ming. "They're letting down a ramp." The ramp slid 
slowly to the ground, making a bridge 
between airlock and Earth, but still no occupant emerged.
      Mavis cupped her hands around her mouth. "Greetings!" she cried. "The 
peaceful people of Earth welcome 
you!"
      There was still no acknowledgment from the ship. Grainy dust drifted past. 
There was silence.
      'They might be afraid of us," suggested Mavis.
      'Most probably they are ashamed," said Argon-heart Po. "Too abashed to 
display themselves."
      'Oh, Argonheart! They probably didn't even see your dinosaurs!"
      'Is that an excuse?"
      'Well..."
      Now a muffled, querulous voice sounded from within the airlock, but the 
language it used was unintelligible.
      'We have no translators." Argonheart Po consulted his power rings. "I have 
no means of making him speak any 
sort of tongue I'll understand. Neither have I the means to understand him. We 
must go. Lord Jagged of Canaria usually 
has a translation ring. Or the Duke of Queens. Or Doctor Volospion. Anyone who 
keeps a menagerie will..."
      'Sssh," she said. "The odd thing is, Argonheart, that while I can't 
actually understand the words, the language 
does seem familiar. It's like - well it's like English - the language I used to 
speak before I came here."
      'You cannot speak it now?"
      "Obviously. I'm speaking this one, whatever it is, aren't I?"
      The voice came again. It was high-pitched. It tended to trill, like 
birdsong, and yet it was distinctly human.
      'It's not unpleasant," she said, "but it's not what
      I would have called manly." She was kind: "Stfll, the pitch might be 
affected by a change in the atmosphere, 
mightn't it?"
      'Possibly." Argonheart peered. "Hm. One of them seems to be coming out."
      At last a space traveler emerged at the top of the ramp.
      "Oh, dear," murmured Miss Ming, "what a disappointment! I hope they're not 
all like him."
      Although undoubtedly humanoid, the stranger had a distinctly birdlike air 
to him. There was a wild crest of 
bright auburn hair, which rose all around his head and created a kind of ruff 
about his neck; there was a sharp pointed 
nose; there were vivid blue eyes which bulged and blinked in the light; there 
was a head which craned forward on an 
elongated neck and which would sometimes jerk back a little, like a chicken's as 
it searched for grain amid the 
farmyard's dust; there was a tiny body which also moved in rapid, poorly 
coordinated jerks and twitches; there were 
two arms, held stiffly at the sides of the body like clipped wings. And then 
there was the plaintive, questioning cry, like 
a puzzled gull's:
      'Eh? Eh? Eh?"
      The eyes darted this way and that and then fixed suddenly upon Mavis Ming 
and Argonheart Po. They received 
the creature's whole attention.
      'Eh?"
      He blinked imperiously at them. He trilled a few words.
      Argonheart Po waited until the newcomer had finished before announcing 
gravely:
      'You have ruined the Commissar of Bengal's dinner, sir."
      'Eh?"
      'You have reduced a carefully planned feast to a rabble of side dishes!"
      'Fallerunnerstanja," said the visitor from space. He reached back into the 
airlock and produced a black frock coat 
dating from a period at least 150 years before Mavis Ming's own. He drew the 
coat over his shirt and buttoned it all the 
way down. "Eh?"
      'It's not very clean," said Mavis, "that coat. Is it?"
      Argonheart had not noticed the stranger's clothes. He was regretting his 
outburst and trying to recover his 
composure, his normal amiability.
      'Welcome," he said, "to the End of Time."
      'Eh?"
      The space traveler frowned and consulted a bulky instrument in his right 
hand. He tapped it, shook it and held it 
up to his ear.
      'Well," said Mavis with a sniff, "he isn't much, is he? I wonder if 
they're all like him."
      'He could be the only one," suggested Argonheart Po.
      'Like that?"
      'The only one at all."
      'I hope not!"
      As if in response to her criticism, the creature waved both his arms in a 
sort of windmilling motion. It seemed 
for a moment as if he were trying to fly. Then, with stiff movements, 
reminiscent of a poorly controlled marionette, it 
retreated back into its ship.
      'Did we frighten him, do you think?" asked Argonheart Po in some concern.
      'Quite likely. What a weedy little creep!"
      'Mm?"
      'What a rotten specimen. He doesn't go with the ship at all. I was 
expecting someone tanned, brawny, 
handsome...".
      'Why so? You know these ships? You have met those who normally use them?"
      'Only in my dreams," she said.
      Argonheart made no further effort to follow her. "He is humanoid, at 
least. It makes a change, don't you think, 
Miss Ming, from all those others?"
      'Not much of one though." She shifted a gluey foot. "Ah, well. Shall we 
return, as you suggested?"
      'You don't think we should remain?"
      'There's no point, is there? Let someone else deal with him. Someone who 
wants a curiosity for his menagerie."
      Argonheart Po offered his arm again. They began to wade toward the dusty 
shore.
      As they reached the higher ground they heard a familiar voice from 
overhead. They looked up.
      Abu Thaleb's howdah hovered there.
      'Aha!" said the Commissar of Bengal. His face, with its beard carefully 
curled and divided into two parts, set 
with pearls and rubies, after the original, peered over the edge of the air car. 
"I thought so." He addressed another 
occupant, invisible to their eyes. "You see, Volospion, I was right."
      'Oh, dear." Mavis tried to rearrange her disordered dress. "Doctor 
Volospion, too..."
      Volospion's tired tones issued from the howdah. "Yes, indeed. You were 
quite right, Abu Thaleb. I apologize. It 
is a spaceship. Well, if you feel you would like to descend, I shall not 
object."
      The howdah came down to earth beside Argonheart Po and Miss Ming. Within, 
it was lined with dark green and 
blue plush.
      Doctor Volospion lay among cushions, still in black and gold, his tight 
hood covering his skull and framing his 
pale face. He made no attempt to move. He scarcely acknowledged Miss Ming's 
presence as he addressed Argonheart 
Po:
      'Forgive this intrusion, great Prince of Pies. The Commissar of Bengal is 
bent on satisfying his curiosity."
      Argonheart Po made to speak but Abu Thaleb had already begun again:
      'What a peculiar odor it has-sweet, yet bitter..."
      'My creations..." said Argonheart.
      'Like death," pronounced Doctor Volospion.
      'The smell is all that is left," insisted Argonheart now, "of the dinner I 
was preparing for your party, Abu Thaleb. 
The ship's landing destroyed almost all of it."
      Climbing from his howdah the slender commissar clapped the chef upon his 
broad back. "Dear Argonheart, how 
sad. But another time, I hope, you will be able to re-create all that you have 
lost today."
      'It is true that there were imperfections," Argonheart told him, "and I 
would relish the opportunity to begin 
afresh."
      'Soon, soon, soon. What a lovely little ship it is." Abu Thaleb's plumes 
bounced upon his turban. "I had 
yearnings, you see, to embellish my menagerie, but I fear the ship is too small 
to accommodate the kind of prize I 
seek."
      Mavis Ming said: "You'd be even more disappointed than me, Abu Thaleb. You 
should see the little squirt we 
saw just before you turned up. He-,"
      Doctor Volospion, so it seemed, had not heard her begin to speak. He 
called from his cushions:
      'Your menagerie is already a marvel, Belle of Bengal. The most refined 
collection in the world. Splendid, 
specialized, so much more sophisticated than the scrambled skelter of species 
scraped together by certain so-called 
connoisseurs whose zoos surpass yours only in size but never in superiority of 
sensitive selection!"
      Mavis Ming displayed confusion. Although Doctor Volospion appeared to 
address Abu Thaleb he seemed to be 
speaking for her benefit. She looked from one to the other, wondering if she 
should form a smile.
      Doctor Volospion winked at her.
      Mavis grinned. She had been forgiven for her outburst. The joke was at Abu 
Thaleb's expense.
      She began to giggle.
      'Go on, Doctor Volospion. I'm sure Abu Thaleb enjoys your flattery," she 
said.
      'In taste, salutory Commissar, you are assured of supremacy, until our 
planet passes at last into that limbo of 
silence and nonexistence which must soon, we are told, be its fate."
      Abu Thaleb's back was to Miss Ming and she seemed glad of this. She held 
her breath. She went deep red. She 
made a muted, spluttering noise.
      But now the Commissar of Bengal was looking back at Doctor Volospion. "Oh, 
really, my friend!" He was good 
natured. "You are capable of subtler mockery than this!"
      'But I am a true showman, Abu Thaleb. I relate properly to my audience."
      'Can that be true?" Abu Thaleb turned to Mavis. "You have seen the 
visitors, then, Miss Ming?"
      'Briefly," she said. "Actually, there only seems to be one."
      Abu Thaleb stroked his beard, his pearls and rubies. "He is not in any 
way, I suppose, um - elephantoid? "
      She was prepared to allow herself a giggle now. She looked toward the 
lounging Volospion.
      'Not a trace of a trunk, I'm afraid." She looked for approval from her 
protector. "Not even a touch of a tusk. He 
couldn't be less like a jumbo, although his nose is long enough, I suppose. He's 
more like one of those little birds, Abu 
Thaleb, who pick stuff out of elephant's teeth."
      'Excellent!" applauded Doctor Volospion. "Ha, ha, ha!"
      Abu Thaleb turned and regarded her with mysterious gravity. 'Teeth?"
      She giggled again. "Don't they have teeth, then, any more?"
      Argonheart Po seemed much embarrassed. His glance at Doctor Volospion was 
almost disapproving. "I must 
away to my thoughts," he said. "I shall leave this sad scene. There is nothing I 
can save. Not now. So I'll wish you all 
farewell."
      'Are we to be denied even a taste of your palatable treasure, Argonheart?" 
Doctor Volospion used much the 
same voice as the one he had used to speak to Abu Thaleb. "Hm?"
      Argonheart Po cleared his throat. He shook his head. He glanced at the 
ground. "I think so."
      'Oh, but Argonheart, you still have a few dinosaurs left. Can't I see one 
now? On the horizon." Miss Ming 
clutched at his hand but failed to engage.
      'No more, no more," said the Master Chef.
      Doctor Volospion spoke again. "Ah, mighty Lord of the Larder, how haughty 
you can sometimes be! Just a 
morsel of mastodon, perhaps, to whet our appetites?"
      'I made no mastodons!" bellowed Argonheart Po, and now he was striding 
away. "Goodbye to you!"
      Doctor Volospion stirred in his cushions. "Well, well. Obsessive people 
can be very boorish sometimes, I think."
      Mavis Ming said: "He was more interested in his confectionery than any 
opportunity for contact with another 
intelligence. Still, he was upset."
      '"Then you are the only one of us to have tasted his preparations." Abu 
Thaleb looked doubtfully at the 
congealing lake between him and the spaceship.
      'How were his dishes, by the by, Miss Ming?" Doctor Volospion wished to 
know. "You sampled them, eh?"
      Miss Ming adopted something of a worldly air for Doctor Volospion's 
approval. She uttered a light, amused 
laugh. "Oh, a bit over-flavored, really, if the truth be told."
      His thin tongue ran the line of his lips. "Too strong, the taste?"
      'He's not as good as they say he is, if you ask me. All this-," she 
rotated a wrist-,"all these big ideas."
      Abu Thaleb would not allow such malice. "Argonheart Po is the greatest 
culinary genius in the history of the 
world!"
      'Perhaps our world has not been well-favored with cooks..." suggested 
Doctor Volospion slyly.
      'And he is the most good-hearted of fellows! The time he must have spent 
preparing the feast for today!"
      'Time?" enquired Volospion in some disbelief. "Time? Time?"
      'His presents are famous. Not long since, he made me a savory mammoth that 
was the most delicious thing I 
have ever eaten. An arrangement of flavors defeating description, and yet 
possessing a unity of taste that was 
inevitable!" Abu Thaleb was displaying unusual vivacity.
      Doctor Volospion -was incapable of diplomacy now. He was as one who has 
hooked his shark and refuses to cut 
the line, no matter what damage may ensue to both boat and man.
      'Perhaps you confuse the subject matter with the art, admirable Abu?"
      Mavis Ming would also take hold of the rod, secure in the approval of her 
protector, inspired by his wit. "One 
man's elephant steak, after all, is another man's bicarbonate of soda!"
      And now it was as if rod and line snapped over the side to be borne to the 
depths.
      Abu Thaleb stared at her in frank bewilderment.
      Doctor Volospion turned from his prey, his grey face controlled. There was 
a pause. His expression changed. A 
secretive smile, for himself more than for her.
      The Commissar of Bengal had been saved from conflict and as a result 
became bewildered. "Well," he said 
weakly, "I for one am always astonished by his invention."
      Miss Ming became aware of the atmosphere. Such an atmosphere often 
followed her funniest observations. "I'm 
being too subtle and obscure. I'm sorry. No - Argonheart can be very clever. 
Very clever indeed. He's very nice. He's 
always made me feel very much at home. Oh, dear. Do I always manage to spoil 
things? It can't be me, can it?"
      Doctor Volospion, for reasons of his own, had cast a fresh line. "My dear 
Miss Ming, you are being too kind 
again!"
      He raised a long hand, the fingers curled forward to form a claw. "Do not 
let this clever commissar confuse you 
into compromising your opinions. Be true to your own convictions. If you find 
Argon heart's work unsatisfactory, not 
up to the demands of your palate, then say so."
      Abu Thaleb this time ignored the bait. "Volospion you mock us both too 
much," he protested. "Leave Miss 
Ming, at least, alone!"
      'Oh, he's not mocking me," Miss Ming observed.
      'I?" Doctor Volospion moved his brows in apparent astonishment. "Mock?"
      'Yes. Mock." Abu Thaleb studied the spaceship.
      "You do me too much credit, my friend."
      'Hum," said Abu Thaleb.
      Mavis Ming laughed amiably. "You never know when he's been serious or when 
he's joking, do you, 
commissar?"
      Abu Thaleb was brief. "Well, Miss Ming, if you are not discomforted, then-
,"
      He was interrupted by Doctor Volospion, who pointed to the ship.
      'Ha! Our guest emerges!"
      
      
      
Chapter SixIn which Mr. Emmanuel Bloom lays claim to his Kingdom
      Once more he stood before them, his head bent forward, his bright blue 
eyes glittering, his stiff arms at his sides, 
his red hair flaring to frame his face. He remained for some while at the top of 
the ramp. He watched them, not with 
caution but with dispassionate curiosity.
      He had changed his clothes.
      Now he had on a suit of crumpled black velvet, a shirt whose stiff, high 
collar rose as if to support his chin, 
whose cuffs covered his clenched hands to the knuckles. His feet were small and 
there were tiny, shining pumps on 
them. He leaned so far over the ramp that he threatened to topple straight down 
it.
      'What an altogether ridiculous figure," hissed Miss Ming to Doctor 
Volospion. "Don't you think?"
      She would have said more but, for the moment, she evidently felt the 
compelling authority of those bulging blue 
eyes.
      'Not from space at all," complained the Commissar of Bengal. "He's a time 
traveler. His clothes..."
      'Oh, no," Miss Ming was adamant. "We saw him arrive. The ship came from 
space."
      'From the sky, perhaps, but not from space." Abu Thaleb pushed pearls away 
from his mouth. "Now-"
      But the newcomer had struck a strange pose, arms stiffly extended before 
him, little mouth smiling, head held 
up. He spoke in fluting, musical tones that were this time completely 
comprehensible to them all.
      'I welcome you, people of Earth, to my presence. I cannot say how moved I 
am to be among you again and I 
appreciate your own feelings on this wonderful day. For the Hero of your 
greatest legends returns to you. Ah, but how 
you have yearned for me. How you must have prayed for me to come back to you. To 
bring you Life. To bring you 
Reassurance. To bring you that Tranquillity that can only be achieved by Pain! 
Well, dear people of Earth, I am back. 
At long last I am back!"
      'Back...?" grunted Abu Thaleb.
      'Oh, the journey has demented him," suggested Mavis Ming.
      Abu Thaleb cleared his throat. "I believe you have the advantage, sir..."
      'We missed the name," explained Doctor Volospion, his voice a fraction 
animated.
      A sweet smile appeared upon the creature's ruby lips. "But you must 
recognize me!"
      'Not a stirring of memory, for my part," said Doctor Volospion.
      'A picture, perhaps, in the old cities. But no..." said Abu Thaleb.
      'You do look like someone. Some old writer or other," said Miss Ming. "I 
never did literature."
      He frowned. He turned his palms inward. He looked down at his own strange 
body. His voice trilled on. "Yes. 
Yes. I suppose it is possible that you do not recognize this particular 
manifestation."
      'Perhaps you could offer a clue." Doctor Volospion sat up in his cushions 
for the first time.
      He was ignored. The newcomer was patting at his chest. "I have changed my 
physical appearance so many times 
that I have forgotten how I looked at first. The body has probably diminished 
quite a lot. The hands are certainly of a 
different shape. Once, as I recall, I was fat. As fat as your friend - ah, he's 
gone! - the one who was here when I first 
emerged and whose language I couldn't understand - the translator is working 
fine now, eh? Good, good. Oh, yes. 
Quite as fat as him. Fatter. And tall, I think, too. Much taller than any of 
you. But I leaned toward economy. I had the 
opportunity to change. To be more comfortable in the confines of my ship. I 
caused my physique to be altered. 
Irreversibly. This form was modelled after a hero of my own whose name and 
achievements I forget." He drew a deep 
breath. "Still, the form is immaterial. I am here, as I say, to bring you 
Fulfillment."
      'I am sure that we are all grateful," said Doctor Volospion.
      'But your name, sir?" Abu Thaleb reminded him.
      'Name? Names! Names! Names! I have so many!" He flung back his head and 
gave forth a warbling laugh. 
"Names!"
      'Just one would help..." said Abu Thaleb without irony.
      'Names?" His blue eyes fixed them. He gestured. "Names? How would you have 
me called? For I am the 
Phoenix! I am the Sun's Eagle! I am the Sun's Revenge!" He strutted to the very 
edge of the ramp but still did not 
descend. He leaned against the airlock opening. "You shall know me. You shall! 
For I am the claws, come to take back 
the heart you stole from the center of that great furnace that is my Lord and my 
Slave. Eh? Do you recall me now, as I 
remind you of your crimes?"
      'Quite mad," said Miss Ming in a low, tense voice. "I think we'd 
better..." But her companions were fascinated.
      'Here I am!" He spread his legs and arms, to fill the airlock: "Magus, 
clown and prophet, I - Master of the 
World! Witness!"
      Mavis Ming gasped as flames shot from his fingertips. Flames danced in his 
hair. Flames flickered from his 
nostrils. "Clownly, kingly, priestly eater and disgorger of fire! Ha!"
      He laughed and gestured and balls of flame surrounded him.
      'I have no ambiguities, no ambitions - I am all things! Man and woman, god 
and beast, child and ancient - all 
are compatible and all coexist in me."
      A huge sheet of fire seemed to engulf the whole ship and then vanish, 
leaving the newcomer standing there at 
the airlock, his high voice piping, his blue eyes full of pride.
      'I am Mankind! I am the Multiverse! I am Life and Death and Limbo, too. I 
am Peace, Strife and Equilibrium. I 
am Damnation and Salvation. I am all that exists. And I am you!"
      He threw back his little head and began to laugh while the three people 
stared at him in silent astonishment. For 
the first time he walked a little way down the ramp, balancing on the balls of 
his feet, extending his arms at his sides. 
And he began to sing:
      'For I am GOD - and SATAN, too! "PHOENIX, FAUST and FOOL! "My MADNESS is 
DIVINE, and COOL 
my SENSE! "I am your DOOM, your PROVIDENCE!"
      'We are still, I fear, at a loss..." murmured Doctor Volospion, but he 
could not be heard by the singing creature 
whose attention was suddenly, as if for the first time, on Mavis Ming.
      Miss Ming retreated a step or two. "Oo! What do you think you're looking 
at, chum!"
      He stopped his singing. His features became eager. He bent to regard her.
      'Ah! What a splendid woman!"
      He moved still farther down the ramp and he was sighing with pleasure.
      'Oh, Madonna of Lust. Ah, my Tigress, my Temptation. Mm! Never have I seen 
such beauty! But this is 
Ultimate Femininity!"
      'I've had enough," said Miss Ming severely, and she began to edge away.
      He did not follow, but his eyes enchained her. His high, singsong voice 
became ecstatic.
      'Enough? You have known nothing until now! What Beauty! Ah - I will bring 
great wings to beat upon your 
breast." His hands clenched at air. "Tearing talons your talents shall grasp! 
Claws of blood and sinew shall catch the 
silver strings of your cool harp! Ha! I'll have you, madam, never fear! Ho! I'll 
bring your blood to the surface of your 
skin! Hei! It shall pulse there-in service to my sin!"
      'I'm not hanging around," she said, but she did not move.
      The other two watched, forgotten by both, as the strange, mad figure 
pranced upon his ramp, paying court to the 
fat, bewildered lady in blue and yellow below.
      'You shall be mine, madam. You shall be minel This is worth all those many 
millennia when I was denied any 
form of consolation, any sort of human company. I have crossed galaxies and 
dimensions to find my reward! Now I 
know my two-fold mission. To save this world and to win this woman!"
      'No chance," she breathed. "Ugh!" She panted but could not flee.
      He ignored her, or else had not heard her, his attention drawn back to 
Doctor Volospion. "You asked my name. 
Now do you recognize me?"
      'Not specifically." Even Doctor Volospion was impressed by the intensity 
of the newcomer's speech. "Urn - 
perhaps another clue?"
      Bang! A stream of flame had shot from the man's hand and destroyed one of 
Werther's unfinished mountains.
      Boom! The sky darkened and thunder shook the landscape while lightning 
struck all about them. Chaos swirled 
around the ship and out of it stared the newcomer's face shouting:
      'There! Is that enough to tell you?"
      Abu Thaleb demured. "That was one of a set of mountains manufactured by 
someone who was hoping..."
      'Manufactured?"
      The thunder stopped. The lightning ceased. The sky became clear again.
      'Manufactured? You make these pathetic landscapes? From choice? Pah!"
      'There are other things we make..."
      'And what puny conceits! Paint! I use all that is real for my canvases. 
Fire, water, earth and air - and human 
souls!"
      'We can sometimes achieve quite interesting effects," continued Abu Thaleb 
manfully, "by..."
      'Nonsense! Know you this - that I am the Controller of your Destinies! 
Reborn, I come among you to give you 
New Life! I offer the Universe!"
      'We have had the Universe," said Doctor Volospion. "That is partly why we 
are in our current predicament. It is 
all used up."
      'Bah! Well, well, well. So I must take it upon myself again to rescue the 
race. Yes, well I shall not betray you - 
as you have betrayed me in the past. Again I give you the opportunity. Follow 
me!"
      The Commissar of Bengal passed a hand over the gleaming corkscrew curls of 
his blue-black beard, he tugged 
at the red Star of India decorating his left earlobe; he fingered a feather of 
his turban.
      'Follow you? By Allah, sir, I'm confounded! Follow you? Not a word, I 
fear. Not a syllable."
      'That is not what I meant."
      'I think," interposed Doctor Volospion, "that our visitor regards himself 
as a prophet - a chosen spokesman for 
some religion or other. The phrase he uses is more than familiar to me. 
Doubtless he wishes to convert us to the 
worship of his God."
      'God? God! God! I am no servant of a Higher Power!" The visitor's neck 
flashed back in shock. "Unless, as can 
fairly be said, I serve myself - and Mankind, of course..."
      Doctor Volospion casually changed the color of his robes to dark green and 
silver, then to crimson and black. 
He sighed. He became all black.
      The visitor watched this process with some contempt. "What have we here? A 
jester to my clown?"
      Doctor Volospion glanced up. "Forgive me if I seem unmannerly. I was 
seeking an appropriate color for my 
mood."
      Abu Thaleb was dogged. "Sir, if you could introduce yourself, perhaps a 
little more formally...?"
      The stranger regarded him through a milder eye, as if giving the 
commissar's remark weighty consideration.
      'A name? Just one," coaxed the Lord of All Elephants. "It might jog our 
memories, d'you see."
      'I am your Messiah."
      'There!" cried Doctor Volospion, pleased with his earlier interpretation.
      The Messiah raised inflexible arms toward the skies. "I am the Prophet of 
the Sun! Flamebringer, call me!"
      Still more animated, even amused, Doctor Volospion turned his attention 
away from his cuffs (now of purple 
lace) to remark: "The name is not familiar, sir. Where are you from?"
      'Earth! I am from Earth!" The prophet gripped the lapels of his velvet 
coat. "You must know me. I have given 
you every hint."
      'But when did you leave Earth?" Abu Thaleb put in, intending help. 
"Perhaps we are further in your future than 
you realize. This planet, you see, is millions, billions, of years old. Why, 
there is every evidence that it would have 
perished a long time ago - so far as supporting human life was concerned, at any 
rate - if we had not, with the aid of 
our great old cities, maintained it. You could be from a past so distant that no 
memory remains of you. The cities, of 
course, do remember a great deal, and it is possible that one of them might know 
you. Or there are time travelers here, 
like Miss Ming, with better memories of earlier times than even the cities 
possess. What I am trying to say, sir, is that 
we are not being deliberately obtuse. We should be only too willing to show you 
proper respect if we knew who you 
were and how we should show it. It is on you, the onus, I regret."
      The head jerked from side to side; a curious cockatoo. "Eh?"
      'Name, rank and serial number!" Miss Ming guffawed.
      'Eh?"
      'We are an ancient and ignorant people," Abu Thaleb apologized. "Well, at 
least, I speak for myself. I am very 
ancient and extremely ignorant. Except, I should explain, in the matter of 
elephants, where I am something of an 
expert."
      'Elephants?"
      The stranger's blue eyes glittered. "So this is what you have become? 
Dilettantes! Fops! Dandies! Cynics! 
Quasi-realists!"
      'We have become all things at the End of Time," said Doctor Volospion. 
"Variety flourishes, if originality does 
not."
      'Pah! I call you lifeless bones. But fear not. I am returned to resurrect 
you. I am Power. I am the forgotten Spirit 
of Mankind. I am Possibility."
      'Quite so," said Doctor Volospion agreeably. "But I think, sir, that you 
underestimate the degree of our 
sophistication."
      'We have really considered the matter quite closely, some of us," Abu 
Thaleb wished the stranger to know. "We 
are definitely, it seems, doomed."
      'Not now! Not now!" The little man jerked his hand and fire began to roar 
upon Argonheart Po's cola lake. It 
was a bright, unlikely red. There was heat.
      'Delightful," murmured Doctor Volospion. "But if I may demonstrate..." He 
turned a sapphire ring on his right 
finger. Pale-blue clouds formed over the lake. A light rain fell. The fire 
guttered. It died. "You will see," added Doctor 
Volospion quickly, noting the stranger's expression, "that we enjoy a certain 
amount of control over the elements." He 
turned another ring. The fire returned.
      'I am not here to match conjuring tricks with you, my jackal - eyed 
friend!" The stranger gestured and a halo of 
bright flame appeared around his head. He swept his arms about and black clouds 
filled the sky once more and thunder 
boomed again; lightning crashed. "I used my mastery merely to demonstrate my 
moral purpose."
      Doctor Volospion raised a delighted hand to his mouth. "I did not 
realize..."
      'Well, you shall! You shall know me! I shall awaken the memory dreaming in 
the forgotten places of your 
minds. Then, how gladly you will welcome me. For I am Salvation." He struck a 
pose and his high, musical voice very 
nearly sang his next speech:
      'Oh, call me Satan, for I am cast down from Heaven! The teeming worlds of 
the multiverse have been my 
domicile till now; but here I am, come back to you, at long last. You do not 
know me now - but you shall know me 
soon. I am He for whom you have been waiting. I am the Sun Eagle. Ah, now shall 
this old world blossom with my 
fire. For I shall be triumphant, the terrible, intolerant Master of your Globe."
      He paused only for a second to review his audience, his head on one side. 
Then he filled his lungs and continued 
with his litany:
      'This is my birthright, my duty, my desire. I claim the World. I claim all 
its denizens as my subjects. I shall 
instruct you in the glories of the Spirit. You sleep now. You have forgotten how 
to fly on the wfld winds that blow 
from Heaven and from Hell, for now you cower beneath a mere breeze that is the 
cold Wind of Limbo. It flattens you, 
deadens you, and you abase yourselves passively before it, because you know no 
other wind." His hands settled upon 
his hips. "But I am the wind. I am the air and the fire to resurrect your 
Spirit. You two, you bewildered men, shall be 
my first disciples. And you, woman, shall be my glorious consort."
      Mavis Ming gave a little shudder and confided to Abu Thaleb: "I couldn't 
think of anything worse. What a 
bombastic little idiot. Isn't one of you going to put him in his place?"
      'Oh, he is entertaining, you know," said Abu Thaleb tolerantly.
      'Charming," agreed Doctor Volospion. "You should be flattered, Miss Ming."
      'What? Because he hasn't seen another woman in a thousand years?"
      Doctor Volospion smiled. "You do yourself discredit."
      The stranger did not seem upset by the lack of immediate effect he had had 
on them. He turned grave, intense 
eyes upon her. Mavis Ming might have blushed.
      He spoke with thrilling authority, for all his pre-pubescent pitch:
      'Beautiful and proud you may be, woman, yet you shall bend to me when the 
time comes. You shall not then 
react with callow cynicism."
      'I think you've got rather old-fashioned ideas about women, my friend," 
said Miss Ming staunchly.
      'Your true soul is buried now. But I shall reveal it to you."
      The sky began to clear. A flock of transparent pteranodons safled 
unsteadily overhead, fleeing the sun. Miss 
Ming pretended an interest in the flying creatures. But it was plain that the 
stranger had her attention.
      'I am Life," he said, "and you are Death."
      'Well..." she began, offended.
      He explained: "At this moment everything is Death that is not me."
      'I'm beginning to pity you," said Mavis Ming in an artificial voice. "It's 
obvious that you've been so long in 
space, whatever your name is, that you've gone completely mad!" She made nervous 
tuggings and pullings at her 
costume. "And if you're trying to scare me, or turn my stomach, or make fun of 
me, I can assure you that I've dealt with 
much tougher customers than you in my time. All right?"
      'So," he said, in tones meant only for her, "your mind resists me. Your 
training resists me. Your mother and your 
father and your society resist me. Perhaps even your body resists me. But your 
soul does not. Your soul listens. Your 
soul pines for me. How many years have you refused to listen to its promptings? 
How many years of discomfort, of 
sorrow, of depravity and degradation? How many nights have you battled against 
your dreams and your true desires? 
Soon you shall kneel before me and know your own power, your own strength."
      Miss Ming took a deep breath. She looked to Doctor Volospion for help, but 
his expression was bland, mildly 
curious. Abu Thaleb seemed only embarrassed.
      'Listen, you," she said, "where I come from women have had the vote for 
150 years. They've had equal rights for 
almost 100. There are probably more women in administrative jobs than there are 
men and more than 50 percent of all 
leading politicians are women, and when I left we hadn't had a big war for ten 
years, and we know all about dictators, 
sexual chauvinists and old-fashioned seducers. I did a History of Sexism course 
as part of my postgraduate studies, so I 
know what I'm talking about."
      He listened attentively enough to all this before replying. "You speak of 
Rights and Precedents, woman. You 
refer to Choice and Education. But what if these are the very chains which 
enslave the spirit? I offer you neither 
security nor responsibility - save the security of knowing your own identity and 
the responsibility of maintaining it. I 
offer you Dignity."
      Miss Ming opened her mouth.
      'I note that you are a Romantic, sir," said Doctor Volospion with some 
relish.
      The stranger no longer seemed aware of his presence, but continued to 
stare at Mavis Ming who frowned and 
cast about in her troubled skull for appropriate defense. She failed and instead 
sought the aid of her protector.
      'Can we go now?" she whisepred to Doctor Volospion. "He might do something 
dangerous."
      Doctor Volospion lowered his voice only a trifle. "If my reading of our 
friend's character is correct, he shares a 
preference with all those of his type for words and dramatic but unspecific 
actions. I find him quite stimulating. You 
know my interests..."
      'Do not reject my gifts, woman," warned the stranger. "Others have offered 
you Liberty (if that is what it is) but 
I offer you nothing less than yourself - your whole self."
      Miss Ming tried to bridle and, unsuccessful, turned away. "Really, Doctor 
Volospion," she began urgently, "I've 
had enough..."
      Abu Thaleb attempted intercession. "Sir, we have few established customs, 
though we have enjoyed and 
continue to enjoy many fashions in manners, but it would seem to me that, since 
you are a guest in our Age..."
      'Guest!" The little man was astonished. "I am not your guest, sir, I am 
your Savior."
      'Be that as it may..."
      'There is no more to be said. There is no question of my calling!"
      'Be that as it may, you are disturbing this lady, who is not of our time 
and is therefore perhaps more sensitive to 
your remarks than if she were, um, indigenous to the Age. I think 'stress' is 
the word I seek, though I am not too certain 
of how 'stress' manifests itself. Miss Ming?" He begged for illumination.
      'He's a pain in the neck, if that's what you mean," said Miss Ming boldly. 
"But you get used to that here." She 
drew herself up.
      'As a gentleman, sir-," continued Abu Thaleb.
      'Gentleman? I have never claimed to be a 'gentleman.' Unless by that you 
mean I am a man - a throbbing, 
ardent, lover of women - of one woman, now - of that woman!" His quivering 
finger pointed.
      Miss Ming turned her back full on him and clambered into Abu Thaleb's 
howdah. She sat, stiff-necked, upon the 
cushions, her arms folded in front of her.
      The stranger smiled almost tenderly. "Ah, she is so beautiful. So 
feminine. Ah!"
      'Doctor Volospion." Miss Ming's voice was flat and cold. "I should like to 
go home now."
      Doctor Volospion laughed.
      'Nonsense, my dear Miss Ming." He bowed a fraction to the stranger, as if 
to apologize. "It has been an eternity 
since we entertained such a glorious guest. I am eager to hear his views. You 
know my interest in ancient religions - 
my collection, my menagerie, my investigations - well, here we have a genuine 
prophet." A deeper bow to the stranger. 
"A preacher who shows Li Pao up for the parsimonious hair-splitter that he is. 
If we are to be berated for our sins, then 
let it be full-bloodedly, with threats of fire and brimstone!".
      'I said nothing of brimstone," said the stranger.
      'Forgive me."
      Miss Ming leaned from the howdah to put her lips to Doctor Volospion's 
ear. "You think he's genuine, then?"
      He stroked his chin. "Your meaning is misty, Miss Ming."
      'Oh, I give up," she said. "It's all right for everybody else, but that 
madman's more or less announced his firm 
decision to rape me at the earliest opportunity."
      'Nonsense," objected Doctor Volospion. "He has been nothing but 
chivalrous."
      'It would be like being raped by a pigeon," she added. She withdrew into 
herself.
      Doctor Volospion's last glance in her direction was calculating but when 
he next addressed the stranger he was 
all hospitality. 'Your own introduction, sir, has been perhaps a mite vague. May 
I be more specific in my presentation - 
myself and my friends. This lovely lady, whose beauty has understandably made 
such an impression upon you, is Miss 
Mavis Ming. This gentleman is Abu Thaleb, Commissar of Bengal-,"
      '-and Lord of All Elephants," modestly appended the commissar.
      '-while I, your humble servant, am called Doctor Volospion. I think we 
share similar tastes, for I have long 
studied the religions and the faiths of the past and judge myself something of a 
connoisseur of Belief. You would be 
interested, I think, in my collection, and I would greatly value your inspection 
of it for, in truth, there are few fellow 
spirits in this world-weary Age of ours."
      The stranger's red lips formed a haughty smile. "I am no theologian, 
Doctor Volospion. At least, only in the 
sense that I am, of course, All Things..."
      "Of course, of course, but-,"
      "And I see you for a trickster, a poseur."
      "I assure you-,"
      'I know you for a poor ghost of a creature, seeking in bad casuistry, to 
give a dead mind some semblance of life. 
You are cold, sir, and the cruelties by means of which you attempt to warm your 
own blood are pretty things, the 
products of a niggardly imagination and some small, but ill-trained, 
intelligence. Only the generous can be truly cruel 
for they know also what it is to be truly charitable."
      'You object to casuistry, and yet you do not disdain the use of empty 
paradox, I note." Doctor Volospion 
remained, so it appeared, in good humor. "I am sure, sir, when we are better 
acquainted, you will not be so wary of 
me."
      'Wary? I should be wary? Ha! If that is how you would misrepresent my 
nature, to comfort yourself, then I give 
you full permission. But know this - in giving that permission I am allowing you 
to remain in the grave when it might 
have been that you could have known true life again."
      'I am impressed..."
      'No more! I am your Master, whether you acknowledge it or no, whether I 
care or no, and that is unquestionable. 
I'll waste no more energy in debate with you, manikin."
      'Manikin!" Miss Ming snorted. "That's a good one."
      Doctor Volospion put a finger on his lips. "Please, Miss Ming. I would 
continue this conversation."
      'After he's insulted you-,"
      'He speaks his mind, that is all. He does not know our preferences for 
euphemism and ornament, and so-,"
      'Exactly," said Abu Thaleb, relieve'd. "He will come to understand our 
ways soon."
      'Be certain," fluted the stranger, "that it is you who will come to 
understand my ways. I have no respect for 
customs, manners, fashions, for I am Bloom the Eternal. I am Bloom, who has 
experienced All. I am Emmanuel 
Bloom, whom Time cannot touch, whom Space cannot suppress!"
      'A name at last," said Doctor Volospion in apparent delight. "We greet 
you, Mr. Bloom."
      'That's funny," said Miss Ming, "You don't look Jewish."
      
      
      
Chapter SevenIn which Doctor Volospion becomes eager to offer Mr. Bloom his 
Hospitality
      Mr. Emmanuel Bloom seemed for the moment to have lost interest in them. He 
stood upon the ramp of his 
spaceship and stared beyond Argonheart Po's cola lake (still bearing a wisp or 
two of flame) toward the barren horizon. 
He shook his head in some despair. "My poor, poor planet. What have they made of 
it in my absence?"
      'Do you think we could go now?" complained Miss Ming to Doctor Volospion 
and Abu Thaleb. "If you really 
want to see him again you could tell him where to find you." She had an 
inspiration. "Or invite him to your party, Abu 
Thaleb, to make up for what he did to Argonheart's feast!"
      'He would be welcome, of course," said the commissar doubtfully.
      'His conversation would be refreshing, I think," said Doctor Volospion. He 
plucked at his ruff and then, with a 
motion of a ring, disposed of it altogether. He was once again in green and 
silver, his cap tight about his head, 
emphasizing the angularity of his white features. "There are many there who 
would respond rather better than can I to 
the tone of his pronouncements. Werther de Goethe, for instance, with his 
special yearning for Sin? Or even Jherek 
Carnelian, if he is still with us, with his pursuit of the meaning of morality. 
Or Mongrove, who shares something of his 
monumental millennialism. Mongrove is back from space, is he not?"
      'With his aliens," Abu Thaleb confirmed.
      'Well, then, perhaps you should invite him now, courteous commissar?"
      'We could tell him that the party was in his honor," suggested Abu Thaleb. 
"That would please him, don't you 
think. If we humor him..."
      'Can't he hear us?" hissed Miss Ming.
      'I think he only listens to us when it interests him to do so," guessed 
Doctor Volospion. "His mind appears on 
other things at present."
      'This is all very uncomfortable for me," said Mavis Ming, "though I 
suppose I shouldn't complain. Not that 
there's a lot of point, because nobody ever listens to little Mavis. It's too 
much to expect, isn't it. But mark my words, 
he's going to make trouble for all of us, and especially for me. We shouldn't be 
wondering about inviting him to parties. 
We should tell him he's not welcome. We should give him his marching orders. 
Tell him to leave!"
      'It is traditional to welcome all visitors to our world, Miss Ming," said 
Abu Thaleb. "Even the dullest has 
something to offer and we, in turn, can often offer sanctuary. This Mr. Bloom, 
while I agree with you he seems a little 
deluded as to his importance to us, must have had many experiences of interest. 
He has traveled, he tells us, through 
time and through space. He has knowledge of numerous dif ferent societies. There 
will be many here who will be glad 
to meet him. Lord Jagged of Canaria, I am sure-,"
      'Jagged is gone from us again," said Volospion somewhat sharply. "Fled, 
some say, back into Time - to avoid 
disaster."
      'Well, there are women, too, who would delight in meeting one so 
passionate. My Lady Charlotina, Mistress 
Christia, the Iron Orchid -..."
      'They're welcome," said Mavis Ming. "More than welcome. Though what any 
woman would see in the little 
creep I don't know."
      'Once he meets other ladies doubtless his own infatuation for you will 
subside," said Abu Thaleb encouragingly. 
"As you say, you are probably the first woman he has seen for many a long year 
and he has had no opportunity to select 
from all our many wonderful women one who pleases him even more than you do at 
present. He is evidently a man of 
great passion. One might almost call it elephantine in its grandeur."
      Miss Ming put her chin on her fist.
      There was a bang. Pensively, Mr. Bloom had blown up the rest of Werther's 
mountains. He continued to remain 
with his hands on his hips, contemplating the distance.
      'Miss Ming. As a student of history have you any knowledge of Mr. Bloom?" 
Doctor Volospion came and sat 
next to her in the howdah.
      'None," she said. "Not even a legend. He must be after my time."
      'A near contemporary, I would have thought, judging by his dress."
      'He said himself he'd taken on someone else's appearance. Someone he 
admired."
      'Ah, yes. Another prophet, do you think?"
      'From the 19th century? Who was there? Karl Marx? Neitsche? Wagner? Maybe 
he looks a bit like Wagner. No. 
Someone like that, though. English? It's just not my period, Doctor Volospion. 
And religion was never my strong 
subject. The Middle Ages were my own favorite, because people lived such simpler 
lives, then. I could get quite 
nostalgic about the Middle Ages, even now. That's probably why I originally 
started doing history. When I was a little 
girl you couldn't get me away from all those stories of brave knights and fair 
ladies. I guess I was like a lot of kids, but I 
just hung on to that interest until I went to the university, where I got more 
interested in the politics, well, that was 
Betty, really, who was the political nut, you know. But she really had some 
strong ideas about politics - good ideas. 
She-"
      'But you do not recognize Mr. Bloom?"
      'You couldn't fail to, could you, once you'd seen him? No. Doctor 
Volospion, can't you send me home on my 
own? If I had a power ring, even a little one, I could..."
      She had hinted to him before that if she were equipped with a power ring 
or two she would be less of a nuisance 
to him. Few time travelers, however, were given the rings which tapped the 
energy of the old cities, certainly not when, 
like Miss Ming, they were comparative newcomers to the End of Time. As Doctor 
Volospion had explained to her 
before, there was a certain discipline of mind - or at least a habit of mind - 
which had to be learned before they could 
be used. Also they were not one of the artifacts which could be reproduced at 
will. There was a relatively limited 
number of them. Miss Ming had never been quite convinced by Doctor Volospion's 
arguments against her having her 
own power ring, but there was little she could do save hope that one day he 
would relent.
      'Regretfully..." He gestured. "Not yet, Miss Ming." It was not clear to 
which of her suggestions he was referring. 
She allowed her disappointment to show on her plump face.
      'Hm," said Mr. Bloom from above, "it is evident that the entire planet 
will have to be consumed so that, from the 
ashes, a purer place may prosper."
      'Mr. Bloom!" cried Abu Thaleb. "I would remind you, sir, that while you 
are a most honored guest to our world, 
you will inconvenience a great many people if you burn them up."
      Bloom blinked as he looked down at Abu Thaleb. "Oh, they will not die. I 
shall resurrect them."
      'They are perfectly capable of resurrecting one another, Mr, Bloom. That 
is not my point. You see many of us 
have embarked on schemes - oh, menageries, collections, creations of various 
kinds - and if you were to destroy them 
they would be seriously disappointed. It would be the height of bad manners, 
don't you think?"
      'You have already heard my opinion of manners."
      'But-"
      'It is for your own good," Bloom told him.
      'Aha! The authentic voice of the prophet!" cried Doctor Volospion. "Sir, 
you must be my guest!"
      'You begin to irritate me, Doctor Volospion," piped Emmanuel Bloom, "with 
your constant references to me as a 
guest. I am not a guest. I am the rightful inheritor of this world, controller 
of the destinies of all who dwell in it, sole 
Savior of your souls."
      'Quite," apologized Doctor Volospion. "I should imagine, however, that 
your spaceship, however grandly 
furnished and with whatever fine amenities, palls on you as a domicile after so 
many centuries. Perhaps if you would 
allow me to put my own humble house at your disposal until a suitable palace - 
or temple, perhaps - can be built for 
you, I should be greatly flattered."
      'Your feeble attempts at guile begin to irritate me, Doctor Volospion. I 
am Emmanuel Bloom."
      'So you have told us..."
      'I am Emmanuel Bloom and can see into every soul."
      'Naturally. I merely..."
      'And this priestly fawning only makes me despair of you still further. If 
you would defy me, defy me with some 
dignity."
      'Mr. Bloom, I am simply attempting to make you welcome. Your ideas, your 
language, your attitudes, they are 
all decidedly unfashionable now. It was my intention to offer you a dwelling 
from which you may observe the Age at 
the End of Time, and make plans for its specific salvation - at your leisure."
      'My plans are simple enough. They can apply to any age. I shall destroy 
everything. Then I shall create it afresh. 
Your identity will not only be preserved, it will be fully alive, perhaps for 
the first time since you were born."
      'Most of us," Abu Thaleb wished to point out, "were not actually born at 
all, Mr. Bloom..."
      'That is immaterial. You exist now. I shall help you find yourselves."
      'Most of us are content..."
      'You think you are content. Are you never restless? Do you never wake from 
slumber recalling a dream of 
something lost, something finer than anything you have ever experienced before?"
      'As a matter of fact I have not slept for many a long year. The fashion 
died, with most people, even before I 
became interested in elephants."
      'Do not seek to confuse the issue, Abu Thaleb."
      'Mr. Bloom, I am confused. I have no wish to have my precious pachyderms 
destroyed by you. My enthusiasm 
is at its height. I am sure the same can be said for at least half the 
population, small though it is, of this planet."
      'I cannot heed you," said Emmanuel Bloom, feeling in the pockets of his 
velvet suit. "You will be grateful when 
it is done."
      'At least you might canvas the opinion of a few more people, Mr. Bloom." 
Abu Thaleb begged. "I mean to say, 
for all I know most people might think the idea a splendid one! It would make a 
dramatic change, at least..."
      'And besides," said Doctor Volospion, "we certainly have the means to 
resist you, Mr. Bloom, should you begin 
seriously to discommode us."
      Emmanuel Bloom began to stride up the ramp of his spaceship. "I am weary 
of all this. Woman, do you come 
with me now?"
      Miss Ming maintained silence.
      'Please reconsider, Mr. Bloom," Doctor Volospion said spiritedly, "as my 
guest you would share the roof with 
many great philosophers and prophets, with messiahs and reformers of every 
description."
      'It sounds," piped Mr. Bloom, 'like Hell."
      'And there are things you should see. Souvenirs of a million faiths. 
Miraculous artifacts of every kind."
      Emmanuel Bloom seemed mildly interested. "Eh?"
      'Magical swords, relics, supernatural stones - my collection is justly 
famous."
      Emmanuel Bloom continued on his way.
      'You would, as well as enjoying this fabulous company, be sharing the same 
roof as Miss Ming, who is another 
guest of mine," said Doctor Volospion.
      'Miss Ming comes with me. Now."
      'Oh, no I don't," exclaimed Miss Ming.
      'What?" Emmanuel Bloom paused again.
      'Miss Ming stays with me," said Doctor Volospion. "If you wish to visit 
her, you may visit her at my dwelling."
      'Oh, don't bother with him!" said Mavis Ming.
      'You will come to me, in time, Mavis Ming," said Emmanuel Bloom.
      'That's the funniest thing I've ever heard," she told him. She said to 
Doctor Volospion: "It's a bit insensitive of 
you, isn't it, Doctor Volospion, to use me as bait. Why do you want him so 
badly?"
      Doctor Volospion ignored the question.
      'You would be very comfortable at Castle Volospion," he told Mr. Bloom. 
"Everything you could desire - food, 
wine, luxurious furniture, women, boys, any animal of your taste..."
      'I need no luxuries and I desire only one woman. She shall be mine soon 
enough."
      'It would make Miss Ming happy, I am sure, if you became my g - if you 
used my house."
      'You are determined, I think, to misunderstand my mission upon this world. 
I have come to re-fire the Earth, as 
its Leader and its Hero. To restore Love and Madness and Idealism to their 
proper eminence. To infuse your blood with 
the stuff that makes it race, that makes the heart beat and the head swim! Look 
about you, manikin, and tell me if you 
see any heroes. You no longer have heroes - and you have such paltry villains!"
      'It does not seem reasonable of you to judge by us three alone," said Abu 
Thaleb.
      'Three's enough. Enough to tell the general condition of the whole. Your 
society is revealed in your language, 
your gestures, your costumes, your landscapesl Oh, how sad, how ruined, how 
unfulfilled you are! Ah, how you must 
have longed, in your secret thoughts, those thoughts hidden even from 
yourselves, for me to return. And look now - 
you still do not realize it."
      He smiled benevolently down on them, standing near the entrance to his 
ship.
      'But that realization shall dawn anon, be sure of that. You ask me to live 
in one of your houses - in a tomb, I say. 
And could I bear to leave my ship behind? My much-named ship, the Golden Hind? 
Or Firedrake call her, Virgin 
Flame-Pi-meson or the Magdelaine - sailing out of Carthage, Tyre, Old Bristol or 
Bombay: Captain, Emmanuel 
Bloom, late of Jerusalem, founder of the Mayan faith, builder of pyramids, 
called Ra or Raleigh, dependent on your 
taste - Kublai Khan or Prester John, Baldur, Mithras, Zoroaster - the Sun's 
Fool, for I bring you Flame in which to 
drown! I am blooming Bloom, blunderer through the million planes - I am Bloom, 
the booming drum of destiny. I am 
Bloom - the Fireclown! Aha! Now you know mel"
      The three faces stared blankly up.
      He leaned with his hand against the entrance to the airlock, his head on 
his shoulder, his eye beady and 
intelligent. "Eh?"
      Doctor Volospion remained uncharacteristically placatory. "Perhaps you 
could enlighten us over a meal? You 
must be hungry. We can offer the choicest foods to suit the most demanding of 
tastes. Please, Mr. Bloom, I ask again 
that you reconsider..."
      'No."
      'You feel I have misinterpreted you, I know. But I am an earnest student. 
I remain a mite confused. Your 
penchant for metaphor..."
      The Fireclown clapped a tiny hand to a tiny knee. He frowned at Doctor 
Volospion. "One metaphor is worth a 
million of your euphemisms, Doctor Volospion. I have problems to consider and 
must seek solitude. I have poetry to 
write - or to recall - I forget which - and need time for meditation. I should 
accept your invitation for it is my duty to 
broaden your mind - but that duty can wait."
      He turned again to regard the woman.
      'You'll join me now, Miss Ming?"
      His huge blue eyes flashed suddenly with an intelligence, a humor, which 
shocked her completely from her 
hard-won composure.
      'What?" The response was mindless.
      He stretched out a hand. "Come with me now. I offer you pain and 
knowledge, lust and freedom. Hm?"
      She began to rise, as if mesmerised. She seemed to be shivering. Then she 
sat down. "Certainly not!"
      Emmanuel Bloom laughed. "You'll come." He returned his attention to Doctor 
Volospion. "And I would advise 
you, sir, to save your breath in this meaningless and puny Temptation. Your 
hatred of me is patent, whether you admit 
it to yourself or not. I would warn you to cease your irritation."
      'You still refuse to believe my good faith, Mr. Bloom. So be it." Doctor 
Volospion bowed low.
      The ramp was withdrawn. The airlock shut.
      No further sound escaped the ship.
      
      

Chapter Eight
In which Miss Ming begins to feel a certain curiosity concerning the intentions 
of Emmanuel Bloom
      
      If anyone at the End of Time expected Mr. Bloom to begin immediately to 
exercise his particular plans for 
bringing Salvation to the planet they were to be disappointed, for his 
extravagant spaceship (which the fashion of the 
moment declared to be in hideous taste) remained where it landed and Emmanuel 
Bloom, the Fireclown, did not re-
emerge. A few sightseers came to view the ship - the usual sensation-seekers 
like the Duke of Queens (who wanted to 
put the ship at once into his collection of ancient flying machines), My Lady 
Charlotina of Below the Lake, O'Kala 
Incarnadine, Sweet Orb Mace, the Iron Orchid, Bishop Castle and their various 
followers, imitators and hangers-on - 
but in spite of all sorts of hallooings, hangings, catcalls, lettings off of 
fireworks, obscene displays (on the part of the 
ladies who were curious to see what Miss Ming's most ardent suitor really looked 
like) and the rest, the great Savior of 
Mankind refused to reveal himself; nothing occurred which could be interpreted 
as action on the Fireclown's part. No 
fires swept the Earth, no thunder or lightning broke the calm of the skies, 
there was no destruction of artifacts or any 
further demolition of landscapes. Indeed, it was singularly peaceful, even for 
the End of Time, and certain people 
became almost resentful of Mr. Bloom's refusal to attempt, at least, a miracle 
or two.
      'Doctor Volospion exaggerated!" pronounced My Lady Charlotina, all in blue 
and sage, the colors of dreams, as 
she lunched on a green and recently constructed hillside overlooking the ship 
(it now stood in clouds of daisies, a 
memento of the Duke of Queens' pastoral phase which had lasted scarcely the 
equivalent of an ancient Earth summer) 
and raised a turnip (another memento) to her ethereal lips. "You know his 
obsessions, my dear O'Kala. His taste for 
monks and gurus and the like."
      O'Kala Incarnadine, currently a gigantic field mouse, nibbled at the lemon 
he held in both front paws. "I am not 
familiar with the creatures," he said.
      'They are not creatures, exactly. They are a kind of person. Lord Jagged 
was good enough to inform me about 
them, although, of course, I have forgotten most of what he said. My point is, 
O'Kala, that Doctor Volospion wished 
this Mr. Bloom to be like a guru and so interpreted his words accordingly."
      "But Miss Ming confirmed..."
      "Miss Ming!"
      O'Kala shrugged his mousey shoulders in assent. "Miss Ming's bias was 
blatant. Who could express such 
excessive ardor of anyone, let alone Miss Ming?" My Lady Charlotina wiped the 
white juice of the turnip from her 
chin.
      'Jherek - he pursued his Amelia with much the same enthusiasm."
      'Amelia is an Ideal-she is slender, beautiful, unattainable - everything 
an Ideal should be. There is nothing 
unseemly in Jherek's passion for such a. woman." My Lady Charlotina was unaware 
of anything contradictory in her 
remarks. After her brief experience in the Dawn Age she had developed a taste 
for propriety which had not yet 
altogether vanished.
      'In certain guises," timidly offered O'Kala, "I have lusted for Miss Ming 
myself, so..."
      'That is quite different. But this Mr. Bloom is a man."
      'Abu Thaleb's tale was not dissimilar to Doctor Volospion's."
      'Abu Thaleb is impressionable. On elephants he is unequalled, but he is no 
expert on prophets."
      'Is anyone?"
      'Lord Jagged. That is why Doctor Volospion apes him. You know of the great 
rivalry Volospion feels for Lord 
Jagged, surely? For some reason, he identifies with Jagged. Once he used to 
emulate him in everything, or sought to. 
Jagged showed no interest. Gave no praise. Since then - oh, so long ago my 
memory barely grants me the bones of it - 
Doctor Volospion has set himself up as a sort of contra-Jagged. There are rumors 
- no more than that, for you know 
how secretive Jagged can be - rumors of a sexual desire which flourished between 
them for a while, until Jagged tired 
of it. Now that Lord Jagged has disappeared, I suspect that Doctor Volospion 
would take his place in our society, for 
Jagged has the knack of making us all curious about his activities. You have my 
opinion in a nutshell - Volospion 
makes much of this Bloom in an effort to pique our interest, to gossip about him 
in lieu of Jagged."
      O'Kala Incarnadine wiped his whiskers. "Then he has succeeded."
      'For the moment, I grant you, but unsubtly. It will not last."
      My Lady Charlotina sighed and sucked at a celery stalk, letting her gaze 
wander to the scarlet spaceship. "Our 
curiosity is still with Jagged. Where can he be? This," she indicated the vessel 
with her vegetable, "is no more than a 
diversion."
      'It would be amusing, though, if Mr. Bloom did begin to lay waste the 
world."
      'There is no logic to it. The world will be finished soon enough, as 
everyone knows. The very universe in which 
our planet hangs is on the point of vanishing forever. Mr. Bloom has brought his 
salvation at altogether the wrong 
moment and at a time when salvation itself is unfashionable, even as a topic of 
conversation."
      'The reasons are obvious..." began O'Kala, in a rare and philosophical 
mood, "... for who would wish to discuss 
such matters, now that we know-?"
      'Quite." My Lady Charlotina waved. An air car was approaching. It was in 
the shape of a great winged man, its 
bronze head flashing in the red light of the sun, its blind eyes glaring, its 
twisted mouth roaring as if in agony. The 
Duke of Queens had modeled his latest car after some image recently discovered 
by him in one of the rotting cities.
      The car landed nearby and from it trooped many of My Lady Charlotina's 
most intimate friends. From his saddle 
behind the head of the winger man the Duke of Queens raised his hand in a 
salute. He had on an ancient astronaut's 
jacket, in silver-tipped black fur, puffed pantaloons of mauve and ivory 
stripes, knee-boots of orange lurex hide, a 
broad-brimmed hat of panda ears, all sewn together in the most fanciful way.
      'My Lady Charlotina! We saw you and had to greet you. We are on our way to 
enjoy the new boys Florence 
Fawkes had made for her latest entertainment. Will you come with us?"
      'Perhaps, but boys . . "," She lifted the corner of her mouth.
      My Lady Charlotina noted that Doctor Volospion and Mavis Ming were among 
those pouring from the body of 
the winged man. She greeted Sweet Orb Mace with a small kiss, laid a sincere 
hand upon the arm of Bishop Castle, 
winked at Mistress Christia, and smiled charmingly at Miss Ming.
      'Aha! The beauty for whom Mr. Bloom crossed galaxies. Miss Ming, you are 
the focus of all our envy!"
      'Have you seen Mr. Bloom?" asked Miss Ming.
      'Not yet, not yet."
      'Then wait before you envy me," she said.
      Doctor Volospion's cunning eye glittered. "There is nothing more certain 
to attract the attention of a lady to a 
gentleman, even in these weary times of ours than the passion of that gentleman 
for another lady."
      'How perceptive you are, dear Doctor Volospion. It must be admitted. In 
fact, I believe I already admitted it 
when I first greeted you."
      Doctor Volospion bowed his head.
      'You are looking at your best," she continued, for it was true. "You are 
always elegant Doctor Volospion." He 
had on a long, full-sleeved robe of bottle green, trimmed with mellow gold, the 
neck high, to frame his sharp face, a 
matching tight-fitting cap upon his head, buttoned beneath the pointed chin.
      'You are kind, My Lady Charlotina." "
      'Ever truthful, Doctor Volospion." She gave her attention to Miss Ming's 
white frills. "And this dress. You must 
feel so much younger in it."
      'Much," agreed Miss Ming. "How clever of you to understand what it was 
like to be like me. How many 
hundreds of years can it have been?"
      'More than that, Miss Ming. Thousands, almost certainly. I see, at any 
rate, that your would-be ravisher has yet 
to come out of his little lair again."
      'He can stay there forever as far as I'm concerned."
      'I have made one or two attempts to rouse him," said Doctor Volospion. "I 
sought to shift the ship, too, but it is 
protected now by a singularly intractable force-field. Nothing I possess can 
dissipate that field."
      'So he does have the power he boasted of, eh?" Bishop Castle in his 
familiar tall which cast a shadow over half 
the company, looked without much interest at the spaceship.
      'Apparently," said Doctor Volospion.
      'But why doesn't he use it?" The Duke of Queens joined them. "Has he 
perished in there, do you think. In his 
own mad flames?"
      'We should have smelled something, at least," said O'Kala Incarnadine.
      'Well," Sweet Orb Mace was now a pretty blonde in a black sari, "you would 
have smelled something, O'Kala, 
with your nose."
      O'Kala wrinkled his current one.
      'He's playing cat and mouse with me, that's what I think," said Mavis Ming 
with a nervous glance at the vessel. 
"Oh, I'm sorry, O'Kala, I didn't mean to suggest..."
      O'Kala Incarnadine made a toothy grin. "I pity any ordinary cat who met a 
mouse like me!"
      'He's hoping I'll give in and go to him. That's typical of some men, isn't 
it? Well I had enough of crawling with 
Donny Stevens. Never again I told my friend Betty. And never again it was!"
      'But you have been tempted, eh?" My Lady Charlotina became intimate.
      'Not once."
      My Lady Charlotina let disappointment show.
      'I wish," said Mavis Ming, "that he'd either start something or else just 
go away. It must have been weeks and 
weeks he's been waiting there! It's getting on my nerves, you know."
      'Of course, it must be, my dear," said Sweet Orb Mace.
      'Well," the Duke of Queens reminded them all "Florence Fawkes awaits us. 
Will you come My Lady 
Charlotina? O'Kala?"
      'I have a project," said My Lady Charlotina, by way of an excuse, "to 
finish. Of course it is very hard to tell if it 
is properly finished or not. An invisible city populated with invisible 
androids. You must come and feel it soon."
      'A lovely notion," said Bishop Castle. "Are the androids of all sexes?"
      'All."
      'And is it possible to-?"
      'Absolutely possible."
      'It would be interesting-,"
      'It is."
      'Aha!" Bishop Castle tilted. "Then I look forward to visiting you at the 
earliest chance, My Lady Charlotina. 
What entertainments you do invent for us!" He bowed, almost toppled by his 
headgear.
      The Duke of Queens had resumed his saddle. "All aboard!" he cried 
enthusiastically.
      It was then that there came a squeak from the space vessel below. The 
airlock opened. All heads turned.
      Emmanuel Bloom's bright blue eyes regarded them. His high-pitched voice 
drifted up to them.
      'So you have come to me," he said.
      'I?" said the Duke of Queens in astonishment.
      'I have waited," Emmanuel Bloom said, "for you, Miss Ming. So that you may 
share my joy."
      Miss Ming drew back into the main part of the gathering. "I was only 
passing..." she began.
      'Come." He extended a stiff hand from the interior of the ship. "Come."
      'Certainly not!" She hid behind Doctor Volospion.
      'So, the one with the jackal eyes holds you still. And against your will, 
I am sure."
      'Nothing of the sort! Doctor Volospion is my host, that is all."
      'You are too afraid to tell me the truth."
      'She speaks the truth, sir," said Volospion in an off-hand tone. "She is 
free to come and go from my house as she 
pleases."
      'Some pathetic enchantment, no doubt, keeps her there. Well, woman, never 
fear. The moment I know that you 
need me I shall rescue you, wherever you may be hidden."
      'I don't need rescuing," declared Miss Ming.
      'Oh, but you do. So badly do you need it that you dare not tell yourself!"
      My Lady Charlotina cried: "Excuse me, sir, for intruding, but we were 
wondering if your plans for the 
destruction of the world were completely formulated. I, for one, would 
appreciate a little notice."
      'My meditations are not yet completed," he told her. He still stared at 
Miss Ming. "Will you come to me now?"
      'Never!"
      '"Remember my oath."
      Doctor Volospion stepped forward. "I would remind you, sir, that this lady 
is under my protection. Should you 
make any further attempt to annoy her I must warn you that I shall defend her to 
the death!"
      Miss Ming was taken aback by this sudden about face. "Oh, Doctor 
Volospion! How noble,'"
      'What's this?" said Bloom, blinking rapidly, "More posturing?"
      'I give fair warning, that is all."
      Doctor Volospion folded his arms across his chest and stared full into the 
eyes of Emmanuel Bloom.
      Bloom remained unimpressed. "So you do keep her prisoner, as I suspected. 
She believes she has her liberty, but 
you know better!"
      'I shall accept no more insults." Doctor Volospion lifted his chin in 
defiance.
      'This is not mere braggadocio, I can tell. It is calculated. But what do 
you plan."
      'Any more of this, sir," said Doctor Volospion in ringing tones, "and I 
shall have to demand satisfaction of you."
      The Fireclown laughed. "I shall free the woman soon."
      The airlock shut with a click.
      'How extraordinary," murmured My Lady Charlotina. "How exceptional of you, 
Doctor Volospion. Miss Ming 
must feel quite moved by your defense of her."
      'I am, I am." Miss Ming's small eyes were shining. "Doctor Volospion. I 
never knew..."
      Doctor Volospion strode for the air car. "Let as leave this wretched 
place."
      Miss Ming tripped behind him. It was as if she had found her True Knight 
at last.
      
      
      
Chapter NineIn 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 colors 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 turretted, there were gaps where 
halls had been, there were whole patchs of space respresenting 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 toward 
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 scarecely apologize for something so 
calculating. You ask me to lie? I am the 
Fireclown. Why should I lie?"
      She was speechless. Mr. Bloom began ts 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 toward 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 Ms 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 half-way. 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 Savior. 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 Savior - 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 
circumstance or changing fashion requires 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 Chartotina 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 seesaw 
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 Ecstacy?"
      '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 travelers, space travelers, 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 
rumored 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, desconsolately 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 lighting 
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.
      
      
    Chapter TenIn which the Fireclown attempts to deny any suggestion 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 
Werthe 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. 
Werthe 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 Werthe 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. Bloorn, 
though she seemed upset. And when Mistress Christia followed close in the 
footsteps of her friend and was also 
rebuffed, Mr. Bloom told her somberly 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 analyze 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 ef fects of their experiments and would play with the energies they 
had created until growing tired and 
pettish and refusing to help any further.
      If 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, 
modeled 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 eye 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 toward 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 fascina tion 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 artifacts 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 flavors and textures I shall put into it."
      'One day, perhaps, I should be honored, 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 soulmate?" enquired 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 
conjurer 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 
smoldering 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 is 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.
      
      
    Chapter ElevenIn which Doctor Volospion is subjected to a siege and attempts 
to Parley.
      Miss Ming was neither chained nor bound, neither did she languish in a 
dungeon, but she did confine herself, at 
Doctor Volospion's request, to her own apartments, furnished by him to her exact 
requirements, and at first she was 
content to accept this security, but as time passed she came to pine for human 
company, for even Doctor Volospion 
hardly ever visited her, and her only intercourse was with mechanical servants. 
When she did encounter her dark-
minded host she would beg for news of Bloom, praying that by now he would have 
abandoned his plans and left the 
planet.
      She saw Doctor Volospion soon after the party at Sweet Orb Mace's, where 
the house and lawn had been 
burned.
      'He is still, I fear, here," Volospion informed her, seating himself on a 
pink, quilted pouf. "His determination to 
save the world has weakened just a little, I would say."
      'So he will go soon?"
      'His determination to win your hand, Miss Ming, is if anything stronger 
than ever."
      'So he remains..." She sank upon a satin cushion.
      'Everyone shares your dismay. Indeed I have been deputized to rid the 
world of the madman, in an informal 
way, and I have racked my brains to conceive a plan, but none comes. Can you 
think of anything?"
      'Me? Little Mavis? I'm very honored, Doctor Volospion, but..." She played 
with the neck of her blue lace 
negligee. "If you have failed, how can I help?"
      'I thought you might have a better understanding of your suitor's 
mentality. He loves you very much. He told me 
so again, at the party. He accused me of keeping you here against your will."
      She uttered her familiar tinkling laugh. "Against my will? What does he 
intend to do, but carry me off!" She 
shuddered.
      'Quite."
      'I still can't believe he was serious," she said. "Can you?"
      'He is deeply serious. He is a man of much experience, that we know. He 
has considerable learning and his 
powers are impressive. As a lover, you could know worse, Miss Ming."
      'He's repulsive."
      Doctor Volospion rose from the pouf. "As you say. Well - why, what is that 
beyond the window?"
      The window to which he pointed was large but filled with small panels of 
thick glass, obscured, moreover, by 
the frothy blue curtains on either side of it, reminiscent of the ornaments on a 
baby's cradle, the ribbons being pink and 
yellow.
      It seemed that a small nova flared above the dour landscape of brooding 
trees and rocks surrounding Castle 
Volospion. The light approached them and then began to fall, just short of the 
force field which protected the whole 
vast building (or series of buildings, as they actually were). Its color changed 
from white to glowing red and it became 
identifiable as Emmanuel Bloom's baroque spacecraft.
      'Oh, no!" wailed Miss Ming.
      'Rest assured," said Doctor Volospion. "My force field, like his own, is 
impregnable. He cannot enter."
      The vessel landed, destroying a tree or two as it did so and turning rocks 
to a pool of black glass.
      Miss Ming fled hastily to the window and drew the curtains. "There! This 
is torment, Doctor Volospion. I'm so 
unhappy!" She began to weep.
      'I will do what I can," he said, "to dissuade him, but I can make no 
promises. He is so dedicated."
      'You'll go to see him?" she snuffled. Her blue eyes begged. "You'll make 
him go away?'
      'As I said-"
      'Oh! Can't you kill him? Can't you?"
      'Kill? What a waste that would be of such an authentic messiah..."
      'You're still thinking of yourself. What about me?"
      'Of course, I know that you are feeling some stress but, perhaps with your 
help, I could solve our problem."
      'You could?" She dried her eyes upon her lacey sleeve.
      'It would demand from you, Miss Ming, considerable courage, but the end 
would, I assure you, be worthwhile to 
us all."
      'What?"
      'I shall tell you if and when the opportunity arises."
      'Not now?"
      'Not yet."
      'I'll do anything," she said, "to be rid of him."
      'Good," he said. He left her apartments.
      Doctor Volospion strode, in ornamental green and black, through the 
candlelight of his corridors, climbing stairs 
of grey-brown stone until he had reached a roof. Into the late evening air, 
which he favored, he stepped, upon his 
battlements, to peruse the Fireclown's ship.
      Doctor Volospion laughed and his joy was mysterious. "So, sir, you lay 
siege to my castle!"
      His voice was echoed from many parts of his stronghold, from massive 
towers, from steeples and from eaves. A 
cool breeze blew at his robes as he stood there in his pride and his mockery. 
Behind him stretched bridges without 
function, buttresses which gave support to nothing, domes which sheltered only 
empty air. Above were dark masses of 
cloud in a sky the color of steel. Below, lurid and out of key with all these 
surroundings, stood the spaceship.
      'I warn you, sir, you shall be resisted!" continued Doctor Volospion.
      But there was still no reply.
      'Miss Ming is in my charge. I have sworn an oath to protect her!"
      The airlock hatch swung back. Little tongues of flame came forth and 
dissipated in the dank air. The ramp 
licked out and touched the glassy rock and the Fireclown made his appearance. He 
wore a scarlet cap and a jerkin of 
red and yellow strips. One leg was amber and the other orange, one foot, with 
bell-toed shoes, matched the red of his 
jerkin and the other matched the yellow. He had painted his face so that it was 
now the ridiculous mask of a traditional 
clown of antiquity and yet, withall, Doctor Volospion received the impression 
that Emmanuel Bloom was dressed for 
battle. Doctor Volospion smiled.
      The thin, bird-like voice rose to the battlements. "Let the woman go 
free!"
      'She fears you, sir," said Doctor Volospion equably. "She begs me to slay 
you."
      'Of course, of course. It is because, like so many mortals, she is terror-
struck by some hint of what I can release 
in her. But that is of no consequence, at this moment. You must remove yourself 
from the position you have taken 
between us."
      Emmanuel Bloom walked in poorly coordinated strides down his ramp, crossed 
the glass and was halted by the 
force field. "Remove this," he commanded.
      'I cannot," Doctor Volospion told him.
      'You must!"
      'My pledge to Miss Ming..."
      'Is meaningless, as well you know. You serve only yourself. It is your 
doom ever to serve yourself and thus 
never to know true life!"
      'You invent a role for me as you invent one for Miss Ming. Even your own 
role is invented. Your imagination, 
sir, is disordered. I advise you, with all courtesy, to leave, or change your 
ways, or alter your ambitions. This 
masquerade of yours will bring you only misery." Doctor Volospion adopted the 
voice of sympathy.
      'Must I suffer further examples of your hypocrisy, manikin? Let down this 
screen and show me to my soulmate." 
Emmanuel Bloom banged a small fist upon the field, causing it to shimmer 
somewhat. His mad blue eyes were fierce 
and paradoxical in their setting of paint.
      'Your 'soulmate,' sir, reviles you."
      'Your interpretations are of no interest to me. Let me see her!"
      'If you saw her, she would confirm my words."
      'Her voice, perhaps, but not her soul."
      'I'll indulge you no further, sir." Doctor Volospion turned from the 
battlements.
      Behind him there came a most terrible tumult. He felt heat upon his back. 
He whirled. The Fireclown could not 
be seen, for now a wall of flame reared in place of the force field. And the 
wall screamed.
      Doctor Volospion touched a power ring and the flames became transparent 
ice through which he could just 
make out the silhouette of the Fireclown.
      'Mr. Bloom!" he called. "We can play thus for many a century and consume 
all our energies. If I admitted you, 
would you give me your word that you would use no violence against either myself 
or Miss Ming, that you would not 
attempt to achieve your ends with force?"
      'I never use force. I use my power to produce living parables, that is 
all, and so convince those who would 
oppose me."
      'But you would give your word?"
      'If you require it, you have it." And then the Fireclown raised his 
shadowy fist again and struck at the ice which 
shattered. He strode through the hole he had made. "But you see how easily I can 
dispose of your protection!"
      Doctor Volospion hid his mouth behind his hand. "Ah, I had not 
realized..." He lowered his lids so that his eyes 
might not be seen, yet it might have been that a cunning humor glittered there 
for a moment.
      'Will you admit me to your castle, Doctor Volospion, so that I many see 
Miss Ming for myself?"
      'Give me a little while so that I may prepare the lady for your visit. You 
will dine with me?"
      'I will undergo any ritual you wish, but when I leave, it shall be with 
Mavis Ming, my love."
      'You gave your word..."
      'I gave my word and I shall keep it."
      Doctor Volospion quit his battlements.
      
      
    Chapter TwelveIn which Doctor Volospfon gives a tour of his Museum and his 
Menagerie of Forgotten 
Faiths
      Mavis Ming was desolate.
      'Oh, you have betrayed me!"
      'Betrayed?" Doctor Volospion laid a hand upon her trembling shoulder. 
"Nothing of the sort. This is all part of 
my plan. I beg you to become an actress, Miss Ming. Show, as best you can, some 
little sympathy for your suitor. It 
will benefit you in the end."
      'You're laying a trap for him, aren't you?"
      'I can only say, now, that you will soon be free of him."
      'You're certain."
      'Certain."
      'I'm not sure I could keep it up."
      'Trust me. I have proved myself your loyal protector up to now, have I 
not?"
      'Of course. I didn't mean to imply..." She was hasty to give him 
reassurance.
      'Then dress yourself and join us, as soon as you can, for dinner."
      'You'll be eating? You never-,"
      'It is the ceremony which is important."
      She nodded. "All right."
      He crossed to the door. She said: "He's not really very intelligent, is 
he?"
      'I think not."
      'And you're very clever indeed."
      'You are kind."
      'What I mean is, I'm sure you can trick him, Doctor Volospion, if that's 
what you mean to do."
      'I appreciate your encouragement, Miss Ming." He went out.
      Mavis looked to her wardrobe. She dragged from it an evening dress of 
green and purple silk. She passed to her 
mirror and looked with displeasure upon her red-rimmed eyes, her bedraggled 
hair. "Chin up, Mavis," she said, "it'll all 
be over soon. And it means you can go visiting again. What a relief that'll be! 
And if I play my part fight, they'll have 
me to thank, as well as Doctor Volospion. I'll get a bit of respect." She 
settled to her toilet.
      It was to her credit that she made the most of herself, in her own eyes. 
She curled her hair so that it hung in 
blonde waves upon her shoulders. She applied plenty of mascara, to make her eyes 
look larger. She was relatively 
subtle with her rouge and she touched her best perfumed deodorant to all those 
parts of her body which, in her opinion, 
might require it (her cosmetics were largely 20th century, created for her by 
Doctor Volospion at her request, for she 
considered the cosmetics of her own time to be crude and synthetic by 
comparison). She arranged an everlasting orchid 
upon her dress; she donned diamond earrings, a matching necklace, bracelets. 
"Good enough to dine with the Emperor 
of Africa," she said to herself, when she was ready.
      She left her apartments and began her journey through passages which, in 
her opinion, Doctor Volospion kept 
unnecessarily dark, although, as she knew, it was done for the artistic effect 
he favored.
      At last she reached the great, gloomy hall where Doctor Volospion normally 
entertained his guests. Hard-faced 
metal servants already waited on. the long table at one end of which sat 
dignified Doctor Volospion and the pipsqueak 
Bloom, all got up in the silliest outfit Mavis Ming had ever seen. Strips of 
ancient neon, blue-white, illuminated this 
particular part of the castle, though they had been designed to malfunction and 
so flickered on and off, creating sudden 
shadows and brilliances which always disturbed Miss Ming. The walls were of 
undressed stone and bore no decoration 
save the tall portrait of Doctor Volospion over the massive fireplace in which a 
small electric fire had been positioned, 
and the fire was also an antique, designed to simulate burning coal.
      Becoming aware of her entrance, both men rose from their seats.
      'My madonna!" breathed Bloom.
      'Good evening, Miss Ming." Doctor Volospion bowed.
      Emmanuel Bloom seemed to be making an effort to contain himself. He sat 
down again.
      'Good evening, gentlemen." She responded to this effort with one of her 
own. "How nice to see you again, Mr. 
Bloom."
      'Oh!" He lifted a chop to his grease-painted mouth.
      Simple food was placed by servants before her. She sat at Doctor 
Volospion's left. She had no ap petite but she 
made some show of eating, noting that Doctor Volospion did the same. She hoped 
that Bloom would not subject them 
to any more of his megalomaniacal monologues. It was still difficult to 
understand why a man of Doctor Volospion's 
intelligence indulged Bloom at all, and yet they seemed to converse readily 
enough.
      'You deal, sir, in Ideals," Doctor Volospion was saying, "I in Realities: 
though I remain fascinated by the 
trappings by means of which men seek to give credence to their dreamings."
      'The trappings are all you can ever know," said the Fireclown, "for you 
can never experience the excstacy of 
Faith. You are too empty."
      'You continue to be hard on me, sir, while I try-"
      'I speak the truth."
      'Ah, well. I suppose you do read me aright, Mr. Bloom."
      'Of course I do. I gave my word only that I should not take Miss Ming from 
here by force. I did not agree to join 
in your courtesies, your hypocrisies. What are your manners when seen in the 
light of the great unchangeable realities 
of the multiverse?"
      'Your belief in the performance of anything, Mr. Bloom, is incredible to 
me. Everything is transitory. Can the 
experience of a billion years have taught you nothing?"
      'On the contrary, Doctor Volospion." He did not amplify. He chewed at his 
chop.
      'Has experience left you untouched? Were you ever the same?"
      'I suppose my character has changed little. I have known the punishments 
of Prometheus, but I have been that 
god's persecutor, too - for Bloom has bloomed everywhere, in every guise..."
      'More peas?" interrupted Miss Ming.
      Emmanuel Bloom shook his head.
      'But creed has followed creed, movement followed movement, down all the 
centuries," continued Doctor 
Volospion, "and not one important change in any of them, though millions have 
lost their lives over some slight 
interpretation. Are men not fools to destroy themselves thus? Questing after 
impossibilities, golden dreams, romantic 
fancies, perfectability..."
      'Oh, certainly. Clowns, all of them. Like me."
      Doctor Volospion did not know what to make of this.
      'You agree?"
      'The clown weeps, laughs, knows joy and sorrow. It is not enough to look 
at his costume and laugh and say - 
here is mankind revealed. Irony is nothing by itself. Irony is a modifier, not a 
protection. We live our lives because we 
have only our lives to live."
      'Urn," said Doctor Volospion. "I think I should show you my collection. I 
possess mementoes of a million 
creeds." He pointed with his thumb at the floor. "Down there."
      'I doubt that they will be unfamiliar to me," said Bloom. "What do you 
hope to prove to me?"
      'That you are not original, I suppose."
      'And by this means you think you will encourage me to leave your planet 
without a single pledge fulfilled?"
      Doctor Volospion made a gesture. "You read me so well, Mr. Bloom."
      'I'll inspect this stuff, if you wish. I am curious. I am respectful, too, 
of all prophets and all objects of devotion, 
but as to my originality..."
      'Well," said Doctor Volospion, "we shall see. If you will allow me to 
conduct you upon a brief tour of my 
collection, I shall hope to convince you."
      'Miss Ming will accompany us?"
      'Oh, I'd love to," said Miss Ming courageously. She hated Doctor 
Volospion's treasures.
      'I think my collection is the greatest in the universe," continued Doctor 
Volospion. "No better has existed, 
certainly, in Earth's history. Many missionaries have come this way. Most have 
made attempts to - um - save us. As 
you have. They have not been, in the main, as spectacular, I will admit, nor 
have they claimed as much as you claim. 
However..." He took a pea upon his fork. There was something in the gesture to 
make Mavis Ming suspect that he 
planned something more than a mere tour of his treasures. "... you would agree 
that your arguments are scarcely subtle. 
They allow for no nuance."
      Now nothing would stop the Fireclown. He rose from the table, his birdlike 
movements even more exaggerated 
than usual. He strutted the length of the table. He strutted back again. "A pox 
on nuance! Seize the substance, beak and 
claws, and leave the chitterlings for the carrion! Let crows and storks squabble 
over the scraps, these subtleties - the 
eagle takes the main carcass, as much or as little as he needs!" He fixed his 
gaze upon Miss Ming. "Forget your 
quibbling scruples, madonna! Come with me now. Together we'll leave the planet 
to its fate. Their souls gutter like 
dying candles. The whole world reeks of inertia. If they will not have my 
Ideals, then I shall bestow all my gifts on 
you!"
      Mavis Ming said in strangled tones: "You are very kind, Mr. Bloom, but..."
      'Perhaps that particular matter can be discussed later," proposed Doctor 
Volospion tightening his cap about his 
head and face. "Now, sir, if you will come?"
      'Miss Ming, too?"
      'Miss Ming."
      The trio left the hall, with Miss Ming reluctantly trailing behind. She 
desperately hoped that Doctor Volospion 
was not playing one of his games at her expense. He had been so nice to her 
lately, she thought, that he was evidently 
mellowing her, yet she hated in herself that slight lingering suspicion of him, 
that voice which had told her, on more 
than one occasion, that if someone liked her then that someone could have no 
taste at all and was therefore not worth 
knowing.
      They descended and they descended, for it was Doctor Volospion's pleasure 
to bury his collection in the bowels 
of his castle. Murky corridor followed murky corridor, lit by flambeaux, 
candles, rush torches, oil lamps, anything that 
would give the minimum of heat and cast the maximum number of shadows.
      'You have," said Mr. Bloom after some while of this tramping, "an 
unexceptional imagination, Doctor 
Volospion."
      'I do not concern myself with the lust for variation enjoyed by most of my 
fellows at the End of Time," 
remarked the lean man. "I follow but a few simple obsessions. And in that, I 
think, we share something, Mr. Bloom."
      'Well-," began the Fireclown.
      But then Doctor Volospion had stopped at an iron-bound door. "Here we 
are!" He flung the door wide. The light 
from within seemed intense.
      The Fireclown strutted, stiff-limbed as ever, into the high vaulted hall. 
He blinked in the light. He sniffed the 
warm, heavy air. For almost as far as the eye could see there were rows and rows 
of cabinets, pedestals, display domes; 
Doctor Volospion's museum.
      'What's this?" enquired Mr. Bloom.
      'My collection of devotional objects, culled from all ages. From all the 
planets of the universe." Doctor 
Volospion was proud.
      It was difficult to see if Mr. Bloom was impressed, for his clown's paint 
hid most expression.
      Doctor Volospion paused beside a little table. "Only the best have been 
preserved. I have discarded or destroyed 
the rest. Here is a history of folly!" He looked down at the table. On it lay a 
dusty scrap of skin to which clung a few 
faded feathers. Doctor Volospion plucked it up. "Do you recognize that, Mr. 
Bloom, with all your experience of Time 
and Space?"
      The long neck carne forward to inspect the thing. "The remains of a fowl?" 
suggested Mr. Bloom. "A chicken, 
perhaps?"
      Miss Ming wrinkled her nose and backed away from them. "I never liked this 
part of the castle. It's creepy. I 
don't know how-," She pulled herself together.
      'Eh?" said Mr. Bloom.
      Doctor Volospion permitted himself a dark smile. "It is all that remains 
of Yawk, Savior of Shakah, founder of a 
religion which spread through fourteen star-systems and eighty planets and 
lasted some seven thousand years until it 
became the subject of a jehad."
      'Hm," said Mr. Bloom noncommittally.
      'I had this," confided Doctor Volospion, "from the last living being to 
retain his faith in Yawk. He regarded 
himself as the only guardian of the relic, carried it across countless light - 
years, preaching the gospel of Yawk (and a 
fine, poetic tale it is), until he reached Earth."
      'And then?" Bloom reverently replaced the piece of skin.
      'He is now a guest of mine. You will meet him later."
      A smile appeared momentarily on Miss Ming's lips. She believed that she 
had guessed what her host had in 
mind.
      'Aha," murmured the Fireclown. "And what would this be?" He moved on 
through the hall, pausing beside a 
cabinet containing an oddly wrought artifact made of something resembling green 
marble.
      'A weapon," said Volospion. "The very gun which slew Marchbanks, the 
Martyr of Mars, during the revival, in 
the 25th century (A.D., of course), of the famous Kangaroo Cult which had swept 
the solar system about a hundred 
years previously, before it was superseded by some atheistic political doctrine. 
You know how one is prone to follow 
the other. Nothing, Mr. Bloom, changes very much, either in the fundamentals or 
the rhetoric of religions and political 
creeds. I hope I am not depressing you?"
      Bloom snorted. "How could you? None of these others has experienced what I 
have experienced. None has had 
the knowledge I have gained and, admittedly, half forgotten. Do not confuse me 
with these, I warn you, Doctor 
Volospion, if you wish to continue to converse with me. I could destroy all this 
in a moment, if I wished, and it would 
make no difference..."
      'You threaten?"
      'What?" The little man removed his clown's cap and ran his fingers through 
the tangles of his auburn hair. "Eh? 
Threaten? Don't be foolish. I gave my word. I was merely lending emphasis to my 
statement."
      'Besides," said Doctor Volospion smoothly, "you could do little now, I 
suspect, for there are several force fields 
lying between you and your ship now - they protect my museum - and I suspect 
that your ship is the main source of 
your power, for all you claim it derives entirely from your mind."
      Emmanuel Bloom chuckled. "You have found me out, Doctor Volospion, I see." 
He seemed undisturbed. "Now, 
then, what other pathetic monuments to the nobility of the human spirit have you 
locked up here?"
      Doctor Volospion extended his arms. "What would you see?" He pointed in 
one direction. "A wheel from 
Krishna's chariot?" He pointed in another. "A tooth said to belong to the 
Buddha? One of the original tablets of Moses? 
Bunter's bottle? The sacred crown of the Kennedys? Hitler's nail? There," he 
tapped a dome, "you'll find them all in that 
case. Or over here," a sweep of a green and black arm, "the finger-bones of Karl 
Marx, the kneecap of Mao Tse-tung, a 
mummified testicle belonging to Heffner, the skeleton of Maluk Khan, the tongue 
of Suhulu. Or what of these? Flip's 
loincloth, Xiombarg's napkin, Teglardin's peach rag. Then there are the coins of 
Bib-Nardop, the silver wands of Er and 
Er, the towels of Ich-all the way from a world within the Crab Nebula. And most 
of these, in this section here, are only 
from the Dawn Age. Farther along are relics from all other ages of this world 
and the universe. Rags and bones, Mr. 
Bloom. Rags and bones."
      'I am moved," said Emmanuel Bloom.
      'All that is left," said Doctor Volospion, "of a million mighty causes. 
And all, at core, that those causes ever 
were!"
      The clown's face was grave as he moved among the cases.
      Mavis Ming was shivering. "This place really does depress me," she 
whispered to her guardian. "I know it's my 
fault, but I've always hated places like this. They seem ghoulish. Not that I'm 
criticizing, Doctor Volospion, but I've 
never been able to understand why a man like you could indulge in such a strange 
hobby. It's all research material, of 
course. We have to do research, don't we. Well, at least, you do. It's nice that 
someone does. I mean this is your area of 
research, isn't it, this particular aspect of the galaxy's past. It's why I'll 
never make a first-rank historian, I suppose. It's 
the same, you know, when I lived with Donny Stevens. It was the coldblooded 
killing of those sweet little rabbits and 
monkeys at the lab. I'd simply refuse, you know, to let him or anyone else talk 
about it when I was around. And with 
the time machine, too, they sent so many to God knows where before they'd got it 
working properly. When can I stop 
this charade, Doctor...?"
      Volospion raised a finger to his lips. Bloom was some distance away but 
had turned, detecting the voice, no 
doubt, of his loved one.
      'Rags and bones," said Doctor Volospion, as if he had been reiterating his 
opinions to Miss Ming.
      'No," called Bloom from where he stood beside a case containing many 
slightly differently shaped strips of 
metal, "these were merely the instruments used to focus faith. Witness their 
variety. Anything would do as a lens to 
harness the soul's fire. A bit of wood. A stone. A cup. A custard pie. Nothing 
here means anything without the presence 
of the beings who believed in their validity. Whether that piece of worm-eaten 
wood really did come from Christ's 
cross or not is immaterial. As a symbol..."
      'You question the authenticity of my prizes?"
      'It is not important..."
      Doctor Volospion betrayed agitation. It was genuine. "It is to me, Mr. 
Bloom. I will have nothing in my museum 
that is not authentic!"
      'So you have a faith of your own, after all." Bloom's painted lips formed 
a smile.
      He leaned, a tiny jester, a cockerel, against a force dome.
      Doctor Volospion lost none of his composure. "If you mean that I pride 
myself on my ability to sniff out any 
fakes, any piece of doubtful origin, then you speak rightly. I have faith in my 
own taste and judgment. But come, let us 
move on. It is not the museum that I wish you to inspect, its the menagerie, 
which is of greater interest, for there..."
      'Show me this cup you have. This Holy Grail. I was looking for it."
      'Well, if you feel you have the leisure. Certainly. There it is. In the 
cabinet with Jissard's space helmet and 
Panjit's belt."
      Emmanuel Bloom trotted rapidly in the direction indicated by Doctor 
Volospion, weaving his way among the 
various displays, until he came to the far wall where, behind a slightly 
quivering energy screen, between the helmet and 
the belt, stood a pulsing, golden cup, semi-transparent, in which a red liquid 
swirled.
      Bloom's glance at the cup was casual. He made no serious attempt to 
inspect it. He turned back to Doctor 
Volospion, who had followed behind.
      'Well?" said Volospion.
      Bloom laughed. "Your taste and judgment fail you, Doctor Volospion. It is 
a fake, that Grail."
      'How could you know?"
      'I assure you that I am right."
      Bloom began to leave the case, but Doctor Volospion tugged at his arm. 
"You would argue that it is merely 
mythical, wouldn't you. That it never existed. Yet there is proof that it did."
      'Oh, I need no proof of the Grail's existence. But if it were the true 
Grail how could you, of all people, keep it?"
      Doctor Volospion frowned. "You are vaguer than usual, Mr. Bloom. I keep 
the cup because it is mine."
      'Yours?"
      'I had it from a time-traveler who had spent his entire life searching for 
it and who, as it happens, found it in one 
of our own cities. Unfortunately, the traveler destroyed himself soon after 
coming to stay with me. They are all mad, 
such people. But the thing itself is authentic. He had found many fakes before 
he found the true Grail. He vouched for 
this one. And he should have known, a man who had dedicated himself to his quest 
and who was willing to kill himself 
once that quest was over."
      'He probably thought it would bring him back to life," mused the 
Fireclown. "That is part of the legend, you 
know. One of the real Grail's minor properties."
      'Real? This man's opinion was irrefutable."
      'Well, I am glad that he is dead," said Bloom, and then he laughed a 
strange, deep-throated laugh which had no 
business coming from that puny frame, "for I should not have liked to have 
disappointed him."
      'Disappointed?" Volospion flushed. "Now-,"
      'That cup is not even a very good copy of the original, Doctor Volospion."
      Doctor Volospion drew himself up and arranged the folds of his robe 
carefully in front of him. His voice was 
calm when he next spoke. "How would you know such a thing, Mr. Bloom? You claim 
great knowledge, yet you 
exhibit no signs of it in your rather foolish behavior, your pointless pursuits. 
You dress a fool and you are a fool, say I."
      'Possibly, Nonetheless, that Grail is a fake."
      'Why do you know?" Doctor Volospion's gaze was not quite as steady as it 
might have been.
      'Because," explained Bloom amicably, "I am, among many other things, the 
Guardian of the Grail. That is to 
say, specifically, that I am graced by the presence of the Holy Grail."
      'What!" Doctor Volospion was openly contemptuous.
      'You probably do not know," Mr. Bloom went on, "that only those who are 
absolutely pure in spirit, who never 
commit the sin of accidia (moral torpor, if you prefer) may ever see the Grail 
and only one such as myself may ever 
receive the sacred trust of Joseph of Arimathea, the Good Soldier, who carried 
the Grail to Glastonbury. I have had this 
trust for several centuries, at least. I am probably the only mortal being left 
alive who deserves the honor (though, of 
course, I am not so proud as to be certain of it). My ship is full of such 
things-relics to rival any of these here - 
collected in an eternity of wandering the many dimensions of the universe, 
tumbling through Time, companion to 
chronons..."
      Doctor Volospion's face wore an expression quite different from anything 
Miss Ming had ever seen.
      He was deeply serious. His voice contained an unusual vibrancy.
      'Oh, don't be taken in by him, Doctor Volospion," she said, giving up any 
idea of trying to placate the Fireclown. 
"He's an obvious charlatan."
      Bloom bowed. Doctor Volospion did not even hear her.
      'How can you prove that your Grail is the original, Mr. Bloom?"
      'I do not have to prove such a thing. The Grail chooses its own guardian. 
The Grail will only appear to one 
whose Faith is Absolute. My Faith is Absolute."
      Bloom began to stride toward Mavis Ming. Volospion followed thoughtfully 
in his wake.
      'Oo!" squeaked Miss Ming, seeing her protector distracted and fearing a 
sudden leap. "Get off!"
      'I am not, Miss Ming, on. I promise you no violence, not yet, not until 
you come to me."
      'Oh! You think that I'd-?" She struggled with her own revulsion and the 
remembrance of her promise to Doctor 
Volospion.
      'You still make a pretense at resistance, I see." Bloom beamed. "Such is 
female pride. I came here to claim a 
world and now I willingly renounce that claim if it means that I can possess 
you, woman, body and soul. You are the 
most beautiful creature I have ever seen in all the eons of my wandering. Mavis! 
Mavis! Music floods my being at the 
murmur of your exquisite name. Queen Mavis-Maeve, Sorceress Queen, Destroyer of 
Cuchulain, Beloved of the Sun - 
ah, you have the power to do it - but you shall not destroy me again, Beautiful 
Maeve. You shall find me in Fire and in 
Fire shall we be united!"
      It was true that, for the first time, Miss Ming's expression began to 
soften, but Doctor Volospion came to her aid.
      'I am sure Miss Ming is duly flattered," he said. It was evident, with his 
next statement, that he merely resented 
the interruption to his line of thought. "But as for the Holy Grail, you do not, 
I suppose, have it about you?"
      'Of course not. It appears only at my prayer."
      'You can summon it to you?"
      'No. It appears. During my meditations."
      'You would not care to meditate now? To prove that yours is the true one."
      'I have no urge to meditate." Mr. Bloom dismissed the doctor from his 
attention and, hands outstretched in that 
stiff, awkward way of his, moved to embrace Miss Ming, only to pause as he felt 
Volospion's touch on his arm.
      'It is in your ship, then?"
      'It visits my ship, yes."
      'Visits?"
      'Doctor Volospion. I have tried to explain to you clearly enough. The 
Grail you have is not a mystical artifact, 
no matter how miraculous it seems to be. The true Holy Grail is a mystical 
artifact and therefore it comes and goes, 
according to the spiritual ambience. That is why your so-called Grail is plainly 
a fake. If it were real, it would not be 
here!"
      'This is mere obfuscation..."
      'Doctor Volospion, you are a most obtuse creature."
      Miss Ming began to move slowly backwards.
      'Mr. Bloom I ask only for illumination..."
      'I try to bring it. But I have failed with you, as I have failed with 
everyone but Miss Ming. That is only to be 
expected of one who is not really alive at all. Can one hold an intelligent 
conversation with a corpse?"
      'You are crudely insulting, Mr. Bloom. There is no call..." Doctor 
Volospion had lost most of his usual self-
control.
      Mavis Ming, terrified of further conflict in which, somehow she knew she 
would be the worst sufferer, if her 
experience were anything to go by, broke in with a nervous yelp:
      'Show Mr. Bloom your menagerie, Doctor Volospion! The menagerie! The 
menagerie!"
      Doctor Volospion turned glazed and dreaming eyes upon her. "What?"
      'The menagerie. There are many entitites there that Mr. Bloom might wish 
to converse with."
      The Fireclown bent to straighten one of his long shoes and Mavis Ming 
seized the chance to wink broadly at 
Doctor Volospion.
      'Ah, yes, the menagerie. Mr. Bloom?"
      'You wish to show me the menagerie?"
      'Yes."
      'Then lead me to it," said Bloom generously.
      Doctor Volospion continued to brood as he advanced before them, through 
another series of gloomy passages 
whose gently sloping floors took them still deeper underground. Doctor Volospion 
had a tendency to favor the 
subterranean in almost everything.
      By the time, however, that they had reached the series of chambers Doctor 
Volospion chose to call his "crypts," 
their guide had resumed his normal manner of poised irony.
      These halls were far larger than the museum. On either side were 
reproduced many different environments, in 
the manner of zoological gardens, in which were incarcerated his collection of 
creatures culled from countless cultures, 
some indigenous and others alien to Earth.
      Enthusiasm returned to Volospion's voice as he pointed out his prizes 
while they progressed slowly down the 
central aisle.
      'My Christians and my Hare Krishnans," declaimed the doctor, "My Moslems 
and my Marxists, my Jews and 
my Joypushers, my Dervishes, Buddhists, Hindus, Nature-worshippers, Confucians, 
Leavisites, Sufis, Shintoists, New 
Shintoists, Reformed Shintoits, Shinto-Scientologists, Mansonite Water-sharers, 
Anthroposophists, Flumers, 
Haythornthwaitists, Fundamentalist Ouspenskyians, Sperm Worshippers, followers 
of the Five Larger Moon Devils, 
followers of the Stone That Cannot Be Weighed, followers of the Sword and the 
Stallion, Awaiters of the Epoch, 
Mensans, Doo-en Skin Slicers, Crab-bellied Milestriders, Poobem Wrigglers, 
Tribunites, Callagraphic Diviners, 
Betelgeusian Grass Sniffers, Aldebarran Grass Sniffers, Terran Grass Sniffers 
and Frexian Anti-Grass Sniffers. There 
are the Racists (Various) - I mix them together in the one environment because 
it makes for greater interest. The River 
of Blood was my own idea. It blends very well, I think, into the general 
landscape." Doctor Volospion was evidently 
extremely proud of his collection. "They are all, of course, in their normal 
environments. Every care is taken to see that 
they are preserved in the best of health and happiness. You will note, Mr. 
Bloom, that the majority are content, so long 
as they are allowed to speak or perform the occasional small miracle."
      The Fireclown's attention seemed elsewhere.
      'The sound," said Doctor Volospion, and he touched a power ring, whereupon 
the air was filled with a babble of 
voices as prophets prophesied, preachers preached, messiahs announced various 
mellennia, saviors summoned 
disciples, archbishops proclaimed armageddon, fakirs moured materialism, priests 
prayed, imans intoned, rabbis railed 
and druids droned. "Enough?"
      The Fireclown raised a hand in assent and Doctor Volospion touched the 
ring again so that much of the noise 
died away.
      'Well, Mr. Bloom, do you find these pronouncements essentially 
distinguishable from your own?"
      But the Fireclown was again studying Mavis Ming who was, in turn, looking 
extremely self-conscious. She was 
blushing through her rouge. She pretended to take an interest in the sermon 
being delivered by a snail-like being from 
some remote world near the galaxy's center.
      'What?"
      Bloom cocked an ear in Volospion's direction. "Distinguishable? Oh, of 
course. Of course. I respect all the 
views being expressed. They are, I would agree, a little familiar, some of them. 
But these poor creatures lack either my 
power or my experience. I would guess, too, that they lack my courage. Or my 
purity of purpose. Why do you keep 
them locked up here?"
      Doctor Volospion ignored the final sentence. "Many would differ with you, 
I think."
      'Quite so. But you cease to entertain me, Doctor Volospion. I have decided 
to take Miss Ming, my Madonna, 
back to my ship now. The visit has been fairly interesting. More interesting 
than I believed it would be. Are you 
coming, Miss Ming?"
      Miss Ming hesitated. She glanced at Doctor Volospion. "Well, I-"
      'Do not consult this corpse," Mr. Bloom told her. "I shall be your mentor. 
It is my duty and destiny to remove 
you from this environment at once, to bring you to the knowledge of your own 
divinity!"
      Mavis Ming breathed heavily, still flushed. Her eyes darted from Bloom to 
Volospion. "I don't think you'll be 
removing either me or yourself from this castle, Mr. Bloom." She smiled openly 
now at Doctor Volospion and her eyes 
were full of hope and terror. They asked a hundred questions. She seemed close 
to panic and was poised to flee.
      Emmanuel Bloom gave a snort of impatience. "Miss Ming, my love, you are 
mine." His high, fluting voice 
continued to trill, but it was plain that she no longer heard his words. His 
bird-like hands touched hers. She screamed.
      'Doctor Volospion!"
      Doctor Volospion was fully himself. "It is hardly gentlemanly, as I have 
pointed out, to force your attentions 
upon a lady, Mr. Bloom. I would remind you of your word."
      'I keep it. I use no violence."
      Doctor Volospion now appeared to be relishing the drama. The fingers of 
his left hand hovered over the fingers 
of his right, on which were most of his power rings.
      The Fireclown's hands remained on Miss Ming's. "He's really strong!" she 
cried. "I can't get free, Doctor 
Volospion. Oo..." It seemed that an almost euphoric weakness suffused her body 
now. She was panting, incapable of 
thought; her lips were dry, her tongue was dry, and the only word she could form 
was a whispered "No."
      Doctor Volospion seemed ignorant of the degree of tension in the 
menagerie. Many of the prophets, both human 
and alien, had stopped their mono logues and now pressed forward to watch the 
struggle.
      Doctor Volospion said firmly: "Mr. Bloom, since you remain here as my 
guest, I would ask you to recall..."
      The blue eyes became shrewd even as they stared into Mavis Ming's. "Your 
guest? No longer. We leave. Do you 
come, Mavis mine?"
      'I-I-," It was as if she wished to say yes to him, yet she continued to 
pull back as best she could.
      'Mr. Bloom, you have had your opportunity to leave this planet. You 
refused to take it. Well, now you have no 
choice. You shall stay forever (which is not, we think, that long)."
      Mr. Bloom raised a knowing head. "What?"
      'You have told us, yourself, that you are unique, sir." Doctor Volospion 
was triumphant. "You prize yourself so 
highly, I must accept your valuation."
      'Eh?"
      'From henceforth, Sir Prophet, you will grace my menagerie. Here you will 
stay - my finest acquisition."
      'What? My power!" Did Mr. Bloom show genuine surprise? His gestures became 
melodramatic to a degree.
      Doctor Volospion was too full of victory to detect play-acting, if play-
acting there was. "Here you may preach to 
your heart's content. You will find the competition stimulating, I am certain."
      Bloom received this intelligence calmly. "My power is greater than yours," 
he said.
      'I led you to think that it was, so that you would feel confident when I 
suggested a tour of my collection. Twelve 
force screens of unimaginable strength now lie between you and your ship, 
cutting you off from the source of your 
energy. Do you think you could have shattered my first force field if I had not 
allowed it?"
      'It seemed singularly easy," agreed the Fireclown. "But you seem still 
unclear as to the nature of my own power. 
It does not derive from a physical source, as yours does, though you are right 
in assuming it comes from my ship. It is 
spiritual inspiration which allows me to work my miracles. The source of that 
inspiration lies in the ship."
      'This so-called Grail of yours?"
      Bloom fell silent.
      'Well, call on it, then," said Doctor Volospion.
      Every scrap of bombast had disappeared from Bloom. It was as if he 
discarded a useless weapon, or rather a 
piece of armor which had proved defective. "There is no entity more free in all 
the teeming multiverse than the 
Fireclown." His unblinking eyes stared into Miss Ming's again. "You cannot 
imprison me, sir."
      'Imprison?" Doctor Volospion derided the idea with a gesture. "You shall 
have everything you desire. Your 
favorite environment shall be re-created for you. If necessary, it is possible 
to supply the impression of distance, 
movement. Regard the state as a well-earned retirement, Mr. Bloom."
      The avian head turned on the long neck, the paint around the mouth formed 
an expression of some gravity 
(albeit exaggerated). Mr. Bloom did not relax his grip upon Miss Ming's hands.
      'Your satire palls, Doctor Volospion. It is the sort that easily grows 
stale, for it lacks love; it is inspired by self-
hatred. You are typical of those faithless priests of the fifth millennium who 
were once your comrades in vice."
      Doctor Volospion showed shock. "How could you possibly know my origins? 
The secret..."
      'There are no secrets from the Sun," said the Fireclown. "The Sun knows 
All. Old He may be, but His memory is 
clearer than those of your poor, senescent cities."
      'Do not seek to confound me, sir, with airy generalities of that sort. How 
do you know?"
      'I have eyes," said Bloom, "which have seen all things. One gesture 
reveals a society to me-two words reveal an 
individual. A conversation betrays every origin."
      'This Grail of yours? It helps you?"
      The Fireclown ignored him. "The eagle floats on currents of light, high 
above the world, and the light is 
recollection, the light is history. I know you, Doctor Volospion, and I know you 
for a villain, just as I know Mavis 
Ming as a goddess-chained and gagged, perverted and alone, but still a goddess."
      Doctor Volospion's laugh was cruel. "All you do, Mr. Bloom, is to reveal 
yourself as a buffoon! Not even your 
insane Faith can make an angel of Miss Ming!"
      Mavis Ming was not resentful. "I've got my good points," she said, "but 
I'm no Gloria Gutzmann. And I try too 
hard, I guess, and people don't like that. I can be neurotic, probably. After 
all that affair with Snuffles didn't do anyone 
any good in the end, though I was trying to do Dafnish Armatuce a favor."
      She babbled on, scarcely conscious of her words, while the adversaries, 
pausing in their conflict, watched her.
      'But then, maybe I was acting selfishly, after all. Well, it's all water 
under the bridge, isn't it. What's done is 
done. Who can blame anybody, at the end of the day?"
      Mr. Bloom's voice became a caressing murmur.
      He stroked her hands. "Fear not, Miss Ming. I am the Flame of Life. I 
carry a torch that will resurrect the spirit, 
and I carry a scourge to drive out devils. I need no armor, save my faith, my 
knowledge, my understanding. I am the 
Sun's soldier, keeper of His mysteries. Give yourself to me and become fully 
yourself, alive and free."
      Mavis Ming began to cry. The Fireclown's vivid mask smiled in a grotesque 
of sympathy.
      'Come with me now," said Bloom.
      'I would remind you that you are powerless to leave," said Doctor 
Volospion.
      The Fireclown dropped her hands and turned so that his back was to her. 
His little frame twitched and trembled, 
his red-gold mass of hair might have been the bristling crest of some exotic 
fowl, his little hands clenched and 
unclenched at his sides, like claws, as his beautiful, musical voice filled that 
dreadful menagerie.
      'Ah, Volospion, I should destroy you - but one cannot destroy the dead!"
      Doctor Volospion was apparently unmoved. "Possibly, Mr. Bloom, but the 
dead can imprison the living, can 
they not? If that is so, I possess the advantage which men like myself have 
always possessed over men such as you."
      The Fireclown wheeled to grasp Miss Ming. She cried out:
      'Stop him, Doctor Volospion, for Christ's sake!"
      And at last Doctor Volospion's long hand touched a power ring and the 
Fireclown was surrounded by bars of 
blue, pulsing energy.
      'Ha!" The clown capered this way and that, trying to free himself and 
then, as if reconciled, sat down on the 
floor, crossing his little legs, his blue eyes blinking up at them as if in 
sudden bewilderment.
      Doctor Volospion smiled.
      'Eagle, is it? Phoenix? I must admit that I see only a caged sparrow."
      Emmanuel Bloom paid him no heed. He addressed Mavis Ming.
      'Free me," he said. "It will mean your own freedom."
      Mavis Ming giggled.
      
      
Chapter Thirteen
In which Doctor Volospion asks Mavis Ming to make a Sacrifice
      
      She awoke from another nightmare.
      Mavis Ming was filled with a sense of desolation worse than any she had 
experienced in the past.
      'Oh, dear," she murmured through her night mask.
      An impression of her dream was all that was left to her, but she seemed to 
recall that it involved Mr. Bloom.
      'What a wicked little creature. He's frightened me more than anything's 
ever frightened me before. Even Donny's 
tantrums weren't as bad. He deserves to be locked up. He deserves it. In any 
other world it would be his just 
punishment for doing what he had done. If Doctor Volospion hadn't stopped him, 
he would have raped me, for sure. 
Oh, why can't I stop thinking about what he said to me. It's all nonsense. I 
wish I was braver. I can't believe he's safely 
out of the way. I wish I had the nerve to go and see for myself. It would make 
me feel so much better."
      She sank into her many pillows, pulling the sheets over her eyes. "I know 
what those energy cages are like. It's 
the same sort I was in when I first arrived. He'll never get out. And I can't go 
to see him. That ridiculous flattery. And 
Doctor Volospion doesn't help by telling me all the time that he thinks Bloom's 
love is 'genuine,' whatever that means. 
Oh, it's worse now. It is. Why couldn't Doctor Volospion have made him go away. 
Keeping him here is torture!"
      Doctor Volospion had even suggested, earlier, that it would be charitable 
if she went to his cage to "comfort" 
him.
      'Repulsive little runt!" She pushed back her pink silky sheets and turned 
up the lamp (already fairly bright) 
whose stand was in the shape of a flesh-colored nymph rising naked from the 
powder-blue petals of an open rose. "I do 
wish Doctor Volospion would let me have a power ring of my own. It would make 
everything much easier. Everyone 
else has them. Lots of time travelers do." She crossed the soft pale yellow 
carpet to her gilded Empire-style dressing 
table to look at her face in the mirror.
      'Oh, I look awful. That dreadful creature."
      She sighed. She often had trouble sleeping, for she was very highly 
strung, but this was much worse. For all 
their extravagant entertainments, their parties where the world was moulded to 
their whims, what they really needed, 
thought Mavis, was a decent TV network. TV would be just the answer to her 
problems right now.
      'Perhaps Doctor Volospion could find something for me in one of those old 
cities," she mused. "I'll ask him. Not 
that he seems to be doing me many favors, these days. How long's he had the 
Fireclown now? A couple of weeks? And 
spending all his time down there. Maybe he loves Bloom and that's what it's all 
about." She laughed, but immediately 
became miserable again.
      'Oh, Mavis. Why is it always you? The world just isn't on your side." She 
gave one of her funny little crooked 
smiles, very similar to those she had seen Barbara Stanwyck giving in those 
beautiful old movies.
      'If only I could have gone back in time, to the 20th century, even, where 
the sort of clothes and lifestyle they had 
were so graceful. They had simpler lives, then. Oh, I know they must have had 
their problems, but how I wish I could 
be there now. It's what I was looking forward to, when they elected me to be the 
first person to try out the time 
machine. Of course, it was proof of how popular I was with the other guys at the 
department. Everyone agreed 
unanimously that I should be the first to go. It was a great honor."
      Apparently this thought did not succeed in lifting her spirits. She raised 
a hand to her head.
      'Oh, oh-here comes the headache! Poor old Mavis!"
      She began to pad back toward the big circular bed. But the thought of a 
continuance of those dreams, even 
though she had pushed them right out of her mind, stopped her. It had been 
Doctor Volospion's suggestion that she 
continue to lead the sort of life she had been used to - with regular periods of 
darkness and daylight and a 
corresponding need to sleep and eat, even though he could easily have changed 
all that for her.
      To be fair to him, she thought, he tended to follow a similar routine 
himself, ever since he had heard that Lord 
Jagged of Canaria had adopted this ancient affectation. If she had had a power 
ring or an air car at her disposal (again 
she was completely reliant on Volospion's good graces) she would have left the 
palace and gone to find some fun, 
something to take her mind off things. She looked at her Winnie the Pooh clock-
another three hours before the palace 
would be properly activated. Until then she would not even be able to get a 
snack with which to console herself.
      'I'm not much better off than that little creep down there," she said. 
"Oh, Mavis, what sort of a state have they 
got you into!"
      A tap, now, at the door.
      Grateful for the interruption, Mavis pulled on her fluffy blue dressing 
robe. "Come in!"
      Doctor Volospion, a satanic Hamlet in black and white doublet and hose, 
entered her room. "You are not 
sleeping, Miss Ming? I heard your voice as I passed..."
      Hope revealed itself in her eyes. "I've got a bit of a headache, doctor." 
He could normally cure her headaches. 
Her mood improved. She became eager, anxious to win his approval. "Silly little 
Mavis is having nightmares again."
      'You are unhappy?"
      'Oh, no! In this lovely room? In your lovely palace? It's everything a 
little girl dreams about. If'sjust that awful 
Mr. Bloom. Ever since..."
      'I see." The saturnine features showed enlightenment. "You are still 
afraid. He can never escape, Miss Ming. He 
has tried, but I assure you my powers are far greater than his. He becomes 
tiresome, but he is no threat."
      'You'll let him go, then?"
      'If I could be sure that he would leave the planet, for he fails to be as 
entertaining as I had hoped. And if he 
would give me that Grail of his, from which his power, I am now certain, 
derives. But he refuses."
      'You could take it now, couldn't you?"
      'Not from him. Not from his ship. The screen is still impenetrable. No, 
you are our only hope."
      'Me?"
      'He would not have allowed himself to be trapped at all, if it had not 
been for you." Doctor Volospion sighed 
deeply. "Well, I have just returned from visiting him again. I have offered him 
his liberty in return for that one piece of 
property, but he fobs me off with arguments that are typically specious, with 
vague talk of Faith and Trust - you have 
heard his babble."
      Mavis murmured sympathetically. "I've never seen you so cast down, Doctor 
Volospion. You never know with 
some people, do you? He's best locked up for his own good. He's a sort of 
cripple, isn't he? You know what some 
cripples are like. You can't blame them. It's the frustration. It's all bottled 
up in them. It turns them into sex maniacs."
      'To do him justice, Miss Ming, his interest seems only in you. I have 
offered him many women, both real and 
artificial, from the menageries. Many of them are very beautiful, but he insists 
that none of them has your 'soul' your - 
um - true beauty."
      'Really?" She was skeptical, still. "He's insane. A lot of men are like 
that. That's one of the reasons I gave them 
up. At least with a lady you know where you are on that score. And Mr. Bloom has 
got about as much sex-appeal as a 
seagull - less! Did you ever hear of a really sweet old book called Jonathon..."
      'Your headache is better, Miss Ming?"
      'Why, yes." She touched her hair. "It's almost gone. Did you...?"
      Doctor Volospion drew his own brows together and traced beringed fingers 
across the creases. "You do not give 
yourself enough credit, Miss Ming..."
      She smiled. "That's what Betty was always telling me when I used to feel 
low. But poor old Mavis..."
      'He demands that you see him. He speaks of nothing else."
      'Oh!" She paused. She shook her head. "No, I couldn't, really. As it is, I 
haven't had a good night's sleep since 
the day he arrived."
      'Of course, I understand."
      Miss Ming was touched by Doctor Volospion's unusual sadness. He seemed to 
have none of his usual 
confidence. She moved closer to him.
      'Don't worry, Doctor Volospion. Maybe it would be best if you tried to 
forget about him."
      'I need the Grail. I am obsessed with it. And I cannot rid myself of the 
notion that, somehow, he is tricking me."
      'Impossible. You're far too clever. Why is this Grail so important to 
you."
      Doctor Volospion withdrew from her.
      'I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to pry."
      'Only you can help me, Miss Ming."
      The apparent pleading in his voice moved her to heights of sympathy. 
"Oh..."
      'You could convince him, I think, where I could not."
      She was relenting, against all her instincts. "Well, if I saw him for a 
few moments... And it might help me, too - 
to lay the ghost, if you know what I mean."
      His voice was low. "I should be very grateful to you, Miss Ming. Perhaps 
we should go immediately."
      She hesitated. Then she patted his arm. "Oh, all right. Give me a few 
minutes to get dressed."
      With a deep bow, Doctor Volopsion left the room.
      Miss Ming began to consider her clothes. On the one hand, she thought, 
some sort of sexless boiler suit would 
be best, to dampen Mr. Bloom's ardor as much as possible. Another impulse was to 
put on her very sexiest clothes, to 
feed her vanity. In the end she compromised, donning a flowery muu-muu which, 
she thought, disguised her 
plumpness. Courageously she went to join Doctor Volospion, who awaited her in 
the corridor. Together they made 
their way to the menagerie.
      As they descended flights of stone stairs she observed: "Surprisingly I'm 
feeling quite light-headed. Almost 
gay!"
      They passed through the tiered rows of his many devotional trophies, past 
the bones and the sticks and the bits 
of cloth, the cauldrons, idols, masks and weapons, the crowns and the boxes, the 
scrolls, tablets and books, the prayer-
wheels and crystals and ju-jus, until they reached the door of the first section 
of the menagerie, the Jewish House.
      'I had thought of putting him in here," Doctor Volospion told her as they 
passed by the inmates, who ranted, 
wailed, chanted, tore their clothing or merely turned aside as they passed, "but 
finally I decided on the Non-Sectarian 
Prophet House."
      'I hadn't realized your collection was so big. I've never seen it all, as 
you know." Miss Ming made conversation 
as best she could. Evidently the place still disturbed her.
      'It grows almost without one realizing it," said Doctor Volospion. "I 
suppose, because so many people of a 
messianic disposition take an interest in the future, we are bound to get more 
than our fair share of prophets, anxious to 
discover if their particular version of the millennium has come about. Because 
they are frequently disappointed, many 
are glad of the refuge I offer."
      They went through another door.
      'Martyrdom, it would seem, is the next best thing to affirmation," he 
said.
      They passed through a score of different Houses until, finally, they came 
to the Fireclown's habitat. It was 
designed to resemble a desert, scorched by a permanently blazing sun.
      'He refused," whispered Doctor Volospion, as they approached, "to tell me 
what sort of environment he favored, 
so I chose this one. It is the most popular with my prophets, as you'll have 
noted."
      Emmanuel Bloom, in his clown's costume, sat on a rock in the center of his 
energy cage. His greasepaint seemed 
to have run a little, as if he had been weeping, but he did not seem in 
particularly low spirits now. He had not, it 
appeared, noticed them. He was reciting poetry to himself.
      '... Took shape and were unfolded like as flowers.
      And I beheld the hours. As maidens, and the days as labouring men,
      And the soft nights again. As wearied women to their own souls wed,
      And eyes as the dead. And over these living, and them that died,
      From one to the other side. A lordlier light than comes of earth or air
      Made the world's future fair. A woman like to love in face, but not
      A thing of transient lot.
      And Jilce to hope, but having hold on truth.
      And like to joy or youth, Save that upon the rock her feet were set.
      And like what men forget, Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace-
"
      He had seen her. His great blue eyes blinked. His stiff little body began 
to rise. His bird-like, fluting voice took 
on a different tone.
      'And yet lite none of these..." He put an awkward finger to his small 
mouth. He put his painted head on one side.
      Mavis Ming cleared her throat. Doctor Volospion's hand forced her farther 
toward the cage.
      The Fireclown spoke first. "So Guinevere comes at last to her Lancelot - 
or is it Kundry, come to call me 
Parsival? Sorceress, you have incarcerated me. Tell your servant to release me 
so that, in turn, I may free you from the 
evil that holds you with stronger bonds than any that chain me!"
      Miss Ming's smile was insincere. "Why don't you talk properly, Mr. Bloom? 
This is childish. Anyway, you 
know he's not my servant." She was very pale.
      Mr. Bloom crossed the stretch of sand until he was as close to her as the 
cage permitted. "He is not your master, 
you may be sure of that, this imitation Klingsor!"
      'I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about." Her voice was 
shaking.
      He pressed his tiny body against the energy screen. "I must be free," he 
said. "There is no mission for me here, 
now, at the End of Time. I must continue my quest, perhaps into another universe 
where Faith may yet flourish."
      Doctor Volospion came forward. "I have brought Miss Ming, as you have so 
constantly demanded. You have 
talked to her. Now, if you will give up the Grail to me..."
      Mr. Bloom's manner became agitated. "I have explained to you, demi-demon, 
that you could not keep it, even if, 
by some means, I could transfer it to you. Only the pure in spirit are entitled 
to its trust. If I agreed to your bargain I 
should lose the Grail myself, forever. Neither would gain!"
      'I find your objections without foundation." Doctor Volospion was 
unruffled by the Fireclown's anger. "What 
you believe, Mr. Bloom, is one thing. The truth, however, is quite another! 
Faith dies, but the objects of faith do not, as 
you saw in my museum."
      'These things have no value without Faith!"
      'They are valuable to me. That is why I collect them. I desire this Grail 
of yours so that I may, at least, compare 
it with my own."
      'You know yours to be false," said the Fireclown. "I can tell."
      'I shall decide which is false and which is not when I have both in my 
possession. I know it is on your ship, for 
all that you deny it."
      'It is not. It manifests itself at certain times."
      Doctor Volospion allowed his own ill-temper to show. "Miss Ming..."
      'Please let him have it, Mr. Bloom," said Mavis Ming in her best wheedling 
voice. "He'll let you go if you do."
      The Fireclown was amused. "I can leave whenever I please. But I gave my 
word on two matters. I said that I 
would not take you by force and that I would take you with me when I left."
      'Your boasts are shown to be empty, sir," said Doctor Volospion. He kid 
the flat of his hand against the energy 
screen. "There."
      Mr. Bloom ran his hand through his auburn mop, continuing to speak to Miss 
Ming. "You demean yourself, 
woman, when you aid this wretch, when you adopt that idiotic tone of voice."
      'Well!" It was possible to observe that Miss Ming's legs were shaking. 
"I'm not staying here, not even for you, 
Doctor Volospion! It's too much. I can stand a lot of things, but not this*"
      'Be silent!" The Fireclown's voice was low and firm. "Listen to your soul. 
It will tell you what I tell you."
      'Miss Ming!" Seeing that she prepared to flee Doctor Volospion seized her 
arm. "For my sake do not give up. If 
I have that Grail..."
      'You may see the Grail, beautiful Mavis, when I have redeemed you," 
murmured the Fireclown, "but it shall 
always be denied to such as he! Come with me and I shall let you witness more 
than Mystery."
      She panicked. "Oh, Christ!" She was unable to control herself as she 
sensed the terrible pressure coming from 
both sides. She tried to free herself from Doctor Volospion's restraining hand. 
"I can't take any more. I can'tl"
      'Miss Ming!" fiercely croaked a desperate Volospion. "You promised to 
help."
      'Come with me!" cried the Fireclown.
      She still struggled, trying to prise his grip away from the sleeve of her 
muu-muu. "You can both do what you 
like. I don't want any part of it."
      Hysteria ruled now. She scratched Doctor Volospion's hand so that at last 
he released her. She ran away from 
them. She ran crazily between the cages of roaring, screaming, moaning prophets. 
"Leave me alone! Leave me alone!"
      And then, just before a door shut her from their view:
      'I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
      
      
      
Chapter Fourteen
In which Miss Mavis Ming is given an opportunity to win the Forgiveness of her 
Protector
      
      When Mavis Ming next awoke, finding herself in the soft pink security of 
her own bed, whence she had fled in 
terror after scratching Doctor Volospion, she was surprised by how refreshed she 
felt, how confident. Even the threat of 
Doctor Volospion's anger, which she feared almost as much as the Fireclown's 
love, failed to thrill her.
      'What can he do, after all?" she asked herself. She still wore the muu-
muu. She looked at the ripped sleeve, and 
she inspected the bruise on her arm. She doubted if the scratch she had given 
Doctor Volospion was any worse than the 
bruise he had given her, but she also recalled that, in her experience, men had 
a different way of looking at these things.
      'Why do I feel so good? Because of a fight?" She was almost buoyant. 
"Maybe because it's over. I tried to please 
him. I really tried. But he's got a way of double-binding a girl like nobody 
else's. I guess little Mavis will have to find a 
new berth."
      She removed the muu-muu and went to take a shower. "Well, it was high time 
for a change. And I'm not much 
gone on sharing the same roof with that mad midget downstairs."
      The shower was refreshing.
      'I'm going to go out. I'm going to visit a few people. Now," elbow on palm 
of hand, fingertip to chin, "who shall 
I visit first?"
      She reviewed her acquaintances, wondering who would be most sympathetic. 
Who would welcome her.
      And then, of a sudden, depression swept back. It caught her so 
unexpectedly that she had to sit down on the edge 
of the unmade bed, dropping her towel to the floor. "Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ! 
What in hell's wrong with you, Mavis!"
      A knock on her door interrupted the catharsis before it had properly got 
under way.
      'Yes?"
      'Miss Ming?" It was, of course, Doctor Volospion.
      'This is it, Mavis." She pulled herself together. She put on a robe. "Time 
for the tongue-lashing. Well, I'll tell 
him I'm leaving. He'll be glad of that." She raised her voice: "Come in!"
      But he was smiling when he entered.
      She looked at him in nervous astonishment.
      He was dressed in robes of scarlet and green. There was a tight-fitting 
dark green hood on his head, emphasizing 
the sharpness of his features.
      'You are well, Miss Ming?" As he spoke he drew on dark green gloves.
      'Better than I thought. I wanted to..."
      'I came to apologize," he said.
      She had glanced at his hand before the glove went on. There was, of 
course, no sign of her scratch.
      'Oh," she said. She was taken aback.
      'If I had realized exactly how badly that Mr. Bloom affected you, I would 
never have subjected you to the 
ordeal," he said.
      'Well, you weren't to know." She bit her lip, as if she sensed her 
determination dissipating already.
      'The fault was wholly mine." He had all his old authority. It comforted 
her.
      'I lost my cool, I guess." Her voice shook. "I'm sorry about your hand."
      'I deserved worse."
      His voice was warm and, as always, it caused her to purr. It would not 
have been surprising if she had arched 
her back and rubbed her body against him. "That Mr. Bloom, he just freaks me, 
Doctor Volospion. I don't know what it 
is. I suppose I've completely blown it for you, haven't I?"
      'No, no," he reassured her.
      'You talked? After I'd gone?"
      'Somewhat. He remains quite adamant."
      'He won't give you the Grail?"
      'Unfortunately, not..."
      'It was my fault. I'm really sorry." She responded almost without any sort 
of consciousness, mesmerized by him.
      'It grieves me. I can think of no way of obtaining it without your help."
      'You know I'd like to." The words emerged as if another spoke them for 
her. "I mean, if there's anything I can do 
to make up for what happened last night..."
      'I would not put you to further embarrassment." He turned to leave.
      'Oh, no!" She paused, making an effort of will. "I mean, I couldn't face 
actually seeing him again, but if there's 
anything else..."
      'I can think of nothing. Goodbye, Miss Ming."
      'There must be something?"
      He paused by the door, frowning. "Well, I suppose it is possible for you 
to get the Grail for me."
      'How?"
      'He said that he would allow you to see it, you recall?"
      'I can't really remember the details of what he said. I was too 
frightened."
      'Quite. You see somehow he controls his ship's protective devices from 
where he is. After you had gone he told 
me again that he would let you see the Grail, but not me. I think he believes 
that if you see it you will realize that he is 
this spiritual savior he sets himself up to be."
      'You mean I could get into the ship and find the Grail?"
      'Exactly. Once I had it in my possession, I would let him go. You would be 
free of him."
      'But he'd suspect."
      'His infatuation blinds him."
      'I wouldn't have to see him again?" She spoke as firmly as she could. "I 
won't do that, whatever else."
      'You will never be asked to go to the menagerie and, in a while, he will 
have left this planet"
      'It's stealing, of course," she said.
      'Call it recompense for all the damage he has done while here. Call it 
justice."
      'Yes. That's fair enough."
      'But no," he looked kindly down on her, "I ask too much of you."
      'You don't, really." He had inspired in her a kind of eager courage. "Let 
me help."
      'He has assured me that he will lower the barriers of his ship for you 
alone."
      'Then it's up to Mavis, isn't it?"
      'If you feel you can do it, Miss Ming, I would show my gratitude to you in 
many ways when you returned with 
the cup."
      'It's enough to help, out." But she glanced at the power rings on his 
gloved fingers. "When shall I go?" She 
paused. "There won't be any danger, I suppose...?"
      'None at all. He genuinely loves you, Miss Ming. Of course, if you 
consider this action a betrayal of Mr. 
Bloom..."
      'Betrayal? I didn't make any deals with him."
      His voice was rich with gratification. "It would mean much to me, as you 
know. My collection is important to 
my happiness. If I thought that I possessed an artifact that was not authentic, 
well, I should never be content."
      'Rely on Mavis." Her eyes began to shine.
      'You are possessed of a great and admirable generosity," he said.
      His praise sent a pulse of well-being through her whole body.
      
      
      
Chapter Fifteen
In which Mavis Ming sets off in search of the Holy Grail
      
      Doctor Volospion had made no alterations on his force screen since the 
Fireclown had passed beyond it. Mavis 
Ming moved through the eternal twilight of the castle's grounds, toward the dark 
and ragged hole in the wall of ice. On 
the other side of the hole she could see the brilliant scarlet of Emmanuel 
Bloom's ship.
      Gingerly she stepped through the gap, sensitive to the stillness and 
silence of her surroundings. She wished that 
Doctor Volospion had been able to accompany her, at least this far, but he was 
wary, he had told her, of the Fireclown 
suspecting treachery. If Bloom detected another presence it was likely that he 
would immediately restore his ship's 
defenses.
      The teardrop-shaped ship was a red silhouette against a background of dark 
trees. Its airlock remained open, its 
ramp was down. She paused as she looked up at it.
      It was impossible from where she stood to see anything of the ship's 
interior, but she could smell a warm 
mustiness coming from the entrance, together with a suggestion of pale smoke. If 
she had not known otherwise, she 
might have suspected the Fireclown still inside. The ship was redolent of his 
presence.
      She spoke aloud, to dispell the silence. "Here goes, Mavis."
      She was wearing her blue and orange kimono over her bikini, for Doctor 
Volospion had warned her that it might 
be uncomfortably warm within the Fireclown's ship. She struggled up the pebbled 
surface of the ramp and hesitated 
again outside the entrance, peering in. It seemed to her that points of fire 
still flickered on the other side of the airlock's 
open door.
      'Coo-ee!" she said.
      She wet her lips. "What manner of creature is lord of this fair castle?" 
She reassured herself with the language of 
her favorite books. "Shall I find my handsome prince within. Or an ugly 
ogre...?" She shuddered. She looked back at 
the battlements and towers of gloomy Castle Volospion, hoping perhaps to see her 
protector, but the castle seemed 
entirely deserted. She drew a breath and entered the airlock. It was not quite 
so warm as she had been led to believe.
      She moved from the airlock into the true interior of the ship. She found 
herself pleasantly surprised by its 
ordinariness. It was as if firelight illuminated the large chamber, although the 
source of that light was mysterious.
      The rosy, flickering light cast her shadow, enlarged and distorted, upon 
the far wall. The chamber was in 
disorder, as if the shock of landing had dislodged everything from its place. 
Boxes, parchments, books and pictures 
were scattered everywhere; figurines lay dented or broken upon the carpeted 
floor; drapes, once used to cover 
portholes, hung lopsidedly upon the walls, which curved inward.
      'What a lot of junk!" Her voice held more confidence. Apparently the place 
had been Mr. Bloom's storeroom, for 
there was no sign of furniture.
      She stumbled over crates and bales of cloth until she reached a 
companionway leading up to the next chamber. 
Doctor Volospion had told her that she would probably find the cup in the 
control room, which must be above. She 
climbed, pushed open a hatch, and found herself in a circular room which was lit 
very similarly to the storage chamber, 
but so realistically that she found herself searching for the open fireplace 
which seemed to be the source of the light.
      Save for a faint smell of burning timber, there was no sign of a fire.
      'Mavis," she said determinedly, "keep that imagination of yours well under 
control!"
      This room, as she had suspected, was the Fireclown's living quarters. It 
contained a good-sized bed, shelves, 
storage lockers, a desk, a chair and a screen whereby the occupant could check 
the ship's functions.
      She wiped sweat from her forehead, glancing around her.
      Against one wall, at the end of the bed, was a large metal ziggurat which 
looked as if it had once been the base 
for something else. Would this be where the cup was normally kept? If so, 
Emmanuel Bloom had hidden it and her job 
was going to be harder. On the wall were various pictures; some were paintings, 
others photographs and holographs, 
primarily of men in the costumes of many periods. On the wall, too, was a narrow 
shelf, about two feet long, apparently 
empty. She reached to touch it and felt something there. It was thin, like a 
long pencil. Curiously she rolled the object 
toward her until it fell into her hand. She was surprised.
      It was an old-fashioned riding crop, its tip frayed and dividing at one 
end; a silver head at the other. The head 
was beautifully made-a woman's face in what the Italians called the "stile 
Liberty." Mavis was impressed most by the 
look of ineffable tranquillity upon the features. The contrast between the 
woman's expression and the function of the 
whip itself disturbed Mavis so much that she replaced it hastily.
      Wishing that the light were stronger, she began to search for the cup or 
goblet (Doctor Volospion's description 
had been vague). First she looked under the bed, finding only a collection of 
books and manuscripts, many of them 
dusty.
      'This whole ship could do with a good spring clean!" She searched through 
the wardrobe and drawers, finding a 
collection of clothes to match those worn by the men whose pictures decorated 
the wall. This sudden intimacy with Mr. 
Bloom's personal possessions had not only whetted her curiosity about him - his 
clothes, to her, were much more 
interesting than anything he had said - but had somehow given her a greater 
sympathy for him.
      She began to feel unhappy about rummaging through his things; her search 
for the goblet began increasingly to 
seem like simple thievery.
      Her search became more rapid as she sought to find the Grail and leave as 
soon as she could. If she had not 
made a promise to Doctor Volospion she would have left the ship there and then.
      'You're a fool, Mavis. Everyone's told you. And do you ever listen?"
      As she opened a mahogany trunk, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl, 
the lid squeaked and, at the same time, 
she thought she heard a faint noise from below.
      She paused and listened, but there was no further sound. She saw at once 
that the trunk contained only faded 
manuscripts.
      Miss Ming decided to return to the storeroom. The curiosity which had at 
first directed her energy was now 
dissipating, to be replaced by a familiar sense of panic.
      She felt her heart rate increase and the ship seemed to give a series of 
little tremors, in sympathy. She returned 
to the companionway and lifted the hatch. She was halfway down when the whole 
ship shook itself like an animal, 
roared, as if sentient, and she was pressed back against the steps, clinging to 
the rail as, swaying from side to side, the 
ship took off.
      Sweating, Miss Ming turned herself round with difficulty and began to 
climb back toward the living quarters 
where she felt she would be safer. If her throat had been less constricted she 
would have screamed. The ship, she knew, 
was taking off under its own power. It was quite possible that she had activated 
it herself. Unless she could work out 
how to control it she would soon be adrift in the cosmos, floating through space 
until she died. And she would be all 
alone. It was this latter thought which terrified her most. She reached the 
cabin and crawled across the dusty carpet as 
the pressure increased, climbing onto the bed in the hope that it would cushion 
the acceleration effects.
      The sensations she was experiencing were not dissimilar to those she had 
experienced on her trip through time 
and, as such, did not alarm her. It was the.prospect of what would become of her 
when the ship was beyond Earth's 
gravity which she could not bear to consider.
      It was not, she thought, as if there were many planets left in the 
universe. Earth might now be the only one.
      The pressure began to lift, but she remained face down upon the bed 
("these sheets could do with a wash," she 
was thinking) even when it was obvious that the ship was traveling at last 
through free space.
      'Oh, you've let yourself in for it this time, Mavis," she told herself. 
"You've been conned properly, my girl."
      She wondered it, for reasons of his own, Doctor Volospion had deliberately 
sent her into space. She knew his 
capacity for revenge. Had that silly tiff meant so much to him? He had beguiled 
her into suggesting her own trap, her 
own punishment, just because of a silly scratch on the hand!
      'What a bastard! What bastards they all are!" And what an idiot she had 
made of herself. It taught you never to 
be sympathetic to a man. They always used it against you. "That's Mavis all 
over," she continued, "trusting the world. 
And this is how the world repays you!" But there was little conviction in her 
tone; her self-pity was half-hearted. 
Actually, she realized, she was not feeling particularly bad now that there was 
a genuine threat to her life. All the little 
anxieties fled away.
      Miss Ming began to roll over on the bed. At least the ship itself was 
comfortable enough.
      'It's cozy, really." She smiled. "A sort of den. Just like when I was a 
little girl, with my own little room, and my 
books and dolls." She laughed. "I'm actually safer here than anywhere I've been 
since I grew up. It shouldn't be difficult 
to work out a way of getting back to Earth - if I want to go back. What's Earth 
got to offer, anyway, except deceit, 
hypocrisy and treachery?"
      She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked at her new home, 
all her new toys.
      'I think it's really what I've always wanted," she declared.
      'Now you realize that I spoke the truth!" said the triumphant voice of 
Emmuel Bloom from the shadows 
overhead.
      'My God!" said Miss Ming as she realized the full extent of Doctor 
Volospion's deception.
      
      
      
Chapter Sixteen
In which Doctor Volospion receives the congratulations of his peers and 
celebrates the acquisition of his new Treasure
      
      My Lady Charlotina rose from Doctor Volospion's bed and swiftly demolished 
her double (Doctor Volospion 
would only make love to pairs of women) before touching a power ring to adorn 
herself in white and cerise poppies. In 
the shadows of the four-poster Doctor Volospion lay relishing his several 
victories, a beautiful cup held in his hands. 
He turned the cup round and round, running his fingers over an inscription which 
he could not read, for it was in 
ancient English.
      'You doubt none of my powers now, I hope, My Lady Charlotina," he said.
      Her smile was slow. She knew he would have her speak of Jagged, perhaps 
make a comparison, but she did not 
have it in her to satisfy Volospion's curiosity. Lord Jagged was Lord Jagged, 
she thought.
      'I was privileged," she said, "to know your plan from the start and to see 
it work so smoothly. I am most 
impressed. First you incarcerated Miss Ming, then you lured Mr. Bloom to your 
castle, then you pretended that his 
power was great enough to destroy your force field, then you captured him, 
knowing that he would give anything to 
escape. You originally meant to hold him, of course, as one of your collection, 
but then you learned of the Grail..."
      'So I offered Miss Ming in exchange for the Grail. Thus he thought he took 
her from me without force and that 
she went willingly to him - for I did not, of course, explain to Mr. Bloom that 
I had deceived Miss Ming."
      'So much deception! It is quite hard for me to follow!" She laughed. "What 
a match. The greatest cynic of our 
world (with the exception of Lord Shark who does not really count) pitted 
against the greatest idealist in the universe!"
      'And the cynic won," said Doctor Volospion. "As they always do."
      'Well, a cynic would draw that conclusion," she pointed out. "I had a 
liking for that Mr. Bloom, though he was a 
bore."
      'As was Miss Ming."
      'Great bores, both."
      'And by one stroke I rid the world of its two most awful bores," said 
Doctor Volospion, in case she had not 
considered this achievement with the rest.
      'Exactly."
      Yawning, My Lady Charlotina drifted toward a dark window. "You have your 
cup. He has his queen."
      'Exactly."
      My Lady Charlotina looked up at the featureless heavens. No stars gleamed 
here. Perhaps they were all 
extinquished. She sighed.
      'My only regret," said Doctor Volospion as he carefully laid the cup upon 
his pillow and straightened his body, 
"is that I was not able to ask Mr. Bloom the meaning of this inscription."
      'Doubtless a warning to the curious," she said "or an offer of eternal 
salvation. You know more about these 
things, Doctor Volospion."
      A cap appeared on his head. Robes formed. Black velvet and mink. "Oh, yes, 
they are always very similar. And 
often disappointing ordinary."
      'It does seem a very ordinary cup."
      'The faithful would see that as a sign of its true holiness," he told her 
knowledgeably.
      From outside they detected a halloo.
      'It is Abu Thaleb," she said in some animation. "And Argonheart Po and 
some others. Li Pao, I think, is with 
them. Shall you admit them?"
      'Of course. They will want to see my cup."
      My Lady Charlotina and Doctor Volospion left his bedroom and went down to 
the hall to greet their guests.
      Doctor Volospion placed the cup upon the table. The ill-functioning neon 
played across its bright silver.
      'Beautiful!" said Abu Thaleb, without as much enthusiasm as perhaps Doctor 
Volospion would have wished. 
The Commissar of Bengal brushed feathers from his eyes. "A fitting reward for 
your services to us all, Doctor 
Volospion."
      Argonheart Po bore a tray in his great hands. He set this, now, beside the 
cup. "I am always thorough in my 
research," he said, "and hope you find this small offering appropriate." He 
removed the cloth to reveal his savouries. 
"That is a pemmican spear. This cross is primarily the flavor of sole a la 
crime. The taste of the wafers and the blood is 
rather more difficult to describe."
      'What an elegant notion!" Doctor Volospion took one of the savories 
between finger and thumb and nibbled 
politely.
      Li Pao asked: "May I inspect the cup?"
      'Of course." Doctor Volospion waved a generous hand. "You do not, by any 
chance, read, do you, Li Pao? 
Specifically, Dawn Age English."
      'Once," said Li Pao. He studied the inscription. He shook his head. "I am 
baffled."
      'A great shame."
      'Does it do anything," wondered Sweet Orb Mace, moving from the shadows 
where he had been studying 
Doctor Volospion's portrait.
      'I think not," said My Lady Charlotina. "It has done nothing yet, at any 
rate."
      Doctor Volospion stared at his cup somewhat wistfully. "Ah, well," he 
said, "I fear I shall grow tired of it soon 
enough."
      My Lady Charlotina came to stand beside him. "Perhaps it will fill the 
room with light or something," she said 
encouragingly.
      'We can always hope," he said.
      
      
      
Chapter Seventeen
In which Miss Mavis Ming at last attains a State of Grace
      Emmanuel Bloom swung himself from the ceiling, an awkward macaw. He no 
longer wore his paint and motley 
but was again dressed in his black velvet suit.
      Mavis Ming saw that he had entered by means of a hatch. Doubtless the 
control cabin of the ship was above.
      'My Goddess," said the Fireclown.
      She still sat on the edge of the bed. Her voice was without emotion. "You 
traded me for the cup. That's what it 
was all about. What a fool I am."
      'No, not you. Doctor Volospion proposed the bargain and so enabled me to 
keep my word to him. He demanded 
the cup which I kept in my ship. I gave it to him." He strutted across the cabin 
and manipulated a dial. Red-gold light 
began to fill his living quarters. Now everything glowed and each piece of 
fabric, wood or metal seemed to have a life 
of its own.
      Mavis Ming stood up and edged away from the bed. She drew her kimono about 
her, over her pendulous breasts, 
her fat stomach, her wide thighs.
      'Listen," she began. She was breathing rapidly once more. "You can't 
really want me, Mr. Bloom. I'm fat old 
Mavis. I'm ugly. I'm stupid. I'm selfish. I should be left on my own. I'm better 
off on my own. I know I'm always 
looking for company, but really it's just because I never realized..."
      He raised a stiff right arm in a gesture of impatience. "What has any of 
that to do with my love for you? What 
does it matter if foolish Volospion thought he was killing two birds with one 
stone when he was actually freeing two 
eagles?"
      'Look," she said, "if..."
      'I am the Fireclown! I am Bloom, the Fireclown! I have lived the span of 
Man's existence. I have made Time and 
Space my toys. I have juggled with chronons and made the multiverse laugh. I 
have mocked Reality and Reality has 
shrivelled to be reborn. My eyes have stared unblinking into the hearts of 
stars, and I have stood at the very core of the 
Sun and feasted on freshly created phontons. I am Bloom, Eternally Blooming 
Bloom. Bloom the Phoenix. Bloom, the 
Destroyer of Darkness. These eyes, these large bulging eyes of mine, do you 
think they cannot see into souls as easily 
as they see into suns? Can they not detect an aura of pain that disguises the 
true center of a being as smoke hides fire? 
That is why I choose to make you wise, to enslave you so that you may know true 
freedom."
      Miss Ming forced herself to speak. "This is kidnapping and kidnapping is 
kidnapping whatever you prefer to 
call it..."
      He ignored her.
      'Of all the beings on that wasteland planet, you were one of the few who 
still lived. Oh, you lived as a frightened 
rodent lives, your spirit perverted, your mind enshelled with cynicism, refusing 
for a moment to look upon Reality for 
fear that it would detect you and devour you, like a wakened lion. Yet when 
Reality occasionally impinged and could 
not be escaped, how did you respond?"
      'Look," she said, "you've got no right..."
      'Right? I have every right! I am Bloom! You are my Bride, my Consort, my 
Queen, my Goddess. There is no 
woman deserves the honor more!"
      'Oh, Christ!" she said. "Please let me go. Please, I can't give you 
anything. I can't understand you. I can't love 
you." She began to cry. "I've never loved anyone! No one but myself."
      His voice was gentle. He took a few jerky steps closer to her. "You lie, 
Mavis Ming. You do not love yourself."
      'Donny said I did. They all said I did, sooner or later."
      'If you loved yourself," he told her, "you would love me."
      Her voice shook. "That's good..."
      To Mavis Ming's own ears her words were without resonance of any kind. The 
collection of platitudes with 
which she had always responded to experience; the borrowed ironies, the barren 
tropes with which, instinctively, she 
had encumbered herself in order to placate a world she had seen as essentially 
malevolent, all were at once revealed as 
the meaningless things they were, with the result that an appalling self-
consciousness, worse than anything she had 
suffered in the past, swept over her and every phrase she had ever uttered 
seemed to ring in her ears for what it had 
been: A mewl of pain, a whimper of frustration, a cry for attention, a groan of 
hunger.
      "Un..."
      She became incapable of speech. She could only stare at him, backing 
around the wall as he came, half strutting, 
half hopping, toward her, his head to one side, an appalling amusement in his 
unwinking, protruberant eyes, until her 
escape was blocked by a heavy wardrobe.
      She was incapable of movement. She watched as he reached a twitching hand 
toward her face; the hand was 
firm and gentle as it touched her and its warmth made her realize how cold, how 
clammy, her own skin felt. She was 
close to collapse, only supported by the wall of the ship.
      'The Earth is far behind us now," he said. "We shall never return. It does 
not deserve us." He pointed to the bed. 
"Go there. Remove your clothes."
      She gasped at him, trying to make him understand that she could not walk. 
She did not care, now, what his 
intentions were, but she was too exhausted to obey him.
      'Tired..."she said at last.
      He shook his head. "No. You shall not escape by that route, madam." He 
spoke kindly. "Come."
      The high-pitched ridiculous voice carried greater authority than any she 
had heard before. She began to walk 
toward the bed. She stood looking down at the sheets; the light made these, too, 
seem vibrant with life of their own. She 
felt his little claw-like hands pull the kimono from her shoulders, undo the 
tie, removing the garment entirely.
      She felt him break the fastening on her bikini top so that her breasts 
hung even lower on her body. She felt no 
revulsion, nothing sexual at all, as his fingers pushed the bikini bottom over 
her hips and down her legs. And yet she 
was more aware of her nakedness than she had ever been, seeing the fatness, the 
pale flesh, without any emotion at all, 
remarking its poor condition as if it did not belong to her.
      'Fat..." she murmured.
      His voice was distant. "It is of no importance, this body. Besides, it 
shall not be fat for very long."
      She began to anticipate his rape of her, wondering if, when he began, she 
would feel anything. He ordered her to 
lie face down upon the bed. She obeyed. She heard him move away, then. Perhaps 
he was undressing. She turned to 
look, but he was still in his tattered velvet suit, taking something from a 
shelf. She saw that he held the whip in his 
hand, the one she had discovered earlier.
      She tried to feel afraid, because she knew that she should feel fear, but 
fear would not come. She continued to 
look up at him, over her shoulder, as he returned. Still her body made no 
response. This was quite unlike her fantasies 
of flagellation. What happened now excited neither her imagination nor her body. 
She wished that she could feel 
something, even terror. Instead she was possessed by a calmness, a sense of 
inevitability, unlike anything she had 
known.
      'Now," she heard him say, "I shall bring your blood into the light. And 
with it shall come the devils that inhabit 
it, to be withered as weeds in the Sun. And when I have finished you will know 
Rebirth, Freedom, Dominion over the 
Multiverse, and more."
      Was it a mark of her own insanity that she could detect no insanity in his 
words?
      The whip fell upon her flesh. It struck her buttocks and the pain stole 
her breath. She did not scream, but she 
gasped.
      It struck again, just below the first place, and she thought his flames 
lashed her. Her whole body jerked, trying to 
escape, but a firm hand held her down again, and again the whip fell.
      She did not scream, but she groaned as she drew in her breath. The next 
stroke was upon her thighs, the next 
behind her knees, and his hands were cruel now as she struggled. He held her by 
the back of the neck; he gripped her 
by the shoulder, by the loose flesh of her waist, and each time he gripped her 
she knew fresh pain.
      Mavis Ming believed at last that it was Emmanuel Bloom's intention to flay 
her alive, to tear every piece of skin 
from her body. He held her lips, her ears, her breasts, her vagina, the tender 
parts of her inners thighs, and every touch 
was fire.
      She screamed, she blubbered for him to stop, she could not believe that 
he, any more than she, was any longer in 
control of what was happening. And yet the whip fell with a regularity which 
denied her even this consolation, until, at 
length, her whole body burned and she lay still, consumed.
      Slowly the fire faded from this peak of intensity and it seemed to her 
that, again, her body and her mind were 
united; this unity was new.
      Emmanuel Bloom said nothing. She heard him cross the chamber to replace 
the whip. She began to breathe with 
deep regularity, as if she slept. Her consciousness of her body induced an 
indefinable emotion in her. She moved her 
head to look at him and the movement was painful.
      'I feel..." Her voice was soft.
      He stood with his arms stiffly at his sides. His head was cocked, his 
expression was tender and expectant.
      She could find no word.
      'It is your pride," he said.
      He reached to caress her face.
      'I love you," he said.
      'I love you." She began to weep.
      He made her rise and look at her body in the oval mirror he revealed. It 
seemed that her skin was a lattice of 
long, red bruises; she could see where he had gripped her shoulders and her 
breasts. The pain was hard to tolerate 
without making at least a whisper of sound, but she controlled herself.
      'Will you do this again?" It was almost a request.
      He shook his little head.
      She walked back to the bed. Her back, though lacerated, was straight. She 
had never walked in that way before, 
with dignity. She sat down. "Why did you do it?"
      'In this manner? Perhaps because I lack patience. It is one of my 
characteristics. It was quick." He laughed. 
"Why do it to you, at all? Because I love you. Because I wished to reveal to you 
the woman that you are, the individual 
that you are. I had to destroy the shell."
      'It won't fade, this feeling?"
      'Only the scars will go. It is within you to retain the rest. Will you be 
my wife?"
      She smiled. "Yes."
      'Well, then, this has been a satisfactory expedition, after all. Better, 
really, than I expected. Oh, what leaping 
delights we shall share, what wonders I can show you. No woman could desire more 
than to be the consort of Bloom, 
the Good Soldier, the Champion Eternal, the Master of the Multiversel"
      "And my master, too."
      'As you are my mistress, Mavis Ming." He fell with a peculiar, spastic 
jerk, on his knees beside her. "For 
Eternity. Will you stay? I can return you within an hour or two."
      'I will stay," she said. "Yet you gave up so much for me. That cup. It was 
your honor?"
      He looked shamefaced. "He asked for the cup I kept in my ship. I could not 
give him the Holy Grail, for it is not 
mine to give. I gave him something almost as dear to me, however. If Doctor 
Volospion ever deciphers the inscription 
on the cup he will discover that it was awarded, in 1980, to Leonard Bloom, by 
the Union of Master Bakers, for the 
best matzo bread of the Annual Bakery Show, Whitechapel, London. He was a very 
good baker, my father. I loved him. 
I had kept his cup in all my journeys back and forth through the time-streams 
and it was the most valuable thing I 
possessed."
      'So you do not have the Grail." She smiled. "It was all part of your plan 
- pretending to own it, pretending to be 
powerless - you tricked Doctor Volospion completely."
      'And he tricked me. Both are satisfied, for it is unlikely he shall ever 
know the extent of my trickery and 
doubtless considers himself a fine fellow now! All are satisfied!"
      'And now...?"; she began.
      'And now," he said, "I'll leave you. I must set my controls. You shall see 
all that is left of this universe and then, 
through the center of the brightest star, into the greater vastness of the 
multiverse beyond! There we shall find others to 
inspire and if we find no life at all, upon our wanderings, it is within our 
power to create it. for I am the Fireclown. I am 
the Voice of the Sun! Aha! Look! It has come to you, too. This, my love, is 
Grace. This is our reward!"
      The cabin was filled suddenly by brilliant golden light, apparently having 
as its source a beam which entered 
through the very shell of the spaceship, falling directly upon the ziggurat at 
the end of the bed.
      A smell, like sweet spring flowers after the rain, filled the cabin, and 
then a crystal cup, brimming with scarlet 
liquid, appeared at the top of the ziggurat.
      Scarlet rays spread from a hundred points in the crystal, almost blinding 
her, and, although Mavis Ming could 
hear nothing, she received an impression of sonorous, delicate music. She could 
not help herself as she lifted her aching 
body from the bed to the floor and knelt, staring into the goblet in awe.
      From behind her the Fireclown chuckled and he knelt beside her, taking her 
hand.
      'We are married now," he said, "before the Holy Grail. Married 
individually and together. And this is our Trust 
which shall be taken from us should we ever commit the sin of accidia. Here is 
proof of all my claims. Here is Hope. 
And should we ever cease to forget our purpose, should we ever fall into that 
sin of inertia, should we lose for more 
than a moment, our Faith in our high resolve, the Grail will leave us and shall 
vanish forever from the sight of Man, for 
I am Bloom, the Last Pure Knight, and you are the Pure Lady, chastised and 
chaste, who shall share these Mysteries 
with me."
      She began: "It is too much. I am not capable..." But then she lifted her 
head and she smiled, staring into the very 
heart of the goblet. "Very well."
      'Look," he said, as the vision began to fade, "your wounds have vanished."
      ___________________
      
      * DAW Books, Inc. UYizSi.
