"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! Re-born, 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 ear-lobe; 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 colour 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 colour 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 towards 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 travellers 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 use 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 wild 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 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."