"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 towards 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 extinguished. 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 disappointingly 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 flavour of sole a la creme. The taste of the wafers and the blood is rather more difficult to describe."
"What an elegant notion!" Doctor Volospion took one of the savouries 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.
17. 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 re-born. 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 photons. 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 centre 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 honour 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.
"Oh…"
She became incapable of speech. She could only stare at him, backing around the wall as he came, half-strutting, half-hopping, towards her, his head to one side, an appalling amusement in his unwinking, protuberant eyes, until her escape was blocked by a heavy wardrobe.