Constant Fire

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 armour 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 ca

"Imprison?" Doctor Volospion derided the idea with a gesture. "You shall have everything you desire. Your favourite environment shall be re-created for you. If necessary, it is possible to supply the impression of distance, movement. Regard the state as 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 mille

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 Gutzma

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 source to drive out devils. I need no armour, 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 ca

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.

13. 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 Do

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-coloured 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 travellers 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.