"For her own safety," said My Lady Charlotina. "It is what Miss Ming wants."
"She is deluded." The Fireclown displayed irritation. "Deluded by this conjuror 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 smouldering 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 in 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.
11. In 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 honoured, 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 colour 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 lacy 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 candle-light of his corridors, climbing stairs of grey-brown stone until he had reached a roof. Into the late evening air, which he favoured, 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 colour of steel. Below, lurid and out of key with all these surroundings, stood the spaceship.