"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 behaviour, 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 accidie (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 Arimathaea, 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 honour (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 towards 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 pretence 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 aeons 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 artefact, no matter how miraculous it seems to be. The true Holy Grail is a mystical artefact 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 entities 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 favour 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 Shintoists, 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, Callagriphic Diviners, Betelgeusian Grass Sniffers, Aldebaranian 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."