– Stand in front of it, please.
Flapping Eagle complied and at once lights appeared in the tiny windows, a complex pattern of lights.
– Your Ionic Pattern, said Grimus, is the strongest destructive pattern I have ever seen. If one were superstitious, one could argue that it is this essence that Mrs Cramm spotted in your palm, this essence which caused your people to mistrust you, this essence which lies at the root of your misfortunes on Kâf Island. For my purposes, it made you an eminently suitable angel of death. You and your sister. Though her pattern is rather less well-defined than yours.
Grimus moved to a pair of pedestals, which stood close together at one end of the room. He unveiled one.
Flapping Eagle found himself looking at the Water-crystal.
– I see you recognize this, said Grimus. Virgil’s diary. Good, good. It was through this that I found you and then tested you with the Ion Eye, through this that I followed you all the way here. But its companion is almost more interesting. It does not occur in Virgil’s diary, because I concealed it from him. It is the Crystal of Potentialities. In it I can examine many potential presents and futures and discover the key moments, the crossroads in time, which guide us down one or the other line of flux. If you understand what I mean by that.
Flapping Eagle shook his head-no-as he stared at the second, unveiled crystal globe. This was filled, not with water, but with a kind of smoke.
– I’m afraid you always see through a bit of a haze, said Grimus. Ah, but you do not understand. Let me refer to incidents you yourself remember. Twice in the very recent past, you have experienced crossroad-points. For instance. Had I not conceptualized a protective barrier around you, you would no doubt have drowned as you floated in to the island. Obviously I allowed some water to enter your system. Verisimilitude is important. And a second moment: when you unconsciously spoke the name Elfrina to La Cherkassova. I’m sure you perceived how that one small moment changed the course of your life. Though it is fair to say that if you hadn’t made it so easy for me I’d have had to find another way of detaching you… Anyhow. You see what I mean. Crossroad points. I have been husbanding you-and others-along the right road for a very long time now. That is what I mean when I say I have made you. I have been constructing the Perfect Dimension, in which everything goes according to plan.
You will say: it didn’t. I didn’t anticipate the treachery of Nicholas Deggle. To which I reply: one of the greatest qualities of a well-formed Concept is flexibility. One can turn disadvantages into advantages. Thus Deggle’s expulsion became a simple way of drawing you into the net. Thus the K-people’s dislike of me helped them to react correctly towards you. (Though by denying them access to the Rose I would have fostered that dislike anyway.)
– You denied them the Rose, said Flapping Eagle.
– Naturally, said Grimus. For one thing, it had nothing to do with their reasons for being here. Immortality was their choice, not exploration. The Rose was mine.
– And Virgil’s, said Flapping Eagle. Grimus ignored him.
– This is the Perfect Dimension, he said. In another potential Dimension, you never came to Calf Island. In another, I never found the Stone Rose. In yet another, I continue to live, for ever, prisoner to my own ideas. But here, it must all be as I intended it.
His hands were working feverishly now, his voice was piercingly shrill.
– Supposing I had succumbed to Dimension-fever? asked Flapping Eagle.
– You couldn’t possibly, said Grimus. Your Ions were too strong. Notice the means you used to vanquish your monster: Chaos. The true weapon of the destroyer. Your unconscious mind knew exactly what it was doing.
– There was a risk, said Flapping Eagle.
– Nonsense, said Grimus. With Virgil Jones, the Gorf Koax as well as myself looking over your shoulder? Nonsense. You played your hand well, though, I don’t deny you that.
Something snapped inside Flapping Eagle at the sight of that face, so much his own and yet so little his own, smiling at him benignly. Or perhaps it would be more exact to say that a number of things fell into place. An old, old memory stirred: the memory of a man searching for a voice in which to speak. Flapping Eagle, in the company of the orchestrator of his life, had finally found such a voice for himself.
– Played my hand well, he repeated with quiet fury. A revealing metaphor, don’t you think? The Stone Rose has warped you, Grimus; its knowledge has made you as twisted, as eaten away by power-lust, as its effect has stunted and deformed the lives of the people you brought here. This is a game, isn’t it, a game you’re enjoying? An infinity of continua, of possibilities both present and future, the free-play of time itself, bent and shaped into a zoo for your personal enjoyment. Yes, you have made me, I grant it. Yes, you have brought me here in the condition you wanted for the lunatic purpose you envisaged. You are so far removed from the pains and tormented of the world you left and the world you made that you can even see death as an academic exercise. You can plan your own death as a kind of perfect game of chess. But in the end it all depends on me, Grimus, in some way which you haven’t yet explained. It all hangs on my choice and I tell you now I am not going to play. Virgil asked me to destroy the Stone Rose. I am now convinced he was right. It has already shattered too many lives. Too many possibilities of happiness. I said it to the goddess Axona in my fever and I say it to you: Grimus, I shall destroy you if I can.
Grimus applauded gravely.
– Ah, a spirited death, he said. Good. Good.
Flapping Eagle gathered his strength to do-what?- he could not form any plan. He stood helplessly, clutching his ju-ju stick, as Grimus laughed.
– I shall destroy you, repeated Flapping Eagle, but not in the way you want. I will not assume your mantle.
Grimus said: -I think it’s almost time to tell you my plan for my death, which is, of course, my plan for you. But before I do, I should like to set at rest certain misapprehensions you appear to be fostering. Please follow me.
He went through the door into the Kâf-room, the empty area with the letter Kâf on a wall. Flapping Eagle followed, seeing no reason not to. He still needed Grimus, needed him to find the Stone Rose.
– You say I am detached from my creation, said Grimus. This room will bear witness I am not. And who do you think it is that watches over K? Do you not think those aged houses would have fallen down by now? Do you not think that much-tilled soil would be exhausted by now? Did you ever wonder why Mr Gribb never ran out of paper or where the metal hinges which held the doors on were made? The truth is, Flapping Eagle, a Conceptual Dimension like Calf Island needs constant fostering and Re-Conceptualizing at regular intervals, in order to preserve its existence. If I am to die without a successor the island will crumble. You have to take my place.
– You said this room was to bear witness, said Flapping Eagle.
– Yes, yes, said Grimus, showing a trace of irritation. Very well. Think of anywhere on the island. Anywhere at all.
– Just think about it? asked Flapping Eagle, wondering what was coming.
– Yes. Think hard.
Flapping Eagle found the picture of Dolores’ house forming in his mind. It would be interesting to see what had become of her…
And suddenly they were there. In the cottage. The cottage was here, in the room, in Grimushome. The jigsaw, there. The pot of root-tea, there. The rocking-chair, there…
In the rocking-chair, Nicholas Deggle.
– He can’t see us, said Grimus.
– How are you doing this? Flapping Eagle’s voice was unsteady again.
– An adjustment of the Rose. I use it to keep watch on the island when I’m tired of using the Watercrystal. So much more detail here. By the way, Dolores O’Toole is dead.