Dancers - A Messiah At The End Of Time Part 6

'I made no mastodons!" bellowed Argonheart Po, and now he was striding away. "Goodbye to you!"

Doctor Volospion stirred in his cus.h.i.+ons. "Well, well. Obsessive people can be very boorish sometimes, I think."

Mavis Ming said: "He was more interested in his confectionery than any opportunity for contact with another intelligence. Still, he was upset."

'"Then you are the only one of us to have tasted his preparations." Abu Thaleb looked doubtfully at the congealing lake between him and the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

'How were his dishes, by the by, Miss Ming?" Doctor Volospion wished to know. "You sampled them, eh?"

Miss Ming adopted something of a worldly air for Doctor Volospion's approval. She uttered a light, amused laugh. "Oh, a bit over-flavored, really, if the truth be told."

His thin tongue ran the line of his lips. "Too strong, the taste?"

'He's not as good as they say he is, if you ask me. All this-," she rotated a wrist-,"all these big ideas."

Abu Thaleb would not allow such malice. "Argonheart Po is the greatest culinary genius in the history of the world!"

'Perhaps our world has not been well-favored with cooks..." suggested Doctor Volospion slyly.

'And he is the most good-hearted of fellows! The time he must have spent preparing the feast for today!"

'Time?" enquired Volospion in some disbelief. "Time? Time?"

'His presents are famous. Not long since, he made me a savory mammoth that was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. An arrangement of flavors defeating description, and yet possessing a unity of taste that was inevitable!" Abu Thaleb was displaying unusual vivacity.

Doctor Volospion -was incapable of diplomacy now. He was as one who has hooked his shark and refuses to cut the line, no matter what damage may ensue to both boat and man.

'Perhaps you confuse the subject matter with the art, admirable Abu?"

Mavis Ming would also take hold of the rod, secure in the approval of her protector, inspired by his wit. "One man's elephant steak, after all, is another man's bicarbonate of soda!"

And now it was as if rod and line snapped over the side to be borne to the depths.

Abu Thaleb stared at her in frank bewilderment.

Doctor Volospion turned from his prey, his grey face controlled. There was a pause. His expression changed. A secretive smile, for himself more than for her.

The Commissar of Bengal had been saved from conflict and as a result became bewildered. "Well," he said weakly, "I for one am always astonished by his invention."

Miss Ming became aware of the atmosphere. Such an atmosphere often followed her funniest observations. "I'm being too subtle and obscure. I'm sorry. No Argonheart can be very clever. Very clever indeed. He's very nice. He's always made me feel very much at home. Oh, dear. Do I always manage to spoil things? It can't be me, can it?"

Doctor Volospion, for reasons of his own, had cast a fresh line. "My dear Miss Ming, you are being too kind again!"

He raised a long hand, the fingers curled forward to form a claw. "Do not let this clever commissar confuse you into compromising your opinions. Be true to your own convictions. If you find Argon heart's work unsatisfactory, not up to the demands of your palate, then say so."

Abu Thaleb this time ignored the bait. "Volospion you mock us both too much," he protested. "Leave Miss Ming, at least, alone!"

'Oh, he's not mocking me," Miss Ming observed.

'I?" Doctor Volospion moved his brows in apparent astonishment. "Mock?"

'Yes. Mock." Abu Thaleb studied the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

"You do me too much credit, my friend."

'Hum," said Abu Thaleb.

Mavis Ming laughed amiably. "You never know when he's been serious or when he's joking, do you, commissar?"

Abu Thaleb was brief. "Well, Miss Ming, if you are not discomforted, then-,"

He was interrupted by Doctor Volospion, who pointed to the s.h.i.+p.

'Ha! Our guest emerges!"

Chapter Six

In which Mr. Emmanuel Bloom lays claim to his Kingdom

Once more he stood before them, his head bent forward, his bright blue eyes glittering, his stiff arms at his sides, his red hair flaring to frame his face. He remained for some while at the top of the ramp. He watched them, not with caution but with dispa.s.sionate curiosity.

He had changed his clothes.

Now he had on a suit of crumpled black velvet, a s.h.i.+rt whose stiff, high collar rose as if to support his chin, whose cuffs covered his clenched hands to the knuckles. His feet were small and there were tiny, s.h.i.+ning pumps on them. He leaned so far over the ramp that he threatened to topple straight down it.

'What an altogether ridiculous figure," hissed Miss Ming to Doctor Volospion. "Don't you think?"

She would have said more but, for the moment, she evidently felt the compelling authority of those bulging blue eyes.

'Not from s.p.a.ce at all," complained the Commissar of Bengal. "He's a time traveler. His clothes..."

'Oh, no," Miss Ming was adamant. "We saw him arrive. The s.h.i.+p came from s.p.a.ce."

'From the sky, perhaps, but not from s.p.a.ce." Abu Thaleb pushed pearls away from his mouth. "Now-"

But the newcomer had struck a strange pose, arms stiffly extended before him, little mouth smiling, head held up. He spoke in fluting, musical tones that were this time completely comprehensible to them all.

'I welcome you, people of Earth, to my presence. I cannot say how moved I am to be among you again and I appreciate your own feelings on this wonderful day. For the Hero of your greatest legends returns to you. Ah, but how you have yearned for me. How you must have prayed for me to come back to you. To bring you Life. To bring you Rea.s.surance. To bring you that Tranquillity that can only be achieved by Pain! Well, dear people of Earth, I am back. At long last I am back!"

'Back...?" grunted Abu Thaleb.

'Oh, the journey has demented him," suggested Mavis Ming.

Abu Thaleb cleared his throat. "I believe you have the advantage, sir..."

'We missed the name," explained Doctor Volospion, his voice a fraction animated.

A sweet smile appeared upon the creature's ruby lips. "But you must recognize me!"

'Not a stirring of memory, for my part," said Doctor Volospion.

'A picture, perhaps, in the old cities. But no..." said Abu Thaleb.

'You do look like someone. Some old writer or other," said Miss Ming. "I never did literature."

He frowned. He turned his palms inward. He looked down at his own strange body. His voice trilled on. "Yes. Yes. I suppose it is possible that you do not recognize this particular manifestation."

'Perhaps you could offer a clue." Doctor Volospion sat up in his cus.h.i.+ons for the first time.

He was ignored. The newcomer was patting at his chest. "I have changed my physical appearance so many times that I have forgotten how I looked at first. The body has probably diminished quite a lot. The hands are certainly of a different shape. Once, as I recall, I was fat. As fat as your friend ah, he's gone! the one who was here when I first emerged and whose language I couldn't understand the translator is working fine now, eh? Good, good. Oh, yes. Quite as fat as him. Fatter. And tall, I think, too. Much taller than any of you. But I leaned toward economy. I had the opportunity to change. To be more comfortable in the confines of my s.h.i.+p. I caused my physique to be altered. Irreversibly. This form was modelled after a hero of my own whose name and achievements I forget." He drew a deep breath. "Still, the form is immaterial. I am here, as I say, to bring you Fulfillment."

'I am sure that we are all grateful," said Doctor Volospion.

'But your name, sir?" Abu Thaleb reminded him.

'Name? Names! Names! Names! I have so many!" He flung back his head and gave forth a warbling laugh. "Names!"

'Just one would help..." said Abu Thaleb without irony.

'Names?" His blue eyes fixed them. He gestured. "Names? How would you have me called? For I am the Phoenix! I am the Sun's Eagle! I am the Sun's Revenge!" He strutted to the very edge of the ramp but still did not descend. He leaned against the airlock opening. "You shall know me. You shall! For I am the claws, come to take back the heart you stole from the center of that great furnace that is my Lord and my Slave. Eh? Do you recall me now, as I remind you of your crimes?"

'Quite mad," said Miss Ming in a low, tense voice. "I think we'd better..." But her companions were fascinated.

'Here I am!" He spread his legs and arms, to fill the airlock: "Magus, clown and prophet, I Master of the World! Witness!"

Mavis Ming gasped as flames shot from his fingertips. Flames danced in his hair. Flames flickered from his nostrils. "Clownly, kingly, priestly eater and disgorger of fire! Ha!"

He laughed and gestured and b.a.l.l.s of flame surrounded him.

'I have no ambiguities, no ambitions I am all things! Man and woman, G.o.d and beast, child and ancient all are compatible and all coexist in me."

A huge sheet of fire seemed to engulf the whole s.h.i.+p and then vanish, leaving the newcomer standing there at the airlock, his high voice piping, his blue eyes full of pride.

'I am Mankind! I am the Multiverse! I am Life and Death and Limbo, too. I am Peace, Strife and Equilibrium. I am d.a.m.nation and Salvation. I am all that exists. And I am you!"

He threw back his little head and began to laugh while the three people stared at him in silent astonishment. For the first time he walked a little way down the ramp, balancing on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, extending his arms at his sides. And he began to sing: 'For I am G.o.d and SATAN, too! "PHOENIX, FAUST and FOOL! "My MADNESS is DIVINE, and COOL my SENSE! "I am your DOOM, your PROVIDENCE!"

'We are still, I fear, at a loss..." murmured Doctor Volospion, but he could not be heard by the singing creature whose attention was suddenly, as if for the first time, on Mavis Ming.

Miss Ming retreated a step or two. "Oo! What do you think you're looking at, chum!"

He stopped his singing. His features became eager. He bent to regard her.

'Ah! What a splendid woman!"

He moved still farther down the ramp and he was sighing with pleasure.

'Oh, Madonna of l.u.s.t. Ah, my Tigress, my Temptation. Mm! Never have I seen such beauty! But this is Ultimate Femininity!"

'I've had enough," said Miss Ming severely, and she began to edge away.

He did not follow, but his eyes enchained her. His high, singsong voice became ecstatic.

'Enough? You have known nothing until now! What Beauty! Ah I will bring great wings to beat upon your breast." His hands clenched at air. "Tearing talons your talents shall grasp! Claws of blood and sinew shall catch the silver strings of your cool harp! Ha! I'll have you, madam, never fear! Ho! I'll bring your blood to the surface of your skin! Hei! It shall pulse there-in service to my sin!"

'I'm not hanging around," she said, but she did not move.

The other two watched, forgotten by both, as the strange, mad figure pranced upon his ramp, paying court to the fat, bewildered lady in blue and yellow below.

'You shall be mine, madam. You shall be minel This is worth all those many millennia when I was denied any form of consolation, any sort of human company. I have crossed galaxies and dimensions to find my reward! Now I know my two-fold mission. To save this world and to win this woman!"

'No chance," she breathed. "Ugh!" She panted but could not flee.

He ignored her, or else had not heard her, his attention drawn back to Doctor Volospion. "You asked my name. Now do you recognize me?"

'Not specifically." Even Doctor Volospion was impressed by the intensity of the newcomer's speech. "Urn perhaps another clue?"

Bang! A stream of flame had shot from the man's hand and destroyed one of Werther's unfinished mountains.

Boom! The sky darkened and thunder shook the landscape while lightning struck all about them. Chaos swirled around the s.h.i.+p and out of it stared the newcomer's face shouting: 'There! Is that enough to tell you?"

Abu Thaleb demured. "That was one of a set of mountains manufactured by someone who was hoping..."

'Manufactured?"

The thunder stopped. The lightning ceased. The sky became clear again.

'Manufactured? You make these pathetic landscapes? From choice? Pah!"

'There are other things we make..."

'And what puny conceits! Paint! I use all that is real for my canvases. Fire, water, earth and air and human souls!"

'We can sometimes achieve quite interesting effects," continued Abu Thaleb manfully, "by..."

'Nonsense! Know you this that I am the Controller of your Destinies! Reborn, I come among you to give you New Life! I offer the Universe!"

'We have had the Universe," said Doctor Volospion. "That is partly why we are in our current predicament. It is all used up."

'Bah! Well, well, well. So I must take it upon myself again to rescue the race. Yes, well I shall not betray you as you have betrayed me in the past. Again I give you the opportunity. Follow me!"