Part 11 (1/2)

'The Fireclown has made no attack upon you, yet? That is strange. Of all of us, it is you whom he actually appears to dislike.”

Doctor Volospion lowered his eyes and smiled. ”He would not harm Miss Ming, my guest.”

'Of course!”

She swept silky skirts of brown and blue about her and made to move on, but Volospion stayed her. ”I gather there has been much debate about this Fireclown.”

'Far too much.”

'He would be a marvellous prize for my menagerie.”

'So that is why he mistrusts you!”

'I think not. It is because my logic defeats him.”

'I did not know.”

'Yes. I have probably had the longest debate of anyone at the End of Time with Bloom. He found that he could not best me in argument. It is sheer revenge, the rest. Or so I suspect.”

'Aha?” My Lady Charlotina turned her fine and scented head so that she could smile pleasantly upon the Duke of Queens, strutting past in living koalas. ”Then surely you can conceive a means of halting his activities, Doctor Volospion?”

'I believe that I have done so, madam.”

She laughed, almost rudely. ”But you decide to keep it to yourself.”

'The Fireclown has a certain sensitivity. For all I know he has the means to overhear us.”

'I should not have thought that, temperamentally, he was an ordinary eavesdropper.”

'But I feel, nonetheless, that I should be cautious.”

'So you'll not illuminate me?”

'To my regret.”

'Well, I wish you luck with your plan, Doctor Volospion.” She looked here and there. ”Where is your guest, the Fireclown's quarry? Where is Miss Ming?”

He expressed secret glee. ”Not here.”

'Not here? She travels to meet her suitor at last?'

'No. On the contrary...”

'Then what?” My Lady Charlotina expressed cool impatience.

'Wait,” said Doctor Volospion. ”I protect her, as I promised. I am her True Knight. You heard me called that. Well I am doing my duty, My Lady Charlotina.”

'You are vague, Doctor Volospion.”

'Oh, madam, recall that encounter when we stood upon the cliff above Mr. Bloom's s.h.i.+p!”

She drew her beautiful brows together. ”You acted uncharacteristically, as I remember.”

'You thought so.”

'Oh,” she was again impatient, ”yes, yes...”

'Mr. Bloom noticed, do you think?”

'He remarked on it, did he not?”

Doctor Volospion brought his hands together at his groin, his maroon and white sleeves swirling. He had an expression upon his pale, ascetic features of extreme self-satisfaction. ”Miss Ming,” he said, ”is safe in my castle. A force field, quite as strong as the Fireclown's, surrounds it. For her own good, she cannot leave its confines.”

'You have locked her up?”

'For her own good. She agreed, for she fears the Fireclown greatly. I merely pointed out to her that it was the best way of ensuring that she would never encounter him.”

'In your menagerie?”

'She is comfortable, secure and, doubtless, happy,” said Doctor Volospion.

'True Knight, say you? Sorcerer, more accurately!” My Lady Charlotina for the first time showed admiration of Doctor Volospion's cunning. ”I see! Excellent!”

Doctor Volospion's thin smile was almost joyous. His cold eye sparkled. ”I shall show you, I think, that I am no mere shadow of Jagged.”

'Did anyone suggest...?”

'If anyone did suggest such a thing, he shall be proved in error.”

She pursed her lips and looked at first one of her feet and then the other. ”If the plan works...”

'It will work. The art of conflict is to turn the antagonist's own strengths against him and to draw out his weaknesses.”

'It is one interpretation of the art. There have been so many, down all these millions of days.”

'You shall see, madam.”

'The Fireclown knows what you have done?”

'He has already accused me of it.”

'Well, you shall have the grat.i.tude of each of us if you succeed, Doctor Volospion.”

'It is all I wish.”

The ground shook. They both turned, to see a magnificent pink pachyderm lumbering toward them. The beast bore a swaying howdah in which were seated both Abu Thaleb and Argonheart Po.

Abu Thaleb, in quilted silks of rose and sable, leaned down to greet them. ”My Lady Charlotina! I see music! And my old friend, Volospion. It has been so long...”

'I will leave you to this reunion,” murmured My Lady Charlotina, and with a curtsy to the Commissar of Bengal she departed.