Be proud of me now – I take full responsibility for this!’
And he plunged the sword into the Duke’s stomach.
The Duke groaned, sinking to the stone ground. The stranger grabbed the dazed Regina and swung her on to his machine, mounting it behind her and riding off down the rear slope of the pyramid. They buzzed away across the desert, expelling a trail of smoke.
The crowd went wild.
3 First Impressions
In Which Doctor Volospion Lays a Wager
As a panel in the summit platform lowered the Duke’s body into the building’s mysterious depths, Volospion swatted his awe like a fly. A number of onlookers converged to compare notes on the spectacle.
‘It was a completely ordinary tragic death, so what?’ said Baron Coma. ‘His life falling apart suddenly, there on the summit of his creation. He plunged in classic mode.’
‘Exactly,’ said Volospion, relieved at the negative opinion.
‘I observed it too,’ boomed Bishop Castle. ‘And feel impressed.’
‘Really?’ the Baron frowned under the shadow of his heavy horns. ‘You think I approached the event with a closed mind?’
‘Not you, antlered one. You are merely distracted, I’m certain, by all that inventive cranial horseplay of yours.’
‘I confess its endless permutations keep my thoughts constantly occupied. You have diagnosed the problem exactly. I failed to absorb the full impact of the Duke’s show because of it. Of course, the fellow with the clown car was an unexpected touch. Yes, some drama there.’
‘It was a motorized cycle, Baron,’ Lord Jagged informed him.
‘Murder wasn’t it, the bit at the end? A marvelous effect!’
‘I can’t imagine how it would matter,’ said Volospion mildly, swirling a goblet of chameleon vodka. ‘It’s no great departure from his sailing across one of Argonheart’s giant puddings a few years ago. Or the time he sat there with, what was it, “scarlet fever”?’
‘This was far more sophisticated, Doctor, as well you know.’ The Iron Orchid swiped him playfully with a fan. ‘And that wordy tantrum was redolent of history.’
‘Which?’ asked Bishop Castle, gathering more nibbles onto a plate. ‘The Duke’s or the boy’s?’
‘Well, both.’
‘And just what the party needed,’ added Lord Jagged, thoughtfully. ‘Substance. Texture. But the surprise twist was the thing.’
‘How do you mean, my brightest canary?’ asked the Orchid.
‘The interloper. You see, he’s done something quite clever, the Duke. A spectacle or vision is momentary. The value of it does not really survive the moment in which it was new. A story, however, such as the one the Duke has set in motion, goes forth and weaves itself among us all. It is participatory, ongoing, and even perhaps meaningful.’
‘Oh, really, Lord Jagged,’ Baron Coma scoffed. Jagged had gone too far. ‘What does it mean?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea, Baron – perhaps merely that we should all have giant golden faces.’
‘I’ve had a hankering for a larger face,’ said Castle from the buffet. ‘Not made of gold, though. Glass, perhaps.’ The fashion for glass was tailing off but Castle was yet to know it.
Lord Jagged of Canaria was warming to his own theory and had become a centre of attention. ‘It’s clear the Duke constructed this drama at length – it explains his weeks of absence. Not even he could spend such a time dreaming up a mere entombment in a triangular house. The scene continues with the abduction of his ward and whatever happens between them. The Duke is attempting a … a moral, d’you see?’
‘Meaning or moral, what is it?’
‘Well I don’t know, Doctor, but that will doubtless become clear. That’s in the nature of a story, as opposed to the sort of instant spectacle we are accustomed to. Yes, I do believe the Duke is finally working to outdo us all. And certainly he should not be reconstituted at this time!’
‘But why ever not?’ asked the Orchid. ‘We need him to explain himself.’
‘Can’t you see, my dear Orchid, that this latest death of his is part of the dramatic tale he planned so carefully? Do you want to spoil that tale before its denouement? The Duke would be terribly upset!’
‘Of course! After all his work. As usual, Lord Jagged, you see the situation in all its detail, and with all its social ramifications tilting this way and that like hammerflowers. Shall we put him in some snow, for now?’
‘I think he’s just sunk into the famous “coughing chamber” he spent so long telling us about,’ Volospion pointed out. ‘That part at least went off as he intended, don’t you think, Jagged?’
‘I feel certain it has,’ said Jagged, struck by the notion. ‘That must be a very important part of the drama. Oh, how pleased the Duke will be when we resurrect him at his story’s conclusion and he sees we have understood and acted along precisely as he intended!’
Volospion decided to state his case. ‘I am not convinced the scene we witnessed accorded entirely to the Duke’s plan.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’ asked the Iron Orchid.
‘Precisely what I say. That we may have witnessed an intersection of script and chance.’
‘It is true that one’s creations do not always attend to one’s wishes,’ Jagged remarked with no hint of a double meaning.
Volospion drew himself up. ‘Have you heard, sir, of the term “wager”?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Aha! A “wager”, my dear Lord of Canaria, is an elaborate journey of chance and regret.’
‘Regret?’
‘Another ancient term. Yes, I know it’s complicated. You see, so many of these antique concepts are dependent on ... lack. A finite amount of things, you see? Acts and decisions which cannot be undone, that’s the point of it. Well, we can’t reproduce such ludicrous conditions here, except in regard to the expenditure of time, which is supposedly receding into short supply.’
‘You still don’t believe it, Doctor Volospion?’
‘I have yet to see undeniable evidence. But the point I labour to make, Lord Jagged, is that we may salvage a crumb of peril from the past, via my “wager”. I contend that the Duke’s show went awry, with that young interloper being a random bit of chaos. You contend that it was staged and plotted as an extension of the theme. Whichever of us is right owes a forfeit or favour to the other.’
‘What will the forfeit be?’
Volospion had not thought this far. He pondered, and was suddenly illuminated.
