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The imps are arrived inside the earth. They peer around, amazed and thrilled to be received in the rock-bound court of Lord Judas, second born of the Virgin Mother’s twins. Jude is a celebrity among the Immortals-of-the-Book generation who see Themselves — enshrined by infallible texts (so many texts! yet every one unerring) — as more advanced and righteous and clear-eyed than the Ancients. Isn’t that how it goes? The Ancient Immortals, in Their heyday, look with smug disdain upon the Primitives, who in turn, jeer the formlessness of Primals.
“Mutter, mutter, bread & butter,” whispers Cornumsdotter and points with delight. “Fakery. Not a drop of nectar in the lot of them.”
She is gazing at the throne room carpet from which spring upright a thousand thousand copper poppies, their crinkled petals shaped of wire mesh so fine the light filters through. Blooms wave and ripple atop articulated stems, yet there is no breeze. The automatonic flowers arise out of a floor-covering woven from strands of luminescent brass. The carpet threads glow. All else is dark and cavernous. As far as the imps can see there rolls a knee-deep layer of illumination given off by those threads, like a ground mist, grainy and reddish, in which the poppies bob.
“Mechanical nectar,” Sarconsson informs her. “For mechanical bees.” He has been here before in a previous Age. “Here they come — the bees.”
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The air fills with the droning, humming, softly clicking murmur of a thousand thousand clockwork bees, their count corresponding to the number of flowers. Four times as many wings, peeled mica, vibrate in unison. On spun silver legs hang teeny-tiny pollen baskets bulging with metal pellets. The swarm appears, descends, mechanically sups, then whisks away.
Beyond, in the far distance, steel columns rise to groaning heights. Iron balconies hang suspended from unseen structures. Medallion-like shields decorate the railings, many of the shields bright with color, but others framing nothingness, their centers full of liquid blackness.
“The bees hap upon the hour every hour here inside the hollow earth,” confides Sarconsson, pleased he can enlighten his young girlfriend. Sometimes he surprises himself to remember that his life has not always been so narrow. “Constant and recurring. A clock for counting. Curated by his Cleverness, Lord Judas.” Sarconsson coughs politely.
“Our little friends join us,” says a jovial Lord Judas. His divine voice booms in their ears.
Cornumsdotter is busy wondering how this can be a throne room when there is no room. No walls, no ceiling, no doors. And no throne, if what is meant is a chair. Two monstrous yet gorgeous Beings lounge on the field of light as if on cushions. The pillowy radiance yields beneath Them. Cornumsdotter takes an instant dislike to the Immortals. Bloated, she thinks, swollen with immortality.
Love meanwhile is frowning ferociously which has nothing to do with Their mood but with the intensity of Their focus. It is so very hard for Love to perceive individual mortals, even long-lived ones. A mortal, from Love’s vantage is utterly insignificant, impossibly minuscule. Put yourself in Their place. Imagine you are seated at the summit of the world’s most majestic mountain, and down in the valley you try to see a bacterium as it waves its hairy pili at you.
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“Are You sure?” inquires Love. “Where?”
The Primal Immortal barely breathes these words, but the imps experience the voice as shattering, cataclysmic. Solar storms penetrate the earth. The air engorges with shrieks. Time hardens like fired pottery, then breaks into shards.
The imps throw themselves down prostrate on the glowing brass rug.
“Ah, there,” says Love and acknowledges the bit of motion. “Hoppy little customers, aren’t they?”
“Jumpy as bugges,” agrees Lord Judas.
Face down in the field of light, Cornumsdotter giggles even as she shudders.
But Sarconsson seethes. He is incensed. He raises his head and glowers at Those who insult him. “We fain not to be as faery fuckers,” he splutters. “Not shit-stained shaitans nor incontinent incubi.” He cannot bear to be lumped in with other trickster folk. Truth be told, imps really are of unique stock but mortals and Immortals alike seem oblivious to the differences.