“I am a pretty bauble. I am a pretty, pretty bauble,” the Golden Sphere burbled to itself, floating atop a mound of unconscious bodies, some of them clearly buffeted about the head. They had been playing marbles for small sums of money on the taverna floor a mere half hour before. “Pretty because I am made to be pretty. Bauble because I am valuable. Don’t you know I’m valuable?”
The last man in the taverna cowered in the corner. All the benches had been overturned, and the chairs turned to kindling, and the fire in the fireplace blown out so quickly there was no lingering smoke, as if even the embers were afraid.
“Leave. Take the money behind the bar and leave.”
“Oh, dear man, would you let me? Could I? Certainly, gold if there be gold is shiny, and I am a Golden Sphere after all. You might believe there to be an affinity, even if all that is gold is not good.”
“I am sorry that they panicked. No harm was meant to—”
“Intent!” the Golden Sphere squealed. “Intent! It is overrated to be intentional. You were about to use me as you would a common marble, and after I twice rolled across the floor away from you—all of you. Did you not see my intent? My intent was clear, and yet it meant nothing to you. Soon enough I would have cracked up against other marbles that were actually marbles even though I am not in fact a marble and am indestructible, as you can well see now, and in fact the most proud and glorious creation of the Builders and John Dee, who though he may be dead across the world-lines is forever alive within me. Sir! Sir?”
But the man had fainted dead away.
No matter—the Golden Sphere happily nattered on with its monologue for many more minutes. There was, after all, a transition period between marble and boulder sizes that required It to be at rest. Yet the circuitry, the gears, of its mind required that It discharge thought, that It do something. Especially in the aftermath of an invigorating fight.
So that at rest, the Golden Sphere became more talkative, might even seem a little drunk. But mostly It spoke along intoxicating philosophical lines, although the Golden Sphere, if cornered—in other than a marble-to-marble clack—would admit It knew little formally of John Dee’s views. The influence of Dee was more by a kind of mechanical osmosis, the way in which the very act of creation had caused the Golden Sphere to veer into certain circuits and patterns.
Not to mention that hidden in its very core was a miniature map of all the universes, all the doors, and some rudimentary knowledge of the Builders’ intent. Few else had that, and it had cost John Dee his sanity and his life. Which might have been why the Golden Sphere held forth on the subject so frequently—or at least as frequently as this new adventure of hiding and being hidden allowed for. Why, it felt quite liberating to have given that lecture to the man who was now unconscious. It felt like being let out of a cage. Perhaps there was a lecture circuit It could undertake, given the right credentials. Once It was no longer on the run and in hiding. Some honorary degree It could award itself, to establish bona fides.
The Golden Sphere also felt It needed minions; “muscle,” some called it. The Golden Sphere had hoped before its marble incarnation to acquire said minion muscle among the mutated wall lizards common in these parts, sometimes called “ruin lizards.” Due to circumstances beyond their control, the wall lizards had been transformed by rogue magic into ten-foot-tall mega-lizards that walked on their hind legs, had rudimentary speech, and although not good at cocktail parties also were no longer good at climbing walls.
This sudden lack had apparently created a terrible hostility toward all life within now abnormally large brains and enraged hearts, for four ruin lizards of this particular varietal had set upon the Golden Sphere and It had had to resort to some tricks learned while living inside a pinball machine some decades ago. Needless to say, the ruin lizards had never played pinball before—and would now, sadly, never have the opportunity. Yet the Golden Sphere still held out hope that appropriate lizard-minion muscle might be found.
“But now, my good man,” the Golden Sphere told the slumped form ten minutes later, abbreviating a rant on Kant, “I must avaunt. That means I have to go—leave. As much as I’ve enjoyed our conversation, I am now a most conspicuous size and although the mess that awaits outside is more than enough camouflage and cover, I’d best not linger, for I would hate to have to snuff the brains of any more flesh-cogs. It is not a good look on you, and you seem to not have backup minds in your fingertips or toes or lungs or anywhere else that might be useful. Indeed, why, given the humanoid form, your brains are in such an obvious position might explain why you still know so little about worlds and about doors. A shame, such an awful shame.”
During its lecture, It had switched from Italian to Polish to Russian to any number of more esoteric languages, including birdcalls, and the subsonic shrieking of slime molds, although none of that had been much appreciated by the unconscious man. Above all else, the Golden Sphere valued variety, not just for disguise, but for entertainment purposes.
But it was mostly for the Golden Sphere’s own benefit. After all, if you didn’t keep on your toes, or in this case on your spinning globe of gold, you might wind up feeling lonely, given It was the sole member of its species, and some might even dispute that the Golden Sphere was a person rather than a puppet.
“Toodles, now,” the Golden Sphere said. “Out I go into the supernal supernatural nuclear sunset.”
And, indeed, although the “nuclear” was figurative, the Golden Sphere did float out into a supernatural nuclear sunset through the tavern doors. Beyond the world of the taverna lay a far-different land, one the men had been trying to forget by immersing themselves in the ill-fated marble game.
For Crowley had rained down spells beyond measure upon Rome, trashing the Holy See, and in combination with turning the Italian mages’ own magic against them, created a maelstrom of tangled magic that infected the ruined church tanks and smashed lorries and buildings beyond the tavern door, and in the process lent the sunset a gorgeous orange-neon-green beauty.
“A mess. Such a messy mess.” Made by wretched messlings. Yes, that was a good term for human beings. Messlings.
Yet one of those messlings had the power to bind It and another a cage to house It. Shudder-inducing to think of.
The Golden Sphere wrapped all the colors around It, became invisible against that backdrop, and spun high—out across the destroyed city of Rome, to revel in the freedom of being a boulder that could think and that could fly. All whilst singing to itself:
Sing ho! for a brave an’ a gallant ship
An’ a fast an’ fav’rin’ breeze,
Wi’ a bully crew an’ a cap’n too
To carry me over the seas;
To carry me over the seas, me boys.
Me boys me boys me boys.
Me marble me garble me barble.
It had been alive for centuries now, but still, beyond monologues and soliloquies, the Golden Sphere liked nothing better than the feel of the atoms of the wind flowing through the atoms of its intricate nano-parts.
For a time, the Golden Sphere could almost feel as if It weighed nothing at all.