The Grand Wheel

SEVENTEEN

Marguerite Dom’s sojourn in the gulf of randomness was not an eternity of chaos, as it turned out.

Like everything else, he kept bubbling to the surface of it, re-forming, melting and dissolving again; finding himself in little regions of stability, finding himself to be a wandering ghost in the fog-like limbo, a mote in the foaming sea of nullity, or something incomprehensible in some other of its aspects.

He never felt as if he had been there long, not even when someone plucked at his sleeve and he turned to come face to face with an old colleague.

‘We’re not really here, you know,’ Pawarce told him, looking round himself shiftily. ‘Nobody exists here – except ghosts, like us.’

‘How long have you been here?’ Dom asked.

‘There isn’t any time here. A million years, maybe.’ His face was ugly as he looked at Dom. ‘I’m glad you ended up here too. It serves you damned well right.’

Dom moved away but Pawarce followed him, hanging on to his arm and leaning close. He pointed. ‘See that, Marguerite? Over there?’

Dom followed his finger. In the mist, so faint he wasn’t sure if he saw it or not, was an arch, like a faded rainbow.

‘What is it?’

‘Up there, where real things exist, people play games. Well, not people, exactly. Beings, cleverer than us. Sometimes when they play, new worlds and universes are formed. Sometimes you can walk into them. I’ve been waiting a long time to see if that one would form. Now it’s ready. But we have to go now or it will separate. Do you see it, Marguerite? A new world, a chance to start over somewhere else! To exist again!’

Dom hung back. ‘What will it be like?’

Pawarce pulled a face. ‘Who knows, till we get there?’

‘That’s right, who knows?’

Together they walked towards the dimly shining arch.