Weave World

Part Three. The Exiles

‘Wandering between two worlds, one dead. The other powerless to be born ‘

Matthew Arnold The Grande Chartreuse

I

THE RIVER

The defeat they'd sustained was utter. The Salesman had snatched the Weave from Cal's very fingers. But, though they had nothing to be jubilant about, they had at least survived the clash. Was it simply that fact that made his spirits rise when they stepped out of the warehouse into the warm air?

It smelt of the Mersey; of silt and salt. And it was there -at Suzanna's instigation - they went. They walked without exchanging a word, down Jamaica Street to the Dock Road, then followed the high, black wall that bounded the docks until they found a gate that gave them access to the wharfs. The region was deserted. It was years since the last of the big cargo vessels had berthed here to unload. They wandered through a ghost-town of empty warehouses to the river itself, Cal's gaze creeping back, and back again, to the face of the woman at his side. There was some change in her, he sensed; some freight of hidden feeling which he couldn't unlock. The poet had something to say on the subject. ‘Lost for words, boy?' he piped up in Cal's head. ‘She's a strange one, isn't she?'

That was certainly the truth. From his first sight of her at the bottom of the stairs, she'd seemed haunted. They had that in common. They shared too the same determination, fuelled perhaps by an unspoken fear that they'd lose sight of the mystery they'd dreamt of for so long. Or was he kidding himself, reading lines from his own story into her face? Was it

just his eagerness to find an ally that made him see similarities between them?

She was staring into the river, snakes of sunlight from the water playing on her face. He'd known her only a night and a day, but she awoke in him the same contradictions - unease and profound contentment; a sense that she was both familiar and unknown - that his first glimpse of the Fugue had aroused.

He wanted to tell her this, and more, if he could just find the words.

But it was Suzanna who spoke first.

‘I saw Immacolata,' she said, ‘while you were facing Shadwell...'

‘Yes?'

‘... I don't quite know how to explain what happened ...'

She began haltingly, still staring at the river as though mesmerized by its motion. He understood some of what she was telling him. That Mimi was part of the Seerkind, the occupants of the Fugue; and Suzanna, her granddaughter, had that people's blood in her. But when she began to talk about the menstruum, the power she'd somehow inherited, or plugged into, or both, he lost any hold on what she was saying. In part because her talk became vaguer, dreamier; in part because staring at her as she struggled to find the words for her feelings gave him the words for his own.

‘I love you,' he said. She had stopped trying to describe the torrent of the menstruum; just given herself over to the rhythm of the water as it lapped against the wharf.

He wasn't sure she'd heard him. She didn't move; didn't speak.

Finally, she just said his name.

He suddenly felt foolish. She didn't want professions of love from him; her thoughts were somewhere else entirely. In the Fugue, perhaps, where - after this afternoon's revelations -she had more right to be than he.

‘I'm sorry,' he muttered, attempting to cover his faux pas with further fumblings. ‘I don't know why I said that. Forget I spoke.'

His denial stung her from her trance. Her gaze left the river and found his face, a look of hurt in her eyes, as though drawing her gaze from its brilliance pained her.

‘Don't say that,' she said. ‘Never say that.'

She stepped towards him, and put her arms around him, holding him hard. He answered the demand and hugged her in return. Her face was hot against his neck, wetting him not with kisses but with tears. They didn't speak, but stood like that for several minutes, while the river flowed on at their side.

Eventually he said:

‘Shall we go back to the house?'

She stepped back and looked at him, seeming to study his face.

‘Is it all over; or just beginning?' she asked.

He shook his head.

She made a tiny, sideways glance back at the river. But before its liquid life could claim her again he took hold of her hand and led her back towards the concrete and the brick.

II

WAKING IN THE DARK

They returned - through a dusk that had autumn in its hollows - to Chariot Street. There they scoured the kitchen for something to placate their growling stomachs - ate -then retired to Gal's room with a bottle of whisky they'd bought on the way back. The intended debate on what they should do next soon faltered. A mixture of tiredness, and an unease generated by the scene at the river, made the conversation hesitant. They circled the same territory over and over, but there were no inspirations as to how they should proceed.

The only token they had of their adventures to date was the carpet fragment, and it offered up no clues.

The exchange dwindled, half-finished sentences punctuated by longer and still longer silences.

Around eleven, Brendan came home, hailing Cal from below, then retired to bed. His arrival stirred Suzanna. ‘I should go,' she said. ‘It's late.'

The thought of the room without her made Cal's heart sink.

‘Why not stay?' he said. ‘It's a small bed,' she replied. ‘But it's comfortable.'

She put her hand to his face, and brushed the bruised place around his mouth.

‘We're not meant to be lovers,' she said quietly. ‘We're too much alike.'

It was bluntly put, and it hurt to have it said, but in the same moment as having any sexual ambition dampened he had a different, and finally more profound, hope confirmed. That they belonged together in this enterprise: she the child of the Fugue, he the innocent trespasser. Against the brief pleasure of making love to her he set the grander adventure, and he knew - despite the dissension from his cock - that he had the better of the deal.

Then we'll sleep,' he said. ‘If you want to stay.'

She smiled. ‘I want to stay,' she said.

They stripped off their dirty clothing, and slipped beneath the covers. Sleep was upon them before the lamp had cooled.

It was not empty sleep; far from it. There were dreams. Or rather, a particular dream which filled both their heads.

They dreamt a noise. A planet of bees, all buzzing fit to burst their honeyed hearts; a rising swell that was summer's music.

They dreamt smell. A confusion of scents; of streets after rain, and faded cologne, and wind out of a warm country.

But most of all, they dreamt sight.

It began with a pattern: a knotting and weaving of countless strands, dyed in a hundred colours, carrying a charge of energy which so dazzled the sleepers they had to shield their minds' eyes.

And then, as if the pattern was becoming too ambitious to hold its present order, the knots began to slide and slip. The colours at each intersection bled into the air, until the vision was obscured in a soup of pigments through which the loosed strands described their liberty in line and comma and dot, like the brushstrokes of some master calligrapher. At first the marks seemed quite arbitrary - but as each trace drew colour to itself, and another stroke was laid upon it, and another upon that, it became apparent that forms were steadily emerging from the chaos.

Where, dream-moments ago, there'd been only warp and weft, there were now five distinct human forms appearing from the flux, the invisible artist adding detail to the portraits with insolent facility.

And now the voices of the bees rose, singing in the sleeper's heads gave names to these strangers.

The first of the quintet to be called was a young woman in a long, dark dress, her small face pale, her closed eyes fringed with ginger lashes. This, the bees said, is Lilia Pellida.

As if waking to her name, Lilia opened her eyes.

As she did so a rotund, bearded individual in his fifties, a coat draped over his shoulders and a brimmed hat on his head, stepped forward. Frederick Cammell the bees said, and the eyes behind the coin-sized lenses of his spectacles snapped open. His hand went to his hat immediately, and took it off, to reveal a head of immaculately coiffured hair, oiled to his scalp.

‘So ...' he said, and smiled.

Two more now. One, impatient to be free from this world of dyes, was also dressed as if for a wake. (What happened, the dreamers wondered, to the brilliance that the strands had first bled? Were those colours hidden somewhere beneath this funereal garb: in parrot-bright petticoats?) The dour face of this third visitor did not suggest a taste for such indulgence.

Apolline Dubois the bees announced, and the woman opened her eyes, the scowl that instantly came to her face displaying teeth the colour of old ivory.

The last members of this assembly arrived together. One, a negro whose fine face, even in repose, was shaped for melancholy. The other, the naked baby he held in his arms, drooling on his protector's shirt.

Jerichau St Louis the bees said, and the negro opened his eyes. He immediately looked down at the child he held, who had begun to bawl even before his name was heard.

Nimrod the bees called, and though the baby was surely not yet a year old, he already knew the two syllables of his name. He raised his lids, to reveal eyes that had a distinctly golden cast to them.

His waking brought the process to an end. The colours, the bees and the threads all retreated, their tide leaving the five strangers stranded in Cal's room.

It was Apolline Dubois who spoke first.

This can't be right,' she said, making for the window and pulling back the curtains. ‘Where the Hell are we?'

‘And where are the others?' said Frederick Cammell. His eyes had found the mirror on the wall, and he was scrutinizing himself in it. Tutting, he took a pair of scissors from his pocket and began to snip at some overlong hairs on his cheek.

That's a point,' said Jerichau. Then, to Apolline: ‘What does it look like out there?'

‘Deserted.' said the woman. ‘It's the middle of the night. And...'

‘What?'

‘Look for yourself,' she said, sucking spit through her broken teeth, ‘there's something amiss here.' She turned from the window. Things aren't the way they were.'

It was Lilia Pellicia who took Apolline's place at the sill. ‘She's right,' the girl said. Things are different.'

‘And why's it only us who are here?' Frederick asked for the second time. That's the real point.'

‘Something's happened,' said Lilia, softly. ‘Something terrible.'

‘No doubt you feel it in your kidneys,' Apolline remarked. ‘As usual.'

‘Let's keep it civil, Miss Dubois,' said Frederick, with the pained expression of a school master.

‘Don't call me Miss,' Apolline said. ‘I'm a married woman.'

Immersed in sleep, Cal and Suzanna listened to these exchanges, entertained by the nonsenses their imaginations had conjured up. Yet for all the oddity of these people - their antiquated clothes, their names, their absurd conversations -they were uncannily real; every detail perfectly realized. And as though to confuse the dreamers further, the man the bees had called Jerichau now looked towards the bed, and said:

‘Perhaps they can tell us something.'

Lilia turned her pale gaze towards the slumbering pair.

‘We should wake them,' she said, and reached to shake the sleepers.

"This is no dream,' Suzanna realized, as she pictured Lilia's

hand approaching her shoulder. She felt herself rising from sleep; and as the girl's fingers touched her, she opened her eyes.

The curtains had been pulled apart as she'd imagined they'd been. The street lamps cast their light into the little room. And there, standing watching the bed, were the five: her dream made flesh. She sat up. The sheet slipped, and the gaze of both Jerichau and the child Nimrod flitted to her breasts. She pulled the sheet over her and in so doing uncovered Cal. The chill stirred him. He peered at her through barely open eyes.

‘What's going on?' he asked, his voice slurred by sleep.

‘Wake up,' she said. ‘We've got visitors.'

‘I had this dream ....' he muttered. Then, ‘Visitors? He looked up at her, following her gaze into the room.

‘Oh sweet Jesus ...'

The child was laughing in Jerichau's arms, pointing a stubby finger at Cal's piss-proud groin. He snatched up a pillow and concealed his enthusiasm.

‘Is this one of Shadwell's tricks?' he whispered.

‘I don't think so,' said Suzanna.

‘Who's Shadwell?' Apolline wanted to know.

‘Another Cuckoo, no doubt,' said Frederick, who had his scissors at the ready should either of these two prove belligerent.

At the word Cuckoo, Suzanna began to understand. Immaco-lata had first used the term, speaking of Humankind.

‘... the Fugue ...' she said.

Naming the place had every eye upon her, and Jerichau demanding:

‘What do you know about the Fugue?'

‘Not much,' she replied.

‘You know where the others are?' Frederick asked.

‘What others?'

‘And the land?' said Lilia. ‘Where is it all?'

Cal had taken his eyes off the quintet and was looking at the table beside the bed, where he'd left the fragment of the Weave. It had gone.

‘They came from that piece of carpet,' he said, not quite believing what he was saying. ‘That was what I dreamt.' ‘I dreamt it too,' said Suzanna.

‘A piece of the carpet?' said Frederick, aghast. ‘You mean we're separated?' ‘Yes.' Cal replied.

‘Where's the rest?' Apolline said. ‘Take us to it.' ‘We don't know where it is.' said Cal. ‘Shadwell's got it.' ‘Damn Cuckoos!' the woman erupted. ‘You can't trust any of them. All twisters and cheats!'

‘He's not alone.' Suzanna replied. ‘His partner's one of your breed.'

‘I doubt that.' said Frederick. ‘It's true. Immacolata.'

The name brought an exclamation of horror from both Frederick and Jerichau. Apolline, ever the lady, simply spat on the floor.

‘Have they not hanged that bitch yet?' she said. ‘Twice to my certain knowledge.' Jerichau replied. ‘She takes it as flattery.' Lilia remarked. Cal shuddered. He was cold and tired; he wanted dreams of sun-lit hills and bright rivers, not these mourners, their faces riddled with spite and suspicion. Ignoring their stares, he threw away the pillow, walked over to where his clothes lay on the floor and started to pull on his shirt and jeans.

‘And where are the Custodians?' said Frederick, addressing the entire room. ‘Does anyone know that?' ‘My grandmother ...' said Suzanna. ‘.... Mimi....' ‘Yes?' said Frederick, homing in, ‘where's she?' ‘Dead, I'm afraid.'

There were other Custodians.' said Lilia, infected by Frederick's urgency. ‘Where are they?' ‘I don't know.'

‘You were right.' said Jerichau, his expression almost tragic. ‘Something terrible has happened.' Lilia returned to the window, and threw it open. ‘Can you sniff it out?' Frederick asked her. ‘Is it nearby?'

Lilia shook her head. ‘The air stinks,' she said. ‘This isn't the old Kingdom. It's cold. Cold and filthy.'

Cal, who'd dressed by now, pushed his way between Frederick and Apolline, and picked up the bottle of whisky.

‘Want a drink?' he said to Suzanna.

She shook her head. He poured himself a generous measure, and drank.

‘We have to find this Shadwell of yours,' Jerichau said to Suzanna, ‘and get the weave back.'

‘What's the hurry?' said Apolline, with a perverse nonchalance. She waddled over to Cal. ‘Mind if I partake?' she said. Reluctantly, he handed her the bottle.

‘What do you mean: what's the hurryT Frederick said. ‘We wake up in the middle of nowhere, alone -'

‘We're not alone,' said Apolline, swallowing a gulletful of whisky. ‘We've got our friends here.' She cocked a lopsided smile at Cal. ‘What's your name, sweet?' ‘Calhoun.' ‘And herT ‘Suzanna.'

‘I'm Apolline. This is Freddy.' Cammell made a small formal bow.

‘That's Lilia Pellicia over there, and the brat is her brother, Nimrod —' ‘And I'm Jerichau.'

‘There,' said Apolline. ‘Now we're all friends, right? We don't need the rest of them. Let ‘em rot.'

‘They're our people,' Jerichau reminded her. ‘And they need our help.'

‘Is that why they left us in the Border?' she retorted sourly, the whisky bottle hovering at her lips again. ‘No. They put us where we could get lost, and don't try and make any better of it. We're the din. Bandits and bawds and God knows what else.' She looked at Cal. ‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘You've fallen amongst thieves. We were a shame to them. Every one of us.' Then, to the others:

‘It's better we're separated. We get to have some wild times.' As she spoke Cal seemed to see flashes of iridescence ignite

in the folds of her widow's weeds. There's a whole world out there,' she said. ‘Ours to enjoy.'

‘Lost is still lost.' said Jerichau.

Apolline's reply was a bullish snort.

‘He's right,' said Freddy. ‘Without the weave, we're refugees. You know how much the Cuckoos hate us. Always have. Always will.'

‘You're damn fools,' said Apolline, and returned to the window, taking the whisky with her.

‘We're a little out of touch,' Freddy said to Cal. ‘Maybe you could tell us what year this is? 1910? 1911?'

Cal laughed. ‘Give or take eighty years,' he said.

The other man visibly paled, turning his face to the wall. Lilia let out a pained sound, as though she'd been stabbed. Shaking, she sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Eighty years ...' Jerichau murmured.

‘Why did they wait so long?' Freddy asked of the hushed room. ‘What happened that they should wait so long?'

‘Please stop talking in riddles -' Suzanna said, ‘- and explain.'

‘We can't.' said Freddy. ‘You're not Seerkind.'

‘Oh don't talk such drivel.' Apolline snapped. ‘Where's the harm?'

‘Tell them, Lilia.' said Jerichau.

‘I protest,' Freddy said.

‘Tell them as much as they need to know.' said Apolline. ‘If you tell it all we're here ‘til Doomsday.'

Lilia sighed. ‘Why me?' she said, still shaking. ‘Why should I have to tell it?'

‘Because you're the best liar.' Jerichau replied, with a tight smile. ‘You can make it true.'

She threw him a baleful glance.

‘Very well.' she said; and began to tell.

III

WHAT SHE TOLD

‘We weren't always lost,' she began. ‘Once we lived in a garden.'

Two sentences in, and Apolline was interrupting.

‘That's just a story,' she informed Cal and Suzanna.

‘So let her tell it, damn you!' Jerichau told her. ‘Believe nothing,' Apolline advised. This woman wouldn't know the truth if it fucked her.'

In response, Lilia merely passed her tongue over her lips, and took up where she'd left off.

‘It was a garden,' she said. ‘That's where the Families began.' ‘What Families?' said Cal.

‘The Four Roots of the Seerkind. The Lo; the Ye-me; the Aia and Babu. The Families from which we're all descended. Some of us came by grubbier roads than others, of course -' she said, casting a barbed glance at Apolline. ‘- but all of us can trace our line back to one of those four. Me and Nimrod; we're Ye-me. It was our Root that wove the carpet.'

‘And look where it got us,' Cammell growled. ‘Serves us right for trusting weavers. Clever ringers and dull minds. Now the Aia - that's my Root - we have the craft and the grasp.'

‘And you?' said Cal to Apolline, reaching over and retrieving his bottle. It had at best two swallows of spirits left in it.

‘All on my mother's side,' the woman replied. That's what gave me my singing voice. And on my father's, nobody's really sure. He could dance a rapture, could my father -'

‘When he was sober,' said Freddy.

‘What would you know?' Apolline grimaced. ‘You never met my father.'

‘Once was enough for your mother,' Freddy replied in an instant. The baby laughed uproariously at this, though the sense of it was well beyond his years.

‘Anyhow,' said Apolline. ‘He could dance; which meant he had Lo blood in him somewhere.'

‘And Babu too, by the way you talk.' said Lilia.

Here, Jerichau broke in. ‘I'm Babu,' he said. Take it from me, breath's too precious to waste.'

Breath. Dancing. Music. Carpets. Cal tried to keep track of these skills and the Families who possessed them, but it was like trying to remember the Kellaway clan.

The point is,' said Lilia, ‘all the Families had skills that Humankind don't possess. Powers you'd call miraculous. To us they're no more remarkable than the fact that bread rises. They're just ways to delve and summon.'

‘Raptures?' said Cal. ‘Is that what you called them?'

That's right,' said Lilia. ‘We had them from the beginning. Thought nothing of it. At least not until we came into the Kingdom. Then we realized that your kind like to make laws. Like to decree what's what, and whether it's good or not. And the world, being a loving thing, and not wishing to disappoint you or distress you, indulges you. Behaves as though your doctrines are in some way absolute.'

That's arguable metaphysics.' Freddy muttered.

The laws of the Kingdom are the Cuckoo's laws.' said Lilia. That's one of Capra's Tenets.'

Then Capra was wrong.' came Freddy's reply.

‘Seldom.' said Lilia. ‘And not about this. The world behaves the way the Cuckoos choose to describe it. Out of courtesy. That's been proved. Until somebody comes up with a better idea -'

‘Wait a minute.' said Suzanna. ‘Are you saying the earth somehow listens to us?'

That was Capra's opinion.'

‘And who's Capra?'

‘A great man -'

‘Or woman,' said Apolline.

‘Who may or may not have lived.' Freddy went on.

‘But, even if she didn't -' Apolline said,'- had a great deal to say for herself.'

‘Which answers nothing,' said Suzanna.

That's Capra for you,' said Cammell.

‘Go on, Lilia,' said Cal. Tell the rest of the story.'

She began again:

‘So there's you, Humankind, with all your laws and your perimeters and your bottomless envy; and there's us, the Families of the Seerkind. As different from you as day from night.'

‘Not so different,' said Jerichau. ‘We lived amongst them once, remember that.'

‘And we were treated like filth,' said Lilia, with some feeling.

True.' said Jerichau.

The skills we had.' she went on, ‘you Cuckoos called magic. Some of them wanted it for themselves. Some were afraid of it. But few loved us for it. Cities were small then, you must understand. It was difficult to hide in them. So we retreated. Into the forests and the hills, where we thought we'd be safe.'

There were many of us who'd never ventured amongst the Cuckoos in the first place.' said Freddy. ‘Especially the Aia. Nothing to sell, you see; no use suffering the Cuckoos if you had nothing to sell. Better be out in the great green.'

That's pretension.' said Jerichau. ‘You love cities as much as any of us.'

True.' said Freddy. ‘I like bricks and mortar. But I envy the shepherd -'

‘His solitude or his sheep?'

‘His pastoral pleasures, you cretin!' Freddy said. Then, to Suzanna: ‘Mistress, you must understand that I do not belong with these people. Truly I don't. He-' (here he stabbed a finger in Jerichau's direction) ‘- is a convicted thief. She -' (now Apolline) ‘- ran a bordello. And this one -' (Lilia now) ‘- she and her little brother there have so much grief on their hands -'

‘A child?' said Lilia, looking at the baby. ‘How could you accuse an innocent -'

‘Please spare us the histrionics.' said Freddy. ‘Your brother may look like a babe in arms, but we know better. Masquers, both of you. Or else why were you in the Border?'

‘I might ask you the same question.' Lilia retorted.

‘I was conspired against.' he protested. ‘My hands are clean.'

‘Never did trust a man with clean hands.' Apolline muttered.

‘Whore!' said Freddy.

‘Barber!' said the other, which brought the outburst to a halt.

Cal exchanged a disbelieving look with Suzanna. There was no love lost between these people, that much was apparent.

‘So ...' said Suzanna. ‘You were telling us about hiding in the hills.'

‘We weren't hiding.' said Jerichau. ‘We just weren't visible.'

There's a difference?' said Cal.

‘Oh certainly. There are places sacred to us which most Cuckoos could stand a yard from and not see -'

‘And we had raptures.' said Lilia, ‘to cover our tracks, if Humankind came too close.'

‘Which they did, on occasion.' Jerichau said. ‘Some got curious. Started to poke around in the forests, looking for trace of us.'

They knew what you were then?' said Suzanna.

‘No.' said Apolline. She'd thrown a pile of clothes off one of the chairs and was straddling it. ‘No, all they knew was rumour and hearsay. Called us all kinds of names. Shades and faeries. All manner of shite. Only a few got really close, though. And that was only because we let them.'

‘Besides, there weren't that many of us.' said Lilia. ‘We've never been very fertile. Never had much of a taste for copulation.'

‘Speak for yourself.' said Apolline, and winked at Cal.

The point is, we were mostly ignored, and - like Apolline said - when we did make contact it was for our own reasons. Perhaps one of your Kind had some skill we could profit by.

Horse-breeders, wine-merchants ... but the fact is as the centuries went by you became a lethal breed.'

True.' said Jerichau.

‘What little contact we had with you dwindled to almost nothing. We left you to your bloodbaths, and your envy —'

‘Why do you keep harking on envy?' said Cal.

‘It's what your Kind's notorious for.' said Freddy. ‘Always after what isn't yours, just for the having.'

‘You're a perfect bloody species, are you?' said Cal. He'd tired of the endless remarks about Cuckoos.

‘If we were perfect.' said Jerichau, ‘we'd be invisible, wouldn't we?' The response fazed Cal utterly. ‘No. We're flesh and blood like you.' he went on, ‘so of course we're imperfect. But we don't make such a song and dance about it. You people ... you have to feel there's some tragedy in your condition, or you think you're only half alive.'

‘So why trust my grandmother to look after the carpet?' said Suzanna. ‘She was a Cuckoo, wasn't she?'

‘Don't use that word.' said Cal. ‘She was human.'

‘She was of mixed blood.' Apolline corrected him. ‘Seerkind on her mother's side and Cuckoo on her father's. I talked with her on two or three occasions. We had something in common you see. Both had mixed marriages. Her first husband was Seerkind, and my husbands were all Cuckoos.

‘But she was only one of several Custodians. The only woman; the only one with any human blood too, if I remember rightly.

‘We had to have at least one Custodian who knew the Kingdom, who would seem perfectly unremarkable. That way we hoped we'd be ignored, and finally forgotten.'

‘All this ... just to hide from Humankind?' said Suzanna.

‘Oh no.' said Freddy. ‘We might have continued to live as we had, on the margins of the Kingdom ... but things changed.'

‘I can't remember the year it began -' said Apolline.

‘1896,' said Lilia. ‘It was 1896, the year of the first fatalities.'

‘What happened?' said Cal.

To this day nobody's certain. But something appeared out

of the blue, some creature with only one ambition. To wipe us out.'

‘What sort of creature?'

Lilia shrugged. ‘Nobody ever saw its face and survived.'

‘Human?' said Cal.

‘No. It wasn't blind, the way the Cuckoos are blind. It could sniff us out. Even our most vivid raptures couldn't deceive it for long. And when it had passed by it would be as if those it had looked on had never existed.'

‘We were trapped.' said Jerichau. ‘On one side. Humankind, growing more ambitious for territory by the day, ‘til we had scarcely a place left to hide; and on the other, the Scourge, as we called it, whose sole intention seemed to be genocide. We knew it could only be a matter of time before we were extinct.'

‘Which would have been a pity.' said Freddy, drily.

‘It wasn't all gloom and doom.' said Apolline. ‘Seems odd to say it but I had a fine time those last years. Desperation, you know; it's the best aphrodisiac.' she grinned. ‘And we found one or two places where we were safe awhile, where the Scourge never sniffed us out.'

‘I don't remember being happy.' said Lilia. ‘I just remember the nightmares.'

‘What about the hill?' said Apolline, ‘what was it called? The hill where we stayed, the last summer. I remember that as if it was yesterday ...'

‘Rayment's Hill.'

That's right. Rayment's Hill. I was happy there.'

‘But how long would it have lasted?' said Jerichau. ‘Sooner or later, the Scourge would have found us.'

‘Perhaps.' said Apolline.

‘We had no choice.' said Lilia. ‘We needed a hiding place. Somewhere the Scourge would never look for us. Where we could sleep awhile, until we'd been forgotten.'

The carpet.' said Cal.

‘Yes.' said Lilia. That was the refuge the Council chose.'

‘After endless debate.' said Freddy. ‘During which time hundreds more died. That final year, when the Loom was at work, there were fresh massacres every week. Terrible stories. Terrible.'

‘We were vulnerable of course,' said Lilia. ‘Because there were refugees coming from all over... some of them bringing fragments of their territories ... things that had survived the onslaught ... all converging on this country in the hope of finding a place in the carpet for their properties.'

‘Like what?'

‘Houses. Pieces of land. Usually they'd get a good Babu in, who could put the field or the house or whatever it was, into a screed. That way it could be carried, you see -'

‘No, I don't see,' said Cal. ‘Explain.'

‘It's your Family,' said Lilia to Jerichau. ‘You explain.'

‘We Babus can make hieroglyphs,' Jerichau said, ‘and carry them in our heads. A great technician, like my master, Quekett ... he could make a screed that could carry a small city, I swear he could, and speak it out again perfect down to the last tile.' Describing this, his long face brightened. Then a memory brought his joy down. ‘My master was in the Low Countries when the Scourge found him,' he said. ‘Gone.' He clicked his fingers. ‘Like that.'

‘Why'd you all gather in England?' Suzanna wanted to know.

‘It was the safest country in the world. And the Cuckoos of course, were busy with Empire. We could get lost in the crowd, while the Fugue was woven into the carpet.'

‘What is the Fugue?' said Cal.

‘It's everything we could save from destruction. Pieces of the Kingdom that the Cuckoos had never truly seen, and so wouldn't miss when they were gone. A forest, a lake or two, a bend of one river, the delta of another. Some houses, which we'd occupied; some city squares, even a street or two. We put them together, in a township of sorts.'

‘Nonesuch, they called it,' said Apolline. ‘Damn fool name.'

‘At first there was an attempt to put all this property into some kind of order,' said Freddy. ‘But that soon fell by the wayside, as refugees kept arriving with more to be woven into the carpet. More every day. There'd be people waiting outside

Capra's House for nights on end, with some little niche they wanted kept from the Scourge.'

That's why it took so long,' said Lilia.

‘But nobody was turned away,' said Jerichau. ‘That was understood from the beginning. Anyone who wanted a place in the Weave would be granted it.'

‘Even us,' said Apolline, ‘who weren't exactly lily-whites. We were granted our places.'

‘But why a carpet?' said Suzanna.

‘What's more easily overlooked than the thing you're standing on?' said Lilia. ‘Besides, the craft was one we knew.'

‘Everything has its pattern.' Freddy put in. ‘If you find it, the great can be contained within the small.'

‘Not everyone wanted to go into the Weave, of course.' said Lilia. ‘Some decided to stay amongst the Cuckoos, and take their chance. But most went.'

‘And what was it like?'

‘Like sleep. Like dreamless sleep. We didn't age. We didn't hunger. We just waited until the Custodians judged that it was safe to wake us again.'

‘What about the birds?' said Cal.

‘Oh, there's no end of flora and fauna, woven in -'

‘I don't mean in the Fugue itself. I mean my pigeons.'

‘What have your pigeons got to do with this?' said Apolline.

Cal gave them a brief summary of how he'd first come to discover the carpet.

That's the Gyre's influence.' said Jerichau.

The Gyre?'

‘When you had your glimpse of the Fugue.' said Apolline. ‘You remember the clouds in its heart? That's the Gyre. It's where the Loom's housed.'

‘How can a carpet contain the Loom it was woven on?' said Suzanna.

The Loom isn't a machine.' said Jerichau. ‘It's a state of making. It drew the elements of the Fugue into a rapture which resembles a common-place carpet. But there's a good deal there that denies your human assumptions, and the closer you get to the Gyre, the stranger things become. There are places there in which ghosts of the future and past are at play -'

‘We shouldn't talk about it,' said Lilia. ‘It's bad luck.'

‘How much worse can our luck become?' Freddy observed. ‘So few of us ...'

‘We'll wake the Families, as soon as we recover the carpet,' said Jerichau. ‘The Gyre must be getting restless, or else how did this man get a look? The Weave can't hold forever -'

‘He's right,' said Apolline. ‘I suppose we're obliged to do something about it.'

‘But it isn't safe,' said Suzanna.

‘Safe for what?'

‘Out here, I mean, in the world. In England.'

The Scourge must have given up -' said Freddy,'- after all these years.'

‘So why didn't Mimi wake you?'

Freddy pulled a face. ‘Maybe she forgot about us.'

‘Forgot?1 said Cal. ‘Impossible.'

‘Easy to say,' Apolline replied. ‘But you have to be strong to resist the Kingdom. Get in too deep and next thing you can't even remember your name.'

‘I don't believe she forgot,' said Cal.

‘Our first priority,' said Jerichau, ignoring Cal's protest, ‘is to retrieve the carpet. Then we get out of this city, and find a place where Immacolata will never come looking.'

‘What about us?' said Cal.

‘What about you?'

‘Don't we get to see?'

‘See what?'

The Fugue, damn you!' Cal said, infuriated by the lack of anything approaching courtesy or gratitude from these people.

‘It's not your concern now,' said Freddy.

‘It damn well is!' he said. ‘I saw it. Almost got killed for it.'

‘Better you stay away then,' said Jerichau. ‘If you're so concerned for your breath.'

That's not what I meant.'

‘Cal,' said Suzanna, putting her hand on his arm.

Her attempt to calm him merely inflamed him further.

‘Don't side with them,' he said.

‘It's not a question of sides -' she began, but he wasn't about to be placated.

‘It's easy for you,' he said. ‘You've got connections -'

That's not fair -'

‘- and the menstruum -'

‘What? said Apolline, her voice silencing Cal. ‘You?'

‘Apparently,' Suzanna said.

‘And it didn't dissolve the flesh off your bones?'

‘Why should it do that?'

‘Not in front of him,' said Lilia, looking at Cal.

That was the limit.

‘All right,' he said. ‘You don't want to talk in front of me, that's fine. You can all go fuck yourselves.'

He started towards the door, ignoring Suzanna's attempts to call him back. Behind him, Nimrod was tittering.

‘And you can shut the fuck up,' he told the child, and left the room to its usurpers.

IV

NIGHT TERRORS

1

Shadwell woke from a dream of Empire; a familiar fantasy, in which he owned a vast store, so vast indeed that it was impossible to see the far wall. And he was selling; doing trade to make an accountant weep for joy. Merchandise of every description heaped high on all sides — Ming vases, toy monkeys, sides of beef — and customers beating at the doors, desperate to join the throngs already clamouring to buy.

It wasn't, oddly enough, a dream of profit. Money had become an irrelevancy since he'd stumbled upon Immacolata, who could conjure all they needed from thin air. No, the dream was one of power; he, the owner of the goods that people were bleeding to buy, standing back from the crowd and smiling his charismatic smile.

But suddenly he was awake, the clamour of customers was fading, and he heard the sound of breathing in the darkened room.

He sat up, the sweat of his enthusiasm chilling on his brow. ‘Immacolata?'

She was there, standing against the far wall, her palms seeking some hold in the plaster. Her eyes were wide, but she saw nothing. At least, nothing that Shadwell could share. He'd known her like this before - most recently two or three days ago, in the foyer of this very hotel.

He got out of bed, and put on his dressing gown. Sensing his presence, she murmured his name.

‘I'm here,' he replied.

‘Again,' she said. ‘I felt it again.'

‘The Scourge?' he said, his voice grey.

‘Of course. We have to sell the carpet, and be done with it.'

‘We will. We will.' he said, slowly approaching her. ‘The arrangements are underway, you know that.'

He spoke evenly, to calm her. She was dangerous at the best of times; but these moods scared him more than most.

The calls have been made,' he said. ‘The buyers'll come. They've been waiting for this. They'll come and we'll make our sale, and it'll all be over with.'

‘I saw the place it lives,' she went on. There were walls; huge walls. And sand, inside and out. Like the end of the world.'

Now her eyes found him, and the hold this vision had on her seemed to deteriorate.

‘When, Shadwell?' she said.

‘When what?'

The Auction.'

The day after tomorrow. As we arranged.'

She nodded. ‘Strange,' she said, her tone suddenly conversational. The speed with which her moods changed always caught him unawares. ‘Strange, to have these nightmares after so long.'

‘It's seeing the carpet,' said Shadwell. ‘It reminds you.'

‘It's more than that,' she said.

She went to the door that led through to the rest of Shadwell's suite, and opened it. The furniture had been pushed to the edges of the large room beyond, so that their prize, the Weaveworld, could be laid out. She stood on the threshold, staring at the carpet.

She didn't set her bare soles on it - some superstition kept her from that trespass - but paced along the border, scrutinizing every inch.

Half way along the far edge, she stopped.

There,' she said, and pointed down at the Weave.

Shadwell went to where she stood.

‘What is it?'

‘A piece missing.'

He followed her gaze. The woman was right. A small portion of the carpet had been torn away; in the struggle at the warehouse, most likely.

‘Nothing significant.' he commented. ‘It won't bother our buyers, believe me.'

‘I don't care about the value,' she said.

‘What then?'

‘Use your eyes, Shadwell. Every one of those motifs is one of the Seerkind.'

He went down on his haunches, and examined the markings in the border. They were scarcely recognizable as human; more like commas with eyes.

These are people?' he said.

‘Oh yes. Riff-raff; the lowest of the low. That's why they're at the edge. They're vulnerable there. But they're also useful.'

‘For what?'

‘As a first defence,' Immacolata replied, her eyes fixed on the tear in the carpet. The first to be threatened, the first -'

‘To wake.' said Shadwell.

‘- to wake.'

‘You think they're out there now?' he said. His gaze went to the window. They'd closed the curtains, to keep anyone from spying on their treasure, but he could picture the benighted city beyond. The thought that there might be magic loose out there brought an unexpected charge.

‘Yes,' the Incantatrix said. ‘I think they're awake. And the Scourge smells them in its sleep. It knows, Shadwell.'

‘So what do we do?'

‘We find them, before they attract any more attention. The Scourge may be ancient. May be slow and forgetful. But its power...' Her voice faded away, as though words were valueless in the face of such terrors. She drew a deep breath before beginning again. ‘A day's scarcely gone by.' she said, ‘when I haven't watched the menstruum for a sign of it coming. And it'll come, Shadwell. Not tonight maybe. But it'll come. And on that day there'll be an end to all magic.'

‘Even to you?'

‘Even to me.'

‘So we have to find them.' said Shadwell.

‘Not we,' said Immacolata. ‘We needn't dirty our hands.' She started to walk back towards Shadwell's bedroom. They can't have gone far.' she said as she went. They're strangers here.'

At the door she stopped, and turned to him.

‘On no account leave this room until we call you.' she said. ‘I'm going to summon someone to be our assassin.'

‘Who?' said Shadwell.

‘Nobody you ever met.' the Incantatrix replied. ‘He was dead a hundred years before you were born. But you and he had a good deal in common.'

‘And where is he now?'

‘In the Ossuary at the Shrine of the Mortalities, where he lost his life. He wanted to prove himself my equal you see, to seduce me. So he tried to become a necromancer. He might have done it too; there was nothing he wouldn't dare. But it went awry. He brought the Surgeons from some nether-world or other, and they weren't amused. They pursued him from one end of London to the other.

‘At the last he broke into the Shrine. Begged me to call them off.' Her voice had become a whisper now. ‘But how could I?' she said. ‘He'd made his conjurations. All I could do was let the Surgeons perform what tricks Surgeons must. And at the end, when he was all blood, he said to me: Take my soul.'

She stopped. Then said: ‘So I did.' She looked at Shadwell.

‘Stay here.' she said, and closed the door.

Shadwell didn't need any encouragement to stay clear of the sisters while they were plotting. If he never again set eyes on the Magdalene and the Hag he would count himself a lucky man. But the ghosts were inseparable from their living sister; each, in some fashion incomprehensible to him, a part of the other. Their perverse union was only one of the mysteries that attended them; there were many others.

The Shrine of Mortalities, for one. It had been a gathering place for her Cult when she'd been at the height of her power and ambition. But she'd fallen from grace. Her desire to rule the Fugue, which had then still been a ragged collection of far-flung settlements, had been frustrated. Her enemies had assembled evidence against her, listing crimes that had begun in her mother's womb, and she and her followers had retaliated. There had been bloodshed, though Shadwell had never gathered the scale of it. The consequence however, he had gathered. Vilified and humiliated, Immacolata had been forbidden to tread the magic earth of the Fugue again.

She had not taken this exile well. Unable to mellow her nature, and so pass unseen amongst the Cuckoos, her history became a round of blood-lettings, pursuits and further bloodlettings. Though she was still known and worshipped by a cognoscenti, who called her by a dozen different names - the Black Madonna, the Lady of Sorrows, Mater Malifecorium -she became nevertheless a victim of her own strange purity. Madness beckoned; the only refuge from the banality of the Kingdom she was exiled in.

That was how she had been when Shadwell had found her. A mad woman, whose talk had been like none he'd heard before, and who spoke in her ramblings of things that, could he but lay his hands upon them, would make him mighty.

And now, here they were, those wonders. All contained within a rectangle of carpet.

He approached the middle of it, staring down at the spiral of stylized clouds and lightning called the Gyre. How many nights had he lain awake, wondering what it would be like in that flux of energies? Like being with God, perhaps?; or the Devil.

He was shaken from these thoughts by a howl from the adjacent room, and the lamp above his head suddenly dimmed as its light was sucked beneath the intersecting door, testament to the profundity of darkness on the far side.

He moved to the opposite end of the room, and sat down.

How long until dawn? he wondered.

There was still no sign of morning, when - hours later, it seemed - the door opened.

There was only blackness beyond. Out of it, Immacolata said:

‘Come and see.'

He stood up, his limbs stiff, and hobbled to the door.

A wave of heat met him at the threshold. It was like stepping into an oven in which cakes of human dirt and blood had been cooking.

Dimly, he could see Immacolata, standing- floating, perhaps - a little way from him. The air pressed against his throat: he badly wanted to retreat. But she beckoned.

‘Look,' she instructed him, staring off into the darkness. ‘Our assassin came. This is the Rake.'

Shadwell could see nothing at first. Then a shred of fugitive energy skittered up the wall and upon contact with the ceiling threw down a wash of cankered light.

By it, he saw the thing she called the Rake.

Had this once been a man? It was difficult to believe. The Surgeons Immacolata had spoken of had re-invented his anatomy. He hung in the air like a slashed coat left on a hook, his body somehow drawn out to superhuman height. Then, as though a breeze had gusted up from the earth, the body moved, swelling and rising. Its upper limbs - pieces of what might once have been human tissue held in an uneasy alliance by threads of mercurial cartilage - were raised, as if it were about to be crucified. The gesture unwound the matter that blinded its head. They fell away, and Shadwell could not prevent a cry from escaping him, as he understood what surgery had been performed upon the Rake.

They'd filleted him. They'd taken every bone from his body and left a thing more fit for the ocean-bed than the breathing world, a wretched echo of humanity, fuelled by the raptures the sisters had devised to bring it from Limbo. It swayed and swelled, its skull-less head taking on a dozen shapes as Shadwell watched. One moment it was all bulging eyes, the next only a maw, which howled its displeasure at waking to this condition.

‘Hush ...' Immacolata told it.

The Rake shuddered and its arms grew longer, as if it wanted to kill the woman that had done this to it. But it fell silent nevertheless.

‘Domville,' Immacolata said. ‘You once professed love for me.'

It threw back its head then, as if despairing of what desire had brought it to.

‘Are you afraid, my Rake?'

It looked at her, its eyes like blood blisters close to bursting.

‘We've given you a little life,' she said. ‘And enough power to turn these streets upside down. I want you to use it.'

The sight of the thing made Shadwell nervous.

‘Is he in control of himself?' he whispered. ‘Suppose he goes berserk?'

‘Let him,' she said. ‘I hate this city. Let him burn it up. As long as he kills the Seerkind, I don't care what he does. He knows he won't be allowed to rest until he's done as I ask. And Death's the best promise he's ever had.'

The blisters were still fixed on Immacolata, and the look in them confirmed her words.

‘Very well,' Shadwell said, and turned away, heading back into the adjoining room. There was only so much of this magic a man could take.

The sisters had an appetite for it. They liked to immerse themselves in these rites. For himself, he was content to be human.

Well, almost content.

V

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES

1

Dawn crept over Liverpool cautiously, as if fearful of what it would find. Cal watched the light uncover the city, and it seemed to him it was grey from gutter to chimney stack. He'd lived here all his life; this had been his world. The television and the glossy magazines had shown him different vistas on occasion, but somehow he'd never quite believed in them. They were as remote from his experience, or indeed from what he hoped to know in his seventy years, as the stars that were winking out above his head.

But the Fugue had been different. It had seemed, for a short, sweet time, a place he might truly belong. He'd been too optimistic. The land might want him, but its people didn't. As far as they were concerned he was contemptibly human.

He loitered on the streets for an hour or so, watching another Liverpool Monday morning get started.

Were they so bad, these Cuckoos whose tribe he shared? They smiled as they welcomed their cats in from a night of philandering; they hugged their children as they departed for the day; their radios played love-songs at the breakfast table. As he watched them he became fiercely defensive. Damn it, he'd go back and tell the Seerkind what bigots they were.

As he approached the house he saw that the front door was wide open, and that a young woman he recognized as a local.

but didn't know by name, was standing at the top of the path staring into the house. It was only as he came within a couple of paces of the front gate that he set eyes on Nimrod. He was standing on the welcome mat, wearing a pair of sunglasses that he'd filched from beside Cal's bed, and a toga made from one of Cal's shirts.

‘Is that your kid?' the woman asked Cal, as he opened the gate.

‘In a manner of speaking.'

‘He started banging on the window when I went past. Isn't there anyone to look after him?'

There is now,' said Cal.

He looked down at the child, remembering what Freddy had said about Nimrod only seeming to be a babe in arms. Having slid the sunglasses up onto his forehead, Nimrod was giving his visitor a look that fully confirmed Cammell's description. Cal had little option, however, but to play the part of father. He picked Nimrod up.

‘What are you doing?' he whispered to the child.

‘Bussteds!' Nimrod replied. He was having some difficulty mastering the infantile palate. ‘El killum.'

‘Who?'

But as Nimrod went to answer, the woman, who'd come down the path and was standing half a yard from the door, spoke:

‘He's adorable,' she cooed.

Before Cal could make his excuses and close the door, the child raised his arms and reached towards her, a stage-managed gurgle in his throat.

‘Oh -' said the woman,'- sweet thing -'

and she'd claimed Nimrod from Cal before he could prevent her.

Cal caught a gleam in Nimrod's eyes as he was pressed to the woman's ample bosom.

‘Where's his mother?' she asked.

‘She'll be back in a while,' said Cal, making an attempt to claim Nimrod from his luxury. He didn't want to go. He was beaming as he was rocked, his pudgy fingers grappling with

the woman's breasts. As soon as Cal laid hands on him he began to bawl.

The woman hushed him, pressing him closer to her, at which Nimrod began to toy with her nipples through the thin fabric of her blouse.

‘Will you excuse us?' said Cal, braving Nimrod's fists and taking the babe from his pillows before he began to suckle.

‘Shouldn't leave him alone,' the woman said, absent-mindedly touching her breast where Nimrod had fondled her.

Cal thanked her for her concern.

‘Bye bye, beautiful,' she said to the child.

Nimrod blew a kiss at her. A flash of confusion crossed her face, then she backed away towards the gate, the smile she'd offered the child sliding from her lips.

2

‘What a damn fool thing to do.'

Nimrod was unrepentant. He stood in the hallway where he'd been set down and stared up at Cal defiantly.

‘Where are the others?' Cal wanted to know.

‘Out,' said Nimrod. ‘We'll go too.'

He was gaining control of his tongue by the syllable. And of his limbs too. He tottered to the front door and reached up towards the handle. ‘Em sick of here.' he said. Too much bad news.'

His fingers fell inches short of the handle however, and after several failed attempts to snatch at it he beat his fists against the wood.

‘I want to see,' he said.

‘All right,' Cal agreed. ‘Just keep your voice down.'

Take me out.'

The cry was genuinely forlorn. There was little harm in giving the child a brief tour of the neighbourhood, Cal decided. There was something perversely satisfying about the thought of carrying this miraculous creature out into the open air, for all to see; and more satisfying still, the knowledge that thechild, whom he'd left laughing at him, would be dependent upon him.

Any lingering anger towards Nimrod evaporated very quickly, however, as his powers of speech became more sophisticated. They were soon involved in a fluent and animated exchange, careless of the glances they were garnering.

‘They left me there!' he protested. Told me to fend for myself.' He held up his miniscule hand. ‘How, I ask you? How?

‘Why are you shaped like this in the first place?' Cal asked.

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,' Nimrod replied. ‘I had an irate husband in pursuit of me; so I hid in the most unlikely form I could think of. I thought I'd keep my head down for a few hours, then loose myself again. Stupid, really. A rapture like this takes power. And of course once the final weave began, there was none to be had. I was obliged to go into the carpet like this.'

‘So how do you get back to normality?'

‘I can't. Not until I'm back on Fugue soil. I'm helpless.'

He pushed the sunglasses up to take a look at a passing beauty.

‘Did you see the hips on her?' he said.

‘Don't slaver.'

‘Babies are supposed to slaver.'

‘Not the way you're doing it.'

Nimrod ground his gums. ‘It's noisy, this world of yours.' he said. ‘And dirty.'

‘Dirtier than 1896?'

‘Much. I like it though. You must tell me about it.'

‘Oh Jesus,' said Cal. ‘Where do I begin?'

‘Anywhere you like,' Nimrod replied. ‘You'll find me a fast learner.'

What he said was true. On their half-hour walk around the vicinity of Chariot Street he questioned Cal on a wild selection of topics, some stimulated by something they saw in the street, others more abstract. First they talked of Liverpool, then of cities in general, then of New York and Hollywood. Talk of America took them on to East-West relations, at which point Cal listed all the wars and assassinations he could remember since 1900. They touched briefly on the Irish Question, and the state of English politics, then on to Mexico, which they both had a yearning to visit, and thence to Mickey Mouse, the basic principle of aerodynamics, and back, via Nuclear War and the Immaculate Conception, to Nimrod's favourite subject: women. Or rather, to two in particular, who'd caught his eye.

In return for this short introduction to the late twentieth century Nimrod gave Cal a beginner's guide to the Fugue, telling him first of Capra's House, which was the building in which the Council of the Families met to debate; then of the Mantle, the cloud that hid the Gyre, and the Narrow Bright, the passage that led into its folds; and from there to the Firmament, and the Requiem Steps. The very names filled Cal with yearning.

Much was learned on both sides, not least the fact that they might with time become friends.

‘No more talk,' said Cal as they came full circle to the gate of the Mooney house. ‘You're a baby, remember?'

‘How could I forget?' said Nimrod with a pained look.

Cal let himself in and called out to his father. The house, however, was silent from attic to foundations.

‘He's not here,' said Nimrod. ‘For God's sake put me down.'

Cal deposited the baby on the hallway floor. He immediately began towards the kitchen.

‘I need a drink,' he said. ‘And I don't mean milk.'

Cal laughed. Til see what I can find,' he said, and went through to the back room.

Cal's first impression, seeing his father sitting in the armchair with his back to the garden, was that Brendan had died. His stomach turned over; he almost cried out. Then Brendan's eyes flickered, and he looked up at his son.

‘Dad?' said Cal. ‘What's wrong?'

Tears were spilling down Brendan's cheeks. He made no attempt to brush them away, nor to stifle the sobs that shook him.

‘Oh Dad ...'

Cal crossed to his father and went down on his haunches beside the chair.

‘It's all right...' he said, putting his hand on his father's arm. ‘Been thinking about Mum?'

Brendan shook his head. The tears tumbled. Words would not come. Cal didn't ask any further questions, but held onto his father's arm. He'd thought Brendan's melancholy had been lifting; that the grief was blunted now. Apparently not.

At last Brendan said:

‘I... I had a letter.'

‘A letter?'

‘From your mother,' Brendan's liquid gaze fell on his son. ‘Am I mad, Cal?' he said.

‘Of course not. Dad. Of course not.'

‘Well, I swear...' he put his hand down the side of the chair and plucked out a sodden handkerchief. He wiped his nose. ‘It's over there,' he said nodding towards the table. ‘Look for yourself.'

Cal went to the table.

‘It was in her handwriting,' Brendan said.

There was indeed a piece of paper lying on the table. It had been much folded and unfolded. And, more recently, wept upon.

‘It was a lovely letter,' he said, ‘telling me she was happy, and I wasn't to go on grieving. She said ....'

He stopped as a new bout of sobs overtook him. Cal picked the sheet up. It was thinner than any paper he'd ever set eyes on, and it was blank on both sides.

‘She said she was waiting for me, but that I shouldn't fret about that, because waiting was a joy up there, and ... and I should just get on with enjoying life for a while, ‘til I was called.'

It wasn't just that the paper was thin, Cal now realized; it seemed to be growing more insubstantial as he watched. He put it back on the table, the small hairs at the nape of his neck prickling.

‘I was so happy, Cal,' Brendan was saying. ‘It was all I wanted, knowing that she was happy, and I'd be with her again one day.'

‘There's nothing on the paper. Dad.' Cal said softly. ‘It's blank.'

There was, Cal. I swear it. There was. It was in her handwriting. I'd know it anywhere. Then - God in Heaven - it just faded away.'

Cal turned from the table to see his father practically folded up double in the chair, sobbing as though his grief was beyond bearing. He put his hand on his father's hand, which was gripping the thread-bare arm of the chair.

‘Hold on. Dad,' he murmured.

‘It's a nightmare, son,' Brendan said. ‘It's like I lost her twice.'

‘You haven't lost her. Dad.'

‘Why did her writing disappear like that?'

‘I don't know, Dad.' He glanced back at the letter. The sheet of paper had practically faded altogether.

‘Where did the letter come from?'

The old man frowned.

‘Do you remember?'

‘No ... no, not really. It's hazy. I remember ... somebody came to the door. Yes. That was it. Somebody came to the door. He told me he had something for me ... it was in his coat.'

Tell me what you see and it's yours.

Shadwell's words echoed in Cal's skull.

Have what you like. Free, gratis and without charge.

That was a lie of course. One of many. There was always a charge.

‘What did he want, Dad? In exchange? Can you remember?'

Brendan shook his head, then, frowning as he tried to recollect:

‘Something ... about you. He said ... I think he said ... he knew you.'

He looked up at Cal.

‘Yes he did. I remember now. He said he knew you.'

‘It was a trick. Dad. A disgusting trick.'

Brendan narrowed his eyes, as if trying to comprehend this. And then, suddenly, the solution seemed to come clear.

‘I want to die, Cal.'

‘No, Dad.'

‘Yes I do. Really I do. I don't want to bother any longer.'

‘You're just sad,' Cal said softly. ‘It'll pass.'

‘I don't want it to,' Brendan replied. ‘Not now. I just want to fall asleep and forget I ever lived.'

Cal reached and put his arms around his father's neck. At first Brendan resisted the embrace; he'd never been a demonstrative man. But then the sobs mounted again, and Cal felt his father's thin arms stretch around him, and they hugged each other tight.

‘Forgive me, Cal.' Brendan said through his tears. ‘Can you do that?'

‘Shush, Dad. Don't be daft.'

‘I let you down. I never said the things ... all the things I felt. Not to her either. Never told her .... how much .... never could tell her how much I loved her.'

‘She knew. Dad,' said Cal, his own tears blinding him now. ‘Believe me, she knew.'

They held each other a little while longer. It was small comfort, but there was a heat of anger in Cal that he knew would dry his tears soon enough. Shadwell had been here; Shadwell and his suit of deceptions. In its folds, Brendan had imagined the letter from Heaven, and the illusion had lasted for as long as the Salesman had needed him. Now Brendan was redundant; the carpet had been found. So the magic no longer held. The words had faded, and finally the paper too, returned to that no-man's land between desire and consummation.

‘I'll make some tea, Dad,' Cal said.

It was what his mother would have done in the circumstances. Boiled some fresh water, warmed the pot and counted out the spoonfuls of tea. Setting domestic order against the chaos, in the hope of winning some temporary reprieve from the vale of tears.

VI

EVENTS IN A HIGH WIND

1

As he stepped back into the hall, Cal remembered Nimrod.

The back door was ajar, and the child had tottered out into the wilderness of the garden, dwarfed by the bushes. Cal went to the door and called after him, but Nimrod was busy pissing into a bed of rampant Sweet William. Cal left him to it. In his present condition the most gratification Nimrod could hope for was a good piss.

As he set the kettle on the stove, the Bournemouth train (via Runcorn, Oxford, Reading and Southampton) thundered past. A moment later Nimrod was at the door. ‘Good God,' he said. ‘How did you ever sleep here?' ‘You get used to it,' said Cal. ‘And keep your voice down. My Dad'll hear you.'

‘What happened to my drink?' ‘It'll have to wait.' ‘I'll bawl,' Nimrod warned. ‘So bawl.'

His bluff called, Nimrod shrugged and turned back to survey the garden.

‘I could get to love this world,' he announced, and stepped out again into the sunlight.

Cal picked up a soiled cup from the sink, and rinsed it clean for his father. Then he crossed to the refrigerator in search of milk. As he did so he heard Nimrod make a small sound. He turned, and went to the window. Nimrod was staring up at the sky, his face wide with wonder. He was watching a plane go over, no doubt. Cal retraced his steps. As he took the milk, which was practically the sole occupant of the refrigerator, off the shelf, there was a rapping on the front door. He looked up again, and two or three impressions hit him at the same time.

One, that a breeze had suddenly got up from somewhere. Two, that Nimrod was stepping back into the thicket of raspberry bushes, in search of a hiding place. And three, that it was not wonder on his face, but fear -

Then the rapping became a beating. Fists on the door.

As he made his way through the hall he heard his father say:

‘Cal? There's a child in the garden.'

And from the garden, a shout.

‘Cal? A child -'

From the corner of his eye he saw Brendan walk through the kitchen, heading for the garden.

‘Wait, Dad -' he said, as he opened the front door.

Freddy was on the step. But it was Lilia - standing a little way behind him - who said:

"Where's my brother?

‘Out in the -'

Garden, he was going to say, but the street scene outside left him mute.

The wind had picked up every item not nailed down - litter, dustbin lids, pieces of garden furniture - and flung them into an aerial tarantella. It had uprooted flower beds, and was picking up the soil from the borders, staining the sun with a veil of earth.

A few pedestrians, caught in this hurricane, were clinging to lamp-posts and fences; some were flat on the ground, hands over their heads.

Lilia and Freddy stepped into the house; the wind followed, eager for fresh conquest, roaring through the house and out again into the back garden, its sudden gusts so strong Cal was almost flung off his feet.

‘Shut the door!' Freddy yelled.

Cal pushed the door closed, and bolted it. It rattled as the wind beat on the other side.

‘Jesus.' said Cal. ‘What's happening?'

‘Something's come after us,' said Freddy.

‘What?'

‘I don't know.'

Lilia was already half way to the kitchen. Through the open door at the back it was almost night, the air was so full of dirt, and Cal saw his father stepping over the threshold, shouting something against the banshee howl of the wind. Beyond him, only visible because of his toga, Nimrod was clinging to a bush as the wind tried to pick him up.

Cal followed Lilia at a run and overtook her at the kitchen door. There was a commotion on the roof, as a pack of slates were ripped away.

Brendan was in the garden now, all but eclipsed by the wind.

‘Wait, Dad!' Cal yelled.

As he crossed the kitchen his eyes grazed the tea-pot and the cup beside it, and the utter absurdity of all this hit him like a hammer blow.

I'm dreaming, he thought; I fell from the wall and I've been dreaming ever since. The world isn't like this. The world is the tea-pot and the cup, it isn't raptures and tornadoes.

In that instant of hesitation, the dream became a nightmare. Through the gusting dirt he saw the Rake.

It hung on the wind for a moment, its form caught in a sliver of sun.

‘Done for,' said Freddy.

The words stung Cal into moving. He was through the back door and out into the garden before the Rake could fall upon the pitiful figures below.

The beast drew Cal's astonished eyes. He saw the morbid fashioning of its skin, which made it billow and swell, and heard again the howl that he'd thought was simply the wind. It was nothing so natural; the sound came out of this phantasm from a dozen places, either the din or the breath it rose on

drawing most of the garden's contents out of the ground and throwing them into the air.

A rain of plants and stones came down on the occupants of the garden. Cal covered his head with his hands, and ran blindly towards the spot where he'd last seen his father. Brendan was flat on the ground, shielding himself. Nimrod was not with him.

Cal knew the route the garden path took like the back of his hand. Spitting out mud as he went, he headed away from the house.

Somewhere above, now mercifully hidden, the Rake howled again, and Cal heard Lilia cry out. He did not look behind him, for ahead he now saw Nimrod, who had reached the back fence and was attempting to tear at the rotted timbers. He was having some success too, despite his size. Cal ducked his head down as another rain of earth fell, and ran past the pigeon loft towards the fence.

The howls had stopped, but the wind was far from spent. To judge by the din from the other side of the house it was tearing Chariot Street apart. As he reached the fence, Cal turned round. The sun stabbed the veil of dirt, and he saw blue sky for an instant - then a form blocked the sight, and Cal threw himself at the fence and started to scramble over, as the creature moved towards him. At the top, his belt snagged on a nail. He reached to release it, certain that the Rake was at his neck, but Mad Mooney must have been pushing from behind, for as he pulled his belt from its mooring he fell over the far side of the fence, life and limb intact.

He stood up, and saw why. The boneless beast was hovering beside the loft, its head weaving back and forth as it listened to the pigeons within. Silently blessing the birds, Cal ducked down and tore another plank of the fence away, sufficient to pull Nimrod through.

As a child he'd had the dangers of this no-man's land between fence and railway track beaten into him. Now such dangers seemed negligible beside whatever it was that loitered at the loft. Picking Nimrod up in his arms, Cal climbed the gravel embankment towards the rails.

‘Run,' said Nimrod. ‘It's just behind us. Run!'

Cal looked North and South. The wind had reduced visibility to ten or fifteen yards in both directions. Heart in mouth he stepped over the first rail and onto the oil-slicked space between the sleepers. There were four tracks altogether, two in each direction. He was stepping towards the second when he heard Nimrod say:

‘Shit.'

Cal turned, heels grinding in the gravel, to see that their pursuer had forsaken bird-fancying and was rising over the fence.

Behind the beast, he saw Lilia Pellicia. She was standing in the ruins of the Mooney garden, her mouth open as if to shout. But no sound emerged. Or at least none that Cal could hear. The beast was not so insensitive however. It halted in its advance, turning back towards the garden and the woman in it.

What happened next was confused both by the wind and Nimrod, who, forseeing his sister's slaughter, began to struggle in Cal's arms. All Cal saw was the billowing form of their pursuer suddenly flicker, and the next moment he heard Lilia's voice swoop into an audible register. It was a cry of anguish she let loose, echoed by Nimrod. Then the wind blew up again, shrouding the garden, just as Cal glimpsed Lilia's form swathed in white fire. The cry stopped abruptly.

As it did so, a tingling in the soles of his feet announced the approach of a train. Which direction was it coming from, and on which track? The murder of Lilia had further excited the wind. He could now see less than ten yards down the line in either direction.

Knowing there was no safety the way they'd come, he turned from the garden as the beast let out another scalp-crawling commotion.

Think, he told himself. In moments it would be after them again.

He wrenched his arm around Nimrod, and looked at his watch. It read twelve thirty-eight.

Where would the train be heading at twelve thirty-eight? To Lime Street Station, or from it?

Think.

Nimrod had begun to cry. Not an infantile bawling, but a deep, heart-felt sob of loss.

Cal glanced over his shoulder as the trembling in the gravel grew more insistent. Again, a tear in the veil of dust gave him a glimpse of the garden. Lilia's body had disappeared, but Cal could see his father standing in the devastation, as Lilia's killer rose above him. Brendan's face was slack. Either he failed to comprehend his danger, or didn't care. He moved not a muscle.

The shout!' said Cal to Nimrod, lifting the child up so that they were face to snotty face. ‘The shout she made -'

Nimrod just sobbed.

‘Can you make that shout?'

The beast was almost upon Brendan.

‘Make it!' Cal yelled at Nimrod, shaking him ‘til his gums rattled. ‘Make it or I'll fucking kill you!'

Nimrod believed him.

‘Go on!' Cal said, and Nimrod opened his mouth.

The beast heard the sound. It swung its ballooning head around, and began to come at them again.

All this had taken seconds only, but seconds in which the reverberations had deepened. How far away was the train now? A mile? A quarter of a mile?

Nimrod had ceased the shout, and was fighting to be free of Cal.

‘Christ, man!' he was yelling, eyes on the terror approaching through the smoke. ‘It's going to kill us!'

Cal tried to ignore Nimrod's cries, and dug for access to that cool region of memory where the dates and destinations of the trains lay.

Which line was it on, and from which direction? His mind flipped through the numbers like a station announcement board, looking for a train six or seven minutes from departure or arrival at Liverpool Lime Street.

The beast was climbing the gravel embankment. The wind

gave it skirts of dust, and danced in and out of its lacerated frame, moaning as it went.

The percussion of the train's approach was enough to make Cal's belly tremble. And still the numbers flipped over.

Where to? Where from? Fast train or slow?

Think, damn you.

The beast was almost upon them.

Think.

He took a step backwards. Behind him the furthest track began to whine.

And with the whine came the answer. It was the Stafford train, via Runcorn. Its rhythm rose through his feet as it thundered to its destination.

Twelve forty-six from Stafford,' he said, and stepped onto the humming line.

‘What are you doing!' Nimrod demanded.

‘Twelve forty-six,' he murmured; it was a prayer by numbers.

The slaughterer was crossing the first of the Northbound lines. It had nothing but death to give. No curse, no sentence; only death.

‘Come and get us,' Cal yelled at it.

‘Are you insane?' Nimrod said.

By way of reply Cal lifted the bait a little higher. Nimrod bawled. The pursuer's head grew vast with hunger.

‘Come on!'

It had crossed both the Northbound lines; now it stepped onto the first of those headed South.

Cal took another stumbling step backwards, his heel hitting the furthest rail, the voice of the beast and the roar in the ground shaking the fillings loose in his teeth.

The last thing he heard as the creature came to fetch him was Nimrod running through a celestial checklist in search of a Redeemer.

And suddenly, as if in answer to his call, the veil of dirty air divided, and the train was upon them. Cal felt his foot catch on the rail, and raised it an inch higher to step back, then fell away from the track.

What followed was over in seconds. One moment the creature was on the line, its maw vast, its appetite for death vaster still. The next, the train hit it.

There was no cry. No moment of triumph, seeing the monster undone. Just a foul stench, as if every dead man in the vicinity had sat up and expelled a breath, then the train was rushing by, smeared faces peering from the windows.

And just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was away through the curtain on its way South. The whine in the rails receded to a sibilant whisper. Then even that was gone.

Cal shook Nimrod from his roll-call of deities.

‘It's over...' he said.

It took Nimrod a little while to accept the fact. He peered through the smoke, expecting the Rake to come at them again.

‘It's gone.' said Cal. ‘I killed it.'

The train killed it,' said Nimrod. ‘Put me down.'

Cal did so, and without looking right or left Nimrod started back across the tracks towards the garden where his sister had perished. Cal followed.

The wind that had come with the boneless creature, or borne it, had dropped completely. As there was not even a light breeze to keep the dirt it had swept up aloft, a deluge now descended. Small stones, fragments of garden furniture and fencing, even the remains of several household pets who'd been snatched away. A rain of blood and earth the like of which the good people of Chariot Street had not expected to see this side of Judgment Day.

VII

THE AFTERMATH

1

When the dust had begun to settle, it was possible to assess the extent of the devastation. The garden had been turned upside down, of course, as had all the other gardens along the row; there were dozens of slates missing from the roof, and the chimney stack looked less than secure. The wind had been equally lethal at the front of the house. All along the street havoc had been wreaked: lamps toppled, walls demolished, car windows smashed by flying trash. Mercifully there seemed to be no serious casualties; just cuts, bruises and shock. Lilia - of whom no sign remained -was the only fatality.

‘That was Immacolata's creature.' Nimrod said. Til kill her for that. I swear I will.'

The threat sounded doubly hollow coming from his diminutive body.

‘What's the use?' said Cal despondently. He was watching through the front window as the occupants of Chariot Street wandered around in a daze, some staring at the wreckage, others squinting up at the sky as if expecting some explanation to be written there.

‘We won a substantial victory this afternoon, Mr Mooney —' said Frederick. ‘Don't you understand that? And it was your doing.'

‘Some victory.' said Cal, bitterly. ‘My Dad sitting next door not saying a word; Lilia dead, half the street torn apart -'

‘We'll fight again,' said Freddy, ‘until the Fugue's safe.'

‘Fight, will we?' said Nimrod. ‘And where were you when the shit was flying?'

Cammell was about to protest, then thought better of it, letting silence confess his cowardice.

Two ambulances and several police cars had arrived at the far end of Chariot Street. Hearing the sirens, Nimrod joined Cal at the window.

‘Uniforms,' he muttered. ‘They always mean trouble.'

As he spoke the door of the lead police car swung open, and a sober-suited man stepped out, smoothing his thinning hair back with the palm of his hand. Cal knew the fellow's face — his eyes so ringed with shadow he seemed not to have slept in years - but, as ever, he could put no name to it.

‘We should get gone,' said Nimrod. ‘They'll want to talk with us-'

Already a dozen uniformed police were fanning out amongst the houses to begin their enquiries. What would his fellow Charioteers have to report, Cal wondered. Had they glimpsed anything of the creature that had killed Lilia, and if so, would they admit to it?

‘I can't go,' said Cal. ‘I can't leave Dad.'

‘You think they won't sniff a rat if they speak to you?' said Nimrod. ‘Don't be an imbecile. Let your father tell them all he has to tell. They won't believe it.'

Cal saw the sense in this, but he was still reluctant to leave Brendan alone.

‘What happened to Suzanna and the others?' asked Cammell, as Cal turned the problem over.

They went back to the warehouse to see if they could trace Shadwell from there,' said Freddy.

‘Isn't likely, is it?' said Cal.

‘It worked for Lilia,' said Freddy.

‘You mean you know where the carpet is?'

‘Almost. She and I went back to the Laschenski house, you see, to take bearings from there. She said the echoes were very strong.'

‘Echoes?'

‘Back from where the carpet now is, to where it had been.'

Freddy fished in his pocket and brought out three shiny new paperbacks, one of which was a Liverpool and District Atlas. The others were murder mysteries. ‘I borrowed these from a confectioner's,' he said, ‘to trace the carpet.'

‘But you didn't succeed,' said Cal.

‘As I said, almost. We were interrupted when she felt the presence of that thing that killed her.'

‘She was always acute,' said Nimrod.

That she was,' Freddy replied. ‘As soon as she sniffed the beast on the wind she forgot about the carpet. Demanded we came to warn you. That was our error. We should have stayed put.'

Then it would have picked us off one by one,' said Nimrod.

‘I hope to God it didn't go after the others first,' said Cal.

‘No. They're alive,' said Freddy. ‘We'd feel it if they weren't.'

‘He's right,' said Nimrod. ‘We can pick up their trail easily. But we have to go now. Once the uniforms get here we're trapped.'

‘All right, I heard you first time,' said Cal. ‘Let me just say goodbye to Dad.'

He went next door. Brendan hadn't moved since Cal had settled him in the chair.

‘Dad ... can you hear me?'

Brendan looked up from his sorrows.

‘Haven't seen a wind like that since the war,' he said. ‘Out in Malaya. Saw whole houses blown down. Didn't think to see it here.'

He spoke distractedly, his gaze on the empty wall.

The police are in the street,' said Cal.

‘At least the loft's still standing, eh,' Brendan said. ‘A wind like that...' his voice faded. Then he said: ‘Will they come here? The police?'

T would think so. Dad. Are you all right to speak to them? I have to go.'

‘Of course you do,' Brendan murmured. ‘You go on.'

‘Do you mind if I take the car?'

Take it. I can tell them -' Again, he halted, before picking up his thoughts. ‘Haven't seen a wind like that since ... oh, since the war.'

2

The trio left by the back door, climbing the fence and making their way along the embankment to the footbridge at the end of Chariot Street. From there they could see the size of the crowd that had already gathered from neighbouring streets, eager to view the spectacle.

Part of Cal itched to go down and tell them what he'd seen. To say: the world isn't just the tea-cup and the pot. I know, because I've seen. But he held onto his words, knowing how they'd look at him.

There'd maybe come a time to be proud, to tell his tribe about the terrors and miracles they shared with the world. But this wasn't it.

VIII

NECESSARY EVILS

The name of the man with the dark suit, whom Cal had seen getting out of the police-car, was Inspector Hobart. He had been in the force for eighteen of his forty-six years, but it was only recently - with the riots that had erupted in the city during the late spring and summer of the previous year - that his star had come into the ascendant.

The origins of those riots were still the subject of both Public Enquiry and private argument, but Hobart had no time for either. It was the Law and how to keep it that obsessed him, and in that year of civil disturbance his obsession had made him the man of the moment.

Not for him the niceties of the sociologist or the civic planner. His sacred task was to preserve the peace, and his methods -which his apologists described as uncompromising — found sympathy with his civic masters. He rose in the ranks within weeks, and behind closed doors he was offered carte blanche to deal with the anarchy that had already cost the city millions. He was not blind to the politics of this manoeuvre. No doubt the higher echelons, for whom he had utter but unspoken contempt, were fearful of the backlash should they wield too strong a whip themselves. No doubt too he would be the first to be sacrificed to the ferocity of public indignation should the techniques he brought to bear fail.

But they did not fail. The elite he formed - men chosen from the Divisions for their sympathy with Hobart's methods – was quickly successful. While the conventional forces kept the blue line unbroken on the streets, Hobart's Special Force, known - to those who knew of it at all - as the Fire Brigade, was acting behind the scenes to terrorize any suspected of fuelling the agitation, either by word or deed. Within weeks the riots died down, and James Hobart was suddenly a force to be reckoned with.

There had followed several months of inactivity, and the Brigade languished. It had not escaped Hobart that being the man of the hour was of little consequence once that hour had passed; and through the spring and early summer of this, the following year, that seemed to be the case.

Until now. Today he dared hope he still had a fight on his hands. There'd been chaos, and here, in front of him, the gratifying evidence.

‘What's the situation?'

His right-hand man, Richardson, shook his head.

There's talk of some kind of whirlwind.' he said.

‘Whirlwind?' Hobart indulged a smile at the absurdity of this. When he smiled his lips disappeared, and his eyes became slits. ‘No felons?'

‘Not that we've had reported. Apparently it was just this wind —'

Hobart stared at the spectacle of destruction in front of him.

This is England,' he said. ‘We don't have whirlwinds.'

‘Well something did this.'

‘Somebody, Bryn. Anarchists. They're like rats, these people. You find a poison that does the job, and they learn how to get fat on it.' He paused. ‘You know, I think it's going to begin again.'

As he spoke, another of his officers - one of the blood-spattered heroes of the previous year's confrontations, a man called Fryer - approached.

‘Sir. We've got reports of suspects seen crossing the bridge.'

‘Get after them' said Hobart. ‘Let's have some arrests. And Bryn, you talk to these people. I want testimonies from everyone in the street.'

The two officers went about their business, leaving Hobart to ponder the problem. There was no doubt in his mind that events here were of human making. It might not be the same individuals whose heads he'd broken last year, but it was essentially the same animal. In his years of service he'd confronted that beast in its many guises, and it seemed to him that it grew more devious and damnable every time he stared into its maw.

But the enemy was a constant, whether it concealed itself behind fire, flood or whirlwind. He took strength from that fact. The battlefield might be new, but the war was old. It was the struggle between the Law, of which he was the representative, and the rot of disorder in the human heart. He would let no whirlwind blind him to that fact.

Sometimes, of course, the war required that he be cruel, but what cause worth fighting for did not require cruelty of its champions once in a while? He had never shirked that responsibility and he would not shirk now.

Let the beast come again, in whatever fancy dress it chose. He would be ready.

IX

ON THE MIGHT OF PRINCES

The Incantatrix did not look towards Shadwell when he entered; indeed it seemed she'd not moved a muscle since the night before. The hotel room was stale with her breath and sweat. Shadwell inhaled deeply.

‘My poor libertine.' she murmured. ‘He's destroyed.'

‘How's that possible?' Shadwell replied. The image of the creature was still lodged in his head, in all its appalling magnificence. How could a thing so powerful be killed, especially as it had already been dead? ‘It was the Cuckoos,' she said. ‘Mooney, or the girl?' ‘Mooney.'

‘And the carpet crawlers?'

‘All survived but one.' said Immacolata. ‘Am I right, sister?' The Hag was squatting in the corner, her body like phlegm on a wall. Her reply to Immacolata was so soft Shadwell missed it.

‘Yes.' the Incantatrix said. ‘My sister saw one of them dispatched. The rest escaped.' ‘And the Scourge?' ‘I hear only silence.'

‘Good.' said Shadwell. Til have the carpet moved this evening.' ‘Where to?' ‘A house across the river, that belongs to a man I once did business with: Shearman. We'll hold the Auction there. This place is too public for our clients.'

‘Are they coming then?'

Shadwell grinned. ‘Of course they're coming. They've waited years, these people. Just for a chance to bid. And I'm going to give it to them.'

It pleased him, to think of how readily they sprang to his command, the seven mighty bidders whom he'd invited to this Sale of Sales.

Among their members were some of the wealthiest individuals in the world; between them, fortunes sufficient to trade in nations. None of the seven had a name that would have meant anything to the hoi-polloi - they were, like the truly mighty, anonymously great. But Shadwell had done his researches well. He knew that these seven had something else in common besides wealth beyond calculation. All, he knew, hungered for the miraculous. That was why they were even now leaving their chateaux and penthouses and hurrying to this grimy city, their palates dry, their palms sweaty.

He had something each of them wanted almost as much as life itself: and perhaps more than wealth. Mighty they were. But today, was he not mightier?

X

HUMANKINDNESS

‘So much desire,' Apolline commented to Su-zanna, as they walked the streets of Liverpool. They'd found nothing at Gilchrist's Warehouse but suspicious stares, and had made a quick exit before enquiries were made. Once out, Apolline had demanded to take a tour of the city, and had followed her nose to the busiest thoroughfare she could find, its pavements crammed with shoppers, children and dead-beats.

‘Desire?' said Suzanna. It wasn't a motive that sprang instantly to mind on this dirty street.

‘Everywhere,' said Apolline. ‘Don't you see?'

She pointed across at a billboard advertising bed-linen, which depicted two lovers languishing in a post-coital fatigue; beside it a car advertisement boasted The Perfect Body, and made its point as much in flesh as steel. ‘And there,' said Apolline, directing Suzanna to a window display of deodorants, in which the serpent tempted a fetchingly naked Adam and Eve with the promise of confidence in crowds.

The place is a whorehouse,' said Apolline, clearly approving.

Only now did Suzanna realize that they'd lost Jerichau. He'd been loitering a few paces behind the woman, his anxious eyes surveying the parade of human beings. Now he'd gone.

They retraced their steps through the throng of pedestrians and found him standing in front of a video rental shop, entranced by bank upon bank of monitors.

‘Are they prisoners?' he said, as he stared at the talking heads.

‘No,' said Suzanna. ‘It's a show. Like a theatre.' She plucked at his oversized jacket. ‘Come on,' she said.

He looked around at her. His eyes were brimming. The thought that he had been moved to tears by the sight of a dozen television screens made her fear for his tender heart.

‘It's all right,' she said, coaxing him away from the window. They're quite happy.'

She put her arm through his. A flicker of pleasure crossed his face, and together they moved through the crowd. Feeling his body trembling against hers it was not difficult to share the trauma he was experiencing. She'd taken the harlot century she'd been born into for granted, knowing no other, but now - seeing it with his eyes, hearing it with his ears - she understood it afresh; saw just how desperate it was to please, yet how dispossessed of pleasure; how crude, even as it claimed sophistication; and, despite its zeal to spellbind, how utterly unenchanting.

For Apolline, however, the experience was proving a joy. She strode through the crowd, trailing her long black skirts like a widow on a post-funereal spree.

‘I think we should get off the main street,' said Suzanna when they'd caught up with her. ‘Jerichau doesn't like the crowd.'

‘Well he'd best get used to it,' said Apolline, shooting a glance at Jerichau. This is going to be our world soon enough.'

So saying, she turned and started away from Suzanna again.

‘Wait a minute!'

Suzanna went in pursuit, before they lost each other in the throng.

‘Wait!' she said, taking hold of Apolline's arm. ‘We can't wander around forever. We have to meet with the others.'

‘Let me enjoy myself awhile,' said Apolline. ‘I've been asleep too long. I need some entertainment.'

‘Later maybe,' said Suzanna. ‘When we've found the carpet.'

‘Fuck the carpet,' was Apolline's prompt reply.

They were blocking the flow of pedestrians as they debated.

receiving sour looks and curses for their troubles. One pubescent boy spat at Apolline, who promptly spat back with impressive accuracy. The boy retreated, with a shocked look on his bespittled face.

‘I like these people.' she commented. ‘They don't pretend to courtesy.'

‘We've lost Jerichau again,' Suzanna said. ‘Damn him, he's like a child.'

‘I see him.'

Apolline pointed down the street, to where Jerichau was standing, striving to keep his head above the crowd as though he feared drowning in this sea of humanity.

Suzanna started back towards him, but she was pressing against the tide, and it was tough going. But Jerichau didn't move. He had his fretful gaze fixed on the empty air above the heads of the crowd. They jostled and elbowed him but he went on staring.

‘We almost lost you,' Suzanna said when she finally reached his side.

His reply was a simple:

‘Look.'

Though she was several inches shorter than he, she followed the direction of his stare as best she could.

‘I don't see anything.'

‘What's he troubling about now?' Apolline, who'd now joined them, demanded to know.

They're all so sad,' Jerichau said.

Suzanna looked at the faces passing by. Irritable they were; and sluggish some of them, and bitter; but few struck her as sad. ‘Do you see?' said Jerichau, before she had a chance to contradict him: The lights.'

‘No she doesn't see them.' said Apolline firmly. ‘She's still a Cuckoo, remember? Even if she has got the menstruum. Now come on.'

Jerichau's gaze now fell on Suzanna, and he was closer to tears than ever. ‘You must see.' he said. ‘I want you to see.'

‘Don't do this.' said Apolline. ‘It's not wise.'

They have colours.' Jerichau was saying.

‘Remember the Principles.' Apolline protested.

‘Colours?' said Suzanna.

‘Like smoke, all around their heads.'

Jerichau took hold of her arm.

‘Will you listen?' Apolline said. ‘Capra's Third Principle states -'

Suzanna wasn't attending. She was staring at the crowd, her hand now grasping Jerichau's hand.

It was no longer simply his senses she shared, but his mounting panic, trapped amongst this hot-breathed herd. An empathic wave of claustrophobia rose in her; she closed her lids and told herself to be calm.

In the darkness she heard Apolline again, talking of some Principle. Then she opened her eyes.

What she saw almost made her cry out. The sky seemed to have changed colour, as though the gutters had caught fire, and the smoke was choking the street. Nobody seemed to have noticed, however.

She turned to Jerichau, seeking some explanation, and this time she let out a yell. He had gained a halo of fireworks, from which a column of light and vermilion smoke was rising.

‘Oh Christ.' she said. ‘What's happening?'

Apolline had taken hold of her shoulder, and was pulling on her.

‘Come away!' she shouted. ‘It'll spread. After three, the multitude. ‘

‘Huh?'

The Principle!'

But her warning went uncomprehended. Suzanna - her shock becoming exhiliration - was scanning the crowd. Everywhere she saw what Jerichau had described. Waves of colour, plumes of it, rising from the flesh of Humankind. Almost all were subdued; some plain grey, others like plaited ribbons of grimy pastel; but once or twice in the throng she saw a pure pigment; brilliant orange around the head of a child carried high on her father's back; a peacock display from a girl laughing with her lover.

Again, Apolline tugged at her, and this time Suzanna acquiesced, but before they'd got more than a yard a cry rose from the crowd behind them - then another, and another - and suddenly to right and left people were putting their hands to their faces and covering their eyes. A man fell to his knees at Su.'anna's side, spouting the Lord's prayer - somebody else had begun vomiting, others had seized hold of their nearest neighbour for support, only to find their private horror was a universal condition.

‘Damn you.' said Apolline. ‘Now look what you've done.' Suzanna could see the colours of the haloes changing, as panic convulsed those who wore them. The vanquished greys were shot through with violent greens and purples. The mingled din of shrieks and prayers assaulted her ears. ‘Why?' said Suzanna.

‘Capra's Principle!' Apolline yelled back at her. ‘After three, the multitude.'

Now Suzanna grasped the point. What two could keep to themselves became public knowledge if shared by three. As soon as she'd embraced Apolline and Jerichau's vision - one they'd known from birth - the fire had spread, a mystic contagion that had reduced the street to bedlam in seconds.

The fear bred violence almost instantly, as the crowd looked for scapegoats on which to blame these visions. Shoppers forsook their purchases and leapt upon each others' throats; secretaries broke their nails on the cheeks of accountants; grown men wept as they tried to shake sense from their wives and children.

What might have been a race of mystics was suddenly a pack of wild dogs, the colours they swam in degenerating into the grey and umber of a sick man's shit.

But there was more to come. No sooner had the fighting begun than a well-dressed woman, her make-up smeared in the struggle, pointed an accusing finger at Jerichau. ‘Him!' she shrieked. ‘It was him!'

Then she flung herself at the guilty party, ready to take out his eyes. Jerichau stumbled back into the traffic as she came after him.

‘Make it stop!' she yelled. ‘Make it stop!'

At her cacophony, several members of the crowd forgot their private wars and set their sights on this new target.

To Suzanna's left somebody said: ‘Kill him.' An instant later, the first missile flew. It hit Jerichau's shoulder. A second followed. The traffic had come to a halt, as the drivers, slowed by curiosity, came under the influence of the vision. Jerichau was trapped against the cars, as the crowd turned on him. Suddenly, Suzanna knew, the issue was life and death. Confused and frightened, this mob was perfectly prepared, eager even, to tear Jerichau and anyone who went to his rescue limb from limb.

Another stone struck Jerichau, bringing blood to his cheek. Suzanna advanced towards him, calling for him to move, but he was watching the advancing crowd as if mesmerized by this display of human rage. She pushed on, climbing over a car bonnet and squeezing between bumpers to get to where he stood. But the leaders of the mob - the smeared woman and two or three others - were almost upon him.

‘Leave him be!' she yelled. Nobody paid the least attention. There was something almost ritualistic about the way victim and executioners were playing this out, as though their cells knew it of old, and had no power to re-write the story.

It was the police sirens that broke the spell. The first time Suzanna had heard that gut-churning wail and been thankful for it.

The effect was both immediate and comprehensive. Members of the crowd began to moan as though in sympathy with the sirens, those still in combat forsaking their enemies' throats, the rest staring down at their trampled belongings and bloodied fists in disbelief. One or two fainted on the spot. Several others began weeping again, this time more in confusion than fear. Many, deciding discretion bettered arrest, took to their heels. Shocked back into their Cuckoo blindness they fled in all directions, shaking their heads to dislodge the last vestiges of their vision.

Apolline had appeared at Jerichau's side, having manoeuvred her way round the back of the mob during the previous few minutes.

She bullied him from his trance of sacrifice, shaking him and shouting. Then she hauled him away. Her rescue attempt came not a moment too soon, for though most of the lynch-party had dispersed a dozen or so weren't ready to give up their sport. They wanted blood, and would have it before the

law arrived.

Suzanna looked around for some escape route. A small street off the main road offered some hope. She summoned Apolline with a shout. The arrival of the patrol cars proved a useful distraction: there was a further scattering of the mob.

But the hard core of dedicated lynchers came in pursuit. As Apolline and Jerichau reached the street corner the first of the mob, the woman with the smeared face, snatched at Apolline's dress. Apolline let go of Jerichau and turned on her attacker, delivering a punch to the woman's jaw that threw her to the

ground.

A couple of the officers had caught sight of the chase and were now chasing in their turn, but before they could step in to prevent violence, Jerichau stumbled. In that second the mob was on him.

Suzanna turned back to lend him a hand. As she did so a car raced towards her, skirting the kerb. The next second it was at her side, the door flung open, and Cal was yelling:

‘Get in! Get in!'

‘Wait!' she called to him, and looked back to see Jerichau being flung against a brick wall, cornered by the hounds. Apolline, who'd laid another of the mob out for good measure, was now making for the open car door. But Suzanna couldn't leave Jerichau.

She ran back towards the knot of bodies that now eclipsed him, blotting out the sound of Cal's voice calling her to get away while she could. By the time she reached Jerichau he'd given up all hope of resistance. He was just sliding down the wall, sheltering his bloodied head from a hail of spittle and blows. She shouted for the assault to stop but anonymous hands dragged her from his side.

Again she heard Cal shout, but she couldn't have gone to him now if she'd wanted to.

‘Drive!' she yelled, praying to God he heard her and got going. Then she flung herself at the most vicious of Jerichau's tormentors. But there were simply too many hands holding her back, some covertly molesting her in the confusion of the moment. She struggled and shouted, but it was hopeless. In desperation she reached for Jerichau, and hung onto him for dear life, covering her head with her other arm as the bruising hail intensified.

Quite suddenly, the beating and the cursing and the kicks all ceased, as two officers broke into the ring of lynchers. Two or three of the mob had already taken the opportunity to slope away before they were detained, but most of them showed not the least sign of guilt. Quite the reverse; they wiped the spit from their lips and began to justify their brutality in shrill voices.

They started it, officer,' said one of the number, a balding individual who, before the blood had stained his knuckles and shirt, might have been a bank cashier.

‘Is that right?' said the officer, taking a look at the black derelict and his sullen mistress. ‘Get the fuck up, you two.' he said. ‘You've got some questions to answer.'

XI

THREE VIGNETTES

1

‘We should never have left them.' Cal said, when they'd made a circuit of the block and come back up Lord Street again to find the street crawling with officers, and no sign of Jerichau or Suzanna. ‘They've been arrested.' he said. ‘Damn it, we shouldn't have -'

‘Be practical.' said Nimrod. ‘We had no choice.'

‘They almost murdered us.' said Apolline. She was still panting like a horse.

‘At this point, our priority has to be the Weave.' Nimrod said. ‘I think we're agreed on that.'

‘Lilia saw the carpet.' Freddy explained to Apolline. ‘From the Laschenski house.'

‘Is that where she is now?' Apolline enquired. Nobody replied to the question for several seconds. Then Nimrod spoke. ‘She's dead.' he said flatly.

‘Dead?' Apolline replied. ‘How? Not one of the Cuckoos?' ‘No.' said Freddy. ‘It was something Immacolata raised. Our man Mooney here destroyed it, before it killed us

all.'

‘She knows we're awake then.' said Apolline.

Cal caught her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes had become like black pebbles in the puffed dough of her face.

‘Nothing's changed, has it?' she said. ‘Humankind on one side, and bad raptures on the other.'

‘The Scourge was worse than any rapture.' said Freddy.

‘It's still not safe to wake the rest of them.' Apolline insisted. ‘The Cuckoos are more dangerous than ever.'

‘If we don't wake them, what happens to us?' said Nimrod.

‘We become Custodians.' said Apolline. ‘We watch over the carpet until times get better.'

‘If they ever do.' said Freddy.

That remark put an end to the conversation for a good long while.

2

Hobart looked at the blood that was still bright on the paving stones of Lord Street, and knew for certain that the debris the anarchists had left on Chariot Street had been only a curtain-raiser. Here was something more graspable: a spontaneous eruption of lunacy amongst an ordinary cross-section of people, their violence whipped up by the two rebels who were now in custody awaiting his interrogation.

Last year's weapons had been bricks and home-made bombs. This year's terrorists had more access to more sophisticated equipment, it seemed. There'd been talk of a mass hallucination here, on this unremarkable street. The testimonies of perfectly sane citizens spoke of the sky changing colour. If the forces of subversion had indeed brought new weapons into the field - mind-altering gases, perhaps - then he'd be well placed to press for more aggressive tactics: heavier armaments, and a freer hand to use them. There would be resistance from the higher ranks, he knew from experience; but the more blood that was seen to be spilled the more persuasive his case became.

‘You,' he said, calling one of the press photographers over. He directed the man's attention to the splashes on the paving underfoot. ‘Show that to your readers.' he said.

The man duly photographed the splashes, then turned his lens towards Hobart. He had no opportunity to snatch a portrait before Fryer stepped in and wrenched the camera from his grip.

‘No pictures.' he said.

‘Got something to hide?' the photographer retorted.

‘Give him his property back.' said Hobart. ‘He's got a job to do, like all of us.'

The journalist took his camera and withdrew.

‘Scum.' Hobart muttered as the man turned his back. Then: ‘Anything from Chariot Street?'

‘We've got some damn peculiar testimonies.'

‘Oh?'

‘Nobody's actually confessed to seeing anything, but apparently around the time of this whirlwind things got crazy. The dogs went wild; all the radios cut off. Something strange went on there, no doubt of that.'

‘And here too.' said Hobart. ‘I think it's time we spoke to our suspects.'

3

The haloes had faded by the time the officers threw open the back of the Black Maria, and ordered Suzanna and Jerichau out into the yard of Hobart's headquarters. All that was left of the vision she'd shared with Jerichau and Apolline was vague nausea and an aching skull.

They were taken into the bleak concrete building and separated; their belongings were taken from them. Suzanna had nothing she cared much about but Mimi's book, which she'd kept in either hand or pocket since rinding it. Though she protested at its confiscation, it too was taken from her.

There was a brief exchange between the arresting officers as to where she was to be lodged, then she was escorted down a flight of stairs to a bare interrogation cell somewhere in the bowels of the building. Here an officer filled in a form of her personal details. She answered his questions as best she could, but her thoughts kept drifting off: to Cal, to Jerichau, and to the carpet. If things had looked bad at dawn they looked a good deal worse now. She told herself to cross each bridge as she came to it, and not fret uselessly about matters she could do nothing to influence. Her first priority was to get herself and Jerichau out of custody. She'd seen his fear and desperation when they were separated. He would be easy meat if anyone chose to get rough with him.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. A pale man in a charcoal-grey suit was staring at her. He looked not to have slept in a long while.

‘Thank you, Stillman.' he said. The interviewing officer vacated the chair opposite Suzanna. ‘Wait outside, would you?'

The man withdrew. The door slammed.

‘I'm Hobart.' the newcomer announced. ‘Inspector Hobart. We have some talking to do.'