Weaveworld

3

As Cal came within a yard of the Temple door his strength gave out.

He could no longer command his legs to bear him up. He stumbled, throwing out his right arm to prevent his falling too heavily, and hit the ground.

Unconsciousness claimed him, and he was grateful for it. Escape lasted seconds only however, before the blackness lifted, and he was delivered back into nausea and agony. But now – and not for the first time in the Fugue – his blood-starved brain had lost its grasp on whether he was dreaming, or being dreamt.

That ambiguity had first visited him in Lemuel Lo’s orchard, he remembered: waking from a dream of the life he’d lived to find himself in a paradise he’d only ever expected to encounter in sleep. And then later, on Venus Mountain, or beneath it, living the life of planets – and passing a millennium in that revolving state – only to wake a mere six hours older.

Now here was the paradox again, at death’s door. Had he awoken to die?; or was dying true wakefulness? Round and round the thoughts went, in a spiral with darkness at its centre, and he fleeing into that darkness, wearier by the moment.

His head on the earth, which was trembling beneath him, he opened his eyes and looked back towards the Temple. He saw it upside down, the roof sitting in a foundation of clouds, while the bright ground shone around it.

Paradox upon paradox, he thought, as his eyes drifted closed again.

‘Cal.’

Somebody called him.

‘Cal.’

Irritated to be summoned this way, he opened his eyes only reluctantly.

It was Suzanna who was bending over him, saying his name. She had questions too, but his lazy mind couldn’t grasp them. Instead he said:

‘Inside. Shadwell …’

‘Hold on,’ she told him. ‘You understand me?’

She put his hand on her face. It was cool. Then she bent down and kissed him, and somewhere at the back of his skull he remembered this happening before; his lying on the ground, and her giving him love.

‘I’ll be here,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘You’d better be,’ she replied, and crossed to the door of the Temple.

This time, he did not let his eyes close. Whatever dream waited beyond life, he would postpone its pleasure ‘til he saw her face again.