Weaveworld

2

It was more than a nightmare, he knew; it had the potency of a vision. After that first visit there was a blank night, then it came again, and again the night after. The particulars were altered somewhat (a different street, a different prayer) but it was in essence the same warning; or prophecy.

There was a gap of several days before the fourth dream, and this time Geraldine was with him. Though she made every attempt to wake him – he was howling, she said – he could not be roused until the dream was over. Only then did he open his eyes to find her sobbing with panic.

‘I thought you were dying,’ she said, and he half believed she was right; that his heart would not bear many more of these terrors before it burst.

It was not just his death the vision promised, however; it was that of the people on Venus Mountain, who seemed to occupy his very substance. A catastrophe was coming, that would lay waste those few Seerkind who had survived; who were, in their way, as intimate to him as his own flesh. That was what the dream told.

He lived through November in fear of sleep, and what it would bring. The nights were growing longer, the portions of light shrinking. It was as if the year itself was sliding into sleep, and in the mind of the night that would follow the substance of his dream was taking shape. A week into December, with the nightmare coming almost as soon as he closed his eyes, he knew he had to speak to Suzanna. Find her, and tell her what he was seeing.

But how? Her letter to him had been quite clear: she would contact him when it was safe to do so. He had no address for her; nor a telephone number.

In desperation, he turned to the only source of intelligence he had on the whereabouts of miracles.

He found Virgil Gluck’s card, and rang the number on it.

There was no reply.