Weaveworld

3

The truth in the warning he’d been given at the garage became all too apparent when he turned off the A road at Lydford on Fosse, and onto a minor thoroughfare that would in theory carry him West to Rayment’s Hill. He’d known before setting out that this would be the most problematic part of the journey, but there was no alternative. No main road fed this area; there were only narrow tracks and backwaters, most of which, he knew, would have been buried beneath the drifts.

He advanced maybe two miles, the road ahead white on white, until the ice-dogged tread of the tyres would no longer grip, and the car came to a halt, its spinning wheels doing no more than kick up sheets of snow. He revved the engine, bullying it and coaxing it by turns, but the vehicle was not going to move without help. Reluctantly, he got out, and immediately sank to mid-shin in the snow. Gluck had lent him a pair of hiking boots and heavy socks, which protected his feet, but the chill soaked through his trousers in an instant. He put up the hood of his anorak – again, Gluck’s gift – and trudged round to the back of the car. Having no shovel all he could do was clear the snow by hand. His efforts bore no fruit. After twenty minutes’ work he hadn’t succeeded in getting the car to move an inch either forward or backward.

He decided to give up on the task before his fingertips froze. Taking refuge in the car, the engine idling so as to keep the heat coming, he sat and considered the options available to him. The last sign of human habitation had been back at the turn into this road, two miles behind him; two miles of digging through the drifts – with the snow still falling – in near as damnit total darkness. Suppose, after that walk, he could get someone foolish or charitable enough to help him; hours would have been lost.

There were two other options. One – that he stay where he was and sit out the night. This he rejected without a second thought. The other, that he finish the journey to Rayment’s Hill on foot. To judge by his map, which was not detailed, the road forked a little way on. If he were to take the left-hand track it would in principle take him to the vicinity of the hill. He’d be guided almost entirely by instinct, however, for virtually all distinguishing features of the landscape – ditches, hedgerows, the road itself – had disappeared. But what else could he do? It was better to travel blind than not at all.

With the decision made, his spirits rose, and he turned his attention to the problem of protecting himself against the elements. In the back of the car, upturned between the seats, and presumably overlooked, he found a box of Gluck’s precious reports. Hoping he’d be forgiven this trespass he clambered over onto the back seat and proceeded to put several layers of paper and photographs between his skin and his clothing, insulating himself with tales of falling frogs and talking bees. The supply exhausted, he tore up the box itself and double lined his trousers – which would take the brunt of the cold – with cardboard. Finally, he ripped up two chamois leathers he found on the back window ledge and wrapped them around his face, pulling his anorak hood up, and tying its drawstring tight to seal himself in. With more paper lining his gloves, he was as ready for the onslaught as he’d ever be. Picking up the parcel Gluck had given him, he turned off the engine and stepped out to meet the snow.

This is the act of a lunatic, he thought as he slammed the door and began to trudge away from the car: I’m Mad Mooney to the bitter end.

It wasn’t as dark outside as he’d anticipated. In the time it had taken to prepare for his march the fury of the blizzard had abated somewhat, and the landscape was suffused with a milky brightness, the canvas of snow more luminous than the laden sky above it. There were even breaks in the cloud; stars glimmered between. He began to think he might have a chance after all.

The first quarter-mile did nothing to dispel his optimism, but with the next quarter his makeshift insulation began to fail. The damp started to creep through the cardboard beneath his trousers, numbing his legs. It crept through his gloves and their lining too, making his fingers ache. Worse still, he couldn’t find any sign of the fork in the road marked on the map, and became more certain with every dragging step that he’d missed the turning, his present route leading away from the hill rather than towards it.

He decided to take a risk and strike out across the fields. The land to his left rose steeply. Perhaps at the top he’d get a better grasp of the lay of the land. He glanced back in the direction of the car, but he could no longer see it. No matter; he was committed now. He made towards the white face of the hill and began to climb.

The break in the clouds had grown larger, and there was an expanse of glittering sky above him, pin-pointed with stars. He’d learned the names of the major constellations when he bought his telescope, and he could name them easily; he, the Memory Man. They meant nothing of course, those names, except in the human perspective; they were just tags bestowed by some star-gazer who’d seemed to see a pattern in the scattering overhead: a bow and arrow, a bear, a plough. They meant nothing in the cosmic context. But it was a necessary comfort, to see the stars and call them by name, as if you knew them as friends. Without that courtesy the sight might break a man’s heart.

The ache in his legs and hands was contagious; his arms and torso had caught it, so had his prick and balls, his ears and sinuses. Indeed there seemed to be no part of him that didn’t give him pain. But there was no going back. Another thirty yards would bring him to the top of the hill, he estimated, and began to count them off. At eighteen he had to stop to gain some breath for the remaining twelve. Walking against both the snow and the incline was claiming more energy than he had to give. As he stood, gasping for air like an asthmatic, he glanced down at the tracks he’d left in the snow. He’d taken his path to be straight, but it wandered back and forth wildly.

Not wanting to think about what that signified, he turned back to his ascent. Every step now was a major challenge. He was obliged to lift his knees to groin height in order to step over the snow rather than try and drag through it. His freezing muscles protested every stride, but he finally got there, presented at the summit with a pure white panorama. It was as though the house of England had been deserted, and a dust-sheet thrown over its furniture ‘til the owners returned. If they returned. It was possible, standing on the rise looking down on the blankness below, the silence utter, to believe they would never come back to this forsaken place, and that he was alone.

But there was a hill, and it could only be the one he sought, because there was no other. Between it and the place he stood, however, lay an expanse of snow-covered fields. At the sight of the distance he had yet to cover his innards seemed to sink, but he knew that standing still would only make his muscles seize up, and so began to career down the slope, barely in control of his body.

Towards the bottom the snow became deeper and deeper still, until he was waist-high in it, and he was not so much walking as swimming. But as he started across the field towards the hill the crippling ache of cold began to fade, and a welcome deadness replaced it. Half way across his fingers let slip the package Gluck had given him, a fact his increasingly narrowed consciousness was barely aware of. His shrinking thoughts had turned to how comfortable the snow he was ploughing through looked. Maybe he should give up his trek for a while, and lay down on this pristine pillow. His head was heavier by the moment, and the snow would be oh so comfortable. Where was the harm in lying down in it ‘til he felt stronger? But lazy as his thoughts were becoming he wasn’t so far gone not to know sleep would kill him. If he stopped now he stopped forever.

He reached the bottom of Rayment’s Hill on the verge of collapse, then drove himself, step by step, up the slope. It was longer than the first one, but not so steep. He couldn’t think far enough ahead to wonder what he’d find on the other side; it took all his mental effort to instruct his limbs to move. But as he came within a few yards of the brow he raised his head in the dim hope of seeing the stars. The clouds had sealed them from sight, however; a fresh assault was mustering in the sky.

Two more steps and he reached the summit, turning his gaze on the landscape laid out below the hill. There was nothing to see. No sign of anything even resembling a hiding place, however vestigial, for as far as his appalled sight stretched. Only snow-covered fields, and more of the same, rolling away into the distance, deserted and silent. He was alone.

If he’d had the strength to weep he would have wept. Instead he let his exhaustion triumph, and he fell down in the snow. There was no way he could make the return journey to the car, even if he’d been able to find his way. That fatal sleep he’d kept denying himself would just have to claim him.

But as his lids began to close he caught a movement in the wastes at the base of the hill – something was running about in the snow. He tried to focus; failed; pressed his fingers to his face to stir himself; looked up and tried again. His eyes didn’t deceive him. There was something moving on the blank page in front of him; an animal of some kind.

Could it be … a monkey?

He plunged his arms into the snow and hauled himself up, but as he did so he lost his balance and pitched forward. For several seconds earth and sky became a blur as he tumbled down the slope, coming to a halt encased in ice, it took him a moment to re-orient himself, but when he did he saw the animal – and yes, it was a monkey! – fleeing from him.

He stood up, more snow than man, and stumbled after it. Where in God’s name was it running to? There were only open fields ahead of it.

Suddenly, the animal vanished. One moment it was plainly in front of him, and he was gaining on it. The very next it had disappeared from the field, as though it had fled through an open door and slammed it closed. He halted, not believing the evidence of his befuddled sight. Was the animal a mirage of some kind? Or had the cold simply undone his sanity?

He stared at the snow. There were distinctly tracks there – paw tracks, where the monkey had been playing. He followed them, and the testimony of his eyes was confirmed. The tracks stopped dead a few feet from where he stood. Beyond the spot there was simply clean, crisp snow; acres of it.

‘All right,’ he said to the empty field. ‘Where are you?’

As he spoke he took another step towards the place where the monkey had pulled its disappearing trick, and asked his question again.

‘Please …’ he said, his voice failing, ‘where are you?’

There was no answer, of course. Mirages were silent.

He stared at the tracks, and felt the last vestiges of hope go out of him.

Then a voice said:

‘Don’t stand in the cold.’

He looked up. There was nobody visible to right or left of him. But the instructions came again.

‘Two paces forward. And be quick about it.’

He took one tentative step. As he was about to take the second an arm appeared from the air directly in front of him, and – seizing hold of his anorak – claimed him from the snow.