Weaveworld

3

Luck was on Shadwell’s side. Once he was away from the hill itself the fog thinned and he realized that either by instinct or accident he’d chosen the best direction to run in. The road was not far from here; he’d be away down it before the Angel had finished on the hill; away to some safe place on the other side of the globe where he could lick his wounds and put this whole horror out of his head.

He chanced a look over his shoulder. His blessed flight had already put a good distance between himself and the scene of devastation. The only sign of the Angel was the fog; and that still clung to the hill. He was safe.

He slowed his pace as he came within sight of the hedgerow which bounded the road; all he had to do now was follow it until he came to a gate. The snow was still falling, but his sudden turn of speed had got him heated; sweat was running down his back and chest. Even as he unbuttoned his coat, however, he realized the warmth was not self-generated. The snow was turning to slush beneath his feet, as heat rose from the ground, and with it, a sudden spring, shoots bursting from the earth and rising like snakes towards his face. As they flowered he realized the depth of his error. They came with fire for sap, these blossoms, and at their hearts were Uriel’s eyes, Uriel’s countless eyes.

He could go neither forward nor back; they were all around him. To his horror he heard the Angel’s voice in his head, as he had first heard it back in the Rub al Khali.

Do I dare?

– it said, mocking his boast to Suzanna.

DO I DARE?

And then it was upon him.

One moment he was only himself. A man; a history.

The next he was pressed to the lid of his creaking skull as the Angel of Eden claimed him.

His last act as a man with a body he could call his own was to shriek.