Weaveworld

XI

THREE VIGNETTES

1

e 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.