Weaveworld

VII

SHADWELL ON HIGH

et me down,’ said the Salesman to his broken-backed mount. They’d climbed a steep-sided hill, the highest Shadwell could find. The view from the top was impressive.

Norris, however, wasn’t much interested in the view. He sat down, labouring for breath, and clutched his one-handed drummer to his chest, leaving Shadwell to stand on the promontory and admire the moon-lit vista spread beneath him.

The journey here had offered a host of extraordinary sights; the occupants of this province, though plainly related to species outside the Fugue, had somehow been coaxed by magic into new forms. How else to explain moths five times the size of his hand, which yowled like mating cats from the tops of the trees? Or the shimmering snakes he’d seen, posing as flames in the niche of a rock? Or the bush the thorns of which bled onto its own blossoms?

Such novelties were everywhere. The pitch he’d offered to his clients when tempting them to the Auction had been colourful enough; but it had scarcely begun to evoke the reality. The Fugue was stranger by far than any words of his had suggested; stranger, and more distressing.

That was what he felt, looking down from the hill-top: distress. It had come over him slowly, as they’d journeyed here, beginning like dyspepsia, and escalating to the point where he felt a kind of terror. At first he’d tried not to admit its origins to himself, but such was its force the feeling could now no longer be denied.

It was covetousness that had come to birth in his belly; the one sensation that no true Salesman could ever indulge. He tried to get the better of the ache by viewing the landscape and its contents in strictly commercial terms: how much could he ask for that orchard?; or the islands in that lake?; or the moths? But for once the technique failed him. He looked down over the Fugue and all thought of commerce was swept away.

It was no use to struggle. He had to admit the bitter fact: he’d made a terrible error trying to sell this place.

No price could ever be put on such mind-wracking profusion; no bidder, however wealthy, had the wherewithal to purchase it.

Here he was, looking down on the greatest collection of miracles the world had ever seen, with all ambition to lord it over princes fled.

A new ambition had taken its place. He would be a prince himself. More than a prince.

Here was a country, laid before him. Why should he not be King?