Weaveworld

2

The rickshaw was waiting on the far side of the bridge. Chloe bundled Cal into his seat, throwing the tasselled cushions out to lighten the load.

‘Be swift,’ she said to Floris. No sooner had she spoken than they were off.

It was a hair-raising journey. A great urgency had seized everything and everybody, as the Fugue prepared to lose its substance to pattern again. Overhead, the night sky was a maze of birds; the fields were rife with animals. There was everywhere a great readying, as if for some momentous dive.

‘Do you dream?’ Cal asked Chloe as they travelled. The question had come out of the blue, but was suddenly of great importance to him.

‘Dream?’ said Chloe.

‘When you’re in the Weave?’

‘Perhaps –’ she said. She seemed preoccupied. ‘– but I never remember my dreams. I sleep too deeply …’ She faltered, then looked away from Cal before saying, ‘… like death.’

‘You’ll wake again soon,’ he said, understanding the melancholy that had come upon her. ‘It’ll only be a few days.’

He tried to sound confident, but doubted that he was succeeding. He knew all too little of what the night had brought. Was Shadwell still alive; and the sisters? And if so where?

‘I’m going to help you,’ he said. ‘That I do know. I’m part of this place now.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said with great gravity. ‘That you are. But Cal –’ She looked at him, her hand taking his, and he felt a bond between them, an intimacy even, which seemed out of all proportion to the meagre time they’d known each other. ‘Cal. Future history is full of tricks.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Things can be so easily erased,’ she said. ‘And forever. Believe me. Forever. Entire lives gone, as if they’d never been lived.’

‘Am I missing something?’ he said.

‘Just don’t assume everything’s guaranteed.’

‘I don’t,’ he told her.

‘Good. Good.’ She seemed a little cheered by this. ‘You’re a fine man, Calhoun. But you’ll forget.’

‘Forget what?’

‘All this. The Fugue.’

He laughed. ‘Never,’ he said.

‘Oh but you will. Indeed maybe you have to. Have to, or your heart would break.’

He thought of Lemuel again, and his parting words. Remember, he’d said. Was it really so difficult?

If there were any further words to be said on the subject, they went unvoiced, for at this point Floris brought the rickshaw to an abrupt halt.

‘What’s the problem?’ Chloe wanted to know.

The rickshaw driver pointed dead ahead. No more than a hundred yards from where the rickshaw stood the landscape and all it contained was losing itself to the Weave, solid matter becoming clouds of colour, from which the threads of the carpet would be drawn.

‘So soon,’ said Chloe. ‘Get out. Calhoun. We can take you no further.’

The line of the Weave was approaching like a forest fire, eating up everything in its path. It was an awesome scene. Though he knew perfectly well what procedures were under way here – and knew them to be benevolent – the sight was almost chilling. A world was dissolving before his very eyes.

‘You’re on your own from here,’ said Chloe. ‘About turn, Floris! And fly!’

The rickshaw was turned.

‘What happens to me?’ said Cal.

‘You’re a Cuckoo,’ Chloe shouted back at him, as Floris hauled the rickshaw away. ‘You can simply walk out the other side!’

She shouted something else, which he failed to catch.

He hoped to God it wasn’t a prayer.