Weaveworld

‘You damn fool,’ de Bono said. ‘Why are you Cuckoos so afraid of your feelings? She’s worth loving; even I can see that. So why don’t you say it?’

Cal grunted. De Bono was right, but it rankled to be lectured on the matter by someone younger.

‘You’re afraid of her, is that it?’ de Bono said.

The remark added insult to injury.

‘Christ no,’ Cal said. ‘Why the fuck should I be afraid of her?’

‘She’s got powers,’ said de Bono, taking off his spectacles and surveying the terrain ahead. ‘Most women have, of course. That’s why Starbrook wouldn’t have them in the Field. It threw him off balance.’

‘And what have we got?’ Cal asked, kicking a stone ahead of him.

‘We’ve got our pricks.’

‘Starbrook, again?’

‘De Bono,’ came the reply, and the boy laughed. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘I know this place where we could go –’

‘No detours,’ said Cal.

‘What’s an hour or two?’ said de Bono. ‘Have you ever heard of Venus Mountain?’

‘I said no detours, de Bono. If you want to go, then go.’

‘Jesus, you’re boring,’ de Bono sighed. ‘I just might leave you to it.’

‘I’m not much enjoying your damn fool questions, either,’ Cal said. ‘So if you want to go pick flowers, do it. Just point me to the Firmament.’

De Bono fell silent. They walked on. When they did start talking again de Bono began to parade his knowledge of the Fugue, more for the pleasure of belittling his fellow traveller than out of any genuine desire to inform. Twice, in the middle of a diatribe, Cal dragged them into hiding as one of Hobart’s patrols came within sighting distance of them. On the second occasion they were pinned down for two hours while the Squad got progressively drunker within yards of their hiding place.

When they finally moved on, they progressed much more slowly. Their cramp-ridden limbs felt leaden; they were hungry, thirsty and irritated by each other’s company. Worst of all, dusk was creeping on.

‘Just how far is it from here?’ Cal wanted to know. Once, looking down on the Fugue from Mimi’s wall, the confusion of its landscape had promised unending adventure. Now, immersed in that confusion, he would have given his eye-teeth for a good map.

‘It’s quite a distance yet,’ de Bono replied.

‘Do you know where the hell we are?’

De Bono’s lip curled. ‘Of course.’

‘Name it.’

‘Huh?’

‘Name it!’

‘I’ll be damned if I will. You just have to trust me, Cuckoo.’

The wind had got up in the last half hour, and now it brought with it the sound of cries, which halted the escalating war of words between them.

‘I smell a bonfire burning,’ de Bono said. It was true. Besides its burden of pain, the wind brought the scent of burning wood. De Bono was already bounding off in search of its source. Nothing would have given Cal more satisfaction at that moment than leaving the rope-dancer to his own devices, but – much as he doubted de Bono’s value as a guide – he was better than nothing. Cal followed him through the gathering darkness, up a small ridge. From there – across a space of fields littered with arches – they had a fine view of the fire. What looked to be a small copse was burning lustily, the flames fanned by the wind. On the outskirts of this sizeable blaze a number of cars were parked, their owners – more of Shadwell’s army of deliverance – running riot.

‘Bastards,’ said de Bono, as several of them hounded down a victim and laid into him with cudgels and boots. ‘Cuckoo bastards.’

‘It’s not just my people –’ Cal began. But before he could finish the defence of his tribe, the words died on his tongue, as he recognized the place that was being destroyed in front of his eyes.

This was no wood. The trees weren’t arbitrarily scattered, but planted in ordered avenues. Once, beneath the awning of those trees, he’d spoken Mad Mooney’s verses. Now the orchard of Lemuel Lo was ablaze from end to end.

He started down the slope towards the conflagration.

‘Where are you going?’ de Bono asked him. ‘Calhoun? What do you think you’re doing?’

De Bono came after him, and took hold of his arm.

‘Calhoun! Listen to me!’

‘Let me alone,’ Cal said, attempting to throw de Bono off. In the violence of that attempt the soil of the incline gave way beneath his heel and he lost balance, taking de Bono with him. They slid down the hill, dirt and stones showering them, and came to a halt in a waist-deep ditch of stagnant water at the bottom. Cal began to haul himself out the other side, but de Bono had hold of his shirt.

‘You can’t do anything, Mooney,’ he said.

‘Get the fuck off me.’

‘Look, I’m sorry about the Cuckoo remark, right? We breed vandals too.’

‘Forget it,’ said Cal, his eyes still on the fire. He detached de Bono’s hand. ‘I know this place,’ he said. ‘I can’t just let it burn.’

He pulled himself up out of the ditch and started towards the blaze. He’d kill the bastards who’d done this, whoever they were. Kill them, and call it justice.

‘It’s too late!’ de Bono called after him. ‘You can’t help.’

There was truth in what the youth said. Tomorrow there’d be nothing left of the orchard but ashes. Still he couldn’t bring himself to turn his back on the spot where he’d first tasted the Fugue’s raptures. Vaguely aware that de Bono was padding after him, and completely indifferent to the fact, he headed on.

As the scene before him became clearer he realized that the Prophet’s troops (the word flattered them; it was a rabble) were not going unresisted. In several places around the fire figures were locked in hand-to-hand combat. But the orchard’s defenders were easy meat for the fire-raisers, for whom these barbarities were little more than sport. They’d come into the Fugue armed with weapons that could decimate the Seerkind in hours. Even as Cal watched he saw one of the Kind felled with a pistol shot. Somebody went to the wounded man’s aid, but was in her turn brought down. The soldiers went from body to body to see that the job was done. The first of the victims was not dead. He raised his hand towards his executioner, who pointed his gun at the man’s head and fired.

A spasm of nausea convulsed Cal’s system, as the smell of cooking flesh mingled with the smoke. He couldn’t control his revulsion. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground, retching on his empty stomach. At that moment his misery seemed complete: the wet clothes icy on his spine; the taste of his stomach in his throat; the paradise orchard burning nearby. The horrors the Fugue was showing him were as profound as its visions had been elevated. He could fall no further.

‘Come away, Cal.’

De Bono’s hand was on his shoulder. He put a handful of freshly torn grass in front of Cal.

‘Wipe your face,’ he said softly. ‘There’s nothing to be done here.’

Cal pressed the grass beneath his nose, inhaling its cool sweetness. The nausea was passing. He chanced one more look up at the burning orchard. His eyes were watering, and at first glance he couldn’t trust what they now told him. He wiped them with the back of his hand, sniffing. Then he looked again, and there – moving through the smoke in front of the fire – he saw Lem.

He spoke the man’s name.

‘Who?’ said de Bono.

Cal was already getting up, though his legs were jittery.

‘There,’ Cal said, pointing towards Lo. The orchard-keeper was crouching beside one of the bodies, his hand extended to the face of the corpse. Was he closing the dead man’s eyes, offering a blessing as he did so?

Cal had to make his presence known; had to speak to the man, even if it was just to say that he too had witnessed the horrors here, and that they wouldn’t go unrevenged. He turned to de Bono. The blaze, reflected in the rope-dancer’s spectacles, hid his eyes, but it was clear from the way his face was set that what he’d seen had