Weaveworld

‘Where then? Where?’

‘There is no Loom.’

‘You’re out of your mind,’ he yelled up at her. ‘Either there is or there isn’t!’

The Incantatrix had a skull’s smile as she gazed down on the man below.

‘You’re the fool,’ she said mildly. ‘You don’t understand, do you?’

Shadwell put on a gentler tone. ‘Why don’t you come down?’ he said. ‘My neck aches.’

She shook her head. It cost her effort to hang in the air that way, Suzanna could see; she was defying the sanctity of the Temple by working her raptures here. But she flew in the face of such edicts, determined to remind Shadwell of how earth-bound he was.

‘Afraid, are you?’ said Shadwell.

Immacolata’s smile did not falter. ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said, and began to float down towards him.

Keep out of his way, Suzanna willed her. Though the Incantatrix had done terrible harm, Suzanna had no desire to see her felled by Shadwell’s mischief. But the Salesman stood face to face with the woman and made no move. He simply said:

‘You reached here before me.’

‘I almost forgot you,’ Immacolata replied. Her voice had lost any trace of stridency. It was full of sighs. ‘But she reminded me,’ she glanced at Suzanna. ‘It was a fine service you did me, sister,’ she said. ‘To remind me of my enemy.’

Her eyes went back to Shadwell.

‘You drove me mad,’ she said. ‘And I forgot you. But I remember now.’

Suddenly the smile and the sighs had gone entirely. There was only ruin, and rage.

‘I remember very well.’

‘Where’s the Loom?’ Shadwell demanded.

‘You were always so literal,’ Immacolata replied, contemptuously. ‘Did you really expect to find a thing? Another object to be possessed? Is that your Godhood, Shadwell? Possession?’

‘Where the fuck is it?’

She laughed then, though the sound from her throat had nothing to do with pleasure.

Her ridicule pressed Shadwell to breaking point; he flung himself at her. But she was not about to let herself be touched by his hands. As he snatched hold of her it seemed to Suzanna that her whole ruined face cracked open, spilling a force that might once have been the menstruum – that cool, bright river Suzanna had first plunged into at Immacolata’s behest – but was now a damned and polluted stream, breaking from the wounds like pus. It had force nevertheless. Shadwell was thrown to the ground.

Overhead, the clouds threw lightning across the roof, freezing the scene below by its scalpel light. The killing blow could only be a glance away, surely.

But it didn’t come. The Incantatrix hesitated, the broken face leaking tainted power, and in that instant Shadwell’s hand closed on the kitchen knife at his side.

Suzanna cried a warning, but Immacolata either failed to hear or chose not to. Then Shadwell was on his feet, his ungainly rise offering his victim a moment to strike him down, which was missed – and drove the blade up into her abdomen, a butcher’s stroke which opened a traumatic wound.

At last she seemed to know he meant her death, and responded. Her face began to blaze afresh, but before the spark could become fire Shadwell’s blade was dividing her to the breasts. Her innards slid from the wound. She screamed, and threw back her head, the unleashed force wasted against the sanctum walls.

On the instant, the room was filled with a roaring that seemed to come from both the bricks and the innards of Immacolata. Shadwell dropped the blood-slicked knife, and made to retreat from his crime, but his victim reached out and pulled him close.

The fire had entirely gone from Immacolata’s face. She was dying, and quickly. But even in her failing moments her grip was strong. As the roaring grew louder she granted Shadwell the embrace she’d always denied him, her wound besmirching his jacket. He made a cry of repugnance, but she wouldn’t let him go. He struggled, and finally succeeded in breaking her hold, throwing her off and staggering from her, his chest and belly plastered with blood. He cast one more look in her direction then started towards the door, making small moans of horror. As he reached the exit he looked up at Suzanna.

‘I didn’t …’ he began, his hands raised, blood trickling between his fingers. ‘It wasn’t me …’

The words were as much appeal as denial.

‘It was magic!’ he said, tears starting to his eyes. Not of sorrow, she knew, but of a sudden righteous rage.

‘Filthy magic!’ he shrieked. The ground rocked to hear its glory denied.

He didn’t wait to have the roof fall on his head, but fled from the chamber as the roars rose in intensity.

Suzanna looked back at Immacolata.

Despite the grievous wounding she’d sustained she was not yet dead. She was standing against one of the walls, clinging to the brick with one hand and keeping her innards from falling with the other.

‘Blood’s been spilt,’ she said, as another tremor, more fierce than any that had preceded it, unknitted the foundations of the building. ‘Blood’s been spilt in the Temple of the Loom.’

She smiled that terrible, twisted smile.

‘The Fugue’s undone, sister –’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I came here intending to spill his blood and bring the Gyre down. Seems it’s me who’s done the bleeding. It’s no matter.’ Her voice grew weaker. Suzanna stepped close, to hear her better. ‘It’s all the same in the end. The Fugue is finished. It’ll be dust. All dust …’

She pushed herself off the wall. Suzanna reached and kept her from falling. The contact made her palm tingle.

‘They’re exiles forever,’ Immacolata said, and frail as it was, there was triumph in her voice. The Fugue ends here. Wiped away as if it had never been.’

At this, her legs buckled beneath her. Pushing Suzanna away, she stumbled back against the wall. Her hand slipped from her belly; her guts unspooled.

‘I used to dream …’ she said, ‘… terrible emptiness…’

She stopped speaking, as she slid down the wall, strands of her hair catching on the brick.

‘… sand and nothingness,’ she said. That’s what I dreamt. Sand and nothingness. And here it is.’

As if to bear out her remark the din grew cataclysmic.

Satisfied with her labours, Immacolata sank to the ground.

Suzanna looked towards her escape route, as the bricks of the Temple began to grind upon each other with fresh ferocity. What more could she do here? The mysteries of the Loom had defeated her. If she stayed she’d be buried in the ruins. There was nothing left to do but get out while she still could.

As she moved to the door, two pencil beams of light sliced through the grimy air, and struck her arm. Their brightness shocked her. More shocking still, their source. They were coming from the eye sockets of one of the sentinels. She stepped out of the path of the light, and as the beams struck the corpse opposite lights flared there too; then in the third sentinel’s head, and the fourth.

These events weren’t lost on Immacolata.

‘The Loom …’ she whispered, her breath failing.

The intersecting beams were brightening, and the fraught air was soothed by the sound of voices, softly murmuring words so unfixable they were almost music.

‘You’re too late,’ said the Incantatrix, her comment made not to Suzanna but to the dead quartet. ‘You can’t save it now.’

Her head began to slip forward.

‘Too late …’ she said again.

Then a shudder went through her. The body, vacated by spirit, keeled over. She lay dead in her blood.

Despite her dying words, the power here was still building. Suzanna backed towards the door, to clear the beams’ route completely. With nothing to bar their way they immediately redoubled their brilliance, and from the