Weaveworld

again the shrieks that had brought him into the garden – and time to beg. But the fire was unforgiving. By the time it had done its work Shadwell was sobbing for it to stop. Finally it did, and a shroud of sand was drawn over the bodies. Only when that was done did the Scourge grant him his own sight back. The ground he lay on – stinking of his vomit – reappeared in front of him.

He lay where he’d fallen, trembling. Only when he was certain he wouldn’t collapse did he raise his head and look up at the Scourge.

It had changed shape. No longer a giant, it sat on a hill of sand it had raised beneath itself, its many eyes turned up towards the stars. It had gone from judge and executioner to contemplative in a matter of moments.

Though the images that had filled his head had faded, Shadwell knew the creature still maintained its presence in his mind. He could feel the barbs of its thought. He was a human fish, and hooked.

It looked away from the sky, and down at him.

Shadwell …

He heard his name called, though in its new incarnation the Scourge still lacked a mouth. It needed none of course, when it could dabble in a man’s head this way.

I see you,

it said. Or rather, that was the thought it placed in Shadwell’s head, to which he put words.

I see you. And I know your name.

‘That’s what I want,’ Shadwell said, ‘I want you to know me. Trust me. Believe me.’

Sentiments like these had been part of his Salesman’s spiel for more than half his life; he drew confidence from speaking them.

You’re not the first to come here, the Scourge said. Others have come. And gone.

Shadwell knew all too well where they’d gone. He had a momentary glimpse – whether it was at the Scourge’s behest or of his own making he couldn’t be sure – of the bodies that were buried beneath the sand, their rot wasted on this dead garden. The thought should have made him afraid, but he’d felt all he was going to feel of fear, seeing the executions. Now, he would speak plainly, and hope the truth kept him from death.

‘I came here for a reason,’ he said.

What reason?

This was the moment. The customer had asked a question and he had to reply to it. No use to try and prevaricate or prettify, in the hope of securing a better sale. The plain truth was all he had to bargain with. On that, the sale was either won or lost. Best to simply state it.

‘The Seerkind,’ he said.

He felt the barbs in his brain twitch at the name, but there was no further response. The Scourge was silent. Even its wheels seemed to dim, as if at any moment the engine would flicker out.

Then, oh so quietly, it shaped the word in his head.

Seer. Kind.

And with the word came a spasm of energy, like lightning, that erupted in his skull. It was in the substance of the Scourge as well, this lightning. It flickered across the equation of its body. It ran back and forth in its eyes.

Seerkind.

‘You know who they are?’

The sand hissed around Shadwell’s feet.

I had forgotten.

‘It’s been a long time.’

And you came here, to tell me?

‘To remind you.’

Why?

The barbs twitched again. It could kill me at any moment, Shadwell thought. It’s nervous, and that makes it dangerous. I must be careful; play it cunningly. Be a salesman.

‘They hid from you,’ he said.

Indeed.

‘All these years. Hid their heads so you’d never find them.’

And now?

‘Now they’re awake again. In the human world.’

I had forgotten. But I’m reminded now. Oh yes. Sweet Shadwell.

The barbs relaxed, and a wave of the purest pleasure broke over Shadwell, leaving him almost sick with the excess of it. It was a joy-bringer too, this Scourge. What power did not lie in its control?

‘May I ask a question?’ he said.

Ask.

‘Who are you?’

The Scourge rose from its throne of sand, and in an instant it grew blindingly bright.

Shadwell covered his eyes, but the light shone through flesh and bone, and into his head, where the Scourge was pronouncing its eternal name.

I am called Uriel.

it said.

Uriel, of the principalities.

He knew the name, as he’d known by heart the rituals he’d heard at St Philomena’s: and from the same source. As a child he’d learned the names of all the angels and archangels by heart: and amongst the mighty Uriel was of the mightiest. The archangel of salvation; called by some the flame of God. The sight of the executions replayed in his head – the bodies withering beneath that merciless fire: an Angel’s fire. What had he done, stepping into the presence of such power? This was Uriel, of the principalities …

Another of the Angel’s attributes rose from memory now, and with it a sudden shock of comprehension. Uriel had been the angel left to stand guard at the gates of Eden.

Eden.

At the word, the creature blazed. Though the ages had driven it to grief and forgetfulness, it was still an Angel: its fires unquenchable. The wheels of its body rolled, the visible mathematics of its essence turning on itself and preparing for new terrors.

There were others here, the Seraph said, that called this place Eden. But I never knew it by that name.

‘What, then?’ Shadwell asked.

Paradise, said the Angel, and at the word a new picture appeared in Shadwell’s mind. It was the garden, in another age. No trees of sand then, but a lush jungle that brought to mind the flora that had sprung to life in the Gyre: the same profligate fecundity, the same unnamable species that seemed on the verge of defying their condition. Blooms that might at any moment take breath, fruit about to fly. There was none of the urgency of the Gyre here, however; the atmosphere was one of inevitable rising up, things aspiring at their own pace to some higher state, which was surely light. for everywhere between the trees brightnesses floated like living spirits.

This was a place of making, the Angel said. For ever and ever. Where things came to be.

‘To be?’

To find a form, and enter the world.

‘And Adam, and Eve?’

I don’t remember them. Uriel replied.

‘The first parents of humanity.’

Humanity was raised from dirt in a thousand places, but not here. Here were higher spirits.

‘The Seerkind?’ said Shadwell. ‘Higher spirits?’