Weaveworld

‘You don’t do that any more, do you? I’ve noticed. You don’t even talk about the Fugue.’

Jerichau smiled. ‘Why should I?’ he said, ‘I’m happy as I am. With you. Maybe it’ll be different tomorrow. Maybe it was different yesterday, I forget. But today, now. I’m happy. I even begin to like the Kingdom.’

She remembered him lost in the crowd on Lord Street; how he’d changed.

‘So what if you never saw the Fugue again?’

He pondered this a moment. ‘Who knows? Better not to think about it.’

It was an improbable romance. She, learning all the time from the power inside her a new vision. He, daily more seduced by the very world whose trivialities she was seeing with dearer and dearer eyes. And with that comprehension, so unlike the simplifications she’d been ruled by hitherto, she became even more certain that the carpet they carried was a last hope, while he – whose home the Weave contained – seemed increasingly indifferent to its fate, living in the moment and for the moment, touched scarcely at all by hope or regret. He talked less and less of finding a safe place for the Fugue to reside, more and more of something tantalizing he’d seen in the street or on the television.

Often now, though he stayed with her and told her she could always rely upon him, she felt she was alone.

5

And somewhere behind her, Hobart was also alone; even amongst his men, or with Shadwell, alone: dreaming of her and the scent she left to mock him, and of the brutalities he’d deliver upon her.

In these dreams his hands would be flaming, as they’d been once before, and as she fought him the flames would lick up the walls of the room, and crawl across the ceiling, until the chamber was an oven. And he’d wake with his hands in front of his face, running not with fire but sweat, glad of the Law to keep him from panic, and glad too that he was on the side of the angels.

V

OUR LADY OF THE BONES

1

hese were dark days for Shadwell.

He had emerged from the Fugue in high spirits – possessed of a new breadth of purpose – only to have the world he wished so much to rule snatched from beneath his nose. Not only that, but Immacolata, to whom he might have looked for assistance, had apparently elected to remain in the Weave. She was, after all, one of the Seerkind, even though they’d spurned her. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so surprised that once back on soil she’d once pretended to she’d been moved to remain there.

He was not completely bereft of company. Norris, the Hamburger King, was still at his beck and call, still content with servitude. And of course there was Hobart. The Inspector was probably insane, but that was all to the good. And he had one particular aspiration which Shadwell knew he might one day need to turn to his own ends. That was, to lead – as Hobart put it – a righteous crusade.

There was little use of a crusade, however, with nothing to mount it against. Five long months had passed, and every day that went by with the carpet unfound his desperation grew. Unlike others who’d stepped from the Fugue that night, he remembered the experience in the finest detail. The jacket – charged with the raptures of the realm – kept the memories fresh. All too fresh. Scarcely an hour passed without his craving to be there.

There was more to his hunger than simply the desire to possess the Fugue. In these long weeks of waiting he’d come to a yet profounder ambition. If, and when, that soil was once more his to tread, he’d do what none of the Seerkind had ever dared; he’d go into the Gyre. This notion, once conceived, tormented his every waking moment. Penalties might have to be paid for such trespass, but would they not be worth the risk? Hidden behind that mask of cloud, the Mantle, was a concentration of magic unequalled in the history of the Seerkind, and therefore, in the history of the world.

Creation held court in the Gyre. To walk there, and see its secrets for himself, would that not be a kind of Godhood?

2

And today, he had the setting to match the tenor of these thoughts: this small church dedicated to St Philomena and St Callixtus, hidden away in the concrete wasteland of the City of London. He had not come here for the good of his soul; he had been invited here, by the priest who was presently conducting the lunchtime mass for a handful of office workers. A man he’d never met, who had written saying he had important news; news Shadwell could profit by. The Salesman had come without hesitation.

Shadwell had been brought up a Catholic; and though he’d long neglected his faith there was no forgetting the rituals he’d learned as a child. He listened to the Sanctus, his lips running with the rhythm of the words, though it was twenty years since he’d attended them. Then the Eucharistic Prayer – something short and sweet, so as not to keep the accountants from their calculations – and on to the Consecration.

… Take this all of you and eat it. This is my body which will be given up for you …

Old words; old rituals. But they still made sound commercial sense.

Talk of Power and Might would always attract an audience. Lords never went out of fashion.

Lost in thought he wasn’t even aware that the mass had ended until the priest appeared at his side.

‘Mr Shadwell?’

He looked up from his calf-skin gloves. The church was empty, but for the two of them.

‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ said the priest, not waiting for confirmation that he had the right man. ‘You’re most welcome.’

Shadwell got to his feet.

‘What’s this about?’

‘Perhaps you’ll come with me?’ came the response.

Shadwell saw no reason not to comply. The priest led him across the nave, and into a wood-panelled room which smelt like a brothel, sweat and perfume mingled. At the far end of the room, a curtain, which he drew aside, and another door.

Before turning the key he said:

‘You must stay close by me, Mr Shadwell, and not approach the Shrine …’

The Shrine? For the first time since coming here, Shadwell had an inkling of what was going on.

‘I understand,’ he said.

The priest opened the door. There was a steep flight of stone steps before them, lit only by the meagre light shed from the room they were leaving. He lost count of the steps after thirty; they were descending in almost total darkness after the first ten, and he kept his hands stretched to the wall, which was dry and chilly, in order to maintain his balance.

But now below, a light. The priest glanced over his shoulder, his face a pale ball in the murk.

‘Stay by me,’ he cautioned, it’s dangerous.’

At the bottom, the priest took hold of his arm, as though not trusting Shadwell to obey his instructions. They had arrived in the centre of a labyrinth, it seemed; galleries ran off in all directions, twisting and turning unpredictably. In some, candles burned. Others were in darkness.

It was only as the guide led him down one of these corridors that Shadwell realized they were not alone here. The walls were lined with niches, each of which contained a coffin. He shuddered. The dead were on every side; it was their dust that he could taste on his tongue. There was only one person, he knew, who would willingly keep such company.

Even as he formed this thought the priest’s hand dropped from his arm, and the man withdrew down the