Weaveworld

He crossed the border into Scotland about two-thirty in the morning and continued to drive North, the landscape becoming hillier and less populated as he drove. He was getting hungry, and his muscles were beginning to ache after so many hours of uninterrupted driving, but nothing short of Armageddon would have coaxed him to slow down or stop. With every mile he came nearer to Wonderland, in which a life too long delayed was waiting to be lived.

XII

RESOLUTION

1

uzanna sat beside Jerichau’s body for a long while, thinking, while trying all the time not to think. Down the hill the unweaving was still going on; the tide of the Fugue approaching her. But she couldn’t face the beauty of it, not at the moment. When the threads started to come within fifty yards of her she retreated, leaving Jerichau’s body where it lay.

Dawn was paling the clouds overhead. She decided to climb to higher ground so as to have an overview when day came. The higher she went the windier it became; a bitter wind, from the North. But it was worth the shivering, for the promontory she stood upon offered her a fine panorama, and as the day strengthened she realized just how cannily Shadwell had selected this valley. It was bounded on all sides by steep hills, whose slopes were bereft of any building, however humble. Indeed the only sign of human presence was the primitive track the convoy had followed to get here, which had most likely been used more in the last twenty-four hours than it had in its entire span hitherto.

It was on that road, as dawn brought colour to the hills, that she saw the car. It crept along the ridge of the hill a little way, then came to a halt. Its driver, minuscule from Suzanna’s vantage point, got out and surveyed the valley. It seemed the Fugue below was not visible to such a casual witness, for the driver got back into the car almost immediately as if realizing that he’d taken a wrong turning. He didn’t drive away however, as she’d expected. Instead he took the vehicle off the track, parking it out of sight amongst the gorse bushes. Then he got out again and began to walk in her direction, following a zig-zag route along the boulder-strewn hillside.

And now she began to think she recognized him; began to hope that her eyes did not deceive her, and that it was indeed Cal who was making his way towards her.

Had he seen her? It seemed not, for he was now starting to descend. She ran a little way to close the gap between them, and then climbed onto a rock and waved her arms. Her signal went unnoticed for several seconds, until by chance he glanced her way. He stopped, cupping his hand over his eyes. Then he changed directions and began to bound back up the slope towards her, and yes! it was Cal. Even then she feared some self-deception, until the sound of his raw breath reached her ears, and the squeak of his heels on the dewy grass.

He covered the last few yards between them stumbling more than running, and suddenly he was a moment away and she was crossing to meet his open arms, hugging him to her.

And this time it was she who said, ‘I love you,’ and answered his smiles with kisses and kisses.

2

They exchanged the bones of their stories as quickly as they could, leaving the meat for less urgent times.

‘Shadwell doesn’t want to sell the Fugue any longer,’ said Suzanna. ‘He wants to possess it.’

‘And play the Prophet forever?’ said Cal.

‘I doubt that. He’ll drop the pretence once he’s in control.’

‘Then we have to prevent him seizing control,’ said Cal. ‘Unmask him.’

‘Or simply kill him,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Let’s not linger then,’ he said.

They stood up and looked down at the world that now occupied the length and breadth of the valley beneath them. The unweaving was still not completed; filaments of light crept through the grass, spreading flora and fauna as they went.

Beyond the interface of Kingdom and Weaveworld the promised land gleamed. It was as if the Fugue had brought from sleep its own season, and that season was an everlasting spring.

There was a light in the shimmering trees, and in the fields, and rivers, that didn’t come from the sky overhead, which was sullen, but broke from every bud and droplet. Even the most ancient stone was remade today. Like the poems Cal had rehearsed as he’d driven. Old words, new magic.

‘It’s waiting for us,’ he said.

Together, they went down the hill.

Part Eight

The Return

‘You were about to tell me

something, child - but you

left off before you began.’

William Congreve

The Old Bachelor

I

STRATEGY

hadwell’s army of deliverance consisted of three main battalions.

The first, and by far the largest, was the mass of the Prophet’s followers, the converts whose fervour he had whipped to fanatical proportions, and whose devotion to him and to his promise of a new age knew no bounds. He had warned them that there would be bloodshed, and bloodshed they would have, much of it their own. But they were prepared for such sacrifice; indeed the wilder faction amongst them, chiefly Ye-me, the most hot-headed of the Families, were fairly itching to break some bones.

It was an enthusiasm Shadwell had already used – albeit discreetly – when occasional members of his congregation had called his preaching into question, and he was ready to use it again if there was any sign of softening in the ranks. He would of course do what he could to subdue the Fugue by rhetoric, but he didn’t much fancy his chances. His followers had been easily duped: their lives in the Kingdom had so immersed them in half- truths that they were ready to believe any fiction if it was properly advertised. But the Seerkind who had remained in the Fugue would not be so easily misled. That was when the truncheons and the pistols would be called into play.

The second part of his army was made up of Hobart’s confederates, choice members of the Squad Hobart had diligently prepared for a day of revolution that had never come. Shadwell had introduced them to the pleasures of his jacket, and they had all found something in the folds worth selling their souls for. Now they were his Elite, ready to defend his person to the death should circumstance demand.

The third and final battalion was less visible than the other two, but no less powerful for that. Its soldiers were the by-blows, the sons and daughters of the Magdalene: an unnumbered and unordered rabble whose resemblance to their fathers was usually remote, and whose natures ranged from the subtly lunatic to the beserk.