"So," he said. "I'm Kissoon. You're Tesla. Sit. Talk with me."

"I've got a lot of questions," she told him.

"I'd be surprised if you hadn't."

"I can ask?"

"Ask. But first, sit."

She squatted down on the opposite side of the fire to him. The floor was warm; the air too. Within thirty seconds her pores had begun to ooze. It was pleasant.

"First—" she said "—how did I get here? And where am I?"

"New Mexico is where you are," Kissoon replied. "And the how of it? Well, that's a more difficult question, but what it comes down to is this: I've been watching you—you and several others—waiting for a chance to bring someone here. Your near-death, and the Nuncio, helped erode your resistance to the journey. Indeed you had little choice."

"How much do you know about what's happening in the Grove?" she asked him.

He made dry sounds with his mouth, as though trying to summon saliva. When he finally replied it was with a weary tone.

"Oh God in Heaven, too much," he said, "I know too much."

"The Art, Quiddity...all that?"

"Yes," he said, with the same dispirited air. "All that. It was me began it, fool that I am. The creature you know as the Jaff once sat where you're sitting now. He was just a man then. Randolph Jaffe, impressive in his way—he had to have been to have got here in the first place—but still just a man."

"Did he come the way I came?" she asked. "I mean, was he near death?"

"No. He just had a greater hunger for the Art than most who went after it. He wasn't put off by the smoke screens, and the shams, and all the tricks that throw most people off the scent. He kept looking, until he found me."

Kissoon regarded Tesla with eyes narrowed, as if he might sharpen his sight that way, and get inside her skull.

"What to tell," he said. "Always the same problem: what to tell."

"You sound like Grillo," she remarked. "Have you spied on him?"

"Once or twice, when he crossed the path," Kissoon said. "But he's not important. You are. You're very important."

"How do you figure that?"

"You're here, for one. Nobody's been here since Randolph, and look what consequences that brought. This is no normal place, Tesla. I'm sure you've already guessed that. This is a Loop—a time out of time—which I made for myself"

"Out of time?" she said. "I don't understand."

"Where to begin," he said. "That's the other question, isn't it? First, what to tell. Then, where to begin...Well. You know about the Art. About Quiddity. Do you also know about the Shoal?"

She shook her head.

"It is, or was, one of the oldest orders in world religion. A tiny sect—seventeen of us at any one time—who had one dogma, the Art, one heaven, Quiddity, and one purpose, to keep both pure. This is its sign," he said, picking a small object up from the ground in front of him and tossing it across to her. At first glance she thought it was a crucifix. It was a cross, and at its center was a man, spreadeagled. But a closer perusal gave the lie to that. On each of the four arms of the symbol other forms were inscribed, which seemed to be corruptions of, or developments from, the central figure.

"You believe me?" he said.

"I believe you."

She threw the symbol back over to his side of the fire.

"Quiddity must be preserved, at any cost. No doubt you understood this from Fletcher?"

"He said that, yes. Was he one of the Shoal?"

Kissoon looked disdainful. "No, he'd never have made the grade. He was just an employee. The Jaff hired him to provide a chemical ride: a short-cut to the Art, and Quiddity."

"That was the Nuncio?"

"It was."

"Did it do the job?"

"It might have done, if Fletcher hadn't been touched with it himself."

"That was why they fought," she said.

"Yes," Kissoon replied. "Of course. But you know this. Fletcher must have told you."

"We didn't have much time. He explained bits and pieces. A lot of it was vague."

"He was no genius. Finding the Nuncio was more luck than talent."

"You met him?"

"I told you, nobody's been here since Jaffe. I'm alone."

"No you're not," Tesla said. "There was somebody outside—"

"The Lix, you mean? The serpent that opened the door? Just a little creation of mine. A doodle. Though I have enjoyed breeding them..."

"No. Not that," she said. "There was a woman, in the desert. I saw her."

"Oh really?" Kissoon said, a subtle shadow seeming to cross his face. "A woman?" He made a little smile. "Well, forgive me," he said. "I do dream still, once in a while. And there was a time when I could conjure whatever I desired by dreaming it. She was naked?"

"I don't think so."

"Beautiful?"

"I didn't get that close."

"Oh. A pity. But best for you. You're vulnerable here and I wouldn't want you hurt by a possessive mistress." His voice had lightened, become almost artificially casual.

"If you see her again, keep your distance," he advised. "On no account approach her."

"I won't."

"I hope she finds her way here. Not that I could do much now. The carcass..." He looked down at his withered body, "...has seen better days. But I could look. I like to look. Even at you, if you don't mind me saying."

"What do you mean, even?" Tesla said.

Kissoon laughed, low and dry. "Yes, I'm sorry. I meant it as a compliment. All these years alone. I've lost my social graces."

"You could go back, surely," she said. "You brought me here. Isn't there a two-way traffic?"

"Yes and no," he said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I could, but I can't."

"Why?"

"I'm the last of the Shoal," he said. "The last living preserver of Quiddity. The rest have been murdered, and all attempts to replace them brought to nothing. Do you blame me for keeping out of sight? For watching from a safe distance? If I die without somehow re-establishing the tradition of the Shoal, Quiddity will be left unguarded, and I think you understand enough to know how cataclysmic that could be. The only possible way I can get out into the world and begin that vital work is in another shape. Another...body."

"Who are the murderers? Do you know?"

Again, that subtle shadow.

"I have my suspicions," he replied.

"But you're not telling."

"The history of the Shoal's littered with attempts on its integrity. It's got enemies human; sub; in; ab. If I started to explain we'd never be finished."

"Is any of this written down?"

"You mean, can you research it? No. But you can read between the lines of other histories, and you'll find the Shoal everywhere. It's the secret behind all other secrets. Entire religions were seeded and nurtured to distract attention from it, to direct spiritual seekers away from the Shoal, the Art and what the Art opened onto. It wasn't difficult. People are easily thrown off track if the right scent is laid down. Promises of Revelation, Resurrection of the Body, that sort of thing—"

"Are you saying—"

"Don't interrupt," Kissoon said. "Please. I'm getting into my rhythm here."

"I'm sorry," Tesla said.

It's almost like a pitch, she thought. Like he's trying to sell me this whole extraordinary story.

"So. As I was saying...you can find the Shoal everywhere, if you know how to look. And some people did. There were several men and women down the years, like Jaffe, who managed to look through the shams and the smoke screens, and just kept on digging up the clues, breaking the codes, and the codes within the codes, until they got close to the Art. Then of course, the Shoal would be obliged to step in and act as we thought fit on a case-by-case basis. Some of these seekers, Gurdjieff, Melville, Emily Dickinson; an interesting cross-section, we simply initiated into a most sacred and secret adepthood, to train them to take over in our stead when death depleted our numbers. Others we judged unfit."