‘You'll have to find your own way,' said Shadwell. ‘I've got business here.'

‘Oh no you don't,' said Norris, pointing his shoe at Shadwell. ‘I need a body-guard. And you're it.'

The sight of the Hamburger King reduced to this nervous wreckage amused Shadwell. More than that, it made him feel - perhaps perversely - secure.

‘Look,' he said, his manner softening. ‘We're both in the same shit here -'

‘Damn right we are.'

‘I've got something that might help,' he said, opening his jacket,'- something to sweeten the pill.'

Norris looked suspicious. ‘Oh yeah?'

‘Have a peep,' said Shadwell, showing the man the jacket lining. Norris wiped off the blood that was running into his left eye, and stared into the folds. ‘What do you see?'

There was a moment of hesitation, when Shadwell wondered if the jacket was still functioning. Then a slow smile broke over Norris' face, and a look familiar from countless other such seductions crept into his eyes.

‘See something you like?' Shadwell asked him.

‘Indeed I do.'

Take it then. It's yours. Free, gratis and for nothing.'

Norris smiled, almost coyly. ‘Wherever did you find him?' he asked, as he extended a trembling hand towards the jacket. ‘After all these years ....'

Tenderly, he drew his temptation from the folds of the lining. It was a wind-up toy: a soldier with a drum, so fondly and so accurately remembered by its owner that the illusion he now held in his hand had been recreated with every dent and scratch in place.

‘My drummer,' said Norris, weeping for joy as if he'd taken possession of the world's eighth wonder. ‘Oh my drummer.' He turned it over. ‘But there's no key,' he said. ‘Do you have it?'

‘I may find it for you, by and by,' Shadwell replied.

‘One of his arms is broken,' said Norris, stroking the drummer's head. ‘But he still plays.'

‘You're happy?'

‘Oh yes. Yes thank you.'

Then put it in your pocket, so that you can carry me awhile,' said Shadwell.

‘Carry you?'

‘I'm weary. I need a horse.'

Norris showed no trace of resistance to this notion, though Shadwell was a bigger and heavier man, and would constitute quite a burden. The gift had won him over utterly, and while it held him in thrall he would allow his spine to crack before disobeying the giftgiver.

Laughing to himself, Shadwell climbed onto the man's back. His plans might have gone awry tonight, but as long as people had dreams to mourn he could possess their little souls awhile.

‘Where do you want me to take you?' the horse asked him.

‘Somewhere high.' he directed. Take me somewhere high.'

V

THE ORCHARD OF LEMUEL LO

1

Neither Boaz nor Ganza were voluble guides. They led the way through the Fugue in almost complete silence, only breaking that silence to warn Cal that a stretch of ground was treacherous, or to keep close to them as they moved down a colonnade in which he heard dogs panting. In a sense he was glad of their quietness. He didn't want a guided tour of the terrain, at least not tonight. He'd known, when he'd first looked down at the Fugue from the wall in Mimi's yard, that it couldn't be mapped, nor its contents listed and committed to memory like his beloved timetables. He would have to understand the Weaveworld in a different fashion: not as hard fact but as feeling. The schism between his mind and the world it was attempting to grasp was dissolving. In its place was a relationship of echo and counter echo. They were thoughts inside each other's heads, he and this world; and that knowledge, which he could never have found the words to articulate, turned the journey into a tour of his own history. He'd known from Mad Mooney that poetry was heard differently from ear to ear. Poetry was like that. The same, he began to see, was also true of geography.

2

They climbed a long slope. He thought maybe a tide of crickets leapt before their feet; the earth seemed alive.

At the top of the slope they looked across a field. At the far side of the field was an orchard.

‘Almost there,' said Ganza, and they began towards it.

The orchard was the biggest single feature he'd seen in the Fugue so far; a plot of maybe thirty or forty trees, planted in rows and carefully pruned so that their branches almost touched. Beneath this canopy were passages of neatly clipped grass, dappled by velvet light.

This is the orchard of Lemuel Lo,' Boaz said, as they stood on the perimeter. His gentle voice was softer than ever. ‘Even amongst the fabled, it's fabled.'

Ganza led the way beneath the trees. The air was still and warm and sweet. The branches were laden with a fruit that Cal did not recognize.

‘They're Jude Pears,' Boaz told him. ‘One of the species we've never shared with the Cuckoos.'

‘Why not?'

‘There are reasons.' said Boaz. He looked around for Ganza, but she'd disappeared down one of the avenues. ‘Help yourself to the fruit,' he said, moving away from Cal in search of his companion. ‘Lem won't mind.'

Though Cal thought he could see all the way down the corridor of trees his eyes deceived him. Boaz took three steps from him, and was gone.

Cal reached towards one of the low-slung branches and put his hand on one of the fruits. As he did so there was a great commotion in the tree and something ran down the branch towards him.

‘Not that one!'

The voice was bass profundo. The speaker was a monkey.

‘They're sweeter upstairs,' the beast said, throwing its brown eyes skyward. Then it ran back the way it had come, its passage bringing leaves down around Cal. He tried to follow its progress, but the animal moved too fast. It was back in half a dozen seconds, with not one but two fruits. Perched in the branches, it threw them down to Cal.

‘Peel them,' it said. ‘One each.'

Despite their name, they didn't resemble pears. They were the size of a plum, but with a leathery skin. It was tough, but it couldn't disguise the fragrance of the meat inside.

‘What are you waiting for?' the monkey demanded to know. ‘They're tasty, these Giddys. Peel it and see.'

The fact of the talking monkey - which might have stopped Cal dead in his tracks a week before - was just part of the local colour now.

‘You call them Giddys?' he said. ‘Jude Pears; Giddy Fruit. It's all the same meat.' The monkey's eyes were on Cal's hands, willing him to peel the fruit. He proceeded to do just that. They were more difficult to skin than any fruit he'd encountered; hence the monkey's bargain with him, presumably. Viscous juice ran from the broken skin and over his hands; the smell was ever more appetizing. Before he'd quite finished peeling the first of them, the monkey snatched it from his grasp and wolfed it down. ‘Good -' it said, between mouthfuls. Its pleasure was echoed from beneath the tree. Somebody made a sound of appreciation, and Cal glanced away from his labours to see that there was a man squatting against the trunk, rolling a cigarette. He looked back up to the monkey, then down at the man, and the voice from the beast made new sense. ‘Good trick,' he said.

The man looked up at Cal. His features were distressingly close to mongoloid; the smile he offered huge, and seemingly uncomprehending.

‘What is?' said the voice from the branches. Confounded as he was by the face below him, Cal pursued his assumption, and addressed his reply not to the puppet but the puppeteer.

Throwing your voice like that.'

The man still grinned, but showed no sign that he'd understood. The monkey, however, laughed loudly. ‘Eat the fruit.' it said.

Cal's fingers had worked at the peeling without his direction. The Giddy was skinned. But some lingering superstition about stolen fruit kept him from putting it to his lips.

Try it.' said the monkey. ‘They're not poisonous -'

The smell was too tantalizing to resist. He bit.