There was a rumbling now, from somewhere up above them. A patter of dust fell from the cracked ceiling.

"The lad has arrived," he said. "Oh my God."

His pebble eyes rolled in his sockets. "I think it's overturning her city," he said. There was a calm sadness in his voice.

"I don't want to be buried down here."

"You're not going to die," he said. "What I told Maeve is true. The lad will pass over, but the rock will remain. You're safe here with me."

The tremors came again. Phoebe shuddered. "Come into my ar7ns if you're nervous," Texas said. '

"I'm okay," she replied. "But I would like to see what's going on up there."

"Easy," he replied. "Come with me."

As he led her through the labyrinth of his kingdom@n the walls of which he'd configured and reconfigured his face ten thousand times, rehearsing it for a love scene he'd now never play-he meditated aloud about life in the rock. But with the turmoil from above escalating with every stride she took, and the walls creaking and stones pattering down, she caught only fragments of what he was saying.

"It's not solid at all," he said at one point, "everything flows, if you watch it for long enough...

And a little later: "A fossil heart, that's what I've got... ut it still aches and aches... "

And later still: "San Antonio is the place to die. I wish I had flesh still, to lay down in the Alamo... Finally, after maybe ten minutes of such bits and pieces, he led her into a sizable chamber, the entire floor of which was raked and polished. There, in the very ground beneath her feet, was a periscopic reflection of what was going on above ground- It was an awe-inspiring sight: the seething darkness of the lad's body invading the streets of the city she'd been walking in just hours before, carrying before it remnants of the places it had laid waste on its way here. She saw a head lopped from some titanic statue rolling down one of the streets, felling entire buildings as it went. She saw what looked to be a small island deposited in the middle of a city square. Several ships had come to rest among the spires of the cathedral, and their sails had unfurled as if to bear it away before the next wind.

And among this debris, in numbers beyond counting, were creatures trawled from the depths of the dream-sea by the lad's passage. The least of them were fantasias on the theme of fish: gleaming shoals of visionary life, thrown up in waves above the city's roofs, then falling in glorious profusion. Far more extraordinary were the creatures drawn up, Phoebe supposed, from Quiddity's deepest trenches, their forms inspired by (or inspirations for) the tales of mariners the world over. was that glistening coil not a sea-serpent, its eyes burning like twin furnaces in its hooded head? And that beast wrapping its arms around the masks of a grounded cutter, was that not the mother of all octopi?

"Damn it," King Texas said. "I never liked competing with that city of hers for her attention, but this is no way for t to end."

Phoebe said nothing. Her gaze had gone from the debris to the lad itself. What she saw put her in mind of a disease-a terrible, implacable, devouring disease. It had no face. It had no malice. It had no guilt. Perhaps it didn't even have a mind. It came because it could; because nothing stopped it.

"It's going to destroy Everville," she said to Texas.

"Maybe.

"There's no maybe about it," she protested.

"Why should you care?" he said. "You don't love it there, do you?"

"No," Phoebe said. "But I don't want to see it destroyed either."

"You don't have to," Texas said. "You're here with me.

Phoebe pondered this a moment. Plainly she wasn't going to get him to intervene on her behalf. But maybe there was another way. "If I were Maeve-2' she began.

"You're too sane." "But if I were-if I'd founded a city the way she'd founded Everville, not with dreams but with plain hard work@'

"Yes?"

"And somebody protected it for me, kept my city safe-2'

She let the notion trail. There was fifteen seconds of silence, while Liverpool shook and trembled under their feet. Then he said, "Would you love that somebody?"

"Maybe I would," she said.

"Oh my Lord-" he murmured.

"It looks like the lad's giving up on the city," she said. "It's starting to move along the shore."

"My shore," King Texas said. "I'm the rock, remember?" He crossed the mirror to where she stood and laid his mud hand upon her cheek. "Thank you," he said. "You've given me hope." He turned from her, saying,

"Stay here.

"I don't@' "Stay, I said. And watch."

During the voyage to Mem-6 b'Kether Sabbat, Noah Summa Summamentis had spoken of the lad Uroboros's power to induce terror by its very proximity, but until now-when Joe entered the streets of Livetpool-he had seen no evidence of that power. In b'Kether Sabbat the lad's malevolence had been held in thrall to the 'shu, and by the time it had been unleashed Joe was a spirit, and apparently immune to its influence. But the survivors who wandered through the shaking desolation were plainly victims, shrieking and sobbing for relief from the madness overwhelming them. Some had succumbed to it, and sat in the rubble with blank faces. Others were driven to terrible acts of self-harm to stop the horrors, beating their heads against stones, or tearing at their chests to still their hearts.

Powerless to help them, Joe could only wander on, determined to at least be a witness to what the lad perpetrated. Perhaps there was some higher court in which its crimes would be judged. If so, he would testify.

There was a large bonfire burning in the street ahead, its flames brightening the filthy air. Approaching, he saw that it was attended by perhaps twenty people, who were circling it hand in hand, praying aloud.

"You who are divided, be whole in our hearts-"

Surely they were appealing to the 'shu, he thought.

"You who are divided-"

Their prayer apparently went unheard, however. Though the lad had left off its destruction of the city there were remnants of its shadow presence haunting the streets, and one such portion, no more than a dozen feet tall, and resembling a pillar of darkness, was approaching the fire from the far end of the street. One of the group, a young woman with a mouth that resembled a fleshy rose, broke the circle and started to retreat from the fire, shaking her head wildly. The worshipper to her left caught hold of her hand and proceeded to haul her back to the fire.

"Hold on!" he said to her. "It's our only hope!" But the damage had been done. The circle, once broken, ad lost any chann it might have possessed, and now each of the worshippers succumbed to the lad's baleful influence. One of the men pulled out a knife and proceeded to threaten the air in front of him. Another reached into the flames, searing his hand and yelling for some horror or other to keep away from him.

As he did so, he looked up through the fire, and his agonized face suddenly cleared of its confusions. He pulled his hand out of the fire and stared at Joe.

"Look... " he murmured. Joe was as astonished as the man witnessing him. "You see me?" he said.

The man failed to hear him. He was too busy yelling for his fellow worshippers to "Look! Look!"

Another had seen him now; a woman whose face was a mass of bruises, but who at the sight of him broke into an ecstatic smile.

"Look how it shines-" she said.

"It heard," somebody else murmured. "We prayed and it heard."

"What are you seeing?" Joe said to them. But they made no sign of hearing him. they simply watched the place where his spirit stood, and wept and gaped and offered up thanks.

One of their number looked back down the street towards the approaching lad. It was approaching no longer. Either it had been recalled into the body of its nation, or else it had retreated from the force of joy that suddenly surrounded the fire.