I sighed. 'Just don't let me put my fingers in my mouth.' I cautiously brought out the wrapthe sight of it triggered my craving and damp sprang up on the palms of my hands. Truly we are nothing but chemicals.

'Don' give in,' said Rayne, over her shoulder.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. 'I...I can't...'

'So you'll give in? Think of t' disadvantageslook a' her! Remember how bad you feel for six months after kicking. You're doing well now; each time you ge' clean i's for slightly longer. The balance has tipped.'

I calmed myself, thinking; no one is asking me to do without it permanently. I said, 'It's cooked at source somewhere in Ladygrace. But is it cut?'

The rounded hills of Ladygrace, where scolopendium fern grows, have that name because as you approach from a distance their profile looks like a voluptuous woman lying on her back with her knees in the air. The most difficult part of the route is s.h.i.+pping the finished product across the Moren estuary. It never occurred to me, when I was ripping off Dotterel's shop and selling at the wharves, how much more money I could have made smuggling by air.

I poured water into another gla.s.s and delicately shook the paper over it. Grains fell out and dissolved on impact with the surface, leaving no residue. Even the largest had gone before it fell half a centimetre through the water column.

's.h.i.+t, it's pure. Maybe eighty to ninety per cent...If I hadn't used for a while I wouldn't shoot this.'

Rayne said, 'If Cyan was buying, I think she could prob'ly afford pure.'

'That's what killed Sharny. He wouldn't have been used to it. He didn't even have time to take the tourniquet off...' I imagined him thinkingsome b.a.s.t.a.r.d's cut thisthen the fact it isn't cut hits with full strength. His hands clench, he struggles for breath but it's clear there won't be a next one.

Feeling suddenly nauseous I dumped it in the fire and wiped my hands. 'It'd lay me out.'

'For how long?'

'A day and a half. Is she likely to die?'

'I can' tell. But if she does i's no' my faul'.'

'I'm f.u.c.ked. What will Saker do when I tell him his only daughter is in a coma from a ma.s.sive overdose? I'm the only junky he knows. He'll shoot me!'

'Mmm.'

'When I first saw her I drooled like a dog on a feast day. I thought she was feek! She was a mink!' I ran out of slang and just scooped a feminine body out of the air with a couple of hand movements. 'But now she looks like a corpse! They called it jook, not cat, or I would have known!'

We called the stuff cat because it makes you act like one, roaming all night on the buzz at first, then languid and p.r.o.ne to lying around.

'Did you jus' throw i' all away?'

'Yes.'

The night wore on, mercilessly. I put on the clothes the servant had found for me, though they were not svelte enough to fitI have to have clothes made to measureand the s.h.i.+rt was red. Red is not my colour at all. I ate some bread, but it didn't cure my hangover. The liquor settled in my gut, leaching water from my body and diluting it. The water I drank turned straight into p.i.s.s and I was still so dehydrated my tongue clacked on the roof of my mouth like a leather strap. I felt as if my skin was drying; my fingertips were wrinkled and a headache like a steel band tightened round my temples. My heartbeat shook my whole body, and I scarcely knew what to do with my hands.

Pit.

I looked up. 'What's that noise?'

'I don' hear any noise,' Rayne said.

'That noise like water drops?'

'Look around,' she said. 'My collections are valuable.'

I did so and noticed a movement on the first turn of the spiral steps where the staircase rose into the gloom. A worm was crawling there. As I watched, another one fell from the upper floor. It wriggled to the edge of the step, tumbled over and dropped onto the step below. Pit. Another one fell. Pit, pit. The worms began descending the steps with a determination I could only attribute to one thing. They were dropping faster now, like the first giant drops of a rainstorm. Pitpitpitplopplopplopplopplop, in ones and twos, linked together. The austere steps began to disappear under their pink flesh.

Rayne yelled, 'Worms? Where are they coming from? An infesta' ion?'

'It's worse than that,' I said.

'I had t' theatre cleaned this morning!' She glanced from them to her patient.

I said, 'It's from the s.h.i.+ft. It's called the Vermiform.'

'Is i' safe?'

'No...' I giggled. 'It's not safe.'

With a sound like flesh tearing, a curtain of worms appeared over the top of the spiral stair. It started to tatter as individuals fell from it. Large holes appeared, a rent, the curtain swung sideways and fell with a slap onto the steps then began to undulate as it slithered down them.

A flake of plaster fell off the wall, leaving a round hole. Something that looked like the end of a twined rope spewed out, then all of a sudden swelled to the thickness of an arm, and a mouth formed on the end. Under the plaster, flesh seemed to continue in all directions. The mouth bobbed closer to me, then back, as the ma.s.s undulated. It said, 'Go to the door.'

'Go to the door!'

A crack ran from the hole and raced splintering along the wall, then forced out another flake of plaster. A thin cord, rolled like a b.u.t.terfly's tongue, unspooled from the hole and hung, dangling, a mouth on a flesh tube. 'Go to the door.'

It touched the floor and dissociated into long worms that went crawling out in all directions. More mouths started sprouting from the bases of beams, the corners of the room, 'Go to the door! Go to the door!'

Rayne's face was set with fear but she didn't back off. She went to the grate and picked up the coal shovel. 'Wha' is i'?'

'Don't bother. Even if you hit it you can't harm it. It's a colony of worms and it's sentient.'

The Doctor nodded sagely. 'I'll le' you handle i'.' She went to stand next to Cyan, still holding the shovel. As far as she was concerned, her most important task was to protect her patient.

The handle of the outside door turned. Rayne and I glanced at each other. The door burst open and the Vermiform woman flowed in. Ten arms appeared from all over her, waved at me, then sucked back into her. She was much larger than last time I saw her; her worms must have bred, and though her shape and features were pretty her skin was a padded, pulsating ma.s.s. Added to the pink tide toppling down the stairs and falling from the ceiling the Vermiform must be huge, and this time I could hear it. Its worms made a rasping noise as they stretched, contracted, slid, with invisibly small bristles. They seethed and pressed like maggots and gave off a stink like urine-ridden sawdust, like old p.i.s.s.

Through the open door I saw that the statue of the university's founder had gone. That was even more horrificI couldn't stand the thought of the statue wandering around out there. I stared at the empty plinth until I realised that must have been the place where the Vermiform s.h.i.+fted through and it had crumbled the marble into rubble.

More worms were pouring through the plaster as if Rayne's room was moving. They twitched out of the ceiling and wound down the wall. They knocked her models onto their sides, and swept them off the mantelpiece. From her shelves a stack of tiles on which pills were made fell and shattered. A flask smashed, spilling heavy mercury. Its curved shards rocked like giant fingernails. A jar tipped over and ovate white pills cascaded onto the floor.

Rayne flinched. 'Hey! Stop destroying my house!'

The worm-woman created two more beautiful female heads on stalks from somewhere in its belly and raised them to the level of the first one. It moved them about in front of my face. I couldn't choose which to focus on and I felt myself going cross-eyed.

'Are you the same Vermiform as before?' I asked it.

'We are always the same.'

'Well, you've grown.'

'We were asked to find you, Comet, although we do not appreciate being a Messenger's messenger. Cyan is in Osseousfor the moment. She is in deadly danger. She is trapped in the Gabbleratchet.'

The Vermiform paused, as if it expected me to know what the f.u.c.k it was talking about. Its surface covering the walls smoothed and stilled, lowering slightly as the worms packed closer together. It became denser and more solid, and the shapes of the furniture buried under it bulged out more clearly. I had the impression it was deeply afraid.

Rayne asked, 'Gabbleratche'? Wha's tha'?'

'Why are you frightened?' I added.

The layers of worms blistered as individuals stretched up indignantly. They looked like fibres fraying from a flesh-coloured tapestry. The necks bent and the heads swayed. Their lips moved simultaneously, and its voice chorused like thousands of people speaking at once: 'The eternal hunt. It is travelling through Osseous at the moment. We must try to intercept it before it veers into another world carrying Cyan away for good. We cannot predict it. No one can pursue it. Time is of the essence.' The worms around my feet reached up thin strands and spun around my legs.

I tried to wipe them off. 'What do you mean, "we"? I can't s.h.i.+ft. If I take an overdose the Emperor would feel it. He promised he would cut my link to the Circle and let me die.'

At the other end of the room the worm tentacles were picking Rayne's clothes out of the wardrobe, filling them, and making them dance about. Rayne folded her arms. 'Tell us more.'

This vexed the Vermiform. 'Dunlin asked me to fetch Comet, not an old woman.'

'An old woman! Do you know...! Dunlin?...Jant, why is i' talking abou' Dunlin? Does i' mean t' former King?'

'Yes. He's still alive, in the s.h.i.+ft.'

'Jant! Wha' have you done?'

'I'll tell you later.' I addressed the Vermiform: 'Did Dunlin see Cyan?'

'Yes. He saw the Gabbleratchet s.n.a.t.c.h her. Dunlin was advising Membury, the Equinne's leader, how to wage war against the Insects when the hunt appeared. We saw it cut a swathe through the Equinne troops. Those who survived have taken shelter in their barns.'

'Can't Dunlin command these eternal hunters?'

'No. The Gabbleratchet is unfixed in time and s.p.a.ce. It was ancient even before the Somatopolis achieved consciousness. We do not pretend to understand it. It never separates and nothing controls it. It eats what it rides down. Cyan mounted a horse when the hunt was still and it ran with her. Like the others it has abducted she will fly until she dies of starvation.'

'Fly?'

'Yes. Be careful the instant you arrive. We are easy prey. If it catches us, it will tear us apart.' The Vermiform's three heads on long necks danced about on the surface of the worm quilt like droplets of water on a hot stove. 'We will take you through bodily, without causing a separation of mind and body. It will not strain the circle that suspends time for you, so none of your co-immortals will feel the effect of it labouring to keep you together.'

I shook my head. 'I don't like the sound of this. So I won't be a tourist in the s.h.i.+ft but actually there in the flesh? So this 'Ratchet thing can eat me? No way, it's too dangerous.'

The Vermiform washed up around my legs and bound them together. 'Make haste. Be ready.'

I wasn't ready at all! The room started shrinking: the ceiling was lowering. It drooped in the middle, sagged down, brushed my head. The corners of the walls and the right angles where they met the ceiling smoothed into curves, making the room an oval. I saw Rayne protecting Cyan with her coal shovel raised, then the walls pressed in and obliterated my view. They came closer and closer, dimming the light.

From the box-bed Rayne must have seen worms hanging down from the ceiling, bulging out from the walls, pa.s.sing her; closing in and leaving the furniture clear until they tightened around me in a flesh-coloured coc.o.o.n.

I struggled but the Vermiform held my legs tight. The meshed worms masked my face. I closed my eyes but I felt them squirming against the lids. They let me take a deep breath, then pressed firmly over my lips. Worms closed tightly around my head, all over my body, seething upon my bare skin. I pushed against its firm surface but had no effect. It was like one great muscle.

I couldn't move, panicked. I was bundled tight! Hard worms gagged me. My chest was hurting, every muscle between every rib was screaming to exhale. I was light-headed and dizzy. I lost the sensation in my fingers, my arms. The curved muscle under my lungs burned. I held my breath, knowing there was nothing to inhale but worms.

I couldn't stand it any more. I gulped the stale air back into my mouth and exhaled it all at once. I sucked on the worms and my lungs stayed small, no air to fill them. I started panting tiny breaths. My legs were weak, my whole body felt light. I started blacking out.

The next breath, the worms peeled away and cold fresh air rushed into my lungs. I collapsed to my knees, coughing. The Vermiform extended grotesque tendrils and hauled me upright.

CHAPTER 8.

I was standing on the cold Osseous steppe, where the horse people come from. It was twilight and silent; the sky darkening blue with few stars. Around me stretched a flat jadeite plain of featureless gra.s.s. A marsh with dwarf willow trees surrounded a shallow river; deep clumps of moss soaking with murky water and haunted by midges. Far on the other side of the river a silhouette line of hazy, scarcely visible hills marked the end of the plain.

In the distance I saw a village of the Equinnes' black and red corrugated metal barns, looking like plain blocks. Between them was one of their large communal barbecues, a stand on a blackened patch of earth where they roast vegetables. A freezing mist oozed out between the barns to lie low over the gra.s.sy tundra.

I couldn't see any Equinnes, ominously because they spend most of their time outdoors and only sleep in their barns. They're so friendly they normally race to greet strangers.

The Vermiform had rea.s.sembledshe stood a head taller than me. She said, 'We told Membury and the Equinnes that even when the Gabbleratchet vanishes they must not come out for a few hours.'

'Where is it now?' I asked. The Vermiform pointed up to the sky above the hills. I strained to make out a faint grey fleck, moving under the stars at great speed. It turned and seemed to lengthen into a column. I gasped, seeing creatures chasing wildly through the air, weaving around each other.

'It has already seen us,' the Vermiform chorused. Worms began to slough off her randomly and burrow into the gra.s.s. 'When I say run, run. It won't be able to stop. Don't run too soon or it will change course. Be swift. Nothing survives it. If it catches you we won't find one drop of blood left. Beware, it also draws people in.'

'What do you mean?'

'Don't look at it for too long. It will mesmerise you.'

It was an indistinguishable, broiling crowd, a long train of specks racing along, weaving st.i.tches in and out of the sky. Their movement was absolutely chaotic. They vanished, reappeared a few kilometres on, for the length of three hundred or so metres, and vanished again. I blinked, thinking my eyes were tricking me.

'It is s.h.i.+fting between here and some other world,' said the Vermiform, whose lower worms were increasingly questing about in the gra.s.s.

The hunt turned towards us in a curve; its trail receded into the distance. Closer, at its fore, individual dots resolved as jet-black horses and hounds. The horses were larger than the greatest destriers and between, around, in front of their flying hooves ran hounds bigger than wolves. Black manes and tails streamed and tattered, unnaturally long. The dogs' eyes burned, reflecting starlight, the horses' coats shone. There were countless animalsor what looked like animalsacting as one being, possessed of only one sense: to kill. Hooves sc.r.a.ped the air, claws raked as they flew. They reared like the froth on a wave, and behind them the arc of identical horses and hounds stretched in their wake.

They were shrieking like a myriad newborn babies. Dulled by distance it sounded almost plaintive. Closer, their size grew, their screaming swelled. As I stared at them, they changed. Yellow-white flickers showed here and there in the tight pack. All at different rates but quickly, their hides were rotting and peeling away. Some were already skeletons, empty ribs and bone legs. The hounds' s...o...b..ring mouths decayed to black void maws and sharp teeth curving back to the ears. Above them, the horses transformed between articulated skeletons and full-fleshed beasts. Their skulls nodded on vertebral columns as they ran. Closer, their high, empty eyesockets drew me in. As I watched, the skeleton rebuilt to a stallionrotten white eyes; glazed recently dead eyes; aware and living eyes rolled to focus on us.

The horse's flanks dulled and festered; strips dropped off its forelegs and vanished. Bones galloped, then sinews appeared binding them, muscle plumped, veins sprang forth, branching over them. Skin regrew; it was whole again, red-stained hooves gleaming. The hounds' tongues lolled, their ears flapped as they rushed through hissing displaced air. All cycled randomly from flesh to bone. Tails lashed like whips, the wind whistled through their rib cages, claws flexed on paw bones like dice. Then fur patched them over and the loose skin under their bellies again rippled in the slipstream. Horses' tails billowed. Their skulls' empty gaps between front and back teeth turned blindly in the air. The Gabbleratchet charged headlong.

I shouted, 'They're rotting into skeletons and back!'

'We said they're not stable in time!'

'f.u.c.kingwhat are they? What are they doing?'

'We wish we knew.' The Vermiform sank down into the ground until just her head was visible, like a toadstool, and then only the top half of her head, her eyes turned up to the sky. Her worms were grubbing between the icy soil grains and leaving me. They kept talking, but their voices were fewer, so faint I could scarcely hear. 'The Gabbleratchet was old before the first brick was laid in Epsilon, or Vista or even Hacilith; aeons ago when Rhydanne were human and Awian precursors could fly'

'Stop! Please! I don't understand! You've seen it before, haven't you?'

'Our first glimpse of the Gabbleratchet was as long before the dawn of life on your world as the dawn of life on your world is before the present moment.'

Never dying, never tiring, gorged with bloodl.u.s.t, chasing day and night. The Gabbleratchet surged on, faster than anything I had ever seen. 'How do you think I can outrun that?'

'You can't. But you are more nimble; you must outmanoeuvre it.'

I saw Cyan on one of the leading horses! She rode its broad back, decaying ribs. Her blonde hair tussled. Her fingers clutched the p.r.o.ngs of its vertebrae, her arms stiff. She looked sick and worn with terror and exhilaration. I tried to focus on her horse; its withers were straps of dark pink muscle and its globe eyes set tight in pitted flesh. The hounds jumped and jostled each other running around its plunging hooves.