'No,' said the white-faced man.

'I have,' said another.

'Describe them ...' Nimrod demanded.

It was surely the by-blows the man spoke of, Suzanna thought, grown to monstrous proportions. But as the man began to tell what he knew she was distracted by the sight of a prisoner she hadn't previously noticed, squatting in the filthiest part of the compound, face turned to the rock. It was a woman, to judge by the hair that fell to the middle of her back, and she'd not been bound like the rest, simply left to grieve in the dirt.

Suzanna made her way through the captives towards her. As she approached she heard mutterings, and saw that the woman had her lips pressed to the stone, and was talking to it as if seeking comfort there. Her supplication faltered as Suzanna's shadow fell on the rock, and she turned.

It took a heart-beat only for Suzanna to see beyond the dried blood and excrement on the face that now looked up towards her; it was Immacolata. On her maimed face was the look of a tragedian. Her eyes were swollen with tears, and brimming now with a fresh flood; her hair was unbraided and thick with mud. Her breasts were bared for all to see, and in every sinew there was a terrible bewilderment. Nothing of her former authority remained. She was a madwoman, squatting in her own shit.

Contrary feelings fought in Suzanna. Here, trembling before her, was the woman who'd murdered Mimi in her own bed; part architect of the calamities which had overtaken the Fugue. The power behind Shadwell's throne, the source of countless deceits and sorrows; the Devil's inspiration. Yet she could not feel for Immacolata the hatred she'd felt for Shadwell or Hobart. Was it because the Incantatrix had first given her access to the menstruum, albeit unwillingly; or was it that they were - as Immacolata had always claimed - somehow sisters? Might this, under other skies, have been her fate; to be lost and mad?

'Don't ... look at ... me,' the woman said softly. There was no sign of recognition in her blood-shot eyes.

'Do you know who you are?' Suzanna asked her.

The woman's expression didn't change. After a few moments her answer came.

'The rock knows,' she said.

'The rock?'

'It'll be sand soon. I told it so, because it's true. It'll be sand.'

Immacolata took her gaze off her questioner and began to stroke the rock with her open palm. She'd been doing this for some while, Suzanna now saw. There were streaks of blood on the stone, where she'd rubbed the skin from her palm as if attempting to erase the lines.

'Why will it be sand?' Suzanna asked.

'It must come,' said Immacolata. 'I've seen it. The Scourge. It must come, and then we will all be sand.' She stroked more furiously. 'I told the rock.'

'Will you tell me?'

Immacolata glanced round, and then back to the rock. For a little while Suzanna thought the woman had forgotten the questioner until the words came again, haltingly.

The Scourge must come,' she said. 'Even in its sleep, it knows.' She stopped wounding her hand. 'Sometimes it almost wakes,' she said. 'And when it does, we'll all be sand...'

She laid her cheek against the bloodied rock, and made a low sobbing sound.

'Where's your sister?' Suzanna said.

At this, the sobbing faltered.

'Is she here?'

'I have ... no sisters,' Immacolata said. There was no trace of doubt in her voice.

'What about Shadwell? Do you remember Shadwell?'

'My sisters are dead. All gone to sand. Everything. Gone to sand.'

The sobs began again, more mournful than ever.

'What's your interest in her?' Nimrod, who'd been standing at Suzanna's shoulder for several seconds, wanted to know.

'She's just another lunatic. We found her amongst the corpses. She was eating their eyes.'

'Do you know who she is?' Suzanna said. 'Nimrod... that's Immacolata.'

His face grew slack with shock.

'Shadwell's mistress. I swear it.'

'You're mistaken,' he said.

'She's lost her mind, but I swear that's who it is. I was face to face with her less than two days ago.'

'So what's happened to her?'

'Shadwell, maybe ...'

The name was echoed softly by the woman at the rock.

'Whatever happened, she shouldn't be here, not like this -'

'You'd better come speak to the commander. You can tell it all to her.'

2.

It seemed it was to be a day of reunions. First Nimrod, then the Incantatrix, and now - leading this defeated troop - Yolande Dor, the woman who'd so vehemently fought the reweaving, back when Capra's House was still standing.

She too had changed. Gone, the strutting confidence of the woman. Her face looked pale and clammy; her voice and manner were subdued. She wasted no time with courtesies.

'If you've got something to tell me, spit it out.'

'One of your prisoners -' Suzanna began.

'I've no time to hear appeals,' came the reply. 'Especially from you.'

This isn't an appeal.'

'I still won't hear it.'

'You must; and you will,' Suzanna responded. 'Forget how you feel about me -'

'I don't feel anything,' was Yolande's retort. The Council condemned themselves. You were just there to carry their burden for them. If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else.'

This outburst seemed to pain her. She slipped her hand inside her unbuttoned jacket, clearly nursing a wound there. Her fingers came away bloody. Suzanna persevered, but more softly. 'One of your prisoners,' she said, 'is Immacolata.' Yolande looked across at Nimrod. 'Is that true?' 'It's true,' Suzanna said. 'I know her better than any of you. It's her. She's ... lost; insane maybe. But if we could get some sense from her, we might use her to reach Shadwell.'