They halted and Suzanna stared ahead; she could not be certain they were not simply walking in circles. The light at their feet was now all but extinguished. Here and there it flared up, but only to illuminate another pitiable scene: the last wracking moments of the glory that their presence here had engendered.

Then:

'There!' she said, pointing through the curtain of hail and dust. 'I see a light.'

They set off again, as fast as the suppurating earth would allow. With every step, their feet sank deeper into a swamp of decaying matter, in which the remnants of life still moved; the inheritors of this Eden: worms and cockroaches.

But there was a distinct light at the end of the tunnel; she glimpsed it again through the thick air.

'Look up, Cal,' she said.

He did just that, though only with effort.

'Not far now. A few more steps.'

He was becoming heavier by the moment; but the tear in the Mantle was sufficient to spur them on over the last few yards of treacherous earth.

And finally they stepped out into the light, almost spat from the entrails of the Gyre as it went into its final convulsions.

They stumbled away from the Mantle, but not far before Cal said:

'I can't' and fell to the ground.

She knelt beside him, cradling his head, then looked around for help. Only then did she see the consequences of events in the Gyre.

Wonderland had gone.

The glories of the Fugue had been shredded and torn, their tatters evaporating even as she watched. Water, wood and stone; living animal tissue and dead Seerkind: all gone, as though it had never been. A few remnants lingered, but not for long. As the Gyre thundered and shook, these last signs of the Fugue's terrain became smoke and threads, then empty air. It was horribly quick.

Suzanna looked behind her. The Mantle was receding too, now that it had nothing left to conceal, its retreat uncovering a wasteland of dirt and fractured rock. Even its thunder was diminishing.

'Suzanna!'

She looked back to see de Bono coming towards her.

'What happened in there?'

'Later,' she said. 'First, we have to get help for Cal. He's been shot.'

'I'll fetch a car.'

Cal's eyes flickered open.

'Is it gone?' he murmured.

'Don't think about it now,' she said.

'I want to know,' he demanded, with surprising vehemence, and struggled to sit up. Knowing he wouldn't be placated, Suzanna helped him.

He moaned, seeing the desolation before them.

Groups of Seerkind, with a few of Hobart's people scattered amongst them, stood in the valley and up the slopes of the surrounding hills, neither speaking nor moving. They were all that remained.

'What about Shadwell?' said Cal.

Suzanna shrugged. 'I don't know,' she said. 'He escaped the Temple before me.'

The din of a revved car-engine cancelled further conversation, as de Bono drove one of the invaders' vehicles across the dead grass, bringing it to a halt a few feet from where Cal lay.

'I'll drive,' said Suzanna, once Cal had been laid on the back seat.

'What do we tell the doctors?' Cal said, his voice getting fainter. 'I've got a bullet in me.'

'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' said Suzanna. As she got into the driver's seat, which de Bono had only reluctantly vacated, somebody called her name. Nimrod was running towards the car.

'Where are you going?' he said to her.

She directed his attention to the passenger.

'My friend,' he said, seeing Cal, 'you look the worse for wear.' He tried a smile of welcome, but tears came instead.

'It's over,' he said, sobbing. 'Destroyed. Our sweet land ...' He wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. 'What do we do now?' he said to Suzanna.

'We get out of harm's way,' she told him. 'As quickly as we can. We still have enemies -'

'It doesn't matter any more,' he said. 'The Fugue's gone. Everything we ever possessed, lost.'

'We're alive, aren't we?' she said. 'As long as we're alive ...'

'Where will we go?'

'We'll find a place.'

'You have to lead us now,' said Nimrod. 'There's only you.'

'Later. First, we have to help Cal -'

'Yes,' he said. 'Of course.' He'd taken hold of her arm, and was loath to let her go. 'You will come back?'

'Of course,' she said.

Til take the rest of them North,' he told her. 'Two valleys from here. We'll wait for you there.'

Then move,' she said. "Time's wasting.'

'You will remember?' he said.

She would have laughed his doubts off, but that remembering was all. Instead she touched his wet face, letting him feel the menstruum in her fingers.

It was only as she drove away that she realized she'd probably blessed him.