I had forgotten.

'It's been a long time.'

And you came here, to tell me?

To remind you.'

Why?

The barbs twitched again. It could kill me at any moment, Shadwell thought. It's nervous, and that makes it dangerous. I must be careful; play it cunningly. Be a salesman.

They hid from you,' he said.

Indeed.

'All these years. Hid their heads so you'd never find them.' And now?

'Now they're awake again. In the human world.' I had forgotten. But I'm reminded now. Oh yes. Sweet Shadwell.

The barbs relaxed, and a wave of the purest pleasure broke over Shadwell, leaving him almost sick with the excess of it. It was a joy-bringer too, this Scourge. What power did not lie in its control?

'May I ask a question?' he said.

Ask.

'Who are you?'

The Scourge rose from its throne of sand, and in an instant it grew blindingly bright.

Shadwell covered his eyes, but the light shone through flesh and bone, and into his head, where the Scourge was pronouncing its eternal name.

I am called Uriel, it said.

Uriel, of the principalities.

He knew the name, as he'd known by heart the rituals he'd heard at St Philomena's: and from the same source. As a child he'd learned the names of all the angels and archangels by heart: and amongst the mighty Uriel was of the mightiest. The archangel of salvation; called by some the flame of God. The sight of the executions replayed in his head - the bodies withering beneath that merciless fire: an Angel's fire. What had he done, stepping into the presence of such power? This was Uriel, of the principalities...

Another of the Angel's attributes rose from memory now, and with it a sudden shock of comprehension. Uriel had been the angel left to stand guard at the gates of Eden.

Eden.

At the word, the creature blazed. Though the ages had driven it to grief and forgetfulness, it was still an Angel: its fires unquenchable. The wheels of its body rolled, the visible mathematics of its essence turning on itself and preparing for new terrors.

There were others here, the Seraph said, that called this place Eden. But I never knew it by that name.

'What, then?' Shadwell asked.

Paradise, said the Angel, and at the word a new picture appeared in Shadwell's mind. It was the garden, in another age. No trees of sand then, but a lush jungle that brought to mind the flora that had sprung to life in the Gyre: the same profligate fecundity, the same unnamable species that seemed on the verge of defying their condition. Blooms that might at any moment take breath, fruit about to fly. There was none of the urgency of the Gyre here, however; the atmosphere was one of inevitable rising up, things aspiring at their own pace to some higher state, which was surely light, for everywhere between the trees brightnesses floated like living spirits.

This was a place of making, the Angel said. For ever and ever. Where things came to be.

To be?'

To find a form, and enter the world.

'And Adam, and Eve?'

I don't remember them, Uriel replied.

The first parents of humanity.'

Humanity was raised from din in a thousand places, but not here. Here were higher spirits.

The Seerkind?' said Shadwell. 'Higher spirits?'

The Angel made a sour sound. The image of the paradise-garden convulsed, and Shadwell glimpsed furtive figures moving amongst the trees like thieves.

They began here, said the Angel; and in Shadwell's mind he saw the earth break open, and plants rise from it with human faces; and mist congeal ... But they were accidents. Droppings from greater stuff, that found life here. We did not know them, we spirits. We were about sublimer business.

'And they grew?'

Grew. And grew curious.

Now Shadwell began to comprehend.

They smelt the world,' he prompted.

The Angel shuddered, and again Shadwell was bombarded with images. He saw the forefathers of the Seerkind, naked, every one, their bodies all colours and sizes - a crowd of freakish forms - tails, golden eyes and cox-combs, flesh on one with the sheen of a panther; another with vestigial wings - he saw them scaling the wall, eager to be out of the garden - They escaped.'

Nobody escapes me, said Uriel. When the spirits left, I remained here to keep watch until their return.

That much, the Book of Genesis had been correct about: a guardian set at the gate. But little else, it seemed. The writers of that book had taken an image that mankind knew in its heart, and folded it into their narrative for their own moral purposes. What place God had here, if any, was perhaps as much a matter of definition as anything. Would the Vatican know this creature as an Angel, if it presented itself before the gates of that state? Shadwell doubted it.

'And the spirits?' he said. The others who were here?'

I waited, said the Angel.

And waited, and waited, thought Shadwell, until loneliness drove it mad. Alone in the wilderness, with the garden withering and rotting, and the sand breaking through the walls . ..

'Will you come with me now?' said Shadwell. 'I can lead you to the Seerkind.'

The Angel turned its gaze on Shadwell afresh.