'We've only got bread and coffee,' Lem said.

'Suits me,' Cal told him.

'You saw the Scourge,' said another of the company.

'Yes,' Cal replied.

'Must we talk about that, Hamel?' said the girl at the fire.

The man ignored her. 'What was it like?' he asked.

Cal shrugged. 'Huge,' he said, hoping the subject would be dropped. But it wasn't just Hamel who wanted to know; all of them - even the girl who'd objected - were waiting for further details.

'It had hundreds of eyes ...' he said. 'That's all I saw, really.'

'Maybe we could blind it,' Hamel said, drawing on his cigarette.

'How?' said Lem.

'The Old Science.'

'We don't have the power to keep the screen up much longer,' said the woman who'd been doing the shaving.

'Where are we going to get the strength to meet the Scourge?'

'I don't understand this Old Science business,' said Cal, sipping at the coffee Lem had brought him.

'It's all gone anyway,' said the shaved man.

'Our enemies kept it,' Hamel reminded him. That bitch Immacolata and her fancy-man - they had it.'

'And those who made the Loom,' said the girl.

'They're dead and gone,' Lem said.

'Anyway,' said Cal. 'You couldn't blind the Scourge,'

'Why not?' said Hamel.

'Too many eyes.'

Hamel wandered to the fire and threw the stub of his cigarette into its heart.

'All the better to see us with,' he said.

The flame the stub burned with was bright blue, which made Cal wonder what the man had been smoking. Turning his back on the fire Hamel disappeared between the trees, leaving silence in his wake.

'Will you excuse me, poet?' said Lem. 'I've got to go find my daughters,'

'Of course,'

Cal sat down to finish his meal, leaning his back against a tree to watch the comings and goings. His short sleep had only taken the edge off his fatigue; eating made him dozy again. He might have slept where he sat but that the strong coffee he'd drunk had gone straight to his bladder, and he needed to relieve himself. He got up and went in search of a secluded bush to do just that, rapidly losing his bearings amongst the trees.

In one grove he came upon a couple dancing to the late-night music from a small transistor radio - like lovers left on a dance floor after the place had closed, too absorbed in each other to be parted. In another place a child was being taught to count, its abacus a string of floating lights its mother had spoken into being. He found a deserted spot to unburden himself, and was fumbling to do the buttons of his borrowed trousers up again when somebody took hold of his arm. He turned to find Apolline Dubois at his side. She was in black as ever, but was wearing lipstick and mascara, which didn't flatter her. Had he not seen the all but empty vodka bottle in her hand her breath would have told him she'd had a good night's drinking behind her.

'I'd offer you some,' she said, 'but it's all I've got left.'

'Don't worry,' he told her.

'Me?' she said. 'I never worry. It's all going to end badly whether I worry or not.'

Drawing herself closer to him, she peered at his face.

'You look sick,' she announced. 'When did you last have a shave?'

As he opened his mouth to answer her something happened to the air around them. A tremor ran through it, with darkness at its heels. She forsook her hold on him instantly, dropping the vodka bottle in the same moment. It struck his foot, but he managed to bite back his curse, and was thankful for it. Every sound from between the trees, music or mathematics, had ceased utterly. So had the noises in the undergrowth, and from the branches. The wood was suddenly death-bed quiet, the shadows thickening between the trees. He put his arm out and clutched hold of one of the trunks, fearful of losing all sense of geography. When he looked around Apolline was backing away from him, only her powdered face visible. Then she turned away, and that too was gone.

He wasn't entirely alone. Off to his right he saw somebody step from the cover of the trees and hurriedly kick earth over the small fire by which mother and child had been engaged in their lessons. They were there still, the woman's hand pressed over her off-spring's mouth, the child's eyes turned up to look at her, wide with fear. As the last light was snuffed out Cal saw her mouth ask a question of the man, who in answer jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Then the scene went to black.

For a few moments Cal stayed put, vaguely aware that there were people moving past him - purposefully, as if to their stations. Rather than remain where he was, clinging to the tree like a man in a flood, he decided to go in the direction the fire-smotherer had pointed, and find out what was going on. Hands extended to help him plot his course as he navigated his way between the trees. His every movement produced some unwelcome sound: his pigskin shoes creaked; his hands, touching a trunk, brought fragments of bark down in a pattering rain. But there was a destination in sight. The trees were thinning out, and between them he could see the brightness of snow. Its light made the going easier, and by it he came to within ten yards of the edge of the wood. He knew now where he was. Ahead lay the field where he'd seen Novello playing; and louring over it, the white slope of Rayment's Hill.

As he started to move closer somebody put their hand on his chest, halting him, and a nod from a dogged face at his side directed him back the way he'd come. But somebody crouched in the shrubbery closer to the edge of the trees turned to look at him, and with a raised hand signalled that he should be allowed passage. It was only when he came within a yard of her hiding-place that he saw it was Suzanna. Though they were very near the perimeter of the trees, and the snow-light was almost lurid, she was difficult to see. A rapture was wrapped around her like a veil, strengthening on her exhaled breaths, weakening on the intake. Her attention was on the field again, and the hill beyond. Snow was still falling without pause; it seemed to have erased his tracks, though not, perhaps, unaided.

'It's here,' she whispered, without looking his way. He studied the scene before him. There was nothing out there but the hill and the snow. 'I don't see - ' he began.

She silenced him with a touch, and nodded towards the young trees at the outskirts of the wood. 'She sees it,' her whisper said.

He studied the saplings, and realized that one was flesh and blood. A young girl was standing at the very edge of the trees, her arms extended, her hands holding onto the branches of saplings to left and right.

Somebody moved out of the half-light and took up a position beside Suzanna. 'How close?' he said.

Cal knew the voice, though the man was much changed.

'Nimrod?'

The golden eyes glanced at Cal without registering anything, then looked away, before returning with recognition in them. Apolline had been right, Cal thought; he must look bad. Nimrod stretched his arm in front of Suzanna and clasped Cal's hand tightly. As he broke contact again the girl at the perimeter let out the tiniest exclamation, and Nimrod's question - 'How close?' - was answered.

Shadwell and Hobart had appeared at the top of the hill. Though the sky at their backs was dark, they were darker still against it, their ragged silhouettes unmistakable.

'They found us,' Nimrod breathed.

'Not yet,' said Suzanna.

Very slowly, she stood up, and as if on that signal a tremor - the twin to the rumour that had first hushed the wood -ran through the trees. The air seemed to darken even further.

They're strengthening the screen,' Nimrod whispered.

Cal wished he had some useful role to play in this, but all he could do was watch the hill and hope the enemy would turn its back and go searching elsewhere. He'd known Shadwell too long to believe this likely, however, and he wasn't surprised when the Salesman started down the slope towards the field. The enemy was obstinate. He'd come to give the gift of Death he'd spoken of in Chariot Street, and he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd done so.

Hobart, or the power inside him, was lingering on the brow of the hill, where it could better survey the terrain. Even at this distance the flesh of its face flared and darkened like embers in a high wind.