Part Four

What Price Wonderland?

Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware) Latin Motto

1.

TO SELL IS TO OWN.

1.

That was the most important lesson Shadwell had learned as a salesman. If what you possessed was desired ardently enough by another person, then you as good as possessed that person too.

Even princes could be owned. Here they were now, or their modern equivalent, all assembled at his call: the old money and the new, the aristocracy and the arrivistes, watching each other warily, and eager as children for a glimpse of the treasure they were here to fight over.

Paul van Niekerk, reputed to own the finest collection of erotica in the world, outside the walls of the Vatican; Marguerite Pierce, who had with the death of her parents inherited at the tender age of nineteen one of the largest personal fortunes in Europe; Beauclerc Norris, the Hamburger King, whose company owned small states; the oil billionaire Alexander A., who was within hours of death in a Washington hospital but had sent his companion of many years, a woman who answered only to Mrs A., Michael Rahimzadeh, the origins of whose fortune were impossible to trace, its previous owners all recently, and suddenly, deceased; Leon Devereaux, who'd come hot-foot from Johannesburg, his pockets lined with gold dust; and finally, an unnamed individual whose features had been toyed with by a succession of surgeons, who could not take from his eyes the look of a man with an unspeakable history. That was the seven.

2.

They'd started to arrive at Shearman's house, which stood in its own grounds on the edge of Thurstaston Common, in the middle of the afternoon. By six-thirty they had all gathered. Shadwell played the perfect host - plying them with drinks and platitudes - but letting few hints drop as to what lay ahead.

It had taken him years, and much conniving, to get access to the mighty, and more trickery still to learn which of them had dreams of magic. When pressed, he'd used the jacket, seducing those who fawned upon the potentates into revealing all they knew. Many had no tales to tell; their masters made no sign of mourning a lost world. But for every atheist there was at least one who believed; one prone to moping over lost dreams of childhood, or to midnight confessions on how their search for Heaven had ended only in tears and gold.

From that list of believers Shadwell had then narrowed the field down to those whose wealth was practically unfathomable. Then, using the jacket once more, he got past the underlings and met his elite circle of buyers face to face.

It was an easier pitch to make than he'd imagined. It seemed that the existence of the Fugue had long been rumoured in both the highest places and the lowest; extremes which more than one of this assembly knew with equal intimacy; and he had enough detail of the Weaveworld from Immacolata to persuade them that he would soon enough be able to offer that place for sale. There was one from his short-list who would have no truck with the Auction, muttering that such forces could not be bought and sold, and that Shadwell would regret his acquisitiveness; another had died the previous year. The rest were here, their fortunes trembling in readiness to be spent.

'Ladies and gentlemen.' he announced. 'Perhaps the time has come for us to view the object under consideration.' He led them like sheep through the maze of Shearman's manse to the room on the first floor where the carpet had been laid. The curtains were drawn; a single light shed a warm illumination onto the Weave, which almost covered the floor.

Shadwell's heart beat a little faster as he watched them inspect the carpet. This was the essential moment, when the purchasers' eyes first alighted upon the merchandise; the moment when any sale was truly made. Subsequent talk might massage the price, but no words, however cunning, could compete with this first exchange of glance and goods. Upon that, everything pivoted. And he was aware that the carpet, however mysterious its designs, appeared to be simply that: a carpet. It required the client's imagination, stoked by longing, to see the geography that lay in wait there.

Now, as he scanned the faces of the seven, he knew his gambit had not failed. Though several of them were tactical enough to try and disguise their enthusiasm, they were mesmerized, each and every one.

This is it,' Devereaux said, his usual severity confounded by awe. '.. . I didn't really think ...'

That it was real?' Rahimzadeh prompted.

'Oh it's real enough,' said Norris. He'd already gone down on his haunches to finger the goods.

Take care,' said Shadwell. 'It's volatile.'

'What d'you mean?'

The Fugue wants to show itself,' Shadwell replied. 'It's ready and waiting.'

'Yes,' said Mrs A. 'I can feel it.' She clearly didn't like the sensation very much. 'Alexander said it would look just like an ordinary carpet, and I suppose it does. But... I don't know ... there's something odd about it.'

'It's moving,' said the man with the lifted face.

Norris stood up. 'Where?' he said.

'In the centre.'

All eyes studied the intricacies of the Gyre design, and yes, there did seem the subtlest eddying in the Weave. Even Shadwell had not noticed this before. It made him more eager than ever to have the business over and done with. It was time to sell.

'Does anybody have any questions?' he asked.

'How can we be certain?' said Marguerite Pierce. 'That this is the carpet.'

'You can't.' said Shadwell. He'd anticipated this challenge, and had his reply to hand. 'You either know in your gut that the Fugue is waiting in the Weave, or else you leave. The door is open. Please. Help yourself.'

The woman said nothing for several seconds.

Then: 'I'll stay.' she said.

'Of course.' said Shadwell. 'Shall we begin?'

II.

TELL ME NO LIES.

The room they'd put Suzanna in was cold and charmless enough, but it could have taken lessons from the man who sat opposite her. He handled her with an ironic courtesy that never quite concealed the hammer head beneath. Not once during the hour of their interview had he raised his voice above the conversational, nor shown the least impatience at repeating the same enquiries. 'What's the name of your organization?' 'I have none,' she'd told him for the hundredth time. 'You're in very serious trouble.' he said. 'Do you understand that?'

'I demand to see a solicitor.' 'There'll be no solicitor.' 'I have rights.' she protested.

'You forfeited your rights on Lord Street.' he said. 'Now. The name of your confederates.' 'I don't have any confederates, damn you.' She told herself to be calm, but the adrenalin kept pumping. He knew it, too. He didn't take his lizard eyes off her for an instant. Just kept watching, and asking the same old questions, winding her up until she was ready to scream. 'And the nigger-' he said. 'He's in the same organization.' 'No. No, he doesn't know anything.' 'So you admit the organization exists.' 'I didn't say that.' 'You just admitted as much.'

'You're putting words in my mouth.'

Again, the sour civility: Then please.. . speak for yourself.'

'I've nothing to say.'

'We've witnesses that'll testify that you and the nigger -'

'Don't keep calling him that.'

That you and the nigger were at the centre of the riot. Who supplies your chemical weapons?'

'Don't be ridiculous.' she said. That's what you are. You're ridiculous.'

She could feel herself flushing, and tears threatened. Damn it, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

He must have sensed her determination, because he gave up that line of questioning and tried another.