'No children of mine,' Hobart replied, and took himself off upstairs where he could sit and look at the pictures in the book in private.

V.

THRESHOLD.

1.

'What's the disturbance?' van Niekerk demanded to know.

Shadwell smiled his smile. Though he was irritated by the interruption to the Auction, it had served to lend further heat to the buyers' eagerness.

'An attempt to steal the carpet -' he said. 'By whom?' Mrs A. asked. Shadwell pointed to the border of the carpet. There is, you'll observe, a portion of the Weave missing,' he admitted. 'Small as it is, its knots concealed several inhabitants of the Fugue.' He watched the buyers' faces as he spoke. They were utterly mesmerized by his story, desperate for some confirmation of their dreams. 'And they came here?' said Norris. 'They did indeed.'

'Let's see them,' the Hamburger King demanded, 'if they're here, let's see them.'

Shadwell paused before replying. 'Maybe one,' he said. He'd been fully prepared for the request, and had already planned with Immacolata which of the prisoners they'd display. He opened the door, and Nimrod, released from the Hag's embrace, tottered onto the carpet. Whatever the buyers had expected, the sight of this naked child was not it.

'What is this?' Rahimzadeh snorted. 'Do you think we're fools?' Nimrod looked up from the Weave underfoot at the puzzled faces that surrounded him. He would have set them right on any number of matters, but that Immacolata had laid her fingers on his tongue, and he couldn't raise a grunt from it.

This is one of the Seerkind.' Shadwell announced.

'It's just a child,' said Marguerite Pierce, her voice betraying some tenderness. 'A poor child.'

Nimrod stared at the woman: a fine, big-breasted creature, he thought.

'He's no child,' said Immacolata. She had slipped into the room unseen; now all eyes turned to her. All except Marguerite's, which still rested on Nimrod. 'Some of the Seerkind are shape-changers.'

'This?' said van Niekerk.

'Certainly.'

'What crap are you trying to feed us, Shadwell?' Morris said. 'I'm not taking -'

'Shut up,' said Shadwell.

Shock closed Norris' mouth; a lot of beef had been minced since he'd last been talked to that way.

'Immacolata can undo this rapture,' he said, floating the word on the air like a valentine.

Nimrod saw the Incantatrix make a configuration of thumb and third finger, through which, with a sharp intake of breath, she nonchalantly drew the shape-changing rapture. It was not an unwelcome shudder that convulsed him now; he was weary of this hairless skin. He felt his knees begin to tremble, and he fell forward onto the carpet. Around him, he could hear awed whispers, becoming louder with every step of the undeceiving, and more astonished.

Inmacolata was not delicate in her undoing of his anatomy. He winced as his flesh was transformed. There was one delicious moment in this hasty unveiling, when he felt his balls drop once more. Then, his manhood re-established, a second sequence of growth began, his skin tingling as the hair sprouted on his belly and back. Finally his face appeared from the facade of innocence, and he was - balls and all - himself again.

Shadwell looked down at the creature lying on the carpet, its skin faintly blue, its eyes golden; then at the buyers. This spectacle had probably doubled the price they'd bid for the carpet. Here was magic, in the panting flesh; more real and more oddly bewitching than even he'd anticipated.

'You made your point,' said Norris, his voice flat. 'Let's get down to numbers.'

Shadwell concurred.

'Perhaps you'd remove our guest?' he said to Immacolata, but before she could make a move Nimrod was up and kneeling at the feet of Marguerite Pierce, covering her ankles with kisses.

This excited but mute entreaty did not go unnoticed. The woman stretched her hand down to touch the thick hair of Nimrod's head.

'Leave him with me,' she said to Immacolata.

'Why not?' said Shadwell. 'Let him watch .. .'

The Incantatrix made a muttered protest.

'No harm in it,' said Shadwell. 'I can handle him.' Immacolata withdrew. 'Now ...' said the Salesman. 'Shall we re-open the bidding?'

2.

Half way between the kitchen and the bottom of the stairs Cal remembered he was unarmed. He rapidly retraced his steps and dug around in the kitchen drawers until he located a wide knife. Although he doubted if the sister's ethereal bodies would prove susceptible to a mere blade, its weight in his hand offered some comfort.

His heel slid in blood as he began to climb the stairs; it was a sheer fluke that his outflung hand found the bannister and kept him from falling downstairs. He silently cursed his clumsiness, and took the rest of the ascent more slowly. Though there was no sign of the sisters' luminescence from above, he knew they were close. But frightened as he was, one conviction attended his every step: whatever horrors were ahead he would find a way to kill Shadwell. Even if he had to open the bastard's throat with his own hands he'd do it. The Salesman had broken his father's heart, and that was a hanging offence.

At the top of the stairs, a sound; or rather several: human voices raised in argument. He listened more closely. It wasn't argument at all. They were bidding, and Shadwell's voice was clearly distinguishable, fielding the contesting bids.

Under the cover of the racket Cal slipped across the landing to the first of several doors that presented themselves. Cautiously, he opened it, and entered. The small room was unoccupied, but the connecting door was ajar, and a light burned beyond. Leaving the door to the landing open, in case he needed to beat a fast retreat, he padded across to the second and peered through.

On the floor lay Freddy and Apolline; there was no sign of Nimrod. He studied the shadows, to be certain they concealed no by-blow; then he pushed the door open.

The bids and counter-bids were still flying, and their commotion drowned out any sound he made crossing to where the prisoners lay. They were very still, their mouths stifled with clots of ethereal matter, their eyes closed. It was clearly Freddy who'd spilled the blood on the stairs; his body was much worse for the sisters' attentions, his face raked with their fingers. But the profoundest wound was between his ribs, where he'd been stabbed with his own scissors. They protruded from him still.

Cal pulled away Freddy's gag, which crawled on his hands as if maggoty, and was rewarded with a breath from the wounded man. But there was no sign of consciousness. He then performed the same service for Apolline. She showed more sign of life - moaning as if about to wake.

The clamour of bids was heating up in the adjacent room; it was clear from the din that there were a good number of would-be purchasers involved. How could he hope to bring the process to a halt with so many in Shadwell's faction, and he single-handed?

At his side, Freddy moved.

His lids flickered open, but there was little in the way of life behind them.

'Cal. ..' he tried to say. The word was a shape not a sound. Cal bent closer to him, putting his arms around his chilly, trembling body.

'I'm here, Freddy,' he said.

Freddy tried to speak again.

'... almost...' he said.

Cal tightened his embrace, as though he could keep the life from seeping out. But a hundred hands couldn't have kept it from going; it had better places to be. Still Cal couldn't help but say: 'Don't go.'

The man made a tiny shake of his head.

'.. . almost. ..' he said again, '.. . almost. ..'