The air was clearer here; the wind was carrying the smoke in the opposite direction. He ran along the edge of the orchard, hoping against hope that maybe de Bono had outpaced the heat. Half way along the flank of the fire his horrified eyes found a pair of burning shoes. He kicked them over, then searched for their owner.

It was only when he turned his back on the flames that he saw the figure, standing in a field of high grass two hundred yards from the orchard. Even at that distance the blond head was recognizable. So, as he drew closer, was the smug smile.

He'd lost his eye-brows and his lashes; and his hair was badly singed. But he was alive and well.

'How did you do that?' Cal asked him, when he got within speaking distance of the fellow.

De Bono shrugged. 'I'd rather fire-walk than rope-dance any day of the week,' he said.

'I'd be dead without you,' Cal said. 'Thank you.'

De Bono was clearly uncomfortable with Cal's gratitude. He shooed it away with a wave of his hand, then turned his back on the fire and waded off through the grass, leaving Cal to follow.

'Do you know where we're going?' Cal called after him. It seemed they were striking off in another direction to the one they'd been following when they'd first come upon the fire, but he couldn't have sworn to it.

De Bono offered a reply, but the wind blew it away, and Cal was too weary to ask a second time.

X.

UNEARTHLY DELIGHTS.

1.

The journey became a torment thereafter. Events at the orchard had drained Cal of what few reserves of strength he could still lay claim to. The muscles in his legs twitched as if they were about to go into spasm; the vertebrae in his lower back seemed to have lost their cartilage and were grinding against each other. He tried not to think of what would happen if and when they finally reached the Firmament. In the best of conditions he and de Bono would scarcely be Shadwell's equal. Like this, they'd be fodder.

The occasional wonders the starlight had uncovered - a ring of stones, linked by bands of whispering fog; what appeared to be a family of dolls, their identical faces pale, smiling beatifically from behind a silent waterfall - to these he gave no more than a cursory glance. The only sight that could have brought joy to his lips at that moment was a feather mattress. But even the mysteries dwindled after a time, as de Bono led him up a dark hillside, with a soft wind moving in the grass around their feet.

The moon was rising through a bank of cumulus, making a ghost of de Bono as he forged on up the steep slope. Cal followed like a lamb, too weary to question their route.

But by degrees he became aware that the sighs he heard were not entirely the voice of the wind. There was an oblique music in them; a tune which came and fled again. It was de Bono who finally came to a halt, and said:

'D'you hear them, Cal?'

'Yes. I hear them.'

They know they've got visitors.'

'Is this the Firmament?'

'No,' said de Bono softly. 'The Firmament's for tomorrow. We're too tired for that. Tonight we stay here.'

'Where's here?'

'Can't you guess? Don't you smell the air?'

It was lightly perfumed; honeysuckle and night-blooming jasmine.

'And feel the earth?'

The ground was warm beneath his feet.

This, my friend, is Venus Mountain.'

2.

He should have known better than to trust de Bono; for all his heroics the fellow was wholly unreliable. And now they'd lost precious time.

Cal glanced behind him, to see if the route they'd come was discernible, but no; the moon had slipped into the cloud-bank for a little while, and the mountain-side was in darkness. When he looked back, de Bono had vanished. Hearing laughter a little way off, Cal called his guide's name. The laughter came again. It sounded too light to be de Bono, but he couldn't be certain.

'Where are you?' he asked, but there was no reply, so he went in the direction of the laughter.

As he advanced he stepped into a passage of warm air. Startled, he retreated, but the tropical warmth came with him, the honey scent now strong in his nostrils. It made him feel light-headed; his aching legs threatened to fold beneath him from the sheer swooning pleasure of it.

A little further up the incline he saw another figure, surely that of de Bono, moving in the gloom. Again he called the man's name, and this time he was granted a reply. De Bono turned and said:

'Don't fret, Cuckoo.'

His voice had taken on a dreamy quality.

'We've got no time -' Cal protested.

'Can't do ... can't do anything ...' de Bono's voice came and went, like a weak radio signal. 'Can't do anything tonight ... except love The last word faded, and so did de Bono, melting into the darkness.

Cal about-turned. He was certain that de Bono had been speaking from further up the mountain, which meant that if he turned his back on the spot, and walked, he'd be returning the way they'd come.

The warmth went with him as he about-turned. I'll get a new guide, he vaguely thought; get a guide and find the Firmament. He had an appointment to keep with somebody. Who was it? His thoughts were going the way of de Bono's voice. Oh yes: Suzanna.

At the mental formulation of her name the warmth somehow conspired with his limbs to draw him down to the ground. He wasn't sure how it happened - he didn't trip, he wasn't pushed - but in an instant he had his head on the ground, and oh, the comfort of it. It was like returning to a lover's bed on a morning of a frost. He stretched out, indulging his weary limbs, telling himself he'd just lie here long enough to gain some strength for the trials ahead.

He might well have fallen asleep, but that he heard his name called.

Not Cal, nor even Calhoun, but:

'Mooney . . .'

It was not de Bono's voice, but a woman's.

'Suzanna?'

He tried to sit up, but he was so heavy, so laden with the dirt of his journey he couldn't move. He wanted to slough the weight off like a snake its tired skin, but he lay there unable to move a finger joint, while the voice called him and called him, fading as it went searching for him in higher regions.

He so wanted to follow it; and without warning he felt that yearning realized, as his clothes fell away from him and he began to travel over the grass, his belly to the earth's belly. How he was transported he wasn't certain, for he felt no movement in his limbs, and his breath was not quickened by the effort. Indeed he felt so removed from sensation it was as if he'd left body and breath behind him with his clothes.

One thing he had brought with him: light. A pale, cool light that illuminated the grass and the small mountain flowers nestling there; a light that travelled so close to him it might have been of him.