A Good Smoke and ‘the Incident’

Havelock’s Inception in to the Illustrative and Insinuative Order of the Inconscient Brush pt.5

Everyone nods acquiescence and Sigrid starts muttering instructions as Despil leads Havelock down a narrow alley in search of privacy. He reaches within his robe and produces a slim metal case from which he extracts what looks like an equally slim cigar and offers one to Havelock, who accepts.

Despil glances at his own and his eyes glow momentarily as the tip flares. He draws deeply and breathes the smoke back out of his nose, sighing gently. “Ah! That’s good! I got the habit on an excursion beyond Ygg – reconnaissance for the war – friends in Zigo keep me supplied.”

Despil lights Havelock’s from his own. Slowly he too draws in to his fill, before tipping his head back slightly to let the exhaled smoke roll out over his palette. Looking back at Despil he gives a silent satisfied nod.

Despil grins rakishly as he takes another drag. “I guess everyone is a little surprised you don’t get it but in essence it really is that simple. The architect does just ‘dream it up’.” He licks his lips, studying Havelock closely. “What makes you think it’s more complex?”

Havelock gently rolls his cigar until the burn is even and some ash falls away. “I believe I never have such control of dreams, to hold a focus to form something specific and then store what I create. I have practiced the method of loci to retain more detail when scouting. Is it like that, creating a place in one’s mind and filling it with details? Or if it is the manipulation of dreamstuff, can I practice it here in Poliziano’s dream?” Then looking back to Despil he takes another slow draw.

Despil quirks an eyebrow, mildly surprised. “I’m not entirely sure I understand your references. But you misunderstand how this works. It’s not exactly dreaming in the sense of the uncontrolled riot of imagination during deep slumber. It’s the subject who dreams, not us – usually.

“The Architect has simply to encompass a locale in detail, in a process akin to lucid dreaming, achievable in the lightest state of slumber, what they might call ‘daydreaming’ where these come from.” Despil raises his cigar. “Poliziano chose a place – this place – that he created some time ago using his mystic arts, but he simply recalled that place without using the image itself.

“My working took that from his mind and wove this dream-place wherein we all have gathered.” He gestures with his cigar at the surroundings. “It’s fairly typical: self-centred geometrics and not too much detail; Poliziano can tweak the substrate for any particular Subject – as you’ll see when we get back.”

Havelock guesses they must be at a midpoint as he cannot see the other members of the Order at either end of the ‘street’. But something about the geometry seems wrong to him – he suspects that were he to try painting this vista, there wouldn’t be a single vanishing point for the perspective. Taking a brief moment to watch the swirls of cigar smoke drift wherever they will in the multi-hued air Havelock continues his inquiry.

“So it requires some light sleep from the Architect, who, for example, if it was I, could recall the corridors of Castle Amber or some fantasy I had taken time to paint. Then some dream sorcery from you to form it.” He examines Despil closely. “I have to ask, is your working just to include the remaining company or to stabilise the Architect’s vision?”

“Both: of course the primary purpose is to allow access for the brethren to the Architect’s imagination, but the working, if constructed effectively, makes the Architect’s task easier, enabling him to concentrate on details and customisations, such as scene changes.

“When it falls to you to serve as Architect, you may by all means include details taken from Castle Amber or any other place with which you’re familiar, but my advice would be to not use such wholesale but to keep your construction original – it avoids certain…complications.”

Despil seems content to loiter at this midpoint. Neither his nor Havelock’s cigars seem to be burning particularly fast, for Panatella-type cigarillos.

Havelock is already aware of one obvious complication with the Castle. Probably no single Elder knows all the secret passages and hideaways. He certainly doesn’t and wouldn’t be able to account for them.

Happy to stay put and continue to smoke, Havelock enquires, “Can all the Order fill all the roles? So far I am aware of three: Architect, Summoner and the role you played to gather us here. Sigrid indicated at least that all have taken the Architect’s couch at one time or another. Presumably you are multi-skilled, redundancy preventing the loss of irreplaceable ability?”

He has to admit he warms more to Despil than his more pompous brother.

Despil regretfully shakes his head. “I wish it were so. Actually these roles are all quite specialised. Architect is perhaps the simplest, though it is a role at which I am rather poor – more of a technician than an artist – but Poliziano, Mirandola, Gnosos and Zográfos are very adept architects; Grand Mistress Sigrid and Zubenelgenubi can also fulfil that role though their function is more divinatory – and divination is vital, we cannot act until we have our facts right.

“The Hierophus brethren can also divine to an extent, though their methods are cumbersome and mostly their efforts with the Mystic Image are devoted to providing the right image to the Summoner for the Subject at the time in question.

“Summoning is undoubtedly the trickiest task, requiring great delicacy, and it’s not one where any particular person can focus on that role alone. Many variables must be sifted before Sigrid selects the right Summoner for the Subject. Having said that, Gnosos and Zográfos, followed by Mirandola and Poliziano, and then Sigrid herself, are the most usual Summoners.

“Justinian’s role is, of course, highly specialised and he plays no part in the actual operation itself. He is purely an observer whose role is to serve as a governor of the process.” Despil flashes that rakish grin again. “Otherwise we might run amok.

“My role is that of a magical technician. Mirandola or perhaps Poliziano could create the appropriate spells with a little time and help but if anything were to happen to me it would curtail the Order’s efforts for a while. It would be nice to have more redundancy in this and I know that some members of the Order were surprised when you were chosen instead of someone of a like background to my own but, circumstances being what they are, it makes sense to have someone of your origin with us.”

Despil, still showing no urge to move, takes another deep appreciative drag on his cigar. In the silence, Havelock can sense that there’s something in the air, an issue that Despil is considering how to raise. Then…

“Dear me! I seem to have monopolised the conversation somewhat. Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions of you?”

“Feel free to ask,” responds Havelock with an amiable grin.

Despil draws again on his cigar, thinking deeply about how to phrase his first question. Then he shrugs in a ‘what the hell’ sort of fashion and suddenly Havelock gets the feeling that Despil is somehow much more like him than most other denizens of Chaos, including House Zigo. He lacks that air of ‘otherness’.

“So, brother Mandor: do you think his realignment toward you is genuine or what?”

“Your brother Mandor?” ponders Havelock. “He has been most hospitable. As to realignment I have not had the opportunity to see his alignment in any other way than it is now.” Maintaining a neutral tone he continues, “I have been led to believe that some forms of divination about you residents of the rim are hampered by the mercurial personalities tied to your fluid natures. Perhaps he has changed?

“You are his brother and know him as only kin do, but you and I are now brothers in this order. Honestly, Despil, if he was from my side of the tree I would say, no, he has not realigned, he is loyal to who he is always loyal to and that is Mandor. We Amberites just present the best opportunity to achieve what he wishes to achieve or the greatest disruption. When we leave, depending on how we leave, he will continue his cause by picking another suitable ally.

“Once this hour’s business is complete I offer to try to divine in the method of the heretic Dworkin Barimen on the subject, if you believe it falls within the scope of the security of this domain. That is, after all, our task.” With this he taps the case at his belt.

Despil eyes the indicated case thoughtfully, twirling his cigar between his fingers, but Havelock feels he’s thinking about something else. Then he murmurs. “Perhaps you should know the background…?

“Politics: our illustrious sovereign maintains his position by means of a coalition among the Rim Lords. One of these is the Archduke Gramble of Sawall, my father. The Royal Coalition has long had the continuation of the war against Amber as a central plank of policy and Gramble has always been an ardent supporter of Augustus Swayvil. But in recent years father has withdrawn from the political arena and made my half-brother, Mandor, his proxy in the Thelbane.

“To my knowledge Mandor staunchly followed coalition policy and was instrumental in the prosecution of the recent war but there are those within my house, principally my aunt, Whone, who claims he has been seduced by Princess Fiona of Amber, whom you will know allied with us against your homeland.” Despil pauses to let this sink in, tapping the ash from his cigar, which has burnt down infinitesimally.

“Now I confess that I’m a neutral in the matter. I have no emotional investment in this ancient war, which has cost me four brothers, but at the same time I’m not ready to see Sawall recklessly abandon the political basis for our supremacy. Your words would seem to imply that you think Mandor is self-serving, ‘he is loyal to who he is always loyal to and that is Mandor’. But I confess that is not how I have always found him. He has always been loyal to Sawall and our father.

“But of course he is a Lord of Chaos and change is of his essence; hence my question.” He sighs deeply, “And Sawall procreates in a manner rare in the Courts, similar to Barimen, similar to Amber, so… do you think my aunt may be right? Could he have been seduced by the Princess Fiona? As my mother was seduced by Prince Corwin?”

Havelock casually leans back against a mud wall and considers Despil more deeply.

“I had not realised the blood of Prince Corwin flowed in your veins; and Mandor seduced by our aunt?” he murmurs thoughtfully still regarding the young Sawall Lord. “It is possible.”

“Yet, I believe I am at risk of condemning your brother because I felt insulted in our initial encounter. That can be hard for one of my kind to shake. If so I should owe you and he an apology. Supposing Mandor is as loyal as you say, then might he be loyal not to the coalition, but to the Courts themselves? Would it be possible to consider the static nature of your leadership detrimental to what should be the ever-in-flux Court? Surely it goes against the principles of Chaos?”

Despil grins humourlessly, “Did you not hear me say that my father is Gramble? I was born before my mother’s dalliance with Corwin. My Amber blood comes from elsewhere.” Havelock gets the distinct feeling that Despil is reacting negatively to the suggestion that Corwin is his father. Despil’s face is expressionless, gone is the easy amiability of a moment before. “How did my brother insult you?”

Havelock wonders whether the mock sting had been worth the information gained. So here is a Chaosite who believes he has the blood of Amber. He too shifts towards ambivalence.

“Your brother was condescending in the extreme despite, it seems, trying to be hospitable.” Havelock shrugs. “Maybe he felt we of the blood had a reputation for excessive pride and needed a lesson? Or perhaps he sought to fit in by his manner?” Maybe, he thought to himself, Mandor learnt such conduct by meeting with Elders who he reflected carried themselves in a similar way.

“You are different Despil, easy with people. Hopefully you and I can unpick some of the revelations about the political situation you have kindly educated me on. Your aunt Whone believes your brother to have fallen in with my aunt Fiona, my father’s full sister? That this represents his siding with we Amberites, correct?”

“Let us consider the insults between us even.” Despil seems to be talking to himself as he twirls his cigar again and taps the ash to the floor. It seems to have burnt down rather more now. Then he glances up again and looks Havelock in the eye. “The situation is a little more complex than that and I have neither the time nor the inclination to take you through all the details. Instead, let’s turn to another question…”

Concealing his smart to yet another Sawall put down Havelock gives an amiable shrug. Prevented from making his point he listens to what further his companion wishes to say.

“Sigrid has given you the spiel; ‘we are all friends here, you need fear no one in the Order’, right?”

“Yup, ‘Despil is sworn to the Order and you need fear no one. Not even Poliziano’. Presumably you know otherwise?”

Despil’s expression gives nothing away. “Did you believe her?”

“Believe her? Do I have a reason to? I have been taught not to trust my close kin much. You speak of the Amber as a unified cause, but we are more circles with certain similar interests.”

He pushes off the wall at this point and deftly sweeps his trump deck from its pouch. “Eight extant Princes and five Princesses of the first generation, although I have no image of Princess Sand. Then their recognised children as well.”

He fans the deck, revealing four redheaded figures: Fiona, Bleys, Brand and himself. “These are my personal group, the redheads, by Oberon on his wife Clarissa.”

Once more exhaling smoke, luxuriantly, Despil steps forward to examine them closely but his eyes return often enough to Havelock to convince him his audience is listening attentively.

“However, now seen as having gone over to the other side and not trusted for having had to admit siding with the Courts in the recent War. Ironic that your brother should be suspect for being possibly seduced by my Aunt, who is part of a cabal no longer trusted by our other relatives for being in league with your side.”

Despil quirks a smile as he draws again on his cigar, he appreciates irony.

Havelock points to one card. “This is Brand; he taught me a lesson in trust. I was sent to him by my father to learn about Trump. He talked candidly about other relatives and I was surprised. I believe now he was feeding me tidbits to gauge my reaction. I sought reassurance that I could trust him in our relationship and he said something like ‘We redheads stick together.’ He can be very disarming in his manner, most likeable.”

“When I returned to my father I mentioned the conversation and his response dripped with heavy irony, ‘And you believed him?’ It was intimated that, at his worst moments, Brand might stick a knife in a relative, which, of course, eventually he did. That was Brand, my full uncle; I hear worse of my uncles Caine and Corwin. No, I am slowly having my sense of trust driven from me.”

Despil nods, smiling disarmingly as he taps two of the proffered cards with his cigar hand. “Yet in the battle these two aligned with their brethren, and Prince Bleys even led the final charge that was our undoing, while – Brand, you say? – fought for Chaos.” He shrugs. “It’s the same with us, only in Chaos everyone expects it, hence my first question.

“Those four brothers I mentioned: the fourth died in the recent battle; the third was killed some time ago by Prince Corwin; the first died at the hands of a rival house and the second fell to Mandor during a disagreement over politics.”

He steps back, draws again and gazes upward at an angle. He breathes out slowly once again, revelling in the delight of blowing a smoke ring in the still air. Then that rascally grin returns.

“What Sigrid said was absolutely true – at the moment she said it.” He waves his cigar carelessly. “It is more than likely true still.” Despil looks down and scuffs the ground with a toe, teasing a loose cobble from the dirt.

“You have a conundrum, Sir Havelock, for you cannot function in this order, or any other, without trusting your fellow brethren and they trusting you. And I mean completely. We all allow each other in our minds. So must you. And sooner rather than later. What say you?”

Havelock looks down at Brand’s card, one of the few of his own works in the deck. With a slight bitterness he briefly talks more to himself than Despil. “Aligning with the Blood as we did was for our own complex reasons. I thought the principal cause had passed on, but he seems very present of late.”

Pausing in momentary thought, Havelock shuffles the deck in his hand as a prelude to replacing it in its pouch. With one hand he rotates the top card to show the Moon and looks at it unsurprised.

Despil notices Havelock’s glance, “A wolf, a dog and a… thing, beneath a face within a celestial orb. Who is that? I don’t recall anyone like that in your lineage.”

Havelock regards his rendition of this scene. “The deck contains different types of cards, types beyond the images of family I first showed you. In combination they can be used for divination. There are ninety cards in all. They are held in four suits: Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles, with cards one to ten and seven court cards each. In addition there are twenty two Major Arcana which represent other influences. This card, The Moon, is one of those.”

“Here is a path between two towers, the route to advancement or escape,” he traces with his finger on the card. “These two, the hound and wolf, are fears of the rational mind that prevent forward motion. Finally this…” he points at the thing emerging from the water, “…is the intuition of the more instinctive mind that can drive the inquirer to proceed. A crisis of faith, which only intuition and not reason can advance one, or where you must rely on instinct alone.”

He rotates the card around on its long axis and looks quizzically at Despil. “Do you have questions?”

“Fascinating!” comments Despil, gesturing with his cigar, now little more than a stub. “Merl’s a devotee of this archaic art but all his cards are of people. I didn’t realise you can do concepts.”

He stops suddenly and gives Havelock a shrewd, calculating look.

“So… a ‘crisis of faith’?”

Havelock puts the deck away and nods slowly. “It would seem so. Reason says ‘why trust’, but intuition answers ‘because you must’. I have been told that one of my greatest weaknesses is my over developed instinct to trust.”

“When I first had free rein to ride to a shadow of my desire I found a place called Dumas. A place of duels and dances, but one my psyche found. The faction I joined was one built on the trust between its swordsmen. ‘All for one and one for all’, it could be said.” A smile begins to form on his face. “Constantly there was the chance of the tumult of melee. No higher call could be placed on a comrade than to ask them to be one’s ‘arriere’. They would guard your back as you did theirs. It went beyond that, but...” He pauses, realising again he had spoken at length.

“I suppose you needed to be there.” Shrugging he extinguishes his cigar. “Undoubtedly destroyed now.”

“Almost time to go back,” observes Despil, examining his cigar, almost completely burnt down; Havelock’s is not quite so consumed. “I cannot promise you tumult, but perhaps if you are willing to take a ‘leap of faith’, you may yet find trust in the order?” He drops his cigar in the hole formed by the cobble. “As long as you understand that, sooner or later, Sigrid’s words must cease to be true. This is Chaos.”

Havelock nods slowly, “I understand”. His face then brightens and, reaching out, he carefully places a friendly hand on his companion’s shoulder. “But that will be then and this is now, mon brave! Let us rejoin the others for I am keen to practice this art of world building.”

Despil seems slightly surprised by the gesture but he doesn’t pull back or brush away the intimacy. He opens his mouth but before he can speak an unearthly and utterly chilling howl of terror drowns his words. Despil is clearly shocked and turns to search for the source of the eldritch screech. It seems to come from all around, from the fabric of the buildings – yea, even the very ground!

Despil begins making strange tai-chi-like passes and Havelock can feel some sort of unholy power being summoned. It makes him want to reach for Pattern but, not feeling like unweaving his current locale into the Abyss, he instead trusts in the actions of his comrade. He also contributes by drawing his dagger and resting his other hand on his recently replaced deck. Without taking his eyes off their surroundings he suggests, “Poliziano?”

Before Despil can reply, there’s a dull concussive noise of great intensity (Havelock for some reason imagines the noise of a whale dropped bodily in to a quarry) and Despil is thrown to the ground, where he lies, obviously winded. Something snaps back away from him toward a dark doorway but Havelock can’t tell what it is – he’s not even sure it is anything, more an impression of movement and power.

But the howl grows louder and Havelock can now tell it comes from that doorway, which is distorting like it was made of rubber, enlarging as if something is pushing outward from the other side. Something dark and glutinous.

All his instincts are screaming at Havelock to raise the Pattern.

Whilst he deftly scabbards his knife as useless, in his mind he begins to bring the Pattern to mind. Intuitively he begins to defend his mind, following the repeated signs of the Moon, instinct over reason. Tracing out the silvery pathway in the sky he first walked so long ago. Intuitively he begins to slide the Pattern up between the thing in the dark and the two of them. As he does so he recalls his words to Mirfak on the subject of the Moon reversed, ‘deception, lies, illusion, terror of the deep and dark, nightmares, the card of madness!’

Almost instantly Havelock can tell his instincts are wrong. Even as he’s making the first reachings for the Pattern, the glutinous black thing in the suddenly plastic doorway starts to boil furiously – and Havelock instinctively understands it is fury; whatever the thing is, it’s now angry. But aside from that, all the mud bricks around him suddenly become crazed and dust erupts from all surfaces. There’s a faint scratching or cracking noise and holes appear in the roofs.

The terrible howl continues to grow in volume but somehow above all this noise Havelock can hear someone screaming in pain. It seems to come from the sky. He feels he ought to recognise that voice but he can’t quite put a name to it.

In one of those strange moments of lucidity that happen in moments of crisis, he notices the cobble Despil teased from the road as it falls in to the hole it came from. Havelock can see stars through that hole – it’s now about a foot across, and growing. Havelock realises the Pattern is attacking the very fabric of this fragile world, which is after all no more than a spell.

Despil desperately scrabbles back from the hole, the glutinous black thing and Havelock. Still barely able to breath, he croaks, “Havelock, NO!”

Angrily Havelock drops the Pattern and vaults back from the thing, across the hole in reality. Not for the first time he wishes to be well clear of these damned Courts. As he lands, he exhales, “Should have just used the knife and harsh language.”

As Despil regains his feet, the angry bubbling glutinosity coughs out a large blob of something like tar that bubbles and pulses on the street before them. The terrible howl is reaching some sort of climax but at least the shrill screaming has stopped. Despil looks around; the hole has ceased to grow and Havelock feels the area is stable but Despil doesn’t like what he sees. “We’ve got to get back to the others;” he shouts over the din, “…this place won’t last much longer.”

Something like a tar-baby is growing up from the patch of roiling black stuff but Havelock no longer feels anger emanating from the thing in the doorway. With a wave of agreement Havelock retreats a few more steps backward from hole and thing. Then, whilst withdrawing up the street, he shouts at his colleague, “I know my reaction didn’t help, Despil, but what, by Oberon’s beard, is that thing? What is going on?”

Despil halts Havelock’s retreat with one hand, a quizzical look on his face, “I think…”

The tar baby is now man-sized and the horrible howl is clearly coming from it. Then the thing opens its mouth and the howl stops. There come a couple of clicks and gurgles, like a wet mechanism malfunctioning, then the thing reaches out…

“…Ehpirr, preeezh hehp meeeeee!”

It occurs to Havelock that the thing doesn’t have a tongue.

Despil’s quizzical expression morphs slowly in to disbelief, tinged with horror. “Zae…?” he murmurs under his breath.

“Zae? Zae of Zigo?” queries Havelock.

Despil nods slowly, unable to tear his eyes from the apparition writhing in agony before him.

Then suddenly the thing in the doorway erupts forward, an enormous, glutinous mass of black protoplasm six feet in width and very long, so long that Havelock is unsure how big it can be, but it’s huge. It arcs forward and down in a curve that takes it through the star-filled hole in the ground, fracturing the ground around for several yards and hiding the tar-baby from view. It feels never-ending, but in truth the column of disgusting putrescence slams past in just a few seconds. Then suddenly, it’s gone! And so is the tar-baby!

The hole is now about six-feet across and looks like the impact point of some giant shell with fracture lines running in all directions. As Despil and Havelock look on, stunned, a couple of side fractures work sideways between radials. A small dark pink thing writhes the other side of the hole. An adjacent roof collapses; then the nearest radial extends itself two feet toward them and another piece of the road caves into the crumbling hole.

Without hesitation Havelock starts to pick his way around the cracks. He aims for a point where he can leap to whatever Zae left behind. He yells back to Despil, “Stabilise this if you can, else get back! I’ll see you all on the other side!”

As Havelock steps forward, one of the other radial cracks suddenly extends right across his path, running up a wall, across a roof and into the sky. He feels Despil tug at the back of his torn doublet.

“Stick with me, old man; things are breaking up here and I daren’t cancel the dream until we’re all together.” More street crumbles into the still growing hole; it’s getting larger at about a foot per second. It consumes the writhing pink thing, which Havelock is now sure is a tongue.

Spinning, in part using the impetus of Despil’s tug, Havelock turns. “Let’s go then. That hole isn’t going to wait for either of us.” Then they hurry back along the narrow passage towards the court holding the others.

They go only a short distance before a kink in the road reveals the other members of the order, just a stone’s throw away. But to either side and behind, things are finding inventive ways to self-destruct: one building collapses in parts, roof, rear wall, side walls, finally the front; another seems to be slowly evaporating; a third simply starts floating upward as its component parts slowly disassociate.

Getting closer!

Overhead strange colours are leaking in through large cracks in the pale sky: reds, greens, yellows.

Not far now!

Cracks criss-cross the dusty street. To the left, some hidden creature hisses under fallen masonry.

Almost there!

Someone is lying on the ground with the other members gathered round, save for Justinian who stands to one side, facelessly watching. “Will he live?” Mirandola’s voice. But before anyone can reply, suddenly they are further away again; it’s like Havelock and Despil have been sent back to where they first saw their brethren.

“Uh-oh! I was afraid of this!” Despil has stopped and is looking at the ground – the two men have just crossed a very large crack, though to Havelock’s eye it looks no different from the other dozen they’ve already crossed.

“What?” questions Havelock, his hand now more firmly gripping his deck pouch. Briefly he considers who from his cards he might be able to get a quick escape with, yet he cannot bring himself to so soon abandon the comrades he has just joined. “Despil, what are you afraid of?”

“No time to explain. Quick, follow me…!”

Briskly he skips back over the fault, which is a fraction wider now. Trusting his new friend, Havelock swiftly follows suit. As Havelock crosses back over the crack, the brethren are suddenly closer again, though less clear, as if there’s some distortion in the air.

Despil catches his breath. Approximately two and a bit seconds later the road beyond the crack suddenly rises, then falls, about a foot, and the buildings between the two men and the brethren start growing splashes of colour. It looks like time-lapse film of a fungal infestation. Then the outlines of the buildings and other things blur and quickly the scene dissolves in to a riot of colour.

Despil is pulling on Havelock’s shirt, “We have to find another way before it all goes like this.” He turns at right angles and heads for a very narrow alley. “I don’t know what you did,” he shouts back over his shoulder, “but it’s taken out the entire underpinning of the spell.”

“My defensive instinct flicked up the Pattern, very, very briefly,” Havelock shoots back, not sure whether Despil will hear, or whether he wants him to hear. Still he continues to look for less cracked parts in swirl of landscape. A thought comes upon him and he hurriedly queries, “Can the spell be rewoven and another architect stabilise creation on the fly?”

The alley turns left again at right-angles, which by Havelock’s reckoning should be taking them away from their last view of the brethren and back towards the hole but Despil obviously feels this is OK. It’s very narrow, Havelock’s shoulders brush both walls, which are crazed and crumbling. Something heavy, possibly a roof slate, strikes his shoulder a glancing blow.

“Oh I can reweave the spell, but that would take hours; we don’t have that long.”

Then abruptly they burst in to the square, dust billowing around them as a building back in the alley self-destructs.

It’s the same tableau Havelock saw a minute ago but from the other side. Mirandola kneels with Poliziano’s head in its lap. There’s something odd about Poliziano’s head. The other brethren kneel, crouch or stand close by, save for Justinian, who has now turned and is looking down the road that Despil and Havelock would have come up save for their detour. It ends ten yards away in a swelter of swirling colour, drawing ever closer.

Sigrid turns toward them, “Lord Despil, it is past time that we were leaving this place.”

Despil nods curtly and begins a strange manipulation of his fingers. Havelock feels a surge of power and something manipulating reality in a pretty fundamental way. Buildings crash, crumble or float away and the riot of colour enters the square.

Then with the incantation ‘Arbadacarba’, the city dissolves…