She looked back at the one-armed man sleeping in her bed. When the landlady found out, she would no doubt throw them out; but she, Gavriela, was supposed to return to Bletchley today, while Brian had his own lodgings near Cambridge Circus.

How do I feel?

The world had turned cold and strange, and something else had changed: some new purpose forming inside her, whose nature she did not know, not yet.

Outside, the snowfall clenched, thickening and uncaring.

TWENTY-SIX

THE WORLD, 5563 AD

After a ninenight of planning, Harij was ready to break her out. When everyone in the town was asleep – even old Farkil, the daywatchman who guarded the fungal farms – he passed the shell-dome homes of those who lived close to the school, then stopped at the entrance.

Far above, on the cavern ceiling, glowfungus glimmered.

He teased apart the laminae of the locks, his flux control better than he managed in class; then he was inside, at the shielded door that led to the special dormitory, where Ilara and the others like her slept. This door locked from the outside, and opened the same way.

**Ilara. Wake up. We’re going for a walk.**

**Not time not time not time not time not—**

**Shh. Hold it in. Hold it in.**

**HOLD IN. IN. In. In … **

She damped her flux emissions, curled them inside herself. He touched the polished silver of her face.

**Good girl. With me, now.**

Ilara trusted him, that was the thing.

**This way.**

Hand in hand, they passed out of the school, skirted the glimberry patches, and left the town proper, climbing the long scree slope that led to the outside. In an alcove at the top, where natural minerals twisted ambient flux into painful, intense knots, Harij reached inside – silver lips pulling back from his teeth: it had not hurt this much before – then dragged out three large sacks.

He covered himself and Ilara with hooded robes, slung the foodsacks over his shoulder, and took Ilara’s hand once more.

**We can’t go far in daylight, but we can make a little distance.**

**In. In. In.**

**So trust me, sister. Trust me.**

They went out into the burning.

This was the beginning of the long trek, travelling when daylight was least searing, only switching to normal habits on the third night, when they were far enough away that no one would spot them. When Harij told her to, Ilara ate an algal wafer or drank from a sweetmilk sac. The only trouble he had was when she would stop, her attention taken by an oddly shaped stone or a scuttling tripion, and rock herself back and forth a thousand times before continuing.

At those times, he reminded himself of the old story, [[The Strongest Dreamlode]], and told himself he was doing the right thing.

Once, after they had stopped only when the sun was white-hot, he slept deeply and did not wake up until the night was far gone. He found Ilara bumping her head against a rock, over and over – insistent though not hard – while the silver-and-black glory of Magnus hung directly overhead like an omen. He placed his hand between her forehead and the rock, and kept it there until she stopped.

**Seven thousand nine hundred and thirteen, tastes like a glimberry.**

**Very good, Ilara. That’s nice. Shall we go on now?**

**Yes.**

Across the mesa, they walked.

They journeyed until the sweetmilk and myobread were gone, and only a few algal wafers remained at the bottom of one flapping, near-empty sack. Harij cast everywhere as he walked and as he slept, without the faintest taste of the resonance he sought.

He had killed Ilara, along with himself.

**I’m sorry, sister. I’m sorry.**

She squeezed his hand, but her eyes were burned shut, and she could barely stumble on. Her skin was cracked and flaky, shiny no more.

He had been so sure the resonance lay in this direction.

**Through here. The gap.**

A broken outcrop stood before them, showing a fang-shaped opening they might be able to crawl inside. The night was ending, and soon the scorching would begin.

Their last day, surely.

He pulled her in with him, held her close, and slipped too easily into sleep.

When the night was at its coolest, something blasted in his mind.

**IT’S ALL RIGHT, HARIJ!**

He winced, trying to focus.

**What?**

**YOU FOUND THE DREAMLODE. IT’S RIGHT BENEATH US, SWEET BROTHER. WAKE UP! WAKE UP!**

Her words pulled him into the waking world.

**Ilara? Ilara!**

Was this her real voice, the flux contained inside her for so long, the thoughts imprisoned in her damaged mind? The potential Ilara made real?

**Where are you?**

**EVERYWHERE, BROTHER.**

He could not see her, though her words pounded through him.

**WHAT YOU SEEK IS FURTHER BACK. SEE?**

Crawling, hurting everywhere but not caring, he hauled himself deeper inside the crack; and finally he found her. Found it, the thing that once had housed her.

**IT WAS ONLY FLESH.**

Her body, blackened and cracked, desiccated to oblivion. But if that was Ilara, who was this?

**Dreamlode. This is a dreamlode?**

But he could sense it now, as he revived: deep thrumming resonance, a vast hidden seam of crystal below.

**WE’RE FINE NOW, ALL OF US.**

**All?**

**WE UNDERSTAND BEING TRAPPED. BUT IDENTITY IS SUCH A FRAGILE CONCEPT.**

Some of the flux was redolent of Ilara – of the stunted, unable-to-express-herself Ilara – but some of it tasted ancient; and some it was mere Ideas, snagged by chance, captured from the winds of flux.

**Need to go … Home.**

**YES. YOU MUST, HARIJ. GO HOME.**

But he could not carry her body all that way.

**LEAVE THE FLESH-THING. SAVE YOURSELF.**

There were algal wafers he had saved for her.

**BEAR LEFT DOWN THE RAVINE AS YOU LEAVE, AND YOU WILL FIND A SPIKER BUSH. IT WILL SUSTAIN YOU FOR A TIME.**

**Leave … **

**YOU MUST LEAVE, HARIJ. YOU MUST.**

**I need to … **

**YOUR THOUGHTS ARE TOO TEMPTING, SO FRAGILE AND DELICIOUS. DO NOT TORTURE US MORE, OR WE WILL NO LONGER HOLD BACK.**

**I don’t … **

But he did understand, even in this pain-wracked state.

**I love you, Ilara.**

**WE LOVE YOU ALSO, BUT GO.**

He dragged himself out of the gap.

Harij found the purple spiker bush where the dreamlode mind had told him to look. He sucked on creamy nectar, and broke off leaves to carry with him. Then he worked out which direction to walk in, which way to begin his journey home.

To the punishment he needed the town to give him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

Silvermead swirled in Max’s throat, luxurious and sweet, while the feel of clean clothes against bathed skin was an equal pleasure, along with the lack of pain in his healing body. His chair enveloped him like a soft throne, and the chamber was configured to cosy dimensions, lacking only a fireplace to turn it into a Victorian sitting-room.

Smartfluids threaded the hypodermic layers, giving him the appearance of scarlet veins; while seams and capillaries of the stuff enwrapped his organs, webbed the connective tissues of permysium, enomysium and epimysium, and threaded his muscle fibres: healing, building, repairing. He was under no illusion about the lack of pain: his rehab was just beginning.

‘I regret we’ve never worked together.’ Pavel Karelin’s chair had morphed into a formal, minimalist design. ‘Your reputation is the highest.’