Its substance was known to me.

The crawling infinity of colours, the chaos of textures that went into each strand of that eternally complex tapestry…each one resonated under the step of the dancing mad god, vibrating and sending little echoes of bravery, or hunger, or architecture, or argument, or cabbage or murder or concrete across the aether. The weft of starlings’ motivations connected to the thick, sticky strand of a young thief’s laugh. The fibres stretched taut and glued themselves solidly to a third line, its silk made from the angles of seven flying buttresses to a cathedral roof. The plait disappeared into the enormity of possible spaces.

Every intention, interaction, motivation, every colour, every body, every action and reaction, every piece of physical reality and the thoughts that it engendered, every connection made, every nuanced moment of history and potentiality, every toothache and flagstone, every emotion and birth and banknote, every possible thing ever is woven into that limitless, sprawling web.

It is without beginning or end. It is complex to a degree that humbles the mind. It is a work of such beauty that my soul wept.

It crawled with life. There were others like our bearer, more of the dancing mad gods, glimpsed across an infinity of webwork.

There were other creatures, too, terrible intricate shapes I will not recall.

The web is not without flaw. In innumerable places the silk is torn and the colours ruined. Here and there the patterns are strained and unstable. As we passed these wounds, I felt the dancing mad god pause and flex its spinneret, repairing and restaining.

A little way off was the tight silk of the Cymek. I swear I caught its oscillations as the worldweb flexed under the weight of time.

Around me was a little localized tangle of metareal gossamer…New Crobuzon. And there rending the woven strands in the centre was an ugly tear. It spread out and split the fabric of the city-web, taking the multitude of colours and bleeding them dry. They were left a drab and lifeless white. A pointless emptiness, a pallid shade a thousand times more soulless even than the eye of some sightless cave-born fish.

As I watched, my pained eyes wide with insight, I saw that the rip was widening.

I was so afraid of the spreading rent. And I was dwarfed by the enormity of it all, of the whole of the web. I shut my eyes tight.

I could not close down my mind. It scrambled, unbidden, to remember what it had seen. But it could not contain it. I was left only with a sense of it all. I remember it now as a description. The weight of its immensity is no longer present in my head.

That is the etiolated memory that captivates me now.

I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.

Part Five. Councils

Chapter Thirty-Four

In the Lemquist Room, Rudgutter, Stem-Fulcher and Rescue held a council of war.

They had been up all night. Rudgutter and Stem-Fulcher were tired and irritable. They sipped huge bowls of strong coffee as they pored over papers.

Rescue was impassive. He fingered his swaddling scarf.

“Look at this,” said Rudgutter, and waved a piece of paper at his subordinates. “This arrived this morning. It was couriered in person. I had the opportunity to discuss its content with the authors. It was not a social call.”

Stem-Fulcher leaned over, reaching for the letter. Rudgutter ignored her and began to reread it himself.

“It’s from Josiah Penton, Bartol Sedner and Mashek Ghrashietnichs.” Rescue and Stem-Fulcher looked up. He nodded slowly. “The heads of Arrowhead Mines, Sedner’s Bank of Commerce and the Paradox Concerns have taken the time to write a letter together. So I think we can add a long list of lesser names below theirs, in invisible ink, hm?” He smoothed the letter. “Messrs. Penton, Sedner and Ghrashietnichs are ‘most concerned,’ it says here, at ‘scurrilous reports’ reaching their ears. They have wind of our crisis.” He watched as Stem-Fulcher and Rescue glanced at each other. “It’s all rather garbled. They aren’t at all sure what’s happening, but none of them have been sleeping well. In addition to which, they’ve got der Grimnebulin’s name. They want to know what’s being done to counter, ah…‘this threat to our great city-state.’ ” He put the paper down as Stem-Fulcher shrugged and opened her mouth to answer. He cut her off, rubbing his eyes with exasperated exhaustion.

“You’ve read Inspector Tormlin’s-‘Sally’s’-report. According to Serachin, who is now recuperating in our care, der Grimnebulin claims to have a working prototype of some kind of crisis engine. We all understand the gravity of that. Well…our good businessmen have found that out. And as you can imagine, they are all-particularly Mr. Penton-most desirous of putting a stop to this absurd claim as quickly as possible. Any preposterous fake engines that Mr. der Grimnebulin might have fabricated to fool the credulous should, we are advised, be summarily destroyed.” He sighed and looked up.

“They make some mention of the generous funds they have provided the government and the Fat Sun party over the years. We have been given our orders, ladies and gentlemen. They are not at all happy about the slake-moths, and would like such dangerous animals contained forthwith. But not surprisingly, they are having a conniption about the possibility of crisis energy. Now, we searched the warehouse very thoroughly last night, and there is absolutely no sign of any such apparatus. We have to consider the possibility that der Grimnebulin is mistaken or lying. But in case he’s not, we must also bear in mind that he may have taken his engine and his notes with him last night. With,” he sighed heavily, “the Weaver.”

Stem-Fulcher spoke carefully. “Do we understand yet,” she ventured, “what happened?”

Rudgutter shrugged brusquely.

“We presented the evidence of the militia who saw the Weaver and heard what it said to Kapnellior, I’ve been trying to contact the thing, and I’ve had one curt, incomprehensible reply…It was scribbled in soot on my mirror. All we can say for sure is that it thought it improved the pattern of the worldweb to abduct der Grimnebulin and his friends from under our noses. We don’t know where it’s gone or why. Whether it’s left them alive. Anything really. Although Kapnellior’s quite confident it’s still hunting the moths.”

“What about the ears?” asked Stem-Fulcher.

“I have no idea!” shouted Rudgutter. “It made the web prettier! Obviously! So now we have twenty terrified, one-eared militia in the infirmary!” He calmed a little. “I have been thinking. It’s my belief that part of our problem is that we started with plans that were too grand. We’ll keep trying to locate the Weaver, but in the meantime we’re going to have to rely on less ambitious methods of moth-hunting. We are going to put together a unit of all our guards, militia, and scientists who have had any dealings with the creatures. We’re putting together a specialist squad. And we are going to do it in conjunction with Motley.” Stem-Fulcher and Rescue looked at him and nodded.

“It’s necessary. We’re pooling our resources. He has trained men, as do we. We have set procedures in motion. He will have his units, and we will have ours, but they will operate in tandem. Motley and his men have an unconditional amnesty on all criminal activity while we conduct this operation.

“Rescue…” said Rudgutter quietly. “We need your particular skills. Quietly, of course. How many of your…kin do you think you can mobilize within a day? Knowing the nature of the operation…It is not without its dangers.”