‘So you see, monk. Griffin knew something already. And I kept asking him to tell me more of his dream, but there were just fragments — the chasm, the miners tunnelling, a glorious city, a spike of molten metal that glowed and pulsed, a black fish, and men roped to a steeple.’
‘It was just a dream,’ I said softly.
And then it was too late for a journey. For we heard shouting across the lake and saw the villagers at Gosford staving off the plague boat.
They set it afire, but our hearts sank to our feet. For we knew the contagion was loose, and as close as a mile away.’
And the moon rose, full and round, so that our people fell silent. For the moon was big and bloated and it was the seal upon our fate. Twas the moon would hump the contagion twenty miles on from Gosford that very night like a sack, then let it fall on us. ‘
I looked to Griffin. The boy had fallen down, had cried out, in the grip of the moon. And he saw and spoke, his eyes still wide with the dream. The same fragments as before, but now the villagers clustered to him.’
He saw again the chasm. And Arno whispered in sudden awe, he knew of just such a crack in the earth, in an abandoned pit behind the village. Saw again the strange engine, the miners’ desperate tunnelling underground, the molten spike, the man upon the steeple.
And now we hung upon every word, for if the chasm were true — might not the rest be so? And there was a muttering that rose to a ragged chant . . .
‘The Journey!’
‘The Journey!’
