But I wasn’t really listening. I knew Webster had been given the cylinder but I wanted to know where he got it. Close the circle, if you like. What was more, I knew that I had to get to the temple of Morpheus, the one I could see on the horizon. I climbed down from the boulders as fast as my limited mobility would allow, then limped off across the open ground towards the Buick, feeling in my pocket for the rabbit’s-foot key ring. I kicked away a hand that had grabbed my trouser leg, then yanked open the car door and climbed in. There was little short-term gain; within a second the hands were swarming across the bonnet in an aggrieved manner, their skin squeaking on the glass as they tried to squeeze in through the slot at the top of the driver’s jammed window. Their numbers were soon so great that they appeared less like hands and more like finger-sized maggots writhing in a tin.

I fumbled for the car keys, started the engine, slammed the car into gear and was off with a jerk. Fortuitously, most of the hands fell or slid off the car and the ones that were inside I simply tossed outside. Pretty soon I was quite alone, driving across the grassy landscape, the only sound the wheels as they rumbled across the turf.

The temple took less than a minute to reach, and I pulled up, stopped the engine and climbed out. The hands that had remained stuck to the car seemed to have been stunned into inactivity by the sudden change in events, and were now silently observing me while rocking on their knuckles.

I walked towards the Morpheleum, which had been realised perfectly within my dream – lichen blooms had erupted upon the age-softened carvings, cracks had opened up in the masonry and ivy had locked the building in a tight death-grip.

‘Are you at the temple?’ asked Mrs Nesbit, who was still there, standing right next to me, shimmering softly.

‘I’m there.’

‘The first to do so,’ she said, ‘you are doing well. But there is no respite until you find the cylinder. Only death frees you from this dream.’

‘You’re a bundle of laughs, Goodnight,’ I said.

‘I am Mrs Nesbit,’ said Mrs Nesbit after a pause that was too long to mean anything other than that she wasn’t. ‘And if I was Goodnight – which I’m not – you should use the accolade “Notable”. I think she’s deserved it after a lifetime of selfless toil, don’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Find the cylinder. Explore the temple. Go.’