STAR-DOCK'S SNUFF.

WILL DIZZY'S MORTIMER MOUSE.

BAPTISMS R US.

PERV PARLOUR,

SOUL MARKET; NEW, USED AND REFURBISHED.

And of course

THE NOSFERATU BLOOD BANK.

(Come in and make a deposit. Give generously. Don't make us come looking for you.)

A dark-haired Goth girl in a crimson basque gave me the eye from the shadowy doorway. I smiled politely and continued on my way.

Right in the middle of the mall stood an old-fashioned wishing well, largely ignored by the crowds that bustled unseeingly past it. The well didn't look like much. Just a traditional stone-walled well with a circle of stunted grass around it, a red slate roof above, and a bucket on a rusty steel chain. A sign in really twee writing invited you to toss a coin in the well and make a wish. Just a little bit of harmless fun for the kiddies. Except this was the Nightside, which has never gone in for harmless fun. Most oracles are a joke. The concept of alternate timetracks (as seen every day in the Nightside's spontaneously generating Time-slips) makes prophecy largely unprofitable and knocks the idea of Fate very firmly on the head. But this particular oracle had a really good track record in predicting the present; in knowing what was going on everywhere, right now. I suppose specialisation is everything, these days. I leaned against the well's stone wall and looked casually about me. No-one seemed to be paying me or the well any special attention.

"Hello, oracle," I said. "What's happening?"

"More than you can possibly imagine," said a deep, bubbling voice from a long way below. "Bless me with coin of silver, oh passing traveller, and I shall bless thee with three answers to any question. The first answer shall be explicit but unhelpful, the second allusive but accurate, and the third a wild stab in the dark. The more you spend, the more you learn."

"Don't give me that crap," I said. "I'm not a tourist. This is John Taylor."

"Oh bloody hell; you're back again, are you?" The oracle sounded distinctly sulky. "You know very well your whole existence makes my head ache."

"You haven't got a head."

"Exactly! It's people like you that give oracles a bad reputation. What do you want? I'm busy."

"What with?" I asked, honestly curious.

"Trust me, you really don't want to know. You think it's easy being the fount of all wisdom, when your walls are covered with algae? And I hate Timselips! They're like haemorrhoids for an oracle. And speaking of pains in the arse; what do you want, Taylor?"

"I'm looking for the man called Madman."

"Oh God; he's even worse than you. He'd turn my stomach, if I had one. What do you want with him?"

"Don't you know?"

The oracle sniffed haughtily. "That's right, make fun of a cripple. At least I can see where he is, unlike you. But this answer will cost you. No information for free; that's the rule. Don't blame me, I just work here. Until the curse finally wears off; then I will be out of here so fast it'll make your head spin."