"Jabber?" There was a hysteria to the monk’s voice. Qurabin was moving, the locus of his sound bobbing among them. "Jabber can’t help, no, no. More to come, there’s more to come. And he has you thinking those are signs for freedom. The spiral. Oh."

Cutter started-the voice was right up close to him. He felt a gust of breath.

"I’m Tesh, remember. I know. The things that are coming in your city, the haints-they aren’t attacks, they’re ripples. Of an event that hasn’t yet come. They’re spots in time and place. Something’s coming, dropped into time like water, and these have splashed back. And where they land, these little droplets come like maggoty things to suck at the world. Something’s coming soon, and these, these, these spirals, these curlicues are bringing it.

"Someone is loose in New Crobuzon. This is ambassadormagik. The little manifs are nothing. Tesh want more than that. They’re going to end your city. These spirals-they’re the marks of a hecatombist."

Qurabin had to explain several times.

"Who left that mark is a purveyor of many thaumaturgies. Of which this is the last. This is the finishing of the law. This will take your city and, and will wipe your city clean. Understand that."

"These are freedom spirals," said a refugee, and Cutter all but cuffed him to be quiet.

"They say Tesh is talking? They say there are negotiations? No no no. If there are, they are ploy. This is the final thing they will do. Their last attack. Months of preparation, huge energy. This will end everything. No more wars for New Crobuzon. Not ever again."

"What is it, what will it be?"

But Qurabin did not answer that.

"There will be no more wars and no more peace," Qurabin said. "And more ripples will come, spattered, on the other side of the event. The last drops. Manifestations in the nothing left after your city’s gone. They’ll wipe it out."

It was very cold, and the wind that ran down from the chines snatched smoke from their food-fires. Before and behind them, Councillors bunked in their ironside town. There were the noises of mountain animals. There was talking, and the settling metal of the sleeping train.

"What can we do?" Judah was in horror.

"If you want… if you want to fix it, you have to find him. The one who’s doing this, who’s calling things. We have to find him. We have to stop him.

"You-we-have to get back to New Crobuzon. We have to go now."

Part Eight: The Remarking

Part Eight: The Remarking

-------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five