“Strangers . . . I killed again that day. I killed every last one of them and when I was done I opened that trapdoor. How many unwary travellers had wound up down there I could not in truth tell you. The stench made me retch. That night I dumped the Benders’ bodies into that same communal grave and when I was finished I set fire to the place and watched it burn.

“I felt cleansed by the fire. In the outline of flames I thought I saw the Harlequin, looking back at me, telling me I’d done the right thing. There is so much wretchedness, on the Escapement as much as in that other place. The innocents die while the wicked celebrate. You have to laugh or you’ll cry. Or so I believe. I have to believe.”

The preacher excused himself abruptly. He rose from the table and for a moment the three men were left alone in the room.

“Barmy as a barn owl,” the Conjurer said.

“I say we rob him and get out of this place,” the Kid said.

“Rob him? Of what?”

“Fair point, Dad.”

“I told you not to call me that!”

The Stranger listened to them bickering. The map was in his pocket. He knew his way now. He was getting closer. The Stranger had been travelling for a long time, but perhaps he was no longer destined to travel for such a long time more. Only a little farther, he thought. Though he had begun to feel that he was running out of time.

“I walked the Escapement for a long while,” the Preacher said. When had he come back to the table? The air felt too still, the familiar cooking smells felt cloying. “Spreading the word of the Funny Pages, eliminating evil with extreme unction. In that time I saw Colossi move across the sands, I heard the awful silence of the pupae umbrarum as their shadows pooled in haunted valleys. I gathered true believers unto me. Some, veterans of the Titanomachy. Others were former bounty hunters and outlaws, clown killers who had found redemption. Together we ventured beyond the Thickening and into a remote and unexplored part of the Doinklands, and it was here that I at last set up my mission. With my own two hands I built this house of faith, my people and I, and it is here that we dwelt, among the clowns, for all that they treated us much as a circus-goer might treat an ostrich. I had hoped for a long and tranquil life here, to end my days here, under the infinite sky, far from the world of men. But that was not to be.”