They rode in uneasy silence. The Kid chewed on a stick of jerky. The Conjurer kept rolling ducats between his fingers. The Stranger just watched, and thought. The man sat in the room all alone but for his thoughts and he looked at the boy, who was not sleeping and not awake. He thought that the dry leaves of the Ur-shanabi might have given him comfort. It was hard to know, in truth. The Stranger blinked and the world swam back into focus. They rode until the sound swallowed them and they became as one with it. Until the white fires erased every trace of shadow, and within it could be seen the streets and houses of that other place, and the people who dwelt there, for all that they moved the way ghosts do, and did not make a sound, and seemed unaware that they were being passed through.

When they came at last near to the place—to Hole—they began to see tracks in the ground, looping and twisting on each other. The tracks led to giant warehouses built of stout wood—all the wood that had been chopped off for miles in every direction. As they came near they saw a mining cart emerge just ahead. It was being pulled by four Whitefaces, whose legs were shackled by chains. The cart was laden with bags and bags all filled with substance, the white crystals spilling out as the cart shuddered and was jogged forward, one step at a time. The clowns never made a sound and their faces were impassive. Only their eyes showed the strain.

“What is this?” the Stranger said, aghast.

“Hold on, wait,” the Conjurer said, as the Stranger reached for his rifle. “Don’t be hasty—hello, what do we have here?”

The Stranger let go of the rifle. The clowns, he saw, were not alone, for ambling behind them came a ferret-faced individual, and he held a long and nasty-looking whip which he let whistle through the air idly as he walked. He saw them, and winked. It was then that the Stranger realised they had not been alone for some time. Out of the haze of substance the men came sliding like tightrope walkers, from all directions, and they surrounded the three travellers.

They wore oversized striped blazers with too many pockets and too many buttons sewn on them. They wore straw hats that looked like plum cakes, and large bow ties, and bright yellow fake gerberas in their lapels. They carried knives up their sleeves and guns on their belts, under the blazers, and they wore sharpened spurs on their boots. Their faces were uniformly gaunt. In their eyes, the pupils were mere pinpricks of black swallowed within a dirty-pink iris. They looked like they always spoiled for a fight.

The Conjurer groaned. “Oh, no . . . ,” he said. “Not fucking carnies.”

“Friends of yours?” the Kid said.