“I have all manners of medicines to cure every manner of ailment,” Mr. Norvell said. “And all for a mere handful of ducats. Yes, sir. In my time I have treated with the great and the good of the land. I have been to Xanadu and El Dorado, to Shangri-La and to the Doinklands, yes, sir, I have indeed, and I have healed the deathly wounds of the big boss clown of the Whitefaces. I could have been rich by now, indeed I could have, but it is not the desire for ducats which animates me, indeed it does not, but only the desire to help those less fortunate than I. And you, sir? You have need for succour? Does wart-tongue trouble you, or eagle’s claw? A sore tooth? My rates for teeth extraction are most reasonable. Perhaps a love spell?”

“No,” the Stranger said, shaking his head. “No, but thank you all the same.”

Mr. Norvell folded his hands before him on the table and leaned forward, and pitched his voice low. “You ask me for curses, is that it? I don’t . . .” He looked from side to side. “But perhaps . . .”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” the Stranger said. “But thank you.”

“But what is it you seek?” Mr. Norvell said, frustrated. “You must seek something!”

“I am looking,” the Stranger said, “for the Ur-shanabi.”

Mr. Norvell unfolded his hands and lifted his head and sat back. The motion of the train grew faster then, the cabin rocking from side to side, and looking out of the window the Stranger saw the twin mountain peaks of the Petit Philippe and Grand Philippe approach, as the train headed to the crossing through the saddle.

“The Plant of Heartbeat . . . ,” Mr. Norvell said. “No, no, it is I who is sorry, stranger. That flower is beyond even my powers to give.” His eyes filled with what looked like genuine sorrow. The glasses magnified them and in their pale blue orbits one could almost imagine the formation of tears. There was something hypnotic about Mr. Norvell’s eyes, as though behind their innocent vista of sky there was a melancholy, chthonic quality. It made the Stranger feel that if only he let himself wander for too long, if only he looked too deeply into those innocent eyes, he would find himself sinking, down into that liquid ocean and farther, into the tubular optic nerve that led not to a brain but to a place of shadow. And he wondered then, again; for the pupae umbrarum had agents among the ordinary and not so ordinary tenants of the Escapement, just as the Colossi did.