The Conjurer led the other two men over a low stone wall and into an unlit courtyard and from there to a twisting stone staircase that rose high up into the upper echelons of the city.

“Hurry, fools!”

They huffed their way up the stairs, going round and round, and the Stranger was absurdly glad they weren’t carrying anything heavy with them, like a piano. They found themselves at last on the roof of the building, and the Conjurer led them in a leap across it, and in this way they traversed the rooftops over Jericho, which were themselves filled with revellers. The Stranger felt the city shifting then. A rumbling just beyond the edge of hearing, a subtle rearrangement of the elements all about him. He stumbled, but the Kid caught and steadied him. Wordlessly, they ran on.

There was a high tower ahead. Below, the Stranger could see wide palatial gardens, a water fountain, mimes . . .

More mimes.

The mimes crawled along the walls like spiders. They climbed up, holding knives between their teeth. Their hands were like geckos’ adhesive toes. Their eyes were black and empty holes. They weren’t human, the Stranger realised.

He said, “Pupae umbrarum.”

“Those fuckers!” the Conjurer said. “Shit!”

“Friends of yours?”

“Just . . . shoot them, will you?”

“Gladly,” the Kid said, and he took off his rifle and began to fire, picking out the white-skinned creatures one by one. They fell from the walls without sound.

“I fucking hate mimes,” the Kid said.

The Conjurer grinned in savage appreciation, but more and more mimes were converging on their trail.

“We have to go higher!”

“Where!’”

“That tower, it’s Mooky’s Spire! If we get to the top we can get away!”

“How!”

“Magic,” the Conjurer said, and grinned again.

The Stranger fired methodically, running, stopping, firing, resuming. So this is what it came to, he thought, chilled. The pupae at last had the device, and it was their agents who’d brought it into the city.

If so, their opponents would not be far away.

They reached the tower and he and the Kid leaped after the Conjurer, onto a sturdy metal ladder that rose up to the top. They began to climb and it was then, from high above, that he at last saw the Colossi.

They were ranged beyond the city, illuminated by the moon. Vast figures carved of stone, with sneering visages of cold command. Behind them came the storm. He heard inhuman laughter, punctuated with awful bursts of opposing silence.

“Colossi . . . ,” he said.

“Climb, you idiot! Climb!”

A hand grasped the Stranger’s boot. He kicked, then fired down, and a mime fell soundlessly through the air. There was no way out, he thought. No way out but death.

Still, he climbed. They reached the top and fell inwards through a window. Winds howled against the tower walls.

“Ain’t she a beaut?” the Conjurer said, fondly.