Jarre looked up at the sky, where, as it had been every night for almost a week, the gold and red bee of a comet was visible, crossing the sky from the west to the east, dragging in its wake a flickering plait of fire. He wondered what this strange phenomenon, mentioned in many prophecies, might actually auger.

He started walking again. It was growing darker and darker. The track led downwards, into an avenue of dense undergrowth that assumed terrifying shapes in the semi-darkness. From below, where it was even darker, drifted the cold, foul smell of rotting weed and something else. Something very unpleasant.

Jarre stopped. He tried to persuade himself that what was crawling over his back and shoulders was not fear, but cold. Unsuccessfully.

A low footbridge connected the banks of a canal overgrown with osiers and misshapen willows, black and shining like freshly pared pitch. Long holes gaped in the footbridge in places where the timbers had rotted and caved in, and the handrail was broken, its spindles submerged in the water. The willows grew more thickly beyond the bridge. Although it was still a long way to the actual night, although the distant meadows beyond the canal were still glowing with a yarn of mist hanging on the top of the grass, darkness reigned among the willows. Jarre saw the vague ruins of a building in the gloom–probably a mill, sluice or eel smokery.

I must cross that footbridge, thought the lad. There’s nothing to be done! Although I feel in my bones that something evil is lurking in the darkness, I must get to the other side of this canal. I must cross this canal, like that mythical leader or hero I read about in yellowed manuscripts in the Temple of Melitele. I’ll traverse this canal and then… What was it? The cards will have been dealt? No, the dice will have been cast. Behind me lies my past, before me stretches my future…

He stepped onto the bridge and at once knew that his sense of foreboding hadn’t been mistaken. Before he even saw them. Or heard them.

‘Well?’ rasped one of the men who now blocked his way. ‘Didn’t I say? I said, just wait a tick and someone’ll appear.’

‘Exackly, Okultich,’ another of the characters armed with clubs lisped slightly. ‘Verily we’ll ‘ave to make you a fortune-teller or a wise-man. Well, gentle passer-by, walking all alone! Will you give us what you have of your own free will, or will it have to come to a struggle?’

‘I don’t have anything!’ yelled Jarre at the top of his voice, although he didn’t have much hope that anybody would hear and rush to help. ‘I’m a poor wanderer! I don’t have a groat to my name! What can I give you? This cane? These garments?’