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fading to yellow, and the hairs themselves were thicker and gnarled. Some bore fruit, large prickly balls that grew right out of the trunk of the hair.
    Bane cut into one with his knife, and showed Snibril the thick sweet syrup.
    Later they passed far under some kind ofconstruction high in the hairs. Striped creatures peered down from their lofty fortress and hummed angrily as the carts passed beneath.
    ‘They’re hymetors,’ called out Pismire, while the noise thrummed above their heads. ‘Don’t take any notice of them! They’re peaceful enough if you leave them alone, but if they think you’re after their honey they’ll sting you!’
    ‘Are they intelligent?’ said Snibril
    ‘Together they are. Individually, they’re stupid. Hah! The opposite of us, really. Incidentally, their stings are deadly.’
    After that no one as much as looked at a syrup ball, and Bane spent a lot of time glancing upwards with one hand on his sword.
    After a while they reached a place where two tracks crossed. A cairn of grit marked the crossroads. On the cairn, their packs at their feet, sat a man and a woman. They were ragged creatures; their clothes made Bane’s clean tatters look like an Emperor’s robe.
    They were eating cheese. Both started to back away when Bane and Snibril approached, and then relaxed.
    The man wanted to talk. Words seemed to have piled up inside him.
    ‘Camus Cadmes is my name,’ he said. ‘I was a hair-cutter for the sawmill in Marus there. Isuppose I’m still a hair-cutter now, too, if anyone wants to employ me. Hmm? Oh. I was out marking hairs for cutting and Lydia here had brought out my dinner and then there was this sort of heavy feeling and then—’
    And then he’d got to a point where words weren’t enough, and had to be replaced by arm-waving and a look of extreme terror.
    ‘When we got back I don’t think there was a yard of wall left standing. The houses just fell in on themselves. We did what we could but . . . well, anyone who could just left. You can’t rebuild from something like that. Then I heard the wolf things, and . . . we ran.’
    He took the piece of meat that Snibril gave him and they ate it hungrily.
    ‘Did no one else escape?’ said Snibril
    ‘Escape? From that? Maybe, those outside the walls. There was Barlen Corronson with us until yesterday. But he went after the syrup of those humming things, and they got him. Now we’re going east. I’ve got family that way. I hope.’
    They gave them new clothes and full packs, and sent them on their way. The couple hurried off, almost as fearful of the Munrungs as they were of the other sudden terrors of the Carpet.
    ‘Everyone ran,’ said Snibril. ‘We’re all running away. ‘
    ‘Yes,’ said Bane looking down the west path with an odd expression. ‘Even these.’ He pointed, and there coming slowly up the path, was a heavy wagon drawn by a line of bent, plodding figures.

Chapter 4
    ‘Wights,’ said Bane. ‘Don’t speak to them unless they speak first.’
    ‘I saw them last night in a dream . . .’ began Snibril.
    Pismire showed no surprise. ‘You’ve got one of their belts. You know when you really work hard at something, you’re really putting yourself into your work? They mean it.’
    Snibril slipped the belt from his tunic and, without quite knowing why he did it, slipped it into his pack.
    Behind them the rest of the carts slowed down and drew to the side of the path.
    The wight-drawn wagon rumbled on until it reached the cairn. Both parties looked across at the others. Then a small wight left the cart and walked across to Snibril and Bane. Close to, its robe could beseen to be, not just black, but covered in a crisscross of faint grey lines. The deep hood covered its face.
    ‘Hello,’ said the wight.
    ‘Hello,’ said Bane.
    ‘Hello,’ nodded the wight again.
    It stood there, and said nothing else.
    ‘Do they understand language?’ said Snibril.
    ‘Probably,’ said Pismire. ‘They invented