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'If you weren't here,' I said, stepping back from him, 'your face would be the same colour as always. You'd simply look as if you'd been very ill for a long time. The colour here doesn't mean anything in itself: it's just a read-out, like an energy level indicator.'

'So what's actually happening?'

'Let's walk'I said.

'Stark.'

I'll explain, but let's walk. We have to go places, remember?'

Alkland grudgingly fell in with me as I started to push my way past the nearest vegetation.

'Weird jungle,' I said.

It was. It was like a jungle out of a children's book, huge picturesque trees with vines strung between them, massive ferns with broad leaves at ground level and yet with a discernible path, patchily lit by shafts of humid, glistening sunlight. Exotic birds cawed and hooted up in the panoply of leaves far above our heads, playing lead to the insects' tidal rhythm section.

The truly strange thing was the colours. I plucked a leaf from a nearby fern and looked at it closely. The edges weren't smooth, but slightly jagged. The leaf was made up of small squares of colour picked from a limited palette. From a distance the effect was of gradually shifting shades of green, but close up you could see that the hues were made up of a few distinct greens intermixed with blues and yellows. From what I could see by looking round I reckoned there were about two hundred and fifty-six colours available.

The path was a mixture of browns with patches of black and a few spots of white, and the quantised squares of colour were clearly visible without even bending down. Everything was the same: the shifting patches of intense blue way up above the trees were made up of dark blue, cyan and white, and when a cockatoo-like bird swooped across our path a few yards in front, it too was made up of intermixed squares of colour. The squares were the same size, no matter how far away the object was: the grain on the sky was no finer than that on the path. The nearer objects were, in fact, the more subtle the colouring, because the squares were smaller in relation to the size of the object.

The whole thing was just like some three-dimensional computer graphic, and yet the leaves were warm and the trunks solid, and the loose dirt stirred under our feet as we threaded our way along the path. Weird.

For a while we wandered along the path in silence, content to look around. It didn't take long for the colours to cease to seem strange: the jungle was after all realistically hot and sticky, and I'm sure Alkland had never been in a real jungle anyway. As we progressed, the vegetation became thicker and thicker, pressing in on the path, and the canopy above let shafts of light through less and less frequently. Soon we were pushing our way through dense fronds in a dark green and oppressively humid gloom. There was a chance that it was Alkland's confusion that was making the jungle become more impenetrable, so I decided to talk before things got any worse.

'How much do you know about dreams?' I asked him.

'Not much,' he admitted reluctantly. Actioneers hate admitting they don't know about something. In the Centre they never do. They just pretend they're an expert and then hurry off and learn as much as possible about it before they get found out. Not really an option here.

'Nobody does, actually, particularly the people who think they do. A long time ago people thought they were visions. Then they thought they were reflections of the subconscious mind churning away beneath the surface.' I had to stop there for a while, to concentrate on shoving a particularly large frond out of our way. The path didn't look much better once it was cleared though, and the vegetation above us was now so thick that we were moving through a murky twilight.

After a few more yards we came to a standstill, unable to go on. I turned to face Alkland and saw that the way we'd come was blocked too: the vegetation had grown over the path. We were stuck, standing facing each other's sweating faces in about a square yard of space.

'Might there not be a clearer path somewhere?' asked Alkland, irritably swatting a small bug that had landed on his face. Though the bug had been made up of tiny squares of blacks and greys, the spot of blood that flowed from it was real.

'No. Pay attention.' I had to clear Alkland's mind up soon, or we'd have a hell of a job ever getting out of this jungle. To a degree, they were right. Dreams are a reflection. But as you can see, they're also a reality. When you dream, you come here: this is where they happen.'

'Would this place still be here if nobody dreamed?'

'Yes. That's exactly the point,' I said, pleased. 'Jeamland persists. It's the way it is partly because of the dreams that take place here. But the dreams people have are shaped by the place too. They affect one another.'

'Okay' he said, nodding. 'With you so far.'

I glanced behind me and saw that though the way was still blocked, it seemed to be slightly lighter up ahead.

'Dreams aren't just in the mind,' I continued. They exist, and they're part of you. Like memories, they make up much of what you are, whether you remember them or not. Again, you affect each other.'

'Right.'

'If something goes wrong with a part of your body, if some of the cells go rabid or get screwed up by something, you get ill.'

'And if something goes wrong with your dreams, you get ill too.'

'Give that man a cigar.'

'Stark, something peculiar is happening with all these frondy things. There seems to be a path opening up behind you.'

I looked, and he was right. It was a pretty ragged path, overgrown and tangled up to chest height, but it was there all the same.

'You can't actually kill someone straight off in a dream' I said, backing slowly along the path. 'You can't do anything which will make them die in their sleep.' Another lie, but he wasn't to know, and it was very nearly the truth. :

'That's a relief.'

'But you can cause them to die.'

'Oh.'

'You can get in amongst their dreams and stir them round, tangle them, pervert them, disease them. The person becomes ill, and they die.'

'And that's what's happening to me?'

'Yep.'

'Who's doing this to me? I mean, who's actually doing it?'

'No one' I said.

'Oh come on, Stark. It must be someone, and there can't be many people who can do that kind of thing. The options must be fairly few.'

That's just it. There's no one left anymore who can do that, apart from me. The other one was killed eight years ago. I'm the only one left. This is just a glitch, a random Something.'

Then a rare thing happened. I got emotional. I turned back the way we were coming and walked quickly. Now that Alkland was back on the team comprehension-wise the path was much easier, though we were passing through an area that was obviously pretty dense at the best of times. I could see what looked like a small clearing up ahead and I strode towards it. I was unbearably hot, tired and fed up, and I wanted to sit by myself for a moment.

I didn't want to have to explain anything, carry anyone or think about anything. Especially think about anything.

'Stark, wait!' Alkland called after me, hurrying to try to catch up. The problem with my bad moods is that they're over almost as soon as they arrive. By the time people realise that I'm angry I'm already out the other side. All my moods these days are like that, even the good ones.

I strode on anyway, letting myself calm down a little more. I realised that I'd been on a bit of a downer for the last day or so, since the mono ride out of Colour to Eastedge. The thing is, you don't know everything. Not even you, Mr 'Obviously there was no gang'. I haven't told you, so you can't. I will do, if it's relevant. I may do, anyway, but it's unlikely you'll understand. It's even less likely that you'll care.

How many times have you tried to talk to someone about something that matters to you, tried to get them to see it the way you do? And how many of those times have ended with you feeling bitter, resenting them for making you feel like your pain doesn't have any substance after all?

Like when you've split up with someone, and you try to communicate the way you feel, because you need to say the words, need to feel that somebody understands just how pissed off and frightened you feel. The problem is, they never do. 'Plenty more fish in the sea,' they'll say, or 'You're better off without them,' or 'Do you want some of these potato chips?' They never really understand,

because they haven't been there, every day, every hour. They don't know the way things have been, the way that it's made you, the way it has structured your world. They'll never realise that someone who makes you feel bad may be the person you need most in the world. They don't understand the history, the background, don't know the pillars of memory that hold you up. Ultimately, they don't know you well enough, and they never can. Everyone's alone in their world, because everybody's life is different. You can send people letters, and show them photos, but they can never come to visit where you live.

Unless you love them. And then they can burn it down.

As I sat in the clearing, waiting for Alkland to catch up, I heard a sound in the distance. I couldn't be sure, but it sounded a little like a tiger, and I was glad when the dishevelled Actioneer eventually made his way to where I was sitting. He looked as hot as I felt, and regarded me with some caution as he approached.

'I'm sorry if I said anything to upset you,' he said, looking contrite.

'Not your fault. You pressed an old button, that's all. How are you feeling?'

He plonked himself down on the ground next to me.

'Tired. And hot. Do we have to stay in this jungle? Can't we find a nice meadow or something?'

'Possibly. But I don't think we should. The only way to find whatever's giving you grief is to follow its trail. This is what you dreamed of in my apartment, and you haven't dreamed since then, have you?'

'No.

Then this is the nearest to where it'll be.'

'What are you looking for?'

'Anything. Nothing.' I shrugged. 'Whatever. Stop me if I'm being too precise for you.'

'I understand' he said.' Wait and see.'

I clapped him on the back and stood up.

'I think you're getting the hang of this.'

Mid-afternoon found us still tramping through the jungle. Alkland was bearing up pretty well, but I felt completely whacked and doubted he felt anywhere near as good as that. The Actioneer had experimented with not wearing his jacket for a while, but I explained to him that the point about a jungle was that it was hot, and that it would feel the same whatever he was wearing. The fact that he absorbed this immediately seemed to show that he was finally getting a grip on how the whole thing worked.

We had broken for lunch at mid-day, Alkland's parcel from the farmer's wife holding more than enough to fill us both up. Apart from that it was solid tramping though, so I'll spare you the details: we walked, then we walked some more, after that we walked a bit, I'm sure you get the general idea. The only mildly different aspect of the walking we were currently doing was that the path was now

slightly lower, with gentle banks leading up to the jungle on either side of us. Different, but not exactly exciting.

I was beginning to think that the jungle was going to go on for ever, featureless and unrelenting, when Alkland pointed in front of us.

'What's that?'

At first I thought the answer was 'More bloody fronds, what does it look like?' but then on closer inspection I saw what he was talking about. I went up to the fronds in question and pushed a few of them aside.

'It's a wall,' I said, factually, because it was. Built into the right-hand side of the path was a piece of wall. It was fashioned out of grey blocks of stone and looked very old, like a relic of some Inca civilisation. I say grey, though of course the blocks were a speckled mixture of black, grey, blue and white.

'So it is,' said Alkland, rubbing a grimy hand across his damp forehead. Thank God I've got an experienced guide with me.'

'What can I say? It's a wall. Come on.'

A little further we found another piece, and looking ahead we could see that the vegetation seemed to be breaking up in the distance, as if the jungle was thinning out. Unless I was much mistaken, the next bit was on the horizon, and I told Alkland so.

'Good. I'm getting a bit bored with this jungle' he said, swatting at another bug. They seemed to go for him in a big way. Bugs can take or leave me, it seems: the insect kingdom has its Stark habit well under control. Alkland was clearly a major attraction, the Dopaz of the bug world.

Suddenly there was a sound, and we both whirled round to stare back the way we came.

'What was that?'

'I think it was probably a tiger' I replied. The sound came again, sounding about half a mile off. 'Yep, it's a tiger.'

'That's, uh, not ideal, is it?'

'No. Interesting though. Listen.' When the tiger roared again, it was unmistakable. It was exactly the same sound each time, like a digitised snatch of noise. 'That fits, I guess. A digital tiger in a bitmap jungle.'

'Would its digital teeth be a good or a bad thing to have round one's throat?' asked Alkland, peering anxiously in the direction of the sound.

'Probably bad. And I suggest that for once we don't wait and see.'

We hurried along the path, and the next time we heard the roar it sounded a good deal further away. The tiger appeared to be moving in a different direction, which was good. It obviously wasn't tracking us, which meant it didn't know we were here. Alkland was visibly relieved. I didn't break out the champagne or anything, but I felt pretty positively about it too.

Within half an hour the thinning was beginning to happen in the trees around us. There began to be as much sky as vegetation above, and the wall had become an unbroken stretch of grey on the right. The path itself had been on a gradual incline for the last mile or so, slowly heading upwards. Looking back, the jungle seemed to be an enormous basin of colour, a bowl whose lip we were approaching.

The trees became fewer still and suddenly it was if we were walking in a damp forest rather than jungle. The ground was less covered too, red earth showing through the creepers. There was an outcrop of rock about fifty yards in front of us, seemingly the border at the edge of the jungle, and we headed for that. The last stretch was pretty steep, and by the time we reached the top we were both panting heavily.