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He is tossing flaming missiles over the wall.’
    Puff on the pipe, and another. More thick brown smoke clouded the lamp.
    ‘There’s a war, that’s what there is,’ Witterhe announced grandly. ‘We cling to this wall we live on like monkeys and the war is fought right over our heads.
That’s
why God built the wall. He built it to keep something, some things, away from Him. Something evil lives on the other side of the wall and God has declared war upon it. Every day he bombards it and he will continue doing so until he has destroyed it.’
    And, dozy with smoke, Tighe’s imagination flared. He could see the dark abyss on the far side of the wall and sense some nameless evil seething at the base. And then, every night when he lay in his alcove asleep, when he thought the universe was peaceful and at rest, on the other side of the wall divine catastrophe was raining down. Every night another blazing fireball would come screaming down, spitting sparks a thousand yards wide. The smoke wound around Old Witterhe and around Wittershe’s clever, narrow face, with its baffling smile. Some dark, smoky abyss on the other side of the wall. Creatures sliding, plotting their evil. And then, every night, the howling apocalypse of divine wrath.
    ‘What sort of creatures, though?’ Tighe asked, his voice changed more to awe. ‘Why is God so angry with them?’
    ‘Well,’ said Witterhe, stretching a little, ‘that’s a little difficult to say, isn’t it. Now, I know somebody, here in the village. He’s a good man, works with artefacts and old machines. Maybe I’ll introduce you to him. Now, he has a theory.’
    Witterhe stopped, gauging the effect of his storytelling.
    ‘This is what he reckons,’ he went on. ‘He thinks that there is Good and Evil in the universe. That, in some worlds, this Good and this Evil get mixed up. It happens with us on the wall, we can’t deny it. Good, yes. Evil, yes. In the same person, often. On our level, which is a small enough level, that’s the way. But in the world which God inhabits, maybe it is different. Maybe God built the wall precisely to separate out Good and Evil. Ever think of that?’
    Witterhe sucked his pipe again. The air was fragrant and clotted with smoke. Tighe was starting to see blobs of light, deep blue and purple patches that flickered at the edges of vision. His chest heaved, but no matter how hard he breathed he didn’t seem to be able to draw enough air into his chest.
    ‘But we are God’s favoured because we live on the face of the wall that looks out over Good. We see the sun rise. But what of the people who liveon the crags on the
other
side of the wall, eh? What drear and miserable lives do they lead? Living in the stench of evil, living in the dark and then running into their burrows to hide their heads as the wrath of God flames roaring down the sky.’
    ‘Think I need some fresh air,’ mumbled Tighe. He stood up, but his feet seemed unsteady. The narrow walls of Witterhe’s house seemed to be drawing together. The lamp swung slowly about and Wittershe’s face came into view. ‘It’s the smoke,’ Tighe heard her say, ‘he’s not used to it.’
    ‘Take him out,’ came Witterhe’s voice, somehow removed from things. ‘Fill his lungs with fresh air.’
    The nameless evil. Tongue of smoke. Something down there, something roiling around, but he couldn’t see his feet. Through the door, leaning on somebody and stumbling – and then, like cold water, the wash of night air. The smoke coalesced into blackness and only the pricks of light in the huge blackness.
    Tighe tried to focus on the stars. His head resonated with a swift headache pain that passed away as soon as it struck. Then he knew where he was: sitting on the turf outside Witterhe’s house, Wittershe sitting beside him with her arm hanging about his neck like a stole. To his right, the muttering of the apes in the darkness. An occasional shriek of appalling-sounding outrage. Tighe rested