Plates of blue sky shone high in the schoolroom windows, cool and distant.
Where was she?
For Dill’s introduction to the art of poisons, the assassin had arranged for Alexander Devon himself, the head of Military Science, to be present. Dill had met Devon once, years ago: a charming fellow with lively eyes and a warm smile despite his wounded skin. The Poisoner had smuggled him some sweets when the Presbyter wasn’t looking: Glassberry drops that stained Dill’s tongue purple for four days, and a bag of Acidsnaps that he had hidden on his balcony. The rooks had stolen those, whereupon he’d spent hours throwing stones at them until the priests had shrieked at him to stop. They claimed he’d broken a dozen windows, but it was more like eight.
The clock hand clunked again. Now it seemed to be moving backwards. Presbyter Sypes snorted, and mumbled something under his breath before settling back to his snoring.
Dill forced his attention back to his book.
The schoolroom door creaked open and Rachel peeked in. “Come on. Don’t wake him.” She beckoned, and disappeared behind the door.
Dill looked over at the Presbyter, then at the clock. He rose and followed her.
Paintings of past presbyters, grim in their black cassocks, lined the wood-panelled corridor. Without exception, the old priests glared down at him with disdain, as if they knew exactly what Dill was up to and didn’t approve. Gasoliers hissed yellow tongues of flame that smelled like burning cherries.
“Devon’s waiting for us,” she said, hurrying ahead.
Dill ran to catch up. “Listen…”
“He’s in the kitchen. Again.”
“I’ve been thinking—”
“He can’t come here without whisking someone off to his vats. Annoys the hell out of Fogwill.” She smiled. “Which is the whole point. Devon could requisition staff from anywhere in Deepgate, but no, he harvests Fogwill’s own little patch. Bet you the Adjunct is on his way. Defending all those strapping young men from the Poisoner’s clutches. Gods below, I don’t know which one of them is worse. At least with Fogwill they have some choice in the matter.”
Dill noticed bandages on Rachel’s left hand. Her leathers had been burned across one side, her hair singed. She looked exhausted. “What happened to you?” he asked.
She waved her hand. “Same old stuff. Listen, when you meet Devon, don’t drink anything he offers you. He’s got a very strange sense of humour.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “You didn’t drink from that little black phial I gave you, did you?”
“Uh, no. Rachel, I want to—”
“Good, don’t. Did you read the book?”
“Well—”
“Here we are, come on, hurry.”
A steep staircase led down to the lower banquet hall, the Blue Hall, where the temple guard took their meals. Breakfast had finished at nine and swarms of white-suited waiters were clearing cutlery and crockery from long tables, mopping up, and stacking chairs against the wall. Adjunct Crumb was already there. The fat priest glistened among his staff, a mirage of robes and jewels directing the cleaning-up operation, getting in everyone’s way.
“Adjunct,” Rachel greeted him as they approached.
The Adjunct flinched. “You? Why are you here?”
“Meeting Devon.”
“Well, he isn’t here. Look at this mess, look at the carpet. Why can’t our temple guards eat with their mouths closed?” A waiter collecting platters of pie rinds and pigskin from a nearby table grabbed his attention. “You, what are you doing? Don’t pile them up like that, you’re spilling food everywhere….”
“Trouble with the grunts, Fogwill?”
Dill wheeled to see Devon approaching from the kitchen, and his breath caught.How can he still be alive? The Poisoner’s wounds had worsened since their last meeting. Dry blood crusted the corners of his eyes and mouth. Skin peeled and blistered in a dozen places. Dark stains bruised his tweed jacket. Red and grinning, his head looked like a parboiled skull gleefully fleeing Fondelgrue’s kitchen before it had been fully cooked. A skinny kitchen porter followed him, peered at them over Devon’s shoulders.
“I would lend you some of mine,” Devon said, “but they refuse to wear the uniforms. Too tight, hellish chafing, I’m told. Apparently, you never seem to order them the correct size.”
“I’ve been looking for you.” Adjunct Crumb’s eyes kept flitting between Devon and the porter. “They told me you were recruiting staff again.”
“The tenth time this year,” Devon replied. “For some reason, they never remain in my service for long. Perhaps the work is too much for them.”
“What work is that exactly?”
Devon’s grin widened. “I shall not bore you with the details.”
Adjunct Crumb flushed. All of his jewels rustled. “Would you care to join me for tea?” he asked. “There are some small matters I’d like to discuss with you.”
Devon removed his spectacles and cleaned blood from them with a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket. “I should love to, but sadly I must decline. I have been summoned to perform a service for the Church.” He returned the spectacles to his nose and arched his eyebrows. “By the Spine, no less. Our new archon is to be instructed in the use of poisons. I thought a tour of our facility might prove enlightening.”
“Of course.”
A tour? Dill shot a look at Rachel, but she ignored his glance. She hadn’t mentioned a tour. How could he possibly visit the Poison Kitchens? That meant he’d have to leave the temple and walk through the city, and Presbyter Sypes would never permit that. There had to be some mistake. He looked to Adjunct Crumb for help, but the fat priest’s attention remained fixed on Devon.
“If you will excuse me,” Devon said, “the sooner I get this fellow back to the lab, the sooner he can be put to some use.”
The Adjunct’s flush appeared to deepen. “What use would that be?”
Devon leaned closer and gave him a conspiratorial wink, a trickle of tawny fluid curling around the eye. “If I told them beforehand, I would never get anyone to take the job.” He bowed. “Please, excuse us.” He turned to Rachel and Dill. “Shall we?”
“Just a moment,” Rachel said. She lifted a strip of pigskin from a platter on the nearest table, tore it into three, and then slipped a piece into each of the tubes at her belt. She plugged the tubes again quickly, and said, “Well, it was going to waste.”
Dill thought he saw the bamboo containers shiver.
“How wonderfully gruesome,” Devon said.
They left the Blue Hall by way of a vaulted passageway that curved around the eastern side of the temple towards the Gatebridge. Arched stained-glass windows in the outer wall threw colourful fans across the flagstones.
“Thank you for agreeing to this,” Rachel said to Devon.
“My pleasure,” he replied. “We can’t have our angel ignorant of Deepgate’s grandest export.” Taut skin stretched and cracked around the corners of his mouth.
A side door led them to the exterior end of the Sanctum corridor. The broken archon, Dill noted, had not yet been repaired. The porter opened the temple doors for them, and they stepped out into sunlight.
For every step forward Dill took, he glanced back twice at the temple. Armies of gargoyles crowded its black walls. Spires, pinnacles, and battlements rose to impossible heights. Glass sparkled like shattered rainbows. And, all around, the city curved upwards in a great bowl of stone and iron towards the abyss rim. The chains shimmered behind a veil of watery air. Dill kept his head low, ashamed of his frost-coloured eyes.
At the end of the bridge they veered right and plunged into the tangled lanes of Bridgeview. Here the city lapped the moat of chains around the temple itself and, finding no more space to expand out, swelled upwards. The very rich bunched themselves here: their townhouses brawled for space, abandoning the passages between them to permanent shadow. To allow the privileged to walk in sunlight, walkways had been constructed high above the lanes: slender platforms of si
lkwood swung leisurely from one balcony to the next, like bunting. The tallest and oldest dwellings overhung the temple moat, while those behind, as though jealous of this prime position, leaned in as close as the width of the walkways in some places. Often it seemed that a resident could reach out his hand to knock on his opposite neighbour’s window.
“Doesn’t your family own a house here?” Devon asked Rachel.
“West of here,” Rachel said. “If it’s still standing. I haven’t been there in years.”
“I was sorry to hear about your father—a fine general. I apologize for missing the Sending.”
“I’m sure you must have been very busy.”
“Work never stops.”
For once Dill was thankful for the gloom: it suited his mood. Of them all, only the porter seemed to share his dismay at being outside. The young man walked along all hunched, hands stuffed in his pockets, while Devon strode ahead with alacrity, his head high, and Rachel kept pace with him as lithely as a cat. Dill shuffled behind them and peered sideways at everything from the corners of his white eyes.
Tiny windows pitted the walls—only servants occupied the lower levels, and glass was expensive. Most of them were thick with grime or cobwebs, but occasionally Dill caught glimpses of the rooms beyond: gold-striped wallpaper, musty furniture, glazed figurines on a shelf. He heard a woman singing from an open window, where the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out.
The crabs he bought,
On Sandport dock,
He paid for more than once.
He glanced in there, but saw nothing more than a flash of an apron tied around a broad waist. Rachel, Devon, and the porter ploughed ahead, oblivious to such sights and sounds. More than once, Dill found himself racing to catch up.
Although the cobbles ran seamlessly between opposing buildings, the foundations beneath were supported by vast webs of chain. Deepgate’s engineers had constructed Bridgeview to some ancient, unfathomable design. Wrapped in ironwork, the narrow lanes spread out in a sinuous, organic fashion, weaving and curving, dipping and rising, like burrows tunnelled by mice.
They left one alley and followed the course of another for some time, before tacking back to continue their progress in the same general direction. So far they hadn’t encountered another soul, but just as Dill was beginning to believe he might remain undetected, a door flew open and a little boy burst from one of the houses and almost collided with him.
The lad, plump and pug-nosed, gawped at Dill. Dill gawped back until Rachel called out for him to hurry up. The boy yelped, and bolted back inside his home.
“Don’t let it bother you.” Devon grinned ghoulishly. “Happens to me all the time.”
When Dill next glanced over his shoulder, there were two children following them. The boy had returned, joined now by a little girl with red shoes and red ribbons in her hair. On being observed, they squealed and scampered behind some steps, peering over them with wide eyes. Rachel gave Dill a resigned look.
“We’d better take the road through Gardenhowe,” Devon said. “They’re still clearing up the mess in Lilley.” He arched his eyebrows at Rachel. “Oberhammer’s planetarium came loose last night. They tell me it rolled a mile through Applecross before it hit a foundation chain and leapt clear over the Scythe.”
“I heard,” Rachel said.
“Punched a hole clean through a factory owner’s house on the other side. Poor fellow was at the temple this morning, cursing the Spine to Iril and looking for compensation.”
“I’m sure the Spine will find him some other accommodation.”
To Dill, the Poisoner’s laugh seemed forced.
Pink blossoms dabbed the trees in Gardenhowe and lay in soft clumps beneath them. The two children had now become four. They kept a safe distance behind, giggling, flapping their arms, and kicking up showers of petals. When Rachel tried to shoo them away, they scattered behind the nearest trees.
It was early afternoon as they neared the Scythe. Gardenhowe grew denser, the buildings more substantial. Ash darkened flint walls. Heavily corroded chains and girders divided the sky into blue triangles. The lane narrowed, rose, and came to an end at a high wall between two towering roundhouses. A faded sign bearing the crest of Deepgate’s Department of Military Science sagged over a small red door.
“Here we are,” Devon said. “And not before time.” He gestured behind them.
Dill looked over his shoulder. Eight children now stood in a line at the end of the lane, flapping their arms.
“They appear to be multiplying exponentially,” Devon said. “At this rate the neighbourhood will be overrun by dusk.”
The door opened to reveal a wooden platform hemmed by a rusty balustrade. A rope bridge dipped steeply away from it and rose again to approach the main gates of the Poison Kitchens, some three hundred yards distant. The bridge spanned a section of open abyss that curved away on either side like a black river running through the city. Monstrous foundation chains spanned the yawning gap. Obese and soot-blackened, Deepgate’s Department of Military Science looked like a giant cauldron in which great chimneys and iron funnels boiled and steamed. Smoke poured from its roof and flares of burning gas erupted with distant roars. Gantries bristled underneath the structure, serving as airship docks. Dill spied the shadowy hulk of a warship tethered to one of them and edged closer to the balustrade to get a better look. The porter sank further into his pockets.
The rope bridge wobbled when they stepped onto it.
“Is it safe?” Dill asked.
“Certainly,” Devon replied, “provided you do not fall off.”
They soon descended below the level of the buildings rising on either side of the gap. A confusion of lead pipes connected the factories and dwellings to the city’s water and sewage systems. Nets hung everywhere: billows of hemp, dappled by shafts of daylight from above, sagged beneath the adjacent streets. These nets kept discarded rubbish and the occasional drunk or attempted suicide from plunging into the abyss. Ulcis did not welcome the living into his realm, no matter how briefly they remained alive there.
“The domain of scroungers,” Devon said, noting Dill’s interest. “You would be amazed at the sort of things they dredge from those nets.”
Rachel was studying one of the foundation chains extending above the rope bridge. “Callis forged those chains?” she asked.
“Among other things.” Devon glanced at Dill, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. “The machine he used to quarry the ores and then fuse these links still lies at the base of Blackthrone. Our warships rediscovered it some time ago. Priests call it The Tooth of God .” He snorted. “You should hear their claims. The relic is waiting, watching over us, as though it possessed consciousness, sentience even.”
“You don’t agree?” Rachel asked.
“More cogs than cognisance, I think. Ancient, yes, and vast, as large as our facility here, but it is mechanical nevertheless. It once harvested metals from Blackthrone and brought them across the Deadsands to Deepgate. Now it sits derelict in the shadow of the mountain. The Heshette use it like a citadel. Can you imagine? A whole community of people, living and rutting inside like animals?”
“So you don’t believe Blackthrone was once Ulcis’s throne?”
“The mountain is unique, certainly. The ores it disgorged are singular, its very presence poisons the land around it for hundreds of leagues, but if it was ever a throne, then it was a damned uncomfortable one.” He paused. “But I do believe part of the legend to be true: that Blackthrone fell from the sky.”
Rachel looked surprised.
“Why not? You have seen falling stars—I believe the mountain was such an object.”
“What about the Tooth?” Rachel asked. “Could that have fallen too?”
“Now, that,” Devon replied, “is more of a mystery. The Church remains curiously reticent on the subject. I believe they wish us to forget about that machine altogether. Odd, don’t you think?”
Sounds of both furnace an
d machinery grew louder as they approached the Poison Kitchens. The air was pungent, heavy with drifting ash from the funnels. A foul-smelling residue coated the planks underfoot: they kicked up clouds of it with each step. By the time they reached the main gates, Dill’s feathers and clothing were filthy.
The Poisoner himself seemed undisturbed by the noxious air. He waved them through into a lobby which might once have been opulent, but had now been defiled by ash. Black footprints ruined its richly patterned carpet; aether lamps popped and fizzed on the walls.
Devon drew the kitchen porter aside, and opened the nearest side door for him. “Down there, left, one hundred yards, left again, right, third door on the right, up the stairs, second landing, fourth door on the left. Supervisor’s office. He will find you a mask and show you what to do. Got all that?”
The young man looked blankly at him.
“Shoo,” Devon said.
The porter hurried off.
“I do hope he lasts longer than the others,” Devon said. “It takes an age to properly screen workers, and I have barely enough to man the forges as it is.” He led Rachel and Dill on through a different door.
Heat and noise engulfed them, and Dill’s eyes widened. The chamber stretched into the far distance. Dozens of huge, barrel-shaped furnaces squatted in rows along the factory floor. Workers fed the fiery mouths from a line of coal hoppers that inched along rails running down the centre. Pipes as ample as temple spires rose from these furnaces and disappeared into a canopy of girders and catwalks high above. Narrower pipes snaked and branched around them like creepers, and valves blew jets of flame at intervals. Steam hissed and the furnaces roared, smothering the shouts of the workers, the constant scrape of shovels and the persistent slow rumble of the iron wheels of the coal train. Dill felt the floor shuddering beneath his feet.
“Fuel,” Devon shouted.
They followed the line of hoppers through the chamber. Sweaty, soot-faced men greeted the Poisoner with nods and the occasional grin, pausing further in their work when they noticed the angel. At each furnace door they passed, heat blasted Dill’s face and wings, snatching loose feathers and sending them spiralling into the heights.