Those who travelled east and followed the green banks of the Coyle, south of the river towns, fared better. Three hundred and seventy years ago, Arthur Drum had been the toast of Deepgate when his skiff returned unmolested, with news that the Coyle spilled into the Yellow Sea. Further expeditions skirted the coasts and found little but mud and stilt villages inhabited by savages. But then, ninety years ago, the great salt captain Donald Bosonson had set out straight across the water. He returned a year later with fewer than half his men alive, and with grim tidings. Lush but uninhabited islands, the Volcanic Isles, peppered the south, but if there was an end to the Yellow Sea it lay beyond the reach of the largest ships.
Winds permitting, airships could travel faster, but the weight of fuel limited their range. Only the largest could reach the Coyle delta. And for what? A thousand leagues of sucking mud and salt vipers. There were still occasional sea expeditions to the Volcanic Isles, but they brought back little to justify the expense and the Church was keen to curtail them.
His conservatory had been stocked with plants from these rotting green lands, his aquarium with specimens from the poisonous brine that had claimed so many sailors.
So it is with life: everything is poison. Everything decays, is consumed, and gives birth to yet more hunger and decay.
Once more he gazed south across the Deadsands, into the far distance where the Yellow Sea churned somewhere beyond the horizon. Nothing but sand and scrub plains and petrified trees. Civilization blossomed in only one place in this wasteland.
Civilization?The word tasted sour in his mouth.The hunger in that city is palpable, the need to suck the marrow from anyone who can keep their dead hearts beating for another moment. But there is another hunger evident: one that reaches up from the abyss. A hunger for souls.
He would soon give Ulcis a feast of souls.
The port companionway door creaked open and Devon turned to see Angus step out. The guard had discarded his armour, revealing the boiled leathers he wore underneath. Dark lines marred his sickly white face. “I need more serum,” he said, in obvious pain.
His intervals of need were getting more frequent. Angus would not last much longer. Devon nodded and pulled the serum bottle from his waistcoat pocket. He gripped it in the crook of his arm while he filled the syringe.
Angus was staring at the bottle. “There’s not much left,” he said.
“There’s still enough.” Devon held the syringe in his teeth while he tucked the precious poison back into his pocket.
“Enough for what? Another day?”
Twelve hours, in fact. Angus had grown resistant to the treatment more quickly than Devon had anticipated. The guard might have been useful in piloting that great land machine, the Tooth of God, back to Deepgate. Now it seemed Devon would have to rely entirely on cooperation from the tribes. An uneasy prospect. “Enough to last until we get back,” he insisted.
“And if there isn’t?”
The Poisoner smiled as he slid the needle into the guard’s arm. “I can end the pain—in other ways.”
Angus closed his eyes and shuddered as the serum took hold. Sweat broke from his forehead and he sucked in a sharp breath. Then he opened his eyes and sneered, “The Poisoner’s mercy. You chain me to your side like a dog and then offer my death as a reward.”
“You desire pain?” Devon asked.
“I want life.”
“Life is nothing but degrees of pain and hunger. Why cling to such suffering? Like everyone else, are you not simply waiting to die?”
The guard snorted. “There’s more to life than waiting for death.”
“What? To breed? Create more snapping mouths to carry your hunger for another generation?”
“You don’t like women?”
He remembered Elizabeth on her deathbed, lingering while the poisons took her further away from him. She had not been able to open her eyes or speak. Devon had gripped her hand tightly, causing them both pain. She had moaned, and he had squeezed her hand until he wept. At that moment pain was all he had left to share with her.
Angus said, “When that stuff runs out, I’m going to kill you.”
Devon studied him briefly, then turned away and stared out at the lightening sky, still thinking of Elizabeth. For the first time since he’d taken the angelwine, he missed the pain. “We’ll be landing shortly,” he said. “Then everyone will want to kill me.”
Rachel was still on the top balcony of the Rookery Spire when she received the summons. It was the highest point in the temple and gave her the best view of Deepgate. Just an hour ago she’d watched Dill finally leap from the rooftop and take to the air, but she’d soon lost sight of him in the vast moonlit city. Since then she had spent most of the time pacing back and forth while she shuttled a throwing knife between the fingers of one hand. In her other hand she still held Dill’s sword. She’d retrieved it from Fogwill for safekeeping.
The messenger who approached her was overweight and gasping for breath. There were more than two thousand steps to the top of the Rookery Spire. “You’re…to…” He clutched at his chest. “..come to the Sanctum.”
“Me?” She was mystified.
He nodded.
“I’m the last person they want there.”
“Adjunct Crumb…” He leaned against the balustrade. “…will explain. The angel…” He paused to suck in another gulp of air.
“What about him? What’s happened?”
“He’s…back now.”
“Already?” Rachel’s grip tightened around Dill’s sword. “Has he been harmed?”
The messenger managed to shake his head.
Without waiting to hear more, Rachel flew down the stairwell and raced through the passages of the temple. She felt like kissing Dill’s sword. Perhaps it wasn’t as useless at it appeared. Apparently the weapon’s absence from Dill’s scabbard had just saved the young angel’s life.
When she reached the Sanctum, Dill and Fogwill stood there waiting. There was no sign of Carnival, however. Fogwill was in a flurry, and Dill kept his head bowed. When the angel glanced up, she saw that his eyes were green.
What’s he done to be so ashamed of?
“He’s refusing to leave,” Fogwill said. “Refusing a direct order from his superior! He simply will not budge. Now that you’re here, perhaps you can talk some sense into him. I don’t want to have him removed by force.”
“Where’s Carnival?” Rachel asked.
“She’ll be here any moment.” Fogwill glowered at Dill, whose head dropped even lower. “Meanwhile, we have a bit of a problem.”
Dawn poured into the bowl of the city, as if chasing Carnival through the streets. She flew hungrily, almost recklessly, between the chains, skirted pendulum houses, soared over and under bridges, and tore down lanes scarcely wider than her wingspan. Dead leaves stormed behind her. A shutter opened, then slammed quickly shut again, but Carnival didn’t give it a second glance. She was thinking about the Spine bitch and what she was going to do to her.
Of course it was a trap. She didn’t care. There had been other traps before the one in the planetarium, other places where they’d managed to hurt her. Some dark part of her mind recalled this: memories she’d buried deep because to reach for them made her want to scream. It didn’t matter now. However much they wounded her, she’d injure them back a hundred times more, a thousand times. She’d bring Iril right to their doorsteps and damn them all to its corridors.
The bitch would be first.
Mist turned the Warrens into a soft puzzle of chains. Carnival plunged on through, drinking the fresh, wet air. People moved beneath her but she paid them no notice. They could wait until Scar Night. Only the Spine bitch wouldn’t have to wait; she’d made that woman a promise. And now, today, in the dark reaches of the temple, she meant to carry it out.
When she reached the Gatebridge, she paused. The mist was thinning. A pale sun shone through and endowed the great building with a golden halo. To reach the Sanctum she would have t
o go underneath. She hesitated, thumping her wings to keep her level, and looked down into the abyss. The rope scar around her neck constricted until she gasped.
What was she so afraid of?
Carnival couldn’t remember. Was it their god? She didn’t believe in gods. Gods were the inventions of men. Men fashioned gods to carry the burden of their own guilt. Men killed because they were afraid, and forgiveness made the killing easier. Without absolution, men suffered.
On every part of her body Carnival’s old scars flared anew. She knew all about suffering. Teeth clenched, she swallowed hard, and dove.
Spikes and ribs of dark metal crowded the base of the temple. Iron loops as large as city blocks held the foundation chains in a ring. There were countless apertures leading into the massive building, all linked by a great confusion of chain-bridges and cables. Spine normally used these to enter and exit the temple unseen. But now it was morning and there was no one to be seen. Dew coated the metal and fell away in rusty drips. Carnival flew on beneath, snarling as the rope scar around her neck started to burn like a garrotte.
A lantern hung from a wider aperture in the centre of the temple. When she reached it she forced herself to wait. She could hardly breathe, but she waited and listened and sniffed the air. For a while there was nothing but the sound of dripping and the smell of rust, and then she heard voices.
Rachel didn’t blame him. If it took her own presence here to get Carnival to come and listen to the fat man’s ridiculous plan, then fine. That was, after all, her job. But how could she get the message into Dill’s wooden skull? He had his stupid sword back now and stood there with his eyes glowing as green as spring, and he would not leave the Sanctum. He refused to leave her side.
His stubbornness was more than likely going to get him killed.
“I’m going to call Clay,” Fogwill warned, “and get him to drag you out by the scruff of the neck. How would that look, Dill? A temple archon ejected like a drunk from a penny tavern.”
Dill still did not reply.
Rachel felt movement in the air and looked at the aperture leading into the abyss. Nothing visible, but she kept her gaze there while she spoke to Dill. “Fogwill’s right. This thing is between her and me. You did the right thing. You don’t have to prove anything.”
Dill said nothing.
Fogwill was pacing before a thousand candles set deep in the iron-thicket walls; his footsteps echoed back from the vaulted ceiling. He approached the lectern, threw up his hands, and turned away. “You can’t be here, Dill. You’ll ruin everything. I’m going to tell you one last time: leave .”
Dill didn’t move.
Rachel was watching the aperture intently now. All of her nerves were on edge, every instinct screaming. She heard nothing, but she sensed something . Cold seeped into the Sanctum through that hole. A few of the candle-flames in the walls wavered. Her hand slipped to one of the bamboo tubes at her belt.
“Do you have to fidget with those things?” Fogwill snapped. “They make me nervous.”
Rachel kept her hand where it was.
Fogwill started pacing again.
Another gust of air came from the aperture. Candles guttered; half of them blew out.
Carnival rose from the abyss with a powerful sweep of her wings. She held herself aloft for a dozen heartbeats, glancing around, before her gaze fell on Rachel. “I made you a promise,” she said. Her smile was predatory, the freshest scar on her face.
Rachel shrugged. As gently as she could, she began to loosen the plug from the bamboo tube. But she stopped as Dill began backing towards her, his hand around the hilt of his sword.
Dill!
She should never have given it back. But he’d looked so desperately unhappy without it, and she’d thought he would just take it and go when she asked him to. Of course that had been before Adjunct Crumb had told her what he’d done. She placed a hand on Dill’s arm, stopped him from drawing the weapon.
Fogwill had frozen mid-step and stood with his mouth open.
For God’s sake, speak to her.
Carnival landed lightly on the edge of the aperture and folded her wings and then her arms. All of her attention was fixed on Rachel, who noted the iron fork in the angel’s belt with dismay. However impotent the weapon looked, she knew better than to dismiss it. The last time they’d fought, Carnival had been unarmed and blinded.
“I…” Fogwill was sweating. “We…have a proposal for you.”
Carnival ignored him, her dark eyes still focused on Rachel.
“A trade.” The Adjunct edged closer to the lectern, to the gas valve.
Don’t you dare. Not while Dill is here. But Rachel couldn’t move to stop him. She might alert Carnival to the danger. Or worse. The mood in the Sanctum felt brittle as glass. Any move on Rachel’s part was likely to shatter it.
“You are aware,” Fogwill began, “of the restorative qualities of angelwine—the elixir first used by Callis to bestow immense strength and longevity upon his warriors.” He swallowed. “You are also probably aware that a distillation of this elixir now exists.”
Carnival grunted, but the Adjunct’s statement at least earned him a glance.
She is tempted. But the priest’s careful choice of words had not escaped Rachel.This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Fogwill. And to what end? There’s something more here than meets the eye.
The fat priest leaned insouciantly against the lectern, a posture so contrived it made Rachel clench her teeth.
“By our laws, a blasphemous potion,” Fogwill went on. “It should never have been distilled. Nevertheless, it now exists, though it has been removed from Devon’s hands—and it would be of immeasurable benefit to you. So, a trade? The angelwine for your assistance in a small matter.”
Carnival merely glowered at him.
Fogwill practically wilted. Sweat shone on his wide forehead. He reached a hand behind the lectern, casting a fretful glance at Rachel and Dill, then swallowed. “We’d like you to kill someone for us.”
Someone? Why are you still hedging, Fogwill?
Carnival reacted bitterly. “You expect me to kill for you ?” she hissed. “Do you think I’m a fucking assassin like this bitch, to be bought?” She wheeled on Rachel and scars gathered on her brow. Her eyes had narrowed to murderous slits. She snapped out her wings to their full length and beat them, again, again, until a gale blew around her. On every side, candles blew out. “It’s getting darker, Spine.”
Fogwill had his hands up. “Wait, hear me out.”
Rachel yanked the bamboo container free from her belt, pushed her thumb against its plug.
Carnival advanced, dragging a storm behind her.
“Leave her!” And suddenly Dill was between them, his sword wobbling in his hand.
“Dill!” Rachel yanked him aside.
Carnival attacked.
She came so fast, Rachel barely saw her move. One heartbeat the assassin was upright, the next she was thrown across the Sanctum with brutal force. She slid twenty feet on her back and came to a halt inches from the wall. The bamboo tube rolled away into the shadows.
“I said leave her!” Dill swiped at the scarred angel.
Carnival diverted his blow without taking her eyes off Rachel. She caught the blunt blade in her fist, jerked it aside, and then punched Dill in the face. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Wings thundering, Carnival came after the assassin again.
Rachel leapt to her feet, unsheathed her sword. She had to act now, while there was still some light in the Sanctum. She ran at her adversary, swung the blade up over her shoulder, feigned a down-cut…
Carnival moved to intercept the sword.
With her bare hands…? She thinks she’s that fast? Shit, she is that fast. But Rachel had no intention of attacking with her blade just yet. At the last moment, she slid both legs forward and dropped onto her back on the polished marble floor, turning her charge into a reckless slide. Carnival recoiled from the manoeuvre,
but too late. The Spine assassin collided with the angel, taking Carnival’s legs out from under her.
It was an unorthodox tactic, but effective. Carnival tumbled over head first, wings thrashing, as Rachel skidded to a halt six feet beyond.Great, but she won’t let me attempt that one again . The assassin rolled over onto her stomach, and slipped her loaded blowpipe from her belt. Still lying on the floor, she put the weapon to her lips, and blew.
Somehow, the scarred angel had landed on her feet. She spun around, snatching the poisoned dart from the air with appalling ease. Then she put the blunt end of the needle-like missile in her mouth, and sneered. Now she advanced again, pounding her wings, chewing on the dart as if it was a toothpick. “You think you can poison me, Spine?” she growled. “What else have you got? Throwing knives? Acid powders? Are you too scared to use your sword?”
Dill was crawling on his hands and knees beside Carnival, reaching up to her, wheezing. “The angelwine…I’ll tell you…where it is. The Church no longer has it…. Just leave her…please.”
Abruptly the gale blowing through the Sanctum died. Carnival spat out the dart, grabbed Dill’s throat, and hoisted him upright. “Tell me!” she hissed.
Dill gasped, “It’s…lost.”
“Where?”
“The abyss…Devon’s syringe fell…”
She released him abruptly.
Dill crumpled to the floor.
Only a scattered handful of candles remained lit. Webs of shadow from the iron-hedged walls shivered around Carnival. Rachel returned the blowpipe to her belt, and got shakily to her feet. Adjunct Crumb still stood at the lectern, his face ashen.
Then the scarred angel cracked her wings apart and rose into the air. Shadows towered behind her, dark and huge as thunderclouds. For a long moment, she stared hard into the abyss, candle flames glittering in her eyes. With a snarl, she drew her wings back in.