Scar Night

by Alan Campbell

  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 and 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.

  Through a door at the far end of the furnace chamber they entered the relative quiet of an equipment locker. Dill’s ears still rang from the fuel room, and his skin felt raw.

  Devon snatched a couple of strange-looking masks from a row of hooks on the wall and handed one each to Dill and Rachel. Tubes dangled like squid tentacles from their mouthpieces.

  “To protect your lungs,” he explained, pulling on his own mask. “We proceed through dangerous rooms now.”

  The next room was half the size of the furnace chamber. Its floor dropped away immediately and they rattled along a catwalk above lines of open vats. Milky liquids bubbled within; curls of steam rose towards them. Squid-masked technicians in grease-stained smocks adjusted valves, inspected dials, while others stood on ladders to remove scum from the boiling liquids with their oar-like poles.

  Devon paused to inspect the work going on below. “Acids, alkalis, and ammoniates,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

  “Weapons?” Rachel asked.

  “The most basic. These components will burn lungs, skin”—Devon glanced at Dill—“feathers.”

  Dill eyed the contents of the vats through the scratched glass visor of his mask. The air he sucked through the fibrous tubes tasted sour and vaguely metallic. His legs felt unsteady on the rickety catwalk. It would be very easy for someone to lean over too far.

  At the door to the next chamber, Devon paused briefly. “Research room,” he said. “Do not remove your masks, and please touch nothing.”

  They entered a laboratory, smaller again in size than the previous rooms. Glass beakers and tubes crowded wide workspaces. The chemists here wore smocks as filthy and spattered as butchers’ aprons. Engrossed in their work, they ignored the visitors as they poured and measured, mixed solutions, and scribbled occasional notes in huge ledgers. Racks and racks of stoppered glass tubes filled an enormous wooden carousel positioned in the middle of the room.

  Dill approached the carousel and noticed that each tube held a few drops of red liquid.

  “What are those?” Rachel asked, a moment later.

  “Diseases,” Devon said.

  Dill held his breath.

  “Some induce fevers, rashes, influenza, jaundice, anaemia. We have solutions here to encourage infection, weaken bones, elicit welts and sores, or even precipitate sterility and hereditary mutation.”

  “Sterility?” Rachel stood wide-eyed. “Hereditary mutation?”

  “This is still a new science, and mostly we use poisons. But some derivatives of what you see here have already been tested in the field.”

  “Against the tribes?”

  “The idea appals you?”

  Her gaze moved across the racks. “I knew about the poisons, but these diseases…they seem cruel, unnatural.”

  Devon laughed behind his mask. “Nature is cruel—and are we not part of nature? Nothing we do can ever be unnatural, because our will is a product of nature, and thus natural.” He turned to Dill. “What do you think? Do you object to the use of our knowledge in this manner?”

  Dill said, “I think that some things are best left to God.”

  The Poisoner clapped his hands together. “Of course,” he said, tipping his head. “You are quite correct. Now, please, let me show you the core of my work.” He pulled some gloves from a drawer, similar to those the workers wore, and handed them to Rachel and Dill. “If you would be kind enough to put these on, we will proceed to the poison rooms.”

  The first room was not what Dill had expected. The smell of brine hung heavy in the air. Pale green light rippled across the floor from banks of aquariums set into the walls. Devon removed his breathing mask, as did Dill and Rachel after a moment’s hesitation. They wandered before the tanks and gaped at the monsters behind the glass.

  “The most deadly poisons,” Devon explained, “are harvested from those creatures found in the seas of this world.” He stopped before a tank. Yellow and green banded serpents writhed within. “Tap snakes, from the Ordan reef. One bite contains enough po
ison to kill half a hundred men.”

  Dill watched the sea snakes wiggle back and forth above the sand. Unconsciously, he pressed a gloved hand against the glass. One of the snakes struck at it and he snatched his hand away.

  “Here”—Devon pointed to the next tank—“among this coral, if you look closely you might be able to discern a parrot octopus. He is watching us now.”

  A large black eye, ringed with blue, peered unblinking from the coral.

  “More intelligent than cats,” Devon said, “and able to survive outside of water for a short time. We caught this fellow making nightly excursions around the room, until we sealed him in. He had a taste for the hammer shrimp over in the feeding tanks.”

  Dill glanced nervously at the floor around him, wondering what else might have escaped its tank.

  They walked the length of the chamber with Devon stopping at each aquarium to explain its contents. Dill learned of the vicious blisters caused by creepfish spines, and the slow, painful deaths endured by fishermen bitten by widow eels caught in their nets. He marvelled at the pale, globular jellyfish with their ghostly showers of tendrils. There were huge slugs with mottled blue skin, various anemones, brightly coloured gelatinous things of indeterminable shape, and armoured creatures like centipedes bristling with spikes.

  At the end of the room, Devon lifted a curtain and they ducked through to yet another area packed with glass tanks. This chamber was brighter, but smelt musty; the air choked with sawdust. Pillars of sunlight dropped from high skylights, revealing dark shapes hunched behind the glass. In one corner of the room, a shelved alcove held bolts of fine cloth, one of which lay spread over a nearby table.

  “Arthropods,” Devon explained. “Most of the poisons we extract here are less potent. However, they have their uses. A lingering death is sometimes more desirable than a swift one.” He glanced at Rachel. “The incident with Captain Mooreshank on the Towerbrack Peninsula springs to mind.”

  She nodded.

  Devon went on. “We are just learning to infuse spider poison into the silk of its cousin. Garments made from such fine material are beautiful but deadly.” He smiled. “Profitable too, we hope.”

  Another curtain led to the third poison room. Damp heat fell on them as they pushed through to a vast conservatory. Green light filtered down through towering ferns, and a light mist sprayed from pipes in the roof. The air was dense with rich, tropical smells.

  “Flora,” Devon said. “Touch nothing. Some thorns can pierce the protective gloves. Be careful of your wings.”

  They edged through lilting orchids with waxy leaves, past creepers twisted around weeping trunks, vines spotted with pale flowers which hung like rope. Sweat trickled down Dill’s neck.

  “These plants come from the Fringes: Loom and the Volcanic Isles beyond the Yellow Sea,” Devon said. “Some very rare specimens among them—very fragile.”

  Something rustled amid a clump of leaves. Rachel reached for her sword, but Devon stopped her. “A catrap,” he said. “The plant senses our presence. They entice their prey near by shaking, to simulate the sound of a small creature moving through the undergrowth. Poisonous thorns around the base of the plant ensure that whatever predators come to inspect the noise do not leave. Dead creatures enrich the soil around catraps, and the smell of rotting flesh attracts yet more prey.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Rachel murmured.

  Devon tilted his head and regarded her through the top of his spectacles. “In nature, deceit is a common method of ensuring one’s food supply.”

  Beyond this conservatory, he led them into the cool interior of a high thin tower. A spiral of narrow steps protruded from the circular walls, rising to dizzy heights. Shelves cut into the stone followed the stairway upwards, each one packed with hundreds of murky bottles. To one side, a huge workbench brimmed with beakers, tubes, and flasks of coloured liquids and powders. There were also mortars and pestles of various sizes, brass burners, and clamps beside a stack of metal cages in which rats scratched and scampered.

  “Here we combine and test our poisons,” Devon said.

  “You use rats?” Rachel asked.

  “Initially.”

  Dill’s eyes followed the staircase up and up. It seemed to have no end.

  “How many poisons are kept here?” he asked.

  “Why, all of them,” Devon replied, dismissing the shelves with a wave of his hand. “Now, my friends, I must conclude our tour, sadly. I have an important experiment to finish this afternoon.” He gave them a warm, red smile. “But please, do not hesitate to return, should you wish to gain more intimate knowledge of my work.”

  * * * *

  Some time later, Dill and Rachel sat on the platform overlooking the Poison Kitchens and watched the ash from its chimneys drift into the abyss. A faint, rhythmic clanking sounded over the divide. Rachel’s legs dangled between the bars of the balustrade. She peeled large flakes of rust from its iron rails and sent them spinning into darkness. “What do you think is down there?” she asked suddenly.

  Dill gave her a puzzled look. “Ulcis, of course,” he said. “The city of Deep.”

  “You really believe that? Everything they say? The city of the dead? The Ziggurat? The Garden of Bones? An army waiting to reclaim Heaven?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I used to.” She brushed a finger over the flaking ironwork. “Now I’m not sure. Everyone seems to be waiting for something better, even if that means waiting to die. But that doesn’t mean there is something better, does it?” She looked at him, then quickly away. “The Spine act as the hand of God, but I don’t think even tempered assassins can hear Him. The closer I get to them, my colleagues, the more uncomfortable that makes me.”

  Dill swallowed. She hadn’t even been properly trained? “You didn’t let them temper you?” he ventured.

  She let out a long breath. “God, don’t you think I want them to? To be free of all this. It’s like a physical pain.” She pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead. “But it’s not up to me. My brother is head of the house now, and he won’t sign the consent document. He wants to punish me because I can do what he never could. I can kill, up close, and live with it. Stick a knife in a man and watch him bleed.” She grunted. “In a way that makes me even more of a monster than Carnival. They say she wounds herself after every kill she makes, hurts herself to ease her suffering.”

  Dill frowned. “Wouldn’t that cause even more pain?”

  “There are different kinds of pain,” Rachel said. “Sometimes one can blot out the other.” She scowled at her bandaged hands. “All my scars were given to me by others. I don’t need to inflict my own, never have. So maybe I don’t deserve to be tempered. We yearn for the needles because it’s death without the fear of death.” She laughed: a hard, brittle sound. “The Spine should be hunting me instead of her.”

  Dill studied Rachel’s bandages and felt uneasy. “You fought her?”

  Rachel shrugged.

  “Where did she come from?”

  “Straight from Iril, if you believe the priests. A demon sent to harvest souls for the Maze. Others claim she came from out of the abyss with Callis and the Ninety-Nine. When the angelwine finally wore off, she began killing to sustain herself.” She stared hard into the abyss. “I used to believe those stories about her were exaggerated, I believed that Carnival killed but she didn’t really take souls. I thought she was as mortal as you or me. But I’ve seen too many husks left after Scar Nights, and I’ve seen the way she moves: she’s too fast, too strong. And her eyes…so much rage, hunger. Always black.”

  “Can you stop her?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then why do you try?”

  A bitter smile. “I’m Spine.”

  They were silent for a while. The flames above the Poison Kitchens roared intermittently, blazing brightly then diminishing. Fat gouts of smoke rose from the funnels, swelled, and fell again as ash. Beyond, the sun was sinking towar
ds the abyss rim. Through the haze of pollution, the sky looked bruised and sick.

  Rachel detached another sliver of rust and threw it into the darkness. “There have been expeditions, you know, down there.”

  That surprised him. “Into the abyss?”

  “Secret ones. Unknown to the temple. People have stolen airships, made balloons, strange winged things, all sorts of contraptions. Gone down there.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They never returned.”

  Dill stared into the depths. Even here in the evening light, the darkness of the abyss unnerved him. Rachel continued to throw flakes of rust, watching them dance below like tiny leaves. Across the gulf facing them a siren sounded and a warship disengaged from its refuelling berth beneath the Poison Kitchens. It floated gently down, then nudged its way out of the shadows and into the wide gap, tugged by guide ropes. He heard the distant sound of pulleys cranking and the shouts of dockhands. Then the great ship broke free and burned skywards with a deep roar, climbing steadily until it rose above the cranes and chains and pillars of smoke.

  They watched the ship turn slowly, black against the sunset.

  Rachel stood up and leaned out over the balustrade. Iron creaked under her weight. “If I fell over would you catch me?” she asked. She lifted her feet, supporting her weight on her stomach.

  Dill got to his feet. “I can’t fly very well.”

  “Would you try to save me?” She leaned further out. The banister creaked again.

  He took a step towards her. “Please, it doesn’t look safe.”

  “Would you try, even if you knew you couldn’t pull me back?”

  “Yes.”

  Rachel leaned back and put her feet on the ground, but she didn’t turn to face him. “Maybe you would,” she said softly.

  13

  The League of Rope

  A single brand lent a ruddy glow to the rusted tin slopes and bleached wood of the League shantytown. Shacks hung skewed in their cradles, linked to the walkway by thin planks. Beyond the ropes, the lights of Deepgate dipped away and rose again far in the distance, broken only by the temple’s silhouette.