Scar Night

by Alan Campbell

  The shaman looked up. Slowly, he unwrapped the scarf from his head.

  Devon’s breath caught. Half the shaman’s face was darkly tanned and smooth; the other half was a ruin. The left eye was misty grey, the right nothing but a red welt. Burns like reptile skin swept up from his neck and over his sunken cheeks. His right ear was missing. Black tattoos spiralled through the burns, through the wrinkled mess of his missing eye, and narrowed to points on his cracked and blistered scalp. Clumps of hair still sprouted from the unburned side.

  “Yes,” the shaman said, “little enough to you.”

  * * * *

  We should turn off the lantern,” Rachel said, above the whoomph of Dill’s wings. She hugged his neck with one arm, while her legs wrapped around his midriff.

  “No.” Dill held the lamp close, like a mother holding a baby.

  “We need to save the oil.”

  “I…” He could think of nothing to justify his need, other than the truth.

  “He’s afraid of the dark,” Carnival growled, banking close by.

  Rachel studied him for a moment, then rested her head against his shoulder. “We can keep it lit a while longer, then,” she said.

  “No.” All at once, the light seemed as much of an enemy as a friend, both easing and exposing his fear. “You’re right,” he said. “We need to save the oil.”

  With trembling fingers, he extinguished the lantern.

  Darkness slammed in.

  They flew down deeper and deeper into the abyss. The dark formed a solid wall around them, broken only by the faintest knot of light above. Deepgate was smaller, more distant every time Dill looked up. He felt Rachel’s breaths against his neck, her chest rising and falling against his own, and he tried to match her breathing. But, as much as he tried, he took two breaths for every one of hers.

  Only Carnival could see in this gloom. Occasionally he heard a wing beat off to one side, or felt the air stir as she circled them. Her plan had been for them to keep close to the gently sloping wall, but without light Dill had no way of knowing where it lay. With every turn he made, he feared he would bruise a wing against the rock. He strained his eyes, trying to distinguish forms in the dark, until they were weary.

  The air grew warmer, denser. Sweat broke from his forehead and matted his hair; breathing became laborious. His armour rubbed against him, stifled him, and trapped the sweat on his back. A dull pain took root in his neck, then reached out tendrils into his shoulders and crept down his spine.

  Unseen, Carnival sailed around them effortlessly.

  After a while Rachel asked him, “Do you need to rest?”

  “I’m all right,” he mumbled. Dill’s thoughts were elsewhere.

  The city of Deep lay somewhere below, legions of ghosts wandering its cold streets. Were they now looking up from the darkness? Did they still yearn for Ayen’s light? Oblivion seemed a kinder fate than millennia without light at all.

  Rachel shifted against his chest. The scabbard on her back bruised his arm where he gripped her. A movement in the air told him Carnival had glided past again. He waited a few moments before he whispered in Rachel’s ear. “Do you think she meant what she said? About…about why she saved you?”

  He felt Rachel stiffen.

  She said, “Perhaps that’s why she’s so afraid. When Scar Night comes she’ll need a living soul if she’s to survive.”

  “Can you resist her?”

  Rachel merely shrugged.

  As they circled deeper into the pit, Rachel grew steadily heavier in his weary arms. Her weight forced him to beat his wings constantly to keep their descent gentle, and his shoulders began to cramp under the strain. His shirt clung to his back like a blister, the chain mail grated his skin in a hundred places. The heavy sword twisted his belt and the hilt dug into his side. They breathed in each other’s damp breaths as Rachel’s heart pressed against his own.

  Down and down, for what seemed like hours.

  There was nothing in that interminable dark by which to gauge their progress but the thickening air, the mounting pain, and the building heat. Dill was about to suggest that they rest a while when a sudden realization gripped him. He pulled up, halting their descent.

  “What is it?” Rachel asked.

  “Carnival. She’s left us?”

  They listened, heard nothing but their own breathing and the beat of Dill’s wings.

  “I’ll light the lantern again,” Rachel said.

  “But she’ll see us,” Dill said. And you’ll see me .

  “She can already see us without it. We need to know if the bottom is close.”

  Dill held the lantern while Rachel spun the flint wheel. Even at the lowest wick, the light was blinding.

  “Can you see anything?” Dill asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Darkness swallowed the light completely. They hovered for a while in the vast silence.

  “You look exhausted,” Rachel said. “Let’s get over to the side.”

  “Which direction?”

  “I don’t know. If the abyss continued to narrow as we descended it can’t be far away.”

  He nodded.

  “Go slowly,” she warned.

  After they had flown a short distance, the abyss wall appeared before them, glittering in the dark. Either he had chosen the correct direction by instinct or the abyss was much narrower here. Rachel unhooked the lantern and held it up. The rock face was warped and blistered, like melted black glass. Their reflections flowed over its uneven surface, faces stretched and contorted into pale, phantom-like forms.

  Dill shuddered.Are we now ghosts? Is this finally the realm of the dead?

  “There’s another ledge below,” Rachel observed.

  The metal perch was wet. Water seeped from a crack in the rock face and gurgled along tiny gullies so that drips hit the ledge with eerie chimes. Rachel cupped her hands and tasted the water. “It’s fine. Cold.”

  When they had slaked their thirst they found a place further along the ledge which was relatively dry. Dill dangled his legs over the edge and stretched his neck, wincing at the pain. “How far do you think we’ve come?”

  Rachel looked up. “I can’t see Deepgate clearly, but it seems brighter up there. It must be late morning by now.”

  Far, far above, faint curls and lines of light scarred the apex, impossibly distant. He returned his gaze to the depths. Nothing. “Maybe the abyss goes on down for ever.”

  Rachel raised the lantern and edged a few steps further along the ledge. She paused, squatted down. “Dill, this ledge isn’t flat. It rises at a shallow angle.” She squinted along the metal ridge. “I wasn’t sure the first time we stopped, but now I am. It’s steeper down here. It must follow the abyss wall in a spiral.”

  “A path down?”

  She lifted her head. “Or a path up. The top of it must be hidden somewhere under the abyss rim.”

  “Why?”

  Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know, but this shouldn’t be here. The metal”—she ran her hand along the edge—“is rusted, but it wasn’t further up. This section of path is older, perhaps decades older.”

  “Can we follow it down?”

  The assassin peered below. “I can’t see any sign of Deep. If the city exists there, it’s unlit, or it could be leagues still further down. We might keep walking for days.”

  An entire city, kept in eternal dark. Dill’s heart cramped at the thought.All the darkness in the world gathers there, is trapped there . He shuffled closer to the lantern.And the oil will run out soon . Suddenly he felt like he was drowning, slipping deeper into a lightless ocean. The desire to just break for the surface overwhelmed him. He stood up, shaking, gulping air.

  “Dill?” Rachel was by his side. “Look at me!” She grabbed him, pulled him round to face her. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  Dill couldn’t breathe.

  “Look at me! I won’t leave you. You’re safe.” She lifted the lantern between them. Her
eyes were bright, full of concern. “There’s plenty of oil left, plenty of light.”

  Gradually the pressure in Dill’s chest eased, his shaking subsided. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel so ashamed.” He tried to turn away, break her grip, but she held him tightly.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “Everyone is afraid of something. Look at Carnival—why do you think she avoids the daylight?”

  “I’m a temple archon,” his voice broke, “but I can’t do anything right. I can’t use a sword, I can hardly fly.” He closed his eyes, trying desperately to conceal his shame. “I can’t even manage the soulcage horses. And this darkness…it terrifies me! I’m a coward. I’m nothing.”

  What would my father think of me? And you, Rachel, what would you think if you knew how I hesitated?There was no escape from his shame. He met her gaze, and misery swamped him.

  “Youare facing the dark, Dill. Look how far you’ve come already. Gods below, you’re braver than me.”

  “But you can fight.”

  “You think that’s brave?” A pained smile. “There’s nothing honourable in Church-sanctified murder. A Heshette heathen is still a human being. A traitor is still a human being.” The hurt in her eyes shocked him. “Before the Spine gave me to the rooftops, I hunted Heshette spies and informers, sometimes mercenaries and pilgrims who’d fled the city. In Hollowhill and Sandport and the Shale Forest. I don’t know how many—it frightens me to remember. But I murdered them because I was afraid not to. Once you’re part of the Spine, you obey or become a threat yourself.”

  For a long moment they stood in silence, leagues of empty darkness above them, immeasurable unknown depths below, and it seemed to Dill that they were the only two people left in the world. Angel and assassin, alone here but for their warped, wraithlike reflections deep in the black stone.

  Is this how the abyss sees us? Grotesque parodies of the people we once hoped we’d become?His own reflection mocked him with its cruel honesty. In the mirrored stone he saw an angel he barely recognized: older than his sixteen years, yet malformed, stretched thin by longing only to be corrupted by the hard edges of reality, debased by fear.

  He tore his gaze away.

  Is this all I am? Please, Ulcis, give me the strength to change. Give me courage, for Rachel’s sake. More than me, she needs someone to protect her.

  He remembered Carnival. How much had she been shaped by brutal truths? Yet Carnival had no illusions about who she was or who she might become. Suddenly Dill understood her. Her scars were self-inflicted. She hates herself, damages herself to keep some deeper part intact . Dill’s heart clenched at the realization. Carnival’s soul wasn’t scarred and ugly: it was pure. And she guarded it fiercely.

  Her scars were armour.

  Carnival and Rachel…bitter enemies. And yet so similar.

  He searched for her in the depths.Where is she? When Scar Night comes, who will kill whom?

  Rachel seemed to read his thoughts. She released him, her eyes veiled. “Perhaps Carnival decided she didn’t need us after all.” She didn’t sound like she believed that.

  Water dripped steadily, beating a tiny rhythm on the metal: a narrow trail from Deep to Deepgate. For whom was it constructed? Will this path be walked by the dead? Dill sniffed: the air held an odour that he found familiar but couldn’t place. For some reason it reminded him of dreams he’d experienced—dreams of battle. “Can you smell something?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. It just smells odd.”

  “It’s warmer down here. The air is stale.”

  Maybe that was it. He took a deep breath, then frowned. No . There was something else, something that made him think of war. In his dreams he was always flying, brandishing a sword or pike or spear, his armour gleaming, a painted shield strapped to one arm. The more he thought about it, the more the smell reminded him of—

  Weapons?

  Did forged metal have an identifiable smell? Dill shook his head. What else could it be? Something he associated with weapons, armour and war…

  A movement down in the darkness caught his attention, a whisper of air. Carnival emerged from the void. She wore a savage grin and her black eyes were shining.

  “I’ve seen the bottom,” she said. “This you have to see.”

  25

  The Tooth

  Inside the tooth, Bataba led the way, his long white staff poised horizontal at his side. Devon followed, with two Heshette at either shoulder. Both had removed their scarves to reveal the grim expressions on their broad, darkly weathered faces. Presbyter Sypes’s walking stick tapped along behind them. The rest of the tribesmen had stayed to loot the airship and beat Angus. Devon didn’t care: the temple guard was of little use to him now.

  The corridor they were passing through had the appearance of being carved from bone or ivory. Tusklike pillars buttressed the hull, where sunlight lanced in from air vents to strike the opposite wall in hot, white slats. Sand crunched on the hard tiles underfoot. A writhing mass of pipes extended overhead, smooth and pale as sand-adders. Everywhere Devon looked, he saw the same faint whorls of etching that covered the hull exterior.

  But the Heshette had turned the vast machine into a city. Smoke lingered, thick with the stench of sweat, dung fires, and spice. Dark-skinned women peered from behind curtains of hide draped over internal doorways. Devon caught glimpses of clay urns, woven rugs, horse tackle, and vulture claws. Squalls of ragged children pushed past, shrieking and running ahead, banging bones against the walls.

  At the end of the corridor, Bataba lit a taper and they clattered down stairs into a vast, cool gloom. A forest of bone-white piston shafts reached into the dim heights around a line of engines like monstrous vertebrae. Banks of dials glittered on the far wall, under enormous glass vats full of dark red liquid.

  Not blood? But that ripe smell…iron?

  Devon tried to get a closer look, but the Heshette urged him onwards. Beyond the engine room they were ushered into another long, narrow corridor. More tusklike pillars tapered in to a pinched ceiling. Doors on either side held ceramic identification plates.Reclamation, Seeding, Separation, Base Ignition, Second Ignition, Crew One, Crew Two, Discipline . Hieroglyphs had been stamped beneath each word, strange curled symbols like knots of snakes.

  The passage wound on through the heart of the Tooth, passed swollen bulkheads and gaping holes which blew moist air at them.This whole machine has been fashioned to resemble something organic. The purpose? To inflict awe in those who would see it—to disguise the mechanics . Smoke from Bataba’s taper curled across the ceiling and left a patina of soot on the already smudged walls. Eventually they reached the end and climbed a narrow, oddly canting staircase to where a hatch opened into a bright space above.

  The bridge looked like the inside of a seashell. Smooth walls, ribbed with bony protrusions, swept seamlessly up from the floor to coalesce at a low, rippled ceiling. Desert sky bleached a line of windows opposite. The glass had an odd gelatinous quality that tinted the light in pink and yellow whorls. Beneath the windows was an intricate skeletal contraption like a sculpture made from the bones of a thousand tiny creatures. Glass veins glittered inside, full of red fluid.

  The fluid was moving, pumping.

  Devon peered closer.

  Something inside. Contracting. Expanding. Steady. The inhalation and expulsion of air. A draught—from moist-lipped, calciferous vents.

  The machine appeared to be breathing.

  The Tooth is alive? A mechanical heart, lungs, blood? Brain? No, no,this design is deliberate. The technology replicates, approximates life. These walls—not bone. Ceramic? The veins—no, not veins: pipes—full of oil, not blood. Hydraulics. The draught? A cooling system. Still operational after three thousand years? Why not? A human body can be altered to survive indefinitely. Why not a machine? Given enough fuel…

  The Heshette shaman addressed one of his men. “Fetch the council.”

  The man nodded and turned to
go.

  “Except Drosi,” Bataba added. “Leave him be. The journey from his room would only tire him.”

  Presbyter Sypes jabbed his stick at the sighing contraption. “This device,” he said. “Why does it appear to breathe?”

  “The bone mountain sleeps,” the shaman growled. “Ask no more questions, priest.”

  “In other words,” Devon said, “he doesn’t know.”

  “Silence,” Bataba snarled. “Or I’ll have both your tongues out and spitted.”

  “This zeal to cut things off,” Devon said. “A tribal custom? Or a personal perversion?”

  Bataba glowered at him.

  One by one, the Heshette councillors arrived. Seven men in total assembled: four greybeards and three younger men who carried themselves with the arrogance of warriors. They were dark-skinned, wearing gabardines; scarves around their necks. All of them were disfigured in some way. Chemical burns and ineffectual tribal healing had turned faces into fleshy swamps. The eldest blinked rheumy eyes. One of the warriors, with a forked beard and lean, scar-whitened arms, gave Devon a dangerous look, then shifted his hand to the hilt of the curved knife roped to his waist.

  “Later,” Bataba said.

  The warrior grinned.

  Devon shifted his gaze from one savage to the next and decided it would have been better if his poisons had managed to sterilize the Deadsands completely.

  Finally the man who’d left to summon the council returned. He supported an ancient cripple who brandished a wooden crutch.

  The cripple was using his crutch to hit his helper’s arm. “Leave me be, goat. I can manage.” He squinted though weeping, woodsmoke eyes. “Where’s Bataba? Ayen’s boiled balls, what does that one-eyed shoka want now?”

  The shaman straightened. “I’ve summoned the council, Drosi.”

  “Half-breed! I’m sick of your meetings. Drag me down here like a snake-tickler’s beggar whore sent looking for kathalla and pipe-water? In this heat, too!”

  Bataba spoke to the man supporting Drosi. “Adi, there was no need for you to trouble the councillor.”