“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 wa
y, 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.”
Adi gave him a helpless glance.
“Leave me out, would you?” Drosi said. “You loose-fluted bastard! Might be old but I’m not stupid. Think you can have your meetings without me now? Think I don’t know what’s going on? I was running this council when you were still sucking your mother’s teat.”
Most of the other councillors shifted uncomfortably. Devon did his best to hide a smile.
“Drosi,” Bataba growled, “we have prisoners.”
The old man waved his crutch at the shaman. “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, you puckered sack ofharsha balls. I remember when—”
“Dark worshippers. Enemies of Ayen.”
“I don’t give a shrivel what—”
“Councillor!” Bataba rapped his staff on the floor. “This man is the Poisoner of Deepgate. The other is Sypes, head of the black temple, breeder of carrion angels, feeder of the outcast god.”
Drosi stopped waving his crutch. He chewed his lip. “Never heard of them.”
Bataba’s voice lowered. “We’ve been fighting the war against them all these years.”
“War? What war?”
“The war with the chained folk, the outcast’s children.”
“When was this?”
“You fought in it yourself.” The shaman paused. “For a decade.”
Drosi screwed up his eyes and bobbed his head. “We won that. We won that war, I remember. Now you make fun of an old man.” He spat at the shaman’s feet.
Bataba spoke carefully. “The war that took both your sons, twelve years past.”
Drosi leaned heavily on his crutch. He muttered something under his breath, then turned to Adi at his side. “Bran, fetch your brother, lad. I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”
Adi fidgeted. “Councillor, I’m not your son.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Councillor, I am Hoden’s son, Adi. Cousin to your third wife, Deniz.”
Drosi shook his head and scrunched up his eyes again, his lips forming unspoken words. He peered at Adi, then scowled at the councillors around the room.
The forked-bearded warrior spoke. “Go home, old man, back to your hamaruk . We have work to do.” His accent was softer than the shaman’s, closer to that of the river town traders.
Devon
looked more closely at the man’s knife. The blade was slightly curved, the steel etched with designs imitating those on the Tooth’s hull. A score of lines marred the grip.A bandit habit, this marking of the grip: each line likely represents an opened throat.
“Curb your arrogance, Mochet,” said one of the elder councillors. “The shaman did not give you leave to speak.”
The warrior called Mochet frowned.
“Shit stickers,” Drosi said. “Not one grain of wit between the lot of you.” He smacked Adi again with his crutch. “Come on, Bran, we’re not staying here.”
With Drosi muttering all the way, Adi helped the old man from the room.
When they were gone, the shaman cleared his throat and addressed the council. “Now, each of you…”
A scratch at the door.
“Come,” Bataba said.
The door opened and a face appeared, a young man, his skin aflame with suppurating sores. “Shaman,” he wheezed, his voice ragged and moist.
Damage to the lungs in this one, I know the poison. And the sores? Gull-pox. He’ll be dead in a month.
The pox-faced youth went on, “The outcast guard in the skyship has lost his mind.”
“Explain.”
“He won’t stop screaming, raving like a madman. He froths at the mouth and tears his own flesh.”
“You were too harsh with your sport?”
“No, shaman, he welcomes our blows and howls for more. We have restrained him.”
Bataba looked inquiringly at Devon.
“He’ll die soon enough,” the Poisoner said.
Sypes’s brow furrowed. “You can’t just abandon him.”
“He’s of no more use to me.”
“That’s—”
Bataba interrupted. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He poisoned the man.” Sypes jabbed his stick.
“Have the healers look at him,” Bataba said to the youth at the door.
“Easier just to finish him off,” Devon said.
The shaman’s eyes narrowed. “My men enjoy their sport, as you yourself will find out.”
Sypes fumed above his stick. “For God’s sake,” he said to Devon, “at least give him something to ease his pain.”
Scar Night; Book One of the Deepgate Codex Trilogy Page 33