Scar Night (16 page)

“My father is Duncan Fry, a lieutenant of the temple guard,” the girl panted. “We have money. He’s saved some, I know he has. He’ll give it to you.”

Devon slammed his palm flat against the desk. “Can’t you see I’m working?” Pain clenched his chest and he grimaced. “For what,
what,
do you wish to be saved? What are you hungry for? A life toiling under Fondelgrue’s sweaty palm? The grunt of some malodorous swine as he stuffs you? The skin-stretched years spent raising his litter? Iril take you, girl, have some self-respect.”

She flinched, her head twisting away as far as the bonds allowed. Her lips trembled as she spoke. “I’ll…do anything you want. I’ll give you anything you want.”

He tried to review his notes again, but it was useless. The girl’s pleas had broken his train of thought. Instead, he got up from his desk and approached her, then crouched on the carpet before her chair. He lifted her face to his, forcing her to look at him, at the sores and seeping cracks.

“But that is exactly what you are doing,” he said with a crooked smile.

A fresh bout of sobbing took hold of her. Mucus ran from her nose on to his arm. Devon wiped it on her apron and put his arm around her shoulders. “Life’s greatest mystery,” he said, “is death. What happens to us? Where do we go? You believe in God, don’t you? You believe in the soul?”

The girl sniffed and nodded, raised her eyes to meet his.

“Then you must believe Ulcis can release it from the blood.” He smoothed back some of the hair from her face. “If the soul truly exists, take comfort in knowing that yours will not be wasted.” His expression softened. “I intend to put it to great use. One more plump little grape in a rare bottle of wine, eh?”

She wailed and shook her head, sending more hair tumbling over her face.

“Hush, girl, you shouldn’t worry. It will all be over soon.” He gave her his warmest smile, wincing inwardly at the pain it caused him, and cupped his hand to her cheek. Tears spilled over his fingers. He leaned closer, speaking gently. “Shhh…You must try to be brave. I know we shun death: we lock it away, forget about it, until one day it rattles the box and reminds us it’s there. For me that day arrived when my wife fell ill. But Elizabeth had an implacable beauty that no force of man or nature could have soured. Even at the end, when her skin wept like mine, she remained beautiful—to me.”

The girl’s breathing was softer now. The clock on the mantel ticked steadily and the logs crackled in the hearth. Devon rested her head against his chest and held her gently until she died.

F
or the love of God, woman, for the sake of all that’s sacred and good, will you not shut up?” Doctor Salt’s hands gripped an imaginary neck.

Rosemary Salt stood with arms folded, blocking his escape from the parlour. “I will not let you talk your way around this one, Arthur. I don’t give a damn what night it is.”

“She’ll hear you,” Arthur Salt hissed. “And then none of this is going to make a blind bit of difference. Do you want to get us both killed?”

His wife didn’t budge. “Twelve bottles, Arthur? How in God’s name did you get through twelve bottles in a month? You must have been permanently ratted.”

Doctor Salt threw out his arms, his fingers splayed. “I didn’t drink them all myself. I’ve had all these functions to attend lately—you know that—and I can’t very well turn up without bringing some token.”

“Oh, bring a token, yes, fine. Next time bring your own thick skull full of Warrengrog, but don’t you dare dip into my bonus from the distillery. That case was supposed to do us for a year. What about the bottle I’d promised my father, and the one for your brother, for that matter?” Rosemary Salt stabbed a pudgy finger at her husband. “You think I don’t know what’s been going on? It’s Jocelyn Wilton, isn’t it? You’re always round there.”

Doctor Salt eased his reply through clenched teeth. “Visiting Patrick. I can hardly refuse an invitation from the faculty head, can I? He needs someone to talk to. He’s worried about Jocelyn’s health, that’s all.”

“Her health!” Rosemary cried. “Next to you, she’s the biggest drunk in Deepgate. You could pickle eggs with her blood.”

“Will you keep your voice down? Surely we can talk about this another time. I’ll buy you some more bloody whisky.”

“You’re damn right you’ll—”

There was a rap at the door.

Rosemary Salt froze. She stood with her mouth open, her tongue sticking out absurdly. Doctor Salt looked past her, wide-eyed, into the hallway. “It can’t be
her,”
he breathed. “I can’t imagine she’d bother to—”

Several more knocks, urgent.

Doctor Salt swallowed. “We don’t have to answer it.”

His wife had a hand pressed to her mouth. “What if it’s not her?” she murmured through her fingers. “It might be one of your patients. We can’t leave them outside tonight.”

“We damn well can.”

“What if it’s an emergency?”

“Sod it.”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Three more knocks.

“I’ll go ask who it is,” Rosemary said. She lifted the lantern from the dresser and crept into the hall, before stealing a backward glance at him. “We don’t have to actually open the door.”

He followed her, nerves tense as twisted wire. The front door was bolted; no sounds beyond but the wind gusting outside. The wooden panels shook with the force of it.

“Who’s there?” Rosemary asked.

A cold voice answered: “It’s Jocelyn. Let me in.”

Doctor Salt’s muscles unravelled. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, he moved towards the door.

“Wait.” His wife grabbed his arm, and glared at him. She whispered, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Like burning hair, or—”

More knocking. “Will you let me in, please?”

Rosemary turned back to the door. “Jocelyn, what’s wrong? You sound different.”

“Of course I sound different. I’m terrified.”

The voice did not sound terrified at all, but what did Doctor Salt know? Women were entirely unfathomable at the best of times, scared women more so. He shrugged off his wife’s arm and moved again towards the door.

Rosemary Salt grabbed his sleeve and yanked him round to face her. Her eyes, bulging with silent protest, held his own while she spoke. “Why are you here, Jocelyn? You know what night it is.”

“It’s Patrick, he’s suffered a fit.”

Doctor Salt reached for the door but his wife stopped him again. She mouthed the words
We can’t be sure
.

“Sod you,” the doctor said. “I’m not leaving her out there a second longer.” He shoved his wife aside, snapped back the bolt, and threw open the door.

T
his was going to hurt. Dying always hurt. She never got used to it. She had ratcheted the chain taut, then locked it. The excess swung through a dim beam of starlight, creaking under the hook in the rafters. She had bound the doctor’s mouth and hands, manacled his feet, and hung him upside down so that his head brushed the floorboards. His breath hissed through the corners of his mouth. His eyes were wild, bare chest wax-white and heaving, face bruised and swollen with blood and streaked with his tears. He twisted his feet against the manacles, dragged his shoulders up from the floor, then collapsed once more, his body swinging in and out of shadow.

Carnival would abandon the attic after it was done. The smell would bring Spine, and the blood would bring demons. She’d take the hook, ratchet, and manacles to another dark, derelict place, but she’d leave the blood-soaked chains. Deepgate had no shortage of chains.

She steadied him and scraped a pan across the floorboards, edging it under his torso. Her stomach was a fist. She looked at him for as long as she could bear.

His eyes flicked to the knife in her hand and away, silently screaming. The air through his nose came in quick, insistent rushes. She could have removed the gag: now he would do nothing but fight for breath.

She grabbed his wrist and felt him spasm. His bladder relaxed and urine ran down his chest and over his chin, and pattered into the pan. Carnival ignored it, knelt, cut once. Blood welled. He trembled as she brought her lips close to his skin.

Delicious warmth filled the attic. The chains creaked gently back and forward as she drank. Back and forth, slower, slower.

Carnival gradually relaxed. The ache of hunger melted away.

Darkness slid in thickly and filled the attic. It soaked into wood, into flesh and blood. Above her, the chain settled to silence. The man was still now. Only Carnival’s throat moved.

When she was sated, she stood up and looked down at the dead man’s wrist. She had bitten it more than she’d meant to, torn the skin badly around the original cut. She let his arm fall loose, scattering stars of blood across the floor.

Carnival wiped her mouth, and lifted her knife again. Blood dripped from the tip.

She waited, trembling.

And then she died.

And was reborn.

Pain ripped through her, so intense it seemed to scour her soul. She fell forward, gasping, onto her hands and knees, her own blood screaming in her ears. Her stomach buckled and heaved. She clenched her jaw and forced herself upright.

Her head felt light. For a long moment Carnival didn’t know where or who she was, and then she saw the blood and remembered.

What have I done?

A different kind of pain then consumed her, one that clawed her from the inside, like the talons of an animal trying to break free. She wheeled round, took a few steps forward, then turned back, not knowing where to go. Her fingers made vague shapes over her chest.

Blood everywhere. Blood on her hands, on her clothes.

What have I done?

She hesitated, turned away, turned back. A wave of sickness rose within her.

She looked down at her thigh and stabbed the knife in deep. She felt it glance off her femur. Blood spewed over her leg. The pain was frightening, exquisite. She savoured it, clung to it, twisted the knife and opened the wound further. Fresh pain blossomed; she closed her eyes and drew a long, shuddering breath. She wrenched out the knife, dropped it, agony building, hammering through her heart and bones. Her hands contorted like claws. Saliva—or blood—dribbled down her chin. She sucked in another rasping breath…and wailed.

Gradually, the pain ebbed.

The wound on her thigh was already healing, leaving its scar.

The pan was spattered and filthy. The man’s arm still swung back and forward over it, dripping. Carnival pulled a filthy square of linen from her pocket and wiped her lips, her face and throat. She bunched the linen and rubbed it over her hands. She threw the scrap away, then picked briefly, uselessly, at her cracked nails. She licked her teeth, and spat, then spat again. She tried to drag her fingers through her hair, but couldn’t—her hair was too matted and tangled. For the first time, she noticed the smell: blood swelling over the floorboards, foul and sweet. By morning, the attic would be seething with flies.

Carnival turned away, trembling, fighting the urge to retch. She stumbled a few steps, her feet slipping on the wet planks. She crouched, feeling the dull throb of the new scar on her thigh and the heavy pounding of her heart, until she couldn’t bear the sensations any longer. She cried out, spun round, and lashed a foot at the dead man’s head. His neck snapped like dry wood.

Carnival crumpled to the floor again, her arms wrapped tight about herself. Chains and hooks creaked above her as she wept. Her body convulsed with great racking sobs from the pit of her stomach. She grabbed the knife again, lifted the blade, and drove it back into her thigh, splitting open her newly inflicted scar—again, again, again.

The wound hurt savagely, but not nearly enough.

12

THE POISON KITCHENS

W
HILE DILL WAITED
for Rachel Hael in the schoolroom, he struggled with a question.

How do I dismiss her?

After all, she had been given no choice in the matter either. Presbyter Sypes had thrust her upon him. An overseer who wasn’t a proper scholar, a teacher who couldn’t be bothered to teach him, a Spine Adept who encouraged him to break Church law—nothing about her made any sense. She was supposed to be teaching him about poisons today, but was, of course, late.

She was probably still in bed.

The Presbyter had crumpled over his desk before the dusty wall of books, and lay there snoring. A fly traced lazy circles around his head. There always seemed to be flies around the old man, and Dill had been watching this one for an hour. Occasionally it settled on the Presbyter’s ink-stained fingers or mottled scalp, until he twitched and it buzzed away for another circuit. Shafts of sunlight lanced down from the high windows, seething with dust. Full of the scent of ink and beeswax, the air hung like syrup on Dill’s wings.

The hand of the clock on the wall clunked a minute further from nine, but seemed no closer to eleven. It felt like he’d been waiting here for days already.

Dill stared at the book he was supposed to be reading,
A Hierarchy of Bell Keepers,
and he sighed. All the books in the schoolroom were like this: dry, dense, and reassuringly dull. Each possessed an authoritative weight he found oddly comforting, and yet he hadn’t been able to finish a sentence today.

Yesterday’s illicit flight still plagued him. Why had she encouraged him to fly? Not just encouraged,
bullied
. Rachel Hael was a bully. She was a bad influence. She was complicating his life.

Where was she?

Clunk
. The clock hand took another tiny step into the wide gulf before eleven. The fly droned past his head. Dill swiped, and missed. For a while, he stared blankly up at the windows and imagined himself flying past them in golden armour, setting off to some distant battle.

The next Sending was tomorrow, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Borelock would still be furious with him. Had they repaired the archon yet, or would the pillar stand empty? Empty, but full of accusation: a monument to his incompetence, his failure, standing tall before the remaining ninety-eight archons, and before the Herald himself.

Sparks of pink nipped through Dill’s eyes.

Rachel’s arrival at the temple seemed to have triggered his bad luck. First the fallen archon, then the flight. He steered the path of his thoughts away before his eyes took firm hold of it. The Presbyter would never discover what had happened if they both kept quiet. He could put the incident behind him. A life of temple service stretched like a winding river before him. To navigate it without foundering meant following the currents of temple law. Dill nodded slowly to himself. When Presbyter Sypes woke up he would tell the old man he didn’t need an overseer. He would insist. All for the best.

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.

P
aintings 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 silkwood 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.”