Extracting a key from a ring on his belt, Win unlocked a door and led them up a flight of stairs to the first floor.
Here, at last, there were windows, but instead of light they admitted a steady bitter draft and a host of pigeons. Feathers moved lazily in the steady wind that whistled down the corridor, while more crunched underfoot, along with a litter of tiny bones and bird carcasses.
"The rookery," Win said.
"Get off you feathered bugger!" Father Maylan suddenly exclaimed, trying to brush away the pigeon that had landed on his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," Win said. "They're not used to guests you see. For her, you are just another perch. Come on my darling. Win can be your branch today."
The bird jumped onto Win's head and shat down his back. He chuckled as it flew off, like an exasperated but loving parent humouring a child.
"It's alright," Maylan said, composing himself. "It's just that I have this thing about pigeons."
"Then we shall hurry onwards and leave our feathered friends behind."
Eventually they came to another door and Win led them up another flight of stairs.
As they came out onto the second level of the palace they were hit by a wall of heat. From vents in the walls poured forth a muggy warmth, while pipes lining the ceiling shuddered and hissed out plumes of steam. Soon the crew's clothes were plastered to their bodies and Dunsany began to wish for a return to the icy winds of the rookery.
Win dug in a pocket and produced several handkerchiefs, which he passed out to his guests.
"For the mopping of one's brow." He explained. "It does get rather moist up here."
Dunsany was beginning to feel dizzy by the time they reached another door, and he was beginning to worry how Katya and Zac were coping with all the exertion. When he looked back, though, Katya sent him a reassuring but tired smile and Dunsany began to pray that behind the next door would be the dining room, rather than another surreal tour of the palace service tunnels.
A staircase spiralled down and when they exited at the bottom Dunsany had to suppress a growl of anger.
The corridor in which they were now standing was lined with dirty threadbare rugs. The door on the left was the one through which they had originally entered the palace.
"Excuse me, ah, Win. But isn't that the way we came in?"
"Yes it is. But the door there leads to my quarters, and we couldn't possibly have approached it from an anticlockwise direction."
"No, no indeed." Father Maylan said. "Where would the logic have been in that?"
"Quite so, my friend." Win said, completely missing the sarcasm in the priest's voice. "Quite so. That just wouldn't have made sense."
When Win opened the door, Dunsany was relieved to see that what lay beyond was not another corridor. Instead, they followed the Archduke into a room that was warm and inviting.
A fire burned in an ornate grate in one wall, while the opposite wall held barnacle-encrusted sculptures in niches, candles placed around them filling the room with a gentle light. In the centre of the room was a low table surrounded by cushions and laden with food, all of it smelling utterly wonderful to the exhausted and famished crew.
"Please, eat." Win said, gesturing to the feast. "Do not delay on my account."
They didn't.
Only Katya held back. After taking a couple of mouthfuls of bread she turned to their host.
"Win, would you have somewhere where we can rest for a while? I'm afraid that I'm beyond exhaustion."
"Of course my dear. Please follow me."
Win led Katya, Zac and Silus from the room, returning a few moments later.
"I'm glad to see that you are enjoying the food." He said. "The palace chefs are really second to none."
"It's wonderful," Father Maylan said. "Trust me, we would get nothing like this back home."
"And where is home?"
"A land far from here. I must say I was rather glad to leave it."
"Oh really, why was that?"
"There was a conflict of faiths, let's put it that way."
"It is strange that we have never come across your land on our travels."
"Yes it is." Dunsany said. "Your entire city rides on the back of an enormous wave. There can't be any stretch of the sea that you haven't explored."
"We follow the path that the Allfather has laid down for us. But yes, there is another place. There is the Isle of the Allfather where, once a year, the path leads us, so that we may speak with Him more directly in the hope that He will call us back to His bosom."
"Well, I don't know about you fellows. But I'm confused." Jacquinto said. "Emuel, does this make any sense to you? You're pretty weird after all."
The eunuch had remained silent ever since they had disembarked from the Llothriall which, in itself, wasn't that unusual. What was unusual, however, was that he had a smile on his face.
"The songs are here." He said. "Can you not hear them? The beautiful songs."
"No," Jacquinto said. "That would be just you I'm afraid."
"Win, tell us of Morat." Dunsany said. "I would really like to hear the story of your people."
Win filled his glass and, after having drank, began his story.
The Allfather — or Kerberos — had once been the home of the Moratians. But, many generations ago, some great sin had been committed against the Allfather and the people were sent out in exile from the cradle of their civilization. As to the nature of this sin, not one of the Moratian legends spoke of its origin. Maybe the shame of the ancestors was such that they had sought to erase all memory of their trespass. All the Moratians knew was that the anger of the Allfather had been so great that it had flung them into the airless gulf between worlds.
But the Allfather's anger hadn't been so great that he had abandoned his people with no hope of survival. For he had sent them out with a part of himself, an immense stone that enabled them to survive the ravages of the void.
And so — after many years of travel — they came to this world of storms and endless water.
Here the stone of the Allfather continued to guide them, shaping the waters surrounding Morat, bending the environment to the will of the people while drawing them along the decreed paths through the angry seas.
All the while the Allfather looked down on the people of Morat and his implacable face was a constant reminder of their guilt. In their ceremonies the high-priests channelled the remorse of the people; crying out to their creator in prayer and song, their hunger to return a fire that burned at the centre of their worship.
Once a year, the path that Morat followed through the dark waters brought it within sight of a small island. The Allfather seemed to hang lower and larger in the sky over this land and some people claimed that they could even make out his true face. So, it was decided that here they would build a temple in his name.
Slowly — year after year — the stones were laid. The masons worked only four days at a time, which was as long as Morat remained within view of the island, and when the temple was completed the builders had to return swiftly to their home, before it disappeared out of sight over the horizon.
The people of Morat then had to wait a whole year to christen the temple with their praise. A whole year before the currents brought them again within sight of the island.
On the first Festival of the Allfather the gathered people looked up — up through the great round hole in the temple roof that seemed to cradle their God — and sang their praises and their lamentations. And the high priests, through the use of a certain sacred lichen, freed their souls from their bodies, so that they flew through the Allfather's endless clouds where they could commune with him more directly.
But the Allfather still did not call the people of Morat home.