The nearer they drew to the sluice slots in the cliff edge of the Valley of the Gate floor, the thicker became the slurry of debris floating on the water. Carnelian was at least relieved to see no evidence of flow. As he had hoped, the Skymere had found a level with the outer world.
He watched the prow cleave the thickening mat. Broken branches scratched along the sides of the boat. All kinds of rubbish bobbed past in a sort of procession that sedated him. A thump against the hull shocked him alert. A raft of bodies, bloated, their heads punching the hull, mostly dark-skinned servants bearing wounds so deep it was almost as if attempts had been made to butcher them for meat. A shock of paleness in that dark expanse. The corpse of a Master; two more. Carnelian watched one slumping as its shoulder dragged along the hull. Water welling over a ruined face into which the heraldic cypher of a House had been cut with a knife.
The boat edged towards the sluice, which appeared to be least choked with debris.
‘There’s room enough?’ Carnelian asked the kharon who had come to stand beside him.
The man nodded, ‘If we ship oars, Seraph.’
Carnelian felt the knot in his stomach ease a little. He looked up. In the casements on either side of the slot, counterweights were hanging almost at the bollards. A wooden arch spanned each end of the slot. The cables he had had cut free from them now wallowed beneath the surface like water snakes. Deeper was the murky upper edge of the fallen sluice gate. It was seeing this that caused the kharon to turn to shout something back to the steersman. The boat slowed almost to a halt, as the oars backwatered. The kharon fed a pole down into the water until it touched the sluice gate. Then he lifted it out, dripping, strung with weed, until he had inverted it, so that the steersman could gauge the clearance depth. Carnelian watched the steersman and had a long time to wait for his reluctant nod. Carefully sculling, the banks of oars aligned the boat towards the gap. The oarheads raised, dipped and Carnelian felt their push against the water. The boat slid forward. With a rush and clatter the oars retracted into the hull just in time to avoid the leading ones being snapped off. For a moment he thought they were going straight through, then he was thrown forward as her keel bit into the sluice. A judder as slowly she scraped forward over it. Kharon at the bows slapped their hands out against the rock and pushed against it to keep her moving. Carnelian moved to help them. His hand against the chill of the basalt, shoving, recalled to his memory the entry of the baran into the Tower in the Sea. The children in the bows also tried to help with their tiny hands. The keel struck the second sluice gate and they really had to struggle against the rock on either side to keep the boat juddering forward. Slowly, she edged out. Then, suddenly, everyone was thrown back as she slid free.
As they turned and began moving down the spillway, another bone boat was emerging from a sluice. Carnelian had to believe they would all be able to get through. Ahead, the mouth of the Cloaca was coming slowly into view. Dark it was and, as they curved in towards it, a waft of its fetid breath broke over them and he felt his resolve cowering, for he knew what lay in wait for them.
A movement made him turn to see the kharon next to him unmasking. The man’s single eye peered into the shadowy ravine. As Carnelian watched him lick his sallow lips, he remembered what it was like to behold something heard of, but never before seen. Another stinking waft made the kharon grimace, then smooth his face when he became aware Carnelian’s eyes were on him.
‘This will bring us out,’ Carnelian said and almost began explaining the stench lest the man think it characteristic of the outer world, but what was the point? They would all be witnessing the cause soon enough. He gazed back over the boat and saw how the taller children were straining to see where they were going. Each waft from the Cloaca creased their little faces with fear. He considered making a speech to try to reassure them, but how many would understand his Vulgate? Besides, he could only guess what lay ahead. He looked up at the widening grandeur of the Sacred Wall. This world was going to die: only outside was survival possible. He gave the steersman a signal. The man’s bony crown tilted forward in acknowledgement, then the oars began rising, falling and, slowly, as if the boat herself was reluctant, they slid towards the Cloaca’s stinking mouth.
It seemed a long time they had been creeping along. A breeze was streaming the fetor past them. The steersman threaded the boat along the channel so narrow that often an oarblade would graze the rock wall. Carnelian could feel the inward pressure of the black rock that rose sheer and unscalable.
Then he sensed the shadow falling upon the upper northern wall. His hackles rose as he felt the presence of some vast malevolence looming over them, eclipsing what little blue there had been above them. His eyes resolved battlements. It was only the Black Gate. The Death Gate, a voice within him said in Vulgate. And, though he now knew it was Osrakum that was the Land of the Dead, it seemed to him he was in a funerary barge carrying them all to damnation.
The fetor swelled into a miasma moist with decay. Approaching the fork in the ravine, they were too close to be able to see the Blood Gate that he knew was rearing its bulk somewhere above them. He glanced round at the cowering children. Mucus clung to their upper lips; vomit from their chins. Beyond them, the steersman seemed carved from the stern post. Carnelian raised his arm, amazed that the foul air should provide so little resistance, and indicated the left fork.
The sound the oars were making dulled as the water became as thick as treacle. They were coming to where the corpse dam had been. Still piled against the walls was a mouldering scree composed of filthy bones. Hissing, a torrent of flies broke over them. Carnelian swallowed a cry as he, the kharon and the boat all became encased in the itching, buzzing plague. Behind him the screaming of the children turned to choking. Then he was thrown forward as the hull struck something. He only just managed to catch the bow to stop himself falling into that soup of putrefaction. Flailing at the flies he glimpsed the mound of matter upon which they had run aground.
With poles they delved into the filthy stuff beneath the prow. In an agony of disgust, convulsed by dry heaving, they painfully gouged a channel. Squinting back through the swirling plague, feeling the writhing nodules of the flies with each blink, sneezing them out of his nostrils, Carnelian watched the kharon along the bow shove their poles into the soft weeping mounds on either side, loosening chunks that plunged into the pools, causing the splashed to whimper.
They slid free into the shadow of one of the bridges that spanned the Cloaca. Carnelian sank his head in despair as he saw, ahead, a bronze grille barring their way. On either side angled the slots with the counterweights. They edged the boat as close as they could, then Carnelian scrambled over with a couple of Marula. More clambered into the slot on the other side. After a struggle, the counterweights began to slide down their ramps, even as the grille rose, shedding lumps, streaming fluid.
The bone boat passed under the toothed edge of the grille. The channel ahead was clear. The kharon rowed them so fast they snapped some oars on the ravine wall. Everyone feeling with each push of the oars they were edging away from the horror. Soon they were emerging from the bridge shadow. The fly plague thinned and, as they reached the joining of the channels, they all gazed up the edge of the Prow, drinking in the clear air, the blue beauty of the sky, crying tracks down their gory faces.