Kallor glanced over. ‘I once attempted that for an entire empire.’
Skintick snorted. ‘With you as the focus of worship?’
‘Of course.’
‘And it failed?’
Kallor shrugged. ‘Everything fails, eventually.’ And he set out for a closer examination of the ruined machine.
‘Even conversation,’ muttered Skintick. ‘Should we follow him?’
Nimander shook his head. ‘Leave him. If the city is a temple, then there must be an altar — presumably somewhere in the middle.’
‘Nimander, we could well be doing everything they want us to do, especially by bringing Clip to that altar. I think we should find an inn, somewhere to rest up. We can then reconnoitre and see what awaits us.’
He thought about that for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Good idea. Lead the way, Skin, see what you can find.’
They continued on down the main street leading from the gate. The tenements looked lifeless, the shops on the ground level empty, abandoned. Glyphs covered every wall and door, spread out from every shuttered window to as far as a hand could reach if someone was leaning out. The writing seemed to record a frenzy of revelation, or madness, or both.
A half-dozen buildings along, Skintick found an inn, closed up like everything else, but he dismounted and approached the courtyard gates. A push swung them wide and Skintick looked back with a smile.
The wagon’s hubs squealed in well-worn grooves in the frame of the gate as Nenanda guided it in. The compound beyond was barely large enough to accommodate a single carriage on its circular lane that went past, first, the stables, and then the front three-stepped entrance to the hostelry. A partly subterranean doorway to the left of the main doors probably led into the taproom. In the centre of the round was a stone-lined well — stuffed solid with bloating corpses.
Skintick’s smile faded upon seeing this detail. Dead maggots ringed the well. ‘Let’s hope,’ he said to Nimander, ‘there’s another pump inside. . drawing from a different source.’
Nenanda had set the brake and he now dropped down, eyeing the bodies. ‘Pre shy;vious guests?’
‘It’s what happens when you don’t pay up.’
Nimander dismounted and shot Skintick a warning look, but his cousin did not notice — or chose not to, for he then continued, ‘Or all the beds were taken. Or some prohibition against drinking anything but kelyk — it clearly doesn’t pay to complain.’
‘Enough,’ said Nimander. ‘Nenanda, can you check the stables — see if there’s feed and clean water. Skintick, let’s you and I head inside.’
A spacious, well-furnished foyer greeted them, with a booth immediately to the right, bridged by a polished counter. The narrow panel door set in its back wall was shut. To the left was a two-sided cloakroom and beside that the sunken entranceway into the taproom. A corridor was directly ahead, leading to rooms, and a steep staircase climbed to the next level where, presumably, more rooms could be found. Heaped on the floor at the foot of the stairs was bedding, most of it rather darkly stained.
‘They stripped the rooms,’ observed Skintick. ‘That was considerate.’
‘You suspect they’ve prepared this place for us?’
‘With bodies in the well and ichor-stained sheets? Probably. It’s reasonable that we would stay on the main street leading in, and this was the first inn we’d reach.’ He paused, looking round. ‘Obviously, there are many ways of readying for guests. Who can fathom human cultures, anyway?’
Outside, Nenanda and the others were unpacking the wagon.
Nimander walked to the taproom entrance and ducked to look inside. Dark, the air thick with the pungent, bittersweet scent of kelyk. He could hear Skintick making his way up the stairs, decided to leave him to it. One step down, on to the sawdust floor. The tables and chairs had all been pushed to one side in a haphazard pile. In the open space left behind the floor was thick with stains and coagulated clumps that reminded Nimander of dung in a stall. Not dung, however he knew that.
He explored behind the bar and found rows of dusty clay bottles and jugs, wine and ale. The beakers that had contained kelyk were scattered on the floor, some of them broken, others still weeping dark fluid.
The outer door swung open and Nenanda stepped inside, one hand on the grip of his sword. A quick look round, then he met Nimander’s gaze and shrugged. ‘Was you I heard, I guess.’
‘The stables?’
‘Well enough supplied, for a few days at least. There’s a hand pump and spout over the troughs. The water smelled sour but otherwise fine — the horses didn’t hesitate, at any rate.’ He strode in. ‘I think those bodies in the well, Nimander — dead of too much kelyk. I suspect that well was in fact dry. They just used to it dump the ones that died, as they died.’
Nimander walked back to the doorway leading into the foyer.
Desra and Kedeviss had carried Clip inside, setting him on the floor. Skintick was on the stairs, a few steps up from the mound of soiled bedding. He was leaning on one rail, watching as the two women attended to Clip. Seeing Nimander, he said, ‘Nothing but cockroaches and bedbugs in the rooms. Still, I don’t think we should use them — there’s an odd smell up there, not at all pleasant.’
‘This room should do,’ Nimander said as he went over to look down at Clip. ‘Any change?’ he asked.
Desra glanced up. ‘No. The same slight fever, the same shallow breathing.’
Aranatha entered, looked round, then went to the booth, lifted the hinged counter and stepped through. She tried the latch on the panel door and when it opened, she disappeared into the back room.
A grunt from Skintick. ‘In need of the water closet?’
Nimander rubbed at his face, flexed his fingers to ease the ache, and then, when Nenanda arrived, he said, ‘Skintick and I will head out now. The rest of you. . well, we could run into trouble at any time. And if we do one of us will try to get back here-’
‘If you run into trouble,’ Aranatha said from the booth, ‘we will know it.’
Oh? How? ‘All right. We shouldn’t be long.’
They had brought all their gear into the room and Nimander now watched as first Desra and then the other women began unpacking their weapons, their fine chain hauberks and mail gauntlets. He watched as they readied for battle, and said nothing as anguish filled him. None of this was right. It had never been right. And he could do nothing about it.
Skintick edged his way round the bedding and, with a tug on Nimander’s arm, led him back outside. ‘They will be all right,’ he said. ‘It’s us I’m worried about.’
‘Us? Why?’
Skintick only smiled.
They passed through the gate and came out on to the main street once more. The mid-afternoon heat made the air sluggish, enervating. The faint singing seemed to invite them into the city’s heart. An exchanged glance; then, with a shrug from Skintick, they set out.
‘That machine.’
‘What about it, Skin?’
‘Where do you think it came from? It looked as if it just. . appeared, just above one of the buildings, and then dropped, smashing everything in its path, ending with itself. Do you recall those old pumps, the ones beneath Dreth Street in Malaz City? Withal found them in those tunnels he explored? Well, he took us on a tour-’
‘I remember, Skin.’
‘I’m reminded of those machines — all the gears and rods, the way the metal components all meshed so cleverly, ingeniously — I cannot imagine the mind that could think up such constructs.’
‘What is all this about, Skin?’
‘Nothing much. I just wonder if that thing is somehow connected with the arrival of the Dying God.’
‘Connected how?’
‘What if it was like a skykeep? A smaller version, obviously. What if the Dying God was inside it? Some accident brought it down, the locals pulled him out. What if that machine was a kind of throne?’
Nimander thought about that. A curious idea. Andarist had once explained that skykeeps — such as the one Anomander Rake claimed as his own — were not a creation of sorcery, and indeed the floating fortresses were held aloft through arcane manipulations of technology.