dunes drew nearer. Tufts of withered grass shuddered in the wind. Rocks and petrified trees cast stark shadows under the warship’s aether-lights. They were only a hundred yards from the ground, then ninety yards, eighty.
The warship’s nose lifted slightly.
“Faster,” Devon growled. With one hand and one stump he jammed both levers as far back as he could, then shouted into the com-trumpet: “Angus! Increase fuel pressure. We need more hot air up front now .” He twisted to face Sypes. “Where the hell did you learn how to operate an airship?”
“It’s just a bag of gas,” Sypes explained from the floor. “How hard could it be?”
The Poisoner snarled, went back to the controls.
Dunes approached. Sixty yards away, fifty, forty.
The nose crept a little higher.
Devon saw ripples of sand through the haze, wind-etched curls and waves beneath the limbs of petrified trees. Thirty yards. Air hissed from the forward ribs as they stretched almost to bursting under the increased pressure.
Twenty yards.
Stone branches raced past the window like grasping claws.
The Birkita levelled. She started to climb.
Devon eased his grip on the controls.
Presbyter Sypes picked himself up from the floor and nodded at the pot still wedged beneath Devon’s arm. “You forgot the wine,” he said.
* * * *
He told you to do what?”
“To find Carnival and deliver a message.” Dill’s eyes were still white after his meeting with Adjunct Crumb, but he didn’t care. Rachel was long used to the sight by now.
“Why?”
Dill explained.
“He wants to bargain with her? Recruit her to go after Devon ? That makes no sense.”
“He said I’d be safe with her as long as I was unarmed.” He paused. “He took my sword away.”
She looked at him in astonishment.
“He said nobody had ever faced her unarmed before.”
“With good reason. I wouldn’t want to face her without every weapon available in the Spine arsenal.” She sat on the sill beneath Callis’s window and flexed and stretched her wounded hand absently. The bandages were off now, but her skin still looked red and swollen.
Dill had only just learned about Rachel’s fight in the planetarium. The Spine had reported to the priests, and one of them, a fellow called Primpleneck with a lazy eye, had related the story to a temple guard called Paddock. The story spread through the ranks of the temple guard until the kitchen staff got to overhear their conversation at breakfast. The stewards told the cooks, who told the maids and the potboys, who in turn told the cleaners, who, having no one else to tell, gossiped to the stable staff. At least, that was what the dung-shoveller had said when he accosted Dill outside the stables that morning.
“Oh that,” Dill had said to him haughtily. “I heard about that ages ago.”
He’d stalked off and begun an extra-long snail run afterwards. There were so many unexpected places to hide the slimy little things, when you really put your mind to it.
“I won’t let them,” Rachel said.
“What?”
“It’s too dangerous. I won’t let them send you.” She stood up. “I can’t be expected to protect you under these circumstances. They assigned me to be your overseer, so I’m going to oversee you now. I’ll speak to Fogwill, demand he call this whole thing off. I’ll get your sword back for you.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe they’d risk you. Don’t they realize who you are?”
“The last archon.”
“No…” She frowned. “That’s not what I meant. I meant…” She appeared to be struggling to find the right words. “I meant that you’re the only part of this whole rotten mess that hasn’t been spoiled or corrupted. You are the heart of the temple…the heart of Deepgate. They need you more than they can possibly imagine.”
Dill felt his eyes change colour. It wasn’t a colour he recognised at once. He hadn’t felt it since his father had been alive.
Rachel was already walking to the door.
“Wait,” he said.
She didn’t stop. “It’s a bad idea, Dill. It’s lunacy. I don’t know what Fogwill thinks he’s doing.”
“Please, I want to do this. Let me go.”
She halted. Perhaps something in his voice had given her pause. She said, “I don’t know.”
But Dill knew. Here was the moment he’d waited for his whole life: the chance to do something for the temple; the chance to be an archon worthy of his ancestors. Here was his chance to shine. Even without his sword he felt more like a temple archon now than he’d ever done before.
21
Dill and Carnival
Scar night was still ten days away and