Scar Night Page 0,72

dipped, but Mr. Nettle reached the uppermost catwalk without incident. The Chapelfunnel canal curved away below him, broken by moonlit chains into narrow strips of abyss. Beside the door, red light sweated through a warped window, blurred red shapes inside. Mr. Nettle stashed his backpack in the shadows and knocked.

A brusque voice issued from inside. “He’s here. Hide yourselves.”

The scrounger waited. He did not want to think about who or what Thomas Scatterclaw might be speaking to. Iril had opened many doors inside Sparrow Bridge.

“We have company,” Scatterclaw bellowed. “Do you want to frighten him out of his wits? Get out of my sight. All of you. Hide!”

Mr. Nettle listened at the door for a long time. He heard nothing further. No footfalls. Nothing. Not knowing what else to do, he knocked again.

A pause, then: “Come in.”

The door revealed a wall of broken glass. Razor-sharp shards of every shape and colour had been glued to a wooden partition set a few feet back from the door. Eight feet high, this partition stretched away on either side to the edges of a long room. It formed a narrow corridor from which a dozen other corridors, also faced with broken glass, led off into the interior. A red lantern depended from the rafters, its light the colour of blood.

A maze? The thaumaturge had built a shrine to Iril. Mr. Nettle stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The corridor was just wide enough to allow him to move sideways along it without tearing his clothes on the glass fragments. Mazes, in any form, were forbidden in Deepgate. Iril’s demons drew power from mazes. Not two months ago, an Ivygarths silversmith had been dragged before the Avulsior for crafting a brooch, it was said, of such intricacy that it had been likened to Iril’s corridors. But here was a real maze, a solid thing composed of wood and glass. The Church would burn it to the ground if they discovered it.

He edged along to the first intersection. Another corridor ran to a dead end twenty feet ahead. Six more branched off from it. Mr. Nettle called out, “Scatterclaw?”

“Over here.”

But the voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. Mr. Nettle turned carefully into the sharp passageway and eased himself along, wary of losing his way. On one side he noted a crescent-shaped shard of glass, black in the red light, and tried to burn it into his memory. He decided on the third branch on the right.

A third lengthy corridor, at least forty feet long, with many more leading away from it. The scrounger frowned. From the outside, Sparrow Bridge did not seem wide enough to contain all this. He looked back, spied the crescent-shaped shard, then squeezed on between the treacherous glass walls and shuffled deeper into the maze. Something nicked his shoulder and he halted, felt blood trickle down his back.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Scatterclaw cried. “Stay where you are, all of you. He is not lost. You are not lost, are you, Scrounger?”

“No.”

“Then proceed.”

Sweat ran from Mr. Nettle’s brow, but he dared not lift his hand to mop it. There was barely room to breathe in here. He sucked in his chest and moved on again. Another opening led to another corridor and this one appeared to stretch for twice the length of the last. Walls of glass glistened blackly. Nothing made sense: the entire room could not be more than sixty feet wide. He glanced up and saw the lantern overhead. Had it always been hanging directly above his head? He was growing weary of this.

“Scatterclaw,” he shouted.

“Don’t linger. They know where you are.”

“Who?”

No reply.

Mr. Nettle cursed and moved on. He took a left, edged fifty paces, then a right. When he looked up the lantern was still there, directly above. Damn the thaumaturge. Wasn’t it enough that he’d paid a wealth of iron to speak to the man? Now he was expected to crawl through this trap. He’d half a mind to climb the partition, get a good look at the place, or use his cleaver to shave away some of the glass fragments.

But Mr. Nettle did neither. Thomas Scatterclaw was not a man he wanted to anger. Folks said he’d come across the Yellow Sea from a place where Iril was worshipped. They said he’d come here a hundred and forty years ago and his body had been grey and fleshless then. They said he’d pierced his lips, ears, and eyes with splinters of gallows wood so