Scar Night Page 0,73

that he could converse with demons, and that he’d had nails hammered into his spine to keep his gaze from Heaven while he slept.

The scrounger waited for a dozen breaths, and then pushed on. A left, then another left. Twenty paces. A right. Ten paces. Another right. Always the same wickedly sharp corridors, always the same blood-coloured lantern overhead. Had he been tricked? Was he to spend the rest of his life in here? He wandered for what seemed like hours, down corridor after corridor, glass inches from his chest and inches from his back.

Finally he stopped.

Ten paces ahead was an opening in the left wall. But this did not lead to another corridor; it opened into a wider space. Even from here he could see another partition a short distance beyond, but this time a wall without glass. Warily, Mr. Nettle approached it.

Thomas Scatterclaw sat cross-legged in the centre of a box-like space some twenty feet across and hemmed in by partition walls. A deep-red robe and cowl hid every inch of him, but Mr. Nettle thought he saw bumps in the cloth on the man’s back where no bumps should be. On the floor in front of him, a rusty kitchen knife and a plain, chipped bowl. The bowl was full of blood.

Mr. Nettle grunted. “You the thaumaturge?”

“Take the knife and open a vein.” Thomas Scatterclaw didn’t look up. “Add your blood to this—to the dead blood.”

“What for?”

“Do it quickly.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“No,” Scatterclaw said, “but Iril does. Quickly now, there are demons in here.”

Mr. Nettle glanced round. Nothing but the tired wooden partitions. No sounds, no creak of wood. The thaumaturge was trying to unnerve him.

“Now,” Scatterclaw snarled.

Mr. Nettle picked up the knife, and without thinking any more about it, cut across the back of his hand behind his thumb. Blood welled and trickled over his hand.

“In the bowl,” Scatterclaw said. “Hurry.”

Mr. Nettle did as he was told.

Iril’s priest appeared to shudder beneath his robe. He leaned forward and picked up the bowl, and Mr. Nettle saw that his exposed hands were black and gnarled as though they had been burned, the fingers twisted around each other like tightly woven roots. Had the thaumaturge done this to himself too? Scatterclaw tilted the bowl under his cowl, and drank.

Disgusted, the scrounger watched the man drain the bowl and set it down.

“Do not close your eyes,” Scatterclaw said. “Not for an instant. Do you understand? No more than a blink. They get in through your eyes but only if you cannot see them. They will try to sneak up on you, trick you. If they get inside you, you will never leave this maze. You’ll stay trapped in here with them until Iril comes for you.”

“Who?”

“The Non Morai.”

Again Mr. Nettle looked around anxiously.

“You’ll see them if you look hard enough,” Scatterclaw said. “And I advise you do look hard. Be thankful it isn’t dark, for darkness makes them bold. All that trouble on Cog Island was caused by the Non Morai at night. Doors from Hell attract them like flies.”

The light in the room appeared to thicken, until Mr. Nettle felt as though he was straining to see through a red veil. Walls and floor and rafters turned a dark, dark red that was almost black. He heard movement behind him and whirled round. Nothing. Now he could smell an odour like spoiled meat. Something moved at the corner of his vision, as though trying to approach unseen, but when he swung to look, there was nothing there. Yet Mr. Nettle felt an aura of malice in that empty space, so strong his heartbeats quickened.

Thomas Scatterclaw breathed slow and deep, and then spoke in a glutinous voice that was not his own. “How many are here?”

Behind him, Mr. Nettle heard a chorus of whispers. Eleven .

He wheeled, saw nothing.

“And a living soul,” Scatterclaw said.

Ours, the voices hissed.

Thomas Scatterclaw, or whatever had taken possession of him, was silent for a long time, and then the cowl turned to face Mr. Nettle. “Your daughter is not with us. A living man has taken her.”

The scrounger’s fists bunched. “Who?”

“He is diseased. Hafe reaches for him.”

“Hafe?”

“The hell of the fourth angel. Halls of dirt and poison. Green ghosts, harrowcells, and flowers.”

Mr. Nettle frowned. The Maze, he suspected, was trying to confuse him. So it was with Iril. “Who is he?”

Voices then swarmed all around Mr. Nettle. Close your eyes. Let us in and we’ll tell you .

For a heartbeat the scrounger