Scar Night (Deepgate Codex) by Campbell Alan

Author:Campbell, Alan [Campbell, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2006-12-25T16:00:00+00:00

In the darkness of the den he had built in the nets below Devon’s tower, Mr. Nettle watched the warships pass overhead. Engines thrummed distantly; searchlights divided the night, moving incessantly, like the legs of strange aether gods.

A five-by-four tin sheet and three stout beams salvaged from the shell of a coalgas depository formed the makeshift roof. Rope tied it all together and secured it to the net. The nets here were thick, as they were in all industrial districts, easily strong enough to support the weight of his shelter. He’d ventured out a few times in the past two weeks to stock up on supplies. With nothing to trade, and no time to go scrounging, he’d been forced to steal the food from carts at the Gardenhowe market. He’d filled his water flask from a worker’s pipe near the Scythe, but hadn’t dropped a halfpenny into the slot.

Mr. Nettle’s crimes gnawed at him—his mind kept returning to them like fresh scabs—but they didn’t trouble him like his other dilemma. That one sat in his gut like a brick.

Twelve souls had been harvested—one more was needed. In order to make the angelwine potent, the Poisoner would have to bleed the life from another innocent.

And Mr. Nettle would have to let him do it.

He clenched his teeth and turned over in the net, as though that would somehow ease the pain. Abigail was all that mattered. Abigail, Abigail: he said her name over and over in his mind, using it to drum other thoughts out. Now that he knew where her soul was, he had to let Devon finish composing the elixir. He had to do it, for her.

But Abigail’s voice was always in his thoughts, and she wasn’t happy.

What about the other souls? she asked him. Will they be trapped inside me? Or will I be trapped inside them?

He didn’t want to think about that. How many people would she be?

The ropes beneath him stretched as he twisted over on his stomach and peered into the abyss. The journey down there would be difficult.

Impossible, Abigail insisted. How are you going to climb down? By rope? Are you going to use your grapple and spikes all the way down to the city of Deep? Then what? Will you walk into Ulcis’s palace of chains and demand he release my body?

He didn’t know. Everyone had heard the stories of the folk who’d gone down there. And how no one ever came back.

I’ll find a way.

How?

I don’t know. Maybe he could steal an airship, or scale the edge of the abyss.

Steal an airship? She laughed. Who do you think you are? You’re a scrounger, for God’s sake.

Leave me alone.

Then what about your soul? You are giving up eternity.

An image of Abigail came to him then: at six years old, stamping her foot.

What about his soul? He had been damned from the moment he decided to retrieve his daughter’s body from the abyss. The god of chains did not welcome intrusions. There would be no salvation for Mr.

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