‘Can you see the chasm, Mr Clavain?’ His host pointed towards a dark elliptical smear almost lost beyond a profusion of spires and towers. They say the Lilly is dying now. The Conjoiners aren’t here to keep it alive, since they were evicted. The air quality is not what it was. There is even speculation that the city will have to be re-domed. But perhaps the Conjoiners will soon be able to reoccupy what was once theirs, eh?‘ ‘It would be difficult to draw another conclusion,’ Clavain said. ‘I do not care who wins, I must admit. I was able to make a living before the Conjoiners came, and I have continued to do so in their absence. I did not know the city under the Demarchists, but I don’t doubt that I would have found a way to survive.’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where are we might be a better question. Look down, Mr Clavain.’ Clavain looked down. The building he was in was high, that much was obvious from the elevated view, but he had not quite grasped how very high it really was. It was as if he stood near the summit of an immensely tall and steep mountain, looking down at subsidiary peaks and shoulders many thousands of metres below, secondary summits which themselves towered over the majority of the surrounding buildings. The highest air-traffic corridor was far below; indeed, he saw that some of the traffic flowed through the building itself, diving through immense arches and portals. Below lay other traffic layers, then a gridlike haze of elevated roadways, and below that yet more space, and then a blurred suggestion of tiered parks and lakes, so far below that they resembled faded two-dimensional markings on a map. The building was black and monumental in its architecture. He could not guess its true shape, but he had the impression that had he viewed it from some other part of Chasm City it would have resembled something black and dead and faintly foreboding, like a solitary tree that had been struck by lightning. ‘All right,’ Clavain said. ‘It’s a very nice view. Where are we?’ ‘Chateau des Corbeaux, Mr Clavain. The House of Ravens. I trust you remember the name?’ Clavain nodded. ‘Skade came here.’ The man nodded. ‘So I gather.’ ‘Then you had something to do with what happened to her, is that it?’ ‘No, Mr Clavain, I did not. But my predecessor, the person who last inhabited this building, most certainly did.’ The man turned around and offered Clavain his right hand. ‘My name is H, Mr Clavain. At least, that is the name under which I currently choose to do business. Shall we do business?’ Before Clavain could respond, H had taken his hand and squeezed it. Clavain withdrew his hand, taken aback. He noticed that there was a tiny spot of red on his palm, like blood. H took Clavain downstairs, back to the marbled floor. They walked past the fountain Clavain had heard earlier — it consisted of an eyeless golden snake belching a constant stream of water — and then took another long flight of marbled steps down to the floor immediately below. ‘What do you know about Skade?’ Clavain asked. He did not trust H, but saw no harm in asking a few questions. ‘Not as much as I would like,’ H said. ‘But I will tell you what I have learned, within certain limits. Skade was sent to Chasm City on an espionage operation for the Conjoiners, one that concerned this building. That’s correct, isn’t it?’ ‘You tell me.’ ‘Come now, Mr Clavain. As you will discover, we have very much more in common than you might imagine. There’s no need to be defensive.’ Clavain wanted to laugh. ‘I doubt that you and I have much in common at all, H.’ ‘No?’ ‘I am a four-hundred-year-old man who has probably seen more wars than you’ve seen sunsets.’ H’s eyes wrinkled in amusement. ‘Really?’ ‘My perspective on things is bound to be just a tiny bit different from yours.’ ‘I don’t doubt it. Would you follow me, Mr Clavain? I’d like to show you the former tenant.’ H led him along high-ceilinged black corridors lit only by the narrowest of windows. Clavain observed that H walked with the tiniest of limps, caused by a slight imbalance in length between one leg and the other that he managed to overcome most of the time. He seemed to have the whole immense building to himself, or at least this mansion-sized district of it, but perhaps that was an illusion fostered by the building’s sheer immensity. Clavain had already sensed that H controlled an organisation of some influence. ‘Start at the beginning,’ Clavain said. ‘How did you get mixed up in Skade’s business?’ ‘Through a mutual interest, I suppose you’d say. I’ve been here on Yellowstone for a century, Mr Clavain. In that time I have cultivated certain interests — obsessions, you might almost call them.’ ‘Such as?’ ‘Redemption is one of them. I have what you might charitably refer to as a chequered past. I have done some very bad things in my time. But then again, who hasn’t?’ They halted at an arched doorway set into black marble. H made the door open and ushered Clavain into a windowless room that had the still, spectral atmosphere of a crypt. ‘Why would you be interested in redemption?’ To absolve myself, of course. To make some recompense. In the current era, even allowing for the present difficulties, one can live an inordinately long life. In past times a heinous crime marked one for life, or at least for the biblical three score years and ten. But we may live for centuries now. Should such a long life be sullied by a single unmeritorious act?‘ ‘You said you’d done more than one bad thing.’ ‘As indeed I have. I have signed my name to many nefarious deeds.’ H walked over to a roughly welded upright metal box in the middle of the room. ‘But the point is this: I do not see why my present self should be locked into patterns of behaviour merely because of something my much younger self did. I doubt that there is a single atom of my body shared by both of us, after all, and very few memories.’ ‘A criminal past doesn’t give you a unique moral perspective.’ ‘No, it doesn’t. But there is such a thing as free will. There is no need for us to be puppets of our past.’ H paused and touched the box. It had, Clavain realised, the general dimensions and proportions of a palanquin, the kind of travelling machine that the hermetics still used. H drew in a deep breath before speaking again. ‘A century ago I came to terms with what I had done, Mr Clavain. But there was a price to be paid for that reconciliation. I vowed to put right certain wrongs, many of which directly concerned Chasm City. They were
