appeared to be the ruling force in Hell, an elite group which now sought to expand the borders of their realm. Yet wasn’t Lord Iril himself supposed to have complete authority in the Maze? Some even said that Lord Iril
Caulker had begun to think of the Mesmerists as kings. It thrilled him to think that Anchor and his master were afraid of them. What sort of power would they wield? As he watched the heathens pack up their horses, he imagined the ground opening up beneath them. He imagined red warriors rising from the earth, and the tethered giant cowering on his knees before them.
Like every other Sandport crook, Caulker had always known he’d end up in Hell. Deepgate’s chains had never been for him, and he didn’t subscribe to the heathen religions. The certainty of his damnation had even steered some of his decisions in the past. He had murdered, stolen, and raped, and rejoiced in his sins.
And if he was bound for the Red Maze, then wasn’t it better to be on good terms with its rulers? Once he was in Hell, the Mesmerists might reward him with far more than he could ever hope to steal in this world. He had valuable information to offer. If he could only beg an audience with them without first opening his own throat…
He peered up into the skies above him, where Anchor’s rope disappeared into seemingly endless fog. Whatever this witchsphere was, it was clearly aware of him.
13
A wind from the south had picked up; it blew sand around their shoulders and into their faces, obscuring the trail they had followed from the last stone forest. Rachel blinked and rubbed her eyes, and for a moment the view ahead blurred.
Drenched in phosphorescent toxins, Cinderbark Wood lit the eastern skyline like a festival celebration, its tangled branches and boles
Originally a proving ground for the Department of Military Science, the trees had been used by Deepgate’s chemists as a canvas for their own imaginations. They had applied the caustic tars liberally, leaving no twig or patch of bark untouched, till ultimately this had become their greatest work of art. One careless touch might kill a man, or perhaps much worse.
For not all of the poisons were fatal.
The chemists had, of course, left the woodland’s spring unspoiled. It was the only clean water for leagues around, as many desperate nomads had discovered to their peril.
Rachel hesitated at the edge of the wood. Faced with its dazzling colours she reconsidered her plan. They could probably reach the northern edge of the forest well before dawn, head north to the caravan trail, and find one of the Acolyte springs by tomorrow evening.
But this would bring them closer to the Spine patrols, or possible attack from desert raiders. If they continued east they would reach a source of clean water in perhaps two hours, and then be clear of Cinderbark Wood before sunrise.
All they had to do was stay alert.
She turned to Trench. “Don’t touch
She was thinking about the caches buried beneath the sands, the jars of rotting chemicals deemed too virulent to keep in Deepgate’s own fuming Poison Kitchens. Vapors regularly leaked from these hidden hoards and made colourful mists among the trees. It was a beautiful sight.
And so they walked into the vibrant hush of Cinderbark Wood. Overhead the branches clashed in a riot of pinks, greens, blues, yellows, a dizzying spectacle that resisted starlight and imbued the sands below with different, gentler hues. Something crunched beneath Rachel’s foot, and she looked down to discover the tiny skeleton of a bird under her heel, its fragile bones polished by erosion. Scattered hither and thither were the remains of hundreds of others, too: the chalky beaks and claws; the wings reduced to delicate spokes. Some of the larger specimens she identified as sand-hawks, owls, and vultures, but she couldn’t put a name to the smaller remains. The sight of those unidentified birds, those tough little harridans of the Deadsands, filled her with a profound sadness. How many had been attracted to this false oasis from the sand and scrub only to meet their death?
Silister Trench seemed unaffected by this miniature graveyard. Instead, he appeared to be afflicted with a kind of awe. Like a scholar in a rare museum, he moved between the gaudy boles with his hands clasped at his chest-a posture less instilled by fear, Rachel suspected, than reverence.
The petrified woodland seemed largely impervious to the gales blowing beyond its perimeter. Only the tips of the highest branches shifted, glassy thorns tinkling overhead, and these tiny notes only heightened the deep sense of stillness. Rachel kept a hand on Trench’s shoulder as she led him onwards, alert for sudden mists or exposed roots. She looked for poisons she recognized, trying to fit hue and texture to the incongruent names the chemists had devised. One bowed trunk had been daubed in Whooping-Silver and spattered with purple Sirsic Acid ember. She saw Blood-Lime and EM9 on the bark of another tree, fused with streaks of Raven Stain, Rosemary’s Throat, Blushlilly, Dogweed, and Generic 120. Nothing but the sand itself, and the tiny skeletons, had been left un- painted.
There was no path to follow, no stars visible to keep them on course. She relied on gut instinct and those few memories she retained from her one previous visit here.
She’d been seventeen when the Spine had brought her back from Hollowhill for punishment. Her hands were still bloody from the fight with the Deepgate reservists, and those hands had been manacled, chained to a line of Heshette pilgrims bound for the Avulsior’s justice. None of the other prisoners would speak to her, despite what she’d done for them. Rachel didn’t blame them. As a Spine Cutter, the most she could expect was a whipping, or to endure one of Devon’s toxic dreams. The other captives, all Heshette heathens, were bound for Sinners’ Well.
Seven leagues west of Sandport, the head Spine Adept had announced they would take the path through Cinderbark Wood. His pale face had given nothing away when he’d told her why. They’d take the southern route, he said, away from the busy caravan trails, to spare Rachel her humiliation.
Four Heshette had died among the poisoned trees. The first man had rested a hand against bark when the party stopped to rest. His screams and bleeding eyes had prompted a second, younger warrior to attempt to flee. This boy-he had been only a boy, she remembered-had tripped over a root in his panic. His feet had been bare, his death violent and stinking. A third, a greybeard at the end of the line, had breathed a lungful of pink air before the Spine Adepts had hastened the party away from the mist. The fourth had been a young woman, one of the maidens Rachel had saved from the reservists’ tents. Weeping, the girl had wrapped her arms around a colourful trunk and refused to let go. The Adepts had carefully unchained her and left her where she was.
When the party finally reached Deepgate, Rachel never received her whipping.
Now the assassin looked at the physical form of the young angel before her, at the bloody stains on the back of his shirt and the ruined fingers he kept close to his chest, and her breathing became suddenly heavy. Where was Dill’s soul now, she thought sadly. She inadvertently tightened her hand on his shoulder.
Trench glanced back at her and quickly away again.
The night stretched on. Thorns chimed like memories. Further in, the woodland grew even denser. Low loops and snarls of branch had to be negotiated with care. Poisons glowed softly all around. Occasionally they were forced to alter course to skirt wandering mists or solitary spires of clear hot vapor, or thickets where the trees blazed like colourful fire. Chemical smells constantly assailed them, queer sulphuric odors that stuck to the back of Rachel’s
