But metal it was. Dark, smooth, lustreless, gleaming with drops of water. It soared across the dizzy space in one simple arch, impossibly delicate, a spider's web of thin rods criss-crossing the hollow air beneath it, a wide road of slotted metal plates stretching out perfectly level across the top, inviting them to cross. Every edge was sharp, every curve precise, every surface clean. It stood pristine in the midst of all that slow decay. 'As if it was finished yesterday,' muttered Quai.

'And yet it is perhaps the oldest thing in the city.' Bayaz nodded towards the ruins behind them. 'All the achievements of Juvens are laid waste. Fallen, broken, forgotten, almost as though they had never been. But the works of the Master Maker are undiminished. They shine the brighter, if anything, for they shine in a darkened world.' He snorted, and mist blew from his nostrils. 'Who knows? Perhaps they will still stand whole and unmarked at the end of time, long after all of us are in our graves.'

Luthar peered nervously down towards the thundering water, no doubt wondering if his grave might be there. 'You're sure it will carry us?'

'In the Old Time it carried thousands of people a day. Tens of thousands. Horses and carts and citizens and slaves in an endless procession, flowing both ways, day and night. It will carry us.' Ferro watched as the hooves of Bayaz' horse clanged out onto the metal.

'This Maker was plainly a man of… quite remarkable talents,' murmured the Navigator, urging his horse after.

Quai snapped his reins. 'He was indeed. All lost to the world.'

Ninefingers went next, then Luthar reluctantly followed. Ferro stayed where she was, sitting in the pattering rain, frowning at the bridge, at the cart, at the four horses and their riders. She did not like this. The river, the bridge, the city, none of it. It had been feeling more and more like a trap with every step, and now she felt sure of it. She should never have listened to Yulwei. She should never have left the South. She had no business here, out in this freezing, wet, deserted wasteland with this gang of godless pinks.

'I am not going over that,' she said.

Bayaz turned to look at her. 'Do you plan to fly across, then? Or simply stay on that side?'

She sat back and crossed her hands before her on the saddlebow. 'Perhaps I will.'

'It might be better to discuss such matters once we have made it through the city,' murmured Brother Longfoot, looking nervously back into the empty streets.

'He's right,' said Luthar. 'This place has an evil air—'