He climbed its loose dowel footholds by feel, bracing himself against the wobble of the unsecured steps; one hand over the other, and then one foot following the next, he scaled it slowly, uncertainly, and suddenly quite glad that the light was off his face but pointed too far away for him to see anything if he were dumb enough to look down.

He looked down.

As predicted, he saw nothing, except for a big circle of vivid brilliance cast by the lantern above. It hit the ground someplace below, illuminating only grass, gravel, and the edge of a fire pit that hadn’t seen any cooking action in years.

His stomach did a quick lurch, but there was nothing inside it to slosh or heave, so he didn’t even burp at the sudden realization of how high up he’d come, and how quickly. Was he climbing so fast? It was hard to tell. His hands and feet guided themselves, or maybe what was left of the sap churning around in his head was shielding him from the facts of the matter.

Forty feet or more. Straight up. A gate into someplace like hell.

He was half that distance before the Chinaman called down, “You got a mask?”

“Yes, I got a mask,” he panted.

“You put it on. The seal here not so good.”

“I will. Put it on. When I get. Closer.” He puffed out the words in time to his climbing.

“You put it on now. There gas up here. You smell it?”

“Sure, I can smell it,” Rector admitted. You could almost always smell the gas if you were within five miles of the city and if the wind was canted just right. It was easy to forget the low-level stink because you never smelled anything else.

But this was worse.

There was a leak, as though someone had drilled a hole in a barrel and the contents were oozing free. It came from above, from the gate. It drooled down onto his head and up his nose, the yellow-fire stench of Blight slipping through the compromised wall.

Briefly Rector wondered who’d ever thought it’d be a good idea, this gate cut into the place where poison billowed and spilled day in and day out.

“Three cheers for bad ideas,” he wheezed, knocking his forearm against the next rung and wincing hard as the closest rope dragged a thick red mark along his wrist. He seized the knots, got a better grip, and kept climbing. His palms ached from the squeezing, the dragging, and the slivers of hemp and twine wedging themselves into the small wrinkles and cracks of his hands.

But he was almost there.