The riders drove them through several gatehouses and into the twining narrow streets of the city, cleared by the bellow of their approach. The city lived vertically, buildings stacked and nestled, ramps and curling stairs leading ever upward toward the sunlit upper reaches. Bridges and covered passageways passed overhead, strung between tilting structures, and everywhere hung bright and fluttering silk, stretches, tassels, and strips, pulled flat against the whistling wind. Chel gathered snatches of greater edifices rising between the narrow loom of the twisting streets, the glittering domes he’d seen from the plateau, the gnarled spire topped with swooping wind-sails. At the roadsides, beneath raised colonnades, citizens went about their business in the cool of the shade, long-robed and serious, unperturbed by the rumble of the wagon and its escort.

The spectacle of it all washed over Chel, his eyes unfocused, unable to choose any one thing to rest on amidst the flickering splashes of coloured silk and mind-muddling architecture. Around the wagon, all seemed similarly overwhelmed, all bar Loveless; she kept her gaze down, her hood still pulled low. Even Kosh seemed impressed with what she saw, although she was evidently trying not to show it.

They rolled past a tall, narrow building as they climbed, pressed against the roadside, its stone ancient and pitted compared with its creeping neighbours. Its windows to the street were as tall and narrow as the building itself, almost pointed slots in its facade, its doorway a dark arch to a candlelit interior. An inverted triangle of bronze marked the yellow stone above the door, greened and darkened by the years, but polished and free of tarnish. Foss stared at it as they passed, staring at the triangle, the walls and windows, what little of the re-tiled roof they could see from beneath. He sat back as they rounded the next curve and mounted a well-worn stone ramp, unconsciously making the sign of the crook with one hand.

‘You all right, Fossy?’ Lemon had one eye on him, the other on the dancing strings of hanging silks.

‘Hmm? Yes. Well.’

‘Aye, right. What is it?’

He rubbed one eye, clearing a patch of his gentle patina of road-dust. ‘That place back there.’

‘The little chapel?’

‘Yes. The little chapel.’

Chel leaned against the wagon-side, gripping with one hand to stop him sliding as they climbed. ‘Something wrong with it? Thought that was your sort of thing?’

He raised an eyebrow, but his heart wasn’t in it. ‘It was an old chapel. Very old.’

‘Seemed like they were taking care of it though, eh?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’ He sighed and rubbed at his eyes again. ‘There aren’t supposed to be any old chapels here.’

‘There aren’t?’