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Back The Scar Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Prologue
  2. Part One: Channels
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Interlude I: Elsewhere
  9. Interlude II: Bellis Coldwine
  10. Part Two: Salt
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Interlude III: Elsewhere
  21. Part Three: The Compass Factory
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Interlude IV: Elsewhere
  29. Part Four: Blood
  30. Chapter Twenty-One
  31. Chapter Twenty-Two
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Interlude V: Tanner Sack
  37. Interlude VI: Elsewhere
  38. Part Five: Storms
  39. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  40. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  41. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  42. Chapter Thirty
  43. Chapter Thirty-One
  44. Chapter Thirty-Two
  45. Interlude VII: Basilisk Channel
  46. Interlude VIII: Elsewhere
  47. Part Six: Morning Walker
  48. Chapter Thirty-Three
  49. Chapter Thirty-Four
  50. Chapter Thirty-Five
  51. Chapter Thirty-Six
  52. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  53. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  54. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  55. Chapter Forty
  56. Interlude IX: The Brucolac
  57. Part Seven: The Lookout
  58. Chapter Forty-One
  59. Chapter Forty-Two
  60. Chapter Forty-Three
  61. Chapter Forty-Four
  62. Chapter Forty-Five
  63. Chapter Forty-Six
  64. Chapter Forty-Seven
  65. Coda: Tanner Sack

Uther Doul’s homeland. In the mountains. He remembered the cold mountains, the merciless flint skree, more forgiving by far than Doul’s fucking city.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

In the great workshops of Jhour riding, an extraordinary commission had arrived.

One of the mainstays of Jhour’s economy was airship building. For rigid, semi-, and nonrigid dirigibles, for aeroflots and engines, the Jhour factories were the guarantors of quality.

The Arrogance was the biggest craft in the Armadan sky. It had been captured decades back, crippled in the aftermath of some obscure battle, and had been retained as a folly and a watchtower. The city’s mobile aerostats were half its length, the greatest of them only a little more than two hundred feet, buzzing sedately around the city, bearing inappropriate names like Barracuda. The aerostatic engineers were constrained by space-nowhere in Armada was there room for the vast hangars in which huge craft like the largest of the New Crobuzon airships-the explorers and Myrshock shuttles, seven hundred feet of metal and leather-could be made. And, in any case, Armada had no need for any such craft.

Until now, it seemed.

The morning after the leaflets had fallen, the entire workforce of Jhour’s Custody Aeroworks-stitchers, engineers, designers, metallurgists, and countless others-were summoned by an incredulous-looking foreman. All around the plant in the reshaped steamer, the skeletal frames of dirigibles lay untended as he told the workers falteringly of their commission.

They had two weeks.

Silas was right, Bellis thought. There was no chance he could have unobtrusively smuggled himself onto the island trip. Even she, cut off as she was from the city’s scandal and intrigue, was hearing about Simon Fench with increasing regularity.

Of course it was still vague whisperings. Carrianne had mentioned something about someone who had doubts about the Summoning, who had read a pamphlet put out by someone known as Fink or Fitch or Fench. Shekel told Bellis that he thought the Summoning was an excellent idea but that he’d heard that someone called Fench said that the Lovers were heading for trouble.

Bellis was still amazed at Silas’ ability to insinuate himself under the city’s skin. Was he not at risk? she wondered. Weren’t the Lovers searching for him?

She smiled to think of Shekel. She had not been able to continue with his lessons for some time now, but when he had recently visited her he had taken a few quick, proud minutes to show her that her help was no longer necessary.

He had come to ask her what was in Kruach Aum’s book. Shekel was not stupid. It was clear to him that what he had given her must be related to the sudden tumultuous events of the last week- the cascade of leaflets, the extraordinary plan, Tanner’s bizarre new commission.