Here, too, around the scattered dwellings and in the vast fields lining either side of the road, were slaves. And worse. Tayan hadn’t thought there could be anything below the class of slave. He had been wrong. As they walked towards the most opulent, populous city he had ever seen, the shaman had to force himself not to stare. Starving, filthy, naked beggars, calling out in a dozen accents, the tattoos of their tribes barely visible beneath the grime. Men and women, even children, offering their flesh in return for food. Some had made badly woven baskets or crude pots that hadn’t even been fired, their eyes dull with hopelessness.

‘Why?’ Tayan asked, but his voice broke and he had to repeat it. ‘Why are they here?’

Beyt glanced around as if only just noticing them. ‘The Singing City is the centre of the world and the source of the song. It attracts both the highest and the lowest of society. These have probably displeased their owners and been cast out, or didn’t sell in the flesh markets. Ignore them; the Choosers chip away at their number each new moon.’ She paused in thought. ‘And let me know if one of them touches you,’ she added eventually. ‘It is death for them to touch a free, and while I don’t quite understand your status here in the Empire, I won’t be responsible for your honour being fouled by them.’

‘There would be no dishonour,’ Tayan said quietly, but Beyt had already turned her back and increased her pace. She was as eager to reach the Singing City as Tayan was suddenly reluctant.

‘No wall,’ Betsu murmured. ‘Your Sky City has a wall to protect it from Drowned and to deter cats. This place has no wall. They don’t count either of those as a threat.’

She was right. More and more buildings began springing up to either side of the road, like mushrooms growing in cool shade. There was no clear entrance into the city; rather, it grew around the road – and grew big. Each building was easily the size of the council house back home, surrounded by high stone walls and tree-filled gardens.

‘These have walls,’ Tayan pointed out.