They moved quickly away from the street and turned corners in the muck, until they crouched in a space that was hidden from the city. Within two minutes, Lemuel came loping after them.

“Afternoon, all,” he grinned, triumphantly.

“How did you get here?” said Isaac.

Lemuel sniggered. “Sewers. Got to keep out of sight. Not so dangerous with the lot I’m with.” His smile faltered as he took them in. “Where’s Yagharek?” he said.

“He insisted that he had to go somewhere. We told him to stay, but he wasn’t having any of it. He says he’ll find us here tomorrow at six.”

Lemuel swore.

“Why did you let him go? What if they pick him up?”

“Damn, Lem, what in Jabber’s name was I supposed to do?” hissed Isaac. “I can’t sit on him. Maybe it’s some damn religious thing, some bloody Cymek mystical rubbish. Maybe he thinks he’s about to die and he has to say goodbye to his damn ancestors. I told him not to, he said he was going to.”

“Fine, whatever,” muttered Lemuel irritably. He turned to look back behind him. Isaac saw a small group of figures approaching. “These are our employees. I’m paying them, Isaac, and you’re owing me.”

There were three of them. They were immediately and absolutely recognizable as adventurers; rogues who wandered the Ragamoll and the Cymek and Fellid and probably the whole of Bas-Lag. They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever and whatever came. They were inspired by dubious virtues.

A few performed useful services: research, cartography and the like. Most were nothing but tomb raiders. They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occasionally impressive exploits.

Isaac and Derkhan eyed them without enthusiasm.

“This,” said Lemuel, pointing to them each in turn, “is Shadrach, Pengefinchess and Tansell.”

The three looked at Isaac and Derkhan with ruthless, swaggering arrogance.

Shadrach and Tansell were human, Pengefinchess was vodyanoi. Shadrach was obviously the hard man of the group. Large and sturdy, he wore a miscellaneous collection of armour, studded leather and flat, hammered pieces of iron strapped to shoulders, front and back. It was spattered with slime from the sewers. He followed Isaac’s eyes to his outfit.

“Lemuel told us to expect trouble,” he said in a curiously melodic voice. “We came dressed for the occasion.”

In his belt swung an enormous pistol and a big, weighty machete-sword. The pistol was carved into an intricate shape, a monstrous horned face, its mouth the muzzle. It would vomit forth the bullets. A flared blunderbuss flapped on his back, along with a black shield. He would not be able to walk three steps in the city like that without being arrested. No wonder they had come through the city’s underside.

Tansell was taller than Shadrach, but much more slight. His armour was smarter, and seemed designed at least in part for aesthetics. It was a burnished brown, layers of stiff curboille, wax-boiled leather engraved with spiral designs. He carried a smaller gun than Shadrach and a slender rapier.

“So what’s happening, then?” said Pengefinchess, and Isaac realized from the vodyanoi’s voice that she was female. There were, with vodyanoi, no physical characteristics for an inexpert human to recognize that were not hidden below the loincloths.

“Well…” he said slowly, watching her.

She squatted like a frog before him and met his gaze. She wore a voluminous white one-piece garment-incongruously and bizarrely clean, given her recent journey-that fitted close around her wrists and ankles, leaving her large, amphibious hands and feet free. She carried a recurved bow and sealed quiver over her shoulder, a bone knife in her belt. A large pouch of some thick reptile skin was strapped to her belly. Isaac could not tell what was within.

As Isaac and Derkhan watched, something bizarre happened below Pengefinchess’s clothes. There was a quick movement, as if something wrapped itself around her body at speed and then removed itself. As the weird tide passed, a large patch of the white cotton of her shift became sodden with water, clinging suddenly to her, then drying as if every atom of liquid was suddenly sucked out. Isaac stared, thunderstruck.

Pengefinchess looked down casually.

“That’s my undine. She and I have a deal. I provide her certain substances, she clings to me, keeps me wet and alive. Lets me travel in much drier places than I’d otherwise manage.”

Isaac nodded. He had never seen a water elemental before. It was unsettling.

“Has Lemuel warned you of the sort of trouble we’re facing?” Isaac said. The adventurers nodded, unconcerned. Even excited. Isaac tried to swallow his exasperation.

“These moth-things aren’t the only thing you can’t afford to look at, sirrah,” said Shadrach. “I can kill with my eyes closed, if I have to.” He spoke with soft, chilling confidence. “This belt?” He tapped it nonchalantly. “Catoblepas hide. Killed it in the outskirts of Tesh. Didn’t look at that, neither, or I’d be dead. We can handle these moths.”

“I damn well hope so,” said Isaac grimly. “Hopefully, no actual fighting’ll be necessary. I think Lemuel feels safer with some backup, just in case. We’re hoping the constructs’ll take care of things.”

Shadrach’s mouth curled minutely, in what was probably contempt.

“Tansell’s a metallo-thaumaturge,” said Lemuel. “Aren’t you?”

“Well…I know a few techniques for working metal,” Tansell replied.

“It’s not a complex job,” said Isaac. “Just need a bit of welding. Come this way.”

He led them through the rubbish to where they had hidden the mirrors and the other materials for the helmets.

“We’ve got easily enough stuff here,” said Isaac, squatting beside the pile. He picked up a colander, length of copper piping and, after a moment of sifting, two sizeable chunks of mirror. He waved them at Tansell vaguely. “We need this to be a helmet that’s going to fit snug-and we’re going to need one for a garuda who’s not here.” He ignored the glance that Tansell exchanged with his companions. “And then we need these mirrors attached to the front, at an angle so we can easily see directly behind us. Think you can manage that?”

Tansell looked at Isaac contemptuously. The tall man sat cross-legged before the pile of metal and glass. He put the colander on his head, like a child playing at soldiers. He whispered under his voice, a weird lilting, and he began to massage his hands with quick and intricate movements. He pulled at his knuckles, kneaded the balls of his palms.

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then quite suddenly, his fingers began to glow from within, as if the bones were illuminated.

Tansell reached up and began to caress the colander, as gently as if he stroked a cat.

Slowly, the metal began to shape itself under his coaxing. It softened at each momentary touch, fitting more snuggly onto his head, flattening down, distending at the back. Tansell pulled and kneaded it gently until it was quite flush over his hair. Then, still whispering his little sounds, he tweaked at the front, adjusting the lip of the metal, curling it up and away from his eyes.

He reached down and picked up the copper pipe, gripped it between his hands and channelled energy through his palms. Obstreperously, the metal began to flex. He coiled it gently, placing the two ends of the copper against the colander-helmet just above his temples, then pressing down hard until each piece of metal broke the surface tension of the other and began to spill across the divide. With a tiny fizz of energy, the thick piping and the iron colander fused.

Tansell shaped the bizarre extrusion of copper that jutted from the newborn helmet’s front. It became an angled loop extending about a foot. He fumbled for the pieces of mirror, clicked his fingers until someone handed them to him. Humming to the copper, cajoling it, he softened its substance and pushed one, then the other piece of mirror into it, one in front of each of his eyes. He looked up into them, each in turn, adjusting them carefully until they offered him a clear view of the wall of rubbish behind him.