“Don’t be an arse, man,” Isaac roared. “I’m not a visitor. Last time I was here I was the guest of Savage Peter,” he continued ostentatiously. He paused for the whispers that the name invoked. “Now, at the present I’m after a little chinwag with them.” He jerked his finger at the garuda. The fat man recoiled slightly.

“You’re for conflabbing with the bird-boys? What’s that about, squire?”

“None of your sodding business! Question is, do you want to take me to their mansion?”

The man held up his hands, conciliatory.

“Shouldn’t have pried, squire, none of my concerns. Smiley to take you to the bird-boxes, for a measly little recompo.”

“Oh, for Jabber’s sake. Don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of. Just don’t” yelled Isaac at everyone in the staring crowd, “be arsing around with ideas of muggery and thievery. I’ve just enough to pay a decent guide on me, not a stiver more, and I know that Savage will be screaming fucking livid if anything happened to an old mate on his turf.”

“Please, guwo, you’re insultering the Spatterkin. Not another sound, just be tracing on me tail, how’s that?”

“Lead on, man,” said Isaac.

As they wound through the dripping concrete and rusted iron roofs, Lin turned to Isaac.

What in Jabber’s name was all that? Who’s Savage Peter?

Isaac signed as he walked.

Load of bollocks. Came here once with Lemuel on a…dubious errand, met Savage. Local big man. Didn’t even know for sure he was still alive! Wouldn’t remember me.

Lin was exasperated. She could not believe the Spatterkin were taken in by Isaac’s preposterous routine. But they were definitely being led towards the garudas’ tower. Maybe what she’d witnessed was more like a ritual than any real confrontation. Maybe, alternatively, Isaac had kidded and scared no one at all. Maybe they were helping him out of pity.

The makeshift hovels lapped up against the bases of the towerblocks like little waves. Lin’s and Isaac’s guide beckoned them enthusiastically and gesticulated at the four blocks positioned in a square. In the shadowy space between them a garden had been planted, with twisted trees desperately reaching for direct light. Succulents and hardy weeds burst from the scrubland. Garuda circled under the cloud-cover.

“There’s your aim, squire!” said the man proudly.

Isaac hesitated.

“How do I…I don’t want to just plough on up unannounced…” he faltered. “Uh…how can I attract their attention?”

The guide held out his hand. Isaac stared at him a minute, then fumbled for a shekel. The man beamed at it and put it in his pocket. Then he turned and stepped a little way back from the building’s walls, put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.

“Oy!” he yelled. “Bird-bonce! Squire wants to parley!”

The crowd that still surrounded Isaac and Lin took up the yells enthusiastically. A raucous yelling announced to the garuda above that they had visitors. A contingent of the flying shapes congregated in the air above the Spatters crowd. Then with an invisible adjustment of the wings, three of them plummeted spectacularly towards the ground.

There was a gasp and appreciative whistling.

The three garuda dropped like the dead towards the waiting crowd. Twenty feet from the ground they twitched their outstretched wings and broke their precipitous falls. They beat the air heavily, sending massive gusts of wind and dust into the faces and eyes of the humans below them as they hovered up and down, sinking a little, then rising, just out of reach.

“What you all shouting for?” screeched the garuda on the left.

“It’s fascinating,” whispered Isaac to Lin. “His voice is avian, but nothing like as difficult to understand as Yagharek…Ragamoll must be his native language, he’s probably never spoken anything else.”

Lin and Isaac stared at the magnificent creatures. The garuda were nude to the waist, their legs covered in thin brown pantaloons. One had black feathers and skin; the other two were dark tan. Lin gazed at those enormous wings. They stretched and beat with a massive span, at least twenty feet.

“This squire here…” began the guide, but Isaac interrupted him.

“Good to meet you,” he yelled up. “I’ve got a proposal for you. Any chance we could have a chat?”

The three garuda looked at each other.

“What you want?” yelled the black-feathered one.

“Well, look-” Isaac gesticulated at the crowd “-this isn’t really how I was envisaging this discussion. Is there anywhere private we could go?”

“You bet!” said the first one. “See you up there!”

The three pairs of wings boomed in concert and the garuda disappeared into the sky, leaving Isaac wailing behind them.

“Wait!” he shouted. It was too late. He looked around for the guide.

“I don’t suppose,” Isaac asked him, “the lift’s working in there, is it?”

“Never got put in, squire.” The guide grinned wickedly. “Best be getting started.”

“Dear sweet Jabber’s arse, Lin…go on without me. I’m dying. I’m just going to lie here and die.”

Isaac lay on the mezzanine between the sixth and seventh floors. He hissed and wheezed and spat. Lin stood over him, her hands on her hips with exasperation.

Get up, you fat bastard, she signed. Yes, exhausting. Me too. Think of the gold. Think of the science.

Moaning as if he were being tortured, Isaac staggered to his feet. Lin chivvied him to the edge of the concrete stairs. He swallowed and braced himself, then staggered on up.

The stairwell was grey and unlit except by light filtering round corners and through cracks. Only now, as they emerged onto the seventh floor, did the stairs look as if they had ever been used. Rubbish began to build up around their feet. The stairs were grubby rather than thick in fine dust. At each floor were two doors, and the harsh sounds of garuda conversations were audible through the splintered wood.

Isaac settled into a slow, miserable pace. Lin followed him, ignoring his declarations of imminent heart attack. After several long, painful minutes, they had reached the top floor.

Above them was the door onto the roof. Isaac leaned against the wall and wiped his face. He was drenched in sweat.

“Just give me a minute, sweetheart,” he murmured, and even managed to grin. “Oh gods! For the sake of science, right? Get your camera ready…All right. Here we go.”

He stood and breathed slowly, then strode slowly up the last flight to the door, opened it and walked out into the flat light on the roof. Lin followed, her camera in her hands.

Khepri eyes needed no time to adjust from light to darkness and back again. Lin stepped out onto a rough concrete roof littered with rubbish and broken concrete and saw Isaac desperately shielding his eyes and squinting. She looked coolly around her.

A little way to the north-east rose Vaudois Hill, a sinuous wedge of high land which rose up as if trying to block the view to the centre of the city. The Spike, Perdido Street Station, Parliament, the Glasshouse dome: all were visible, butting their way over that raised horizon. Opposite the hill, Lin saw miles and miles of Rudewood disappear over uneven ground. Here and there little rock knolls broke free of the leaf-cover. Off to the north there was a long uninterrupted line of sight over to the middle-class suburbs of Serpolet and Gallmarch, the militia tower of St. Jabber’s Mound, the raised tracks of the Verso Line cutting through Creekside and Chimer. Lin knew that just beyond those soot-stained arches two miles away was the twisting course of the Tar, bearing barges and their cargo into the city from the steppes of the south.

Isaac lowered his hands as his pupils tightened.

Whirling over their heads acrobatically were hundreds of garuda. They began to drop, to spiral neatly out of the sky and drop to their clawed feet in rows around Lin and Isaac. They fell thickly from the air like overripe apples.