With a sign depicting the two small satellites that orbited the moon as pretty, rather tawdry-looking young women, and a façade painted in deep scarlet, The Moon’s Daughters was shabby but attractive. Inside, its clientele consisted of the more adventurous of the city’s bohemians: artists, thieves, rogue scientists, junkies and militia informants jostling under the eyes of the pub’s proprietor, Red Kate.

Kate’s nickname was a reference to her ginger hair, and, Isaac had always thought, a damning indictment of the creative bankruptcy of her patrons. She was physically powerful, with a sharp eye for who to bribe and who to ban, who to punch and who to ply with free beer. For these reasons (as well, Isaac suspected, as a small proficiency with a couple of subtle thaumaturgical glamours), The Moon’s Daughters negotiated a successful, precarious trail evading any of the competing protection rackets in the area. The militia raided Kate’s establishment only rarely and perfunctorily. Her beer was good. She did not ask what was being discussed in huddles and knots at corner tables.

That night, Kate had greeted Isaac with a brief wave, which he had returned. He had gazed around the smoky room, but the person he had been seeking was absent. He had made his way to the bar.

“Kate,” he shouted over the din. “No sign of Lemuel?”

She shook her head and handed him, unbidden, a Kingpin ale. He paid and turned to face the room.

He was rather thrown. The Moon’s Daughters was Lemuel Pigeon’s office, as near as dammit. He could usually be relied on to be here every night, wheeling, dealing, taking a cut. Isaac guessed he was out on some dubious job or other. He paced through the tables aimlessly, looking for someone he knew.

Over in the corner, grinning beatifically at someone, wearing the yellow robes of his order, was Gedrecsechet, the librarian of the Palgolak church. Isaac brightened and headed towards him.

He was amused to see that the forearms of the scowling youth arguing with Ged were tattooed with the interlocking wheels that proclaimed her a Godmech Cog, doubtless attempting to convert the ungodly. As Isaac drew closer the argument became audible.

“…if you approach the world and God with one iota of the rigour and the analysis you claim, you’d see that your pointless sentientomorphism would simply be untenable!”

Ged grinned at the spotty girl and opened his mouth to reply. Isaac interrupted.

“Pardon me, Ged, for butting in. Just wanted to say to you, young Flywheel, whatever you call yourself…”

The Cog tried to protest, but Isaac cut her off.

“No, shut up. I’ll say this very clearly…piss off. And take your rigour with you. I want to talk to Ged.”

Ged was giggling. His opponent was swallowing, trying to maintain her anger, but she was intimidated by Isaac’s bulk and cheerful pugnacity. She gathered herself to go with a semblance of dignity.

As she stood, she opened her mouth with some parting shot she had clearly been preparing. Isaac pre-empted her.

“Speak and I’ll break your teeth,” he advised amiably.

The Cog closed her mouth and stalked off.

When she was gone from view both Isaac and Ged burst into laughter.

“Why do you put up with them, Ged?” howled Isaac.

Ged, crouched like a frog before the low table, rocked back and forth on his legs and arms, his big tongue flapping in and out of his huge loose mouth.

“I just feel sorry for them,” he tittered. “They’re so…intense”

Ged was generally held to be the most anomolously good-humoured vodyanoi anyone had ever met. He had absolutely none of the glowering snappiness typical of that cantankerous race.

“Anyway,” he continued, calming down a little, “I don’t mind the Cogs nearly as much as some. They don’t have half the rigour they think they do, of course, but at least they’re taking things seriously. And at least they’re not…I don’t know…Compline or Codling Brood, or something.”

Palgolak was a god of knowledge. He was depicted either as a fat, squat human reading in a bath, or a svelte vodyanoi doing the same, or, mystically, both at once. His congregation were human and vodyanoi in roughly equal proportions. He was an amiable, pleasant deity, a sage whose existence was entirely devoted to the collection, categorization, and dissemination of information.

Isaac worshipped no gods. He did not believe in the omniscience or omnipotence claimed for a few, or even the existence of many. Certainly there were creatures and essences that inhabited different aspects of existence, and certainly some of them were powerful, in human terms. But worshipping them seemed to him rather a craven activity. Even he, though, had a soft spot for Palgolak. He rather hoped the fat bastard did exist, in some form or other. Isaac liked the idea of an inter-aspectual entity so enamoured with knowledge that it just roamed from realm to realm in a bath, murmuring with interest at everything it came across.

Palgolak’s library was at least the equal to that of the New Crobuzon University. It did not lend books, but it did allow readers in at any time of the day or the night, and there were very, very few books it did not allow access to. The Palgolaki were proselytizers, holding that everything known by a worshipper was immediately known by Palgolak, which was why they were religiously charged to read voraciously. But their mission was only secondarily for the glory of Palgolak, and primarily for the glory of knowledge, which was why they were sworn to admit all who wished to enter into their library.

Which was what Ged was gently complaining about. The New Crobuzon Palgolak Library had the best collection of religious manuscripts known in the world of Bas-Lag, and it attracted pilgrims from a huge variety of religious traditions and factions. They thronged the northern ends of Brock Marsh and Spit Hearth, all the worshipping races of the world, in robes and masks, sporting whips, leashes, magnifying glasses, the whole gamut of religious paraphernalia.

Some of the pilgrims were less than pleasant. The viciously anti-xenian Codling Brood, for example, was growing in the city, and Ged saw it as his unfortunate sacred duty to assist these racists who spat and called him “toad” and “riverpig” in between tracing passages from their texts.

Compared to them, the egalitarian Godmech Cogs were a harmless sect, even if their belief in the mechanicity of One True God was aggressively asserted.

Isaac and Ged had had many long arguments over the years, mostly theological, but also over literature and art and politics. Isaac respected the friendly vodyanoi. He knew him to be fervent in his religious duty of reading and, accordingly, hugely knowledgeable about any subject Isaac could think of. He was always at first a little circumspect with opinions about the information he shared-”Only Palgolak has enough knowledge to offer analysis” Ged would proclaim piously at the start of an argument-until three or so drinks had obscured his religious non-dogmaticism and he would hold forth at the top of his voice.

“Ged,” Isaac asked. “What can you tell me about the garuda?”

Ged shrugged, and he grinned with pleasure at imparting what he knew.

“Not very much. Bird-people. Live in the Cymek, and the north of Shotek, and the west of Mordiga, reputedly. Maybe also on some of the other continents. Hollow bones.” Ged’s eyes were fixed, focused on the remembered pages of whatever xenthropological work he was quoting. “Cymek garuda are egalitarian…completely egalitarian, and completely individualistic. Hunters and gatherers, no sexual division of labour. No money, no rank, although they do have sort of uninstitutional ranks. Just means you’re worthy of more respect, that sort of thing. Don’t worship any gods, although they do have a devil-figure, which may or may not be a real eidolon. Dahnesch, it’s called. Hunt and fight with whips, bows, spears, light blades. Don’t use shields: too heavy to fly with. So they sometimes use two weapons at once. Have the occasional rumble with other bands or species, probably over resources. You know about their library?”