Tynisa recalled the ill-fated Captain Halrad’s manner, his possessive attitude. If all Wasps thought that way then they would seek to pluck Helleron and hold it close, crush it in their grasping hands until it was good for nothing and nobody. The Wasp Empire, by Halrad’s own words, was no respecter of mutual benefit. The Wasp Empire saw only property to be possessed and enemies to vanquish.

The four of them had dressed themselves up as local peasantry, and Salma and Tynisa had hoods up to shade their faces. If the mysterious Thalric was waiting for them in Helleron, as seemed almost certain, then they were determined to make it harder for him. The city’s daunting size would become their unexpected ally.

Helleron finally fell across them like a shadow. The buildings rose abruptly high on both sides, the air thickening with smoke and the stench of people. Here on the outskirts were those seeking to mimic the commerce of the inner city: little amateur markets selling goods of dubious provenance for small change, itinerant entertainers and charlatans, beggars everywhere. A squad of Ant soldiers drilled in an open space before the city, their masters or employers no doubt tending their business within. Stake-fenced pens advertised the wares of slavers: even though Beetles kept no slaves and allowed none within their towns, more lives were bought and sold in Helleron every day than anywhere else in the Lowlands.

‘Where do you stop?’ Che inquired of the driver of their automotive. He was sitting one level down from them, exposed to the open air just like any real beetle driver.

‘Chancery Street Station,’ he rasped back. ‘Got a big depot there, they have.’

‘Excuse me, but do you happen to know Benevolence Square?’ she continued. It seemed the easiest way, although she was sure an experienced agent would have had a more subtle way of doing it.

He did indeed, and although the way was long, they had only to follow one of the outer circula, as he called Helleron’s ringroads, in order to come to it.

‘You can’t miss it,’ their driver assured them. ‘The old Benevolence place has got two great big skeletons all over it.’

That sounded unlikely, but they disembarked as instructed, having no directions to trust save his. The tide of busy humanity that was Helleron immediately engulfed them, and in the first moments Che was nearly ripped away from her companions and hauled off down the street by the simple crush of people, each one a slave to his destination. The four of them huddled together, feeling cowed by such a press. Great vehicles, beasts and wagons crawled past them to one side, the walls leered down to the other. A succession of short-tempered people buffeted them as they stood in the way, a stone in the course of the human stream.

Tynisa signalled that they should move on, and they found their way into the flow, bustled along at an undignified pace. The people around them seemed mostly workers and small traders. They looked close mouthed and sullen, minding their own business and never looking at each other. Passing on, the wall to one side gave way to a succession of small workshops: a cobbler, a piece-maker, a sharpener, a leatherworker, men and women hard at work with solid, uncomplaining, joyless faces.

Salma’s face, too, was wrinkled up. ‘I can’t understand how they live with the smell of themselves,’ he complained. ‘The smell of the air… it’s like it’s been burned and then sweated out.’

‘Let me guess, they don’t have… factories or anything like that, where you come from,’ Totho said.

‘And how thankful I am for it,’ said Salma. ‘We may have our vices but this mayhem isn’t one of them. I don’t even know if there’s a name for what vice this is.’

‘Helleron,’ Tynisa suggested. ‘There’s your name.’

Totho shrugged, as best he could in the crush. ‘Well, I think it’s… it’s got promise. I’d like to work here. Everything ever manufactured is made here. What do you think, Che?’

She felt rather guilty in the face of his enthusiasm, but she replied, ‘Collegium for me, every time.’

‘And that must be the Benevolence,’ Salma said suddenly. Ahead of them, past a line of near-identical inns and stables, lay a square. The largest building fronting it was facing them as well. The driver had been wrong, however: there was only one skeleton patterned in pale bricks amongst the darker stone. The other figure depicted a woman, austerely offering her hand to the same cadaver. The ‘old Benevolence place’ had been an almshouse once, offering succour to the needy, the destitute, the sick and the mad. Now it was a workhouse, where any succour was bought with a hard day’s labour. There was little enough going free in Helleron.

Salma struck without warning, his fingers pincering the wrist of a boy even as the child was putting a hand into his pocket. There was a fraught moment, for the child produced a blade, and then Che saw it was not even a child, but a Fly-kinden adult got up in child’s clothing. A long look passed between Salma and the wretch, and then the Dragonfly let him go, and the man was immediately lost in the crowd.

‘You should have called the watch,’ Che said.

Salma gave her a bleak look. ‘Just having to live here seems punishment enough.’

‘There are an awful lot of people here,’ sighed Tynisa. ‘How are we going to find this Bolwyn individual?’

‘We’ve missed him,’ Salma said. ‘He’d be expecting us off the Sky Without which must have got in… Totho?’

‘Yesterday,’ Totho guessed.

‘We have to hope that he’ll come here again to look for us. So let’s get up on the steps of the big place over there, and watch for him. And if he doesn’t come today, what’s left of it, we’ll try it again tomorrow. If that doesn’t work then we’ll make other plans. What other plans, though, I don’t know.’

‘I’ve got some relatives in Helleron,’ Che suggested. ‘I can probably remember their name, given a minute. Someone must know where they live.’

‘It’s a fallback, possibly,’ Salma confirmed. ‘Now, eyes on the crowd, and try not to look suspicious.’

There was no Bolwyn that day, or if he was there at all, they missed him. They ate unpalatable food from even less palatable vendors, and when the smoggy gloom deepened into night they sought refuge at one of the inns, only to find its prices unheard of, so that their communal wealth would barely buy them enough space on the common-room floor. Che then remembered that they had passed a Keepers’ wayhouse coming in, and they tangled back through the gaslit streets trying to find it. They were not the only ones abroad after sundown, for at first they encountered guardsmen with oil-burning lamps and crossbows, but only in those areas where the residents had wealth worth protecting. The other nocturnal pedestrians were involved in darker trades, either practising them or seeking to buy. The four soon had plenty of offers in their short journey, from the pleasures of the flesh to drugs and potions to small valuables whose current owners were anxious to part with them.

The wayhouse, found at last, promised no better accommodation than any of the inns, but it was to be had for the price of a reasonable donation, and they could rest easy there without the fear of getting their throats cut. The Keepers were a charitable order, originally from Collegium, which had spread throughout the Lowlands as part of the great upswell of humanist philosophy a century ago, when good deeds had been fashionable, and the wealthy competed in funding public works. The benevolent way of life still endured in Collegium, but apart from the grey-robed Keepers there was little enough of it to be seen in Helleron.

The next day, halfway to noon, Salma spotted their man.

They had been taking it in turns to stand up and stare, the others meanwhile sitting on the steps of the Benevolence, as many did. No beggars there, though. From time to time a pair of Ants with clubs dangling at their belts came out from inside, and anyone who could not show them at least a coin or two was thrown off roughly. The Benevolence provided only one form of charity for the poor, which was earned with hard graft.