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me eat for a minute, before Uchagru said, “By the way, what do you think that soup is? Does it taste familiar?”
    I shook my head. The spices disguised the flavour. “I don’t know.”
    The men were unable to restrain their smirks, and when I saw this I stopped eating.
    “What?” I said.
    Now they were laughing. “You don’t recognise rat when you taste it?” Uchagru barked. “What kind of shaman are you?”
    “An incompetent one,” Yabghu responded. “A fool. ”
    They turned towards Divan Yolu Street. “Keep away from us,” Uchagru said. “And never again call yourself a shaman in our presence.”
    The pair departed. Unable to move, to swallow, almost unable to breathe for the sensation of retching building in my stomach, I watched as a third figure stepped out of the shadows. Atavalens gave me a wave, then led his men away. I bent down to vomit upon the street, until my belly ached and I could bring up nothing more.
    Next day I said nothing. I was aware of tension growing in the group, as if by continuing to appear—by daring to appear—I was distracting the others. But fortune was on my side, for Musseler spent the entire night assessing our progress, and there was no opportunity for friction.
    Yet I felt anger building within me.
    The sootstorm began without warning on the following night.
    It was Yabghu who first noticed the approaching maelstrom. “Look,” he cried, pointing west over the towers and stacks of the central district. I raised my head to see a vast black cloud with edges defined so well they were like geometric diagrams against the sooty mist; heavy on top, slight below, like a funnel. There were a few cries of “Sootstorm!” from passers-by in the street, then hurrying shapes and gyrating parasols as everybody ran indoors.
    We seven dessicators stood alone on Sehzadebazi Street. I watched Atavalens, who was staring at the approaching sootstorm with horror on his face. I approached Yabghu and said, “We’ve only got a minute or two before it hits.”
    Yabghu struck out, slapping me across the mouth with the back of his hand. “Quiet, rat boy. Let the leader think.”
    I took a few paces back, concealing myself in the shadows of a doorway. Atavalens seemed paralysed.
    Then the sootstorm struck.
    I had lived all my life on the streets and knew what to expect, but as I watched Atavalens and the henchmen I realised they did not. Somehow they had managed to avoid street poverty for an unknown alternative—some insular family attached to a citidenizen haunt, perhaps some secret group leaching off other nogoths. Now they were the naive ones! Raknia and the women, I noticed, had followed my example by sheltering.
    A sudden wind blew down the street, bringing the stench of hot soot and ozone. “Hide!” I cried. “Hide before the rain comes!”
    Lightning struck somewhere to the west. Thunder roared, sudden as a dog roused barking from sleep. Veils of soot began to buffet the street, blotting out illuminated windows for a few seconds then revealing them, so that a phantasmagorical display of light and velvet dark shimmered up and down the street. Miniature whirlwinds of soot and debris smashed into buildings. Atavalens and his henchmen, leaning into the wind, made for the nearest shelter, but they were too late. There was a double lightning strike, a clap of thunder, and then the rain came.
    It was like ink. In minutes Sehzadebazi Street was flooded to knee level as a torrent of black water poured down the slope towards the Forum of Tauri. Already there was evidence of destruction: floating parasols, rags and wood, and, inevitably, a body, already drowned.
    With the centre of the sootstorm upon us, the noise became deafening. Lightning struck every few seconds. Atop some sorcerer’s tower there was a flash, then a flower of white flame as stone, wood and a lifetime’s collection of sorcerous items exploded into fragments, sending a halo of debris and silver sparks to the spiralling