Ancient sailors saw the sun reflected from Hilde's white chalk cliffs and thought it was the land of the dead. The reflections blinded mariners sailing closer, who navigated to the shore by looking to landmarks behind them, or came during the months-long night. Either way, they crossed over a line they couldn't see.

Once there, their supplies were all they had. If they were visiting -- fighting or prospecting -- ice might capture their ships, stranding them in the waste. If they were settling, they might be caught unprepared by others who'd already gone over to Hilde's savagery. And almost as bad, a desperate, confused presence seemed to permeate everthing.

But compass needles everywhere pointed to Hilde.


Braddock

South of Hedgepeth Gate, Hollin's city wall ran close to the water and became a sea wall, separating the warehouse docks and shipyards from the city proper. Locals called the neighborhood Braddock.

Because it was close to the water, Braddock was a frequent hunting ground for navy press gangs. Press gangs were hardened men, able to handle others without flinching, but they came to the taverns or brothels after dark, collecting drunks. The victims might wake at sea the next day with no way to contact their family. Maybe in retribution, a new gang had started enforcing their own law on the press gangs in the past few weeks. Last night they caught one at Jade, a brothel, and left only one incoherent survivor to report back to the admiralty office.

Press gangs weren't the only ones who came to Braddock at night. Rackham and Braddock's other homeless spent their days at the warehouse docks, picking through whatever refuse sailors swept out of the newly unloaded ships. Ships came back from distant fishing grounds with holds full of salted cod, and sometimes they'd find some good chunks in the piles of swept-out salt. Sometimes they'd find a nail they could resell at the shipyard. Rackham found a brass fixture once that the sailor demanded he give back, but he refused. No craftsman at the shipyard could buy it because it was too valuable, and later the admiralty office took it away when he tried to sell it there.

At night they went uphill to Braddock, and sat in the narrow alley next to Jade, which opened onto Toomey Avenue. From the alley they studied people coming and going from the Mooncalf Inn across the avenue. The level of Braddock's packed dirt streets had gradually risen with the generations, and the Mooncalf was so ancient that street level had risen half way up the entrance, which was now reached by a short descending stair. The basements were a labyrinth of opium dens, so infamous that even visitors arriving from overseas sought them out. The brothels and taverns nearby served the opium dens, too. So there was an endless stream of traffic in and out of the Mooncalf for them to watch.

When they arrived at Toomey tonight a rugged stranger, Durst, was there. At first they begrudged him a spot, but he was modest and approached them with respect. When Durst had been an orphan at the foundling house, he had scavenged at the warehouse docks. Did they know each other then? Soon it was clear, or they let themselves believe, that they had. They began to talk about how the foundling house had burned down soon after the giant squid had washed up near there. Was the squid an agent of evil against man? Could they find old squid and other things in the strata of the earth? The talk of evil and misshapen creatures turned to Hilde. Durst and Rackham had both been there at different times, and an unspoken understanding passed between them.

Soon a press gang arrived outside the Mooncalf. They were a head taller than other men there and looked as inflexible as iron. Durst immediately became riveted and tense, suddenly not hearing the conversation. He unconsciously inched forward to watch as they lined up to file down the stair and go in.

When the last straggler was on the stair, Durst burst out of the alley and covered the ground between them instantly, pulling a cruel hatchet from his jacket in the same motion. He brought it down on the straggler from behind, then a second time, and moved past the lifeless body before it collapsed. As Rackham watched stunned, a hatched-armed silhouette appeared inside in the inn window, overcame another victim, and disappeared.

Durst had been in the opium labyrinth before, but now under pressure he became confused by the dark and the smoke. And sometimes, the smokers' opium dreams materialized in the labyrinth.

The room and the hallways were congested with patrons. They laid on their sides holding their long pipes over oil lamps, and the lamps lit the labyrinth dimly.

He had found a few of his victims by following the swirling tracks they'd left in the smoke, but after a little while he couldn't distinguish their tracks from his own. Then he'd found another by following the smokers' heavy-lidded glances in the direction the sailor had gone. Now he struggled to find the last, and stood doubting the direction.

As he strained to see down the hall, figures materialized in the smoke. The view confounded him -- he saw each figure in profile and frontal at the same time, as if he was seeing them from two places at once. The figures formed chain-gangs, shuffling in lockstep like automatons. One line walked away from him on the ceiling, and one line -- headless captives -- filed toward him. As the headless line reached him he moved past them, avoiding them, and came to a domed roundabout they were filing out of. A crowd of figures there were running a busy market among a few sleeping smokers.

He also saw the last sailor in the roundabout, oblivious to the market around him. The sailor saw him, too, ducking into the corridor nearby and through the door at the end. Durst sprinted after him, across the roundabout and through the door.

Inside, Durst was alarmed to find not just the sailor, but a man standing with his jaw unhinged, stuggling to force a live cat into his mouth. The cat was about halfway in, but fought, scratching violently at the man's chin with its hind claws and whipping its tail wildly. Caught in the act and suddenly afraid, the man focused tensely on Durst with slit pupils, not sure how he would react. A slit-pupiled woman stood nearby with one hand on a cradle, her body coiled too. The two weren't smoke figures, and the sailor, similarly stunned and standing beside Durst, looked to him for a sign of what to do.

But Durst was there for one thing. He spurned the sailor's look, bringing the hatchet down on him. Without looking again at the slit-eyed creatures, he exited and slammed the door behind him. In the hall, he focused on the floor and tried to register what he had seen. Not yet recovered, he looked up and saw Rackham there, standing with a kitchen knife he had taken from the bar upstairs. Apparently knowing what was there, Rackham motioned toward the door with the knife. They steeled themselves and went back in.