The pair move out of the constrictive alley. Two shades drifting from the well guarded square abutting the Inn that are then fast swallowed by the tangle of masonry and meander. 

The air here tastes of perpetual petrichor.

Where the cool fog from the Great Lower Sea lazily paints ancient curtains of dripstone, high above in the obscuring gloam.

After a little while the overbearing scent of spoiling and charring bees-wax and tallow is sudden. 

Sweet, sour-burnt and caramel rolling over the wending way where they begin to descend towards the Sea. At times nostril-searing and cloyingly unbearable.

Umin gazes upwards, and is able to pick out from this nearer place, the great iron nails and stygian-stained, ship-long planks and molded pillars of the Gate. Row upon row of candlestick and torch crackling and hissing, bleeding wax and spark. 

It is said that Weave Craft from out the First Foundations still maintains an ever-enduring fire upon the point of every wick and rag. 

Down farther they move, along carved terraces of gleaming pale-washed low buildings and structures, to where malodorous tanneries and dye houses huddle along narrow strips of the silty shore.

Hoveling close to the foot of the Gate. 

There are but few fellow vagabonds at this hour. Most folk shut away in slumber until the sounding of the fourth-bell.

What few bundled and secretive figures the pair do pass, pay them little heed or tacitly avoid their passage. 

After a further few turns, a sudden placard. 

Cut in pretty, winding deep-vines, flasks and aglow with carved floral patterns. 

Senic Ponopho’s Perfumery.

Here beside a tall door, shut against the hour, is a modest but bubbling and bejeweled shrine to A’shis, Lady of Scents.

To whom earthy goat’s milk yet warm from the udder is often sacrificed in the womb of shallow painting-bowls.