It sits on the south bank of the Ebd river, a gnarled fist grasping the current in fingered bridges, the water flowing over its open palm. Most of the Church is above the river, but the water is harnessed by flow channels, and unknown depths of the holy building exist under the river-turbines and boiler rooms that belch and hiss in the middle of the water. From the outside, the Church looked like a cancer of architecture. It grew, walls expanding, roofs adding domes and towers that grew together until they became walls. The whole structure bristled with chimneys leaking oily smoke, smoke that pooled in the courtyards that surround the Church. Everything around its bulk was smudged black. The ground rumbled with the hidden engines of their god. I could feel it in my heels as we walked up. Emily and I stood outside the penitent’s gate, watching the line of beggars huddled in the flank of the Church. These were men and women who couldn’t afford the upkeep on their cogwork, people with clockwork lungs and oiled hearts who could no longer pay for the licensed coggers in the city.
