The Slab

A towering, rotting warren crammed onto a spit of land where the canal and the bay leave no room to build but upward. Homes are stacked upon homes, front doors open onto other men's bedrooms, and a maze of ladders and tilted floors climbs into perpetual gloom — no map of it exists, and they say any that was ever drawn would drive its reader mad. The Builders' Guild would tear it down; the locals see them off every year. At its heart stands the golden temple, and its miraculous healing doors.