Not everything, once broken, can be mended.
‘ What?’ Carnelian said, exasperated. He heard the lepers behind him reacting to the tone of his voice.
‘I will say nothing further except directly to the Lord Nephron.’
Aurum, the very image of unbending arrogance, stoked the fires of revenge in Carnelian’s heart. He imagined turning to address the Lepers. Announcing to them that he whom they most hated stood there before them, within their power. They would seize him. He would watch as the Unclean put their hands upon a Ruling Lord of the Great. Perhaps they would tear his black cloak from him, his mask. Stripping the monster of his terrible, unholy power. Exposing him to their pitiless stares. For a moment Carnelian savoured it. The humiliation of the old Master he loathed; but then Aurum’s words began to soak through his fantasy. Could it really be possible that the Ichorian Legion was bearing down on them? If so it presaged immense political upheaval in Osrakum. He tried to get hold of the politics, but his mind glanced off the complexities. He could not resolve how such a thing could have come to pass. This failure further weakened his confidence. Aurum’s capture by the Lepers might lead to chaos. What if his legion reacted to defend him? Osidian would launch the attack. Lily and her people on the other flank could have no idea what had happened. The situation would ignite into a fiery holocaust. Even if Osidian were victorious, they would be maimed – and then have to deal with the Ichorian. If, that was, Aurum spoke the truth; but if not, why was he here? What could he hope to achieve with such an implausible lie?
‘Your silence, my Lord, does not impress me,’ said Aurum, seeming to rise even taller, holding his staff as if he were wearing a court robe in the Halls of Thunder.
Carnelian regarded him, lusting to tear down this imperious presence. If he did not destroy him now, what would come of his decision? Thrice before he had spared those in his power: the Maruli on the road to Osrakum, Ravan, Osidian. The consequences had been death and massacre.
He glanced round at Fern, who had suffered the greatest loss from his decisions. A movement from Aurum made him turn back. The Master was already starting towards his aquar. ‘My Lord.’
The Great Lord looked round, his mask catching fire from the sun down its right-hand side.
‘Return with me to my huimur, my Lord. Do this as an act of good faith and Nephron will talk to you.’
Reluctance was written in the cast of Aurum’s shoulders. Anger rose in Carnelian. Here at least he had a battle he could fight to win. ‘Nephron suspects treachery or else he would be here himself. He has no reason to love you, my Lord. It might be better if you were to remember that neither have I.’ There was a Master’s authority in Carnelian’s voice that surprised him. Nevertheless, he meant what he said.
For some time they faced each other in what he felt was a contending of wills. He had drawn his line and would not retreat. At last he noticed Aurum’s shoulders relaxing a little. His mask scanned the ranks of Lepers behind Carnelian as if he were seeing them for the first time. ‘What manner of creatures are those?’
‘Inhabitants of the valleys below.’ Carnelian took pleasure in telling Aurum this. He hoped it would stir fear in his black heart. Instead the Great Lord reacted with a gesture of disgust.
‘I had hoped I had succeeded in destroying all the vermin.’
The rage boiling up in Carnelian overflowed. Almost he forgot his decision and threw the Master to his victims, but he mastered himself. ‘My Lord should take care. These people have reason to hate him, bitterly.’
Aurum laughed. ‘Since when do we who are Chosen concern ourselves with the feelings of inferiors?’
Carnelian smiled a cold smile behind his mask. Let the monster feel invulnerable, for the moment. ‘My Lord is free to return to his host. We can settle this business with fire.’
Aurum’s free hand rose in a half-formed gesture of appeasement whose speed belied its casual framing. ‘I shall come with you, my Lord.’ He summoned his aquar and his slaves. They brought the creature and made it sink to the red earth. As Aurum climbed back into his saddle-chair, Carnelian watched how heavily the old Lord leaned upon his staff.
‘Who is this Master?’ Carnelian turned to Fern, who it was had spoken, hearing the suspicion in his voice. ‘Aurum,’ he said, then had to endure the look Fern gave him of shocked disbelief.
Once more aboard Earth-is-Strong, Carnelian stood behind his command chair in which the Lord Aurum was sitting. He had offered it to him in pity for his condition. He resented feeling any sympathy for the old bastard but, after watching with what difficulty he had scaled the ladders up to the command deck, Carnelian could not bring himself to force the old man to stand leaning on his staff against the sway of the cabin. Besides, he preferred not to have the monster behind him.
He had had his Lefthand send a message to Heart-of-Thunder telling Osidian he had Aurum in his cabin. Osidian’s only reply had been: ‘Stand fast in the battleline.’
Attar of lilies was rising from Aurum’s black-shrouded form. As always, Carnelian’s gorge rose at the smell. It brought forcibly to mind the days of his near imprisonment in the old man’s chambers with their clocks and mirrors. Other, earlier memories seeped in unbidden, of his father, wounded, on their journey to Osrakum. Carnelian realized he was reminded of the sickening odour of rotting blood that had come off his father then. Though he could not consciously smell it now, he became convinced Aurum was using perfume to disguise some similar decay.
He had to stop being distracted. Quite apart from Aurum’s news, they had a crisis threatening here. How long would it be before the Lepers demanded to have their enemy delivered to them? It seemed to him unlikely Osidian would comply.
A command came from Heart-of-Thunder, demanding Aurum send instructions to his huimur. For some moments the old Master sat motionless as if he had not heard the Lefthand but then, without turning, he began to speak. His commands were broadcast from the roof towards his dragons, bidding his commanders descend from their towers and, leaving their crews, take all further orders from the Lord Nephron. Aurum terminated his message with his command code. Carnelian felt a surge of relief.
Carnelian clambered up the brassman to the leftway, then walked along its ragged, crumbling edge to gaze north. Upon the road, Aurum’s dragons came lumbering, three abreast, their towers bobbing gently like the pendulums of the old man’s clocks. Keeping pace with them, on a parallel course, Osidian’s dragons were shadows obscured by the russet murk they were churning up through the fields. Carnelian looked west, squinting against the low sun. The Leper tide was coming in past the cisterns. He regarded them, wondering what it must be like for them to watch the same dragons that had brought destruction to their valleys now being invited into their camp. He imagined what Lily must be feeling. He would have to do something to keep them placated, at least until he had a chance to find out what was going on.
The clank of ranga striking brass made Carnelian turn. Aurum’s looming bulk was crossing the brassman with the aid of his staff. Reaching the rough stair cut into the rubble of the leftway, the Master paused; his mask, gazing up at the steps, looked like a cold flame. Carnelian gestured to his Hands, standing behind Aurum. They understood him and, coming forward, they offered their assistance to the giant Master. Aurum’s mask, glancing down, caused the men to cower. He floated his arms up and, taking them like the poles of a chariot, they helped him up onto the leftway.
Carnelian approached him, hearing the Master’s breath loud behind his mask. Again he was struck by how weak Aurum had become. It made him angry. He did not want to feel sympathy for his enemy.
Aurum glanced up at the watch-tower. ‘Let us meet down here.’ He struck the cobbles with his staff. Carnelian reminded him that Osidian’s command had been specific. ‘He wants us to wait for him up there.’ He pointed up at the heliograph platform. For a moment the Master seemed again granite, then his shoulders softened. He bowed his head, nodding, so that his cowl slid forward to quench the cold fire of his mask.
As they entered the watch-tower together, the roar of the camp faded, even as, in the confined space, Aurum’s breathing grew louder. Its rasp marked the labour of each step. Carnelian’s hands rose to give the old man support, but he pulled them back as if they had been about to betray him. He made himself recall Crail, whom this Lord had had maimed to death. The memory of that loss made Carnelian glance up the hollow core of the tower. Poppy was up there. Fear that she might fall foul of the Master possessed him.
‘My Lord, I shall go ahead to make sure the way is clear.’
Aurum’s gloved hands clung to his staff. He seemed too busy struggling with his breathing to respond. Carnelian climbed the first ladder. When he reached its top he glanced down to make sure Aurum was following him. The Master was halfway up, each rung wringing a groan from him. Steeling himself against compassion, Carnelian began climbing the next ladder.
Entering their cell, Carnelian saw two small heads wedged into the slits that looked down onto the camp. The heads pulled back and turned. Carnelian was struck by the shocking contrast between Poppy’s face and the wizened face of the homunculus. She plucked the little man’s blinding mask up from the bed and handed it to him; he put it on. Carnelian could not help smiling; not only at how the homunculus obeyed her, but at how he himself would now follow her implied command. He released his mask.
The severe look in Poppy’s eyes drove away all amusement. ‘Whose are the new dragons?’
Recently her voice had become more womanly. At such forceful speech in the tongue of the Ochre, Carnelian felt as if Akaisha and the other Elders were in the cell, judging him.
‘They’re Hookfork’s, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
Poppy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is he here?’
‘He is.’
‘You’re going to give him to Lily?’
‘It’s- There are-’ Carnelian grew angry. ‘There are things you don’t understand.’
Her eyes were burning into him. He and she had been here before with horrific consequences. Her anger was justified. His was fired by guilt. ‘Look, I don’t understand what’s happening myself. I need- We need to know more before we act and I’m scared of what the Lepers might do.’
‘With good reason,’ she said.
‘I will talk to them, but not until I know more.’
Her expression softened. ‘Do you want me to go and do what I can to keep them calm?’
Carnelian shook his head. ‘It’s not safe for you to move through the tower alone. Besides, you would have to go through the stables.’
She paled, for she knew what was down there.
‘Can you please just stay here?’
When she nodded, he took his leave of them both and, making sure they could not be seen from the hallway, he slipped out. He stood for some moments, his back to the door, telling himself she would be safe, then he advanced on the ladder that led to the roof.
Aurum was seated with his back to the heliograph, recovering from the ordeal of his climb. Carnelian moved to the edge of the platform and gazed down into the mass of Marula camped at the foot of the tower. In their midst stood the twenty or so black-robed Masters: Aurum’s Lesser Chosen commanders. Carnelian felt as if he had left his heart behind in the cell with Poppy. He feared he might stray into betraying not only her, but also the Lepers and the Plainsmen, by dealing with the monster, Aurum. And it would be not only the living he betrayed, but also the dead.
Below, Osidian’s dragons were manoeuvring into their positions in the circular rampart they made every night, facing out towards the land. Beyond lay the grey mass of the Lepers huddling down, as the waves of dust beat upon them from the passage of Aurum’s dragons on a course to somewhere beyond the cisterns.
When Osidian climbed onto the edge of the platform, he dismissed the lookouts from their deadman’s chairs. As he advanced on Carnelian and Aurum, the lookouts clambered down out of sight.
Aurum, who had risen, bowed as deeply as he could, pulling himself back erect with the help of his staff. ‘Celestial.’
Though the old man was the taller, it was Osidian who seemed to loom, a black tower crowned by the muted sun of his mask. He reached up and began unfastening it. Masking Law dictated Carnelian and Aurum must do the same. When Carnelian’s face was naked, he watched Aurum attempting to remove his mask one-handed. The bony hand he had ungloved fumbled at the fastening. The joints of his fingers were swollen red. Watching the procedure, Carnelian had to resist an impulse to help him.
As the gold shell came away, Carnelian stared in horror at Aurum’s face. For a moment it seemed that of one of the Wise looking back at them. Aurum’s wizened, sallow skin looked hardly thick enough to stop his skull tearing out. Cheekbones, chin, the rims of his eye sockets were all a geometry of blades. His lips revealed the pattern of the teeth behind. His eyes, blue ice sunk deep. Ice that had a blinding bloom of frost.
‘Why, my Lord, do you defect to me?’
Carnelian did not turn to Osidian, but kept his gaze upon Aurum’s withered face. He remembered how once it had been cracked like a fine porcelain glaze. Now the cracks had deepened, uniting around the mouth and eyes into fissures resembling those that cut into the margin of the Guarded Land.
‘Celestial, I would speak to you alone.’
Rage rose in Carnelian. Once before he had been excluded from hearing what Aurum had come to say.
‘Lord Suth will remain here,’ said Osidian.
Aurum gave a muted shrug. ‘I have come, Celestial, so that together we can defeat the Ichorian.’
Shock overturned Osidian’s composure. ‘The Ichorian?’
‘Even now it is only days away from here under Imago’s command.’
‘Jaspar?’ Carnelian said.
Osidian’s head cocked to one side as he frowned. ‘Osrakum is undefended?’
‘Apparently, the Great have chosen to garrison the Gates with their tyadra.’
Carnelian imagined his brothers at the Gates with all the other guardsmen of the Great. What part had his father played in these events?
Osidian’s face pulled back into the shadow of his cowl. ‘How came the Clave to sanction this?’
Aurum began some vague gesture with his clawed hand. ‘Of course, Celestial, I did not witness their deliberations, but I believe Imago had been urging them to send the Ichorian against you for some time. His thesis seems to have been that, the Lesser Chosen having witnessed your election, the Great dare not trust to them any force dispatched to defeat you.’
Osidian’s frown deepened.
‘It will not surprise you, Celestial, to hear that the Clave long resisted him. Until, that was, the commanders of Qunoth were brought before them with the forbearance of the Imperial Power. There they claimed you had issued an edict enfranchising all their kind.’
Carnelian went cold. Was it, then, the act of mercy he had urged upon Osidian that had brought this thing about? He glanced at him, expecting to be accused, but Osidian’s eyes seemed more opaque than Aurum’s. Carnelian felt a need to put fire into their discussion. ‘I had believed Imago’s faction to be weak in the Clave, but if I understand you rightly, my Lord, they have made him He-who-goes-before.’
Carnelian half expected the old Master to ignore him again, but Aurum turned and seemed almost eager to answer him. ‘He had the support of Ykoriana.’
‘He has had that before and it was not enough.’
‘He did not before have use of her rings.’
Carnelian frowned, trying to make sense of this. Aurum was speaking of her voting rings. Surely these could not be used in the Clave?
‘She married Imago?’
Carnelian heard the disbelief in Osidian’s voice, but his face was lit by shock.
The membranes of Aurum’s lips slid back over his yellowed teeth. ‘Indeed, Celestial, after she had divorced the God Emperor.’
Carnelian looked from the old man to Osidian, but there were no answers there. He turned back to Aurum. ‘Does she fear Osidian so much?’
Before Aurum could answer, Osidian spoke. ‘Why would the Wise reveal that I had survived to my mother?’
The answer to this at first seemed clear to Carnelian: it was the arrival of the Qunoth commanders that had betrayed Osidian’s existence. But then Carnelian recalled that Aurum had claimed the Clave had already been discussing the situation for some time. He followed Osidian’s glare to Aurum’s face. The flame of life in the old man seemed to gutter. For a moment he might have been a Sapient wearing eyes of unpolished sapphire.
‘It was the God Emperor who informed her, but it was I who had sent Them a letter.’
Osidian snorted.
Aurum came back to life. ‘I will make no apologies, Celestial. After Legions’ schemes failed, I was left in an untenable position. The letter was the regrettable conclusion of calculation.’
Osidian’s lips curled. ‘I had not assumed you joined me from love. What further calculation is it that brings you here, my Lord? Is it possible you believe that I will triumph?’
Though Osidian’s stance and tone were communicating contempt, Carnelian knew him well enough to feel certain there was something else underneath. It made him sad. His heart told him Osidian really was hoping the reasons the old monster had come were love and faith in him.
Aurum had a predatory gleam in his eyes. Detecting Osidian’s weakness, he was devising a way to exploit it. Carnelian sought to cut him off. ‘We know that cannot be why you have come, my Lord. It is some far more squalid motive that impels you.’
Aurum looked as if he was about to spit venom, but then his face became again an icy mask. ‘Suth Carnelian is correct. It is inconceivable you will triumph, Celestial.’
‘So why have you come, Aurum?’ Osidian said, rallying.
Aurum’s free hand sketched an elegant gesture, but his face grew brittle with malice. ‘I have harboured contempt for those of my peers who saw fit to bow to the Empress and the Wise and conspired with them to send me into exile, but that is nothing to the disgust I now feel that they have become so subservient as to send the Ichorian from the canyon. All my life I have striven to maintain our ancient privileges against the encroachment of the other Powers.’ His hand curled into talons. ‘But I have lost my faith in the Great and what I now do I do for my own advantage. I come here because I have made a compact with the Wise.’
Osidian sneered at the old man. ‘Your speech is filled with patrician pride, my Lord Aurum, but your long service to the Wise makes it clear that your House would be more comfortable among the Lesser Chosen.’
Some colour oozed into Aurum’s deathly face. ‘I would have thought my Lord would understand how circumstances can conspire to force one into unwanted alliances. I can see in your face how low you have fallen and I already knew what squalid accommodations you have had to stomach.’
Carnelian stepped between them. ‘My Lords, we have all suffered humiliations, but what shall it profit us to cast these in each other’s faces?
He was glad to see their composure returning. Aurum made a vague gesture of apology. ‘The Lord Suth is not in error. We have the same enemies and have both been the playthings of the Wise. You have no doubt encountered Grand Sapient Legions?’
Carnelian sensed the old Master was returning to his sly game.
‘It was he who forced me to make an appearance of defending Makar. He assured me it would bring you into his power.’ Aurum’s taloned fingers closed into a fist.
Osidian shrugged and, though he spoke offhandedly, Carnelian felt he was watching Aurum carefully. ‘It was we who took him. Even now he dreams here beneath our feet.’
Though the old Master appeared uninterested in this, he could not help glancing down as if he might see the Grand Sapient through the watch-tower roof. ‘When he sent me no signal, I guessed he had failed. It was that which made me reconsider my position. I decided it was perilous to continue my alliance with the Wise. In my dealings with them, I had come to suspect that, behind the adamantine unity they present to us, there lie fractures. Though Legions had been for a long time dominant among the Twelve, there were other factions. With him out of contact, who knew what would happen? Certainly, I did not wish to fall victim to their calculations. I risked everything in a direct appeal to the God Emperor.’
‘You were a fool to put your trust in my brother. He has always been my mother’s creature. Though I confess to some surprise that being made the Gods has not put iron in his backbone.’
Aurum nodded. ‘We both have reasons to hate your mother, but not only her. You must be aware of the part Imago played in your abduction.’ The Master glanced at Osidian, perhaps hoping that this was news to him. ‘Though you suffered most from that, Celestial, I too suffered. When your brother cheated you of the Masks, I too was cheated who had risked so much in your cause. Remember, Celestial, that both of us have suffered exile.’ He glanced at Osidian again, but he seemed impassive. ‘So, Celestial, even if only for these reasons, we might both enjoy destroying Imago.’
Osidian smiled coldly. ‘I can see, my Lord, why you have had need to once more become the tool of the Wise, but you have not yet explained to me why I should share that choice.’
Aurum grew very still, giving Carnelian the feeling that they were finally coming to the core of his intention. ‘Celestial, even if you did not wish to pull Imago down and, through him, your mother; even if you cared nothing for the way she is subverting the Balance; still you would have no choice.’
Osidian groaned. ‘Was it the Wise who told you that?’
‘Grand Sapient Lands who is now regnant among the Twelve has informed me of his conviction that we can defeat Imago. He bade me tell you that, for all its fearsome reputation, the Ichorian is more accustomed to ceremonial than it is to war. Our two legions of the line would already be more warlike than the Ichorian, but have, besides, the unique experience of having confronted huimur against huimur.’
‘I deny none of this, my Lord, but why am I bound to fight?’
‘Because, Celestial, it is the only chance you have. You have reached the zenith of your stolen power. If you retreat, your strength will ebb. Defeat will become inevitable.’
Carnelian looked to Osidian, willing him to deny this, but he seemed peculiarly inert. Carnelian turned his attention back to Aurum. He desired to dull the predacious gleam in his eyes. ‘Why was it that you, my Lord, sharing all my father’s crimes, should be merely exiled, while he was deposed?’
It took some moments for the Master to disengage his eyes from Osidian. When he turned to Carnelian he seemed to be thinking of something else. He frowned as if he was hearing Carnelian’s question again, but could not understand it. Then, before he could mask it, a sly expression flitted across his skull face.
Osidian drew the Master’s attention away. ‘My Lord, how far is Imago from here?’
Aurum shrugged. ‘Two days ago I received communication from him claiming he was in Magayon. I know his courier took two more days to locate me. All in all it would surprise me if he was here within anything less than seven days.’
‘He could be here in half that if he marched night and day,’ said Carnelian.
Aurum shook his head. ‘I believe my Lord Imago will be feeling too confident to incommode himself with night marches.’
Nodding, Osidian withdrew into himself. Carnelian watched Aurum watching him. At last the old man spoke. ‘I am weary, Celestial. With your leave…?’
Osidian seemed to wake. ‘I have had a cell prepared for you below.’
Aurum frowned. ‘I would rather return to my huimur tower.’ His free hand began to make a sign, then stopped. He looked anxious, worn out. ‘I have had it modified for my use. It has been my home for so long.’
Osidian regarded him with a frown. ‘Very well. We shall send a signal to your huimur and have it come here to berth alongside this watch-tower. I would not wish to submit my Lord to the inconvenience of having to cross the camp below. However, I will have to insist that once the creature arrives, all its crew should quit it.’
As Aurum and Osidian negotiated over how many of his household he would be allowed to retain, Carnelian sighed with relief that they were not going to have to share their watch-tower with the old monster.
Carnelian stood with Osidian at the edge of the platform watching Aurum’s dragon lumbering towards them. They had summoned it with a signal from the heliograph, using the last rays of the sinking sun. Its lurid disc was forcing Carnelian to squint in spite of the mask he was holding up before his face. Aurum had already begun his painful descent to the leftway. Carnelian reassured himself that Poppy was safe in their cell, then he took a step away from the edge so that he could allow his mask to drop. For a while Osidian did not react. Something about his stillness made Carnelian uneasy. ‘Osidian?’
He still did not move.
‘We need to talk, my Lord.’
At last, he turned. As his mask fell away, his face was revealed. Carnelian’s heart faltered. Such sadness. ‘What ails you?’
‘Have you not heard enough to know?’
‘I thought you wanted this.’
Osidian gave a humourless chuckle. ‘Oh, no, not this.’
‘Can we even be sure he tells the truth? We only have his word that Jaspar is marching here. Perhaps it is another ruse to take you alive.’
Osidian shook his head slowly. Carnelian wondered at his fatalistic certainty. ‘And you would trust him enough to have him fight at our side?’
‘He is as trapped as are we.’
Carnelian gazed out over their camp, all washed with gold. Beyond their dragon wall, the Lepers. They would never accept fighting alongside their most hated enemy. ‘How can we ally ourselves with him?’
‘How can we not? Can you provide me with another legion, Carnelian? Shall we fight the more than fifty huimur of the Ichorian with but two dozen of our own?’
Carnelian struggled to find reasons other than the hatred of the Lepers or his own revulsion. ‘If we must use his huimur, can we not strip him of his command?’
Osidian shook his head and seemed to be seeing someone else before him. ‘There is no time to train their crews to operate without their commanders. We might be able to control the legion through them, but the last time we tried it, you may remember it was not a great success. They are accustomed to taking orders from Aurum. He has been their Legate for years and, as far as they know, has been appointed by the God Emperor.’
Such logic was unassailable. Carnelian felt cornered. ‘Why fight the battle at all?’
Osidian frowning, staring blindly, gave Carnelian hope he was considering an alternative. ‘We could retreat back to Qunoth, or down to the Leper Valleys. The longer we deny Jaspar victory, the more time there is for the political situation in Osrakum to destabilize further.’
Light came back into Osidian’s eyes, as if he had climbed up out of darkness. ‘If Imago secures anything approaching a victory, then not only he but also my mother shall conquer… everything. What would remain to stop her pursuing the Wise for their plotting against her? What was left of the Balance would shatter in her hand. Her power would become absolute.’
‘Only in Osrakum,’ said Carnelian. ‘It is the only world that she cares about.’
‘Can you be sure of that?’
Carnelian realized he could not. Apart from himself, or his father perhaps, every Master he had met was so dazzled by Osrakum that, in comparison, the outer world appeared a colourless miasma. Nevertheless, it was likely he and Osidian had drawn Ykoriana’s gaze out past the Sacred Wall. Even if they were delivered to her, could he be certain she would not vent her bile on the subject peoples? Though he might hate the world as it was, how could he be sure the world remade would not be worse?
Osidian interrupted his thoughts. ‘Even were we to adopt this strategy, it could not hope to work. Wherever we went, the rope would tighten around our throats. We would quickly run out of supplies, without which the huimur would soon lose their strength, their fire. What other forces we had would melt away.’
Osidian shook his head, sadness ageing him. ‘What power we have now, we must use or let it wither in our hand. The Wise have us in a trap I can see no way to escape.’
Desperation made Carnelian irritable. ‘Surely it is the Empress who has ensnared us?’
Osidian shook his head again. ‘It is possible she is as ensnared as we are.’
Carnelian frowned. ‘Are you claiming that the Wise wanted the Clave to send the Ichorian?’
‘It would seem so. Perhaps they did not wish to disrupt their military system. Perhaps my edict has reached more Legates than I imagined. It might even be that, without Legions, the rest of the Twelve are loath to operate his Domain. If, as Aurum claims, Lands is regnant, he might wish to keep that Domain weak. The flows of power among the Twelve are too subterranean to fathom.’
Carnelian had grown increasingly frustrated, as if the snares were catching at his limbs and mind. ‘But what you are saying is that they have deliberately collaborated in the breaking of the Balance.’
‘It was already broken. Aurum’s letter to Molochite put the Wise in my mother’s power. How would you seek to heal such a breakage?’
Carnelian imagined the tripod of the Commonwealth with only two legs. ‘Break it further in the hope of putting it back together as it was before. But, then, why would they send Aurum-?’ Carnelian gaped at Osidian. ‘The Wise want us to defeat Jaspar. If we do, Ykoriana will fall.’
Osidian was staring into the ground. ‘Not only she, but the Great would have failed, for they voted for Jaspar; voted to send the Ichorian.’
Carnelian understood. ‘So each of the Powers would be seen to have played its part in undermining the Balance.’
‘More than this, it would be evident that the House of the Masks was in conflict with itself. Threatening another civil war.’
‘To which the Balance was the original solution…’ said Carnelian, dazzled by the elegance of such a scheme.
‘And would be so again.’
Carnelian saw a problem. ‘But we would still be out here, and now victorious, with the Three Gates poorly defended against us.’
Osidian hunched over. ‘Lands does not believe we will triumph.’
‘But I thought-’ Carnelian understood. ‘We are equally matched.’
‘Yes, we and the Ichorian will destroy each other. Even if we survive, we will be maimed, pitifully weak. None would dare give us aid. Some means will be found to stop me reaching Osrakum alive. The Wise will rebuild the Balance, mortaring it with blood from all three Powers: a three-way sacrifice.’
‘You and Ykoriana; Jaspar… and me…’
‘Do not forget our dear friend Aurum.’
‘But of the Wise…? Legions?’
‘Did you not notice how Aurum reacted when I told him we had the Grand Sapient here?’
Carnelian slumped. ‘So we have already lost.’
Osidian glared, nodding, frowning so hard his birthmark foundered among the creases. ‘Unless I can devise a way to defeat Imago and emerge with our legions unscathed.’
Carnelian gazed at him in hope. ‘Do you believe you can…?’
‘Not by myself.’
For a moment Carnelian thought Osidian was asking for his help, but then he saw Osidian was not looking at him, that he had once more retreated into some inner darkness. ‘Who else…?’
Osidian hung his head and Carnelian knew what he meant to do. He shook his head with horror. ‘You cannot mean to submit yourself to the maggots again?’
Osidian lifted his head. ‘Do you believe I want to do it? Only the God can help me now.’
‘But you can’t-’
Rage flashed in Osidian’s eyes. ‘Have you any other suggestion? Well, do you? I would be happy to entertain any alternative.’
Carnelian had none to offer. ‘What am I supposed to do while I wait for you?’
Osidian shrugged. ‘Maintain order?’
Fear and disgust flared to anger in Carnelian. ‘By which you mean, among other things, that I have to keep the Lepers from getting their hands on Aurum?’
‘If we are victorious, there will be plenty of time after the battle to pay them what I owe.’
They climbed back down into the tower. Carnelian eyed the ladder that Osidian would soon descend. Emotions were twisting in him so fast he could not grab hold of what it was he felt. Unexpectedly, Osidian moved across the landing to open the door that gave into the cell in which the Sapients were lodged. Carnelian followed him in. Osidian unmasked. Carnelian anxiously closed the door before removing his own mask. As Osidian looked round at the capsules leaning against the walls, Carnelian watched his face. There was a sadness there, a quietness. He noted how Osidian held his mask against his body with both hands. Stooping, he laid it upon the floor with such care it seemed he feared to wake the Sapients. He approached the capsule containing Legions’ vague shadow form. He grasped its lid. The seal shattered as he pulled it back to reveal the Grand Sapient standing strapped into the leather hollow, arms crossed over his chest. Osidian gave a nod that might have been a bow, then raised his eyes to the Grand Sapient’s silver mask. Carnelian almost cried out when Osidian reached up. His pale fingers closed around its edges. Carefully he worked it off. Carnelian watched the breathing tube sliding out from the mouth. The mask came free. His earlier notion that Aurum looked like Legions had been wrong. This face was monstrous. A skull to which wet vellum had been plastered. The face of a corpse long dead.
He glanced at Osidian and was arrested by the look in his eyes. They were seeing no horror. Instead, Osidian was looking at Legions with love. Carnelian recalled he had seen that look before, but, with everything that had happened, he had forgotten how Osidian felt. He gazed again upon the object of that regard. He allowed himself to look with compassion. Legions was not a monster, only a mutilated man. Pain was written in his tight, leather skin. And he was ancient, like some wizened, lightning-shattered pine. What spirit lay within that shrivelled husk? What life had this man known? What suffering?
Carnelian turned again to Osidian and felt in his heart just how much he loved this old man. This old man who was losing his purpose, when that purpose was his life.
Osidian bowed again and then tenderly replaced the mask. He reached up and traced the sickle of its crescent horns. He closed the coffin and turned away.
Carnelian, moved, now yearned to save Osidian from his decision. ‘Delay going down until the morning.’
Osidian turned sad eyes on him, but did not speak.
‘Sleep on your decision. Perhaps, unforced, your dreams will gift you the tactics you desire.’
‘Will you stay with me, Carnelian?’
Carnelian’s heart was yielding to the entreaty in Osidian’s eyes, but his memory recalled another time like this: in the Upper Reach before Osidian had gone to the Isle of Flies. Mercilessly, Carnelian quenched his desire and his compassion. There were others who had more call on those than did Osidian the murderer. ‘Delay until morning for your own sake.’
As Carnelian saw Osidian’s eyes harden, so that they seemed to have only the life of emeralds, a resolve arose in him. Once Osidian returned, he would most likely be changed, as he had been the last time. Anything that could be done to bind the monster he would become must be done now. ‘It’s not only the Lepers that have their price, Osidian. I’ve reason to fear the obscene thing you are going to submit to. You will swear to me an oath upon your blood or else I’ll give Aurum up to the Lepers and disband them. Even, I might wake the Grand Sapient and give you to him. For there, perhaps, also lies a way in which I could achieve what I seek.’
‘And what oath is that?’ said Osidian.
Carnelian was taken aback by his sadness, by his mildness. Almost, he would have preferred wrath. ‘Upon your blood, swear that, should we take Osrakum, you shall make certain that neither you, nor any of your servants, nor the Commonwealth shall take any retribution upon the Plainsmen, the Lepers or any barbarian whatsoever, whether ally or enemy to us or to the Chosen.’
‘I swear,’ said Osidian.
‘Upon your blood.’
‘Upon my blood I swear it.’
Then Osidian left the cell and Carnelian followed, wishing he felt that he had actually gained anything. The oath had tamed none of his doubts. He expected Osidian to move to the ladder, but instead he disappeared into his cell. Carnelian watched the door close and stared at it for a moment, filled with painful memory and regrets. At last he turned to the door of his own cell in which, for company, he had only the homunculus and Poppy with her questions.