A passion for permanence
Is nothing more than a fear of death.
Everything changes.
The wise man lets go.
Lurid fires smouldered in depressions in the ground. The earth was everywhere ploughed up. A drifting mist of smoke and dust tearing across his vision made Carnelian cough behind his mask. At least he had its filters. The dozen or so men he had brought with him were squinting, stumbling around him, wheezing, grimacing, their swords drooping from their hands. Ahead, through the miasma, Carnelian could make out a swathe running east to west that looked like a ridge of debris washed up by a tide of tar. Peering through the eyeslits of his mask, he could make out furtive movements suggesting something there was still alive. He regarded them with more horror than hope. How could anyone have survived that firestorm or the stampede of dragons enraged by their own flesh burning? Though he had managed to herd his half of Jaspar’s dragons away from Fern’s wing into the open space to the west, Osidian’s attack had driven the other half directly into Lily’s wing.
As Carnelian plodded closer each step was more reluctant than the last. He did not want to see, but had no choice. Lily might be there somewhere, still alive. Looking west along the curve of carnage, it was obvious none of her wing had escaped the dragon tidal wave. Even the mounted auxiliaries of their left flank had been overwhelmed. An arc of smoke and dust running from the south round to the north-west showed where Osidian was still carrying on a relentless pursuit. With its flashes of dragonfire, its black angry clouds, it seemed a receding thunderstorm. Carnelian could still feel its tremor in the earth, but there was another, deeper thunder. A slow, rhythmic pounding. He glanced round and saw Earth-is-Strong following him, churning up spiralling tatters of dust, sheets of smoke tearing on her horns, her tower a pale slab upon her back. Her brassman, hanging open, was dangling the rope ladder that danced in time with the monster’s tread. He had left his Hands in charge and told them to follow him at a distance, vigilant for any command he should send them by means of the mirrorman he had brought with him. Poppy was up there. He had had to forbid her to accompany him, putting her in the keeping of the homunculus, whom she had come to respect.
Behind the dragon, dust was fluttering off in russet banners from a ridge moving south-east towards their camp. No smoke there and it was closer to the ground, Fern’s wing riding down the Ichorian aquar who had broken even as Carnelian turned their burning dragons away from them. Perhaps it had been the explosion of the tower, perhaps the flames and smoke and smoulder burning all along their line that had made the Ichorians flee. Carnelian suppressed a fear that Fern and his Lepers and auxiliaries might yet find the Bloodguard more than a match for them. Before he had had a chance to make a choice, they had already sped too far away for him to intervene. So he had detached Earth-is-Strong from the pursuit and turned her towards Lily and the left wing to see what he could do there.
A whiff of burnt flesh made him return his attention to what lay ahead. How could anything in that black strand have survived?
As the miasma cleared, Carnelian saw he had reached the dead. His gaze flitted across the charred carpet of mangled men and aquar hoping not to see anything clearly, but so much blood and shit had soaked the earth it had become too wet to rise as dust. He looked back to where Earth-is-Strong loomed, wreathed in smoke. The rest of the world seemed insubstantial in comparison with the reality at his back. He turned slowly until the edge of the carnage came into view in the corner of his left eyeslit. Most likely, Lily would lie somewhere at the end of that forbidding curve. He began walking. He stopped. ‘Too easy,’ he muttered. He spied what seemed a rock rising from that dark surf. Pale it was, though blackened by the tide. Finding a dark path slicing away through the dead, he set off along it, hardly aware of his attendants lurching after him. He kept his head down, walking around the smoking boulders that were strewn all along the path. It intersected another. Lifting his head, he determined which seemed more likely to lead him to the rock. As he watched his feet, he became aware that the path he walked must be an arc branded into the earth by a scything flame-pipe. The organic shapes of the boulders were threatening to become limbs and torsos and heads. He pressed on, switching naphtha paths, his pale-leathered feet blackening.
He came to a depression filled with brown paste. Its rim of limbs made it seem the remains of some gigantic crab a vast footfall had crushed. Then he saw a torso rising from it: a bag whose contents had been squeezed out to add to the paste. The vomit rose and he struggled to release his mask. Too late. His stomach pumped acid against the barrier of his mask. Vomit thrust up into his nose and oozed out under the chin. Stinging, it choked him. The mask came loose and he almost flung it away. With his free hands he scraped the filth from his face, blew his nostrils clean and gulped at the air. The noisome miasma was so thickened by the stench of decay his lungs clamped tight. Tears in his eyes, blinked clear. He was confronted by the crazed skull-grin of a face stripped by fire of its nose and lips. He doubled over and pumped more vomit out on the ground. His mask was digging into his hand. He glanced at it and saw its gold lips were rouged with filth. He pulled his cowl down over his face and cautiously looked round. The crewmen were all either being sick or reeling, sickly pale, staring blindly. He began to move on, and they staggered after him.
He walked through that realm of filth and death, his stomach clenching in dry heaves. His gaze darted from horror to horror, but there was always more. What steadied his steps was the discovery that some still lived among the dead. Of these, most had faces already greyed with death, but others looked as if they might survive. It gave him a focus: the hope of salvaging something from this atrocity.
At last he came to a region where the irregular contours of the dead gave way to rings. There the Lepers lay fallen in the hornwalls he had taught them to make. Rimmed by the ridged leather cuirasses of the half-tattooed Ichorians, the Leper formations were still unbroken. He felt a manic pride that they had withstood the Ichorian onslaught.
He reached his beacon rock and found it to be a ruined dragon tower heeled over on its roof. Its mast, now a splintered stump, propped it up. Charred and shattered, in places its bone walls had blistered, exposing its decks, spilling its entrails of pipes and ropes and furnaces. The wreck lay in an ooze of naphtha like black blood. Raising his eyes, Carnelian saw the trail of carnage the tower had made as it rolled to a halt and realized he had witnessed its meteor fall. As far as he could see, the earth was clothed by the dead and dying. A moaning exhaling from many throats stirred in him again the need to save those he could.
It was the pale corona of her hair that showed him where she lay. An Ichorian corpse half covering her had torn the shrouds from her head. Carnelian took hold of the man’s black-tattooed arm, then rolled him off. He gaped at Lily. Between her legs a still wet welling of blood glued her shrouds to her thighs and oozed out to join the gore soaking the earth so that, for a moment, it seemed it was her menstruation that had flooded the battlefield. He crouched and, gingerly, pulled aside the cloth looking for a wound. The flesh below was rosy, but whole. The blood was not hers. He moved up her body, peering into her face, smearing red finger-marks on her white hair as he carefully turned her head. A bruise there was already blackening, but under it her skull seemed unbroken. He let go of her as she groaned, eyelids fluttering open. Her ruby eyes stared at him. She frowned in a way that suggested she was not sure what she was seeing.
‘It’s me, Lily.’
Her hands fumbled at him, pushing him away. She sat up, staring around her, confused. There was a lack of comprehension in her eyes as she gazed upon the blacks and scarlets of the Ichorians interleaved with the greys of her people patterning the earth as far as she could see.
A vibration was approaching like a downpour. Lifting his head, Carnelian saw a wall of dust sweeping towards them. He offered her his hand. She took it. Carefully he pulled her up. He watched with concern as she stood, shakily, then together they turned to meet the riders.
The wall of dust began collapsing as it scudded thinning away into the north-east. A mass of riders were revealed scraping to a halt. A few of them were still coming on. When they reached the edge of the fallen they dismounted. Carnelian recognized Fern by his height and gait. He looked for and found, with relief, Krow at his side. As Fern drew closer Carnelian began to notice how dark his hands were, how stained his sleeves. Brown swathes across his chest and his right shoulder. Across his face. Dried blood – though, by the way he moved, not his own. His eyes seemed over-bright in his blood-crusted face as he took in the scale of the carnage. At last his gaze fell on Lily. ‘Are you hurt?’
She did not answer, still blind with shock. Krow had thrown back his cowl. His shrouds too were bloodstained, but only as if he had been too close when Fern had dived into a lake of blood. The rest of their companions were the same; all were staring around them at the dead. Carnelian gazed at Fern. ‘You’ve defeated the Bloodguard?’
Fern refused to look at him. Krow, gazing at him, had pity in his face, but also anger. ‘We drove them onto the road and there, against its wall, we butchered them.’
The skin around the youth’s eyes twitched as if he were seeing it again. Carnelian considered Fern’s averted gaze, wondering what it was Krow was not saying; then Fern glanced up at him and Carnelian knew how it had been. Fern’s shame connected with his own. He understood Krow’s expression. What had just happened was bound up with the massacre of the Ochre. Carnelian knew that Fern had reason to hate the Bloodguard. One of them had killed his father. It was that death and the woundings suffered that day on the road that had led to Carnelian and Osidian being taken into the Earthsky and, ultimately, to the massacre of the Ochre. Still, what a lone Ichorian had done back then could not justify such merciless destruction of his fellows; Carnelian knew in his heart that the rage Fern had unleashed on them should have fallen on Osidian, perhaps even upon himself. And now Fern recognized that he had acted like Osidian: unable to take revenge on those he truly hated, he had vented his fury on those within reach. Almost Carnelian said: But it’s different; Osidian acted in cold blood. He held his tongue. Even if he had wanted to condone massacre, Fern was in no way prepared to hear it condoned. He sought in vain for a way to offer comfort. Finally, it was his heart that spoke. ‘Fern, among this mess many are still alive. Get your men to come and search with us for those we can take back to camp. As for the dying, we can at least release them from suffering.’
Fern and Carnelian connected, wordlessly, but in a way that threatened to overwhelm them with pain. The Plainsman turned and strode back towards his men. Krow jerked Carnelian a nod and a pale smile, then followed him.
Smoke from the burning Marula dead drifted above the camp, smearing out the stars. Their casualties had been relatively light, but Carnelian, sitting at Lily’s side unmasked, was concerned Sthax’s body might be in that pyre. Morunasa had survived; Carnelian had seen him moving among his people.
Consternation among Aurum’s auxiliaries was now spreading to the Lepers. Carnelian glanced round, wearily. What he saw caused him to jump up and cover his face with his mask. Darkness was rolling towards them from the west. His heart pounded as he waited. Vast black shapes were looming up out of the night. If these were dragons the whole camp lay defenceless before them. As the campfire light found horns and bellies, their towers too became clearer. Carnelian counted their tiers, then released a sigh.
‘They’re ours,’ said Krow.
Carnelian announced he must go and talk to the Master and would be back when he could, gave Lily one last look of concern, then made for the watch-tower.
When the two Masters walked out onto Heart-of-Thunder’s brassman, Carnelian’s immediate impression was that the one holding a staff must be Osidian. The weakness evident in the other’s gait seemed more characteristic of Aurum, but as he watched them climb to the leftway, he realized the stronger of the two was Aurum.
Slightly hunched, Osidian raised his mask to Carnelian. ‘You left your legion leaderless, my Lord.’
‘Was I needed for what remained? I assumed you could handle the pursuit without my help. Is Jaspar dead?’
It was Aurum who answered. ‘Whether he is or not makes no difference. Even if he has survived, the stump that is all he has left of the Ichorian poses little threat to us.’
Carnelian regarded the old Lord. Though he still walked with his staff, he no longer leaned on it. He seemed taller and much more like the man who had come to the island. Even his voice had regained its brazen resonance.
Osidian’s hand flew up, shaping a ragged sign: Silence! ‘You left your appointed place, my Lord.’
Carnelian was in no mood to apologize for anything. ‘I sought to do what could be done for our left wing that you caused to be trampled and incinerated by the fleeing huimur.’
‘The destruction of our enemy was my prime concern,’ Osidian said, icily.
‘As it was mine; however, I still managed to direct the flight away from my wing.’ He extended his hand, inviting Osidian to gaze over the camp. It was clear just how many fewer campfires there were than there had been before the battle. It would have been still fewer had he not brought back the wounded. His heart lingered on how the life seemed to have gone out of Lily and sadness quenched his anger. He turned to Osidian. ‘Was all this carnage worthwhile?’
‘With Imago’s failure, my mother will fall. The Great who supported her in this perilous adventure will be discredited. The Wise, already weakened, will be only too aware of what damage we could do to them should we reveal the part they played in this. This defeat is as much theirs as it is my mother’s. The Powers have no choice but to negotiate with me. Even were they not in disarray, they cannot be unaware of how exposed they are to my threat.’
‘You intend, then, that we shall march upon Osrakum?’
Osidian sketched a vague gesture. ‘I do not believe it will come to that. Once they learn of my victory, they will be able to read the board as well as I.’
Carnelian pondered this. ‘How do you intend to communicate the news to them?’
For answer Osidian raised his arm, slowly. ‘I shall send them this and its brothers.’
Hanging from his trembling fingers, a thick band of metal caught the light. It seemed a bracelet, but if so, for an arm of a girth greater even than a Master’s. A waft of iron coming off it made Carnelian look closer. Surely it was gold? He noticed the rings threaded onto its curve. Sliders. A legionary collar, then, with three broken, zero rings.
Aurum’s mask glinted in his cowl. ‘It belonged to a huimur commander. Our commanders will bring us the rest. The Lesser Chosen have little love for the Ichorians.’
Carnelian regarded the trophy. Without the skills the Wise jealously guarded there was but one way it could have been removed from its wearer’s neck.
As he followed Osidian and Aurum into the watch-tower, Carnelian glanced towards the stables ramp. It was the way back to his people and poor Lily. He yearned to be with them, but knew he was too conflicted. His confidence that the victory justified the blood price was ebbing. They would look after each other.
‘Why do you linger, my Lord?’
Carnelian gazed at Osidian with Aurum beside him and wondered how it was he had come to have these two as allies.
‘Has the Grand Sapient already been fed his elixir?’
It took a moment for Carnelian to make sense of the question. Then alarm sparked in him as he realized he had forgotten all about it. ‘The homunculus is down in the camp.’
Osidian nodded. ‘Good. I want him to wake.’
Carnelian was thrown further off-balance. ‘The Grand Sapient? Will that not be dangerous?’
Osidian made a smiling gesture that seemed somehow too soft in his hand to be convincing. ‘Have we not just broken the power of the Wise? I think we can handle one blind, old man.’
Carnelian regarded him. Could the maggots or the victory have made Osidian lose his awe of Legions? More likely this bravado was for Aurum’s sake. ‘Why do you want him awake?’
Osidian made another vague gesture. ‘During the negotiations it might prove useful to have direct access to one of the Twelve.’
Weariness overcame any further attempt at opposition Carnelian might feel he ought to make. There were already enough battles to fight. Besides, in the morning things might appear clearer.
Roaring, the vast wave sweeps in. Hunched halfway out of his dream, he stands in the deepening shadow of the rising dark wall of water bracing for the unbearable weight of its impact.
Carnelian opened his eyes, desperate to escape. The familiar ceiling beam of the cell was an anchor against dread, but the roaring sound was still in his ears, reaching him from the nightmare’s churning depths. He sat up, realizing the sound must be real. He peered out through a slit. Down on the road the Lepers were pouring north. At the margin of their tide, the mounted auxiliaries were herding them. Fear clutched him. It was but a matter of moments before he had put on his mask and pulled his cloak around him, then he left the cell.
Emerging from behind the monolith onto the road, he paused, blinded by the morning, feeling the din as if it were his nightmare wave rearing up before him. Regaining his sight, he saw a torrent of Lepers climbing the ramp onto the road, pouring along it and swirling through the gap in the leftway wall into the land beyond, but it was a gathering of the more than twenty Lesser Chosen commanders that compelled his attention. Forbidding beings, they stood at the centre of concentric rings of prostrate Marula, marumaga legionaries and, further out, auxiliaries. As he approached, an odour of fear wafted up from the abased as they crawled from his path. It gave him the impression he was approaching a pack of predators in possession of something they had brought down. The contrast of their stillness against the Lepers’ storm of motion chilled him most.
Two of the Masters turned. Their gold faces glinting darkly in the shadow of their cowls made them seem to be peering into the world of the living from some remote, infernal realm. As the circle opened for him, he saw a mound of legionary collars piled in their midst.
‘My Lord Suth,’ said one, his deep voice Aurum’s. ‘Behold the evidence of our victory.’
Carnelian glanced at the service collars, the fire of their gold dulled and clotted with gore. He looked up, searching for Osidian. There was a slight inclination in the heads of those Lords that led his eye round to the one inspiring their deference. ‘And Imago?’
‘There are only fifty-two collars here and his body was not found,’ said Osidian.
Carnelian knew there should be fifty-four.
‘If he still lives, he will come to me.’
Carnelian tried to deduce the basis of this certainty. Jaspar had failed not only Ykoriana, but also the Great. He could hardly expect to find succour among the Wise. Thus, all he could hope for now was that he might come to some accommodation with Osidian.
Aurum gazed north. ‘He will be in a nearby watch-tower. The only leverage left to him is controlling communications between ourselves and Osrakum.’ The Master’s tone of contempt was edged with glee.
Osidian shifted and all there turned to see him indicating the collars. ‘My Lord Aurum, oversee the loading of these onto a beast and escort it to the nearest tower. There make arrangements for them to be couriered to the Clave.’
‘Under whose seal, Celestial?’
Osidian removed Legions’ ring from his finger and gave it to Aurum. Carnelian could not see how this could work. ‘Will Jaspar let them pass?’
Osidian made a smile gesture. ‘We have to leave him something to bargain with. I expect we will, quite soon, manage to persuade him to send them along the road under the seal of He-who-goes-before. I shall now climb to the heliograph and attempt to open communications with him.’
‘May I accompany you, Celestial?’ Carnelian asked.
Osidian lifted his hand in assent. The other Lords bowed low as they let them through.
‘What are you doing with the Lepers?’
In the shadow of the monolith, Osidian’s mask had a sinister cast. ‘I have no further need of them.’
Chilled by his tone, Carnelian, glancing out, saw some Leper stragglers moving off along the road and wondered if Lily was once more among them. He denied his dread its hold on him and mustered his strength for a fight. He turned back. ‘You are going to honour the oath you swore to them?’
Disdain was frozen into the gold of Osidian’s mask. ‘The situation has changed. As soon as the supplies I have sent for arrive from Makar, we shall march upon Osrakum. Even if I wished it, there is no time to train Aurum’s crews to replace their Chosen commanders.’
Carnelian understood then from where Aurum’s renewed vigour had come. ‘What have you promised him?’
Osidian made a gesture of dismissal. ‘What is pertinent is that my imminent triumph in Osrakum has made him unconflicted in his support. With him come those he commands.’
‘I did not think you would so easily betray your honour.’
Osidian’s fingers began to curl, but then quickly straightened. ‘There will be time enough to send him back once I have no further use for him.’
Carnelian felt icy fear at where his next question would lead, but he knew he had no choice but to ask it. ‘And what if the Lepers do not accept this?’
‘Do you imagine they are in any position to defy me?’ Osidian turned into the shadows of the stables. ‘Persuade them to leave while they still can.’
Carnelian was left frozen where he stood, watching Osidian become one with the darkness. He could not rid himself of the conviction that the Master who had massacred the Ochre had returned. Were things sliding towards the abyss as they had done before? Osidian had had no further use for the Tribe; they had been in his power too. Lily and her Lepers had become at least as much of an affront to his vision of himself as had been the Ochre. Carnelian felt his fear fraying into panic. How much had this to do with him letting the Lepers take Osidian prisoner? Even without the maggots gnawing at his flesh, this was not the kind of humiliation Osidian left unrepaid. Suspicion arose in him. Had Osidian really lost control in the battle? Had he really been unable to steer Jaspar’s rout away from their left wing? The wing commanded by the woman to whom he had sworn his oath.
Carnelian centred himself. Osidian had not yet moved against the Lepers, though he could have done so easily. There was some hope in that. It seemed his oath still bound him to some extent, but for how long? The Lepers must leave immediately.
The Marula had resumed their guarding of the watch-tower. As he moved through them, they abased themselves. He took his time and was rewarded by a black face momentarily glancing up at him: Sthax showing he had survived.
From the road, Carnelian descended a ramp made from compacted rubble. Larger fragments of the demolished section of leftway formed a boulder field on either side, from which he emerged on the edge of the new Leper camp. Their multitude seemed a colony of gulls. He lingered, gazing at them, wondering if Lily was there and, if she was, how he might find her without exciting a riot. Near the edge of the crowd, a figure rose and must have noticed him, for it came directly towards him. As he recognized it was Fern, Carnelian’s heart misgave. He knew that what he had come to say could only serve to tear open yet again the wound of Fern’s grief. However, it was Fern who would understand better than anyone else what terrible danger the Lepers were in and Carnelian needed all the help he could get to persuade them to leave.
‘Is Lily there?’ he said as Fern came near.
Fern nodded grimly, so that Carnelian became afraid for her. ‘Has she recovered?’
‘As much as can be expected. Wait here and I’ll bring her to you.’
Carnelian watched Fern as he returned to the crowd. When he came back, there was a smaller shrouded figure with him. Carnelian led them both into the shadow of a boulder and there unmasked. The others responded by freeing their heads from their shrouds. Carnelian regarded Lily, saw how aged she looked, how fragile.
‘You’re going to have to leave now.’
Lily looked up at him, haunted. ‘Give us Au-rum and we shall go.’
Carnelian regarded her bleakly. ‘The Master’s not ready to give him to you.’
‘He’s not going to keep his promise?’
‘He’ll send him to you once he has no further need of him.’
Lily, frowning, looked close to angry tears. ‘When?’
He rejoiced at the return of some of her spirit. ‘I don’t know.’
Her frown deepened. ‘He’s not going to give him to us at all, is he?’
Carnelian wanted to contradict her pessimism, but when he imagined Osidian far away, imagined him having achieved his aims, then he could not see him sending Aurum back to the Lepers. ‘You must leave while you still can.’
‘Do as he says,’ Fern said, the pain raw in his voice.
Lily looked at the Plainsman, bewildered. ‘We can’t return empty-handed, we simply can’t…’
A look of shame came over Fern: ‘We can still sack the city?’
Carnelian did not feel he was in any position to lecture them and was trying not to judge them. ‘As long as you don’t interfere with his supplies, I don’t imagine the Master will care what happens to Makar.’
Lily was shaking her head, staring. ‘This makes a mockery of all we’ve suffered. How can we add this defeat to that which destroyed so many of my people? If we return defeated, we will fade, slowly, broken. We may as well die here.’ Her pale lips formed a thin smile. ‘And wait here in hope that we’ll remind you and the Master of your honour.’
Carnelian could think of nothing to say.
Lily set her face. ‘Besides, too many of the wounded are not ready to be moved.’
Carnelian nodded, feeling hollow. ‘Once he has his supplies we’ll be marching north.’
Lily nodded absent-mindedly and, then, pulling her shrouds back over her head, began walking away. Carnelian and Fern caught each other’s look of despair. Fern grunted something, then followed Lily.
Standing on the northern edge of the heliograph platform, Carnelian gazed down into the camp. On his right the chaos of the new Leper camp; on his left, the far greater expanse of the auxiliary camp that faced the Lepers through the gap in the leftway wall.
He glanced round to where Osidian was sitting in the shadow of the heliograph. Beside him was the homunculus, ready to operate the device. When Carnelian had come up onto the platform he had hidden nothing from Osidian. He had said that, justifiably, the Lepers were reluctant to leave without that which they had been promised. He had tried to make light of this, saying, What does it matter? Osidian had growled that he would starve them, refuse them water. Carnelian had pointed out that their wounded needed time to build up the strength to make the move. In a few days’ time the supplies would have arrived from Makar and they would leave the Lepers behind, who would then have no choice but to return to their valleys. Osidian had made a loose gesture that Carnelian chose to see as agreement.
He focused on their camp. What would they be returning to? He could only hope Lily was wrong, that her people would manage to rebuild their lives even without Aurum as a symbol of justice. He grew grim at the thought that in a few days he would have to part from Fern once more, for ever. He wondered if he should attempt to send Poppy and Krow back to the Valleys with him.
He squinted north along the road, as if hoping to see the future and Osrakum. All there was to see was the road narrowing away to a thread from which, far away, there rose the peg of the next watch-tower. He willed it to begin flashing. His feelings were too much in turmoil for him to know how he would react to seeing Jaspar again, but at least he would provide some distraction, though not necessarily a pleasant one. Osidian seemed to be awaiting Jaspar’s arrival with the predatory patience of a spider sitting at the heart of its web.
The Master approaching seemed enveloped in red flame. With his vast cloak he could have been the sandstorm made flesh. Two figures flanked him, glimmering as if they were clothed in sunlit water. Behind came slaves with dragonfly tattoos upon their faces. They had descended from a dragon, all sweeping slopes of rouged hide, sickle-horned, bearing upon its back a castle of bone from which rose a mast that held aloft a rayed sun gleaming in the dusty air. Behind the monster stretched a field of lances that flickered scarlet pennants north along the road as far as Carnelian could see. Drifts of aquar plumes, the long volumes of their beaked heads, the casques of their riders, spired and feathered, gold collars at their necks, their half-black faces: everything combined to make an ever-varying tessellation that confused the eye. This spectacle was flanked by an avenue of Osidian’s dragons that stretched down the side of the road to hazy distance.
Though Carnelian wanted to glance round to see the reassuring bulk of Earth-is-Strong and Heart-of-Thunder, he could not take his eyes from the advancing scarlet apparition. He had had a notion of remaining aloft in his command chair in case Jaspar should be planning some treachery, but Osidian had insisted they must confront their enemy together. The scarlet apparition raised its hand to show the emberous red jewel of the Pomegranate Ring like a wound through its palm. From the right eyeslit of its mask rays radiated across the golden skin. The last time he had seen that perfect face, it was his father who had been behind it. For a moment he expected it to be his father who spoke.
‘I have come, Celestial, as we arranged. Are you prepared to make the same oath to me now that you made by means of the heliograph?’
Carnelian knew that voice, but it was not his father’s.
‘On my blood I swear I shall not harm you, Imago,’ said Osidian.
Carnelian flinched, shocked, but said nothing.
‘Honour now your part of our agreement, my Lord.’
Jaspar hesitated a moment, then glanced to one of his lictors and made an elegant sign with a gloved hand. The lictor bowed. ‘As you command, my father.’
The lictor turned to the massed Ichorians and, raising his standard, he angled it down until it nearly touched the road. The nearest aquar ranks sank first, this movement sweeping back along the road. In their thousands they climbed out from their saddle-chairs. The striking of their feet upon the road was like a sudden hailstorm. Jaspar, who had turned to watch, waited until the sound was faint in the distance, then turned back. For moments that perfect face gazed imperiously upon them. The only sound a creaking as one of the monsters behind them caused the tower on its back to shift. Carnelian was trying to grasp what he was feeling when, suddenly, Jaspar fell to one knee. His cloak floated for a moment then settled. He offered up something that glimmered in his hand. ‘I give the Ichorians to you, Celestial, with myself.’
Carnelian registered the look of horror on the half-black faces of the lictors. One took a step back, staring at their kneeling master. Carnelian was not sure whether it was the statement or the action of kneeling that had shocked them. For He-who-goes-before to offer himself to one of the House of the Masks was inconceivable. But then, so was such an act of abasement before one who was only a Jade Lord. After all, Jaspar had been elected to incarnate the majesty of the Great. Such a being should kneel before none but a fully consecrated God Emperor.
Movement made him glance round to see Osidian accepting from Jaspar what Carnelian saw was the Pomegranate Ring. Osidian seemed to be examining it even as he raised his hand. Carnelian was trying to read its shape when twined voices of brass from behind him blared so thunderously he was bent by their gale. Heart-of-Thunder’s trumpets. A signal, then.
He sensed Osidian’s expectation. His masked face was fixed towards the road before them. With increasing alarm, Carnelian followed its gaze and, at first, he could see nothing but a swirling consternation among the Ichorians. Then he saw the pall drifting up from the dragon towers all down the road. Their pipes were being lit. His gaze darted to the road, where men were running, trying to mount their aquar, crying out. He moaned with horror as a whining almost beyond hearing swelled into a choking scream and the first pipe spat fire. All down the line, flame jets ignited. He inclined his head so that the slits of his mask shielded his eyes from the glare. The space between the dragons and the leftway wall began to fill with rolling black smoke that, as it frothed and boiled, allowed glimpses of the furnace in which the Ichorians and their aquar were burning like tinder.
The flame-pipes guttered, spitting a few last gobbets of liquid flame, then, silence. Stunned, Carnelian watched the smoke lift from the road, ripping, thinning as it rose. The road was black, but covered with lumps, riddled with threads of smoke that unravelled into mist. Flames sprinted through the crusted mess. Red-rimmed gold fissures gaped, puffing steam sprinkled with sparks. The tar tide washed all the way up the leftway wall.
Redness swelling near him made him jerk round to see Jaspar rising. At the same time the lictors dropped, releasing their standards with a clatter onto the road. Tears and phlegm glazed the nearest half-black face. The man’s mouth released a moan as if he were deflating. His unblinking stare of loss made revulsion rise in Carnelian like vomit. He turned on Osidian. ‘Why?’
Osidian’s hands framed appeasement. ‘They would have harried us all the way to Osrakum. Besides, they had lost their use.’
‘But we could have brought them over to our side,’ Carnelian nearly screamed.
Osidian shook his head. ‘They were the creatures of the Great, brought up since childhood to adore them. Nothing would have persuaded them to take up our cause.’
Jaspar’s mask was gazing at the massacre impassively. Carnelian wanted to understand. ‘You brought them here for this?’
Jaspar turned to him his rayed eye. His hand rolled an elegant gesture, as if he were about to pronounce on some dance he had just watched that was skilled, but not quite perfect. ‘They failed me, cousin, neh?’
Staring at that hand, Carnelian became blind with rage.
‘Carnelian. Carnelian?’
He turned to Osidian. ‘I give Imago to you. Do with him as you will.’
Jaspar’s voice: ‘Surely you jest, Celestial… your oath…’
Osidian’s voice: ‘I swore an oath to you. The Lord Suth Carnelian did not. I am sure you have not forgotten the part you played in our fall. You did not realize we knew? As much as you have wronged me, my Lord, you have wronged him.’
Carnelian saw Jaspar haloed by blood. For a moment he savoured tearing that mask off like a shell, rending the face beneath. He feasted on fantasies of furious tortures. He felt his passion ebbing. It was not just Jaspar who was a monster, but all the Masters.
Carnelian extended his hand. ‘Give me your mask, Jaspar.’
The sun-rayed gold face turned to Osidian, but there was no help there. It turned back to Carnelian. ‘You cannot-’
‘I will not ask again.’
Jaspar pushed back his hood, then fumbled behind his head. The mask came away to reveal a joweled, glistening, pasty face. He put his mask in Carnelian’s hand then shrank away, fear putting a curve into his shoulders and back, his eyes fixed on Carnelian as a bird might regard a serpent arching above it.
Carnelian hardly recognized the man he had once known. He no longer felt rage, just contempt. ‘You two, lictors, bind your betrayer.’
The two men looked up, blearily, their faces blank.
Carnelian was patient with their shock. ‘He brought you all here to die…’ He pointed at the smoking charnel field. ‘To die like that. You no longer owe him service. Look into his face, see what kind of man he is.’
A hungry gleam came into the eyes of first one, then both as they fixed upon him whom they had so recently called father.
Jaspar, trying to stand his ground, shrieked: ‘You shall not lay your unclean hands upon me!’
Everyone could smell his sweaty terror. Taking hold of Jaspar’s cloak Carnelian yanked at it, over and over, pulling the Master off-balance, until the silk came away in his hands. Finding an edge he began tearing it into strips. He gave these scarlet ribbons to the lictors. ‘Bind him with these. For what he’s done, we’ll have to determine a fitting punishment.’
When they had finished, Carnelian forced the sun-rayed mask into the hand of one of the lictors. ‘Use this to buy yourselves new lives.’
The last of the Red Ichorians glanced at the metal face they had spent so much of their lives in awe of, before gazing back at their dead with empty eyes.
‘His consciousness rises,’ said the homunculus.
He released his grip from behind the Grand Sapient’s heel, rose from his knees, backed away. Strapped in, Legions stood in the open capsule that was propped up against the wall, his skeletal arms crossed over his chest, his skin like bleached leather, his face concealed behind his one-eyed mask.
Carnelian found it hard to believe this was anything more than a huskman. A tiny movement made him peer through the myrrh smoke uncurling in languid spirals. Legions’ left fist was opening its pale flower a petal at a time. The four fingers splayed, then recurled. The right hand, blossoming, was joined by the first opening again. Soon both were opening and closing, opening and closing. Then the wrists slipped a twist into this motion, turning the hands into the wings of a bird in flight. Then the hinges of the elbow opened and closed, moving this flight away from, then towards, the chest. Crossing, recrossing the arms several times. The motion slowed and died. The arms crossed, the elbows began rising, falling. This turned into a sinuous opening of the arms as if they were seeking to embrace someone. Closing, opening, closing, opening like seaweed in a tide. At last the hands came to rest, open, slightly apart, their heels resting on the bands wrapping round the Grand Sapient’s stomach.
Carnelian’s trance was broken by the homunculus, now wearing his blinding mask, backing towards the capsule. Reaching behind him to grip one of the bands, he raised his heel and placed it next to one of the Grand Sapient’s cadaverous, yellow feet. With a grunt, the little man pulled himself back and up to stand within the capsule. As he nestled his neck into the waiting hands, the fingers meshed about his throat and immediately began to flex.
When they stopped, the child mask of the homunculus murmured: ‘Lord Nephron has it.’
The fingers moved again.
‘A cell, fourth storey, sun-ninety-three. Ten, ten, three.’
Osidian advanced, removing his mask, revealing a sweaty face and eyes bright with anticipation. Unsettled by that expression, Carnelian hesitated before he in turn unmasked.
Osidian addressed the capsule. ‘Sapience, contrary to your expectations, I have won a great victory.’
The homunculus, repeating Osidian’s words, was momentarily interrupted by a convulsion of the Grand Sapient’s fingers that must have hurt the little man, for he flinched. ‘Nephron,’ he said, then resumed his echoing of Osidian’s words.
‘With two legions of the line I have annihilated the Ichorian.’
Carnelian was watching Osidian. He looked so strange: eyes open wide, mouth open too, lips holding a smile. He looked so young. Carnelian realized, with shock, that he had forgotten that Osidian really was not much more than a youth.
‘Has Osrakum been informed?’
The new, strong voice made Carnelian jump. Almost he looked around for some being unexpectedly arrived within the cell. It was the homunculus who had spoken, now nothing but a conduit for his master.
Osidian answered that he had sent the collars of the Ichorian huimur commanders to Osrakum by courier.
‘Has any heliograph been sent?’
Osidian replied it was possible that He-who-goes-before had sent a message, but he did not think it likely.
‘You speak of Imago?’
Carnelian was stunned. How could the Grand Sapient possibly know about Jaspar? While still in Makar, if Legions had known about the Ichorian and Jaspar, surely he would have used that information to gain power over Osidian? And, since then, he had slept, oblivious of the turning of events. Carnelian’s mind raced with superstitious conjectures of what powers this creature might possess. He calmed himself, strove to be rational; it was nothing more than deduction from what they had just told him. The Ichorian had been sent forth from Osrakam. Since it was likely Ykoriana was somehow behind its sending, it followed that whoever commanded it must be one of her allies, and Jaspar had been her chief ally among the Great.
Legions spoke again. ‘It would be in Imago’s interest to remain silent.’
Carnelian tried to work out why that might be the case, but his mind was simply not fast enough.
‘You sent the collars under my seal?’
Osidian began a gesture that, if he had finished it, would have been an apology. ‘Under that of He-who-goes-before.’
A momentary stiffening of the fingers seemed to Carnelian to betray the Grand Sapient’s disappointment. ‘Tell me how all this has come about.’
The verb used the requisitive mode but, to Carnelian’s surprise and dismay, Osidian submitted to its command. As he began explaining, the Grand Sapient steered his narrative, until it seemed to Carnelian he was reading events as if they were beads on a cord.
‘How was this victory achieved?’
Osidian’s face lit up and, oozing pride, he began describing how the battle had proceeded according to his tactics. As he spoke, Carnelian watched the Grand Sapient’s fingers. He detected a twinge when Aurum was mentioned; thereafter, nothing. It made him wonder if the Grand Sapient was divining the part his brethren must have played.
Osidian concluded by recounting how he had destroyed the survivors of the Ichorian, the glow of his achievement bright in his eyes.
‘Your tactic was a commonplace in the early part of the Civil War,’ said the Grand Sapient.
Osidian’s cheeks coloured as if he had been slapped.
‘Until it was rendered obsolete by a counter-tactic. Though you may not be aware of it, it would seem likely you picked this up from the reels you read in our Library.’
These words lit another light in Osidian’s eyes. Beneath knitted brows they bored into the long silver mask. His lips thinned. ‘Nevertheless, I won. There will not be another battle. My victory will lead to chaos in Osrakum. When I appear at the Gates with my legions, the Chosen will bow to me. If they do not, I will lay siege to the Hidden Land.’
‘Your analysis, though sound, is incomplete. News of Imago’s failure will break your mother’s power and shatter the unity of the Clave. The Wise have played badly and their influence is weakened, but is there not a power you have forgotten?’
Osidian frowned, incredulous. ‘My brother?’
‘The God Emperor.’
Osidian looked exasperated. ‘He is my mother’s creature.’
‘You have released her grip on him.’
‘But he is spineless, incapable of independent action.’
Carnelian remembered his meeting with Molochite, relived the power of his presence, his malice, and fear crept into him that Osidian was wrong; that Osidian had miscalculated.
‘He was capable enough to murder your sister and remain unpunished.’
Osidian paled. His eyes widened. ‘My mother-’
‘Was unable to protect her. As, no doubt, she has been unable to protect her new daughter, Ykorenthe, your sister-niece, whom your brother will take for wife.’
Osidian’s face became weak with uncertainty.
‘Child, there is a reason why we have laboured to keep the Chosen locked inside Osrakum. Whenever they have been free to leave, it has led to this chaos.’
Carnelian, wanting to fight back, almost threw the example of the Lesser Chosen legates at the Grand Sapient, but then he recalled how encompassed about by the Law they were, spied upon by ammonites, the communications between them carefully filtered. Perhaps these, who were the least of the Chosen, might only be let out into the outer world, the better to keep the powerful imprisoned within.
‘The Balance of the Powers was constructed to safeguard the Commonwealth from your meddling. It seeks to protect you from yourselves. Removing the Red Ichorians from Osrakum is like un-stoppering a bottle.’
Osidian’s face had grown paler than his leathers. ‘The Sinistrals,’ he sighed.
‘You were raised among them; did they seem to you ineffectual?’
Carnelian saw in Osidian’s face that he had never given them much thought. They had always been there, part of the ritual of his world. Carnelian remembered how confident the sybling Quenthas had been, with their swords, to challenge the Red Ichorians, who had come into the Sunhold to guard his father.
‘Two of the Powers rely on the Sinistral Ichorians for protection from the third.’
Osidian rallied. ‘We have the legions.’
‘Child, you have not seen the Gates. The legions would never have been able to intervene in time to save the Isle from an assault by the flame-pipes of the Red Ichorians.’
Carnelian saw the truth of it. Only the strength of the Sinistral Ichorians had held the Great in check.
‘The Sinistrals were in perfect balance with the Red Ichorians.’
Carnelian digested this, then grew cold, understanding Osidian’s earlier shock. ‘There’s nothing to stop them taking the Three Gates.’
A jerking motion drew his eyes to the homunculus’ throat.
‘Suth Carnelian,’ it muttered and he realized the Grand Sapient had not known he was there.
Osidian’s face distorted with rage. ‘He would not dare!’
‘It is not too late,’ said the homunculus.
‘What?’ Osidian looked in despair.
‘Let me return to Osrakum.’
Osidian shook his head, looking drained.
‘At least let me communicate with my brethren.’
Osidian threw his arm up in angry dismissal. ‘You almost had me convinced. I should have known you would do anything, say anything, to escape with your miserable carcass.’
The voice of the homunculus cut through Osidian’s display. ‘Examine the logic, child. If you do not let me act, the Great Balance itself will fall. Your brother’s power will become absolute.’
‘I will listen to nothing more,’ Osidian cried. He lunged forward, grabbed one of the homunculus’ arms and tore him from the Grand Sapient’s grasp. The little man fell to the floor, his arm twisting in Osidian’s grip. He yanked him up onto his feet.
‘This was a mistake,’ he bellowed. ‘A mistake!’
Carnelian raised his hands in appeasement, ‘Osidian-’
Osidian raised a hand in a stark barrier gesture. ‘Enough! Nothing has changed. The moment the supplies reach us, we march on Osrakum.’
As he stormed out of the cell dragging the homunculus after him, a piercing screech made the hackles rise on Carnelian’s neck. It was a while before he realized it was coming from behind the one-eyed mask as the Grand Sapient clawed the air for his voice.
Dust hissed against his cloak. Standing on the edge of the heliograph platform, Carnelian was watching the cluster of black-shrouded forms down on the road inspect the latest caravan of pack huimur from Makar. For three days now they had been arriving, plodding beneath frames globed with render sacs. Soon it would be time to leave.
He could tell that one of the Masters was Osidian, because of the small figure of the homunculus that he now kept always at his side. Even when it was time to feed the Sapients their elixir, Osidian went with him. It spoke of his anxiety that the Grand Sapient might wake. With the homunculus, Osidian looked as if he was himself one of the Wise. Carnelian had come up to the platform to escape the fury of preparation. He wondered at how, through sheer will, Osidian daily overcame the debilitation of the maggots burrowing through his body. He was grateful for Osidian’s determination to go on, for it prevented him from falling back into the embrace of the Darkness-under-the-Trees. Still, Carnelian kept up a constant vigilance, fearful that Osidian, desperate to expunge his doubts, might turn the Leper camp into a new Ochre Grove. Not that Osidian’s feverish energy fooled Carnelian. He saw in it only ever more evidence of how shaken Osidian was by the Grand Sapient’s analysis: that Molochite was now free to seize absolute power and, with it, Carnelian felt some grudging sympathy for him: having scaled so close to the pinnacle of victory, to be pulled down so suddenly into contemplating the trough of defeat. Worse, to know it was he who had brought this about.
What was torturing Carnelian was the conviction that all the suffering they had caused, all the carnage, had been for naught. His gaze fell upon that portion of the road caked with a greasy, rancid crust of melted, rotting flesh. High as his vantage point was, whenever the rain wind dropped, the stench rose up as from some gargantuan corpse.
Carnelian pulled his cloak about him. In his bones he felt a storm coming. As if responding to his thoughts, the wind picked up, lashing him with a rasping sand hail, causing him to turn his mask into its hissing, so that he saw a mass of it rising from the land like some immense humped beast crowned with snaking tendrils of spiralling red. Yes, a storm was coming and, when it came, much would be swept away. He veered away from contemplating just how much. Here was the danger of solitude. The danger Osidian hid from in ceaseless activity. Carnelian’s thoughts resisted his attempts to quell them. He tried to draw some bleak comfort from his certainty that he would not survive. He dismissed that with a growl. There would be time enough to die, but he still had hope his loved ones might escape with the Lepers, though into what kind of life he tried not imagine.
He gazed on the Leper camp. He had given up any hope of persuading them to leave. They had rejected his arguments once and, after having witnessed the annihilation of the Ichorian survivors, would be unlikely to be frightened by some new threat of a vengeful god unleashed. What did they know about the Great Balance, about the Three Powers? How could he even begin to explain to them what he now believed was happening at the heart of the world? Besides, they could see Osidian acting as if nothing had changed. If things went well, in a day or two he would march north and Carnelian would go with him. Left without supplies, the Lepers would have no choice but to return to their valleys. He hoped he would find the courage to bid a final farewell to Fern, to Lily and Krow. He grew grimmer still. And Poppy too, for he was now determined she must go with them, by guile if possible, otherwise by force.
Osidian slumped against the heliograph, the homunculus beside him wearing its smiling blinding mask. Carnelian watched Osidian’s face betray with each twitch around the corners of his mouth and eyes the agony he was enduring. It was only up here, in the cool, enfolding night, that he gave himself fully to the maggots. Sometimes, looking at him, Carnelian felt his own doubts and fear eating through him like those worms.
A voice came up from somewhere on the watch-tower roof. ‘Master?’
Carnelian recognized the rumble of Morunasa’s voice.
‘Master, I have a letter here…’
Osidian groaned, lost in his pain. Carnelian peered down through the slats and called: ‘What letter?’
There was a silence, during which Carnelian sensed Morunasa’s resentment so clearly it almost gave him shape in the darkness below.
‘A letter taken from a courier at the tower north of here.’
Carnelian rose, his heart beating, having a presentiment of disaster. He put on his mask, then crossed to Osidian, stooped to retrieve the mask from where Osidian had let it fall. He covered the face gleaming with sweat with the serene one of gold, bound it on, then he gave Morunasa leave to climb up.
He appeared like a black sun and seemed the very heart of the night. As he approached, Carnelian put out his hand and Morunasa, reluctantly, gave the letter to him. In his hand it felt as smooth as his own skin. Carnelian turned it and saw the large seal clinging to it. Two faces looking away from each other. His throat grew dry, even as his hands moistened. Though he had not seen this seal before, it clearly had something to do with the Imperial Power.
He looked at Morunasa. ‘Do the other Masters know of this?’
‘No.’
They both flinched as a paler shadow rose beside them. Osidian raised a ghostly hand. ‘Give it to me.’
His voice was hollow, dull. Carnelian gave him the letter. A sense of crisis saturated the air like an anticipation of lightning. A pair of eyes that floated nearly disembodied in the dark reminded him of Morunasa’s presence. The last thing they needed was another witness. ‘You may leave, Morunasa.’
The man stood looking at Osidian as if he had not heard.
‘Leave now,’ Carnelian said. Stress suffused his voice with menace. Morunasa turned to him. For a moment it seemed he would defy him, but soon he had slipped out of sight.
Osidian sank to the platform and put the letter down before him. He reached behind his head to release the bindings of his mask. Carnelian saw how the last living colour had drained from Osidian’s face, how he was regarding the letter with the eyes of a corpse. Reaching out he took it, broke the seal, unfolded the parchment, turned it to the light and read. Carnelian watched his face harden until it was stone. He could bear to wait no longer. ‘What is it?’
Osidian handed Carnelian the letter. The glyphs were exquisitely formed. For a moment Carnelian was confronted by the unblinking, probing eyes of its faces, then they began making sounds in his mind. Following treasonous, rash actions by the Wise, We
Carnelian stared at the glyph: the divine, dual ‘We’ that only a God Emperor or the Twins Themselves could use. He grew cold. From Molochite, then. He continued reading. We have been forced to act in haste to secure the defence of holy Osrakum left sinfully defenceless by the reckless sending forth of the Red Ichorians against a foul Rebel who has been allowed to rise against Us. Fear not for the immediate sanctity of the Hidden Land, for we have taken the precaution of securing the Gates. Neither should you fear this change. We intend to abolish the distinction between you and the unworthy Great. Henceforth shall you be entitled to vote in Holy Elections. Further, so that your House shall be suitably provided with slaves and riches, We shall double the flesh tithe and the taxes on the cities. To those of you who serve Us most ardently We shall not only gift you the daughters of the Great but, to the most deserving among you, We shall give access to the daughters of Our House that Our blood fire shall burn more brightly in the veins of your offspring. Fear only the Rebel who treacherously destroyed the Red Ichorians and, even now, advances upon Us with stolen legions and a plague of barbarians. Hasten hither with all your strength that We might together destroy his pretensions and then wreak a terror of retribution against all who have dared rise against the Chosen and so restore harmonious peace to our Commonwealth.
Carnelian lost his focus on the glyphs. His worst fears had come to pass. Molochite had taken the Three Gates as Legions had prophesied. He had removed any possibility of the Lesser Chosen supporting Osidian by enfranchising them himself and had summoned them all to Osrakum with their legions, so as to use their overwhelming strength to crush Osidian’s rebellion. Carnelian suppressed a sweating surge of panic. Most terrible of all, news of this disaster had reached Osidian while the Lepers were still here, within reach of his flame-pipes. Carnelian prepared himself, then looked round. So great was Osidian’s wrath, it seemed to be streaming from his body as dark pinions. Carnelian feared that anything he might say could unleash a massacre. His first instinct sickened him. Murder. No. Osidian dead, Aurum would be unchained, Morunasa too. He could not hope to control them both. Somehow, Osidian had to be engaged, his black passions turned away from bloodshed. ‘What are we going to do?’
Osidian spoke, staring blindly. ‘He sent this to me.’
‘Who?’
‘It is in his own hand.’
Carnelian glanced at the glyphs then back at Osidian. His fear grew as he sensed the madness in him rising. ‘Surely this was meant for a Legate?’
Osidian’s eyes sharpened and fell ravenously upon Carnelian. ‘Look at the seal!’
Carnelian disengaged from that glare with difficulty. He folded the parchment, bringing the two halves of the seal together. Each half of the seal bore a face. Carnelian looked up, agonized at not understanding him.
Osidian’s face dissolved into an exasperation that seemed close to tears. ‘It has been turned on its side, deliberately, so that the heads would be separated by the opening of the letter. His is the green head; mine the black. It is his declaration of war.’
Carnelian glanced back at the seal, certain of Osidian’s madness. If anything it seemed a splitting in two of the Twins. Osidian mumbling made Carnelian look up again. Words were escaping from Osidian in a shapeless, meandering rant. Carnelian tried to make sense of it: claims that he had always bested his brother; resentment that Molochite had always been his mother’s pet.
Osidian shook his head. ‘This time will be no different. I shall overcome him.’
Relief released Carnelian. ‘So we are still going to march on Osrakum?’
Osidian gave no sign that he had heard. ‘He will have overwhelming force, but I shall have my Father with me.’
Carnelian’s dread returned with redoubled strength. Osidian was nodding, leering. ‘I shall feed Him and He will inhabit me.’
Carnelian felt he was drowning, flailing. ‘We’re tired,’ he heard himself say, ‘exhausted. We will see more clearly in the morning. Now we need sleep.’
His tone soothed them both and so he kept it up, smoothing his speech into a lullaby of persuasion. Slowly, the madness drained away from Osidian’s eyes. His face softened until he looked more like himself. Carnelian helped him up, digging his shoulder into Osidian’s armpit, maintaining a constant, droning flow of words as, with the homunculus’ help, he began to half drag, half carry Osidian back to his cell.
Carnelian watched Osidian drift into a troubled sleep, thinking how easy it would be to kill him. The same logic as before would have been enough to stay his hand, but there was added poignancy in how much Osidian, glazed with sweat, twitching, resembled the fevered boy Carnelian and Fern had nursed down from the Guarded Land. Carnelian bore a share in all his crimes. He was glad he had that logic to lean on, to justify him avoiding an act he had no stomach for – not now, nor ever before when it might have saved the Tribe. He was glad he had not been lying to Osidian: it would be easier to face what had to be done in the morning. He had a focus. He had to nurse Osidian’s rage against his brother enough to get them all – dragons, Masters, auxiliaries, Morunasa and Marula – north and safely away from the Lepers before anyone else learned what had happened in Osrakum.
He turned away from Osidian, exhausted. Something was crouching in a corner. The homunculus.
‘Master, my masters have not yet been drugged.’
Carnelian hung his head and wondered if he cared. What if Legions and the other Sapients should awake? For a moment that thought brought hope. The Grand Sapient might know something that could be done. Had he not asked to return to Osrakum? At the very least he would be someone to whom he could talk, someone who would understand. He shook his head. This was not some friendly uncle. This was a creature soaked through with guile and unfathomable motives. Carnelian’s only remaining hope was that he would be able to contain and guide Osidian. An intervention by the Grand Sapient could send the whole situation careering even further out of control.
Heavily, he rose. ‘Let’s do it, then.’
He took the homunculus’ hand to guide him out of the cell. Once they came into that of the Sapients Carnelian masked, to allow the homunculus to see. He leaned against a wall watching the little man advance upon the Grand Sapient’s capsule. He broke the seal and pulled the lid open. He reached up to coax a yellow bead into his hand and climbed up, reaching for the chin of the long silver mask.
Legions’ hands struck like snakes. Carnelian let out a cry of shock even as the homunculus pulled himself free and fell to the floor. The pale, bony fingers combed the air and then, slowly, came back to settle their heels upon the Grand Sapient’s ribs, open, facing each other.
The homunculus turned to stare at Carnelian, a rictus of horror fixed deep into the wrinkles of his face. ‘Master?’
Carnelian willed his heart to slow, tried to list all the dangers, but it was a desire to talk to someone, anyone, that made him nod. The homunculus frowned, jerked a bow, then backed towards the capsule, clambered up and settled his neck into the waiting hands. Immediately they snapped closed around his throat with such force the homunculus let out a choked cry, his hands jumping up as if to tear the fingers away. The grip loosened and the homunculus relaxed and gave out a long gasp that did not seem his own. The sound a man might make reaching air after a desperate struggle in drowning depths.
‘What has happened?’ the homunculus said.
Still alarmed, Carnelian was trying to make sense of this. ‘Have you just woken?’
Legions’ hands jerked instructions. ‘For three days I have been awake, listening for the vibration of your tread, Suth Carnelian.’
The homunculus’ eyes had a spider gleam that seemed to belong to his master. Carnelian’s mind raced, trying to understand. ‘Homunculus, is it possible he could avoid swallowing the drug?’
The homunculus began an answer, but Legions strangled it. ‘What has happened?’ he demanded.
Carnelian tried to work out what to do, but his thoughts slipped and fell against each other. He was too tired to think properly. In the end, he began to relate the content of the letter. As he did so, he watched a tremor creep into Legions’ pallid fingers. The homunculus’ echoing murmur ceased and he looked confused. He raised a hand to ask Carnelian to wait. Then he lost focus as he listened to the play of fingers upon his neck. He began murmuring again, then indicated for Carnelian to continue.
When he reached the end of what he had to relate, he fell silent. The murmuring continued for a while, then abruptly ceased. The Grand Sapient’s grip released. His hands and arms fell away, to dangle lifelessly.
The hopelessness in that gesture struck Carnelian in the chest. He had not realized until that moment how much his view of things depended upon the unshakeable certainties of the Wise. Without that it seemed the very foundations of the earth must soften and fail.
He clapped his hands to get the attention of the homunculus, who was craning round, slack-jawed, to gaze up at its master. As the little man looked at him, Carnelian instructed him with gestures. The homunculus gave a nod and then reached out to take first one of his master’s hands, then the other, shaping the fingers around his neck.
‘Can nothing be done?’ Carnelian asked. As the homunculus murmured, Carnelian watched anxiously as if he were petitioning an oracle.
The homunculus fell silent and they both waited. Slowly, Legions’ fingers began to work. ‘Nothing,’ said the homunculus.
It became important to Carnelian to do for the Grand Sapient’s spirit what he had asked the homunculus to do for his hands. ‘Surely Molochite can still be defeated?’
The pallid fingers did not move.
‘What if you could have access to the heliograph here on the roof?’
No movement.
‘What if I made arrangements for you to return to Osrakum tonight?’
The fingers came alive. ‘So many legions could not be gathered effectively without the coordination of the Domain Legions and that is nothing more than an extension of the mind of its Grand Sapient. My brethren have had no choice but to elect a new Legions. I am dead. The living heed not the dead.’
Carnelian persisted, needing words to fill the void deepening within him. ‘We could get there before most of the legions reach Osrakum. Use the hollow crescent.’
‘Enough huimur would have reached there to confront you with a double line.’ The homunculus continued to speak, cutting off any questions. ‘Resign yourself. I have. Nothing can be done.’
A bleak silence fell.
‘Even Kakanxahe with all his legions failed to take Osrakum. What I did then, none could do again.’
Carnelian frowned. ‘What you did then?’
The fingers continued to work the throat of the homunculus. ‘You fought for eighteen years and nearly brought the Three Lands to waste. If I had not acted, the Commonwealth could have fallen. It was I who bound your passions with the bonds of reason. It was I who wrought the Balance of the Powers and, in so doing, ended the Civil War.’
Carnelian felt giddy. ‘But- What-? That is impossible. That would make you hundreds of years old.’
‘Child, I was born in Osrakum more than thirteen hundred years ago.’
Carnelian gaped, wondering if the strain of defeat and catastrophe had broken the Grand Sapient’s reason.
‘I have witnessed time like a tree. How ephemeral have seemed to me the lives of men. Almost forty Emperors I have made, have watched die, have buried in the Labyrinth and still have I endured.’
Carnelian’s mind was reeling. Could this possibly be true? He felt he was losing his grasp on reality. ‘How is it possible that the Chosen have forgotten who you are?’
The chin of the long silver mask began nodding as a choking sound came from behind it. Carnelian watched this new sign with a foreboding that turned to horror as he realized the Grand Sapient was laughing. ‘Do you imagine that mortals have the continuity of memory that do the Wise? Your short spans ensure that the passing down of the past is a fragile process, a process we have manipulated. It is the least of our skills. It is not difficult to encourage men to forget that which they would rather not know.’
Legions’ fingers stilled. Then they began flexing again, though more languidly. ‘But now that my great work is undone, was it worth the sacrifice I made? For my reward was to be put into lightless silence. A reward I bequeathed to all my kind. A gift that allowed our minds to span centuries.’
The homunculus paused, frowning.
‘I was first to be put into the darkness and though, for you, it was so long ago, for me it seems not so very long. I have not forgotten the blueness of those skies. The sweetness of the pomegranates of the Yden. And now that death is close, I want more life. For my years seem short to me. Without my senses to anchor me in the now, I have moved swiftly through my own, inner time. A life measured by thought and not the senses is exceeding short. And yet, a paradox: with my death, the ancient world that lives now solely in my mind will perish utterly.’
Silence fell, a silence in which Carnelian could hear only the subtle pulsing of his blood, his mind ensnared in the wonder and the melancholy of this oldest of men. At last Carnelian could no longer bear his sadness, his heavy heart. He left, hardly aware what he was doing, finding himself in his cell, sinking into the longed-for oblivion of sleep.