Each of the Chosen can be considered as a two-pronged blood-fork lying in the flow of time. Upstream, the tines connect to the blood-taint nodes of the parents. The handle extends downstream the length of the lifespan and terminates at the death node. Of the other temporal nodes, the most significant are those of conception and birth. The node of conception locates the meeting of the prongs and handle. The birth node lies approximately nine months further downstream. These five nodes constitute the critical input into the astrological calculus.
Blots of shadow, their palanquins in the dusk. Along the leftway they came in a sombre procession. Preceded by a dense formation of guardsmen encased in articulated green bronze; one side of whose faces appeared the crystallization of the darkening east. Cruel billhooks and halberds in their hands. Cloaks merging so that they seemed borne forward on billows of tar smoke. The palanquins seemed to float upon the silver stream of their ammonites’ masks.
Carnelian had not seen Sinistral Ichorians since he had quit the Halls of Thunder in Osrakum. As they filed past he could smell the sweat that was causing the densely tattooed half of their bodies to gleam like polished leather. The lead palanquin swayed as it approached and he saw it was not black as he had imagined, but midnight purple. The front ranks of ammonites swinging censers wove thick garlands of myrrh into the air. Carnelian watched as the palanquin settled to the ground upon silver legs in the form of infants.
For two days he and Osidian had waited. They had decided Carnelian would greet their guests. A pair of ammonites now approached bearing a ladle in whose cup blue fire danced. Drawing the device back, they swung it forward to release its contents in a sheet. The fire spread its blue and violet flame across the stone, turning it black as it died. Through the myrrh smoke Carnelian saw a panel in the side of the palanquin sliding open just enough to allow a pale, gloved hand to put out two high ranga. The panel opened more and two childlike feet emerged seeking the shoes. A shape encrusted in purple brocade was soon standing there, its silver sleeping-child face allowing Carnelian to see a warped reflection of something else stirring within the palanquin. The homunculus reached in and fetched out two more ranga which were fully a third of its height. Once these were set up, the little man gave a nod. Two pairs of ammonites appeared, each bearing between them a staff that blossomed high above their heads into silver spirals like the croziers of some frozen fern. Two gloved hands emerged from the palanquin to take hold of these staves, then two long feet sheathed in ivory silk slipped into the high ranga. A vast rustling dark shape rose immense upon the ranga, its face the long, shield-like, single-eyed mask of one of the Wise. The ammonites knelt. The Sapient released his hold upon the croziers, extended a four-fingered hand to its homunculus and allowed himself to be guided forward like an aged grandfather by his grandson. As the Sapient loomed over him, Carnelian tried not to be awed. He saw the panels of beadwork that formed the slopes of the Sapient’s robe. He could smell the dusty pungency of ancient myrrh.
‘Are you a Grand Sapient?’
The homunculus removed its master’s gloves and raised one pale hand to its neck. The other hand rose on its own. Eight colourless fingers meshed around its throat. It murmured. The fingers flexed.
‘I am only a Second of Lands,’ the homunculus sang. ‘You are not the Lord Nephron.’
‘He awaits your masters upon the summit of this tower.’
‘Prepare it,’ intoned the homunculus.
Ammonites fluttered past like a flock of startled crows. Most disappeared behind the monolith into the tower. The Sapient began a stately progress in that direction and Carnelian made to follow. The Sapient halted and turned an eyeless profile. Carnelian felt the need to explain himself. ‘I am to attend the meeting.’
The Sapient’s blank face hung motionless for some moments, then with one hand he reached for the homunculus’ neck and his fingers made a burst of frenzy. ‘Then you will have to be cleansed, Seraph.’
Carnelian had a protest on his lips, but the Sapient was already slipping behind the monolith and so he followed him. The chamber within glowed violet as tiny flames scurried over every surface. Carnelian’s cloak was pulled off him. Reacting to this, he was suddenly enveloped by smoke. The chamber reeled. More Sapients appeared through the doorway, overseeing the pale chrysalises of capsules being carried in. Carnelian observed with what quick hands the ammonites hitched these up to hooks. Soon the capsules were rising into the watch-tower.
The sky had darkened enough to reveal a moon that was the merest rind of ice. The fire that had rained violet sparks down through the grating had left only its shadow soot. Three capsules rose like pillars of salt. Before each stood two Sapients, their homunculi in front of them. Carnelian glanced at Osidian, who alone had refused the cleansing. Censers in a ring around them all were growing a hedge of myrrh smoke. Silently the Sapients raised pale hands to the capsules, whose ivory made their skin seem whiter than the nearly eclipsed moon. The Sapients pulled the lids back and knelt before their masters within. Three Grand Sapients, masked, their arms crossed upon their chests, their homunculi, also masked, standing in place between their legs. One of each pair of Sapients rose to hold a staff up before his master. Carnelian started as the homunculi within the capsules took hold of these staves. Each held a finial of ruby fire before the chest of its Grand Sapient as if it were his heart freshly gouged out for display. The pale spiders of the Grand Sapients’ fingers began to writhe. Pale petals opening and closing. Gestures that were bringing life back into sleep-frozen limbs. Until, at last, they reached down to sensuously strangle the throats of their homunculi.
‘We are Law,’ said the leftmost one.
‘Tribute,’ said the homunculus on the right.
‘Lands,’ sang the one in the centre.
‘What do you hope to gain, Celestial, by taking up arms against the Commonwealth?’ said Law, to which the other two Grand Sapient homunculi murmured an echo.
Osidian fixed the sightless masks of the Grand Sapients with an expression Carnelian could not read. ‘To put right a wrong.’
‘Though you have cause to be aggrieved, Celestial, what has been done cannot be undone. The moment the rituals were completed, your brother was made. They and your life became forfeit without hope of appeal. In your desperation to preserve yourself you have wilfully precipitated a calamity greatly disproportionate to your grievance. The Balance of the Powers is fractured. The Law so closely bound to it is in peril of dissolution. Have you forgotten that the Law is the foundation upon which stands the Commonwealth? Without Law, Chaos is lord. Your brother has escaped Osrakum. Even now, given time, we shall subdue Them with those pleasures that They have demonstrated They are slave to. Your apparent futile intention to challenge Them in battle will only serve to make Them more uncontrollable. All you will achieve is to further imperil the Balance.’
Osidian’s eyes were eagle sharp. ‘What do I care for your Balance? Do you imagine, my Lord, that I grieve with the jailors from whom my House has managed to break free? As for the foundation of the Commonwealth, that is terror. What we hold’ – Osidian extended his hands as if he held the world in them – ‘we hold through power and because to rule is our divine right. Raw power is the law that all must obey.’ His hands came apart in a gesture of disdain. He half turned away, snarling, then fixed the Grand Sapients with a baleful eye. ‘And I would advise my Lords not to make the error of assuming we are already defeated.’
The three homunculi mumbled on, then fell silent. Carnelian became aware of the oceanic murmur of the sartlar who inhabited the dark vastness of the land beneath.
‘It is true, Celestial, the Commonwealth has also for foundations terror.’ The homunculus who spoke was the one who had identified its master as Tribute. The Grand Sapient’s fingers were working at its throat. ‘But by your statement you must surely realize that the Commonwealth exists only in the minds of men. What power to coerce the Chosen possess is itself in the minds of their subjects. The Commonwealth is, in truth, only a dream given solidity by belief. We have made our dream the universal dream but, at the margins of the world, our dream competes with others. You must realize this who have dwelt among the barbarians. Did you not impose your dream upon those creatures, Celestial, in opposition to the Commonwealth?’
Carnelian saw the truth of it and, glancing round, saw Osidian’s certainty weakening.
‘Why do you think it is we bring them here to the centre of the world? Even now they are gathering in ever increasing numbers before the gates of Osrakum. Why do you think, Celestial, we seek to bring them into the very heart of the Hidden Land?’
The question hung bright in Carnelian’s mind. He saw the answer. ‘To show them the dream in all its terrible, beautiful reality.’
The homunculus continued as if Carnelian had not spoken. ‘Because monolithic power seen close up will tower over them. Far away, its terror fades. In its presence, it saturates their minds. Witnessing our grandeur, they are reduced to nothing. How can their petty dreams hope to withstand such glory, such wonder?’
The vision in Carnelian’s mind faded more slowly than the sonorous voice.
‘And yet, Celestial, at this very time, you intend to show that power, that glory, divided against itself. At the very moment we have designed for them to see the Commonwealth as immutable as the stars in the heavens, you would show them contention.’
Carnelian felt like a child, made aware of how petty were his notions, how foolish. Osidian, too, looked crushed. Carnelian felt panic seeping into him. Had they fooled themselves? Had he led them both into error?
Osidian’s voice shocked Carnelian. ‘They shall see the Gods Themselves and the seraphim making war.’ Osidian had returned from his depths possessed. ‘By this display of power they will be more cowed than all your subtle theatre could hope to achieve.’ Fury burned in his eyes. ‘What have we to fear from being observed quarrelling? Do the sun and moon fear the vermin that crawl upon the earth as they contend for mastery of the sky?’
Carnelian looked to the Grand Sapients to see if Osidian’s words had made any impact on them. Their three identical eyeless masks hung in the darkness, implacable, unyielding. Grand Sapient Lands’ fingers began to move. ‘You have interfered with my management of the Land. Because of you the harvests have not been gathered. The fields, unirrigated, turn to dust. Already it is too late to avoid a famine.’
‘You hope to appeal to my compassion?’ Osidian’s tone was incredulous, his lips twisted into a sneer. ‘What is it to me if a few barbarians starve?’
‘Not a few, Celestial, but most of the Commonwealth will suffer hunger.’
Osidian swung his arm in an arc to take in the land below. ‘Am I a child, Lands? Though the number of sartlar we have gathered is vast, I know that they are but a scoop from the ocean of those that remain upon the land.’
Once the murmuring of the homunculi ceased, Carnelian was aware of the Grand Sapient’s fingers faltering. They came alive again. ‘Even now the sartlar of several provinces are coming in response to your summons.’
The sneer grew thin on Osidian’s lips. He frowned. ‘Several provinces?’ The homunculi gave his words a ghostly echo. Osidian looked at Carnelian, the question an accusation in his eyes. Carnelian could make no sense of it himself. ‘I only put into action the same process that yearly brings sartlar to repair the roads.’
The murmurous homunculi became a background to Osidian’s questions, to which Carnelian provided the best answers he could.
Lands’ homunculus interrupted. ‘The summons was yours, Suth Carnelian?’
Wrathful, Osidian replied. ‘He told me he did it in response to a dream.’ He seemed to draw strength from his own anger and perhaps, Carnelian thought, from the feeling that the Grand Sapients had lost their stranglehold on the discussion. ‘A dream that promised me victory. The God has Himself promised me this.’
Lands choked his homunculus quiet before it had finished relaying Osidian’s words. ‘Do not delude yourself, Celestial: victory is impossible. Already twenty legions are ranged against you and more arrive each day. Return to the Southern Plain. There you can have a domain beyond the knowledge of the Chosen. If we have erred it is in having disrupted your empire among the barbarians. Return. We shall send you any luxuries that you desire.’
Osidian’s face was childish in its utter outrage. ‘Do you imagine my ambition so small? That I would be satisfied being a sovereign among vermin?’
Carnelian gazed in wonder at Osidian. It seemed that at any moment he was going to break into tears. Then he saw the rage rising. Osidian’s face hardened. ‘I will take back what is mine.’ His voice like extruding glass. ‘Though I was cast out of Osrakum, I shall enter her by force if need be. However mighty the host my brother brings against me, I will vanquish him and then, my Lords, you shall kneel to me.’
The Grand Sapients seemed as unstung by the venom as if already dead.
‘Then we have failed,’ said Lands. ‘You will be destroyed. In your fall will be encompassed much of what we have built, but we are patience incarnate. With time we shall rebuild everything as before.’
Rage was burning Osidian up. He bared his teeth. ‘What if I was to slay you here, now? What then for your reconstruction?’
The Grand Sapient actually shrugged in his capsule. An incongruous sight. ‘What you see before you is merely three branches. The tree remains beyond your reach. To stop us you would have to uproot us all.’
Osidian bowed his head and Carnelian watched the fight leach out of him.
‘We shall depart immediately,’ said the homunculus. ‘It would be better if instructions be given below that none are to impede us.’
Carnelian glanced at Osidian. ‘I will go, my Lord, and see to it.’
As he reached the edge of the platform, he looked back. Osidian was watching the Grand Sapients being sealed back into their capsules with an expression on his face of one betrayed.
Carnelian descended the tower against the flow of ammonites climbing it to begin the process of bringing down the Grand Sapients in their capsules. On the leftway, preparations were being made to leave. He saw that no Marula were entering the cordon of the Sinistral Ichorians and turned to gaze into the night, brooding over what Grand Sapient Lands had said. Light from the camp did not reach beyond the dragons to the sartlar, but their murmuring made him feel as if he stood upon a cliff looking out to sea. He tried to imagine the extent of several provinces of the Guarded Land. Could the sartlar over such a vast expanse really be moving in response to his summons? So much parched earth rising to clog the air. Hri yellowing, unwatered. The harvest meant to feed so many mouths left to rot in the Rains. Was he really responsible for bringing famine to the Commonwealth?
He became aware of a figure near him and turned to see an ammonite. The figure knelt. ‘Master.’
Carnelian regarded the man uneasily. Uncharacteristically, the ammonite had addressed him in Vulgate. ‘What do you want?’ he said in Quya.
‘Carnie, it’s me,’ the ammonite hissed.
Carnelian stepped back, alarmed, confused. He looked up and saw, close by, some Ichorians holding torches, but they were focused on the entrance to the tower. His Marula were within calling distance. Movement drew his attention back to the kneeling ammonite. There was a glint as it removed its silver mask and turned a little into the light. Expecting to see a face smothered in numerals, Carnelian began saying something. His tongue stilled. A chameleon tattoo. He stared at it, shocked. The cypher was achingly familiar and yet so very strange. It took him a while to notice the face smiling tentatively. His throat clenched as did his heart. ‘Tain?’
The young man beamed. It was Tain. It was his brother Tain. The boy become a young man. He fitted his face back into the mask, became an ammonite again, so that Carnelian was left almost feeling he had imagined it. Tain rose and beckoned Carnelian to follow him, who did, his thoughts frozen. Then he had enough to do dealing with getting through the Ichorian cordon, through ammonites, as Tain led him towards the first palanquin. They passed that, passed the second, continuing on, moving away from the tower and towards the rear of the procession. Carnelian’s mind thawed into an avalanche of speculation. He was reluctant to stop the purple-clad figure walking in front of him, though he wanted, needed answers.
At last they reached the seventh and final palanquin. It was quiet here, since most of the ammonites were clustering back near the tower, but one stood as if waiting for them. It indicated the palanquin with his head. ‘You don’t have much time.’
Carnelian stared. ‘Keal?’ It was the voice of his brother, whom he had not seen since he had left him on the coast so long ago.
The man gave a nod. ‘Hurry.’
Carnelian managed to wrench his gaze from his disguised brother to the palanquin. As he did so his heart beat faster. It was more desire than expectation prompting his hope of who might be inside. Unmasking, he reached out to take the handle and slid the panel open.
Peering into the gloom, he withered with disappointment. The old, wizened man inside the palanquin was unknown to him. A Master, unmasked, pale eyes in a sunken face.
The face lit up. ‘My son.’ Carnelian saw with shock it was indeed his father. Horror overwhelmed him. ‘What has happened to you, my Lord?’
Sardian was too preoccupied feasting his eyes on him to answer. He reached out to take Carnelian’s hands. ‘Son, it is a joy to see you.’
Carnelian glanced down at the bony hands gripping his, sapphire veins running over tendons and bones. He took hold of them, brought them up and bent to kiss them. ‘Oh, my father, what has happened to you?’ He looked up and, through tears, saw his father’s eyes sadden. He shrugged in a manner that tore at Carnelian’s heart for he had not seen that gesture for, it seemed, a lifetime. Sardian’s right hand pulled free of Carnelian’s grip and strayed back up his body to hover gingerly over his side.
‘The wound has never healed.’
Carnelian remembered the night his father had been stabbed by Ykoriana’s assassin.
‘The drug the Wise gave me has preserved me in the exact state I was in when I arrived for the election.’
Carnelian gave a shudder as rage rose in him, but his father raised a hand so thin it seemed translucent. ‘Immortality warned me what the drug would do, but I had no time to linger in a sick bed.’ His father smiled and Carnelian was warmed to see something of his beauty still there, though most had now fallen into ruin.
‘You must not grieve for me, Carnelian. On balance, I have had a fortunate life.’ His hand returned to cover Carnelian’s. ‘For instance, I had no hope of seeing you again.’
Carnelian sank for a moment into comfort. He had not felt so safe since, well, he could not remember. A thought came to him that made him stiffen with alarm.
‘What is it?’ his father asked, eyes widening.
‘Why are you here? The Wise…?’
His father squeezed his hand. ‘I have come here with their permission.’ He frowned. ‘We have scant time. Desiring to converse with the Lord Nephron, the Wise persuaded the God Emperor to let them come here. In exchange, they promised to bring Them you.’
Carnelian felt a chill of doubt in his chest. ‘Me?’
His father’s eyes flashed in reaction to something he thought he saw in Carnelian’s face. ‘Do you imagine I would betray you?’
Carnelian only half heard the words, contemplating, with surprise, how his father’s eyes had lost their power over him. Their gaze softened. ‘Forgive me. I have no right to be angry. What do I know of what you have suffered?’
Carnelian tried to work out where to begin, but his father had moved on. He held up his right hand, which bore no Ruling Ring. ‘I am no longer Suth.’
Carnelian’s nod caused his father to raise the ghost of what had been an eyebrow. ‘But I can see you knew that already.’
‘Aurum told me.’
His father’s face darkened. ‘Did he?’
Carnelian focused his mind on the situation. ‘The Wise have promised to reinstate you in exchange for you persuading me to return with you?’
His father nodded. ‘Not only that. They have promised me you will be pardoned so that you can assume the rule of our House.’
Carnelian could see how much his father yearned for that and it filled him with confusion. First he was surprised how much he yearned for it too. Then, even more surprising, his gut reacted against the thought of deserting Osidian.
His father cut through his turmoil. ‘But I have not come here to ask you to return.’
Carnelian looked a question at him.
‘Rather I have come to bid you flee.’
Carnelian was lost. ‘Flee?’
‘You must abandon this ill-conceived venture. Return to anywhere you have hope of finding refuge. Otherwise you will be encompassed in Nephron’s ruin.’ His father paused, suddenly very weary, weak, old. ‘I need to know that you are safe.’
Carnelian shook his head. ‘I do not understand, Father.’ He saw in his father’s face something he had never thought to see there: fear.
‘You know I have loved you since you were born?’
Uneasy, Carnelian gave a slow nod.
‘Never forget that.’
Carnelian watched his father’s face growing ashen and his heart began pounding. What was it that he wanted to say?
His father rallied his courage. ‘The thing is this. Though in every way that matters to me you are my son, it is not my blood that runs in your veins.’
‘What?’ Carnelian said, half numb, half exasperated.
‘Your mother came to me already carrying you.’
Carnelian felt his head was filled with ice. ‘Why then did you accept me as yours?’
‘I only discovered it much later.’
‘Much later?’ He groaned. ‘When?’
‘When I could no longer deny how much you look like your real father.’
Carnelian knuckled his forehead in a sort of agony. Then it all became clear. ‘The God Emperor.’
Sardian nodded solemnly.
‘That is why you took me to visit him.’
Sardian was nodding.
Carnelian was startled. ‘I drank his blood.’
‘We arranged it thus.’
For only the blood of his real father would ignite the ichor in his own. Carnelian stared at the man he had thought was his father. ‘This is why you chose not to come back from exile for so many years.’
Sardian nodded.
Carnelian felt his heart was rattling in his empty chest. ‘Then why did we return?’ He knew the answer. ‘Aurum!’
Sardian nodded. ‘The moment he first saw you, he knew you were Kumatuya’s son.’
Carnelian watched a dangerous light come into his father’s eyes. ‘To protect you, I would have slain him, all of them…’
Carnelian looked down at his hands, then he understood. He looked up. ‘You wanted to bring me back to Osrakum and so you put yourself in his power.’
‘He assured me your identity would be safe, for he alone was old enough to have seen Kumatuya’s face before it was hidden for ever behind the Masks.’
Carnelian nodded. It was all so clear. ‘In exchange you agreed to help him in the election…’ He paused, feeling as if he was falling. ‘He’s my brother.’
‘Will you forgive me?’
Carnelian glanced at his father, but barely registered his look of entreaty. ‘Osidian, my brother?’ Things fell into place and with each realization he released a groan. He became aware of his father’s distress, but a wall of ice had risen up between them. ‘There is nothing to forgive. You saved my life.’
Even to himself, his voice sounded cold. He watched his father withdraw behind his own defences, but something stopped him from reaching out to him.
‘And I seek to do so again, my Lord.’
Carnelian felt they were trapped on either side of a barrier and could see no way to scale it. It was easier to slip back into the relationship they had once had: father and son. He focused on what his father had said, instead of the look of pain on his face. ‘Only Aurum knew,’ he said, half to himself. Then it became obvious. ‘He told Ykoriana.’
His father nodded. ‘I do not know that for certain, but I can find no other reason why she would have commuted his deposal to exile. She has as much bile for him as she does for me.’
Carnelian looked at his father. ‘She fears I will accuse her of abduction?’
His father snapped a gesture of anger. ‘To attempt your life before, it was enough for her that she blamed you for the death of her sister in childbirth. To protect herself, as well as out of hatred, this time she will make sure you die.’
Carnelian nodded. It made sense. ‘If I do not return, what will happen to you, my Lord?’
His father shrugged. ‘For the time I have left I can endure Spinel. Then, our- my lineage will die with me.’
Carnelian felt a stab in his chest. The hollows of his father’s face already seemed to be cradling the shadow of death. He wanted to say something, but he was too numb to work out what.
‘I brought your brothers so that you can say farewell to them.’
Carnelian rose, nodding, wanting to get away from this man, who was and was not his father. He turned his hooded face enough to make sure no one else could see him unmasked. He regarded his brothers, now both also unmasked. Their faces had changed, but in a way they were just the same. Suddenly he could not bear the tears in their eyes. He gave them a curt nod, pushed his face into his mask, then strode back towards the tower.
Carnelian stood on the heliograph platform almost unaware of how he had got there. Osidian was a hole cut in the shimmering band of the embassy of the Wise below as it moved off along the leftway. Osidian was his brother. So many things suddenly made sense.
The black shape turned its head as Carnelian approached. Standing beside him, Carnelian gazed down at the torches moving north. The man who had once been his father was down there and those he had once believed to be his brothers. Though they were no longer that, he still felt a tug at his heart to follow them. ‘So what happens now?’
‘Nothing has changed,’ Osidian rumbled. ‘We march against my brother and destroy him.’
Carnelian felt another shock. Molochite was his brother too. He focused on Osidian, struggling to grip this new world. ‘Did nothing the Grand Sapients say affect you?’
Osidian cast an angry gesture into the night so that, for a moment, against the lights below, his hand seemed the wing of a crow. ‘The Wise are desperate. They would do anything, say anything, to regain the power they have lost.’
Carnelian snatched at some hope. ‘You think Lands was making up the threat of famine?’
‘I imagine that is true enough.’ Osidian shrugged. ‘Should we care about some of our subjects perishing? That is their lot. Once I wear the Masks we will re-establish the food supply. Their numbers will soon be replenished. They breed like flies.’
Carnelian turned to see his profile. His brother. It was there clear to see in the face, but their hearts were nothing alike. Sadness soured to anger. ‘Remind me, Osidian, why it is we deserve to defeat Molochite?’
Osidian began one of his interminable speeches about his rights, his god. Carnelian cut through it. ‘This is hopeless. Every move we make only serves to bring more victims into our circle of destruction. And for what? Your childish need to undo something done to you that you consider unfair?’
Anger leached away leaving him feeling sickened. He was no better than Osidian. He had been driving himself on with the delusion he could save others. He was like a fish caught in a mesh whose ever more frantic struggling only served to draw others into the net. When had he come to believe that power would be safer in Osidian’s hands than Molochite’s? Had his confidence that he could influence him always come from a hidden understanding that they had a bond that could not be broken?
Osidian was looking at him, but his face was shadow. ‘The Wise have frightened you. Have you forgotten the promise in your dreams?’
Carnelian burst into laughter that quickly gurgled away to self-disgust. He shifted into Vulgate. ‘We really are so alike, both driven by dreams. By Earth and Sky, I can’t deny I hate the Masters and I’ve supported you because I’d hoped that together we might destroy them, but now I find I can’t go on. Can’t you see that the Wise are right? Even at the price of letting the cancer that is the Masters suck away at the world, our order is better than chaos, than famine’ – Carnelian swept his arm out to take in the sartlar below – ‘better than letting those poor wretches be turned to charcoal by Molochite’s flame-pipes.’ He brought his arm back and took Osidian by the shoulders. ‘This madness has to end. Let’s end it together.’
Osidian pulled himself free, snarling. ‘What’s happened to you?’
Carnelian felt suddenly almost too weary to stand. He knew nothing short of death would stop Osidian. He knew also that he would never be able to kill him. ‘My father came with the Wise. We spoke.’
Osidian’s hands came up to his head. ‘Surely you can see they brought him here to trap you?’
‘Nevertheless I’m going to join him.’
Osidian’s hands fell to his sides and he grew very still. ‘You intend to betray me?’
Carnelian shook his head, finding some comfort in understanding the true nature of the love he felt for Osidian. ‘Not willingly.’
‘Then you’ll stay with me.’
Carnelian shook his head again. ‘Not this time. I’m going to do what I should’ve done long ago and walk away.’ Misery claimed him. ‘I really don’t know why I ever thought this was a good idea. It’s all such a stinking mess.’
‘I won’t let you go,’ Osidian said, his voice ice.
Carnelian heard in it the tones of an abandoned lover and wanted to tell him they were brothers, but even were Osidian to believe it, Carnelian could not see that it would change anything. ‘Then, you’ll have to kill me.’
They stood as shadows, confronting each other. Just then, Carnelian would have welcomed death at Osidian’s hands. The moment passed. He turned and walked away.
By the time he reached the roadway, he was cold with fear. Not for himself, but of what Osidian might do to Fern and the others. He strode through the camp until he found them around a fire. Poppy and Krow looked up at him. Carnelian motioned and they made space for him to sit. He sank beside them, hunching, seeking not to draw too much attention from the auxiliaries around them. ‘I’m leaving.’
Poppy’s face lost colour. ‘Where’re you going?’
He nodded towards where the embassy was a faint gleam along the leftway.
‘Why?’
Krow beside her seemed as anxious as she was, but Fern was staring into the fire as if it did not concern him. Carnelian focused on the youngsters. He tried to marshal his thoughts. ‘I feel I’ve just woken from a strange dream. In the horror… the guilt following the massacre…’ They all glanced at Fern, but he showed no reaction. ‘I allowed myself to get drawn along the same sort of path the Master walks. Led by dreams; sacrificing people with a view of reaching some goal.’
Carnelian looked first into Poppy’s eyes, then Krow’s. ‘Even if my motives are wholly different from his, my methods have been too similar. The people who’ve just left came to explain to both of us the stark realities. We can’t hope to win and, even if we did, we’d gain nothing. Just in making the attempt, countless more people will die. Worse, what we’ve already done is going to bring famine to the Gods know how many.’
The fear in their young faces made him pause.
‘For the Masters this is all a game and I believed I could beat them, but I was wrong. I’ve just made things worse.’
He saw how they would not look at him and felt a stab of shame that they were feeling let down. He wanted to take Poppy’s hand, to tell her that her belief in him had been justified, but he had nothing with which to back that up. He glanced at Fern, who was still impassive. He resisted an urge to tell them that very likely he was going to his death. That seemed a poor way to restore their faith in him. Besides, it might only serve to have them attempt to persuade him not to go and that he did not want. His heart ached with the need to save them. That at least was something that might be in his power.
Poppy looked up at him, her lips pursed. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best.’
‘Have you told the Master?’ asked Krow.
At Carnelian’s nod, the youth gazed up at the watch-tower with fearful eyes.
‘I want you all to come with me,’ Carnelian said.
Krow jerked back round to look at him. ‘Won’t he try to stop us?’
‘He might. That is why we must go immediately.’
Poppy fixed Carnelian with a stare, glanced at Fern, then back with her fingers tracing a chameleon over her face. He understood and said it for her, but looking towards Fern. ‘You’ll all have to join my household. I’m not making any promises, but I believe there’s a chance that you’ll survive this.’
Fern showed no reaction – not then, nor after first Poppy, then Krow declared they would follow Carnelian. All of them were now looking at Fern, waiting.
‘Fern,’ said Carnelian at last, ‘will you come with us?’
Fern only frowned and Carnelian felt for him. He was in an impossible position. Had he not already submitted to fighting under the command of the murderer of his people and this because he could at least tell himself he was fighting against the Masters who were the oppressors of all the world? Now he was being asked to abandon even that shaky cause, for what? To become, at best, a servant of the Masters in Osrakum?’
Poppy crouched at his side and, grasping his hand, begged him to come. ‘Because we love you. We all do,’ she said and turned round and got Krow and Carnelian’s nod. ‘We’re the only family you’ve got left.’
Carnelian wanted to say that this was not true. That Fern had cousins where they were going, but he bit his tongue. Fern’s head sank. ‘I’ll come.’
They crept up through the stables. Carnelian had decided they would attract less attention if they went on foot. He was sure they would soon catch up with the embassy. When they reached the cistern level, he remembered the homunculi. He had not seen them for days. He realized that, even if he could find them, they would hardly wish to return to their masters. They would just have to take their chances with Osidian.
As they came round the monolith onto the leftway, a shadow blocked their path. From his shape and sour odour, Carnelian knew it was Morunasa. Fearing the man had been sent by Osidian, he reached for his sword.
Morunasa’s sharpened teeth appeared in a grin. ‘And where would you all be going?’
Carnelian saw no point in lying. ‘We’re deserting.’
Morunasa’s smile widened as he moved aside to let them pass. Uneasy, Carnelian led them off north along the leftway, unhappy that he was leaving Sthax and the rest of the Marula warriors at the mercy of Osidian and the Oracles.
As they walked they listened out for any pursuit. None came and soon the glimmer of the camp was too dim to see and only the pinpricks of the naphtha flares showed where the watch-tower lay. On they walked, nothing but their footfalls disturbing the eerie silence. The stars filled the heavens with their frost. All around, the land lay black. Hardly a breeze stirred the night air. Far ahead a star lower than all the others suggested the position of the next watch-tower. Of the Wise and their embassy there was no sign. As they continued it seemed that, for all their walking, they were always lost in the same place. Carnelian began to regret his decision not to bring aquar.
The hem of the eastern sky was sucking up the first paleness of the dawn when they saw a watch-tower stark against the indigo like some monstrous baobab. This was the third tower they had come to. They had been walking all night. Having come within sight of the radiance that the embassy were carrying along the road, they had followed it, keeping their distance. They were weary and it was with some relief Carnelian saw a flickering spilling out from the watch-tower onto the leftway over which it loomed. ‘Thank the Mother, they’re making camp at last.’
Striding towards the cordon of Ichorians, Carnelian was relieved when they fell to their knees. ‘I have business with the Suth Lord who travels among you,’ he said, affecting a Master’s tone of command.
Though he had hoped they would obey him, he was made uneasy when their cordon opened without anyone even being sent back to get instructions. It gave him the unsettling impression he was expected. He hesitated only for a moment. There was no going back. Gesturing for the others to follow him, he moved into their camp.
The untattooed halves of Ichorian faces floated in the darkness like so many crescent moons, but Carnelian quickly lost interest in them. Just beyond the tower, the leftway disappeared. He could see the pale edge of the road catching the first light, but the leftway that should have flanked it was simply not there. He could see no disturbance in the earth, no rubble. It seemed just as if it had never existed. What he saw next made him forget everything else; halved by the road, a great disc lay to the north, spread out glimmering beneath the forbidding blackness of Osrakum’s Sacred Wall. It could be nothing but a military camp, but in comparison with those Carnelian had seen before it was a pomegranate to one of its seeds.
His brothers glanced up at him nervously as he entered the watch-tower atrium. He bade them rise from their knees and their faces lit up, knowing his voice. Uncertainty returned as they saw Carnelian’s companions walking in behind him.
‘Father?’
‘He sleeps,’ said a familiar gruff voice. When the speaker appeared from behind a pillar, Carnelian did not at first recognize him. He had changed so much and yet Carnelian saw the man he had known in the ruin that remained. It was Grane, his eldest brother, his eyes put out and replaced with stones. Carnelian did not feel comfortable staring at him, even though Grane could not be aware of it. Shocked, angry, Carnelian wanted to know how Grane had come to be blinded. He became aware of the pain in his other brothers’ eyes. ‘I’ll not disturb Father.’
Grane nodded, clearly relieved. Carnelian felt a pang of worry for his father’s condition.
‘Who’re these others?’ said Tain.
‘Are these your brothers, Carnie?’ Carnelian turned to Poppy. He could not help smiling behind his mask. She was standing her ground, stating her claim of intimacy with him by using his diminutive. Tain and Keal were staring at her, wondering who she was. Carnelian extended his arm to take in Fern and Krow as well as Poppy. ‘These’re as much my family as you are, Tain.’
Of his brothers, only Grane did not frown. Carnelian introduced Poppy and Krow. Then he indicated Fern. ‘This is Fern, your cousin.’
At that, even Grane looked shocked.
‘His mother was Ebeny’s elder sister.’
Tain and Keal gaped at Fern. Carnelian saw that even Fern’s moroseness was lightening a little with curiosity. He looked from one to the other, enjoying their interest in each other. He fancied he could even see a common resemblance. Then it occurred to him that Fern was more closely related to his brothers than was he. That made him feel sad, then angry.
‘Seraph?’
An ammonite had appeared at the foot of the ladder that led up into the tower. ‘My masters wish to converse with you, Seraph.’
Carnelian was about to object but twisting in the surface of the man’s silver mask were shadowy greens and blacks. He glanced at the Ichorians who had escorted them into the tower. The last thing he wanted was any bloodshed. Besides, he knew he would have to confront the Wise. Now was as good a time as any.
He looked towards his brothers. ‘Grane, please take care of my friends. I’ll return as soon as I can.’
His brother gave a solemn nod. Carnelian noticed that Krow had extended a protective arm around Poppy. Fern had regained his grim demeanour. Carnelian felt content they would sort things out among themselves.
As he approached the ammonite, the man moved aside. Reaching the ladder Carnelian glanced up into the tower and saw a complex pattern of light seeping in from the various levels. Even through his nosepads he could smell burning and myrrh. His heart fluttered at what lay up there, but he began to climb.
‘We have been expecting you, Suth Carnelian,’ said the homunculus.
Four capsules stood open against the walls. One was empty and its occupant was looming behind the homunculus that had spoken. The horns of the Grand Sapient’s silver mask were almost forking the ceiling. Carnelian recognized the emerald finial of the staff the homunculus was holding before him, which was carved into the form of a man.
‘Immortality.’
The homunculus murmured and a little later its master inclined its almost featureless face. In their capsules, the other Grand Sapients remained as motionless as the dead.
The myrrh-thick air had already made Carnelian queasy with anxiety. The unexpected presence of another Grand Sapient quickened his heart to fear. He felt in his bones that Immortality was there because of him. ‘My Lords, if you vow to reinstate my father in his House as you promised him, then-’
Another high homunculus voice broke in. ‘That depends on what you have to tell us.’
The staff it held proclaimed its master to be Law. ‘That was not what I had- I shall tell you what I know, but it might be less than you had hoped for.’
‘Perhaps you know more than you imagine.’ This was Lands’ homunculus.
‘You will submit to an examination,’ said Immortality.
Carnelian only became aware he was backing away when he felt the door of the cell against his back. ‘Examination?’
‘Disrobe.’ The face of the homunculus was impassive, but a sharpness in its voice seemed to convey the menace that was in its master’s mind.
Carnelian felt trapped. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’
‘You will find it more comfortable if you submit willingly.’
The voice seemed to be dissecting him. He took in the four homunculi. He did not believe they could easily overpower him. Immortality’s bones seemed as if they would snap under the merest impact. The other Grand Sapients did not appear to have enough strength even to leave their capsules. Carnelian felt the door at his back. He could turn, flee, except that the tower was filled with ammonites and surrounded by Ichorians. Besides, there was his father to think of, Fern and Poppy and Krow, his brothers.
He felt the thick silk of his military cloak, then pulled it off. It fell to the floor like a shadow. Carefully he released himself from his commander’s leathers. They fell away like discarded skin. The ritual bindings were stained beneath his arms, down his chest, his crotch, his inner thighs, his feet. The cloth gave off an odour of stale sweat that even the myrrh could not conceal.
‘Approach us.’
Carnelian gazed at Immortality’s mirror mask and obeyed. As he came close, the Grand Sapient released his hold on his homunculus and his pale hands opened to receive Carnelian, who shuddered as they floated towards him like colourless moths. One finger then another settled upon his chest. Quick as a serpent, the other hand stung his neck. Carnelian reached up instinctively, then fire poured into the roots of his veins. His flesh felt as if it was fraying apart; his bones melting to oil. He was on the floor. A tearing sound and the surface of his body seemed to be releasing its tension. Like a ripe fruit spilling its seeds.
‘Why did you summon the sartlar?’
The words formed a perfect calligraphy like smoke and could not be denied, yet Carnelian struggled to fight against their compulsion. It was his own voice that betrayed him, though not completely. ‘To use them against Molochite.’
In some remote chamber in his mind, Carnelian smiled. They would ask him about tactics, but he could give them only emptiness in reply.
‘Where did the notion come from?’
Carnelian rushed away, closing doors behind him so they could not follow. An arch of pain formed inside his shell like a trumpet blast, forcing a groan out against his will.
‘From where?’
He tried to hide, but then he was exposed naked in a coruscating flash of pain. His voice like an animal’s. ‘A dream.’
‘Describe this dream.’
Carnelian tried to choke his throat, but the words poured out like water between his fingers. He relived the dream through his own voice. The blood tide was pulling him out to sea, but he was caught, like a jelly fish impaled upon a stick. Questions probing his soft, exposed, transparent innards.
‘Calculation on the basis of the brothers’ cusp birth remain stubbornly inconclusive.’
‘Could this shed light?’
‘Confirm his birth date.’
‘No correlation.’
‘Can it be incidental?’
‘Something is missing.’
‘Shall we terminate him?’
‘Dare we? They will have Their price.’
‘There I could examine him more minutely.’
‘What could he reveal in Their hands?’
‘Is it conceivable They could extract more than we?’
‘Hatred blinds Them.’
‘But if he dies?’
‘Then he is not the missing factor.’
‘Besides, by intervening we might have sundered his connection to the crisis thread.’
‘Certainly perturbed its stream.’
‘Perhaps he is, after all, irrelevant.’