Sexual attraction is a dangerous and chaotic force. If we were not free of it the mirror-like clarity of our thought would be stirred to opacity. Though this force cannot be excised from the Chosen it can and must be controlled. The incarceration of fertile females, while it ensures the accuracy of the blood calculus, as importantly constrains the sexual force between the genders to run along channels that we control and supervise. The fraction of the force that remains at least partially unconstrained between females within a forbidden house is a small and measurable factor. Far more dangerous is the fraction that remains unconstrained between males and for which no effective system of control has yet been devised. This free sexuality is to be considered dangerous in the extreme. It has the potential to severely disrupt the astrological calculus with the consequence that our ability to project our thought into the future could become fatally compromised.
A sickening odour of cooked meat was wafting over him as he rolled with the gentle pace. A sinking feeling, then cool hands lifting him. Carnelian rolled his head and saw Sthax. He smiled.
The profile of the rock under his back was forcing him to lie a little twisted. In the dim light he could just make out a ceiling of fractured stone. He was waking from another awful dream. Was he still among the Lepers? He jerked as he remembered Fern burning in the flames. The movement released a stinging pain on his arms, his shoulders, his cheek. Enduring it he rolled over and saw a familiar, small shape stooping. ‘Where?’
It turned, and was Poppy, her face in the moonlight blank with fear. She rushed to him. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fern?’
A grimace squeezed tears from her eyes.
Carnelian sat up, reeled. ‘Not dead?’
Poppy shook her head, shrugged, tried a smile. She helped him get up. He leaned on her as he took some steps to where a body was lying naked on the rock. It had Fern’s face with lips blistered and hair burned away, but it was not his body. What lay there was swollen. Carnelian fell to his knees beside him and dared to touch him. Fern’s left arm had the texture of dead leaves. Carnelian edged in close to peer at his face. He winced at the cooked smell coming off his flesh.
Poppy knelt on the other side of Fern. ‘We’ve poured water on his burns. We don’t know what else to do.’
He glanced up and saw her despair. Then back down at Fern’s face. He put his ear to Fern’s mouth. ‘He breathes.’
He straightened up, staring, stunned by the disaster. A small inner voice said: Are you surprised?
Poppy was there in front of him. ‘You’re burned too.’
Carnelian looked down at his arms. They stung. His robe was charred, but the skin beneath seemed unbroken. He glanced back at Fern.
‘You saved him. You brought him out of the fire. We brought you here.’
‘We?’
‘Marula.’
‘Sthax?’
Poppy nodded. ‘He was one of them.’
Carnelian looked around him at the cave they were in.
A shadow loomed over them. ‘What now, Master?’
It was Morunasa. Carnelian was overcome by a surge of rage. ‘Why ask me?’
‘The Master won’t speak to me.’
Carnelian rose and saw shadowy forms scattered through the cave. ‘Where is he?’
Morunasa walked off and Carnelian followed him. As they wound through the cave, scared faces turned up to watch them pass. One man whimpered, another embraced him with a long, trembling arm. Leaving them behind, they came to the mouth of the cave. The moonlight made the Pass seem a delicate picture engraved on glass. Osidian, leaning against a rock, seemed part of it.
Carnelian moved round to stand in front of him. Osidian’s gaze rose. ‘You countermanded my order.’
Carnelian felt sick. ‘What?’
‘You sent the Marula back.’
Carnelian groaned. ‘Do you really imagine the aquar would have ridden through that firestorm?’
Osidian glanced at Morunasa, who was making no attempt to hide his resentment of their use of Quya. ‘I would have thought it would suit you to have the Marula dead.’
‘I no longer know what I want.’
Osidian nodded as if this were some great wisdom. ‘It is time to admit defeat.’
Carnelian stared at him. It felt as if the last prop holding him up had been pulled away. Though he had never believed in Osidian’s plan, opposition to it had defined his own. ‘So that is it, you are simply going to give up?’
Osidian glanced up the Pass. ‘I will wait here for Aurum. I want to die in Osrakum.’
Carnelian looked at him with contempt. ‘Never a thought for anyone but yourself.’
Osidian looked around as if wounded. ‘You can come with me. The Wise will punish you, but you will survive.’
Carnelian looked back into the cave. ‘And these others?’
Osidian shrugged. ‘I do not imagine my Lord Aurum will let them live, but you can try to bring some with you.’
Slow anger simmered in Carnelian. ‘I will not so easily abandon them.’ He turned to Morunasa. ‘Oracle, at first light, we’ll leave this infernal canyon.’
‘And go where, Master?’
Carnelian felt suddenly so tired it was an effort to remain standing. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. Perhaps we might find some Lepers and get some help for our wounded.’
He gazed at Osidian. ‘Stay here by yourself if you want.’
He walked back into the cave. When he reached Fern he sank down, drawing Poppy towards him and putting his arm around her.
Before he led the Marula out from the caves Carnelian waited until the sky was bright enough to light the Pass. In spite of the care with which he and Krow had loaded Fern into his saddle-chair, with each step his aquar took, he jigged like a doll. Many Marula were nursing livid burns. Some were crammed two to a saddle-chair. Aquar that had been badly scorched had become uncontrollable. Looking back along the line, Carnelian saw not a military force but a mob of mauled and beaten men.
As the morning passed, the wind following them seemed to urge them to greater speed. Still, he was not keen to risk the wounded on the uneven ground. Allowing his aquar to find her own route down he had plenty of time to think. Osidian was there, riding at his side, brooding. Carnelian nonetheless thought it unlikely Osidian would change his mind: he meant to give himself up to Aurum. Carnelian knew he should be thankful Osidian was not bent on returning to the Earthsky, but all he could feel was resentment. It sickened him that Aurum had won. The Lepers would have no justice. Unbearably, the destruction of the Ochre would become nothing more than an incidental occurrence utterly peripheral to the political upheaval their absence from Osrakum had caused. It was as if everything he and Osidian had suffered, all the destruction they had brought about, all the atrocities, were to become nothing more than an inelegantly played gambit in a game of Three. With Osidian’s capture and return to Osrakum Aurum and the Wise would have pulled off a major coup. As for him he was a minor piece. Depending on the movements of the major pieces he might end up merely chastised. His House would lose influence. Ultimately, he would be returned to the splendours and luxuries of his palaces. The massacres in the Earthsky and the Leper Valleys would merely elicit some small adjustments in the tributary lists and some measured reprisals of terror against the errant tribes. The ripples that had spread out from Osrakum would undulate away to nothing. Order would return. Everything would be as it had always been. How he yearned to stay behind somewhere, anywhere that he could live in peace with Fern and Poppy, but this desire had been shown for the madness that it was. He had no place out here among the subjects of the Commonwealth. What little he could still do he must endeavour to do well.
Fern’s wounds needed urgent attention. The only possible source of help was the Lepers, but even if, somehow, he could contact them and they not only had the means to help, but chose to, where would Fern live out the rest of his days?
Poppy was riding nearby, Krow beside her. There was some hope there. The youth seemed to love her and, in time, she might forgive him. Carnelian tried to visualize scenarios in which they could return to the Earthsky, find a tribe, resume the pattern of their lives his coming had nearly obliterated. He could see nothing but the difficulties. Lily came into his mind. Her people had suffered terrible loss too, and defilement. Among them, his friends might be able to find a refuge; in time, even happiness. This was something that was possible and that might be within his power to arrange. But he was forgetting the Marula. Morunasa’s control of them was now the greatest threat. If he found out what Osidian was planning to do, he would have his people slaughter them all. Carnelian’s gaze took in the Marula warriors riding all around him. They must be kept busy long enough to get his loved ones to safety. He realized he was searching for Sthax. What good would finding him do? The Maruli was as much a creature of the Oracles as the rest of his fellows. As for Osidian and himself, he cared not a jot. If anything, he drew pleasure from how their deaths might still ruin the game Aurum and the Wise were playing.
He urged his aquar to drift towards Osidian’s. When he was close enough he waited until Osidian eventually looked up. Osidian was about to speak, but Carnelian gestured: No words. With his hands Carnelian explained some of his thinking. He told Osidian that he would return with him to Osrakum but, first, they would have to survive among the Marula. Osidian was watching his signs with half-lidded eyes. When Carnelian had finished, Osidian gave no indication he had even understood. Carnelian saw how listless he looked. Defeated, Osidian seemed to have lost the will to live. What little motivation he had left would, most likely, be focused on obtaining at least some measure of revenge against Aurum, the Wise, his mother and his brother. Carnelian recognized that, for whatever came next, he was on his own.
The sun was low when they began emerging from the shadow of the Pass. Surveying the emerald mottle of the swamps, the winking diamonds of water, Carnelian let it all flow over him and disperse the shadow from his heart. For a moment he even managed to forget his failures and the coming reckoning.
They wound through boulders, beneath stands of acacias, across ferny meadows until he saw, ahead, a cleavage in the earth. He took the Marula down into it, towards a watercourse nearly choked with white rocks through which myriad streams percolated. He chose a spot where jumbled slabs enclosed a honeycomb of caves and crannies. There among cascading rivulets he bade the Marula make a camp.
Poppy found them a cave: a wedge of cool shade that tapered into darkness. Here they laid Fern out on a slab, setting his puckered burns against the cold limestone. Soaking their ubas in a little stream-fed pool they applied them as poultices upon his angry, red skin.
Carnelian left Poppy and Krow nursing Fern, telling them he intended to beg help for him from the Lepers. Then he went in search of Morunasa.
The Marula inhabited all kinds of hollows, like nesting birds. The handful of sartlar had dug a hole in the earth to hide in. Morunasa and the other Oracles had taken up residence in a series of slots that lay up the slope of a vast, lichen-streaked slab. Two kneeling warriors were lighting a fire around which the Oracles were seated in a half-circle. All save Morunasa gave Carnelian a nod as he climbed up to them. Morunasa indicated a space for Carnelian to sit. He betrayed no reaction when Carnelian announced his intention to get aid from the Lepers, but first spoke to his people in their tongue, then fixed Carnelian with an enquiring look. ‘To what end, Master?’
‘We need to find another way to the land above. The Lepers are likely to know many.’
Morunasa gazed out over the watercourse. The black limbs and bodies of the Marula looked dismembered among the limestone boulders. Without looking at Carnelian he spoke. ‘We have little belief left that getting there we’ll achieve anything.’
Carnelian found it hard to push his claim further. He could see as well as Morunasa how bony were the arms of the men working on the fire. It was obvious to all how weakened the Marula had become, how dispirited. ‘We all need time to heal our bodies and spirits.’
Morunasa gave a nod to this.
‘We need options,’ Carnelian said.
Morunasa regarded him.
Carnelian explained that he wanted to send as many of the able men as they could to seek out Leper groups to negotiate for medicines, for food, for information.
‘Why don’t we all go east?’ Morunasa asked.
Carnelian opened his hands. They were as empty as his strategy. ‘There’re many too wounded, too weary, to make a long march through the swamps.’
‘The Ochre worst of all.’
Carnelian examined Morunasa’s face. Was this mockery – or maybe even sympathy? He was sick of lying, but he dared not be frank. ‘A camp so close to the Pass will more likely be safe from Leper marauders.’
‘Who do you have in mind to head this expedition?’ asked Morunasa.
‘You?’
Morunasa shook his head. ‘I’ll remain here with the Master.’
Carnelian nodded. ‘I’ll have to remain here with Fern.’
‘I alone among my people speak Vulgate.’
The fire between them began teasing up smoke. Flames crackled in the central nest of twigs. As the two warriors rose, Carnelian saw one of them was Sthax. The warriors bowed to the Oracles and padded off down the slab.
Carnelian feared drawing any attention to Sthax and so continued with what he had been going to say. ‘Then we should send Krow and Poppy.’
‘The girl?’
‘As I’ve reason to know, the Lepers are frightened. Having a child speak for us will make us seem less threatening.’
In the morning, Carnelian stood with Morunasa watching Poppy and Krow ride away. Behind them rode most of the unwounded Marula warriors. Carnelian remained there until they disappeared. He feared he had lost them for ever.
Within a crevice, in shadow, Osidian lay like a corpse. Carnelian knelt beside him. It was hard to see in his face the boy from the Yden. The marble round the eyes had hairline cracks and not from laughing. The corners of the mouth drew down into the chin. The lips had thinned. It was a face that betrayed suffering. He regarded it, fighting sadness. Not just for the loss of what they had had, but also for what Osidian himself had lost and suffered.
Osidian’s eyes opened and found Carnelian’s face. For a moment he looked confused, vulnerable, but then his face set into its familiar, wilful mask. That mask drove compassion from Carnelian. The man lying there was the murderer of the Ochre. He focused on what he had come to say. ‘Our greatest peril now is Morunasa.’
When Osidian said nothing Carnelian felt cheated and realized he had been hoping for one of Osidian’s dismissive remarks. He continued. ‘I find it hard to believe he does not suspect what we are up to. If we are to survive until Aurum comes for us you must strive to allay his fears.’
Osidian pursed his lips, shook his head. ‘I can do nothing.’
‘Cannot or will not?’
Osidian’s eyebrows rose together. ‘My god no longer speaks to me. I search for him in my dreams, but he is not there. He is gone so completely that I begin to doubt I ever heard his voice at all.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘Do you really believe that if I speak to Morunasa he would not see this?’ He seemed to sink away as if his flesh were draining into the earth. ‘You would be wise to keep him away from me.’ His eyes closed and he seemed not even to be breathing.
Carnelian felt fury rising in him. He wanted to shout at him that he could not simply hide from the situation, but he sensed Osidian immovable and went to cool his anger by soaking cloths in the stream and then laying them on Fern’s arm and shoulder to soothe the burns.
Old woman’s face running with blood. Voice rustling leaves. Carnelian knows she is Poppy. Iron streams in her wrinkles pour down to the sea. Ravens kiting, scribing circles in the wind. Is that a body at the focus of their funnelling? No. Fresh uncurling ferns, green foam on the waves. The tide is coming in. The tide is coming in .
Carnelian woke suddenly. Uneasy wisps of the dream unravelled, fading. He sat up and saw Fern lying near him, his burns fiercely red against the brown-green of the fronds upon which he lay. Outside their cave the sky was bright and vast and clear.
As the days passed, Carnelian grew used to the routes between the rocks, to the murmur of the stream. He spent time losing himself in the limitless sky or gazing at the white cliff of the Guarded Land, imagining a return to his father, to Ebeny, to his brothers in Osrakum. Much of every day he spent sitting on a high rock gazing east across the valleys, searching for Poppy’s return. While the sun was up, it was possible to keep fear and worry at bay. At night nightmares lay in wait for him.
As for Morunasa and the Oracles, they rarely descended from their lair among the rocks. The fear Carnelian had of them abated. They seemed to have become no more menacing than a flock of crows.
Though Carnelian had been watching them for a while, it took some time for him to be certain that the distant figures were the returning Marula warriors. They had been gone for more than four days. Straining his eyes, he could still not see Poppy or Krow among them. Neither was there any sign they had brought any Lepers with them.
He became aware of movement nearby. It was Morunasa and the Oracles descending their slab. He cursed. Morunasa called up to him and he clambered down to meet them. Together they watched the riders winding towards them through the boulder field. Carnelian knew that as soon as Morunasa and the Oracles were reunited with their people the rest of them would be once more within their power. He was relieved to discern Poppy and Krow riding at the head of the returning Marula. She waved and Carnelian waved back. As she came closer he unwound his uba so that she would be reassured by his smile. Though she returned it he could see the worry in her eyes. He stepped forward as her aquar sank to the ground and he helped her out of her saddle-chair. The Oracles clustered round them.
Carnelian saw how the returning warriors were making straight for the stream and turned enquiringly to Poppy. ‘Are you thirsty?’
She looked at him, unsure what answer he wanted.
‘There’ll be time enough to drink,’ said Morunasa. ‘Tell us everything, child.’
Uneasily she looked round the circle of the ashen faces, her gaze coming finally back to Carnelian. He gave her a nod. It seemed futile to attempt to keep anything from Morunasa.
‘For the first couple of days we saw hardly anyone. Those we did ran off and we couldn’t catch up with them. On the third day, we left the Marula in camp and Krow and I went off on our own.’
Carnelian glanced at Krow, who had come to stand protectively behind Poppy, then returned his attention to her. She looked at him intensely. ‘We found several who talked to us. We begged them for help.’ She pointed at her saddle-chair. ‘They gave us some salve that is good for wounds, but said they could do nothing more for us.’
Carnelian tried to hide his disappointment behind a smile. ‘You did well.’
Morunasa turned a jaundiced gaze on Carnelian. ‘Did she?’
Carnelian was sure he could hear an edge of menace in the man’s voice. Confrontation could no longer be avoided. ‘Shall we meet in council?’
Morunasa gave a solemn nod without taking his eyes off Carnelian. He spoke to the other Oracles in their own tongue. They too looked at Carnelian as they gave their assent. He could see they were waiting for him, but he needed time to think. ‘Let’s meet at nightfall.’
Morunasa gazed out over their encampment, now full of Marula warriors. ‘You’ll bring the Master?’
When Carnelian agreed, Morunasa began addressing the other Oracles. Carnelian slipped his arms around Poppy and Krow and led them towards their cave. Behind them the Oracles began moving off in pairs across the camp, to speak to their warriors.
Hunched together, they gazed down at Fern. Poppy knelt and pulled a jar from her bag. ‘Let’s put some of this stuff on his wounds.’
As she pulled the cloth cap back from the jar it exhaled an odour that overcame Carnelian with a memory. He asked her for it and Poppy put it in his hand. He raised the jar to his nose and inhaled. He recalled the sartlar woman applying her burning ointment to the wounds the slaver ropes had cut into his neck and ankles. It was the same smell.
Poppy looked alarmed. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. He returned the jar. ‘It has a very characteristic smell.’
‘And it burns in your wounds,’ Krow said. ‘But, soon after, it leaves them soothed.’
Carnelian nodded and Poppy, kneeling, began to apply it to Fern’s arm. Carnelian knelt beside her and, taking some of the salve on his finger, bent to anoint Fern’s shoulder. ‘So they refused to help us?’
Poppy looked at him. ‘They threatened us at first, but we could see they were terrified of Sthax.’
‘Sthax?’
She nodded. ‘I lied to Morunasa when I said we went alone. Sthax asked to go with us. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to get him in any trouble.’
‘He asked?’
‘Sort of. We made conditions.’
‘He understood you?’ he said, incredulous.
Poppy shrugged. ‘Well enough.’
Carnelian frowned. ‘You were right to lie about him.’ Poppy was gazing at him, curious about his reaction. ‘Please continue with your story.’
Poppy let it go. ‘The Lepers became friendly enough when Krow showed them his burns. It was only then they believed we’d suffered from the dragons.’
Krow nodded. ‘They said we could return with them to some cave, that they would hide us, even share their food with us.’
‘Did they?’ Carnelian sat back, thinking.
Poppy knew him well enough to be able to read something of his thoughts in his face. ‘You want to leave us here with them, don’t you?’
Carnelian grimaced. ‘There’s nowhere else.’
He looked to Krow for support. The youth put his hand on Poppy’s shoulder and began to speak, but she jerked her shoulder free. ‘What about you?’
Carnelian grew annoyed. ‘Look, didn’t you see the way Morunasa and the others behaved with me? We’re in their power. Even if we manage to survive, I intend to leave with the Master.’
‘Leave?’ asked Krow, frowning.
Poppy half turned to him. ‘Back to the Mountain with Hookfork.’
‘Hookfork?’ exclaimed Krow.
Poppy ignored him. ‘And what about us?’
Carnelian shook his head. ‘You two could still slip away, and take Fern with you.’ He watched as their gaze shifted to their injured hearthmate. ‘Please try to understand. You must know that the last thing I want is to leave you behind, but it’s simply madness to imagine I could get you safely to the Mountain. Hookfork’s a monster. He already hates me and would gladly use you against me. Eventually, he would make sure you both died, horribly.’
He waited, wanting it to sink in. ‘Even if that wasn’t a factor, we can’t trust the Master. He’s lost what heart he had. All that’s left in him is bitterness and a reflex instinct for revenge.’
Poppy was still staring at Fern, battling tears. Carnelian leaned forward to kiss her head. ‘You three will find yourselves a new life here among the Lepers. The one I met was not so different from a woman of your people.’
Poppy was shaking her head. He reached down to catch her chin and brought her eyes up to look into his. ‘Poppy, this is the only hope for any happiness I have left.’
As she gazed at him the fierceness leached away. She ducked the slightest of nods into his hand. He let her go.
‘What about the Marula?’ asked Krow.
Carnelian raised his hand to his brow. ‘I don’t know.’
Carnelian was setting off to talk to Osidian in preparation for the meeting with Morunasa when a commotion broke out. From all across the camp Marula were converging on its eastern edge. Anxious, Carnelian was drawn to find out the cause. As he pushed through the crowding Marula he heard Morunasa’s voice rise in anger. He broke through to find him confronting some shrouded figures. His heart leapt. Lepers.
Seeing Carnelian they surged towards him. The Marula drew back like crabs from a rising tide. Keeping his distance from the Lepers, Morunasa too approached him. ‘They say they’ve come with a warning, but that they’ll speak only to the Master.’
Carnelian did not flinch when one of the Lepers stepped forward. Their sudden appearance seemed a gift from the gods. He tried desperately to think of how he might best use this good fortune to save his loved ones.
‘We came to warn you, Master.’
‘Of what?’
‘The Master who is your enemy and ours intends to fall on you with a numerous host.’
‘Aurum?’
The Leper nodded and raised a bandaged arm to point towards the Pass. ‘Even now he approaches.’
Carnelian was stunned. If this was true everything was suddenly overturned.
‘You’ve little time if you’re to escape.’
‘What’s this?’
Everyone turned to look at Osidian. While Morunasa explained, Carnelian tried to find a way out of the trap they were now in. Though he had achieved the contact with the Lepers he had been working for, their announcement of Aurum’s imminent arrival had ruined everything. Morunasa was hardly going to let Poppy and the others go off to safety with the Lepers while he and his warriors remained behind to be destroyed.
The Lepers drew back as Osidian advanced on them. ‘How could you possibly know that a force is coming down the Pass?’
‘Information’s come down to us from the Landabove.’
‘Impossible. The Ringwall’s closed.’
‘It came by a route the Masters don’t control. A route we could show you. A route that could bring you, Master, and these Marula up to the Landabove unseen.’
‘Unseen?’
‘It’s a secret way, unprotected.’
Osidian stared at the Leper.
‘We’ll show you this secret way, but at a price.’
Carnelian had a feeling there was something going on he should understand. ‘A price?’
Another Leper stepped forward. ‘Au-rum. You must give the Master Au-rum to us.’
Carnelian’s heart stopped as he recognized Lily’s husky voice and her peculiar pronunciation of the Quyan name.
Osidian laughed. ‘Madness, sheer madness.’ His face became as forbidding as the cliff of the Guarded Land. ‘Do you really imagine I would hand over one of my own kind to you?’ His lips curled with disgust. ‘To a rabble of filthy lepers?’
Carnelian addressed himself to the Leper he now was certain was Lily. ‘Even if we were to agree to this how do you think we could bring such a thing about?’
‘What if we brought you up into a city of the Landabove, within its walls, unseen? Would this make any difference?’ she said.
‘Even so such a city would be well defended by its legion.’
‘What if the city of which I speak had been stripped of its auxiliaries?’
Carnelian turned his head enough to see Osidian’s eyes. As he expected, they were brightening with greed. Such a city would be vulnerable. What the Lepers were offering was a chance to acquire a legion of dragons.
Morunasa leaned forward, glaring. ‘You were rash, Leper, to put yourselves in our power. We can take from you what you know.’
Lily moved to confront the Oracle. ‘You could certainly force from us the knowledge of where it lies, Maruli, but it’s far away and you can only hope to reach it with the help of many of my kind – you won’t get that unless you promise to pay our price.’
This show of defiance to their Oracle was making the Marula bristle and growl. It was a most unexpected sound that silenced them: Osidian laughing. Morunasa looked at him in surprise. Fire had returned to Osidian’s eyes. ‘You’re a fool, Morunasa. Can’t you see that these lepers have been sent to me by the Darkness-under-the-Trees?’
As the sun was westering the Lepers led them up into the mouth of the Pass, so that it seemed they were riding towards the very thing they were trying to escape. Then the Lepers turned east towards the cliff of the Guarded Land. The ground began rising, becoming encumbered with boulders, earth turning to chalk that floated in veils around their march. Though they seemed to be riding towards the cliff they were not following a direct route. The Lepers led them up winding watercourses that followed narrow and tortuous tributaries. The aquar were finding it hard going. As Carnelian watched the shadows lengthen, he wondered how he might find a way to talk to Lily alone.
The sky was striped with ochre as, dismounted, they began to clamber up scree. Behind him Carnelian could see the mouth of the Pass already in twilight. Above them the cliff rose so high it was almost impossible to see its crest.
Dusk climbed the slope after them. It overtook them even as a cave mouth came into view. Near-darkness forced them to slow their climb. At last, Carnelian saw the Lepers ahead begin to be swallowed by the cave. When its arch was over his head, he looked back, then flinched: a glimmering tide was pouring out from the black throat of the Pass. Countless torches and, in among them, clots of darkness that must be dragons. As the Lepers had warned, Aurum had come.
A columned cavern opened before them, haunted by the echoes of their arrival. Smoke hung like mist above fires whose light revealed the trunks of stalagmites. Pools cast spangles up onto the rough arches between the stalactites. Though this place bore a resemblance to the Labyrinth, its far humbler proportions made it seem a wood they were entering, a living place.
Krow and Poppy led the aquar that carried Fern. They chose a spot between a fire and a pool to coax the creature to kneel. Carnelian helped them lift Fern out and lay him on a shelf of rock. As they tended to him they became aware of shades crowding the edge of the firelight.
‘Lepers,’ Carnelian said in a low voice. ‘They won’t hurt us.’
Some of the shrouded figures edged closer. They huddled, peering at Carnelian, pulling away when he looked at them.
‘They’ll not have seen the face of one of the Standing Dead before,’ whispered Poppy.
Carnelian nodded, then noticed one Leper approaching boldly. He rose to meet it.
‘We need to talk, Carnie.’ It was Lily, as he had hoped. ‘You and us, the other Master, the Marula leader.’
He glanced at Poppy. ‘You’ll stay with Fern?’
When she nodded, Carnelian followed Lily off into the limestone forest.
When they reached a secluded spot Carnelian reached out to touch Lily’s shoulder. ‘Why are you helping us?’
The figure in front of him could have been a shrouded post. ‘You must realize that Aurum would’ve easily destroyed the Marula and then left for the Mountain, taking me and the other Master with him.’
Lily turned and her bandaged hands went up to her brow to push back her cowl. The snow of her face and hair, her ruby eyes, were almost as much of a surprise to Carnelian as they had been the first time he had seen them. ‘We know that, in searching for you, Au-rum will wreak more destruction upon us. We fear this more than words can describe. We’re a traumatized people, terrified, but I believe and have persuaded others to believe that the only hope for us is resistance; that we must seek to restore the dignity we have lost.’
‘You seek this through vengeance?’
Lily’s eyes darkened. ‘Through justice.’
Having his words thrown back at him made Carnelian pause.
Lily grimaced and her face lost its fierceness. ‘Most of my people will pursue this as vengeance though, in time, this may change. What I’ve come to believe, however, is that this hope of justice alone can unite my people, can give them back strength enough to save them from being broken. This is the only way I can see to heal them, to heal our land.’
Carnelian’s heart responded to her plea. He wanted to give her his support, but there was a part of him that feared how much it might cost her people, cost her in the end. ‘Even with dragons we might not be able to overcome Aurum. Even if we do, even if we give him to you, our rebellion will be put down by the Masters. Once they restore their dominion they’ll pursue everyone they consider responsible. It’s unlikely they won’t discover the part you and your people have played.’
Lily’s eyes, for a moment, seemed to become colourless. ‘That is a risk we must be prepared to take. Will we not be in much the same position as your Plainsmen?’ She put on a smile, affecting confidence. ‘Besides, what more can they do to us?’
Carnelian gazed at her long enough to allow his silence to answer that. She reached out and took his hand. ‘Nevertheless, I believe we’ve no other choice.’ She frowned. ‘Besides, my heart tells me you were sent to us.’
They both watched the reflections of the Marula dance in a pool like black flames. Carnelian felt dread threatening to overcome him. Her faith was too close to that Akaisha and so many others of the Ochre had put in him. The faith his weakness had betrayed. Still, he could not dash her hope. He believed what she said, that her people needed hope. Perhaps they needed her hope.
He put his free hand over hers. ‘Lily, you must not trust Osidian.’
‘The other Master?’
‘It’s doubtful he’d give you Aurum even were he in his power.’
Lily shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that matters. For now it’s enough that my people can play a part in bringing our enemy down. As for the other Master, it is not him I trust, but you.’
Osidian stood before a tapering pillar of limestone, Morunasa at his side, Lepers keeping their distance. He was asking them something about plague.
‘Carnelian, they seem to know nothing of the Lord of Plagues,’ he said, his Quya populating the cavern with ghostly Masters. ‘Though I should wonder at my own surprise. Still, it has struck me that the ability to spread leprosy by touch is an attribute of that avatar. He in turn is, I believe, merely an aspect of the Black God. Of whom,’ he said, shifting into Vulgate and nodding towards Morunasa, ‘the Darkness-under-the-Trees is another aspect.’
Morunasa turned away to stare into the shadows. Carnelian could sense by the cast of his shoulders how affronted the man was. He gazed at Osidian, hoping his own contempt was not soaking through into his face. Osidian’s need for divine sanction seemed at that moment the most pathetic superstition. Carnelian wondered how Osidian might respond to discovering that, perhaps, every one of the Lepers before him was free of the disease.
‘Now that you’re here…’ Osidian turned on the Lepers, among whom Lily was now lost. ‘Describe to me this secret way.’
It was her voice that answered him. ‘There’s a city east of here built upon the very edge of the Landabove. This city controls seven ladders-’
‘Qunoth,’ Osidian said, a fierce hunger brightening in his eyes.
‘ – steep ways up to gates in the Ringwall, but there’s an eighth ladder known only to the Lep-’
Osidian interrupted again. ‘This ladder, this Lepers’ Ladder, it comes up into Qunoth?’
‘It does, Master.’
‘And you say that only your kind know of its existence?’
‘We’re certain of this, Master.’
‘How would we get there?’
‘With Au-rum hunting you, we dare not take a route across the Valleys. Instead we must follow trails that run along the foot of the Landabove.’
Morunasa spoke for the first time. ‘Can we ride along these trails?’
‘No. They’re difficult enough even on foot.’
Morunasa shook his head. ‘This will take too long.’
Lily’s shrouded figure emerged from the others. ‘We’ll have reason to count the days more than you, Maruli, for it’s upon my people that Au-rum will prey as he searches for you.’
‘How can we hope to remain supplied during such a journey?’ asked Osidian.
Lily shrugged. ‘My people have sought refuge in caves all along the margin of the Landabove. I believe they’ll share what they have with you and your men.’
Osidian frowned. ‘This has been arranged?’
‘No, Master, but I believe they will help anyone who has promised to deliver our enemy to our justice.’
Carnelian sensed how distasteful Osidian considered the notion of handing one of the Great over to such vermin. ‘Do you swear you’ll give him up, Osidian? Will you swear it upon your blood, upon your faith in your god?’
The eyes Osidian turned on him were those of an eagle.
‘Unless you do, Master, we’ll not help you,’ said Lily.
Carnelian could see that Osidian was calculating how he might achieve what he wanted without the Lepers’ willing help. ‘My Lord, forget not how Aurum has treated you. To save himself he seeks to take you back to Osrakum to your death. Why forgo the chance these people offer you, in order to save such a one?’
Osidian looked down for some moments, then, raising his head, he swore the oath.
‘Master…’ said Morunasa to get Osidian’s attention. ‘You know what we’ve suffered pursuing your ends. We’ve been so close to failure that, in spite of the proofs of favour our Lord has shown you, we’re close to abandoning you and returning to the Lower Reach to salvage what we can from its ruin. I share your faith, my Master, but I dare not hazard my people’s last chance of survival on anything less than certainty.
‘Will you swear as you have done for these -’ Morunasa indicated the Lepers with a stab of his chin – ‘that once you come into your own you’ll provide us with the means to bind bronze rings to the Upper Reach from which new ladders may be hung?’
Carnelian stared at the Oracle, wondering at his forbearance that he should be prepared to wait until they had conquered Osrakum. Why was he putting faith in such an unlikely outcome? Osidian too was surveying Morunasa with frowning suspicion, but nevertheless he swore the oath and the Oracle pronounced himself satisfied.
Carnelian had his own request to make, one that he wished all those present to witness. He addressed his comments to the Lepers. ‘The wounded Plainsman we’ve brought here can go no further in his condition. I judge he and the other two of his kind are of no further use to us. However, they’ve served us well enough and I’d like to leave them where they might have a decent life. Would you make a place for them among yourselves?’
Carnelian kept his attention fixed on the Lepers, though really his speech was meant as much for Osidian as it was for them.
Lily spoke for the Lepers. ‘Outcasts have always found refuge in our valleys.’
Carnelian nodded his thanks, then turned to Osidian. Their eyes met. Osidian seemed puzzled, but also pleased as he raised his hand to add his gesture of assent.
As Carnelian made his way back through the cavern, he prepared himself for the coming confrontation with Poppy. This time she would have no choice. He drew what thin comfort he could from having found his friends some kind of refuge. As for his own pain at the separation, that would have to wait for when he had the luxury to indulge it.
He reached the place where Fern was lying. Krow was there, resting against a stalagmite. Poppy was nowhere to be seen. The youth looked up at him. It must have been the expression on Carnelian’s face that made him jump up. ‘Carnie?’
Carnelian saw the youth’s alarm, but could only manage a slight smile of reassurance. ‘We’re going east from here following a route to the Guarded Land.’
‘And we’re staying behind,’ said Krow.
Carnelian nodded. He looked down at Fern. ‘He certainly can’t come with us.’
‘And Poppy?’
Carnelian raised his head and saw how sick Krow looked. ‘Where I’m going there’s no place for her. You must see that’s true.’
Krow nodded.
‘And you must stay with her. I sense that that’s what your heart wants too.’
Krow looked very young, his face expressing his feelings even as he strove to hide them.
‘I’ve found a place for you among these people. They’re not so different from Plainsmen. They’re clean. Their leprosy is mostly a disguise they wear to protect themselves from others.’
Carnelian was not sure Krow was taking all of this in. He wanted to do what he could to give the youth back his pride. ‘You know I love her too. I’m not allowing myself to feel how much it’ll hurt me never to see her again, but it’ll lessen my pain to know that you’ll be here to take care of her.’
Krow surfaced from his confusion to gaze at Carnelian, checking to make sure he meant it. Then his face crumpled, close to tears. ‘She’ll never forgive me,’ he whispered. ‘Never.’
Carnelian moved to him and took his face in both his hands so that Krow was forced to look him in the eyes. ‘That’s not true, Krow. She’s loyal to the memory of the Ochre, but growing in her heart is the knowledge that, whatever part you played, you did so unwillingly.’
Krow was looking at him through tears. He began mumbling, but Carnelian hushed him. He let go of him and stood back. ‘I don’t need to know anything. I don’t want to. I have my own guilt to atone for.’
He looked down at Fern. ‘Even he’ll forgive you in time.’
Carnelian felt suddenly weary. The pain was beginning to leak through his control and there was still worse to go. ‘Tell me where she went, Krow.’
‘She wandered off towards the cave entrance.’
With a heart that seemed crumbling stone Carnelian went to find her.
Light from the fires did not reach the entrance and so Carnelian had to feel his way. The rock was cold under his hands, smooth as bone, but wet. The floor was ridged and whorled, so that he almost felt as if he were creeping across some vast Plainsman Ancestor House. Curves and surfaces became visible ahead, gradually, as if rising from the bottom of the sea. Then he saw a luminous aura whose stone-toothed edge made him realize it was the entrance. It grew brighter with each step. Reaching the opening he could feel the moth-wing touch of the night air upon his face. Stars were the source of all the light. Dark walls funnelled into the Pass. Down on its floor he spotted the tiny jewel. A phosphorescent mote in the deep: Aurum’s camp.
‘You’re leaving us behind.’
Carnelian jumped. ‘By the horns.’
He searched for Poppy and saw her face against the rock as if it had been carved there.
‘Where we’re going, even I might not survive. If I do I’ll be returning to the Mountain.’ Carnelian thought of making some vague promise that, once there, he would send agents to seek her out and bring her to him, but that was a commitment so threadbare it was indistinguishable from a lie. He wanted her to say something, anything. Silence was unbearable. ‘You know I’d stay if I could, but if I’ve learned nothing else I’ve learned there’s no place for any of the Standing Dead out here.’
A silence fell in which he could hear the beating of his heart.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me, Carnie, that I need to stay here to look after Fern?’
The coldness in her voice chilled him. Almost he told her all about Lily so that Poppy might understand the Lepers were not monsters. Almost he spun for her a vision of what her life might become. Almost, but the silence had grown so deep he knew his words would drown. So instead he sat down to watch the night with her.
They watched until a full moon appeared above the black wall of the Guarded Land. So cold and bright its stare, it was easy to believe it was blinding them.