The Third God (56 page)

‘You were a fool to put your trust in my brother. He has always been my mother’s creature. Though I confess to some surprise that being made the Gods has not put iron in his backbone.’

Aurum nodded. ‘We both have reasons to hate your mother, but not only her. You must be aware of the part Imago played in your abduction.’ The Master glanced at Osidian, perhaps hoping that this was news to him. ‘Though you suffered most from that, Celestial, I too suffered. When your brother cheated you of the Masks, I too was cheated who had risked so much in your cause. Remember, Celestial, that both of us have suffered exile.’ He glanced at Osidian again, but he seemed impassive. ‘So, Celestial, even if only for these reasons, we might both enjoy destroying Imago.’

Osidian smiled coldly. ‘I can see, my Lord, why you have had need to once more become the tool of the Wise, but you have not yet explained to me why I should share that choice.’

Aurum grew very still, giving Carnelian the feeling that they were finally coming to the core of his intention. ‘Celestial, even if you did not wish to pull Imago down and, through him, your mother; even if you cared nothing for the way she is subverting the Balance; still you would have no choice.’

Osidian groaned. ‘Was it the Wise who told you that?’

‘Grand Sapient Lands who is now regnant among the Twelve has informed me of his conviction that we can defeat Imago. He bade me tell you that, for all its fearsome reputation, the Ichorian is more accustomed to ceremonial than it is to war. Our two legions of the line would already be more warlike than the Ichorian, but have, besides, the unique experience of having confronted huimur against huimur.’

‘I deny none of this, my Lord, but why am I bound to fight?’

‘Because, Celestial, it is the only chance you have. You have reached the zenith of your stolen power. If you retreat, your strength will ebb. Defeat will become inevitable.’

Carnelian looked to Osidian, willing him to deny this, but he seemed peculiarly inert. Carnelian turned his attention back to Aurum. He desired to dull the predacious gleam in his eyes. ‘Why was it that you, my Lord, sharing all my father’s crimes, should be merely exiled, while he was deposed?’

It took some moments for the Master to disengage his eyes from Osidian. When he turned to Carnelian he seemed to be thinking of something else. He frowned as if he was hearing Carnelian’s question again, but could not understand it. Then, before he could mask it, a sly expression flitted across his skull face.

Osidian drew the Master’s attention away. ‘My Lord, how far is Imago from here?’

Aurum shrugged. ‘Two days ago I received communication from him claiming he was in Magayon. I know his courier took two more days to locate me. All in all it would surprise me if he was here within anything less than seven days.’

‘He could be here in half that if he marched night and day,’ said Carnelian.

Aurum shook his head. ‘I believe my Lord Imago will be feeling too confident to incommode himself with night marches.’

Nodding, Osidian withdrew into himself. Carnelian watched Aurum watching him. At last the old man spoke. ‘I am weary, Celestial. With your leave . . . ?’

Osidian seemed to wake. ‘I have had a cell prepared for you below.’

Aurum frowned. ‘I would rather return to my huimur tower.’ His free hand began to make a sign, then stopped. He looked anxious, worn out. ‘I have had it modified for my use. It has been my home for so long.’

Osidian regarded him with a frown. ‘Very well. We shall send a signal to your huimur and have it come here to berth alongside this watch-tower. I would not wish to submit my Lord to the inconvenience of having to cross the camp below. However, I will have to insist that once the creature arrives, all its crew should quit it.’

As Aurum and Osidian negotiated over how many of his household he would be allowed to retain, Carnelian sighed with relief that they were not going to have to share their watch-tower with the old monster.

Carnelian stood with Osidian at the edge of the platform watching Aurum’s dragon lumbering towards them. They had summoned it with a signal from the heliograph, using the last rays of the sinking sun. Its lurid disc was forcing Carnelian to squint in spite of the mask he was holding up before his face. Aurum had already begun his painful descent to the leftway. Carnelian reassured himself that Poppy was safe in their cell, then he took a step away from the edge so that he could allow his mask to drop. For a while Osidian did not react. Something about his stillness made Carnelian uneasy. ‘Osidian?’

He still did not move.

‘We need to talk, my Lord.’

At last, he turned. As his mask fell away, his face was revealed. Carnelian’s heart faltered. Such sadness. ‘What ails you?’

‘Have you not heard enough to know?’

‘I thought you wanted this.’

Osidian gave a humourless chuckle. ‘Oh, no, not this.’

‘Can we even be sure he tells the truth? We only have his word that Jaspar is marching here. Perhaps it is another ruse to take you alive.’

Osidian shook his head slowly. Carnelian wondered at his fatalistic certainty. ‘And you would trust him enough to have him fight at our side?’

‘He is as trapped as are we.’

Carnelian gazed out over their camp, all washed with gold. Beyond their dragon wall, the Lepers. They would never accept fighting alongside their most hated enemy. ‘How can we ally ourselves with him?’

‘How can we not? Can you provide me with another legion, Carnelian? Shall we fight the more than fifty huimur of the Ichorian with but two dozen of our own?’

Carnelian struggled to find reasons other than the hatred of the Lepers or his own revulsion. ‘If we must use his huimur, can we not strip him of his command?’

Osidian shook his head and seemed to be seeing someone else before him. ‘There is no time to train their crews to operate without their commanders. We might be able to control the legion through them, but the last time we tried it, you may remember it was not a great success. They are accustomed to taking orders from Aurum. He has been their Legate for years and, as far as they know, has been appointed by the God Emperor.’

Such logic was unassailable. Carnelian felt cornered. ‘Why fight the battle at all?’

Osidian frowning, staring blindly, gave Carnelian hope he was considering an alternative. ‘We could retreat back to Qunoth, or down to the Leper Valleys. The longer we deny Jaspar victory, the more time there is for the political situation in Osrakum to destabilize further.’

Light came back into Osidian’s eyes, as if he had climbed up out of darkness. ‘If Imago secures anything approaching a victory, then not only he but also my mother shall conquer . . . everything. What would remain to stop her pursuing the Wise for their plotting against her? What was left of the Balance would shatter in her hand. Her power would become absolute.’

‘Only in Osrakum,’ said Carnelian. ‘It is the only world that she cares about.’

‘Can you be sure of that?’

Carnelian realized he could not. Apart from himself, or his father perhaps, every Master he had met was so dazzled by Osrakum that, in comparison, the outer world appeared a colourless miasma. Nevertheless, it was likely he and Osidian had drawn Ykoriana’s gaze out past the Sacred Wall. Even if they were delivered to her, could he be certain she would not vent her bile on the subject peoples? Though he might hate the world as it was, how could he be sure the world remade would not be worse?

Osidian interrupted his thoughts. ‘Even were we to adopt this strategy, it could not hope to work. Wherever we went, the rope would tighten around our throats. We would quickly run out of supplies, without which the huimur would soon lose their strength, their fire. What other forces we had would melt away.’

Osidian shook his head, sadness ageing him. ‘What power we have now, we must use or let it wither in our hand. The Wise have us in a trap I can see no way to escape.’

Desperation made Carnelian irritable. ‘Surely it is the Empress who has ensnared us?’

Osidian shook his head again. ‘It is possible she is as ensnared as we are.’

Carnelian frowned. ‘Are you claiming that the Wise wanted the Clave to send the Ichorian?’

‘It would seem so. Perhaps they did not wish to disrupt their military system. Perhaps my edict has reached more Legates than I imagined. It might even be that, without Legions, the rest of the Twelve are loath to operate his Domain. If, as Aurum claims, Lands is regnant, he might wish to keep that Domain weak. The flows of power among the Twelve are too subterranean to fathom.’

Carnelian had grown increasingly frustrated, as if the snares were catching at his limbs and mind. ‘But what you are saying is that they have deliberately collaborated in the breaking of the Balance.’

‘It was already broken. Aurum’s letter to Molochite put the Wise in my mother’s power. How would you seek to heal such a breakage?’

Carnelian imagined the tripod of the Commonwealth with only two legs. ‘Break it further in the hope of putting it back together as it was before. But, then, why would they send Aurum—?’ Carnelian gaped at Osidian. ‘The Wise want us to defeat Jaspar. If we do, Ykoriana will fall.’

Osidian was staring into the ground. ‘Not only she, but the Great would have failed, for they voted for Jaspar; voted to send the Ichorian.’

Carnelian understood. ‘So each of the Powers would be seen to have played its part in undermining the Balance.’

‘More than this, it would be evident that the House of the Masks was in conflict with itself. Threatening another civil war.’

‘To which the Balance was the original solution . . .’ said Carnelian, dazzled by the elegance of such a scheme.

‘And would be so again.’

Carnelian saw a problem. ‘But we would still be out here, and now victorious, with the Three Gates poorly defended against us.’

Osidian hunched over. ‘Lands does not believe we will triumph.’

‘But I thought—’ Carnelian understood. ‘We are equally matched.’

‘Yes, we and the Ichorian will destroy each other. Even if we survive, we will be maimed, pitifully weak. None would dare give us aid. Some means will be found to stop me reaching Osrakum alive. The Wise will rebuild the Balance, mortaring it with blood from all three Powers: a three-way sacrifice.’

‘You and Ykoriana; Jaspar . . . and me . . .’

‘Do not forget our dear friend Aurum.’

‘But of the Wise . . . ? Legions?’

‘Did you not notice how Aurum reacted when I told him we had the Grand Sapient here?’

Carnelian slumped. ‘So we have already lost.’

Osidian glared, nodding, frowning so hard his birthmark foundered among the creases. ‘Unless I can devise a way to defeat Imago and emerge with our legions unscathed.’

Carnelian gazed at him in hope. ‘Do you believe you can . . . ?’

‘Not by myself.’

For a moment Carnelian thought Osidian was asking for his help, but then he saw Osidian was not looking at him, that he had once more retreated into some inner darkness. ‘Who else . . . ?’

Osidian hung his head and Carnelian knew what he meant to do. He shook his head with horror. ‘You cannot mean to submit yourself to the maggots again?’

Osidian lifted his head. ‘Do you believe I want to do it? Only the God can help me now.’

‘But you can’t—’

Rage flashed in Osidian’s eyes. ‘Have you any other suggestion? Well, do you? I would be happy to entertain any alternative.’

Carnelian had none to offer. ‘What am I supposed to do while I wait for you?’

Osidian shrugged. ‘Maintain order?’

Fear and disgust flared to anger in Carnelian. ‘By which you mean, among other things, that I have to keep the Lepers from getting their hands on Aurum?’

‘If we are victorious, there will be plenty of time after the battle to pay them what I owe.’

They climbed back down into the tower. Carnelian eyed the ladder that Osidian would soon descend. Emotions were twisting in him so fast he could not grab hold of what it was he felt. Unexpectedly, Osidian moved across the landing to open the door that gave into the cell in which the Sapients were lodged. Carnelian followed him in. Osidian unmasked. Carnelian anxiously closed the door before removing his own mask. As Osidian looked round at the capsules leaning against the walls, Carnelian watched his face. There was a sadness there, a quietness. He noted how Osidian held his mask against his body with both hands. Stooping, he laid it upon the floor with such care it seemed he feared to wake the Sapients. He approached the capsule containing Legions’ vague shadow form. He grasped its lid. The seal shattered as he pulled it back to reveal the Grand Sapient standing strapped into the leather hollow, arms crossed over his chest. Osidian gave a nod that might have been a bow, then raised his eyes to the Grand Sapient’s silver mask. Carnelian almost cried out when Osidian reached up. His pale fingers closed around its edges. Carefully he worked it off. Carnelian watched the breathing tube sliding out from the mouth. The mask came free. His earlier notion that Aurum looked like Legions had been wrong. This face was monstrous. A skull to which wet vellum had been plastered. The face of a corpse long dead.

He glanced at Osidian and was arrested by the look in his eyes. They were seeing no horror. Instead, Osidian was looking at Legions with love. Carnelian recalled he had seen that look before, but, with everything that had happened, he had forgotten how Osidian felt. He gazed again upon the object of that regard. He allowed himself to look with compassion. Legions was not a monster, only a mutilated man. Pain was written in his tight, leather skin. And he was ancient, like some wizened, lightning-shattered pine. What spirit lay within that shrivelled husk? What life had this man known? What suffering?

Carnelian turned again to Osidian and felt in his heart just how much he loved this old man. This old man who was losing his purpose, when that purpose was his life.

Osidian bowed again and then tenderly replaced the mask. He reached up and traced the sickle of its crescent horns. He closed the coffin and turned away.

Carnelian, moved, now yearned to save Osidian from his decision. ‘Delay going down until the morning.’