The Third God (71 page)

Carnelian was outraged. ‘Doesn’t it appall you?’

Osidian shrugged. ‘They’re beasts.’

Carnelian was feeling queasy and wanted to be alone. He began walking to the platform edge.

‘You haven’t eaten anything,’ Osidian called after him.

Carnelian kept walking. He wondered if he would ever be able to eat render again.

Waking, it took him some moments to realize he was not in the cabin of the baran. The sound of the sea. The swaying. The sandy wind lashing the dragon tower like spray. Disappointment tore at him. His father was not there to make things right.

He cast a jaded eye out through the bone screen at the blood-red world. The sartlar swarmed the earth like cockroaches. He felt lightheaded. He had not eaten anything for days. Even the hunger pangs had faded. His body ached so that he wondered whether this was, at last, the burning in his blood that was proper to one of the Chosen. There was a dark pinnacle ahead, vague in the ruddy twilight. A watch-tower he would sleep in. He would be initially dizzy when he rose from his command chair. The climb up through a tower now exhausted him. His fear of nightmares was now balanced by a horror of lying awake. Sometimes, in the night, he was sure he could hear the wet sounds of the sartlar feeding.

In his cell, Carnelian woke sensing something had changed. The world seemed brighter so that, for a moment, he almost could believe the long days of red twilight and dust had been nothing more than a nightmare. He rose. A window in the stone wall gave out into clear blue. He was drawn to the freshness of that colour. Below, the camp was in the shadow of the watch-tower. Only the dragon towers reached high enough to catch the first gold of the sun. Beyond stretched the sartlar: an indigo sea. Their murmur reached him.

‘The wind has fallen,’ he muttered, lost in wonder.

‘What is it?’ said a voice.

He turned to see Poppy. ‘Come and see for yourself.’

She rushed to the slit and pushed her head into it to breathe the cool, clear air. He left her there, put on his hooded cloak and picked up his mask.

‘Where’re you going?’ she said.

Carnelian pointed upwards.

‘I’ll come with you.’

Together they left the cell, climbed the ladder to the tower roof, then the staples up onto the platform. As Carnelian stood up he gasped. His mask forgotten, he gaped, turning slowly on the spot to take it all in.

‘So many!’ Poppy exclaimed.

Carnelian’s attention was drawn to the south-west. There, the hem of the sky was steeped in ink. At first he thought the darkness was because the sun was still low – so low it spilled the legs of their shadows over the platform edge – but though the indigo west was brightening fast, the stained horizon stayed obstinately black.

‘The Rains,’ said Poppy.

Her look of wonder suggested she had not imagined that rain ever fell upon the Guarded Land. In truth, he had forgotten how late it was in the year. He looked back at the angry horizon.

‘Look there.’ Poppy was pointing northwards. Another band, but this one was of gold. Carnelian forgot to breathe.

‘What is it?’ Poppy said.

The fear in her voice wrenched the answer from him, though he could not look away. ‘Osrakum,’ he said, in Quya, then, in Vulgate: ‘the Mountain.’

He stared at the Heaven Wall. He could not quite believe he was seeing it. A part of him had been convinced he would never do so again. It was like the longed-for face of a lost lover but, if so, it was a lover who had betrayed him.

‘Osrakum.’ Voiced behind them almost as a groan of pain.

They both turned to see Osidian there. Half his mask blazing in the sun; the other half in murky, glimmering shadow. Carnelian felt compassion for him, but he could not long resist the siren fascination of Osrakum. He turned back to feast his eyes upon her wall.

It was a diamond flash somewhere near the earth that woke them from their trance. Another and another, pulsing in a repeating pattern. A heliograph.

Carnelian turned to Osidian, but realized he was equally unable to read the signal. So he sent Poppy to fetch one of the homunculi. Watching the diamond flicker, something occurred to him. ‘If that’s the next tower . . .’ Fern was supposed to have been there. Carnelian’s heart faltered from fear of what might have befallen him. Who could be operating the device there?

‘Not the next one, but the one beyond it,’ said Osidian.

Carnelian saw that, indeed, the spine of Fern’s tower rose to the right of and slightly higher than the flashing. ‘What does it mean? Are the Wise trying to contact us?’

Osidian’s mirror face gleamed sinuously as he shook his head. ‘The pattern is too repetitive to carry any complex communication.’ He became stone. ‘My brother is close.’

Carnelian shielded his eyes and scanned the northern horizon. With all the excitement he had forgotten Molochite must be nearby, waiting for them.

The sounds of someone climbing up onto the platform made him put his mask in front of his face before he turned, to see it was Poppy approaching followed by the homunculus. The little man stopped to peer at the flashing.

‘Well?’ barked Osidian at last.

The homunculus flinched and sketched a gesture of apology. ‘I cannot read it, Celestial. The signal is faint, but I have the impression it carries no words.’

‘What then?’ Carnelian said.

The homunculus gestured again. ‘Perhaps some diagnostic.’

‘To check the integrity of the system?’

‘The sandstorms have been blinding the mirrors, Seraph.’

Osidian shifted his weight. ‘Perhaps it seeks to detect any discontinuity.’

Carnelian tensed. ‘They are looking for us.’

‘Homunculus, could we answer it from here?’

The little man knitted his brows. ‘At this distance, Celestial, lucid communication might be difficult.’

Osidian gave a nod. ‘As I thought.’ He turned to Carnelian. ‘My Lord, I will ride to the next tower. Will you bring the army there?’

‘But it could be a trap.’

‘If so then we must scout as far forward into the enemy position as we can. It is critical that it is we who decide when and where we are to give battle.’

Osidian’s mask regarded Carnelian until, reluctantly, he agreed. He made a gesture of thanks and, then, taking the homunculus with him, left the platform. Carnelian lingered, brooding, until he saw, below, Osidian hurtling northwards along the leftway, a clot of Marula flying after him. Carnelian’s heart was heavy with foreboding. He glanced round at the black smudge of the approaching Rains, the ocean of sartlar, and then fixed his gaze upon the glowing Heaven Wall, wondering if this was the calm before the storm.

Rolling with Earth-is-Strong’s ponderous gait, Carnelian sat in his command chair, gazing at Osrakum. As the sun rose higher, it seemed to heat the Sacred Wall into a bar of white-hot gold that branded his vision so that he blinked its ghost whenever he turned away.

At some point the heliograph began to signal again, but this time its beat was complex. He watched the flickering, silent voice and knew Osidian must be holding a conversation, but with whom? The Wise? Molochite? Carnelian feared Osidian might make some mistake. There was even a part of him that feared he might be betraying them all.

‘We shall go no further today, but make a camp here.’

Upon the leftway, Osidian was half in the shadow of a monolith. Dragon towers formed a battlement running back along the road. Carnelian had come up to meet him the moment he had arrived. He had climbed up through the stable levels frowning. This was watch-tower sun-nine. There were only eight more between them and Osrakum.

‘What has happened?’

‘Under my promise of safe passage, the Wise are coming here to conclave with us.’

THE COMING OF THE WISE

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.

(extract from a beadcord manual of the Wise of the Domain Blood)

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.