The Third God (84 page)

Carnelian ran his hands down the smooth arms of the command chair. He found some reassurance in its familiar feel, in having his Left and Right in their places awaiting his commands. He glanced round and saw his family crammed against the cabin walls, safe for the moment. Poppy and Krow leaning together, his brothers staring blindly, Fern with his knees drawn up to his chest, head lolling. Carnelian’s gaze lingered on his lover, recalling the feel of that wiry head, tasting again the sweetness of their lovemaking. This was too soon soured by confusion, anger, fear. Why had he been so weak as to start a relationship that he knew was certain to end in loss?

Carnelian turned back to look through the screen out over the abandoned Twenty-Legion Camp. He remembered its roar and power, but now only rain knifed across its bleak, littered, empty spaces. Nothing of the host of beasts and men was left but their tracks in the churned-up mud.

He could not help still thinking of this man lying upon silk and leathers, like something assembled from bird bones, as his father. Carnelian saw him through tears. A commotion out in the camp made him turn away, worried about his people. He focused on what he was there for. In the light of the single lamp, it was clear how much Grane had changed, yet Carnelian could see the brother he remembered in the ruin that remained. Grane’s ravaged face seemed a warning of what could happen if Carnelian should be unable to become the Ruling Lord of their House.

‘He must be woken, Grane.’

His brother’s mouth twisted, lips thin like an old man’s. ‘We’ve been unable to wake him since he collapsed.’

Carnelian heard the tone of bitter accusation. Collapsed when, for a second time in his life, searchers had come back to him with news that they could not find his son. Carnelian corrected himself: adopted son. ‘I know that his care for me has so often brought disaster for others.’

‘You’re his son,’ Grane said with bleak finality.

Carnelian almost laughed at the irony. Should he tell his brother that they were not brothers at all? Tell him that, of the two of them, it was only in his veins that any of their father’s blood ran? Not a drop of it was pulsing in Carnelian’s. He said nothing. At that moment it could only deepen Grane’s pain at being deprived of a father’s love.

Carnelian looked at their father. Even if he were awake, could he help them? Carnelian realized it was up to him to find a way to save his people. His gaze followed the blue-veined bones of his father’s hand to the jewelled swelling on the smallest finger. The Ruling Ring of House Suth where it belonged. Once before when his father had been near death Carnelian had taken it from him. Then he had not known how to wield its power. His aunt had died.

‘I must take his ring, Grane.’

Grane frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I must control our coomb.’

Grane’s face softened to putty. His head wilted. ‘Can’t you wait, Master, until he’s dead?’

Instinctively, Carnelian reached out to this broken man, but his brother flinched at his touch. Carnelian considered confessing his fears, but they were his burden to carry. He must not risk fear spreading among his people. If even a rumour reached Opalid’s ear, the last chance to do something might well be lost. Instead he must play the Master. ‘From your own experience, Grane, you know what can happen when our House is not ruled well.’

Carnelian watched how his assumption of authority put iron back in his brother’s bones. Grane gave a nod. ‘As you will, Master.’

He moved aside, allowing Carnelian to lift his father’s hand. It seemed as light as a child’s. He slipped the ring off as easily as if it had been strung on a cord. He turned it in the light, then put it on. ‘Prepare Father, we’re taking him home.’

Carnelian stood by his father’s palanquin, wearing the mask his father had sent him, one of his robes and a black military cloak he had found in his pavilion. He was all the time aware of the unfamiliar weight of the Ruling Ring upon his hand. He had had the bearers set the palanquin down by the northern gate of the Masters’ Camp. Grane stood beside its sombre bulk, his head hanging, rain running down his face, dewing like tears upon the polished surfaces of his stone eyes. House Suth tyadra formed a cordon separating them from the rest of the camp. Carnelian was watching the funeral procession of the Masters coming down the road. On either side their slaves lay prostrate in the mud, their backs sodden, in terror of their Masters returned grief-stricken and murderous.

Carnelian lingered long enough to make sure the Masters were giving commands to disassemble their pavilions for immediate departure to Osrakum. Then he raised his arm in a signal he had prearranged with his Lefthand. Earth-is-Strong lurched into life, her footfalls causing the nearby gates to shudder and rattle. He gestured a command and the palanquin rose into the air and, swaying gently, began following the dragon. Carnelian was only too happy to accompany it; he had no wish to witness any atrocities the Masters might visit upon their cowering slaves.

The watch-tower loomed up out of the rain-fogged air. It was the second tower they had seen since leaving the camp. Carnelian was no less sodden than his guardsmen. His robe and cloak clung to his back like flayed skin. As they drew closer he peered up, his mask keeping the rain from his eyes. Sun three. There were only two more watch-towers before the road terminated in the Wheel. Time was running out. What land he could see on either side was drear grey marshland. Osrakum filled the eastern horizon with its leaden rampart. The road curved away across a flinty mere towards an island, upon which, through the murk, he could just make out the huddle of the first tenements of the City at the Gates.

When he reached the monolith standing guard upon the road gate of the watch-tower, Carnelian found Fern, Poppy and the others waiting for him, having just climbed down from Earth-is-Strong’s tower. He motioned them into cover and soon was following the palanquin into the shelter of the tower stables. He wanted to get them all as far away as he could from the road and the vengeful Masters.

Up on the leftway, he leaned upon the parapet. Below, all across the stopping place, slaves with tattooed faces were raising tents and pavilions under the gaze of their Masters, whose gold faces were watching them from their palanquins with icy malice. Dragons were churning through the mud outwards from the road in an arc to form a protective rampart. Only Heart-of-Thunder was heading for the watch-tower, behind a procession of palanquins: the Wise, amid the sombre purple of their ammonites and the greens and blacks of their Sinistral guards.

Night seemed to be seeping up from the Sacred Wall. On the leftway, Carnelian fixed his gaze on the monolith that stood before the watch-tower. He had pulled his guardsmen back from the tower so that they would not become involved with ammonites or Sinistrals. He had watched the Wise enter from the road below; had watched Osidian set Marula to guard the lower gate, after which he had entered escorted by syblings.

A bluish light began flickering on the inner face of the monolith. Ammonites were purifying the interior of the tower with fire. Carnelian waited. The reflected radiance died and no one appeared. He looked up the trunk of the tower to the branches that held up the heliograph platform. Clearly, the Wise were already up there and, it seemed, Osidian with them. Carnelian turned the Suth Ruling Ring upon his finger, reluctant to join him, but knowing he had no other option. He approached his father’s palanquin and saw Fern watching him, his brothers, the Quenthas.

‘I must climb to talk to the Master – to Osidian,’ he added for his brothers, for whom ‘the Master’ was their father.

The Quenthas stepped forward, their hands upon the hilts of their swords. Carnelian’s hand shaped a gesture of negation.
Remain here
, he signed;
protect my people
.

Frowning, Right-Quentha muttered his command to her sister. Carnelian took his leave of them and turned towards the monolith. He felt it was safer to go alone. Besides, he did not wish to force upon the sisters the humiliation of appearing before their fellow syblings.

Climbing out onto the roof of the tower, Carnelian was first aware of the bright air, free of the odours of sorcerous burning and myrrh. Then he noticed the silence and knew it had stopped raining. Between the ribs, he caught glimpses of a world bloodied by sunset. The roof with its snaking pipes was still slick and slippery. He found the staples and climbed. When he reached the platform, he gazed out. Below was a red lake from which crusts and scars of land arose and the towers of the City at the Gates. Curdled, fleshy clouds formed a ceiling to this wounded world. Osrakum’s rampart was an ever-cresting wave of yet more blood, at which Carnelian stared in tense horror, waiting for it to break. He felt he was back among the corpse mounds, or witnessing one of his nightmares with waking eyes.

At some point he became aware of Osidian, black against the gory sun. Carnelian found the will to move. Osidian turned as he approached, the last rays revealing the sadness in his unmasked face. Osidian turned back and Carnelian stood by his side, watching the sun being consumed by the earth. The lake was darkening to a mirror of obsidian whose reflections seemed so real, Carnelian felt for a moment it was the world they inhabited that was the illusion. ‘Tomorrow when we enter Osrakum, I shall accompany my father to our coomb.’

Beside him, Osidian remained as still as a Sapient in his capsule.

‘There are matters there I need to settle. I will return in time for your Apotheosis.’

‘What can be so urgent it cannot wait?’

Carnelian could glean nothing of how Osidian was feeling from his neutral tone. For a moment he considered telling him the secret of his birth. He yearned to reveal his fears, to ask for help, even to be held. But he could not predict Osidian’s reaction and could not risk interference. There was little enough time already in which to make his coomb safe for his people. ‘My father is dying.’

‘If you were any other, I would assume you sought to ensure your smooth succession. Is it that you wish to be there when he dies?’

Carnelian frowned against the thought of his father dying. ‘I want to make my coomb safe for my people.’

Osidian’s head dipped, then turned a little towards Carnelian. ‘I would like you to come into the Labyrinth with me.’

Defiance rose in Carnelian as he anticipated a command.

‘I need you with me when I confront my mother,’ Osidian said, his voice taut, as if at any moment it might snap.

Carnelian’s anger receded. For Osidian to admit need, he must be fragile indeed.

‘You have as much right to be there as I.’

‘Is she not in Jaspar’s coomb?’

‘The Wise tell me she has returned to the Labyrinth.’

Carnelian regarded the filigree of twinkling lights tracing the arms of the City at the Gates and coalescing at its pulsing heart. The Sacred Wall was now a rampart blacker than the night. Beyond it lay Ykoriana and – what? His death? Was that really so certain? A vague, disturbing hope rose in him. It was at the meeting between mother and son that his own fate would be decided. If he was to survive it could only be because Osidian submitted to having his mother put a collar around his neck. To save him, Osidian would have to swallow his bile, become his mother’s creature, probably take her for his wife. Anger stirred in Carnelian. Even if Osidian were prepared to make that sacrifice, could he allow him to do so? For all Osidian’s crimes, Carnelian did not want him to become again a slave. Weariness washed over him. It seemed he had spent more than half his life caught upon a web from which every attempt to break free brought only disaster to others. By living he might achieve uncertain gains, but more solid ones might be purchased with his death. Another pang of hope cheated him of what comfort there was in that acceptance. Becoming confused, he took hold of one grim certainty: the meeting with Ykoriana was where his fate would be decided.

He looked into Osidian’s eyes, all the time fighting down strange, disturbing presentiments. The longing to save his people was something to cling to. ‘Swear upon your blood that if I come with you, you shall do all in your power to facilitate my visit to my coomb before the Apotheosis.’

Osidian made the oath without hesitation. ‘In place of the Ichorians I intend to take our legions into Osrakum. Six others I left behind to herd the surviving sartlar back to the land. The rest of my legions will march with us to the City at the Gates, from where they will return to their fortresses; save only their commanders, who shall remain behind to attend my Apotheosis.’

In the silence that followed, Carnelian was left feeling he should say something. ‘It is good they should be there . . . all the Chosen must witness it as an act of unity . . . the better to restore order . . .’

Osidian gave a ragged nod. Carnelian took his leave of him and made for the edge of the platform, seeking to spend what certain time he had left with those he thought of as his family.

Picking his way across the pipes and tubes upon the watch-tower roof, Carnelian stubbed his toe, cursed, slowed, heading for the faint light of the trap that led down into the tower interior. Around him the ribs rose like the trunks of trees, between which stretched the indigo of the darkening sky. One of the ribs gave birth to a form. Carnelian tensed, but it was upon him. He was struck, then he was falling. The odour of the assassin was obscured by the iron welling of his own blood.