‘Are they ready to assume such responsibility?’
‘Most have had long experience of watching their masters in command.’
‘Assuming these promotions work, and you march out again, what will you do if Aurum once more chooses to fall back before you?’
‘I will pursue him.’
‘Even to the Gates of Osrakum?’
Osidian frowned.
‘Could you breach the Gates with your legion?’ Carnelian, who had seen them with his own eyes, knew how foolish such an attempt would be. Moreover it was clear to him that Osidian had not regained the confidence Legions had taken from him.
‘I believe you know, Osidian, that the only way you will enter Osrakum is if the Gates are opened for you from within.’
‘That will only happen if the political consensus among the Powers crumbles.’
‘Surely knowledge of your reappearance will widen the rift between the Wise and your mother: just as the part Aurum has played will divide her from the Great? And news of your edict of enfranchisement must cleave the Great from the Lesser Chosen and could not help but weaken confidence in any plan to muster the legions against you.’
Osidian shook his head. ‘The Wise control the means by which such news could reach Osrakum.’
‘Then send your treacherous commanders back to Osrakum with that news.’
‘The Wise have the means to stop them.’
Carnelian was taken aback. ‘Would they dare to have them killed?’
‘They would have no need to slay them, merely to delay them until the crisis has been resolved.’
Carnelian felt disappointed. He had been so certain he was following a thread out of this labyrinth. Then a way forward occurred to him. ‘But why would they wish to stop them?’
Osidian gazed at him, waiting for more.
‘Knowledge of your edict might very well serve the interests of the Wise . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘It would show the Great how you threaten the very foundations of their privilege . . .’
Carnelian could see his way clearly now. ‘The Wise cannot hope to keep news of what has been happening from Osrakum for ever. Since this is so, it behoves them to manage its revelation themselves. Why not allow the commanders through? Surely the Great will see you as the paramount threat? Is it not the primary function of the Great Balance to keep the Imperial Power from escaping Osrakum and assuming control of the legions? How could your mother explain your presence in the outer world? It would be in all their interests to join together to destroy you.’
Osidian frowned. ‘How would that help us?’
‘How long do you imagine such unity would last?’ Carnelian could not help a smile as Osidian began nodding. ‘All we have to do is remain beyond their reach as long as we can.’
‘And then what?’
Carnelian realized with surprise that at that moment, perhaps for the first time, he felt he and Osidian really were fighting for the same thing. Yet his confidence was already dimming. All the talk of grand politics had made him believe that they really might triumph. But on that issue Legions had spoken the clear truth. However fractured, the powers arrayed against them were unassailable. He tried coming at the problem from one direction after another, but always it was as if he were taking on a dragon with a spear.
‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘We shall have to wait and see what opportunities arise. In the meantime you can weld our legion into a weapon that will be certain in your hand when we do choose to use it.’
Osidian gazed at him, clear-eyed, so that Carnelian felt he was seeing right through to his heart. ‘Very well. We shall do it your way. I shall return to our legion.’
‘I want to go with you.’
Osidian’s face tightened as if he was feeling some old wound. He glanced down and saw the homunculus. Carnelian realized they had both forgotten the little man was there.
‘What about Legions?’ Osidian said.
Carnelian felt the Grand Sapient was a burden he had borne too long alone. ‘Homunculus . . .’
‘Seraph?’ the little man said.
‘Can the Grand Sapient be lodged in a watch-tower?’
‘All the watch-towers of the Guarded Land are fully equipped with facilities designed to accommodate my masters.’
It was as Carnelian had guessed. Even sleeping in his capsule Legions must have needed to find accommodation on his journey from Osrakum.
Osidian was nodding. ‘It would make sense to abandon this place.’
Carnelian felt a surge of relief.
‘You can set off in the morning. Meanwhile, I will return to the watch-tower and make sure it is ready to receive them. The Lesser Chosen traitors will begin their journey to Osrakum tomorrow.’
Osidian lifted his mask up to his face, then let it drop again. ‘I will send you more Marula as an escort.’
Carnelian nodded. Then, after they had both remasked, he watched Osidian fade into the shadows.
TOWER SUN-NINETY-THREE
Hunger does not make bread bake faster.
(a proverb from the Ringwall cities)
SLACK-MOUTHED, STARING, THE MARULA CREPT ACROSS THE MARBLE floor of Aurum’s chamber looking around them like children in a sorcerous cave. Among them, Sthax had become just another warrior the moment Morunasa had appeared. The Oracle glanced at the clocks as if he had seen such mechanical organisms every day of his life, but he jumped with the others when they saw themselves reflected in Aurum’s mirrors. It took the Marula only a moment to realize they were seeing themselves, but that was enough time for their fists to tighten on their lances. For all their beauty, in that Chosen setting, in their leather armour they did look crude barbarians.
He had them wait while he and the homunculus descended into the vault. The capsules were there, pale in the gloom. Earlier, while the homunculus had helped him into his commander’s leathers, they had discussed how his masters were to be moved. Carnelian set down his light and looked at him. ‘Let us prepare the capsules for transport.’
The homunculus gave a nod and they broke open the lid of Legions’ capsule. The Grand Sapient lay inside like a corpse. They administered the elixir through his mummified lips. The last thing they wanted was for him to wake in transit. They checked his restraining straps then repeated the procedure with the other Sapients. When they were ready, the homunculus resealed the lids, even as Carnelian returned to the chamber above and brought Morunasa and the Marula down with him into the vault. They stared at the capsules with unconcealed horror.
‘Corpses?’ Morunasa asked.
‘In a way,’ Carnelian answered. ‘We’re taking them to the Master’s watch-tower.’
Gazing at the capsules, Morunasa nodded. The homunculus located poles that Carnelian helped him slide into the carrying handles of Legions’ capsule. Carnelian was aware of the Marula watching him as if he were preparing for them a poisoned meal. He was careful to ignore Sthax.
The homunculus checked the poles were secure, then announced: ‘The capsule is ready, Seraph.’
Carnelian relayed this to Morunasa, who issued a command in his own tongue. When the Marula hesitated, Morunasa barked at them. Soon they had managed to slide the capsule horizontal, then, bending to the carrying poles, four on each side, they raised it into the air. As they began to climb the steps with it, the capsule started to tilt. Carnelian cried out in alarm.
The homunculus touched his arm. ‘My masters are as safe as butterflies in their chrysalises, Seraph.’
More like pupating maggots, thought Carnelian as he followed the capsule up the stair.
They crossed the fortress like a funerary procession. When they reached the watch-tower at the outer gate the homunculus showed them strange, wheeled carriages stowed in its stables. They dragged these up onto the leftway with their aquar. From that vantage point, Carnelian became mesmerized by the market teeming below. After having been confined for so long in the Legate’s tower it was a joy to see so mu
ch ordinary life. He raised his eyes to the horizon. Beyond the dun chaos of the earthbrick hovels of the city lay the rusty vastness of the land.
The homunculus showed the Marula how to secure each capsule to its carriage, in a near-vertical position. When all was ready, Carnelian climbed into his saddle-chair. He noticed the homunculus standing as awkwardly as an abandoned child. ‘You do not know how to ride, do you?’
‘No, Seraph.’
Carnelian beckoned him to approach, then helped him clamber into his saddle-chair, settling him between his legs. When he reckoned they were as comfortable as was possible, Carnelian made the aquar rise. He asked Morunasa to ride ahead with his men, leaving only three of them to lead the aquar hitched to the carriages. He eyed the maggot-pale capsules as they lurched into movement. The sun was bright enough to find the dark spindles at their core.
‘The Standing Dead,’ he murmured.
The homunculus stirred a little, tense as ice.
Soon they were loping along the leftway, Carnelian bringing up the rear of their cortege. They rode above the market, passed under two more watch-towers, then increased speed on the clear run north.
Even before they reached it, Carnelian could see the disc of Osidian’s camp disfiguring the earth around the watch-tower. Ahead the leftway came to a sudden, ragged end. Some distance further on it rose again, continuing north. In between, it had been reduced to rubble. Surveying the land round about, he understood why Osidian had torn down the leftway: so that he could meet any attack, whether it came from the east or west, with his whole legion.
Morunasa and the Marula were dismounting. Carnelian made his own mount kneel. He helped the homunculus clamber out, then climbed out himself.
The little man looked around. ‘Where are the ammonites of this tower, Seraph? They should be here to greet us.’
Carnelian gazed up into the watch-tower branches. It was Marula that sat as lookouts in the deadman’s chairs. This tower was Osidian’s and any ammonites could only compromise its security. ‘The Celestial dismissed them.’
The homunculus’ child mask glanced towards their Marula escort. ‘Then, Seraph, we must make do with these creatures.’
Under his instructions the Marula unloaded the capsules and carried them into the tower. Inside, the homunculus climbed the ladder that was set against the back wall. As he disappeared up into the shadows, Carnelian and Sthax exchanged a glance. Carnelian was trying to work out a way to keep the Maruli close when the homunculus returned, pulling a rope from which hung a hook. Carnelian helped him remove the carrying poles from Legions’ capsule and then watched him attach the hook to one of the freed rings. After the homunculus had fetched and attached a second hook, he showed the Marula some ropes and, at his command, they began to heave on them. As the capsule came slowly upright, the homunculus wrestled it against the wall, then clambered aboard. The Marula continued to pull upon the ropes and the capsule rose up into the gloom of the tower, with the homunculus clinging to it like a child to its mother.
Carnelian followed Legions’ capsule up through the tower. When it reached the uppermost storey, he helped the homunculus drag it into one of the cells. The capsule was much lighter than he had expected. They propped it up against one wall. Carnelian looked around the chamber. It was so like the many he had seen on his journey to Osrakum that, for a moment, the time that had passed since then seemed an illusion.
‘I shall descend for the others, Seraph,’ said the homunculus.
Soon, he was out of sight, taking with him the hooks and ropes. While Carnelian waited, he opened the doors to the other chambers. All the cells save one looked as if they had not been used for a while. One smelled of sweat, but this odour was cut through by another, myrrh. The same smell that he was just aware of rising from his own, bandaged body. This must be Osidian’s cell, then. He walked around it as if he expected Osidian to return at any moment. He felt that he was intruding; these cells were far more territorial than had ever been the hearth or the sleeping hollows. He backed out of the cell and closed its door. He really would prefer to sleep somewhere out in the open, but even if this had been advisable, he felt a need to stay close to the capsules. He chose the cell furthest from Osidian’s, then returned to the landing to wait for the homunculus to appear with the next capsule.
After he had helped the homunculus stow the other two capsules, Carnelian climbed the ladder to the roof and had soon reached the platform, at the centre of which gleamed a heliograph. Movement drew his eyes to a Maruli spreadeagled in a deadman’s chair. Carnelian looked west. Far away, red clouds hung like mist over the land. In their midst, he saw flashes. Motes moved, veiled by the rolling dust: Osidian’s dragons on manoeuvres.
He let his gaze return to wander across the mottled semicircle of the camp below. A glint caught his eye. There was a hole in the ground ringed with silver. Cisterns, perhaps, but it was the hole that drew his attention. It plunged into deep blackness. Pallid creatures were writhing up its sides. Sartlar, like maggots crawling out of a wound.
When he descended the tower, he took the homunculus with him, down through the stables to the bottom gate. As grooms raised this for him he became aware of the hubbub of the road. He slipped out behind the monolith that screened them from the traffic. He watched the multitude thronging past, and bathed in its ever-shifting odours. He feasted on the faces, the smiles and flashing eyes of so much raw humanity. The beasts, the heaped wagons with their slowly turning wheels.
‘We must cross,’ he said quietly to the homunculus.
He sensed the little man’s fear and offered him his hand. Hesitantly, the homunculus took it and together they emerged onto the road. At first the shadow of the leftway wall concealed them, but then someone saw his mask, his looming height. Cries of ‘Master’ spread panic through the crowd. Pulling the homunculus after him, Carnelian began to cross the road. Everywhere people were falling to their knees. Carnelian did not turn his mask, for its gaze was terrifying to them, but restricted his attention to the bare stone before his feet. When they reached a ramp, they went down its slope to the red earth beyond. Each step thereafter, Carnelian made sure to scuff the earth to churn up dust to hide them.
He gave up counting the black hearths burnt into the land. Hazed with flies, hills of dragon dung gave off their stench. The glitter of the cisterns drew him and the promise of breathable air. Besides, he had a notion to take a look at the hole in the ground.
As they drew nearer, they saw the cistern was a trough, its lip gouged and cracked. Bright water rocked in its curve, which was the rim of an immense pit plunging down into blackness. The circling wall of the pit was pale limestone rotten with caves and rusted by the land’s red earth. The closer he drew, the further he could peer down into the gloom. Sartlar infested the caves. Others were clambering up out of the blackness using handholds gouged into the soft walls. Each was burdened with a waterskin. As he watched, one of the creatures struggled up from the well and emptied its skin into the cistern. Free for a moment, it rested its gnarled hands on its knees, hacking breath. Suddenly, sensing him, it glanced up. It cowered as it caught sight of the mirror gold of his face. Disliking the creature’s fear, Carnelian turned his back on it and, with the homunculus, he made his way back to the watch-tower. Weary of the world, he climbed to his cell and, as the homunculus hunched down against the wall, he lay down to await Osidian’s return.
She is Akaisha and Ebeny, though looks like neither. Carnelian feels the itching of her wounds as if they are his own. Scratching, she picks out maggots that writhe over her fingers like drops of oil. She licks them off. Her nails return to dig the wounds. They widen like mouths to devour him. He loses hold and tumbles in and falls and falls and falls.
He came awake with Osidian standing over him. He had the uncomfortable impression that Osidian had been there for a while. When he sat up, Osidian did not back away enough to give him the space he felt he needed. Osidian seemed too large for the cell, which he filled with the odo
ur of his leathers. Every part of him was reddened except for his face. It seemed he was wearing a mask of pallid alabaster. He frowned, but there was a shy tenderness in his eyes that flustered Carnelian further.
‘Where are the commanders?’ Carnelian said, to say something.
Osidian’s frown deepened as he sensed Carnelian’s unease. ‘On their way to the Mountain as we agreed.’
In his military cloak, Osidian was filling the cell as Carnelian’s father had filled the cabin on the baran. Carnelian wondered why he was making the comparison. He felt his face was burning.
Osidian took a step back, dismayed. ‘I’ll leave.’
Carnelian did not want to part like that. Though they were no longer lovers, they needed to be allies. He struggled to find a way through his feelings. ‘Let’s eat together tonight.’
Osidian glanced at the cell as if he was seeing it for the first time. ‘Here?’
Carnelian grimaced. The cell would not do; it felt like a battlefield. He remembered a time long ago. ‘Why not up on the platform, near the heliograph? It would be cool up there. Unrestricted.’
Osidian’s eyes were flint. ‘As you say, unrestricted.’ He gave a weary nod and had to stoop to leave through the door. Carnelian watched it close, then was left with only his breathing and his beating heart.
Standing with his back to the heliograph mechanism, Osidian removed his mask and gazed north. Carnelian was reluctant to remove his own. ‘There is no protection here, my Lord.’
Osidian turned to look at him. ‘It was you who pointed out to me that we spent years unprotected among the barbarians.’ He resumed his squinting at the northern blackness, which was relieved only by the naphtha flares of the next tower and the faint glimmer of the stopping place around its feet. ‘Besides, up here we are as far from the contaminating earth as birds in flight.’
Carnelian glanced uneasily to where the homunculus was sitting astride the beam that ended in the hoop of a deadman’s chair. The little man was wearing his blinding mask. Osidian had dismissed the Marula lookouts so that there would be no eyes to see them. As Carnelian unmasked, his face was chilled by the night air touching his sweat. He breathed deeply, enjoying not having to draw air through the mask filters.
The Third God Page 37
