The Third God

by Ricardo Pinto

  The three homunculi mumbled on, then fell silent. Carnelian became aware of the oceanic murmur of the sartlar who inhabited the dark vastness of the land beneath.

  ‘It is true, Celestial, the Commonwealth has also for foundations terror.’ The homunculus who spoke was the one who had identified its master as Tribute. The Grand Sapient’s fingers were working at its throat. ‘But by your statement you must surely realize that the Commonwealth exists only in the minds of men. What power to coerce the Chosen possess is itself in the minds of their subjects. The Commonwealth is, in truth, only a dream given solidity by belief. We have made our dream the universal dream but, at the margins of the world, our dream competes with others. You must realize this who have dwelt among the barbarians. Did you not impose your dream upon those creatures, Celestial, in opposition to the Commonwealth?’

  Carnelian saw the truth of it and, glancing round, saw Osidian’s certainty weakening.

  ‘Why do you think it is we bring them here to the centre of the world? Even now they are gathering in ever increasing numbers before the gates of Osrakum. Why do you think, Celestial, we seek to bring them into the very heart of the Hidden Land?’

  The question hung bright in Carnelian’s mind. He saw the answer. ‘To show them the dream in all its terrible, beautiful reality.’

  The homunculus continued as if Carnelian had not spoken. ‘Because monolithic power seen close up will tower over them. Far away, its terror fades. In its presence, it saturates their minds. Witnessing our grandeur, they are reduced to nothing. How can their petty dreams hope to withstand such glory, such wonder?’

  The vision in Carnelian’s mind faded more slowly than the sonorous voice.

  ‘And yet, Celestial, at this very time, you intend to show that power, that glory, divided against itself. At the very moment we have designed for them to see the Commonwealth as immutable as the stars in the heavens, you would show them contention.’

  Carnelian felt like a child, made aware of how petty were his notions, how foolish. Osidian, too, looked crushed. Carnelian felt panic seeping into him. Had they fooled themselves? Had he led them both into error?

  Osidian’s voice shocked Carnelian. ‘They shall see the Gods Themselves and the seraphim making war.’ Osidian had returned from his depths possessed. ‘By this display of power they will be more cowed than all your subtle theatre could hope to achieve.’ Fury burned in his eyes. ‘What have we to fear from being observed quarrelling? Do the sun and moon fear the vermin that crawl upon the earth as they contend for mastery of the sky?’

  Carnelian looked to the Grand Sapients to see if Osidian’s words had made any impact on them. Their three identical eyeless masks hung in the darkness, implacable, unyielding. Grand Sapient Lands’ fingers began to move. ‘You have interfered with my management of the Land. Because of you the harvests have not been gathered. The fields, unirrigated, turn to dust. Already it is too late to avoid a famine.’

  ‘You hope to appeal to my compassion?’ Osidian’s tone was incredulous, his lips twisted into a sneer. ‘What is it to me if a few barbarians starve?’

  ‘Not a few, Celestial, but most of the Commonwealth will suffer hunger.’

  Osidian swung his arm in an arc to take in the land below. ‘Am I a child, Lands? Though the number of sartlar we have gathered is vast, I know that they are but a scoop from the ocean of those that remain upon the land.’

  Once the murmuring of the homunculi ceased, Carnelian was aware of the Grand Sapient’s fingers faltering. They came alive again. ‘Even now the sartlar of several provinces are coming in response to your summons.’

  The sneer grew thin on Osidian’s lips. He frowned. ‘Several provinces?’ The homunculi gave his words a ghostly echo. Osidian looked at Carnelian, the question an accusation in his eyes. Carnelian could make no sense of it himself. ‘I only put into action the same process that yearly brings sartlar to repair the roads.’

  The murmurous homunculi became a background to Osidian’s questions, to which Carnelian provided the best answers he could.

  Lands’ homunculus interrupted. ‘The summons was yours, Suth Carnelian?’

  Wrathful, Osidian replied. ‘He told me he did it in response to a dream.’ He seemed to draw strength from his own anger and perhaps, Carnelian thought, from the feeling that the Grand Sapients had lost their stranglehold on the discussion. ‘A dream that promised me victory. The God has Himself promised me this.’

  Lands choked his homunculus quiet before it had finished relaying Osidian’s words. ‘Do not delude yourself, Celestial: victory is impossible. Already twenty legions are ranged against you and more arrive each day. Return to the Southern Plain. There you can have a domain beyond the knowledge of the Chosen. If we have erred it is in having disrupted your empire among the barbarians. Return. We shall send you any luxuries that you desire.’

  Osidian’s face was childish in its utter outrage. ‘Do you imagine my ambition so small? That I would be satisfied being a sovereign among vermin?’

  Carnelian gazed in wonder at Osidian. It seemed that at any moment he was going to break into tears. Then he saw the rage rising. Osidian’s face hardened. ‘I will take back what is mine.’ His voice like extruding glass. ‘Though I was cast out of Osrakum, I shall enter her by force if need be. However mighty the host my brother brings against me, I will vanquish him and then, my Lords, you shall kneel to me.’

  The Grand Sapients seemed as unstung by the venom as if already dead.

  ‘Then we have failed,’ said Lands. ‘You will be destroyed. In your fall will be encompassed much of what we have built, but we are patience incarnate. With time we shall rebuild everything as before.’

  Rage was burning Osidian up. He bared his teeth. ‘What if I was to slay you here, now? What then for your reconstruction?’

  The Grand Sapient actually shrugged in his capsule. An incongruous sight. ‘What you see before you is merely three branches. The tree remains beyond your reach. To stop us you would have to uproot us all.’

  Osidian bowed his head and Carnelian watched the fight leach out of him.

  ‘We shall depart immediately,’ said the homunculus. ‘It would be better if instructions be given below that none are to impede us.’

  Carnelian glanced at Osidian. ‘I will go, my Lord, and see to it.’

  As he reached the edge of the platform, he looked back. Osidian was watching the Grand Sapients being sealed back into their capsules with an expression on his face of one betrayed.

  Carnelian descended the tower against the flow of ammonites climbing it to begin the process of bringing down the Grand Sapients in their capsules. On the leftway, preparations were being made to leave. He saw that no Marula were entering the cordon of the Sinistral Ichorians and turned to gaze into the night, brooding over what Grand Sapient Lands had said. Light from the camp did not reach beyond the dragons to the sartlar, but their murmuring made him feel as if he stood upon a cliff looking out to sea. He tried to imagine the extent of several provinces of the Guarded Land. Could the sartlar over such a vast expanse really be moving in response to his summons? So much parched earth rising to clog the air. Hri yellowing, unwatered. The harvest meant to feed so many mouths left to rot in the Rains. Was he really responsible for bringing famine to the Commonwealth?

  He became aware of a figure near him and turned to see an ammonite. The figure knelt. ‘Master.’

  Carnelian regarded the man uneasily. Uncharacteristically, the ammonite had addressed him in Vulgate. ‘What do you want?’ he said in Quya.

  ‘Carnie, it’s me,’ the ammonite hissed.

  Carnelian stepped back, alarmed, confused. He looked up and saw, close by, some Ichorians holding torches, but they were focused on the entrance to the tower. His Marula were within calling distance. Movement drew his attention back to the kneeling ammonite. There was a glint as it removed its silver mask and turned a little into the light. Expecting to see a face smothered in numerals, Carnelian began saying somet
hing. His tongue stilled. A chameleon tattoo. He stared at it, shocked. The cypher was achingly familiar and yet so very strange. It took him a while to notice the face smiling tentatively. His throat clenched as did his heart. ‘Tain?’

  The young man beamed. It was Tain. It was his brother Tain. The boy become a young man. He fitted his face back into the mask, became an ammonite again, so that Carnelian was left almost feeling he had imagined it. Tain rose and beckoned Carnelian to follow him, who did, his thoughts frozen. Then he had enough to do dealing with getting through the Ichorian cordon, through ammonites, as Tain led him towards the first palanquin. They passed that, passed the second, continuing on, moving away from the tower and towards the rear of the procession. Carnelian’s mind thawed into an avalanche of speculation. He was reluctant to stop the purple-clad figure walking in front of him, though he wanted, needed answers.

  At last they reached the seventh and final palanquin. It was quiet here, since most of the ammonites were clustering back near the tower, but one stood as if waiting for them. It indicated the palanquin with his head. ‘You don’t have much time.’

  Carnelian stared. ‘Keal?’ It was the voice of his brother, whom he had not seen since he had left him on the coast so long ago.

  The man gave a nod. ‘Hurry.’

  Carnelian managed to wrench his gaze from his disguised brother to the palanquin. As he did so his heart beat faster. It was more desire than expectation prompting his hope of who might be inside. Unmasking, he reached out to take the handle and slid the panel open.

  Peering into the gloom, he withered with disappointment. The old, wizened man inside the palanquin was unknown to him. A Master, unmasked, pale eyes in a sunken face.

  The face lit up. ‘My son.’ Carnelian saw with shock it was indeed his father. Horror overwhelmed him. ‘What has happened to you, my Lord?’

  Sardian was too preoccupied feasting his eyes on him to answer. He reached out to take Carnelian’s hands. ‘Son, it is a joy to see you.’

  Carnelian glanced down at the bony hands gripping his, sapphire veins running over tendons and bones. He took hold of them, brought them up and bent to kiss them. ‘Oh, my father, what has happened to you?’ He looked up and, through tears, saw his father’s eyes sadden. He shrugged in a manner that tore at Carnelian’s heart for he had not seen that gesture for, it seemed, a lifetime. Sardian’s right hand pulled free of Carnelian’s grip and strayed back up his body to hover gingerly over his side.

  ‘The wound has never healed.’

  Carnelian remembered the night his father had been stabbed by Ykoriana’s assassin.

  ‘The drug the Wise gave me has preserved me in the exact state I was in when I arrived for the election.’

  Carnelian gave a shudder as rage rose in him, but his father raised a hand so thin it seemed translucent. ‘Immortality warned me what the drug would do, but I had no time to linger in a sick bed.’ His father smiled and Carnelian was warmed to see something of his beauty still there, though most had now fallen into ruin.

  ‘You must not grieve for me, Carnelian. On balance, I have had a fortunate life.’ His hand returned to cover Carnelian’s. ‘For instance, I had no hope of seeing you again.’

  Carnelian sank for a moment into comfort. He had not felt so safe since, well, he could not remember. A thought came to him that made him stiffen with alarm.

  ‘What is it?’ his father asked, eyes widening.

  ‘Why are you here? The Wise . . . ?’

  His father squeezed his hand. ‘I have come here with their permission.’ He frowned. ‘We have scant time. Desiring to converse with the Lord Nephron, the Wise persuaded the God Emperor to let them come here. In exchange, they promised to bring Them you.’

  Carnelian felt a chill of doubt in his chest. ‘Me?’

  His father’s eyes flashed in reaction to something he thought he saw in Carnelian’s face. ‘Do you imagine I would betray you?’

  Carnelian only half heard the words, contemplating, with surprise, how his father’s eyes had lost their power over him. Their gaze softened. ‘Forgive me. I have no right to be angry. What do I know of what you have suffered?’

  Carnelian tried to work out where to begin, but his father had moved on. He held up his right hand, which bore no Ruling Ring. ‘I am no longer Suth.’

  Carnelian’s nod caused his father to raise the ghost of what had been an eyebrow. ‘But I can see you knew that already.’

  ‘Aurum told me.’

  His father’s face darkened. ‘Did he?’

  Carnelian focused his mind on the situation. ‘The Wise have promised to reinstate you in exchange for you persuading me to return with you?’

  His father nodded. ‘Not only that. They have promised me you will be pardoned so that you can assume the rule of our House.’

  Carnelian could see how much his father yearned for that and it filled him with confusion. First he was surprised how much he yearned for it too. Then, even more surprising, his gut reacted against the thought of deserting Osidian.

  His father cut through his turmoil. ‘But I have not come here to ask you to return.’

  Carnelian looked a question at him.

  ‘Rather I have come to bid you flee.’

  Carnelian was lost. ‘Flee?’

  ‘You must abandon this ill-conceived venture. Return to anywhere you have hope of finding refuge. Otherwise you will be encompassed in Nephron’s ruin.’ His father paused, suddenly very weary, weak, old. ‘I need to know that you are safe.’

  Carnelian shook his head. ‘I do not understand, Father.’ He saw in his father’s face something he had never thought to see there: fear.

  ‘You know I have loved you since you were born?’

  Uneasy, Carnelian gave a slow nod.

  ‘Never forget that.’

  Carnelian watched his father’s face growing ashen and his heart began pounding. What was it that he wanted to say?

  His father rallied his courage. ‘The thing is this. Though in every way that matters to me you are my son, it is not my blood that runs in your veins.’

  ‘What?’ Carnelian said, half numb, half exasperated.

  ‘Your mother came to me already carrying you.’

  Carnelian felt his head was filled with ice. ‘Why then did you accept me as yours?’

  ‘I only discovered it much later.’

  ‘Much later?’ He groaned. ‘When?’

  ‘When I could no longer deny how much you look like your real father.’

  Carnelian knuckled his forehead in a sort of agony. Then it all became clear. ‘The God Emperor.’

  Sardian nodded solemnly.

  ‘That is why you took me to visit him.’

  Sardian was nodding.

  Carnelian was startled. ‘I drank his blood.’

  ‘We arranged it thus.’

  For only the blood of his real father would ignite the ichor in his own. Carnelian stared at the man he had thought was his father. ‘This is why you chose not to come back from exile for so many years.’

  Sardian nodded.

  Carnelian felt his heart was rattling in his empty chest. ‘Then why did we return?’ He knew the answer. ‘Aurum!’

  Sardian nodded. ‘The moment he first saw you, he knew you were Kumatuya’s son.’

  Carnelian watched a dangerous light come into his father’s eyes. ‘To protect you, I would have slain him, all of them . . .’

  Carnelian looked down at his hands, then he understood. He looked up. ‘You wanted to bring me back to Osrakum and so you put yourself in his power.’

  ‘He assured me your identity would be safe, for he alone was old enough to have seen Kumatuya’s face before it was hidden for ever behind the Masks.’

  Carnelian nodded. It was all so clear. ‘In exchange you agreed to help him in the election . . .’ He paused, feeling as if he was falling. ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘Will you forgive me?’

  Carnelian glanced at his father, but barely r
egistered his look of entreaty. ‘Osidian, my brother?’ Things fell into place and with each realization he released a groan. He became aware of his father’s distress, but a wall of ice had risen up between them. ‘There is nothing to forgive. You saved my life.’

  Even to himself, his voice sounded cold. He watched his father withdraw behind his own defences, but something stopped him from reaching out to him.

  ‘And I seek to do so again, my Lord.’

  Carnelian felt they were trapped on either side of a barrier and could see no way to scale it. It was easier to slip back into the relationship they had once had: father and son. He focused on what his father had said, instead of the look of pain on his face. ‘Only Aurum knew,’ he said, half to himself. Then it became obvious. ‘He told Ykoriana.’

  His father nodded. ‘I do not know that for certain, but I can find no other reason why she would have commuted his deposal to exile. She has as much bile for him as she does for me.’

  Carnelian looked at his father. ‘She fears I will accuse her of abduction?’

  His father snapped a gesture of anger. ‘To attempt your life before, it was enough for her that she blamed you for the death of her sister in childbirth. To protect herself, as well as out of hatred, this time she will make sure you die.’

  Carnelian nodded. It made sense. ‘If I do not return, what will happen to you, my Lord?’

  His father shrugged. ‘For the time I have left I can endure Spinel. Then, our— my lineage will die with me.’

  Carnelian felt a stab in his chest. The hollows of his father’s face already seemed to be cradling the shadow of death. He wanted to say something, but he was too numb to work out what.

  ‘I brought your brothers so that you can say farewell to them.’

  Carnelian rose, nodding, wanting to get away from this man, who was and was not his father. He turned his hooded face enough to make sure no one else could see him unmasked. He regarded his brothers, now both also unmasked. Their faces had changed, but in a way they were just the same. Suddenly he could not bear the tears in their eyes. He gave them a curt nod, pushed his face into his mask, then strode back towards the tower.