‘West.’
‘When?’
‘Before daybreak, Master.’
Carnelian stared at them, hardly believing them. As he returned to gather his things he was angry with himself that he had not forced her to speak when he could. It was a while later that he realized he had lost the last person he could call a friend.
The gorge swallowed them into a narrow, vertical world ruled by the vast serpent of water that coursed past them, scouring great bowls with its coils, displaying its turbulent scales at rapids, frothing a furious white as it leapt falls. They crept across the mouths of vast bays gouged from the limestone, dank with shadows, heaped with slabs and scree, infested with pockets and wells all skinned with moss and struggling trees; but mostly the path wound beneath sheer cliffs from which a constant hail of stones kept them anxiously waiting for the next boulder that would fall like a skystone to smash the edge from the path then bound down to the river to be consumed. Much of the cliff was rotten with caverns and slits and cracks that gave into depths that spoke with strange echoes. Sometimes, to circumvent a buttress of the cliff, they were forced to follow their Leper guides into the noisome dark. Stumbling through malodorous dripping tunnels hand in hand, they welcomed the return to light as if it was a rebirth.
Every morning Lepers from the place where they had slept would take over, while those they replaced would be carried off by the flood in a flimsy coracle. Around dusk the new guides would bring them to the next staging post: another collection of caves and ledges within reach of the spray from the roaring water or having access to it down some rough-hewn, precipitous stair. By the river, in some natural pool, a few coracles would jiggle, just safe from its fury. In the caves the Oracles would occupy what space there was. The warriors would make do with any crannies they could find among the rocks. Whatever store of food was there would be distributed to all as a meagre meal.
Carnelian loathed the Oracles with their sweaty muttering, their blind white-in-white eyes as they listened to their Lord roaring to them from the midst of the flood. He was glad to leave them with Osidian as they babbled to him their dreams, though how could he possibly understand them when Morunasa, his sole interpreter, remained aloof keeping his nightmares to himself? Carnelian preferred to eat with Sthax and the other warriors. Covertly he taught Sthax more Vulgate while the other warriors, who deferred to him, kept watch. Carnelian took to sleeping among them in some spot as far away from the voice of the river as he could find. Dreams of bread awrithe with worms plagued his sleep. Often the bread was the world; sometimes his own body.
‘Behold Qunoth,’ said one of the Lepers.
The plain to whose edge their guides had led them terminated, at its further end, in a dark wall. Sheer, it butted on one side against the limestone cliff of the Guarded Land, was breached where the river poured in a foaming cataract, then rose lofty again on the other side, where it faded away into the Earthsky. It reminded Carnelian of the Backbone at the Upper Reach.
‘Where?’ said Osidian.
The Leper pointed to the top of the black wall. Squinting, Carnelian could see that the northern half of it had a pale upper edge.
‘A city wall?’ Morunasa said.
Gazing up at it Osidian shook his head. ‘The Ringwall leftway.’ He pointed to the southern half of the rock, which did not have the pale edge. ‘That will be the fortress.’
He glanced at the Leper, who gave a nod of confirmation.
‘And the Ladder?’
‘It’s further round. We can’t see it from here.’
Carnelian saw that the limestone cliff curved away and that its meeting with the city rock was out of sight.
Osidian was gazing up at the city. ‘It would be foolish to cross this plain in daylight.’
They returned to where they had left the Marula. Through Morunasa and the Oracles Osidian told the warriors to prepare for war. Carnelian and Sthax were careful to avoid each other’s eyes. They had ignored each other since the Oracles had emerged from their dreams some days before.
Carnelian ate sparingly, brooding on what the night might bring. He tried to dissipate anxiety by busying himself with the honing of his spear. When it was sharp he put it down and went among the clumps of warriors, stopping here and there to pat his belly with a quivering hand to show he shared their fear, smiling when they smiled, laughing with them though he did not understand their jests. With Sthax he exchanged the merest glance.
The crescent moon had fallen behind the cliff when they began to creep across the plain after their Leper guide. Pinpricks of light could be seen along the outermost, upper edge of the city rock. Carnelian imagined Masters there, sleeping perhaps or indulging in some lordly pleasure. That world up there, nearer to the stars than to the earth, seemed at the same time alien and alluring.
Countless gullies gouging the plain made the going hard. Rounding the cliff they saw the city rock looming before them as an immensity of blackness. The Leper led them down a path into a gully. They crossed a stream by means of a plank bridge. As they drew ever nearer to the city rock, Carnelian became aware of a sickening odour. With each step it wafted stronger so that he became convinced they must be approaching some immense, rotting corpse. He tried to wind his uba more tightly over his face, but still the stench thickened until he could feel it rasping at his throat. Seeing the Leper begin climbing a steep slope, Carnelian came to a halt. The night was filled with the sound of retching. A hill rose before them from which the stench was emanating.
‘What is this?’ he called up to the Leper.
‘The Heap,’ said his voice, already somewhere above them.
‘We have to climb it?’ Carnelian did not want to believe it.
‘The Ladder’s up there.’
He could not see the Leper clearly. Pushing his head back he thought there might be a crack running up the rock all the way to the sky. It seemed to him he had seen this before. Then he realized how much it resembled the fissure in the Pillar of Heaven that the Rainbow Stair climbed. He saw how the crack disgorged onto the Heap. It seemed that the Lepers’ Ladder was actually the sewer of Qunoth.
Grimacing, he approached the mound. He put a foot on it and felt it give. Up he went, feeling the mush through his shoes, slipping on slime, hearing the squelch and crunch. Each footfall punctured the outer crust of the mound, releasing fluids and fetid exhalations. He fell several times, knees first into the soft excretions. When he put his hands out to stop his fall, they sank in up to his wrists. Yanking them out, he smeared the filth down his robe. Nausea curdled his belly. Eventually he could control it no longer. Tearing the uba from his face he added his vomit to the hill.
At last they reached the fissure, from which the sewage spilled like guts from a slit belly. Their Leper guide stood in what appeared to be an opening. As he saw Carnelian approaching, he ducked in. Carnelian peered into the tunnel, glanced round to see the Marula crawling up the hill like cockroaches, then crept into the darkness.
The Leper led him deep into the fissure. In the blackness he had to feel his way with feet and hands. The wall on his right was rock, upon which he scraped his hands as clean as he could manage. On his left was a barrier webbed with struts like the wings of a sky saurian. Their smooth curves suggested they might be bone. A leather membrane stretched over this framework was greasy with the noisome liquids it was holding back. Warm to the touch, it seemed the hide of some living monster. One mercy was that, in the tunnel, the stench was less violent.
Fumbling his way Carnelian ran into something that clutched at him. He fought down his horror, knowing it was the Leper guide.
‘Do we have to do this in the dark?’
‘Flame here turns the air to fire, Master.’
When the tunnel reached the crease of the fissure, it turned up to climb the rock. Carnelian clambered after the Leper, clutching at handholds, hooking his toes into steps made for smaller feet than his. They reached a ledge beyond which was another slippery climb. The Leper scuff
ing above him was a beacon in the blackness. Sometimes the sound would stop as the Leper waited for him. The first time, Carnelian froze. From below came a rustling as if a swarm of immense insects were following him. Something touched his foot and he jerked it free and moved on. It grew hotter and the air so stinking that, with each breath, he felt he was accumulating a disgusting paste in his lungs. Up and up he climbed until, faint from nausea, dizzy, he started to imagine himself nothing more than a maggot crawling through the cavities of a corpse.
At last he began to be able to make out above him the shape of the climbing Leper. Then Carnelian was pushing his fingers up into light. His arm followed, streaked with filth. A final few rungs, then a ledge. Squinting, he emerged into the open on the Leper’s heels.
He and the Leper were standing on a cascade of rubbish dammed by a wall pierced with arches. The lower ones were buried up to their keystones, but the ones above were free and open. Piled one upon the other they carried a parapet of stone upon their backs.
The Leper saw where he was looking. ‘The leftway, Master.’ He made a gesture to show how it ran over their heads. ‘This way.’
He began to scale the slope. Carnelian followed him, climbing through the muck. Rinds of fruit, mouldering gourds, pumpkins, carcasses, down and feathers. Everything was smeared with excrement, clotted with pastes, dripping cloudy fluids. The whole mass shuddered under each footfall. He tried to hoist his robe up, but it was already soaked through. Flies gummed his eyes. The impact of their bodies was like hail. A mat of them swarming everything. The stench was choking him. He stumbled as his foot broke through a saurian ribcage that snapped like twigs. He retched as his hand slid down into soft manure. He rose sobbing with disgust, flinging the stuff off him in dollops. Then he was up again, slipping and sliding. The morning swelled brighter as he came up over the brow of the slope.
‘The Midden,’ the Leper announced.
Carnelian saw they were on the edge of a hillocked expanse of rubbish hemmed in on either side by mudbrick walls, and running off towards a road already crowded with people.
Osidian strode past him. ‘Come on,’ he bellowed. He broke into a run and Carnelian chased after him.
Osidian sped ahead along a gully. Carnelian was relieved to have a firm, dry footing. Hovels gouged into the rubbish lined their route. Screeching with alarm, Lepers sprang from their path. Other trails joined theirs as it widened. The hovels rose higher, pierced with windows. Mudbrick walls reared higher still on either side. The hubbub of the road ahead was swelling louder. Soon he could see its bristling multitude. Along its edge men were emptying baskets of rubbish into the Midden. Here and there a cart sagged under a mound of filth. Men wearing sacks over their heads were shovelling it down to where Lepers were waiting to receive it. Faces were turning to gape as Osidian ran towards them. People began pulling at each other and pointing. Close behind Osidian, Carnelian leapt onto the road. Smooth cobbles under his feet. The crowd recoiled from their filthiness as Carnelian and Osidian ran at them. Their height allowed them to see over the sea of heads to where the road ended at a watch-tower that seemed no bigger than their thumbs.
Screams and chaos greeted the Marula as they flooded up from the Midden. Carnelian surfed the wave of hysteria along the road, his gaze fixed on the watch-tower, looking for the flashes that would betray them to the Wise. He saw none, even as the tower lifted its crown of wooden ribs up to the sky. It stood guard upon a gateway murky in the shadows. Nearing this, he was dismayed to see it closed. Ramparts on either side were unscalable stone. He saw the lookout suspended above them in his deadman’s chair and slowed. Osidian came to a halt, then turned; though his face was hidden, Carnelian could sense his incredulity. To have come so far and to be thwarted by a gate!
A grinding sound made Osidian spin round. Incredibly, the gate was opening; sliding up diagonally into the wall. Through the gap erupted riders. The gleam of brass at their throats showed them to be some kind of auxiliaries. Osidian and Carnelian leapt from their path. Swerving past them, the aquar crashed into the Marula, who were so densely packed they could not get out of the way. Some were hurled aside, one screamed as he was trampled, but those further back were spreading out. As they circled, something about their smell or their appearance spooked the aquar. Their riders were in confusion.
‘The gate,’ cried Osidian.
Morunasa was there and understood him. He barked commands and Oracles appeared, their indigo robes streaked with filth. Carnelian saw auxiliaries being pulled down from their aquar. Blood greased the cobbles as the Marula stabbed them. Then he was running after Osidian towards the gate as it began to close. They were soon inside the fortress. Carnelian spotted a monolith guarding the stables entrance to the watch-tower that stood sentinel upon the gate. He caught Osidian’s eye. ‘I’ll secure the tower.’ Osidian jerked a nod.
Carnelian tried to detect any movement up among the wooden ribs of the watch-tower. Oracles and warriors were pouring past him, chasing after Osidian, who was running up a paved road between walls of jointed stone. Carnelian, grabbing at some Marula, saw Sthax and gestured towards the tower. They exchanged grins, then Sthax began issuing swift orders to the warriors.
Carnelian slipped round behind the monolith. The portcullis behind it was raised as he had expected. He crept in, waiting for his eyes to adapt to the gloom. The place stank of aquar and render. Movement. It was only stable hands, cowering. There was no time to save them. He rushed up the first ramp, feeling the grip of its ridges. Oily, sour smell of machinery. Another ramp. Up into a chamber rocking with ripple reflections. He was aware of a tank against the opposite wall, but his focus was on the wall upon which his right hand rested. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the first ladder was down. He crept towards it and peered up into the heart of the tower. No sign of life. He glanced round to see Sthax, grimly determined, and behind him the bright eyes of his warriors as they took in their surroundings. Carnelian pointed up the ladder and began to climb. When he emerged into the first barracks level, he scanned it quickly. Detecting neither sound nor movement he clambered rapidly to the next level. It too seemed empty and so, swiftly, he climbed up to the top storey.
He arrived in a chamber lit only by the light filtering up through the shafts that opened in the corners of the floor. Doors were set into the walls. It was all so familiar; he felt as if he had been there in a dream. He gazed at the door across the chamber with anxious longing, possessed by the belief that, should he open it, he would find his father lying wounded in the room beyond.
Sthax’s anxious expression made him remember why he was there. Carnelian stepped onto a ladder bolted to the edge of one of the shafts. Reaching up he opened a hatch in the ceiling and squeezed through it out onto the roof. Sthax clambered out after him. Six ribs curved up to hold a platform over their heads. Carnelian found the one that was laddered with staples. He crossed to it, stepping over naphtha pipes. Climbing the curve of the rib took him out beyond the tower. Its stone walls fell sheer to the world below. A patchwork of flat roofs spread away from the fortress wall. He reached the platform. A heliograph was there at its centre. Purple-robed figures huddled around its brass were aligning its mirrors to the sun. One ammonite was directing the signal not outwards towards the Guarded Land, but inwards into the fortress.
Carnelian advanced on these ammonites, bellowing in Quya: ‘Attend me.’
Their faces of silver, turning to him, showed grey reflections of the sky. Their hands clutched the machine. ‘You cannot be Chosen,’ said one in the same tongue.
Carnelian raised his hands to his cowl. ‘Do you wish to look upon my face as proof of what I am?’
The ammonites lost hold of the machine and abased themselves before him in terror. Their pates, not covered by their masks, betrayed them to be nothing more than men. Carnelian commanded them to move away from the heliograph and motioned Sthax and his warriors to stand guard on them. The Marula stared nervously at the mirror faces of the ammonites, b
ut did as they were told.
Carnelian turned to look out over the fortress, trying to locate the target of their communication. His gaze skimmed over its roofs to an open, green expanse, beyond which a wedge of masonry sprang up, narrowing to a tower at the very edge of the sky. Its top was flat and he could imagine a sister machine set there. He strained to see if there were figures on the summit, but could not be sure. The tower appeared to be more massive than the one he stood on. It must be the seat of the Legate of Qunoth.
He strode towards the heliograph. Sun flashed off the strips that made up its mirror. Dazzled, he stooped to take hold of one of its curving handles and swung the machine round to put it out of alignment. He crossed to the opposite edge of the platform to look down at the city. The riot they had caused was still eddying along the main street. He returned to gaze down into the fortress. Its dense symmetries and stillness presented a sobering contrast to the chaos of the city. It seemed a ship becalmed. He lifted his eyes towards the prow of the other tower. Beyond that was hazy space. Carnelian’s heart stopped as he realized what he was seeing could be nothing other than the Earthsky. He tried to penetrate its far horizon, then cursed, angry with himself. Was he really hoping he might see as far as the Koppie? Even if he could, what would he see? A cemetery. The memory of the massacre ached in him.
Glancing round, he watched Sthax and his people trying not to catch their own reflections in the metal faces of the cowering ammonites. Grim, miserable, he gazed out over the fortress again. His eyes were drawn to its heart where an immense circular hole sank into its masonry. That had to be a dragon cothon. Tracing its spiked rim he brooded on what he and Osidian were attempting to do. He searched for him or any sign of his Marula, but the alleys were too deep to see into. The deathly stillness of the place made him despair. How could they ever have hoped to take this with their paltry force?
‘Master?’
The voice had come from the tower roof below. Carnelian craned over the platform edge, knowing it was Morunasa.
The Third God Page 19