The Third God

by Ricardo Pinto

  More men appeared, lugging steaming pails, into which others dipped poles that they lifted, dripping, to begin greasing the belly of the monster.

  Voices above him made Carnelian look up to see figures swarming onto Heart-of-Thunder from the pier. He noticed a pole running the length of the tower base onto which one man was working a hook. Carnelian gasped as, gripping a rope attached to the hook, the man leapt into space. He slid to the ground, then pulled the rope after him under the ceiling of the monster’s belly. Another man appeared, coming the other way. Rope in hand, he scrambled up footholds in the pier, back to the tower base. More men descended, more ascended as rope after rope sank into the layer of smeared fat, weaving a tight girdle to fix the tower in place.

  Carnelian found Morunasa watching his Marula warriors being cut out of their beaded corselets. To his relief he spotted Sthax among them. Morunasa was frowning. Carnelian shared his unease at seeing the warriors being shelled like oysters, their corselets discarded as rubbish. In lines, the now naked men were being fitted for armour. The leather was more flattering to their long-limbed beauty than their corselets had been, but they were left looking more like slaves.

  On the other side of the courtyard, grooms were bringing aquar down ramps. These were not the dun creatures of the Plainsmen, but the larger ones of the Commonwealth, silver as fish. There was no doubt the elegant curves of their saddle-chairs accommodated the lanky Marula better than the cramped wicker of the Plainsman chairs, but Carnelian could see how uncomfortable the warriors were with the stirrups and their frustration at how these new aquar did not respond to the touch of their feet. How long would it take them to adapt to using reins? Just before setting off on a dangerous campaign seemed a bad time to exchange the familiar for the strange. Osidian did not make that sort of mistake. No doubt this change had less to do with efficiency and more with discomfiting the Marula. Osidian wanted to break these proud men into auxiliaries obedient to his commands.

  A desire to see Heart-of-Thunder once more drew him back to the cothon. Light from torches set into the piers gleamed off machines and towers. Commanding his escort to wait for him, Carnelian slipped into the shadows. He wandered under piers, passing dragons each bearing a tower base, each being crawled over by men still hard at work.

  When he reached Heart-of-Thunder, Carnelian saw the immense girdle was complete. Clambering over it, men were working toggles larger than their hands into its ropes. Carnelian watched one being twisted into a rope a turn at a time, tightening it. When the toggle could be turned no further, it was tucked under the next rope to hold it fast. The rigger drew a fresh toggle from a pouch slung at his hip and with it struck the rope he had just tightened, feeling its tone with his cheek. Satisfied, he moved on to the next.

  Watching the men work, Carnelian grew aware of a sound like distant drumming. Aurum must have arrived even earlier than they had feared. In alarm he sought the direction from which the drumming was coming. Then he realized it was only the beating of the dragon’s heart.

  Figures were hunched round fires lit directly on the cobbles of the marumaga barracks. From their slimness, and the ash coating their skin, Carnelian knew they were Oracles. His escort brought him to a door before which a curtain of myrrh smoke was rising. Passing through it, he found a gold-faced apparition waiting for him. Wrapped in linen, it made Carnelian recall the term the Plainsmen used for the Masters. The apparition unmasked to reveal Osidian’s face, his eyes seeming murky emeralds. He must have misunderstood Carnelian’s hesitation for he said: ‘These chambers have been ritually cleansed, my Lord.’

  Carnelian removed his mask and stripped down to his second skin of bandages. Osidian indicated a mat upon which lay some dishes of food. Realizing how hungry he was, Carnelian sat down and began eating.

  Osidian was watching him. ‘Tomorrow I shall leave with the Marula to seek signs of the Lord Aurum.’

  Carnelian frowned. ‘Have you reason to expect him to be close?’

  ‘I would like you to remain behind.’

  Osidian’s face was as unreadable as a mask, but Carnelian sensed he was up to something. ‘Will you take all the Marula, my Lord?’

  ‘I shall leave you some; though I do not think it likely you will have problems with the marumaga. You will be the only Chosen here.’

  Carnelian thought that strange. ‘My Lord is taking all the commanders with him?’

  Osidian made a sign of affirmation.

  ‘The Legate too?’

  ‘He is no longer that but, yes, he will come with me.’

  Carnelian returned to his meal. Perhaps Osidian intended nothing more than to humble the Lesser Chosen. Forcing them to endure the discomfort of riding aquar in the world beyond the city could only serve, as in the case of the Marula warriors, to reinforce Osidian’s dominion over them. Something occurred to him. ‘And Morunasa?’

  ‘He shall remain here as your lieutenant.’

  ‘To keep an eye on me?’

  Osidian did not reply, but sat down to eat.

  Before the outer gates of the cothon were fully open, Osidian and the Lesser Chosen commanders sped through the gap, their black cloaks fluttering like wings. Watching the Marula pour after them Carnelian frowned, remembering other Chosen riders in black cloaks, with other Marula. When all were through, the gates slowly closed. He turned back to the cothon. With their masts and rigging, the dragon towers had a look of the barans in the Tower in the Sea. Seeking distraction, he set off across the cobbles towards Heart-of-Thunder.

  The piers dwarfed the pack huimur, each under a pitched frame studded with sacs. These sacs, once unhitched from the frames, were being lugged towards Heart-of-Thunder. As each arrived under the prow of his beak, a keeper would tear it open with his billhook, snag the sac, then raise it to tip the render into the dragon’s maw.

  When he tired of watching this feeding, Carnelian wandered down the monster’s flank, staying in his shadow, curious to find out what the other keepers were up to, whom he could see prodding mushroom-headed poles into the dragon’s hide. He deduced they must be testing the strength of the monster’s massive muscles. When the beastmaster came, he pronounced himself satisfied. Heart-of-Thunder’s lower horns were roped to yokes. Keepers pricked his legs as teams of men pulled on the ropes. With a shudder, the monster came to life. One massive leg rose, swung forward, then dropped to the ground with an impact that shook Carnelian’s bones. More quakes followed as the monster moved from the first set of piers towards the second, finally slipping beneath the beams that held aloft the pyramid-shaped upper half of a dragon tower.

  After Heart-of-Thunder had been tethered in place by his horns, more huimur approached bearing sacs. Carnelian wondered if the keepers were going to resume feeding the dragon, but this time the sacs were being lugged to the piers, then hoisted to their summits. These new sacs were being carried with some care. Also, they were not brown, but black. Curiosity drew Carnelian to investigate.

  As he emerged from the shadows, everyone within sight fell to their knees. He peered at one of the black sacs. His ranga would not allow him to reach down to it. ‘Hold it up to me.’

  As a keeper lifted it, Carnelian could smell its reek even through the nosepads of his mask. ‘Naphtha.’

  He let the men resume their work and stood where he could watch them ferrying the sacs over to the tower base roped to the dragon’s back. After a while a reek of naphtha began wafting down from the tower base and he realized they must be filling its tanks.

  The empty sacs were piled on the cothon floor away from the dragons. No doubt as a precaution against accidental fire. Near sunset the legionaries began clearing the cothon. Carnelian had been watching the mobilization for so long, his legs had begun to ache. A lone legionary dared approach to tell him that the gates would soon be locked. Carnelian followed the man across the cothon. The rest of his comrades were already beginning to huddle around fires they had lit upon the cobbles away from the dragons. As Carnelian passed through the ga
te it was locked behind him.

  Alone in the marumaga barracks, Carnelian could hear the murmur of the Marula in the courtyard outside. How he longed to go and join them round their campfires. Twice now he had summoned someone to attend him but, when they had knelt before him, he had stood silent. What communication could there be between them? All they could see was a Master. He had had to be content with asking them to bring food and water.

  He lay on the floor without a blanket, wanting the stone to spread its coldness up to numb his heart. What would he not have given for a glimpse of Fern or Poppy or Krow, or even just to hear their voices?

  Beneath one of Heart-of-Thunder’s piers, Carnelian was waiting for the Quartermaster. Though, by waking, he had escaped his nightmares, his mind was still stained with dread. The cothon and its activity no longer held a promise of power, but only of destruction. This great mechanism, so nearly wound up to readiness, was a weapon he knew Osidian would not hesitate to use. His heart told him they were close to the point of no return if, indeed, they had not already passed it. The immediate consequences of the events they were about to set in motion he could barely see; the ultimate consequences he could not see at all; but, though he was blind to the future, his heart was populating it with vague, terrible shapes.

  ‘My Master, you summoned me?’

  It was like being shocked awake. The Quartermaster was there, kneeling. Carnelian gestured him to rise. ‘What remains to be done?’

  ‘Some of the dragons have not yet recovered their strength, Master, and this is causing us delays. We dare not burden them until they’re ready.’

  Instinctively, Carnelian reached out to reassure the man, but let his hand fall when he saw him flinch. ‘I’m not accusing you, but seek only your best estimate of when the legion will be ready.’

  ‘Before nightfall most of the tanks should be full, Master.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘For those dragons strong enough, we can attempt to seal their towers.’

  Carnelian glanced at Heart-of-Thunder. ‘Is he strong enough?’

  ‘He is, Master.’

  ‘What happens after his tower is sealed?’

  ‘We shall connect up the pipes.’

  ‘The flame-pipes?’

  ‘Just so, Master.’ The man raised a hand to point towards the centre of the cothon.

  Carnelian gazed off to what he had thought a brass wall. The Quartermaster said something else, but Carnelian was not listening. He had not noticed before how much that wall resembled the bronze forest surrounding the Chamber of the Three Lands in Osrakum.

  Mast and tower shadows were reaching across the cothon when the Quartermaster came to tell him Heart-of-Thunder’s tanks were full and that his tower would now be sealed. Carnelian followed him back and found a place near the dragon where he could watch everything. Slaves greased the piers, counterweights were released, the upper, pyramid-shaped part of the tower rose from its supporting beams. When these were slid away the pyramid was left swinging gently like some vast but silent bell, men clinging to its sides. Chanting to keep their rhythm, gangs pulled the pyramid down, even as the counterweights rose in their niches in the piers. As the two parts of the tower came together, the men on its sides began threading ropes through blocks and rings. When the pyramid and base were sewn together, one by one the counterweights were coaxed onto holding shelves. Heart-of-Thunder groaned as his shoulders bulged under the increasing burden of the completed tower. Men ran around him, gazing up anxiously, testing his sinews with poles. Slowly smiles lit faces, eyes brightened, as they grew confident he was strong enough. At the Quartermaster’s command they unhitched the cradle ropes. The tower was now completely free of the piers. It and Heart-of-Thunder were one.

  Legionaries escorted two flame-pipes across the cothon: each a trumpet as massive as a fallen tree. Setting guards on the piers, one of the legionaries first sent his fellows clambering up, then gave a command to the beastmaster sitting astride one of Heart-of-Thunder’s lower horns. Carnelian took a step back as the tower rocked. Under instruction, the dragon was shuffling sideways towards the pier. Legionaries began crossing to his tower. Clambering around on its sides, they threw down ropes to be hitched to one of the flame-pipes. Slowly it was hoisted towards the tower.

  A commotion across the cothon made Carnelian turn to see that riders were pouring in through the outer gate. Osidian and the Marula had returned.

  Carnelian waited for Osidian by Heart-of-Thunder’s pier. He watched him consult the Quartermaster and then approach, accompanied by another Master. ‘It seems, my Lord,’ Osidian called out, ‘it will be at least another day before we can leave. Some of the huimur are not yet strong enough to bear their towers.’

  Carnelian tried to deduce something of Osidian’s mood from his tone, from the set of his shoulders. He sensed Osidian was putting on a show for the other Master. They all turned to gaze up at Heart-of-Thunder. The first flame-pipe was already attached. Legionaries were working on the second. Osidian was nodding. ‘I shall command the first cohort from his tower.’

  He turned to Carnelian. ‘I hope that you, my Lord Suth, shall condescend to command the second.’

  Carnelian had not thought about it, but raised his hand in affirmation.

  ‘The third we shall leave in your hands, my Lord.’ Osidian indicated the other Master, who bowed.

  ‘As you command, Celestial.’

  Something about this man disturbed Carnelian, but he could not work out what it was. Then it occurred to him. His voice was not that of the ex-Legate. As the most senior of the Lesser Chosen it should have been he who took next place after Osidian and himself.

  Later, as he followed Osidian to where the other Lesser Chosen were waiting, Carnelian searched among them for one who might be behaving differently from the others, perhaps showing some resentment. It was then he noticed ammonites unloading a body from a saddle-chair. He glimpsed an arm that was wrapped in ritual bindings.

  ‘You murdered him, didn’t you?’ Carnelian asked, the moment they were alone and unmasked.

  Osidian gazed at him. ‘He defied me.’

  ‘You needed to kill him as an object lesson to the other commanders.’

  Osidian held Carnelian’s glare for a while before turning away as he divested himself of his military cloak. ‘We shadowed the road far to the west and saw no sign of Aurum.’

  Carnelian was remembering how Osidian had killed Ranegale so as to take control of the Ochre raiding party. He focused his attention on what Osidian had said. ‘What if he does not come by road?’

  ‘He must if he is to have any hope of getting here before we complete our mobilization.’

  Carnelian realized something. ‘If you could see the road, then the watch-towers must have seen you.’

  Osidian threw his hand up in a gesture of dismissal. ‘The time for hiding has passed.’

  For a moment Carnelian became lost in a maelstrom of anxiety. So they had finally passed the point of no return. He marshalled his thoughts. ‘You have a plan?’

  ‘We penetrate deep into the hinterland beyond the seeing of the Wise. Then we shall turn towards Makar.’

  Carnelian saw it in his mind. ‘You wish to outflank him.’

  ‘And snatch his base from him.’

  To capture Makar would put them astride the South Road that ran north to Osrakum.

  Osidian’s eyes went opaque. ‘That should get the attention of my Lords the Wise.’

  Even though he did not believe they would give Osidian anything, Carnelian felt uneasy.

  Osidian’s eyes brightened. ‘Aurum will be forced to come to me.’

  Could it be he still hoped the old Master would join him? Carnelian felt a need to put a crack in Osidian’s certainty. ‘How can you be so certain of that?’

  ‘How else is he going to keep his legion supplied?’

  Carnelian paused. ‘Surely he will find all he needs here.’

  When Osidian smiled, Carnelian could already
see Qunoth burning.

  Carnelian stood upon a low dais within a raised ring of stone. The curved alabaster wall suffused the chamber with soft white light. An ammonite entered, bearing a casket of ribbed ivory. He put this on the floor, broke its seals and opened it. Pulling back layers of parchment, he reached in and drew forth a pale garment. The torso was of a piece with the legs that followed, which another ammonite swept into the crook of his arm so that the suit would not touch the floor. Together they carried it towards Carnelian, climbed up onto the stone ring then let the suit fall, dangling its toed feet and fingered hands. It opened up the middle, inner edges fringed with ties and hooks. It seemed the skin flayed whole from a man. The ammonites asked him to raise his arms, then they fed them into those of the suit. The soft leather poured like silk, rucking at Carnelian’s elbows. The gloves that formed the extremity of the arms were slipped over his hands. He helped the ammonites by worming his fingers into each pocket. They tightened the gloves along their outer edges with delicate ties like tendons. They did up the paired green and black buttons on the back of each wrist. Flexing his hands Carnelian was hardly aware of their covering. The ammonites smoothed the leather up his arms, fitting his elbows into the ridged joints, slicking it over the muscles of his upper arms and easing the shoulders of the suit over his own. As they pulled the leather over his chest, the dangling, empty head flopped down under his throat. The legs of the suit hung nudging at his shins. The ammonites lifted his left leg and fed it into the suit. His foot slipped into the leather foot as easily as had his hands into the gloves. They squeezed his big toe into one pocket and the other toes into another wide enough to accommodate them all. When he put his foot down he could feel soft calluses under his toes, the ball and ridge of his foot, his heel. Once his other leg was clothed he raised it, turning his foot up to see the sole. The heel was red, the ball and ridge black, the toes green. It was a ranga shoe integral to the suit. He felt the leather slide and grip his body as the ammonites began to engage the ties and hooks up his back.