‘It’s good to see you, Krow.’
The lad beamed and Poppy turned to him, grinning. She offered him her hand. ‘What’re you doing over there?’
Krow allowed himself to be drawn towards Carnelian. ‘You’re family too,’ he said and smiled when Krow sank his head.
‘And Fern?’ said Poppy, anxiously.
Carnelian glanced down at the green roof of the fallen standard, for a moment mesmerized by the oblique grin of the God, then saw a figure coming up the ramp. Poppy had spotted him already and went to meet him, taking Tain’s cloak. Fern was glad to throw it round himself, then stooped to kiss her. When he straightened, his eyes found Carnelian’s and they grinned at each other, shyly, embarrassed by their arousal. Becoming aware the others were staring at them, Carnelian broke the link with Fern and laughed, and they all laughed with him.
The questioning resumed and Carnelian allowed Fern to answer them so that he could feast on their faces, his heart overbrimming with love for them all. Keal, who had wandered back to his aquar, was now returning with something glinting in his hand. He offered Carnelian the thing he was carrying. ‘Father thought you might need this.’
Carnelian took the mask, turning it to see its face. He frowned. It was with a strange sense of dislocation he recognized it as the face his father had worn during their exile. Though, of course, his father was not really his father. Anger rose in him. Such thoughts were a betrayal. He lifted the hollow face up. Out of loyalty and with a desire to prove his love for his father, almost he put it on, but then he let his hand fall. ‘I will not wear this.’
He saw with what sombre faces they were watching him. ‘I’ve no need of it. We’re all family here.’
His smile and words lit them all up. At that moment the rain, which had slackened to a drizzle, turned heavy once more. Carnelian became aware of a dull rumble of thunder, then realized he was feeling it through his feet and saw that the others could feel it too.
The monster appeared from behind the Iron House, Marula riders eddying around its feet. Even with rain driving into their eyes, Carnelian and Fern both recognized Heart-of-Thunder, his chimneys sputtering smoke.
‘Stand your ground,’ Carnelian said to his family as the monster came closer, its flame-pipes swinging towards them so they could look up into their throats. Each thunderous footfall rattled their teeth.
There was a determined look in Fern’s face. Carnelian knew Fern would not part from him, even if it cost him his life. Carnelian felt a fierce pride in him. When he grinned, Fern grinned back and they turned to face Osidian together.
One last shudder as the monster dropped a leg. Then the hawsers tightened on its upper horns and the monster lifted the prow of its beak and came to a halt, leaving them in its rain shadow. Carnelian looked up at the topmost tier of its tower. He was certain it was Osidian sitting there gazing down at them, but he was as hidden by the ivory screen as if masked.
‘His fires are out,’ said Fern.
Carnelian saw that smoke had stopped rising from Heart-of-Thunder’s chimneys. A familiar rattle made him glance round to see the brassman being lowered. A figure scurrying out to its end released the rope ladder. Even as this unwound, a larger shape was crossing the brassman and soon descending. As this Master reached the road, he raised his hand in a command and Carnelian saw the Marula around the trunks of Heart-of-Thunder’s legs retiring. He was glad so many had survived the battle. As the Master approached, Carnelian could feel his father’s mask in his hand. He resisted a compulsion to put it on, determined he would confront Osidian barefaced. ‘I shall try to talk to him in Vulgate, Fern.’
Osidian came so close Carnelian felt certain he was going to touch him. The desire seemed there in Osidian’s gloved hands. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
‘You have,’ said Carnelian, still finding it hard to believe Osidian was his brother.
Osidian’s mask turned to Fern standing beside him. As it lingered, the menace of its imperious face seemed to intensify. Glancing at Fern, Carnelian saw his rising anger.
‘You’ve won, then,’ he said to Osidian.
The mask stayed fixed on Fern a moment longer, then turned to Carnelian. ‘You have no mask, my Lord?’
Carnelian felt the Quya like a threat. He raised his father’s mask so that Osidian could see it. ‘I no longer feel I want to hide behind a mask,’ he said in Vulgate.
‘But the Law . . .’ Osidian’s voice sounded softer in Vulgate so that Carnelian was certain he could hear some doubt in it.
‘You— we shattered the Law there upon that battlefield.’
Osidian half glanced round as if he could only bear to look upon it with a single eye.
‘Did you cause that carnage merely to restore things to the way they were?’
Osidian’s mask turned back, but he gave no answer.
‘You must make a new Law.’
Osidian regarded the Iron House. ‘I must know beyond doubt my victory is complete.’
‘Do you seek your brother’s body?’
‘We must recover all our Chosen dead.’
Carnelian remembered the Master he and Fern had seen lying dead on the battlefield, unmasked, sartlar staring down at him. ‘The commanders too?’
‘I have already set the Lesser Chosen that task.’
Carnelian glanced towards the battlefield, where he could see the ridges of the dead and, for a moment, he imagined the Lesser Chosen commanders seeking the Lords, dead in their towers. Gathering those bodies was not a task they could delegate to their minions.
Osidian was beckoning the Marula. Carnelian watched him. There was a disturbing stillness about him and no sign of the elation he had expected. ‘You wish to bind the Lesser Chosen to your cause by miring them with the blood of your victory?’ he said, wishing to probe behind Osidian’s impassive exterior.
‘And to keep them occupied while I negotiate with the Wise and the Great,’ said Osidian, who was gazing off towards the Iron House.
Carnelian could see the strategic sense of it. ‘What did you offer them yesterday to have them stand down?’
‘Blood from my own House.’
‘And they are to bring the dead they salvage here?’
Osidian gave a distracted nod. Carnelian saw his intention: Osidian would gather all the Powers here, so that he might negotiate terms with them within sight of his victory over them. Carnelian was reminded of Osidian standing astride the ravener he had slain and of the power that had given him over the Ochre – and how, ultimately, he had used that power.
Carnelian’s stream of thought was muddied by the approach of the summoned Marula. They were Oracles, among whom was Morunasa. There was malice in the glance the man gave him, but also fear. Clearly, Morunasa had never imagined he would see Carnelian again. Did he fear that Carnelian had told Osidian that it was Morunasa who had let them go? Osidian was telling Morunasa and the other Oracles that they must find a way into the Iron House. He was indicating where the drawbridge stair was slightly ajar and how they might enter that way.
‘Bring me all the bodies you find in there.’
As they watched Morunasa and the other Oracles moving away, Carnelian was frowning. ‘There will be a lot of bodies.’
Osidian turned on him. ‘How could you know that?’
‘Before the battle I was there with Molochite.’
Carnelian sensed Osidian wanted to know more. He frowned, haunted, imagining the interior of the Iron House. ‘All the children.’
‘Children?’ Osidian’s voice betrayed the first colourings of emotion.
Carnelian explained how Molochite had with him the children of the Great, presumably as hostages for the good behaviour of their fathers commanding in the battle. As he did so he saw a rigor taking over Osidian’s body.
‘You did not know?’
Osidian seemed lifeless.
While they brought Heart-of-Thunder up towards the door of the Iron House, Carnelian described to Osidian something of his
time there. He was not sure Osidian was listening and it seemed he was not, for he said nothing when Carnelian fell silent. As its keeper kept the dragon still, Marula scrambled up its horns and onto its head, and from there managed to clamber up into the open gap of the drawbridge stair and so gain entry into the Iron House. Some time later, the chains began to be paid out and the stair, jerkily, fell, until one corner of it clanged into the stone of the road.
The first corpse to be brought out from the black maw of the Iron House was that of a sybling pair. The Marula carrying the dead twins leaned away from them, as if they feared some contamination. Though blackened, it was clear the syblings were male. Carnelian was relieved it was not the Quenthas. When a second sybling pair was carried down, Morunasa came ahead, to report the stairs within the Iron House choked with bodies. Carnelian and Osidian hardly heard him, focused as they were on the dead syblings. Curling in on each other, they held within their embrace the body of the Chosen infant they had been trying to protect. Soon more small bodies were being brought out and laid upon the stone. Once beautiful children, blackened, but unburnt, faces scrunched up, eyes slivers, mouths opened as if singing. Some of the small bodies clung to each other so desperately they were brought out by the Marula as knots of limbs. The warriors frowned carrying them, putting them down as if they were glass.
Carnelian became trapped in looking from face to face. When he tore his eyes away, he saw Poppy gazing at the dead children with a rapt expression, as if she was listening to something they were saying. He became aware Osidian was unmasking. His face, revealed, seemed weathered marble in the rain. He was muttering something.
‘What?’ Carnelian asked.
‘I thought I had already paid the price for victory.’
This stung Carnelian to anger. ‘What exactly did you pay?’
Osidian gazed at him, pale, wild-eyed. ‘They will blame this on me.’
‘And why should they not?’ Carnelian said and his anger turned to despair. His own hands were not clean of this.
The flow of children ceased at the same time as the rain. As the Marula penetrated the upper levels of the Iron House, Carnelian and the others were left to stand guard upon the dead. Then the Iron House began to disgorge more corpses. Chosen and syblings, their gorgeous armour and robes stained black with their faces and limbs, some clutching at their throats as if seeking to strangle themselves. Their jewels now seemed tainted tomb goods.
Then Carnelian saw them bringing out a body sheathed in dull silver. As he approached it, he saw Osidian was already there watching it being put down. Molochite’s beautiful, cruel face was distorted by a grimace that combined horror and surprise. Osidian gazed down upon his brother, eyes wide and bleak. Carnelian looked from one face to the other, marvelling at how alike they were. He recalled how much his own features resembled theirs, and why. He too looked down at a dead brother, but was glad to find he felt nothing but disgust. Turning back to Osidian, he saw his gaze transforming to a staring panic. He tried in vain to gauge the cause in the sight before him, then realized it was not what Osidian was seeing, but what he was not seeing. The face that had been hidden behind the Masks during the Apotheosis emitted no light. It was the face of a dead man, not a dead god.
Osidian pulled away and clutched hold of a Maruli whom Carnelian recognized, with shock and distracted relief, as Sthax. Osidian shook him. ‘Where is it? Tell me now!’
Sthax tried to shake his head and opened his mouth, so that Carnelian feared the Maruli might be about to give himself away by speaking in Vulgate, but suddenly Osidian cast him aside. Morunasa was there, trying to calm Osidian, who began rattling out some command. Morunasa listened to him for a while, nodding, then barked an order to one of his men. Carnelian saw his family witnessing how close Osidian seemed to madness. At last two Marula warriors approached him opening their hands. He looked down with horror at what they were offering him. Shards of what appeared to be green ice. Pieces of jade. Osidian plucked these from the black hands and frantically seemed to be attempting to join them together. Then with an eruption of rage, he cast the pieces to the ground. Some shattered into smaller fragments, or skittered over the paving. A single piece came to rest near Carnelian’s foot. He stooped to pick it up. Its translucence was like the sun through leaves. His finger felt its sinuous curve. It was the bridge of a nose and twin prongs of cheek and brow that had enclosed the hollow of an eyeslit. A piece of the Jade Mask. Through that gap, God Emperors had looked out upon their perfect world for a thousand years.
Carnelian glanced up as if woken. Fern was looking away from the Iron House towards Osrakum. There, coming along the road, were mirrored palanquins. The Wise. Osidian was tying on his mask with clumsy fingers, like a child hoping to conceal from a returning parent something he had broken.
Three Grand Sapients emerged from the mirror palanquins. Upon high ranga they stood, forbidding, their long faces of silver crowned with crescent moons. Each had a homunculus before him holding the staff of his Domain.
‘We greet you, Lord of the Three Lands,’ the homunculi chorused.
Osidian inclined his head a little to each in turn. ‘My Lord Tribute, my Lord Cities, my Lord Law.’
‘We would speak to you privately,’ said Law, through his homunculus.
‘None here can comprehend our tongue, save for the Lord Suth, and I would have him by my side, for this victory is as much his doing as mine.’
Carnelian glanced at Osidian, unsure if he was being given a share in the glory or the blame.
‘Suth Carnelian is unmasked,’ shrilled the homunculus.
‘Recently the Law has been much disobeyed,’ said Osidian with something of his old defiance.
The homunculi muttered an echo. Then Cities’ fingers began to flex around his voice’s throat. ‘And for that very reason does the Commonwealth stand in peril of dissolution.’
‘My Lords are as guilty of this as any here.’
‘We do not deny it, Celestial,’ said Tribute. ‘We come not to make recriminations, but to help you restore the Commonwealth.’
‘The legions that survive must return to their fortresses,’ said Cities.
‘The Seraphim must return to within the sanctity of the Sacred Wall,’ said Tribute.
‘You must resume your place at the centre of the world,’ said Law.
Osidian stood very still. ‘It is not for the conquered to dictate terms to their conqueror.’
‘Celestial,’ said Tribute, ‘we do not deny your right to rule, but if you are to have anything to rule over, then you must allow us to re-establish order.’
Osidian’s hands crushed to fists. ‘I will not submit to the Balance.’
‘And yet, a balance there must be,’ said Law.
Osidian’s hands opened. ‘Yes.’
‘We must recover the dead.’
Osidian nodded.
‘Has the God Emperor been found?’ asked Law.
As Osidian indicated where his brother lay, Law freed one of his cloven hands and gestured some quick commands. Ammonites poured forward so that, very quickly, Carnelian could no longer see Molochite at all as they wound him into a cocoon of green silk.
Law’s hand returned to move at the throat of his homunculus. ‘Even if we are to consider the Law suspended for the moment, to have any of the Seraphim exposed thus to animal eyes is folly; to have a consecrated God Emperor thus displayed is madness.’ The homunculus swept a hand to take in the people round about. ‘All these should be destroyed.’
Carnelian tensed, careful to avoid glancing in the direction in which he had sent his family off the road for fear of the Wise. He relaxed a little when he saw Osidian making a clear gesture of negation. ‘All here are of my household or of that of the Lord Suth. I will allow none to be executed.’
‘Is it possible, Celestial, you do not realize how much this diminishes you?’
Osidian chopped an angry gesture: Enough!
Silence fell, then Tribute’s fingers came alive
again. ‘Have measures been taken to recover the dead from the battlefield?’
Osidian’s head had sunk so that his mask seemed to be contemplating the crack where two slabs in the road met. Seeing he was not going to answer, Carnelian spoke for him. ‘The legionary commanders have been instructed to bring them here.’
‘Who else has been recovered from the Iron House?’ said Cities’ homunculus.
‘The children of the Great, syblings and others of the court.’
‘No sign then of our colleagues who counselled the God Emperor?’
Carnelian shook his head.
‘Perhaps you will help me search, Suth Carnelian?’ said the homunculus.
Carnelian glanced at Osidian, still staring at the ground, then up at Cities’ blank silver face. He was not going to be able to stop the Wise conversing with Osidian alone. ‘As my Lord wishes.’
The Grand Sapient released the neck of his homunculus, who turned to place the Domain staff in his master’s left hand, then clasped the right. Together, Carnelian, Cities and the homunculus began moving towards where the bodies were laid out on the road. Looking again upon the faces of the dead children, Carnelian forgot everything else and was only woken from his sombre survey by the homunculus crying out. As it pulled its master off along the line of dead, Carnelian followed them. The corpse of the Grand Sapient lying on the road might have been long-withered. There was another beside it and, further along the line, beyond some ammonites, a third.
Standing before the first, Cities knelt, using his staff as a support. His homunculus guided his fingers to the corpse. The cloven hand touched the skull head, then rose, hesitating. The hand presented itself to the homunculus, who also hesitated. It shaped a command and the homunculus, peeled off the glove. The hand, naked, seemed opaque glass. It fell gently upon the face of the dead Grand Sapient, moving with painful delicacy down to feel the glyphs tattooed in a ring around the root of the missing ear. Cities gave the slightest nod, then rose and allowed himself to be guided to the next corpse. There he knelt again, to repeat the procedure. Another nod. This time he had to have help to rise, and leaned upon his homunculus as they moved to the final corpse. Cities knelt for a third time. His fingers tracing down the rucked skin around the eyepit with its jade stone began to tremble as they reached the ear root. There, they shook so much, the Grand Sapient was unable to read the tattoos. He released his hold on his staff, removed the glove from his left hand, then brought them both back to the skull head. Steadying his right hand with his left, he felt the side of the head, then collapsed onto the body.
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