The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  He slowed his aquar when he saw riders approaching. Among the indigo of the Oracles, Osidian’s pale face seemed made of bone. Beyond them raveners prowled the battlefield. Carnelian felt sick. There was no sign of living Plainsmen nor Marula warriors. He could not believe them all perished. He would not. He waited as calmly as he could for Osidian to reach him.

  The Master’s legs, arms and face were streaked with gore. His eyes burned. ‘Be joyous, Carnelian, we are victorious.’

  Osidian was shivering. Carnelian could not tell if the agony he was suffering was from a wound or from the maggots. ‘The Plainsmen and the Marula?’

  Osidian closed his eyes and sank back into his chair. Beside him, Morunasa fixed Carnelian with a baleful look. ‘They hunt what remains of the auxiliaries.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  Morunasa indicated Osidian. ‘The Kissed will soon give birth to the servants of our Lord.’

  Carnelian saw with unease the reverence with which the Oracles were regarding Osidian. As Morunasa led them past him, Carnelian searched the horizon, then turned his aquar to follow them back to the koppie. His plan lay in ruins. He dared not consider how many men might have been slain. He no longer knew what was happening.

  Carnelian stood guard on the gate waiting for Fern and Krow, counting the survivors. All day they came in, Plainsmen and Marula, exhausted and bloody, but with the stiff backs and raised chins of victors. He asked the Plainsmen for news of Fern. Many told him that, when they had last seen him, he had been dealing death to the auxiliaries.

  Carnelian was sitting, morose, when another group came in. He rose and saw with joy that Fern was among them. He ran forward to greet him, but was warned off by the look in his eyes.

  ‘Many good men fell today.’

  Carnelian nodded. ‘But most have survived.’

  ‘And Poppy?’ The speaker was so begrimed with blood that Carnelian did not at first realize it was Krow.

  ‘Safe and unhurt.’

  ‘And the Master?’ asked Fern.

  ‘He returned with Morunasa.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Scowling, Fern dismounted and, leaving his aquar in Krow’s care, he strode into the grove. Carnelian and the youth exchanged glances, then Carnelian followed Fern.

  Ravener screeches carried through the night as the monsters feasted on the wounded and the dead. The Plainsmen cowered, sick with shame that they had abandoned their brethren to such a fate. Poppy whispered to Carnelian that it reminded her of the sounds coming from the Isle of Flies.

  Morunasa and the Oracles clustered around Osidian as he groaned, like crows around a corpse. Nauseated, Carnelian watched them minister to Osidian like midwives. When the moon had set, pale maggots as thick as thumbs began wriggling out from the sticky mouths of his wounds. The Oracles cherished them as if they were babies.

  BURNT OFFERINGS

  Truly the Gods savour sacrifice

  But swell not too much Their holocausts

  Lest you wake Their greed

  And They devour the world.

  (Quyan fragment)

  First light found Carnelian bleary – eyed. He had hardly slept. At first he had been haunted by the maggot births, then he became possessed by the fear that, at any moment, Aurum would fall on them with his dragons. He was exhausted from the continuous effort of listening for the first tremor of an attack. He rose, knuckled his forehead, rubbed his eyes. A gleam from Osidian’s body could just be seen through the huddle of the Oracles. Where he had failed to work out Aurum’s intentions, Osidian might succeed. As he approached, Morunasa rose to bar his way.

  ‘I must talk to him.’

  The Oracle shook his head. ‘It’s our Lord who must wake him from within his dreams.’

  ‘But we’re still in danger. The dragons could be upon us at any time.’

  Morunasa frowned. ‘What I fear is more terrible than dragons.’ He leaned close. ‘Can you not feel the presence of our Lord?’

  The odour of the Isle of Flies was coming off his ashen skin. Carnelian shuddered, swayed by Morunasa’s certainty, finding it easy to sense the Darkness-under-the-Trees pulsing in the gloom. It drove the last fragment of fight out of him. He became too weary to withstand his doubts. The edifices he had constructed with his reason crumbled. An old fear returned. What if Osidian’s power revived? What if victory over the auxiliaries were to give him back ascendancy over the Plainsmen?

  ‘The men intend to return to their homes today.’ It was Fern approaching.

  Carnelian glanced back towards where Osidian lay.

  ‘He can do nothing to stop it.’

  ‘You’re so sure?’

  Fern gave a solid nod, but Carnelian thought he saw a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. Rising commotion and an impression of movement made him notice the whole hillside in motion. In the twilight it was hard to make out individuals.

  ‘First they’ll return to the battlefield,’ Fern said.

  Carnelian nodded. It was good that they should save what they could of their dead.

  ‘I fear Hookfork will be waiting for them,’ said Fern.

  ‘I too,’ said Carnelian, glad to be able to share his fear with someone. ‘But that leaves us with the mystery of what caused the thunder in the night.’

  Fern grimaced. ‘Could Hookfork have gone north, hoping to trap us?’

  ‘If so why has he allowed us to destroy his auxiliaries?’

  ‘Perhaps he felt it all-important to protect his render supply.’

  Carnelian shook his head. ‘A few dragons would have sufficed for that.’

  Fern’s eyes flashed. ‘What then?’

  Carnelian had an answer, but dared not voice it until he was sure it was not desperation overthrowing reason. Fern’s pained frustration drew it out of him. ‘Perhaps he’s fled back to the Guarded Land.’

  ‘Why would he do that? You told us the Master’s the entire focus of his schemes.’

  ‘He is, but Hookfork might fear the Master reaching the Guarded Land before him.’

  With effort, Carnelian strove to analyse matters as a Master might. Barbarians were unimportant; even the loss of so many auxiliaries. What mattered was how all this would be perceived in Osrakum. This war was merely the shadow cast by the game being played there between the Powers. The Wise had risked much in attempting to retrieve Osidian: Aurum had risked everything. If Osidian were to make his appearance unfettered, the alignments of the forces would be disrupted. The Wise might be able to regain control, but Aurum would be lucky to salvage anything at all.

  Carnelian became aware of Fern’s exasperation. He sought to find an end to untie the knot of his analysis for him, then gave up the attempt. ‘Politics.’

  Seeing Fern grow angry, Carnelian was about to retreat from his Chosen vantage point, when a thought occurred to him. Such an appearance by Osidian might disrupt the nexus of power in Osrakum enough to cause the whole business in the Earthsky, even the sins of the Plainsmen, to be forgotten. He was stunned, certain he was seeing a move in the game. He found himself trying to remember the few things his father had said about how it was played. Why had his father taught him so little?

  He focused on Fern’s angry frustration. The desire to save him, to save Poppy and the Plainsmen, to atone for the annihilation of the Ochre, all this meant he must learn to play the Masters’ game.

  He reached out to touch Fern. ‘I’m sorry.’

  His friend’s face collapsed into an expression of confusion. He watched Carnelian’s hand withdrawing. ‘I’ve no wish to understand what the Standing Dead might mean by “politics”,’ he said, his mouth curling with disgust.

  Carnelian marshalled his thoughts. ‘Nevertheless I’m now convinced Hookfork is leaving or has left the Earthsky.’ Though he could not really believe it, he still felt relieved. Something else occurred to him. ‘This could provide us with a way to rid the Earthsky of Morunasa and the Marula.’

  Fern looked unc
ertain, but he was watching Carnelian with hope.

  ‘If the Plainsmen knew that Hookfork was gone would they continue to listen to the Master?’

  Fern shook his head. ‘But why should they believe your conjectures?’

  Carnelian saw how impossible it would be to explain his reasoning to the Plainsmen. If Fern was accepting this at all it was from some vestige of faith that he still had in him. Carnelian felt ashamed, humbled that any should still linger in his friend’s heart.

  He waited for him to speak. Fern looked up. ‘You hope the Master will take the Marula with him in pursuit of Hookfork?’

  Carnelian pondered this. It was a fair question. ‘I believe the faith he and Morunasa have in the Marula god could be enough to make them attempt it.’

  Fern stared blindly. ‘Most likely they’d be going to their destruction.’ He regarded Carnelian. ‘And you’ll go with him?’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘Then I’ll go with you.’

  Carnelian wondered what lay behind this decision. He wanted it to be because Fern still felt something for him. The look in Fern’s face suggested he might have bleaker motivations.

  He smiled grimly. ‘And what if you don’t die in battle?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll die some other way.’

  Their gazes locked; Fern was first to break contact.

  ‘What about Poppy?’ Carnelian said, as much as anything else to cover up a feeling of embarrassment.

  Fern chewed his lip. ‘I believe Krow would want to take care of her… be capable even…’

  ‘She wouldn’t go willingly,’ Carnelian said.

  Fern shook his head. ‘We couldn’t force her.’

  Carnelian smiled ruefully. ‘The last time I tried that she triggered a battle.’

  Fern nodded. ‘She’s earned the right to choose for herself.’

  They found Poppy and Krow together watching the Plainsmen stream down through the mother trees towards their aquar. Carnelian studied the two of them as Fern explained the conclusions they had come to. Krow had eyes only for Poppy’s face as she nodded, listening. When Fern was done she looked up at Carnelian. She indicated the deserting Plainsmen. ‘You’re going to tell me I have to leave with them.’

  Carnelian exchanged a glance with Fern, whose look of encouragement prompted a shaking of Carnelian’s head.

  Poppy looked from one to the other and frowned. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here.’

  Fern answered: ‘If you choose to go with us it’ll almost certainly be to your death.’

  She blushed. ‘The Mother will protect us.’ She looked hard into Carnelian’s eyes. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Then I’m coming too,’ said Krow.

  When they all looked at him his face too changed colour.

  ‘Many tribes would take you in,’ Carnelian said.

  Krow glanced at Poppy, slowly shaking his head. ‘I’ll never again be a stranger in a strange tribe.’

  Poppy looked at Fern then Carnelian. ‘He’s right. You’re my tribe now.’ She turned to Krow. ‘You too.’

  Krow coloured again and Poppy smiled. ‘Well, that’s settled then.’

  While Carnelian had been sitting on a rock waiting for Osidian to wake, the grove had emptied of Plainsmen. The sound of them riding away had echoed up through the cedars, then silence had fallen. Brooding mostly over Poppy’s decision, he had watched the sun chase shadows from under the trees.

  When the Oracles stirred he leapt up. They yielded to him when he pushed through them. Osidian, blinking, shaded his sunken eyes with an emaciated arm. Morunasa leaned down and began interrogating him in a tense whisper. The Oracles craned forward, struggling to listen. Osidian shook his head, pushed Morunasa away and, with a groan, sat up.

  His face lit up as he saw Carnelian. ‘Where…?’

  Looking for a moment like the boy in the Yden, though so wasted, he caused Carnelian’s heart to trip. ‘Do you remember the battle?’

  Osidian went blind, looking within himself. ‘My Father was there. ..’ He frowned. ‘Everywhere…’

  ‘The Darkness-under-the-Trees?’ Morunasa asked, his eyes like flames.

  Osidian glanced at him, confused.

  Carnelian caught Osidian’s gaze with his. ‘The auxiliaries were destroyed, my Lord.’

  Osidian frowned. ‘And Aurum?’

  Carnelian ignored Morunasa, who was baring his teeth at their Quya. He felt this was an opportunity to make a move in the game. Carefully he began describing their flight north; Aurum’s disappearance; the thunder in the night. He watched with fascination as Osidian’s eyes betrayed his struggle to make sense of it all. He fought to suppress a thrill of excitement as he saw the pattern settle in Osidian’s mind, certain he was drawing the same conclusions as he had himself. Osidian was now alight with confidence, evident in the smile that he turned on the Oracles. ‘Consider the confluence of events. Can you not see the hand of our Lord behind these developments? Is battle…’ – his eyes burned – ‘not one of the clearest instruments of divination?’

  As he rose, the Oracles stepped back, awe in their faces. The birthmark on Osidian’s forehead creased as the light dimmed in his eyes. ‘He was with me and in me and about me.’ He looked into the shadow still lingering around the nearest cedar trunk.

  ‘We must return south before the dragons come,’ Morunasa declared, but the way he searched Osidian’s face belied his tone of confidence.

  Osidian seemed not to hear him. He looked at Carnelian. ‘Where are the Plainsmen now?’

  Morunasa narrowed his yellow eyes. ‘They’ve deserted you.’

  Osidian ignored the Oracle and waited for Carnelian to answer him.

  ‘They’ve gone to gather their dead from the battlefield,’ Carnelian said. ‘And then, I believe, they’ll go home.’

  Osidian frowned. ‘I need them to come with me.’

  ‘Go where, my Lord?’ Carnelian said, playing the game and then striving to forget that he knew the answer, to keep his face from betraying him.

  Osidian looked around him. ‘Where are the aquar?’

  Carnelian knew he could say nothing more without revealing himself. He looked to Morunasa, urging him to say what he could not. Almost as if under his control the man obliged. ‘With our Lord behind you what need have we of the Plainsmen? We’re still yours, my Master.’

  Osidian would not be deflected. ‘We ride to the battlefield.’

  Carnelian nodded and followed him as he strode off to the nearest rootstair. When Fern joined them, Carnelian dared not look him in the eye and clung on to Fern’s belief that the Plainsmen would not be swayed by Osidian’s words.

  Carnelian covered his mouth and nose against the fetid air. The ground was foul with corpses. Everywhere ferns were trampled, clotted with dried blood. Dense, swirling mats of flies gave twitching life to the dead. The sky was darkened by wheeling clouds of ravens, by sky-saurians gliding in arcs. The raveners had left, perhaps having eaten their fill. However other, smaller scavengers swarmed the battlefield. Against such numbers the attempts the Plainsmen were making with their whirling bullroarers to drive them from their feast were futile.

  As he rode Carnelian’s gaze snagged on a glint here, another there. His eyes found the brass of a service collar bright among the dun and rusty carnage. Its familiar gleam and colour made him turn to see its like around Fern’s throat. He regarded the vastness of the slaughter. He had so easily fallen into thinking of the auxiliaries as merely an extension of Aurum’s malice. Now he was seeing them as men. Each had been recruited from some tribe that was probably not so different from those of the Earthsky. The next Plainsman he passed he stared at. Hunched, the man was picking his way through the mesh of arms and legs, searching. Carnelian scrutinized his face. Its sadness and the misery in the darting eyes was not restricted to his own people. So close, the man could not help seeing that the rage he had sought to turn against the Standing Dead had fallen on men like himself. Carnelian felt the
confidence he had drawn from his plotting leak away. This was another massacre: a slaughter of brother by brother. All his defences crumbled. He drank in the horror unmediated by excuses, by judgement, by any consideration of context. A sort of wonder rose in him, a bleak, surprised contemplation of how it was that he and his kind could wreak so much horror, but pass through it unscathed.

  Voices raised in anger broke through his trauma. Morunasa was shouting and other Oracles were joining their commands to his. At first Carnelian could not understand their anger, but then he saw the Marula streaming across the battlefield, defiantly gathering up their own dead.

  A bellow drew all attention to its source. Osidian rode in among them brandishing a spear. In stentorian tones he summoned the leaders of the Plainsmen to attend him. For a moment everyone stared, as stunned as Carnelian, but then his heart died as he saw men, from all across the plain, disengage from what they were doing and begin trudging towards the Master. Morose, Carnelian urged his aquar forward.

  Even before anyone had reached him Osidian began haranguing them. ‘There’s no time to gather the dead!’

  Carnelian was appalled by the depth and volume of his voice. He was transfixed by the wasted beauty of his face so bright against a halo of flies. Enringed by Plainsmen Osidian raked their ranks with his emerald gaze. ‘We must fly north.’

  Carnelian tore his eyes away from him, expecting to see awe in the faces round him. Instead there were only frowns of confusion. He noticed that not a single face was painted. He realized he could not remember the last time he had seen a whitened face among the Plainsmen. Osidian continued to explain that Hookfork was fleeing north. That if they reached the Leper Valleys before him they would achieve victory. That the victory they had won the day before was as nothing to that which awaited them should they obey him now. Carnelian watched the Plainsman faces sour. His heart leapt as they began to turn away. Osidian, confident of triumph, was blind to his audience. Carnelian almost felt sorry for him. When Osidian became aware, with a look of surprise, that he was losing them, the pitch of his voice rose and he tried to buy them with promises. Shriller and shriller it grew as more and more of them turned their backs on him. Even his wrath when it came was not enough to turn their tide. His threats indeed produced some sour laughter. The joy that had burned up into Carnelian’s chest quickly turned to ice. The Plainsmen had ceased to fear the Standing Dead. They had seen behind their mask, had seen them weak, had seen they were just men. At that moment their power seemed fallible, broken at their feet. Carnelian recognized with chill horror that this was what the Wise feared most. Before the cancer of such a liberation from fear should spread through the body of the Commonwealth, the Wise would strike to eradicate it, to cut out even the memory of such freedom.