The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  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 gate 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 occur
red 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.

  As the suit moulded itself to his body Carnelian raised his arms, surprised at how it flexed at the gathering ridges of wrists, elbows and shoulders. He did not like the paleness of the leather which reminded him of the bleached faces of the Wise. In its sickly, greasy pallor it also bore a resemblance to the maggots of the Oracles.

  He dropped his arms and practised breathing against the embrace of the suit. It was restrictive, but not so much that he felt trapped. He became aware of the way the suit was padded to accentuate the musculature of his body that the ritual bandages obscured.

  When the ammonites asked him to climb down and walk around the chamber, he was pleased to find the legs of the suit articulating as comfortably as the arms. As he bent and twisted and crouched, the suit clung to him like a second skin. The ammonites asked him to stand still, then, after some adjustments, all left save one who, removing his silver mask, replaced it with one whose eyes were solid spirals. Begging his permission, the ammonite reached up and released Carnelian’s mask. He took hold of the flaccid head of the suit, smoothed it over Carnelian’s chin, then up and over his head. Carnelian pulled its opening around the contours of his face. He felt buttons being secured at the nape of his neck. Then the ammonite came round and bound his mask back on. Finally, the others returned with a great, black, hooded military cloak that they threw about his shoulders and bound across his chest with a clasp that, in jet and jade, showed the faces of the Twin Gods.

  Carnelian followed Osidian onto the summit of the pier. There before them was a dragon tower: a pallid, three-tiered pyramid from which a mast rose, supported by rigging. In front, one flame-pipe pointed towards the heart of the cothon; the other was just being raised. From the rear of the tower two thicker brass chimneys emerged with sooty swollen mouths.

  Even as he was taking in these details, Carnelian became increasingly disturbed. He realized the tower was reminding him of a Plainsman Ancestor House, and of the boats of the ferrymen of Osrakum. Though smoother, it too seemed made of bone. Those other structures people had fashioned from their own dead, with reverence and as memorials. The dragon tower, though more finely wrought, was an instrument of war and thus seemed gruesome.

  Osidian was facing a diagonal brass cross set against the tower flank. As Carnelian approached him, he saw it was no cross, but a gigantic woman wrought from brass. Her back to them, she was spreadeagled on a mesh as if crucified. Between her splayed legs he could see a portion of an opening that gave into the dark interior of the tower.

  As she began to fall back towards them, Carnelian realized she was a drawbridge with ropes tied to her wrists. As her knuckles and the back of her head clinked against the pier, two legionaries emerged from the tower and ran out over her. When they reached Osidian, they unclasped his cloak, folded it carefully, then stood aside. The brass woman shuddered as Osidian’s foot struck her in the face. His next step fell between her legs. A third took him into the dragon tower through its oval portal. As the legionaries removed Carnelian’s cloak, he turned his head to see her face the right way up. Though it was worn almost smooth, he could still make out a noseless, eyeless grinning skull trapped within the circle of the deeply cut earth glyph. It must surely represent the branded face of a dead sartlar of the Guarded Land. He did not want to tread on that face and so he put his ranga down on the mesh between her head and an arm. Long, empty breasts sagged down the sides of her body. She was almost a skeleton. He stepped over her bony arm. Her vulva looked like a scoope
d out pomegranate. He stepped over her leg. It disturbed him that she was there to be walked on. He turned to the legionaries, now kneeling on the pier. ‘Who is this woman?’

  One of them mumbled something and Carnelian asked him to speak more clearly.

  ‘Brassman,’ the legionary said.

  Carnelian frowned behind his mask but, seeing the man’s discomfort, he stooped and entered the tower.

  The ceiling of the cabin forced him to remain stooped. Just enough light squeezed past him to allow him to make out the organs and entrails of sinister machinery. When a voice behind him begged leave, Carnelian shuffled aside to let the two legionaries past. A porthole grated open in the opposite wall. More followed, letting in daylight. The rimless wheel of a capstan filled the rear of the cabin. In front of this a ladder led up to a trap set into the ceiling. The front of the cabin was dominated by a convoluted arrangement of tubes, vessels and other structures.

  As Osidian gave commands, Carnelian was drawn to peer at these contraptions. Hanging in the air, a mass of leather strips wove around some metal ribs. Stepping round it, he saw this was a chair floating in mid air upon a limb of brass that came into the cabin like an oar into a baran. He could imagine the rest of it projecting out from the tower and knew it must be the end of the flame-pipe. He peered at some handles set upon its barrel. Taking hold of one, he found the pipe so finely counterbalanced he could swing it easily. Sliding his hand along the barrel, he touched the tube that curved from it down to a vessel of copper as large as a pumpkin. From the rear of this vessel a brass tube ran up to and back along the ceiling and out, presumably to emerge from the tower as one of the chimneys.

  ‘My Lord, please move away from the furnace. It is about to be lit.’

  Osidian was waiting for him by the ladder. Carnelian watched him climb it even as legionaries were opening hatches in the copper vessels and striking flints. As he followed him up, one of the furnaces roared into life.