‘Perhaps, but consider how reluctant they might be to do that. The Gods know how long he’s been the mind that’s shaped the defences of the Commonwealth, but I warrant it must have been a considerable time. Is it likely that in such a crisis they’d wish to put their trust in someone less experienced? For the moment at least they’re likely to hesitate and, surely, such hesitation is a weakness we can exploit?’
Carnelian could see the embers of belief he had rekindled in Osidian’s eyes. ‘With less leverage your mother managed to bend them to her will.’
Osidian observed him. ‘But dare I go to the watch-tower leaving Legions unwatched?’
Carnelian felt trapped. Every moment that passed exposed Fern to discovery by the Lesser Chosen commanders. Never mind the disaster that would ensue should Aurum return. Osidian had to return to the dragons immediately. Carnelian knew what this was going to take. He tried to keep dismay from his face and voice as he said: ‘I’ll deal with Legions.’
Osidian looked uncertain. ‘How?’ He gazed at the floor as if he were trying to see through it. ‘I know more about them than perhaps they suspect, but I’m not fool enough to imagine I know a fraction of their secrets. Who knows what powers Legions may have to wield against us?’
Carnelian put on a smile. ‘Much of the power of the Wise comes from the awe in which they are held. Can you think of anyone in the Three Lands who’s less likely to be impressed than I?’
Osidian regarded him with a frown, thin hope warring with doubt. At last he shook his head. ‘Have it your own way.’
As he masked, Carnelian copied him with relief. Behind his mask he could release his face into what he knew must be an expression of near despair.
As he opened the door leading to the vault, Carnelian was overwhelmed by an odour that, for some reason, made him recall his wounded father. It was only myrrh. He could see its smoke creeping up the steps. He listened out for what might be happening below. Though he feared it might be sorcery he dared not give in to that fear. If anything, it was even more reason for him to confront it. He began a careful descent of the stair.
Smoke hung like mist in the vault, pierced by rays emanating from some lamp. Creeping towards the light he began to see a small figure hunched before Legions’ open capsule. Within its hollow stood the Grand Sapient, arms folded across his chest, ribbed bands across his abdomen, thighs and shins holding him fast. His face seemed a skull set above his cadaverous frame. Carnelian dared go no further. As he watched, the homunculus raised a bowl to the Grand Sapient’s groin from which liquid began emanating in a stream. For a moment Carnelian was startled by the thought that Legions was a woman. Then, with disgusted fascination, he recalled that the Wise were castrated. It had not occurred to him the mutilation might be so complete. Feeling he was observing something shameful and forbidden, he wished to retreat. Such delicacy was inappropriate. When the Grand Sapient ceased urinating the homunculus stooped to put the bowl down. One of his master’s arms unfolded and its four-fingered hand reached out, questing. Seeing it, the homunculus clambered up into the capsule, raising its chin to facilitate the coiling of its master’s fingers around its throat. Its gaze found Carnelian and it began murmuring. A shiver went up his spine as he felt that Legions was looking at him through the creature’s eyes. The murmuring ceased. The pale fingers moved. The homunculus spoke. ‘I have already been too long awake.’
Carnelian stared, not knowing what to say. The fingers released the homunculus and the arm folded back across the Grand Sapient’s chest. With a gloved hand, the homunculus reached into an array of amber beads set into the rim of the capsule. It plucked one out and, clambering up the capsule, it touched the bead to Legions’ lipless mouth, which opened to receive it.
As the homunculus climbed back down to the floor, Carnelian crept to its side. ‘How often does that drug need to be administered?’
Stooping to retrieve something from the shadows, the homunculus rose to regard him with its old man’s eyes. ‘Every day, Seraph.’ It raised the thing it had in its hands. A silver mask from whose single eye gleaming tears ran down the long tapering cheek. As the homunculus adjusted the mechanisms on its reverse, Carnelian peered at the creature, reassuring himself it was fully detached from its master. It seemed unnatural that it should be speaking on its own behalf. ‘You will do this every day for him?’
The homunculus shook its head and indicated the triangular space between the Grand Sapient’s legs. ‘Normally I sleep there, with my master. Ammonites administer the elixir, overseen by a Sapient of Immortality.’ The homunculus regarded the chamber with hooded eyes. ‘We dare not entrust my masters to the ammonites here.’ He made a gesture asking Carnelian for permission to disengage from their conversation. At Carnelian’s nod, the creature scaled the capsule again. He leaned in to peer at his master’s face. ‘He sleeps.’ He placed the mask carefully over the skull face, fitting the mechanisms into the cavities. He pressed the mask back, and its crowning lunar crescent gripped the central sphere of three that were set beneath the upper rim of the capsule and hung above Legions’ brow like planets.
Back on the floor, the homunculus closed the lid of the capsule. Legions formed a dark core in the ivory vessel. The homunculus raised a stick of wax and melted some to fall into a circular recess on the edge of the lid. Then he pressed a seal into it. Carnelian craned over the creature and saw the impression of a cross that had been left in the wax. The nearer of the other two capsules was similarly sealed. ‘Is that to protect him?’
The homunculus jumped, startled, and did not calm down until Carnelian had backed away. ‘It shows who was responsible for the last feeding, Seraph.’
‘You have sole responsibility for the Grand Sapient?’
‘And for his servants, Seraph.’
‘Who are they?’
‘His Seconds, Seraph.’
Carnelian did not understand what the creature meant. Something else sprang to mind. ‘Will they wake?’
‘Only when the effect of the elixir wears off, Seraph.’
‘How long will that be?’
The little man frowned. ‘Around midday tomorrow. I shall have to feed them then.’
Carnelian could not believe his luck. It seemed his problem of overseeing the Grand Sapient had solved itself. ‘You will come with me.’
The homunculus paled and his eyes widened. ‘Seraph, my master has bidden me guard his sleep.’
‘You can stand guard upstairs, but, henceforth, you will remain always at my side.’
Carnelian saw how fearful the creature was. He began walking back towards the stair. Not hearing footfalls following him he turned. ‘Obey me,’ he said, putting an edge into his voice that all not Chosen were right to fear. Reluctantly, the homunculus obeyed.
In the bedchamber, head bowed, its mask hanging from its hand, the homunculus seemed so like a child Carnelian found he was beginning to feel paternal towards it, but then it looked up. That wizened face was not a child’s, nor its ancient, rheumy eyes.
Carnelian looked away. Finally, he had time to think. His mind blanked. He tried to focus on the issues, but his attention kept slipping from them. Exhaustion washed over him. Feeling under observation by the homunculus, he yearned to be alone. He glanced towards the outer door. Dare he trust the creature to the care of Aurum’s household? He preferred to keep it where he could see it: the homunculus was the key that kept the Sapients locked in sleep, safe within their capsules.
He longed for the oblivion of sleep, but once he was asleep who was there to stop the creature creeping back to its master’s side? He imagined the Grand Sapient, woken, coming up the stairs to loom over him as he dreamed. He shuddered and looked around for some solution to the problem. In the end he dragged some feather blankets into the corner and made himself a bed in front of the door to the vault. He told the homunculus that it would have to find itself a place to sleep. The creature bowed low, then crept away into the gloomiest part of the chamber. Standing over his make
shift bed Carnelian watched it make a nest. This arrangement would have to do.
‘I am about to unmask,’ he announced. The homunculus immediately put on its blinding mask. Carnelian hesitated. The silver child face was staring at him across the room more intently than had the homunculus’ own. He turned his back on the creature and released his mask with a sigh of relief. It was a struggle to free himself from his robes. He did this all as quietly as he could. At one stage, he realized how ridiculous he must look and could not help laughing. The sound echoed around the chamber. When he was free he slipped under a blanket, his heart beating as he listened for any furtive sounds the homunculus might be making.
As silence settled he fell victim to misery. He was playing a game he did not believe he could win, for stakes he could not bear to lose. The Grand Sapient had made it clear what would happen should he and Osidian admit defeat. Only an outright victory over the Commonwealth would give him any chance of stopping the Wise meting out retribution upon his loved ones, upon all those others who were already victims of what he and Osidian had brought about – but could he hope for such an implausible outcome when even Osidian no longer believed it possible? And even were they to continue doing what they could to widen their rebellion, would this not serve only to bring more innocents under the shadow of inevitable punishment?
These arguments swung back and forth in his mind like the pendulums of Aurum’s clocks. Back and forth. Back and forth. Until he became a slave to the click of the escapements and, weary to his bones, he hung suspended in despair, denied the comfort of sleep.
Akaisha, bloated, her dear face ochred for burial. Earth, or is it dried blood, on his hands? ‘Eat me,’ she sighs, fire peeling her skin. Carnelian breaks off a charred curl and puts it into his mouth. Too salty. Tears, perhaps? Flames in a black mirror find the contours of a face. A mask with green eyes. He fits his face into the hollow. Sees an emerald lagoon. Breathes with rapture its mossy air. Green water laps at white feet. He looks up. Osidian sitting on a throne. A black living face in his left hand, a green in his right. Osidian’s own, lifeless, eyeless. The pits well tears. Wet on his lips. Tasting the sea. Liquid-iron blood running down white legs into the ebb. Roaring makes him turn to see a cliff of it avalanching to drown them all.
Carnelian came awake, gulping, tasting iron in his mouth. He sat up, choking, and spat blood into his hands. He rolled his tongue, making sure he had not bitten it through, swallowed it.
‘Seraph?’ The homunculus was there with its metal child’s face. It called again from the other side of its blinding mask as if it were a door.
Carnelian reassured the creature. ‘Bit my tongue in my sleep.’ His voice was distorted by his swollen tongue.
In his mind’s eye, Osidian sat eyeless on a throne, the Masks of the God Emperor in his hands. Carnelian could not rid himself of the conviction that he had had such dreams before and had always ignored their warnings. Why were his dreams always awash with blood? He could still taste its metal in his mouth. Osidian enthroned, but eyeless like the Wise. Why had Akaisha wanted him to eat her? He had to think clearly. At any time, Osidian might lose his grip on the Lesser Chosen commanders. The memory of what had happened to the Ochre unmanned him. He could not bear making such a mistake again. He dared not act until he was certain.
He sought distraction in some books he found. The titles were uninspiring. It seemed that Aurum was interested in nothing but war and intrigue. Dry treatises on strategy and manuals written for the Lesser Chosen by the Wise on correct legionary operation were only marginally alleviated by memoirs of Lords of the Great that were all about the minutiae of Clave politics, blood-trading and the elegant exercise of power over minions.
Abandoning these, he fell back into turmoil. At one point he determined to quit Makar and go to meet Osidian, but immediately his mind began listing the difficulties in getting there and the vital reasons why he should not go. Besides, what would he say to Osidian once he reached him? He feared sharing his dreams with him.
Then he remembered the interest Legions had shown in his dreams. If anyone could interpret them it would be the Grand Sapient. Madness. Any such consultation would lead only to manipulation. Legions would tell him what he wanted to hear.
Back and forth the battle raged in him, between doubt and hope. As he grew weary almost to tears, the vision of Osidian eyeless, enthroned, hung in his mind like an ache.
When the homunculus came to ask if he might go down to minister to his masters and their homunculi, Carnelian saw from one of Aurum’s clocks that it was long past nightfall. The sun-eye hidden beneath the iron earth seemed a defeat. A whole day had passed and still he was as trapped in indecision as a fly in amber. The opportunity to accompany the homunculus was a blessed relief. At least it gave him something to do. Something real.
In the vault, the first lid they opened was Legions’. When the homunculus climbed up to remove his mask, Carnelian saw the faint misting in the mirrored hollow above the mouth spike. His gaze fell on the Grand Sapient’s skull face. He wondered at the mind behind such hideousness and was tortured by the temptation that it might make the solution to his problems clear, shedding upon his dilemma the terrible, cool clarity of the Wise.
He was glad when he saw the elixir bead melt into the lipless mouth and was relieved when Legions’ skull face was rehidden behind the shell of his mask. The homunculus closed and resealed the capsule. Each of the other two capsules contained not only a Sapient, but also a homunculus. Carnelian made sure to observe that all were fed an amber bead. He plucked a bead from its cavity on the capsule rim. When he brought it up to the nostrils of his mask, he could detect no odour. The eyes of the homunculus had grown round. Amused by the creature’s alarm, Carnelian made a smiling gesture. ‘I had no intention to eat it.’ He replaced it where he had found it and the homunculus closed the capsule.
‘What does it contain?’
‘Mostly nectar, Seraph.’
‘To mask the bitterness of the elixir?’
Busy sealing the lid, the homunculus shook its head. ‘I do not imagine so, Seraph. My masters cannot taste sweetness. I believe its function is to supply the necessary sustenance.’
Leaving the Sapients and homunculi sleeping in their cocoons, they climbed the stair. As Carnelian came up into the chamber, he felt the vision of his dream coalescing around an interpretation he realized he had been resisting all day. Lying on his makeshift bed staring at the ceiling, he could no longer deny that, whatever else the dream might portend, one part of it seemed clear enough. Wading through blood, Osidian would win a throne, but how much blood and whose?
He came fully awake as if washing ashore. The ritual windings clung to him like flayed skin. He longed to escape their sickly embrace, to feel clean sun on his bare back, his face, to have the wind caress his skin. More, he wanted to be free of the dreams. Their omens oppressed him like the pressure of a coming storm. He had preferred hopelessness to a promise of a victory bought at the cost of the Gods only knew how much suffering.
He had crossed and recrossed this territory so many times that it had become a churned sump. What chance was there to pick a single path through such a morass?
He needed to externalize it; to talk to someone. There was no one, except perhaps Osidian, and Carnelian knew, with a bleak certainty, that his dreams would almost certainly mesh with the bloody conviction Osidian drew from his dark god.
He rose from the bed, fumbled and found his mask, ignored the homunculus’ questions and went in search of a window. Even the night sky might restore him to some balance.
When he found some shutters he drew them back and was blinded. Squinting, he went out into the light. The sun was risen. He could feel its touch beginning to warm the gold against his cheeks. The land’s bony limestone blazed in the morning, but shades of night still haunted the Pass below.
Returning to the shadows, Carnelian considered what he could do. When he contemplated a visit to Osidian, anxiety pulled like a bar
b in his flesh. Dare he leave Legions unsupervised? A feeling of being trapped produced a surge of anger. Why not kill him and his staff and be done with it? Dread soaked into him. At first he thought it was horror at the idea of slaying even a Sapient in his sleep, but he decided it was something else. Some kind of superstitious fear. The kind that thrills a child at the unknown consequences of killing a sorcerer in a fairytale. There were good reasons against a meeting with Osidian, in any case. Not least how they affected each other. Besides, there were many practical difficulties.
A letter? It would not be difficult to obtain parchment, pen and ink, but once written, how could he convey it safely to Osidian? Sealed, even the quaestor might not dare open it, but he had no seal.
His cogitations were cut short by a rapping at the outer door. He put his mask to his face and bade the homunculus go and see who it was. The creature was soon back. ‘The quaestor, Seraph. He claims to have a letter for you.’
Carnelian was startled by the coincidence. ‘Let him come.’
The homunculus returned with the quaestor, who came forward, inscrutable. Carnelian took the parchment the man offered with both hands. Raising it, he saw it was unsealed. He turned his mask on the quaestor. ‘You read this?’
The man fell to his knees, shaking his head. Carnelian opened the parchment. The glyphs were Osidian’s. They read: Send me that which will allow me to communicate with those who would follow me.
‘Quaestor, who brought this?’ Carnelian said.
The man did not raise his eyes, but said: ‘A Maruli, Seraph.’
‘He waits for a reply?’
‘Just so, Seraph.’
Carnelian read the letter again and thought he understood: Osidian wanted Legions’ seal. Using it might enable him to send messages along the roads to the Legates. After what the Grand Sapient had said, this seemed an act of desperation. Carnelian grew morose as what little faith he had in Osidian waned further. Not that he had an alternative strategy. All he had was dreams. He felt sick with self-disgust. He looked down at the quaestor. ‘Go.’
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