The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  The man turned up his number-spotted face. ‘Your answer, Seraph?’

  ‘I said, go.’

  Carnelian felt drained. Since he could think of nothing better, he might as well do as Osidian asked. He decided against asking the homunculus for the ring. Once before he had asked someone for a seal and that had brought her a terrible death. He found a lamp and lit it. ‘Stay here,’ he said to the homunculus.

  As the creature knelt, Carnelian headed towards the corner of the chamber.

  ‘Seraph!’ said the homunculus.

  Turning, Carnelian saw how the colour had drained from its wizened face. ‘I intend your masters no harm.’

  He left the creature kneeling on the stone and descended to the vault. When he reached it, he made his way to Legions’ capsule. Finding a grip on the lid, he pulled it back, breaking the wax seal. He raised the lantern so that its light crept up the Grand Sapient. He jumped when gleams in his silver mask made it seem as if Legions was waking. He searched every part of the capsule he could reach, but found nothing save for the cavities in which were stored the elixir.

  ‘What do you seek, Seraph?’

  Carnelian spun round and saw that, in defiance of his command, the homunculus had followed him. ‘Your master’s seal. Tell me where it is.’

  Pale as alabaster, the homunculus climbed the capsule and, leaning across, he worked at opening one of his master’s fists. When he had clambered back down, he offered Carnelian something that glimmered luridly upon his palm. Carnelian stared at the ring, reluctant to touch it.

  ‘Take it, Seraph. My punishment is already unavoidable. My master appointed me guardian of his sleep.’

  Carnelian saw the sharp determination in those ancient eyes and took the ring. As he watched the homunculus reseal the capsule, Carnelian wondered at the little man’s motives for helping him.

  Back in Aurum’s chamber, Carnelian raised the ring and turned it in the light. An exquisitely carved ruby set in a bezel of precious iron. The head of the Horned God wrought as if into a large blood drop. Filigrees of rust bled from the fiery jewel.

  Carnelian read his letter through one last time. It described his dream. He folded the parchment carefully. He placed a wax frame over the join and filled it with spluttering gobbets of molten wax. He thrust the Ring of Legions into the wax, then pulled it free. Lifting the letter, he saw that the seal looked like the arms of a crucifixion cross. The wax ridges had a look of branded flesh.

  He closed the still warm ring in his fist and sent the homunculus to return with any Maruli who was not the first to approach him. When the man came Carnelian was relieved to see he was not Sthax. Sthax was, potentially, too valuable an ally to risk bringing to Osidian’s or Morunasa’s attention.

  Carnelian gestured the Maruli to approach and offered him the letter. When the man reached out to take it, Carnelian caught hold of his hand and thrust into it Legions’ ring. He forced the black fingers to close around it. The Maruli gazed up into Carnelian’s mask, grimacing. Still holding the man’s hand, Carnelian made him take the letter with his other hand.

  ‘The Kissed,’ he said, using the name they called Osidian. He would not let the Maruli go until he had repeated the name.

  Carnelian had hoped that the sending of the letter and the ring would bring him peace of mind. Far from it. He fretted until it was time to accompany the homunculus down to the vault to administer the elixir. When they returned, he had something to eat. Upon a floor of mother of pearl he sat surrounded by the quivering of Aurum’s clocks. The homunculus sat nearby with his silver child’s face. Carnelian realized he was chewing carefully so that the creature would not hear him. He had tried to make conversation, but the silver mask had responded with single syllables.

  Though wary of his dreams, he retired early. When he woke, he could recall nothing save perhaps for a lingering dread, like the taint blood left in the air even after it had been wiped away. The day stretched interminably. He tried to distract himself with books, with examining the treasures Aurum had left behind. Their beauty was cold and sterile. They seemed tomb goods which he fingered as if he were a soul denied rest. He was waiting for some communication from Osidian. His wanderings several times took him near the outer doors. He lingered in their vicinity, yearning for them to be struck from without.

  That night he woke drenched in sweat. He had the impression he had been trying to climb up out of a pit. He lay trapped between the nightmare and waking as if between two walls of glass. When he could bear it no longer, he slid from the bed, then paced back and forth, harried by fear. A glint catching his eye drew him. It was the mask of the homunculus. The creature’s child body lay slight and fragile on the floor. Dull in the dim light, its metal face seemed a device of torture. Carnelian tried to imagine what the creature’s life had been like. Asleep, the homunculus appeared a child uncared for. Carnelian stooped and pulled a blanket over the blades of its shoulders.

  A clanging echo made him lurch upright. He had been waiting for that sound, it seemed, for days. As the homunculus went off towards the outer doors, it was all Carnelian could do not to run after it. He waited, kneading his fingers. The homunculus seemed a long time returning. Then it appeared, bearing a letter. He waited for the creature to kneel and offer it to him. Taking it, he saw it was sealed with the curved crucifix of Legions’ ring. He broke it open, unfolded the panels and read. For days the Wise have refused to reply to my communications. Now they have closed down both the courier and the heliograph systems. They have left me no choice. Tomorrow I march against Aurum. Hold Makar for me. If your dream was true, you will have no need to fear for me.

  Carnelian regarded the glyphs. Each face seemed Osidian’s. A host of them, defiance in every eye. It seemed his letter had had a stronger effect even than he had hoped. Osidian sought to regain his certainty in the way he had done before: by making war. In battle there was no room for doubt, but only the struggle for victory. Carnelian felt no triumph. He did feel some relief but, mostly, exhaustion. While he waited, far from danger, those he loved would go to confront Aurum and his fire.

  ‘Bad news, Seraph?’

  Carnelian gazed down at the homunculus. His first impulse was to deny it any answer, but he could see no malice in its ancient eyes, only curiosity.

  ‘The Lord Nephron marches forth to make war upon the Lord Aurum.’

  ‘I see,’ said the homunculus, leaving Carnelian with an uneasy impression it was playing a game of its own.

  INCUBATING

  Most things grow from the dark.

  (from the ‘Book of the Sorcerers’)

  ‘ How did you come into the service of the grand sapient?’ Carnelian asked.

  The homunculus glanced at him with its ancient eyes. ‘My master chose me, Seraph.’

  ‘From the flesh tithe?’

  The homunculus looked shocked. ‘None of the Twelve would so demean himself, Seraph, least of all my master. A minor Sapient of the Domain of Tribute selected me with others for the training.’

  The homunculus glanced up again at Carnelian, who said nothing, waiting for more. The creature continued. ‘A candidate needs long training before he can become a homunculus.’

  ‘How long?’ Carnelian asked.

  The homunculus made a non-committal gesture with its hands. ‘It depends on the candidate. There are many skills to be learned, many procedures to be survived.’

  ‘Procedures?’

  Carnelian detected some memory of pain in its face.

  ‘Each candidate, Seraph, must be fed the stunting drug.’ It indicated its body, as diminutive as a child’s. Wrinkles gathered around its eyes. ‘Many die from hearts that stop, from choking, from black swellings.’

  Carnelian could hear an edge to the creature’s voice. That time had left its scars. The creature focused on him again. ‘Those that survive are castrated.’

  ‘Like the Wise?’

  The homunculus raised a hand that held negation, just. ‘Not to keep us from distrac
tion, Seraph, but because the onset of maleness would kill. The stunting drug makes a candidate like a seed coated in iron. To grow is to die suffocated.’

  Carnelian felt he was trespassing on the creature’s pain. ‘It must be an exceptional candidate that is chosen by a Grand Sapient.’

  ‘Such privilege, Seraph, comes only to those candidates who excel in the skills: sensitivity to touch; reading and writing in beadcord; reading of voices and faces.’

  ‘Voices and faces?’ The homunculus looked down at its hands. Carnelian felt its anxiety that it might already have said too much. ‘Clearly you excel in all these skills.’

  ‘Each of us is merely an instrument in our master’s hands. An extension of his will.’

  ‘Do you remember the place where you were born?’

  The homunculus gazed at him, wide-eyed. Its head shook a little. Carnelian felt again he was intruding on private pain. He wanted to reduce the distance between them. ‘I only ask because I witnessed for myself the coming of a childgatherer.’

  ‘When you were captured by barbarians, Seraph?’

  It had not occurred to Carnelian that the homunculus might know much of what its master knew. He wondered just how much. Would there be any point in asking? The homunculus was unlikely to reveal anything and would just be put on its guard. ‘It is true they captured us, but then we stayed with them willingly.’

  ‘Willingly, Seraph?’

  ‘They were kind to us.’

  The homunculus’ face tensed as if it were having difficulty believing what Carnelian was saying.

  ‘I saw the children being chosen for the flesh tithe. I saw them being torn from their kin and people.’

  The homunculus looked up, eyes narrowed, mouth moving as if trying to make words. ‘There was, perhaps, one child in particular…?’

  Carnelian regarded the little man through the eyeslits of his mask. It was a perceptive thing to ask, and brave. ‘Poppy. She was chosen for the flesh tithe, but the Chosen will not get her.’

  The homunculus frowned.

  ‘She is like a little sister to me, a daughter, even.’

  The homunculus gaped.

  Carnelian’s fear for her was sharpened by love. It made him see past what the homunculus had become to the child he had once been. ‘Unlike her, you were taken from your kin.’

  The body before him had not changed so much from that which his people had brought to pay their tithe to Osrakum, but the eyes revealed the man within. Carnelian wanted to reach out to that child. ‘Do you remember them?’

  ‘So long ago. I had almost forgotten.’

  ‘What were you called?’

  The homunculus shook his head, his eyes glistening. ‘I can’t remember.’

  The sadness in that musical voice touched Carnelian’s heart. He reached out to touch the homunculus’ shoulder. The man drew back at first, but then let Carnelian touch him, a look of amazement lighting his face.

  ‘Seraph.’

  Carnelian woke, fleeing something terrible. He sat up, staring at the images already fading from his mind. He shrank back from the silver face hanging in the gloom. The homunculus. He was speaking from behind his eyeless mask. Carnelian made himself deaf, the better to reach back for his dream, though he feared it. It was a swelling mass like something vast emerging from the deep. Dread like a headache. Haunting clarion calls. Despair voiced in a language he had forgotten. He strained to remember the bleak sounds. He knew he had to hear it, to understand the warning.

  ‘Seraph?’

  Carnelian let go his dream and emerged into the chamber. The homunculus was still there. He was holding out a letter. The four-horned seal upon the pale parchment seemed a crusted clot of blood. Echoes of the terror snaked through the room at the sight of it. Reluctantly, he took it, broke it open and read. All day I marched north as Aurum fell back before me.

  Carnelian pulled the panels of the letter open. He examined both sides of the sheet. Only the seal and Osidian’s glyphs marked the skin. He folded the letter and lay back, clutching it to his chest. He wanted to know more; needed to know more. Aurum would not fall back without reason. Carnelian tried to still the rising fear. A trap? Osidian was moving into a trap. He gazed up at the ceiling. The dregs of his nightmare seemed to be the shadows up there edging the gilding. Did his dreams prefigure some terrible defeat?

  Powerlessness choked him into anger. What madness had possessed him to put his trust in dreams? Still, he could not deny his conviction that his dream had held a warning. Try as he might he could not grasp enough to make sense of it.

  He sat up and saw the homunculus still there, waiting. ‘Why was your master so interested in my dreams?’

  ‘The Wise believe dreams to be echoes from the future, Seraph.’

  ‘All dreams, all dreamers?’

  The silver mask inclined a little. ‘Some dreams the Gods put into those minds that are most closely aligned with the flow of events.’

  ‘Such as the minds of Sapients?’

  ‘More so those of the Grand Sapients, Seraph.’

  ‘Is that why your master chooses to sleep here beneath our feet?’

  ‘It is true, Seraph, my master seeks truth in dreams, but he sleeps also to keep his mind free of impure distraction. In any given year, he is rarely awake for more than twelve days.’

  Carnelian was shocked. ‘How can he hope to administer his Domain asleep?’

  ‘A cascade of the lesser Sapients of his Domain do that. His thought is not to be wasted on minor matters. Once a year, at the Rebirth, he is woken and it is then that he transacts those matters that his staff have prepared for him.’

  Carnelian pondered the strange life Legions must have lived. ‘A living death.’

  ‘Seraph?’

  ‘He can have no grasp at all of reality, of life.’

  ‘The opposite is true, Seraph. Remote from the world he gives thought only to that which is salient. His staff distill events finely and feed this distillation into his perfect mind.’

  Try as he might, Carnelian could not see how such an existence could be other than the most terrible imprisonment.

  Carnelian lay in his bed exhausted, trying to sleep. Though falling back into the well of dreams filled him with dread, he knew he must confront whatever was waiting for him there in the depths. He felt shame that this was now the only help he could give his loved ones, but even in this he felt undermined by his lack of skill. In any marketplace around the Commonwealth there were sure to be better interpreters of dreams plying their trade. Worse, a part of him rejected utterly such superstition. His only consolation was knowing how seriously the Wise took dreams.

  Carnelian, swimming up to the light, came awake, spluttering. His confusion made a cavern of the chamber; monsters of the clepsydra and clocks. The face was there in his mind, fiery, the colour of blood. Akaisha’s face, but not quite hers. Ebeny’s? Thoughts of her penetrated to the child in him. How he longed for her warm embrace, for her hand stroking his head. Locked away in Osrakum she seemed more distant than the stars. He steeled himself. Such longings were weakness.

  Blearily, Carnelian was making an effort to examine one of Aurum’s clocks when he heard the sound he most hoped for and dreaded. A knock at the outer doors. Soon, the homunculus had returned with another letter from Osidian in his hand. Carnelian accepted it, his heart pounding. Almost he put it down unopened but, not allowing himself to weaken, he broke the seal and read. He will not let me come to grips with him. I will pursue him all day and then through the night. He will not escape me.

  Carnelian felt sick. He could hear Osidian’s voice: the anger in it, the frustration. Such a reaction was predictable to anyone who knew him. He feared Aurum did. He could only hope the letter did not reflect all that Osidian was thinking. He had to believe Osidian was not so consumed by rage that he was blind to the possibility Aurum was leading him into a trap.

  He paced up and down, desperate to do something, but what? He stopped and looked towards the ho
munculus. ‘How does the elixir affect dreaming?’

  Looking wary, the homunculus hesitated before answering. ‘My masters believe it makes dreams lucid.’

  ‘You have yourself experienced this?’

  ‘I have, Seraph. The dreaming is intense, but I do not have the wisdom that makes their meaning clear.’

  Carnelian frowned. What he most desired was clarity. He had to believe he would understand his dreams if he could see them clearly. ‘I must take the elixir.’

  The homunculus’ eyes widened. ‘You cannot, Seraph.’

  ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘But Seraph, it is forbidden.’

  Carnelian laughed. ‘It will be the least of my transgressions.’

  ‘It is also dangerous, Seraph.’

  ‘How so?’

  The homunculus made vague gestures. ‘Some who take it never wake.’

  Carnelian considered this. ‘Yet most do?’

  ‘Most,’ said the homunculus. He looked pained. ‘Seraph, the initial doses, until the mind and body have become accustomed to its effect, produce unpredictable results.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  The homunculus’ gaze fell.

  ‘There is no need for your master ever to learn of this.’

  The homunculus made no response.

  ‘Fetch me a dose.’

  The man bowed and had soon disappeared into the corner of the room. As Carnelian waited, he considered with a growing dread what he was planning to do. Something monstrous lurked in his dreams. By taking the elixir, was he going to trap himself in his dreams with it?

  When the homunculus returned, Carnelian made him lie on the bed beside him. He took from him the amber bead. Holding it up to the light, he saw the spiral flows trapped in it. Strands more tenuous than spider silk.

  ‘Close your eyes, for I am going to unmask.’

  Glancing at him with anxiety, the homunculus obeyed him.

  Carnelian bit the bead in half. Its fluids oozed sweet and bitter on his tongue. Swiftly he pressed the other half to the lips of the homunculus and made sure he swallowed it. Hopefully, they would both sleep for the same amount of time. Carnelian lay back. The room was already changing shape, as if it were breathing.