‘If you take your enemy now and return to your valleys, the Master’s mother will not forget you. She’ll not forget the secret way you showed us up to Qunoth.’
He glanced at Lily, fully aware that had been her gift to him. ‘What she’ll not forget nor forgive is that you’ve come up to the Guarded Land in arms. Worse, you’ve taken the part of the son she hates. Your enemy, Aurum, attacked you for his amusement; she’ll do so seeking to exterminate you utterly.’
He waited for his words to reach them all and then waited even longer to allow their threat to penetrate each stomach.
‘I didn’t come here to frighten you, but to give you hope. I’ve extracted from the Master an oath that, should you choose to help us fight his mother and her minion, and should we be victorious, you shall be pardoned.’
He looked at Fern, then Poppy, then Krow. ‘As will be all those who’ve risen in rebellion.’ He had hoped for more of a reaction, at least from his friends. The Lepers standing round him had their heads bowed and so he could not see their faces, but he felt that, there too, his words had awoken precious little hope. Almost he stumbled into making stronger promises – that the world would be changed; that they would play a part in freeing many others from the tyranny of the Masters – but he knew that would be going too far. Even what he had promised he could not be certain of delivering. ‘Choose to fight with us and there is a good chance you will gain the peace to rebuild your lives.’
Still they besieged him with their silence. He wished Lily could see his face. ‘You were prepared to fight for revenge against your enemy. Will you not fight to secure a future for yourselves?’
Lily freed her face with its blood-red eyes from its shrouds. ‘You speak to us of Masters we do not know, of threats that lie beyond the horizon. You make promises we’ve no way of knowing you can fulfil. What do you expect, Master?’
Fern raised his head and fixed Carnelian with a baleful gaze. ‘And are you so certain we can win this battle?’
Carnelian regarded him through the slits in his mask. It had come to the point when what he now had to reveal would fall upon Fern more heavily than any other. ‘I’m less than certain.’
As din erupted around him, he kept his gaze on Fern, whose face was screwed up with incomprehension. Carnelian spoke knowing he had run out of options. ‘Even now the Master communes with his god. He believes he’ll be guided by him onto a path to victory. I’ll not lie to you. I’ve no faith in his god and thus little hope he’ll find what he seeks.’
Fern’s look of pain threatened to break Carnelian’s heart. The wound the massacre had cut in Fern, so deeply it had almost destroyed him, was being reopened.
‘And you expect us to put our trust in that!’ Poppy glared at him, her face ashen.
Carnelian composed himself. This was no time for him to give way to their pain, nor his. ‘I didn’t come here expecting you to do this thing from faith nor out of trust. In surety of the risk you will take in waiting, I’ll give you control of your enemy, of the Master and of myself.’
Lily grimaced, not understanding. ‘How?’
Carnelian lifted his hand to point back at the watch-tower. ‘Move your camp around the foot of the tower. We shall then all be your prisoners. I’ll make it impossible for any of us to give commands save by your leave.’
He waited, keeping his mind and heart numb, feeling pain around his eyes, but seeing nothing but Lily’s bowed head. At last she raised it. ‘We’ll discuss it and let you know. Now leave us.’
Carnelian felt a twinge of anger at being dismissed thus, but he gave her a nod, left the homunculus with Poppy, then began the journey back towards the watch-tower.
Up on the road, more and more Marula were rising to gaze in his direction. At first Carnelian felt, uncomfortably, that they were responding to his approach, but then he realized they were looking past him. Glancing round, he saw Lepers were pouring towards him through gaps in the dragon line. He turned back to the Marula with a sense of urgency. If he did not manage to make them quit their posts quickly there could well be bloodshed. Without help this might prove beyond him. They had been set to guard the watch-tower not only by their Oracles, but also Osidian. He searched along the ranks of faces, and breathed relief when he found the one he was looking for. He made straight for him.
‘Sthax,’ he called out.
The Maruli glanced nervously towards the watch-tower foundation wall, behind which the Oracles lay communing with their god. As Carnelian climbed the ramp up to the road, the other Marula made space for him to approach Sthax. ‘I feared you lost.’
Sthax regarded him with what seemed to be suspicion.
‘You have to move your people away. I’ve given the tower to the Lepers.’
Sthax’s face hardened and Carnelian felt the Marula round them sensing his anger. ‘You have no choice.’ Carnelian glanced round at the approaching Leper tide to reinforce his point. The light his mask was reflecting into Sthax’s eyes was making him squint. Again Carnelian’s instinct was to talk to him face to face, but what was the point in pretending he was other than he was? ‘Tell the Oracles you were forced to obey my command.’
Sthax, unappeased, stood his ground. ‘What happen?’
Carnelian felt rage rising in him against this man, but knew he was not being fair. His disgust at the Oracles and their god and his obsession with the Lepers had made him treat these people shabbily. They had every right to an explanation and so he began to give Sthax one.
‘Battle?’ Sthax said, nodding wearily. His eyes seemed to be seeking Carnelian’s face through the mask. ‘We wins?’
Carnelian felt drained at having to trot out the same fragile reasons he had had to give to the Lepers, but as he explained they were waiting for Osidian’s dreams, Sthax’s back stiffened. Of course, Osidian’s god was the god of all the Marula.
Carnelian opened his arm to take in the warriors behind Sthax. ‘In a battle, many will die.’
Sthax’s smile was like unexpected sun. ‘We warriors. We fears no die.’ Light left his face. ‘We fears for loves. We fears for homes.’
This man was no fool. Sthax knew how narrow was the hope upon which his land and people hung. Carnelian explained why he had given the tower to the Lepers. ‘If they do not believe the Master will give them victory, there will be no battle. The Lepers will go home. The Marula will go home.’
He could tell from Sthax’s face that he saw even less hope in that. Grimly, the Maruli took leave of him as he began the work of persuading his fellows to quit their posts.
The Marula yielded to the Lepers. Lily left Fern behind to organize a new camp and then picked some of her people to accompany her. With a glance back at Fern, Carnelian led her and her people into the watch-tower. He climbed the ramps, keeping his gaze fixed always ahead, and was relieved when they reached the cistern level without mishap. Lily’s shrouded head turned as she surveyed the chamber with its shafts and ladder rising up into the tower. She gave a nod of acceptance, then assigned some of her people to stand guard upon the ladder, while to others she gave the duty of controlling the ramps they had just climbed.
As Carnelian walked out onto the leftway, he glanced over to where three of Aurum’s guardsmen rose to deny him access to their master’s dragon tower. Regarding their sallow, bisected faces, he judged they were unlikely to cause any trouble. It was not their job to react to changes in the camp, but only to protect their master. He busied himself with supervising the raising of the drawbridge that connected the watch-tower to the long run south to Makar. As the device was ratcheting up, he noticed anxiously that Lily had appeared and was gazing at the guardsmen and the dragon tower. As he approached her she turned. ‘Is Au-rum in there?’
Carnelian admitted that he was, then thought it best to explain that, without its crew, the Master had no means of operating the dragon, nor any way to communicate with the rest of his forces. When he was certain she was not going to make an attempt to seize Aurum, a need arose in him
to have her answer some questions. ‘Do you really intend to sack Makar?’
‘Do you think it selfish of us that, after what we’ve suffered, we should seek the means to rebuild our lives?’
‘Would you heal your own wounds by wounding others?’
A furious glint came into her eyes. ‘You forget how badly the Clean have always treated us.’
‘They fear you… and it is, besides, a fear you’ve encouraged.’
Lily bowed her head. ‘Even if I wanted to pull back from it,’ she said, in a quiet voice, ‘it’s too late.’
Carnelian felt sympathy for her. He was certain she had used that promise to persuade her people to follow her here. ‘You’re not the first he’s trapped by turning your desires against you.’
She nodded.
‘If only you had come to me with this at the time…’ He paused. ‘Why didn’t you?’
Lily shook her head, then moved away to the edge of the leftway and gazed down. Carnelian was aware of the barrier between them. He moved to her side. Her people were occupying the whole breadth of the road below and, spilling down the ramp, covered much of the ground there too. ‘You have us all in your power, Lily.’
She did not turn. ‘It would appear so.’
Lily permitted Carnelian to continue residing in his cell with Poppy and the homunculus. He encouraged her to place a guard upon the tower heliograph and her people replaced the Marula as lookouts in the deadman’s chairs. He had discussed the situation with her and she had allowed Poppy to go down to see Fern and ask him if he would be prepared to go north to the watch-tower beyond the next and to remain there, keeping an eye out for Jaspar’s approach. When Fern agreed to do this, Carnelian sent him a mirrorman as a heliograph operator.
Days passed during which the breeze from the north-east gradually became the merest breath before failing completely. Without it the heat rose so that, even though the nights were chill, the stone of the watch-tower stayed warm to the touch. Carnelian lingered in his cell with Poppy during the worst of it, then, under cover of night, they would climb to the high platform where beneath a star-studded sky they often sat, hardly saying a word.
Then one afternoon a servant emerged from Aurum’s tower seeking Osidian. Lily allowed Carnelian to talk to the man. Cowering, sallow-faced, he was at first reluctant to divulge his message, but he could not long resist the imperious glare of Carnelian’s mask. It seemed that Aurum wanted to know if the Ichorian had been sighted. As Carnelian watched the man skulk back to the tower with a negative answer, he felt an increased level of anxiety. Jaspar must be close. He spent the rest of the day upon the watch-tower summit gazing north.
The following morning, Carnelian came awake certain he could hear gulls screaming above a gale. Poppy was there, staring at him. ‘Is this it?’
Carnelian sat up, hunched against the vast wave that was about to engulf them. The fear in Poppy’s face freed him from his dream. A muffled cry was coming from somewhere above them.
‘The lookouts,’ he cried, jumping up. They stared at each other. It was what they had been waiting for for days. He pointed at the ceiling. ‘I’ll go up and find out what it is. Can you please go down and tell Lily I’ll come to see her the moment I know?’
Poppy ducked a nod and made for the door. Carnelian put on his mask, took his leave of the homunculus, trusting him, then followed her out. As he scrambled up the ladder to the roof, the anticipation of what he would see up there was like lead in his stomach. He climbed the staples. Even as he crested the platform edge, he could see the Leper lookouts gathered, agitated, pointing. He clambered up onto the platform, blind to everything but the hazy north. A flash. He waited. A double flash. His heart, racing, measured the time to the next flashing. Three in a row. The prearranged signal. It meant Fern had sighted dragons coming along the road. Carnelian ignored the repeat as he peered into the vague north, straining to see the Ichorian. Dread arched over him like the wave in his dream: not just anticipation of the coming trial, but the acceptance that the time had come to wake Osidian.
Carnelian glanced back to where he had left Poppy with Lily and then he began the descent into the stables. He had had no need to go down there for days. The drain stench seemed worse, but he could detect no flies. He held a lantern out before him. He angled his mask so that its eyeslits would shield him from the glare. Reaching the first level, he saw the doors along one wall were all still closed. Transferring the lantern to his other hand, he reached out and touched the nearest. It gave under the pressure. Standing near its hinge, he pushed it open and swung the light in. A body came into view. It had the look of an Ochre corpse bitumened for sky burial. Leaning as close as he could stomach, and angling the light, he saw some twitching in the Oracle’s face. Squinting, he could make out the pink wounds pocking his skin. He retreated. So many doors with more Oracles behind them and two more levels beneath this one. His heart quailed at the thought he might have to look in all of them before he found Osidian.
Something moving at the edge of his vision caused him to spin round, his heart in his throat. He could see nothing beyond the circle of his lantern light. He shuttered the light to a narrow beam. His hackles rose. Someone was there. A pair of eyes appearing suddenly made him gasp. A ravener grin curved into being beneath the eyes.
‘The Master is startled,’ rumbled a voice Carnelian knew.
‘Morunasa.’
The grin whitened, feral in the darkness. Carnelian opened the shutter and flooded Morunasa with light. The man recoiled, an arm up before his face. He was naked, his skin free of its customary covering of ash so that Carnelian could detect the subtle curling currents of his tattoos. He kept a wary eye on Morunasa’s teeth. He would not allow Morunasa to bite him as he had in the Isle of Flies. ‘Where’s the Master?’
‘Why?’
Carnelian felt his fear turning to anger. ‘I need to see him.’
‘The cries?’
Carnelian knew Morunasa would find out everything soon enough. ‘Dragons are coming here from the north.’
Morunasa’s eyes narrowed to slits, then he passed close enough for Carnelian to be able to smell the blood oozing from his open sores. He followed him down a level, then into a stable wider than the others, in the back of which lurked counterweights and cables. There was a pale thing lying on the ground. For a moment he had the impression it was one of the Sapients, but the flesh, though starved, was firmer. He looked and recognized Osidian’s face, as thin as it had been when he had had the fever. He stooped to touch him and recoiled from the marble cold of death.
‘He lives,’ slurred Morunasa. His eyes rolled up as if he had just been stabbed. The dark irises descended. ‘He is with our Lord.’
Unmasked, Carnelian knew his face must be betraying what he thought of Morunasa’s god. He reached out again and, taking Osidian’s arm, shook him. Osidian released a groan, but did not wake. Carnelian felt the wetness on his fingers and turned to see them dark. He wiped the blood on his robe, fearing, irrationally, that he might have touched not only a wound, but also one of the maggots.
‘He shouldn’t be woken.’
Carnelian glanced up. ‘I’ve no choice. Will you help me carry him up out of here?’
Morunasa regarded him with a glazed expression, so that Carnelian had to repeat his question. The second time, Morunasa nodded.
Carnelian watched Poppy as she gazed, frowning, on Osidian’s skeletal face. He and Morunasa had laid him out upon the cobbles within the shelter of the leftway monolith, round to one side of the entrance so that his face could be seen neither from the leftway nor from within the watch-tower. Carnelian had left him unmasked because he feared his mask might smother him. For what Poppy was doing, the Law demanded death, but he imagined only Aurum would dare attempt to enforce it. If Aurum did, Carnelian would immediately hand him over to the justice of the Lepers.
Waiting for Osidian to wake, they had watched the shadows lengthen across the camp below. Now, beyond the monolith, every
thing was bathed in the reddening gold of the dying day. Carnelian had concealed Osidian’s bony body and its wounds beneath a blanket. The mask he had used to hide Osidian’s cadaverous face from Lily was lying on the ground beside him. The gold face seemed to have been flayed from what was little more than a skull. Seeing how Osidian had suffered stirred feelings in Carnelian of guilt, of loss, of rage. He glanced into the shadows of the cistern chamber where Lily was waiting with her Lepers. Against the objections of her people, she had given in to his plea that they should be patient at least until the morning. A tiny twitching in Osidian’s thin lips gave the impression he might be talking to someone in his dreams. Carnelian had tried many times already to wake him, without success. This sleep was the brother of death.
Morunasa had reacted with anger when he discovered his Marula had abandoned their posts to the Lepers. Carnelian had told him that they had done so in obedience to his command and that, besides, the warriors could not have withstood the Leper numbers. He suspected that Morunasa was not appeased but had bade him return below to wake the Oracles. Both knew that they might well play some pivotal part in the next day’s events.
Everyone was waiting for Osidian to wake, but there was no certainty he would choose to climb up from the depths in which he wandered, lost. Even if he did, what hope was there he would have found what he sought?
Hearing voices, Carnelian started awake. Night had fallen. He must have dozed. A muttering was coming out from the cistern chamber that was punctuated now and then by a raised voice. Listening, he was sure he could hear the rumble of Fern’s voice. Carnelian sat up and reached for his mask, instinctively knowing Fern must soon appear. He paused with it in his hand and glanced at Osidian’s, smouldering darkly on the ground. He put his mask down and leaned back against the monolith. Fern had the right to see them both.
A dark shape appeared in the doorway beneath the toothed edge of the raised portcullis. Poppy rose and moved towards Fern as if to give him a hug of welcome, but she halted and let her arms fall. ‘What news?’
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