‘Has any heliograph been sent?’
Osidian replied it was possible that He-who-goes-before had sent a message, but he did not think it likely.
‘You speak of Imago?’
Carnelian was stunned. How could the Grand Sapient possibly know about Jaspar? While still in Makar, if Legions had known about the Ichorian and Jaspar, surely he would have used that information to gain power over Osidian? And, since then, he had slept, oblivious of the turning of events. Carnelian’s mind raced with superstitious conjectures of what powers this creature might possess. He calmed himself, strove to be rational; it was nothing more than deduction from what they had just told him. The Ichorian had been sent forth from Osrakam. Since it was likely Ykoriana was somehow behind its sending, it followed that whoever commanded it must be one of her allies, and Jaspar had been her chief ally among the Great.
Legions spoke again. ‘It would be in Imago’s interest to remain silent.’
Carnelian tried to work out why that might be the case, but his mind was simply not fast enough.
‘You sent the collars under my seal?’
Osidian began a gesture that, if he had finished it, would have been an apology. ‘Under that of He-who-goes-before.’
A momentary stiffening of the fingers seemed to Carnelian to betray the Grand Sapient’s disappointment. ‘Tell me how all this has come about.’
The verb used the requisitive mode but, to Carnelian’s surprise and dismay, Osidian submitted to its command. As he began explaining, the Grand Sapient steered his narrative, until it seemed to Carnelian he was reading events as if they were beads on a cord.
‘How was this victory achieved?’
Osidian’s face lit up and, oozing pride, he began describing how the battle had proceeded according to his tactics. As he spoke, Carnelian watched the Grand Sapient’s fingers. He detected a twinge when Aurum was mentioned; thereafter, nothing. It made him wonder if the Grand Sapient was divining the part his brethren must have played.
Osidian concluded by recounting how he had destroyed the survivors of the Ichorian, the glow of his achievement bright in his eyes.
‘Your tactic was a commonplace in the early part of the Civil War,’ said the Grand Sapient.
Osidian’s cheeks coloured as if he had been slapped.
‘Until it was rendered obsolete by a counter-tactic. Though you may not be aware of it, it would seem likely you picked this up from the reels you read in our Library.’
These words lit another light in Osidian’s eyes. Beneath knitted brows they bored into the long silver mask. His lips thinned. ‘Nevertheless, I won. There will not be another battle. My victory will lead to chaos in Osrakum. When I appear at the Gates with my legions, the Chosen will bow to me. If they do not, I will lay siege to the Hidden Land.’
‘Your analysis, though sound, is incomplete. News of Imago’s failure will break your mother’s power and shatter the unity of the Clave. The Wise have played badly and their influence is weakened, but is there not a power you have forgotten?’
Osidian frowned, incredulous. ‘My brother?’
‘The God Emperor.’
Osidian looked exasperated. ‘He is my mother’s creature.’
‘You have released her grip on him.’
‘But he is spineless, incapable of independent action.’
Carnelian remembered his meeting with Molochite, relived the power of his presence, his malice, and fear crept into him that Osidian was wrong; that Osidian had miscalculated.
‘He was capable enough to murder your sister and remain unpunished.’
Osidian paled. His eyes widened. ‘My mother-’
‘Was unable to protect her. As, no doubt, she has been unable to protect her new daughter, Ykorenthe, your sister-niece, whom your brother will take for wife.’
Osidian’s face became weak with uncertainty.
‘Child, there is a reason why we have laboured to keep the Chosen locked inside Osrakum. Whenever they have been free to leave, it has led to this chaos.’
Carnelian, wanting to fight back, almost threw the example of the Lesser Chosen legates at the Grand Sapient, but then he recalled how encompassed about by the Law they were, spied upon by ammonites, the communications between them carefully filtered. Perhaps these, who were the least of the Chosen, might only be let out into the outer world, the better to keep the powerful imprisoned within.
‘The Balance of the Powers was constructed to safeguard the Commonwealth from your meddling. It seeks to protect you from yourselves. Removing the Red Ichorians from Osrakum is like un-stoppering a bottle.’
Osidian’s face had grown paler than his leathers. ‘The Sinistrals,’ he sighed.
‘You were raised among them; did they seem to you ineffectual?’
Carnelian saw in Osidian’s face that he had never given them much thought. They had always been there, part of the ritual of his world. Carnelian remembered how confident the sybling Quenthas had been, with their swords, to challenge the Red Ichorians, who had come into the Sunhold to guard his father.
‘Two of the Powers rely on the Sinistral Ichorians for protection from the third.’
Osidian rallied. ‘We have the legions.’
‘Child, you have not seen the Gates. The legions would never have been able to intervene in time to save the Isle from an assault by the flame-pipes of the Red Ichorians.’
Carnelian saw the truth of it. Only the strength of the Sinistral Ichorians had held the Great in check.
‘The Sinistrals were in perfect balance with the Red Ichorians.’
Carnelian digested this, then grew cold, understanding Osidian’s earlier shock. ‘There’s nothing to stop them taking the Three Gates.’
A jerking motion drew his eyes to the homunculus’ throat.
‘Suth Carnelian,’ it muttered and he realized the Grand Sapient had not known he was there.
Osidian’s face distorted with rage. ‘He would not dare!’
‘It is not too late,’ said the homunculus.
‘What?’ Osidian looked in despair.
‘Let me return to Osrakum.’
Osidian shook his head, looking drained.
‘At least let me communicate with my brethren.’
Osidian threw his arm up in angry dismissal. ‘You almost had me convinced. I should have known you would do anything, say anything, to escape with your miserable carcass.’
The voice of the homunculus cut through Osidian’s display. ‘Examine the logic, child. If you do not let me act, the Great Balance itself will fall. Your brother’s power will become absolute.’
‘I will listen to nothing more,’ Osidian cried. He lunged forward, grabbed one of the homunculus’ arms and tore him from the Grand Sapient’s grasp. The little man fell to the floor, his arm twisting in Osidian’s grip. He yanked him up onto his feet.
‘This was a mistake,’ he bellowed. ‘A mistake!’
Carnelian raised his hands in appeasement, ‘Osidian-’
Osidian raised a hand in a stark barrier gesture. ‘Enough! Nothing has changed. The moment the supplies reach us, we march on Osrakum.’
As he stormed out of the cell dragging the homunculus after him, a piercing screech made the hackles rise on Carnelian’s neck. It was a while before he realized it was coming from behind the one-eyed mask as the Grand Sapient clawed the air for his voice.
Dust hissed against his cloak. Standing on the edge of the heliograph platform, Carnelian was watching the cluster of black-shrouded forms down on the road inspect the latest caravan of pack huimur from Makar. For three days now they had been arriving, plodding beneath frames globed with render sacs. Soon it would be time to leave.
He could tell that one of the Masters was Osidian, because of the small figure of the homunculus that he now kept always at his side. Even when it was time to feed the Sapients their elixir, Osidian went with him. It spoke of his anxiety that the Grand Sapient might wake. With the homunculus, Osidian looked as if he was h
imself one of the Wise. Carnelian had come up to the platform to escape the fury of preparation. He wondered at how, through sheer will, Osidian daily overcame the debilitation of the maggots burrowing through his body. He was grateful for Osidian’s determination to go on, for it prevented him from falling back into the embrace of the Darkness-under-the-Trees. Still, Carnelian kept up a constant vigilance, fearful that Osidian, desperate to expunge his doubts, might turn the Leper camp into a new Ochre Grove. Not that Osidian’s feverish energy fooled Carnelian. He saw in it only ever more evidence of how shaken Osidian was by the Grand Sapient’s analysis: that Molochite was now free to seize absolute power and, with it, Carnelian felt some grudging sympathy for him: having scaled so close to the pinnacle of victory, to be pulled down so suddenly into contemplating the trough of defeat. Worse, to know it was he who had brought this about.
What was torturing Carnelian was the conviction that all the suffering they had caused, all the carnage, had been for naught. His gaze fell upon that portion of the road caked with a greasy, rancid crust of melted, rotting flesh. High as his vantage point was, whenever the rain wind dropped, the stench rose up as from some gargantuan corpse.
Carnelian pulled his cloak about him. In his bones he felt a storm coming. As if responding to his thoughts, the wind picked up, lashing him with a rasping sand hail, causing him to turn his mask into its hissing, so that he saw a mass of it rising from the land like some immense humped beast crowned with snaking tendrils of spiralling red. Yes, a storm was coming and, when it came, much would be swept away. He veered away from contemplating just how much. Here was the danger of solitude. The danger Osidian hid from in ceaseless activity. Carnelian’s thoughts resisted his attempts to quell them. He tried to draw some bleak comfort from his certainty that he would not survive. He dismissed that with a growl. There would be time enough to die, but he still had hope his loved ones might escape with the Lepers, though into what kind of life he tried not imagine.
He gazed on the Leper camp. He had given up any hope of persuading them to leave. They had rejected his arguments once and, after having witnessed the annihilation of the Ichorian survivors, would be unlikely to be frightened by some new threat of a vengeful god unleashed. What did they know about the Great Balance, about the Three Powers? How could he even begin to explain to them what he now believed was happening at the heart of the world? Besides, they could see Osidian acting as if nothing had changed. If things went well, in a day or two he would march north and Carnelian would go with him. Left without supplies, the Lepers would have no choice but to return to their valleys. He hoped he would find the courage to bid a final farewell to Fern, to Lily and Krow. He grew grimmer still. And Poppy too, for he was now determined she must go with them, by guile if possible, otherwise by force.
Osidian slumped against the heliograph, the homunculus beside him wearing its smiling blinding mask. Carnelian watched Osidian’s face betray with each twitch around the corners of his mouth and eyes the agony he was enduring. It was only up here, in the cool, enfolding night, that he gave himself fully to the maggots. Sometimes, looking at him, Carnelian felt his own doubts and fear eating through him like those worms.
A voice came up from somewhere on the watch-tower roof. ‘Master?’
Carnelian recognized the rumble of Morunasa’s voice.
‘Master, I have a letter here…’
Osidian groaned, lost in his pain. Carnelian peered down through the slats and called: ‘What letter?’
There was a silence, during which Carnelian sensed Morunasa’s resentment so clearly it almost gave him shape in the darkness below.
‘A letter taken from a courier at the tower north of here.’
Carnelian rose, his heart beating, having a presentiment of disaster. He put on his mask, then crossed to Osidian, stooped to retrieve the mask from where Osidian had let it fall. He covered the face gleaming with sweat with the serene one of gold, bound it on, then he gave Morunasa leave to climb up.
He appeared like a black sun and seemed the very heart of the night. As he approached, Carnelian put out his hand and Morunasa, reluctantly, gave the letter to him. In his hand it felt as smooth as his own skin. Carnelian turned it and saw the large seal clinging to it. Two faces looking away from each other. His throat grew dry, even as his hands moistened. Though he had not seen this seal before, it clearly had something to do with the Imperial Power.
He looked at Morunasa. ‘Do the other Masters know of this?’
‘No.’
They both flinched as a paler shadow rose beside them. Osidian raised a ghostly hand. ‘Give it to me.’
His voice was hollow, dull. Carnelian gave him the letter. A sense of crisis saturated the air like an anticipation of lightning. A pair of eyes that floated nearly disembodied in the dark reminded him of Morunasa’s presence. The last thing they needed was another witness. ‘You may leave, Morunasa.’
The man stood looking at Osidian as if he had not heard.
‘Leave now,’ Carnelian said. Stress suffused his voice with menace. Morunasa turned to him. For a moment it seemed he would defy him, but soon he had slipped out of sight.
Osidian sank to the platform and put the letter down before him. He reached behind his head to release the bindings of his mask. Carnelian saw how the last living colour had drained from Osidian’s face, how he was regarding the letter with the eyes of a corpse. Reaching out he took it, broke the seal, unfolded the parchment, turned it to the light and read. Carnelian watched his face harden until it was stone. He could bear to wait no longer. ‘What is it?’
Osidian handed Carnelian the letter. The glyphs were exquisitely formed. For a moment Carnelian was confronted by the unblinking, probing eyes of its faces, then they began making sounds in his mind. Following treasonous, rash actions by the Wise, We
Carnelian stared at the glyph: the divine, dual ‘We’ that only a God Emperor or the Twins Themselves could use. He grew cold. From Molochite, then. He continued reading. We have been forced to act in haste to secure the defence of holy Osrakum left sinfully defenceless by the reckless sending forth of the Red Ichorians against a foul Rebel who has been allowed to rise against Us. Fear not for the immediate sanctity of the Hidden Land, for we have taken the precaution of securing the Gates. Neither should you fear this change. We intend to abolish the distinction between you and the unworthy Great. Henceforth shall you be entitled to vote in Holy Elections. Further, so that your House shall be suitably provided with slaves and riches, We shall double the flesh tithe and the taxes on the cities. To those of you who serve Us most ardently We shall not only gift you the daughters of the Great but, to the most deserving among you, We shall give access to the daughters of Our House that Our blood fire shall burn more brightly in the veins of your offspring. Fear only the Rebel who treacherously destroyed the Red Ichorians and, even now, advances upon Us with stolen legions and a plague of barbarians. Hasten hither with all your strength that We might together destroy his pretensions and then wreak a terror of retribution against all who have dared rise against the Chosen and so restore harmonious peace to our Commonwealth.
Carnelian lost his focus on the glyphs. His worst fears had come to pass. Molochite had taken the Three Gates as Legions had prophesied. He had removed any possibility of the Lesser Chosen supporting Osidian by enfranchising them himself and had summoned them all to Osrakum with their legions, so as to use their overwhelming strength to crush Osidian’s rebellion. Carnelian suppressed a sweating surge of panic. Most terrible of all, news of this disaster had reached Osidian while the Lepers were still here, within reach of his flame-pipes. Carnelian prepared himself, then looked round. So great was Osidian’s wrath, it seemed to be streaming from his body as dark pinions. Carnelian feared that anything he might say could unleash a massacre. His first instinct sickened him. Murder. No. Osidian dead, Aurum would be unchained, Morunasa too. He could not hope to control them both. Somehow, Osidian had to be engaged, his black passions turned away from
bloodshed. ‘What are we going to do?’
Osidian spoke, staring blindly. ‘He sent this to me.’
‘Who?’
‘It is in his own hand.’
Carnelian glanced at the glyphs then back at Osidian. His fear grew as he sensed the madness in him rising. ‘Surely this was meant for a Legate?’
Osidian’s eyes sharpened and fell ravenously upon Carnelian. ‘Look at the seal!’
Carnelian disengaged from that glare with difficulty. He folded the parchment, bringing the two halves of the seal together. Each half of the seal bore a face. Carnelian looked up, agonized at not understanding him.
Osidian’s face dissolved into an exasperation that seemed close to tears. ‘It has been turned on its side, deliberately, so that the heads would be separated by the opening of the letter. His is the green head; mine the black. It is his declaration of war.’
Carnelian glanced back at the seal, certain of Osidian’s madness. If anything it seemed a splitting in two of the Twins. Osidian mumbling made Carnelian look up again. Words were escaping from Osidian in a shapeless, meandering rant. Carnelian tried to make sense of it: claims that he had always bested his brother; resentment that Molochite had always been his mother’s pet.
Osidian shook his head. ‘This time will be no different. I shall overcome him.’
Relief released Carnelian. ‘So we are still going to march on Osrakum?’
Osidian gave no sign that he had heard. ‘He will have overwhelming force, but I shall have my Father with me.’
Carnelian’s dread returned with redoubled strength. Osidian was nodding, leering. ‘I shall feed Him and He will inhabit me.’
Carnelian felt he was drowning, flailing. ‘We’re tired,’ he heard himself say, ‘exhausted. We will see more clearly in the morning. Now we need sleep.’
His tone soothed them both and so he kept it up, smoothing his speech into a lullaby of persuasion. Slowly, the madness drained away from Osidian’s eyes. His face softened until he looked more like himself. Carnelian helped him up, digging his shoulder into Osidian’s armpit, maintaining a constant, droning flow of words as, with the homunculus’ help, he began to half drag, half carry Osidian back to his cell.
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