The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  The days merged into a monotonous rhythm. Each morning Carnelian set off with their host. They made lines, they wheeled and charged, churning dust up into red veils. In the evening they would return to find the sartlar numbers swollen. Soon their multitude reached beyond the cisterns and, daily, crept further and further out into the desiccating land. He became aware that, every day, it was taking him longer and longer to reach open ground. At his manoeuvres, in whichever direction he looked into the murk he would see small groups of sartlar crawling towards the dark spire of the watch-tower.

  At night he slipped through labyrinthine nightmares threatened always by a dark welling sea. Always the sea, the drowning sea. Waking, his eyes as bleary as the sun, he gazed out over the endless sartlar, hearing the swell in their ceaseless muttering.

  Imperceptibly a blood-red sun came to hold sway in a bloody sky. Everything took on that hue; all shapes and outlines softened to ghosts. The only things that seemed truly real to Carnelian were his own hands and the people near him. Every face was bound up: not to breathe through cloth was to choke. The rain wind had picked up and lashed them with scratching sand so that, when he was not in his command chair, he would turn his back upon it and gaze listlessly north-east. Legions’ homunculus told him that, as ever more sartlar left the land, it would turn to desert. It seemed too small an explanation in the face of this new world.

  At first the sartlar, heads bowed, had waited around the cisterns patiently for men and beasts to drink their fill. Now, all such decorum had been abandoned. To slake the thirst of their limitless numbers, they now drew their water directly from the sinkhole. Night and day it brimmed with their frantic climbing. As Carnelian passed the sinkhole high in his dragon tower each morning, he would gaze down in a sort of horror at that entrance to some vast ant-nest from which the earth herself seemed to be giving birth to the brutes.

  For as long as he could, he had fed the sartlar from his own supplies, sending auxiliaries to hurl scraps into their multitude. As food dwindled, he had sent to Makar for ever more. When the fortress quartermaster came himself to convince him his demands could no longer be met, Carnelian had sent Fern into the city with several squadrons of their auxiliaries. He returned with wagons, but with a grim face and furious eyes, and Carnelian saw the blood drying upon the lances of the men who rode behind him.

  At last, one day, Carnelian returned to find the sartlar crawling like lice over the remains of the Ichorians. Disgusted, he almost sent men to drive them away but in the end he turned his back on their scavenging. That night he could not sleep for what he imagined was the sound of their feeding. In the blackness it was harder to feel confident in the rings of dragons and soldiers that lay between them and the sartlar.

  Once the road had been picked clean, the brutes began to starve. The nights were now disturbed by an oceanic moaning that moved him with its anguish. Marching out he would look out over the sea of heads and spot clumps of smaller heads. Sartlar squatting, hugging swollen bellies. Not mothers-to-be, but starving children. He knew that, if they did not set off soon, the sartlar would begin to die in vast numbers. So it was with relief that he greeted Morunasa’s news that, at last, Osidian had fallen into the birthing fever.

  RED DUSK

  What kind of society survives turning to cannibalism?

  (a Quyan fragment)

  Carnelian slumped beside the fire stirring the still warm ashes with his foot. He was weary of waiting. Morunasa had said Osidian would wake in five days. It had already been eight, perhaps nine: he had lost count. It seemed a long time since he had suspended manoeuvres. Neither he nor their host had left the camp for days. He had hardly ventured away from their fire. Poppy and Krow went to fetch food for them and water. Fern went out periodically to walk around the camp. Sometimes Krow went with him; sometimes he remained behind, his head hanging, as miserable and worn out as everyone else. No one wanted to look upon the famine stalking the land beyond the dragon wall. They could not avoid hearing the moaning. Night and day it lent a desolate, bleak voice to the choking wind that blew ever more fiercely from the red desert the land had become. Hearing that sound of suffering, Carnelian feared that, if they did not soon march, all that would be left of the sartlar was bones. He glanced up and saw the great crag of towered Heart-of-Thunder looming up in the gloom, against the leftway wall. He had had him moved there so that they could march north the moment Osidian awoke. A fantasy of green land and clear air possessed him. There the sartlar would find food.

  He trailed his gloved hand along a crack between two flagstones, heaping red dust. He took some in his palm and prayed Osidian would soon wake.

  ‘Master?’

  The voice made him jump. It was Morunasa’s gravel tone. ‘He’s woken.’ The Oracle was there and gave him a grim nod.

  Carnelian put on his mask and sprang to his feet. He gazed out over the auxiliaries huddling against the duststorm, their aquar like rocks in a bloody tide. He saw Fern coming towards him and cried out: ‘Get the legions ready. Send messengers among the sartlar. We’re marching north.’

  Relief flooded into Fern’s face even as the news began spreading through the camp, waking men from their lethargy so suddenly that, everywhere, aquar heads were popping up, eye-plume fans half opening. Carnelian lingered for a moment watching the camp come alive like the Earthsky after the rains. Then, as he saw Morunasa turn towards the base of the tower, he grew grim and prepared himself for what lay within.

  The red light of the outer world snuffed out and the moans of the starving multitude faded as Carnelian followed Morunasa into the tower. As the portcullis was raised in the mouth of the stables a stench flowed out that made Carnelian flinch. Morunasa stooped and entered. Gathering his courage, Carnelian followed. Doughy shapes formed a pale frieze about the walls. Quick dusk as the portcullis fell, then darkness. He refused to give in to the fear that he was trapped. The sickening fetor thickened as he drew nearer to one of the pale shapes. It must once have been a man. A Master hung on hooks, his flesh sagging away from his bones. A beam of light sprang out to illuminate the corpse. Carnelian glimpsed Morunasa behind him holding aloft a narrowly shuttered lantern. He turned back to what it was the Oracle wanted him to see: a dead body not so unlike how his would be were it hanging there. A half-melted tallow doll. Sallow skin spotted with twisted black wounds like the eyeslits on a mask. Feet and hands dark bloated clubs. He had seen this kind of thing before. He looked up at a face frozen in pantomime surprise. He scanned along the walls and as he did so, the light followed his gaze. The commanders were all there, all surprised, all riddled with the Oracles’ holy vermin. Carnelian steeled himself against guilt. Though he had offered up these Masters as victims, it had been to save the Lepers. Besides, it was Osidian who had carried out this abomination. He might claim his god demanded victims, but what had really killed these Masters was Osidian’s injured pride.

  Seeing the way Morunasa was gazing at him, Carnelian was overcome with revulsion. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Oracle. Enjoy this, because you know you will never dare visit your vengeance on him.’

  Snarling, Morunasa began climbing the ramp to the next level. When they reached the top level of the stables Morunasa halted outside a stall and cast his lantern light into it. Carnelian’s head eclipsed the light as he peered in. He crouched, seeing two prone figures: another Master, this one laid out upon the floor, muttering, and beside him a skeleton. Carnelian gasped with horror and fell to his knees. ‘Osidian,’ he murmured, his voice breaking towards a sob. He gulped it back, knowing Morunasa was watching. He removed his mask and put it on the floor, then leaned close. The skeleton was indeed Osidian, all his flesh drained away, leaving only bones, and skin marred by many recent wounds. Carnelian grew angry that he should be seen like that. He unfastened his cloak and covered him. Blearily, this almost dead thing opened its eyes. Bright jewels among the ruins of his beauty. Carnelian’s tears were blinding him. He leaned closer, whispering: ‘What have you done to yourself? Wh
at have you done?’

  Osidian began a smile that his lips were too tight to finish. He tried to raise one withered arm, but had not the strength. He smiled again. ‘I have been to the Shadow Isle and have returned.’

  His breath was stale. His eyes seemed to sink back into his skull. Carnelian had no problem believing Osidian had returned from death.

  Osidian’s soul seemed to rise up again from the depths. ‘I found peace there,’ he sighed, but his eyes were haunted by some recollection. Then they ignited. ‘I bring back a promise of victory.’

  Carnelian drew back a little. Those eyes had in them the mercilessness of a raven’s. The light subsided and Osidian stared madly as if he were seeing some horror. Carnelian reached under the cloak and found his hand. He winced at its frailty, like the remains of a bird’s wing. He dared not squeeze it lest all its bones snap. ‘Famine threatens to destroy our forces. We must move to where they can feed or else there will be nothing to follow you to victory except the dead.’

  Osidian frowned, but showed no comprehension. His brow smoothed. ‘My Father promised me victory and peace thereafter.’

  Carnelian knew he would gain nothing by further speech and so he told him he was going to carry him up to Heart-of-Thunder.

  ‘Jaspar too.’

  On the point of asking what he meant, Carnelian became aware once more of the other body, and its muttering as constant as the babbling of a stream. He leaned over to see the face. A narrow face that at first he could not recognize as Jaspar’s, so wasted it might rather have been Jaspar’s aged father. His white flesh looked as if he had been the victim of a frenzied stabbing. Carnelian noticed some movement. A pale tongue was poking out from one of these wounds. Carnelian bent double, retching.

  ‘The God has entered him and speaks to me through him.’

  Carnelian glared at Osidian.

  ‘He seeds my dreams.’

  Carnelian regarded Jaspar with disgust. He was giving birth to his maggots. ‘Will he die?’

  ‘Oh no, he will suffer long.’

  Carnelian turned back to Osidian.

  ‘He shall be tended well so that I may use him as an instrument of divination.’ Osidian must have misunderstood Carnelian’s look of horror, for he added: ‘Worry not, we shall make sure he shall be fully aware of the God devouring him.’

  Carnelian rose, trying to overcome his disgust, his loathing for Osidian and his filthy obsessions by instructing Morunasa how the two Masters were to be carried up out of the stables.

  Carnelian emerged from behind the monolith onto the leftway and gulped fresh air through his mask. Heart-of-Thunder seemed insubstantial against the vast world beyond, which Carnelian felt he was seeing through a film of blood. A sea of sartlar stretched away to a murky horizon. Shock made the moment silent and eternal: he had stepped into one of his dreams. He forced his head to move, his eyes to focus on something with a human scale. Osidian lying masked upon a bier borne by Oracles, Jaspar upon another. The Marula stared as if they were seeing their deaths rolling towards them. Carnelian could not resist the pressure of their gaze and once more turned to look upon the multitude.

  ‘Millions…’ he breathed. His feet carried him closer to the edge as he sought to take in the vastness of such numbers. A great disturbance struck the shoreline of that sea where it came close to the dragons. For a moment Carnelian feared the dragons were attacking them, but there was no smoke, no fire, and the monsters seemed as motionless as rocks. The disturbance surged out across the masses, rushing towards the horizon like some vast wave sucking back from the shore. As he watched it race away, Carnelian understood what it was he was seeing. They were kneeling. An oceanic act of abasement. Was he its cause?

  ‘The brutes feel the presence of my Father.’

  Carnelian turned and saw Morunasa had lifted Osidian’s head enough so that he could look out. The dark hands reverentially let Osidian’s head down. He was too weak to lift it himself, Carnelian could see that. Then Carnelian noticed Heart-of-Thunder’s Hands kneeling a little way off along the leftway. He summoned them and they came. ‘Dispatch a message to Earth-is-Strong. Her Lefthand is to command her until I return.’

  The Hands touched their foreheads to the stone, so that when they came up they were bloodied by the dust. Carnelian gazed out once more and saw the wave of kneeling was still receding towards the horizon. He brought his gaze back to the edge of the camp. The dragons were beginning to swing round towards the ramp that would lead them up onto the road. Beneath him, the auxiliaries were already mounted. He gave the sartlar one more glance, then led the procession of Oracles and biers towards the dragon tower.

  Moving along the open road, Heart-of-Thunder was easily outpacing the sartlar, who were pouring like oil across the murky land. Carnelian’s heart leapt when he noticed the miasma ahead wavering. He held his breath as the haze slipped to the ground in undulating thinning veils to reveal a vision of clear air, of a land running green to a far horizon. He let out a sigh that mixed relief with wonder. He felt free and had to fight a desire to tear the mask from his face so that he could enjoy the clean air unfiltered. Even through its nosepads he could detect the rich pungency of hri. He scanned the land and saw its greens were duller than they had seemed at first. These fields were tinged with brown. The rising heat was already turning the morning sky to enamel. He scanned round to the west. There the red haze formed a vague cliff fading away into the south-west, from whose base shapes were emerging like ants. He watched them slowly darkening the earth, turning the fields a dunnish red.

  ‘It is nearly harvest time,’ said the homunculus.

  Carnelian turned to the little man, a question on his lips, but he forgot this and everything else as a shadow rose up at the edge of his vision.

  ‘Like locusts.’

  Carnelian gazed at Osidian and wished he could see beneath his mask. Though his voice sounded sane enough, only looking into his eyes would make Carnelian certain. Still, he rose, steadied himself against the motion of the deck and offered the command chair to Osidian who, moving like an old man, slumped into it. For a long while he hung forward watching the sartlar devouring the land.

  ‘Numberless,’ he said, almost in a whisper.

  He half turned so that Carnelian could see the gleam of an eye behind the mask. ‘Why did you gather them?’

  ‘I too was promised victory in a dream,’ Carnelian answered. He expected more questions, a dismissal, but at that moment a long, vibrating stream of Quyan syllables began pouring out from behind them. Carnelian saw Jaspar’s shadowy form laid out against the cabin wall.

  ‘The Lord speaks,’ said Osidian, in deep tones, as he nodded ponderously. He watched the sartlar stripping the land of its green to leave it red. ‘They consume the land as the worms did my own flesh.’

  As dragons pushed the sartlar back to make space for a camp, Carnelian descended to the road from Heart-of-Thunder, glad to escape Jaspar’s incessant babbling. Auxiliaries were pouring off the road, fanning out over the cleared land. Their torrent veered away from him as he approached the ramp. Once he had reached the earth he set off in search of Fern. All around him men were choosing spots upon which to light fires, dismounting, unhitching packs from their saddle-chairs, sacs, waterskins that some were carrying off to fill at the stopping-place cisterns. Carnelian was glad of his mask that filtered the air. Even so, he realized he would be lucky to spot Fern through the churned-up dust. It occurred to him to ask one of the auxiliaries whether he knew Fern’s whereabouts, but his instincts were against the abasement such an enquiry would produce. Already there was a region around him into which none dare stray.

  At last his wanderings brought him to the margins of the camp, where the dragons rose as a forbidding rampart, black against the westering sun. As he came closer he noticed men scrabbling up a rope girdle and walked round to get a better view. One man had clambered onto the monster’s haunch and was daubing something on what Carnelian saw was a wound that a leg of the tower ha
d worn into its hide. That disturbed him; clearly the creature had already worn its tower too long.

  Then he forgot everything else as he became aware he could hear the sea. At least it seemed the sea, though he knew it to be the murmuring of the sartlar multitude. He was drawn to gaze upon them and slipped into the shadow under the monster’s belly. He saw the silhouette of a beastmaster hefting up a sac to feed the monster. Pulling his cowl over his head, he crept behind its right front leg, making sure the massive column was firmly tethered to the ground. He just wanted a peep, but feared his mask might reflect some ray of the sun. Imagining the panic of the sartlar, he removed it. The tumult swelled as he slipped out of the shadow. Their stench wafted like the miasma from a midden. Squinting against the sun’s orb, at first he could see nothing but swirling currents. Then he began to make out the individual creatures on the margin of the host. Ragged, hunched, they crouched huddling in groups. Some limped among these clumps on stick legs. Everywhere his gaze snagged on filthy, bony limbs. Then he began noticing that some had stomachs swollen like render sacs, above legs that seemed far too brittle to bear them. Pregnant females? Difficult to tell, but then he saw some so small they had to be whelps. Children, he thought. Matted hair, hideous profiles. So many faces made monstrous by the earth glyph burned deep into nose and skin. He saw an old woman with one eye milky from a careless branding. He became aware of a pair of eyes gazing towards him. One of their young. The face already melted by the brand, but such bright eyes. The realization sank in that he was being watched. It was the child who broke their link first. It ran, screeching, into the body of the multitude. Carnelian darted back behind the dragon’s leg, fumbled his mask on even as he heard behind him the commotion building to a roar. Without glancing back he returned to the camp.