The Third God sdotc-3

by Ricardo Pinto

  The Quenthas stepped forward, their hands upon the hilts of their swords. Carnelian’s hand shaped a gesture of negation. Remain here, he signed; protect my people.

  Frowning, Right-Quentha muttered his command to her sister. Carnelian took his leave of them and turned towards the monolith. He felt it was safer to go alone. Besides, he did not wish to force upon the sisters the humiliation of appearing before their fellow syblings.

  Climbing out onto the roof of the tower, Carnelian was first aware of the bright air, free of the odours of sorcerous burning and myrrh. Then he noticed the silence and knew it had stopped raining. Between the ribs, he caught glimpses of a world bloodied by sunset. The roof with its snaking pipes was still slick and slippery. He found the staples and climbed. When he reached the platform, he gazed out. Below was a red lake from which crusts and scars of land arose and the towers of the City at the Gates. Curdled, fleshy clouds formed a ceiling to this wounded world. Osrakum’s rampart was an ever-cresting wave of yet more blood, at which Carnelian stared in tense horror, waiting for it to break. He felt he was back among the corpse mounds, or witnessing one of his nightmares with waking eyes.

  At some point he became aware of Osidian, black against the gory sun. Carnelian found the will to move. Osidian turned as he approached, the last rays revealing the sadness in his unmasked face. Osidian turned back and Carnelian stood by his side, watching the sun being consumed by the earth. The lake was darkening to a mirror of obsidian whose reflections seemed so real, Carnelian felt for a moment it was the world they inhabited that was the illusion. ‘Tomorrow when we enter Osrakum, I shall accompany my father to our coomb.’

  Beside him, Osidian remained as still as a Sapient in his capsule.

  ‘There are matters there I need to settle. I will return in time for your Apotheosis.’

  ‘What can be so urgent it cannot wait?’

  Carnelian could glean nothing of how Osidian was feeling from his neutral tone. For a moment he considered telling him the secret of his birth. He yearned to reveal his fears, to ask for help, even to be held. But he could not predict Osidian’s reaction and could not risk interference. There was little enough time already in which to make his coomb safe for his people. ‘My father is dying.’

  ‘If you were any other, I would assume you sought to ensure your smooth succession. Is it that you wish to be there when he dies?’

  Carnelian frowned against the thought of his father dying. ‘I want to make my coomb safe for my people.’

  Osidian’s head dipped, then turned a little towards Carnelian. ‘I would like you to come into the Labyrinth with me.’

  Defiance rose in Carnelian as he anticipated a command.

  ‘I need you with me when I confront my mother,’ Osidian said, his voice taut, as if at any moment it might snap.

  Carnelian’s anger receded. For Osidian to admit need, he must be fragile indeed.

  ‘You have as much right to be there as I.’

  ‘Is she not in Jaspar’s coomb?’

  ‘The Wise tell me she has returned to the Labyrinth.’

  Carnelian regarded the filigree of twinkling lights tracing the arms of the City at the Gates and coalescing at its pulsing heart. The Sacred Wall was now a rampart blacker than the night. Beyond it lay Ykoriana and – what? His death? Was that really so certain? A vague, disturbing hope rose in him. It was at the meeting between mother and son that his own fate would be decided. If he was to survive it could only be because Osidian submitted to having his mother put a collar around his neck. To save him, Osidian would have to swallow his bile, become his mother’s creature, probably take her for his wife. Anger stirred in Carnelian. Even if Osidian were prepared to make that sacrifice, could he allow him to do so? For all Osidian’s crimes, Carnelian did not want him to become again a slave. Weariness washed over him. It seemed he had spent more than half his life caught upon a web from which every attempt to break free brought only disaster to others. By living he might achieve uncertain gains, but more solid ones might be purchased with his death. Another pang of hope cheated him of what comfort there was in that acceptance. Becoming confused, he took hold of one grim certainty: the meeting with Ykoriana was where his fate would be decided.

  He looked into Osidian’s eyes, all the time fighting down strange, disturbing presentiments. The longing to save his people was something to cling to. ‘Swear upon your blood that if I come with you, you shall do all in your power to facilitate my visit to my coomb before the Apotheosis.’

  Osidian made the oath without hesitation. ‘In place of the Ichorians I intend to take our legions into Osrakum. Six others I left behind to herd the surviving sartlar back to the land. The rest of my legions will march with us to the City at the Gates, from where they will return to their fortresses; save only their commanders, who shall remain behind to attend my Apotheosis.’

  In the silence that followed, Carnelian was left feeling he should say something. ‘It is good they should be there… all the Chosen must witness it as an act of unity… the better to restore order. ..’

  Osidian gave a ragged nod. Carnelian took his leave of him and made for the edge of the platform, seeking to spend what certain time he had left with those he thought of as his family.

  Picking his way across the pipes and tubes upon the watch-tower roof, Carnelian stubbed his toe, cursed, slowed, heading for the faint light of the trap that led down into the tower interior. Around him the ribs rose like the trunks of trees, between which stretched the indigo of the darkening sky. One of the ribs gave birth to a form. Carnelian tensed, but it was upon him. He was struck, then he was falling. The odour of the assassin was obscured by the iron welling of his own blood.

  INTO THE BLACK LAND

  If night is the hidden face of day

  What then is the hidden face of Paradise?

  (a Quyan riddle)

  Blades sliced in from the darkness. More shadow heads. A burst of foul breath as a cry was cut off. Carnelian swung his arm and hammered bone. A groan of pain in a lighter voice. ‘Seraph, it is us.’ A woman’s voice. Carnelian saw a two-headed silhouette against the night sky. ‘The Quenthas,’ he said, shocked to his core that they had turned on him.

  The sisters crouched. ‘The assassin is dead.’

  One of the ribs was shuddering as someone heavy was coming rapidly down its staples. A thump as that someone jumped down to the roof. The Quenthas had already turned to meet this new threat, swords slanting back ready.

  ‘Out of my way, fools.’ Osidian’s voice. The sisters moved aside and he came to kneel at Carnelian’s side. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Carnelian said, pressing his hand against his thigh, the palm sliding on a slick of blood.

  Osidian and the sisters helped move him into the light of the naphtha flares. Osidian snatched Carnelian’s hand away from his wound and peered at it. ‘It doesn’t look deep.’

  ‘I feel fine,’ Carnelian said, stunned at how close he had come again to failing those depending on him. All he could focus on was how his life was the thread upon which hung their fates.

  Osidian pulled away, seeming to grow larger. ‘I shall have them flayed.’

  ‘Who?’ said Carnelian, still confused.

  ‘The Marula I set to guard this tower.’

  ‘Celestial, we are certain the assassin was already here.’

  Osidian turned on the sisters, who were kneeling, heads bowed. Carnelian realized how close they had come to cutting Osidian down. ‘They saved my life.’

  Osidian glanced round at him.

  ‘We came up after the Seraph,’ said Left-Quentha; her sister indicated Carnelian.

  ‘No one could have passed us coming up from below.’

  ‘Fetch some light,’ Osidian growled.

  The sisters rose and soon returned, carrying something aflame. Osidian directed them to cast the flickering light over the body of the assassin. One cruel gash through his nose had opened his temple to the skull. Another ha
d sliced down through his shoulder, so that his arm hung at a strange angle. He wore a dark spiralled robe and a silver mask at his belt but, with his stubbled, thin, swarthy face, he was clearly no ammonite.

  It was instinct that made Carnelian stoop to pull the purple robe down from the man’s neck. With his other hand he rolled the man’s head away. There it was. The tattoo of a six-spoked wheel.

  ‘My mother,’ Osidian breathed, sounding surprised.

  It was the obvious conclusion, so Carnelian was puzzled at feeling doubt. Osidian was staring at the assassin as if he were a window he could look through. ‘I was the target of this attack, not you.’

  ‘How could she know you were to spend the night here?’

  Osidian threw his hand up in a gesture of irritation. ‘For all we know she may have infested every tower between the battlefield and Osrakum with her assassins.’ The fury in his eyes dimmed. ‘Though it amazes me she would be so inept as to use these scum a third time.’

  He turned to squint between two of the watch-tower ribs towards the black abyss of the Sacred Wall. ‘Perhaps desperation forced her to risk one last throw.’

  ‘Why could it not have been the work of the Wise?’

  Osidian turned crazed eyes on him. ‘However much they may fear me, they fear and hate her more. Besides, they would have as much reason to fear the ensuing interregnum as have the Great. With no candidate of pure blood left, one would have to be chosen from among the Houses.’ Osidian’s lips curled. ‘In terror for their lives, the Great would be unable to muster a common front against her. Enough of them would scramble to fall at her feet.’ Osidian’s eyes cooled with hatred. ‘Imagine their terror as she lingered over her choice. The more impure the candidate, the deeper into the Great would be cast his shadow of death. The new God Emperor alone would survive from his own kin, his peers and superiors. A single tree left standing after the forest all around was blasted by the storm. The Great cowed, the Wise naked before her, she would have absolute power in her grasp.’

  Osidian’s expression was bilious, but yet Carnelian could see something else in his eyes. Was it avarice?

  Osidian was nodding, on his face a look of understanding, of admiration. ‘For such gains who would not risk everything?’

  Carnelian was overcome with horror, of Osidian and of the thought of Ykoriana triumphant. Though, after everything he had experienced, why was he still surprised? Were they not mother and son?

  Carnelian sagged. And yet, he was Osidian’s brother. A thought crept into his mind: Osidian had been incorrect when he said there would have been no pure-blood candidate left. If Osidian were dead, then the path to the Masks would surely be open to his only surviving brother. Carnelian saw how he could present himself to the Great and Wise as a saviour; the more so because he would come unlooked-for. Ykoriana might oppose him, but even she could not impose her will if the Great and Wise stood behind him. He could discard her as she deserved, take her daughter for a wife. In the time before Ykorenthe became capable of bearing children, he would rule protected by the fear of the chaos that would ensue should he die without pure-blood issue. With such power he would be able to keep his loved ones safe. More, what could he not do to heal the wounds of the world once he became God Emperor?

  Osidian came alive. ‘Come, we must get your wound tended. Then we must wait for dawn, so that we can get this business over.’ He let forth a sigh. ‘How weary I am of this outer world.’ A childlike look of hope came into his eyes. ‘Tomorrow, Osrakum.’

  Carnelian gave a solemn nod. ‘Yes, tomorrow.’

  Carnelian sat hunched in Earth-is-Strong’s command chair, listening to the rain drumming on the bone roof above his head. It had been falling incessantly since they set off. Ahead, through its mist, he could just see, across the moat bridge, the mass of the gatehouses. He was not sure, but it seemed that the great brass gate between them was closed, barring access to the Wheel: the heart of the City at the Gates.

  He glanced round at Fern and the others. It was too gloomy back there to see their faces. He looked forward again, watching the rain-stained tenement walls slide slowly past on either side. Perforated with unnumbered windows shuttered against the rain – or perhaps it was that none dared look upon this sodden procession of the Masters.

  Some steps squeezed down to a mess of boats, many half capsized, lifted by the rising waters of the lake, tethered to mooring posts already submerged. The road was flooding, filthy with scum, the run-off foaming into alleyways, fed from above by spouts vomiting from the roofs as if the sky was trying to scour the city clean. It had been like that all the way. Carnelian had expected, perhaps even hoped for the termite frenzy of the crowds, the views into rooms and lives, even the mouldering stench of the metropolis he had entered as a boy, but he had not seen a soul.

  When they had set off along the causeway towards the city, the flinty lake had been unscratched by the ripples of a single boat. True, in many places on either side he had seen wheel ruts in the mud, the churn left behind by feet, but these had held glimmers of reflected sky; had looked as if they had been left there in some ancient time and that nothing but this funeral procession had passed there for long ages of the world.

  When they reached the first towers, these had seemed almost ruined, decayed. Above the slurp of the water lapping tunnels and alleys, steps and quays, Carnelian was sure he had heard a child crying, some vague voices, the screeches of an animal being killed, but these could have been the ghosts of the city’s dead inhabitants and were soon lost in the noise of the thunder and the falling rain.

  As they slipped through the twilight beneath the crowding tenements, Carnelian felt a lament rising in him and was not sure whether he grieved for the lost city, for the dead, or for himself.

  After Osidian and the Quenthas had helped him descend from the watch-tower roof, he had not slept. All night, deprived of Fern, he had struggled alone with his fears and choices. When morning came, he had found that, though his leg ached, it bore his weight easily enough. The sisters had accompanied him down to the road. He had sent them to fetch Fern and his brothers. While he waited, the Wise had given him instructions on how to negotiate the Three Gates.

  A grinding sound snatched his attention. Ahead, between the gatehouses, something massive was twisting, changing form. It was just reflections in the brass gates as they opened for him. He realized they must already be on one of the bridges that spanned the Wheel moat. Glancing to starboard, he looked down into the great curving trench and saw how much higher the water was than it had been the last time he had crossed it. Through the opening gates, he glimpsed what seemed the cobbles of the marketplace, but then these began to rise in a surge that faded away in the veiling rain. A dense throng. Earth-is-Strong pounded closer, and ripples of panic moved through the multitude as they struggled to get out of her way. In the milling pattern of heads, Carnelian detected many smaller than the rest. Children. Filling the Wheel as far as he could see were the tributaries and the flesh tithe.

  It was Poppy who first moved to peer through the screen at the tributaries. Krow went with her, then Fern. Carnelian watched them for a while then rose and joined them. The crowd below had opened an avenue down which Earth-is-Strong was pounding. Carnelian regarded the sea of humanity, saddened by how different this was from the tumultuous marketplace he had once crossed. How quietly the people below watched their progress. He remembered that Fern had once been among just such a throng with his father and brother. He glanced round and saw Fern braced against the sway of the deck, his face grim as he gazed out.

  ‘How long have they been here?’ Poppy asked, softly. She had poked her fingers through the bony lattice and clung to it.

  Krow put an arm around her. ‘Probably quite a while.’

  Carnelian recalled that he too had been with Fern and the tithe children of both their tribes.

  ‘They will be starving by now,’ growled Fern.

  So many children. That such numbers should be given up to the
Masters each and every year. The way they watched the Masters pass in such perfect silence. Contempt rose in Carnelian at their docility. Where was their rage?

  ‘Master?’

  Carnelian turned on his Lefthand, making the man start. He calmed himself. ‘What is it?’

  ‘If it please you, Master, which way shall we turn?’

  Carnelian glanced back down to the Wheel; they had reached the ring of black stone inlaid into the Wheel that was called the Dragonway. ‘The shortest way.’

  His Lefthand muttered into his voice fork and the hawsers on Earth-is-Strong’s horns pulled her head round and she began to turn east.

  ‘The Standing Dead,’ exclaimed Poppy, pointing.

  A vast gash seemed to be opening in Osrakum’s mountain wall that was guarded on either side by figures that might have been men except that those of flesh and blood were mere dust at their feet. Even through the rain Carnelian could see the brooding stare that those giants cast down upon the tributaries. Between them more and more of the Canyon they guarded was coming into view. The deeper he could see into that dark mouth, the greater grew his dread. After everything that had happened, it was miraculous that he should be here again, but it did not feel like any kind of homecoming. He glanced round, seeking some distraction. Perhaps he had hoped to see wonder in the faces of those he loved, at least for a moment, but there was only fear, as if they were looking upon the very gateway to the land of the dead. And why not? Once they went in, what hope had any of them of ever returning?

  The ankle of one of the colossi slid past the starboard screen as an immense column of scabrous rock. They heard more than saw the walls of the Canyon funnelling together as the thunder of Earth-is-Strong’s footfalls reverberated, the judder of her tower and harness shivered and echoed. The scuffle of the palanquins following them was a constant scratching on their hearing. More disconcerting than this was a swelling roar. He had started to hear it when they were crossing the bridge over the Wheel moat into the Canyon mouth. The last time he had heard the Cloaca, it had been a murmur. It had been tame then; now it was carrying the run-off from the Skymere swollen by the Rains. The bass rumble reminded him of the Blackwater Falls in the Upper Reach. No doubt Morunasa would hear in that roar his god speaking.