‘Are you sure you want to go alone?’ said Keal.
Carnelian nodded. They were none of them happy about that. Grane’s frown was causing his eyelids to ruck against his stone eyes. ‘This is our final goodbye, then, big brother.’
The blind man ducked a nod, ‘Master,’ then would have knelt except that Carnelian held him up and embraced him. He felt Grane soften in his arms, lean into him, a little, for a moment accepting the love Carnelian was giving him. Then they drew apart, Carnelian frowning back tears. Ebeny’s eyes seemed bright glass. His instinct was to fall before her, clasping her round the waist, putting his head where she could stroke it, comforting him, but he was no longer a child, though the child was still there within him. He stooped to put his arms about her. Felt her wet face slide past his cheek. ‘Mother,’ he whispered into her ear.
‘My son,’ she whispered in his.
Gently, he disengaged, smiling through his tears at her, holding hands, until these too let go.
His father’s mask seemed a furtive fire in the hood of his cloak. A Great Lord among his servants. Carnelian’s eyes fell, drawn to a movement. A pallid hand, all bones and sinew. The Suth Ruling Ring back in its place like a swollen joint. The hand rose and for a moment seemed about to speak. The other joined it and, together, they moved into the shadow of the hood to release the mask. Carnelian was compelled to turn by a sudden, startled movement. Keal stood back, a look of horror frozen on his face. His instinct was that he was facing blinding; nevertheless he did not look away. Panic stirring in Carnelian was stilled by his brother coming alive with wonder. Their father gazed with love upon Keal, a son who had never before seen his father’s face. Suth turned his eyes to Carnelian, who could not bear his father’s look of aching sadness. Carnelian approached him, wanting to say something, but his father spoke first. ‘You are my son too, Carnelian.’
Carnelian embraced him. ‘You are my father.’
They stood together thus for some time, Carnelian feeling how weak his father was in his arms. Fearing that, should he let go, his father would fall broken upon the ground. Then he felt strength coming into him, and his father pushed him away. ‘The boat approaches.’
Carnelian put on his mask for fear of terrifying the kharon. The bone boat slowed, shipping her port oars as she sought the rocky shore. His father was again a Master wearing an imperious face of gold.
Carnelian turned to Fern. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Fern gave him a nod. They had already said their goodbyes.
There was an inky space between the bone boat and the muddy rock upon which he stood. The kharon ferryman was below upon the deck, his bony crown rising up like gnarled fingers. He extended his whitened hand for his payment. Carnelian took hold of it with his left hand, held it as the ferryman attempted to jerk it back. It relaxed in his grip. After some hesitation, the man helped jump him aboard. Soon oars were clunking against the rock as they pushed the boat away from the shore.
To keep his people in sight, Carnelian moved back along the bow towards the stern as they slid away. He stopped short of the ferryman and leaned out upon a bony rail. He saw his father and his mother holding hands, seeming no longer to care to whom they announced the truth of their relationship. For a moment Carnelian managed to hold onto Fern’s dark eyes.
Losing sight of them, Carnelian turned to the ferryman. Against the stern post he stood, the black and white design of his robe a furious dapple uncomfortable to look upon. His white-washed hands steady on the steering oars provided a quiet counterpoint. The turtle glyph was like a saurian egg in the nest of his crown, but it was his sinister ivory mask that made it seem he was gazing away off over his shoulder. Carnelian was close enough to smell his stale sweat; close enough to see through the slit to the gleam of his single eye. ‘Didn’t you fear bringing your boat to my coomb?’
As the ferryman shook his head, his crown rustled. Carnelian gazed at him, his eyes finding the edges of the delicate mosaic that formed his mask. Not ivory, then, more probably it was made from the same bone from which the boat was wrought. Carnelian realized he had never before heard a kharon speak. For all he knew, they, like the Wise, might have been lacking tongues as well as an eye. He tried again, this time in Quya. ‘Did you not fear coming to my coomb?’
‘Seraph,’ said the ferryman, ‘we are into your service bound.’ His Quya was husky, thick, sounding strangely antique.
‘But you must be aware of the disturbances?’
The ferryman bowed his crowned head.
‘Still you came…’
‘No troubles did we observe in Coomb Suth, Seraph.’ Then as, Carnelian considered this, he added, ‘We hoped it would be thee, Seraph, who summoned us.’
Carnelian was taken aback by this. Confused. ‘You know who I am?’
The crown rustled again. ‘Seraph Carnelian of the Masks.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘We carried thee to Coomb Suth, Seraph. You paid us with sky-metal.’
Carnelian regarded the ferryman with a more acute eye. These kharon were more aware of things than he had guessed. Clearly, they communicated among themselves. He tried to imagine how recent events might have appeared to them. Though each was possessed only of a single eye, between them they had enough to observe everything. The gentle sculling of the oars impressed itself upon Carnelian’s hearing. How many kharon were there beneath his feet? And there must be women of their kind, and children. He mused for a moment on how their society formed a ring along the shore of the Isle.
‘Why didst thou, Seraph, break the sluices?’
Carnelian heard the tremor in the man’s voice. He was brave to be so bold. Carnelian considered rewarding him with an answer, but his heart misgave. It was too soon and now it occurred to him that what he must ask of the kharon must be asked of all of them at once. He considered this for some moments before speaking. ‘If the kharon wish to know what is happening in Osrakum and the world beyond, then you must send an embassy into the Plain of Thrones.’
Lurching, the boat betrayed the ferryman’s reaction. ‘Impossible,’ he sighed.
‘There is a good chance you could talk to the God Emperor Themselves.’
The whitened hands curled tighter round the oars. ‘We are permitted only the Inner Shore and the Shadowmere.’
Carnelian wondered at how strangely the ferryman named the lake, even as he tried to find a way to persuade him to do what he was now even more sure he needed. Again he thought hard before speaking lest he should lead them into peril. He glanced up at the Sacred Wall. The peace within its circle was an illusion. How could these people hope to survive what was coming?
‘You say you know who I am,’ Carnelian said.
‘Carnelian of the Masks,’ said the ferryman.
‘Then you must know that I am brother to the God Emperor, who went with him into the outer world, returned in triumph and who survived his elevation.’
The nest crown inclined and Carnelian was certain the kharon not only knew this to be true, but understood the implications. ‘Even as I have defied the Law, so must you. Upon my blood I swear I shall answer for your coming before the God Emperor my brother.’
For a moment Carnelian felt the ferryman’s eye peering at him, until at last he inclined his head. ‘Thy command shall be sent around the Shore.’
Relief washed over Carnelian. ‘One more thing I would ask of your people.’ Without thinking he put his hand upon the ferryman’s arm. At his touch, the man shuddered, but his steering grip held firm. ‘At dawn tomorrow, send three boats to Coomb Suth. There embark my people and their baggage and bring them to the Quays of the Dead.’
‘As you command, Seraph,’ the ferryman said and Carnelian drew his hand back, thanked him, then turned to walk along the deck, gazing at the vast green slope rising before them from the lake, within the summit of which lay the Plain of Thrones.
Carnelian clambered up onto the quay, his robe and cloak mired up to the knees with mud. He
looked up the steps and let his gaze follow the path as it narrowed up into the cleft that led eventually into the Plain of Thrones. A long climb and at the end of it, what? It was only now he was facing the reality of seeing Osidian again; of having to confront him one last time. His heart was uncertain. Then there was the dull ache of fear. He had no idea how Osidian might be taking the failure of all his dreams. Fern had been right to worry about the danger. That was why Carnelian had insisted on coming alone.
He glanced back at the trail he had left in the shelf of mud as he had struggled up from the new shore. The bone boat was already moving off. That sight hardened his resolve. He had to prepare the way for the kharon. He turned back to the steps and began the climb.
He paused to get his breath, looking back the way he had come. The endless shallow steps. The scrape of his footfalls echoing off the rock walls had given the ghostly procession graven into them an eerie life. He was glad of the light up ahead. Only a few more steps and he beheld the Plain of Thrones spread out: a bright vision. The Pillar of Heaven seemed a vast shaft of light stabbing down from the morning sky. Beneath it, the jewel of the Pyramid Hollow and the gleaming rank of the funerary colossi. There was a glinting on the plain. It took him some moments to recognize the Cages of the Tithe. Recalling the myriads of children there, his heart failed. He had forgotten them. Then he became aware of some thick smoke rising from the western edge of the plain. The House of Immortality where the children of the Great were being prepared for their tombs. He gazed at the heart of the plain. Squinting, he gained the distinct impression the Stone Dance of the Chameleon was a lot wider than it should be. There appeared to be a slight hazing above it. Grimly, he began to walk towards it.
Coming closer, he saw that something like a small town had engulfed the standing stones. Smoke was spiralling up from many different locations among innumerable emerald pavilions.
As he came into the camp, he saw that the campfires were mostly located on the road where it split to encircle the Stone Dance of the Chameleon. It was covered with people who began to rise as he approached, turning their half-black faces towards him. Such a great gathering of Ichorians suggested the God Emperor must be near. Two gatestones rose behind them like sentinels standing guard on a dark wall where the outermost stones of the Dance were supposed to be. Somehow reminded of the shadowy eaves of the Isle of Flies, Carnelian shuddered.
Figures came through the Ichorians, pulling on helmets. As they approached they knelt before him. From their silver collars he knew they were centurions. He gave them his name and, when he told them he had come to see the God Emperor, he detected a flicker of fear in their eyes. There was something else there: hope. That drained him even more. What was it they were hoping he would save them from? He did not ask, but followed them along the right-hand fork as if he and they were a funerary procession. He distracted himself from this ill omen by observing the Dance, deducing it had been covered up to form some vast pavilion. The ghosts of the stones could be seen pushing through the midnight brocade that clothed them.
They came at last to a second pair of gatestones: those that stood opposite the road that led off to the House of Immortality, from where smoke was still belching ominously. The Ichorians around the two stones were syblings. They knelt. Carnelian waited as his guides communicated his words to them. His gaze became enmeshed in the black wall that rose behind them. Chimeric visions wrought into the silk were picked out with green and yellow jewels like feral eyes. Jade cameos hung here and there from which peered monstrous faces as if up through stagnant water. He tore free to look outwards. The quarter of the camp lying between the Immortality Road and that which led to the Forbidden Door was formed of purple pavilions spotted with silver spirals. He searched for ammonites or a glimpse of one of their masters, but the camp of the Wise seemed lifeless, abandoned. Ill omens were everywhere.
‘Celestial?’ said two voices he knew. He almost exclaimed with relief at seeing it was the Quenthas.
The sisters seemed to have aged, faces wasted, the dark tattoos sinking into Left-Quentha’s cheeks; Right-Quentha’s eyes were haunted by some terror. Twitching a smile, she begged him to follow them. He was drawn past flaps of the black samite into the gloom beyond in which a myrrh fog revolved ponderously in monstrous curls. Pale wraiths haunted the twilight. Were it not that this place was much more confined, he could fancy he had been transported into the Labyrinth. The pale slabs of the second ring of stones formed a broken ring that seemed lit by some dying moon. His mask was smothering him and, knowing he could, he removed it. ‘Are They here?’
Grimly, the Quenthas nodded. Left-Quentha clapped her hands. Slaves approached, naked, cringing. As they converged on him, Carnelian protested.
‘All here must be unclothed, Celestial,’ Right-Quentha said. She and her sister divested themselves of the robe they were wearing. Carnelian was fascinated by their joined body half dipped in the shadow of tattoos; by their small breasts and, for a moment, his gaze lingered on the strange form of their nearly joined sex. He himself removed his military cloak, bundled it up and gave it to the sisters. ‘Keep this for me.’ He could see they thought it strange he should care about such a rough, muddy garment, but they took it in their four hands. Then he submitted to the blind slaves. They stripped him, shaved his head, his face, his body. They cleansed him with pads. Through the sharp menthol he could still smell their sweaty fear.
Even through feather rugs Carnelian could feel the bony network of the pavement that linked the ghost stones to their commentaries. Like worms burrowing just beneath skin. In the gloom, pale flesh huddled to pale flesh, jewel eyes glinted furtively. A whispering like a breeze made him feel he was following the sisters through some enchanted forest haunted by the spirits of the dead.
When they came to a gateway guarded by more naked syblings, Carnelian became aware of a small group of lost children. No, homunculi, twelve of them, their faces hidden by their blinding masks.
‘You alone can save him,’ Right-Quentha whispered in his ear. ‘Prepare yourself,’ her sister said.
They opened a wound in the blackness through which light flooded. Carnelian put his hand on the stone lintel to steady himself. He felt the spiral under his hand. Then he let go of it and stepped into the blindingly bright heart of the Stone Dance of the Chameleon, still open to the sky, even as his stomach clamped, spit welling in his mouth at the charnel stench.
He almost crumpled under the assault of fetor. He would have run, if he had known where to run to. His eyesight returning allowed him to see a pale figure sitting stiffly on red earth. The knobs of its backbone, the shoulder blades seeming ready to tear through the sallow flesh. Skin disfigured with countless angry-looking, blue-lipped wounds. Bands around the swelling of the shaved head showed it must be wearing a mask. His arm across his nose and mouth, Carnelian was for a moment shocked that one corpse could so much pollute the air, but then he saw the stones that walled in that place; saw the things sagging, rotting in the man-shaped hollow in each stone. Green-black. The heads lolling back into the hollows were already more skull than face. Gashes over their bodies showed where the blood must have trickled down their skin, to gather in the hollows and dribble down the channels into the red earth. The slits left by their castrations had been torn open like vulvas by swellings forcing themselves out like babies’ heads, so that it seemed that the Grand Sapients had died in the act of giving birth.
‘Why did you do this?’ Carnelian breathed.
‘They lied,’ said the dead man at the centre of the Dance. ‘I had to force them to tell me the truth.’
With disgusted fascination, Carnelian crept round, wanting to look into Osidian’s face. He stopped when he saw the black, glassy profile. ‘What truth?’
The Obsidian Mask turned its distorting mirror to Carnelian. ‘That the sartlar are the Quyans.’
THE STONE DANCE OF THE CHAMELEON
Flesh endures longer than iron.
(sartlar proverb)
‘ The Sartlar are the Quyans…?’ repeated Carnelian, stunned .
‘The Wise have always known this,’ said Osidian, his voice wintry. ‘But, obsessed with their computations, they missed the real threat.’
‘They lacked the factor of my true birth.’
The Obsidian Mask turned its malice towards him. ‘Do not flatter yourself, my brother. Even once they had that factor, they found there was another, far greater, missing from their mosaic. Even as they died they held to their certainty. It was the inability of their simulations to predict the uncurling of events that made them powerless to effectively oppose them. What could explain the sartlar behaving as if directed by a single mind? Why, suddenly, are they capable of overthrowing their animal fear of flame that, for millennia, we have used to tame them?’
Carnelian shook his head. ‘But- if they are the Quyans-’
The dark mirror mask slid away, distorting in reflection a hideous corpse in a hollow. ‘Even the Quyans in their glory could not have withstood our legions.’
‘How…?’ Carnelian was struggling to grasp this shift in the bedrock of his reality.
‘When the plagues of the Great Death humbled them, we issued forth as conquerors. Perhaps it would have been better had we slain them all, but the land needed to be tilled and we desired to make them our slaves. To ensure our dominion over them, we forced them to build the roads that would contain them; the watch-towers to keep unsleeping vigilance over them. We raised the legions and perfected them. But, most of all, we wrote here the Law-that-must-be-obeyed.’ Osidian indicated the grim stones enringing them. ‘Its codicils described a system, independent of the hearts of those who would come after, that, relentlessly and without pity, would grind them down into such abject bestiality that it would become impossible for them to regain their previous state.’
The Third God sdotc-3 Page 83