The Third God (100 page)

At that moment the light was snuffed out. Carnelian turned, felt the tomb shudder, then a release of light dazzled him. ‘Fern? Look here, this is a Master, but for some reason much smaller than I am.’

‘Haven’t you had enough of the dead?’

An edge to Fern’s voice made Carnelian rise, shuffle back towards him. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, reaching out to touch him.

His hand was slapped away, stinging him to anger.

‘What’s going to happen?’

The almost childlike tone in Fern’s voice cooled Carnelian’s anger to sadness. ‘I don’t know, Fern, I don’t know.’

‘You must have a plan?’

‘We wait for Morunasa and then—’

‘You mean we wait for the screaming!’

Carnelian felt the grief leaching out of Fern connecting to his own. He remembered the nightmare in the Upper Reach. ‘Yes, the screaming.’

‘I can’t bear it again.’ The words a skin of ice over tears. Fern was reliving not the Upper Reach, but the massacre of his people. Carnelian felt panic rising in him. The memory of that horror came alive in him from where he had thought it buried.

‘Tell me this time it will be different,’ Fern sobbed.

Carnelian reached out, desperate to touch him, wanting to promise, but not daring to lest his promise should turn into a lie. ‘I can’t, Fern, but this time we’ll fight to save what can be saved. This time, together.’

His hands reached Fern’s face, felt his warm tears, his skin. They melted together, seeking life in the midst of death. Skin finding skin. Their mouths. Their hard flesh. Making love, at first violently, but then tenderly.

When they emerged from the tomb, they stood close enough to feel each other’s breath. Eerie silence. Their cheeks grazed as they turned to look at each other. The Masters had left the Labyrinth.

The screaming began the following evening. Thin, bleak, harrowing sounds scratching the sepulchral gloom. Blood drained from the faces edging the clearing.

‘What is it?’ Tain asked in a whisper.

Fern closed his eyes as if he hoped that would close his ears. ‘Morunasa feeding victims to his filthy god.’

Carnelian felt sick. ‘Putting maggots in children.’ As they all turned to him, he cursed himself for having said that aloud.

Heads angled as people listened to the pitch of the screaming. Fern licked his lips, looking queasy. ‘The flesh tithe.’

Carnelian nodded. Tain jumped up. ‘We must go now!’

Carnelian saw in Tain’s face he was being haunted by what he had endured as a child.

The Quenthas shook their heads together, frowning, grim. ‘It’ll soon be night. If we attempt to find our way in the dark, we’ll become lost.’

Carnelian, who had known that before the sisters said it, still felt angry at them for having taken from him any hope of action. ‘Then we must sleep as best we can.’

He caught Fern’s look of despair. How could they all endure such a night?

The first grey light found them awake, bleary-eyed, haggard. The screaming had kept them from sleep, or else mired in helpless nightmares. Carnelian glanced at Fern, saw how aged he seemed, as if it had been night for years. Memory weighed down on both of them. They had good reason to know the horror Morunasa had brought into the Labyrinth. Yet another scream sounded, a sort of lightning shrilling through their nerves. Carnelian had had enough. ‘Let’s go and end this.’

Everyone looked to him with hope; everyone save Fern, who did not look away fast enough to prevent Carnelian seeing his doubt.

Rain began to fall as they set off. They followed the sisters through the twilit Labyrinth. Above their heads the vaults hung like stormclouds. Water pouring in through openings hissed as it sprayed down.

They used one of the column sarcophagi as cover. Carnelian glanced back at the Shimmering Stair. No sign of life there. Dull, its cascade of steps seemed an approach to an immense tomb. Before it the moat was being turned opaque by water falling into it from the shadows above. Litter and mess was all that remained of the Encampment of the Seraphim. On higher ground, between two great pillars, stretched a line of sybling Ichorians. Beyond them, higher still, a darker cordon of Marula from within whose circle rose a particularly massive colossus shouldering flying arches and the high, shadowy ceiling. It was clear why Morunasa had chosen this vast sarcophagus, for it reminded Carnelian of the central trunk of the banyan of the Isle of Flies.

Somewhere near this colossus, a shriek rent the air, causing a shiver to ripple along the rings of Marula and syblings. All were fixedly turned outwards, no doubt fearing even to glimpse what was going on behind them.

Carnelian glanced round at his flint-eyed people awaiting his command. An attempt had to be made to stop that torture even if it should cost their lives.

As Carnelian strode towards the Sinistrals, he saw a party of Sapients addressing them. Fern, the Quenthas and Sthax were at his back. He had left Tain behind with the Suth tyadra.

The Sapients turned as their homunculi, muttering, watched Carnelian approach. Heart racing, he announced who he was.

One of the Sapients advanced. ‘Celestial, please command these creatures to let us pass.’

It was as Carnelian had surmised: the Wise had lost control. The Sapient betrayed his agitation by the way he gripped the throat of his homunculus. The finial of his staff showed two faces turned to each other wrought in red stone. ‘You are of Gates?’ he guessed.

‘The first Third of that Domain, Celestial.’

Carnelian scanned the finials of the other Sapients and it seemed to him that, quite probably, all twelve Domains were there represented. He would test his hypothesis. ‘Is it your masters, my Lord, have sent you hither?’

It was another homunculus who answered him, whose cypher of a cross Carnelian knew well enough was that of the Domain Legions. ‘It is our masters, Celestial, we need to communicate with, urgently.’

An animal scream issued from up the slope. Carnelian fought to calm himself, to think. It seemed Morunasa had been cunning enough to realize he must control the Wise. ‘Are all the Twelve within this cordon?’

Several four-fingered hands rose, making gestures of affirmation. It was as Carnelian had feared. Not only had Morunasa taken Osidian, but also the Twelve, thus decapitating the Wise. That only served to prove he was not dealing with a fool. He advanced on the Sapients, and they and their homunculi moved aside. Before him stood Ichorians armed with iron halberds, encased in armour and casques of the same precious substance. He threw back his hood and fixed one untattooed face with a glare. ‘Do you not know who I am, Ichorian?’

The man ducked his head, even as his blind brother turned to him in consternation. His seeing half pulled them both down to kneel upon two of their three knees. ‘Celestial,’ he muttered. Raking their line, Carnelian caused them all to kneel, acknowledging him.

‘Let me pass,’ he said in an imperious tone.

Two heads rose from a forked neck. ‘We cannot, Celestial.’ The lips that spoke were baroqued with swirling black tattoos. Eyes in the darkened face were ovals of glassy obsidian. ‘We have been commanded to let none through except at Their express instruction.’

‘Did They communicate this command to you Themselves?’

Both syblings shook their heads.

‘The Maruli, then?’

‘It is not for us, Celestial, to question the choices of the Gods on Earth.’

‘Celestial, may I address this centurion?’

Carnelian glanced round at the Quenthas and was glad to let them do what they could.

The sisters confronted the kneeling centurion. ‘You know this is the brother of the Gods?’ As the syblings nodded, the Quenthas continued relentlessly: ‘From love of whom They changed the Law-that-must-be-obeyed. Do you imagine They will easily forgive this insult to Their beloved?’

‘But the command—?’ said the centurion.

‘This command cannot apply to the Lord Carnelian,’ said the Quenthas with steely authority.

The centurion ducked a bow. ‘We dare not disobey divine command.’

‘Was it given you in the angelic tongue?’

The syblings had to admit it had not been.

‘How then can you be so certain of the precise nature of Their command?’

Carnelian could see the resolve of the centurion weakening and so could the Quenthas. ‘Was it not delivered to you by a barbarian who traduced the holy will into a lesser tongue?’

Carnelian gazed down with haughty condescension. ‘I shall vouch for you.’ He scanned their ranks. ‘For you all.’

The heads of the centurion turned inwards so that each caught the eye of the other. The syblings rose and, at their command, the line opened for Carnelian. Through the gap, he saw the darker ranks of the Marula. They would not be so easily cowed. He raised his voice to summon the Sapients to follow him, then he strode through the sybling cordon and on towards the Marula.

The Marula lowered their lances, their line buckling a little, bristling. They stared at Carnelian with yellow, feral eyes. He shortened his steps. Sweat trickled down his back. He was only too aware of the danger he was in, of the danger he was taking his people into. Earlier, the Quenthas had argued hard against this. Their counsel had been to subvert their brethren; to turn the Sinistrals against the Marula and slaughter them. It had been Fern’s silence that had steadied Carnelian’s resolve. Fern, who had reason to wish the killers of his people dead.

Carnelian glanced round at Sthax. They had made promises to each other. Hope lay in the trust between them. Sthax addressed the Marula. His voice carried with the clicks and throaty syllables of their speech. The Marula listened to him, their eyes flashing from Sthax to Carnelian, gripping and regripping their lances. When Sthax fell silent, Carnelian watched the Marula whispering among themselves. He recognized some of them. He remembered training them in the Upper Reach to fight in the formation they now used against him; he remembered fighting on the ground at their side against Osidian’s mounted charges. Perhaps they too remembered this, because their lances began to rise as they moved aside.

Passing through the Marula Carnelian gazed up at the shadowy colossus to which they had been barring access. It was just another column of the Labyrinth, just another sarcophagus, in which lay the mummy of a God Emperor. It had the shape of a man, though one upon whose brow sat vaulting that seemed a stormy sky. It could have been the Black God incarnating as a column of smoke. Or was it the Darkness-under-the-Trees? The face of the colossus was hidden in the shadows of the roof, but Carnelian had the distinct impression he was gazing down with eyeless wrath. His arms crossed upon his chest reminded Carnelian of Legions in his capsule. The Standing Dead.

As he advanced, his gaze slid down the stone torso, the thighs each as mighty as a great tree. Between the ankles stretched what appeared to be a net upon which many fish were caught. His stomach clenched as he remembered the men hung up in the Isle of Flies.

Figures were emerging from between the feet of the colossus. Pallid creatures that seemed a mockery of the Chosen. He glanced to either side and saw with what terror the Marula warriors regarded the approach of these ashen men. Sthax said something to them in a soothing tone. He gave Carnelian a nod. The Oracles were close enough for him to see their ghostly faces. He wondered from where the ashes had come which they had rubbed upon their skin. They bared their sharpened teeth, eyes red with rage. They hissed at the warriors, spittle running down their chins. Carnelian felt the warriors begin to cower. Then, as a blur, someone sped past him, arm drawn back, and plunged the lance it held into one of the Oracles so violently the spearhead erupted out of his back. A look of surprise on the man’s face as he plucked at the shaft jutting from his belly. Surprise too on the faces of his peers. Their ashen faces blanked with fear. Carnelian felt the warriors round him tensing. Their nostrils were distending as if they were smelling blood. They sprang. Soon the Oracles were encompassed by gleaming black flesh. Elbows made sharp angles and straightened as if, within their circle, they were pounding flour.

Carnelian moved on, the iron odour of fresh blood wafting in the air. The Quenthas were at his left, Fern at his right. At the feet of the colossus, more eerie figures were rising. Hanging on the netting above them, children pocked with wounds. Closer, Carnelian saw Oracles lying along the hollows between the toes of the colossus. Hearing the slap of pursuing feet, he turned to see Marula rushing up. His eyes found Sthax’s. ‘Can you control them?’

Sthax barked an order and Carnelian was reassured when the warriors slowed, though their eyes kept questing, hungry for more bloodshed. The Oracles confronting them looked terrified.

Carnelian half turned. ‘Tell them their lives will be spared if they submit to me.’

Sthax stepped forward to harangue the Oracles. Glancing back with shame, the ashen men crept forward and fell on their knees before Carnelian.

‘Take care of them, Sthax,’ Carnelian said, then stepped round the prone men, for, in the cave between the legs of the colossus, he had seen a single, pallid figure rising. He knew Morunasa by his proud bearing. As he neared the Oracle, Carnelian saw the ghostly shape of a Master lying naked on a bier at his feet. Even though the face was shadow, Carnelian knew it was Osidian.