The Third God (91 page)

‘Nevertheless, the Chosen will not accept my Godhead unless it is consecrated with ichorous blood.’

Carnelian saw in Osidian’s face that, on this issue, he was immovable. He feared losing impetus and so he turned to Ykoriana, the mother. ‘What if you were given your daughter to raise until she was of age to become empress and wife?’

Carnelian watched Ykoriana grow younger with hope.

‘That would destabilize my throne,’ Osidian said. ‘To rule without possibility of an heir for so long.’

Carnelian turned to him. ‘If you were to die this instant, who would most likely become the next God Emperor?’

Almost imperceptibly, Osidian’s eyes narrowed. ‘You would.’

‘Ever since my father came to speak to me, I could have sought the Masks, but, clearly, I have not.’

Osidian nodded.

‘Do you really believe I covet such power?’

Osidian’s face became brittle. ‘To save your beloved barbarians, perhaps.’

Carnelian saw the truth in this. It seemed for a moment as if everything would founder on that doubt. ‘Well, then, let me rule the outer world as your viceroy. Anyone who moved against either of us would have to fear the vengeance of the other. Until either of us produces an heir, the Great will live in fear that we should both die, for then one among them would have to be chosen to wear the Masks and the Law would force many of his peers to be slaughtered at his Apotheosis.’

Carnelian could see Osidian was still not entirely convinced. ‘For years you will be needed here to hold Osrakum together. How much energy would you have left to rebuild and safeguard the Commonwealth?’

‘You want to save your barbarians.’

‘I will not deny it, but also, and more pressing, there is the need to work against the famine that is coming.’

‘And when Ykorenthe comes of age and we produce an heir?’

‘I will retire to my coomb, to Coomb Suth.’

‘You will no longer be Suth.’

‘The Great will be unable to defy you when you give me the coomb as a gift.’

Osidian regarded him, weighing his judgement of this new brother. Carnelian knew there were several political attractions in such a scheme, but he wished to remove the last vestiges of doubt. ‘By then I will have done enough to appease my conscience.’

Osidian nodded.

‘And in the meantime you can keep an eye on me through the Wise and their watch-towers.’

Ykoriana stirred. ‘There is hope in this.’

As they both turned to regard her, it seemed she was holding her breath, waiting for Osidian’s response. He gazed at Carnelian, then sank his head. The wind soughed in the vast space above them. At last Osidian raised his eyes to Carnelian and smiled, grimly. ‘Let it be as my brother says.’

All three touched hands and swore oaths upon their blood.

Even if they had wished it, they knew they could not return by the Path of Blood, so it was necessary to climb the stair to the apex of the Pyramid Hollow where portals gave into the imperial strata of the Halls of Rebirth. Ykoriana removed her ranga and they began the climb, Osidian on her right hand, Carnelian on her left. The steps were steep so they supported her. Her robe tore upon the steps leaving a trail of petals. Glancing down it seemed to Carnelian to be the blood that had been shed there, but sweet and fluttering away on the wind.

TRIBUTARIES

Truth is written in the fabric of the world
If only one has the eyes to read it.

(Quyan fragment)

A VAST BLOATED CORPSE FLOATS ON A DARK SEA. FLESH AWRITHE WITH
maggots. Sartlar consuming each other? Blood and render licking up his body. Sucking at his armpits so that he is forced to raise his arms as branches. His hands and face are dry, caked earth. Dry earth everywhere. Catching in his throat so that he is racked by coughing. Carnelian scratches at his eyes so as to see her clearly. A woman clothed in plates and clods of blood-red earth, shedding it in flakes and dust away on the wind. He grips her hand as a child would his mother’s. Smug, he gazes up at her, but the face she turns down to him is a grinning skull
.

Carnelian jerked awake, hugging the black cloak around him. It was a while before he fully surfaced from the dream. Morning was slipping in through high windows. He sat up, swinging his legs out so he could perch on the edge of the niche he had slept in. Lifted the pits of his knees away from the chill stone lip. He saw the wound in his thigh and was surprised how little he felt it. He looked towards the vast bed, bare of its silk and feather coverlets. Even from this distance he could smell its aura of lilies. Away across the chamber the hearth was now grey and cold because he had forbidden anyone to come to tend it while he slept.

He stared blindly, filled with dread. Was the dream a foretelling of the famine that was coming? A flash of anger. He had felt so certain he could work against it, but was it already too late? Was he fated to return to the outer world to do nothing more than witness the sartlar, driven by unbearable hunger, devouring each other? Fear rose in him. Was Ykoriana the woman with the skull face? In trusting her, had he committed a fatal error?

Submerged in a deluge, he stood trying to wash away the taint of the dream. The warm water was caressing life back into his body. He raised his arm against the pressure into the air space in the shelter of his bowed head. He looked at his hand as if he hoped to see some mark left by the dream woman’s clasp. Thinking of her brought Ebeny into his mind, made him yearn like a child to go to her. There was another pressing reason he must cross the Skymere: he needed to talk to his father before the revelation of his birth became common knowledge throughout Osrakum.

He emerged from the waterfall, dripping, onto the icy jade floor. The whole chamber was carved from the mossy stone into the appearance of rushes. The fall frothed into a pool, that cascaded into another into which more water poured. By means of steps, he ascended to a chamber of mirrors. Obsidian polished to the consistency of a midnight pool. Panels of silver and of gold. All held his ghosts as if in other places, other seasons. Ridges of white jade around the walls supported jars hollowed from jewels, vessels carved from stone like swirling smoke, racks of strigils and brushes made of feather filaments.

Unnerved by the crowd of himself, he left. Back in the bedchamber he moved towards the outer portals. There, on the floor, were the robes Marula had brought in when he had forbidden entry to the slaves sent to tend him. The folded bundles had in places come apart. Exquisite fabrics interwoven with metal threads, subtly patterned like lichens, like ripples on water, like high, feathery clouds. He stooped because his fingers were drawn to touch them. As smooth as lips or the moist-skin texture of petals. Then he saw the parchment sitting incongruously on a boulder of cloth. He plucked the letter up and turned it into the light. It had been sealed with a blood-ring. The double face of the House of the Masks. He peered at the name glyph. ‘Nephron,’ he said, surprised. He counted the blood-taint zeros. ‘Four.’ He frowned, remembering the last time he had seen a letter sealed thus. That ill-fated day when he had persuaded Osidian to go down into the Yden. It made him suspicious. Osidian’s blood-ring had been taken from him during the kidnapping. Could there have been time to make another? It was more likely to be one of Ykoriana’s tricks. Still. He broke open the letter and read.

Come, break your fast with me on sweet pomegranates as we did long ago.

Surely only Osidian possessed that knowledge? Carnelian turned the parchment to look upon the broken seal. It was Osidian’s ring so perhaps Ykoriana had sent it to him. Carnelian pondered the import of this. Surely such an act was to invite incrimination? So, done deliberately, it could be a sign of peace. There was hope in Ykoriana making herself so vulnerable. He sank his head, wondering if he dared believe in the proposals he had made the night before in the Pyramid Hollow, but still he could not wholly rid himself of the omen of his dream. He read the letter again, becoming uneasy at what expectations Osidian might be nurturing with that reference to their lovemaking in the Forbidden Garden.

Carnelian glanced at the seductive beauty of the robes. His skin longed for their touch, but he turned his back on them. Even if they had not been too complicated to put on without servants, they would encumber him on his journey. He wandered back to where he had left the green spiralled robe the ammonites had dressed him in. He slipped it on, put on his father’s mask and military cloak.

When he emerged from his chambers, his Marula guards rose, discarding the resplendent covers he had given them from his bed. Seeing him, their faces lit up as if he were come to save them. Their red eyes spoke of a fearful night. He saw one among them who had not been there the night before. Though he looked different with his head shaved, it was unmistakably Sthax. Carnelian was about to address him when a voice came rumbling from various directions at once. The Marula all jerked round to search the cavernous hall spreading off behind them. As the rumbling died away, though Carnelian knew it must be thunder sounding through the palace from the sky, he could not help fearing that the source of that voice was lurking somewhere close by. He was sure the Marula must feel – as he did – that they were intruders deep in the lair of some monstrosity that might at any time return.

He refocused on Sthax and was going to speak when the Maruli indicated a man half black, half white, kneeling, waiting. Carnelian approached him. ‘Have you come to guide me to the Jade Lord Nephron?’

‘I have, my Lord,’ said the Ichorian.

Carnelian saw that the questions he had for Sthax were going to have to wait. ‘Then lead on.’

Through immense spaces they wound their way. Rustling echoes made it seem they were being followed. Movements glimpsed from the corner of his eye, when looked at, revealed nothing but shadows looming in the penumbral gloom. Ghostly reflections accompanied them. Strange odours moistened the air. In some places they had to pass beneath the gaze of giants, whose faces could only be guessed at in the overarching darkness. Every surface was pierced with openings that gave shifting views of other, eerily lit worlds. Carnelian began to feel they were creeping through the carcass of some vast being that had been gnawed by the passage of massive worms.

At first, when he saw the procession approaching, he thought it nothing more than his own party reflected. But the Master who processed amidst a naked escort rose taller than did he. Besides, his robes were so massive they threatened to eclipse his mask of gold. Even as this apparition approached him, Carnelian knew by the heraldry of its crowns this must be Osidian.

The apparition brandished a pair of pale hands. ‘Ravenous, despairing that you would ever appear, my Lord, I came to meet you. I would eat before attending what is bound to be a dreary conclave with the Wise.’

Carnelian had to look up at him. Osidian’s new mask was the face of a beautiful boy, entranced. He wore ranga beneath his robes, the outer one of which seemed flowing naphtha. As he half turned away, its lustrous black sheened with iridescence. ‘I have brought a feast with me,’ Osidian said, pointing to the tail of his procession, where syblings bore a great variety of burdens. He made a vague gesture. ‘There is a spot not far from here where we might consume it in some comfort and seclusion.’

Carnelian regarded Osidian’s towering form with misgivings. He seemed a puppet being worked from a distance. Laughter coming from behind the puppet’s mask sounded forced. ‘Really, my Lord, you will have to get used to being Chosen again.’ He took in Carnelian’s green robe and rough military cloak with a mocking hand. ‘Why did you choose these rags in place of the gorgeous robes I sent you?’

Watching this performance, Carnelian became increasingly glad of the decision he had made. ‘Though you are kind to have thought of bringing breakfast, Celestial, time is pressing. The sooner I reach Coomb Suth, the sooner I can return.’

‘That would be inadvisable,’ said Osidian.

Carnelian could hear the tightness of anger in his voice. Almost he reminded Osidian of the oath he had sworn upon his blood, but first chose to give thought to what reasons Osidian might have for feeling angry. Beyond the emotional ones, Carnelian saw others more politic. ‘You fear my crossing the Skymere could antagonize the Great?’

‘Considering the coming revelations, it would be better, my Lord, were we to observe the accepted forms at least until I am invested with divine authority.’

With a sinking heart, Carnelian saw the logic in that. Nevertheless, he had to find a secure way to contact his father and was, besides, desperate to escape the Halls of Rebirth. He focused his mind on the politics and thought he could see a way out. ‘Be that as it may, Celestial, for reasons of safety it is incumbent upon us that we should maintain a separation between us.’

Osidian took some moments to answer. ‘I take your point, my Lord.’

‘Perhaps I could assume command of the huimur as they perform the functions that once were the Red Ichorians’.’ Carnelian paused here, realizing he was not entirely sure what those functions might be.