Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

‘You have,’ said Carnelian, still finding it hard to believe Osidian was his brother.

Osidian’s mask turned to Fern standing beside him. As it lingered, the menace of its imperious face seemed to intensify. Glancing at Fern, Carnelian saw his rising anger.

‘You’ve won, then,’ he said to Osidian.

The mask stayed fixed on Fern a moment longer, then turned to Carnelian. ‘You have no mask, my Lord?’

Carnelian felt the Quya like a threat. He raised his father’s mask so that Osidian could see it. ‘I no longer feel I want to hide behind a mask,’ he said in Vulgate.

‘But the Law…’ Osidian’s voice sounded softer in Vulgate so that Carnelian was certain he could hear some doubt in it.

‘You- we shattered the Law there upon that battlefield.’

Osidian half glanced round as if he could only bear to look upon it with a single eye.

‘Did you cause that carnage merely to restore things to the way they were?’

Osidian’s mask turned back, but he gave no answer.

‘You must make a new Law.’

Osidian regarded the Iron House. ‘I must know beyond doubt my victory is complete.’

‘Do you seek your brother’s body?’

‘We must recover all our Chosen dead.’

Carnelian remembered the Master he and Fern had seen lying dead on the battlefield, unmasked, sartlar staring down at him. ‘The commanders too?’

‘I have already set the Lesser Chosen that task.’

Carnelian glanced towards the battlefield, where he could see the ridges of the dead and, for a moment, he imagined the Lesser Chosen commanders seeking the Lords, dead in their towers. Gathering those bodies was not a task they could delegate to their minions.

Osidian was beckoning the Marula. Carnelian watched him. There was a disturbing stillness about him and no sign of the elation he had expected. ‘You wish to bind the Lesser Chosen to your cause by miring them with the blood of your victory?’ he said, wishing to probe behind Osidian’s impassive exterior.

‘And to keep them occupied while I negotiate with the Wise and the Great,’ said Osidian, who was gazing off towards the Iron House.

Carnelian could see the strategic sense of it. ‘What did you offer them yesterday to have them stand down?’

‘Blood from my own House.’

‘And they are to bring the dead they salvage here?’

Osidian gave a distracted nod. Carnelian saw his intention: Osidian would gather all the Powers here, so that he might negotiate terms with them within sight of his victory over them. Carnelian was reminded of Osidian standing astride the ravener he had slain and of the power that had given him over the Ochre – and how, ultimately, he had used that power.

Carnelian’s stream of thought was muddied by the approach of the summoned Marula. They were Oracles, among whom was Morunasa. There was malice in the glance the man gave him, but also fear. Clearly, Morunasa had never imagined he would see Carnelian again. Did he fear that Carnelian had told Osidian that it was Morunasa who had let them go? Osidian was telling Morunasa and the other Oracles that they must find a way into the Iron House. He was indicating where the drawbridge stair was slightly ajar and how they might enter that way.

‘Bring me all the bodies you find in there.’

As they watched Morunasa and the other Oracles moving away, Carnelian was frowning. ‘There will be a lot of bodies.’

Osidian turned on him. ‘How could you know that?’

‘Before the battle I was there with Molochite.’

Carnelian sensed Osidian wanted to know more. He frowned, haunted, imagining the interior of the Iron House. ‘All the children.’

‘Children?’ Osidian’s voice betrayed the first colourings of emotion.

Carnelian explained how Molochite had with him the children of the Great, presumably as hostages for the good behaviour of their fathers commanding in the battle. As he did so he saw a rigor taking over Osidian’s body.

‘You did not know?’

Osidian seemed lifeless.

While they brought Heart-of-Thunder up towards the door of the Iron House, Carnelian described to Osidian something of his time there. He was not sure Osidian was listening and it seemed he was not, for he said nothing when Carnelian fell silent. As its keeper kept the dragon still, Marula scrambled up its horns and onto its head, and from there managed to clamber up into the open gap of the drawbridge stair and so gain entry into the Iron House. Some time later, the chains began to be paid out and the stair, jerkily, fell, until one corner of it clanged into the stone of the road.

The first corpse to be brought out from the black maw of the Iron House was that of a sybling pair. The Marula carrying the dead twins leaned away from them, as if they feared some contamination. Though blackened, it was clear the syblings were male. Carnelian was relieved it was not the Quenthas. When a second sybling pair was carried down, Morunasa came ahead, to report the stairs within the Iron House choked with bodies. Carnelian and Osidian hardly heard him, focused as they were on the dead syblings. Curling in on each other, they held within their embrace the body of the Chosen infant they had been trying to protect. Soon more small bodies were being brought out and laid upon the stone. Once beautiful children, blackened, but unburnt, faces scrunched up, eyes slivers, mouths opened as if singing. Some of the small bodies clung to each other so desperately they were brought out by the Marula as knots of limbs. The warriors frowned carrying them, putting them down as if they were glass.

Carnelian became trapped in looking from face to face. When he tore his eyes away, he saw Poppy gazing at the dead children with a rapt expression, as if she was listening to something they were saying. He became aware Osidian was unmasking. His face, revealed, seemed weathered marble in the rain. He was muttering something.

‘What?’ Carnelian asked.

‘I thought I had already paid the price for victory.’

This stung Carnelian to anger. ‘What exactly did you pay?’

Osidian gazed at him, pale, wild-eyed. ‘They will blame this on me.’

‘And why should they not?’ Carnelian said and his anger turned to despair. His own hands were not clean of this.

The flow of children ceased at the same time as the rain. As the Marula penetrated the upper levels of the Iron House, Carnelian and the others were left to stand guard upon the dead. Then the Iron House began to disgorge more corpses. Chosen and syblings, their gorgeous armour and robes stained black with their faces and limbs, some clutching at their throats as if seeking to strangle themselves. Their jewels now seemed tainted tomb goods.

Then Carnelian saw them bringing out a body sheathed in dull silver. As he approached it, he saw Osidian was already there watching it being put down. Molochite’s beautiful, cruel face was distorted by a grimace that combined horror and surprise. Osidian gazed down upon his brother, eyes wide and bleak. Carnelian looked from one face to the other, marvelling at how alike they were. He recalled how much his own features resembled theirs, and why. He too looked down at a dead brother, but was glad to find he felt nothing but disgust. Turning back to Osidian, he saw his gaze transforming to a staring panic. He tried in vain to gauge the cause in the sight before him, then realized it was not what Osidian was seeing, but what he was not seeing. The face that had been hidden behind the Masks during the Apotheosis emitted no light. It was the face of a dead man, not a dead god.

Osidian pulled away and clutched hold of a Maruli whom Carnelian recognized, with shock and distracted relief, as Sthax. Osidian shook him. ‘Where is it? Tell me now!’

Sthax tried to shake his head and opened his mouth, so that Carnelian feared the Maruli might be about to give himself away by speaking in Vulgate, but suddenly Osidian cast him aside. Morunasa was there, trying to calm Osidian, who began rattling out some command. Morunasa listened to him for a while, nodding, then barked an order to one of his men. Carnelian saw his family witnessing how close Osidian seemed to madness. At last two Marula warriors approached him opening their hands. He looked down with horror at what they were offering him. Shards of what appeared to be green ice. Pieces of jade. Osidian plucked these from the black hands and frantically seemed to be attempting to join them together. Then with an eruption of rage, he cast the pieces to the ground. Some shattered into smaller fragments, or skittered over the paving. A single piece came to rest near Carnelian’s foot. He stooped to pick it up. Its translucence was like the sun through leaves. His finger felt its sinuous curve. It was the bridge of a nose and twin prongs of cheek and brow that had enclosed the hollow of an eyeslit. A piece of the Jade Mask. Through that gap, God Emperors had looked out upon their perfect world for a thousand years.