Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Carnelian glanced up as if woken. Fern was looking away from the Iron House towards Osrakum. There, coming along the road, were mirrored palanquins. The Wise. Osidian was tying on his mask with clumsy fingers, like a child hoping to conceal from a returning parent something he had broken.

Three Grand Sapients emerged from the mirror palanquins. Upon high ranga they stood, forbidding, their long faces of silver crowned with crescent moons. Each had a homunculus before him holding the staff of his Domain.

‘We greet you, Lord of the Three Lands,’ the homunculi chorused.

Osidian inclined his head a little to each in turn. ‘My Lord Tribute, my Lord Cities, my Lord Law.’

‘We would speak to you privately,’ said Law, through his homunculus.

‘None here can comprehend our tongue, save for the Lord Suth, and I would have him by my side, for this victory is as much his doing as mine.’

Carnelian glanced at Osidian, unsure if he was being given a share in the glory or the blame.

‘Suth Carnelian is unmasked,’ shrilled the homunculus.

‘Recently the Law has been much disobeyed,’ said Osidian with something of his old defiance.

The homunculi muttered an echo. Then Cities’ fingers began to flex around his voice’s throat. ‘And for that very reason does the Commonwealth stand in peril of dissolution.’

‘My Lords are as guilty of this as any here.’

‘We do not deny it, Celestial,’ said Tribute. ‘We come not to make recriminations, but to help you restore the Commonwealth.’

‘The legions that survive must return to their fortresses,’ said Cities.

‘The Seraphim must return to within the sanctity of the Sacred Wall,’ said Tribute.

‘You must resume your place at the centre of the world,’ said Law.

Osidian stood very still. ‘It is not for the conquered to dictate terms to their conqueror.’

‘Celestial,’ said Tribute, ‘we do not deny your right to rule, but if you are to have anything to rule over, then you must allow us to re-establish order.’

Osidian’s hands crushed to fists. ‘I will not submit to the Balance.’

‘And yet, a balance there must be,’ said Law.

Osidian’s hands opened. ‘Yes.’

‘We must recover the dead.’

Osidian nodded.

‘Has the God Emperor been found?’ asked Law.

As Osidian indicated where his brother lay, Law freed one of his cloven hands and gestured some quick commands. Ammonites poured forward so that, very quickly, Carnelian could no longer see Molochite at all as they wound him into a cocoon of green silk.

Law’s hand returned to move at the throat of his homunculus. ‘Even if we are to consider the Law suspended for the moment, to have any of the Seraphim exposed thus to animal eyes is folly; to have a consecrated God Emperor thus displayed is madness.’ The homunculus swept a hand to take in the people round about. ‘All these should be destroyed.’

Carnelian tensed, careful to avoid glancing in the direction in which he had sent his family off the road for fear of the Wise. He relaxed a little when he saw Osidian making a clear gesture of negation. ‘All here are of my household or of that of the Lord Suth. I will allow none to be executed.’

‘Is it possible, Celestial, you do not realize how much this diminishes you?’

Osidian chopped an angry gesture: Enough!

Silence fell, then Tribute’s fingers came alive again. ‘Have measures been taken to recover the dead from the battlefield?’

Osidian’s head had sunk so that his mask seemed to be contemplating the crack where two slabs in the road met. Seeing he was not going to answer, Carnelian spoke for him. ‘The legionary commanders have been instructed to bring them here.’

‘Who else has been recovered from the Iron House?’ said Cities’ homunculus.

‘The children of the Great, syblings and others of the court.’

‘No sign then of our colleagues who counselled the God Emperor?’

Carnelian shook his head.

‘Perhaps you will help me search, Suth Carnelian?’ said the homunculus.

Carnelian glanced at Osidian, still staring at the ground, then up at Cities’ blank silver face. He was not going to be able to stop the Wise conversing with Osidian alone. ‘As my Lord wishes.’

The Grand Sapient released the neck of his homunculus, who turned to place the Domain staff in his master’s left hand, then clasped the right. Together, Carnelian, Cities and the homunculus began moving towards where the bodies were laid out on the road. Looking again upon the faces of the dead children, Carnelian forgot everything else and was only woken from his sombre survey by the homunculus crying out. As it pulled its master off along the line of dead, Carnelian followed them. The corpse of the Grand Sapient lying on the road might have been long-withered. There was another beside it and, further along the line, beyond some ammonites, a third.

Standing before the first, Cities knelt, using his staff as a support. His homunculus guided his fingers to the corpse. The cloven hand touched the skull head, then rose, hesitating. The hand presented itself to the homunculus, who also hesitated. It shaped a command and the homunculus, peeled off the glove. The hand, naked, seemed opaque glass. It fell gently upon the face of the dead Grand Sapient, moving with painful delicacy down to feel the glyphs tattooed in a ring around the root of the missing ear. Cities gave the slightest nod, then rose and allowed himself to be guided to the next corpse. There he knelt again, to repeat the procedure. Another nod. This time he had to have help to rise, and leaned upon his homunculus as they moved to the final corpse. Cities knelt for a third time. His fingers tracing down the rucked skin around the eyepit with its jade stone began to tremble as they reached the ear root. There, they shook so much, the Grand Sapient was unable to read the tattoos. He released his hold on his staff, removed the glove from his left hand, then brought them both back to the skull head. Steadying his right hand with his left, he felt the side of the head, then collapsed onto the body.

The homunculus turned to Carnelian, stiff with panic. A hissing was coming from the prostrate Grand Sapient. A hissing that swelled into a harsh, tearing sound. The homunculus ran back to where the other two Grand Sapients were still standing before Osidian. Carnelian’s gaze returned to Cities who, back rounded and convulsing, seemed to be choking. Carnelian knelt beside him, tears starting in his eyes at the man’s grief. He looked in wonder at the Grand Sapient’s body being racked by the strange sobbing. At first he thought the mourning was for the passing of what were perhaps the most ancient creatures in the world, but then he realized it was this corpse alone that had provoked Cities’ prostration and he wondered whether, despite the detachment cultivated by the Wise, this was perhaps some kind of love. Through shared fate, their passing together through the ages, was it not possible some Sapients became like brothers? Or perhaps this was a father with his son, or a son mourning the death of his father? And moved by the thought, Carnelian stretched out to touch the grieving man.

Cities’ homunculus returned with ammonites and they drove Carnelian away from their master. He walked back towards Osidian, brooding over loss. As he came closer, he saw him watching the ammonites tending to Cities.

‘He mourns his fallen colleague,’ Carnelian said and was aware of Tribute’s and Law’s homunculi murmuring so that he knew their masters heard his words.

Some moments later Osidian gave a slight nod, as if he had only just registered what Carnelian had said. ‘We have been negotiating my Apotheosis. It shall be held in seven days’ time. They have kept the tributaries waiting in the City at the Gates. Tribute’s primary concern is that the awe of witnessing my ascension should replace what they have seen of our disunity and strife. He hopes that thus, at least for the moment, the outer ring of the Commonwealth will hold without need of further intervention.’