Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

His Lefthand muttered into his voice fork and the hawsers on Earth-is-Strong’s horns pulled her head round and she began to turn east.

‘The Standing Dead,’ exclaimed Poppy, pointing.

A vast gash seemed to be opening in Osrakum’s mountain wall that was guarded on either side by figures that might have been men except that those of flesh and blood were mere dust at their feet. Even through the rain Carnelian could see the brooding stare that those giants cast down upon the tributaries. Between them more and more of the Canyon they guarded was coming into view. The deeper he could see into that dark mouth, the greater grew his dread. After everything that had happened, it was miraculous that he should be here again, but it did not feel like any kind of homecoming. He glanced round, seeking some distraction. Perhaps he had hoped to see wonder in the faces of those he loved, at least for a moment, but there was only fear, as if they were looking upon the very gateway to the land of the dead. And why not? Once they went in, what hope had any of them of ever returning?

The ankle of one of the colossi slid past the starboard screen as an immense column of scabrous rock. They heard more than saw the walls of the Canyon funnelling together as the thunder of Earth-is-Strong’s footfalls reverberated, the judder of her tower and harness shivered and echoed. The scuffle of the palanquins following them was a constant scratching on their hearing. More disconcerting than this was a swelling roar. He had started to hear it when they were crossing the bridge over the Wheel moat into the Canyon mouth. The last time he had heard the Cloaca, it had been a murmur. It had been tame then; now it was carrying the run-off from the Skymere swollen by the Rains. The bass rumble reminded him of the Blackwater Falls in the Upper Reach. No doubt Morunasa would hear in that roar his god speaking.

Then he became aware of the twilight illuminating the turn up ahead. He knew what he would see when they rounded it, but even so, as it came into sight it shocked him. The vast hedge of bronze that filled the Canyon from side to side was holding back a glow of morning light but, in one place, this sombre dam was breached. Perhaps as much as a third of it had been torn down.

When Earth-is-Strong moved into the breach in the Green Gate there was more than enough space to spare. The ripped edges of the bronze thicket loomed, its blades and thorns like frayed threads. On their passage through what had been the first of three gates, chambers were exposed on either side like the hollows of a crushed snail shell. Torn floors hung in shreds. Doorways opening like wounds at various heights funnelled away into dark, still-secret recesses of the fortress. Propped up against these ruins were the gates themselves, two slabs of bronze rising higher than they could see. Carnelian had been told to expect this, but still he was appalled that Molochite had been prepared to demolish a part of Osrakum’s defences merely to indulge his whim to go to battle in the ancient relic of the Iron House. Was it his certainty of victory or, perhaps, his concern to maintain his majesty in comfort that had led him to this vandalism?

Once they were through the Gate, the Canyon opened up before them, its smooth floor running off towards the next turn. Carnelian looked for and found the Lords’ Way running in its groove in the cliff along which he had travelled in a chariot with his father. The roar of the Cloaca had become more remote as it had widened into a black chasm. He knew the shelves of the quarantine were down there somewhere. Remembering Tain’s description of his ordeal in that darkness, Carnelian resisted turning to look at him. Each day being moved to the next shelf down the Canyon before passing under the Blood Gate. His brother had thought the chasm a way down to the Underworld. At least, this time, neither Tain nor the rest of his people were going to have to endure that. Molochite’s breach in the Green Gate had already allowed the pollution of the outer world to reach deep into the Canyon. It was strange they had him to thank for their deliverance. Carnelian watched the next turn approaching and longed to reach the light flooding from it. What he really wanted was to save his people from quarantine altogether. He desired them to go immediately to their coomb with his father. He wanted to have them all as far away as possible from what was going to happen.

With each sway of the cabin, a tower had been solidifying in the twilight ahead, like the blade of some immense axe half embedded in the Canyon floor and splitting the Cloaca in two. The closer they came, the deeper Carnelian could see the roots of the tower going down into the fork of the chasm. As the tower reared above them, the spikes in its crown which he had taken for the ends of joists glimmered. He saw they were brass, these structures, shaped like the calyxes of lilies swelling their trumpet mouths down towards him. They were the throats of massive flame-pipes; passing under their gape, Carnelian imagined with horror what would happen to them should these weapons begin vomiting fire.

A lurching shift in the monster’s gait made him drop his gaze and see her turning to move onto a slab that spanned the nearest branch of the forking chasm. Under the looming flame-pipe tower, they crossed to the great oval space that lay within the embrace of the chasm branches and that was in the deep shadow of a vast rampart rising at its further end. A massive fortress, gloomy against the morning. Carnelian felt the hackles rising on his neck. He had seen this place before, though then, so close up, he had not fully appreciated its scale. This was the Blood Gate whose portals, he judged, would overtop a watch-tower of the Guarded Land as much as a Master did a sartlar. Gate-towers on either side rose loftier still. Disturbed, he remembered the instructions the Wise had given him before setting off. ‘Is there enough light?’

His Lefthand murmured into his voice fork, then, nodding a few times, turned to Carnelian. ‘Just enough, apparently, Seraph.’

‘Send the signal.’

As the man relayed the command to the mirrorman on the roof, Carnelian became aware of a glimmering coming as if from the sky. He rose from his chair and advanced towards the screen. Gripping it against the cabin sway he looked up. The towers swooped so high, he could not see their summits, but he saw they grew gills in which clusters of flame-pipes nested like worms. Together with the pipes on the tower behind them, the space upon which Earth-is-Strong was walking was a plain of death. Molochite had not, after all, left Osrakum undefended. In comparison to these structures, the Green Gate was nothing but a flimsy fence. Legions’ boast had not been vainglorious. Had Molochite chosen to remain behind these defences, he would have been invulnerable. Had Osidian dared bring his dragons in so far, they would have been incinerated.

Carnelian fought vertigo as, with a dull shudder, the gates began to open, making it seem the whole world was collapsing. Soon they were moving in between the receding cliffs of bronze. A spindle of grey light widened up ahead as the second pair of portals began to open. The walls of the fortress, its doors and tiers, grew increasingly substantial as their edges caught the light. Rows of tiny figures lined the avenue between the gates. Half-black they were, but not girded with the blood-red cloaks of the Ichorians who had once manned these gates. Instead their garments were green and black and their collars wintry in the gloom.

Carnelian had agreed to lead the funerary procession. Osidian wanted to bring up the rear in case he should have need to linger at the Blood Gate to ensure the Ichorians there swore fealty to him. He had no wish to become imprisoned in Osrakum as had been his fathers for centuries.