Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

‘You are now of the Masks, Carnelian.’

Carnelian thought it best to say nothing to that.

‘Where will you sleep?’

Carnelian shrugged. ‘Somewhere in the Plain of Thrones, I imagine.’

There was a long pause. ‘You will attend my Apotheosis?’

‘Of course.’

‘I will send you notification of the day on which the ceremony shall be held.’ Osidian extended an open hand. Upon his palm lay an iron ring. ‘You may as well have this.’

Carnelian took the ring, noticing that Osidian wore one on his own hand. ‘Your mother sent them both to you?’

Osidian made a gesture of affirmation. ‘It seems she really does intend to keep our bargain.’

Carnelian examined the edge of his ring. It was indeed his, the same Aurum had brought to their island.

‘Of course, that ring is a lie. We shall have to get a new one made.’

Carnelian considered that. ‘But, for the moment, I shall wear this one.’ He put it on. Its weight upon his little finger brought back a time long past.

At the edge of some immense hall, where their shuffling produced the faintest echoes, Carnelian called a halt and drew Sthax into some shadows to talk to him. ‘Why did you appear this morning?’

‘Oracle trust I.’

‘Morunasa?’

Sthax nodded.

‘Why?’

Sthax opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, looked to the floor as if he might find the words there. His face came up bright-eyed. He brandished his spear. ‘We is this for Oracle.’

Carnelian thought he understood. Like the Masters, the Oracles did not really see their subjects, did not imagine they had any volition of their own. He regarded Sthax. Of course, he could be playing some cunning double game of his own but, in his heart, Carnelian trusted him and believed Sthax sought nothing but the salvation of his people.

Carnelian removed his mask, then, a phrase at a time, he explained how he was to be given power over the outer world and, with some difficulty, about the Apotheosis that was its only precondition. This last concept caused them both a lot of difficulty, for Sthax knew nothing of the Rebirth, never mind the politics of the Masters.

When Carnelian was done, he gave Sthax time to digest it all, then asked him: ‘Will you do something for me?’

For some moments, Sthax examined Carnelian’s eyes, then gave a nod of agreement, and Carnelian began to coach him in the message he wanted him to carry.

Gazing down into the Labyrinth, Carnelian’s heart misgave. With the Shimmering Stair unlit, the columned cavern of the Labyrinth had become a haunt for shadows. The Marula were huddling together, averting their eyes from the view. Carnelian asked Sthax to reassure them he was going to lead them back to the light. The hope Sthax gave them unbowed their backs. Carnelian nodded in satisfaction, then began the descent into the gloom.

After an interminable shuffling through the tunnel, Carnelian’s lantern light found some feet in the darkness ahead. Jerking its beam up, he saw a Sapient waiting with his homunculus. Behind them he could see the closed portals of the Forbidden Door.

‘I am Carnelian-’ It was unlikely the Wise knew about his true birth yet. He must avoid causing unnecessary confusion. ‘Suth Carnelian… and you, Sapient?’

‘A Fifth of Labyrinth, Seraph,’ sang the homunculus in such an unhuman voice that the Marula around Carnelian began to tremble. ‘We were not informed of your coming,’ said the little man, as he cast sharp eyes upon the black men.

‘The Lord Nephron has sent me to oversee the preparations for receiving those who must attend his Apotheosis.’

‘Still, it is my masters who have set me to guard this portal, Seraph. They must be consulted.’ Though the Fifth’s fingers continued to work at the neck of the homunculus, he said no more. Disengaging from his master, he disappeared into an opening in the wall.

As Carnelian waited, he gazed past the Sapient at the Forbidden Door, hungry for the daylight that lay beyond. When the homunculus returned, he drew his master’s hands up to his throat, murmured something, then fell silent. Carnelian waited for the little man to speak, but he stood, eyes downcast, as still as his master. At last Carnelian could bear it no longer. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’

The homunculus echoed him, then the Fifth’s fingers began to flex. ‘Instructions from my masters, Seraph.’

Carnelian felt choked with frustration. No doubt the Grand Sapients were already deep in conclave with Osidian. ‘Open the door or else I shall have it opened myself.’

The homunculus was soon voicing his master’s protests, but Carnelian made it clear he would not be defied. Eventually, the Sapient bowed to his will, and stepped aside as the doors opened, releasing a flood of light. Blind, Carnelian walked out into the day, the Marula stumbling in their eagerness to follow him.

Carnelian sat upon rugs that ammonites had rolled out on ground first purified with their blue fire. He had chosen to wait there because he did not wish to subject himself or the Marula to another cleansing when they returned to the Labyrinth. He was watching more ammonites laving Earth-is-Strong. The dragon rose from their midst like a sea stack. She was being prepared to purify a path all the way to the Great Causeway with her flame-pipes. Carnelian had decided not to command her himself. Instead he had summoned his Lefthand and instructed him to do so.

When the sun burned its way through the clouds, in spite of the assurances he had given Osidian Carnelian was glad to feel its warmth upon his skin. The shadows cast by the flesh-tithe cages had almost entirely shrunk away. Dragons formed lines down either side of the Black Field, which now looked like just another military camp, but it was to the centre of the plain beyond that his eyes kept being drawn.

He gazed between the gate stones, through the outer fence of commentary stones, across the inlaid, cobbled floor to the inner, double ring of the Dance. There, almost completely hidden by the outer stones, he could just glimpse the edge of one of the green stones of the innermost ring.

He had approached the Stone Dance of the Chameleon along a road burnt black by Earth-is-Strong’s flame-pipes and still warm beneath his feet. The Fifth had been scandalized at his insistence on proceeding barefoot, but had failed to persuade him to use a palanquin. When he had reached the place where the road divided around the Dance, he had waited for the dragon’s thunder to fade away and for the boiling clouds of naphtha smoke to subside. The rings of stones had emerged as if from a mist. Fascinated, he had approached the pair that stood guard upon the road running from the Forbidden Door into the Dance. He had seen that, there, entry to its heart was between a red and a black stone. For some reason he had felt he did not want to enter that way. Instead he had led Sthax and the other Marula round until they had arrived at where the road spoked off towards the House of Immortality.

He glanced in that direction, straining to make out any details that might show where it lay in the cliff wall of the Plain of Thrones. He could see nothing. To the north-east, the pall of smoke being produced by Earth-is-Strong’s pipes was trailing its fraying banner round the outer edge of the Dance. Sthax’s tiny figure was following the dragon and her fire. Carnelian frowned, feeling the message Sthax was carrying was a poor substitution for a visit. Among other things, he had sent for some of his people. While he waited for them he wanted to explore. Motioning the Marula to stand guard upon the gate stones, he passed between them and entered the Dance.

Between two commentary stones, Carnelian stood gazing across the cobbled ground to the inner rings. The pale mosaic confused his eyes. He was reminded of the bone traceries of an Ancestor House, but this work was more subtle. Tendrils of stone snaked across the floor, crossing and recrossing each other like seaweed abandoned by a tide. Nodules studded the design and it was embedded with rings of smoothed stone and small panels. At first he had taken it all to be marble, but he began to see the grain and shades of different stones and how portions and paths were tinted variously by lichens.