Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Carnelian glanced round at Sthax. They had made promises to each other. Hope lay in the trust between them. Sthax addressed the Marula. His voice carried with the clicks and throaty syllables of their speech. The Marula listened to him, their eyes flashing from Sthax to Carnelian, gripping and regripping their lances. When Sthax fell silent, Carnelian watched the Marula whispering among themselves. He recognized some of them. He remembered training them in the Upper Reach to fight in the formation they now used against him; he remembered fighting on the ground at their side against Osidian’s mounted charges. Perhaps they too remembered this, because their lances began to rise as they moved aside.

Passing through the Marula Carnelian gazed up at the shadowy colossus to which they had been barring access. It was just another column of the Labyrinth, just another sarcophagus, in which lay the mummy of a God Emperor. It had the shape of a man, though one upon whose brow sat vaulting that seemed a stormy sky. It could have been the Black God incarnating as a column of smoke. Or was it the Darkness-under-the-Trees? The face of the colossus was hidden in the shadows of the roof, but Carnelian had the distinct impression he was gazing down with eyeless wrath. His arms crossed upon his chest reminded Carnelian of Legions in his capsule. The Standing Dead.

As he advanced, his gaze slid down the stone torso, the thighs each as mighty as a great tree. Between the ankles stretched what appeared to be a net upon which many fish were caught. His stomach clenched as he remembered the men hung up in the Isle of Flies.

Figures were emerging from between the feet of the colossus. Pallid creatures that seemed a mockery of the Chosen. He glanced to either side and saw with what terror the Marula warriors regarded the approach of these ashen men. Sthax said something to them in a soothing tone. He gave Carnelian a nod. The Oracles were close enough for him to see their ghostly faces. He wondered from where the ashes had come which they had rubbed upon their skin. They bared their sharpened teeth, eyes red with rage. They hissed at the warriors, spittle running down their chins. Carnelian felt the warriors begin to cower. Then, as a blur, someone sped past him, arm drawn back, and plunged the lance it held into one of the Oracles so violently the spearhead erupted out of his back. A look of surprise on the man’s face as he plucked at the shaft jutting from his belly. Surprise too on the faces of his peers. Their ashen faces blanked with fear. Carnelian felt the warriors round him tensing. Their nostrils were distending as if they were smelling blood. They sprang. Soon the Oracles were encompassed by gleaming black flesh. Elbows made sharp angles and straightened as if, within their circle, they were pounding flour.

Carnelian moved on, the iron odour of fresh blood wafting in the air. The Quenthas were at his left, Fern at his right. At the feet of the colossus, more eerie figures were rising. Hanging on the netting above them, children pocked with wounds. Closer, Carnelian saw Oracles lying along the hollows between the toes of the colossus. Hearing the slap of pursuing feet, he turned to see Marula rushing up. His eyes found Sthax’s. ‘Can you control them?’

Sthax barked an order and Carnelian was reassured when the warriors slowed, though their eyes kept questing, hungry for more bloodshed. The Oracles confronting them looked terrified.

Carnelian half turned. ‘Tell them their lives will be spared if they submit to me.’

Sthax stepped forward to harangue the Oracles. Glancing back with shame, the ashen men crept forward and fell on their knees before Carnelian.

‘Take care of them, Sthax,’ Carnelian said, then stepped round the prone men, for, in the cave between the legs of the colossus, he had seen a single, pallid figure rising. He knew Morunasa by his proud bearing. As he neared the Oracle, Carnelian saw the ghostly shape of a Master lying naked on a bier at his feet. Even though the face was shadow, Carnelian knew it was Osidian.

Morunasa fixed him with crazed eyes. ‘Come closer and I’ll slay him.’

Carnelian glanced quickly to either side to make sure his companions knew to halt. He turned back to Morunasa. ‘If you harm him, your people will surely die.’

Morunasa gave a dry laugh, his lips curling up to reveal his needle teeth. His head jerked up. ‘What do I care for these traitors?’

‘ All your people will die.’

The cold grin died on Morunasa’s face to be replaced by a haunted look. Carnelian felt his heart stirring for this man at bay. ‘I’ve already promised him-’ He glanced round at Sthax, who was approaching. ‘Promised them all,’ he said, with a gesture taking in all the Marula warriors, ‘that I’ll do everything I can to save those in the Lower Reach.’

He held Morunasa’s gaze as the man tried to see into his heart. Morunasa seemed to find what he sought, for his head dropped and the tension left his limbs. He looked down at Osidian, who Carnelian realized was wearing the oily Obsidian Mask. Morunasa lifted his head, smiling defiantly, but Carnelian could see the man had little fight left in him. Morunasa raised his arms, bared his ravener teeth, then, with a lunge and a vicious twist of his head, he tore first one of his wrists open, then the other. His arms dropped, blood glistening in cords down his pale palms, to pour in skeins from his fingers. Instinctively Carnelian brought his own scabbed wrists together as if he were feeling Morunasa’s pain. He stepped forward, his foot slipping on the blood pooling around Morunasa’s feet. He held the man’s gaze once more, then knelt beside Osidian. His scrutiny took in the new wounds they had cut to put in the maggots, patterning the white flesh between the shadows of the old scars. He gazed at the gleaming, perfect black face that made it seem as if Osidian was one with the colossus towering above them. He reached forward to remove it, wanting to throw it away, to look upon Osidian’s face.

‘No! It is forbidden!’ cried an unhuman voice.

Carnelian turned and saw a homunculus watching him, the figure of his master rising behind with his long silver mask. He considered for a moment defying the Sapient even as he questioned his fear at giving them back their power. He answered himself: Enough of the world is already broken. He became aware other homunculi were moving past him into the shadows beyond. Then he saw the frieze of what seemed skulls beneath the colossus. Grand Sapients. The Twelve slumped against the stone of the column, the odour of excrement and urine coming off them.

‘Let’s get him out of here.’

Carnelian saw it was Fern. They lifted Osidian between them and carried him out of the gloom. As they laid him down, Fern put an ear to his chest. He looked up. ‘He lives.’

Carnelian nodded, but was watching the Grand Sapients being helped up by their homunculi. The ancients leaned upon them like infirm parents. But even as they rose, their hands quested for their children’s throats. The homunculi began to make sounds, half-words, mutterings, as if their masters, drowning, through them were coming up gulping for air.

Carnelian looked up at the small bodies on the netting. They were covered with the fresh wounds into which maggots had been introduced. Some of them had their eyes open, glassy with terror. He left Osidian to Fern, called for Sthax and soon Marula were swarming up to free the children. Carnelian watched, agonized, as one by one they were released, passed down from hand to hand. As he caught a little girl, he winced at how cold and clammy she was; at the tremor in her tiny body.

Even as he helped, his attention was more and more being drawn to the Wise. They had regained their composure. The Twelve, in a line, were confronted by another line of Sapients. Between them, a double interface of homunculi. The Grand Sapients were reconnecting to their Domains. As Carnelian approached them, still reviewing his decision, he heard the rattling vocalizations of the homunculi. A constant, frantic stream of apparently meaningless syllables interspersed with the muttering of the Grand Sapients’ receptive homunculi, through whose throats their masters were receiving who knew what volume of data. Carnelian glanced back at Osidian, lying inert. He refocused on the Wise. It was up to him. Should he try to take control of them? If he did not, how might they take advantage of the situation?