Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

The dirty, pale pyramids the sartlar were dragging, with their baroque hollows, were dragon heads stripped of flesh. Gouged-out eyes had left caves a child could curl up in. These skulls pebbled the slurry of sartlar creeping along the Canyon floor. Enough skulls to account for all the dragons of all the legions. Carnelian felt a pang at the loss of those colossal creatures, which, in spite of the terror they had brought, were just more victims of the Masters’ lust for dominion. The feeling passed and he became eerily calm. The power of the Masters was broken and, somehow, he had known this was going to happen. The sartlar had wanted the legions summoned. Starving, unable to reach food, they had had the greatest store of living flesh in the Commonwealth come to them. With chilly certainty, he knew the pale standards the sartlar bore must be Masters, on frames, crucified. The commanders who had sat aloft, imperious, upon their ivory thrones, were now spreadeagled naked, alive or dead. He wondered whether the sartlar were carrying them in the hope the Masters would not hurl fire down upon them. More likely it was a terrible sign of their defiance.

Consternation was spreading like flames across the summits of the Blood Gate towers. Carnelian turned from the sartlar victory procession to the Masters round him. Hands, frozen in gestures of disbelief and outrage, had lost their capacity for shaping words. Masks turning from the spectacle below gazed upon each other, as if hoping to deny the truth, or to return things to their proper compass: a time already receding when it had been the right of the Chosen to determine all things. Elegant voices strained like strings on an instrument overstretched. A strangely remote observer, Carnelian wondered if it was the silent ones in the midst of the cacophony that were causing his hackles to rise; for among the gathered Chosen were some who seemed turned to stone. No, it was something else that was scaring him. He identified it. The smell of fear; that familiar, sweaty odour that emanated as an aura from slaves in the presence of Masters. Except, this time, the smell was almost masked by attar of lilies. It was the Masters who were afraid. That realization shocked him awake. Always, they were dangerous, but Masters cornered, terrified – he would rather confront raveners.

He became aware of a homunculus staring at him; they all were. He felt a surge of hope: the Wise would know what to do. Then he saw how their fingers hung around the throats of their homunculi like the discarded moult of their living hands. Legions’ fingers had let go entirely and were kneading each other in a slow, rolling motion. Carnelian shook his head to free himself of any hold the pleading eyes of the homunculi had on him. He backed away, turned and made for one of the openings that gave access to the strata below. In his mind there was but a single, beacon thought: he must find Fern.

On the balcony, Fern’s body was stopping light from entering their cell. He turned as Carnelian approached. ‘It’s the end.’

Carnelian squeezed through to stand beside him. As they gazed down at the sartlar, he became aware of a gurgling sound rising from the blackness of the Cloaca. He thought he could see faint flecks of reflected light down there where that dark river ran, almost beyond the gaze of the living, as if it were in the Underworld. Snatches of his dreams seeping into his mind caused an idea to coalesce.

‘There is nothing that can be done,’ said Fern.

Carnelian raised his attention from the depths. It was hard to focus on something as close, as alive as Fern’s face. Fern clearly was hoping to be contradicted. The idea was a seed of hope. ‘We need to get to my father’s house.’

‘To die?’

Carnelian regarded Fern and, again, hope stirred within him, but it was yet too small a thing to admit into the light. ‘To be with our loved ones, but we must move fast.’ He threw his head up to indicate the tower roof. ‘Soon the Masters will be flooding back into the Mountain.’

Fern’s grim nod made Carnelian sure they both understood the danger. ‘Let’s go then. If we’re going to die, I’d rather do it with other Plainsmen.’

Fern slipped back into the shadowy cell. Carnelian glanced down into the Cloaca, then followed him.

Sthax and some Marula were outside the door. Carnelian had been so focused on Fern that he had passed through them almost without seeing them. He realized how much he might have need of them. Besides, he had not forgotten the promise he had made to Sthax. If he commanded them to come with him, they might obey, though he could not imagine they would be eager to return deeper into the Mountain. But he would give no command: in what was coming they must have the freedom to determine their own fate. So he began explaining to Sthax what he knew. Describing the disaster made it rise more terrible before him.

Carnelian became aware of the lack of surprise in Sthax’s face. ‘You already knew this?’

The Maruli nodded heavily, his bright eyes never leaving Carnelian’s face. Carnelian felt a thrill of cold fear. If Sthax knew, the Ichorians must know too. How far had the news spread its cancer through the fortress? He focused on Sthax. ‘What will you do?’

‘What you want we dos?’

Carnelian felt he was being tested. He explained that he and Fern were going to his coomb. ‘Will you come with us?’

‘You plan?’

Carnelian could no more answer him than he had been able to answer Fern. What he had was less than a plan, merely a course of action suggested to him by a dream. He was reluctant to even voice it yet. ‘We’re all trapped.’

Sthax nodded again, but distractedly, gazing intensely at Carnelian, who felt the man was trying to penetrate to what was in his heart. Sthax nodded, seeming satisfied. He consulted the other warriors, then turned back. ‘We comes you.’

Carnelian was touched by Sthax’s trust and reached out to grip his shoulder. Then he passed by him, through the rest of the Marula, making for the first flight of steps.

Approaching the dark cliff of the eastern gate, Carnelian came to a halt when an Ichorian challenged him. He pulled open his cowl so that they could see his face.

‘Celestial,’ they whispered as they knelt.

Carnelian regarded the obeisance with a kind of regret, sensing it had already become a courtesy from a lost world. He raised them with his hand. ‘Have other Seraphim been here before me?’

As they shook their heads, Carnelian looked at them. He could sense nothing in their demeanour that would suggest the news had reached them. As, at his bidding, they opened a door in the gate, he considered giving them a command to let none pass: neither Chosen, nor of the Wise. He decided against it. These poor bastards would soon have enough to contend with. Why make them, unnecessarily, objects of wrath? He would have liked to have taken them with him, but it was already going to be nigh impossible to save the few he hoped to save. As he focused on who those were, he perceived his new identity to be no more than a disguise. His heart beat faster: he was going home, to see his father and Ebeny who were, in every way that counted, his parents.

They passed through the door into the vastness of the Canyon throat beyond, which was in shadow halfway to the Black Gate. The hidden valley of Osrakum seemed a bright, unattainable vision outwith the cares of the world.

As they walked away from the door, Carnelian focused on the solid reality of the camp that clothed the wedge of the Blood Gate rock as far as the two bridges. Though to call it a camp was to flatter it. Clumps of men huddling together among the pathetic shelters they had managed to improvise with their spears and cloaks. Their Masters had left them there without even a few sticks to make a fire. Anger flared in him against the mighty who had so thoughtlessly abandoned their own. He quenched his compassion: he could no more save these men than he could the Ichorians. They watched him and the Marula pass, with eyes that peered out between the bars and strokes of the tattoos that showed who owned them. Their world was ending just as much as was their Masters’. His blood ran cold when he thought what cruelties their Masters might inflict on them to assuage their own fear. Then he saw how numerous they were, that they had swords and fanblades, helmets and armour, and a different dread swelled in him. What kept these men subservient to their Masters’ whims, other than terror of their power? He made an effort to keep his pace steady, his posture erect, imperious. All the time his mind raced: what now the power of the Masters was broken?