Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Shadow had now reached across the crater to turn the whole Skymere into an obsidian mirror. All around its rim the lit coombs formed a necklace of stars. Carnelian’s hand rose, his fingers finding the scar that the slave rope had left around his neck. No less was this collar of palaces a scar about the neck of the peoples of the earth. Wonder died in him. Let the Masters and all their works perish.

Coomb Suth was so much murkier than the other coombs they had passed that, as they slid towards it, fear gnawed at Carnelian that it had already become a tomb. A flickering thread of pinprick lights winding down towards the lake revived his spirits: people were coming to the visitors’ quay to meet them. He searched within the arc of moving lamps for the carved pebble beach upon which he had landed on that first visit so long ago. He recalled a jade pebble, its spiral cracked in two. He could not remember if, then, he had seen it as an omen. A lurid red glimmer reflected from the sky showed the beach submerged. It seemed that, after all, news of a sort from the Blood Gate had reached here before him.

As the bone boat curved a course to present her port bow to the quay, Carnelian and Fern pushed through the Marula. Reaching the bow, he saw lamp-lit faces watching the boat nuzzle into the quay. He felt a burst of love. These were his people, and not only because they wore the chameleon that made him feel a child again, but because the faces beneath those tattoos were Plainsman.

He watched Fern’s eyes and wondered if his frown meant he was seeing his own, lost Tribe. Feeling the first touch of grief, Carnelian turned away from it, put on a smile, threw his hood back so the people on the quay could see his face. As they recoiled, he gasped, for an instant fearing he had done something wrong; realizing he had not, even as a familiar voice spoke up. ‘Can’t you see it’s the Master’s son?’

Carnelian located his brother among the guardsmen and relaxed as Tain led them to kneel upon the stone. The bone boat juddered as it touched the quay. Carnelian was surprised to see how far below the level of the deck it was, but thinking no further on it, swung himself round one of the mooring posts and jumped down onto the quay. As he landed, he realized that, of course, it was the lake that was higher. The corpse dam had raised its level further than he had supposed. He was going to have longer to wait for it to drain to the level he needed. On the other hand it might give him more time to sort matters out in the coomb.

He straightened, approached his brother and, stooping, drew him close and, to Tain’s surprise, kissed him.

Tain, at first flustered by this breach of decorum, was soon grinning. ‘Carnie.’

‘Brother.’ Carnelian told them all to get up and Tain’s grin spread among them as he greeted those he recognized by name. Tain shocked them all by barking a command that brought everyone back into formal order. Though startled, Carnelian regained his smile: Tain had acquired something of the manner of their eldest brother, Grane.

‘You’ll be wanting to see the Master.’

Carnelian nodded, feeling a grimness come upon him, glad now that Tain had tamed the informality. Fern landed with a thump on the quay. Carnelian urged the Suth tyadra to move back from the boat, then motioned the Marula to disembark. He noticed Tain sending a messenger back up to the palaces. Further along the quay, the rest of the warriors were disembarking from the second bone boat. Carnelian asked Sthax to leave ten of his men, then to take the rest and go with the guardsmen. ‘Make sure you keep them under control. I’ll send for you as soon as I can.’

The man gave him a sober nod. Carnelian put the ten selected warriors under Fern’s command. He felt perfectly safe among the tyadra, but he wanted to make sure Sthax did not feel he and his people had been forgotten. No more did he want Fern to feel ignored, a barbarian, among the guardsmen. These arrangements made, he followed Tain away from the quay.

‘When will we be receiving more food, Master?’ said Tain.

Carnelian did not know how to answer that. ‘How much hunger is there here?’

His brother shrugged. ‘We’ve known for more than a month that resupply was likely to be delayed. Since then we’ve been rationing the stores. Still, things are getting tight.’ He grinned, wanly. ‘Those who suffered hunger in the Hold after we left keep saying this is nothing. The Master’s made sure everyone’s given a share appropriate to their need.’

Carnelian looked at Tain. ‘Everyone?’

His brother nodded with satisfaction. ‘The Masters too. Even himself.’

Carnelian saw the pain tensing Tain’s face, but turned away. He did not want to learn more about their father just then. ‘How tight?’

Tain made a face. ‘For more than ten days we’ve had nothing to eat but that stuff from the “bellies”.’

‘Render,’ Carnelian said and saw in Fern’s face he was sharing their disgust. ‘What about the mood of our people?’

Tain leaned closer. ‘There’s unease among the tyadra and between the households.’

Carnelian remembered Opalid’s animosity. ‘How secure are our people?’

Tain eyed him cautiously. ‘From the others?’ Then, when Carnelian nodded, ‘Keal keeps guards on all the gates between our halls and theirs. We’ve turned ours into a fortress.’

‘Ebeny? Poppy?’

Tain smiled. ‘As safe as worms in an apple.’

As they walked on in silence, the warmth that came from the thought of seeing Poppy and Ebeny again was slow to fade. Their scuffling footfalls echoing back from distant walls made it seem they were creeping through vast caverns.

Carnelian jumped when Tain spoke. ‘Why’s the lake rising?’

‘It’s already falling.’

Tain nodded as if Carnelian had given him an extensive explanation. Carnelian sensed his brother was building up to something.

‘More than a month ago smoke started drifting out from the Canyon right out over the water. A few days later we heard you’d taken control of the Blood Gate.’

‘Who told you that?’ Carnelian said, anxious that news of the disaster might have reached Coomb Suth already.

‘Some Masters came to visit Father. We talked to their tyadra.’

Carnelian judged they must have come to ask his father to attend the Clave. What had they told him about what was going on?

Tain broke into his musing. ‘The second time they came, Master Opalid left with them.’

‘What happened when he returned?’

‘He went straight to Father.’

Carnelian nodded. His heart sank. His father would know about the summoning of the legions, then, but it was he who was going to have to tell him about their destruction. And about the part he had played in all of this.

‘How is he?’

Tain’s face tensed again. ‘Weak and spending most of his time alone.’

Carnelian nodded, sad. ‘That’s him all right.’

‘Even Keal hardly sees him.’

‘Ebeny?’

‘Mother tends to him when he lets her.’ Tain glanced at him. ‘She’d love to see you.’

‘I’ll go to her after I’ve seen Father. And Poppy?’

Tain lit up. ‘She’ll be with Mother. It’s as if they’ve known each other all their lives.’

Carnelian drew some much-needed comfort from that.

‘Of course, if she’s heard you’re here, we might all be seeing her much sooner than we think.’

Carnelian saw the wry grin on his brother’s face, then on Fern’s, and all three burst into laughter that soon came swooping back from all directions out of the blackness as if the whole world was laughing with them.