Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Carnelian had guessed what Ebeny’s choice would be. That same determination was in her face as when he had begged her to go with him across the sea. His father would not go, and she would not leave him behind. Carnelian bowed his head, accepting her decision. When he looked up again, he saw her tears through his own. They clasped hands as if holding off for a moment their final separation.

The pain of the coming partings spread through the household. It was as if those who were leaving were already on the boats; those left behind lining the quay holding their hands, grips tearing as the boat pulled away. His brothers too would be losing their father and also their mother without hope of seeing either again. Child and man fused in each one of them. One wanting to cling, the other knowing he had to pull away. The unbearable had to be borne. Their burden was made lighter when Grane announced he would stay behind to look after their parents. He did not have to tell them why: they could see his stone eyes.

Inevitably, these partings, the gathering of stores that the Master had had the foresight to set aside, all this brought back to many the destruction of the Hold and the famine that those who had been left behind had had to endure. Still, even those who had known terrible hunger gladly gave up what food there was for their children to take with them.

The first morning after Carnelian had appeared at the coomb, he and Fern had watched the boats bringing the Masters back from the Gates. After that, nothing disturbed the eerie calm of the Hidden Land except, sometimes, a torn banner of smoke drifting across the sky from the Valley of the Gate.

On the third day after they had reached the coomb, Fern spotted a pale grain where the carved pebble beach touched the Skymere. Something had washed up on the mud.

The two of them, alone on the mud, an immense white corpse at their feet. Already bloating, its greasy marble was slashed with blue-lipped wounds. The hands had been hacked off, the face sliced away, leaving a mask of blood. Carnelian recalled, with a deep resonant horror, the red faces in his dreams. It was a Master.

He gazed out across Osrakum. A beautiful morning. The sapphire waters of the lake. The emerald Yden. The jade hump of the Labyrinth. The pure green slopes that concealed the Plain of Thrones. To the north, coombs were revealed by the rising sun as jewels.

At his feet, the water level had fallen enough to reveal a band of greened-black rock that edged the Skymere as if it were a vast well. He shuddered at what might be revealed were the lake entirely to drain.

He looked once more upon the corpse. It shocked him to the core, this mutilated Master. It was not just that he felt in his gut horror at the tortures the man had had to endure, but at who it was must have done this. He gazed back at the palaces piling up behind him, porticoes and friezes and, among the columns and pierced marble, all kinds of openings, each seeming as blind as a Sapient’s eyepit. Yet, from any one, a Master could be looking down; worse, one of their slaves.

Carnelian removed the blanket he had thrown on and covered the corpse with it. Its border was quickly darkened by the stream winding down from under the skirt of carved pebbles. He watched it washing the noisome liquids leaking from the corpse down to pollute the lake.

There were signs that the drop in water level was slowing, but they dare not set off until it stopped altogether. The sky was a clear blue, untainted by smoke. Though he had been expecting that for days, it still seemed shocking.

‘The attacks on the Blood Gate have stopped,’ Fern said.

Carnelian nodded. ‘Soon it’ll be time to go.’ He saw the relief on Fern’s face and allowed himself to see past his grim determination to follow his plan, through to the hope there was in this sign. He glanced up towards the Plain of Thrones. Was Osidian still there, in the Stone Dance of the Chameleon? He became aware Fern was looking at him, but decided not to notice. He was not clear enough about how he felt to talk about it. He indicated the corpse with his chin. ‘We need to do something about this.’

That night, one of the coombs on the far shore of the Skymere lit up, luridly, as if it were a fire in a grate. When morning came a lazy column of smoke could be seen uncurling into the sky. More smoke seemed to be rising from a neighbouring coomb, but its origin was concealed from them by a buttress of the Sacred Wall. Bloody rebellion was spreading around the shore of Osrakum.

Later that day, Opalid headed an embassy from the Second Lineage to their Ruling Lord. Carnelian stood with his father as he lied to them, telling them he did not know what was happening, but that, the moment he did, Opalid would be the first to be informed. When the Masters left, Carnelian told his father that he felt Opalid had not believed him. His father nodded, grimly. ‘I have faith the tyadra will remain loyal to me.’

Carnelian wondered for how long, once he had left with half the household and all of its remaining supplies, but he locked his doubts away. He felt like a child, harbouring hope that a thing unsaid could not come to pass.

Lying with Fern in the dark, Carnelian finally came to a decision.

Deliberately thinking no more about it, for he knew that, however he phrased it, he was going to hurt Fern, he said: ‘I have to go and see the Master.’ He felt Fern tense beside him. ‘I could tell you that this is the most certain way to get the boats we need, which is probably true, but I will not try to deny that I want to say goodbye to him.’ He might have added that Osidian was his brother – but Osidian was also the murderer of Fern’s people.

Fern stirred against his side. ‘Will it be dangerous?’

Carnelian felt an overwhelming gratitude for Fern’s level tone. ‘It could be.’

‘Is it your dreams that drive you to this?’

Carnelian shook his head. ‘No.’

And they left it at that.

Overnight the level of the lake had hardly changed at all. A bell sounding again made him glance up at the main palace quay, which was stranded by the falling water. The summoning bell was up there, but it would be down here on this muddy shore that the bone boat would have to pull up. His father seemed huge in a cloak much grander than Carnelian’s black military one. Ebeny beside him, tiny, yet his bulk could not eclipse her beautiful, brittle smile, her sad eyes. Fern was frowning. He knew Carnelian was going into peril.

‘Are you sure you want to go alone?’ said Keal.

Carnelian nodded. They were none of them happy about that. Grane’s frown was causing his eyelids to ruck against his stone eyes. ‘This is our final goodbye, then, big brother.’

The blind man ducked a nod, ‘Master,’ then would have knelt except that Carnelian held him up and embraced him. He felt Grane soften in his arms, lean into him, a little, for a moment accepting the love Carnelian was giving him. Then they drew apart, Carnelian frowning back tears. Ebeny’s eyes seemed bright glass. His instinct was to fall before her, clasping her round the waist, putting his head where she could stroke it, comforting him, but he was no longer a child, though the child was still there within him. He stooped to put his arms about her. Felt her wet face slide past his cheek. ‘Mother,’ he whispered into her ear.

‘My son,’ she whispered in his.

Gently, he disengaged, smiling through his tears at her, holding hands, until these too let go.

His father’s mask seemed a furtive fire in the hood of his cloak. A Great Lord among his servants. Carnelian’s eyes fell, drawn to a movement. A pallid hand, all bones and sinew. The Suth Ruling Ring back in its place like a swollen joint. The hand rose and for a moment seemed about to speak. The other joined it and, together, they moved into the shadow of the hood to release the mask. Carnelian was compelled to turn by a sudden, startled movement. Keal stood back, a look of horror frozen on his face. His instinct was that he was facing blinding; nevertheless he did not look away. Panic stirring in Carnelian was stilled by his brother coming alive with wonder. Their father gazed with love upon Keal, a son who had never before seen his father’s face. Suth turned his eyes to Carnelian, who could not bear his father’s look of aching sadness. Carnelian approached him, wanting to say something, but his father spoke first. ‘You are my son too, Carnelian.’