Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

Carnelian embraced him. ‘You are my father.’

They stood together thus for some time, Carnelian feeling how weak his father was in his arms. Fearing that, should he let go, his father would fall broken upon the ground. Then he felt strength coming into him, and his father pushed him away. ‘The boat approaches.’

Carnelian put on his mask for fear of terrifying the kharon. The bone boat slowed, shipping her port oars as she sought the rocky shore. His father was again a Master wearing an imperious face of gold.

Carnelian turned to Fern. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Fern gave him a nod. They had already said their goodbyes.

There was an inky space between the bone boat and the muddy rock upon which he stood. The kharon ferryman was below upon the deck, his bony crown rising up like gnarled fingers. He extended his whitened hand for his payment. Carnelian took hold of it with his left hand, held it as the ferryman attempted to jerk it back. It relaxed in his grip. After some hesitation, the man helped jump him aboard. Soon oars were clunking against the rock as they pushed the boat away from the shore.

To keep his people in sight, Carnelian moved back along the bow towards the stern as they slid away. He stopped short of the ferryman and leaned out upon a bony rail. He saw his father and his mother holding hands, seeming no longer to care to whom they announced the truth of their relationship. For a moment Carnelian managed to hold onto Fern’s dark eyes.

Losing sight of them, Carnelian turned to the ferryman. Against the stern post he stood, the black and white design of his robe a furious dapple uncomfortable to look upon. His white-washed hands steady on the steering oars provided a quiet counterpoint. The turtle glyph was like a saurian egg in the nest of his crown, but it was his sinister ivory mask that made it seem he was gazing away off over his shoulder. Carnelian was close enough to smell his stale sweat; close enough to see through the slit to the gleam of his single eye. ‘Didn’t you fear bringing your boat to my coomb?’

As the ferryman shook his head, his crown rustled. Carnelian gazed at him, his eyes finding the edges of the delicate mosaic that formed his mask. Not ivory, then, more probably it was made from the same bone from which the boat was wrought. Carnelian realized he had never before heard a kharon speak. For all he knew, they, like the Wise, might have been lacking tongues as well as an eye. He tried again, this time in Quya. ‘Did you not fear coming to my coomb?’

‘Seraph,’ said the ferryman, ‘we are into your service bound.’ His Quya was husky, thick, sounding strangely antique.

‘But you must be aware of the disturbances?’

The ferryman bowed his crowned head.

‘Still you came…’

‘No troubles did we observe in Coomb Suth, Seraph.’ Then as, Carnelian considered this, he added, ‘We hoped it would be thee, Seraph, who summoned us.’

Carnelian was taken aback by this. Confused. ‘You know who I am?’

The crown rustled again. ‘Seraph Carnelian of the Masks.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘We carried thee to Coomb Suth, Seraph. You paid us with sky-metal.’

Carnelian regarded the ferryman with a more acute eye. These kharon were more aware of things than he had guessed. Clearly, they communicated among themselves. He tried to imagine how recent events might have appeared to them. Though each was possessed only of a single eye, between them they had enough to observe everything. The gentle sculling of the oars impressed itself upon Carnelian’s hearing. How many kharon were there beneath his feet? And there must be women of their kind, and children. He mused for a moment on how their society formed a ring along the shore of the Isle.

‘Why didst thou, Seraph, break the sluices?’

Carnelian heard the tremor in the man’s voice. He was brave to be so bold. Carnelian considered rewarding him with an answer, but his heart misgave. It was too soon and now it occurred to him that what he must ask of the kharon must be asked of all of them at once. He considered this for some moments before speaking. ‘If the kharon wish to know what is happening in Osrakum and the world beyond, then you must send an embassy into the Plain of Thrones.’

Lurching, the boat betrayed the ferryman’s reaction. ‘Impossible,’ he sighed.

‘There is a good chance you could talk to the God Emperor Themselves.’

The whitened hands curled tighter round the oars. ‘We are permitted only the Inner Shore and the Shadowmere.’

Carnelian wondered at how strangely the ferryman named the lake, even as he tried to find a way to persuade him to do what he was now even more sure he needed. Again he thought hard before speaking lest he should lead them into peril. He glanced up at the Sacred Wall. The peace within its circle was an illusion. How could these people hope to survive what was coming?

‘You say you know who I am,’ Carnelian said.

‘Carnelian of the Masks,’ said the ferryman.

‘Then you must know that I am brother to the God Emperor, who went with him into the outer world, returned in triumph and who survived his elevation.’

The nest crown inclined and Carnelian was certain the kharon not only knew this to be true, but understood the implications. ‘Even as I have defied the Law, so must you. Upon my blood I swear I shall answer for your coming before the God Emperor my brother.’

For a moment Carnelian felt the ferryman’s eye peering at him, until at last he inclined his head. ‘Thy command shall be sent around the Shore.’

Relief washed over Carnelian. ‘One more thing I would ask of your people.’ Without thinking he put his hand upon the ferryman’s arm. At his touch, the man shuddered, but his steering grip held firm. ‘At dawn tomorrow, send three boats to Coomb Suth. There embark my people and their baggage and bring them to the Quays of the Dead.’

‘As you command, Seraph,’ the ferryman said and Carnelian drew his hand back, thanked him, then turned to walk along the deck, gazing at the vast green slope rising before them from the lake, within the summit of which lay the Plain of Thrones.

Carnelian clambered up onto the quay, his robe and cloak mired up to the knees with mud. He looked up the steps and let his gaze follow the path as it narrowed up into the cleft that led eventually into the Plain of Thrones. A long climb and at the end of it, what? It was only now he was facing the reality of seeing Osidian again; of having to confront him one last time. His heart was uncertain. Then there was the dull ache of fear. He had no idea how Osidian might be taking the failure of all his dreams. Fern had been right to worry about the danger. That was why Carnelian had insisted on coming alone.

He glanced back at the trail he had left in the shelf of mud as he had struggled up from the new shore. The bone boat was already moving off. That sight hardened his resolve. He had to prepare the way for the kharon. He turned back to the steps and began the climb.

He paused to get his breath, looking back the way he had come. The endless shallow steps. The scrape of his footfalls echoing off the rock walls had given the ghostly procession graven into them an eerie life. He was glad of the light up ahead. Only a few more steps and he beheld the Plain of Thrones spread out: a bright vision. The Pillar of Heaven seemed a vast shaft of light stabbing down from the morning sky. Beneath it, the jewel of the Pyramid Hollow and the gleaming rank of the funerary colossi. There was a glinting on the plain. It took him some moments to recognize the Cages of the Tithe. Recalling the myriads of children there, his heart failed. He had forgotten them. Then he became aware of some thick smoke rising from the western edge of the plain. The House of Immortality where the children of the Great were being prepared for their tombs. He gazed at the heart of the plain. Squinting, he gained the distinct impression the Stone Dance of the Chameleon was a lot wider than it should be. There appeared to be a slight hazing above it. Grimly, he began to walk towards it.