Ricardo Pinto - The Third God

It was Osidian. Carnelian realized he was lying against one wall of the cave mouth. He must have fallen asleep there. Dark shapes were shuffling past. The characteristic silhouettes of the Marula: round heads followed by the spike of their corselets. Lances shook above them like a thicket of reeds. Beyond them indigo sky announced the near expiry of the night.

Osidian’s shadow shifted and offered him a lance. Carnelian took it and pulled on it to help him stand, groaning at his stiff back. He looked for Poppy, but could see no sign of her in the darkness at their feet.

‘The girl’s not here,’ said Osidian.

‘I must say goodbye to her.’

Osidian pointed down into the Pass. ‘There’s no time.’

Carnelian looked and saw the glimmer of Aurum’s camp stirring. Osidian took hold of his arm. ‘We must be far from here before the day lights these cliffs and betrays us.’

Carnelian twisted free and went into the cave. He walked back along the file of the Marula as they exited the cave. What little light was filtering past them from the cave mouth soon gave out. For a while he was a blind man feeling his way with the haft of his lance. Then his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he found he could move more quickly. Fern was lying where he expected. A figure rose to meet him. Krow.

‘Where’s Poppy?’

‘I thought she was with you.’

Carnelian could hear the anxiety in the youth’s voice. He shared it. He cried out her name. Echoes boomed and faded. There was no answer. ‘She couldn’t be so stupid as to try to follow me.’

The silence that fell between them gave a lie to such certainty. Carnelian’s anxiety flared into anger. The sight of Fern lying as if dead steadied him. He knelt and gazed at him. There was not enough light to see his face, but Carnelian knew well enough what it looked like. Stooping over Fern he found his lips and kissed them. He pulled away and, for a moment, listened to the rhythm of Fern’s breathing. He rose.

‘What shall I tell him when he wakes?’ Krow asked.

Words flitted through Carnelian’s mind. Clenching his teeth he silenced them.

A shape materializing near them made Krow jump. It was a Leper, perhaps Lily. ‘Master, you’re about to be left behind.’

A man’s voice. Carnelian’s heart rose in him. He turned to Krow. ‘Tell him I… that I…’

He felt the youth’s grip on his arm. ‘I know.’

Carnelian realized it was time to say goodbye to Krow. He sensed the youth feeling awkward and caught a glimmer in his eyes. He pulled him into a hug. They clung to each other. Gently Carnelian disengaged. ‘Take care of Poppy and of yourself.’

‘I will, Carnie.’

Carnelian left him and made for the faint glow of arriving day. The cave was filled with the mounds of hobbled aquar. Lepers had gathered at the entrance. They parted as he approached them. Then he was through and jogging along the path they pointed out.

Clambering over rock-falls. Struggling over chalky scree. Sometimes the Lepers would lead them into galleries where massive columns held a skyful of limestone above their heads. Streams had to be forded. As the sun approached the earth Lily assured Osidian they would before nightfall reach a Leper settlement that had been told to expect their arrival.

The dying sun turned the water gushing from the ravine into frothing gold. Lily led them in single file along a ledge above the torrent. Squeezed between mountainous walls the river was deafening. They came into a hidden valley where the water roar quietened to a hiss. Three shrouded figures came to meet them. As they drew nearer, Lily turned to Carnelian and Osidian. ‘I must display you to them.’

Carnelian glanced round to see Osidian’s reaction. It was no worse than an irritated frown.

Lily saw this. ‘If you expect them to feed your men they must believe what they’ve been told about you.’

She went ahead to meet their hosts and soon returned with them. The shrouded figures approached the Masters and peered up at them. One turned back to Lily. ‘You’re going to take them all the way to Qunoth?’

‘If other caves be as generous as yours.’

The Leper nodded, examining Osidian. He turned again. ‘And you say they’ve promised to give him to us?’ The tone was incredulous.

Lily assured him they had.

The Leper came closer to Osidian. ‘Why would you give us one of your own?’

Carnelian answered for him. ‘He’s as much our enemy as he’s yours.’

The Leper’s cowl shook from side to side. ‘Oh no. I don’t believe he can have hurt you as badly as he’s hurt us.’

Carnelian realized his mistake too late. The Leper came close enough that he could smell the staleness of his shrouds. ‘Why should we not hate you as much as we hate him?’

‘You should hate us.’

The Leper seemed taken aback, but nodded. ‘We shall feed you.’

They were led onto a rock that overhung the torrent. Carnelian followed its white thresh upstream to where it issued from a cave mouth. He leaned down to Lily and pointed. ‘Do you know how deep that cave goes?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s said some wend their way through the blackness even to the very heart of the Landabove. A dark world none dare enter.’ She indicated the river below. ‘Sometimes strange creatures are washed out. So colourless you can see their blood running under their skin, their organs. Huge eyes or none at all. Sartlar have appeared out of such places claiming they’ve come from the far interior.’

Carnelian shuddered, imagining the creatures crawling through the endless dark. A world beneath the Guarded Land, rotten with pits and channels through which sartlar and worse monsters slithered like maggots. He shook himself free of this dark vision. ‘Do sartlar live among you?’

‘All outcasts are welcome.’ His face must have shown his disbelief for she added: ‘Are sartlar so different from other people?’

Carnelian did not have time to argue with her. More Lepers were appearing from cave mouths that opened all along the back wall of the ledge. The smell of the food they brought made him aware of how ravenous he was. Soon he was digging into a bowl of fernroot gruel, its bitterness sweetened by his hunger. His gaze kept returning to the source of the river. He imagined Kor crawling out from it. He forgot to chew as he contemplated the horror of that journey. How terrible the lot of the sartlar must be that they should seek an escape through that underworld.

His hunger sated, he became aware of an ache in his heart for his friends. It seemed strange he had shed no tears. Perhaps it was because a part of him did not yet believe he would never see them again.

Two more days of following Lily and her Lepers along the margin of the Guarded Land. Two more difficult meetings with settlements of Leper refugees. The third day brought them to another system of caverns threaded by a river. The Lepers here were more timid. They left food, but Carnelian caught hardly a glimpse of them. Settling down to sleep he was haunted by the roar and echoes reverberating through the caverns.

He woke frightened, but not from a dream. Something needled a trajectory near his face. The sound of its passing was a scratch in his ear. A fly. Carnelian sat up. Another so close it made his skin itch. Sweat chilled him. All round him the buzz of flies. The menace of the Darkness-under-the-Trees tainted the air like rot. A murmur from the Marula warriors. He shared their fear. A commotion came from where the Oracles had lain to sleep, Osidian among them. The stutter of flesh being ripped by flint. Again. Again. The iron scent of blood. The Oracles subsided. He could hear them lying down. The dance of the flies thinned, then ceased. Staring at the dark, he made sure to breathe only through his nose. He swatted at itches he imagined crawling over him and prayed no wounds on his body were open.