Ricardo Pinto - The Standing Dead

Beneath the imperious gaze of the funerary colossi of the Chosen, the fires lit by a hundred thousand tributaries formed a trembling field of light on the Plain of Thrones. High above the colossi, on a balcony cut into the cliff enclosing the plain, stood the Ruling Lord of House Suth. He turned his head enough that the eyeslits of his mask shielded his eyes from the dying sun, then surveyed the scene below. Flanked by the immense, towered saurians the barbarians childishly called dragons, the crowd seemed numberless. More than a third were the children brought by tribes from beyond the Commonwealth to pay their flesh tithe. The rest were either their kin or the deputations the cities had sent with their taxes of coined bronze. All had cowered there for days awaiting the ceremony of the Rebirth which would occur as the Rains broke over the crater of Osrakum. This Rebirth would include the Apotheosis of a new God Emperor.

Suth withdrew into the gloom of his apartments in the cliff so that he might free his white, unpainted hands from his sleeves without danger of them being tainted by the sun. He unfolded a parchment under a lamp and reread the glyphs drawn on its panels. The profiles of the faces in the glyphs were unmistakably in his son's hand. Further, the letter had been sealed with Carnelian's blood-ring. The letter promised that he would return on the last day of the year, but that had dawned and passed and his son had not returned.

Suth put the letter down, removed his mask and set it on top, then rubbed his eyes. He stretched his hands out and watched their tremor. To cheat the weakness from his unhealed wound, he had had to revert to the drug the Wise had given him. The powder gave him only a febrile strength. It was the Empress Ykoriana's agents who had wounded him, trying to ensure he did not reach Osrakum in time for the election. Foolishly, the election won, he had thought her beaten. Cursing softly, he let his gaze wander through the columns to the far shadows of the hall. If only he had probed Carnelian at the time when he had confessed to finding a lover. Neither the relentless demands of the sacred election nor the brittle mind-state the drug induced should have made him so dangerously uncurious about his son's expedition. Three days had passed since Tain had been scared into yielding up the letter. He had been keeping faith with Carnelian's command that he should only deliver it at nightfall on the day Carnelian disappeared. Though a half-caste, a mammaga, Tain was still Suth's son, but even then, in wrath, he might have condemned the boy to crucifixion had it not been that he knew Carnelian would never have forgiven him.

Sinking onto a couch, Suth dropped his head into his hands. That Carnelian should choose to disappear at such a delicately balanced time was bad enough, but that he should do so in company with the God Emperor elect, that was a disaster. Suth had not yet recovered from that moment of sickening premonition when he had read the letter for the first time. With terrible threats he had wrung from Carnelian's household everything they knew about his forays before the election. The clothes he had taken, the time away, all suggested a journey of some distance. Since at the time Carnelian had been with the court in the Sky, a descent to the Yden had been the only plausible solution. Suth had recalled rumours that routes existed down from the Pillar of Heaven other than the Rainbow Stair. That morning, when he could bear to wait no longer, he had dared to send a search party of his guardsmen into the Forbidden Garden of the Yden. Fear for his son had made him risk alerting the Great to the situation. Of course, the expedition had returned from the vast water meadows with nothing.

Time was running out.

One of his blinded slaves disturbed his misery. 'Master, the Ruling Lord Aurum is at your door craving audience.'

Regarding the man's stitched-up eyes, Suth mused that even Aurum was a welcome distraction from his imminent meeting with the Wise. Suth sent the slave to let him in, then rising, put on his mask and composed himself. Aurum must have found out about the disappearance of Osidian Nephron. Soon all the Great would know. Suth felt his grip on hope weakening.

'My Lord, a rumour led me to seek an audience with the God Emperor elect but I was turned away by ammonites. Why do the Wise seclude Nephron?'

Unmasking, Suth forced Aurum to follow him; he wished to see the old Lord's eyes. Under their misty blue survey, Suth could see that his weakness was betrayed, his misery. Auxum's eyes narrowed. 'My Lord…?'

Suth handed him Carnelian's letter. Aurum hesitated before taking it, then opened the panels and read. Suth watched as what little colour there was in Aurum's alabaster face drained away. The blue eyes lifted.

'Is there still hope they will return?'

Suth shrugged. 'Soon it will make little difference. The Wise have summoned me to appear before them.'

The implication was not lost on Aurum. Suth, as He-who-goes-before, could not easily be summoned even by the Wise. Aurum flourished the letter.

They know about this?'

'Some of it.'

Aurum nodded. They will offer Molochite the Masks.' 'What else can they do? The Commonwealth must have a new God.'

As Aurum sagged, Suth saw how aged the Lord was. Aurum lifted a pale hand corded blue with veins and began to massage his temples.

'Without the protection of Nephron as God Emperor, both of us will be exposed to prosecution by the Wise.'

Suth knew well how many times they had transgressed the Law-that-must-be-obeyed so as to reach Osrakum in time for the election. 'It is Ykoriana and Molochite that you should fear. Neither mother nor son will forgive our opposition.'

Aurum bared his teeth. 'She must be behind this.'

'Imago Jaspar as well, no doubt.'

Aurum's eyes wandered. There is still time for the God Emperor elect to be found?'

Staring blindly, Suth shook his head. 'I do not believe even their bodies shall be found.'

'She would not dare.'

'She dared to slay her daughter in these very halls.'

Suth felt as if he were made of ice. 'I have lost my son.' Even to voice those words made real the horror he had been denying for days. 'I should never have let you persuade me to return. In my blood I knew that I would lose him. I should have kept him on our island far from this nest of serpents.'

Suth allowed his gaze to wander over the pillars of jade, the pavement of pearls; to soar up into the vaulted vastnesses where rays of light revealed exquisite carvings. Such splendours were sour without his son to share them.

Aurum fixed him with a stare. 'Suth Sardian, this is not the time to grieve. We must fight together if we are to save ourselves. The least we face is that, with the compliance of the Wise, she will seek our impeachment before the Clave.' Aurum's eyes lost hold of Suth's face. The worst, exile?'

Suth's laughter echoed through the hall. 'Of all the world, Aurum, you should know that exile holds no terror for me. Let her do her worst. If she has truly murdered my son, what more can she do to me?'

'Depose you.'

Suth tossed his head back. 'What pain that? Without my son, my lineage will die with me.' With smouldering rage he contemplated the thought that Spinel and the rest of the disloyal Suth secondary lineage should rule his House.