He dared to look at his son. He had sensed that his words were soothing the boy. 'But though you shall acquire the freedom and the thrill of power you shall always be restricted by the Law-that-must-be-obeyed. Today's bloody lesson you will not soon forget.'
He waited for a reaction but his son merely nodded. He continued, 'Duality is the essence of creation. As certainly as night follows day, all gain is balanced with loss.
'Now, listen. There is a perilous game. The Law forms the matrix in which it is played. The Emperor, the Great and the Wise are its players. We must all play. I have almost forgotten how to. My moves are unsure, but it is coming back to me. You too must learn to play. There are such forces ranged against us…'
Carnelian had at first been glad of the distraction of politics but now he felt as if a shadow was being cast over them.
His father made a sign of dismissal. 'Still, by the grace of the Two we shall yet prevail. Remember the warnings I have given you. All is not always as it seems. A knife is often concealed behind a smile.' He looked back towards the cliffs. Suddenly he lunged forward, bracing himself on one of the curving horns of the prow figurehead. He was searching the sea before them. 'Look,' he cried and pointed.
Carnelian leant out and saw the shadow in the sea moving ahead of them. 'A turtle,' he said. The creature must have been as big as the ship. Its vast oval wavered just under the water. Its paddles rowed like huge oars. The Wise taught that the world had been made from the dismembering of the Lord Turtle. His eyes had become the sun and moon. His carapace formed into the firmament of the sky. His flesh was the earth that floated on the sea. All life had sprung from his blood. Now, that ran pure only in the veins of the God Emperor, and in Carnelian's own veins, as in those of the other Chosen, tainted by mortality.
They watched the turtle veer away. 'For a moment it was guiding us home. Creation through sacrifice,' his father said. The best of omens.'
Creation through blood sacrifice. Behind him, Carnelian could hear the slaves' brushes rasping at the deck. Was it not also an omen that his first sight of the Three Lands should be an occasion of massacre?
'See there,' his father said. He pointed off across the starboard bow to where a narrow feather of smoke seemed pinned to the cliff wall. That is the Jamb Rock where a fire burns night and day to guide ships into the Grand Harbour of Thuyakalrul. Do you see that lower, darker band of cliff that spreads on either side of the beacon? Well, that is the outer wall of the harbour. Thuyakalrul is well named; she is indeed a ring of blue stone lying in the sea. Within her circle lies the harbour. It has but a single door, a breach in the northern curve of the ring. The town itself is set into a depression in the southern wall. From there a causeway crosses a lagoon to the mainland and the road climbs a valley up to join the Great Sea Road.'
'And that road leads eventually to Osrakum,' said Carnelian.
Suth almost sighed with relief as he saw the colour come back into his son's face.
'But if all this is so, my Lord, why then do we not sail directly towards the beacon?'
Suth smiled. 'Because, my son, Thuyakalrul is ringed about by another yet greater wall and even now we seek one of its gates.'
'My Lord speaks in riddles.'
From the stern they heard the captain barking commands.
'You shall see soon enough, but first we should remask.'
They did so, and then his father dissolved the wall of screens. Keal was there with the others. He shot Carnelian a look of sympathy. In the rigging slaves were closing up the fan-sails. Under the curving fish-tail of the stern, the captain stood between the two steersmen with their oars. He said something to the man standing behind him. The man operated one of the levers set into the stern post, and in response the pounding of the drum slowed to breathing pace. The threshing of the oars slowed. The wind fell and with it their cloaks which had been surfing on it. The captain spoke to another man and pointed up the ship. There was an argument as the other man refused to do what he was told. The captain shoved him out of his way and then came forward himself. 'Now you shall see,' said Suth.
The captain came closer. Carnelian saw the twitch in the man's eyes, his mouth pinching into a quivering smile. The man fell to his knees and did not move.
'Up, man, up. Get on with your business.'
The captain's face came up gaunt. He rubbed his mouth with his hand. Muttering something he crept past them, nodded unconsciously to the altar of the Gods and then went to the starboard bow. He scanned the water ahead. Carnelian leant on the rail to see what it was he sought. He noticed a darkening in the sea in front of them. The captain looked back anxiously and shouted something. The steersmen leaned on their oars. The ship turned her head slowly in response. The bruising in the water rushed towards them.
'A wall under the sea,' gasped Carnelian.
'Even when it is submerged, few channels lead through it and only one is deep enough to allow the passage of a baran,' his father said.
The captain kept whisking round to shout frantic commands. Then the black water was upon them. The ship jolted as if she had hit something and then the blackness was pouring past them.
'How do they find it?' Carnelian asked, amazed.
His father pointed to where Carnelian could see a tiny spine jutting up from the cliff. Then he pointed back the way they had come. A crooked bronze post rose out of the sea. The post and the cliff tower in a line will bring a baran safely through the reef.'
Other posts went past like green men standing on the waves, pointing out the way. In some places the reef came up almost into the air. Sinuous filaments of light quivered over it. At the captain's cries the steersmen nudged the ship first one way then the other. At last she was through into the green water beyond. The captain passed them and jerked a bow before rushing back to the stern.
Carnelian chewed his lip. 'He is terrified of us.'
'With good reason,' his father said grimly. 'But come, let us resume our places at the prow. I would share this homecoming with you, my son.'
Keal and the others remade the wall of screens, allowing Carnelian and his father once more to unmask. Carnelian rubbed at the side of his face where his mask had pressed into his skin. 'I will never get used to this thing.'
His father took the mask from Carnelian's hand and looked at its edge. This is poorly made. In Osrakum we shall have our craftsmen fashion you better ones.' He handed back the mask. 'A well-crafted mask should fit its wearer as comfortably as an eyelid does its eye.'
The drum beat faster and with it Carnelian's heart. The banks of oars hissed the sea. The cliff loomed up. From far away, it had seemed mottled white. Closer, Carnelian could see that its corrugated face was peppered with birds. They wove the air with their flight and pierced it with cries. High above, sky-saurians described wide arcs in the sky. Carnelian took a step back as one fell towards them like a dart. Its dive veered and it seemed that it would crumple into the sea. At the last moment it pulled up and its huge grey-feathered anvil-headed shape flashed past as it skimmed the surface on its fingered wings.
Behind Carnelian there was a consternation of mechanical sounds and voices. He turned reluctantly from the dance of birds and looked over the screen. He let out a cry, The mast falls.'
'Calm yourself, my Lord,' snapped his father. 'One should observe before giving voice. Look how slowly it comes down. We simply strike the masts for which we no longer have any use.'