Carnelian looked past the cordon of the Marula, out over the squatting masses, over the clumps of wagons and huimur, to where the city walls had already been claimed by darkness.
'I think I will retire, my Lords,' said Vennel. The shadow in the loop of his cowl scanned them as if he expected some retort. When the Masters said nothing, he rose, hunched as they always did to conceal their height, and shuffled off towards the tents.
Carnelian glanced at his father's inanimate form and turned back to his vigil. He watched the city's shadow creep over the camp, lighting fires as it went. Its blackness washed over him, lapped at the foot of the gates, then scaled them to the very top. The sky gave one last violent blush, then indigoed. With its windows now lit up, Nothnaralan formed a hem to the starry night.
Carnelian struggled to sleep in the clinging myrrhy heat. The bandages were restricting his breathing. Sweat crawled beneath the cloth. His heart would not quieten. Memories of his island home flashed into his mind. Every image had acquired a warm aura. He ached with the longing for friendly faces, familiar smells, a single lungful of cold clean wind that spoke with the voices of the sea. There were other darker visions. Tain eyeless, the empty sockets accusing him. He had made a promise to Ebeny to protect him. The thought of Jaspar's offer caused a rushing in his stomach. Carnelian fixed his mind's eye on the memory of the double-headed gate and felt a sweat of excitement. What wonders lay beyond?
Jaspar groaned in his sleep. Carnelian sat up. The camp was murmuring outside. With slow care he rose. He fumbled for his travelling cloak, found it, gathered it in. He tucked his ranga shoes under his arm, crept to the opening, put the shoes outside, stepped up onto them, covered himself, then pushed his masked face out into the night.
The moon was setting into a smoke-scratched blue darkness in which a hundred campfires flickered. The smells and sounds of beasts and men were gently settling. He looked over to the gate glimmered by moonlight.
He was searching for Tain when he noticed some moving shapes. A coalescing of the night. Lifting up, moving, merging, dropping down, disappearing. He waited. They rose again, came closer. He wondered if they might be Marula. The shapes were too furtive. To see better, Carnelian dared to remove his mask. He turned it sideways so that he could still breathe through the nose-pad. Over its rim he scoured the night. The Marula were still round them like a ring of stones. Again the shadows slid into motion. Again they stopped and vanished. Cold sweat, fear and his eyes searching. He bit his lip, looked round and made his decision. He dropped down from his shoes. Half in crouch, half crawling, he moved forward, touching the earth now and then for balance. He reached one of the Marula and crept into the man's aura of stale sweat. His fingers touched the man's warm skin. As it jerked under his touch, Carnelian hugged the man hard against his chest and stifled a cry with his hand. He pushed his mouth into an ear. 'I'm a Master,' he whispered, and felt the bur of the man's hair and an earring moving against his lip. The Maruli tensed hard as wood. 'Silence. You understand?' The woolly head nodded against his face. Carnelian released him. Saw the yellow eyes. Watched them widen. The man scrunched into a ball against his knees.
Carnelian grimaced as he understood. 'My face,' he muttered. He sighed, looked around desperately. He put the mask on again, bent down and prising the man up, forced him to look at the mask. There was more yellow-eyed terror before he forced the man's head round. At first there was nothing to see but then the shadows moved again, very close. The Maruli clutched his lance. Carnelian released his head so that the man's frightened eyes swivelled back to his mask. Carnelian indicated the other Marula. The man struck his forehead on the ground then slipped into the night.
Carnelian retraced his steps. He was near the mounds of the tents. Cries broke out, so loud they stopped his breathing. He whisked round and saw a shadow dance. Screams. The swish of blades muffling into flesh. Growls. Two shapes broke from the fight and catapulted towards him. One fell forwards coughing with a tall shape on it working a lance out of its back. The other veered away.
Carnelian saw where it was heading. The tents!' he cried and sprang after it. Uproar was spreading. Through the eyeslits of his mask he could just make out the figure. There was the stuttering rasp of canvas rending. Carnelian stooped as he ran, grazing his fingers along the ground, scooped up a stone, then charged howling. His father's voice cried out in alarm. Carnelian crashed into the invader, clawing and hammering with both fists. He was enraged, keening, fearing for his father's life. The body slumped against him. He let it slide off him to the ground.
A light. Carnelian stared frozen. On the ground, his father was pathetically stretching out his fingers trying to reach his mask; hands, face, bandaged body, black with blood.
WINDSPEED
Right-hand, left-hand
Past and future
The green and the black
Earth and Sky
Two faces and the Mirror
But truly there is only one
'Douse that light.' Aurum was a tower of blackness in the night. The boy holding the lantern turned to stare at him, his eyes growing impossibly wide. The Master surged forward, snatched the lantern from the boy and dashed it to the ground.
The sudden disappearance of his father's bloody face brought Carnelian back to life. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark.
Angry questions carried through the night with complaints about the noise, the lateness.
One of the Marula appeared and fell at Aurum's feet.
Take your brethren and silence those voices with fear,' the Master rumbled.
The man punched the ground with his head, rose and was about to go when Aurum spoke again.
Take this thing,' he said, lifting the boy squealing into the air. 'Destroy it.'
There was a coughing behind him. 'He is… my body… slave,' said Suth.
Aurum shoved the boy at the Maruli who received him with a grunt and loped off. The Master crouched down beside Suth. 'Are you wounded, my Lord?'
Suth trembled his hand in the air. The boy…'
'He saw your face, Sardian. You will have to make do without him. Are you wounded?'
Suth gritted his teeth as he held his side. 'A cut in my belly.'
Carnelian stared. 'He is covered in blood.'
Suth smiled up at his son. 'Most of it is the assassin's.'
Aurum peeled Suth's hand away from the wound and peered at it. He stood up. 'It is quite deep but bleeds cleanly. The bandages resisted the blade. Do you think you can walk, my Lord?'
Suth jerked a nod. Aurum helped him up. Carnelian felt his father's wince like a stab. Suth pressed on the wound to keep it closed. A swathe of his bandages was black with blood.
'Why are you just standing there, my Lord?' said Aurum to Carnelian with a flash of anger. Carnelian stumbled round to support his father's other side. This wounding is unfortunate but at least it has drawn Ykoriana's sting. Now we must abandon secrecy.'
In Carnelian's grip, the stone still nestled warm and sticky.
They gathered in the enclosure that Aurum had commanded the Marula put up around the corpse and shredded tent. He waved away Vermel's comment about the eyes from above and, by unmasking, forced the Master to remove his mask with the others. The light had gone out of Vennel's face. His colourless eyes turned reluctantly to Suth sitting stiff-backed on a stool. These robbers have spilled your precious blood, my Lord. They would not have dared had they known you to be Chosen.'
These were no robbers,' said Aurum.
With his foot he rolled the corpse's head to one side and drew its tunic down with his toe. A lantern on the ground revealed the red ruin of its face. Carnelian stared, clenching and unclenching the fingers from which Tain had prised the stone.