As they descended into the inner Wheel, Carnelian was beginning to believe they had managed to elude their attackers. He could hear music. Flags proclaimed the trades of the bonesmith, the featherer, the copper-beater. The weavers were there with their cottons, the pigmenters with their dyes. Lacquered boxes rather than baskets held every kind of precious commodity. One man was rolling out leathers rippled like water and another displaying cylinders of ivory as thick as his arms. Among them strolled buyers, their face tattoos proclaiming them the servants of the Masters. Behind them swung chests with their treasure of coined bronze.
The music of horns and cymbals was coming from somewhere up ahead. Carnelian tried to see round the riders blocking his view. They were nearing the ring of poles that he had seen from the ramp defining the hub of the Wheel. From each pole hung strange fruit. The fetor of decay swelled with the carnival music. Carnelian could see dancers cavorting between the poles, snaking yellow ribbons through the air. People were poking sticks into the things hanging from the poles. Squinting, he was appalled to see that they were men dangling in the air spread-eagled on diagonal crosses. As he came closer, Carnelian flinched away from one man's agonized face. A hawker was selling makeshift spears to his tormentors. Carnelian had to pass so close to the crucified man that he could smell his sweat and the excrement that streaked his legs.
The Wheel's hub was fenced in by these crucifixions. Carnelian was looking round in disgust when his aquar began to be jostled. The crowd was milling. One Maruli's aquar was shoved into his. Angry voices were drowning out the horns. His aquar's plumes flared. Carnelian pulled his father's saddle-chair as close as he could, then stretched over to grab its rim. His father jigged like a sack. A surge was rushing towards them across the mass of heads. It struck. Although Carnelian was almost unseated, he still managed to keep hold of his father's chair. Aurum's voice was shouting commands over the riot. Carnelian watched the Marula stabbing at faces with their lances. Panic was ripping gaps in the crowd as Carnelian watched hands reach up to one Maruli's saddle-chair. The man had a sword out and was chopping at them. For each hand that was stung away two more grabbed hold. The chair was toppling. The aquar was struggling against the bodies pressing round it. Suddenly the Maruli was yanked into a surf of hands and disappeared. For a moment he resurfaced, bloodied, then the crowd closed over him. Carnelian looked round in shock and saw another Maruli being dragged to his death. He tried to edge his aquar and his father's round to shield him. His own chair lurched suddenly to the left. Hands were grasping the rim. His father's chair bobbed free as Carnelian was forced to let it go. Faces grimaced up at him as he fumbled for one of his ranga shoes. He stamped at their fingers and heard bones crack but still they clung on.
Master voices crying out in wrath made Carnelian look up. They were revealing themselves, huge and golden-faced. He pushed his own hood back. Instantly most of the hands released their grip as if his mask were shooting flames at them. His chair righted a little, but fingers still gripped like grappling hooks. The faces over the rim showed doubt as round them the crowd was falling to its knees. Still they pulled, gnashing their teeth as he struck repeatedly. His chair's lean was increasing. Soon he would fall out. He could see enraged men waiting below with their flint knives.
A voice boomed so loud it made the crowd seem quiet. 'Brothers of the Wheel.' The assassins looking up at Carnelian faltered. He was jolted to one side as his saddle-chair was released. He looked round and saw the gold-faced figure sitting tall in his father's saddle-chair. 'I am the voice of the Masters.'
Carnelian stopped breathing. His father had come back to life. The crowd stilled.
The Mountain knows who you are, Oh Brothers of the Wheel, and what
… you do here… today. Slip… slip…' His father crumpled.
A voice could be heard giving commands in thin Quya but Carnelian could see the blood lust returning to the eyes below. Fingers curled slowly over his chair's rim. Carnelian watched them, his ranga shoe held high. He allowed his arm to sink and put the shoe across his knees. He lengthened his back, lifted his chin. He moistened his lips. 'Slip away.' He felt his mask quivering with the words. 'Slip away, Oh Brothers of the Wheel.' His voice was finding its strength. 'Slip away now and this sin'll be forgiven you.' He felt the power. He was a spindle of iron. He raised his hand to point up at the sky. 'Persist and you may be certain that as surely as that sun'll set tonight, so shall the vengeance of the Masters find you to exterminate you root and branch even to the remotest of your kin.'
His words had turned the crowd to stone. A lone voice warbled a command. Carnelian saw his attackers fleeing, chasing the ripple of prostration that was spreading away through the crowd. Around him the marketplace might have been a plain of ferns flattened by a whirlwind. A murmur came from those distant parts of the Wheel that the silence had not reached. As Carnelian looked round he felt the power drain away. An aquar was wandering with what was left of his father crumpled in its saddle-chair. The moaning of the crucified was a wind through winter trees.
THE THREE GATES
Three lands
Three gates
And three tall crowns
'Suth has killed himself,' shrilled Vennel.
Jaspar's mask was surveying the further reaches of the crowd. 'I had thought him already dead.'
Aurum rode to stoop towards Suth's cloak.
Vennel looked at Carnelian. 'Grieve not, my Lord, your father's death was not in vain. He saved us and now you are the Ruling Lord Suth.'
The reins sagged in Carnelian's hand. His aquar began ambling.
Jaspar looked round. 'We must haste to the gates. This is no place to linger.'
Carnelian felt as if he were bobbing in icy water.
'He yet lives.'
They all turned to Aurum.
'He lives, you say?' cried Vennel. 'Are you sure?' Aurum straightened. Though his blood grows cold.' Carnelian yanked his aquar back into control and moved to his father's side. He reached over to touch him. His father's cloak could have been stuffed with clay. No sound of breathing came from behind his mask. Carnelian rummaged among the cloak's folds for a hand. He lifted the lank flesh and placed his finger to the blue cord bridging the wrist. There was a flutter like a taper flame. He sighed and stroked it, before replacing it in the folds. He felt a shadow fall on him and looked up. It was Jaspar.
'Are we safe?'
Aurum's mask seemed to melt and flame as he nodded. The danger has passed for now. Her web is torn a second time.'
'And the Marula?'
The crowd's tide had crept away, stranding the corpses of three of the black men in their puddling blood. Aurum ignored the question and began barking commands at those still alive. Carnelian's eyes lingered on their pinched faces. They seemed not to have heard. Their red eyes slid sidelong to their fallen comrades.
'On, I say, on!' cried Aurum.
Marula eyes glanced off the mirror of the Master's face to stare up to the faces of the Gods sneering down at them from the canyon's throat.
Aurum swept his hand around his head like a blade to indicate the encircling crucifixions. 'If you don't want to end this day hanging on a cross, you'll move on.'
The Marula hunched reluctant, then first one and then the rest urged their aquar forward towards the prostrate edge of the crowd. Their lances stiffened as they coughed battle cries and began to pick up speed. There was a screaming scramble as people splashed out of their way like water at a ford.
Aurum looked over at Carnelian. 'Come, my Lord.'