Carnelian remembered Tain with a gasp. Quickly untying his father's reins from his saddle-chair, he threw them over to Jaspar and then forced his aquar into the maelstrom. Warning cries from the other Masters seemed remote. Everything was moving as slowly as curling smoke. As he ground his eyes round, Carnelian saw one of the Ichorians, only a boy, tugging twice on a line; it bellied back dragging its blade. Blood flicking off it across Carnelian's hand was pleasantly warm. His aquar's steps pumped him lazily up and down. He saw Tain sitting stiff and bloody, eyes screwed shut, clamped in the arms of a headless black and red man. An Ichorian placed himself in Carnelian's path mouthing something. Carnelian urged his aquar on and watched the man jump out of his way. He lifted his gaze, saw Tain, leaned precariously out and prised him from the corpse. As he fell back into his saddle-chair, his brother's weight crushed out a grunt.
'My Lord! Carnelian!' Aurum's outrage blared.
Carnelian looked down into his brother's face, felt him for wounds, prised a reddened eyelid open. His brother's dark eye rolled to white. 'Carnie,' he gulped and burrowed his head into Carnelian's armpit.
Carnelian turned his aquar to face Aurum and the others.
'What in the thousand names of They do you think you are doing?' Aurum boomed. 'You could have been slain.'
The golden frieze of the Masters' faces were judging him. He ignored them, hugged Tain tighter and pushed his aquar through their line. He rode towards the hedge's thick twisting thicket of thrusting bronze. A vinegar odour reeked off its mossy rust. Carnelian's eyes became trapped in all that curving and wandered lost. He found he was looking up through its bristling where his gaze had found the top. A vast height of canyon wall rose to a faraway sky.
He dropped his head into Tain's warmth, rocking him, crooning so that neither of them heard the hedge clank its thorns as it began to open up in front of them.
When Carnelian lifted his head, he saw silver faces floating in the gloom. Lamps glowing like stars lent vague substance to the walls. Masters' masks streaked with their reflections. Looking round, Carnelian could not locate the doorway they had come through. Tain stirred against his chest as if awaking. Carnelian felt him stiffen as ammonites drifted near. Carnelian tried to make his aquar back away but one of them touched a hand to the creature's neck and it sank down.
'Give the slave to us, Seraph,' one of the ammonites said in Quya.
Carnelian clutched Tain.
Ranga shoes clacked towards them.
'You must give them the boy, my Lord.'
Carnelian turned on Jaspar. 'Curse you, I paid your price.'
Jaspar backed away. 'Calm yourself, cousin.' He looked round to see if any of the other Masters were paying attention. The boy's eyes are safe, but he must pass through the quarantine with the others.' He pointed. 'Look, my Lord, we are all handing them over.'
Carnelian looked and saw Jaspar's pallid blood-smeared boy creeping into the waiting hands of an ammonite. He turned back to Jaspar. 'How long?'
'Before he is returned to you?'
Carnelian nodded.
Thirty-three days.'
'A month,' Carnelian cried in disbelief.
Twenty cells lie between here and the Blood Gate and there are another thirteen beyond. He will have to spend a day in each before he is allowed to pass through the Black Gate.'
'Promise me on your blood that he will not be harmed.'
Jaspar shrugged. 'My Lord cannot expect one to vouch for everything. If the child is found to have plague…' The Master put his wrists together in a sign of powerless-ness.
'He does not,' said Carnelian, more emphatically than he felt. He nudged Tain. 'Come on, we must talk,' he said in Vulgate.
Tain clambered over the edge of the saddle-chair. Carnelian fumbled on his ranga shoes and then climbed out beside him. He waved the ammonites back and walked a little way from the others, beckoning Tain to follow.
He looked down at his brother. Carnelian could see his own bloody hand-print on his brother's face. He touched his mask. 'I wish I could remove this thing.'
Tain looked back at him with huge bruise-rimmed eyes.
Tain, you'll have to go with them.' His brother looked fearfully back at the ammonites. 'Will they let me come back… back to you and the Master once… once… once they've blinded me?'
Carnelian threw his head back and moaned. 'Oh, no, no, Tain, it's not that. It's been sorted out. It's not that.'
Tain was still gazing at him.
'No, really, I promise, I swear on my blood, your eyes are in no danger, but…' 'But…?'
'You must be kept apart from us for a month until they're' – Carnelian indicated the ammonites – 'sure that you're clean of plague.'
'Plague,' nodded Tain.
Carnelian noticed the ammonites gathering around one of the kneeling aquar. 'Please go with them. I must see to Father. Trust me, Tain.'
'At the end of it, they'll send me to where you are, Carnie?'
'I promise.' Carnelian gave his brother's arm a squeeze. There was nothing to grip but bone. Tain looked stuck to the ground. Carnelian pushed him gently away. 'Go on, pull yourself together, endure it, you're strong enough.' He remembered something. He fished out the Little Mother from a pocket and pressed her into Tain's hand. 'She'll look after you.'
Tain gave a watery smile and hid her in his fist. Carnelian watched him turn, hesitate looking at the ammonites with their sinister silver faces, then pace towards them. Carnelian turned away and strode off towards his father.
Ammonites were crowding him. Aurum was standing looking in over their heads. Carnelian heard the tearing sound. He pushed through them and saw they were ripping through his father's cloak like a crab's shell to expose the yellow-white body inside. One of the silver masks leant so close that it caught a twisting reflection of the wound-stained bandages.
The creature straightened up and looked round at the gold masks. 'Seraphim, these bandages have been tampered with.'
Aurum leaned over to see. 'Perhaps his slave…'
The ammonite whisked round, looking off towards the boys who were undressing. 'Which is he? He must be destroyed.'
'It is too late for that; he was one of the Lord Aurum's numerous victims,' said Carnelian bitterly.
Aurum's mask looked down at him from a height.
'Besides,' Carnelian continued, 'it was I who cut the bandages.'
'Indeed, my Lord,' said Aurum. 'Now we see why he is dying.'
Carnelian flared up. 'How dare you accuse me of that? I did it with his agreement. The bandages were rotting…'
The Law-'
'Does my Lord speak of the same Law which he has seen fit to break at his every whim?'
Aurum's mask angled a little to one side. This impertinence-'
'Are you then, my Lord, He-who-goes-before? You must be since you wear his ring.'