'Alas, our time in this world is brief,' said Jaspar.
'Still, none should be hastened unlawfully to their tomb. I am not the only Ruling Lord who has carried out precautionary reprisals among his household.'
'My Lord is very wise.'
Cumulus made space for Jaspar. 'Perhaps we can walk together.'
The Law only requires that the mourners walk, my Lord.'
Then, with your indulgence, and for a while, I will become a mourner.'
Carnelian saw Jaspar making covert signs to him. Behind us. He fought resentment but did what he was told, taking a place behind the two Masters.
Cumulus' guardsmen formed up on one side while those of House Imago formed up on the other. The households merged into a mass behind. Carnelian watched the men with cloud tattoos look over warily at the blood-crusted faces of Jaspar's men.
Cumulus' gold face turned to Jaspar. 'Is it not somewhat unusual at this time for a Ruling Lord to go to court accompanied by others of his House?'
These are unusual times,' said Jaspar. 'Besides, I am not yet fully become a Ruling Lord.'
'One can see that your father's mantle would be a heavy burden to bear alone, especially when it has fallen upon my Lord's shoulders so unexpectedly.'
'One's father carried it alone and he was aged. One expects his son might carry it lightly enough.'
'And has his son decided to carry all his burdens?' asked Cumulus.
Tell me, my Lord, why are you come so late?' said Jaspar. The other Lords will already have been gathered in the sky for many days.'
Cumulus attempted other lines of enquiry but Jaspar refused to say whether or not he was intending to hold together his father's faction. Carnelian grew weary of trying to follow their word games and watched another tomb door pass. He allowed his eyes to climb its guardian. Above it, the pyramid hollow gaped cavernously. A fishbone stair climbed to a pitchy apex, tiers coming off it like spines, each dimpled with thrones. On either side of the hollow, the cliff was scribed with long terraces like the ripples the sea leaves on sand.
It was the sounding of his House name that brought Carnelian's attention back to earth.
'… it is true, he is returned,' Jaspar was saying.
To support Aurum?' asked Cumulus.
Jaspar answered with one of his elegant shrugs.
'If Suth were to support him, Aurum would no doubt be once more a power to be feared.'
'No doubt,' said Jaspar as he looked away. 'Behold, my Lord, we are arrived at last.'
Two guardians stood among the others but neither had a tomb door between its shins. Instead, the door they guarded lay between them both.
Jaspar glanced back at him. 'Come.'
Carnelian made no sign that he had heard.
'We must prepare to pass through the Forbidden Door, neh?'
Carnelian stared at the door. Its plain green-black heart-stone and modest size made it seem like nothing more than the entrance to just another tomb.
One of the door's marble guardians had an archway cut into its ankle. From this ammonites emerged and then a homunculus behind which a Sapient towered with his hands around its throat. The creature and its master stood themselves before the door.
When Carnelian and the other Masters had drawn close enough, the homunculus put out its hand. Jaspar allowed Cumulus to give his blood-ring for examination first before he pulled his own off and gave it to the creature. Its rheumy old man's eyes flickered along the ring's rim, then it glanced at Carnelian before turning to Jaspar. 'Imago Jaspar, at this time only Ruling Seraphs are permitted at court.'
'I am not yet a Ruling Lord, Sapience.'
Muttering, and then with the Sapient's fingers playing its neck, 'We had not thought your succession was in doubt.'
'Still, one is inexperienced, Sapience. I have brought Imago Khrusos to help me take my first shaky steps at court.'
Jaspar moved aside and the homunculus extended its hand. Carnelian hesitated, removed the ring Jaspar had given him and put it on the hand. The creature examined it, muttering. The Sapient uncoiled a hand from round its neck and flashed out a series of commands. A while later an ammonite put a string of beads in the Sapient's translucent palm. The Sapient freed his other hand and holding one end of the string dropped the rest to the ground. Its beads shone and tinkled. Carnelian watched the Sapient's fingers descend the cord like a spider, feeling the beads as they went. The hands returned the cord to the ammonite before returning to strangle the homunculus. For a while, the Sapient's long silver mask froze, then his fingers twitched and his creature said, 'Very well, Seraphim, the door shall open for you.'
Even the sky's Heart of Thunder
Is silenced By the darkness under the trees
Carnelian was disappointed. He had expected some wonder to lie behind the door but all he could see was a tunnel plainly cut through the rock. There were niches carved into the walls long enough for one of the Chosen to lie in. He became uneasy. He seemed to be standing in the entrance to a tomb.
'We shall meet again in the sky, my Lord,' said Cumulus.
'No doubt,' said Jaspar.
Carnelian watched the Lord Cumulus climb into his palanquin and slide its door closed. The box was lifted and slipped into the tunnel, pulling after it the Master's attendants.
Jaspar flourished his hand in front of Carnelian. 'After you, my Lord.'
Carnelian walked into the tunnel, Jaspar followed him, and the Imago guardsmen and the procession fed in behind. In the plain stone walls, narrow passages could be seen running off on either side. The scuffling seemed to make the air too thick to breathe. Their many-headed shadow stretched longer, moving away from them as if it were being sucked into the gloom ahead. The door closed behind them with a dull thunk, plunging them all into sudden night.
'How do we see?' blurted Carnelian among the mutter-ings of fear.
'We still have the Lord Cumulus' radiance to guide us,' said Jaspar.
Carnelian saw, some way off, lanterns hovering like fireflies around the dark cocoon of Cumulus' palanquin. They carried on, keeping them in sight. Carnelian could hear Jaspar's heavy footfalls, and behind him the clink and patter of his people. His own breathing seemed as loud as the wind.
'Is this then-?' He stopped, startled by how much his voice reverberated. 'Is this then the fabled Labyrinth?' he whispered.
Walking beside him, Jaspar made no reply. Carnelian dropped the matter and they continued in silence. On and on they went with nothing ever changing so that only the movement of his legs convinced Carnelian that they were going forward at all. A dusty odour floated round them that might have been ancient, faded myrrh. Jaspar's people were clearly terrified. Carnelian sensed their trembling in the air. He himself was fighting a growing conviction that they were all descending into the Underworld.
The lanterns up ahead gradually lulled him into a kind of stupor from which a vision only slowly released him. It was like a forest in a dream. The tunnel was coming out into a clearing among twilit trees. It was their appalling immensity that brought Carnelian fully aware. When he looked for it he saw Cumulus' palanquin among the mossy trunks, moving off up a hill accompanied by shadow men. With each step, the vision widened, brightening to a brooding gloom. As he reached the tunnel's end, Carnelian was able to see deeper in among the columned trees. He followed the trunks up and further up to find the canopy of their branches, but when he reached it his eyes could make no sense of what they saw. The branches joined the trees to each other with soaring arches through which he could not see even a glimpse of sky. Angling his head to one side, he found a hole, a scallop-edged disc of blue whose aching incandescence forced him to look away. Wandering high in the half-light, his gaze fell upon a face. Beneath the vaults of branches, one of the trees had a face. It was such a face as a god might have, serene, seeing past all horizons, with thoughts that were clouds in a sky of mind. Peering, Carnelian found that every tree had its face. Focusing on the nearest trunk, he saw it was jointed and that it rose in tiers. It was only then he realized they stood not at the edge of a forest but on the threshold of an endless hall of carved colossal stone.