Seeing the way Morunasa was gazing at him, Carnelian was overcome with revulsion. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Oracle. Enjoy this, because you know you will never dare visit your vengeance on him.’
Snarling, Morunasa began climbing the ramp to the next level. When they reached the top level of the stables Morunasa halted outside a stall and cast his lantern light into it. Carnelian’s head eclipsed the light as he peered in. He crouched, seeing two prone figures: another Master, this one laid out upon the floor, muttering, and beside him a skeleton. Carnelian gasped with horror and fell to his knees. ‘Osidian,’ he murmured, his voice breaking towards a sob. He gulped it back, knowing Morunasa was watching. He removed his mask and put it on the floor, then leaned close. The skeleton was indeed Osidian, all his flesh drained away, leaving only bones, and skin marred by many recent wounds. Carnelian grew angry that he should be seen like that. He unfastened his cloak and covered him. Blearily, this almost dead thing opened its eyes. Bright jewels among the ruins of his beauty. Carnelian’s tears were blinding him. He leaned closer, whispering: ‘What have you done to yourself? What have you done?’
Osidian began a smile that his lips were too tight to finish. He tried to raise one withered arm, but had not the strength. He smiled again. ‘I have been to the Shadow Isle and have returned.’
His breath was stale. His eyes seemed to sink back into his skull. Carnelian had no problem believing Osidian had returned from death.
Osidian’s soul seemed to rise up again from the depths. ‘I found peace there,’ he sighed, but his eyes were haunted by some recollection. Then they ignited. ‘I bring back a promise of victory.’
Carnelian drew back a little. Those eyes had in them the mercilessness of a raven’s. The light subsided and Osidian stared madly as if he were seeing some horror. Carnelian reached under the cloak and found his hand. He winced at its frailty, like the remains of a bird’s wing. He dared not squeeze it lest all its bones snap. ‘Famine threatens to destroy our forces. We must move to where they can feed or else there will be nothing to follow you to victory except the dead.’
Osidian frowned, but showed no comprehension. His brow smoothed. ‘My Father promised me victory and peace thereafter.’
Carnelian knew he would gain nothing by further speech and so he told him he was going to carry him up to Heart-of-Thunder.
‘Jaspar too.’
On the point of asking what he meant, Carnelian became aware once more of the other body, and its muttering as constant as the babbling of a stream. He leaned over to see the face. A narrow face that at first he could not recognize as Jaspar’s, so wasted it might rather have been Jaspar’s aged father. His white flesh looked as if he had been the victim of a frenzied stabbing. Carnelian noticed some movement. A pale tongue was poking out from one of these wounds. Carnelian bent double, retching.
‘The God has entered him and speaks to me through him.’
Carnelian glared at Osidian.
‘He seeds my dreams.’
Carnelian regarded Jaspar with disgust. He was giving birth to his maggots. ‘Will he die?’
‘Oh no, he will suffer long.’
Carnelian turned back to Osidian.
‘He shall be tended well so that I may use him as an instrument of divination.’ Osidian must have misunderstood Carnelian’s look of horror, for he added: ‘Worry not, we shall make sure he shall be fully aware of the God devouring him.’
Carnelian rose, trying to overcome his disgust, his loathing for Osidian and his filthy obsessions by instructing Morunasa how the two Masters were to be carried up out of the stables.
Carnelian emerged from behind the monolith onto the leftway and gulped fresh air through his mask. Heart-of-Thunder seemed insubstantial against the vast world beyond, which Carnelian felt he was seeing through a film of blood. A sea of sartlar stretched away to a murky horizon. Shock made the moment silent and eternaclass="underline" he had stepped into one of his dreams. He forced his head to move, his eyes to focus on something with a human scale. Osidian lying masked upon a bier borne by Oracles, Jaspar upon another. The Marula stared as if they were seeing their deaths rolling towards them. Carnelian could not resist the pressure of their gaze and once more turned to look upon the multitude.
‘Millions…’ he breathed. His feet carried him closer to the edge as he sought to take in the vastness of such numbers. A great disturbance struck the shoreline of that sea where it came close to the dragons. For a moment Carnelian feared the dragons were attacking them, but there was no smoke, no fire, and the monsters seemed as motionless as rocks. The disturbance surged out across the masses, rushing towards the horizon like some vast wave sucking back from the shore. As he watched it race away, Carnelian understood what it was he was seeing. They were kneeling. An oceanic act of abasement. Was he its cause?
‘The brutes feel the presence of my Father.’
Carnelian turned and saw Morunasa had lifted Osidian’s head enough so that he could look out. The dark hands reverentially let Osidian’s head down. He was too weak to lift it himself, Carnelian could see that. Then Carnelian noticed Heart-of-Thunder’s Hands kneeling a little way off along the leftway. He summoned them and they came. ‘Dispatch a message to Earth-is-Strong. Her Lefthand is to command her until I return.’
The Hands touched their foreheads to the stone, so that when they came up they were bloodied by the dust. Carnelian gazed out once more and saw the wave of kneeling was still receding towards the horizon. He brought his gaze back to the edge of the camp. The dragons were beginning to swing round towards the ramp that would lead them up onto the road. Beneath him, the auxiliaries were already mounted. He gave the sartlar one more glance, then led the procession of Oracles and biers towards the dragon tower.
Moving along the open road, Heart-of-Thunder was easily outpacing the sartlar, who were pouring like oil across the murky land. Carnelian’s heart leapt when he noticed the miasma ahead wavering. He held his breath as the haze slipped to the ground in undulating thinning veils to reveal a vision of clear air, of a land running green to a far horizon. He let out a sigh that mixed relief with wonder. He felt free and had to fight a desire to tear the mask from his face so that he could enjoy the clean air unfiltered. Even through its nosepads he could detect the rich pungency of hri. He scanned the land and saw its greens were duller than they had seemed at first. These fields were tinged with brown. The rising heat was already turning the morning sky to enamel. He scanned round to the west. There the red haze formed a vague cliff fading away into the south-west, from whose base shapes were emerging like ants. He watched them slowly darkening the earth, turning the fields a dunnish red.
‘It is nearly harvest time,’ said the homunculus.
Carnelian turned to the little man, a question on his lips, but he forgot this and everything else as a shadow rose up at the edge of his vision.
‘Like locusts.’
Carnelian gazed at Osidian and wished he could see beneath his mask. Though his voice sounded sane enough, only looking into his eyes would make Carnelian certain. Still, he rose, steadied himself against the motion of the deck and offered the command chair to Osidian who, moving like an old man, slumped into it. For a long while he hung forward watching the sartlar devouring the land.
‘Numberless,’ he said, almost in a whisper.
He half turned so that Carnelian could see the gleam of an eye behind the mask. ‘Why did you gather them?’
‘I too was promised victory in a dream,’ Carnelian answered. He expected more questions, a dismissal, but at that moment a long, vibrating stream of Quyan syllables began pouring out from behind them. Carnelian saw Jaspar’s shadowy form laid out against the cabin wall.
‘The Lord speaks,’ said Osidian, in deep tones, as he nodded ponderously. He watched the sartlar stripping the land of its green to leave it red. ‘They consume the land as the worms did my own flesh.’