‘Then you’ll stay with me.’
Carnelian shook his head again. ‘Not this time. I’m going to do what I should’ve done long ago and walk away.’ Misery claimed him. ‘I really don’t know why I ever thought this was a good idea. It’s all such a stinking mess.’
‘I won’t let you go,’ Osidian said, his voice ice.
Carnelian heard in it the tones of an abandoned lover and wanted to tell him they were brothers, but even were Osidian to believe it, Carnelian could not see that it would change anything. ‘Then, you’ll have to kill me.’
They stood as shadows, confronting each other. Just then, Carnelian would have welcomed death at Osidian’s hands. The moment passed. He turned and walked away.
By the time he reached the roadway, he was cold with fear. Not for himself, but of what Osidian might do to Fern and the others. He strode through the camp until he found them around a fire. Poppy and Krow looked up at him. Carnelian motioned and they made space for him to sit. He sank beside them, hunching, seeking not to draw too much attention from the auxiliaries around them. ‘I’m leaving.’
Poppy’s face lost colour. ‘Where’re you going?’
He nodded towards where the embassy was a faint gleam along the leftway.
‘Why?’
Krow beside her seemed as anxious as she was, but Fern was staring into the fire as if it did not concern him. Carnelian focused on the youngsters. He tried to marshal his thoughts. ‘I feel I’ve just woken from a strange dream. In the horror… the guilt following the massacre…’ They all glanced at Fern, but he showed no reaction. ‘I allowed myself to get drawn along the same sort of path the Master walks. Led by dreams; sacrificing people with a view of reaching some goal.’
Carnelian looked first into Poppy’s eyes, then Krow’s. ‘Even if my motives are wholly different from his, my methods have been too similar. The people who’ve just left came to explain to both of us the stark realities. We can’t hope to win and, even if we did, we’d gain nothing. Just in making the attempt, countless more people will die. Worse, what we’ve already done is going to bring famine to the Gods know how many.’
The fear in their young faces made him pause.
‘For the Masters this is all a game and I believed I could beat them, but I was wrong. I’ve just made things worse.’
He saw how they would not look at him and felt a stab of shame that they were feeling let down. He wanted to take Poppy’s hand, to tell her that her belief in him had been justified, but he had nothing with which to back that up. He glanced at Fern, who was still impassive. He resisted an urge to tell them that very likely he was going to his death. That seemed a poor way to restore their faith in him. Besides, it might only serve to have them attempt to persuade him not to go and that he did not want. His heart ached with the need to save them. That at least was something that might be in his power.
Poppy looked up at him, her lips pursed. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best.’
‘Have you told the Master?’ asked Krow.
At Carnelian’s nod, the youth gazed up at the watch-tower with fearful eyes.
‘I want you all to come with me,’ Carnelian said.
Krow jerked back round to look at him. ‘Won’t he try to stop us?’
‘He might. That is why we must go immediately.’
Poppy fixed Carnelian with a stare, glanced at Fern, then back with her fingers tracing a chameleon over her face. He understood and said it for her, but looking towards Fern. ‘You’ll all have to join my household. I’m not making any promises, but I believe there’s a chance that you’ll survive this.’
Fern showed no reaction – not then, nor after first Poppy, then Krow declared they would follow Carnelian. All of them were now looking at Fern, waiting.
‘Fern,’ said Carnelian at last, ‘will you come with us?’
Fern only frowned and Carnelian felt for him. He was in an impossible position. Had he not already submitted to fighting under the command of the murderer of his people and this because he could at least tell himself he was fighting against the Masters who were the oppressors of all the world? Now he was being asked to abandon even that shaky cause, for what? To become, at best, a servant of the Masters in Osrakum?’
Poppy crouched at his side and, grasping his hand, begged him to come. ‘Because we love you. We all do,’ she said and turned round and got Krow and Carnelian’s nod. ‘We’re the only family you’ve got left.’
Carnelian wanted to say that this was not true. That Fern had cousins where they were going, but he bit his tongue. Fern’s head sank. ‘I’ll come.’
They crept up through the stables. Carnelian had decided they would attract less attention if they went on foot. He was sure they would soon catch up with the embassy. When they reached the cistern level, he remembered the homunculi. He had not seen them for days. He realized that, even if he could find them, they would hardly wish to return to their masters. They would just have to take their chances with Osidian.
As they came round the monolith onto the leftway, a shadow blocked their path. From his shape and sour odour, Carnelian knew it was Morunasa. Fearing the man had been sent by Osidian, he reached for his sword.
Morunasa’s sharpened teeth appeared in a grin. ‘And where would you all be going?’
Carnelian saw no point in lying. ‘We’re deserting.’
Morunasa’s smile widened as he moved aside to let them pass. Uneasy, Carnelian led them off north along the leftway, unhappy that he was leaving Sthax and the rest of the Marula warriors at the mercy of Osidian and the Oracles.
As they walked they listened out for any pursuit. None came and soon the glimmer of the camp was too dim to see and only the pinpricks of the naphtha flares showed where the watch-tower lay. On they walked, nothing but their footfalls disturbing the eerie silence. The stars filled the heavens with their frost. All around, the land lay black. Hardly a breeze stirred the night air. Far ahead a star lower than all the others suggested the position of the next watch-tower. Of the Wise and their embassy there was no sign. As they continued it seemed that, for all their walking, they were always lost in the same place. Carnelian began to regret his decision not to bring aquar.
The hem of the eastern sky was sucking up the first paleness of the dawn when they saw a watch-tower stark against the indigo like some monstrous baobab. This was the third tower they had come to. They had been walking all night. Having come within sight of the radiance that the embassy were carrying along the road, they had followed it, keeping their distance. They were weary and it was with some relief Carnelian saw a flickering spilling out from the watch-tower onto the leftway over which it loomed. ‘Thank the Mother, they’re making camp at last.’
Striding towards the cordon of Ichorians, Carnelian was relieved when they fell to their knees. ‘I have business with the Suth Lord who travels among you,’ he said, affecting a Master’s tone of command.
Though he had hoped they would obey him, he was made uneasy when their cordon opened without anyone even being sent back to get instructions. It gave him the unsettling impression he was expected. He hesitated only for a moment. There was no going back. Gesturing for the others to follow him, he moved into their camp.
The untattooed halves of Ichorian faces floated in the darkness like so many crescent moons, but Carnelian quickly lost interest in them. Just beyond the tower, the leftway disappeared. He could see the pale edge of the road catching the first light, but the leftway that should have flanked it was simply not there. He could see no disturbance in the earth, no rubble. It seemed just as if it had never existed. What he saw next made him forget everything else; halved by the road, a great disc lay to the north, spread out glimmering beneath the forbidding blackness of Osrakum’s Sacred Wall. It could be nothing but a military camp, but in comparison with those Carnelian had seen before it was a pomegranate to one of its seeds.