Ahead, running from cliff to cliff, the final fortress reared its sombre wall. Behind was the Hidden Land of Osrakum. Carnelian’s heart began to beat so loudly he was amazed none in the cabin seemed to hear it. Even as they moved into the shadow of the Black Gate, the leftmost of two portals began to open. Poppy and Krow were standing against the screen, though Carnelian had not noticed them moving forward. He rose, a childlike enthusiasm rising in him to watch the wonder on their faces. Bells began bruising the air. Not a single bell to announce his blood-rank as had happened when he last entered, but a multitude of them, their pealing building echo upon echo until he became sure the Black Gate and the walls of the Canyon must shatter from the reverberation. He did not care, for he had reached the screen and, with a quick glance at Poppy and Krow, he fixed his gaze upon the opening gate.
A landscape wrought from flint. Not blue and smiling, the Skymere, but dark, opaque. Certainly no mirror to heaven. Carnelian looked for the Yden, but its emerald had lost its fire. Dull, it looked, lifeless, its once verdant riot seeming to have been smothered by mould. From its faded heart the Pillar of Heaven rose, a black thorn that seemed to be pricking the brooding sky. The Labyrinth mound seemed no less forbidding than the Isle of Flies. Osrakum’s sacred mountain wall, the curving grin of a greying corpse. The coombs, rotted pockets in which palaces lodged their grey moraine.
Carnelian’s elation drained away. His memory of Osrakum’s beauty died. He was reluctant to look at Poppy’s face, but he could not help himself. It reflected the grey crater. Her expression was very far from wonder. Krow had his arm around her and together they looked, stone-faced, upon what was to be their home. Almost Carnelian said to them that it could be glorious in the sun, but he remembered how dangerous a place this was. Could any amount of beauty compensate for such danger? As he gazed upon the Hidden Land, it occurred to him, grimly, that the face she was showing them now might be her true one.
Down through the Valley of the Gate they went, between the thickets of polygonal columns whose tips bore the shape of men. Not angels, as they had appeared to him the previous time he had seen them; instead a miserable near-faceless multitude, seeming to watch them pass. He brooded on the accepted belief that they were the Quyan host turned to stone.
As a more human assemblage came into sight, at first he felt relief. A rising pyramid of gilded, perfect Masters that enringed the bowl in which the Great were wont to hold their Clave. When last he had gazed upon them, he had been wandering at their feet. From this height, however finely wrought, they seemed mere carvings. The furious fire the sun had lent them then had died. As they slipped past, he watched the bulk of Earth-is-Strong reflected in their gold, fragmented into a many-scaled shadow. It made him shudder. He could not help feeling it was a glimpse of the Darkness-under-the-Trees creeping into Osrakum.
The Valley columns bristled to a sudden end where they reached the Skymere shore. To either side, as far as Carnelian could see, flights of steps cascaded down to the water. Only the road they were on continued, borne out over the lake on the back of a vast causeway. Sartlar numberless as sand grains had built it and mortared it with their blood. For a moment, Carnelian brooded on the mounds of their dead he and Fern had wandered among upon the battlefield. It seemed that, whatever happened, it was the flesh of the brutes, their blood, that was the matter from which all else was built.
He was woken from his musings by noticing what appeared to be leaden blocks forming a neat barricade across the mouth of the Great Causeway. Not of lead, but silver: the many-wheeled chariots of the Wise. Cordons of dark figures formed a barrier before the steps from amongst whom tendrils of smoke were beginning to rise. Here and there along their line, some furtive glimmers. He leaned forward, squinting through the slits of his mask. Ammonites, crowds of them spilling down the steps, amongst them all manner of structures.
He sat back, thinking. What had to be said would be better said unmasked, even though his face might betray his doubts. ‘Be blind.’
Immediately his Left and Right clasped their hands to their faces and bent forward to touch the backs of their hands to the deck. Carnelian removed his mask and looked at Fern, then Poppy, then Krow. ‘You must leave me and accompany my father and brothers to our…’ He tried to find an Ochre word for coomb, but failed. He half pointed in the direction where he knew Coomb Suth lay. ‘Across the water.’
‘Why can’t we stay with you, Carnie?’
‘I need to go on alone, Poppy. Where I’m going, you’d only get in the way. I need to know you’re all safe. And I want you to take care of my father.’
‘What is it you need to do?’ asked Fern, sensing his fear.
‘It’s something dangerous, but something I have to do. Do you trust me?’
Fern, slowly, gave a nod.
‘When will we see you again?’
Carnelian saw how scared Poppy was. ‘Whatever happens, in a day, two at the most, I’ll cross the water to you.’ He buried deep his dread that, on that day, he might be coming to say goodbye to them for ever. He saw Fern’s misery. As their eyes met, Carnelian was sure Fern guessed something of what he was trying to hide.
‘We need to descend to the ground now,’ he said, hoping Fern would accept this. When his lover gave an imperceptible nod, Carnelian felt a lightening of his burden. Whatever happened, he convinced himself that Fern would survive and would take care of Poppy and Krow. He managed a smile for the two youngsters. ‘You must take as much care as if the people on the ground were raveners.’ He was glad to see the colour draining from their faces. He remasked and bade his officers see again. The marumaga sneaked glances at Fern and the others. Carnelian could see their shock and appreciated how strange it must seem to them, in spite of not understanding a word, the intimate way he talked to his people.
As he rose painfully from the command chair, he raised his hand to stop Fern coming to help him. Putting weight on his wounded leg, he was sure it would carry him. He pulled the Suth Ruling Ring from his finger and thrust it into Fern’s hand. ‘Give it to the eldest of my brothers.’ He considered urging all kinds of advice on him, but the handing over of the ring would have to be enough to show his brothers how important Fern was to him. ‘Tell my father everything that you know.’
Fern raised his eyebrows, but then nodded and closed his hand around the ring. Carnelian sent him ahead, then Poppy and Krow after him. When they had disappeared through the hole in the deck, he turned to his officers. ‘Hold her here until I return. You will take commands from none but me.’
The two men jerked their heads. ‘As you command, Master.’
Satisfied, Carnelian turned to the ladder.
Leaning a little on Fern, Carnelian watched ammonites swarming the palanquins. Masters emerging from them were coaxed by the silver-masked ammonites towards the ragged wall of smoke that was rising at the head of the Turtle Steps. There, from among the ranks of purple figures, rose the taller shapes of their masters the Wise, who, though motionless, seemed to be overseeing the reception of the Chosen. Like ants the ammonites clipped the finery from the Masters. Robes as bright as butterfly wings were cast into braziers, where their iridescent colours soon turned black. Divested of their gorgeous carapaces, the Masters grew thinner, paler. Stripped of their distinguishing heraldry, they were revealed as being very much alike as they approached the wall of smoke. Next they were flayed of their ritual protection. The windings came away like dead skin, revealing the white beneath. Painfully thin they seemed, in their icicle nakedness. Vulnerable. Wearing nothing but their masks they disappeared into the smoke.