When a voice cried out, he looked up and saw a figure framed by the greater darkness of the cavern behind: it was Sthax. Carnelian could not make out what he was shouting, but could read his meaning in his shaking head. The place was empty.
‘What killed them?’ Fern said, gazing down through a grimace at a sartlar corpse long dead.
Carnelian rolled a reddish boulder with his foot. It turned out to be hollow. The interior still showed some unrusted black. It was an iron casque. ‘The Bloodguard who garrisoned this fortress.’
Fern scanned the blood-soaked ground, which was scattered with more of these helmets and other armour and, here and there, a trampled cloak still showing a slash or spot of green.
‘But where-?’ Fern paled and Carnelian nodded grimly, gazing down at an empty cuirass of rusting precious iron: a shell from which a Sinistral had been extracted like an oyster.
Carnelian turned towards Earth-is-Strong and raised his hand in the prearranged signal. He could not see the message being relayed to the Blood Gate to say they had secured the Green. As he turned back, he glimpsed something strange in an alleyway that ran between the Green Gate proper and a tower that rose behind it. Fern followed him into the gap. As the blackness deepened, a foul stench swelled until they could go no further. An uneven wall rose, blocking any further progress. It was from this the stench was emanating. Craning, Carnelian saw this blockage filled the gap between the walls to a level higher even than the fortress wall and right to the very summit of the tower. Up there it was clear what composed this mound. Sartlar dead. Weary disgust gave way to unease. A desperation to find a way through the fiery holocaust might explain the mound the sartlar had piled up with their corpses against the Blood Gate, but here it seemed uncannily as if they had contributed their bodies to bridge the gap between the fortress and the tower.
The Sapients unfolded themselves from their palanquins. They had approached along a road of fluttering blue fire flanked by files of ammonites. A space had been cleared with billhooks; the corpses being dragged away like beached, rotting fish.
As the Sapients approached him on their ranga, Carnelian saw their leader was Legions. The Grand Sapient took his homunculus by the throat. ‘You are certain the area is secured, Celestial?’
‘We have found no living sartlar, my Lord Legions.’ Since the discovery of the corpse bridge Carnelian had felt a need for urgency. ‘We must hurry in case they should return.’
‘Before it is possible to act, Celestial, it is essential to have a complete understanding of a situation.’
Carnelian felt irritation. What was there to understand? And then there was that word ‘complete’. How could any situation be understood completely? He wanted to act and to act now. ‘We need to know what is happening in the City, my Lord. I will take some aquar down the Canyon scouting.’
‘This should be our last resort, Celestial. How much could you hope to see? Even were it possible for you to travel near and far across the Commonwealth your report would be nothing more than a single track through space and time.’
‘You wish to reconnect to the heliograph system.’
‘Even if a single device remains intact, it should be possible to achieve a link.’
Carnelian realized he had seen no sign of a heliograph. ‘Where are these devices?’
Even as Legions’ homunculus was murmuring an echo to these words Carnelian knew the answer. He was already gazing up to the tower that rose behind the fortress when the homunculus raised its arm to point to it.
Climbing the steps up onto the summit, Carnelian was immediately aware of the brass mechanisms around him: a double row of them running off to either side along the width of the narrow space. The military gates they had had to open all the way up through the tower had been closed from within, but evidence of bloodshed had been everywhere. Here on the summit was more blood and, scattered between the machines, discarded silver masks like the ones the ammonites attending Legions were wearing. As these men swarmed the machines, Carnelian wound his way to the edge, following his nose. There he found the corpse causeway. A ramp of the dead sloping up from the ramparts of the fortress. He felt a presence and turned to find Legions and his homunculus behind him.
‘The devices are undamaged, Celestial.’
Carnelian glanced at the machines. ‘So the link was broken when the ammonites were carried off?’
‘Operators are not essential to maintain the link. The heliographs can be set up in pairs to relay signals, though there is an associated risk of degradation with this passive mode.’
‘None were so aligned?’
‘Either the operators had no time to set this up or else the devices were disturbed in the ensuing struggle.’
The homunculus must have reported Carnelian’s glance at the corpse ramp to his master, for he said: ‘Ants will cross a gutter on the bodies of their fallen.’
Carnelian glanced at the Grand Sapient’s impassive mask and saw himself reflected there. Still disturbed, he gazed towards the last turn in the Canyon, wanting to know what was happening out there, but also dreading it.
‘Celestial, may we make the attempt to re-establish the link?’
Carnelian turned back to the Grand Sapient. If he allowed this, the Wise would restore Osrakum’s control of the legions and, with those, dominion over the Three Lands. In the present political situation, it would be their voice the world obeyed.
‘We must re-establish a vision of the Commonwealth.’
‘A vision of the Commonwealth?’
‘An amalgamation of what has been and can currently be perceived from every watch-tower and fortress across the Land.’
‘How long would that take?’
‘Depending on how many channels remain intact, Celestial, little more than a single day.’
Carnelian stared. ‘It would take a signal that long to go to Makar and return.’
‘Still, it can be done.’
‘From every watch-tower?’
‘With a single command code, the entire system can be set into a seeing mode. All sources will supply data in a fixed, compact format along five channels. Of course, Celestial, to achieve a synthesis of the data it will all have to be relayed to the Labyrinth. We have not the facilities here to process it.’
Remembering the system of networked ammonites he had seen in the Halls of Thunder, Carnelian nodded. ‘Ammonite arrays…’
There was a noticeable stiffening of Legions’ fingers. ‘Just so, Celestial.’
‘What then, my Lord?’
‘Our collective mind will possess a fully integrated temporal and spatial vision of everything that is happening in the Commonwealth.’
Carnelian tried to grasp what possessing such an understanding might be like. He failed. One thing was certain, though: thereafter, if they chose to act on this vision, they would be doing so trusting the Wise utterly. How, after all, could he or Osidian verify or question their analysis, never mind the vision upon which it was based? Carnelian yearned for the ride around that corner to look upon the outer world with his own eyes, but he could see only as far as a man could. There was no alternative.
‘Re-establish the link.’
The heliographs were greased, swung round, angled back and forth. Ammonites pulled at the handles that caused their newly polished mirrors to louvre into strips. At last everything was ready. Five of the devices were chosen and, by means of sighting tubes, they were aligned towards points out on the far Canyon wall near the last turn. All five heliographs began sending signals. Several times they repeated the procedure. A while later a flashing began on the faraway Canyon wall. Another joined it and another, until five distinct stars were flashing signals that Carnelian knew must be coming from the watch-towers set in the gatehouses of the Wheel. Even as this was happening, five other heliographs had been aligned back into the Canyon and, soon, they too had obtained confirmation of a link back to the Blood Gate and, no doubt, on to the Wise in the Labyrinth.