When the letter was finished the ammonite looked up. ‘How shall your letter be sealed, Seraph?’
Osidian held up his hand. ‘As you see, I seem to have mislaid my blood-ring. Perhaps you would be kind enough to seal it yourself.’
The ammonite looked uneasy. ‘What name shall I write, Seraph, what House?’
‘Osidian Nephron of the Masks.’
The heads of the ammonites jerked up.
‘Would you like to verify my taint scars?’
The ammonites waved their hands in frantic protest. ‘Not so, Seraph… Celestial… Your word is enough… of course.. .’
Osidian’s small silver face thrust forward. ‘But I insist.’ He pointed at the second unmasked ammonite and gestured for him to approach. Examination tattoos were lost in his wrinkling brow as the man shuffled up. Osidian turned his back for him. The man reached up to touch his flesh as if it were ice. He felt his way down the taint scars running on the right side of Osidian’s spine. It was obvious to everyone the left was smooth.
The ammonite’s legs seemed to lose their strength as he fell prostrate to crack his forehead on the cobbles. ‘Celestial,’ he murmured.
His fellows copied his abject abasement. Seeing this the legionaries joined them. Carnelian and Osidian were left like the only trees strong enough to have survived a storm.
Osidian commanded the ammonites to take the letter and deliver it to the Legate. They complied, fleeing as fast as decorum would allow. Then Osidian came to loom over the Quartermaster. ‘Rise.’
He had to say it again before the man obeyed. ‘How long would it take for a legion to reach here from Makar?’
‘Master?’
‘How long?’
The man narrowed his eyes, thinking. ‘Perhaps six days, Master.’
‘How quickly can the dragons here be fully armed?’
The man shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Ten days, Master, is the standard requirement.’
‘You will do it in five.’
The man blinked up at him as if he was convinced he had misheard.
‘Five. Go and wake them now.’ Turning his back on the legionary Osidian held his hand out in a gesture of dismissal.
Carnelian stepped into the barracks block Osidian had had the legionaries prepare for them. He removed the ammonite mask and rubbed at where it had impressed its rim into his face. He enjoyed the cool limestone, smooth beneath his feet. He ran his fingers along the hairline joints between the stones in the wall. He wondered at the perfect square angles of the chamber. The sleeping platforms were of finely jointed wood. Thick mattresses lay over them, each provided with a blanket of raven feathers. He plucked one up, brought it to his lips, breathed in its clean odour. A ewer was set into a niche, from which he poured a draught of clear water into a bowl. He drank and was surprised at the taste. So pure it seemed sweet. He regarded the chamber in wonder. He had forgotten that such order was possible.
Osidian was drawn back to the door by a man begging audience. He returned holding a letter. Carnelian watched him read it. Osidian passed the letter to him. Carnelian paused for a moment, startled by the beauty of the glyphs on the parchment. Then he turned them into sounds. When he was finished he looked up. ‘He is not coming.’
Osidian smiled. ‘Oh, he will.’
Carnelian woke on the floor of the chamber. He had started the night on the bed, but it had made his back ache. He became aware of Osidian gazing down at him.
‘Why are you on the floor, my Lord? We no longer have need to live like barbarians.’
Carnelian rose and wrapped himself in his raven-feather blanket. He indicated the mattress with his chin. ‘After so long sleeping on the earth that seems too soft. Did you manage to sleep comfortably on yours?’
Osidian frowned, but gave no answer. ‘Tonight we shall have no need of these primitive arrangements.’ He took in the chamber with an elegant gesture. ‘We shall resume our proper place among the Chosen.’ His frown deepened. ‘We must be ready.’
Breakfast was hri cakes and water. The delicate wafers crumbled as they bit into them. Carnelian was amazed at their flavour. In his memory they had been so bland. Now the hri seemed rich, with a nutty, lingering finish. The taste was, at the same time, familiar. Each mouthful brought back more memories of the life that had been his before exile. Disturbing images mixed with joyous ones. Osrakum still seemed a fairytale, but his father was becoming real again – and Ebeny and his brothers. Wounds of loss he had long ago thought cauterized were opening.
A Maruli coming into the chamber was a welcome distraction. In his hand the man had a folded parchment. Carnelian was struck by the man’s odour and wondered that he had not noticed it before. Osidian seemed uncomfortable as he accepted the letter. Carnelian looked from him to the Maruli and saw, with a jolt, how the man’s bloodshot eyes were gazing at Osidian’s face. The Maruli’s stare had already earned him a terrible death. When the man had left, Carnelian tried in vain to read Osidian’s impassive expression, and decided he must confront the issue openly. ‘We will have to do something about them.’
Osidian looked at him.
‘The Law will take them all from us.’
Osidian frowned.
‘Perhaps we should adopt them into our Houses.’
Still frowning, Osidian broke eye contact to concentrate on the letter. He unfolded it and read. The corners of his mouth rose perceptibly. ‘It seems our dear Legate is deigning, after all, to pay us a visit.’
Carnelian nodded. He had had time to think about it and was not surprised. One of the Lesser Chosen, even a Legate, would find it impossible to ignore a summons from a Lord of the House of the Masks. He was trying to imagine the meeting between Osidian and the Legate when he realized something. ‘What shall we wear?’
Osidian shrugged. Carnelian hunted around. The best he could find were some robes of coarse black cloth. He showed them to Osidian, who gave a grimace of distaste, but then flung out a gesture indicating he did not care. He smiled humourlessly. ‘A difference in rank inhabits the mind more completely than does the impression of proper state.’
Wearing the black robes and ammonite masks they returned to the cothon. Osidian had decided it was there he would receive the Legate. Carnelian was content with this, being curious to watch the dragons being woken.
It was the Master of Beasts who guided them to one of the vaults in the cothon wall. ‘The Legate’s own dragon, Master, and our strongest.’
A vast presence filled the vault. Horns gleamed faintly. Stripes of sun sculpted the contours of its head. Its reek oppressed Carnelian with memories of the Earthsky and corpses. In the depths of the vault, brass toppled in massive links. Instinctively Carnelian took a step back. ‘Is it already awake?’
‘Not fully so, Master,’ said the Master of Beasts. ‘Normally the waking takes many days as we wait for the drugs to wear off, but-’ He glanced at Osidian. ‘The command for haste means we’ve had to resort to administering waking drugs.’
Carnelian wondered if he was detecting a tone of reproach, but decided the man was only expressing genuine concern for his dragon.
Osidian walked over to one side of the vault. Seeking distraction from his unease Carnelian followed him. There a spar rose, barbed like a tree amputated of its branches. It was held between the prongs of stone forks that were set up the wall. Its trunk was smooth, its upper part sheathed in a green bark of copper. Glyphed oblong plaques were riveted all the way up to where this standard blossomed into a pair of grimacing faces.
‘He is ancient,’ whispered Osidian, pointing upwards.
Carnelian strained to read the plaques through the narrow slits of his ammonite mask.
‘He has held many positions in the line.’ There was passion in Osidian’s voice. ‘He is a lord of battles. Behold, he is called Heart-of-Thunder.’
As if responding to his name, the dragon avalanched towards them. Sun-stripes climbed the flare of bone behind his head. His beak sliced the air. A putrid stench exuded from his maw. His horns flashed. His eye was a blind, milky moon. The Master of Beasts was bellowing, but before they were overwhelmed, chains clattered taut to hold the monster back. The head swayed a moment there on cables of sinew, then it swung back into the gloom. Shock juddered Carnelian’s chest, a relic of the thunder of the monster’s feet.