‘He must if he is to have any hope of getting here before we complete our mobilization.’
Carnelian realized something. ‘If you could see the road, then the watch-towers must have seen you.’
Osidian threw his hand up in a gesture of dismissal. ‘The time for hiding has passed.’
For a moment Carnelian became lost in a maelstrom of anxiety. So they had finally passed the point of no return. He marshalled his thoughts. ‘You have a plan?’
‘We penetrate deep into the hinterland beyond the seeing of the Wise. Then we shall turn towards Makar.’
Carnelian saw it in his mind. ‘You wish to outflank him.’
‘And snatch his base from him.’
To capture Makar would put them astride the South Road that ran north to Osrakum.
Osidian’s eyes went opaque. ‘That should get the attention of my Lords the Wise.’
Even though he did not believe they would give Osidian anything, Carnelian felt uneasy.
Osidian’s eyes brightened. ‘Aurum will be forced to come to me.’
Could it be he still hoped the old Master would join him? Carnelian felt a need to put a crack in Osidian’s certainty. ‘How can you be so certain of that?’
‘How else is he going to keep his legion supplied?’
Carnelian paused. ‘Surely he will find all he needs here.’
When Osidian smiled, Carnelian could already see Qunoth burning.
Carnelian stood upon a low dais within a raised ring of stone. The curved alabaster wall suffused the chamber with soft white light. An ammonite entered, bearing a casket of ribbed ivory. He put this on the floor, broke its seals and opened it. Pulling back layers of parchment, he reached in and drew forth a pale garment. The torso was of a piece with the legs that followed, which another ammonite swept into the crook of his arm so that the suit would not touch the floor. Together they carried it towards Carnelian, climbed up onto the stone ring then let the suit fall, dangling its toed feet and fingered hands. It opened up the middle, inner edges fringed with ties and hooks. It seemed the skin flayed whole from a man. The ammonites asked him to raise his arms, then they fed them into those of the suit. The soft leather poured like silk, rucking at Carnelian’s elbows. The gloves that formed the extremity of the arms were slipped over his hands. He helped the ammonites by worming his fingers into each pocket. They tightened the gloves along their outer edges with delicate ties like tendons. They did up the paired green and black buttons on the back of each wrist. Flexing his hands Carnelian was hardly aware of their covering. The ammonites smoothed the leather up his arms, fitting his elbows into the ridged joints, slicking it over the muscles of his upper arms and easing the shoulders of the suit over his own. As they pulled the leather over his chest, the dangling, empty head flopped down under his throat. The legs of the suit hung nudging at his shins. The ammonites lifted his left leg and fed it into the suit. His foot slipped into the leather foot as easily as had his hands into the gloves. They squeezed his big toe into one pocket and the other toes into another wide enough to accommodate them all. When he put his foot down he could feel soft calluses under his toes, the ball and ridge of his foot, his heel. Once his other leg was clothed he raised it, turning his foot up to see the sole. The heel was red, the ball and ridge black, the toes green. It was a ranga shoe integral to the suit. He felt the leather slide and grip his body as the ammonites began to engage the ties and hooks up his back.
As the suit moulded itself to his body Carnelian raised his arms, surprised at how it flexed at the gathering ridges of wrists, elbows and shoulders. He did not like the paleness of the leather which reminded him of the bleached faces of the Wise. In its sickly, greasy pallor it also bore a resemblance to the maggots of the Oracles.
He dropped his arms and practised breathing against the embrace of the suit. It was restrictive, but not so much that he felt trapped. He became aware of the way the suit was padded to accentuate the musculature of his body that the ritual bandages obscured.
When the ammonites asked him to climb down and walk around the chamber, he was pleased to find the legs of the suit articulating as comfortably as the arms. As he bent and twisted and crouched, the suit clung to him like a second skin. The ammonites asked him to stand still, then, after some adjustments, all left save one who, removing his silver mask, replaced it with one whose eyes were solid spirals. Begging his permission, the ammonite reached up and released Carnelian’s mask. He took hold of the flaccid head of the suit, smoothed it over Carnelian’s chin, then up and over his head. Carnelian pulled its opening around the contours of his face. He felt buttons being secured at the nape of his neck. Then the ammonite came round and bound his mask back on. Finally, the others returned with a great, black, hooded military cloak that they threw about his shoulders and bound across his chest with a clasp that, in jet and jade, showed the faces of the Twin Gods.
Carnelian followed Osidian onto the summit of the pier. There before them was a dragon tower: a pallid, three-tiered pyramid from which a mast rose, supported by rigging. In front, one flame-pipe pointed towards the heart of the cothon; the other was just being raised. From the rear of the tower two thicker brass chimneys emerged with sooty swollen mouths.
Even as he was taking in these details, Carnelian became increasingly disturbed. He realized the tower was reminding him of a Plainsman Ancestor House, and of the boats of the ferrymen of Osrakum. Though smoother, it too seemed made of bone. Those other structures people had fashioned from their own dead, with reverence and as memorials. The dragon tower, though more finely wrought, was an instrument of war and thus seemed gruesome.
Osidian was facing a diagonal brass cross set against the tower flank. As Carnelian approached him, he saw it was no cross, but a gigantic woman wrought from brass. Her back to them, she was spreadeagled on a mesh as if crucified. Between her splayed legs he could see a portion of an opening that gave into the dark interior of the tower.
As she began to fall back towards them, Carnelian realized she was a drawbridge with ropes tied to her wrists. As her knuckles and the back of her head clinked against the pier, two legionaries emerged from the tower and ran out over her. When they reached Osidian, they unclasped his cloak, folded it carefully, then stood aside. The brass woman shuddered as Osidian’s foot struck her in the face. His next step fell between her legs. A third took him into the dragon tower through its oval portal. As the legionaries removed Carnelian’s cloak, he turned his head to see her face the right way up. Though it was worn almost smooth, he could still make out a noseless, eyeless grinning skull trapped within the circle of the deeply cut earth glyph. It must surely represent the branded face of a dead sartlar of the Guarded Land. He did not want to tread on that face and so he put his ranga down on the mesh between her head and an arm. Long, empty breasts sagged down the sides of her body. She was almost a skeleton. He stepped over her bony arm. Her vulva looked like a scooped out pomegranate. He stepped over her leg. It disturbed him that she was there to be walked on. He turned to the legionaries, now kneeling on the pier. ‘Who is this woman?’
One of them mumbled something and Carnelian asked him to speak more clearly.
‘Brassman,’ the legionary said.
Carnelian frowned behind his mask but, seeing the man’s discomfort, he stooped and entered the tower.
The ceiling of the cabin forced him to remain stooped. Just enough light squeezed past him to allow him to make out the organs and entrails of sinister machinery. When a voice behind him begged leave, Carnelian shuffled aside to let the two legionaries past. A porthole grated open in the opposite wall. More followed, letting in daylight. The rimless wheel of a capstan filled the rear of the cabin. In front of this a ladder led up to a trap set into the ceiling. The front of the cabin was dominated by a convoluted arrangement of tubes, vessels and other structures.