‘Why have you come?’ Osidian demanded. ‘I commanded you to hold the tower.’
‘I thought my Master would want to know that the tower further to the north-’ Morunasa glanced at Carnelian as if to accuse him. ‘It sent an alert to us, not once, but four times.’
‘We knew this,’ Osidian said in a cold voice. ‘I hope you have come to tell me what the message said.’
Morunasa frowned. ‘There were none in the tower who could tell me.’
Osidian angled his head in irritation.
‘When we arrived there we found all the silver masks already dead.’
‘Dead?’ Osidian sounded increasingly exasperated.
‘How did they die, Morunasa?’ Carnelian asked.
The Oracle turned on him his baleful eyes. ‘I don’t know, Master.’
‘Were their bodies marked?’
Morunasa glared at him, then, slowly, shook his head. Carnelian and Osidian turned to each other. Carnelian knew they were both thinking of the quaestor in Qunoth. For some reason, rather than be captured, it seemed probable the ammonites had taken their own lives with poison. Both turned the sequence of events over in their minds. At last Carnelian admitted he was at a loss. Osidian did not seem any more enlightened.
‘What now?’ Carnelian asked.
‘With him out there we dare not leave ourselves unprotected. I shall have to remain here with the legion.’
Carnelian noticed Osidian glancing towards the nearest tower. ‘I will help you find out what has been going on in the towers.’
Osidian shook his head. ‘I need you to secure the city.’ He must have sensed Carnelian’s reluctance because he added: ‘We need its fortress as a base.’
‘What force shall I take with me?’
‘Your own huimur and as many Marula as I can spare.’
Carnelian considered protesting that they did not know what awaited him in Makar, but realized they dare not further diminish Osidian’s strength in case Aurum should return.
‘Take Morunasa,’ Osidian said. He turned to the Oracle. ‘Obey Master Carnelian as you do me.’
The black man glared at him.
‘Do you understand?’ Osidian said, an edge in his voice.
Morunasa gave a reluctant nod. ‘As you command.’
Carnelian gazed in the direction of the city, then back at Osidian. ‘What shall I do once I have the fortress?’
‘Send me enough render to feed my huimur.’
‘Very well,’ Carnelian said. He began walking back towards Earth-is-Strong. He stopped and turned. ‘Be careful.’
Osidian gave a nod. Carnelian resumed his journey towards his dragon and could hear Morunasa’s footfalls following him.
An umber stain on the horizon, Makar lay at the convergence of many gullies as if a fist, punching down from the sky, had shattered the land around it as if it were glass. In Earth-is-Strong’s tower Carnelian felt that, vast as she was, even she was too small a thing to take on such a city. From his vantage point he was able to see the cobbles of the leftway slipping by and kept expecting to see a courier flash past to warn the city. Earlier he had stood looking back through the smoke his chimneys were trailing. He had quickly lost sight of Osidian and their legion. Only a haze indicated where the fallen dragon still smouldered. Of Aurum there was no sign. He was Osidian’s problem now. In his bones Carnelian had a feeling he would soon have problems of his own to deal with.
From where the road crossed the outer ditch of the city, flat roofs of beaten mud spread away on either side like scales. Those close enough for him to see were crowded with jars and earthenware pots planted with small trees and shrubs. Washing fluttering on lines seemed drab flags. Crude tables and chests sat upon burnished earth floors spread with rugs woven from rushes. Each roof was a small world, giving down into chambers where people lived. He tried to imagine what those lives were like. Simple, no doubt, but though he would not pretend to know anything about such people, a part of him envied them.
The empty road before him was headache bright. Dry, pale, peeling walls banked its gleaming river, pierced here and there by the tributaries of alleyways. Doors and windows were shuttered closed as if against a storm. He searched away from the road across the rooftops and there, at last, he saw some people. They were peering at him over wicker partitions, round urns and leather curtains. Seeing those few enabled him to spot more. Everywhere there were small dark heads. Shocked, he became aware a multitude was watching him pass. He felt an urge to wave, to show he meant them no harm. He could see himself doing that. He imagined them coming into the open and waving back. Foolishness. He was a Master concealed within a dragon tower. The naphtha smoke twisting its black banners into the breeze was a sign of the fiery holocaust at his command. Any glimpse of him could bring only terror. He gave a snort that caused his officers’ faces to turn up to him. Waiting for his commands they did not blink. What did he want? For all of these poor creatures to like him? For them to be warmed by his condescension?
They came to where the road forked around a watch-tower. One tine continued on through the city, the other passed through the open gate the watch-tower guarded. Carnelian knew they must have reached the Ringwall, the border of the Guarded Land. Staying on the main road they came into a narrow marketplace that ran off a great distance south-west. At its other end stood a second watch-tower guarding a huge closed gate. Something about its size and the way the worn stone sloped a little down to it made Carnelian believe this must be the head of the Pass. The same Pass Makar guarded and that they had tried to climb, only to be driven back by Aurum’s fire.
As he turned Earth-is-Strong into the market his spirits sank further. Stalls in rows, water troughs. Cobbles, though smeared and caked with filth trodden into mush, had cleaner patches where normally a multitude laid out their wares. His arrival had caused all to flee. Emptied of its throngs, its hawkers, the place was dead.
Halfway across the marketplace, a crumbly worn pair of stumpy towers pushed their way through the leftway wall. Between them ragged gates patched with bronze gave the impression something ancient lay behind them.
They left the marketplace by means of a stone span across a gully choked with filth and entered another, smaller square where a third watch-tower stood guard upon a military gate. As they approached this it began to open. Carnelian regarded it with suspicion, feeling he was being welcomed into a trap. Still, he had his flame-pipes and so he murmured a command to his Lefthand and Earth-is-Strong turned to enter.
As they moved into the fortress he was surprised. No stables or barracks for auxiliaries confronted him, but only squat buildings. To starboard the curving wall of a cothon. To port the ground fell into a ravine whose other side rose as a cliff. Steps and terraces scaled this to towers crenellating its edge. Bone-white that cliff, striated, rotten with age, perforated with windows. Alleys squeezed out through gaps from which staining spilled down into the ravine. It seemed a half-ruined anthill, but also an ancient city, gently sculpted, smiling, delicate. This was a living cousin to the dead ruins Carnelian had seen on his way to the election. A Quyan city, then. Southwards the low buildings of the fortress curved away, following the bend of the ravine. There at the very tip rose a tower. He squinted. It had the look of a watch-tower.
‘The gate, Master,’ said his Lefthand. The man was pointing to where there was an opening in the cothon wall.
‘It seems we are expected,’ Carnelian said, to cover the return of his anxiety that they were entering a trap. He was determined to face it head on. He gave the command and Earth-is-Strong approached the gateway. As they passed through it, he glanced at his Righthand to make sure the man was ready to relay a command to fire their pipes. They came into the immense circular space all hedged about with piers. Carnelian sent his Lefthand round the portholes to look for dragons.