‘I can play the game as well as he,’ he said, though he only half believed it.
He turned his head from side to side. How unwhite he had become. He decided that he liked it. It made him look a little bit more like a Plainsman. The face in the mirror smiled. He looked into its eyes and felt as if he was understanding something for the first time. He leaned closer still, fascinated by his face. He realized he had never really seen it properly before. There were wrinkles in his skin, especially around his eyes. He looked older than he remembered. Not as old as his father. Nothing like as old as Lord Aurum. Lord Aurum. He looked round the room, then back at the mirror. Why did the Master surround himself with mirrors, clocks? And children? Carnelian felt repulsed by what these things suggested about the man, but at the same time he began feeling something else. This was surely a man who feared death. Carnelian regarded his face in the mirror. Though he had every reason to fear death himself, he realized he did not. He feared it more for others than himself. Lord Aurum was old even when he came to their island. Carnelian remembered how much Aurum had appeared to want a son. He remembered how much he himself had grown to despise the secondary lineage in his own House. Who knew what it was that Aurum feared? What would exile from Osrakum be like for such a man?
A scratching at the outer door made him jerk his mask up so fast he grazed his nose and chin. Quickly he secured it and approached the door. He gave leave to enter and ammonites appeared bearing censers that they began setting up around the chamber. Soon they were lighting them. Smoke began uncurling into the air. The odour of myrrh made Carnelian notice again the stale tang of attar of lilies that pervaded the room. Aurum’s smell. He reminded himself this was the man who had had his uncle killed, who had inflicted atrocities upon the Lepers. Whatever his suffering, Aurum was a monster.
When Carnelian had dismissed the ammonites he began to feel drowsy. It had been a difficult day. He could do nothing more. He would resume the fight in the morning. He removed his robes until he was standing in nothing but the cocoon of the ritual protection. Weary beyond measure he slipped under the feather blankets and was instantly asleep.
Keeping the spider in a crystal box. Its legs moving, like hair in his eyes. He wants to look away, but fears if he does it will escape. Creeping, creeping, always creeping, seeking a way out. The horror of its thought as it watches him through the obscene cluster of its eyes .
Carnelian came awake, gasping. A child at the foot of his bed was looking at him. Not a child, but the metal facsimile of a child’s face. A homunculus. The eyes, ears and voice of a Sapient of the Wise. Carnelian stared, petrified. Fading into the darkness, its child smile became the moon’s crescent gleaming in a pond. Then it was not there.
When an amethyst-eyed boy woke him, Carnelian frowned, remembering the same thing happening before. His nightmares clung to him like a wet cloak. He closed his eyes. Pain was curled dormant in his head and he did not want to move lest he should wake it. He squinted at the ceiling.
‘Would you break your fast, Master?’ said the boy. His stone eyes seemed bruises.
‘Please,’ Carnelian said and was relieved when the face went away. He moved an arm and felt the bandages that clung to his skin like scabs. He had not imagined the previous day, then. His dreams would not let go of him. He shuddered, remembering the spider’s eyes, then recalled the homunculus with its borrowed face. That part of his dreams had seemed so real.
As he sat up, the pain stirring in his head sent needles into the bones of his face. He wondered at that pain, but his eyes were already seeking the corner where the homunculus had disappeared. Try as he might, he could not pierce the shadows there.
More amethyst-eyed boys brought him food and served him as he ate. Taste seemed remote, as if he were reading about someone eating. He was aware he was sitting with his back to the corner. At last he could bear it no longer. He told them to take the plates away and disappear. Thankfully, the headache was fading. He rose, gazing into the corner. An inner voice was telling him it was just a dark corner, that it was dangerous to blur the boundary between dreams and waking life. Still he went in search of a lamp, but all he could find were the bronze flambeaux and they were too heavy. He edged towards the corner. It seemed to grow brighter as he came closer. Bright enough for him to see the tapestry of featherwork that hung there upon the wall. He could make out something of its writhing designs, but nothing of its colours. When he was close enough he put out his hand. It was silky smooth beneath his touch. So fine he could feel the texture of the wall beneath. A crack. A vertical groove running up the stone. He stroked the tapestry aside. A door. He ran his hand over it and found a catch. It clicked. The door sighed open. The air beyond was cold and laced with a strong, disturbing odour. The spider in his dreams touched his face and he recoiled and the door clicked closed. He stood with his fingers on it, listening with his fingers for vibrations. He pulled away, allowing the tapestry to fall back, and retreated to the centre of the chamber, but kept glancing back at the corner. He summoned the boys and, when they came, he bade them bring him a lamp. When they had returned with it he lit it, but approached the corner only when they were gone.
Figures danced in the tapestry. Feathers that were green and black and red, so tiny they could have been brushstrokes. Once again he stroked the tapestry aside, saw the door, located the catch, opened it. Beyond, steps curved down into darkness. He put his head in, lifted the lamp and spilled light down a few more steps. Desiring to see more of them, he began descending. Round and round, spiralling down into the darkness.
He emerged into a pillared vault. Lifting the lamp, he saw, leaning against pillars, two cocoons, each taller than a man. He regarded them with horror, expecting at any moment to see within them some jerking, unhuman movement. What monsters could such things pupate? Once certain that nothing within them lived, he dared to approach. Ivory as translucent as wet parchment. Their narrow height had a suggestion of sarcophagi. Within, some darker masses that might have been bodies. He reached out and touched one. It had a skin-smooth surface, though he could feel swirls under his fingers. He lifted the lantern and peered close, but could not make out what lay inside. In the corner of his vision, he saw something that almost made him drop his lantern. A third cocoon not far away, but this one was open. In it he could see four feet side by side. He raised the light, trembling, up the legs. The outermost and larger pair were bound with pale leather bands. Between the legs, a smaller figure. He moved the edge of light up to see its face. It dazzled him. He angled the lamp and the dazzle abated to reveal a face like the moon. The face of a child near slumber. Carnelian gaped at the homunculus. Then he noticed what it was holding before it. A staff topped by a cross or what might have been a spider. This cypher was crowned by a crescent moon. His eyes darted to the creature’s throat, where long fingers meshed around it in a stranglehold. He played the light up above the homunculus’ head and found shadow welling in the hollows of a living skull face.
LEGIONS
Each Domain corresponds to a lunar month. Each takes the form of a tree with a Grand Sapient as its root. Each has two direct subordinates; each in turn has two more and so on. The number of Sapients in a major Domain is sixty-three; in a minor Domain, thirty-one. Only the Grand Sapients of the major Domains have Seconds as their immediate subordinates; all other Grand Sapients have Thirds. The major Domains are Legions, Lands, Tribute and Cities; the minor are Mentor, Roads, Law, Immortality, Labyrinth, Gates, Rain and Blood.