Carnelian regarded the glyphs. Each face seemed Osidian’s. A host of them, defiance in every eye. It seemed his letter had had a stronger effect even than he had hoped. Osidian sought to regain his certainty in the way he had done before: by making war. In battle there was no room for doubt, but only the struggle for victory. Carnelian felt no triumph. He did feel some relief but, mostly, exhaustion. While he waited, far from danger, those he loved would go to confront Aurum and his fire.
‘Bad news, Seraph?’
Carnelian gazed down at the homunculus. His first impulse was to deny it any answer, but he could see no malice in its ancient eyes, only curiosity.
‘The Lord Nephron marches forth to make war upon the Lord Aurum.’
‘I see,’ said the homunculus, leaving Carnelian with an uneasy impression it was playing a game of its own.
INCUBATING
Most things grow from the dark.
‘ How did you come into the service of the grand sapient?’ Carnelian asked.
The homunculus glanced at him with its ancient eyes. ‘My master chose me, Seraph.’
‘From the flesh tithe?’
The homunculus looked shocked. ‘None of the Twelve would so demean himself, Seraph, least of all my master. A minor Sapient of the Domain of Tribute selected me with others for the training.’
The homunculus glanced up again at Carnelian, who said nothing, waiting for more. The creature continued. ‘A candidate needs long training before he can become a homunculus.’
‘How long?’ Carnelian asked.
The homunculus made a non-committal gesture with its hands. ‘It depends on the candidate. There are many skills to be learned, many procedures to be survived.’
‘Procedures?’
Carnelian detected some memory of pain in its face.
‘Each candidate, Seraph, must be fed the stunting drug.’ It indicated its body, as diminutive as a child’s. Wrinkles gathered around its eyes. ‘Many die from hearts that stop, from choking, from black swellings.’
Carnelian could hear an edge to the creature’s voice. That time had left its scars. The creature focused on him again. ‘Those that survive are castrated.’
‘Like the Wise?’
The homunculus raised a hand that held negation, just. ‘Not to keep us from distraction, Seraph, but because the onset of maleness would kill. The stunting drug makes a candidate like a seed coated in iron. To grow is to die suffocated.’
Carnelian felt he was trespassing on the creature’s pain. ‘It must be an exceptional candidate that is chosen by a Grand Sapient.’
‘Such privilege, Seraph, comes only to those candidates who excel in the skills: sensitivity to touch; reading and writing in beadcord; reading of voices and faces.’
‘Voices and faces?’ The homunculus looked down at its hands. Carnelian felt its anxiety that it might already have said too much. ‘Clearly you excel in all these skills.’
‘Each of us is merely an instrument in our master’s hands. An extension of his will.’
‘Do you remember the place where you were born?’
The homunculus gazed at him, wide-eyed. Its head shook a little. Carnelian felt again he was intruding on private pain. He wanted to reduce the distance between them. ‘I only ask because I witnessed for myself the coming of a childgatherer.’
‘When you were captured by barbarians, Seraph?’
It had not occurred to Carnelian that the homunculus might know much of what its master knew. He wondered just how much. Would there be any point in asking? The homunculus was unlikely to reveal anything and would just be put on its guard. ‘It is true they captured us, but then we stayed with them willingly.’
‘Willingly, Seraph?’
‘They were kind to us.’
The homunculus’ face tensed as if it were having difficulty believing what Carnelian was saying.
‘I saw the children being chosen for the flesh tithe. I saw them being torn from their kin and people.’
The homunculus looked up, eyes narrowed, mouth moving as if trying to make words. ‘There was, perhaps, one child in particular…?’
Carnelian regarded the little man through the eyeslits of his mask. It was a perceptive thing to ask, and brave. ‘Poppy. She was chosen for the flesh tithe, but the Chosen will not get her.’
The homunculus frowned.
‘She is like a little sister to me, a daughter, even.’
The homunculus gaped.
Carnelian’s fear for her was sharpened by love. It made him see past what the homunculus had become to the child he had once been. ‘Unlike her, you were taken from your kin.’
The body before him had not changed so much from that which his people had brought to pay their tithe to Osrakum, but the eyes revealed the man within. Carnelian wanted to reach out to that child. ‘Do you remember them?’
‘So long ago. I had almost forgotten.’
‘What were you called?’
The homunculus shook his head, his eyes glistening. ‘I can’t remember.’
The sadness in that musical voice touched Carnelian’s heart. He reached out to touch the homunculus’ shoulder. The man drew back at first, but then let Carnelian touch him, a look of amazement lighting his face.
‘Seraph.’
Carnelian woke, fleeing something terrible. He sat up, staring at the images already fading from his mind. He shrank back from the silver face hanging in the gloom. The homunculus. He was speaking from behind his eyeless mask. Carnelian made himself deaf, the better to reach back for his dream, though he feared it. It was a swelling mass like something vast emerging from the deep. Dread like a headache. Haunting clarion calls. Despair voiced in a language he had forgotten. He strained to remember the bleak sounds. He knew he had to hear it, to understand the warning.
‘Seraph?’
Carnelian let go his dream and emerged into the chamber. The homunculus was still there. He was holding out a letter. The four-horned seal upon the pale parchment seemed a crusted clot of blood. Echoes of the terror snaked through the room at the sight of it. Reluctantly, he took it, broke it open and read. All day I marched north as Aurum fell back before me.
Carnelian pulled the panels of the letter open. He examined both sides of the sheet. Only the seal and Osidian’s glyphs marked the skin. He folded the letter and lay back, clutching it to his chest. He wanted to know more; needed to know more. Aurum would not fall back without reason. Carnelian tried to still the rising fear. A trap? Osidian was moving into a trap. He gazed up at the ceiling. The dregs of his nightmare seemed to be the shadows up there edging the gilding. Did his dreams prefigure some terrible defeat?
Powerlessness choked him into anger. What madness had possessed him to put his trust in dreams? Still, he could not deny his conviction that his dream had held a warning. Try as he might he could not grasp enough to make sense of it.
He sat up and saw the homunculus still there, waiting. ‘Why was your master so interested in my dreams?’
‘The Wise believe dreams to be echoes from the future, Seraph.’
‘All dreams, all dreamers?’
The silver mask inclined a little. ‘Some dreams the Gods put into those minds that are most closely aligned with the flow of events.’
‘Such as the minds of Sapients?’
‘More so those of the Grand Sapients, Seraph.’
‘Is that why your master chooses to sleep here beneath our feet?’
‘It is true, Seraph, my master seeks truth in dreams, but he sleeps also to keep his mind free of impure distraction. In any given year, he is rarely awake for more than twelve days.’
Carnelian was shocked. ‘How can he hope to administer his Domain asleep?’
‘A cascade of the lesser Sapients of his Domain do that. His thought is not to be wasted on minor matters. Once a year, at the Rebirth, he is woken and it is then that he transacts those matters that his staff have prepared for him.’