He came awake with Osidian standing over him. He had the uncomfortable impression that Osidian had been there for a while. When he sat up, Osidian did not back away enough to give him the space he felt he needed. Osidian seemed too large for the cell, which he filled with the odour of his leathers. Every part of him was reddened except for his face. It seemed he was wearing a mask of pallid alabaster. He frowned, but there was a shy tenderness in his eyes that flustered Carnelian further.
‘Where are the commanders?’ Carnelian said, to say something.
Osidian’s frown deepened as he sensed Carnelian’s unease. ‘On their way to the Mountain as we agreed.’
In his military cloak, Osidian was filling the cell as Carnelian’s father had filled the cabin on the baran. Carnelian wondered why he was making the comparison. He felt his face was burning.
Osidian took a step back, dismayed. ‘I’ll leave.’
Carnelian did not want to part like that. Though they were no longer lovers, they needed to be allies. He struggled to find a way through his feelings. ‘Let’s eat together tonight.’
Osidian glanced at the cell as if he was seeing it for the first time. ‘Here?’
Carnelian grimaced. The cell would not do; it felt like a battlefield. He remembered a time long ago. ‘Why not up on the platform, near the heliograph? It would be cool up there. Unrestricted.’
Osidian’s eyes were flint. ‘As you say, unrestricted.’ He gave a weary nod and had to stoop to leave through the door. Carnelian watched it close, then was left with only his breathing and his beating heart.
Standing with his back to the heliograph mechanism, Osidian removed his mask and gazed north. Carnelian was reluctant to remove his own. ‘There is no protection here, my Lord.’
Osidian turned to look at him. ‘It was you who pointed out to me that we spent years unprotected among the barbarians.’ He resumed his squinting at the northern blackness, which was relieved only by the naphtha flares of the next tower and the faint glimmer of the stopping place around its feet. ‘Besides, up here we are as far from the contaminating earth as birds in flight.’
Carnelian glanced uneasily to where the homunculus was sitting astride the beam that ended in the hoop of a deadman’s chair. The little man was wearing his blinding mask. Osidian had dismissed the Marula lookouts so that there would be no eyes to see them. As Carnelian unmasked, his face was chilled by the night air touching his sweat. He breathed deeply, enjoying not having to draw air through the mask filters.
‘Will you take your place in Earth-is-Strong’s tower and help me with the training of our legion?’ Osidian said.
Carnelian regarded his back and sensed how tense he was. ‘Who would guard the Grand Sapient?’
Osidian glanced round. ‘You oversee the feeding of the elixir, do you not?’
Carnelian gave a nod and Osidian turned away again. ‘The Marula will make sure no one enters the tower and they themselves would not dare.’
Carnelian remembered how Sthax and the other warriors had looked at the capsules. He considered whether to spend the next few days riding the dragon. No doubt it would be preferable to remaining cooped up in the watch-tower, but he was remembering Osidian torching the sartlar. He was not sure their brittle alliance could survive another such atrocity. He had fooled himself before that he could steer Osidian away from such behaviour. Of course, he might try imposing some conditions but, in the past, that had worked badly. Still, he could no longer pretend he was not committed to this war and he must be prepared to bear the consequences. ‘I will join you.’
Osidian gave a couple of nods.
Carnelian turned his thoughts to what the coming war might involve. ‘How long will it take the commanders to reach Osrakum?’
Osidian turned. ‘You are likely to know that better than I. The Guarded Land is like a great wheel. The commanders are travelling along one spoke to its centre. You travelled along another when you came up from the sea. How long did that take?’
Carnelian cast his mind back to that journey. It stretched in his recollection to span scores of days, though he knew that it had really not taken so long. ‘Five or six days, I think, but we were travelling at great speed.’
Osidian smiled coldly. ‘The commanders will also be travelling at great speed.’
Carnelian thought about that. He could see how haste would benefit them. They might be hoping to be the first to arrive with the news of Osidian’s revolt. It could seem to them that only thus might they avoid retribution. He felt a stab of anxiety. ‘That is not going to leave us much time to get the legion ready.’
‘Long enough,’ Osidian said. ‘Though Aurum is close, I do not imagine he will be sent against us alone.’
Carnelian nodded. ‘It would be one legion against another.’
‘The Wise prefer not to take risks. They will attempt to muster overwhelming odds against us. Besides, Aurum’s naphtha will be much depleted.’
Osidian gazed at him expectantly. Carnelian realized that Osidian was expecting him to ask just how bad it had been for the Lepers. If he was being tested, he would pass. ‘What makes you think Aurum has not refuelled in the city to the north of here?’
Osidian regarded him, then allowed himself a smile. ‘Perhaps. That is not important. What is, is that when the attack comes it will not be from a single legion.’
The certainty they would be outnumbered left Carnelian feeling bleak. He remembered the dragon tower exploding. Death in such circumstances would be quick, but his heart ached when he imagined how the Lepers and the Marula would suffer on the ground. ‘How can we hope to prevail?’
Osidian’s smile surprised him. ‘I have a notion or two…’
Carnelian considered asking him what those might be, but suspected he would get no answer. He glanced down through the bars of the platform to the lights of the camp spread out below. Whatever Osidian’s plan, it would be unlikely to spare the Lepers or the Marula.
Back in his cell, Carnelian was struck afresh by how identical it was to the others he had slept in before. He touched one of the walls, knowing that behind it Legions and the other Sapients lay dreaming in their capsules, but it could so easily be his father, wounded. This illusion was so great, he almost moved to the door, going to see if it was possible he had dreamed all that had happened since then.
A movement in the corner startled him. A small figure adjusting itself. For a moment he could believe it was Tain, his brother. Then, a flicker of the lamplight caught a surface of its metal face. Not his brother, but the homunculus in his blinding mask. Carnelian squinted and once again it could be Tain, whom Jaspar had threatened to blind. There was a strange parallelism in all this. A pattern that, should he be able to see enough of it, would make sense of everything.
He gave up the struggle, despairing, and went to one of the slits he knew must look down into the stopping place. The fires spangling the land below seemed, at first, very like all those other stopping places, but then he noticed the hills of blackness arrayed along the edge of the road. Dragons. Still, the flicker of the campfires seemed welcoming even from that distance. Poppy and Fern were there somewhere. How he yearned to join them.
The next morning he rose and put on his leathers again with the help of the homunculus. Then, after feeding the Sapients, they descended the tower with Osidian. To Carnelian’s surprise, he did not go down into the stable levels, but walked out onto the leftway. As Carnelian followed him into the open, he was confronted by the flank of a dragon tower. Its brassman had the back of its head resting against the leftway where the crumbled edge had been hacked into rough steps.
Osidian’s Hands were there. ‘After I move Heart-of-Thunder away, they will bring up your huimur, my Lord. Follow me out.’