For some time they faced each other in what he felt was a contending of wills. He had drawn his line and would not retreat. At last he noticed Aurum’s shoulders relaxing a little. His mask scanned the ranks of Lepers behind Carnelian as if he were seeing them for the first time. ‘What manner of creatures are those?’
‘Inhabitants of the valleys below.’ Carnelian took pleasure in telling Aurum this. He hoped it would stir fear in his black heart. Instead the Great Lord reacted with a gesture of disgust.
‘I had hoped I had succeeded in destroying all the vermin.’
The rage boiling up in Carnelian overflowed. Almost he forgot his decision and threw the Master to his victims, but he mastered himself. ‘My Lord should take care. These people have reason to hate him, bitterly.’
Aurum laughed. ‘Since when do we who are Chosen concern ourselves with the feelings of inferiors?’
Carnelian smiled a cold smile behind his mask. Let the monster feel invulnerable, for the moment. ‘My Lord is free to return to his host. We can settle this business with fire.’
Aurum’s free hand rose in a half-formed gesture of appeasement whose speed belied its casual framing. ‘I shall come with you, my Lord.’ He summoned his aquar and his slaves. They brought the creature and made it sink to the red earth. As Aurum climbed back into his saddle-chair, Carnelian watched how heavily the old Lord leaned upon his staff.
‘Who is this Master?’ Carnelian turned to Fern, who it was had spoken, hearing the suspicion in his voice. ‘Aurum,’ he said, then had to endure the look Fern gave him of shocked disbelief.
Once more aboard Earth-is-Strong, Carnelian stood behind his command chair in which the Lord Aurum was sitting. He had offered it to him in pity for his condition. He resented feeling any sympathy for the old bastard but, after watching with what difficulty he had scaled the ladders up to the command deck, Carnelian could not bring himself to force the old man to stand leaning on his staff against the sway of the cabin. Besides, he preferred not to have the monster behind him.
He had had his Lefthand send a message to Heart-of-Thunder telling Osidian he had Aurum in his cabin. Osidian’s only reply had been: ‘Stand fast in the battleline.’
Attar of lilies was rising from Aurum’s black-shrouded form. As always, Carnelian’s gorge rose at the smell. It brought forcibly to mind the days of his near imprisonment in the old man’s chambers with their clocks and mirrors. Other, earlier memories seeped in unbidden, of his father, wounded, on their journey to Osrakum. Carnelian realized he was reminded of the sickening odour of rotting blood that had come off his father then. Though he could not consciously smell it now, he became convinced Aurum was using perfume to disguise some similar decay.
He had to stop being distracted. Quite apart from Aurum’s news, they had a crisis threatening here. How long would it be before the Lepers demanded to have their enemy delivered to them? It seemed to him unlikely Osidian would comply.
A command came from Heart-of-Thunder, demanding Aurum send instructions to his huimur. For some moments the old Master sat motionless as if he had not heard the Lefthand but then, without turning, he began to speak. His commands were broadcast from the roof towards his dragons, bidding his commanders descend from their towers and, leaving their crews, take all further orders from the Lord Nephron. Aurum terminated his message with his command code. Carnelian felt a surge of relief.
Carnelian clambered up the brassman to the leftway, then walked along its ragged, crumbling edge to gaze north. Upon the road, Aurum’s dragons came lumbering, three abreast, their towers bobbing gently like the pendulums of the old man’s clocks. Keeping pace with them, on a parallel course, Osidian’s dragons were shadows obscured by the russet murk they were churning up through the fields. Carnelian looked west, squinting against the low sun. The Leper tide was coming in past the cisterns. He regarded them, wondering what it must be like for them to watch the same dragons that had brought destruction to their valleys now being invited into their camp. He imagined what Lily must be feeling. He would have to do something to keep them placated, at least until he had a chance to find out what was going on.
The clank of ranga striking brass made Carnelian turn. Aurum’s looming bulk was crossing the brassman with the aid of his staff. Reaching the rough stair cut into the rubble of the leftway, the Master paused; his mask, gazing up at the steps, looked like a cold flame. Carnelian gestured to his Hands, standing behind Aurum. They understood him and, coming forward, they offered their assistance to the giant Master. Aurum’s mask, glancing down, caused the men to cower. He floated his arms up and, taking them like the poles of a chariot, they helped him up onto the leftway.
Carnelian approached him, hearing the Master’s breath loud behind his mask. Again he was struck by how weak Aurum had become. It made him angry. He did not want to feel sympathy for his enemy.
Aurum glanced up at the watch-tower. ‘Let us meet down here.’ He struck the cobbles with his staff. Carnelian reminded him that Osidian’s command had been specific. ‘He wants us to wait for him up there.’ He pointed up at the heliograph platform. For a moment the Master seemed again granite, then his shoulders softened. He bowed his head, nodding, so that his cowl slid forward to quench the cold fire of his mask.
As they entered the watch-tower together, the roar of the camp faded, even as, in the confined space, Aurum’s breathing grew louder. Its rasp marked the labour of each step. Carnelian’s hands rose to give the old man support, but he pulled them back as if they had been about to betray him. He made himself recall Crail, whom this Lord had had maimed to death. The memory of that loss made Carnelian glance up the hollow core of the tower. Poppy was up there. Fear that she might fall foul of the Master possessed him.
‘My Lord, I shall go ahead to make sure the way is clear.’
Aurum’s gloved hands clung to his staff. He seemed too busy struggling with his breathing to respond. Carnelian climbed the first ladder. When he reached its top he glanced down to make sure Aurum was following him. The Master was halfway up, each rung wringing a groan from him. Steeling himself against compassion, Carnelian began climbing the next ladder.
Entering their cell, Carnelian saw two small heads wedged into the slits that looked down onto the camp. The heads pulled back and turned. Carnelian was struck by the shocking contrast between Poppy’s face and the wizened face of the homunculus. She plucked the little man’s blinding mask up from the bed and handed it to him; he put it on. Carnelian could not help smiling; not only at how the homunculus obeyed her, but at how he himself would now follow her implied command. He released his mask.
The severe look in Poppy’s eyes drove away all amusement. ‘Whose are the new dragons?’
Recently her voice had become more womanly. At such forceful speech in the tongue of the Ochre, Carnelian felt as if Akaisha and the other Elders were in the cell, judging him.
‘They’re Hookfork’s, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
Poppy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is he here?’
‘He is.’
‘You’re going to give him to Lily?’
‘It’s- There are-’ Carnelian grew angry. ‘There are things you don’t understand.’
Her eyes were burning into him. He and she had been here before with horrific consequences. Her anger was justified. His was fired by guilt. ‘Look, I don’t understand what’s happening myself. I need- We need to know more before we act and I’m scared of what the Lepers might do.’
‘With good reason,’ she said.