'We terrify them,' said Carnelian. Too much,' said Jaspar.
'We will have to find the way ourselves,' said Vennel.
'Come, my Lords,' Aurum said, 'perhaps that light yonder is what we seek.' He launched himself at the sailors blocking the way in that direction and they shuffled from his path.
The Masters followed him towards the pale rectangle. Carnelian was nervous. The sailors were close enough for him to smell them. He held his torch aloft and scrutinized their faces. He could see their blinking terror of him but also a stubborn resistance.
Aurum brought them to a gateway closed with a grille.
He slapped its wood. It shook but held. 'How dare they lock this against us?'
Carnelian turned back. He scanned the mob, feeling them closing in.
Jaspar drew near him. They are so much like animals.'
'And dangerous,' said Carnelian, distrusting every movement.
'What an outlandish suggestion.'
'We shall have to wait until this portcullis is lifted for us,' Suth said to Aurum.
'Wait? Wait for what, my Lord?' Aurum struck the grille with the flat of his hand, clinking his rings against the wood.
Carnelian edged his way to the portcullis, always keeping his eyes on the mob. He glanced through the bars. There was a landing on the other side stippled with the red light that filtered down from above. A flight of shallow steps came up to the landing, continuing up on its other side.
Carnelian turned to see that his father was standing with both torches raised, his mask looking out blindly into the gloom. He was a pillar at the centre of a region of light. Movements could be seen all along its edge. Carnelian wondered if his father perceived the threat.
The rapid striking sound of Aurum's rings broke out again as he rattled the gate with his blows. Light welled up on the other side of the grille, accompanied by footfalls. Carnelian peered through and saw some small dark men lit by the lanterns they were carrying. One came up, cautiously, holding his lantern before him. Its light rayed through the grille and played around the Masters in shafts.
The small man must have seen their masks. 'Masters!' he cried, crumpling to the floor.
Most of his companions joined him though one ran off down the stairway crying out, The Masters. The Masters.'
'Open this gate!' boomed Aurum.
These creatures are so craven,' said Jaspar.
Carnelian's unease ignited to anger. 'Who makes them so?'
There was some commotion on the landing, a rattle of machinery. One of the men came up towards the portcullis, touched it as if it might be hot, then pushed against it and it slid up smoothly.
Aurum ducked under it before it was fully open. Carnelian followed with the others onto the landing. The men were scurrying down the stairway, leaving their lanterns behind them on the floor.
Something was coming up towards them like a flood. Carnelian moved to the landing's edge. The stairway below was filling from wall to wall with men and a dazzle of lanterns. Amidst the dull eddying of leather jerkins several glinting apparitions floated up much taller than the rest.
Carnelian drew back and took his place beside the other Masters. With a clatter and the odour of men, the mass of soldiery spilled onto the landing.
While the soldiers clunked into the prostration the apparitions kept coming at them. Their bronze carapaces had an insect mottle. Ridged plates of samite were underneath. Each wore an elaborate horned helm into which was wedged a Master's mask. Carnelian was amazed when they all sank down upon one knee.
'Great Ones, I do not know how came about this affront to your blood,' protested their leader. His helm turned its four-horned mass and Carnelian had the feeling that he and the others were being counted. Their obeisance, the mode of address, suggested that these Masters were of the Lesser Chosen. The leader spoke again. 'When your vessel was sighted I commanded this tower be made ready to welcome your return. Imagine my dismay when we reached her berth to find you already gone. This is—'
'An outrage?' suggested Jaspar.
Aurum stepped in front of the kneeling Masters. In his stained cloak he seemed a pillar of mud being worshipped by bronze men.
The injury is forgotten, Lord Legate. We desire to take counsel with you that we might leave as swiftly as we have come.'
'You are kind to condescend, Great Lord, but still—' 'Believe me, there is no
ill feeling. Dispense with this
speech that we might repair to the privacy of your halls.'
Aurum swept round and
billowed up the stairway like a
cloud of smoke.
Halfway up the stairs to the window that lit the cave of his hall, the Legate turned off onto a platform. Carnelian stopped where he was and looked back down the avalanche of steps. The door they had entered through was remote. All around him giants in the walls pushed out through veiling rock. Their vague faces frowned into the airy spaces above his head. He was beneath their notice. What was more oppressive still was that they were but the front rank of a crowd that faded up in tiers to a ceiling dripping with stalactites.
Carnelian had to squint to look up the steps to where his father and the other Masters were still climbing towards the window. Against that slab of burning sky they were drawn as quivering charcoal strokes. Bronze urns taller than men squatted up the edges of the stairway. Platforms recessed her
e and there into the steps. The
Legate stood on the nearest one of these. Smaller creatures perched around him were taking his helm apart one gleaming piece at a time. Carnelian watched as each was laid carefully on its stand. When the Legate's head was naked save for his mask, he dismissed his servants. Watching them fan out across the steps as they went down, Carnelian saw a figure coming slowly up through them. Though it wore a mask, it did not have the appearance of a Master. The mask's silver snared a curve of light so that it seemed to be smiling.
A swelling of attar of lilies warned Carnelian that the Legate was there beside him.
'Great One, shall we join the others?'
Carnelian stared at the Legate's tiny head. He wondered if this was a condition peculiar to the Lesser Chosen until he realized it was an illusion caused by the contrast with the massive armour. He remembered to jerk a nod and side by side they began to climb, ahead of the silver mask.
The window widened till Carnelian could not see its edges and felt that he was climbing into the heavens. He stumbled when his foot tried to find a final step. Shapes crowding the platform moved and Carnelian assumed from their size that they were the other Masters. He moved to one side of them and turning his back on the window, hoping to lose his near-blindness.
He watched the Legate move aside to reveal the creature standing behind him on the last step. He had forgotten about it. Its mask was reflecting a fragment of the ochre sky. It made the prostration and when it rose Carnelian saw that it had unmasked to reveal a yellow marumaga face, spotted and striped all over with the dots and bars of numbers. The man's eyes were like glass. He lifted a hand with fingers splayed. Four fingers, the centre one removed so that the hand naturally formed the sign of the horns.
'Seraphim,' he said.
There was a swish of cloth. The Masters around him were making the sign. Self-consciously, Carnelian followed them.
The Legate came to stand beside the throne that piled up from the centre of the platform. 'Great Ones,
I
had begun to fear your blood mingled with the winter sea.'
'Burning blood is not so easily quenched,' Vennel said severely.
The Legate made a sign of apology.
'I
meant no offence, Great One.'
Vennel's mask turned away.
The Legate watched it, his hand flattening. He looked round at the other Lords. There are more of the Great Ones than there were.'
Carnelian saw his father move forward.
'I
am Suth, returning to the Three Lands.'
The Legate made an uncertain bow. They have yearned for your return, Great Lord.'
'Before we conclave, Lord Legate,
I
should tell you that it became necessary to destroy some of the crew of your baran.'
The Legate shrugged.
The captain too was slain.'
Carnelian looked at his father, thinking that he had made an error. Then he recalled the captain's looks of horror and that the man had seen his naked face, and his hands glued together as if they were still covered with blood.
The Legate lifted his hand,
So be it.
'Captains are more difficult to replace
...
the training, you see, Great Lord?
But perhaps the Great Ones might allow me to turn to more important matters. I have here an epistle come from Osrakum that has been in my hand for nigh on twenty days.'
'I had expected this,' said Aurum.
The Legate held out a long folded parchment bearing a square seal larger than his fist.
Aurum began to move forward with his hand outstretched but Suth lifted his own hand on which something blinked red. Aurum nodded and retreated. Suth took the letter from the Legate's hand. He angled it to examine the seal in the light, then snapped it open. He unfolded the first panel, read it, then moved on to the second. Carnelian could see there were many panels and he caught glimpses of the glyphs that were pressed like butterflies between the pages. He wearied of waiting. The other Masters were statues. The only movement came from the yellow man who had still not come fully up onto the platform. Carnelian peered at his costume. He realized that it was not black as he had thought, but a thick purple whirling brocade eyed here and there with bone buttons. There were spirals in the precious purple samite, the spirals of ammonite shells. From his belt hung several strings of many-coloured beads. Carnelian regarded the yellow man with renewed interest, wondering if this could be one of the Wise.
'Quaestor?'
'Seraph,' answered the yellow man.
Carnelian turned. His father was holding up his hand. A bloody eye wounded his palm: a ruby thrusting down from a ring he wore on his middle finger.
'I who am He-who-goes-before make declaration that this is an epistle that concerns a proceeding of the Clave.'
The quaestor's eyes fixed bird-like on the ruby.
'I invoke the Privilege of the Three Powers.'
The quaestor frowned, but resumed his silver mask and, bowing almost to the floor, turned and disappeared down the stairway.
The Masters began to unmask and Carnelian followed their example. He was surprised that the Legate's face had the same luminous beauty as the other Masters. He could easily have passed for one of the Great.
Suth held up the letter. This contains matter pertinent to our mission, my Lords.' He turned to the Legate. 'Lord Legate, the Great require your assistance. The God Emperor lies dying, and—'
Vennel gaped at Suth. 'Have you taken leave of your senses, my Lord?'
Suth turned towards him and wrinkled his brow.
'Have you forgotten, Lord Suth, that it is utterly forbidden by Law to speak of this to any outside Osrakum?'
Suth looked almost amused for a moment. 'It is you, my Lord, who forget. Am I not become He-who-goes-before? When I speak, the voice may be mine but my words are the Clave's. Hear them now when I say that it would be foolish to underestimate the Legate. Did he not himself witness you coming down to the sea? What I have revealed, the Legate already knew.'
Carnelian watched his father lock eyes with the Legate. His father waited for the startled man to give a slight nod before returning his gaze to Vennel.
'Is it not more prudent, my Lord, that we should take him into our confidence than that we should make vain denial? My presence alone would serve to confirm his conjectures.' Suth looked at the Legate, who now hid behind a hand shaping the sign for grief. 'My Lord, you have the confidence of the Clave, and it shall owe you blood debt for your silence and for any aid that you might be called upon to give us. Rest assured that this in no way compromises your service to the House of the Masks.'
'Even He-who-goes-before must obey the Law,' said Vennel.
Suth did not turn. 'Lord Vennel, the Law's intention was to avoid disturbance in the Commonwealth.'
'And to avoid the Legates being tempted to use their legions against the Three Powers.'
Carnelian, who had always feared the look his father's face now wore, watched it wither Vennel.
'Does my Lord fear that my Lord Legate would sail his barans against Osrakum?'
Vennel's face deadened as he retired somewhere behind its icy surface. Carnelian fought his lips' desire to smile.
His father lifted the letter again. The Wise have made the Clave send this to warn us that a rumour is abroad.'
Aurum stepped forward. 'A rumour?'
'It has been noted that several Lords of the Great have gone down to the sea. It is said that they seek the return of the Ruling Lord of House Suth. Further, it is said that this Lord is being recalled to oversee the sacred election. The Wise command that we do all we can to avoid giving credence to this dangerous rumour.'