'He has gone to the Halls of Thunder.'
Her lips narrowed as they pressed together. The jewelled structure around her head
rustled
and glimmered like a flight of beetles. She sighed. 'It seems it is always to be thus?' She looked through him as if her eyes were seeking the edge of the sky. 'Always it is the Masks that win the greater part of his affection.'
'He was hurt.'
Fear washed across her face.
'Wounded.' The word squeezed out of his mouth like a pebble.
'Will he die?' The words were flat and lifeless.
Carnelian could see the pain in her violet eyes. The Lord Aurum is confident the Wise will save him.'
Urquentha threw open her hands. 'Of course, that one would be in this.'
Carnelian was a little dazzled by the flower of her fingers. He tried to find a thread to pull, some way to unravel their journey for her, but she seemed almost to have forgotten him.
'Is it not enough that he should have my daughter to lock up in his coomb but that her brother should also conspire in his intrigues? My son has always been a fool.'
'His honour—'
'Aaah, yes,' she said, and the halo behind her head quivered. 'His honour. Fifteen years this House has suffered for his precious honour. He told me he would be but a
little
time away. His honour demanded that he leave Osrakum before the Apotheosis: that he remain in the outer world long enough to give the new Gods time to consolidate Their reign free from the entanglement of Their love, the same entanglement that another, less honourable man would have used to his advantage. His honour, taagh! What of the honour of this House and its first lineage? Fifteen years we have been a pale power among the Great. For fifteen years at the dividing of the flesh tithe we have had to stand at the end of the line, lost there without distinction among the Lesser Houses. For thirteen long years I have been imprisoned here
...'
Urquentha subsided, looked forlornly around the chamber as if seeing it for the first time. 'In his absence, I was to maintain the ascendancy of our lineage in this House. He left me the Seal
...'
Carnelian nodded.
'He told you that, Carnelian?'
'No, Fey did.'
'Fey.' Her eyes narrowed. 'When my son went off into the wilderness, I begged him to leave you with me. What kind of life can the bleak outer world provide a scion of the Great? Besides, with you and the Seal together I could have ruled. Without you my hand was weak enough for Spinel to snatch the Seal away. Your father said that he would leave Fey to be my support. It did not take more than two years for Spinel to bring her over to his cause. I was told that House Suth would fall even lower if we did not participate in the festivities and masquerades of the Great, and that in such society men were essential. Men will always claim this and it is always a pretext. It was nothing but greed and power-lust that made Spinel take the Seal.' One of her hands crushed the other. 'If that usurpation was not enough, he buried me here in this house, though my womb had long been an empty husk.'
She looked up and the smile that came through her tears allowed Carnelian to see the girl that she had once been. That girl had a look of his father that put a stone in his throat.
'But now you are here, Carnelian. The damage will be difficult to repair but not impossible. It might not be too late for us to secure for you a worthy blood match. She will be a child destined for years to remain barren to your seed, but what matter that? You are as youthful as the morning.' She smiled a cold smile. 'Spinel had begun to believe that you would never return. He thought his usurpation all but complete. He and the Lords of the third lineage support the Empress in the election. She has made sure of gathering about her all the lower orders by making extravagant promises of the blood and iron she will give them once she rules through Molochite. I suspect Spinel actually hoped to have the Imperial Power aid him in becoming the first lineage in this House.
'Now, whether Ykoriana triumphs or not, it is all over for Spinel and his hopes. With my aid, Carnelian, you shall rule until my son returns. Together we will push Spinel and his sycophants back into the shadows where they belong. With the Seal in our hands House Suth is ours. Tell me quickly, what arrangements have you made to have the Seal returned?'
Carnelian opened his hands in something between apology and a shrug.
His grandmother's eyes lost their colour. Her skin's light dimmed. 'But why?'
'I did not think it appropriate to act without my father's sanction.'
'But without the Seal, we can do nothing. I will have to stay here.'
She bent visibly under the weight of her years. Carnelian could see the tears she tried to hide. He reached out, took her hand, stroked it as if it were a dove. The ammonites stirred in alarm. 'On my blood, Grandmother, I will get the Seal, then end your imprisonment.'
Carnelian would have preferred to return without the aid of the palanquin, but his cumbersome robes made this impractical. He was carried down the stair. Through the grille he watched the sculpted cliff slide by. When they put the palanquin down, he climbed out. Guardsmen formed an escort up some stairs. He walked between them to reach a platform and passed through a door into an atrium where he was greeted by servants, and the purling of fountains. They led him into the cliff, through chambers panelled with malachite and purple porphyry, lambent with lamps, filled with bronzes, feather carpets and tapestries.
He chose a chamber cooled by a waterfall, one wall of which was windowed with glaring sky, where his attendants released him from his robes and mask. He took a few steps away from them in the delight of almost floating. He whisked round to thank them. 'Now I know the pleasure a snake must take in discarding its skin.'
The smile waned on his face as he saw them all standing their eyes fixed upon the floor. The moult of his robes hung heavy in their arms. 'Does the Master want aught else?' one of them said without even lifting his head.
'No,' said Carnelian and watched them creep away. The hiss of the waterfall echoing off the lofty cold mosaiced walls made him feel as if he were lost in a cave. The windows with their sky seemed far away. He felt utterly alone.
Carnelian composed the letter carefully in his mind before drawing the glyphs on the parchment. He was trying for forcefulness without discourtesy. When it was finished he read it several times. He was unhappy with some of his glyphs but told himself not to be so precious and made to seal it. He removed his blood-ring. He chewed his lip, then returned the ring to his finger. He pulled the chain that was round his neck over his head and dangled his father's ring before his eyes. To use that was almost to admit his father dead. He reminded himself of his grandmother in her captivity. This had to be done. He inked the Ruling Ring and pressed it down firmly on the parchment. He folded the letter, placed a sealing frame over the join, melted wax into it and printed it with the ring. He sent for a servant and was surprised when Fey appeared.
'I need someone to deliver this.'
‘I’ll
do it, Master.'
'You?'
She bowed.
To Lord Spinel then,' he said in Quya. 'Does the Master have any further instructions?' 'If you would please wait for an answer.' 'As you command, Master.' She bowed again and walked away.
Carnelian went to one of the windows. At his feet, the mosaic of the crater spread out its vast circumference. He waited there for a long while drinking in the view. When his mind was all bleached out he went to explore the shadowy halls. Soon he was beyond the chambers that had been furnished for him, wandering among half-seen wonders. Gradually, the echoing emptiness of the halls began to oppress him. The sounds of water haunted the gloom with voices. Loneliness stole the colours from his mind like winter greying the land. He made his way back hoping to find Fey returned, but she was not there. He went to the window, seeking its vision of summer, but shadow swamped the crater, and the Pillar of Heaven had become the heart of the encroaching night.
He woke and waited. He watched the morning creep down into the crater. Servants came with rare foods on plates of white jade but when he asked them they told him they had not seen Fey nor knew where she was. They bathed, painted and dressed him and he waited standing at the window watching the movement of shadows, the play of colour in the world below.
It was afternoon when Fey returned. He walked towards her. 'Where have you been?'
She knelt and bowed her head.
'Where is it?'
'Where is what, Master?'
The Seal?'
She shook her head.
'A letter then?'
Fey showed him her empty hands. 'Nothing at all?'
The Master Spinel bade me say that the Master will have his response soon.'
‘
Soon
...
how soon?' Fey shook her head. 'I will go to him.'
Fey looked up with pain creasing her face. 'Master, if I might
presume...?'
Carnelian asked for her words with his hand.
To go visiting would diminish you, Master.' 'What should I do then?'
'Begging your pardon, Master
...
you could wait.' Carnelian frowned.
'I
promised my grandmother.' The Mistress has been confined for many years
...'
'And a few more days will make no difference?' Fey's head dropped.
To wait?' Carnelian muttered to himself. The life of a Master is filled with pleasures.'
Mirrors were aligned to bring the sky's blue deep into the palace. As the chambers lit up like lamps, Carnelian found trees growing up in the walls and through their arches mysterious landscapes glowed and fabled creatures stood startled or sliced cloudscapes with their jewel-mosaic wings. Sluices opened, gushing water down channels, sparking the air with diamonds, frothing in feathering falls, trembling their sheet crystal down rilled slopes.
For a while he forgot everything as he walked through this enchanted garden. Only when the daylight began to fail and the naves began to fill with shimmering lamps did melancholy settle its leaden cloak about his shoulders. Then Fey had them bring him books, some so small their oblongs could not cover the palm of his hand, others large enough for him to need help to lever their covers back. There were story books so brilliantly illuminated they cast their colours on his face. He opened others like windows and peered through them into miraculous lands.
Even these wonders began to pale. The night seeped in around him and he went away to hide himself in sleep. His dreams were troubled and he woke before daybreak in a world peopled with guttering flames. A carving in the wall became Fey. He asked her for news but she told him there was none.
sleep wherever he was and wake when he did. His only notion of time came from whether it was the mirrors or the lamps that were the brighter.
Carnelian had languished on the marble floor till its chill soaking up through his bones had turned him to stone. He felt a tremor in the floor that was pressing against his back like ice. He opened his eyes and saw one of the lighting mirrors was filled with stars. The floor tremored again. He turned his head feeling like a spider sensing something on its web. Footfalls coming towards him stopped. The sound of hurried, terrified breathing. He located the creature. A woman, gaping at him, visibly shaking. He saw her bucket, her scrubbing brush. He smelled her body and her fear. He imagined how vast and luminously white he must seem to her, a Master stretched out as if dead upon the floor. His eyes were turning her to jelly and so he closed them and turned his head away to let her flee. He heard her scurry, a click, then silence.
His ears searched for other sounds as he waited for his body to thaw. He rolled over to wedge his hands under his chest and then pushed himself up, groaning at the stiffness, bending limbs, rubbing muscles. He stood up, scanning the gloom. Away off in the distance was a glimmering jewelled world where a hall had been lit with lamps. Of the woman there was no sign.
He loped off, hunting her, stooping as if he could smell her footprints, and came quickly to a wall. Its bas-reliefs grimaced as they caught some light. He could hear creaking close but muffled. When he pressed his ear against the wall, the sound grew clearer. He slid his hands over the reliefs until his fingers found a straight edge. He searched for a handle and was on the verge of giving up when his thumb slipped over a hole. Probing inside, he felt a lever and tried to work it. With a click, a small door opened and the creaking grew louder.
He hunched, then fumbled his way into the darkness. Rough stone grazed his skin as he moved along a narrow passage. He ignored his dislike of confinement. Water was gulping up ahead. The air was stale with sweat and frying. Light welled bright enough for him to see. Curiosity drew him on. There was a smell of wet rock, light pulsing, and then he came into a cavern where one wall curving up carried wooden scoops from which water dribbled and spluttered over the floor. He stepped towards the huge rotating drum. The floor fell away before it, allowing him to see the cistern from which the drum was lifting water. He leant over and saw another drum further down, and another further still that closed off any further view. His eyes rode up with a scoop and he saw another drum turning in a higher cavern.