'Master,' they muttered, nodding, trembling, not lifting their eyes.
He remembered what he had looked like in the mirror. He turned to the Quenthas. 'My father will be glad to have his own tyadra again.'
'Seraph, they cannot mount the Approach,' said Right-Quentha.
Though Seraphim may climb, the seeing must not follow them,' said her sister.
Carnelian looked round, counting the different kinds of guardsmen. 'So many Houses, so many Ruling Lords.' He looked uneasily up the steps between the glassy colossi. The Master had almost reached the summit. Carnelian regarded his people. He wanted to please them and his father by giving them to each other. 'Could they not be blindfolded?'
The syblings looked identically shocked. 'Seraph, the Stairs of the Approach lead up to the Thronehall of the Gods Themselves.'
He looked over at the grim lictors. They stay here too?'
The Quenthas nodded and
walked to the stairs. Reluctantl
y, Carnelian told his people to wait for him,
then followed the Quenthas. When he reached them, they showed him the handles that allowed him to pull up the skirts of his robe, and, lifting one of his court ranga onto the first step, he began the climb.
It was a relief to be nearing the summit. His head rose high enough to see a landing aglow with Masters. A few more steps and he was standing on its edge. He paused to regain his breath and his composure. At the feet of the looming avatars, the landing was a bloody swirl of red and purple mosaic upon which dozens of Masters stood in their court robes, their backs to him, motionless gold towers. Beyond them Carnelian was surprised to see rising another slope of steps. On both sides, from the edges of the landing, other narrow stairs ran up between the column legs of the avatars.
Left-Quentha's stone eyes looked at him. 'You must discard your pomp, Seraph. The Law of Audience requires it.'
'But they
...'
Carnelian stared, seeing that the Masters were all headless. The court robes could have been the discarded moults of angels. He gazed up the next stairway, almost expecting to see ethereal beings floating up them.
A mass of ammonites came weaving their way through the court robes towards him. Soon they were all around him, reflecting him in their eyeless faces of silver, touching him, guiding him. When they found a clearing among the robes he was asked to kneel. He obeyed, sighing with pleasure as the yoking weight of his robe lifted off his shoulders. His head seemed to float free as they removed his crowns. He rolled it to release the tension in his neck. Ammonites carrying screens began to build an enclosure round him. Right-Quentha threw him a smile before the screen wall shut her out.
The ammonites trapped inside with him removed his mask and prised his court robe open. He walked free of the robe. When he climbed down from the ranga, he felt smaller than a child. They stripped his hands of everything save his blood-ring. They put a new robe of unbleached hri fibre over his padded underclothes. Feeling its coarse weave, he could hardly believe they had meant to dress him in it. He looked for a samite ro
be but they were already dismantl
ing the screen wall. He made a sound, nearly crying out, his hands almost over his face, but then he saw that his sybling escort had all donned blinding masks.
Puzzled by the crudeness of his dress, feeling cold, he allowed the Quenthas to lead him through the maze of empty robes to the next stairway. Framed against the legs of an avatar, another Master attired like him was climbing with a staff. Carnelian turned to the steps. Free of the encumbrances of court robe and ranga, the ascent was easier. Two Masters passed him, coming down, talking, each with a staff topped with his House cypher, each wearing a robe of unbleached fibre. They stopped to look at him, their eyes haughty sapphires. The beauty of their faces and limbs was made even brighter in contrast to their coarse-weave. He realized he was staring, gave them a bow and climbed on.
The second landing was paved with jade. Throne-daises enclosed it, behind which standards spiked up like irises. Masters in coarse-weave robes were gathered, all Ruling Lords, all facing something Carnelian could not see.
He leaned towards Right-Quentha's copper mask. 'Is this the Thronehall?'
The sisters shook their heads. That lies at the top of the final stair.'
He looked and saw at the landing's end a third stair rising up into darkness. On his right, flanked by oily black, winged avatars, steps led up to a flinty door in whose centre was a tearful eye. Carnelian stared for a moment, remembering the opium box. The sisters touched his hands and walked towards the Ruling Lords with sure steps, though they were both blind. The Lords did not seem to notice them. Some were in groups talking with their hands, but Carnelian noticed that most seemed focused off to where another stair ran up between two quartz colossal youths. At their feet he could see something like a narrow window opening onto a bright meadow. Carnelian kept walking, glancing at the oblong of emerald light, seeing its luminous Chosen face.
'My Lord.'
The Master approaching had a familiar voice. He turned. 'Vennel!' The Master's eyes were like water welling on a cake of salt. They looked at each other. Vennel tried a little nod of his head. Carnelian said nothing.
The Jade Lord has requested that you approach him.' Vennel curled a hand back to indicate the emerald figure.
Tell my Lord that I hasten to a meeting with the Regent.'
Vennel gave him a frosty smile. 'I had forgotten how little you know. When a Jade Lord makes a request it is really a command.'
'Perhaps, Vennel, you have also forgotten that the Regent outranks your Master.'
Vennel smiled. 'I will be pleased to convey your refusal to the Jade Lord.'
Another Master joined them. Jaspar. He looked at
Carnelian
and indicated Vennel. 'Is this creature bothering you, my Lord?'
Vennel moved forward. The Jade Lord—'
'Has sent me to correct yet another of your mistakes.'
Vennel’s
face seemed brittle enough to shatter.
'You might as well return to your place beneath his feet.' Jaspar used a sign of dismissal whose shape was close to that used for servants.
Vennel hesitated, then struggled to free himself from his frozen stance. They watched him walk off with ungainly steps.
That one has been reduced to his rightful size.' Jaspar gave one of his cold smiles. 'You have seen your father, cousin?'
Carnelian made a nod, hearing in his mind the word,
Patricide!
'I trust that he has fully recovered from the little unpleasantness on the road.'
Carnelian jerked another nod.
The Jade Lord Molochite wishes to meet you.'
'Well, I do not wish to meet him.'
Jaspar's eyebrows lifted. 'He is not a person to be slighted casually, Carnelian. Nothing raises him more than the whim to wreak revenge.'
'I do not fear him.'
Jaspar shrugged. 'Why give him one more reason to hate your father?'
Carnelian frowned. Jaspar flourished his hand to offer Carnelian the lead. He took it, walking through the Ruling Lords, ignoring their stares, his eyes fixed on Molochite who was framed between two staves held by his entourage of syblings. Carnelian stopped as the Jade Lord pulled himself up on the staves, and only then realized the Lord had been kneeling. As his green flame came burning towards Carnelian, the Great bowed out of his way. Carnelian waited, clearing his face of expression, his view filling with Molochite's wall of faceted emerald. His eye was level with the Jade Lord's waist.
'Why, cousin, will you not let us see your eyes?'
Carnelian looked up fiercely, refusing to be appalled by the Jade Lord's height, but when he saw the white face he forgot himself and gaped. It was the most beautiful being he had ever seen that was gazing down at him. Molochite's eyes were spring, the smile on his lips was summer. Carnelian felt the light going out as Molochite turned away, replacing the radiance of his face with the smoulder of his green-jewelled crowns.
'Imago, you spoke truth, he has the beauty of the Masks. Our blood breeds true however it is tainted.' Molochite's eyes turned their depths back on Carnelian. It was like looking into the Yden. 'Son of Azurea, you are welcome to our court.'
Carnelian bowed to take his eyes away. 'My Lord.' He tried to find a shred of composure, then looked
up.
'Would you then like to stay with us a while?' Molochite swept an exquisite hand round loaded with four Great-Rings. 'However worthy, these Lords weary us with the endless business of the election.' His smile opened like a window allowing sunlight into a dark chamber.
Carnelian struggled to unhook his eyes from the glorious face. 'My
...
my Lord is very kind, but I must go
...
to see my father.'
The window closed. 'Well, run along then. We must not keep the Regent waiting, must we?'
The emerald angel moved away. Carnelian rose and walked off feeling like a child being sent to his room.
Halfway up the third stair, Carnelian began to frown. He could not believe what he was seeing coming into sight.
The top half of a massive gate entirely wrought from iron. 'A gate
...
a skymetal gate.'
The Iron Door, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.
'Inconceivable .
..
riches.' He was breathing heavily.
Right-Quentha fumbled a hand out to steady him. The Seraph should rest.' He was touched by the concern in her voice.
‘Y
ou seem to be right,' Carnelian said, squeezing her hand. Her sister's stone eyes looked at his hand as if she could feel its touch.
'It must be the sky sickness still diminishing my strength.'
While he caught his breath, he turned to look back down the steps. The Great were there like pieces of torn parchment. Molochite was a narrow prism of emerald. At that distance Carnelian found it hard to understand the power the Jade Lord had had over him.
He resumed the climb, his eyes fixed on the Iron Door. He stroked his blood-ring. He knew that iron hailed from the sky in nuggets, but surely, so much iron must have fallen as a mountain.
As he came up over the brow of the stair he glimpsed Masters standing with their staves and as he surveyed them he found himself looking into Aurum's face. The old Master stared as if he were seeing Carnelian rising from the tomb. He pointed the horned-ring finial of his staff at Carnelian. 'What are you doing here?'
Carnelian lost his speech. He had forgotten the compulsion of those misty blue eyes. Aurum repeated his question. Carnelian found his tongue. 'My father, I have come to see my father.'
'Do you know this boy, Aurum?' one of the other Masters demanded. All the cold bl
ues and greys of their eyes settl
ed on Carnelian. Aurum's stare had moved
to the syblings spilling up round
Carnelian
from the stair.
Aurum impaled him with his eyes. 'Does your father know you are here?'
Carnelian grew angry. He had had enough of being treated like a child. 'Are you blind, my Lord? Does it seem likely I would have such an escort if the Regent himself had not summoned me?'
Aurum flinched and looked from the corner of his eye at the other Masters, who were showing a certain amusement at his discomfiture.
'You will have to wait your turn, my Lord,' said a voice Carnelian recognized as Cumulus'. 'All here seek audience with the Regent.'
'If it please the Seraphs,' said Left-Quentha, 'the Regent commanded us to bring Suth Carnelian to him without delay.'
The Masters looked shocked. Aurum was the first to move aside, a smile carv
ed on his marble face. Reluctantl
y, the others opened a way through to the Iron Door. Carnelian ignored Aurum's eyes and the comments the others made as he walked between them. 'Who does he think he is?' and, The arrogance!'
The door was like a frozen pall of smoke. He dared to reach out, to touch its dull iron. It was cold. He brought back his fingers and smelled the bloody rust. Left-Quentha lifted one of her tattooed arms, struck the door and knelt. All the syblings began kneeling round him, bowing their heads. Carnelian's robe pulled taut across his chest and flapped behind him like wings as the Iron Door breathed open.
GODS' TEARS
These are the four substances of a god: Flesh that is earth, Ichor that is fire, Seed that is rain, Spirit that is the breathing sky. But there is a fifth substance, tears, And that is a memory of the first sea.
(from the 'Ilkaya', part of the holy scriptures of the Chosen)
'And my Lord is
...
?'
Carnelian stared at the two faces side by side, Masters' faces, joined so that when one spoke its jaw dragged down the corner of the other's mouth. One face regarded him with grey eyes and seemed to be trying to determine what manner of creature Carnelian might be; the other had black diamonds for eyes. Eyebrows on the face that had spoken rose expectandy as the other face frowned.