He stared appalled, grinding his teeth, as the procession bubbled down its syblings, carrying with it a gory eye, a bloody gathering of knives, Ykoriana and the other women of her House.
He let his gaze fall to the sybling vanguard of that march as they reached the chamber and carried tall flames into the Lesser Chosen as if they were burning a path through a forest. Ykoriana came on behind, floating into the chamber on a gale of horns and trumpets. Her hands were folded across her chest sheathed in the jade of her four Great-Rings. Before her went the staves of the Regent with their horned-rings, their targets of the Commonwealth. Beside her paced four smaller amethystine women. Around them blood-eyed eunuchs pale as bones faced outwards, displaying their mutilations. Behind came the Lords of the Masks, scores of them with jewelled nest crowns and the faces of angels reflecting sunrise, and Chosen syblings as wide in their robes as chariots, and their brethren flanking them in greens and blacks, with iron casques and masks and poles bearing jade and obsidian faces.
Amidst the imperious tumult, Carnelian gaped as the glorious mass broke against the Great and shattered, sending syblings out in branches to outflank the platform of the Guarded Land. The core broke free, climbing onto the Osrakum platform, surrounding it, filling it up so that Carnelian saw his father was engulfed.
Then the whole world shook to its foundations as one by one the doors slammed closed. Ripples ran along the firewall that seemed to shower the Lesser Chosen with sparks. The trumpets boomed, then grumbled silent. Carnelian could feel the resonant humming of the Turtle's Voice. His eyes followed the firewall round and found it was complete. The Chosen were all trapped within its fiery ring. With a rustling the Chosen lifted their hands to their faces and removed their masks. Carnelian was slow to follow, shivering, startled by the winter of faces. He looked up and saw his father, clean and bright like an unsheathed sword. Facing him on the other side of the bell, across the Grand Sapients, still masked, Ykoriana looked like an instrument of murder.
The Jade Lords,' murmured voices. The twins,' sighed others.
'Nephron,' said Spinel. Carnelian followed the nervous flicker of his eyes past the Turtle's Voice, to the south-east where high in the firewall something was embedded like a black diamond. Spinel turned a frown to the north-west. 'And Molochite.'
In that direction stood an emerald man. Carnelian looked around him in time to see his third lineage snatch their eyes away from him. One looked down like a shameful child. Carnelian felt again his robe and crowns dragging him down. Were they all going to vote against his father? His foreboding seemed to be leaching out from him into the air. The grumbling chanting had begun again.
'You who are the Lords of the Earth,' the homunculi of the Wise broke out in chorus, 'who even now stand upon the Three Lands in power, as you do upon this floor, shall now make ready to choose as once you were chosen.'
'As it has been done,' the Great broke into thunderous voice, 'so shall it be done, for ever, because it is commanded to be done by the Law-that-must-be-obeyed.'
The chanting had grown stronger, more insistent.
'He that shall be chosen by you will be raised as a cup to the sky and thrust as a scoop into the earth that in truth are two but one. Thus he shall receive the double
Godhead so that They might once more take Their place here, at the centre of this realm, within the embrace of the Sacred Wall that They flung up to conceal from profane eyes this place of Their transcendent birth.'
The Great answered the Wise, 'As it has been done, so shall it be done, for ever, because it is commanded to be done by the Law-that-must-be-obeyed.'
'As the Law ordains, this choosing shall be determined by the casting of blood-rings into vessels of jade and of obsidian.'
The syblings below him raised up bowls in time with a growling of trumpets.
'Molochite of the Masks by virtue of primogeniture shall be the green candidate, Nephron of the Masks shall be the black.'
The trumpets hung several ragged notes above in the swirling incense.
The candidates are of the same blood, dewed from the Gods Kumatuya and squeezed from the womb of Ykoriana Four-Blood. Their taint is zero, zero, zero, zero, six, thirteen, ten, five, fifteen, four, thirteen, fifteen.'
The trumpets grazed each number into the air.
'Let all be aware that any blood-taint zero, zero, zero, three, zero, twelve, eleven, seventeen, two, three, fifteen or lower shall be forfeit at the Apotheosis that shall be held in four days' time.'
The horns and trumpets began a slow crescendo and were joined by the oscillating calls of the shawms and a shimmer of cymbals. The voices rose deafeningly, pulsed, collapsed, rose again to shrillness, the trumpets playing a ragged ululation over which the shawms brayed a lilting counterpoint. They fell echoing silent.
'Choose!' cried the homunculi.
The forest of gold around Carnelian shimmered into movement. He took hold of Spinel's sleeve.
It is not too late.
The Lord gave him a look of contempt as he pulled his sleeve free. Carnelian glimpsed the guilty faces of Tapaz and others as they turned their backs on him and began moving towards the syblings standing under the lantern posts. Around the edge of the Osrakum platform, the Ruling Lords were casting their votes. Carnelian saw one as he waited his turn, twisting his blood-ring into a loop that held a bunch of others. Carnelian's eyes were drawn to a white oval, Jaspar's face. Carnelian turned away from its look of triumph and went to cast his own vote in despair.
He stood in line with other Lords until it was his turn. The iron faces of the syblings stared eyeless. One held an urn of jade, the other of glassy obsidian. Carnelian removed his blood-ring, held it over the mouth of the black urn and dropped in its paltry twenty votes. Then he turned and waded a little way off into the golden robes.
Carnelian allowed his mind to float on the chant. He had searched the faces of all those who had come to the edge of the Osrakum platform to vote and he was sure Osidian had not been among them. Still masked, Ykoriana was a doll gazing at his father. Hopelessness seemed written on his yellowed ivory face. Carnelian refused to resign himself to defeat.
A hubbub of excitement made him turn to see gaps opening everywhere among the Great. At their edges, crowns leaned together as the Lords watched something passing below them. Then he saw the syblings filing up onto the Osrakum platform, each pair carrying two voting urns.
'Now for the result.'
Carnelian glanced round at the speaker and recognized Tapaz. Spinel was there, Opalid, the other Suth Lords. Only Spinel dared look at him. A delicate shimmering chime was drowned by rustling as the Chosen everywhere sank on their ranga. The House of the Masks had knelt too, revealing the Grand Sapients with their homunculi looking out from under the bell. Carnelian watched the syblings lifting the urns up to the Wise. He realized he alone was still standing and quickly bent his knees.
Without any preamble the homunculi began in rapid random sequence to announce the votes. Chosen names rattled from their throats, each named Lord assigning a single vote to Molochite. Carnelian listened carefully, hoping to hear Osidian mentioned. He realized that he did not even know which way his friend might vote. Hearing that all the votes were going to Molochite, Carnelian thought at first Nephron's would follow after. The announcement of a vote for Nephron followed instantly by another for Molochite cheated him of this hope. He squeezed his nails into the palms of his hands and reassured himself that these were after all only the results for the individual Lords of blood-rank one.
'Suth Veridian for Molochite, one vote.'
Hearing the name, Carnelian looked instinctively for that Lord and found him gazing fixedly away. Carnelian's eyes were drawn to Spinel. The Lord's lips were moving as he added up the votes. He looked round as if he had felt Carnelian's gaze and smiled at him. After that Carnelian tried to show no reaction whenever another Suth Lord's vote for Molochite was called out. All five Lords of the third lineage had voted against his father.
His heart jumped when he heard,'... of the Masks.' It was now that he would hear Osidian's name. He listened to each as it was called out. There were more than thirty of them and almost all were voting with the Dowager Empress. Carnelian frowned when the homunculi began announcing the votes cast by rank two Lords. The only names he had recognized from the House of the Masks were the Hanuses who had each voted for a different candidate. Carnelian could not believe Osidian could be higher than blood-rank one. Still he listened attentively. At least now more votes were being cast for Nephron, perhaps a half of what Molochite was receiving. Among the results, the Aurum Lords had declared for Nephron, all from Vennel and Imago for Molochite. Carnelian had to endure Emeral, Tapaz and Spinel all being declared defying their Ruling Lord before the Chosen. He watched his father as each was announced having to hold his head up in plain view of all. Carnelian smiled bitterly as he heard Opalid's votes going to Nephron. His own twenty votes soon joined them. Almost thirty House of the Masks' Lords were called out, but once again Osidian's name was not among them. When the block votes began being announced Carnelian gave up any hope that Osidian was in the chamber. He tried to fight the doubts and conjectures forming in his mind. His friend had stolen or borrowed a blood-ring. In spite of his white, jade-eyed beauty, he was not Chosen. Osidian had never claimed to be Chosen. Carnelian wondered again about the taint scars that Osidian had down only one side of his spine. He watched one of the Grand Sapients reading the rings strung on a necklace with his cloven hands. He knew without a doubt now that he would never see Osidian again. The emptiness spread out from his core and seemed to fill the whole chamber.
As the block votes droned on, Carnelian became aware that the majority were now going in Nephron's favour. When the size of the blocks suddenly jumped it was obvious that the voting of the highest Houses was being declared and these to
o seemed to be going predominantl
y Nephron's way. Houses Vennel and Imago cast their block votes for Molochite, but Nephron received the endorsement of many others among whom were Aurum and Cumulus. Hope awoke in him and he tried to feed it by looking up at his father. They were winning the election. He wanted to shout it up to his father. At least they were winning. His father's misery was concealed but Carnelian knew him well enough to see it. He followed his father's fixed gaze to Ykoriana and his hope blew out. There she stood among her kin whose votes had not yet been announced. One of the highest of the Great, such as Aurum, had cast only a few hundred votes: in her own right, Ykoriana had 8,000. He felt the buzz of excitement.
'House Suth Who-goes-before for Nephron, six hundred and ten votes,' cried a homunculus.
The Chosen seemed to be quivering. The result was near.
'Lady Tiye of the Masks for Molochite, four hundred votes,' said another.
'Lady Nurpayahras of the Masks for Nephron, four hundred votes.'
'Lady Nayakarade of the Masks for Molochite, four hundred votes.'
The Regent and Jade Womb Ykoriana for Molochite, eight thousand, two hundred and twenty votes.'
The voice fell into a deep winter silence. Nothing moved except the feather flicker of the firewall.
'With his own ring added in, the total of the votes cast for Molochite of the Masks,' said the homunculi in eerie chorus, 'twenty-one thousand, one hundred and ninety-two.'
An excited murmur ran around the chamber. Carnelian caught the look of horror spreading over Spinel's face.
There was a commotion around Ykoriana. Rumour burned across the Great and spread down among the Lesser Chosen.
'She is demanding
...'
Carnelian heard and strained to hear more. 'She is demanding a recount.'
'With his own ring, those cast for Nephron of the Masks, twenty-one thousand, two hundred and eight.'
Carnelian saw his father turn to him, his face transfused with triumph. Carnelian swallowed, feeling his back buckling with the euphoric relief.
'Nephron is chosen by a margin of—'
The rest was lost as with a soughing like wind through a forest, the Chosen rose and turned to face Nephron in his niche.
The Wise were all turned to him. 'Behold,' their homunculi shrilled. 'He that will be They, Lords of Earth and Sky.'
The beautiful faces of the Great swam before Carnelian's eyes. Some frowned, others laughed. Spinel and the other Suth Lords looked ashen and their eyes would not hold his gaze. Jaspar was smiling at him. He started smiling back then froze as he felt the Master's eyes peeling him skin from bone. A cacophony of trumpets broke him free. He looked out across the Lesser Chosen throng and saw the snow of their faces focusing back over his shoulder. He saw the black angel coming through the Great. For a while Carnelian saw the face he expected, a face twinned to Molochite's. Something black on the forehead began his frown. His gaze snatched down to the jade eyes, searching. They saw each other as the
Turtle's Voice set the Chamber of the Three Lands trembling. The whole world was coming to pieces around him but Carnelian could do nothing but stare into Osidian's smiling eyes.
JUST ONE MORE DAY
The cruellest traps are baited