With the heart of the lotus
(from the 'Tale of the Little Barbarian')
When Carnelian came back Tain was like something dead, an uninterested stranger helping him with his crowns. Carnelian became a man of wood, a frame holding up his robe. It was all he could do to stop himself from shaking his brother. He kept telling himself that Tain did not know, could not know. 'Go away,' he said.
'You need help with the robe,' said Tain.
'Go!' cried Carnelian. He watched Tain sullenly move away. The click of the door closing unleashed Carnelian's rage. He struggled to free himself from the robe. He swore. The bird-bone scaffolding was snapping like twigs. He tugged at the ridged cloth, growling curses until at last he had tumbled down from his ranga, falling like a cut-down tree, crumpling the brocades, rending samite. He lay with the bone frame jabbing into his skin, chuckling mirthlessly. He shuffled out, like a snake discarding its skin, and when he was free he kicked the glimmering
golden shell aside and went to stand upon the balcony in his underclothes until the wind had numbed even his bones.
Carnelian wresded a nightmare in and out of sleep. The sweat that chilled him was his anger's cool shell. He groaned awake and Tain stirred upon the floor. He had crept back in. 'Do you want something?'
Carnelian could not make his tongue work. In the dark he could see Osidian's eyes mocking him. The lamp flared. Tain turned to face him, accusation in those eyes.
'Is something wrong?' the boy said.
'You tell me,' growled Carnelian.
Tain closed his mouth, stared through him.
Carnelian sat up. 'Blood and iron! I'm sick to my stomach of you moping around.'
He saw fire flickering in his brother's eyes as if he were seeing distant lightning.
'I don't know who you are any more. If you've something to say, say it!'
'Do you really want me to speak,
Master’
That last word was the lash of a whip. Carnelian glowered. 'Let it out, curse you, just don't
stand
there.'
'OK, I'll speak and you can have me punished afterwards.'
'Punished—?'
'You let them slaughter him.'
Carnelian narrowed his eyes, his anger cooling under Tain's icy stare. 'What. . . ?'
'Have you forgotten Crail so quickly, Master? Of course, I'm forgetting, he was just a slave.'
'What? He was .
..'
Carnelian felt the pain again. 'I did what I could . . . even Father couldn't save him.'
'You're all the same. He lied to us, all those years he lied to us. There in his hall pretending to be an angel, our people believing he controlled the sky, the seasons and the sea. Then he left, discarding the Hold like an old shoe, and when it came down to it he couldn't even save one
...
old
...
man.'
There are things you don't know, things—' There are always things we don't know, matters beyond us that only you Masters could possibly understand. You're no different. Don't tell me you had no idea what might happen to us boys on the road.' 'I didn't want to take you—'
'What he did to me
...'
Tain's voice broke. 'How could you let the Master do
that
to me?'
'I didn't know, Tain, on my blood, I didn't know.' Carnelian was crumbling to tears. He was too tired to fight and could put up no defence.
'You let them hurt Father.' Tain was crying.
Carnelian shook his head, licking the tears from his lip.
'You let them take me,' he sobbed, 'on the road, then into the
...
quarantine.' His face grew dark. 'I didn't really get a chance to tell you the worst that happened, did I?' He shook his head, staring wildly. 'Do you want to know? Do you? Well, do you?'
Carnelian shook his hands up, wanting to look away.
Tain was shaking. 'Why did you let them come
...
to bring us here to this evil place?' He was shouting now. 'You're evil, you're all evil
...
you pretend to be gods but you're a disease. I hate you.' He kicked at a jar and it smashed against the wall. 'I hate you.' There was a knocking on the door. Tain ignored it. 'I hate you, I hate you all.'
The door opened and one of the tyadra peeked in. 'Master. Is everything—?'
'Get out!' Carnelian's bellow slammed the door shut.
Tain's eyes were like coals. Carnelian felt empty. He bowed his head. 'You're right, Tain. We failed you. I failed you.' He could no longer hold back the misery. Sobs shook him. 'I'm sorry.' The sobbing choked him. 'I'm so sorry.' Arms embraced him, Tain's arms, his head pressing against Carnelian's neck.
'I know it wasn't you, Carnie.' The words vibrated into his neck. 'It wasn't your fault.'
Carnelian hugged his brother and they rocked each other until they were all cried out.
The knocking woke them. Carnelian had told Tain that he could not bear to see him spend another night on the cold floor and so they had shared the bed.
Tain leapt up, lit a lamp and went to see who it was. He opened a chink in the door, nodded and looked back at Carnelian, making a face. 'It's the Master,' he mouthed. They both looked at the chamber, shards scattered over the floor, boxes everywhere,
Carnelian
's court robe toppled broken against a wall.
Together they furiously cleared what they could of the mess and then they fou
nd him something to wear. This'll
have to do,' said Carnelian at last.
‘
Show him in.'
'If you're sure,' Tain said and grinned, then went to open the door.
Suth entered. 'What, are you still abed, my Lord?' He stopped. His mask surveyed the chamber. 'A storm?' He saw Tain. 'Open the shutters, Tain, let in some light, some air.'
'As you command, Master,' said Tain.
'It is such a beautiful morning.' Light flooded progressively around the chamber as Tain folded back one shutter after another. 'You should both have been up. You have missed the blushings of the sky.'
'Neither of us slept well, my Lord.'
His father was wearing a simple robe, the colour of lapis against which his hands and feet were flakes of ice. The excitement, no doubt.'
'No doubt,' said Carnelian.
Suth dismissed Tain. When they were alone he removed his mask. 'Aaah, but it was a wondrous victory
...
not that one should savour it too much,' he said, throwing Carnelian a glance. 'Still, it has quite put the fire back into my blood.'
'It does me good to see my Lord so happy,' said Carnelian, smiling. Though still haggard, his father looked a
little
more like himself.
Tomorrow, we shall descend the Rainbow Stair together to the Labyrinth. You have participated in an election but you have still to witness an Apotheosis.' His father's eyes gleamed. 'In four, maybe five days Nephron shall be made into the Gods.'
Carnelian flinched at the name. The chamber seemed to have gone dark again. There is still time for Ykoriana to do something.'
His father raised his brows. 'I think not.' He smiled. 'Nephron has assumed the powers of the Regent and the Great are deserting her like an ebbing tide. Her wings are broken and she has already been put back in her cage.' Carnelian saw his father's face become infinitely sad. 'She chose this for herself and yet I find myself pitying her.'
'So Aurum has won?' His father nodded heavily.
'He is then already become the core of power among the Great?'
'He is welcome to it.' Suth made a face. 'I am sick of its taste.' He made an elegant gesture in which something solid became smoke and then clear air. 'But let us not worry ourselves with that. The Rains are near and soon the lands and the Commonwealth shall be simultaneously renewed. And you and I shall be able to return to our coomb and begin our new life. Soon we will have restored the palaces; perhaps we might build some new halls to celebrate our return. We shall organize such masques as will dazzle even the Great.' His eyes lit up as he gazed at his son. 'You will see, my son, I shall show you such wonders.'
'What about Spinel and the others, Father?' Suth frowned deeply. They will reap what they have sown.'
Carnelian was alarmed by his father's dark looks. 'Perhaps the best way to celebrate our return would be to usher in an era of mercy and co-existence.'
Suth smiled at him. 'Yes, perhaps.' He flapped his hands as if he were washing the air clean. 'First, we must attend Apotheosis and receive the tribute and the flesh tithe.'
Carnelian wondered how he would cope with watching Osidian become the Gods.
His father came to stand near him, and crouched down so that Carnelian could look into his grey eyes, still tinged with red. 'What ails you, Carnelian?'
Looking into his father's eyes Carnelian almost confessed, but then he saw the winter sky, the Hold and his people empty-eyed and grey upon the quay. It was time he bore some pain by himself. He cracked a smile. 'It is lack of sleep, Father, just lack of sleep.'
His father leaned forward and kissed his forehead. 'I know how hard it has been for you,' he said in a low voice. 'We will establish a greater Hold here in Osrakum. You will see, Carnelian. Soon you will call Coomb Suth home.
And there, with all our people, we both shall begin a healing.'
He stood up. 'Get your household ready. With the next rising of the sun we will return to the earth below.' His father started walking to the door. He came back. He smiled. 'I almost forgot to give you this.' He gave Carnelian something small and hard. Carnelian looked in his hand. It was his blood-ring. He clutched it as he watched his father leave, tighter and tighter until he could feel it cutting through his skin.
Carnelian put the ring on when Tain returned. He could see his brother had something in his hand. 'What's that?' 'A letter.' Tain gave him it.
It had been sealed with a blood-ring. He saw the two-face House cypher, the name glyph 'Nephron', the blood-taint with all its zeros. He stared at it.
'What's the matter, Carnie?'
Carnelian looked up, thinking to send him away. His brother's face was filled with concern. Carnelian would do nothing to damage their delicate re-emerging intimacy. 'Let me read it and then I'll tell you.'
He broke the seal. The paper bore only three glyphs: 'I must see you.' Carnelian read them over and over again.
'Perhaps you'd rather be by yourself,' said Tain warily.
Carnelian
put out his hand to take his wrist. 'No, stay with me. It would help me to talk about it.'
Carnelian
told Tain of his meeting with the strange boy in the Library of the Wise, their expedition to the Yden. Tain could see the brightness of the lagoons in his eyes as
Carnelian
told him everything. The tale brought
Carnelian
and Osidian back to the Halls of Thunder and the long days of separation.
'And you hoped to see him at the election?' asked Tain.
Carnelian nodded. 'Did you?'
Carnelian's glower made Tain flinch. 'Oh yes, he was there.'
Tain waited for the words to come. 'He is the one we chose to become the Gods.' Tain gaped. The actual, the very Gods?' Carnelian shook the letter. 'And now, he writes that he
must
see me.'
'Are you going to?'
'No,' cried Carnelian. 'I won't be his plaything again.'
'Carnie, are you sure that's what it was?'
Carnelian glared at him. 'What else?'
Tain lowered his eyes and played at interweaving his fingers. He kept snatching glimpses at Carnelian's face until he could see that he had sunk back into sad introspection. There's one thing you should think about, though, Carnie.'
Carnelian impaled him with his jade-green eyes.
'Once he becomes the Gods, you'll never see his face again.'
Carnelian's eyes went out of focus; his head shook. 'So be it. I can't see him. I'll never see him again.'
Something was tickling his hps and Carnelian brushed it away. The tickling returned. He opened his eyes, irritated, and looked straight into familiar green eyes. He lashed out, punching bone, pushing himself away up the bed.
Osidian was there as tall as the sky and as beautiful, even as he grimaced holding his face. 'You hit me.'
'What did you expect?'
'Anger, I suppose.'
It welled up so strongly in Carnelian that all he could do was glare.
Osidian took a step back, his palms in front of him in a sign of appeasement. He looked so funny that Carnelian had to frown really hard to stop himself from smiling. Osidian's hands dropped slowly. For some reason, that made him the enemy again.
'What do you want,
Nephron?'
To explain,' said Osidian, dropping into Vulgate.
Carnelian crossed his arms and continued to glare at him.