Down the dark roads of the sea
We fled Before a driving squall
Sharp gull cries superimposing over each other like their angles in the sky. Not gulls, men jabbering. A shout. Answers spaced by distance. Carnelian felt heavy, muffled by the dark. Stillness. No, his body was nudging up and down. It was as if he lay on someone's breathing chest. He did not open his eyes. He knew that he would see nothing. His limbs had been replaced by new ones cast in lead. His head was a stone. Something was different. It was the voices alone that defined space. He searched for the difference. The tempest. His hearing went out past the voices. The tempest was not there. Under him the ship seemed almost still. Unbelievably, she had survived his dreams.
When he decided to rise he found that every hinge in his body had seized up. He propped himself onto his legs and drew them together like a pair of compasses. He tottered on his feet. No amount of fumbling would find the lantern. His fingers tried to locate the door, the cabin's shape forgotten. He opened it gingerly and let in the merest crack of dazzling light. It was like water to a thirsty man. He opened the door wider and sprayed the dazzle across half the cabin. The sheer beauty of it left him gasping for breath.
He found the lantern and lit it. It ignited into a sun. He smiled through his squint and looked around. Tain was there like a bone carving abandoned in a wrapping of blankets. He stooped and carefully woke him. He gave him time. He watched the life seep back into the little face. There was something unfamiliar about his brother, but what? He turned to Crail. His skin looked empty, as if the old man had squeezed out of it and left it behind.
A while later Tain was sitting up and Carnelian was staring at him. Carnelian's first attempts at speech sighed away to nothing. He swallowed several times and waited for his tongue to be wet enough to move. 'You're… so thin,' he managed to rasp. Tain looked up at him. Carnelian saw that his brother had aged. His face had narrowed. His eyes seemed huge. They grew larger. He tried to speak but managed only a croak. His thin arm rose and pointed shakily at Carnelian. He nodded several times. Carnelian took his meaning and reached up. He stopped when he saw a stranger's bony hands. He put them to his face. It felt like someone else's.
'You'd better get me cleaned up,' he croaked. 'I want to go…' He jerked his finger up at the ceiling.
They went through the cleansing like old men. The pads were so cold. The smell of the unguent pricked their noses.
Tain's hand brushed the stone dangling at his chest. He peered at it, looked up. 'My mother?'
Carnelian blinked down. 'She… for us… protection for all of us.'
As they continued with the cleaning Carnelian felt some strength returning. 'Like butterfly birth… un- crumpling its wings.' He chuckled. He almost asked Tain to shave his head but thought better of it. Tain's hand looked none too steady as he unpacked some clean clothes. Putting them on was a long, exhausting process. At last Carnelian edged into his cloak. He adjusted his face into his mask. It felt very loose. He turned to Tain. 'Do you want to come with me?'
Tain shook his head. 'Maybe… later.' He slumped to the floor.
Carnelian stepped out into the corridor as if his feet were raw with blisters. His body still felt as if it might shake itself apart. Each step up to the deck was an effort. His eyes were almost closed against the glare. He reached the deck and stood for a few moments getting used to the rolling and the light. He looked round. His neck was as stiff as an old door. Sea and sky were calm and grey. A breeze threatened to push him over. He closed his eyes and sucked its saltiness through the nostrils of his mask. He almost swooned, as much from delight as from the burn in his lungs.
He took some steps away from the funnel, round one of the brass posts, and leaned against the mast. He looked at his unfamiliar bony hand and recognized the colours under it. It was sad to see them there. A fragment of his old life: a column from the Hold's Great Hall. He caressed it.
'Carnelian.'
The voice carried across the deck. Carnelian looked for its source. He saw a pitchy mass against the sky. It was Aurum unmasked, his face outshining everything else, like a hole into a world of light.
The Master lifted his hand, Greetings.
Carnelian responded, struggling with his fingers to make the sign.
Lord Aurum's black mass swept towards him. His face was glazed with white paint. Suddenly he stiffened, shooting his eyes' misty stare past Carnelian's shoulder. The menace was so palpable that Carnelian took some steps back. Something grabbed him round the waist. He folded forward, almost falling. He looked down. It was Crail, haggard, confused, blinking, his arm up to ward off the glare.
Carnelian turned back in time to see Aurum's whitened lips bending into an unpleasant smile. Bone fingers were drawing his mask out from his robe. With one smooth languid movement he put it on. The cruel gold face drifted towards them. Aurum's shadow falling across Crail allowed the old man to drop his arm. His eyes cleared. Then he saw the Master and jumped.
Aurum's mask looked down at the old man, who crumpled to his knees.
'Unfortunate creature,' said the Master in Vulgate. 'It's too late for that' He looked at Carnelian. The creature saw my face unmasked,' he said in Quya.
Carnelian stared with horror at the Master's mask. In its exquisite polished surface he saw his own mask, the ship and all the world were trapped in reflection. The slave could not have seen your face, my Lord, he was dazzled.'
'It was looking straight at me.'
'But you must have seen, my Lord, that he was shielding his eyes. It was your own shadow that allowed him to see.'
'Sophistry. Is the slave blind?' 'No…'
Then he has broken the Law of Concealment.'
'But it was not his intention…'
'Do you really think the creature's intentions form any part of the Law?'
'But the slave is weak, delirious. He suffers still from the after-effects of the poppy.'
'Who gave the slave poppy?'
'Well, I did…'
'You see the result?'
The fault is mine, my Lord.'
'Assuredly that is so, but of course it is the slave that shall be punished.'
'Be merciful, my Lord. He is weak. The blinding would surely kill him.'
'Do you deliberately belittle me?'
'What? I am sorry… I do not understand.'
'Even you must know that as a Ruling Lord of the Great my prerogative is the second Order of Concealment. The Category of Punishment is thus also the second and not the first.'
Carnelian closed his eyes, then opened them quickly when he started to feel dizzy.
'Not only blinding but mutilation shall be this creature's fate.'
Carnelian looked down at Crail, feeling nausea. He coughed. 'He is old… witless. Lord Aurum, please show mercy.'
'Neither its age nor its wits are pertinent, but only its sin. Even if I wished to do so, it is not for me to show clemency. The Law is precise. It does not concern itself with mercy. You have been careless, Carnelian. Suth Sardian has shown too much licence and this is the result. You should take this as a salutary lesson. Thank the Twins that your life in Osrakum will not be what it has been.'
The mask looked down at Crail. 'Let us forgo the formalities of the proper punishment. I shall summon my guards and they shall dispose of the creature here and now.'
Carnelian could taste vomit. He used his anger to keep it down. 'If you insist on pursuing this matter of the Law to the full, then I must insist that the forms be adhered to. This slave is mine and thus his punishment is my affair not yours.'
Aurum straightened. He loomed over Carnelian. 'So be it. At least for now.' A strange dry sound came from his mask. Carnelian drew back. Aurum was laughing. It seemed the most dreadful thing of all. The Master lifted
