This is probably not the Legate's hall,' said Jaspar. Vermel turned on him. 'I find your levity distasteful, my Lord.'
'One shall refrain from telling my Lord what one finds distasteful,' said Jaspar.
Carnelian noticed movements out of the corner of his eye. The darkness rustled with whispers.
'Evidently, this is not the upper stratum,' said Aurum. 'We have not climbed nearly high enough. But I swear by the Twins, my Lords, that if these slaves do not quickly find the proper stairway I will empty their blood upon the floor.' His mask turned upon the sailors, sweeping their line with its serene malice.
A torch sparked thudding to the floor and Carnelian saw the man who had held it melt away. The dark mounded with many heads. There were other sailors there, many others, ringing them with their splintered mirror eyes.
More torches hit the ground. Carnelian became convinced that he and his companions were being surrounded, that they had been led into an ambush. He glanced quickly round with a warning on his lips but the impassive golden masks muted him.
Suth stooped, scooped up a torch, then another. He thrust their glare into the faces coming into the light. The sailors fell back moaning, bowing, tucking their heads away into the shadows.
Following his father's lead, Carnelian plucked up a torch.
His father continued to swing fire to awe the sailors.
'We terrify them,' said Carnelian. Too much,' said Jaspar.
'We will have to find the way ourselves,' said Vennel.
'Come, my Lords,' Aurum said, 'perhaps that light yonder is what we seek.' He launched himself at the sailors blocking the way in that direction and they shuffled from his path.
The Masters followed him towards the pale rectangle. Carnelian was nervous. The sailors were close enough for him to smell them. He held his torch aloft and scrutinized their faces. He could see their blinking terror of him but also a stubborn resistance.
Aurum brought them to a gateway closed with a grille.
He slapped its wood. It shook but held. 'How dare they lock this against us?'
Carnelian turned back. He scanned the mob, feeling them closing in.
Jaspar drew near him. They are so much like animals.'
'And dangerous,' said Carnelian, distrusting every movement.
'What an outlandish suggestion.'
'We shall have to wait until this portcullis is lifted for us,' Suth said to Aurum.
'Wait? Wait for what, my Lord?' Aurum struck the grille with the flat of his hand, clinking his rings against the wood.
Carnelian edged his way to the portcullis, always keeping his eyes on the mob. He glanced through the bars. There was a landing on the other side stippled with the red light that filtered down from above. A flight of shallow steps came up to the landing, continuing up on its other side.
Carnelian turned to see that his father was standing with both torches raised, his mask looking out blindly into the gloom. He was a pillar at the centre of a region of light. Movements could be seen all along its edge. Carnelian wondered if his father perceived the threat.
The rapid striking sound of Aurum's rings broke out again as he rattled the gate with his blows. Light welled up on the other side of the grille, accompanied by footfalls. Carnelian peered through and saw some small dark men lit by the lanterns they were carrying. One came up, cautiously, holding his lantern before him. Its light rayed through the grille and played around the Masters in shafts.
The small man must have seen their masks. 'Masters!' he cried, crumpling to the floor.
Most of his companions joined him though one ran off down the stairway crying out, The Masters. The Masters.'
'Open this gate!' boomed Aurum.
These creatures are so craven,' said Jaspar.
Carnelian's unease ignited to anger. 'Who makes them so?'
There was some commotion on the landing, a rattle of machinery. One of the men came up towards the portcullis, touched it as if it might be hot, then pushed against it and it slid up smoothly.
Aurum ducked under it before it was fully open. Carnelian followed with the others onto the landing. The men were scurrying down the stairway, leaving their lanterns behind them on the floor.
Something was coming up towards them like a flood. Carnelian moved to the landing's edge. The stairway below was filling from wall to wall with men and a dazzle of lanterns. Amidst the dull eddying of leather jerkins several glinting apparitions floated up much taller than the rest.
Carnelian drew back and took his place beside the other Masters. With a clatter and the odour of men, the mass of soldiery spilled onto the landing.
While the soldiers clunked into the prostration the apparitions kept coming at them. Their bronze carapaces had an insect mottle. Ridged plates of samite were underneath. Each wore an elaborate horned helm into which was wedged a Master's mask. Carnelian was amazed when they all sank down upon one knee.
'Great Ones, I do not know how came about this affront to your blood,' protested their leader. His helm turned its four-horned mass and Carnelian had the feeling that he and the others were being counted. Their obeisance, the mode of address, suggested that these Masters were of the Lesser Chosen. The leader spoke again. 'When your vessel was sighted I commanded this tower be made ready to welcome your return. Imagine my dismay when we reached her berth to find you already gone. This is-'
'An outrage?' suggested Jaspar.
Aurum stepped in front of the kneeling Masters. In his stained cloak he seemed a pillar of mud being worshipped by bronze men.
The injury is forgotten, Lord Legate. We desire to take counsel with you that we might leave as swiftly as we have come.'
'You are kind to condescend, Great Lord, but still-' 'Believe me, there is no ill feeling. Dispense with this speech that we might repair to the privacy of your halls.'
Aurum swept round and billowed up the stairway like a cloud of smoke.
Halfway up the stairs to the window that lit the cave of his hall, the Legate turned off onto a platform. Carnelian stopped where he was and looked back down the avalanche of steps. The door they had entered through was remote. All around him giants in the walls pushed out through veiling rock. Their vague faces frowned into the airy spaces above his head. He was beneath their notice. What was more oppressive still was that they were but the front rank of a crowd that faded up in tiers to a ceiling dripping with stalactites.
Carnelian had to squint to look up the steps to where his father and the other Masters were still climbing towards the window. Against that slab of burning sky they were drawn as quivering charcoal strokes. Bronze urns taller than men squatted up the edges of the stairway. Platforms recessed here and there into the steps. The Legate stood on the nearest one of these. Smaller creatures perched around him were taking his helm apart one gleaming piece at a time. Carnelian watched as each was laid carefully on its stand. When the Legate's head was naked save for his mask, he dismissed his servants. Watching them fan out across the steps as they went down, Carnelian saw a figure coming slowly up through them. Though it wore a mask, it did not have the appearance of a Master. The mask's silver snared a curve of light so that it seemed to be smiling.
A swelling of attar of lilies warned Carnelian that the Legate was there beside him.
'Great One, shall we join the others?'
Carnelian stared at the Legate's tiny head. He wondered if this was a condition peculiar to the Lesser Chosen until he realized it was an illusion caused by the contrast with the massive armour. He remembered to jerk a nod and side by side they began to climb, ahead of the silver mask.
The window widened till Carnelian could not see its edges and felt that he was climbing into the heavens. He stumbled when his foot tried to find a final step. Shapes crowding the platform moved and Carnelian assumed from their size that they were the other Masters. He moved to one side of them and turning his back on the window, hoping to lose his near-blindness.
He watched the Legate move aside to reveal the creature standing behind him on the last step. He had forgotten about it. Its mask was reflecting a fragment of the ochre sky. It made the prostration and when it rose Carnelian saw that it had unmasked to reveal a yellow marumaga face, spotted and striped all over with the dots
