'Is it just that we should pay it too?'
Carnelian turned to look at him. 'Pay what?'
'A tithe on our own flesh. Are marumaga not appropriated from our Houses to be turned into the Wise? Besides, the barbarians are pitifully poor. They have nothing but their children with which to pay our tribute. Your loathing is hypocrisy, my Lord. From where do you think your own household came?'
The marble guardians looked imperiously down. Each stood astride a door, a door of heart-stone, the crack between its leaves sealed with a disc of red clay. There was one guardian and one door for each House of the Chosen. The doors led into tombs.
'We honeycomb the rock like termites and fill the cavities with our pupating dead,' said Jaspar.
Carnelian shuddered, imagining the chambers beyond lodging their embalmed Masters.
'Each year our forefathers' ghosts rise up from the Underworld to feed on the worship of all the peoples of the Three Lands.'
Jaspar was looking up. Carnelian leaned back to see one guardian's empty eyes and gaping mouth, holes giving into a chamber into which the dead might climb. He could almost see his father's ghost peering out. 'Where is the tomb of my House?'
Jaspar pointed off along the wall of the plain.
Carnelian would have made off in that direction except that Jaspar touched his arm. This is not the time to take in the sights. We are being observed.'
Carnelian saw a palanquin and, beside it, a Master waiting with a host of his attendants.
Jaspar's hands made a furtive gesture of annoyance.
There is no way we can avoid him. One had hoped he would have passed through the door well ahead of us.' He kept walking, muttering, This Lord was of Aurum's faction but will have been one of the first to defect to Ykoriana.'
They were now close enough for Carnelian to see the Master's autumn-plumaged robe and the cloud glyphs tattooed on the faces of his people.
'Greetings, my Lord Cumulus,' said Jaspar.
'Is that you, Imago Jaspar?' said Cumulus.
'With one of my House.'
'He accompanies you to the door?' Cumulus sounded surprised. To the sky.'
'Indeed.' Cumulus examined them for some moments before lifting up enormous hands to make the sign for grief. 'All the Great share the sorrow of your loss, my Lords.'
'Alas, our time in this world is brief,' said Jaspar.
'Still, none should be hastened unlawfully to their tomb. I am not the only Ruling Lord who has carried out precautionary reprisals among his household.'
'My Lord is very wise.'
Cumulus made space for Jaspar. 'Perhaps we can walk together.'
The Law only requires that the mourners walk, my Lord.'
Then, with your indulgence, and for a while, I will become a mourner.'
Carnelian saw Jaspar making covert signs to him. Behind us. He fought resentment but did what he was told, taking a place behind the two Masters.
Cumulus' guardsmen formed up on one side while those of House Imago formed up on the other. The households merged into a mass behind. Carnelian watched the men with cloud tattoos look over warily at the blood-crusted faces of Jaspar's men.
Cumulus' gold face turned to Jaspar. 'Is it not somewhat unusual at this time for a Ruling Lord to go to court accompanied by others of his House?'
These are unusual times,' said Jaspar. 'Besides, I am not yet fully become a Ruling Lord.'
'One can see that your father's mantle would be a heavy burden to bear alone, especially when it has fallen upon my Lord's shoulders so unexpectedly.'
'One's father carried it alone and he was aged. One expects his son might carry it lightly enough.'
'And has his son decided to carry all his burdens?' asked Cumulus.
Tell me, my Lord, why are you come so late?' said Jaspar. The other Lords will already have been gathered in the sky for many days.'
Cumulus attempted other lines of enquiry but Jaspar refused to say whether or not he was intending to hold together his father's faction. Carnelian grew weary of trying to follow their word games and watched another tomb door pass. He allowed his eyes to climb its guardian. Above it, the pyramid hollow gaped cavernously. A fishbone stair climbed to a pitchy apex, tiers coming off it like spines, each dimpled with thrones. On either side of the hollow, the cliff was scribed with long terraces like the ripples the sea leaves on sand.
It was the sounding of his House name that brought Carnelian's attention back to earth.
'… it is true, he is returned,' Jaspar was saying.
To support Aurum?' asked Cumulus.
Jaspar answered with one of his elegant shrugs.
'If Suth were to support him, Aurum would no doubt be once more a power to be feared.'
'No doubt,' said Jaspar as he looked away. 'Behold, my Lord, we are arrived at last.'
Two guardians stood among the others but neither had a tomb door between its shins. Instead, the door they guarded lay between them both.
Jaspar glanced back at him. 'Come.'
Carnelian made no sign that he had heard.
'We must prepare to pass through the Forbidden Door, neh?'
Carnelian stared at the door. Its plain green-black heart-stone and modest size made it seem like nothing more than the entrance to just another tomb.
One of the door's marble guardians had an archway cut into its ankle. From this ammonites emerged and then a homunculus behind which a Sapient towered with his hands around its throat. The creature and its master stood themselves before the door.
When Carnelian and the other Masters had drawn close enough, the homunculus put out its hand. Jaspar allowed Cumulus to give his blood-ring for examination first before he pulled his own off and gave it to the creature. Its rheumy old man's eyes flickered along the ring's rim, then it glanced at Carnelian before turning to Jaspar. 'Imago Jaspar, at this time only Ruling Seraphs are permitted at court.'
'I am not yet a Ruling Lord, Sapience.'
Muttering, and then with the Sapient's fingers playing its neck, 'We had not thought your succession was in doubt.'
'Still, one is inexperienced, Sapience. I have brought Imago Khrusos to help me take my first shaky steps at court.'
Jaspar moved aside and the homunculus extended its hand. Carnelian hesitated, removed the ring Jaspar had given him and put it on the hand. The creature examined it, muttering. The Sapient uncoiled a hand from round its neck and flashed out a series of commands. A while later an ammonite put a string of beads in the Sapient's translucent palm. The Sapient freed his other hand and holding one end of the string dropped the rest to the ground. Its beads shone and tinkled. Carnelian watched the Sapient's fingers descend the cord like a spider, feeling the beads as they went. The hands returned the cord to the ammonite before returning to strangle the homunculus. For a while, the Sapient's long silver mask froze, then his fingers twitched and his creature said, 'Very well, Seraphim, the door shall open for you.'
Even the sky's Heart of Thunder
Is silenced By the darkness under the trees
