turned. Right-Quentha had a smile on her lips. 'Would the Seraph be so kind as to stand here?'
Obediendy, Carnelian moved to the spot her golden hand suggested. She produced a copper mask green with verdigris and carefully placed it over her face. One of her sister's hands helped her tie it on. As all their arms rose up to remove his mask, Carnelian was relieved to see the copper mask had no eyeslits. He looked from one to the other as they cleaned him. It would have been difficult to believe they were anything other than two girls standing close together, except that their arms moved with such a confounding, cuttlefish co-ordination.
'Are there many… people like you, here?' He blushed again.
Left-Quentha jerked her hand back from his cheek as if she had felt its burning. 'Does the Seraph mean Ichorians?'
Her sister's copper mask turned to her. 'I think he means syblings.'
The other frowned. 'You must not speak about the Seraph as if he were not here.'
'I was asking about syblings,' Carnelian said quickly to demonstrate he had taken no offence.
Left-Quentha unstoppered a jar that exhaled sickly myrrh.
Carnelian groaned. 'Do we have to use that?' The Law demands it, Seraph.'
Carnelian submitted and they began painting him with the gum.
'We form four cohorts, Seraph,' said Right-Quentha. 'Of attendants?'
'Of blood guards, Seraph. We also are Ichorians,' said Left-Quentha, touching the silver collar at her neck.
Carnelian looked at their delicate melded body showing the first sweet swellings of womanhood. 'But… you are women, and… and…'
'And one of us is blind, Seraph?' said Right-Quentha, as they bent together to pick fans up from a cloth they had laid out on the floor.
'Well, yes,' he said, grimacing at his clumsiness.
They wafted his skin with the fans.
'I might have given up my fleshy eyes at birth, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha, 'and have always been in darkness, but ears and skin are their own sight.'
'Besides, Seraph,' said Right-Quentha, 'we share much more than just our body. I have access to many of my sister's sensations and she to mine.'
When Carnelian's skin was dry, they carefully held his mask over his face while at the same time tying it on. Right-Quentha removed her copper mask and then they began to dress him in undergarments of pale padded silk that Carnelian recognized as similar to the ones his father had been wearing when he visited.
'But why is it necessary? The blinding, I mean?'
'Mortal eyes would be blasted if they looked on the face of They,' said Left-Quentha. She clinked her stone eyes with her nail. These can behold Them unblinking.' Her face was proud.
Then you are handmaidens to the Gods?'
'Mostly to Their sons.'
'Nephron and Molochite?'
Right-Quentha smiled warmly. 'Most recently, to the Jade Lord Nephron.' 'But also Molochite?'
The sisters became expressionless. 'He also was our master,' said Left-Quentha, smoothing the leggings over his thigh.
'We prefer the Lord Nephron,' said her sister.
Left-Quentha swung round. 'Hush! You will ruin us.'
'Nonsense! This Seraph is son to the Regent who supports our Lord.'
Left-Quentha turned her face away from her sister as if her stone eyes were searching the silk on his leg for wrinkles.
Carnelian grinned behind his mask. He liked these syblings. 'And what of their mother, the Empress?'
The girls' faces froze together. His hand made a fist. He congratulated himself on his subtlety. They moved away to the chest and came back holding either end of an elaborate belt from which dangled bony hooks and loops. There was a hardness in their faces that did not invite any more of his questions. They asked him to raise his arms, and when he did they wrapped the belt round his waist, let it slip down to his hips and secured it.
'Does the Seraph find that comfortable?' asked Left-Quentha.
Carnelian looked down at his body, puzzled. He ran his finger round inside the belt. 'I suppose so.'
They brought straps and rods of brass and attached these to his belt. They returned to the chest and each pair of arms pulled out something looking like a leg, with many straps and hollows and human articulation. The girls carried them like logs and, kneeling, placed them carefully on end, a little apart, on the floor before Carnelian. He watched their long fingers fiddling with them.
'If the Seraph would please climb onto the ranga?' Carnelian could see no shoes.
Left-Quentha pointed at the wooden contraptions. The court ranga, Seraph.'
Carnelian stepped forward and lifted his foot. Two of their hands fed his toes into a gap halfway up the shoe. The smooth, comfortable hollow swallowed his foot. Then the girls rose and braced his arms to allow him to step up. His other foot was guided into the hollow in the second shoe. Putting his weight onto it he found that he was standing, well balanced. The syblings knelt below him and began clicking levers, tightening ivory screws. At first there was slack in the hollows but soon they fitted his feet as tighdy as gloves.
'I feel ridiculous.'
Left-Quentha's stone eyes looked up at him. 'If the Seraph would please try walking.'
Right-Quentha gave him a wink. Carnelian laughed aloud, surprising her sister. He lifted a leg, expecting the shoe to be heavy, but it was so light his knee came up too fast and he overbalanced. The syblings managed to catch him and prop him back up. He took another more careful step. The shoe put down first a ridge of toes then a heel as it settled to the ground. Soon he was walking comfortably around the chamber. He stopped and beamed down at them. 'What next?'
'Would the Seraph please kneel.'
Carnelian looked at Right-Quentha. She nodded. Gingerly, he bent his knees. The shoes folded in half and for a moment he felt he was falling, but they locked, leaving him kneeling, his shins supported in long ivory grooves. He tried to straighten his knees and found the shoes slid him back to standing.
Carnelian turned to the syblings. 'Why…?'
Left-Quentha looked startled. 'Surely, Seraph-'
Her sister turned to her. 'He has been away in exile all his life. How do you expect him to-'
'Sister!' Left-Quentha stared, appalled. Her sister's hand flew to her mouth.
'No harm done,' said Carnelian and he held up his fingers in a smiling sign.
Still frowning, Left-Quentha turned to him. 'Kneeling on the ranga allows the Seraph to make the robe support its own weight.'
'What robe?'
Right-Quentha gave him a sheepish grin. 'We shall have it brought in, Seraph.'
The syblings walked to the doors and drew them open.
At first Carnelian thought it was a Master who was coming glittering in to fill the chamber, but then he saw the figure had no head and that several syblings, half hidden in its skirts, were carrying it. As the suit came into the light it seemed to ignite. It was a column of brocade densely woven from gold in which a tall and narrow panel running from neck to floor was set like a window into some heavenly realm. A verdant garden blossomed, each leaf a cut peridot or emerald. Roses petalled with spinel rubies. Orchids, opals. Creatures ran among the foliage, the mottle of their hides blemished bloodstone. Sapphire rivers foamed diamond spray. Jade trees filtered the light from iolitic skies. Rainbows brighter than parrots formed ladders up to a storm among black coral and moonstone clouds in which fire topaz lightning flashed. As the robe came closer he put his hand out to touch the miraculous mosaic.
'But this looks like Earth and Sky, the heraldry of the Masks.'
The Regent petitioned the House to have his son adorned thus,' said Right-Quentha.
The robe has been adjusted for the lower ranga the Seraph is entitled to,' said her sister.
The suit began to spin slowly round until his fingertips were grazing metallic threads. He was surprised they did not give sound off like a harp. The suit opened like a fist. Its innards were filled with scaffolding.
'Please, Seraph, would you walk into the robe and then kneel,' said Left-Quentha.
