Halfway up the third stair, Carnelian began to frown. He could not believe what he was seeing coming into sight.
The top half of a massive gate entirely wrought from iron. 'A gate
… a skymetal gate.'
The Iron Door, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.
'Inconceivable… riches.' He was breathing heavily.
Right-Quentha fumbled a hand out to steady him. The Seraph should rest.' He was touched by the concern in her voice.
‘You seem to be right,' Carnelian said, squeezing her hand. Her sister's stone eyes looked at his hand as if she could feel its touch.
'It must be the sky sickness still diminishing my strength.'
While he caught his breath, he turned to look back down the steps. The Great were there like pieces of torn parchment. Molochite was a narrow prism of emerald. At that distance Carnelian found it hard to understand the power the Jade Lord had had over him.
He resumed the climb, his eyes fixed on the Iron Door. He stroked his blood-ring. He knew that iron hailed from the sky in nuggets, but surely, so much iron must have fallen as a mountain.
As he came up over the brow of the stair he glimpsed Masters standing with their staves and as he surveyed them he found himself looking into Aurum's face. The old Master stared as if he were seeing Carnelian rising from the tomb. He pointed the horned-ring finial of his staff at Carnelian. 'What are you doing here?'
Carnelian lost his speech. He had forgotten the compulsion of those misty blue eyes. Aurum repeated his question. Carnelian found his tongue. 'My father, I have come to see my father.'
'Do you know this boy, Aurum?' one of the other Masters demanded. All the cold blues and greys of their eyes settled on Carnelian. Aurum's stare had moved to the syblings spilling up round Carnelian from the stair.
Aurum impaled him with his eyes. 'Does your father know you are here?'
Carnelian grew angry. He had had enough of being treated like a child. 'Are you blind, my Lord? Does it seem likely I would have such an escort if the Regent himself had not summoned me?'
Aurum flinched and looked from the corner of his eye at the other Masters, who were showing a certain amusement at his discomfiture.
'You will have to wait your turn, my Lord,' said a voice Carnelian recognized as Cumulus'. 'All here seek audience with the Regent.'
'If it please the Seraphs,' said Left-Quentha, 'the Regent commanded us to bring Suth Carnelian to him without delay.'
The Masters looked shocked. Aurum was the first to move aside, a smile carved on his marble face. Reluctantly, the others opened a way through to the Iron Door. Carnelian ignored Aurum's eyes and the comments the others made as he walked between them. 'Who does he think he is?' and, The arrogance!'
The door was like a frozen pall of smoke. He dared to reach out, to touch its dull iron. It was cold. He brought back his fingers and smelled the bloody rust. Left-Quentha lifted one of her tattooed arms, struck the door and knelt. All the syblings began kneeling round him, bowing their heads. Carnelian's robe pulled taut across his chest and flapped behind him like wings as the Iron Door breathed open.
GODS' TEARS
These are the four substances of a god: Flesh that is earth, Ichor that is fire, Seed that is rain, Spirit that is the breathing sky. But there is a fifth substance, tears, And that is a memory of the first sea.
'And my Lord is…?'
Carnelian stared at the two faces side by side, Masters' faces, joined so that when one spoke its jaw dragged down the corner of the other's mouth. One face regarded him with grey eyes and seemed to be trying to determine what manner of creature Carnelian might be; the other had black diamonds for eyes. Eyebrows on the face that had spoken rose expectandy as the other face frowned.
Carnelian cleared his throat, unable to stop staring. 'Lord, Carnelian… Suth Carnelian.'
'I see,' said the blind face.
'If the Lord Carnelian would follow us,' said the frowning face. The creatures lifted their right hand, beckoning, and Carnelian noticed the two blood-rings, one above the other. As they turned away he saw their double-lobed head. He watched them walk off towards a jewel fire, a window blazing far away in the gloom.
'Seraph,' said Left-Quentha as she and her sister rose from their knees. 'You must follow the Seraphic Hanuses.'
Carnelian started a bow, remembered their blindness, reached out to touch both their shoulders and thanked them. The sisters inclined their heads together. Left-Quentha smiled as they bowed. Two coughs made him turn to see the Masters, the Hanuses, waiting for him, both faces now frowning. Carnelian went towards them and they led the way.
The hall was a black tunnel gouged through the rock to the sky. It was so vast that he could see nothing of the walls or ceiling. He glimpsed syblings standing in faraway rows on either side, three and four legs astride, holding halberds and billhooks, crusted in black armour, tracking him with their stone eyes.
As he drew nearer the window, its hues erupted visions in his mind. Light through new leaves. Cobalt blue. Red like blood splattered on glass. The topaz of an eagle's iris. The whole was a rainbow shattered then reassembled to show the creation. The Turtle's tearing, its shell forming earth and sky, its eyes the sun and moon, its tears the stars. There were the Twins rising in the blood rain, there the creatures that they shivered into being with Their ecstasy at the first rain-music. At the heart of this design was shown the raising of the Sacred Wall, the flooding of Osrakum and, in culmination, the making of the Chosen. Carnelian marvelled. It was as if the world's jewels had been fused into a single lens through which was pouring the light of every sky.
The Hanuses bowed, revealing the window's dark centre. A black throne upon a pyramid. Eight figures were ranged below, Sapients, narrow posts squeezed narrower still by the colours coruscating round them. Above, framed by the throne pyramid, a bar of gold was set on end, a Lord in a court robe seemingly crucified between two staves held upright by crouching syblings. The arms detached themselves. White hands framed the sign, Wait. The sign had a flavour of his father's hand speech.
The Hanuses walked past Carnelian. Their right face gave Carnelian a look from the corners of its eyes that made him feel like prey.
His father was speaking. '… when the collations are complete, Rain.'
As he drew closer, Carnelian began to hear the mutterings of homunculi. Although their masters had their backs to him, Carnelian could see they were unmasked. A morbid curiosity made him creep round until he could see their faces. White leather, pleated tight to a mean, lipless mouth. They had neither ears nor nose, only a nostrilled hole. Jet almonds gleamed for eyes. The foreheads were a fan of creases as if the skin had been upholstered tight to the nose hole's rim. Between their eyes, the horned-ring of divinity had been branded deep. All eight stood in robes of moonless night, each apparently strangling a silver-faced child.
Carnelian became aware again of his father's voice. '… are correct, Gates, it is better that we should wake the huimur.'
The homunculi whispered, the quiver of their lips hidden by their masks. Each held before it a staff, like a silver tree upon which flowered the cypher of its master's Domain.
'If my Lords would please leave me a while. I have need of rest,' his father, said. 'Grand Sapients Gates, Cities and Tribute, I would ask that you keep yourselves ready for my summons. We must complete the arrangements for admitting the tributaries into Osrakum.'
The muttering continued a little longer and then, eerily, stopped. Carnelian became convinced the Grand Sapients were surveying him with the black malice of their eyes. Their hands unwound from the necks of their
