down towards them from the ceiling was a huge figure, like a man hanging face down in a hammock of spider's silk. Apple-green jade formed the circular floor that sloped up to the sleeping giant. Sapients squatted around the walls, their bleached skin tight as a drum's, their jet eyes staring, their lipless mouths valving open and closed. A dirge was oozing from them, a grating, grumbling chant that rose and fell as wordless as a wind. Somewhere a bell was being struck with a rhythm slower than Carnelian's breathing.
He followed his father towards the sleeping giant and saw that it was formed of the same jade as the floor. His father released Carnelian's hand. He felt the ceiling pressing down ominously and looked up at its black turmoil. It was like a man stuck to a ceiling with thick tar who gradually, under his weight, was dragging the whole sticky mass down.
Busy with this obsession, Carnelian did not at first register the feeling against his side. Then he gave in to its nagging, its brushing against his leg. He turned to see someone prostrate on the floor. For a moment he thought it one of the Wise who had slipped by him as quietly as a shadow, but when he looked anxiously for the comfort of his father Carnelian found it was him on the ground. Staring at him making the prostration, the hackles rose on Carnelian's neck. He looked up at the jade giant and felt a chill understanding seep into his head.
It was his father's grip on his coarse-weave robe that pulled him down to the floor and then a while later back onto his feet. Together they crept forward and began to climb the sloping jade. Carnelian's heart was louder than the chanting. As his eyes rose higher he saw that the jade giant was a kind of bed and that lying on it was a man, or something shaped like a man, a man whose face was mirror-black obsidian.
'Deus,' said his father, his head bowing. 'I have brought my son at Your bidding.'
Carnelian gaped at the Gods. Horror floated on the chanting of the Sapients. He saw one standing behind the giant's head that was a pillow for They. The Sapient leaned forward so that his fingers were touching the Gods' throat. He saw the thin yellow arm laid out along the giant's arm. Another Sapient, kneeling, had his cloven hands pressing on a vein running down the yellow arm. It looked as if he were preparing to play it like a flute. Yet another of the Wise, who held the wrist, was also striking the heart-stone bell. Carnelian's heart slavishly followed its peal.
'Even now, child, they use Us as an instrument to probe the sky for its Heart of Thunder.'
The voice rumbled from nowhere. Carnelian's eyes searched for its source.
'Later, when We shall dream, they assure Us that they will be able to chart its movement up from the sea.'
The non-singular pronouns registered. Carnelian stared at the Mask's obsidian lips and waited for it to speak again.
The other one, child, waits for a sign of Our dissolution. The moment of Our death will form a crucial part of their astrological calculations,' the Mask said. 'Release Us, Immortality.'
The Grand Sapient's noseless face frowned as he relinquished hold of the Gods' throat.
'Child, are you as mute as they?' the Gods said.
Carnelian swallowed several times, moistened his lips, breathed his voice to life. 'Perhaps… Deus… perhaps You will cheat them.'
The glassy face began a chuckle that came apart into coughing. 'We shall soon be occupying Our jade suit. A column in the Labyrinth gapes ready to receive Us into the second waking.' There was more laboured breathing. 'Sardian, the Mask impedes Our breathing.'
Carnelian watched his father's long fingers reach for the Gods' face.
Suth glanced first at Immortality and then at his son. Close your eyes, he signed.
Carnelian obeyed him, scrunching them closed, preparing himself for the blast of light as the Gods' face was revealed.
Carnelian heard the tempo of the bell increase a little. The tone of the Sapients' chanting changed as they reacted to it. He jumped when a hand touched his face.
'Kiss Their hand as a token of love. As much as They are Lords of Earth and Sky, They are your uncle,' rustled his father in Carnelian's ear.
Suth's hand guided his face. Smelling myrrh, Carnelian anticipated the scald of the Gods' skin. He cried out as something snagged and tore his lip; his eyes opened. He saw the narrow hand, the sharp ring, the blood pooling on the yellowed skin. His eyes snapped closed.
'Kiss,' whispered his father insistently.
Carnelian pushed his lips forward to kiss the slick of blood he had spilled on the Gods' palm. He drew back, licking the saltiness from his lips, muttering, 'Forgive, forgive…'
'It is only a little blood, child. What is a little blood between an uncle and his nephew,' said They.
The bell was ringing very fast in Carnelian's ears. 'Come, nephew, let Us kiss your hand. We will not meet again.'
Still tasting salt, Carnelian stretched out his hand, trembling for the touch of the Gods' radiant face. Cold fingers grasped his and drew his hand further. Carnelian flinched as the lips touched his hand. His thumb strayed onto other skin. Wetness. A thread of it under his thumb. Touching the tear track made him numb with terror. He withdrew his hand and stood back as his father and the Gods exchanged a muttering of words. He struggled to make sense of the sounds.
'… you must save my true son,' the Gods were saying.
Carnelian tasted his thumb. It seemed miraculous that Their tears should be as salty as mortal blood.
Without wings
He soared the sky
But when he fell
He fell like a star
His father had Carnelian move with his household deep into the Sunhold. From the nave of the Encampment of the Seraphim, they passed into a guardroom between bastions that lay to the right of the sun-eyed door. They traversed passages lined with loopholes and several double sets of portcullises before they reached his new chamber with its ambered walls.
It was there that he sat hunched, squinting at his thumb, hardly believing that it could be whole. He was outraged that its whiteness bore not the least stain to show where the divine tears had touched it. He remembered the gaunt yellow hands of the Gods: he had expected starlight diffusing through a membrane of adamantine. He remembered the weary voice from behind the Mask: he had expected it to shake the Dreamchamber as thunder shook the vaulting sky. The air had not thrilled with the ozone tang of lightning, but had been wreathed heavy with funereal myrrh. Inside the withered body, the divine blood had at best fluttered, a candle flame in a pavilion of stained parchment.
Was that a scratching at the door?
'Enter,' he said, then had to repeat the word more loudly.
The door trembled open to show a man holding a box. The familiarity of the chameleon on his face made Carnelian smile. The face froze, making its tattoo look like a gecko startled on a wall.
'Well, come in then,' said Carnelian. He had sent for one of his new household to clean him. It was a pretext. In truth, what he desired was to build a bridge over which he might cross to his new people. He needed friends.
The man was standing there as if the floor between them were strewn with blades.
'Come on, I don't bite. Are you intending to clean me from the other side of the room?' He intended this as a joke, but it only made the man more frightened. The wretch shuffled nearer, his shoulders curved, and, with maddening care, made sure to place the box soundlessly on a rug.
Carnelian stood up.
The man flinched.
