a gap in the canopy. Carnelian went to stand beside him and looked up too. All he could see was a low, charcoal sky. His gaze fell to Osidian's face. The madness seemed to have passed.
'What are you doing?'
Osidian replied without looking down. 'Gauging the movement of the clouds.'
The Plainsmen had fallen silent. Osidian walked towards them, cutting off any more questions. Loskai regarded the Master with a look that mingled fear with hatred. Oblivious, Osidian looked like a signpost standing in among them as he pointed out a direction. 'We go that way.'
Fern looked a question towards Carnelian, who could only shrug. Soon he was joining the Plainsmen as they picked up the djada poles. When they were ready, it was Krow who was the first to follow Osidian as he led them into the gloom beneath the trees.
In the days that followed, everyone became ill. It was Osidian who made them force down the mouldy djada, to keep up their strength. Carnelian watched the Plainsmen cling more and more to Osidian's certainty as he led them through the swamp. Sometimes they would be forced to wait while he watched the sky. At those times, Carnelian would see adoration light up the faces of Ravan and Krow as they gazed upon the Master. Their faith in him was rubbing off on the others. Loskai had become nothing more than a shadow hanging around the edges of their group. Only Fern ever showed resistance to the Master's commands. Carnelian came to depend on his friend's frown to keep his own mind in balance.
Carnelian was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other when he realized it had grown darker. He lifted his head and at first thought they had wandered dazed into the dusk. Then he saw the pillars rising on every side. In his stupor he imagined he was walking in the Labyrinth in Osrakum. He looked up expecting to see the faces of the Gods but the pillars ran smooth right up to the shadow ceiling. Scratches of light showed how far away the sky was. He stumbled towards a pillar and felt its ragged, yielding skin.
'What're you doing?' Fern's face was a part of the darkness.
Trees?' Carnelian asked.
Fern looked around as if he were trying to avoid being seen by eyes hovering above him in the gloom. 'Come on,' he whispered, 'we daren't fall behind.'
They crawled tiny beneath the pillar trees. Thunder came echoing down to them from another world. Even the lightning played remotely beyond the shrouding canopy.
This is the heart of darkness,' said Osidian, so close to Carnelian's ear it made him jump. He became aware they had stopped. Osidian's pale face was searching the lofty gloom. 'Can you feel it beating?'
Sensing a tremor in the air, Carnelian gave a solemn nod. His body was a bell resonating to a sound beyond hearing. The gloom between the pillars was pulsing. They were huddled together. Carnelian struggled to understand how he had got there. The Plainsmen stared, deaf, demented as they chewed rotting djada.
This is the true Labyrinth.'
Carnelian turned to look at Osidian, whose eyes were misted over.
'Do you not feel that time itself has slowed? The Wise told me of this but I did not believe.'
Osidian's whispering seemed brutally loud.
'His madness was in the blood. I felt it clothe me with His grace. I am become His vessel.'
Osidian's hand touched his forehead. 'Have I not always borne His seal here?'
Carnelian saw Osidian had his finger on his birthmark.
'He stirs within me. I feel His wrath warming in my blood. He draws me.'
Osidian let his head flop back as his finger slipped down to his throat and ran along the rope scar.
'He guides me. He leads me. He fills me with dark purpose.'
They were smoke drifting among the pillars. Head and stomach aching, Carnelian wondered if he had died or had become ensnared in a dream from which he could not wake. Osidian was the white flame they followed; the only beacon in the darkness. Constantly, he drew strange portents from the gloom and, alone, was possessed of clarity when all about him were prey to murky terror. His voice became the core and centre of their being. The darkness rang with his Quya. The Plainsmen, who could not understand his words, believed he was intoning purest incantation: Carnelian, who could, feared for his soul.
THE EARTHSKY
For our Father so loved his children that he plucked out his eyes and hung them in the sky to light the world.
Carnelian became gradually aware, blind in the sun. A hot breeze was blowing a strange perfume in his face. Drinking in the pure air, he found himself wondering where he was. When his sight returned, he saw stretching away beneath a vast and cobalt sky a sea of swaying jade-green ferns.
The Plainsmen bounded through the fresh ferns as if through water. In their midst strode Osidian, as sombre as a thundercloud. At his side, Carnelian smiled, enraptured by the clear sunlight and the infinite blue sky.
'Are you forgetting your skin?' asked Osidian.
Carnelian struggled to focus, but Osidian was lost among the vibrant greens. Suddenly he appeared in Carnelian's vision as a flash. A hard grip pulled Carnelian into the shade of some trees. He sighed, leaning his back against the bark watching the youths chasing each other, smiling, luxuriating in the shade.
'It's rather beautiful this Earthsky of theirs, don't you think?'
Getting no answer, Carnelian turned and saw Osidian was looking off across the plain. Following his gaze, at first he could make nothing out but the fernland fading away to blue, but then he was arrested by a bright band gleaming along the horizon. For a moment he wondered if it might be the sea and that thought caused him to drift into a dream of his island home. Sadness made him pull back. The tree shadows stretching away from him were pointing towards the bright horizon which, he realized, being in the north, could be nothing other than the cliff of the Guarded Land.
Trailing Krow, Ravan came bounding towards them grinning. 'You said you'd get us here, Master. I believed you and it's come true.' Wrinkling up his nose he displayed the mouldy, stinking bale of djada he had been carrying for days. He looked up into Osidian's face. 'We're thinking we could get fresh meat. Would you like that, Master?'
Osidian continued to scan the far horizons as if he had not heard the youth. The sight of the oozing djada made Carnelian retch. He was feeling dizzy. The faces of the youths were swimming in his vision. Had the rotten meat been poisoning them?
Krow screwed his face up in concentration, licked his lips. Though we're on foot that doesn't mean we can't hunt at all. Would you like us to, Master?'
Osidian suspended his survey and, frowning, looked down at the youths as if they were not what he expected to see. When he gave a nod, Ravan and Krow unhitched their bales and, making faces, flung them away into the ferns. They wiped their hands down their thighs, Ravan gave Osidian a grin, then he and Krow ran off through the ferns, whooping.
Carnelian watched Osidian's gaze return to the horizon, but refused to allow his eyes to follow. Sadness found him nevertheless. His heart ached for his father and his people in faraway Osrakum. He ground his teeth. 'We cannot return.'
Osidian's eyes were a fathomless green. 'You are already so sure?'
The menace in Osidian's voice froze Carnelian's response. He turned away, looking back the way they had come. In that direction the greens of the plain were muted by the encroaching forest. Carnelian's head began to ache again as he was drawn back into the nightmare they had endured under the trees.
Carnelian was glad when he saw Fern approaching. 'Aren't you going with the others?' he called out.
'I'd better stay here. This land is strange to you and dangerous.'
