Vennel looked amused. Jaspar looked uncharacteristically serious. He stepped forward. 'Lord Suth, your rings.' Carnelian watched his father take them.

'Perhaps, Sardian, I should stay,' said Aurum, his eyes like evening sky.

Carnelian stared, startled by the use of his father's personal name.

'I would rather you did not, my Lord.' He was threading his blood-ring back onto his finger.

Aurum stood for a moment, then turned away. He and the other Masters drifted off towards the door like tall ships. Carnelian watched them to put off facing his father's anger. He could feel it beating upon his back like a scorching wind. The last of the Masters disappeared through the door. It closed.

Round the circuit of the chamber the shutters rattled. Twigs snapped in the fire and jiggled up a spray of sparks. Carnelian's forehead itched. He was determined to brave the heat of his father's fury. He turned. His father's face seemed cut from polished stone.

'Why did you feel it necessary, my Lord, to defy me before our guests?' his father asked in a quiet voice.

'I had made my decision and would inform you of it.'

'And no doubt you thought that if you spoke it in the presence of the other Lords you would ensure that my response should be constrained?'

Carnelian drooped. Though there were several reasons, my Lord, I am ashamed to say that was one of them.'

Tell me, my son, of this decision you have made.'

Carnelian looked up and saw his father's face had softened. 'Our people and the famine that will come here once the baran is gone – it is a betrayal, my Lord, that we should leave them here to face it all, alone.'

'But, Carnelian, they live to serve us. Besides, I have put into motion certain policies that might somewhat reduce the severity of their need.'

'Nevertheless, I would stay. I cannot find it in my heart to abandon Ebeny, but to mention one of them. Our people will miss your rule, my Lord, and though I would not presume to suggest I could replace you, I might provide some measure of compensation. The sight of a Master sharing their privations will give them hope, and hope is the mother of strength.'

'Ebeny is a stubborn woman. I will command her to come with us. I am leaving Grane to rule here in my stead and, without too much offending you, my Lord, I would suggest that it is evident that he would do it better than you. As for this notion of yours to share their privations, have you completely taken leave of your senses? You would choose to sink yourself down to their level? Do you forget who and what you are, my Lord? Where is your pride?'

'I have pride, my Lord, and because of it the feelings of duty that you taught-'

'It seems I have taught you badly. I blame myself. Too long have I made myself blind to your familiarity with our slaves. Perhaps indeed I have shared in it. Being so far from Osrakum we have sunk into a mire of barbarism. It should come as no surprise to me. But that you should dare to speak to me of your feelings of duty to my slaves. Do I hear you speak of your feelings of duty to your father and your blood? Is my blood to be so traduced in you? Does that ring you newly wear mean so little to you, my Lord?'

Suth had become a tower of wrath but Carnelian squared up to him. 'Your blood I cannot give back to you, but this…' He pulled off the blood-ring. This trinket you can take back to Osrakum or hurl in the sea for all I care, for I see that in the receiving of it I have acquired nothing.' He stopped. In the vibrating silence his father seemed to have narrowed to a blade.

'You will put that ring back on.' The tone was level, dangerous. Suth lifted up his hand. Upon it were several rings, but above his blood-ring was another, the Ruling Ring of House Suth. Its black adamant was forced into the centre of Carnelian's vision. 'While I still wear this,' the level voice continued, 'I will be obeyed within the borders of my House. Tomorrow you will leave with me, my Lord. The only choice you have is whether you shall walk down to the baran or be carried. Reconcile yourself, my Lord, for you will cross the sea with me.'

Frosty cobbles sparked with moonlight. Carnelian stood where the arcade had once been. Ghostly edges defined the column stumps in the blackness of the Great Hall. He turned round to survey the Long Court where the cauldrons lay abandoned. One had rolled over and spilt its lumps and liquids as an inky puddle. The walls behind were pocked with the dead eyes of window holes. Such were the ruins of his home.

Breath-clouds blossoming on either side of him made him remember his escort. It was bitterly cold.

Lamps stood in opposite corners of the room. Tain was hunched over a chest. Carnelian watched him for a while. His brother was sorting through his robes. He held one up and turned it into the light. He grunted, rolled it up and threw it onto a pile.

'Packing?' asked Carnelian, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

Tain whisked round. 'By the horns! Are you trying to kill me creeping up on me like that?' But then he saw Carnelian standing there like a tree, with his cold gold face. He bit his lip.

Swiftly, Carnelian reached up, unfastened his mask and dropped it into his hand. He did it before Tain had a chance to 'Master' him. He lurched forward. 'Here, let me help.' He tried to bend down but the robe's tightness resisted him.

Tain stood up. 'Come on. Let's get you out of that thing. Is it as uncomfortable as it looks?'

'Worse,' said Carnelian, and grinned.

Tain quickly undid the hooks and released him from the ritual robe. Naked, shivering, Carnelian threw on some of his old clothes. He sighed with pleasure. They were so comfortable, so familiar. 'I feel more like myself.'

'And you look more like yourself.'

'About earlier. I didn't mean to-'

'Don't worry, Carnie, I understand.'

'I wanted to stay too, but the Master has forbidden it. You'll come with me though, won't you?'

'Do I have any choice?'

Carnelian gave him a ragged smile.

'I see. I'm going whether I want to or not. If it makes you feel better, I'd go with you anyway.'

Carnelian reached out and pulled him into a hug.

Tain looked sheepish. 'My mother'd never forgive me if I didn't. Someone has to look after you.' He turned away. 'Come on, let's get this packing done. Or were those just words?'

They weren't,' said Carnelian cheerily.

They talked well into the night about the long summers of their childhoods, of the autumns when the trees turned gold, flamed red then were left black and naked. They recounted often-told anecdotes about the people they loved and found them freshly funny. Each gave the other reassurances: that the food would last, that it would really not be all that long before the household was together again in the Mountain. Wherever their talk went it always came back to the Mountain, Osrakum. Her dark alluring wonder lay heavy in the centre of their thoughts. Thus, journeying far away on imagination's wings, they found that they could leave their grief behind. Off into their dreams they soared, like gulls tumbling from a cliff into the wind. For Tain it was dragons. All his life he had longed to see dragons. Some people in the Hold swore they had seen them, had felt them shake the earth. His mother Ebeny had stood beneath one but was reluctant to talk about it. For Carnelian it was the home his father had spoken of, that lay in the crater of Osrakum beside the waters of the Skymere. As he spoke in a kind of rapture, he became aware that Tain no longer answered him. He sat up and saw that his brother lay with the faintest of smiles on his sleeping mouth.