His brother went off to find it. When he came back, he offered the mask to Carnelian in both hands, with reverence. Carnelian took the hollow face and held it up so that it looked back at him. Flamelight poured over the gold and put hidden life into its eye-slits. Its straps hung like thick tresses. It had a cold, unhuman beauty. Carnelian fitted it over his face. It chilled his cheeks and forehead. He held it there while Tain went round behind him and reached to do up the straps. He breathed slow and deep through the mask's nostrils as his father had taught him and fought down the feeling of being trapped. He had never liked wearing it. Many times his father had insisted that he must, so that he might get used to it, even though Masking Law required only a Ruling Lord to conceal his face from his household.

The mask's slits shielded Carnelian's eyes from the fire glare. He found that he could see into the room's dark corners. He distracted himself with this till Tain was finished with the straps.

'I will go now.' His voice sounded very close to him, flat, dead. 'You may as well be off and join the rest of the household, Tain.'

His brother's face was half turned away, looking at him obliquely with a strange expression Carnelian had never seen before. Tain bowed. 'As you say… Master.'

Tain's look was also there on the guardsmen's faces. Carnelian disliked this new reverence, and the way they kept calling him 'Master'. It made him feel as if they were setting him up in his father's place. This was not his only unease as they walked through the barracks. He could see his escort were sensing something too. He tried to locate its source. Silence. It was the silence. The barracks were never silent. It was unnatural. He shivered. The air was dank. When they passed along the arcade it was all he could do to stop himself escaping through the door into the familiar warmth of the Great Hall.

He noticed his men stiffen and then he straightened too as he saw the strangers. They were ranged in groups up the steps, men whose faces bore the marks of other Houses. He stared. Until then, every adult face he had ever seen, other than his father's, had had its chameleon. The strangers' faces were different. Some were bisected from hairline to chin by a horned-ring staff. Others were marked with the cross of dragonfly wings. A third group had the disc and crescent of the evening star tattooed like manic smiles. As these faces were variously marked, so did they differ in other ways. The. bisected ones were round and yellow. The dragonflied ones were oval, with almond eyes that peeped out from between the wings of their tattoos. Those who wore painted smiles were swarthier than any people Carnelian had seen before. All the strangers were swathed in stained brown travelling cloaks. While some had two-pronged spears, others had their hands on sheathed sickles or four-bladed cross-swords. All this Carnelian saw in the instant before the strangers fell with a clatter before him into the prostration.

He froze and his escort halted round him. The only men still standing had chameleoned faces. Two of these were his brothers: Grane, grim commander of the tyadra, and handsome Keal. Carnelian saw the uncertainty in the guardsmen's faces as they looked at him. He watched them glance at Grane, anxious, looking for an order. The commander ignored them. Instead, he gave Carnelian an almost imperceptible nod. Carnelian watched his own hand rise up before him. It shaped the sign, Kneel. In twos and threes they went down. Proud Grane, the eldest of his brothers, was last of all to kneel. He pressed his brown hands together and pushed them out, as the others had done, as if offering himself to be tied up like a slave. Carnelian went cold, disliking their abasement. He stood alone as if in a field he had just reaped. His hand was there before him, the sign still locked into it. It looked like his father's hand, for only he used such a command gesture. Carnelian forced himself to ascend the stairway. The doors of sea-ivory opened before him and he passed between them into his father's hall.

Four masks turned towards him. Carnelian faltered under their gaze, awed by the serene, unearthly beauty of those faces of gold. Four giants stood there beside the circular hearth. One he knew: his father in his jewelled robe. The other three, though much like him, were enveloped in great black hooded cloaks greyed with brine. In all his life Carnelian had seen no other Master save for his father. He realized that in spite of all he had been told, until that moment he had believed his father a being without peer.

Behind him the doors closed and the giants dropped their masks into the cradles of their hands, revealing white faces, long, finely boned, with eyes the colours of winter. Carnelian remembered that the Law commanded he must unmask when those higher than him did so. When he had fumbled the thing off he felt like a snail teased from its shell. He clutched the mask as he approached. Their skin was like light passing through ice. It took strength to keep his eyes up looking back at them. He found it. He would not bring shame on his father or himself.

'Great Lords, behold my son, Suth Carnelian,' his father said, looking at him. Emotions were shifting in his eyes like fish in a pool.

‘So, Lord Suth, this is the son whom you have been hiding from us all these many, long years.' The voice came as from a bronze throat. Its owner was even larger than his father. He was also older, much older, though unlike any old man Carnelian had ever seen. His skin had not wrinkled, rather it had thinned to alabaster. His eyes' intense blue searched Carnelian's face. The voice sounded again. 'He has the jade-eyed beauty, this son of yours.'

Suth frowned. 'You flatter him, Lord Aurum.' Their eyes locked together. Though their lips did not move, nor their hands, Carnelian was convinced they were speaking to each other. He saw the other two Masters were also watching them.

Flames spluttered, hissed. Sparks seeded the air.

'Perhaps I do,' the old Master said finally, breaking off from the contest. He smiled but only with his lips. Suth turned back to his son. Carnelian could see he was controlling anger.

'My son, let me make known to you our blood-pure visitors.' His father opened a fist and lifted the hand to indicate the old Master. 'Aurum, the Ruling Lord of that House. Your uncle.' The old Master gave a slow nod but his glassy eyes never left Carnelian's face.

Carnelian stared back. He came back to the sound of his father's voice.'… Ruling Lord of House Vennel.' The Master who bowed was more slender than the others, younger, paler-eyed. His hand unsheathed from a sleeve like a sword and melted into the sign, Charmed.

Suth turned to the last Master, who wore the serene smile of an idol. This is your second cousin, Jaspar of House Imago, who one day, if the Two will it, shall be its Ruling Lord.'

'As you say, cousin, if They will it,' said the smiling Master and inclined his head elegantly.

Carnelian tried to return the smile.

'Now that the introductions have been made, my Lords, I might suggest that we retire,' said Vennel. He had a woman's voice and his Quya was like singing. 'One must confess to a certain weariness.'

'What resources we have here are at your disposal, my Lords,' Suth said. 'Apartments have been made ready. I hope my Lords will forgive the little comfort we can provide. If we had been advised that you were coming…'

'We have come in haste, my Lord,' said Aurum. There was neither the time nor the opportunity to herald our arrival.'

Jaspar smiled again. 'A little comfort will be rendered great by comparison with our recent accommodation.'

'Shall we then tomorrow meet in formal conclave?' asked Vennel with his woman's voice.

The others lifted their hands in assent.