'My Lord?'

Carnelian gasped his eyes open. A face like a golden apple. A Master's mask. Jaspar. 'You reel, my Lord.'

The… the air -' Carnelian managed to say.

'You mean the smoke,' Jaspar said, laughing like a child, indicating with his head the way they had come.

Carnelian wrenched his head round. The pleated stone of the Black Gate concertinaed between the hands of the Sacred Wall.

The ammonites used lotus smoke to free our minds, to detach them from the bodies that had to be… shall we say, intrusively cleansed. Enjoy your flight; soon mind and body will be reunited.'

Preoccupied with breathing and walking, Carnelian hardly heard him. The air,' he sighed, 'the perfumed air.'

Jaspar breathed deep through his mask. The exhalation of thrice-blessed Osrakum. This air… it is unfouled by the lungs of the creatures beyond our mountain wall.'

'Like… like… like breathing the sky,' said Carnelian. Two new bells were tolling together in the Black Gate. He looked back over his shoulder at the wall. Those bells…?'

'Announce the entry of four Lords of blood-rank two. Those chimes tell Osrakum that we are here.'

A deeper voice rang out. Carnelian felt it coming up from the ground, vibrating him, then fading enough to free his feeble heart to beat again.

The bell for He-who-goes-before,' said Jaspar as Carnelian fought the intoxication of the air.

Kerbs contained the river of the road. Beyond, hexagons pushed up giant stairways, raised tables and dikes, or speared skyward their shafts tipped with angels. In places columns were formed wholly of angels standing one upon the other. Angels? He concentrated. Not angels, but the host of the Quyans turned to stone. He tried to make out their battle-lines but was distracted. Through the thicketing knuckled stone, he glimpsed the indentations in the crater wall burning like shards of jewel-stained glass.

The valley widened its sky-seeking walls and Carnelian noticed that every stone Quyan had two faces. The one gazing back up at the Black Gate was joyful, but the other looked grieving down towards the lake. Following that gaze he was snared again by the blue addiction of the water. His heart trembled when his eyes touched the Isle with its single peak for he knew that somewhere, melted into that vision, was the house of the Gods, the Labyrinth.

Their Ichorian escort formed a wall that Aurum breached and walked through. Further down the road, Carnelian could see a silver house. Tarnished, windowless, eyed with stars, nail-gouged with moons. Doors opened in its grey side and a procession came out pushing glittering crescents aloft on poles. Rising behind them was a spindle figure walking with the aid of a staff whom a child was leading by the hand. The pair came up the road fringed by standard-bearers. Aurum met them and gave a curt bow. Carnelian was made uneasy when he saw that the purple figure with the child was more than a head taller than the old Master.

Aurum came back, bringing with him the child, the purple figure and their procession. For a moment all were absorbed into the Ichorians so that Carnelian could see only the silver crescents waving in the air. The child emerged from the guardsmen first, leading the purple being whose face was a long oblong of silver. The right eye was just a crease. The left eye seemed to be cataracted with ice and spilled tears down the silver cheek. From the mask's brow a crescent moon curved up like horns.

As this apparition poled its staff towards him Carnelian withstood a compulsion to hide. He looked sidelong at the child. It had the body of a boy but the wrinkled face, the eyes, the thin compressed lips of an old man. Carnelian watched this homunculus release the hand of the apparition, take the staff and, with both hands, plant it with a clack before them both. The apparition peeled off gloves to reveal hands so pale they seemed hollow alabaster. Each middle finger and knuckle had been removed so that neither hand could help making the sign of the horns. The hands articulated sinuously as if they had been boned like fish. The homunculus reached round and with a practised movement took first one and then the other, forming them into a loose collar of fingers around its throat. The fingers coiled, interlinking around its larynx, and then began to flex.

'We are not used to being kept waiting,' the homunculus said. Its voice was high, beautiful but unhuman.

Carnelian stared at the fingers playing the throat like a flute.

‘Seraphim, you have gone beyond the bounds we permitted you in the outer world.'

Vennel came forward, nodding a bow, his hands making the vague shape of surprise. 'You have come yourself, Grand Sapience, from the sickbed of…'

As he spoke the homunculus muttered an echo to his words.

'I wish to wash my hands of all responsibility.'

The homunculus was repeating those words when the fingers at its throat choked it quiet. They trembled more instructions into its neck and it said, 'Seraph, the Empress expects your immediate attendance at court.'

Vennel bowed lower.

Carnelian looked up at the tearful silver face. This was one of the Wise. He was trying not to imagine what kind of face the mask concealed when the cloven hands turned the homunculus' head towards him. Carnelian felt it was not the homunculus but its master that was scrutinizing him through its eyes. As the fingers shifted at its throat, Carnelian winced, seeming to feel their movement inside his head.

'You are that son of Suth for whom we recently made a blood-ring?'

'Suth Carnelian.' The words were squeezed out of his brain like pips from a lemon.

The homunculus repeated the two words. Its finger collar flexed. The homunculus pointed at the bier. 'It is the Ruling Seraph of your House that lies there?'

Carnelian nodded eagerly. One of the cloven hands detached itself from the homunculus' throat and blurred pale instructions. Ammonites swarmed forward and the Ichorians moved away from the bier as if they feared even the touch of their shadows. Their purple robes huddled over Suth, producing many fingers that they touched to his neck, his wrists, his chest. They began rattling out words. 'Pulse. Five. Soft. Tallow threefold. Lipped blade. Two by three deep.'

The homunculus echoed everything they said.

Carnelian found his eyes drawn to the finial on the staff it held. A limpid green jewel larger than his hand carved into the form of a man who wore upon his head a crescent like the blade of a silver sickle.

The ammonites straightened, silent, waiting, looking to the Grand Sapient.

'Salve edge, blue vapouring, soft white bind,' the homunculus said.

The ammonites opened boxes, unstoppered vials, pulled lengths of cloth and bent over Suth as if they were carpenters repairing furniture.

'Seraphic Aurum,' said the homunculus, 'it is your disregard for the Law that has imperilled this life.'

'I told him-' Vennel began.

The homunculus spoke over him. This matter will be examined fully.'

Aurum stood very still. 'Will he live?'

Carnelian held his breath. Vermel's mask inclined so that it was focused wholly on the homunculus' mouth.

'Perhaps,' it said after a pause. 'We shall bend our skills towards the healing. We must haste back to the Isle where we have the requisite resources.'

'It is customary for He-who-goes-before to seek formal ratification in the Clave before he should begin his duties,' said Vennel quickly.

'Does my Lord wish the Ruling Lord Suth dead?' said Jaspar over the homunculus' muttering.

'Custom is not Law,' it said.

Then I shall accompany the Ruling Lord on my way to court,' said Vennel. 'As you wish.'

Sapient Immortality's hands uncoiled free of his homunculus' neck.

Carnelian took a step forward. 'Sapience…'

The homunculus reached up to touch the retreating hands. They slipped back around its muttering throat. 'Proceed.'