Текст книги "The Chosen"

Автор книги: Ricardo Pinto

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'You must climb, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.

Carnelian regarded the crowds that lay between him and the first step. Both Quenthas lifted their chins and swept forward. The crowds parted, and as Carnelian paced between them they knelt. He saw they clumped according to the cyphers on their faces. Each retinue had its uniform: feathered cuirasses, bronze-banded armour and chainmail, breastplates of striped or spotted leathers; he saw spears, tridents, swords curved and straight. A familiar heraldry drew his eyes. Chameleoned faces. His escort followed as he opened a path to them. When he was close enough to cast yellow light on them with his robe, Carnelian could see their eyes darting looks of horror at the syblings. When closer still, the Suth people fell to their knees and Carnelian was forced to look down at them from on high. The familiarity of their tattoos cheered him. 'Fey sent you lot up here?' he asked, using the Vulgate.

'Master,' they muttered, nodding, trembling, not lifting their eyes.

He remembered what he had looked like in the mirror. He turned to the Quenthas. 'My father will be glad to have his own tyadra again.'

'Seraph, they cannot mount the Approach,' said Right-Quentha.

Though Seraphim may climb, the seeing must not follow them,' said her sister.

Carnelian looked round, counting the different kinds of guardsmen. 'So many Houses, so many Ruling Lords.' He looked uneasily up the steps between the glassy colossi. The Master had almost reached the summit. Carnelian regarded his people. He wanted to please them and his father by giving them to each other. 'Could they not be blindfolded?'

The syblings looked identically shocked. 'Seraph, the Stairs of the Approach lead up to the Thronehall of the Gods Themselves.'

He looked over at the grim lictors. They stay here too?'

The Quenthas nodded and walked to the stairs. Reluctantly, Carnelian told his people to wait for him, then followed the Quenthas. When he reached them, they showed him the handles that allowed him to pull up the skirts of his robe, and, lifting one of his court ranga onto the first step, he began the climb.

It was a relief to be nearing the summit. His head rose high enough to see a landing aglow with Masters. A few more steps and he was standing on its edge. He paused to regain his breath and his composure. At the feet of the looming avatars, the landing was a bloody swirl of red and purple mosaic upon which dozens of Masters stood in their court robes, their backs to him, motionless gold towers. Beyond them Carnelian was surprised to see rising another slope of steps. On both sides, from the edges of the landing, other narrow stairs ran up between the column legs of the avatars.

Left-Quentha's stone eyes looked at him. 'You must discard your pomp, Seraph. The Law of Audience requires it.'

'But they…' Carnelian stared, seeing that the Masters were all headless. The court robes could have been the discarded moults of angels. He gazed up the next stairway, almost expecting to see ethereal beings floating up them.

A mass of ammonites came weaving their way through the court robes towards him. Soon they were all around him, reflecting him in their eyeless faces of silver, touching him, guiding him. When they found a clearing among the robes he was asked to kneel. He obeyed, sighing with pleasure as the yoking weight of his robe lifted off his shoulders. His head seemed to float free as they removed his crowns. He rolled it to release the tension in his neck. Ammonites carrying screens began to build an enclosure round him. Right-Quentha threw him a smile before the screen wall shut her out.

The ammonites trapped inside with him removed his mask and prised his court robe open. He walked free of the robe. When he climbed down from the ranga, he felt smaller than a child. They stripped his hands of everything save his blood-ring. They put a new robe of unbleached hri fibre over his padded underclothes. Feeling its coarse weave, he could hardly believe they had meant to dress him in it. He looked for a samite robe but they were already dismantling the screen wall. He made a sound, nearly crying out, his hands almost over his face, but then he saw that his sybling escort had all donned blinding masks.

Puzzled by the crudeness of his dress, feeling cold, he allowed the Quenthas to lead him through the maze of empty robes to the next stairway. Framed against the legs of an avatar, another Master attired like him was climbing with a staff. Carnelian turned to the steps. Free of the encumbrances of court robe and ranga, the ascent was easier. Two Masters passed him, coming down, talking, each with a staff topped with his House cypher, each wearing a robe of unbleached fibre. They stopped to look at him, their eyes haughty sapphires. The beauty of their faces and limbs was made even brighter in contrast to their coarse-weave. He realized he was staring, gave them a bow and climbed on.

The second landing was paved with jade. Throne-daises enclosed it, behind which standards spiked up like irises. Masters in coarse-weave robes were gathered, all Ruling Lords, all facing something Carnelian could not see.

He leaned towards Right-Quentha's copper mask. 'Is this the Thronehall?'

The sisters shook their heads. That lies at the top of the final stair.'

He looked and saw at the landing's end a third stair rising up into darkness. On his right, flanked by oily black, winged avatars, steps led up to a flinty door in whose centre was a tearful eye. Carnelian stared for a moment, remembering the opium box. The sisters touched his hands and walked towards the Ruling Lords with sure steps, though they were both blind. The Lords did not seem to notice them. Some were in groups talking with their hands, but Carnelian noticed that most seemed focused off to where another stair ran up between two quartz colossal youths. At their feet he could see something like a narrow window opening onto a bright meadow. Carnelian kept walking, glancing at the oblong of emerald light, seeing its luminous Chosen face.

'My Lord.'

The Master approaching had a familiar voice. He turned. 'Vennel!' The Master's eyes were like water welling on a cake of salt. They looked at each other. Vennel tried a little nod of his head. Carnelian said nothing.

The Jade Lord has requested that you approach him.' Vennel curled a hand back to indicate the emerald figure.

Tell my Lord that I hasten to a meeting with the Regent.'

Vennel gave him a frosty smile. 'I had forgotten how little you know. When a Jade Lord makes a request it is really a command.'

'Perhaps, Vennel, you have also forgotten that the Regent outranks your Master.'

Vennel smiled. 'I will be pleased to convey your refusal to the Jade Lord.'

Another Master joined them. Jaspar. He looked at Carnelian and indicated Vennel. 'Is this creature bothering you, my Lord?'

Vennel moved forward. The Jade Lord-'

'Has sent me to correct yet another of your mistakes.'

Vennel’s face seemed brittle enough to shatter.

'You might as well return to your place beneath his feet.' Jaspar used a sign of dismissal whose shape was close to that used for servants.

Vennel hesitated, then struggled to free himself from his frozen stance. They watched him walk off with ungainly steps.

That one has been reduced to his rightful size.' Jaspar gave one of his cold smiles. 'You have seen your father, cousin?'

Carnelian made a nod, hearing in his mind the word, Patricide!

'I trust that he has fully recovered from the little unpleasantness on the road.'

Carnelian jerked another nod.

The Jade Lord Molochite wishes to meet you.'

'Well, I do not wish to meet him.'

Jaspar's eyebrows lifted. 'He is not a person to be slighted casually, Carnelian. Nothing raises him more than the whim to wreak revenge.'

'I do not fear him.'

Jaspar shrugged. 'Why give him one more reason to hate your father?'

Carnelian frowned. Jaspar flourished his hand to offer Carnelian the lead. He took it, walking through the Ruling Lords, ignoring their stares, his eyes fixed on Molochite who was framed between two staves held by his entourage of syblings. Carnelian stopped as the Jade Lord pulled himself up on the staves, and only then realized the Lord had been kneeling. As his green flame came burning towards Carnelian, the Great bowed out of his way. Carnelian waited, clearing his face of expression, his view filling with Molochite's wall of faceted emerald. His eye was level with the Jade Lord's waist.

'Why, cousin, will you not let us see your eyes?'

Carnelian looked up fiercely, refusing to be appalled by the Jade Lord's height, but when he saw the white face he forgot himself and gaped. It was the most beautiful being he had ever seen that was gazing down at him. Molochite's eyes were spring, the smile on his lips was summer. Carnelian felt the light going out as Molochite turned away, replacing the radiance of his face with the smoulder of his green-jewelled crowns.

'Imago, you spoke truth, he has the beauty of the Masks. Our blood breeds true however it is tainted.' Molochite's eyes turned their depths back on Carnelian. It was like looking into the Yden. 'Son of Azurea, you are welcome to our court.'

Carnelian bowed to take his eyes away. 'My Lord.' He tried to find a shred of composure, then looked up.

'Would you then like to stay with us a while?' Molochite swept an exquisite hand round loaded with four Great-Rings. 'However worthy, these Lords weary us with the endless business of the election.' His smile opened like a window allowing sunlight into a dark chamber.

Carnelian struggled to unhook his eyes from the glorious face. 'My

… my Lord is very kind, but I must go… to see my father.'

The window closed. 'Well, run along then. We must not keep the Regent waiting, must we?'

The emerald angel moved away. Carnelian rose and walked off feeling like a child being sent to his room.

Halfway up the third stair, Carnelian began to frown. He could not believe what he was seeing coming into sight.

The top half of a massive gate entirely wrought from iron. 'A gate

… a skymetal gate.'

The Iron Door, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.

'Inconceivable… riches.' He was breathing heavily.

Right-Quentha fumbled a hand out to steady him. The Seraph should rest.' He was touched by the concern in her voice.

‘You seem to be right,' Carnelian said, squeezing her hand. Her sister's stone eyes looked at his hand as if she could feel its touch.

'It must be the sky sickness still diminishing my strength.'

While he caught his breath, he turned to look back down the steps. The Great were there like pieces of torn parchment. Molochite was a narrow prism of emerald. At that distance Carnelian found it hard to understand the power the Jade Lord had had over him.

He resumed the climb, his eyes fixed on the Iron Door. He stroked his blood-ring. He knew that iron hailed from the sky in nuggets, but surely, so much iron must have fallen as a mountain.

As he came up over the brow of the stair he glimpsed Masters standing with their staves and as he surveyed them he found himself looking into Aurum's face. The old Master stared as if he were seeing Carnelian rising from the tomb. He pointed the horned-ring finial of his staff at Carnelian. 'What are you doing here?'

Carnelian lost his speech. He had forgotten the compulsion of those misty blue eyes. Aurum repeated his question. Carnelian found his tongue. 'My father, I have come to see my father.'

'Do you know this boy, Aurum?' one of the other Masters demanded. All the cold blues and greys of their eyes settled on Carnelian. Aurum's stare had moved to the syblings spilling up round Carnelian from the stair.

Aurum impaled him with his eyes. 'Does your father know you are here?'

Carnelian grew angry. He had had enough of being treated like a child. 'Are you blind, my Lord? Does it seem likely I would have such an escort if the Regent himself had not summoned me?'

Aurum flinched and looked from the corner of his eye at the other Masters, who were showing a certain amusement at his discomfiture.

'You will have to wait your turn, my Lord,' said a voice Carnelian recognized as Cumulus'. 'All here seek audience with the Regent.'

'If it please the Seraphs,' said Left-Quentha, 'the Regent commanded us to bring Suth Carnelian to him without delay.'

The Masters looked shocked. Aurum was the first to move aside, a smile carved on his marble face. Reluctantly, the others opened a way through to the Iron Door. Carnelian ignored Aurum's eyes and the comments the others made as he walked between them. 'Who does he think he is?' and, The arrogance!'

The door was like a frozen pall of smoke. He dared to reach out, to touch its dull iron. It was cold. He brought back his fingers and smelled the bloody rust. Left-Quentha lifted one of her tattooed arms, struck the door and knelt. All the syblings began kneeling round him, bowing their heads. Carnelian's robe pulled taut across his chest and flapped behind him like wings as the Iron Door breathed open.

GODS' TEARS

These are the four substances of a god: Flesh that is earth, Ichor that is fire, Seed that is rain, Spirit that is the breathing sky. But there is a fifth substance, tears, And that is a memory of the first sea.

(from the 'Ilkaya', part of the holy scriptures of the Chosen)

'And my Lord is…?'

Carnelian stared at the two faces side by side, Masters' faces, joined so that when one spoke its jaw dragged down the corner of the other's mouth. One face regarded him with grey eyes and seemed to be trying to determine what manner of creature Carnelian might be; the other had black diamonds for eyes. Eyebrows on the face that had spoken rose expectandy as the other face frowned.

Carnelian cleared his throat, unable to stop staring. 'Lord, Carnelian… Suth Carnelian.'

'I see,' said the blind face.

'If the Lord Carnelian would follow us,' said the frowning face. The creatures lifted their right hand, beckoning, and Carnelian noticed the two blood-rings, one above the other. As they turned away he saw their double-lobed head. He watched them walk off towards a jewel fire, a window blazing far away in the gloom.

'Seraph,' said Left-Quentha as she and her sister rose from their knees. 'You must follow the Seraphic Hanuses.'

Carnelian started a bow, remembered their blindness, reached out to touch both their shoulders and thanked them. The sisters inclined their heads together. Left-Quentha smiled as they bowed. Two coughs made him turn to see the Masters, the Hanuses, waiting for him, both faces now frowning. Carnelian went towards them and they led the way.

The hall was a black tunnel gouged through the rock to the sky. It was so vast that he could see nothing of the walls or ceiling. He glimpsed syblings standing in faraway rows on either side, three and four legs astride, holding halberds and billhooks, crusted in black armour, tracking him with their stone eyes.

As he drew nearer the window, its hues erupted visions in his mind. Light through new leaves. Cobalt blue. Red like blood splattered on glass. The topaz of an eagle's iris. The whole was a rainbow shattered then reassembled to show the creation. The Turtle's tearing, its shell forming earth and sky, its eyes the sun and moon, its tears the stars. There were the Twins rising in the blood rain, there the creatures that they shivered into being with Their ecstasy at the first rain-music. At the heart of this design was shown the raising of the Sacred Wall, the flooding of Osrakum and, in culmination, the making of the Chosen. Carnelian marvelled. It was as if the world's jewels had been fused into a single lens through which was pouring the light of every sky.

The Hanuses bowed, revealing the window's dark centre. A black throne upon a pyramid. Eight figures were ranged below, Sapients, narrow posts squeezed narrower still by the colours coruscating round them. Above, framed by the throne pyramid, a bar of gold was set on end, a Lord in a court robe seemingly crucified between two staves held upright by crouching syblings. The arms detached themselves. White hands framed the sign, Wait. The sign had a flavour of his father's hand speech.

The Hanuses walked past Carnelian. Their right face gave Carnelian a look from the corners of its eyes that made him feel like prey.

His father was speaking. '… when the collations are complete, Rain.'

As he drew closer, Carnelian began to hear the mutterings of homunculi. Although their masters had their backs to him, Carnelian could see they were unmasked. A morbid curiosity made him creep round until he could see their faces. White leather, pleated tight to a mean, lipless mouth. They had neither ears nor nose, only a nostrilled hole. Jet almonds gleamed for eyes. The foreheads were a fan of creases as if the skin had been upholstered tight to the nose hole's rim. Between their eyes, the horned-ring of divinity had been branded deep. All eight stood in robes of moonless night, each apparently strangling a silver-faced child.

Carnelian became aware again of his father's voice. '… are correct, Gates, it is better that we should wake the huimur.'

The homunculi whispered, the quiver of their lips hidden by their masks. Each held before it a staff, like a silver tree upon which flowered the cypher of its master's Domain.

'If my Lords would please leave me a while. I have need of rest,' his father, said. 'Grand Sapients Gates, Cities and Tribute, I would ask that you keep yourselves ready for my summons. We must complete the arrangements for admitting the tributaries into Osrakum.'

The muttering continued a little longer and then, eerily, stopped. Carnelian became convinced the Grand Sapients were surveying him with the black malice of their eyes. Their hands unwound from the necks of their homunculi. They put on their cloven gloves, their tearful masks. They took back their staves, then bowed. Each Sapient took his homunculus by the hand and, in a column, slowly, they came drifting towards Carnelian. He was trapped, staring up into the mirror of their leader's face as he came on relentlessly, pulling his homunculus like a child. Its unslitted silver mask made the creature as eyeless as its master. The blind leading the blind, thought Carnelian. Just in time he leapt out of their way and watched the beaded slopes of the Sapients gliding past and disappearing one by one into the darkness.

A clatter whisked him round. He cried out and rushed to where his father had fallen on the steps. The whole gleaming length of him, struggling like a fish, his elbows digging back, rasping their brocades, trying to find a grip. Carnelian pushed through the blind syblings, causing the staves they carried to waver erratically. They made noises of panic that he could hear spreading down the hall.

Carnelian ignored everything but his father. He grabbed him, enduring the snagging on his hands and arms, and managed to wrestle him into sitting. He made sure his father was steady before he himself stood up, smeared the blood from his palms down his hri-fibre robe, then pushed in to sit some steps higher, reaching over his father's crowns to free him of his mask.

His father's eyes rolled red and confused in their sockets. His yellow lips opened and closed. Carnelian gaped, appalled, not knowing what to do. 'Are you hurt, Father?'

His father's eyes anchored themselves upon his face. 'My son.' His hand clawed up to Carnelian's shoulder and pulled him close. 'Reassure them,' his father said almost in his ear. A strange odour staled his breath.

Carnelian became aware of the commotion the syblings were making. 'Celestial, celestial…' they were saying, evidently distressed.

Carnelian stood to face them. 'Calm yourselves. The Regent has merely fallen.'

'Is he hurt?' It was the Hanuses. The syblings opened their ranks to let them through.

'I think he slipped upon the steps.'

'We should help him rise,' they said.

Carnelian looked from one face to the other. 'I think it better that he rest awhile, my Lords.'

The right face narrowed its eyes. 'As you wish.' The creature turned and began to herd the syblings away.

Carnelian turned back to his father, who lifted a hand. It shook down, and jammed as the crusted volume of its golden sleeve caught. Carnelian lunged forward to free the sleeve from the angle of the step, and taking his father's hand, he stroked it as he sat down beside him. Its limpness made him search his father's face in fear. The eyes were still open in the yellow sagging face. Carnelian dropped his eyes, not wanting to stare. He felt the need to say something. 'Why do the dragons need awakening?'

His father tore his hand free. Carnelian saw the veins like sapphire cords. His father looked malevolently out from under his brows. 'Do not call them that,' he hissed. 'You are not a barbarian.'

Carnelian's heart stopped. Suddenly, he did not recognize the vast broken creature hunching there. The creation window beat on him like a migraine. The black tunnel of the Thronehall was contracting. The syblings ambling away looked like colourless crabs in a cave.

Suth saw his son shrinking and found the strength to inflate himself up, to put on a smile, to talk. He put his hand on his son's head. 'Forgive me. I am so weary.'

Carnelian rewarded him with a watery smile.

The huimur of my Ichorian Legion… of the Pomegranate and the Lily… they must be made ready for the Rebirth.' He went back to staring, then with a visible effort came alive again. The Wise feed them a drug… it makes them sleep… while they dream we cheat time, preserve them… they live long beyond the years of their kind.'

'Is this the kind of drug the Wise have given you, Father?'

No, No, his father signed with a fluttering hand, and quickly, Time is everything. Soon the Legates will be recalled, leaving the gates open in the Ringwall.'

Carnelian could see that his father did not want to discuss his condition and was just glad that he had become recognizably himself. '… so that the barbarians might plunder the Commonwealth.'

'It is essential.' Carnelian could see the strength flowing back into him as if a cloud that had moved its shadow over him was passing on. The sun already burns the Guarded Land. If the God Emperor is not reborn, the Rains will not come and the Commonwealth will perish with the old year. The tributaries are massing outside our gates with thousands of wagons carrying the coined taxes from the cities. When the time is right, we will bring them into holy Osrakum. The tributaries must all be there, in the Plain of Thrones, when the Rains come.'

'When will that be?' said Carnelian, wanting to feed his father's resurrection.

The Wise will soon know.'

'What sorcery do they use to reveal the very intentions of the sky?'

'It is a sorcery of sorts. Daily they gather reports from all their watch-towers. In a chamber far from here they receive the flashes of light that have come from the furthest edges of the Commonwealth. They collate the reports and compare the results with their almanacs. Eventually, by this procedure, their collective mind determines the day upon which the storm clouds will dash their water against this mountain. On that day the world will be reborn.'

Carnelian looked up as if his eyes might pierce the shadow and massing rock to behold the distant sky.

The Rebirth is in itself a mighty labour to arrange,' his father said. 'But combined with Apotheosis…?' He raised his hands. Carnelian thought he could see light filtering through their parchment but at least they were steady. 'Soon the Chosen will gather here for the sacred election. Their coming cannot be sullied by the tributaries, and yet they too must be there.' His father inclined his massively crowned head. There is so little time.'

Carnelian frowned. 'How can you be so sure there will be need for an election before the coming of the Rains?'

The Wise are sure.' His father motioned. 'Make them bring the staves.'

Carnelian understood his father's meaning. He manoeuvred the syblings to prop their staves in front of his father. They were really standards. One carried the wheelmap of the Commonwealth he had seen before in one of his father's books: a black disc within a red within a green, the whole jewelled roundel surmounted by the horned-ring of divinity. The other staff bore the jade and obsidian faces of the Gods, also crowned with the horned-ring.

His father groaned as he tried to push himself up and failed. Carnelian leaned in to shoulder one of his father's arms like a yoke. He hoisted it till his father had grasped one of the staves and then did the same for the other hand. Holding on to him they rocked him back up onto his ranga. He was suddenly as tall as Molochite had been. Carnelian saw that the woven metals of his court robe were dented as his father, holding on to the staves, came down the steps. Once he had reached the floor, he tentatively let go of the staves and took a few steps without their help. He dismissed the syblings and they and the staves retreated.

'Come, Carnelian, lend me your strength.'

Carnelian gave his father his shoulder to lean on. The warm, heavy pressure filled Carnelian with a love for his father that stung his eyes. Suth pointed out the way he wished to go, and they set off.

'Are you, as Regent, responsible for all this?' asked Carnelian, ignoring his father's weight.

'For this purpose, the Regent is, in everything but name, God Emperor.'

Then who now is He-who-goes-before? Who speaks for the Clave? Aurum?'

The shaking of his father's crowned head vibrated them both. He opened his hand to reveal the red eye of the Pomegranate Ring.

'Surely then, Father, you direct two of the Three Powers?'

'Yes.'

There must be those who object to this concentration of might?'

He felt his father's mirth trembling down his arm. 'Oh, yes. Indeed yes.'

'She of whom we must not speak?'

'She most of all. The God Emperor made me Regent and while They live I am secure.'

'And then…?'

The Regency will pass to her until a candidate is elected.'

'Still, she will be safely locked away in her forbidden house.'

'Not so. She will be let out, brought here to wield the power of the Masks.'

'Will that not endanger us?'

He felt the shaking again. 'Why should it?'

'Why then did you set your lictors upon my door?'

They cannot enter here. I had no other use for them.'

'And the escort of syblings, today?'

To give you state. You are a Lord of the Great, Carnelian, and my son. I would not have you appear before the other Ruling Lords like a beggar.'

There is no danger, then?'

'Not now.'

Then, my Lord, your worry is at an end.' Carnelian glanced off towards the Iron Door. 'Out there…' He stopped. The Hanuses' two faces were gazing down the length of the hall at them.

'Yes?'

Carnelian screwed his head round to look up at his father. 'I saw some of our people… and the Jade Lord Molochite. He spoke to me.'

'Did he? What about?'

'Nothing… he saw my mother in my face.'

'She is there, in your face, in your eyes.'

'He is the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld.'

'Even in a House that breeds so much beauty, Molochite is an emerald among jades.'

'He was amiable enough.'

'Is that not what you once said about Jaspar?'

Carnelian thought about this. 'Where is the other Jade Lord?'

'Nephron? With Aurum to espouse his cause, he has no need to show himself. Only Molochite is forced to bend his pride to canvas for his own votes.'

Their mother is locked away?'

'In the full purdah, although even if she were free I do not think she would stoop to going out among the Great. She has none in her party whose blood the Ruling Lords would respect enough to deal with. So she resorts to sending her own son to negotiate for their block votes.'

'Of course,' Carnelian said, thinking aloud, remembering his lessons on the island. Into a ballot, a Ruling Lord could cast all the rings in his House save for those worn by adult males. This explained why they were come up to court alone. Their block votes would play the major part in the election.

Carnelian looked up and saw that they had reached a door. It was barred by huge billhooks, each held by the four hands of the sybling pairs on either side. His father's weight on him grew lighter as he straightened up. Carnelian let him go reluctantly. They took some steps towards the syblings. The billhooks clinked as they uncrossed.

Carnelian stopped. 'My Lord.' He waited for his father to look down at him. 'Did you know that there are many Lords waiting outside your door?'

His father gave a nod.

Carnelian looked at the syblings and saw that they were either blind or wearing eyeless masks. Aurum among them, he signed. Let him wait.

He was angry seeing me here. So, he is always angry. I was rude to him.

His father made a dismissive wave and beckoned Carnelian to follow him through the door. The hall beyond was walled with opals so that as they moved through it, iridescing waves followed them. The floor was a mosaic of different-hued pearls. Feather rugs changed colours like flitting hummingbirds. The furniture was all spired ebony and jade.

As they passed another sybling-guarded door, Carnelian asked, 'Is the Lord Hanus of the Chosen?'

The Lords Hanus. They are two beings, and yes, they are Chosen.'

'But they are syblings.'

The Wise teach that the Chosen are all conceived as twins. The rarity of twin births they put down to fratricidal conflict in the womb. They use this to explain our predatory spirit and even the love yearnings that we sometimes feel for one another.'

These syblings are then the natural offspring of the Chosen?'

'Of the God Emperor, Their sons and Their Lesser Chosen brides.'

'Is that perhaps because the Twin Essence is so hot in imperial blood?'

'Perhaps, though I suspect the drugs the Wise feed their mothers might make some contribution.'

Carnelian considered this. 'Still, they are two in one, just like the Gods.'

Their joining is imperfect, demonstrating all the ways in which a man can be wedded to his reflection in a mirror. Unlike the Twins they are not complementary beings. Even when they are born entirely unjoined, they are merely a reflection of each other.'