'I will see you again,' he stated.

They both looked up, expressionless. Right-Quentha shook her head. 'Perhaps, Carnelian,' her sister said.

Carnelian had a stone in his throat. 'I'm sick to my stomach of losing friends,' he said, in Vulgate. His words put sad expressions on the sisters' faces. 'Right-Quentha, please close your eyes. I am going to unmask.'

The sybling reached for the mask hanging around her waist.

'No, just close your eyes.'

They obeyed him. He went over to them, held the shoulders of each in turn and kissed her. They left him, Left-Quentha wearing a murderous frown that scattered the Suth guardsmen, her sister dabbing at her eyes.

For a while, Carnelian moped, missing the sisters. He went out to see the Ichorians, but the chamber of doors was empty. Only one pair of portcullises was lifted. He went to look through into the curving passage beyond. He remembered the guardhouse that was at its end, the same one he had passed through when he had come into the Sunhold. Its gates were near the sun-eyed door.

Remembering that golden door put him in mind of its silver sister in the shadow world somewhere beneath his feet.

What did he have to say to the Ichorians anyway? He returned to his chamber. He made patterns with the pieces of Three. He wrapped himself in blankets and went out onto the balcony. He watched indigo soak into the sky until the colour had grown so deep it was freckled with stars. His eyes became mirrors. The image of the moon-eyed door seemed to be hanging over the crater. He shivered. It was imbued with a longing that reminded him of the opium box.

He made his decision and came back into the warmth. He had his men bring him a sword, a lantern and a tinder-box. He made sure the lantern was well filled with oil and that its shutter opened and closed smoothly, and spent time honing the sword's bronze blade.

He rose with the moon, clothed himself, then left the chamber quietly. He silenced the question of the three guardsmen outside with an imperious hand and told them that they should not worry about him. If anyone came to see him, he commanded them to say that their Master was sleeping and refused to be disturbed. The eyes of one caught on the hilt of the sword. They could all see the lantern.

He left them to their conjectures and crept into the darkness of the chamber of doors. It was silent, with only a trickle of light and conversation coming from the Ichorians in their guardhouse. In front of the first portcullis that led to the Sun in Splendour, Carnelian carefully put down the sword and lantern. He slid the restraints from under the counterweights, braced himself against the bronze grille and, using the strength in his back and legs, lifted it a little. He pushed the sword and lantern under it and slipped through himself. He pushed the portcullis down and then opened and closed the second one in the same way.

The Sun in Splendour was pale with the moon that was a vague red eye in the Window of the Dawn. He stole across to the trapdoor. When he ground its cover back, he winced at the noise. He listened for Ichorians but they did not come. He crouched to light the lantern, shuttered it to produce a narrow beam, played this over the steps, then down he went.

The descent seemed to take much longer than before to reach the first chamber. He raked the blackness with the light. This is madness,' he hissed, frightening himself with his own echoes. For a moment he considered going back, then steeled himself and made for the gaping doorway.

The timbre of his steps changed as he moved into the vast sepulchral void of the ancient Encampment. He stopped several times along its nave, waited till the echoes fluttered away and listened.

At last he reached the chamber with its moon-eyed door. Only when he was halfway across it did he dare to lift the beam of light. The huge eye flared, irised with white fire. It was cut down the middle. For a silly moment, he thought that his light beam had sliced through it. He chided himself. The door was slightly ajar. He drew closer, close enough at last to touch its cold silver. He reached up to run his hand along the rim of the eye's lower lid to where it overbrimmed to spill tears the size of fists down the door.

He closed the lantern shutter a little more, took a deep breath and threaded its narrowed light into the gap between the leaves. The chamber beyond was filled with jewelled people and the ghosts of other lights. He snatched his head back, trying to still the betraying hammering of his heart. He waited for footfalls, a challenge. The only sounds were his heart, his breathing. He smothered the lantern in the lurid blood-red of his robe and dared to put his head through again. Perfect silent darkness. He uncovered the lantern to release its light. He let it impale one head. There was another beside it and another, as regular as sentinels. With a jerk, he realized a light was moving on the other side of the chamber. He lifted the lantern and it lifted too. 'Only reflection,' he breathed.

He squeezed through the door, trying to keep the light fixed on one of the heads, and reassured himself that its apparent movement came from his own wobbling. A bench, friezed with silver spirals, was the foundation for the glittering stumps he had thought were people. He stepped closer. Each stump was like three heads set one above the other. He reached out to touch the glittering surface. It was cold and knobbled like lizard's skin. He peered closer. Beads. Bead necklaces wound onto wooden reels. He reached up to touch the spindle that came up through their centres. Three reels impaled like pumpkins on a spear. He moved to the next three. Then there was an empty spindle followed by two more reel stacks. He walked round the bench and saw there was a second row of spindles behind the first. He stepped back and played light over the bench. On its side were four bronze loops from which hung short lengths of rope. He scooped one up, ran its beads through his hand.

He stood back, opened the lantern a little more, then held it up to look around the chamber. Twenty benches spaced out in a grid. The walls were the burnished heart-stone of the Pillar itself. He walked towards an archway. To one side hung a tapestry of glass, that he found was made of beaded ropes fixed to a row of loops set into the wall. He fingered one of the ropes, wondering what its function might be.

He shone light through the archway, then crept into the next chamber. This was very much like the first. It too had twenty benches with their spindles and reels, its near-mirror walls, its bead-rope tapestries. He wandered through another archway, another chamber, more arches, more chambers, each with its complement of benches. He wanted to find something that might make sense of it all.

He turned in the middle of a chamber. An archway opened in the centre of each wall. He could not remember which one he had come through. He closed his eyes, turning, trying to feel for the direction he had been facing. He opened his eyes and walked back to an archway. The next chamber looked much like all the others. So did the next, and the next. He grimaced. 'Fool, fool, fool.' He shook himself. Why had he not taken some precaution? He was utterly lost.

Thus began Carnelian's search for the moon-eyed door. Only the pulsing of the blood in his ears and his scuffling steps gave time shape. His path threaded the chambers as the cords did their beads. Neither made sense to him.

Huge whiteness reared up in front of him. His lantern clattered to the ground. He cried out and swatted at something with his sword.

'Gods' blood!' exploded a voice.

A blow made him drop the sword with a clatter. Falling to a crouch nursing his wrist, Carnelian stretched for the lantern that was angling its beam up to the ceiling. He felt the lantern being snatched away. Its beam fenced the air like a sword, then steadied to come down to run him through.