The wall of the radiant Great fell suddenly away as they came among the Lesser Chosen. On his taller ranga, Carnelian overtopped even their Ruling Lords by a head. He could see a river of them running all the way down the nave between the dingy colonnades.

Carnelian reached the looming bronze wall of the Chamber of the Three Lands in a dream. His eyes took a while adjusting to the lack of summer gold. The Emperor's heart no longer trembled the massive doors. The shawms frayed with echoes as they left the nave to follow the bronze wall round. When the Approach came into sight, Carnelian saw that syblings were crowding its lower steps. Something was coming down that looked like water seen at the bottom of a well. The dais broke through the sybling tide and washed up onto the first step. Carnelian walked round it watching his father for signs of life. Syblings took the staves from the lictors and held them upright before his father, whose gold mass flickered and flamed as he rose. His sleeves hinged up like doors, his hands caught hold of the staves and he seemed to be pulled by them onto the first step.

The Ichorians stopped Carnelian pushing through to his father's side. Arms outstretched, his father seemed crucified between the staves. One hand uncurled to beckon Carnelian through the half-coloured men.

Now I will, the hand flickered. It recurled itself around the stave, and slid down to rest upon its sun-eye. Carnelian saw it move. He wanted it to speak again. It detached and began signing, Stay close. I will have to find the strength to climb these steps.

Looking up, Carnelian saw the vast black Lord was almost upon them. Syblings covered the steps around him like an extension of his raven-jewelled court robe. Others carried a pair of court staves before him bearing the jade and the obsidian masks. His gold mask shone high above like the sun peering through a pillar of smoke. His crowns threatened an eclipse. A porcelain hand appeared.

Sardian, I was coming to see you.

'I must meet with your mother, Celestial.'

The black Lord turned his vast head a little as if he could hear someone calling for him down the stairs. She will not welcome you, my Lord.

'Nevertheless.'

Have you strength enough to climb these steps? 'I will find it, Celestial.'

/ shall wait for you in the Sun in Splendour. The black Lord made a gesture to hook Carnelian's eyes. Take good care of him, my Lord.

Carnelian stared, then inclined his head as the Lord swept past and began to move off towards the bronze wall.

'Molochite?' Carnelian asked, puzzled.

'His brother, Nephron,' his father replied. 'Now, let us begin the climb.'

For father and son, the climb was an ordeal. At first Suth managed to keep up a reasonable pace but after a while it was obvious that he was spent. They stopped. Carnelian could hear his father's laboured breathing. Looking down the steps, the floor seemed far away. Above them, the summit seemed further. 'Can you not be carried?'

His father stretched open his hand. The Sun cannot be carried. It would be as much as admitting that I am unfit to wear the Pomegranate Ring.

'But Father, why must you do this at all?'

His father's hand trembled, ‘ I must.

They resumed the climb a step at a time. Even for

Carnelian, lifting his ranga was an effort. He could imagine what it was costing his father, whose ranga were besides much taller. He leaned close and tried to help push him up. In front of them, the syblings carried the staves that his father clung to as if they were walking sticks. Carnelian waited for the clack of each shoe, chewing his tongue, fearing that one would not find its step. The last few steps, when they could look onto the landing, were the worst. Rasping each breath, his father climbed them. When he reached the top he sank down in among the empty court robes that forested the landing. As the disrobing syblings came, Carnelian tried to mask his father's breathing with his voice as he told them to attend to his father first.

'He-who-goes-before is the embodiment of the celestial nature of the Seraphim and as such is permitted to retain his pomp.'

Carnelian looked with horror at his father, whose robe seemed as empty as the others standing round. He looked to the next flight, a hill of steps, and higher up he knew there was another. He drew as close as he could to his father and whispered to him, This ascent will kill you.'

'No,' said the mass of gold. 'By the time… you are disrobed… I shall have found more strength.'

Carnelian allowed himself to be taken off by the syblings who removed his court robe and attired him in coarse fibre. His father had risen when Carnelian returned. Without his ranga, Carnelian hardly reached his father's waist. They walked together to the next stair. Neither of them looked up it but just began to climb.

Somehow, his father managed to reach the second landing, which swarmed with Masters in their supplicant robes. Cries went up of, 'He-who-goes-before.' As they flocked towards them, Carnelian commanded their sybling entourage to form a cordon. Within this protection, his father slid on seemingly unaware.

The third and final stair was almost more pain than Carnelian could bear. More of the Great wandered up and down on either side, and for appearance's sake his father seemed to dig deep and moved up the steps steadily. Tears of bitter anger squeezed down behind Carnelian's mask. He knew the climb was consuming his father's life.

When they reached the final landing they found many of the Great waiting before the glowering Iron Door. Carnelian expected his father to sink and rest but instead he commanded the syblings to take away the support of his staves and strike them both against the door, crying, 'He-who-goes-before seeks audience with the Regent of the Twins.'

Once the dull thunder reverberated to silence the door opened to show the Hanuses, who bowed.

'I have come with the Regent's nephew to speak to her.'

The syblings lowered their double head in a deeper bow and the door closed. Carnelian felt the gleaming mass of his father rum to look back down the stairs and he went to stand beside him.

'Do you remember standing on the weir gazing down at the sea?' he asked in a low voice.

His father's sun-haloed head shot with fire as he nodded. To both that morning was already a lifetime away.

The Iron Door rumbled open and a Ruling Lord came out walking with a staff, followed by other Masters of his House. He gave Suth an angry look before he and his companions inclined their crowns and stood to one side.

Carnelian's eyes were drawn away to where the Hanuses had one face turned obliquely to him, the other hidden.

The syblings' hand beckoned them to follow. Preceded by his staves, Suth slid glimmering into the Thronehall and Carnelian followed. After a few steps he moved to one side to allow him to see past his father's brocaded trunk. Red braziers painted a bloody road across the night to a bonfire in whose heart something like a blade was standing.

They followed the syblings down the road between the braziers, in whose lurid light Carnelian could just make out the sybling guardsmen on either side. Moonlight pierced the Creation Window and fell around the throne. A black fence edged the lamplit clearing below its pyramid. The palings turned and Carnelian saw they were Sapients with their hole eyes and scar mouths.

Suth took hold of his staves and the syblings that had been carrying them walked away. 'My Lords of the Wise,' he said, with a nod.

The Sapients bowed and turned back to strangle their homunculi, gazing blindly up into the light towards a welter of red like a blooded sword. This scarlet figure stood between two court staves. Curled at its foot was an exquisite carving of white jade, a youth crouching.