The Balance must restrict their power?'

'In terrible ways, but essentially the God Emperor's guardsmen, the Sinistral Ichorians, hold them hostage.'

'And we, in turn, hold them all hostage.'

'Rings, within rings, like the ripples on a pond.'

'Moving outwards from the God Emperor, a leaf dropped from the sky.'

'Just so.'

'Father, are these quaestors then the Wise?'

His father's hand flicked a dismissive gesture. 'Of the Wise, Carnelian, but not the Wise themselves. Surely, if you noticed nothing else, you could see the quaestor still had eyes?'

'Of course… I was careless. What manner of…?'

'A failed candidate for the Wise, though he came so close that I marvel that he kept his eyes. I was not able to examine his face fully but it seemed to me that he had passed many of the higher examinations.'

The numbers?'

Their positions relate to the different lores, levels, domains.'

'And what is the Privilege of the Three Powers?'

'It is a law that allows each power the right to exclude either or both of the other two from any matter that it considers internal to its affairs, unless this exclusion should be precluded by another law of higher rank.'

'And so you included the Legate as the representative of the God Emperor while excluding the quaestor who is a representative of the Wise because you intended to overrule a law?'

Suth made a gesture of impatience. 'You ask too many questions, my Lord.'

'Knowledge is the best armour,' said Carnelian with a flush of anger.

Suth looked down at his son, recognizing his own words. There is something I must tell you.'

The tone of his father's voice made Carnelian's stomach clench. At that moment there was an echoing sound of doors closing. Father and son turned to look down the hall. The other Masters were walking towards them, hands and feet pale as the dead's. Three of them, shrouded in the same black robes, coming as for an entombing.

'What did you want to tell me, Father?' whispered Carnelian anxiously.

Not now, his father signed.

Carnelian was forced to stand silent at his father's side as they watched the Masters approach. Aurum moved out in front of the others. Carnelian and his father made way for him. The old Master moved between them to strike the door. Each blow was answered by a deep vibration. 'We are come because the Law must be obeyed,' Aurum boomed.

Exhaling camphor, the door sighed open just a body's width. One by one they rustled through. A vapouring milky pool lay on the other side. Carnelian watched his father wade through, the hem of his black robe floating round him like a slick of oil. Already past the pool's white lip, Aurum was moving off leaving a glistening track.

Vapours spread chill up into Carnelian's nose. He lowered his right foot into the liquid. Biting cold washed over it. He put in the left foot, then he dragged his train across. As he splashed out the other side, he saw that his father was ahead of him, talking with his hands to Jaspar. Carnelian turned to see Vennel walk across, his narrow hands hitching up the skirt of his robe, revealing long marble legs, so white they made the pool look yellow.

Tall bronze lamps lit benches of stone, upon one of which Aurum had sat down. Sallow creatures appeared and fussed round him. Carnelian found a place beside his father. As he pulled up his soak-heavy robe it gave off a reek of camphor. Jaspar and Vennel were setding on other benches.

'You who are Chosen shall now make ready to leave this place.' The words were spoken in Quya but did not have the rich timbre of a Master's voice. Carnelian located their source to be the quaestor in his purple samite. His face of polished silver had a mouth but only solid spirals for eyes. In his hands he held a cord like a necklace of beads.

'You who are Chosen must take all precaution before crossing the Naralan and the Guarded Land,' said the quaestor, counting the beads through his fingers as if he were using them for prayer.

Carnelian heard the other Masters answer him, 'As it has been done, so shall it be done, for ever, because it is commanded to be done by the Law-that-must-be-obeyed.'

The covenant you made with Him, the Dark One honours. In the hidden land of Osrakum He will not incarnate though His anima share the inhabiting of the God Emperor with His brother. Beyond the Sacred Wall, all other earth unto the sea He has soaked with pestilence and plague. In these His domains you shall walk under the restriction of His Law as your fathers have done before you. This is His Law as it has been written in the Plain of Thrones.'

Carnelian felt his father's warm hand stray over his own.

The Chosen shall not stand within two fingers' breadth of unhallowed ground,' chanted the quaestor.

All the Masters made the same response as before and Carnelian mumbled along with them. He turned his hand palm up to grasp his father's as one of the slaves knelt before him holding a casket. Bones pushed through tallow skin like blades. Another slave leant over to open the casket. Her torso was a basket of ribs. In place of an ear a hook-rimmed mechanism of brass snagged into her face. She drew out the ranga shoes and placed them in Carnelian's lap with more care than if they had been painted with poison. Each was of wood lacquered black: a long and narrow platform for the foot, securing straps and, set transversally on its underside, three supports a few fingers' width deep: one painted black, one red, one green, presumably in token of the Three Lands.

'My shoes have been tampered with,' said Vennel sharply.

Carnelian looked up. His father and the other Masters had also been given shoes. All were turned towards Vennel.

The Master held up a shoe. The supports have been trimmed.' He displayed it for all to see.

The modification was carried out at my command,' said Aurum.

'One cannot-'

The full height would encumber us on our journey, my Lord. Quaestor, do they still meet the requirement of the Law?'

They do, Seraph,' said the silver mask. Aurum turned back to Vennel. 'Might we be allowed to proceed?'

Vennel made an affirmative gesture shaded with anger.

Carnelian felt his father's hand moving in his own. It escaped to sign, Copy me.

Carnelian watched his father search the hem of his robe. When he found a single embroidered glyph like a beetle he pinched it up. He was offered a jar by a slave. With his free hand he broke its seal, ran the robe glyph round inside, then began to carefully anoint one of the shoes upon his lap with the pungent wax.

Carnelian found that his robe had the same glyph. He could not read it. Everything he had seen his father do he did as well. Several times he looked up to find the eyeslits of his father's mask angled towards him. A nod came from it when Carnelian was finished.

The Chosen shall not breathe unhallowed air,' the quaestor said.

The Masters gave the response.

Slaves with strange bright eyes came cradling bowls. They took tiny steps, afraid of spilling what they carried. As one came closer Carnelian saw fumes curling up from the bowl like smoke. He saw also the spiralled plaques that served the slave for eyes. Edge hooks gripped them into the man's flesh.

Carnelian's father nudged him. He turned to see his father laying his mask face down along the hollow between his thighs. He reached out, took one of the linen pads draped over the bowl's rim, dipped it into the vaporous liquid, and pressed it over the mask's nostril holes. He swivelled little flanges to hold it in place.

Carnelian began the procedure. As he leant forward the vapour from the bowl stung his eyes. He dipped a pad, squeezed it, poked it into his mask still smoking then secured it with the flanges.

'It will protect you from the plague,' his father's voice rustled in his ear.