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.

'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.