'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.'