The Chosen (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  ‘Here we leave the Ringwall,’ Aurum boomed as the Marula made the turn.

  Carnelian looked up at the plaque, suddenly understanding the ring glyph. He stared in wonder at the leftway that continued over the bridge and past the watch-tower into the east. Should he ride that way, in months or maybe years he would have made a complete circuit of the wall that enclosed the Guarded Land. He looked over the back of his saddle-chair. He would come from the west riding the top of the Ringwall round to that very spot. Giving the market and the fortress one last look, he turned his aquar’s head south to follow the others.

  They sped above a mouldering chaos of mud walls, flat roofs, views down into alleys, stairways, balconies. Below them, a river of people rumbled along the southern road. They passed earth ramparts that were crumbling into a moat. The poorer outskirts of Nothnaralan spread their shambling messy browns. Tumbled hovels squashed together into neighbourhoods. Dust choked crooked lanes. They reached the city’s border ditch with its torn palisades. Beyond stretched a limitless rusty plain bisected by the line of the road.

  Aurum shouted something into the scorching wind and the Marula surged ahead, black cloaks flapping. The Master lifted his hand, signing. A dove’s wing flap.

  Windspeed, read Carnelian. It was not difficult to guess the meaning. The aquar ahead were already slipping away. His chair’s rocking quickened as his mount leapt after them. He was thrown from side to side, each swing smaller than the last, then there was his robe snapping up around him, the chair vibrating, the parapets pouring past. The wind dissolved the din of the road, pressed him back into the chair, slipped his hood off then streaked his ears with half-heard cries.

  The Guarded Land was tiled with brown squares that faded shrinking to every horizon. Its monotony was only relieved by wheels that dotted the fields, turning constantly. A heavy sky pressed the whole scene flat. It was only when he listened to the wind and watched the rushing parapet that Carnelian knew he was flying.

  At some point he felt his mount’s motion faltering. Its head trembled and the milky inner lids flickered across its eyes. Fatigue shuddered up from its flanks as its speed slackened. He disliked forcing the creature on, but had to make sure of keeping up with the others.

  Ahead a watch-tower stood like a woman holding her arms up high in a dance. Carnelian was relieved as Aurum began to slow. The tower became a giant. He eased his aquar to a walk. The chair began jerking. His cloak fell lifeless. Clamour swelled up from the road. The air was pungent with a peculiar odour. His aquar lifted its heron head and opened the fans of its eye-plumes. Every movement had become ponderous, heavy. Every step the creature took jarred him to the bone. Carnelian felt like a bird plucked suddenly from the sky.

  The leftway ended at a narrow bridge. He crossed it with the others, riding past the counterweights that fanned out from its hinges to allow the bridge to be lifted.

  Around him the aquar were folding back their legs, sinking the Masters and Marula to the ground. Carnelian saw more aquar were waiting for them, larger than the ones they had been riding, as sleek and silver as fish. Their plumes were the colour of poppies. Elegant saddle-chairs were strapped to their backs. Slaves held them with auxiliaries standing to one side. Carnelian wondered by what sorcery they had known of their coming.

  A marumaga came forward and knelt before Aurum. Suth was still climbing out of his chair. Carnelian had accepted his father’s assurance about his wound and was thus alarmed to see with what care he moved and, when he straightened, how he pressed a hand to his side. Other slaves ran forward to deal with the baggage. Tain was helped down. He looked round at Carnelian with a face so gaunt that Carnelian almost did not know him. His brother gave a thin smile that was very Tain, forcing Carnelian to remember Jaspar’s offer. The thought of betraying his wounded father put a knot in Carnelian’s stomach.

  The Marula were already mounting the new aquar. Tain was rummaging through the baggage. He pulled some packs from it and then watched as the grooms began to carry the rest away.

  A whining caused Carnelian to look down to see a groom offering him a fresh aquar. He examined the man’s face around the bloodshot, fearful eyes. The forehead was branded with the sea glyph and four bars. By the way three of the bars were grouped, Carnelian read all four together, as one hundred and fifteen. Craning, he looked up the tower to where its wooden ribs overhung the leftway like the branches of a tree. He found that the plaque attached to the middle rib bore the same number. Above this a man was hanging in a kind of cage.

  The groom was still there below him, waiting. Carnelian gave his mount the signal that made it lower him to the ground. He climbed out of the saddle-chair and pointed up at the caged man. ‘Punishment?’

  The groom fell to his knees and bowed his head.

  Carnelian nudged the man with his foot. ‘Well?’

  ‘A lookout, Master, in a deadman’s chair.’

  Carnelian left the man alone, and mounted the fresh aquar who pushed him smoothly up into the air. He ran his hand along the oily black curving rim of his new seat. Adjusting himself into it, he found that it fitted him better. As he moved towards the other Masters he was surprised by the different rhythm of the aquar’s walk.

  Vennel moved his animal to block his way. ‘The speed is delightful, my Lord, is it not?’

  Carnelian could not understand why Vennel was suddenly trying to make conversation.

  ‘How frequently must we make these stops?’ he heard his father say.

  ‘I will try to keep them to a minimum, my Lord,’ said Aurum. ‘But it will serve neither of us if we lose speed.’

  The Master moved off to speak to the marumaga tower keeper. Carnelian made some polite noises and walked his aquar round Vennel’s to approach his father.

  ‘Are you in pain, Lord?’ he asked quietly when he had come near.

  ‘It will get better,’ his father replied. ‘It is just that the riding has opened the wound a little. Where is Tain?’

  Carnelian looked round and found his brother sitting in between the legs of one of the Marula.

  ‘Are we ready, my Lords?’ said Aurum.

  The Masters made signs of affirmation. Aurum lifted his hand signing, Windspeed.

  On and on like arrows flying. Three watch-towers they ignored but, as the aquar were tiring, they stopped at the fourth that was numbered one hundred and eleven from which Carnelian surmised they would pass one hundred and ten more before reaching Osrakum. Again, exactly the right number of fresh aquar were waiting for them.

  Carnelian felt a giddiness from stopping and the clammy hot clutch of the odoured air. His problems returned, his unease. He hungered for the cool rushing oblivion in the mouthing wind. Instead there was the humdrum rumble from the road below, anxiety over the pain his father concealed, the sight of Tain being passed among the Marula like a parcel. The changeover was faster this time and he breathed his relief when he was up again in the wind that washed everything away.

  At watch-tower sea one hundred and nine, they paused again. Everything had been ready, and they quickly resumed their headlong speed. They had passed one more tower and the next one was just a peg pinning the road’s thread down to the plain when it emitted a spark. Ahead, an aquar flared its plumes as if it had been startled and began to fall back. He saw its rider, Aurum, pulling on its reins, straining to look round. At first Carnelian thought that the Master was looking back at him but soon realized he was looking past him. Carnelian struggled to look round the back of his chair. The watch-tower they had just left was holding a star between its stretched up hands. This disappeared, then reappeared. He watched it flash on and off several times, then nothing. He sat back, rubbing the twisting out of his neck. He froze when he saw the tower ahead giving an answering candle flicker.

  The next time they stopped Carnelian tried to see what it was that was up there, on the platform held up by the watch-tower’s six arms. There was nothing to see. As they set off he made sure to keep his eye on the road ahead.
Two flashes near the rusty horizon confirmed his suspicion. The watch-tower ahead had been informed of their coming.

  Two more watch-towers went by and a third was in sight when Carnelian saw it give a double flash. He was wondering what it could be responding to when they all began to slow. They had soon rocked to a halt. At Aurum’s command, the Marula were dismounting and unhitching their lances from their saddle-chairs. He watched Aurum shape them into a cordon across the road, facing back the way they had come where there was a tower tiny in the distance. He began to bake. His mask felt as if it was sliding off his sweating face. The Guarded Land’s spicy odour hung heavy in the air. It had been there all day, every time they stopped. He gazed out across the land, a becalmed ocean of dust. He walked his aquar to the parapet to look down onto the road. Its smells rose up, reminding him of the weary journey from the sea. The road was too large for the traffic. Its glaring white was only half skinned over with people. He lifted his head high and sniffed the exhalation of the land. Musky earth, pungent hri fields, an undercurrent of human dung.

  Near him the Marula were fidgeting. Over their heads he saw a tiny figure melting towards them in the heat. Its little flame grew slowly larger until he could hear the rhythmic scratching of claws. At last the rider swept up on an aquar identical to the ones they rode, streaming behind him a banner of green and black. Aurum barked an order and the Marula lowered their lances. The rider seemed blind to the thorns awaiting him but at the last moment pulled up, so that the Marula fell back from the frantic flailing of his aquar’s hands.

  ‘Way,’ the rider cried, ‘way!’ He reached forward to stroke calmness into his aquar’s neck.

  The Marula waved their lance blades in his face to force him to dismount.

  ‘Let him through,’ said Aurum.

  The Marula put up their weapons as they opened up a lane through their midst. Without looking at them, the rider thrust his reins into one of their hands and paced towards Aurum. As he came nearer, Aurum grew taller and the little man lost his swagger, bowing as far as his padded leather suit would allow.

  ‘As you must know, Master, I’m a courier and none can stop me.’

  ‘What do you carry?’

  The man looked horrified. ‘A . . . communication for the Mountain, Master.’

  ‘From Nothnaralan?’

  The courier shook his head slowly, staring all the time. ‘The Master knows I mustn’t speak.’

  Aurum put out his hand. ‘Give it to me.’

  The courier took a step back from the hand as if it were a serpent’s head. He looked round him as if seeing the Marula and the other Masters for the first time.

  ‘He speaks truth, my Lord,’ said Vennel in Quya. ‘His office is guaranteed inviolable by the Wise.’

  Ignoring Vennel, Aurum said to the courier, ‘You will give me what you carry or else I will have it taken from your corpse.’ He made a circling motion with his hands and Marula lance heads appeared at the man’s throat. The man licked his lips as he looked into their pitiless yellow eyes. Trembling, he fumbled off one of his gloves and reached behind him to unfasten a packet. He looked at it, hesitated, then handed it to Aurum.

  The Master took the packet and turned away. ‘Destroy him,’ he said.

  ‘But, my Lord. . .’ cried Vennel.

  Carnelian watched the stabbing, blinking at every thrust.

  ‘I will take all the responsibility,’ he heard Aurum say. The Master flicked his hand and the courier’s gory body was hurled over the parapet, then he mounted and began to accelerate off down the road.

  At the next tower they were met by consternation. As the changeover was made, Aurum secluded himself in the tower with its keeper. Carnelian looked in both directions for signals from the neighbouring towers. Aurum returned and, saying nothing, led them off down the road. As he rode, Carnelian looked for and found the usual signal sent ahead to announce their coming to the watch-towers further down the leftway. But that was not all. A long and complex communication followed, flashed from the tower they had just left. He wondered what message was being sent soundlessly through the air to the Wise in Osrakum.

  Thrice more they stopped and thrice more set off again, coursing down the white road that split the world in half. On and on they flew until the sky darkened to night and they slowed, almost blind, lured by a star that seemed to have fallen to the ground.

  The star was a beacon that a watch-tower held aloft. A belt of flames round its waist exaggerated its black mass and cast a lurid glow up into the undersides of its arms. Figures huddled across the bridge, dwarfed by the torso of the tower.

  The Masters slowed and clattered over the bridge. Carnelian gazed out over the light-apron of an encampment that spread round the tower. Beyond its glittering edge there was only night.

  As they dismounted the keeper came towards them.

  ‘Masters, we are unworthy,’ he said, as he and the auxiliaries behind him knelt.

  Aurum swelled vast before him. ‘Everything is ready?’

  ‘All your instructions have been precisely obeyed, my Master. I oversaw the cleansing myself.’

  Aurum swept past him with the others. Carnelian took one look up at the three huge ribs above him, then followed the others behind the monolith into the tower.

  As Carnelian let the quartz beads slide along the abacus strings they made an annoying clink. He angled the frame the other way and grimaced at the sound. He was thinking about his father. His feelings were in turmoil. Clink. Clink. He put the abacus down with a crack on the table and lifted the lamp to look round the cell. It reminded him of the cabin in the baran though it was not so small. He stretched himself out on the sleeping platform. It ran out at his knees. The ceiling was formed by a long barrel of wood that ran diagonally across the cell. He guessed that it was the root of one of the tower’s wooden arms. He kept on seeing his bloodied father. Then he had felt such loss and had been unable to show it. Now the love he bore his father had cooled again and Crail’s blood still trickled between them.

  A knock on the door made him sit up and reach for his mask. He held it before his face. ‘Come.’

  The door opened and something like the ghost of his brother Tain slipped in. Carnelian dropped the mask and they looked at each other. Carnelian forced a smile. He could not bear to see him look so limp. He reached out and pulled him into a hug. He winced when he found Tain was like something made of wood.

  He let him go and blustered, ‘I should’ve expected it. Now that I’m free of the other Master, I can have you back.’ The reek of incense coming off Tain was stronger than that which still clung to the cell from its fumigation. ‘They cleaned you?’

  ‘I had to be purified before approaching a Master,’ said Tain with no change of expression.

  Carnelian nodded, searching for words.

  ‘Is the Master OK?’ Tain said at last.

  ‘He says so.’

  More silence.

  ‘He has no-one to tend to him,’ said Tain.

  Carnelian remembered the boy that Aurum had handed over to be killed. ‘Would you mind . . . ?’

  ‘No,’ said Tain, and began to open the door.

  ‘Please come back . . . after you’ve seen him . . .’

  Tain nodded without turning, then left.

  While he waited, Carnelian busied himself by rummaging through the cell. He found a small cupboard recessed into the wall that gave off a waft of ink as he opened it. The shelves inside were neatly stacked. Some folding parchments in a rack were crammed with geometrical figures, calculations, tables solid with symbols. A tube holding writing styluses stood beside jars of ink. Most curious of all were strange instruments, organisms of brass and bone, with hinged arms and shell edges filigreed with numbers. All these things confirmed his belief that he had been given the cell of one of the watch-tower ammonites.

  He knelt on the bed to peer through a slit in the wall. His eyes filled with the glimmers of the encampment. He was in the tower’s upper storey. There
were two more below him, and then the entrance hall with its cistern. He pushed his face into the slit to breathe in the cooking smells, the warm stink of beasts that overlaid the cloying odour of the land.

  The door opened behind him and he turned to see Tain looking ashen.

  ‘Father?’ Carnelian gasped.

  ‘He’s fine, the wound’s not too deep, but the bandages that have soaked up the blood are rotting.’ Tain scrunched up his nose.

  ‘I’ll go to him,’ said Carnelian, crossing the cell.

  Tain took his arm. ‘You’d better let him sleep, Carnie.’

  Carnelian reached up to trap his brother’s hand against his arm so that he could not pull it away. He examined the narrow face. His little brother had the look of an old man. Their eyes meshed. Carnelian searched Tain’s, thinking about Jaspar’s price. He wanted to say something but could not find a single word.

  Tain gently pulled his hand away and walked over to the bed and started stroking out the creases. His hands looked painfully thin. Carnelian had to have some air and so he put on his mask and left the cell.

  Three sides of the hall had wooden walls into which were set the doors that led into the other cells. The fourth side was formed by the tower’s outer wall. Against its stone was the ladder they had pulled up after them when they had left the Marula in the dormitory storey below. On either side dangled the counterweights that kept it in place. Perhaps as an attempt at humour, these had been shaped like men around whose necks the cables were attached. Beside the ladder were the cables that went down to a longer ladder they had climbed from the entrance hall, past the grooms’ dormitory and into that of the auxiliaries below. Its counterweights were strung up with their heads touching the ceiling. The keel-beam ran over his head and buried itself in the opposite wall. The six ribs coming through the plaster embedded themselves three to each side, in the beam. The whole construction looked like the underside of a grasshopper.