The Chosen (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  ‘And Aurum?’ he said as a distraction.

  ‘He thinks me weak . . . I let him believe it . . . but I will cheat him yet,’ he looked at Carnelian, ‘with your help, my son.

  ‘You see how they have exploited . . . our disunity . . . cleave to me. When we . . . enter Osrakum, I will be taken into the Labyrinth . . . but you must go to our coomb . . . will write letter . . . trouble there . . . too long away . . . if I die . . .’

  Carnelian began an emotional protest but his father’s hand raised to stay him.

  ‘. . . find Fey . . . let her advise you . . .’

  ‘Aunt Fey? Brin’s sister?’

  His father gave a nod. ‘Beware of the other lineage . . . and my mother . . . she knows nothing of reasons for exile . . .’ The last words were sighs.

  Carnelian could not bear to look at his father’s pain-scrunched face. He busied himself with his handiwork. The bandages over the wound were already blushing.

  ‘We . . .’

  ‘You are squandering your strength, Father.’

  ‘We must save Tain’s eyes.’

  Carnelian looked at him with hope.

  ‘If Jaspar wants you . . . betray me, then betray . . .’ His fingers hooked in spasm. ‘Tell him of the oath . . . blood oath, I swore to Ykoriana . . . best to stay close to truth . . . oath kept me in exile . . .’

  ‘Will he know nothing of its rescinding?’

  ‘He might know of oath . . . but not of . . .’

  ‘Rescinding.’

  Suth lifted his hand. ‘Take it. . .’

  Carnelian gripped his father’s hand. He could feel the pain in its trembling. ‘But—’

  His father’s hand squeezed. ‘There is more.’ He took some ragged breaths. ‘God Emperor and Aurum found a loophole . . . in Law. Oath made as Suth . . . not as He-who-goes-before. As long as I hold . . . post, I am free . . . to return . . . but. . .’

  ‘But Aurum controls the Clave and thus your appointment to that post and can at any point strip you of it and force you back into exile.’

  Carnelian felt his father squeeze his hand.

  ‘I understand, Father. Please rest now.’

  Suth gave another squeeze. Carnelian carefully laid his father’s hand down on the bed and disengaged his grip. He scooped up the filthy bandages and turned to leave. His father’s hand grazed his. Carnelian looked round at him.

  ‘Make sure . . bind him with blood oath.’

  Carnelian leaned forward to kiss his father’s forehead. ‘Sleep, father, I will do everything as you say.’

  The next day his father put on a show of strength. Carnelian rode beside him and helped him make the changeovers. At first he was surprised when Aurum did not challenge his new place. Then he realized how fearful the Master was that his most important piece might yet be snatched from the game.

  ‘My father will die.’ Carnelian hoped to cheat his fear by speaking it.

  ‘If we can get him there in time, the Wise will heal him,’ said Aurum.

  They hurtled down the channel that centuries of couriers had worn in the leftway. Although they maintained a furious pace, it seemed to Carnelian they were not moving at all. Each time they stopped they were in the same place: a watch-tower amidst a simmering plain.

  That night his father began to burn with fever and had to be carried up to his cell. Carnelian tended him and made a bed on the floor beside him. He hardly slept. He cooled his father by smearing water on his face and sprinkling it over his bandaged body. The wound had already stained the new bandaging. Carnelian dabbed the blood with water to soften the crust. His father moaned and whistled like a wind among trees. Carnelian looked down at him bleak with fear. He could not understand how quickly the Master of the Hold had been stripped of all his granite strength.

  Morning found them already slicing through the wind. Another long, long day melted past. Carnelian nodded in a stupor, trying to snatch some sleep. He had still found no chance to be alone with Jaspar.

  The horizon had been thickening for a while before he noticed it. His mask’s eyeslits reduced the glare enough to see there was a definite smudging along the lower sky. His stomach tightened. Although he knew what it was he dared not name it, but watched it grow as they rode a few more stages down the road.

  When next they stopped he saw all eyes looking in that direction.

  ‘My palaces, my treasures, my slaves,’ said Jaspar with greedy delight.

  ‘To be rid of these filthy wrappings,’ said Vennel. Carnelian watched the Master’s mask move round just enough to bring his father within reach of its eyeslits.

  The Marula were gazing at Osrakum as if she were their hated mother. All day they had lolled in their saddle-chairs. At the change-overs they moved with the slow, careful deliberation of the aged. Like his father, they were dying. He could see what Osrakum meant to them but what did she mean to him? The end of this cursed journey? Tain’s blinding? He looked over at his father, slumped lifeless. For the hundredth time, Carnelian reassured himself that his father was only asleep behind his mask.

  ‘We shall not enter her crater today,’ said Aurum.

  Carnelian swung round. ‘In the thousand names of the Twins why not, my Lord?’

  ‘Because it is too far.’

  ‘What is that there?’ Carnelian pointed a stiff finger down the road at the umber burnt into the edge of the opalescent sky.

  ‘Can you not see how low is the sun, my Lord? There is still a long ride to the City at the Gates.’

  ‘But my father—’

  ‘We would not reach the gates themselves before nightfall. We would be forced to lodge in the city. It would do the Lord Suth little good to spend a night breathing the vapours of the Gatemarsh. In the morning, we can finish the journey refreshed.’

  ‘We must think of the Lord Suth,’ said Vennel. He waved a hand. ‘The vapours . . .’

  ‘It is hard to see, my Lord Aurum,’ said Jaspar, ‘how one could find spending a night in another stinking shed at all refreshing. But, no doubt, anticipation will make the reaching of one’s coomb all the more delightful.’ He turned to Carnelian. ‘One finds that pleasure is so often enhanced by the delay in its consummation, neh?’

  It was all Carnelian could do to stop himself ripping away the Master’s mask to punch the dirty smirk off his face.

  Watch-tower sea three rose near the edge of the Gatemarsh: a vast mirror scribbled over with mud calligraphy. The City at the Gates was like a half-rotted golden starfish. Causeway threads pulling out through the marsh formed its arms. A gilded mould grew in the angles. Behind, lifted the Sacred Wall of Osrakum, as if the sun had been hammered flat to make a frieze for the darkening sky.

  Carnelian stood stirred by fear and hope for his father, for his brother, but also he felt a yearning that had the taste of the silver box. The starfish’s head seemed to have cracked a fissure in the golden frieze. His heart was like a bird trapped in his ribcage. That fissure could be nothing other than the beginning of the canyon that led up into Osrakum. He would walk in her crater before the next setting of the sun. It was easier to imagine entering the Underworld.

  *

  Carnelian struggled under his father’s weight to the watch-tower door. While he was getting his breath back, his eyes were drawn back to Osrakum. Aurum was a black spindle around which the Sacred Wall vibrated its gold. He was talking to a Maruli from whom he kept his distance. He threw something that landed on the ground between them. The man bent down, grimacing from the pain, hesitated a bow, crawled into a saddle-chair and sped off. Carnelian watched him shimmer away to nothing against the gold, then heaved his father into the watch-tower.

  The Masters had locked themselves away and so Jaspar was out of reach. Carnelian knuckled patterns of light into his eyelids. Beside him, his father was restless, hot, stuttering half-words, sighing. He was the voice of Carnelian’s despair.

  The babble stopped. Carnelian came awake. He stood up and saw the moonlight catching his father’s op
en eyes. His lips moved. ‘Forgive me.’

  Carnelian took his hand. It was cold and heavy. He laid his lips against his father’s brow and felt that he was kissing underwater stone. He prayed to the Twins, Their avatars, the Two Essences, but all were deaf. He kneaded the Little Mother in his hand and promised her anything if she would save his father. He found the bundle with his clothes and rummaging in it felt the roughness of Ebeny’s blanket. He tugged it out and burrowed his face into it. For a moment he could believe that she was there with them. He pressed it harder to muffle his sobs. When he had done, he stood up and spread it over his father, pulling its edge up so that his father could smell her too.

  ‘Sleep now,’ he whispered and his father obeyed him. Carnelian felt for his hand through the blanket and squeezed it and then lay down.

  He jerked awake breathing hard. His blanket was soaked with sweat. Above him, his father was muttering some fevered incantation. A scent of horror smoked around the edges of the cell. He was reluctant to return to the red face smiling in his dreams. Standing, he swayed a little and stared at the thing muttering on the bed. He did not recognize it. It was something malevolent he had to escape.

  Robe. Mask. Cold stone under his foot. He went out into the silent hall. All the other doors were closed. Moonlight fell in columns round him. He climbed the ladder to the roof.

  Through the copse of the ribs he glimpsed a wonder of stars. He edged across to the inverted arch between the northernmost ribs. The keel-beam ran out from the edge of the roof to the lookout in his deadman’s chair. He walked out towards him. The man turned. Imagining his stare, Carnelian wobbled. He walked further out. Below, the leftway ran its dim canal.

  ‘Master?’ said a fearful voice ahead.

  ‘I will take your watch for a while,’ Carnelian said.

  The man hesitated, then swung himself up onto the beam into a crouch.

  ‘Wait on the roof.’

  The man ducked past with a waft of stale sweat.

  Carnelian took a few more steps forward. A cylinder pushed out from the end of the beam. The hoop formed a halo around this. He reached out, grasped the hoop then swung down onto the cylinder. It rotated, almost throwing him out into space. Trembling, he used the hoop to pull himself back into balance. He was panting hard. Now he understood why it was called a deadman’s chair. At least the fright had brought him some relief from the foreboding. He looked out.

  Down on the road the Marula’s fire had gone out. The land spread away textured with shadow lumps. The snuffling of animals and some voices seemed eerily close. In the direction of Osrakum, the starry sky fell into a gulf of darkness. The heart of the city glowed dimly beneath it. Faint traceries showed the causeways. The land between seemed to be adjusting. He strained to hear something, some human sound that might come to him from the metropolis. There was only the rasp of frogs and, intermittently, the cries of creatures stalking the marshes. He closed his eyes. Breathed deep the sweet air.

  He heard a cry, nearby, muffled. He craned round and saw yellow light in one of the tower’s top-storey windows flicker then go out. His father. He scrambled back onto the beam and sprinted along it to the roof. The hatch formed a glowing rectangle. He found the rungs of the ladder and began descending.

  ‘It wields a dagger.’ A woman, voice raised in anger. No, it was Vennel.

  Carnelian looked through the rungs down into the hall. Vennel loomed with Aurum coming up holding a lantern. Behind them both stood Jaspar. The three formed a frozen tableau of immense black figures, their gold faces smouldering against the deathly white stripe of their throats. All the masks were half turned away, peering off into a dark corner. Aurum lifted the lantern high, so that its edge of light pulled up the further wall. On the floor was the tight hooked figure of a man. A black man. A Maruli, shaking, with sliding slitted eyes and a blade fanging down from his fist.

  As Carnelian slipped down into the room, the Maruli turned, sensing him. Carnelian knew the man’s face. He saw it twisting, the lips drawing back from feral teeth, hissing.

  Aurum took a step forward. ‘Abase yourself before your Masters, slave.’ His voice filled the hall.

  The black man flinched but his face remained hard with defiance.

  Aurum unmasked to reveal his cold white anger.

  The black man cowered away, almost closing his eyes. The blade trembled in his grip.

  ‘Kneel!’ boomed Aurum.

  The black man closed like a mussel.

  ‘Hold these,’ Aurum said quietly, thrusting the lantern and mask into Vennel’s hands. Shadows slid this way and that as Vennel fumbled, then they steadied.

  ‘Come, kneel, it’ll be better that way. It’ll be better,’ coaxed Aurum.

  The black man’s knees cracked against the floor. He bowed his head, his arm still out to one side, stiff clutching the knife.

  Aurum took a few strides towards him, bent down, grabbed the man’s hair, yanked back his head. In the glare of the Master’s face, Carnelian saw the amber eyes strain round with terror. There was a glint at the black man’s throat, a slicking sound. He gurgled, then grimaced. Aurum kicked his body away with a snort, wiping his hand down his robe. The black man twitched, face down on the floor, a black halo spreading round his head, his fist still gripping the knife.

  Vennel was frozen. ‘It tried to kill me.’

  Jaspar circled the corpse as if it were a rabid animal. After surveying it he moved in, placed a ranga shoe on the wrist, crunched it down against the floor. Using a fold of his robe, he stooped down and worked the knife out of the dead man’s grip. He held it up. ‘A kitchen knife?’ He sounded amazed. He flung it away with a clatter that made Carnelian jump.

  ‘That it should dare threaten one of the Chosen,’ said Vennel. ‘It is quite, quite, quite unbelievable.’

  ‘It was attacking you?’ Jaspar demanded.

  ‘It sought my life.’

  ‘It was me he was trying to kill,’ said Carnelian quietly.

  Two masks and the old man’s face snapped towards him.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ said Aurum.

  Carnelian looked down at the man lying in the blood. ‘He saw my face.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That man lying there, he saw my face. The night we were attacked, he saw my face.’

  ‘You little fool,’ said Vennel, lunging towards Carnelian.

  Aurum overtook him. He caught Carnelian by the shoulders and shook him till his mask was askew. ‘Why did you say nothing at the time?’

  Carnelian tore free of Aurum’s hands and stared back into his cold eyes. He tried to slide the mask back into place. ‘I did not want him to die. Not when his sin had come from the saving of our lives.’

  Jaspar coughed a nervous laugh. Carnelian glared at him. He was close to blurting out that not only he but also Jaspar had been guilty of the same sin. The same sin, except that at least Carnelian had demanded nothing for his silence.

  Suddenly, he was shoved round so that he was looking at the man bleeding over the floor. He looked away.

  ‘Look at it,’ Aurum said. ‘Look at it, I say.’

  Carnelian obeyed. The gash was a slack-lipped smile opening a mouth in the corpse’s throat.

  ‘That thing could have spilled your precious blood.’ Aurum’s fingers dug into his arm. ‘The Law of Concealment must be obeyed. It is not some arbitrary nonsense. It is meant to stop that!’ His finger jabbed at the corpse.

  ‘Look,’ shrilled Vennel, ‘look.’ He pointed at Carnelian’s feet. ‘He does not even wear the ranga.’

  Aurum released him, turned away.

  ‘One would have thought the boy would have learned something from the debacle on the baran,’ said Vennel.

  Hatred of the Masters overpowered Carnelian. He remembered Crail. He remembered that they had opened the chasm between him and his own father, whom even now they were expecting to die. He remembered Jaspar using Tain’s eyes to bait his trap. He opened his mouth to spit his bitternes
s at them but at that moment his father’s ravings came from behind the door, and he felt his anger seep away.

  ‘Now we see the consequences of all this secrecy,’ said Vennel. ‘If we had travelled with our guardsmen this would never have happened.’

  Aurum turned an icy face to Carnelian. ‘Go and sleep.’

  Carnelian went to his father, remembering what he had said. Before he closed the door, he heard Aurum say, ‘We had better hide the carcass . . . Yes, with our own hands. Everything must be done to avoid this contagion of rebellion spreading to the others. The creatures will all have to be destroyed.’

  CROSSING the WHEEL

  Facilitate commerce, encourage avarice, allow the widest variation in

  rank and wealth: let our subjects find enemies amongst themselves. The

  slave who is thrown the leavings from his master’s table,

  will not have the stomach for rebellion.

  (a precept of the Wise, from the Domain of Tribute)

  CARNELIAN HAD HIS BACK AGAINST THE BED. HE SO WANTED TO SLEEP but he had to guard the embers of his father’s life. In his grip, his father’s hand felt like ice. All night Carnelian had held on to him to stop him being tugged away. His muscles ached from the effort. Each time death pulled, his father would first heat like a kettle, raving ever more loudly, then cool until the sweat was beading on his skin. Silence would then come so suddenly that each time Carnelian thought him gone. A whisper of breath, a tiny trembling in a vein would turn his grief to anger. He would stare at the fevered face, grinding his teeth, wanting to rail at his father, to blame him, to tell him that it was not fair to leave him alone to shoulder all the burden. When he had managed to pack the anger back in somewhere he dried his father’s face and rewrapped his body in the covers he had thrown off. Drowsing over him Carnelian would sometimes become aware that his hand was stroking his father’s head or his lips were mumbling one of Ebeny’s healing songs. Once he wondered if it was perhaps their charm that stoked the fire inside his father’s shell until it glowed red again and the babbling came hissing out. He had stood watch over him as long as he could, then had slumped to the floor, his head a hollowed stone in his hands.