The boy gazed into the distance. Carnelian could see his reluctance to give up his name. ‘I am of the House of the Masks,’ the boy said at last.
They looked at each other, Carnelian willing him to say his birth name. The boy lowered his eyes. What shame was there in coming from the God Emperor’s own House? Unless . . .? It came to Carnelian then. He realized whence the resemblance that had been nagging him came. He looked at the boy’s face and imagined another identical beside it, sybling-joined. The likeness to the Lords Hanus was unmistakable.
‘You have a twin?’ Carnelian asked, letting the boy know that he knew what he was and did not mind.
The boy looked up. He raised an eyebrow. ‘I do.’
Carnelian pushed warmth out into a smile. Although the boy was an unjoined sybling, his blood-ring proved that he was Chosen. His behaviour suggested that he was ashamed of his low blood-rank. In spite of being fathered by the Gods, his concubine mother must have badly tainted his blood.
‘Can you not guess what my name is, then?’ the boy said, both his eyebrows rising.
Carnelian shook his head, frowned. ‘Should I?’
A slow smile spread over the boy’s face. ‘I am Osidian.’
‘I am honoured to know you, Osidian.’ Carnelian was glad that he was free of the blood pride that might have made him keep his distance from the boy.
‘Tomorrow, then,’ Osidian said.
‘Tomorrow . . . Osidian.’
The boy went back through the door, and as he closed it behind him he healed the cut in the moon’s eye.
The next morning, Osidian was waiting for Carnelian as he had promised. The boy said nothing as he led Carnelian into the Library of the Wise. The lantern light revealed the rich jewel seams of the beadcord as they moved through the chamber. At last they stopped at a beadcord chair. Again, Osidian urged him to sit down and going off came back with a reel that, in the dark, with his help, Carnelian began to read.
They began by revising the syllabic beads but quickly moved on to more complex ones. Fluted spheres like coriander seeds. Glossy shapes like beetles. Beads with the texture of cold skin that Carnelian guessed were amber, others he knew were metal by the way they drew warmth from his fingers. Pumice, rough but floatingly light. Wood, waxed and unwaxed. Each was a word, an idea. Fumbling them, Carnelian was reminded of learning his glyphs. Haltingly he whispered each bead’s meaning. Whenever he stopped, Osidian’s fingers would take the bead from him, and read it. Sometimes, Osidian would run his fingers back along the beadcord to find one they had read earlier and, squeezing it into Carnelian’s fingers, would point out the similarities in shape or texture that reflected a similarity in their meanings. Thus, Carnelian discovered that each bead that represented a creature had a pimple head. That smooth curving often implied liquid; lightness, air; corners, something made by craft. The same shape with different temperatures often determined a spectrum of emotion.
Bead by bead, a story began to unspool in Carnelian’s mind. Obsidian-faced, a God Emperor issued forth from Osrakum, riding in some fabled chariot of iron so huge it was honeycombed with chambers. With towered huimur They had gone southwards across the Guarded Land. Every being They saw They slew, being the incarnation of the Black One, the Plague Breathing, the Lord of Death.
‘This is a story?’ he whispered.
‘History,’ hissed Osidian. ‘Read on.’
The annal continued. Somewhere along the southern edge of the Ringwall, the Gods descended with Their host. Down to a vast plain teeming with life. Carnelian could see herds shoaling like fish. Through this crowding flesh the Chosen host cut a swathe till the earth had been stained as red as the Guarded Land. Barbarian cities, rude, enclosed with wooden walls. The Gods’ black tide lapped their ditches, igniting the palisades like the dawning sun. Carnelian bit his lip anxious for the next bead, impatient with himself when he could not find its meaning. As each squeezed like a pip through his fingers, he felt the earth shake, he was as blinded by the huimur flame-pipes as the barbarians. The beads let him look down from the vantage point of a huimur tower and watch the barbarians flee before their fire. Remembering the ants Aurum had torched on the road, Carnelian shuddered. Huts and children trampled by thunder. Their world turned to ash. The Gods swept, unsated, seeking new victims beyond the smoke-clogged horizon.
Osidian brought him other reels. More campaigns. They studied the dates. The days they spoke of were more than a thousand years dead.
‘So much carnage,’ Carnelian said at last. The beads were becoming shapeless, their voices muffled.
‘Even barbarians cannot be brought under a yoke by persuasion,’ said Osidian. ‘Anciently, they were proud. We broke their will with terror. Once, through fear of the Twin Gods, all the world paid us tribute.’
‘Of children?’ Carnelian asked, bringing his knees up to his chest, hugging them, seeing Ebeny.
‘Not just children, all the fruits of the Three Lands.’
‘Is this necessary?’
‘If beasts are allowed to come into a garden will they not trample it?’
Carnelian forced himself to consider this.
‘Do you wish to read more?’
‘No. My fingers can no longer hear the beads.’
‘Perhaps it is best. My blood afflicts me.’
‘It burns?’ asked Carnelian.
‘In my bones.’
Carnelian worried that he had never felt it.
‘Rewind the cord.’
Carnelian slipped his feet down to the treadle. There was a rattle and a quivering in the chair and then silence. He waited. He could hear nothing. His eyes were making shapes in the dark.
‘Come, I will take you back to the door.’
The voice speaking suddenly beside Carnelian made him start. He grew angry. ‘How do you see in the dark?’
‘See?’
‘You find your way—’
The darkness chuckled. There was a fumbling. Sudden light daggered Carnelian’s eyes and made him wince. ‘You could have warned me.’
‘Sssh!’
Carnelian saw Osidian’s eyes were the purest jade.
Take off your shoes, he signed.
What? Carnelian chopped back.
‘If my Lord pleases, his shoes . . .’
Grumbling, Carnelian stooped and took them off.
Osidian urged him off the chair. The light receded as he walked away, backwards, still hooking his finger at Carnelian to follow.
Carnelian did so, grinding his teeth, wanting to hit him.
And?
Carnelian opened his hands, not understanding.
Your feet. Do you feel nothing under your feet?
Carnelian became aware the floor was textured. He looked down, crouched. Bring the light closer, he signed. As the floor brightened, he saw it was carved. He touched the embossed surfaces. Osidian’s white hand strayed across some patterns.
‘All of these are paths,’ he whispered. ‘You follow them with your feet. North Door, South Door.’ He stroked one pattern after another. ‘East Door, West.’ Still crouching, he rocked himself a little way off and pointed down. Carnelian followed his finger, touched the eye carved into the floor.
‘The path to the moon-eyed door.’
‘Exactly.’ Osidian stood up. ‘Will my Lord care to try for himself, this seeing in the dark?’
Carnelian straightened, smiling even as the light went out. He found the eye with his toe. He took a step and after sliding his foot around a bit found another eye. He took another step.
‘Like stepping stones,’ he muttered, finding the measure of the stride that took him smoothly from one eye to the next.
He followed the path, at first certain that he was about to walk into a bench or a wall. After a while he grew more confident and soon was moving comfortably through the darkness.
He seemed to have been walking for ever when suddenly he stepped forward and there was no eye under his foot. He stopped and Osidian walked into him. Ca
rnelian clutched him to avoid falling. The body under his fingers was like wood. He could smell Osidian’s skin. ‘My Lord, forgive me.’ He stepped back.
‘Hide your eyes,’ Osidian said.
Light flared. Carnelian squinted till his eyes were able to see again. Looking round, he saw they were standing near the silver door. He began putting on his shoes.
‘Will you come again?’ Osidian asked.
Carnelian looked up at him, nodded.
As he walked back, Carnelian caught a scent coming off his shoulder that he recognized was Osidian’s.
Carnelian smiled when he saw Osidian waiting for him. ‘Will we be able to go together in darkness?’ he asked.
Osidian shook his head. He pointed at the floor. ‘Which path would you follow?’
Carnelian looked. The stone was as marked with trails as mud at a market.
‘There are paths here leading to various points in the library but none going to the chamber I want to go to.’
Carnelian deflated. ‘Then one must know where the chamber lies in the library maze?’
Osidian lifted his hand in the affirmative. ‘A labyrinth can be a better defence than the strongest gate. Still, we can go through the darkness like children.’ He offered Carnelian his hand.
Carnelian looked at it, embarrassed, shook his head. ‘It would be easier to use the lantern.’
Osidian took back his hand and frowned. ‘As you will.’ He strode off stiff-shouldered.
Cursing himself, Carnelian followed.
All that day Carnelian read the annals of God Emperors whose column sepulchres, Osidian told him, were some of the first put up in the Labyrinth. Carnelian came to realize that once the Labyrinth had been only a processional way. He was reading faster and hardly had to ask Osidian to help him.
Later, when he had grown weary of the interminable descriptions of conquest, he told the darkness that he wanted to leave. He found Osidian’s hands as they fumbled with the lantern and gripped them. ‘There is no need for light, no need for you to come. I will make my way back to the door myself.’
‘And tomorrow?’ said the darkness.
Carnelian felt as if he were in a dream haunted by the voice in the beads.
‘We could try something different tomorrow, if you want.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, there are chambers filled with the reels of the Law and its commentaries, with the ‘Ilkaya’ and other mystical works. There are technical treatises on just about any topic you could imagine. The records of the flesh tithe, tribute, taxation of the cities, censuses of the barbarian tribes. The Books of Blood—’
‘Where the blood-taints of the Chosen are kept?’
‘Every Chosen who has ever lived.’
‘The Books of Blood then,’ whispered Carnelian, and, taking the unlit lantern, he strode off along the path of eyes.
The following day, Osidian was waiting for him. The walk through the library seemed longer than usual. They reached a chamber that smelled of freshly spilled blood. Uneasy, Carnelian lifted his lantern. It was a chamber larger than the others with many benches. All the beadcord he could see was dull and black. The reels were only as thick as his wrist. He took the lantern close to one, ran his fingers over its beads, then smelled them. It was as he had suspected. ‘Iron.’
‘These are the Books of Blood,’ said Osidian.
Carnelian looked round, trying to calculate the value of such treasure.
‘Look here,’ said Osidian, touching the tip of a spindle.
Carnelian came to look. Carved into its top was the cypher of a Chosen House.
‘Your reels will be over there somewhere, with the rest of the Great,’ Osidian whispered near his ear.
Carnelian walked away in the direction indicated. Spindle by spindle they searched for the chameleon, moving from one bench to the next.
‘Here,’ hissed Osidian.
Carnelian joined him and saw the chameleon carved dancing into the spindle’s tip above the six stacked reels. How many people of my House? he signed.
Osidian shrugged. ‘Your House is as ancient as the Commonwealth.’ The beads clinked like armour as he ran his fingers down the stack. ‘The reels are fat. The blood-taint of maybe,’ he shrugged again, ‘eight twenties of generations.’
Carnelian took hold of the topmost reel. He could feel the beads shifting under his hands. He lifted the reel carefully off the chameleoned spindle. It was as heavy as a stone. Osidian pointed out a chair. Carnelian carried the reel against his chest and impaled it on the chair spike. He was glad when Osidian closed the lantern’s shutter. For some reason, the reel’s rusty blacks were reminding him of massacres.
The beads soon absorbed him. They were simple to learn. Most of the beadcord was made up of the numbers one to nineteen, with a bead like a berry for zero. It was strange to feel the first name he came to was his own. He ran the cold, rough beads through his fingers again and heard them say his name, Carnelian. The beads after that were his blood-taint: zero, zero, one, nineteen, zero, nine, fourteen, sixteen, nine, thirteen, fifteen. The next name along the beadcord was his mother’s, Azurea, followed by the first few beads of her blood-taint: zero, zero, zero. He ran the beads through his fingers again. Three zeros. Blood-rank three. Such purity. It made him proud. He read the next numbers almost trying to feel something of his mother in them. Two, one, three, nineteen, nine, sixteen, seventeen, ten. There was nothing there but cold iron. Beyond the separator bead was Suth Sardian, his father, and the numbers: two zeros matching his and then a three, fifteen, nineteen, fifteen again, ten, three, two, ten.
He read on, finding Spinel’s blood-taint and the others of his House’s second lineage. Next came the third lineage. Then he found his grandfather’s name, his grandmother Urquentha’s, the parents of Spinel and so on, further and further back in time. His father’s father’s father. Numbers and strange names rolled through his head as he wound them up from the ancient past.
He released the beadcord, sat back bewildered, awed by the tale of years, feeling he was like the Pillar of Heaven holding up a skyful of ancestors.
‘I’ve had enough,’ he whispered. He had forgotten Osidian. Convinced suddenly that he was alone, Carnelian felt around. His hand found him.
‘I am here, Carnelian. Where else do you think I would be?’
‘Looking up your own bloodline.’
There was a long silence.
‘I know my blood,’ Osidian said.
‘I did not mean—’
‘It does not matter,’ whispered Osidian. ‘Can you find your own way back?’
‘Well, yes . . .’
‘Farewell then,’ said Osidian and with a waft of air was gone.
Later, in his chamber in the Sunhold, Carnelian was wondering for the hundredth time if he would ever see Osidian again. He had replayed those last few words endlessly in his mind. Each time he had felt a stabbing in his guts. Why had he so carelessly offended him? His stomach ached as the words circled round in his head like carrion crows.
He went to bed early and ate nothing. Sleep would not come. When it did, it brought dreams. All night he fumbled blindly over a stony beach seeking the pebble that would whisper to him its answer.
Carnelian awoke feeling tired. Sullenly, he determined he would not go to the moon-eyed door. He told himself that he did not want to. Eventually he had to confess he was reluctant to go in case Osidian should not be there. He turned his anger on himself until fear of never seeing Osidian again made him leap up. He rushed through his dressing, cursing. It was already morning.
He took less care going to the trapdoor than usual. Halfway down the steps he found that he was counting them, swore and stopped, though each footfall was like a bead slipping through his fingers. He thought he had prepared himself for the disappointment but when he reached the moon-eyed door he found its blank gaze withering. Osidian was not in his usual place. That was the end of it. Still, he could not bring himself to turn away. He heard t
he clink and saw it opening. Osidian walked out and Carnelian lurched a few steps towards him then stopped. ‘Osidian.’ Relief thinned his voice.
The boy’s eyes were like summer sea. He twitched a smile. ‘What shall it be today, my Lord?’
Carnelian tried to think through the blood pulsing in his head. He ran through what he remembered Osidian had said the day before. ‘History?’ he suggested.
Osidian showed surprise. ‘I thought you did not like history.’
‘There is more to history than conquests.’ He racked his mind for a topic. For some reason he recalled the Masters arguing theology that night on the watch-tower roof.
‘The beginning.’
‘The creation?’
‘The beginning of the Commonwealth. The Quyans. The Great Death. Does the library contain reels going that far back?’
Osidian’s brow creased. ‘I have never sought such antiquity. What you speak of is more religion than history. Still . . .’
Carnelian grew calm watching Osidian thinking. There was so much he wanted to know about this strange boy but he feared to make even the smallest enquiry.
‘There is one place to find out if such a reel exists.’
‘Let us go there, then.’
Osidian made his hand into a barrier sign. ‘Less haste. We will have to be careful of the Wise. Most of them are busy calculating the Rains’ arrival, arranging the Rebirth; that is why we have seen nothing of them. But what you seek lies at the library’s heart, the very centre of their web. Many will still be there and they will detect the slightest vibration. We must be as silent as shadows.’
Carnelian nodded, his pulse quickening again.
Carnelian crept into the library after Osidian, who was holding the lantern up to light their way. After a few chambers, Carnelian reached out to touch Osidian’s shoulder. The boy turned round, raising his eyebrows.
The lantern? Carnelian signed.
Osidian grinned. Yes, it is one.
Carnelian made a face at him. It is very bright.
Here the only eyes are ours, replied Osidian, constructing complicated signs with his free hand. The light will help you avoid bumping into anything.
Carnelian gave a snort and they went on.
The Chosen (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon) Page 47
