The Chosen (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  When they reached the wild orchards, Carnelian looked back. The Pillar’s shadow had retreated from the Sacred Wall across the Skymere and was now defending the Ydenrim against the morning.

  They wandered up through the terraces, plucking apples and pomegranates from the trees and slipping them into their packs. Hearing water, they found a stream that they followed until it brought them to the wall of the Forbidden Garden. They walked along this until they found a gate that Osidian opened with his key.

  The jewelled colours of the garden were dulled by the Pillar’s shadow. The terraces staircased up to its dark sky-seeking cliff. Barefoot, they wandered paths in the oppressive perfume exhaled by trumpet-throated lilies. Staircases of jasper and mirrored granite were ice under their feet. Carp hung their gold motionless in pools. Trees stood like mourners. Carnelian felt he was trespassing.

  At last they found a pavilion through which water percolated in a thousand twisting rivulets that made the air humid and filled it with melancholy music.

  ‘We must wait until the sun passes overhead,’ said Osidian and laid himself out on a ledge so that Carnelian could hardly believe him not carved from its lifeless stone. He tried to wash away his loneliness with the sacrament of the feeling from the sound of rain. As the shivers coursed up and down his back he tried to focus on how with this ecstasy the Twins had brought into being all living things.

  Osidian woke him wearing a solemn face. ‘It is time.’

  Carnelian watched him tearing strips from the hem of his purple cloak and winding them round his feet and hands. Osidian looked up. ‘Do as I do. The sun will be at its highest. Exposed skin will taint instantly.’

  Carnelian copied Osidian. When they were ready, they stood in the pavilion’s door with the rain sounds behind them. Outside, the garden burned fiercely with hardly a shadow. They ran out into the sun-ray downpour. Soon they began to feel the heat through their hoods and through the silk shoulders of their cloaks. They moved quickly, stopping wherever they could find shade. The kitchen garden gave welcome relief along its narrow half-shaded paths. The garden’s wall had to be climbed with some care. Several times, Carnelian winced as a sleeve fell away to reveal the blinding whiteness of his arm. The sun’s scorch on it seemed to threaten a blistering burn.

  At first they were glad when they dropped down on the other side into the thorn forest. But the canopy was thin and brown. The thorns snagged their cloaks, trying to pluck them off and expose them to the sun’s shrivelling glare. Each time a cloak snagged, it had to be worked free with tedious care. Imprisoned in their cloaks they broiled. At last they reached the shadow that the Pillar was casting towards the east. It was as deliciously cool as the sky-reflecting waters of a mountain lake.

  Osidian drove Carnelian up the Ladder as if they were being hunted. Up and further up they climbed. Carnelian hardly dared to look out across Osrakum. When he did, he had to cling hard to the rock, feeling the wind trying to pluck him off, to send him soaring down into the turquoise world below. Each time, the Pillar’s shadow had stretched further out over the Yden angling slowly towards the south. It was exhaustion that made him stop looking. When his hands had walked their way up to the next handhold, he pressed his cheek against the rock, one eye left free to make sure he was not falling. When they reached each rest cave, he would flop into it, his breath rasping, resentfully mute, waiting with increasing anger for Osidian’s next demand that they press on.

  They were sitting in such a cave when Carnelian refused to go any further.

  ‘But we can make the next stop if we push on,’ Osidian pleaded.

  Looking out, Carnelian could see the tide of shadow was already close to flooding Osrakum’s floor. He was weary. His limbs were trembling. He let his head hang forward. He would not go any further.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ cried Osidian.

  Carnelian looked up and saw disturbing flickerings in his eyes. ‘Nightfall is near.’

  Osidian snorted, saying haughtily, ‘My Lord has quickly gained expertise in judging time.’

  ‘If you wish to go on, my Lord, go. I am remaining here.’

  They ate the fruit they had brought in sullen silence. The sharp, sweet pomegranate juice awoke in Carnelian memories of joy. He glanced at Osidian and felt his anger melting away. The stubble on his head made him seem less a Master. He tried to find a way to his side. ‘Osidian?’

  ‘What?’ said Osidian, his voice, his face, his eyes, all granite.

  Carnelian turned away thinking that perhaps the Yden had been nothing but a dream.

  The morning sun found Carnelian’s face with a single ray. He smiled in his dreams then woke with a start and edged away into a shadow. He could see an arch of sky bright enough to stab pain behind his eyes. Looking away, he found Osidian sleeping in the gloom. He crept close to him and looked into his face. Even in sleep he was frowning his birthmark. Carnelian leaned close, thinking to kiss him, but pulled back when he stirred.

  ‘When do we continue the climb?’ he asked, as he watched Osidian wake.

  ‘When do you think?’

  It was like a slap. Carnelian hid his hurt in silence. Sometimes he would catch Osidian looking at him, his lips parted, and he could see that the boy had something he needed to say. But the words would not come out and Carnelian would lean his head back against the rock, close his eyes and try to make his mind as blank as a drizzling sky.

  The moment they felt shadow come, they left the cave and teetered on the edge of the sky in a wind that came scorching up from the land. Above them, the Pillar’s head still showed the halo of the sun passing behind it. They resumed the climb. The rock that at first had been almost too hot to touch cooled slowly. The wind grew turbulent. As they struggled on, Carnelian nursed his resentment, ignoring the little voice reminding him that Osidian had warned him how terrible the climb would be.

  Even as the sky was darkening, they dragged themselves up into the throat of the Windmoat ravine. Once they had rested a while, they put on their robes, their shoes, their masks, covered themselves with the purple cloaks and climbed up to the ledge. Only a breeze ruffled their cloaks. The heart-stone screens of the ammonites were sieving light along the whole length of the ledge. In contrast, on the opposite side, only a handful of lit windows pricked the gloomy face of the forbidden house. Osidian went ahead, his shape defined by the light freckling through the screen. Through its holes, Carnelian glimpsed the long crowded galleries. Their hive mutter was more insistent than it had been those few days before.

  The library swallowed them into its black silence. It seemed a refuge and Carnelian’s heart sank as they reached the moon-eyed door and removed their masks. ‘So we part here?’ he said, wanting to make it a joint decision.

  ‘No,’ said Osidian. ‘I will come with you at least some of the way.’

  Carnelian was more cheered than he would admit to himself. He led Osidian off along the familiar path back to the Sunhold. After the perfumes of the Yden and the rushing air of the sky, the air was oppressively stale and lifeless. ‘Like a tomb,’ Carnelian muttered.

  Osidian grabbed his shoulder and yanked him round. ‘What do you mean by that, my Lord?’

  Carnelian blinked at him. Osidian’s eyes held bladed light. Carnelian felt rage building up inside him. ‘I meant nothing at all. Do you not find this place grim in comparison with the Forbidden Garden?’

  Without answering him, Osidian launched off into the blackness. Carnelian felt as if a knife point had been taken away from his throat. It made him feel violent.

  They walked in silence until at last they reached the stair that led up to the Sunhold. They were more than halfway up when Osidian stopped. The narrow space was filled with their breathing.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Carnelian asked, exasperated.

  ‘Hush!’ hissed Osidian. ‘Listen.’

  ‘I hear nothing,’ Carnelian whispered.

  Osidian nodded vaguely, his eyes looking far off through the stone.
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br />   The feeling of being shut out made Carnelian’s anger flare. ‘Please let me pass. My Lord evidently has a need to be by himself.’

  Osidian frowned and his eyes came back to focus on Carnelian. ‘What?’

  Now that Osidian was looking at him, Carnelian felt he was behaving like a petulant child. He was incapable of apology so he gave way to coldness. ‘Let me pass.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Osidian, urging him to go down the stairs.

  Carnelian stood his ground. ‘Why?’

  Osidian’s porcelain perfect face looked down at him. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  ‘Explanations.’

  Osidian jerked his finger upwards. ‘Your father is up there and the trapdoor is closed. Do you want to go and knock on it and then appear before him and whoever else might be there, dressed as you are?’

  Carnelian thought about it. Why would his father have returned to the Sunhold? ‘How do you know this?’

  Osidian’s head dropped as if he were dealing with a stupid child. He looked up again. ‘The pulse of the Emperor’s heart has stopped.’

  Carnelian listened for it. Osidian was right. The pulse was gone. His hand came up to his head. The God Emperor was dead. His father was no longer Regent. The God Emperor was dead.

  ‘Will you go down now?’

  Carnelian let Osidian squeeze past and stood for some moments, dazed, as the light receded down the stairs. When he caught up with Osidian, he touched his shoulder. ‘You knew before we came here?’

  ‘Did you not know when you saw the processions of the Chosen moving along the Ydenrim?’

  ‘The election,’ said Carnelian in sudden realization.

  ‘Of course the election,’ snapped Osidian.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘But how will I get back?’ said Carnelian.

  Follow, commanded Osidian’s hand. He walked them to the edge of the nave and into the column forest beyond. As they walked along the back wall, Carnelian could hear Osidian sniffing the air. He lifted his nose and detected the tang of urine.

  When the smell had grown very strong, Osidian lifted the lantern and showed Carnelian a narrow staircase. ‘Up there. Sometimes, guardsmen of the Lesser Lords use this old construction stair when they have need to make water. It comes up into the Encampment.’

  ‘Where there are tyadra, surely there will be Chosen.’

  ‘They will be in the nave observing the Great selling their votes. You should be able to slip through unnoticed to one of the Sunhold’s postern gates.’

  ‘We part here, then?’

  Osidian jerked a nod. Their eyes locked. Each could see that there were words the other wished to say.

  ‘Goodbye then,’ Carnelian managed at last.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Osidian. He handed Carnelian the lantern and disappeared into the darkness.

  *

  In spite of covering his mask’s nostrils with the edges of his cowl, Carnelian found the urine stench grew overpowering as he climbed the steps. He reached a landing whose walls were arched with stains. He hitched up the skirt of his cloak in disgust and walked towards a dim doorway. He stared. Pavilions had been put up everywhere. Perfect rows of them, each made by stretching jewelled cloths between columns. Some were dark but others were lit from within like paper lanterns and glowed the colours of their heraldry. A path narrowed off across to the faraway wall of the Sunhold. But this was no easy route. Along its length it was lit by many filtering pavilions and glimmering along it were Masters with their guardsmen. To left and right were the beginnings of many more such paths. He would have to trust to luck to find his way to the other side unseen.

  As he came out from the shelter of the archway, he heard the muttering and looked over to where the column forest opened into the nave of the Encampment and a brilliant river streamed like a pouring of stars: the thronging Masters in their court robes.

  He shook his eyes free of the wonder and crept into the shadow pooling round a dark pavilion. In the breeze, its cloth walls trembled off a lily scent. He touched its jewelled brocade and bumped his finger along the tail tip of the serpent that doubled back and forth upon itself until its jaws spat out its tongue high above his head. As he came to the column that was the corner of the pavilion he heard voices. He looked round the column and saw guardsmen huddling round a brazier. Their faces carried the same cypher as the wall of the pavilion they guarded. He chanced it. As he walked out, they fell silent watching him. Carnelian ignored the seductive glimmer of the nave in the corner of his eye and breathed more easily once he was between the next pair of pavilions.

  Gradually he made his way across the Encampment, taking a route that avoided the brighter pavilions. He could not avoid them all. Quya came from one whose cloth wall was showing a gigantic shadow play. Others were more sinister, filled with subtle movement, as if they were chrysalises in which vast butterflies were dreaming.

  He was passing near some tyadra when they surged suddenly to their feet. They opened a flap, allowing Carnelian to see an interior like a jewel casket. Two Masters came out, crowned with subdued fire, in massive court robes. Their guardsmen’s heads hardly reached their waists. Carnelian drew back, ducking his head so that the cowl would fall to hide the betraying mirror of his mask, pulling his hands up into his sleeves. He heard the lilt and exquisite enunciation of Quya syllables sounding among the footfalls of their men. He saw the golden dapples around his feet and dared to look up enough to see the Masters slipping past like smouldering trees. He waited some moments. He looked to see them framed by the shimmering nave, then continued on.

  When at last he reached the Sunhold’s wall, he walked along it keeping in the shadows. Recessed into its barbican, the first postern gate had its portcullis down. Through it he could see another gate and a passage curving off. When he struck the bronze some Ichorians came from a side door. Their half-black faces peered out at him.

  ‘Ammonite?’ said one.

  Carnelian opened his cowl so that their light could reflect off his mask.

  They bowed. ‘Master.’

  ‘Open this,’ Carnelian said.

  ‘We can’t, Master.’

  ‘I’m the son of He-who-goes-before.’

  ‘We can’t open this gate under any circumstance, Master,’ they said and shook their heads as they retreated.

  He was in a cold sweat. What if all the doors should be closed against him? How could he appear in the nave before his father’s door dressed as he was? He would humiliate his father and his House before the majesty of all the gathered Great. He leaned back against the Sunhold’s wall cursing softly. His gaze wandered among the pavilions wondering if, with the election upon them, the Chosen ever slept.

  ‘The commander of the Ichorians,’ he muttered. The man might have the authority to let him in. If not, he would have to be coerced into going to get permission from He-who-goes-before. Carnelian grimaced imagining the consequent confrontation with his father.

  He skirted the next postern gate and came to a region where crowds of tyadra had gathered to stare into the nave. Carnelian kept as close as he could to the wall where there were some shadows. The wall swelled to form the bastion of the last gate. He slipped round it, had a glaring impression of the nave and then ducked in towards the gate. The Ichorians there would also not let him in. Putting as much authority as he could into his voice, Carnelian demanded that they go and fetch their commander.

  As he waited he looked out and saw the gapes on the tattooed faces. The guardsmen could have been staring at a city burning. Patches of glimmer slid everywhere, stretching and contracting, finding their faces in the gloom. There was such wonder in their eyes that Carnelian could not resist edging out to see what they were seeing. He was forced to squint against the dazzle. The nave was hung with suns beneath whose showering rays slipped vast shapes, angels sheathed in starlight. Some were jewelled sculptures. Others opened like exquisite mechanisms, spreading their arms to display sleeves like falls o
f sunlit water. White hands fluttered everywhere like doves. He searched and found their masks, faces carved high into the golden towers where each swelled into a huge crown.

  The grate of the portcullis lifting drew him back into its shadows.

  ‘You’re the Master, Suth Carnelian?’

  It took a breath or two for Carnelian’s eyes to adjust to see the grand-cohort commander standing there. Carnelian removed his blood-ring and offered it.

  Eagerly, the commander took it in his tattooed hand and held it up to the light. His whole frame visibly relaxed. He gave Carnelian back his ring. ‘The Twins be thanked, Master. The Sun, our father’s been searching for you.’

  Carnelian almost groaned. ‘When . . . how long ago?’

  ‘He found my Master gone when he took up residence in this place, yesterday, when the sun still shone through the Amber Window.’

  ‘I must go immediately to my chambers.’

  ‘I’ll escort you, Master.’

  ‘Master. Oh, Master.’

  The desperate relief in his guardsmen’s voices alarmed him. He was dirty, standing there in an ammonite robe, and he had to face his father. The commander was watching him.

  ‘Thank you for your escort,’ Carnelian said to him.

  The man bowed but seemed reluctant to go. ‘Your father, Master.’

  Carnelian opened his arms so that the commander might clearly see his purple robe. ‘Shall I go like this?’

  The man’s eyes blinked brightly in his half-black face.

  ‘Once I’m properly attired I’ll go to him.’ He made a sign of dismissal. ‘Now go, Ichorian.’

  Carnelian turned his back on the commander, waiting to hear him walk away before unmasking and surveying his guardsmen. ‘What is it?’ he said, not managing to control the irritation in his voice.

  They thumped to their knees in ones and twos, like fruit falling from a tree.

  ‘Stop grovelling,’ he said dangerously. ‘I’m in no mood for it.’