The Chosen (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  ‘Did I do right to let the Master in?’

  Carnelian grabbed him, hugged him, kissed him. ‘Never have you done so right.’

  Tain smiled uncertainly. ‘He gave you joy?’

  ‘Joy, yes, and . . .’ Carnelian stopped, his limbs seeming suddenly cast from lead ‘. . . despair.’

  Tain could not understand it at all. It seemed a kind of madness.

  ‘Yes, it is a kind of madness,’ Carnelian said, smiling sadly. ‘Such consuming fire . . .’

  Tain brought him food, and cleaned him when he stood still long enough. He tried to chat and sometimes Carnelian seemed to listen, but then he would narrow his eyes and look away. Tain made a bed for himself upon the floor. When he turned off the lamp, he could almost feel Carnelian staring into the darkness.

  Tain could not wake Carnelian. He shook him, a wail beginning to escape through his gape. Suddenly, Carnelian came alive, gulping as if Tain had just drawn him up drowning from the depths of a well. His arms locked around the boy, squeezing.

  ‘Carnie! Carnie!’ Tain cried as he struggled to free himself.

  Carnelian kissed his neck with passion. ‘Terrible, terrible, terrible,’ he muttered.

  Tain was scared. ‘Carnie, Master, please let go.’

  Carnelian opened his eyes impossibly wide. His arms lost all their strength and Tain fell out of them. Carnelian put his hands to his face. ‘Sorry, I didn’t . . . it was . . .’ He sighed, shaking his head, backing away up the bed. ‘A dream . . .’ His mouth gaped, his eyebrows twitched.

  Tain stared for moments, then, ‘Today . . . we must get ready to leave today.’

  ‘Today,’ echoed Carnelian. He remembered the letter. He stumbled off the bed and found it where he had left it. He stared at it, knowing he must tear it up. His mind saw his hands tearing it but instead they gave it to Tain. Carnelian turned to focus on Tain standing gripping the letter. It was already out of reach. He felt suddenly free, as if he had escaped from a court robe of stone.

  He smiled at Tain. ‘I’ll not be coming with you.’

  Tain frowned, looked nervously down at the letter in his hands and back up at Carnelian.

  ‘I’ve been a little distraught, Tain. Don’t worry about it. I’m going away but will join you in a day or two. Please, give that to the Master this evening. Don’t give it to him earlier. If he asks tell him that I commanded you. Once he reads it, he’ll understand.’

  ‘But Carnie . . . where are you going?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. You’ll do as I say?’

  Tain looked miserable, but he gave a hard nod.

  ‘That’s good. Now let’s get me cleaned up a bit.’

  *

  As Carnelian said his farewells to Tain, he assured him that he would see him in the Labyrinth the next day, the day after at the latest. Then he left the chamber.

  The corridor was a flurry of packing. Guardsmen dropped what they were doing to escort him but he sent them back to their work.

  The Ichorians at the mouth of the tunnel into the Sun in Splendour were more difficult to persuade, but eventually they too gave way and opened the portcullises.

  The air in the Sun in Splendour was rosy-hued. He crossed to the trapdoor and opened it. He lit his lantern and hesitated for a moment looking down into the darkness, then went quickly down. After the commotion above, the silence was eerie. Doubts came crowding in with the blackness. He stopped and could just hear faint sounds coming down the stair. He lifted the lantern to push back the gloom and reveal more steps below him. He imagined Osidian waiting for him at the moon-eyed door. The thought of him quickened his heart. He laughed at the darkness. Osidian was a bright beacon.

  He walked through the midnight halls. Unusual brightness swelled ahead. His steps faltered. He shuttered the lantern. Soon it was bright enough for him to see his way without it. He listened for voices. He drew closer and looked into the great round chamber. Lamps had been hung all round its wall. The door to the library was gaping open. Arranged before it, like sarcophagi washed out by a flood, were rows and rows of chests. Hearing nothing, Carnelian crept into the light. He looked at one of the chests. It was long and narrow and had five rows of paired golden nipples on its top. Its side was studded with silver spirals. Nearer the floor, a long carrying pole passed through several rings of brass. He realized it was a bead-cord bench closed for transport. The Wise were taking their library down with them to the Labyrinth. He heard footsteps and saw light swaying through the silver door. He looked round desperately, stomach churning. What if Osidian had not come?

  ‘Carnelian.’ His name strained from the gloom behind him. He looked wildly at the light shaking out through the moon-eyed door. He peered round into the dark. Something pale rushed out.

  ‘Osid—’ he began joyfully but his arm was yanked as he was dragged off into the shadows. A hand clapped across his mouth. He leant back into the warm body. He could feel Osidian’s breath on his ear. He pushed back harder.

  ‘Stop it,’ was hissed in his ear but followed by a kiss. Carnelian watched as ammonites appeared with a chest hanging in the air between them. He could see their faces, disfigured with numbers. They negotiated several chests until they found a space in which to put their burden down. They filed back into the library. Carnelian turned in Osidian’s grip and sank his weight into him. They kissed then moved apart. Osidian offered his hand and Carnelian took it. He let himself be led through a doorway. Deeper and deeper into the darkness they went until Carnelian could see nothing and was stumbling. Osidian stopped and pulled him close. Carnelian felt Osidian’s face with his lips. Osidian pushed him gently away, chuckling. ‘This is neither the time nor the place.’

  Carnelian tried again.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Osidian said firmly.

  Carnelian pulled back.

  ‘Are you sure you still want to do this?’

  ‘More than ever,’ said Carnelian, burning with need. ‘Will we have to wait until they’ve cleared the library?’

  ‘That’ll take days.’

  ‘What can—’

  ‘There’s another way.’ Osidian fumbled their hands together.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s funny that the Gods-to-be should be creeping around in the blackness?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Osidian said through a smile. ‘Now walk carefully, and by the blood, keep quiet.’

  They felt their way through the darkness with their feet until they came through a door into the Windmoat. They walked along it towards the morning sky. The heart-stone screens on their left were dark. No sound came from behind them. The windows in the wall of the forbidden house were blind. They descended into the ravine. In its gullet they prepared themselves with the thick paint as they had done before although this time they helped put it on each other with much biting, mock anger, laughter.

  Then it was out into the morning. From the east the crescent shadow of the Sacred Wall matched the curving Ydenrim. Between the two was a gleaming scythe of the Skymere. They turned their faces into the southern wind. Carnelian stared. The sky was brooding black. The Rains could not be more than a few days distant. They looked away, saying nothing, their joy subdued.

  The descent was long and hard. There was time for nothing but the next foothold, the next weathered flight of steps. The sun rose higher and higher into the sky and scorched them. The crater was a seductive mirage, with its gleaming arcs of precious blues and greens.

  When the sun slid behind the Pillar’s gleaming head they were suspended between earth and sky. Above and below them the Pillar narrowed. Carnelian felt that they were flies crawling on the edge of a diamond. The screaming wind soon turned their relief to shivering. They wrapped themselves up as best they could but still they had to cling with numbing fingers to the rock. Down and down they climbed and the earth seemed never any closer. Only the shadow of the Pillar jutting out below and the increasing ache in their muscles told of the passing time.

  By late afternoon they were among the rookeries
of the sky-saurians. Carnelian had a notion to go and rest in the shrine but Osidian urged him on.

  The shadow of the Pillar was already nosing its way across the Skymere when they reached the ground. They took a short rest, some water and a little hri cake, but Osidian drove them on. They scratched through the thorn forest to the wall of the Forbidden Garden. Sitting astride its stones they saw the shadow of the western Sacred Wall was already slicing through the heart of the Yden. The lagoons lay in its night.

  They dropped into the garden and made their way as quickly as they could down through its terraces to the outer wall. As Osidian was opening a gate the shadow of the Sacred Wall was already coming up through the trees. In the orchard, twilight pulled over them like a blanket. Shadows grew rosy from the reflected fiery reds of the sky. Night had fallen before they reached the first lagoon.

  They waited for the moon, each locked in the prison of his own thoughts. This was not how Carnelian had expected it to be. He looked sidelong at Osidian’s face. It was too dark to see its expression. How could Osidian be thinking of anything other than his Apotheosis? He should even then have been at the heart of his household, being carried down in the midst of the pilgrimage of the Great.

  Stars were dusting the mirror lagoons. Frogs were rasping. Mosquitoes were sewing the air with needle flight. This was the last night of his freedom. Carnelian was filled with a desperate longing, but Osidian was a tower invulnerable to assault.

  ‘What’re you thinking?’ Carnelian asked.

  The tower moved. ‘Of many things.’

  ‘Apotheosis?’

  ‘Not just of that.’

  ‘Would you have preferred to be now in the Labyrinth?’

  The tower loomed close. Carnelian felt Osidian’s arms encircling him, drawing him close. He rested his head in the angle between Osidian’s neck and shoulder. Their clothes were masking the passion in their skins.

  ‘I would possess you,’ Carnelian whispered.

  ‘You do,’ breathed Osidian on his neck.

  They tightened the circles of their arms as if they wished to merge their flesh.

  ‘Your bones are my bones,’ breathed Carnelian.

  ‘Your skin my skin,’ said Osidian.

  ‘My heart is yours.’

  ‘My blood runs in your veins.’

  At that moment they felt the moonlight falling round them. Carnelian lifted his head and looked into Osidian’s dark eyes and was consumed by a fierce, terrible joy. He kissed Osidian as if he sought to swallow all the breath from his lungs. He disengaged. ‘Shall we swim?’

  ‘Like fish,’ said Osidian and laughed.

  They broke apart, tore their clothes off. Carnelian was free first. He raced off down the moon path towards the water. He could hear Osidian’s footfalls hammering after him. Lily pads clustered at the shore like boats. Carnelian did not check his speed. He ran across the pads, felt them buckling, ran faster, lost balance, two more steps and then he was rifling through the air. He saw himself mirrored in the surface, smashed it and went under. The water was as warm as blood.

  Carnelian came up first into the wafting warm perfume of the air. He turned to see Osidian rising from the pool like a spirit forming from the foam.

  He heard something or sensed some movement. He tried to pierce the shadows under the trees with his eyes. Black shapes, like men. He stiffened. It was like the night they had wounded his father. He had half turned his head to give Osidian warning, when the air was ruffled by footfalls.

  ‘What. . . ?’ Osidian said near him.

  They crept into the moonlight. Swarthy stunted men, eyes round as if they were seeing demons. They lifted cudgels as they closed their crescent round them.

  ‘The Twins,’ cried Osidian as he dashed his white body into them.

  Carnelian groaned as he watched them blur his brightness with their squat bodies. Their cudgels raised and began to fall like hammers. It was the cries of pain from Osidian that freed Carnelian. He crashed forward using his fists like clubs. Each blow hurt his hands but he would not stop. Their attackers pulled back exposing Osidian. He was on one knee staring at his hand.

  Carnelian moved towards him, turning round and round as he went, seeing their attackers closing, their cudgels lifting. He reached out behind him. His fingers found Osidian’s shoulder. ‘Get up,’ he said.

  Osidian did not move.

  Carnelian whisked round and grabbed him. ‘Get up!’ he cried, yanking Osidian to his feet. He put his back to Osidian’s. He glared at the little men. He felt the stickiness in his hand. He brought it to his mouth, tasted it. ‘Blood . . .’ He felt the rage surge in him. Osidian’s blood.

  After that he could see nothing. He was clawing through their flesh. He was smashing his head into their faces. Their rancid smell was smearing on his skin with their blood. Their grappling-hook hands dug into him. Blows fell on his back, his arms. They were hanging off him. He swung, dislodging some. He was weakening. They were slowing him with their weight, with pain. A wall crashed into his head and their cries thinned to blackness.

  FUNERARY URNS

  To achieve Doubling the poison must be administered not later than ten days from conception. The initial dosage should be the size of a pigeon’s eye. Thereafter this should be increased daily by an additional dose, this regime to be followed for at least sixteen days. The poison may lead to various levels of morbidity in the mother but rarely to death. One in three offspring will be lost. The level of separation of the product sybling cannot be predicted.

  (extract from a beadcord manual of the Domain of Immortality)

  A KNIFE WAS STABBING INTO CARNELIAN’S HEAD, OVER AND OVER AGAIN. His body was a piece of meat. He tried to move his hand up to his head but it would not budge. His eyelids felt as thick as his tongue as he opened them. He saw a glare that spasmed with each throbbing in his head. He screwed his eyes closed, breathing carefully till the pain lost its ragged edge.

  A flapping like birds. He carefully reopened his eyes. Shape-changing light patches seared. He swivelled his head to angle the hammering and his sight into a dark corner. He found he was able to open his eyes wider. The shadows found their hard edges, straightened, became lines and curves.

  When he tried to move his body, waves of nausea surged up from his stomach. He tried to pant away the need to vomit. His ears were hearing a linking counterpoint of lifting rising Vulgate in different voices. He turned his head gingerly to look at the light shapes. Bones of light, twisting. Water, undulating morning in its dimples far off, down a tunnel through ribbing. Wooden ribs. A sequence of them seeming to rock the water in their cradle. The ribs held something long and sleek and tooth-yellow, like a huge discarded arm. He focused his eyes on its skin. A curving surface of linked ivory shards. Bones. It was a bone boat leaning towards him, her prow post like a tree over their heads, her bow swelling off in the wooden cradle of ribs.

  Men were growling Vulgate. Carnelian recalled the attack. Their blows were still playing his skull like a drum. He walked his eyes back from the water, a rib at a time. He ground his head round carefully as if he were afraid to dislodge the ache balancing on top. He saw Osidian, the marble of his face ruptured red near his eye. His lip as livid and bloated as an earthworm, twitching. Bruises like ink infusing alabaster. The eyes opened and they saw each other. Carnelian saw Osidian rising to the surface, shared his pain, bewilderment, watched the firming brightness of realization in his eye. Osidian opened his mouth as if to speak, but obviously became aware of the men talking behind him and narrowed his eyes as he listened.

  ‘Hey . . .’ he groaned.

  Carnelian tensed as he heard the conversation stop.

  ‘Hey, you, come here,’ Osidian said in an imperious tone that made Carnelian scrunch up wanting to close Osidian’s mouth, that made the pain twist its blade in his head.

  ‘Shut up,’ said a voice.

  ‘Come here,’ said Osidian, his swollen lips slurring his voice.

  Carnelian could hear
them getting up. He fought the ropes but they only burned his wrists. The rib he leaned against shuddered under someone’s weight, then a foot came down beside him. He looked up the dark leg to the leather skirt. He could not see any more of the man but could certainly smell him. The man crouched. His face was like raw meat. Carnelian found the tiny eyes, the grey stumped teeth. He recoiled from the stench of the man’s breath, from the animal intensity of the eyes looking at his unmasked face.

  ‘How dare you look at me,’ Osidian cried in outrage.

  ‘How will you stop me looking, Master?’ the man said.

  His words sprayed saliva onto Carnelian’s cheek. The rib shuddered again and as it released another man jumped down. Both men stood back. They were monstrously alike. Carnelian saw that the new one refused to look at him and was trembling.

  ‘Do you know what’ll be done to you for walking here, on holy ground, for laying your hands on a Master, for seeing our faces?’ Osidian said.

  Carnelian could see both men flinch. The second man’s shoulders were beginning to hunch.

  ‘You filth came in with the tributaries, didn’t you?’

  The second man’s chin dug deeper into his chest as he nodded.

  ‘You do know that you won’t be able to sneak out that way, don’t you?’

  ‘Our employer’s made arrangements to get us out,’ sneered the first man.

  ‘Your employer’ll not be able to protect you from my wrath. I’ll find you and all your kin. Each death’ll entertain me for twenty days.’

  ‘You’ll not be finding anyone where you’re going,’ said the first man.

  ‘And you think your “employer” will let you live after what you’ve seen, what you’ve done?’

  The second man was trembling so much he was shaking against the first.

  ‘What’re you afraid of ?’

  ‘They’re Masters, Rud. We oughtn’t ever to have looked at their faces. We oughtn’t to have come here . . . this place isn’t meant for us. They have powers . . . we’re—’

  ‘Look at them!’ said Rud, stabbing his finger. ‘Can’t you see they bleed blood, not fire?’