The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01

by Ricardo Pinto

  He leaned towards the sybling sisters and pointed across the bridge, whispering, 'Is the God Emperor in there?'

  Right-Quentha smiled up at him. 'Only Their heart.'

  'Within lies the Chamber of the Three Lands, Seraph,' her sister added, 'where the Seraphim cast their votes in divine election.'

  Carnelian turned to look back towards where the window was glowing its tall oblong flame. 'And this vast hall?' he whispered, his eyes catching in the languid movements of the banners high above.

  The Encampment of the Seraphim.'

  Right-Quentha reached up to take his hand and the sisters led him along the edge of the mirror moat. They passed two more bridges that crossed to gates in the bronze wall. Opposite a third, a crowd of guardsmen spread. All were turned to an opening in the cavern's outer wall into which climbed a flight of steps that might have been the foothills of a mountain. Carnelian gazed up over the heads of the guardsmen. The steps were hewn from the Pillar's heart-stone but these were jammed between two rows of giants, on one side of translucent leaf-green stone, on the other of black glass. All were avatars of the Two Gods, their heads vague in the high shadows. This then was the inspiration for the stair in Jaspar's palace, though in comparison that seemed fit only for servants. A glinting on the slope caught Carnelian's eye. He focused and saw a filament of gold, a Master halfway up the stair..

  'You must climb, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.

  Carnelian regarded the crowds that lay between him and the first step. Both Quenthas lifted their chins and swept forward. The crowds parted, and as Carnelian paced between them they knelt. He saw they clumped according to the cyphers on their faces. Each retinue had its uniform: feathered cuirasses, bronze-banded armour and chainmail, breastplates of striped or spotted leathers; he saw spears, tridents, swords curved and straight. A familiar heraldry drew his eyes. Chameleoned faces. His escort followed as he opened a path to them. When he was close enough to cast yellow light on them with his robe, Carnelian could see their eyes darting looks of horror at the syblings. When closer still, the Suth people fell to their knees and Carnelian was forced to look down at them from on high. The familiarity of their tattoos cheered him. 'Fey sent you lot up here?' he asked, using the Vulgate.

  'Master,' they muttered, nodding, trembling, not lifting their eyes.

  He remembered what he had looked like in the mirror. He turned to the Quenthas. 'My father will be glad to have his own tyadra again.'

  'Seraph, they cannot mount the Approach,' said Right-Quentha.

  Though Seraphim may climb, the seeing must not follow them,' said her sister.

  Carnelian looked round, counting the different kinds of guardsmen. 'So many Houses, so many Ruling Lords.' He looked uneasily up the steps between the glassy colossi. The Master had almost reached the summit. Carnelian regarded his people. He wanted to please them and his father by giving them to each other. 'Could they not be blindfolded?'

  The syblings looked identically shocked. 'Seraph, the Stairs of the Approach lead up to the Thronehall of the Gods Themselves.'

  He looked over at the grim lictors. They stay here too?'

  The Quenthas nodded and walked to the stairs. Reluctantly, Carnelian told his people to wait for him, then followed the Quenthas. When he reached them, they showed him the handles that allowed him to pull up the skirts of his robe, and, lifting one of his court ranga onto the first step, he began the climb.

  It was a relief to be nearing the summit. His head rose high enough to see a landing aglow with Masters. A few more steps and he was standing on its edge. He paused to regain his breath and his composure. At the feet of the looming avatars, the landing was a bloody swirl of red and purple mosaic upon which dozens of Masters stood in their court robes, their backs to him, motionless gold towers. Beyond them Carnelian was surprised to see rising another slope of steps. On both sides, from the edges of the landing, other narrow stairs ran up between the column legs of the avatars.

  Left-Quentha's stone eyes looked at him. 'You must discard your pomp, Seraph. The Law of Audience requires it.'

  'But they ...' Carnelian stared, seeing that the Masters were all headless. The court robes could have been the discarded moults of angels. He gazed up the next stairway, almost expecting to see ethereal beings floating up them.

  A mass of ammonites came weaving their way through the court robes towards him. Soon they were all around him, reflecting him in their eyeless faces of silver, touching him, guiding him. When they found a clearing among the robes he was asked to kneel. He obeyed, sighing with pleasure as the yoking weight of his robe lifted off his shoulders. His head seemed to float free as they removed his crowns. He rolled it to release the tension in his neck. Ammonites carrying screens began to build an enclosure round him. Right-Quentha threw him a smile before the screen wall shut her out.

  The ammonites trapped inside with him removed his mask and prised his court robe open. He walked free of the robe. When he climbed down from the ranga, he felt smaller than a child. They stripped his hands of everything save his blood-ring. They put a new robe of unbleached hri fibre over his padded underclothes. Feeling its coarse weave, he could hardly believe they had meant to dress him in it. He looked for a samite robe but they were already dismantling the screen wall. He made a sound, nearly crying out, his hands almost over his face, but then he saw that his sybling escort had all donned blinding masks.

  Puzzled by the crudeness of his dress, feeling cold, he allowed the Quenthas to lead him through the maze of empty robes to the next stairway. Framed against the legs of an avatar, another Master attired like him was climbing with a staff. Carnelian turned to the steps. Free of the encumbrances of court robe and ranga, the ascent was easier. Two Masters passed him, coming down, talking, each with a staff topped with his House cypher, each wearing a robe of unbleached fibre. They stopped to look at him, their eyes haughty sapphires. The beauty of their faces and limbs was made even brighter in contrast to their coarse-weave. He realized he was staring, gave them a bow and climbed on.

  The second landing was paved with jade. Throne-daises enclosed it, behind which standards spiked up like irises. Masters in coarse-weave robes were gathered, all Ruling Lords, all facing something Carnelian could not see.

  He leaned towards Right-Quentha's copper mask. 'Is this the Thronehall?'

  The sisters shook their heads. That lies at the top of the final stair.'

  He looked and saw at the landing's end a third stair rising up into darkness. On his right, flanked by oily black, winged avatars, steps led up to a flinty door in whose centre was a tearful eye. Carnelian stared for a moment, remembering the opium box. The sisters touched his hands and walked towards the Ruling Lords with sure steps, though they were both blind. The Lords did not seem to notice them. Some were in groups talking with their hands, but Carnelian noticed that most seemed focused off to where another stair ran up between two quartz colossal youths. At their feet he could see something like a narrow window opening onto a bright meadow. Carnelian kept walking, glancing at the oblong of emerald light, seeing its luminous Chosen face.

  'My Lord.'

  The Master approaching had a familiar voice. He turned. 'Vennel!' The Master's eyes were like water welling on a cake of salt. They looked at each other. Vennel tried a little nod of his head. Carnelian said nothing.

  The Jade Lord has requested that you approach him.' Vennel curled a hand back to indicate the emerald figure.

  Tell my Lord that I hasten to a meeting with the Regent.'

  Vennel gave him a frosty smile. 'I had forgotten how little you know. When a Jade Lord makes a request it is really a command.'

  'Perhaps, Vennel, you have also forgotten that the Regent outranks your Master.'

  Vennel smiled. 'I will be pleased to convey your refusal to the Jade Lord.'

  Another Master joined them. Jaspar. He looked at Carnelian and indicated Vennel. 'Is this creature bothering you, my Lord?'

  Vennel moved forward. The Jade Lord�
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  'Has sent me to correct yet another of your mistakes.'

  Vennel’s face seemed brittle enough to shatter.

  'You might as well return to your place beneath his feet.' Jaspar used a sign of dismissal whose shape was close to that used for servants.

  Vennel hesitated, then struggled to free himself from his frozen stance. They watched him walk off with ungainly steps.

  That one has been reduced to his rightful size.' Jaspar gave one of his cold smiles. 'You have seen your father, cousin?'

  Carnelian made a nod, hearing in his mind the word, Patricide!

  'I trust that he has fully recovered from the little unpleasantness on the road.'

  Carnelian jerked another nod.

  The Jade Lord Molochite wishes to meet you.'

  'Well, I do not wish to meet him.'

  Jaspar's eyebrows lifted. 'He is not a person to be slighted casually, Carnelian. Nothing raises him more than the whim to wreak revenge.'

  'I do not fear him.'

  Jaspar shrugged. 'Why give him one more reason to hate your father?'

  Carnelian frowned. Jaspar flourished his hand to offer Carnelian the lead. He took it, walking through the Ruling Lords, ignoring their stares, his eyes fixed on Molochite who was framed between two staves held by his entourage of syblings. Carnelian stopped as the Jade Lord pulled himself up on the staves, and only then realized the Lord had been kneeling. As his green flame came burning towards Carnelian, the Great bowed out of his way. Carnelian waited, clearing his face of expression, his view filling with Molochite's wall of faceted emerald. His eye was level with the Jade Lord's waist.

  'Why, cousin, will you not let us see your eyes?'

  Carnelian looked up fiercely, refusing to be appalled by the Jade Lord's height, but when he saw the white face he forgot himself and gaped. It was the most beautiful being he had ever seen that was gazing down at him. Molochite's eyes were spring, the smile on his lips was summer. Carnelian felt the light going out as Molochite turned away, replacing the radiance of his face with the smoulder of his green-jewelled crowns.

  'Imago, you spoke truth, he has the beauty of the Masks. Our blood breeds true however it is tainted.' Molochite's eyes turned their depths back on Carnelian. It was like looking into the Yden. 'Son of Azurea, you are welcome to our court.'

  Carnelian bowed to take his eyes away. 'My Lord.' He tried to find a shred of composure, then looked up.

  'Would you then like to stay with us a while?' Molochite swept an exquisite hand round loaded with four Great-Rings. 'However worthy, these Lords weary us with the endless business of the election.' His smile opened like a window allowing sunlight into a dark chamber.

  Carnelian struggled to unhook his eyes from the glorious face. 'My ... my Lord is very kind, but I must go ... to see my father.'

  The window closed. 'Well, run along then. We must not keep the Regent waiting, must we?'

  The emerald angel moved away. Carnelian rose and walked off feeling like a child being sent to his room.

  Halfway up the third stair, Carnelian began to frown. He could not believe what he was seeing coming into sight.

  The top half of a massive gate entirely wrought from iron. 'A gate ... a skymetal gate.'

  The Iron Door, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.

  'Inconceivable . .. riches.' He was breathing heavily.

  Right-Quentha fumbled a hand out to steady him. The Seraph should rest.' He was touched by the concern in her voice.

  ‘You seem to be right,' Carnelian said, squeezing her hand. Her sister's stone eyes looked at his hand as if she could feel its touch.

  'It must be the sky sickness still diminishing my strength.'

  While he caught his breath, he turned to look back down the steps. The Great were there like pieces of torn parchment. Molochite was a narrow prism of emerald. At that distance Carnelian found it hard to understand the power the Jade Lord had had over him.

  He resumed the climb, his eyes fixed on the Iron Door. He stroked his blood-ring. He knew that iron hailed from the sky in nuggets, but surely, so much iron must have fallen as a mountain.

  As he came up over the brow of the stair he glimpsed Masters standing with their staves and as he surveyed them he found himself looking into Aurum's face. The old Master stared as if he were seeing Carnelian rising from the tomb. He pointed the horned-ring finial of his staff at Carnelian. 'What are you doing here?'

  Carnelian lost his speech. He had forgotten the compulsion of those misty blue eyes. Aurum repeated his question. Carnelian found his tongue. 'My father, I have come to see my father.'

  'Do you know this boy, Aurum?' one of the other Masters demanded. All the cold blues and greys of their eyes settled on Carnelian. Aurum's stare had moved to the syblings spilling up round Carnelian from the stair.

  Aurum impaled him with his eyes. 'Does your father know you are here?'

  Carnelian grew angry. He had had enough of being treated like a child. 'Are you blind, my Lord? Does it seem likely I would have such an escort if the Regent himself had not summoned me?'

  Aurum flinched and looked from the corner of his eye at the other Masters, who were showing a certain amusement at his discomfiture.

  'You will have to wait your turn, my Lord,' said a voice Carnelian recognized as Cumulus'. 'All here seek audience with the Regent.'

  'If it please the Seraphs,' said Left-Quentha, 'the Regent commanded us to bring Suth Carnelian to him without delay.'

  The Masters looked shocked. Aurum was the first to move aside, a smile carved on his marble face. Reluctantly, the others opened a way through to the Iron Door. Carnelian ignored Aurum's eyes and the comments the others made as he walked between them. 'Who does he think he is?' and, The arrogance!'

  The door was like a frozen pall of smoke. He dared to reach out, to touch its dull iron. It was cold. He brought back his fingers and smelled the bloody rust. Left-Quentha lifted one of her tattooed arms, struck the door and knelt. All the syblings began kneeling round him, bowing their heads. Carnelian's robe pulled taut across his chest and flapped behind him like wings as the Iron Door breathed open.

  GODS' TEARS

  These are the four substances of a god: Flesh that is earth, Ichor that is fire, Seed that is rain, Spirit that is the breathing sky. But there is a fifth substance, tears, And that is a memory of the first sea.

  (from the 'Ilkaya', part of the holy scriptures of the Chosen)

  'And my Lord is ... ?'

  Carnelian stared at the two faces side by side, Masters' faces, joined so that when one spoke its jaw dragged down the corner of the other's mouth. One face regarded him with grey eyes and seemed to be trying to determine what manner of creature Carnelian might be; the other had black diamonds for eyes. Eyebrows on the face that had spoken rose expectandy as the other face frowned.

  Carnelian cleared his throat, unable to stop staring. 'Lord, Carnelian ... Suth Carnelian.'

  'I see,' said the blind face.

  'If the Lord Carnelian would follow us,' said the frowning face. The creatures lifted their right hand, beckoning, and Carnelian noticed the two blood-rings, one above the other. As they turned away he saw their double-lobed head. He watched them walk off towards a jewel fire, a window blazing far away in the gloom.

  'Seraph,' said Left-Quentha as she and her sister rose from their knees. 'You must follow the Seraphic Hanuses.'

  Carnelian started a bow, remembered their blindness, reached out to touch both their shoulders and thanked them. The sisters inclined their heads together. Left-Quentha smiled as they bowed. Two coughs made him turn to see the Masters, the Hanuses, waiting for him, both faces now frowning. Carnelian went towards them and they led the way.

  The hall was a black tunnel gouged through the rock to the sky. It was so vast that he could see nothing of the walls or ceiling. He glimpsed syblings standing in faraway rows on either side, three and four legs astride, holding halberds and billhooks, crusted in black armour, tracking him with their
stone eyes.

  As he drew nearer the window, its hues erupted visions in his mind. Light through new leaves. Cobalt blue. Red like blood splattered on glass. The topaz of an eagle's iris. The whole was a rainbow shattered then reassembled to show the creation. The Turtle's tearing, its shell forming earth and sky, its eyes the sun and moon, its tears the stars. There were the Twins rising in the blood rain, there the creatures that they shivered into being with Their ecstasy at the first rain-music. At the heart of this design was shown the raising of the Sacred Wall, the flooding of Osrakum and, in culmination, the making of the Chosen. Carnelian marvelled. It was as if the world's jewels had been fused into a single lens through which was pouring the light of every sky.

  The Hanuses bowed, revealing the window's dark centre. A black throne upon a pyramid. Eight figures were ranged below, Sapients, narrow posts squeezed narrower still by the colours coruscating round them. Above, framed by the throne pyramid, a bar of gold was set on end, a Lord in a court robe seemingly crucified between two staves held upright by crouching syblings. The arms detached themselves. White hands framed the sign, Wait. The sign had a flavour of his father's hand speech.

  The Hanuses walked past Carnelian. Their right face gave Carnelian a look from the corners of its eyes that made him feel like prey.

  His father was speaking. '... when the collations are complete, Rain.'

  As he drew closer, Carnelian began to hear the mutterings of homunculi. Although their masters had their backs to him, Carnelian could see they were unmasked. A morbid curiosity made him creep round until he could see their faces. White leather, pleated tight to a mean, lipless mouth. They had neither ears nor nose, only a nostrilled hole. Jet almonds gleamed for eyes. The foreheads were a fan of creases as if the skin had been upholstered tight to the nose hole's rim. Between their eyes, the horned-ring of divinity had been branded deep. All eight stood in robes of moonless night, each apparently strangling a silver-faced child.

  Carnelian became aware again of his father's voice. '... are correct, Gates, it is better that we should wake the huimur.'