The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  Fern looked at him in horror. ‘The salt we carry was intended to pay tolls and make purchases for the Tribe in the market of Makar. Every grain was bought with our men’s blood.’

  Though the sun was hidden behind the stormy ceiling of the sky, they could feel the day was waning when they came to a river; a fierce white roar of water whose further bank seemed impossible to reach. They stared at the torrent, allowing their eyes to follow it upstream, and saw halfway up the cliff wall the tall and narrow funnel of a ravine from which the river was tumbling.

  Wearily they began the trek down its bank, but this was so littered with sharp rocks they were forced further and further away from the water. At last Ranegale declared he would go no further and slumped to the ground.

  He looked round at them with his single eye. ‘How can we hope to find a ford when we can’t even get close to the river?’

  He pointed westwards to where they could all still see the mouth of the abyss. ‘Look how far we’ve come. At this rate it’ll take us a moon to reach the Valleys.’

  ‘Do you really believe this kind of talk is helping anyone?’ said Ravan.

  Cloud put his hand on the youth’s shoulder to calm him.

  ‘Ranegale has a plan.’ He turned to him. ‘You do have a plan, don’t you?’

  Ranegale looked down the rock-strewn slope that plunged into an ocean of fronds fading away into the stormy margins of the sky.

  ‘No, no,’ stuttered Ravan as every face went ashen.

  Next morning, though rainless, they felt the weight of the black sky as they struggled down from the boulder-strewn foot of the cliffs. The ground began softening into a treacle that sucked at their feet. Fronds began choking their path. Dense stands of horsetail rose as islands. The mud oozed brackish pools that bubbled up decay. The sky clattered and shook, then released a downpour. Dank and miserable, they pressed on into the thickening thickets and, though the ferns wove themselves into a roof above their heads, they provided no shelter at all.

  They chose a mud mound to camp on. It was too wet to make fire. Hunched, they chewed djada, peering anxiously at the leaf wall they could almost reach out to touch and which shivered and trembled as if something were coming through it. It barely screened the rasp and trill of hidden creatures or the more distant wails and trumpetings. Once, some faraway high pinnacles of leaves shook in succession, showing where some monster was pushing through. With the rest, Carnelian pulled down fern fronds to hide his body and snatched what little sleep he could.

  Morning found them pushing deeper into the swamp, winding their way along ridges, hacking their way through stems and creepers, catching glimpses of loathsome striped bodies sliding sinuous among the trunks. Every pool was certain to conceal horrors. Every stretch of mud had been printed by huge clawed teeth and the drag of undulating tails. They struggled, sinking into this soft world. The ferns grew monstrous, meshing their leaves above them until they could no longer see the sky and wandered lost among their trunks in a twilight where everything was a noisome, mouldering paste.

  After two days of this they came into a region where the air stank of putrefaction. They could find no way around it. Uneasy, they pushed further into the gloom under the treeferns expecting some scene of carnage, but all they found were lurid red blooms, petalled with tongues whose throats exhaled a rotting breath. Flies swarming these carrion lilies clogged Carnelian’s nostrils and eyes. Whenever he opened his mouth they crowded in, forcing him to swallow those he could not spit out. The pillars of this sombre world were hung with pitcher plants, their mottled bellies plump with such a gluttony of insects and birds that some had burst open, disgorging the half-digested mess all over the bone-carpeted ground.

  Night approaching, they made camp. They managed to get a smoulder going, the smoke from which at least drove away the flies. Here, Osidian came suddenly awake with a gulping gasp.

  ‘He seeks me out!’

  The cry, in Quya, made the raiders jump up staring. Carnelian peered into a thin face lit by immense eyes.

  ‘Who seeks you out?’ he asked gently.

  ‘The Black God,’ Osidian whispered. His eyes closed as his body convulsed in its pupae of mouldy blankets. The pale lips released a hiss. ‘Our Father of Darkness.’

  Carnelian waited for more; tried talking in both Quya and Vulgate but received no response. He became aware that the Plainsmen had gathered round.

  ‘The fever’s broken,’ said Fern.

  Carnelian saw the fear lurking in the tunnels of his eyes. It was in all their eyes.

  Hesitantly, Fern and Ravan helped him prise open the bindings cocooning Osidian to the pole while Krow looked on. The body they revealed had wasted to bones and skin. Carnelian remembered how glorious Osidian had been, how strong, when they swam in the dazzling lagoons of the Yden. He leaned close to whisper love names into his ear and, by this means, he roused him from sleep.

  Pain and puzzlement played over Osidian’s face.

  ‘Where …?’

  Carnelian could think of no easy answer. Osidian’s emaciation was so overwhelming Carnelian became obsessed with feeding him. He chewed djada and squeezed it in softened pellets into Osidian’s mouth. To avoid seeing his stare of horror, Carnelian cradled him. He slept close. Sometimes, waking in absolute blackness, he would find Osidian’s lips with his fingers and give him water to drink.

  It was near dawn that Carnelian felt the tremor in the ground. He believed it to be thunder until he realized he was hearing it only with his body. The earth was shaking with a slow rhythm, as if some giant were walking by. The undergrowth rustled and sighed as something squeezed through it. Osidian must have heard it too, for Carnelian felt him stirring. He slipped his arms over the rack of Osidian’s ribs and hugged him still. Holding on to him, Carnelian could feel Osidian’s heart racing and knew he was listening. The presence circled them. Carnelian only released Osidian when he felt it move away.

  In the morning twilight, Carnelian woke from a terrible, grinding nightmare to find Osidian deathly still. Carnelian touched him, then shook him, but Osidian would not wake.

  ‘We’ll have to bind him up again,’ said Fern. ‘It was stupid to imagine he’d have the strength to walk.’

  Carnelian thought his friend had a haunted look. Many of the youths were peering among the trunks as if they were expecting to see something in the gloom.

  He leaned close to Fern. ‘Did you hear it?’

  Fern bent over Osidian, making no sign he had even heard the question. He looked up. ‘Are you just going to watch?’

  Carnelian helped him lay Osidian’s long bony body along the pole. They secured him, then hoisted him and followed after the others.

  As the weary struggle of the day wore its way to night, Osidian woke again. He stared into the darkness pleading, negotiating with something that was not there. The pure consonants of his Quya were obscured by the protests of the Plainsmen.

  ‘He draws the demon to us,’ said Loskai.

  ‘It’s a ravener,’ said Cloud.

  ‘Without fire to drive it away, that’s terrifying enough,’ said Ranegale. His eye fell on Osidian, whom Carnelian was trying unsuccessfully to quieten. ‘We should’ve killed him.’

  Carnelian sensed most of them agreed with Ranegale. Osidian’s voice continued its rambling. In the end, Carnelian only managed to silence him by plugging his mouth with djada.

  The raiders struggled to gather leaves and twigs to make a fire but everything was too damp. As the last light faded, they gave up trying, huddled together and tried to sleep.

  Rising at first light, Carnelian could not help seeing how haggard everyone looked. The presence had visited them again, but if in truth or only in their nightmares, he could not tell. Fern helped him lug Osidian on the next stage of their journey. Feeling eyes on him, Carnelian kept turning. At first he thought it must be one of the Plainsmen and put it down to their fearful fascination with Osidian’s ravings, but every eye was busy finding a way for their fe
et. The sensation persisted and in the pit of his stomach the feeling grew that whatever it was looking at him was not human.

  That night, Carnelian tried to pick words from Osidian’s deranged incantations. The Plainsmen would only look at Osidian from the corners of their eyes. Only Ravan was brave enough to speak the common fear.

  ‘He’s drawing the soul of this accursed place down on us.’

  Carnelian opened his mouth to protest but found no words. He looked at the Plainsmen expecting violence but only Ranegale and Fern would hold his gaze; all the rest were striving to hide in sleep.

  *

  Nightmare lumbered towards them tearing through the fabric of the enfolding treeferns. Screams like a scattering of birds followed by an agonizing silence. Blind, Carnelian could sense an immense presence. Above his head bellows were breathing a fetor that clung clammy to his face. A mass swung away, his face cooled and he dared to gulp a mouthful of rotten air. A whimpering. The immensity adjusting caused the earth to shudder. The victim’s trembling was betrayed by the vibrating wail he began pumping out. Air was displaced by something massive falling through it. The wailing, snuffed out, was replaced by a grinding moistened by tearing and the iron smell of blood. Urine oozed warm down Carnelian’s thigh.

  ‘A spear,’ shrilled Cloud’s voice. ‘For the sky’s sake … a spear.’

  Fumbling, terrified mumblings as the mass rose.

  Carnelian forced his hand to creep over the mud feeling for a weapon. A wavering battle-cry Carnelian recognized with horror was Osidian’s. A stinking breeze. Thunder in the ground. A scream, then slicing. The world detonated in a roaring frenzy. A wall slammed him flying into the night.

  UNDER THE TREES

  The poisons of decay can open the doors to other worlds.

  (extract from a beadcord manual of the Domain Immortality)

  DIRTY LIGHT WAS FILTERING THROUGH CRACKS BETWEEN THE LEAVES. Carnelian’s cheek was lying in mud. A corner of his mouth blew bubbles as he breathed. He adjusted his body gingerly to feel if any bones were broken. Groaning, he rolled over, pushed himself up, then stood. He was crusty with blood, aching all over, but apparently, whole.

  A blush of panic threatened to overcome him when he peered into the glooms and saw no sign of the Plainsmen. He set off to search for them. Spying through the shadows some vague man shapes, he stumbled towards them.

  Eerily still, they were standing on the edge of a clearing recently gouged from the forest. Ploughed-up mud was strewn with chunks and ribbons of flesh. Carnelian wanted to look away. Cloud’s left shoulder was missing; from black-bruised neck to hip, his flesh frayed into purple threads and splintered bone. His head was thrown back on the broken hinge of his neck; his lips drawn thin and tight, exposed his teeth in a manic grin. One of the youths Cloud had been trying to protect had been crushed into the mud. The other lay broken, skin mottled indigo edged with yellow. Brown with blood, Osidian lay curled at the heart of this slaughter, his face hidden by his knees.

  In shock, Carnelian pushed through the Plainsmen and began the crossing to Osidian’s side. Gore slicked and cracked under his feet. When he reached him, he crouched into the sweet rotting reek to touch his leg. He had expected it to be corpse-hard, but though cold, the skin gave under his touch. Hope made Carnelian’s hand tremble as he reached above Osidian’s rope scar to search for a pulse. He found one.

  Seeing Fern sickly and staring with the rest, he breathed: ‘He lives.’

  Fern gave a slow nod and then, grinning with horror and disgust, he came through the carnage. Carnelian turned back to Osidian. Carefully grasping his head with both hands, he pulled the pale face free of the knees. Osidian seemed asleep. Carnelian slid his hands over him, searching for the wound that had bled enough to stain the ground.

  ‘I’ll help you turn him,’ Fern said.

  As they rolled him over, Ravan cried out, pointing: ‘Father’s spear.’

  Carnelian and Fern saw the shattered spear upon which Osidian had been lying. The iron blade was caked with the same gore that had spurted down his arm and splattered his stomach and legs.

  ‘The demon’s blood,’ breathed Ravan, his wide-eyed stare tracing the edge of the stain it had soaked into the earth.

  Carnelian watched Fern lift the iron spearhead from under Osidian’s hand and examine it with a frown.

  ‘It belongs to me now,’ said Ravan.

  Carnelian and Fern both turned together to see Ravan with his hand outstretched.

  Fern walked towards his brother. ‘I had never intended to claim it.’

  The pain in Fern’s voice made Ravan blush. The youth became aware everyone was staring at them. ‘You never had any right to it.’ Carnelian felt Fern’s humiliation as if it was his own. His friend extended his hand with the spearhead lying on the palm. Ravan regarded the gory thing for some moments before snatching it, his uncertain smile twisting to a grimace as his fingers stuck to the blood.

  Carnelian soaked a rag in the leather bowl, squeezed out most of the blood and used it to rub away some more clotted matter from Osidian’s body. He needed to touch him, to feel the living warmth in his skin. The Plainsmen were arguing whether or not it was a demon he had driven off. Carnelian glanced round. Displaying the iron spearhead, Ravan was shouting at Ranegale. Loskai was siding with his brother. Beside them stood Krow, staring at the ground. The others formed an unhappy audience. Fern had disappeared.

  Carnelian was about to resume the cleaning when he found Osidian watching him.

  ‘Where are we?’

  Overcome, Carnelian bent to hug him, but Osidian stopped him with a frown. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The Lower Lands.’

  Osidian’s eyes widened. He stared up into the canopy and Carnelian watched memory returning: ‘The slavers …’ Osidian breathed.

  His brows knitted together. ‘And after? I remember emerald flashes, barbarian faces …’ He went deathly pale.

  Carnelian knew what Osidian was seeing in his mind’s eye. ‘The monster that attacked us had been stalking us for days.’

  ‘He came for me.’

  Carnelian smiled, loving him. ‘It was a predator driven by hunger.’

  Osidian fixed him with huge, green eyes. ‘He came for me.’

  The conviction in his voice was chilling.

  ‘How is he?’ said Fern standing over them.

  Carnelian looked up and saw the awe lighting his friend’s face.

  ‘He’s gaining strength,’ said Osidian in Vulgate.

  Carnelian sensed his acute discomfort at having the Plainsman look at his naked face. Osidian’s eyes fell on Fern’s brass collar. Realizing what the Master was looking at, Fern allowed his gaze to move down Osidian’s neck to where the still tender scar of the rope formed its collar of dried blood. Osidian’s hand strayed up to his throat. His mouth twitched as he felt along the rusty wound. His hand dropped away, his eyes closed, his face smoothed to wax. Thereafter, he would respond neither to Carnelian’s voice nor to his touch.

  Unhappy, Carnelian helped gather up the slaughtered bodies then stood with others watching as Fern sheared the hair from Cloud’s head. Once he had removed it all, Fern put the salt-beaded tresses into Krow’s trembling hands. Now that Cloud was dead, Krow was the only remaining representative of the Twostone tribe.

  The men scaled the treeferns to hoist the corpses up as high as they could into their crowns while those below sang a hymn to the sky. Carnelian had watched them black the skin of the dead with mud. His instinct had been to wash the bodies first but Fern had told him the smell of blood would bring winged scavengers more quickly.

  *

  When Osidian came alive again, he declared he would walk. Carnelian saw that nothing he might say would change his mind. Fern received the news without surprise. From the wreckage of the stretcher, he salvaged the bundle he had put there the day of the aquar slaughter. As he unfolded the cloth it gave off a stale odour of decay. Inside was a mass of grey hair beaded with salt that C
arnelian recognized as being Stormrane’s. Fern surveyed it for a while before lifting it with both hands and, reverently, rolling it into an uba which he then bound around his waist.

  At first Osidian refused to wear the dead man’s clothes, but Carnelian pleaded with him that without protection, the flies would eat him alive and Osidian relented. His face twisted with disgust as Carnelian helped him into the robe and cloak, then wound the dead man’s uba round his head.

  Ravens and sky saurians had already descended to feast upon the corpses when at last they all set off. Carnelian was only too glad to be leaving the bloody clearing behind.

  ‘Where are we exactly?’ asked Osidian, his Quya ringing round another makeshift camp.

  Carnelian was not sure what answer to give. The encroaching night was bringing with it a fear Osidian alone did not seem to share. He looked frail, but his eyes revealed the fire that had driven his body to keep the pace all day.

  ‘Where did we leave the Guarded Land?’

  ‘Somewhere west of a city called Makar,’ Carnelian replied, in Vulgate.

  Speak in Quya, Osidian signed using the hand speech of the Masters. ‘I had seen the sky but not believed.’

  ‘The sky?’

  ‘The movement of the clouds suggested the deep south; their speed and opacity, that we are nearing the end of the second month of the Rains.’

  Carnelian nodded. For a moment he was puzzled by this act of divination until he remembered how familiar Osidian was with the beadcord records of the Wise. It was in their Library that Carnelian, exploring, had come across him. Their first days together had been spent there as Osidian, secretly, taught him to read the strung beads, as the Wise did, by touch.

  Osidian was frowning. ‘What I have been wholly unable to unravel is what part me being here could possibly play in my mother’s schemes.’

  ‘It is likely she knows nothing of where we are,’ said Carnelian.

  Osidian fixed him with a stare. ‘How so?’

  Carnelian explained what the Ichorian had intended to do with them.