The Standing Dead (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  All the time the Plainsman had been speaking, Carnelian had been watching Osidian from the corner of his eye. There was something in his stance that belied his seeming passivity. Carnelian reached out and clasped Fern’s shoulder, squeezed it and gave him a smile. ‘Don’t worry. We won’t be going anywhere.’

  Fern gave him a grim nod and had soon disappeared through the gate.

  Carnelian and Osidian wandered deep into the ferns, here and there disturbing dragonflies into whirring flight. Carnelian searched Osidian’s face for any clue as to what he might be feeling. The gulf between them seemed unbridgeable.

  ‘You should have been kinder to Fern: his intercession saved our lives.’

  Osidian grew stony. ‘Those savages would not have dared to spill our blood.’

  ‘Can you be so sure?’

  ‘It would overturn the nature of things. We are Chosen: they are our vassals.’

  ‘Did you not see how much they hated us?’

  ‘All I saw was their animal fear.’

  Carnelian stopped his hand going up to his throat to feel the scar the rope had left there. ‘The Ichorian feared us and the slavers too.’

  Osidian’s imperiousness collapsed as he looked at Carnelian’s scar.

  ‘Could you not live here?’ asked Carnelian gently.

  Misery and horror passed across Osidian’s face as he looked around him almost fearfully. ‘This world is wholly alien to me.’

  Seeing Osidian vulnerable, Carnelian felt his heart breaking. Guilt gnawed at him.

  ‘It is all my fault.’

  Osidian stared at him in surprise.

  ‘I forced you down to the Yden and, then, it was my choice that brought us here from the Guarded Land.’

  Carnelian was embarrassed by the intensity of love with which Osidian regarded him.

  ‘You gave me a chance at life at the cost of your own return to Osrakum. All the rest was as much my choice as yours.’

  Carnelian watched Osidian’s eyes growing opaque as he was drawn away into some dark place.

  ‘I was so sure,’ he whispered. ‘I felt Him around me in the shadows, I heard Him speak to me.’

  The timbre of Osidian’s voice took Carnelian back to the swamp and the gloomy forest. He pulled himself up before he became lost. He clung to the sight of Osidian suffering from dark memory and doubt. Carnelian took some comfort that at least they had slipped from Quya into Vulgate, the language of their intimacy that was free of the stark clarity of the Masters.

  He reached out to touch him. ‘We were none of us ourselves. Weak from fever, you had to bear more even than the rest of us.’

  Osidian turned to him eyes over which cloud shadow seemed to be passing. ‘I saw so clearly. I saw why this had all happened to us, why it all had to happen.’ He looked skywards, mouth hanging open, breathing erratically.

  Carnelian saw the boy he had loved in the Yden standing before him. How broken he had become; how bruised his once perfect confidence. The scar of the slave rope was around his throat. Suffering had stolen the divine gleam from his beauty. The unhealthy colours of long illness still lingered in his skin. Still, with time and love he could be healed. Joy at having regained him began to suffuse through Carnelian’s pain.

  A voice crying out arrested his mood in the midst of its transformation. ‘Master.’

  It was Ravan wading towards them through the ferns, coming from the direction in which Carnelian could see the Koppie hill rising like a pyramid above the trees. A glance showed him Osidian closing up, protecting himself.

  Ravan nodded a bow to each of them as he came closer. ‘I’ve come to wait with you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said Carnelian sharply, causing the youth’s nervous smile to fade.

  Desperate to get rid of him before Osidian closed up completely, Carnelian was merciless. ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’

  The youth blushed and made a face. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Have you even seen her yet?’

  Touching Ravan’s head, Osidian took away the youth’s look of indecision. ‘Leave him be.’

  Carnelian’s heart sank as he saw Osidian’s hurt once more behind an impregnable façade of impassivity.

  ‘But we need to talk,’ Carnelian said, in Quya, hoping to prise him open again, even a little.

  ‘There has been enough talking for now.’

  Osidian looked down at Ravan, who had been looking from one to the other as they spoke in Quya.

  ‘Is there any water nearby we could use to wash?’

  Ravan, grinning, nodded vigorously and pointed in the direction from which he had come. Osidian strode off, the youth jogging at his side.

  ‘Were you not frightened at all, Master?’ Carnelian heard him say.

  ‘Of what?’ said Osidian as if he were looking down at the youth from the clouds.

  Ravan continued his chatter. Following on behind, angry, despairing, Carnelian could only watch as the youth’s expressions of admiration worked Osidian into an ever-increasing hauteur.

  Ravan led them to a spot where the ferngarden crumbled into a ditch. A path wound down to a green pool that glimmered through the leaves. As they descended, Carnelian saw it was set about with ledges and ropes dangling from branches.

  ‘The children come down here to play at this time of year, before the water all dries up.’

  Ravan’s comment lifted Carnelian a little from his sombre mood. The youth talked as if he himself had long been too adult for such pleasures, while all the time he eyed the ropes clearly itching to swing on them. It made Carnelian remember how young Ravan was, how much he had lost. It made it easier to let go of his anger.

  ‘This water is likely to be as clean as any we will find here,’ said Osidian in Quya.

  Carnelian regarded the brackish pool with some distaste, but he could feel how thickly his arms and legs were caked with grime. He became aware Osidian was gazing at him with longing, his eyes catching the sinuous play of light on the pool. Carnelian recalled their bathing in the lagoons of the Yden.

  ‘You mustn’t do that, Master.’

  They both turned to Ravan, having forgotten him.

  ‘Mustn’t do what?’

  Wide-eyed, Ravan pointed. ‘Touch your bare foot to the earth.’

  Carnelian saw Osidian had been in the middle of taking off one of the crude shoes Fern had made for him.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Osidian with wry amusement, ‘the barbarian superstition.’ Suddenly his face turned to grim stone. ‘I choose to disregard your beliefs, Ravan.’

  Osidian stooped and quickly took off both shoes. His clothes fell to the ground and he strode into the water followed by Ravan’s horrified stare.

  Carnelian hesitated for a moment. If the Law-that-must-be-obeyed was truth, to touch the earth was to invite pollution, but then had he not run barefoot for days upon the Guarded Land itself? If the Plainsmen’s belief were truth, then Osidian had already given insult to the earth and Carnelian would not have him suffer alone whatever punishment he might have incurred. He removed his shoes, closing his eyes as his naked foot touched the cool earth. He took a few steps towards the pool, enjoying digging his toes into the mud. Osidian came up out of the water gleaming and scattered sparks of water everywhere. At first Carnelian thought the smile Osidian wore was for him, but he soon realized it was being directed over his shoulder. Turning, he was puzzled by Ravan’s look of shame. Moments passed before he noticed the youth was standing barefoot.

  Fern materialized out of the night and approached the fire Ravan had lit for the Standing Dead among the ferns. Carnelian saw his friend standing for a moment watching them, the firelight animating the shadows in his face.

  ‘So you’ve returned,’ said Osidian, making both Carnelian and Ravan jump.

  As Fern came closer, he scowled at his brother. ‘I might have guessed this is where you’ve been hiding.’

  Ravan scowled. ‘I’m not hiding.’

  ‘Do you even care ho
w much mother’s worried about you?’

  ‘How did she take …?’ Ravan’s voice tailed away as he frowned back tears.

  Fern sunk his head, swung a leather sack down from his shoulder then, kneeling, opened it and thrust a hand inside. He pulled out a mat and spread it on the ground and began to lay over it the rest of the contents of the sack. There were cubes of meat wrapped in leaves, some floury cakes, bundles of delicate fresh fiddleheads. He produced some skewers.

  ‘Well?’ Ravan demanded.

  ‘How do you think she took it?’ said Fern, with the fire burning the tears in his eyes. Ravan lost his defiance and slumped down, his arms clasped about his body. Carnelian turned away, desiring to comfort the brothers but fearing to intrude upon their grief.

  Fern speared the meat on to the skewers and propped them in the fire. He watched it dribble blood that hissed to steam. When it began charring he spoke.

  ‘You may as well know that my mother told me the Elders will, most likely, want to have you killed.’

  ‘Does she also wish our deaths?’ said Carnelian.

  Fern turned to look at Carnelian. ‘I told her what I believe; what I know about you. She might even try to save you, but I can’t see how … I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here.’ Squinting deep into the fire, he shook his head. ‘I don’t know what possessed me to let you come.’

  ‘They’re burning,’ said Ravan. Fern plucked the skewers out from the fire. When he distributed the food, Osidian refused any.

  ‘The Elders won’t kill us.’

  Ravan looked at him sharply. ‘How can you be so certain, Master?’

  Osidian ignored the youth’s question and looked instead at Fern. ‘They want to see us before they make their decision, don’t they?’

  The Plainsman narrowed his eyes and then dipped a nod.

  Carnelian watched Osidian, who seemed to be looking through Fern, seeing something beyond him in the night. Carnelian worked out arguments that suggested it would be perilous for the Plainsmen to kill a Master, but nothing he could come up with was anything more than an argument.

  ‘When?’ Osidian asked at last.

  ‘In the morning,’ said Fern.

  Carnelian disliked seeing the way in which his friend was obviously awed by Osidian’s manner.

  *

  Carnelian was shaken awake by Fern. Fronds hung over him, black against a starry sky. He sat up. Ravan was rolling up the blankets he had slept in.

  ‘It’s still dark,’ Carnelian said, in a low voice.

  Crouched over the embers of their fire, carefully dabbing them out, Fern spoke without turning. ‘The Elders wish to avoid us causing more unrest in the Tribe.’

  Carnelian nodded and rolled his bedding. Soon the four of them were walking towards the corner of the ferngarden. They opened the gate and crossed the crumbling earthbridge. Their guards were lying on the ground asleep and grumbled as Fern roused them.

  As they waited, Carnelian approached Osidian.

  ‘Have you an idea what we shall do?’ he whispered.

  Osidian turned a shadow head. ‘They are barbarians,’ he said in Quya. ‘They will not dare to raise their hands against us.’

  Fern led them back along the path they had taken the day before. They reached the place where the crowd had stood and found a wider, more solid earthbridge which they crossed to a gate. Once through this, they were looking across a starlit meadow towards the mass of the koppie hill.

  The path took them straight across the meadow. A faint blue was appearing in the east as they came under the first branches of the cedars. Carnelian peered into the blackness that hid their trunks. Looking up he saw stars winking through the canopy. Fern led them into the night the trees were still nursing and soon the bodies of two cedars emerged standing sentinel upon a high wicker gate. Carnelian breathed their resin perfume and felt more than saw the heavy rafters of their branches hanging above him. The gate rose on the other side of another earthbridge and was set into a rampart. A ditch curving away on either side moated the hill with darkness.

  Fern was the first to cross. He approached the gate and Carnelian heard the murmur of his voice, which was quickly followed by the creaking of the gate opening. As he passed through, Carnelian saw the shapes of the gate wardens and, though he could not see their eyes, he could feel them watching him.

  In the near darkness, Carnelian could just make out the hill rising before him pillared with the black trunks of trees. Fern made sure they were still following him and led them up an irregular stair that Carnelian discovered with much stumbling to be formed by tree roots clinging to the slope. The Plainsmen, who even in the twilight seemed to know each step, slowed to let the Standing Dead feel their way up with their feet.

  At last they reached a narrow clearing which terminated at a pitchy rising mass of rock. Looking up Carnelian saw the head of the Crag glowering in the sky’s starless indigo and discovered an ivory house nestling halfway up.

  Hearing Fern and Ravan arguing in whispers, Carnelian drew closer.

  ‘I want to stay,’ Ravan was pleading.

  ‘I said, go to the hearth and see mother before she comes up here,’ said Fern.

  The youth seemed to be waiting for some intervention from Osidian, but the Master seemed unaware of him and so he trudged off along a path that hugged the Crag. There were stirrings among the cedars on either side. Carnelian could hear a clink of earthenware, some voices, a lazy drawn-out yawn.

  Fern urged them forward. The night still lingering at the foot of the Crag engulfed them. Carnelian felt the presence of others. A light came to life and showed them three Ochre standing guard at the bottom of steps cut into the rock.

  ‘Are we to go straight up?’ Fern asked.

  Their eyes wholly on the Standing Dead, the guards nodded. Fern beckoned Carnelian to follow him. The steps were steep and uneven. Taking care not to lose his footing, Carnelian managed to catch glimpses, past Fern, of the pale house they were approaching. He followed him on to a porch on which guards stood to either side of a doorway. Peering, Carnelian realized with a shudder that the guards were huskmen. Fern was staring at the doorway, gathering his resolve. He pushed its leather curtain aside and led the Standing Dead into the blackness within.

  Falling back into place, the curtain shut out the light so that Carnelian had to put a hand up to feel his way. His fingers found Fern motionless. Carnelian moved round to stand to his left. The floor felt strangely uneven under his makeshift shoes. The dullness of the scuffing echoes made him aware of how small the room was. His head brushed the ceiling. Reaching up, he touched cold, smooth ridging interlocking in some complex pattern. He let his fingers slide along one ridge and felt it swell into a double knob. His hand recoiled.

  ‘Bones.’

  ‘This is our Ancestor House,’ said Fern’s voice in a reverential tone.

  Carnelian became convinced he could detect a faint mustiness of death. ‘Your people?’ he breathed.

  ‘Under our feet, what remains of the Tribe’s mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters after the tree roots have eaten their flesh; drunk their blood. Between us and the sky, the ceiling is formed from what the ravens have left behind of our fathers and grandfathers, our uncles, our brothers.’

  ‘A tomb, then,’ Osidian said, contemptuously.

  ‘Not so,’ said Fern, outraged. ‘Our ancestors inhabit the earth and sky. These are nothing more than the bone cages that once held their souls.’

  ‘A house of death,’ whispered Carnelian.

  ‘Rather, one where we, the living, commune with our dead. Their discarded bones make this place familiar to the souls of those who have gone before. They seep in here like the scent of the magnolias so that the Elders might breathe in their wisdom.’

  ‘Wisdom, you say?’ said Osidian. ‘Then –’

  ‘Hush, bow your heads, they’re here.’

  The curtain lifting let in enough light to spill the three men’s shadows across the floor. Carne
lian registered the tracery of the design before resolving one into the roundel of a woman’s pelvis. Up through the opening the skull of a baby was squeezing, its bony face upturned, its eye-sockets welling red earth. More oozed everywhere into the cracks of the mosaic so that it seemed to Carnelian he stood upon a raft afloat on blood. The floor swept up into a wainscot of ribs. Bony buttresses reinforced a wall that was an undulating gleaming mass of femurs jointed into each other. Halfway up, more tiny skulls patterned a band with their eye and nose holes. From this band a dense leg-bone arabesque rose to a ceiling of shoulder-blades and arm-bones knitted together in a swirling spiral. Carnelian imagined this must be what it would be like to be in the hold of one of the kharon bone boats that ferried the Masters across the lake in Osrakum. Darkness suddenly returned and he was left blinking a fading, ghostly impression of the scene.

  Thin morning light entered again while, at the same time, something was shuffling past so close Carnelian could feel its clothing brush against his leg. He became aware of the shape’s odour of sweat and ferns; of the smell of hair. The light pulsed with each lift and drop of the curtain. The women rustling past were bent forward, swathed in blankets so that he could not glimpse even a sliver of their faces. Among them, uncovered, men revealed their matted hair all pebbled with salt and tangled with feathers. A clinking drew Carnelian’s eyes down. Above their brown and calloused feet, the ankles of the women were swollen white by carcanets of salt.

  Carnelian realized he was staring. Looking sideways he could make out that Fern had his head bowed. Carnelian turned enough the other way so that, the next time the room lit up, he was able to see Osidian, his chin up, striving to put imperiousness in his eyes. Seeing that struggle to deny humiliation, Carnelian chose from love to emulate Osidian’s powerless defiance and, lifting his head, stared out fiercely.

  More and more Elders were crowding in. Women were helping each other to sink to the floor. Their wrists were knobbed, their gnarled fingers ringed with more salt. In the niches sunk between the wall buttresses of bone, the men were seating themselves cross-legged on platforms and removing their shoes.

  A nudge from Fern urged Carnelian to shuffle to the left. He reached his hand up to Osidian’s arm and gently urged him to move. Leaning forward, Carnelian looked past Fern and saw Loskai had joined the end of their line.