The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  Going out into the cold he felt as if a bucket of water had been thrown over him. He stared, not understanding what he saw. Something moved beside him. He glanced down to see Tain looking queasy. The snow that had been swept from the cobbles had been piled in dirty mounds. In one part of the court Carnelian saw some of his people labouring in the mist of their own breath, stacking shutters, pieces of flooring, tables. A queue was filing in from the Long Court alleyway carrying more. Nearby some of the branded men from the ship were splitting these things into planks. Across the court, parchment was being cut from windows. Sleds were being banged together. One already made was creaking as it was loaded. Some more of his people were standing at its head, dejected, hands wedged into their armpits, puffing, stamping their feet. The ropes to pull the sled lay coiled at their feet. Here and there Carnelian could see the leather jerkin of a guardsman of his tyadra. Over against a wall a handful of Aurum's guardsmen were leaning on their forked spears. Their yellow tattoo-bisected faces showed the uncaring arrogance of conquerors.

  One of Carnelian's guardsmen came walking straight towards him. It was Grane, his nose and ears red, his hands rasping against each other. 'It is unseemly that you should be here, my Master.'

  'Perhaps I can be of some help, Grane.'

  His brother came closer, breathing heavy clouds of vapour. This isn't the place for you,' he said in a low voice.

  Carnelian grew angry. 'Do you really expect me just to sit back

  … watch this happen… do nothing?'

  Grane looked up at him, frowning. 'It's not only yourself you shame by coming here, it's all of us.'

  'Don't you talk to me of shame. I find enough shame in allowing this – this desecration. I'll go and see the Master and put a stop to it, now!'

  Grane looked down at Tain and jerked his head. 'You. Go and help load that sled.' Tain looked up at Carnelian, hoping that he would countermand the order, but Carnelian pretended not to notice him. As the boy stormed off, Grane leant close. 'Don't be a fool, Carnelian. From where do you think the orders came for this?'

  Carnelian looked away, knowing Grane spoke truth.

  'You can't do anything here.' Grane took a step back, bowed and moved away.

  Carnelian stood for a moment looking at nothing in particular. His mirror face made him a pale sun in the chaos of the court. Slowly he turned and walked off towards the barracks.

  All that day Carnelian hid in his room. Several times he slept. He tried to distract himself. In flickering firelight he played with his Great-Rings. He tried to conjure up those visions of Osrakum that had always been brighter to him than summer sky. But there was no brightness, only the lonely lightless room. All day he longed for Tain to come. But when finally he did, Carnelian had only pain to share and so pretended to be asleep.

  His brother was there, sleeping in his makeshift bed. His breathing sounded as fitful as the wind outside.

  Despair lurked in every corner of the room. Carnelian filled his mind with a vision of wide untainted blue sky and then he tried to melt into it like a bather into the sea.

  Next morning, Tain uncovered the glow of the embers to make some light. Carnelian's brow was creased. His lips twitched as if he were speaking to someone far away in his dreams. The boy leant forward and pulled the blanket up over him, then slipped away.

  Carnelian woke to find Tain kneeling beside him looking agitated. 'You must come, Carnie. I wanted to let you sleep but you've to come and make him move.'

  'Eh? Make who move?' Carnelian sat up bleary-eyed. 'Open the shutters, will you, Tain?'

  The morning flooded in. Carnelian hid his eyes, smiled with pleasure as the light fell on his face then, remembering, frowned.

  'Crail. Crail's refusing to move,' said Tain.

  Carnelian looked at him, confused. 'Move…?'

  'His room's to be pulled apart like the others and he refuses to move.'

  Carnelian stood up. 'And Grane, Keal?'

  They're down at the ship and can't come up.'

  Carnelian saw the pleading in his brother's face. He chewed his lip. 'OK. You'll have to get me dressed first.'

  They hurried through it, and when Carnelian was ready Tain sprang towards the door. Carnelian ignored him, went to the window and stood for some moments looking out at the ship. People swarmed over her hull, spilling onto the quayside. One of her masts was down. She had a skirt of boats and rafts bobbing in the swell around her. A carcass awrithe with maggots, he thought. He turned his back on her and walked over to join Tain.

  They had to cross the alleyway. It was loud with people. Things were scraping along the wall, feet scuffing and kicking. From either side came workshop sounds. Carnelian looked neither left nor right. He kept his head up and only relaxed once they had passed through a door on the other side.

  He faltered. His body had anticipated warmth. The floor was dusted white and chunked with plaster. Holes gaped on either side where doors had been ripped out. Even their frames had been torn away, leaving the walls ragged. He and Tain picked their way along the passage. In places where the ceiling had caved in, water had soaked into floor and walls. There was the derelict smell of wet plaster. Even a waft of cooking smells brought only resentment.

  The noise had been growing louder. Tearing, ripping, thuds and cracking. They came into the Little Court and Tain gave a yell. The courtyard had been ploughed to mud. The buildings that had hugged it were crumbling shells. They had played their games here as children. The older people had lived here because it had been the most sheltered part of the Hold. Amongst the rubble, strange creatures turned to stare. Chalk-faced, hair powdered white. Seeing Carnelian they began to kneel. Carnelian jerked his hand up, Rise. 'Continue your work,' he said, his voice too shrill. They turned away and stooped to fish bits and pieces out of the wreckage, passing them back hand to hand till they were dropped into the centre of the court.

  One building was still intact though its face leaned out. A slate scraped down from above and shattered on the cobbles. Carnelian pulled Tain after him as he ducked in. It was hard to see anything in the corridor. They found Crail's room. Carnelian pushed into the small space. Two women were there, bent over an old man crumpled in a chair.

  'Master,' one of them said.

  Thank the Gods,' said the other.

  Carnelian whipped off his mask and knelt before the chair. 'Crail, you must leave.' He looked into the old man's rheumy eyes. This had been the commander of the tyadra. Now he was wasted to a bony sag, his mind so faded that sometimes he did not even know his own name. He was also the Master's brother and so Carnelian's uncle.

  Crail shook his prune of a face. 'Won't.'

  Carnelian looked round, saw the cracks that had spread like branches up the walls. This is all falling down, Crail.'

  'And me with it. I'm too old for this.' He reached up a trembling arm and touched Carnelian's face. 'Just leave me be, child.'

  Carnelian was seeing him through tears. He snapped round. 'Get out,' he shouted. The women fled. He turned back. 'Come on, Crail, don't do this,' he sobbed. He reached his arm out to gather the old man up.

  Crail sank back. His soft face bunched itself into a well-used expression of stubbornness.

  'You will move, you old fool,' cried Carnelian, stepping back against someone. Tain. He had forgotten him. There he was, his hair dusted white in a mockery of the old man's. Two stripes had washed down from his eyes.

  Carnelian stood tall, put his mask before his face, pulled himself together. 'Crail, you will leave this place,' he said in the level tone his father used. 'For I command it.'

  The old man looked up, straining his eyes. 'Master…?'

  Tain, help him up.'

  For a moment, Tain was startled by Carnelian's tone, then he bowed. 'As you command, my Master.' Soon he had the old man propped up and was manoeuvring him out of the room. Carnelian followed them out, helping as he could without being seen to do so.

  People had gathered outside. Carnelian went out to mee
t them. He pointed here and there into the crowd, affecting brusqueness. 'Help Tain take Crail away to some place of safety.' He watched the old man being carried off. People started kneeling, in ones and twos. They surrounded him with their abasement so that he could only move out of their circle by treading on them.

  'Make way,' he said, controlling his voice, glad he had his mask to hide behind.

  No-one moved.

  'Master,' one said and then another, and then their voices rose all around him, breaking, almost wailing.

  He wanted to be a child, to run away, but there was nowhere left to hide. At last he lifted his hands for silence. He bent down. 'Mari, what's all this?'

  The woman he spoke to lifted up her face. Her eyes were red, sunken. 'Carnie… Master…'

  Carnelian removed his mask. 'Carnie will do fine,' he said gently.

  They're taking our food, Carnie.'

  There were murmurs of assent: He looked at them. They all wore the same face of hope. He felt his lip quiver. 'It's needed for the ship.'

  'But they're not leaving us enough,' someone said.

  Carnelian nodded. He was trying to hold in his tears but they could see by the way the paint was smeared around his eyes that he had been crying. 'It's the Masters who've demanded it, and their needs are greater than ours.' He felt the hollow betrayal in his words. Their heads sank as the fight went out of them. He almost let his pain out in a wail.

  'And you'll be leaving us too, Carnie?' asked Mari.

  He could not bear to look at her. 'Yes… yes, I must go with them,' he looked up, said fiercely, 'but before I go I promise I'll do all I can.'

  He stood up and rehid his face behind the golden mask. They made way for him. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.

  Carnelian went to the storerooms and saw that it was as they had said. Fish were being sealed into jars. Dried fowl were being baled in woven seaweed. The walls were blank with naked hooks, the shelves empty. He opened one of the stone flour bins and had to lean over to see its level. Behind him on the floor, stacked and packaged, was by far the greater part of what the room had held. The faces that had gathered at the door told the story. Children frightened by their mothers' looks. An old woman gnawing her hand. Even with rationing he knew she would not see another summer.

  Carnelian pushed through them and stormed back through the kitchens, where lavish dishes were being prepared for their guests. The sight of all those riches patterning the plates made him rage. He stumbled into the shambles of the Great Hall. Among the columns there lay a clearing with its stumps. He walked into it. Most of the roof had come down. Capitals for so long hidden in the ceiling's dusk showed their colours. It was already difficult to remember the way it had been.

  Of the doors to the Long Court only the splintered wooden hinges remained. Beyond was another scene of devastation, like a view onto a battlefield where the camp women were despoiling the dead. He moved into the shadow of the archway. He watched the women shredding covers, blankets, clothing. The tattered ribbons they produced were being twisted into ropes. Others he saw with waxy faces, painting tar over the jewelled colours of the tapestries they themselves had woven. One woman paused to wipe her eyes with the back of the hand that held a brush. She scanned the pattern under her hand then with a jerk she turned it black.

  Carnelian wanted to close his eyes, clap his hands over his ears. He passed through the arch and almost ran along the alleyway. The arcade had lost its roof, and its row of columns down one side. He ignored the women. He would not turn his head even as they cried out to him. When he reached the covered way it was as if he had found shade from blazing sun. He passed the Masters' three doors, and at each guards fell to their knees upon the ridged floor. He ignored them, reached the steps, climbed them into sight of his father's door. His own men stood to one side of it but on the other there was a contingent of Aurum's yellow-faced guardsmen. All knelt. He bade one of his men announce him to the Master. The sea-ivory doors sounded as the man struck them. There was a mutter of voices. The man came back with a strange expression on his face. It took some moments for Carnelian to recognize it. Fear. The man was afraid of him. He fell before Carnelian and bowed his head. The Master says he can't see you' – his head nodded – 'my Master. When the time's right he'll send for you.'

  Carnelian looked up at his father's doors with hatred. He wished to throw them down. To erupt in among the gathered Masters. To drive them like vultures from the carcass of his home. To send them winging back across the sea to the vaunted glory of their roosts in Osrakum. But he could not. His father's words lay across those doors like the seal on a tomb. His shoulders fell. The man was still there at his feet. He wanted to lift the fear from him. He put his hand out to touch him. Its shaking betrayed him. Carnelian snatched it back, turned and walked away.

  THE BLOOD-RING

  Apotheosis transubstantiates the blood of the elected candidate into ichor. The fractions of this holy blood that run in the veins of the Chosen derive ultimately from consanguinity with a God Emperor. Blood-rings are worn as symbol and proof of this relation. Each ring is inscribed with a blood-taint that can be found tabulated in the Books of Blood. Entries will be found arranged according to the Houses. The blood-taint of an offspring is derived by averaging the blood-taints of its procreators. (extract from a beadcord manual used in the training of the Wise)

  Carnelian went to seek solitude among the summer pavilions. The courtyards he crossed were empty, unmarred, familiar. He entered one of the pavilions where a bloom of frost dulled the tiles. He wandered maskless, blowing his cloudy breath. He warmed a tile with a puff. Rubbed away the cold traceries to reveal the poppies beneath. He broke the pane of ice that filled the fountain bowl. He sat on a stone bench and recalled summers there but refused to indulge himself with tears.

  At last he put on his mask and slipped back through the ruins, a shadow with a gleaming face. He passed scenes of torchlit industry that showed his world being destroyed. When he reached his room he closed the door and slumped back against it. The ache around his eyes had spread to make his face as stiff as the gold of his mask.

  He waited, blinded by the flames. Tain came at last. They saw each other's pain. Before Tain had a chance to say anything, Carnelian sent him off to find Keal, and they came back together.

  Carnelian looked at Keal. 'You look drained.'

  Keal was sure Carnelian looked worse than he did, but he just nodded. 'I've been overseeing our work on the ship.' He hung his head. 'It's a nasty business.'

  'Our stores?'

  He looked up. That as well, but I was thinking of the ship. It's strange to wander in the warrens beneath her decks. You can feel the floor moving under your feet and hear her creaking all round you. It's brought back memories of coming here… when I was a child. And locked away in her sunless depths,' his frown creased the head of his chameleon tattoo, 'there are men, or something like men.' He shook his head, as if he were trying to dislodge the image in his mind. There was only enough light to make out the merest outlines, but they were there all right, you could smell them.'

  'Sartlar,' said Carnelian.

  Tain's eyes opened wide. They brought those monsters here?'

  'Not monsters, Tain, half-men. Don't judge them too harshly. If it wasn't for them the Commonwealth'd starve. They work all her fields. Their labour is used everywhere by the Masters. They're not monsters but beasts of burden.'

  'Monsters or not, I pity them there in that ship,' said Keal.

  Carnelian looked at him. He imagined living out his life in the belly of the black ship, and he grimaced. ‘You've been to see the Master?'

  Keal nodded. 'He and the visiting Master, the gigantic one, check on everything we do. Grane reports back to them about the work in the Hold and I tell them about the ship.'

  'Work…?' snorted Tain.

  They both looked round at him.

  'When will she be ready, Keal?' said Carnelian.

  Three days, may
be four.'

  'Who's to go?'

  Keal glanced at Tain. He began to list the names of guardsmen. Carnelian nodded at each name, considering the choices, asking questions. He stopped his brother when he began to list those not of the tyadra. 'You've not spoken your name, Keal.'

  'I’m to go, and as commander. Grane's to remain here in the Master's place.'

  'You don't seem overjoyed by your promotion.'

  'I feel the honour, Carnie, really I do. It's just…'

  'I know.'

  'We're leaving them to die,' said Keal, close to tears. Tain's eyes were already wet. Carnelian would not allow himself to share their despair.

  'Come, let's not give up yet. I've brought you here, Keal, to ask you if you'd do something for me.'

  'Anything.'

  'You've access to the Master.' Keal paled.

  'Are the other Masters always with him?'

  'Not all of them, just the terrible giant.'

  'He frightens me as well, Keal, but if I'm to do anything I must speak with the Master. Will you ask him if he'll give me audience?'

  'You ask when you could command.' There'll be no commanding between us.' 'Of course I'll do it, but don't count on it, Carnie. The Master's been stony since they came.'

  While they waited, Carnelian had Tain clean off his body-paint. He was ready when Keal came back to say that the Master would see him. Keal had brought an escort with him.