The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  In Carnelian's grip, the stone still nestled warm and sticky.

  They gathered in the enclosure that Aurum had commanded the Marula put up around the corpse and shredded tent. He waved away Vermel's comment about the eyes from above and, by unmasking, forced the Master to remove his mask with the others. The light had gone out of Vennel's face. His colourless eyes turned reluctantly to Suth sitting stiff-backed on a stool. These robbers have spilled your precious blood, my Lord. They would not have dared had they known you to be Chosen.'

  These were no robbers,' said Aurum.

  With his foot he rolled the corpse's head to one side and drew its tunic down with his toe. A lantern on the ground revealed the red ruin of its face. Carnelian stared, clenching and unclenching the fingers from which Tain had prised the stone.

  Aurum indicated the six-spoked wheel tattooed just above the corpse's clavicle. 'It would be strange indeed if the Brotherhood of the Wheel were to send their men so far merely to rob some merchants.'

  Vennel was mesmerized by the tattoo. 'What else?'

  'Assassination.'

  Carnelian tore his eyes away from the tattoo to look at Aurum. Vennel also looked round. Carnelian saw his eyes avoiding contact.

  Aurum looked down. These creatures meant to slay us all.'

  'All?' Vennel examined the old Master's face. 'How so?'

  They are hired killers. They came at night. They could not know which tent was which. To murder one they had to slay us all.'

  'Which… which of the Chosen however desperate would thus dare breach the Blood Convention?' breathed Vennel.

  Jaspar gave Vennel a filthy look. 'Your pretences begin to wear parchment-thin, my Lord.'

  Vennel sneaked glimpses at the other Masters as if their sleeves might conceal daggers. 'Even Ykoriana would not dare…' he said at last.

  Aurum rounded on him. 'You think not? Even after she murdered her own daughter within the very precincts of the Labyrinth?'

  That is an ugly rumour.'

  Suth had his stormy eyes on Vennel. 'Believe what you will, my Lord, but do not try to deny that your mistress lies behind this outrage. You should perhaps consider that your own blood would have soaked this ground had my son not raised the alarm.'

  Suth looked at his son. The warm pride Carnelian saw in his father's eyes melted him a little.

  Vennel’s face was ice. 'Even the Empress could not hope to wash her hands of such blood as ours.'

  Suth indicated the corpse. ‘She wore these creatures like gloves that could easily be discarded. Who would dare accuse her as she pointed to her own emissary found among the dead?'

  Jaspar nodded grimly. 'Our disguise would allow the Wise to give interminable sermons on the price that must be paid by those who disregard the Law.'

  Carnelian's eyes had been pulled back to the corpse. 'How many of the Marula were slain?'

  'A handful,' Aurum said, without turning. His mouth twisted with contempt. ‘She has used you for a fool, Vennel.' He snorted. 'And now you even confess complicity in a breach of the Blood Convention.'

  Vennel turned away to hide frantic, calculating eyes. 'By all the huimur of the Commonwealth and on my own blood I swear that all I was party to was a temporary abduction, a delay that would ensure the election should go ahead without us, nothing more, no attacks, certainly not bloodshed…'

  Jaspar was looking into space. 'How can one believe that the Brotherhood would dare raise their hands against the Chosen? We have tolerated their activities for so long. This single act invites their annihilation.'

  'It is likely they knew not what they did,' said Suth.

  'How did they find us?' asked Carnelian.

  'Well…' said Vennel. They all looked at him. He floated his hands in elegant apology. 'In good faith, my Lords, and bearing in mind that my blood is as much at risk as yours-'

  Jaspar dropped his forehead into his hand. 'Do we have to listen to this?'

  Vennel flinched. The Legate and I came to an arrangement. A message was sent to Osrakum.'

  Jaspar chopped a sign of contempt. 'You imagine we did not know? Why else do you think we forwent the left-way where you expected us to be?' He turned his back on Vennel and addressed Aurum. 'Do you think, my Lord, that any of these vermin escaped to carry word of their failure?'

  That is immaterial,' said Aurum. He swung his arm round in an arc to take in the city wall. 'It is certain the Brotherhood had eyes up there to monitor the attack.'

  Carnelian searched the wall, but it was as dark as the sky.

  'When will Ykoriana know that they have failed?' asked Jaspar.

  'Even by leftway courier, she could not have received Vermel's message much before the day that we passed Maga-Naralante, ten days after we set off from the sea,' said Aumm.

  'Surely not ten days,' said Jaspar.

  'You ignore the difficulty in getting the message secretly up from the City at the Gates to Osrakum and into Ykoriana's hand in her forbidden house.'

  'Assuming you are right, my Lord, that would allow her at most only nine days to get the assassins here.'

  Aurum jabbed the corpse with the toe of his ranga. 'We are at least sixty days by road from Osrakum. This thing was already here.'

  'Not if it came here on the leftway,' said Jaspar.

  Suth shook his head. That would be difficult without the complicity of the Wise. Besides, she would not risk being so easily incriminated. The traffic records for the leftways are meticulously kept.'

  'Either way,' said Aurum, 'it is probable that in a few days Ykoriana will learn that she has failed. Desperation will make her doubly dangerous. We must reduce the time she has to spin another web. We must use the leftway.'

  'On the leftway we will be exposed,' said Vennel.

  Thanks to you, my Lord, we are exposed wherever we go,' grated Suth.

  'What of your wound, Lord Suth?' asked Jaspar.

  Carnelian disliked the way Vennel's eyes turned to feast on his father.

  Suth smiled. 'A scratch.'

  Carnelian remembered how much blood there had been. He looked away, over the canvas wall and saw above the gate a paler edge of sky. 'Behold, the morning,' he said, with wonder. He had believed the night would never end.

  The clanging of stone bells could be heard all across the field. Beneath the city wall everyone stood waiting, looking towards the still-closed gates. Carnelian and the other Masters were formed up within the cordon of the Marula. He was anxious that his aquar as it shifted should not step on the flattened tents. Beneath the canvas the corpses of the assassins lay side by side with the Marula they had killed. Though it was their custom, Aurum had not allowed the Marula to burn their dead. They glanced furtively at the canvas, stroking the salt bracelets they had stripped from the corpses. One of them sat stiffer than the others. Carnelian kept noticing the red corners of his eyes and knew the man was looking at him. When the black face angled towards him, gaunt with fear, Carnelian recognized it as belonging to the Maruli who had seen him unmasked the night before. There was no way he could reassure the man that he was safe, but Carnelian was determined to keep their secret. There was already enough blood on his hands.

  A grinding grumble drew his eyes away to where a crack was widening down the centre of the gate. The faces on the doors swung inwards to look at each other. The crowd murmur rose in pitch. Everything began to shuffle forward. A slow rhythm of huimur bells, axles and wheel trundle answered the steady ringing from the towers. Fully opened, the gates released a river of travellers coming out from the city. The two flows sheared against each other with a continuous protest. Consternation spread outwards from their meeting. Something fearful. The uproar hissed towards the Masters like flames across a parched fernland. Carnelian snatched the single, chilling word 'plague' again and again from the chatter.

  Aurum barked an order and the Marula dismounted round them to form a ring of spear points. It looked to Carnelian a frail defence. Still, when he looked for Tain, he was relieved to see him wit
h the baggage inside the ring.

  Carnelian watched Aurum's hunch lean down to one of the Marula. As the old Master sat back his action seemed to jerk the man up into his saddle-chair. The Maruli strode his aquar off into the crowd. For a moment he was consumed by it, his head bobbing in the boil. Then he came back and spoke to Aurum, pointing his arm towards the gate.

  Aurum turned to shout something at the other Masters. Carnelian strained to hear.

  ‘… mere rumour carried here from… south. If plague exists… far away… might… burn itself out before… reach it. We go on.'

  Vennel straightened up. ‘Should we not consider remaining in Nothnaralan?' His high voice carried more clearly than the old Master's. 'We could wait it out. Surely it would be foolish to ignore the peril.'

  'We shall go on,' shouted Aurum. 'If it is your wish… remain here.'

  Carnelian saw his father and Jaspar lift their hands in agreement.

  Aurum nodded, then commanded the Marula to remount. Their saddle-chairs rocked as they clambered up. Aurum's hand punched more commands into the air. The Marula reversed their lances and began to bludgeon a path with the hafts. Their aquar cleaved into the flow like boats. Carnelian could see the animals' distress. Their heads flicked from side to side, plume fans quivering open and closed. The Marula jerked tight their reins and continued hacking into the crowd. Carnelian's chair jolted as he rode after his father into their wake. One hand struggled with the reins while the other clenched the chair.

  The crowd surged in waves against him. He grew tired. When he looked up, the gate seemed further away. The tide was against them. More and more people were pouring out from the gateway into the field. Their stench maddened him. More impacts shook him to anger.

  This is unbearable!'

  For a moment Carnelian fancied it was his own voice crying out, but his teeth were clenched, his lips pressed closed.

  'Digging a ditch in water.'

  His father's voice rang clear above the turmoil. Carnelian saw his shrouded mass unfolding to betray his height. His huge hand appeared, like a spotted dove, floating, alighting on his head. Then, with a sudden motion, it pulled the hood back. The bandaged head was revealed and the mask that was a piece of sun. Carnelian was transfixed. His father's golden face was the serene centre of the storm. Carnelian's gaze followed its lunging forward. He watched his father's saddle-chair collide with one of the Marula, watched him grab the man's salt-bangled arm. The Maruli turned, lifting his lance in menace, stared wide-eyed at the mask, then down at the white Master's hand that held him. Suth shouted something before he let go. The Maruli bowed so low his head disappeared between his thighs. When he came up he was bellowing and holding his arm out as if he were cooling it from the Master's touch. The other Marula craned round, saw the Master's terrible mirror face, slitted their eyes and brayed battle cries as they turned their lance blades on the crowd.

  'We are revealed Lords of the Hidden Land,' boomed Aurum as he too pushed back his hood. The crowd slid distorted across his mask as he scanned it. Take care, this riot might conceal our enemies.'

  Jaspar gave a fierce cry and straightened in his chair as he revealed himself. Vennel unbent more slowly. Carnelian watched his hand waver but then the Master followed the others. Reluctant to give up his hold on the chair, Carnelian was last of all. He glanced uneasily at the throng but realized it was futile to search it for assassins.

  The Marula's aquar were striding forward. The crowd was giving way grudgingly, snarling. Faces were turning to look, then a chorus of voices struck up. 'Masters! Masters!'

  The word spread panic more rapidly than had the rumour of plague. Swathes of people were collapsing to their knees. The Marula trampled ahead regardless, scything their lance blades before them. Carnelian watched the crowd, in flight, yawn a corridor all the way to the gate. The Masters rushed down it and he was drawn after them. On either side the gates flung up their walls of wood. He glimpsed the bronze sneers of the faces high above. The space between the gates swirled with people. He was clattering up a ramp into a screaming, echoing canyon. A continuous mass of beasts and men was slipping by. His aquar loped on, dodging between wagons. A mudbrick wall coursed past on his right. Women flattened against it open-mouthed. Buttresses pulsed past. Shrilling children dashed from his path.

  Ahead the road forked round a tower. It loomed up as he rode into its shadow. He could make out windows, a parapet. There was a rush of noise. At the edge of his vision the Masters and the Marula were rearing back. Plumes flared as Carnelian's own aquar juddered to a stop. As he toppled to one side he yanked the reins in panic. The world swept before his eyes.

  Toll, toll,' coarse voices cried in Vulgate above the roar.

  Carnelian's aquar struck something. There was a clatter of many things hitting the ground. His world steadied. He saw a tinker's angry face. The woman behind him went bloodless. Her look leapt to the other faces looking up. People began bending, grovelling, moaning.

  Carnelian's hand strayed up to his mask. After so long hiding he had felt naked when they looked at him. Over their heads, he could see the toll-gatherers. Their high conical caps bore the city's cypher of the ladder and the sea. For a moment their faces showed fierce defiance but then the moaning spread to them. Their mouths fell open as they let out the sound of fear. Slimed teeth. Mouths gaping so wide they squeezed tears from the slitted eyes above them. Their billhooks toppled like scythed reeds.

  'Make way,' Aurum cried in Vulgate as he hung above them, vast and menacing.

  People shuffled aside bleating. A wagon was rolling out of the way. All around, the road seemed carpeted with dead. The Marula moved forward between the toll posts and the Masters followed. The party picked up speed. Echoes flattened as they came into the open, into a marketplace, that swelled wide then narrowed in the distance almost to a point. Like an almond, Carnelian thought, an almond they were entering by one corner. The road was a loop raised around its edge upon which crowds were slowly circling the sunken centre with its mess of stalls. As they rode nearer, chariots rolled their man-high wheels left to right across Carnelian's vision. Among their arches people ambled and the heads of saurians bobbed floating. It seemed an impenetrable flow.

  Carnelian felt the rising anger of the Masters. Sitting tall and terrible in their midst, his father lifted his arm and with it sent the Marula crashing headlong. Their chevron cut into the crowd. The Masters followed them, clinging to their chairs as if they were riding small boats down rapids. They were picking up speed as they drove everything before them. Carnelian felt the power pistoning up through his saddle-chair as they blew along the road like a gale. A woman scrambled screaming from Carnelian's path. His aquar swung round a wagon that was turning ponderously out of his way. He felt the shatter of each dropped pot. Gourds rolled like heads. Someone slipped, tumbling scrunched into a ball. Carnelian gritted his teeth as his aquar kicked and stumbled through the obstruction. The buildings on his right were wearing the first lurid colours of the sun. He had dizzy glimpses of the mudbrick facade with its porticoes and tiers in which cracks led down into alleyways. From the corner of his eye he had a persistent impression that a storm was rising in the east. He looked off between the jumbled stalls and saw the gloomy rampart that defined the other side of the marketplace. His aquar's slowing to a walk caused him to turn back to see that their route was being choked by a convoy of wagons. The rest of the road had been cleared by the Masters' aura of terror.

  Carnelian watched the wagons snare each other as they hurried to get out of the way. He did not want to look back at the destruction they had left behind them and so distracted himself by examining a huge tower that rose up behind the wagons. It stood back from the marketplace behind a thick stone wall that came to just below its waist. At its foot a road left the marketplace leading westwards. Half the height of the tower that could be seen above the wall was a truncated pyramid pricked with windows. Growing up from that were spars, as if some ship had run aground and rotted aw
ay leaving only its ribs; three on each side resembling the prongs of a fork. The middle prong of the closest carried a plaque. When Carnelian screwed up his eyes he could make out the ring glyph and below it the two spots and three bars of the number seventeen. From the tower the wall ran further round the marketplace to two more identical towers.

  Carnelian's survey was interrupted by one of the wagons rolling free. The Marula were already streaming through the gap and the Masters fell in behind them.

  Tower seventeen rose on the intersection of the marketplace and the western road. At its foot stood a monolith not much taller than a man. As soldiers appeared from behind this, Suth formed the Marula into a cordon to keep back the throng. Aurum rode into the soldiers as they were trying to kneel. Carnelian edged his aquar closer. He could see that their bright auxiliary collars were inscribed at the throat with the ring glyph on either side of which were the service and rank rings.

  '… bear a pass,' Aurum was saying to one of the soldiers, who was a marumaga. He passed down a jade tablet ridged with spirals into the marumaga's hand.

  This pass allows what you demand, Master, but I have my instructions from the legate of this city.' He pointed across the marketplace to the black rampart.

  'It is you who are the keeper of this watch-tower and must obey the pass unconditionally,' Aurum rumbled.

  The marumaga keeper faltered, chewed his quivering lip. This watch-tower, although part of the Ringwall, still lies within the jurisdiction of the Legate, my Master.'

  'Enough,' cried Suth, who had joined Aurum.

  The keeper took a nervous step back as this second Master brought his aquar towards him.

  'Keeper, you've seen our pass. Now you've a simple choice: either you let us through or else you delay us. If you choose the latter I'll have a chair upholstered with the skin from your back.'

  The keeper looked ill. His watery eyes flicked from one mask to the other. His head nodded in an uneven rhythm. 'Of course, Master, of course… the pass is entirely valid.'