The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  He knelt on the bed to peer through a slit in the wall. His eyes filled with the glimmers of the encampment. He was in the tower's upper storey. There were two more below him, and then the entrance hall with its cistern. He pushed his face into the slit to breathe in the cooking smells, the warm stink of beasts that overlaid the cloying odour of the land.

  The door opened behind him and he turned to see Tain looking ashen.

  'Father?' Carnelian gasped.

  'He's fine, the wound's not too deep, but the bandages that have soaked up the blood are rotting.' Tain scrunched up his nose.

  'I'll go to him,' said Carnelian, crossing the cell.

  Tain took his arm. 'You'd better let him sleep, Carnie.'

  Carnelian reached up to trap his brother's hand against his arm so that he could not pull it away. He examined the narrow face. His little brother had the look of an old man. Their eyes meshed. Carnelian searched Tain's, thinking about Jaspar's price. He wanted to say something but could not find a single word.

  Tain gently pulled his hand away and walked over to the bed and started stroking out the creases. His hands looked painfully thin. Carnelian had to have some air and so he put on his mask and left the cell.

  Three sides of the hall had wooden walls into which were set the doors that led into the other cells. The fourth side was formed by the tower's outer wall. Against its stone was the ladder they had pulled up after them when they had left the Marula in the dormitory storey below. On either side dangled the counterweights that kept it in place. Perhaps as an attempt at humour, these had been shaped like men around whose necks the cables were attached. Beside the ladder were the cables that went down to a longer ladder they had climbed from the entrance hall, past the grooms' dormitory and into that of the auxiliaries below. Its counterweights were strung up with their heads touching the ceiling. The keel-beam ran over his head and buried itself in the opposite wall. The six ribs coming through the plaster embedded themselves three to each side, in the beam. The whole construction looked like the underside of a grasshopper.

  The floor boxed in by the wooden walls was formed into a cross by the four hatches cut into its corners. Carnelian went to the centre of this cross and peered at the doors that lay at the ends of the arms. Each had an eye daubed on it but only one door, apart from his, had the chameleon. He crept to that, listened but could hear nothing. The desire to see his father was tempered by a fear of disturbing his rest. Their meeting would be painful for both of them. An angry voice rang out. Though muffled, it was still clearly Jaspar's. Carnelian heard a slap and flinched. Maybe it was the attack that had made Jaspar lose so much composure as to actually strike a slave with his own hand.

  Carnelian retreated. In the light flickering up through the hatches he spotted a ladder going up into the ceiling. He swung onto it and began to climb. When his head butted against a trapdoor, he fumbled around until he found the catch that opened it. He clambered through it onto the tower roof.

  The six ribs rose around him like the boles of trees. The air was thick with naphtha fumes. A flicker led his eyes up one of the ribs to where it held aloft a beacon. Cut black from the starry sky was a platform suspended between all six ribs. He made towards the beacon rib, cursing as he stumbled over pipes, around machinery. Bronze staples formed a ladder up the rib towards the beacon flare. He stopped dead, hearing a scratch of voices. They were coming from where the keel-beam projected out into space pointing north towards the pinhead of the next tower's beacon. A man-shape unfolded up into view. Behind, another was spread-eagled in the hoop of the dead-man's chair fixed to the keel-beam's end.

  Carnelian decided to ignore the men and began climbing the staples. The rib carried him out over the leftway. He passed a board twice his height bolted to the rib that he recognized as one of the plaques that advertised the watch-tower's number to the road below.

  He reached the top and found that the rib's end formed a platform. A pipe swelled open in a dragon mouth from whose jaws spluttered a smoky flame. From this eyrie, Carnelian could gaze out across the night-black land. Below, the ribbon of the leftway faded off north and south. He could see the flares of the nearest towers in both directions.

  A sound made him look down. Something large and black was coming up the rib towards him. It looked up, allowing the flare light to well in the hollows of its Master's mask.

  'You have come to escape the odours below, my Lord?' It was Vennel.

  Carnelian backed against the flare. 'In search of solitude.'

  Vennel came up to join him, unfolding to his full height. 'Prolonged proximity to the Great can be wearying. It is said, and truly, that the Chosen require the solitude of their coombs.'

  Carnelian felt that the Master's bulk would push him off into space.

  'Behold the brutish masses.'

  Carnelian looked at the swathe of campfires twinkling at their feet. The encampment's murmur blew on the warm night wind with scents of smoke. There was also a persistent nagging like the creak of axles on the road.

  Vennel coughed. This will be quite a homecoming for you, my Lord.'

  Carnelian stared at him. 'What do you mean?'

  Vennel turned to face him. His ivory hands began to rub each other. 'Only that my Lord must be looking with keen anticipation to returning to his coomb. That is, after being so long away.'

  This was the second time that day that Vennel had tried to be pleasant. 'Yes,' said Carnelian. It was the easiest answer to give.

  Vennel's hands made a dry sound as they slid round each other. Carnelian stared out into the night. His finger traced the cold curves of the flare. He noticed the creaking again. 'What makes that sound?'

  'My Lord?'

  The creaking.'

  The creaking? Aaah, you do not know?' 'I would not ask if I did.'

  'Of course, my Lord. It is made by the wheels that draw up water to irrigate the Guarded Land.'

  Carnelian squinted into the darkness and thought perhaps he could just see them turning.

  'Exile from Osrakum is the hardest burden to bear.'

  'What exactly do these towers watch for?' Carnelian asked quickly.

  'Watch…?'

  'Barbarian incursions?'

  Vennel opened a hand. 'Sometimes, my Lord, but mostly they are used to anticipate rebellion.' The sartlar?'

  'Just so, my Lord. They are like locusts, singly innocuous, but when they swarm causing great damage. These leftways are a web spanning the land. If the local tower garrisons are unable themselves to quell a disturbance they can summon a nearby legion.'

  'But there must be regions far from the roads.'

  That is true, my Lord. The Guarded Land is a vast sea across which few even of the barbarians venture. Away from the roads, unseen, the cancer of rebellion can spread unchecked for months. It is only the walls of the leftways that make sure the infection is contained within a province. Once detected, huimur fire will soon destroy it.'

  'It looks so peaceful.'

  'Often, so does the sea.'

  The roads are like causeways…' said Carnelian, thinking aloud. 'My Lord?'

  Carnelian waved his hand, Nothing.

  'Outside Osrakum there is only wilderness.'

  Carnelian turned to Vennel, disliking the lurid reflections in his mask. 'As you said before, my Lord, I am weary. I need solitude. If you would please move aside…?'

  The Master did not move. 'It is hard to imagine what reasons the Lord your father might have to stay so long out here.'

  Carnelian tried to gauge whether he might manage to push past the Master.

  'Of course his blood oath bound him.'

  'If you know about the oath, my Lord, then you have all the reason you require. My father is an honourable man.'

  'Most certainly, my Lord, most certainly, though such oaths when sworn before the Wise are enforced more by the Law than by honour. Even honour cannot explain why your father would insist on keeping an oath from which he had been released so long ago.'


  ‘So… so long ago?' said Carnelian. He felt as if he was trying to swallow a stone. 'How long ago?'

  'Oh, many years. Oh, I see… this is news to you?'

  The stone was stuck in his gullet.

  Vennel grabbed him by the shoulders. 'What ails my Lord?'

  Carnelian loathed the Master's touch, but the more he squirmed, the tighter Vennel held on to him. 'It is nothing. I need to sleep. Please, let me go.'

  'But-'

  'I bid you good night, my Lord,' Carnelian said through his teeth, jerking free, almost falling from the platform before reaching the ladder. Vennel was speaking after him but Carnelian heard nothing, saw nothing. His hands and feet moved by themselves as he descended the rib. He could still feel the Master's fingers gripping his flesh. Vennel had frightened him, but far worse was the knowledge that his father had lied to him.

  PLAGUE SIGN

  Round and round the mirror

  A teacher, ruler, giver

  We kiss you, we kiss you

  You all fall down

  (nursery rhyme)

  Carnelian woke in another ammonite cell wearing a frown and for a moment did not know where he was. There was a face in the wall. He reached up to touch its stone-smooth swelling cheek. Really, it was only a bit of a face, clipped off where one block joined another. He sat up and found there were other fragments everywhere, chipped, worn, at angles. Each leaf, eye, hand on its own block in the jigsaw of the wall.

  He fell back again and stared at the snake belly of wood that crossed the ceiling. A day had passed since Vennel had told him of his father's lie. A long hard day during which they had flown along the leftway deeper into the south. He had watched his father making the changeovers with increasing stiffness until his fear for him had become a constant ache but still there was the lie; and the lie had reopened the wound of Crail's death and gushed his blood between them. Though he cursed himself for weakness, Carnelian could see no way to cross over.

  The previous night, Carnelian had sent Tain to tend his father. When his brother had returned ashen-faced, Carnelian had no need to ask questions. He had turned his face to the wall and struggled for sleep.

  Now he could see through a slit the sky paling blue. The air was still cool and carried the sounds of waking up from the encampment. He would soon have to confront another day.

  He heard the door opening and pretended to be asleep. Through slitted eyes he watched Tain creep in and wondered where he had been. Tain looked over at him with sunken eyes then, without looking away, his foot stirred the blankets on the floor. Where had he spent the night? A picture came unbidden to his mind. Jaspar talking to Tain the day before as they were making a changeover. Carnelian had thought the slump in his brother's shoulders a result of one of the Master's threats. Cold flushed up from Carnelian's stomach. There was another explanation.

  'Where have you been?' he said. The cold had reached his throat to chill his words.

  For answer his brother hung his head and Carnelian knew. Wrath made him dress with icy speed. He left the cell to go hunting for the Lord Jaspar.

  He found him on the watch-tower roof standing near one of the corner ribs gazing down into the encampment. Carnelian marched up to him and had opened his mouth to speak when he saw, past a winch leaning out into space, a roiling crowd below. People were streaming off the road back into the stopping place, their flight only stemmed by those already there. An incessant angry buzz mixed with the lowing of beasts. Wagons at the encampment's far edge were flattening tracks off into the hri fields. Beyond, the flat umber plain was already crawling with sartlar amidst the lazy water-wheels. 'What is happening?' he said.

  Jaspar said nothing, but walking round the rib he gazed along the keel-beam, beyond the lookout in his dead-man's chair, to the south. He lifted his hand to point.

  Carnelian followed the finger down the narrowing road to the tiny prong of the next watch-tower. Behind this he noticed a scribble over the dawn. He strained his eyes. 'Smoke?'

  Jaspar turned to him a face the colour of the sun. 'Plague sign.'

  Carnelian stood for a few moments digesting the words. Then his sight cleared and he saw Jaspar's mask and the anger seized his throat so that he could hardly speak.

  'My… my Lord…'

  Light slid off Jaspar's mask as it angled to one side. 'You forced my brother to come to you.' 'The creature came of its own free will.' 'You promised him he could keep his eyes.' 'Perhaps.'

  'Will you honour your promise?'

  'One does not consider oneself bound by anything one says to a slave.'

  Carnelian fought down a desire to do violence. 'You will have your price for his eyes, I shall betray my father, but you will promise me on your blood never to touch him again.'

  Jaspar's beautiful hand rose and signed elegantly, On my blood.

  The Masters gathered on the watch-tower roof within the valley of its wooden ribs.

  'Surely now we must go back,' said Vennel.

  'We are protected,' said Aurum.

  Suth had propped himself up against one of the ribs.

  'Not so our servants nor the Marula,' said Carnelian, giving him an anxious glance, sickened by planning his betrayal.

  'What touching concern for your inferiors, my Lord,' said Jaspar.

  'In this matter each Lord must make his own choice,' said Aurum. 'I for one will go on.' He turned to Suth. 'And you, my Lord?'

  For a while it seemed that Suth had not heard the question. Then he nodded. '… with you,' he said with effort.

  Carnelian withered witnessing his father's worsening condition.

  Then it is decided,' said Jaspar. 'We shall all go on. Unless the Ruling Lord Vennel wishes to set up palace here, by himself?'

  Vennel scanned the circle of gold faces. 'No doubt nothing I can say would make my counsels prevail?'

  'No doubt,' said Jaspar.

  The world distorted through his tears. With the others, Carnelian had applied fresh unguent to his mask's filter. Aurum was having to threaten the Marula who eyed the distant signal with alarm. They knew how dangerous a crack it was in the sky. As they mounted, Carnelian noticed for the first time their weakness. They had a look of plants in need of water.

  At the next watch-tower they all stopped in eerie silence. The air weighed down with increasing heat.

  Carnelian saw his father wilt against the wall. He wanted to go to him but could not, and rationalized that it was better not to draw attention to his father's distress. When Aurum moved to support him, Carnelian felt as if he had already betrayed him. He walked his aquar towards the parapet, hunched in self-disgust. He could see the bone-white road. Travellers huddled at the margins of the stopping place or were scattered in pockets through the hri fields. Chariots and wagons were ranged like barricades. The only sound was the creaking of the water-wheels buckling in the heat shimmer as they turned.

  Then they were off again. The black line in the sky split in two. Clearly, both were rising from a watch-tower Carnelian could not see. They slowed. Suth fell back so that his aquar came close to Carnelian's. He was sagging in his chair, his head resting on his chest. 'Wind your robe tight… the Black Lord's Dance.'

  'Father…' Carnelian began but his father urged his aquar on and it loped forward to join Aurum up ahead.

  The smoke swelled into a pair of wavering ribbons. Motes danced in the air above like swarming flies. The aquar were jogging. The Marula were cringing in their chairs. Guiding his aquar near the parapet Carnelian could see the road was no longer white, but flecked with corpses. As they continued, these dark signs of death grew denser, in places spilling off the road far out into the fields. He saw a huimur wandering, dragging a broken chariot, ploughing furrows through the dead.

  Carnelian could already see the watch-tower with its horns of smoke.

  'Windspeed,' cried Aurum.

  They all accelerated. Remembering his father's warning, Carnelian wound himself into his cloak. This melted out some of his love for his fathe
r who, though suffering, could still care for his son.

  From its upheld arms the watch-tower was pumping smoke into the sky in a roiling boil like pitch in a cauldron. They crashed over the wooden bridge. The watch-tower rushed by, its door monolith daubed with tar. The parapet opposite was set with half-charred animals skewered on poles. As these were being left behind, Carnelian realized with horror they were sartlar. His nose filter could not mask the fetor from the road. It was as if an open sewer ran below. Above, scavengers were screaming, floating on the air like ash. Fingers of plague were feeling for them across the plain. Carnelian struck his aquar to make it run faster. Other smoke columns rose off to the left wafting a sickening cooking of flesh. Along the road corpse mounds were smouldering. Hunched sartlar were building more. Mounted overseers rode through them, with whips or carrying fire. One looked up as they hurtled past. He had no face but only funereal windings of brown stained cloth.

  All day they sped into the furnace south. Each changeover was made hurriedly. Slowly, the road below began to fill again with people, although only with those who were going towards Osrakum. Carnelian sank back into the chair, closed his eyes, rolled with the smooth pistoning of his aquar. The net of roads and sartlar kraals went slowly by, lulling him into a pounding stupor.

  Carnelian became aware of the sun's gory eye bloodying all the clouds. Gilded land slipped past unfocused. Mounds resolved on either side of the road, defined by strokes of shadow. He began to see patterns: immense sweeping rings of red earth, straight edges, terraces. Here and there masonry looked like bone poking out of inflamed flesh. Houses, streets, a vast and ruined city. It was in a watch-tower nearby that Aurum decided they would spend the night.

  Carnelian stared at his father lying on the bed. They had all crammed into his cell because he was too weak to rise.

  The Marula are failing,' said Jaspar.

  The poison is killing them,' said Aurum.

  Vennel was rubbing his hands together. 'How can we be certain it is not the plague?'