The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  'If it is, the boys will also be tainted,' said Jaspar.

  'It might be prudent to have the boys and Marula all destroyed,' said Vennel.

  Carnelian jerked round in horror.

  Jaspar winked at him. 'Aesthetic perhaps, Lord Vennel, but certainly not prudent. You find me reluctant to destroy the only servants and guards that we possess. Besides, there is the practicality of whom one would use to do the destroying.'

  'It will suffice that we keep them away from us,' grated Suth from the bed.

  'Even our servants?' asked Carnelian, alarmed that there would be no-one to tend to his father.

  'Especially our body slaves,' Aurum replied. They threaten our ritual protection with every touch.'

  Vennel looked like a column of iron. 'Has it finally come to this? Are we now, my Lords, to be stripped of these last shreds of comfort and of state?'

  He looked round but none there gave him answer.

  Tain and Jaspar's boy seemed to have hardly the strength to hold their little packs. In among the Marula they could have been infants with uncaring parents. Aurum waved them all away with a gesture of dismissal. The Marula looked uncertain, sickly. Aurura made the gesture again with a harsher hand. The Marula began to shuffle off, back the way they had come, over the bridge. Carnelian did not see the malicious glance one of them gave him. He was watching Tain walking off, head drooping as if his thin neck had snapped under its weight. Carnelian hated himself. What use was his impotent wrath?

  They ate on the platform held aloft by the watch-tower's six ribs. It was cooler and the air was free of the staleness of the cells. The Masters had dismissed the lookouts from their deadmen's chairs and even the ammonites who tended the signal flare. With their own hands the Masters had laid out the circle of incense bowls. Once they were lit they could for the first time that day remove their masks. There were sighs of relief all round. Fingers rubbed at mask-grooved skin. Suth's face was sallow; his eyepits looked kohled. He had used what little strength he had climbing the ladders. He breathed in, making a hacking sound. 'Aaah, the beauty and comfort of the night,' he sighed.

  Vennel still wore his mask. 'Are we certain that it is safe up here?'

  Aurum looked north. The plague rages far away from here, my Lord. The creatures who might carry it are down on the road and forbidden to come near us on pain of death. There is a reasonable margin of safety.' As he looked at Suth, worry creased his face.

  Vennel unmasked.

  Carnelian was nibbling crumbs from his hri cake. He was sick of purified food. The Masters were just so much animated marble. Only his father's sweat-glazed face betrayed the possibility of Chosen mortality. His mouth twitched as if a needle were darning his flesh. He was seated a little away from the others, leaning against one of the turning-handles of the strange mechanism that stood in the middle of the platform. Carnelian had examined its square mirror of louvred silver strips attached to pivots at each end; the long handles to turn and dull the strips; the toothed arcs that allowed the whole mirror to tilt; the turning board that allowed the machine to swivel round. A heliograph, Aurum had called it, the means by which the ammonites turned the rays of the sun and sent them glancing to the neighbouring towers carrying messages.

  Carnelian looked at his father bleakly. Perfume could not entirely smother the rot of his bloodied bandages. The continuing discomfort had been forced on him by Aurum's invoking the support of ammonites against his father's plea to be washed. The old Master had insisted that, however unpleasant, the bandages were necessary to give Suth protection against the plague. His father had been too weak to fight him.

  Thoughts of the treachery he was planning made Carnelian turn away, but also fear, and embarrassment that he should witness his father thus. Out past the rising bars of myrrh smoke, past the empty hoop of the dead-man's chair, out beyond the glimmers of the stopping place, the night was patterned with lozenges, patchy ovals, a suggestion of lines.

  'What are all those tumbled walls?' Carnelian said at last, just to say something.

  'Ruins,' said Aurum.

  'One of the Quyan cities,' said Jaspar.

  There are many such… many… scattered across the land,' his father said in a throaty voice.

  'All ruined?' said Carnelian, keen to encourage any life in his father.

  'All. The last book of the Ilkaya tells of their fall.'

  "The Breaking of the Perfect Mirror,’ said Carnelian, naming the book.

  Teh! Children's stories with which the Wise seek to cow the Great,' said Aurum.

  'Stories? Perhaps… though even a pearl… needs a grain around which to grow,' said Suth.

  'By the blood! My Lords, you speak lightly of holy scripture,' scolded Vennel.

  '… do not deny spirituality… but… even Wise hold its truths metaphorical,' said Suth.

  There is nothing metaphorical about those ruins there,' said Jaspar, 'and they have a look of hoary age.'

  '… city was there ruined… long before this road built,' said Suth.

  Carnelian turned to him, remembering the faces in the wall of his cell. Those ruins were plundered in the making of this road.'

  His father nodded.

  'Such antiquity commands awe if not reverence,' said Vennel.

  'I see no reason why the living should revere the dead,' said Aurum.

  'Is it not reason enough that the dead have built the world into which we were born?'

  'Did the Gods have no part in that, my Lord?' asked Carnelian.

  'I meant… of course, initial creation… but the latter part

  … also of course under divine…' As Vennel closed his mouth, Carnelian resisted the temptation to smile.

  'Certainly, gratitude is due the Quyans for bequeathing us their treasures. One possesses many perfectly exquisite pieces from the period of the Perfect Mirror,' said Jaspar.

  ‘So do all but the meanest Houses,' snapped Vennel. 'And, my Lord, you would know all about the meanest Houses,' returned Jaspar. 'I dislike your imp-'

  'What does my Lord think is the grain lying at the core of the scriptures?' said Carnelian quickly to his father. The heat of the arguments was wilting Suth. Carnelian sought for him the healing there is in telling stories.

  'Conjectural, but…' Suth grimaced and held his side.

  Carnelian became alarmed that he had coaxed his father into wasting his dwindling strength.

  Suth closed his eyes and then opened them, smiling crookedly, his eyes as brilliant as jewels. '… previous book describes long period during which Quyans prospered.' He breathed in heavily. They achieved harmonious balance…'

  Carnelian had heard his father speak thus before. 'Between the Two Essences?'

  The bright eyes regarded him for a while, making him uneasy, until his father nodded.

  'I thought that esoteric doctrine defunct,' said Jaspar.

  'Its precepts… foundation of all the creeds,' said Suth.'… merely a matter of emphasis.'

  'An emphasis that once caused schisms among the Great,' said Vennel coldly.

  'You prefer the literal interpretation in which their lords fell into evil ways and so led their people into the worship of false gods?' said Aurum.

  'It is what is written.'

  'If one stands on the wording of the texts then one should apprehend it exactly as written,' said Jaspar. 'It is written "false avatars".'

  Vennel stared. 'You are a fundamentalist?'

  'I believe that the Lord Suth's Two Essences form the matrix of creation and that each has a number of centres of divine sentience that form distinct avataric manifestations.'

  'Avataric manifestations…?' said Carnelian.

  'Jaspar believes… not single united pair of twins… but many. .. like reflections in facing mirrors.' His father stopped, showing gritted teeth between his parted lips.

  Carnelian flinched. 'If this is too painful…?'

  'Perhaps you should heed your son, my Lord,' said Aurum.

  His father waved his hand in
negation. He looked at Jaspar. 'How does my Lord interpret… the choosing of the Chosen?'

  'Divine favour. As it says in scripture, the Twins came to Osrakum in dreams to certain of its lords, to show the shape Their wrath would wear. Osrakum was commanded to close her gates lest Their wrath find its way into her hidden land.'

  'Implausibly, I find myself agreeing with you, Jaspar,' said Vennel.

  '… their dreams came from within,' said Suth.

  'You deny the agency of the Twins?' said Vennel.

  'I say virtue… virtue is that agency.'

  'You hold then, my Lord, that the Chosen survived through higher virtue?'

  'Harmony with Essences, or virtue… yes.'

  Jaspar smiled. 'I had always understood that we gained our empire through conquest…'

  'Perhaps,' said Suth, 'but we hold it by maintaining… various harmonious balances… Reeds bend with wind yet can be woven to make shields.'

  'Disharmony lost the Quyans their empire?'

  'Each city put ripples… into Perfect Mirror of their commonwealth.' Suth shook his head. Till it could reflect no divinity

  … only fragments of themselves.'

  'Nonsense,' said Aurum. They weakened themselves with internecine strife and were then annihilated by the plague they had themselves stirred up among their sartlar.'

  Jaspar's mouth twisted with distaste. 'Even now, the plague appears among those creatures as spontaneously as maggots do in meat.'

  'Certainly, Lord Aurum,' Vennel said, 'but from whence did the plague come if not from the Black God?'

  Jaspar shook his head. 'It is the breath of the Lord of Plagues, an avatar of Him whom the Wise unify with all the others into the Black God: a hotchpotch deity, convenient only because He is a concept small enough to squeeze into the minds of the barbarians.'

  'But the plague did come to Osrakum?' said Carnelian.

  'It was burning like a fire across the land,' said Jaspar. The fire-breaks of our quarantines were not yet in place. Is it any surprise that the plague entered? When the desperate came from the dying cities, we let them in.'

  The affliction would soon have spread to the whole of Osrakum had not the Obedient Ones, who later became the Great, cast out the polluted refugees that had been let in,' said Vennel.

  That was foolishness,' said Aurum. 'Our forefathers would have done better to destroy them. Letting them return to spit their poison of resentment into every ear… Peh!'

  'And they gathered up their ruined strength and came to Osrakum with vengeance in their eyes,' said Vennel.

  'And we came out and were defeated and so on and so on…' droned Jaspar. 'And how was it that this defeated rabble were able to overwhelm the pursuing Quyan host so that the Skymere became a lake of their blood?'

  The Black God with dragons came-' The Lord of Mirrors,' said Jaspar, 'divine Lord of War…'

  'Inspired by virtue,' said Suth, 'our forefathers found a strength hidden in themselves…'

  'Was it virtue that in the Valley of the Gate turned their host to stone? Did virtue inspire the gift of fire that the Lord of Mirrors gave the Chosen with which then and now we make victorious war?'

  'Naphtha burns whatever hand, Chosen, marumaga or barbarian, ignites it,' said Aurum. 'Flame-pipes are mechanisms through which the naphtha is driven by pressure. It is wisdom not divinity that has given us these weapons.'

  'And our blood, our burning blood?' said Vennel. 'Does my Lord deny the source of its fire to be divine?'

  Aurum frowned. 'I cannot deny what I myself have felt. Besides, it is self-evident that we are as far above other men as are the stars above the earth.'

  The Twins were our first Emperor. In mortal form, They put the fire in our blood, and through Apotheosis all subsequent God Emperors inject more.'

  That orthodoxy… childish conceit,' said Suth. Through alignment with forces… that move the world… we achieved the Commonwealth.'

  Jaspar laughed. 'And they all lived happily ever after.'

  Suth's eyes blazed. 'And they lived plagued by blood intrigues, squabbling among themselves, lectured at by the Wise and sapped by their own vices of greed, pride and levity.'

  'Particularly levity,' said Vennel.

  Jaspar looked at Vennel with raised eyebrows.

  Carnelian saw his father had sagged back against the heliograph. He lurched to his side as his head fell forward. The Masters rose with a rustle. Carnelian leant close, relaxing when he heard him breathing. 'Father,' he said gently.

  The weight of his father's head stirred and lifted. 'Must rest…'

  'Not here,' said Carnelian.

  His father's lips twitched a smile. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  Carnelian turned and saw Aurum and Jaspar showing something like concern; Vennel, something like hope. 'He needs help.'

  As Aurum and Jaspar began to move, Carnelian was buffeted by his father standing up. Suth waved the Masters away. 'My son is all the help I need,' he croaked.

  Together they shuffled over the narrow bridge to the rib with its naphtha flare. Carnelian was wedged into the hinge of his father's arm. Its weight lying along his shoulders forced Carnelian to look down at the terrible distance they might fall. His father's breathing roared its moisture in his ear. The rot of the blood wafted with each step they took.

  Carnelian helped remove his father's cloak and then lie him down on the bed. Suth was trying to hide the pain but a twinge near his eye betrayed it. His side was a single black stinking stain. The smell creased Carnelian's nose. When he saw his father noticing his disgust, he was forced to speak.

  'You cannot continue like this, my Lord.'

  'It is better this way… Aurum and the ammonites were right… the ritual protection… above all, the Law must be seen to be obeyed.'

  'We have both seen lapses in the Law's operation,' said Carnelian, 'and, this… this mess cannot be better.'

  'But I could not allow Tain to… besides, now he is forbidden me…?'

  Carnelian reached out to touch the black bandages. His father's hand tried to brush his fingers away. 'You… defile… yourself.'

  Carnelian took his father's hand and gripping it firmly folded the elbow up and forced the hand down on his father's chest. 'Your blood is my blood, Father, how could it defile me?' He reached out again, felt the wet touch of the crusted bandages and winced when they cracked. He shook his head.

  This must be cleaned,' he said, before his father could say anything. He found some cleaning pads and unguents. He threw off the encumbrance of his own cloak.

  His father sat up with a look of horror on his face. 'What…?' The effort was too much. He fell back with a groan. This is not for you to do.'

  There is no-one else, Father.'

  His father closed his eyes, breathing heavily. Carnelian took this for acquiescence. He surveyed the stain, made his decision, picked up a knife and then gingerly began to cut the bandages around it. Having done this he took one strip and peeled it back. It stuck in a few places. He grimaced each time he had to give it a tug. At last he had it off and dropped it on the floor in disgust. One by one he pulled the strips off while his father lay like a corpse, the only sign of life the twinges as the strips caught. To reduce his suffering, Carnelian began cutting bits away.

  'We must talk,' his father hissed through clenched teeth.

  Carnelian peered at the ridged fleshy mass his work had revealed. He went blind. What if he killed his father? His sight returned. In as level a tone as he could muster, he said, 'You are too weak, my Lord.'

  'Because of that… I might die.'

  'Don't say that,' snapped Carnelian. Instinctively, his hand flew up towards his mouth, as he remembered to whom he was speaking.

  His father smiled, shook his head, reassuring him. 'About Crail… my hands… tied.'

  The grief welled up in Carnelian's eyes. He concentrated on the wound, seeing it distorted through tears, sniffing. He pulled one more strip.

  His father groaned, ch
uckled. 'Are you trying to hurry me from this world?'

  Carnelian saw his father's lopsided grin and grinned back. Their eyes met, smiling. The promise he had made to Jaspar was an ache in the marrow of his bones. Tain and his father were tearing him in two. Both were of his blood. This blood, he thought, looking at his reddened hands.

  'My son… you look unconvinced.'

  Carnelian shook his head. 'No, it is something else.' He looked his father in the eye, seeing something of Tain there, then blurted out, 'Did you know Tain would be blinded?'

  The puzzlement in his father's face forced Carnelian to describe the events in the tent the night Tain had seen Jaspar's face. Horror glazed his father's eyes.

  Then you did not know this would happen?' said Carnelian.

  'Of course I did not! How could you even… think that? Tain… is… my son.'

  Carnelian felt like a bow being unstrung.

  Suth was embarrassed by the emotion that came over his boy's face. 'Does he ask for… something?'

  Carnelian blushed.

  'Is there a price… for Tain's eyes?'

  Carnelian squared up to his father. 'Knowledge of what power it is that the Lord Aurum has over you.'

  'He did it on purpose… to trap you.'

  Carnelian gaped. 'On purpose…' He shook his head, unable to comprehend such wickedness.

  Suth closed his eyes, thinking.

  Carnelian poured the unguent into the bowl, dipped in a pad and concentrated on cleaning the blood away. He felt the need to confess everything. 'Vermel told me that our exile was long ago rescinded.'

  Suth opened his eyes, saw the boy's pain, closed them again. That one… looks at me… with vulture eyes. But he spoke truth. I will try to explain.' His eyes opened once more to look at his son. The man that later became God Emperor… Kumatuya…'

  'My uncle.'

  'We shared love.'

  Carnelian's eyes grew round.

  'His sister, Ykoriana… coveting all his love, resented me. When their sister…' Suth closed his eyes. 'My mother…' suggested Carnelian. Suth nodded.

  Carnelian resumed the cleaning, waiting for his father to muster enough strength to continue.

  Suth went on. 'When she died… Ykoriana's resentment turned to hatred. At the last election… she threatened to use her votes against Kumatuya unless… unless I swore on my blood to quit Osrakum.'