The Chosen (The Stone Dance Of The Chameleon)

by Ricardo Pinto

  Carnelian allowed his mind to float on the chant. He had searched the faces of all those who had come to the edge of the Osrakum platform to vote and he was sure Osidian had not been among them. Still masked, Ykoriana was a doll gazing at his father. Hopelessness seemed written on his yellowed ivory face. Carnelian refused to resign himself to defeat.

  A hubbub of excitement made him turn to see gaps opening everywhere among the Great. At their edges, crowns leaned together as the Lords watched something passing below them. Then he saw the syblings filing up onto the Osrakum platform, each pair carrying two voting urns.

  ‘Now for the result.’

  Carnelian glanced round at the speaker and recognized Tapaz. Spinel was there, Opalid, the other Suth Lords. Only Spinel dared look at him. A delicate shimmering chime was drowned by rustling as the Chosen everywhere sank on their ranga. The House of the Masks had knelt too, revealing the Grand Sapients with their homunculi looking out from under the bell. Carnelian watched the syblings lifting the urns up to the Wise. He realized he alone was still standing and quickly bent his knees.

  Without any preamble the homunculi began in rapid random sequence to announce the votes. Chosen names rattled from their throats, each named Lord assigning a single vote to Molochite. Carnelian listened carefully, hoping to hear Osidian mentioned. He realized that he did not even know which way his friend might vote. Hearing that all the votes were going to Molochite, Carnelian thought at first Nephron’s would follow after. The announcement of a vote for Nephron followed instantly by another for Molochite cheated him of this hope. He squeezed his nails into the palms of his hands and reassured himself that these were after all only the results for the individual Lords of blood-rank one.

  ‘Suth Veridian for Molochite, one vote.’

  Hearing the name, Carnelian looked instinctively for that Lord and found him gazing fixedly away. Carnelian’s eyes were drawn to Spinel. The Lord’s lips were moving as he added up the votes. He looked round as if he had felt Carnelian’s gaze and smiled at him. After that Carnelian tried to show no reaction whenever another Suth Lord’s vote for Molochite was called out. All five Lords of the third lineage had voted against his father.

  His heart jumped when he heard, ‘. . . of the Masks.’ It was now that he would hear Osidian’s name. He listened to each as it was called out. There were more than thirty of them and almost all were voting with the Dowager Empress. Carnelian frowned when the homunculi began announcing the votes cast by rank two Lords. The only names he had recognized from the House of the Masks were the Hanuses who had each voted for a different candidate. Carnelian could not believe Osidian could be higher than blood-rank one. Still he listened attentively. At least now more votes were being cast for Nephron, perhaps a half of what Molochite was receiving. Among the results, the Aurum Lords had declared for Nephron, all from Vennel and Imago for Molochite. Carnelian had to endure Emeral, Tapaz and Spinel all being declared defying their Ruling Lord before the Chosen. He watched his father as each was announced having to hold his head up in plain view of all. Carnelian smiled bitterly as he heard Opalid’s votes going to Nephron. His own twenty votes soon joined them. Almost thirty House of the Masks’ Lords were called out, but once again Osidian’s name was not among them. When the block votes began being announced Carnelian gave up any hope that Osidian was in the chamber. He tried to fight the doubts and conjectures forming in his mind. His friend had stolen or borrowed a blood-ring. In spite of his white, jade-eyed beauty, he was not Chosen. Osidian had never claimed to be Chosen. Carnelian wondered again about the taint scars that Osidian had down only one side of his spine. He watched one of the Grand Sapients reading the rings strung on a necklace with his cloven hands. He knew without a doubt now that he would never see Osidian again. The emptiness spread out from his core and seemed to fill the whole chamber.

  As the block votes droned on, Carnelian became aware that the majority were now going in Nephron’s favour. When the size of the blocks suddenly jumped it was obvious that the voting of the highest Houses was being declared and these too seemed to be going predominantly Nephron’s way. Houses Vennel and Imago cast their block votes for Molochite, but Nephron received the endorsement of many others among whom were Aurum and Cumulus. Hope awoke in him and he tried to feed it by looking up at his father. They were winning the election. He wanted to shout it up to his father. At least they were winning. His father’s misery was concealed but Carnelian knew him well enough to see it. He followed his father’s fixed gaze to Ykoriana and his hope blew out. There she stood among her kin whose votes had not yet been announced. One of the highest of the Great, such as Aurum had cast only a few hundred votes: in her own right, Ykoriana had eight thousand.

  He felt the buzz of excitement.

  ‘House Suth Who-goes-before for Nephron, six hundred and ten votes,’ cried a homunculus.

  The Chosen seemed to be quivering. The result was near.

  ‘Lady Tiye of the Masks for Molochite, four hundred votes,’ said another.

  ‘Lady Nurpayahras of the Masks for Nephron, four hundred votes.’

  ‘Lady Nayakarade of the Masks for Molochite, four hundred votes.’

  ‘The Regent and Jade Womb Ykoriana for Molochite, eight thousand, two hundred and twenty votes.’

  The voice fell into a deep winter silence. Nothing moved except the feather flicker of the firewall.

  ‘With his own ring added in, the total of the votes cast for Molochite of the Masks,’ said the homunculi in eerie chorus, ‘twenty-one thousand, one hundred and ninety-two.’

  An excited murmur ran around the chamber. Carnelian caught the look of horror spreading over Spinel’s face.

  There was a commotion around Ykoriana. Rumour burned across the Great and spread down among the Lesser Chosen.

  ‘She is demanding . . .’ Carnelian heard and strained to hear more. ‘She is demanding a recount.’

  ‘With his own ring, those cast for Nephron of the Masks, twenty-one thousand, two hundred and eight.’

  Carnelian saw his father turn to him, his face transfused with triumph. Carnelian swallowed, feeling his back buckling with the euphoric relief.

  ‘Nephron is chosen by a margin of—’

  The rest was lost as with a soughing like wind through a forest, the Chosen rose and turned to face Nephron in his niche.

  The Wise were all turned to him. ‘Behold,’ their homunculi shrilled. ‘He that will be They, Lords of Earth and Sky.’

  The beautiful faces of the Great swam before Carnelian’s eyes. Some frowned, others laughed. Spinel and the other Suth Lords looked ashen and their eyes would not hold his gaze. Jaspar was smiling at him. He started smiling back then froze as he felt the Master’s eyes peeling him skin from bone. A cacophony of trumpets broke him free. He looked out across the Lesser Chosen throng and saw the snow of their faces focusing back over his shoulder. He saw the black angel coming through the Great. For a while Carnelian saw the face he expected, a face twinned to Molochite’s. Something black on the forehead began his frown. His gaze snatched down to the jade eyes, searching. They saw each other as the Turtle’s Voice set the Chamber of the Three Lands trembling. The whole world was coming to pieces around him but Carnelian could do nothing but stare into Osidian’s smiling eyes.

  JUST ONE MORE DAY

  The cruellest traps are baited

  With the heart of the lotus

  (from the ‘Tale of the Little Barbarian’)

  WHEN CARNELIAN CAME BACK TAIN WAS LIKE SOMETHING DEAD, AN uninterested stranger helping him with his crowns. Carnelian became a man of wood, a frame holding up his robe. It was all he could do to stop himself from shaking his brother. He kept telling himself that Tain did not know, could not know.

  ‘Go away,’ he said.

  ‘You need help with the robe,’ said Tain.

  ‘Go!’ cried Carnelian. He watched Tain sullenly move away. The click of the door closing unleashed Carnelian’s rage. He struggled to free himself from the ro
be. He swore. The bird-bone scaffolding was snapping like twigs. He tugged at the ridged cloth, growling curses until at last he had tumbled down from his ranga, falling like a cut-down tree, crumpling the brocades, rending samite. He lay with the bone frame jabbing into his skin, chuckling mirthlessly. He shuffled out, like a snake discarding its skin, and when he was free he kicked the glimmering golden shell aside and went to stand upon the balcony in his underclothes until the wind had numbed even his bones.

  Carnelian wrestled a nightmare in and out of sleep. The sweat that chilled him was his anger’s cool shell. He groaned awake and Tain stirred upon the floor. He had crept back in. ‘Do you want something?’

  Carnelian could not make his tongue work. In the dark he could see Osidian’s eyes mocking him. The lamp flared. Tain turned to face him, accusation in those eyes.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ the boy said.

  ‘You tell me,’ growled Carnelian.

  Tain closed his mouth, stared through him.

  Carnelian sat up. ‘Blood and iron! I’m sick to my stomach of you moping around.’

  He saw fire flickering in his brother’s eyes as if he were seeing distant lightning.

  ‘I don’t know who you are any more. If you’ve something to say, say it!’

  ‘Do you really want me to speak, Master?’

  That last word was the lash of a whip. Carnelian glowered. ‘Let it out, curse you, just don’t stand there.’

  ‘OK, I’ll speak and you can have me punished afterwards.’

  ‘Punished—?’

  ‘You let them slaughter him.’

  Carnelian narrowed his eyes, his anger cooling under Tain’s icy stare. ‘What . . . ?’

  ‘Have you forgotten Crail so quickly, Master? Of course, I’m forgetting, he was just a slave.’

  ‘What? He was . . ’ Carnelian felt the pain again. ‘I did what I could . . . even Father couldn’t save him.’

  ‘You’re all the same. He lied to us, all those years he lied to us. There in his hall pretending to be an angel, our people believing he controlled the sky, the seasons and the sea. Then he left, discarding the Hold like an old shoe, and when it came down to it he couldn’t even save one . . . old . . . man.’

  ‘There are things you don’t know, things—’

  ‘There are always things we don’t know, matters beyond us that only you Masters could possibly understand. You’re no different. Don’t tell me you had no idea what might happen to us boys on the road.’

  ‘I didn’t want to take you—’

  ‘What he did to me . . .’ Tain’s voice broke. ‘How could you let the Master do that to me?’

  ‘I didn’t know, Tain, on my blood, I didn’t know.’ Carnelian was crumbling to tears. He was too tired to fight and could put up no defence.

  ‘You let them hurt Father.’ Tain was crying.

  Carnelian shook his head, licking the tears from his lip.

  ‘You let them take me,’ he sobbed, ‘on the road, then into the . . . quarantine.’ His face grew dark. ‘I didn’t really get a chance to tell you the worst that happened, did I?’ He shook his head, staring wildly. ‘Do you want to know? Do you? Well, do you?’

  Carnelian shook his hands up, wanting to look away.

  Tain was shaking. ‘Why did you let them come . . . to bring us here to this evil place?’ He was shouting now. ‘You’re evil, you’re all evil . . . you pretend to be gods but you’re a disease. I hate you.’ He kicked at a jar and it smashed against the wall. ‘I hate you.’ There was a knocking on the door. Tain ignored it. ‘I hate you, I hate you all.’

  The door opened and one of the tyadra peeked in. ‘Master. Is everything—?’

  ‘Get out!’ Carnelian’s bellow slammed the door shut. Tain’s eyes were like coals. Carnelian felt empty. He bowed his head. ‘You’re right, Tain. We failed you. I failed you.’ He could no longer hold back the misery. Sobs shook him. ‘I’m sorry.’ The sobbing choked him. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Arms embraced him, Tain’s arms, his head pressing against Carnelian’s neck.

  ‘I know it wasn’t you, Carnie.’ The words vibrated into his neck. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  Carnelian hugged his brother and they rocked each other until they were all cried out.

  The knocking woke them. Carnelian had told Tain that he could not bear to see him spend another night on the cold floor and so they had shared the bed.

  Tain leapt up, lit a lamp and went to see who it was. He opened a chink in the door, nodded and looked back at Carnelian, making a face. ‘It’s the Master,’ he mouthed. They both looked at the chamber, shards scattered over the floor, boxes everywhere, Carnelian’s court robe toppled broken against a wall.

  Together they furiously cleared what they could of the mess and then they found him something to wear. ‘This’ll have to do,’ said Carnelian at last. ‘Show him in.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ Tain said and grinned, then went to open the door.

  Suth entered. ‘What, are you still abed, my Lord?’ He stopped. His mask surveyed the chamber. ‘A storm?’ He saw Tain. ‘Open the shutters, Tain, let in some light, some air.’

  ‘As you command, Master,’ said Tain.

  ‘It is such a beautiful morning.’ Light flooded progressively around the chamber as Tain folded back one shutter after another. ‘You should both have been up. You have missed the blushings of the sky.’

  ‘Neither of us slept well, my Lord.’

  His father was wearing a simple robe, the colour of lapis against which his hands and feet were flakes of ice. ‘The excitement, no doubt.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Carnelian.

  Suth dismissed Tain. When they were alone he removed his mask. ‘Aaah, but it was a wondrous victory . . . not that one should savour it too much,’ he said, throwing Carnelian a glance. ‘Still, it has quite put the fire back into my blood.’

  ‘It does me good to see my Lord so happy,’ said Carnelian, smiling. Though still haggard, his father looked a little more like himself.

  ‘Tomorrow, we shall descend the Rainbow Stair together to the Labyrinth. You have participated in an election but you have still to witness an Apotheosis.’ His father’s eyes gleamed. ‘In four, maybe five days Nephron shall be made into the Gods.’

  Carnelian flinched at the name. The chamber seemed to have gone dark again. ‘There is still time for Ykoriana to do something.’

  His father raised his brows. ‘I think not.’ He smiled. ‘Nephron has assumed the powers of the Regent and the Great are deserting her like an ebbing tide. Her wings are broken and she has already been put back in her cage.’ Carnelian saw his father’s face become infinitely sad. ‘She chose this for herself and yet I find myself pitying her.’

  ‘So Aurum has won?’

  His father nodded heavily.

  ‘He is then already become the core of power among the Great?’

  ‘He is welcome to it.’ Suth made a face. ‘I am sick of its taste.’ He made an elegant gesture in which something solid became smoke and then clear air. ‘But let us not worry ourselves with that. The Rains are near and soon the lands and the Commonwealth shall be simultaneously renewed. And you and I shall be able to return to our coomb and begin our new life. Soon we will have restored the palaces; perhaps we might build some new halls to celebrate our return. We shall organize such masques as will dazzle even the Great.’ His eyes lit up as he gazed at his son. ‘You will see, my son, I shall show you such wonders.’

  ‘What about Spinel and the others, Father?’

  Suth frowned deeply. ‘They will reap what they have sown.’

  Carnelian was alarmed by his father’s dark looks. ‘Perhaps the best way to celebrate our return would be to usher in an era of mercy and co-existence.’

  Suth smiled at him. ‘Yes, perhaps.’ He flapped his hands as if he were washing the air clean. ‘First, we must attend Apotheosis and receive the tribute and the flesh tithe.’

  Carnelian wondered how he would cope with watching Osi
dian become the Gods.

  His father came to stand near him, and crouched down so that Carnelian could look into his grey eyes, still tinged with red. ‘What ails you, Carnelian?’

  Looking into his father’s eyes Carnelian almost confessed, but then he saw the winter sky, the Hold and his people empty-eyed and grey upon the quay. It was time he bore some pain by himself. He cracked a smile. ‘It is lack of sleep, Father, just lack of sleep.’

  His father leaned forward and kissed his forehead. ‘I know how hard it has been for you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We will establish a greater Hold here in Osrakum. You will see, Carnelian. Soon you will call Coomb Suth home. And there, with all our people, we both shall begin a healing.’

  He stood up. ‘Get your household ready. With the next rising of the sun we will return to the earth below.’ His father started walking to the door. He came back. He smiled. ‘I almost forgot to give you this.’ He gave Carnelian something small and hard. Carnelian looked in his hand. It was his blood-ring. He clutched it as he watched his father leave, tighter and tighter until he could feel it cutting through his skin.

  Carnelian put the ring on when Tain returned. He could see his brother had something in his hand. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A letter.’ Tain gave him it.

  It had been sealed with a blood-ring. He saw the two-face House cypher, the name glyph ‘Nephron’, the blood-taint with all its zeros. He stared at it.

  ‘What’s the matter, Carnie?’

  Carnelian looked up, thinking to send him away. His brother’s face was filled with concern. Carnelian would do nothing to damage their delicate re-emerging intimacy. ‘Let me read it and then I’ll tell you.’

  He broke the seal. The paper bore only three glyphs: ‘I must see you.’ Carnelian read them over and over again.