The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01

by Ricardo Pinto

  Ahead, surprising daylight glowed. There was a shock of impact and a gasp from Tain. The ship scraped herself along the rock. Panic-edged cries echoed as, laboriously, she moved out of the tunnel. Carnelian and Tain, their eyes already accustomed to the dark, were dazzled by the light. Carnelian squinted past his hand. The Tower in the Sea was hollow. The ship was drifting in yet another wide, almost circular harbour enclosed by stone. Its wall was pierced all around the water's edge with archways in which he could see other ships lurking half drawn out of the waves.

  Like rattling spears, the oars thrust out, then hung limp in the water. The drum sounded a dull thud that vibrated through the deck and then rose up echoing round the walls. The ship came alive again.

  The rhythm was dismally slow as she swam across the inner harbour. The further wall drew nearer. The captain gave a cry and she swung towards the cavern of a ship-house where some faint lanterns burned like eyes. Carnelian felt her ail, her heartbeat slow. At least half her oars rasped back into her hull. She slid ponderously forward towards the shiphouse. As she passed the gateposts many of the crew flung themselves over her edge onto the netting that covered the inner walls. There was a sudden lurch. She juddered still. Carnelian and Tain held each other up. The crew swarmed along the netting into the darkness further in. They returned struggling with two enormous hooks of bronze. Behind them hawsers snaked out from the dark. The hooks bit somewhere into the ship's hull. A grinding came from the shiphouse depths. The hawsers tautened and then, with a shudder, the ship was dragged screaming into the blackness.

  Her deck began to slope upwards at an angle. Carnelian held on to a rail. She bellowed as her hull scraped against the ramp. The captain struck the right-hand hawser with a billhook and made it sing. He scrabbled across the leaning deck and did the same to the other. Its voice was slightly higher. 'Starboard!' he shouted into the darkness. The ship was coming up out of the water. The captain lumbered back and forth. Each time

  he sounded the hawser like a bell. Each time he flung a command into the darkness.

  When the dragging stopped at last, Carnelian was able to hear the mutter of voices. Torches came alive all along the walls. The crew flung ropes from the ship's sides that others on the netting caught and looped round the mooring knobs studding the wall. She settled, gave one last stuttering groan and then fell silent. With an ache, Carnelian remembered her flying wild and free across the waves. Now she was tethered like a slave, deprived of the water that gave her life.

  The TOWER in the SEA

  Characteristics required of a legionary tower are:

  Firstly, that its personnel shall be segregated according to their kind: the marumaga shall not be quartered with the Chosen; the barbarian shall not be quartered with the marumaga; the barbarian shall be maintained in isolation from the huimur.

  Secondly, the manner of this segregation shall be, if possible, in descending strata, otherwise in wall-separated courts.

  Thirdly, the spatial elements of this segregation shall have no communication with each other save by means of linking stairs or corridors.

  Access to these must be controlled by suitable military gates that are lockable from the stair or corridor.

  (from a military codicil compiled in beadcord by the Wise of the Domain of Legions)

  'One always likes to make a grand entrance,' said Jaspar as he walked towards Carnelian, leaning forward against the slope of the deck.

  Carnelian gave Tain a little shove. His brother moved off down the deck, ducking an obeisance as he passed Jaspar. The Master watched him go. 'My Lord seems quite attached to that waif.'

  Carnelian disliked the tone in Jaspar's voice. 'He is my brother.'

  Jaspar glanced back at Tain. 'Your brother?'

  This mode of entry seems rather unsuitable for the Chosen,' Carnelian said, to change the subject.

  This is a vessel of war and not intended for the use of the Chosen. She hunts pirates.' Jaspar vaulted up onto a ledge. He tucked his cloak up between his legs. His mask looked down at Carnelian. 'Would you like my hand, cousin?' He offered one.

  There is no need.' Carnelian emulated the other's vault.

  'My Lord now stands upon the Three Lands.' Jaspar turned away. 'Presumably, one is supposed to hold onto the ropes.'

  Carnelian looked down at his feet, considering Jaspar's words. Below him people were moving up the deck. Towering among them were the other Masters, made silhouettes by the bright undulating water of the harbour.

  Carnelian drew his cloak tight against the clinging damp. The tarry air caught his throat. Jaspar was already some way along the ledge. Carnelian followed him, using the net as a support. Its oily rope stuck to his hand. As he passed the baran's curving prow he averted his eyes from the leering horned figurehead. Ahead, pale light sketched an archway in the wall. A dull clang made him peer deeper into the shiphouse. He was sure that he could make out things like hunched men. He hurried forward to tug at Jaspar's cloak. 'What are those, there?' he whispered.

  Jaspar's mask looked back at him. 'Most likely they are sartlar. Be thankful the blackness conceals their fearful ugliness.'

  As the Master passed through the archway, Carnelian stole another look into the dark. He saw a glimmer like eyes before, with a shudder, he followed him.

  'Where are the guides?' snapped Aurum. Each word quaked the sailors who had come with them to light the way. Their torches made the escort of shadows shake with fear.

  This is intolerable,' said Vennel.

  'Perhaps, my Lords, we should wait for our tyadra to disembark,' said Suth.

  Here and there cavern stone showed between the sail parchment shrouds, the stacks of capstans, cleats in clusters, blocks, coil upon coil of rope. Hawsers swagged down from the darkness. Above their heads, a single mast bellied off in both directions. Far away the passage narrowed to a dim lozenge of light.

  'I will not wait for my guardsmen,' said Aurum. 'You there!' He strode towards one of the sailors, pointing an enormous finger. The creatures dropped to their knees in bunches, their torches spurting the Masters' shadows up the walls like ink.

  Aurum spoke over their terror. Take us to your Master's halls.'

  They cowered away from him. Unblinking eyes all round were fixed on Aurum. Carnelian saw a dark hand regrip its torch more tightly. He remembered similar hands scrubbing blood from the grating of the deck.

  Aurum strode among the sailors, scattering them like pigeons. 'Do you not hear my command? Lead us up, I say, to your Master's hall.'

  'He pushes them beyond terror into panic,' said Jaspar in a loud whisper.

  Relentless, Aurum herded the sailors and their light before him, threatening to leave the other Masters in blackness. Suth and Vermel strode after him. Carnelian was reliving the horror of the massacre but made to follow when Jaspar put a hand on his arm. 'A lute string already taut should not be tightened further lest it snap. Better to pluck it till it slacks and needs retuning.'

  'My Lord has such exquisite sensitivity,' hissed Carnelian. It was only when he reached the others that he became aware that he was grinding his teeth.

  The slaves found them a stairway winding up into the blackness. Carnelian had to feel for each step. The Masters plugged the stairwell with their bodies, squeezing the light into a random flicker. To make it worse the stairway narrowed and rock rasped his cowl, eventually forcing him to bow. After the cabin, Carnelian had acquired a loathing of confinement and he was relieved to reach the top.

  Although the sailors held their torches aloft, the flames were at his eye level. He wished they would hold them steady and not cower every time he raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare. The air was stale with the odour of oil and sweat and fear. Roughly hewn pillars bulged under a ceiling low enough to stoop Aurum. Columns faded off like trees in a moonless winter forest.

  This is probably not the Legate's hall,' said Jaspar. Vermel turned on him. 'I find your levity distasteful, my Lord.'

  'One shall refrain
from telling my Lord what one finds distasteful,' said Jaspar.

  Carnelian noticed movements out of the corner of his eye. The darkness rustled with whispers.

  'Evidently, this is not the upper stratum,' said Aurum. 'We have not climbed nearly high enough. But I swear by the Twins, my Lords, that if these slaves do not quickly find the proper stairway I will empty their blood upon the floor.' His mask turned upon the sailors, sweeping their line with its serene malice.

  A torch sparked thudding to the floor and Carnelian saw the man who had held it melt away. The dark mounded with many heads. There were other sailors there, many others, ringing them with their splintered mirror eyes.

  More torches hit the ground. Carnelian became convinced that he and his companions were being surrounded, that they had been led into an ambush. He glanced quickly round with a warning on his lips but the impassive golden masks muted him.

  Suth stooped, scooped up a torch, then another. He thrust their glare into the faces coming into the light. The sailors fell back moaning, bowing, tucking their heads away into the shadows.

  Following his father's lead, Carnelian plucked up a torch.

  His father continued to swing fire to awe the sailors.

  'We terrify them,' said Carnelian. Too much,' said Jaspar.

  'We will have to find the way ourselves,' said Vennel.

  'Come, my Lords,' Aurum said, 'perhaps that light yonder is what we seek.' He launched himself at the sailors blocking the way in that direction and they shuffled from his path.

  The Masters followed him towards the pale rectangle. Carnelian was nervous. The sailors were close enough for him to smell them. He held his torch aloft and scrutinized their faces. He could see their blinking terror of him but also a stubborn resistance.

  Aurum brought them to a gateway closed with a grille.

  He slapped its wood. It shook but held. 'How dare they lock this against us?'

  Carnelian turned back. He scanned the mob, feeling them closing in.

  Jaspar drew near him. They are so much like animals.'

  'And dangerous,' said Carnelian, distrusting every movement.

  'What an outlandish suggestion.'

  'We shall have to wait until this portcullis is lifted for us,' Suth said to Aurum.

  'Wait? Wait for what, my Lord?' Aurum struck the grille with the flat of his hand, clinking his rings against the wood.

  Carnelian edged his way to the portcullis, always keeping his eyes on the mob. He glanced through the bars. There was a landing on the other side stippled with the red light that filtered down from above. A flight of shallow steps came up to the landing, continuing up on its other side.

  Carnelian turned to see that his father was standing with both torches raised, his mask looking out blindly into the gloom. He was a pillar at the centre of a region of light. Movements could be seen all along its edge. Carnelian wondered if his father perceived the threat.

  The rapid striking sound of Aurum's rings broke out again as he rattled the gate with his blows. Light welled up on the other side of the grille, accompanied by footfalls. Carnelian peered through and saw some small dark men lit by the lanterns they were carrying. One came up, cautiously, holding his lantern before him. Its light rayed through the grille and played around the Masters in shafts.

  The small man must have seen their masks. 'Masters!' he cried, crumpling to the floor.

  Most of his companions joined him though one ran off down the stairway crying out, The Masters. The Masters.'

  'Open this gate!' boomed Aurum.

  These creatures are so craven,' said Jaspar.

  Carnelian's unease ignited to anger. 'Who makes them so?'

  There was some commotion on the landing, a rattle of machinery. One of the men came up towards the portcullis, touched it as if it might be hot, then pushed against it and it slid up smoothly.

  Aurum ducked under it before it was fully open. Carnelian followed with the others onto the landing. The men were scurrying down the stairway, leaving their lanterns behind them on the floor.

  Something was coming up towards them like a flood. Carnelian moved to the landing's edge. The stairway below was filling from wall to wall with men and a dazzle of lanterns. Amidst the dull eddying of leather jerkins several glinting apparitions floated up much taller than the rest.

  Carnelian drew back and took his place beside the other Masters. With a clatter and the odour of men, the mass of soldiery spilled onto the landing.

  While the soldiers clunked into the prostration the apparitions kept coming at them. Their bronze carapaces had an insect mottle. Ridged plates of samite were underneath. Each wore an elaborate horned helm into which was wedged a Master's mask. Carnelian was amazed when they all sank down upon one knee.

  'Great Ones, I do not know how came about this affront to your blood,' protested their leader. His helm turned its four-horned mass and Carnelian had the feeling that he and the others were being counted. Their obeisance, the mode of address, suggested that these Masters were of the Lesser Chosen. The leader spoke again. 'When your vessel was sighted I commanded this tower be made ready to welcome your return. Imagine my dismay when we reached her berth to find you already gone. This is—'

  'An outrage?' suggested Jaspar.

  Aurum stepped in front of the kneeling Masters. In his stained cloak he seemed a pillar of mud being worshipped by bronze men.

  The injury is forgotten, Lord Legate. We desire to take counsel with you that we might leave as swiftly as we have come.'

  'You are kind to condescend, Great Lord, but still—' 'Believe me, there is no ill feeling. Dispense with this speech that we might repair to the privacy of your halls.'

  Aurum swept round and billowed up the stairway like a cloud of smoke.

  Halfway up the stairs to the window that lit the cave of his hall, the Legate turned off onto a platform. Carnelian stopped where he was and looked back down the avalanche of steps. The door they had entered through was remote. All around him giants in the walls pushed out through veiling rock. Their vague faces frowned into the airy spaces above his head. He was beneath their notice. What was more oppressive still was that they were but the front rank of a crowd that faded up in tiers to a ceiling dripping with stalactites.

  Carnelian had to squint to look up the steps to where his father and the other Masters were still climbing towards the window. Against that slab of burning sky they were drawn as quivering charcoal strokes. Bronze urns taller than men squatted up the edges of the stairway. Platforms recessed here and there into the steps. The Legate stood on the nearest one of these. Smaller creatures perched around him were taking his helm apart one gleaming piece at a time. Carnelian watched as each was laid carefully on its stand. When the Legate's head was naked save for his mask, he dismissed his servants. Watching them fan out across the steps as they went down, Carnelian saw a figure coming slowly up through them. Though it wore a mask, it did not have the appearance of a Master. The mask's silver snared a curve of light so that it seemed to be smiling.

  A swelling of attar of lilies warned Carnelian that the Legate was there beside him.

  'Great One, shall we join the others?'

  Carnelian stared at the Legate's tiny head. He wondered if this was a condition peculiar to the Lesser Chosen until he realized it was an illusion caused by the contrast with the massive armour. He remembered to jerk a nod and side by side they began to climb, ahead of the silver mask.

  The window widened till Carnelian could not see its edges and felt that he was climbing into the heavens. He stumbled when his foot tried to find a final step. Shapes crowding the platform moved and Carnelian assumed from their size that they were the other Masters. He moved to one side of them and turning his back on the window, hoping to lose his near-blindness.

  He watched the Legate move aside to reveal the creature standing behind him on the last step. He had forgotten about it. Its mask was reflecting a fragment of the ochre sky. It made the prostration and when it rose
Carnelian saw that it had unmasked to reveal a yellow marumaga face, spotted and striped all over with the dots and bars of numbers. The man's eyes were like glass. He lifted a hand with fingers splayed. Four fingers, the centre one removed so that the hand naturally formed the sign of the horns.

  'Seraphim,' he said.

  There was a swish of cloth. The Masters around him were making the sign. Self-consciously, Carnelian followed them.

  The Legate came to stand beside the throne that piled up from the centre of the platform. 'Great Ones, I had begun to fear your blood mingled with the winter sea.'

  'Burning blood is not so easily quenched,' Vennel said severely.

  The Legate made a sign of apology. 'I meant no offence, Great One.'

  Vennel's mask turned away.

  The Legate watched it, his hand flattening. He looked round at the other Lords. There are more of the Great Ones than there were.'

  Carnelian saw his father move forward. 'I am Suth, returning to the Three Lands.'

  The Legate made an uncertain bow. They have yearned for your return, Great Lord.'

  'Before we conclave, Lord Legate, I should tell you that it became necessary to destroy some of the crew of your baran.'

  The Legate shrugged.

  The captain too was slain.'

  Carnelian looked at his father, thinking that he had made an error. Then he recalled the captain's looks of horror and that the man had seen his naked face, and his hands glued together as if they were still covered with blood.

  The Legate lifted his hand, So be it. 'Captains are more difficult to replace ... the training, you see, Great Lord?

  But perhaps the Great Ones might allow me to turn to more important matters. I have here an epistle come from Osrakum that has been in my hand for nigh on twenty days.'

  'I had expected this,' said Aurum.

  The Legate held out a long folded parchment bearing a square seal larger than his fist.

  Aurum began to move forward with his hand outstretched but Suth lifted his own hand on which something blinked red. Aurum nodded and retreated. Suth took the letter from the Legate's hand. He angled it to examine the seal in the light, then snapped it open. He unfolded the first panel, read it, then moved on to the second. Carnelian could see there were many panels and he caught glimpses of the glyphs that were pressed like butterflies between the pages. He wearied of waiting. The other Masters were statues. The only movement came from the yellow man who had still not come fully up onto the platform. Carnelian peered at his costume. He realized that it was not black as he had thought, but a thick purple whirling brocade eyed here and there with bone buttons. There were spirals in the precious purple samite, the spirals of ammonite shells. From his belt hung several strings of many-coloured beads. Carnelian regarded the yellow man with renewed interest, wondering if this could be one of the Wise.