The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01

by Ricardo Pinto

  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 away 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.'

  Jogging, looking Lack many times, he led them to the monolith where the Masters dismounted. Carnelian handed his aquar's reins to one of the auxiliaries as he saw the others do. Although the monolith lay very close to the watch-tower, a passage angled behind it with space enough for the aquar to pass through in single file. Behind, a doorway led into dank gloom.

  In lantern light, Carnelian saw the doors that ran along one wall. A ramp angled up against another. As they began to climb he was deafened by the scrape of aquar claws and the clatter of their ranga shoes. The ramp brought them up to another level whose flagstones were smothered with straw. The place stank of the aquar that could be seen in stalls.

  Several more ramps took them up through the watch-tower. Carnelian glimpsed machinery and the counterweights that spoke of other doors. Skeletal men with large eyes hid as they passed. Their thin fear reminded him of the massacre of the sailors on the baran. He disliked their cringing even more than the rings and seventeens branded into their faces.

  At last they came up into a lofty hall, cheered by purling water. Squat columns held up a weave of heavy beams. Shafts let some light in from the floors above. Ladders hung on the walls. One whole side of the hall was a cistern filling from a spout. Men climbed on either side of a portcullis to release the counterweights that allowed others to lift it. Carnelian led his aquar into the archway, out past another mon
olith into the bright morning.

  He walked to a parapet to see the market's roaring seethe laid out below him.

  'A leftway, at last a leftway,' said Jaspar.

  Carnelian turned. It was only then that he realized they were standing on a road. In one direction it crossed the west road by means of a narrow bridge. In the other, it curved off to the next watch-tower.

  As their aquar loped round above the marketplace, Carnelian saw that the tower ahead bore the number eighteen high in its ribs. He made a broad scan from the west, where the Guarded Land fell away into the sky, to the south where it ran flat to the horizon. Nothnaralan's half-circle seemed scorched into the land's rusty painted edge. He could see a wall running alongside the western road the top of which carried the continuation of the left-way along which he rode. If instead of coming this way they had turned to cross the bridge beside watch-tower seventeen they could have ridden its pale thread through the city and out beyond it to fade into the hazy western sky.

  They slowed as they drew closer to watch-tower eighteen where the leftway forked. One way crossed to the watch-tower over a narrow bridge that spanned the southern road. The other turned south.

  'Here we leave the Ringwall,' Aurum boomed as the Marula made the turn.

  Carnelian looked up at the plaque, suddenly understanding the ring glyph. He stared in wonder at the leftway that continued over the bridge and past the watch-tower into the east. Should he ride that way, in months or maybe years he would have made a complete circuit of the wall that enclosed the Guarded Land. He looked over the back of his saddle-chair. He would come from the west riding the top of the Ringwall round to that very spot. Giving the market and the fortress one last look, he turned his aquar's head south to follow the others.

  They sped above a mouldering chaos of mud walls, flat roofs, views down into alleys, stairways, balconies. Below them, a river of people rumbled along the southern road. They passed earth ramparts that were crumbling into a moat. The poorer outskirts of Nothnaralan spread their shambling messy browns. Tumbled hovels squashed together into neighbourhoods. Dust choked crooked lanes. They reached the city's border ditch with its torn palisades. Beyond stretched a limitless rusty plain bisected by the line of the road.

  Aurum shouted something into the scorching wind and the Marula surged ahead, black cloaks flapping. The Master lifted his hand, signing. A dove's wing flap.

  Windspeed, read Carnelian. It was not difficult to guess the meaning. The aquar ahead were already slipping away. His chair's rocking quickened as his mount leapt after them. He was thrown from side to side, each swing smaller than the last, then there was his robe snapping up around him, the chair vibrating, the parapets pouring past. The wind dissolved the din of the road, pressed him back into the chair, slipped his hood off then streaked his ears with half-heard cries.

  The Guarded Land was tiled with brown squares that faded shrinking to every horizon. Its monotony was only relieved by wheels that dotted the fields, turning constantly. A heavy sky pressed the whole scene flat. It was only when he listened to the wind and watched the rushing parapet that Carnelian knew he was flying.

  At some point he felt his mount's motion faltering. Its head trembled and the milky inner lids flickered across its eyes. Fatigue shuddered up from its flanks as its speed slackened. He disliked forcing the creature on, but had to make sure of keeping up with the others.

  Ahead a watch-tower stood like a woman holding her arms up high in a dance. Carnelian was relieved as Aurum began to slow. The tower became a giant. He eased his aquar to a walk. The chair began jerking. His cloak fell lifeless. Clamour swelled up from the road. The air was pungent with a peculiar odour. His aquar lifted its heron head and opened the fans of its eye-plumes. Every movement had become ponderous, heavy. Every step the creature took jarred him to the bone. Carnelian felt like a bird plucked suddenly from the sky.

  The leftway ended at a narrow bridge. He crossed it with the others, riding past the counterweights that fanned out from its hinges to allow the bridge to be lifted.

  Around him the aquar were folding their legs, sinking the Masters and Marula to the ground. Carnelian saw more aquar were waiting for them, larger than the ones they had been riding, as sleek and silver as fish. Their plumes were the colour of poppies. Elegant saddle-chairs were strapped to their backs. Slaves held them with auxiliaries standing to one side. Carnelian wondered by what sorcery they had known of their coming.

  A marumaga came forward and knelt before Aurum. Suth was still climbing out of his chair. Carnelian had accepted his father's assurance about his wound and was thus alarmed to see with what care he moved and, when he straightened, how he pressed a hand to his side. Other slaves ran forward to deal with the baggage. Tain was helped down. He looked round at Carnelian with a face so gaunt that Carnelian almost did not know him. His brother gave a thin smile that was very Tain, forcing Carnelian to remember Jaspar's offer. The thought of betraying his wounded father put a knot in Carnelian's stomach.

  The Marula were already mounting the new aquar. Tain was rummaging through the baggage. He pulled some packs from it and then watched as the grooms began to carry the rest away.

  A whining caused Carnelian to look down to see a groom offering him a fresh aquar. He examined the man's face around the bloodshot, fearful eyes. The forehead was branded with the sea glyph and four bars. By the way three of the bars were grouped, Carnelian read all four together, as 115. Craning, he looked up the tower to where its wooden ribs overhung the leftway like the branches of a tree. He found that the plaque attached to the middle rib bore the same number. Above this a man was hanging in a kind of cage.

  The groom was still there below him, waiting. Carnelian gave his mount the signal that made it lower him to the ground. He climbed out of the saddle-chair and pointed up at the caged man. 'Punishment?'

  The groom fell to his knees and bowed his head.

  Carnelian nudged the man with his foot. 'Well?'

  'A lookout, Master, in a deadman's chair.'

  Carnelian left the man alone, and mounted the fresh aquar who pushed him smoothly up into the air. He ran his hand along the oily black curving rim of his new seat. Adjusting himself into it, he found that it fitted him better. As he moved towards the other Masters he was surprised by the different rhythm of the aquar's walk.

  Vennel moved his animal to block his way. The speed is delightful, my Lord, is it not?'

  Carnelian could not understand why Vennel was suddenly trying to make conversation.

  'How frequently must we make these stops?' he heard his father say.

  ‘I will try to keep them to a minimum, my Lord,' said Aurum. 'But it will serve neither of us if we lose speed.'

  The Master moved off to speak to the marumaga tower keeper. Carnelian made some polite noises and walked his aquar round Vennel’s to approach his father.

  'Are you in pain, Lord?' he asked quietly when he had come near.

  'It will get better,' his father replied. 'It is just that the riding has opened the wound a little. Where is Tain?'

  Carnelian looked round and found his brother sitting in between the legs of one of the Marula.

  'Are we ready, my Lords?' said Aurum.

  The Masters made signs of affirmation. Aurum lifted his hand signing, Windspeed.

  On and on like arrows flying. Three watch-towers they ignored but, as the aquar were tiring, they stopped at the fourth that was numbered 111 from which Carnelian surmised they would pass 110 more before reaching Osrakum. Again, exactly the right number of fresh aquar were waiting for them.

  Carnelian felt a giddiness from stopping and the clammy hot clutch of the odoured air. His problems returned, his unease. He hungered for the cool rushing oblivion in the mouthing wind. Instead there was the humdrum rumble from the road below, anxiety over the pain his father concealed, the sight of Tain being passed among the Marula like a parcel. The changeover was faster this time and he breathed his relief when he was up again in the wind
that washed everything away.

  At watch-tower sea 109, they paused again. Everything had been ready, and they quickly resumed their headlong speed. They had passed one more tower and the next one was just a peg pinning the road's thread down to the plain when it emitted a spark. Ahead, an aquar flared its plumes as if it had been startled and began to fall back.

  He saw its rider, Aurum, pulling on its reins, straining to look round. At first Carnelian thought that the Master was looking back at him but soon realized he was looking past him. Carnelian struggled to look round the back of his chair. The watch-tower they had just left was holding a star between its stretched-up hands. This disappeared, then reappeared. He watched it flash on and off several times, then nothing. He sat back, rubbing the twisting out of his neck. He froze when he saw the tower ahead giving an answering candle flicker.

  The next time they stopped Carnelian tried to see what it was that was up there, on the platform held up by the watch-tower's six arms. There was nothing to see. As they set off he made sure to keep his eye on the road ahead. Two flashes near the rusty horizon confirmed his suspicion. The watch-tower ahead had been informed of their coming.

  Two more watch-towers went by and a third was in sight when Carnelian saw it give a double flash. He was wondering what it could be responding to when they all began to slow. They had soon rocked to a halt. At Aurum's command, the Marula were dismounting and unhitching their lances from their saddle-chairs. He watched Aurum shape them into a cordon across the road, facing back the way they had come where there was a tower tiny in the distance. He began to feel the heat. His mask felt as if it was sliding off his sweating face. The Guarded Land's spicy odour hung heavy in the air. It had been there all day, every time they stopped. He gazed out across the land, a becalmed ocean of dust. He walked his aquar to the parapet to look down onto the road. Its smells rose up, reminding him of the weary journey from the sea. The road was too large for the traffic. Its glaring white was only half skinned over with people. He lifted his head high and sniffed the exhalation of the land. Musky earth, pungent hri fields, an undercurrent of human dung.