'Alas, you will be quickly forgotten,' his brother said.
'You would not dare spill his blood,' cried Carnelian. The very earth of the Isle would cry out.'
'It will not be done here. The Empress was most insistent on that.'
'You will both be taken out beyond the Sacred Wall and there, in the polluted outer world, you will die,' said Left-Hanus.
'How can you hope to get us through the Three Gates unseen?' Carnelian asked.
There was a grinding sound behind him. The syblings looked up and covered their faces with the mask. 'Soon my Lord will see.' They stood up and walked out of sight.
Carnelian could hear one of the syblings' voices speaking Vulgate. He heard many feet coming back. He saw the boss, Rud and others of the Brotherhood. They crowded him and lifted him.
'By the horns, they're heavy,' said one.
Carnelian was half lifted, half dragged round the wooden rib he had been leaning against. The Hanuses stood, a shrouded immensity. On either side of the sybiings stood two huge earthenware pots as round as pomegranates, daubed with red ochre, eared with many handles. Both pots were tall enough to come up to the syblings' waist.
'Your palanquins await you, my Lords,' chorused the Hanuses' voices.
'You are going to put us in those?' said Carnelian in horror, staring.
The double mask inclined its rightmost eyeslit to one of the pots. 'I need hardly tell you how difficult it was to procure two funerary urns large enough.'
'Alive?'
'Oh yes, my Lord, very much alive,' said Left-Hanus.
'You cannot hope to gag us so that no sound will be heard,' Carnelian said in quick desperation.
'My Lord should not worry about that. He will be drugged,' said Left-Hanus.
'In his urn, my Lord will dream like a foetus in a womb,' his brother said.
Carnelian was set on the edge of the urn. They leaned him back. The urn's lip bit into his spine and thighs. Supporting his weight, they took his ankles and folded his legs up against his chest so that his chin jammed between his kneecaps. They squeezed him closed then packed him into the urn. Its glazed cavity pressed tight over more and more of his skin. The feeling of being trapped was squeezing a scream out. The cruel satisfaction already in their eyes made him swallow it like a knife.
His buttocks touched the bottom. His spine pressed into the urn's curve. His knees speared into his chest. He could just manage to see over the urn's lip. He strained against the urn but it was as if he had been built into a wall. He took swift shallow little breaths, trying to control the panic.
The Hanuses hovered above him like a thundercloud. The curtains of their cloak parted and their gleaming double mask descended, coming close enough to almost lean its two chins on the rim of the urn. Right-Hanus' whisper came from behind the gold. The Empress bade us tell you that even if you had not been involved in the destruction of the Lord Nephron, she would still have found a way to encompass your ruin.'
This she has done for your mother's sake,' whispered Left-Hanus.
The flame of your life was lit from hers before you blew it out. The loss of freedom, the colours of this world, were as nothing to losing her sister.'
As the mask began to rise like a double sun, Carnelian found enough breath to say, 'How ... ?'
The mask paused in its ascent. Its two eyeslits turned to look down at him. 'How ... ?' said the gold. 'How were you taken?'
Carnelian closed his eyes and opened them again instead of a nod.
'It was you yourself that gave us victory. Once Imago brought you to us ...' The syblings made a grabbing gesture, the sign for capture.
'Jaspar?' Carnelian gasped, and dizzied, struggling to suck in breath.
'Imago Jaspar, yes, it was he. He told the Empress that you might bear watching, that you were the Lord Suth's fatal weakness. We saw you in the library, we saw you in the Yden.'
The syblings' hands made an obscene gesture.
'We saw everything,' said Left-Hanus.
'It was the most inconceivable folly that you should both come down here again, but she had hoped for that and you did not disappoint her.' The mask began pulling away. 'Pleasant dreams, my Lord.'
Tomorrow you die,' his brother said.
The syblings receded, their hands remaining behind only long enough to make a summoning.
One of the Brotherhood appeared. He brought a cane over the rim, a spear questing for Carnelian's face. Carnelian tried to move his head but his knees held it like a clamp. The cane impaled his lips. He tasted blood resisting it. The man's palm struck the other end. It tore through his lip, clunked against his teeth and then twisted into his tongue. Blood welled its metal taste. The cane was a nail through his face. He vibrated with terror as the man put his mouth to the other end of it. He watched the cheeks inflate. The man spat out and Carnelian choked and gagged as something like a fruit stone punched into his throat. He tried to vomit it out but the cane was in the way. It melted down into him. The cane rasping out of his mouth allowed him to rack out some coughs.
He gulped, trying to bail the blood from his mouth with his tongue. His hands flailed for the urn's lip, as he tried to drag himself out of its maw. Voices were barking remotely. The light was as sharp as spears. His head was a stone sinking up to the ears between his knees. His hands folded and tucked into the urn. His body was a deadman's. He felt the darkness coming. A night sky pressing down upon his head and then a grinding that locked him into a world crammed full with his dead flesh in which the only sound was breathing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ricardo Pinto is Portuguese, but has lived and studied in Scodand since he was a child. Previously, he designed and programmed computer games. He is the author of The Chosen and The Standing Dead. He lives in Edinburgh where he is currendy working on the final volume in this trilogy.
THE STANDING DEAD Stone Dance of the Chameleon Volume II by Ricardo Pinto
'The groundbreaking Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy ... is that rarest of things — a deeply original fantasy' SFX
In desperation, the Ruling Lord Suth searches within the sacred walls of Osrakum for Carnelian, his son, and Osidian, the God Emperor elect. He suspects the Empress Ykoriana is behind their disappearance and knows that if they are not found soon it is her other son, Osidian's brother Molochitte, who will rule — with fearful consequences for the Three Lands.
Captive of the tribes of the Earthsky, Carnelian is - for the moment - safe. Succumbing readily to the seasonal rhythms of tribal life, he is convinced by unexpected discoveries that it is fate that has brought him there. He grows to love these simple people and hopes for sanctuary among them. But the dark forces Carnelian helped unleash in Osrakum begin to cast their shadow over his adopted home. He is witness to the awful oppression that the Masters — whom the tribesmen call the Standing Dead - have been inflicting on them for millennia. But even more terrible is the presence Carnelian has unwittingly brought with him. Potent and terrifying, it threatens everything he now holds dear in this new-found world.
With The Standing Dead, Ricardo Pinto gives us a tumultuous new chapter in the acclaimed Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy and confirms his place as one of fantasy's most singular and literate voices.
'Panoramic, riveting and stimulating ... a majestically structured and vivid piece of fantasy writing' Starlog
'Beautifully written . . . challengmgly complicated . . . highly original . . . brilliantly realised . . . totally believable' SFX
A Bantam Paperback 0 553 81285 8
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