The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  Carnelian peered into the space beneath the grating and thought he could make out murky movement. 'What protection do they have down there?'

  Keal looked grim. 'Some blankets and tarred tapestries to keep out the spray.'

  The other Masters' people?'

  They're just as badly off, worse even. One of them was so ill that his Master sent word and he was chucked into the sea.'

  'Into the sea?' said Carnelian with horror.

  They both looked over the rail at the swirling water.

  'Apparently, this was to stop what he had spreading to the others. If you ask me he was just underfed.'

  Carnelian peered down through the grating again. 'I should go down there, talk to them.'

  'Don't even think about it, Carnie,' Keal said. His voice was tinged with anger. 'It would be unseemly.

  Down there, even I'm forced to stoop.' 'My Lord!' A cry in Quya.

  They both turned to see a huge shrouded apparition bearing down on them. Carnelian cursed under his breath. Keal collapsed onto the deck as the Master swept up.

  'Lord Carnelian, have you no fear of coming up here on deck?' It was Jaspar. 'Fear, my Lord?'

  'Sea air burns the skin. Your hands, my Lord, your poor hands.'

  Carnelian looked at them. They looked fine.

  'You should wear gloves,' said Jaspar and lifted up his hands. Each was sheathed in silvery leather streaked like serpentine, so thin his hands seemed merely painted.

  'Is that your only protection, my Lord?'

  'Not so, my Lord, not so. But to reveal the other we must needs first clear the deck.'

  It was only then that Carnelian remembered Keal. His brother's hands were numbing yellow on the grating. Carnelian almost spluttered out an apology but remembered who else was there. 'Return to your cabin, Keal,' he commanded, biting his lip once the words were said.

  'Yes, Master,' muttered Keal. He stood up, head bowed, and moved off.

  Jaspar's mask was scanning the rigging. He looked off across the deck, spotted the captain and raised his hand to summon him. The man came jogging and flung himself at their feet.

  'Clear the decks,' said Jaspar.

  Carnelian wanted to escape. That is not really necessary. We-'

  'Nonsense, my Lord. I for one would breathe the air unmasked.'

  The captain crept away and began shouting commands. Sailors were scrabbling down the rigging, tying up ropes. Their branded bony bodies jerked across the deck and fell out of sight through a large horn-rimmed hole.

  Jaspar dropped his mask into his hand. 'It will be more pleasant to converse without these.'

  Carnelian took a step back, staring at Jaspar's face. It was blue. His entire skin was lapis-blue. Jaspar pulled off one of his gloves. His hand was the same vibrant colour. He regarded it as he turned it this way and that. His blue lips gave a little horizontal smile. 'It is an interesting cosmetic, neh? Of course, it is exceedingly outlandish. One would not dare use it in Osrakum. But out here… so far from civilization, well… Besides, cousin, I intend to show it to none but you.' He leant towards Carnelian. 'It can remain our little secret, neh?'

  Carnelian stared at the gleaming idol's face. 'W-where did you find it?'

  'One of my slaves brought it to me in Thuyakalrul. Apparently it is rather in vogue among the marumaga there. My Lord might not know that the more neutral pigments have been forbidden them by a recent statute of the Wise.'

  They copy us?'

  Jaspar flourished his hand in the air. 'Does not all the world? The pretensions of the marumaga are legion. They are like children aping the ways of their elders. But we were talking of the pigment. The creature… my body-slave, has sworn upon his skin that the paint is proof against the sea-air burn.'

  'His skin?'

  'His skin against mine. It is an unequal wager, but he has nothing else to hazard.'

  'Is it necessary to resort to such terror?'

  'Say whim rather than necessity. But after all, is terror not the birthright of the inferior?'

  Carnelian turned away to hide his frown. He pretended to survey the rolling surface of the sea. Spray flickered chill across his face. He wondered if it was burning through his paint.

  'Would my Lord be amused to try the pigment for himself? I have a jar spare.'

  'I thank you, no. It would be wasted. I do not intend to venture much abroad.'

  'Indeed, I too do not intend that the day should often look upon my face.'

  The other Lords?'

  The Ruling Lord your father I cannot speak for, cousin, but as for the others, if the voyage out was any indication, we will see nothing of our dear Vennel.'

  'Perhaps he does not mind stale air.'

  'Rather he does not thrive in the company of his… peers. Even when we were blown off to the east and daily threatened with foundering, he affected a disdain to meet us. He sent up word that he should not be disturbed. At the time, I ventured to suggest to Aurum that our Lord might well find shipwreck most disturbing.'

  'He is brave, then?'

  'On the contrary, he is craven. His blood lacks the true passion of the Great. His thinking bears comparison with the cold calculating of the Wise. The most I would say of him would be that he is, shall we say, capable of serving.'

  'And Aurum?'

  Jaspar regarded him with a blue smile. 'Whenever I came up he was always here surveying the sky as if he were marshalling the winds.'

  'He is powerful?'

  Jaspar chuckled. 'Not that powerful.'

  Carnelian put on a smile.

  'Once he was mighty. Intimacy with Nuhuron, the last God Emperor, gave him much influence. Naturally, this ceased with the accession of the present God. In spite of this, Aurum is still one of those who channel the currents of power in the Clave. Recently, many of us had hoped that his channelling days were finally coming to an end.'

  'He supports one of the candidates and you support the other?'

  'Not so, cousin, not so. My father's faction supports neither of the Jade Lords, as yet.'

  Then it is Lord Vermel's faction that supports the other candidate.'

  'No, no, no. It is Ykoriana, sister and wife of the God Emperor and mother of the contending twins who supports one of them, Molochite. Vennel is merely a puppet. It is her hands that move him.'

  'I am confused, my Lord,' said Carnelian.

  Jaspar examined his hands as if looking for some chink in their blueness. 'It seems that my Lord requires clarification,' he said at last. 'When we left Osrakum, Aurum could command the support of three-quarters of the Great of blood-rank two. With Nephron's ring, that of the God Emperor's mother, and the Pomegranate Ring, Aurum could count on about twenty thousand votes. The Empress Ykoriana could rely on only a quarter of the Great of blood-rank two, but almost all the blood-rank one Houses whose cause she espouses. Additionally, she also had in her hand the rings of your maternal grandmother, the Lady Tiye, and of her own mother, the Lady Nayakarade, both of blood-rank three. Throwing in their rings, that of her son Molochite and her own she had something over twenty-one thousand votes. My father's party had the support of those of the Great whose blood pride keeps them from siding with the lesser Houses. With a few others this gave us nearly thirteen hundred votes.'

  'Your faction then controls the balance of power?'

  'It did, but as each day passed the Emperor grew weaker and the aura of his endorsement dimmed about Aurum's faction. When we left, Osrakum was murmuring with rumour of the desertions he might expect to Ykoriana's party. After all, as the Gods' power wanes hers is in the ascendant.'

  ‘So you all came to our island?'

  'Aurum used his power in the Clave to elect your father, He-who-goes-before.'

  'How could he carry the vote there when he could not win the sacred election?'

  Jaspar raised an eyebrow and sighed. 'Because, cousin, since they form part of the Imperial Power, the members of the House of the Masks cannot cast their votes in the Clave. Will you allow me to co
ntinue?'

  Carnelian lifted his hand in assent, annoyed with himself. He had known that the Imperial Power was excluded from the Clave.

  'When Aurum announced that he would go and put the offer to your father, the other factions insisted that each would send its own representative.'

  'But why did Aurum come himself? Will his faction not crumble in his absence?'

  That is likely. As for why he felt the need to come himself,' who knows, he signed. 'At the Clave it was not considered likely the Lord Suth would return. Aurum must have hoped to persuade him.'

  'But what does he expect that my father can do for him?'

  'For too long Aurum has forced his rancour on the Clave. He caws and caws, seeming to forget that, for all its wisdom, none will give ear to a raven. Your father has a reputation for a certain old-fashioned, patrician virtue. He can remind the Clave of its ancient and glorious opposition to the Imperial Power. He can make all the traditional speeches about blood pride, responsibility, honour.' Jaspar shrugged. 'Besides, his voice has not been heard in Osrakum for many years. The novelty of such a voice might be listened to, perhaps by enough of the Great to shore up the breach in Aurum's faction. Nevertheless, it was a desperate gamble.'

  'Not so desperate, my Lord. After all, we are here with all our old-fashioned virtue.'

  Jaspar regarded him with his wintry eyes. That may be so, my Lord, but there was little reason to suppose the Ruling Lord Suth would wish to terminate his absence from Osrakum merely because we dangled the bauble of the Pomegranate Ring before his eyes. After all, the Ring has been offered him before and he turned it down.'

  Carnelian stared. 'Offered before? But… our exile…?'

  'Exiles are as varied in their kinds as precious stones. It seems in keeping with Lord Suth's fabled eccentricity that he should choose to retire so far and to such a forbidding shore.'

  'Choose…?' said Carnelian. It was as if lightning had flashed before his eyes.

  Jaspar drew back, his head leaning to one side. 'Surely you knew, Carnelian, that your father's exile has always been self-imposed?'

  Carnelian was not even sure where he was. He jerked a nod, fumbled on his mask. 'Lord… excuse me.'

  Jaspar's blue face was frowning as he watched Carnelian disappear into the funnel.

  The sea folded into hills and valleys and the ship slid heavily up and down the slopes. Carnelian lay in the cabin, falling in and out of sleep, brooding. Soon the vomit was burning up into his mouth and he forgot everything else as his stomach turned itself out onto the floor. Tain was suffering as much and Carnelian ordered him to stop trying to clean up the mess. They shared the misery, just wanting to die. They were not alone. Above the ship's timber-groan they could hear the retching coming from the cabins round about.

  Carnelian heard the knock, then Tain talking to someone, and sat up to see who it was. When he saw his father's huge frame squeezing into the cabin he was appalled. He was wound into his sheets. Both he and they were streaked with body paint and soaked with sweat. Filth puddled the floor. He knew the cabin stank. He tried to smooth his hair and rubbed at his face with a corner of the sheet. He swung his feet out, winced as the stuff oozed between his toes, then began to stand up, an apology on his lips.

  Stay, his father signed. He was crammed into the other half of the cabin. The ceiling crushed him down so that he was almost doubled up. This is not the time for ceremony, Carnelian. I am just a father come to see his son.' Suth looked round the cabin, then reached behind his head to release his mask. His face was haggard, his eyes bruise-rimmed red. 'You look ill, my son.'

  Carnelian stared. His father looked terrible. He covered his dismay with a wan smile. 'It is mosdy the waves. Does the wave-sickness also ail my Lord?' For a moment he forgot the resentment he had been feeling towards his father.

  'No… well, yes, as you say, the waves.' Braced against the ceiling and a bulkhead, his father seemed a part of the swaying cabin. 'It occurred to me I might bring you some relief.' He handed Carnelian a small silver box. Its lid was wrought with a crying eye: the moon's cypher. Opening it, Carnelian saw it was filled with a red-brown powder whose acridity stung his nose.

  'It is made from the juice of young poppies. Get Tain to hide its bitterness in honey. Give him some. Its dreams will deaden you both to the storms.'

  Carnelian searched his father's weary face.

  Take care you do not consume too much. Poppy has a power over men's minds.' His father looked as if he were seeing something far away. 'And dreams can be as enslaving as the legions.'

  'You should not have incommoded yourself, my Lord. A servant could have brought me this.'

  His father almost smiled. 'You see behind the mask, my son. You force me to own that I come to make a peace between us. This is no time for us to be at war. There are dangers coming that we should better meet with our shields locked together.'

  Carnelian felt his heart melting. He wanted to open himself up. He wanted to lean on his father's strength, to trust him. But he wore the discomfort of Jaspar's words like wet clothes. 'May I ask my Lord a question?'

  His father's brows lifted.

  Carnelian clamped his teeth together. The taste of vomit was still in his mouth but his question lay more bitter on his tongue. He spat it out. 'Was our exile freely chosen?'

  His father's face darkened. 'Who told you this?'

  'It is true then!'

  Father and son glared at each other. Then Suth's eyes fell as if his head had grown suddenly heavy. Cold fear flushed up Carnelian's chest. The Master, hanging his head in shame? He had never expected to see that. He closed up, withdrawing back into the bunk in a hunch. His father looked up with dull eyes. 'Long ago, I swore before the Wise a blood oath that brought us here. All you need to know is that I have been released from it.'

  The sadness in his father's face punished Carnelian. The massive shoulders seemed to be curving under the whole weight of the decks above. Carnelian felt how unworthy had been his doubts.

  His father made an elegant gesture to take in the cabin. 'Shall I send one of my servants to clean this?'

  'No, Father, Tain will manage well enough.'

  'I can see how well he is managing, but it is up to you.' He turned to leave. There is one task that Tain should be capable of. You are no longer a boy. Have him shave your head. Wait until it is calm. It is not becoming to a Lord to have his head a mass of scars.'

  Tain was mopping up the last of the vomit. His face scrunched up as he wiped it off his hands. He looked up at Carnelian hunched on his bunk. 'You know, Crail's worse off than either of us.' He busied himself rubbing the cloth between his fingers.

  Carnelian dropped his hands from his eyes and glanced down. He felt a pang of guilt. He had altogether forgotten the old man. 'Surely he's being looked after?'

  Tain looked uncertain. 'You know the tyadra. How likely do you think it is that they'd make good nursemaids?'

  'Well then, he must come here where we can look after him.'

  Tain's eyes were all whites. 'In here?'

  'Why not?'

  'Well, it might have escaped my Master's attention but there's very little space.'

  'If you don't think that you can squeeze in here with us then you could always take Crail's place in the other cabin.'

  Tain frowned.

  'Go on, Tain, I'm sure you don't like the idea of him suffering uncared for any better than I do.'

  'I suppose,' said Tain. He went out and returned soon after with a sly grin. 'He's refused.'

  'I bet you didn't try very hard.'

  'I did! You know what he's like.'

  'Well, go back and don't bother saying anything more to him. Tell the others in his cabin that I want him carried in here and that it's a command not a request.'

  A little later Carnelian could hear grumbling and scuffing in the hall. He had risen, made himself presentable, and knocked together another makeshift bed on the floor. He stood shakily on the tilting floor and had to look away
from the lantern's swing. Everything was lurching. Tain came in and held the door open. A guardsman backed into the cabin. Carnelian could see another over his shoulder. The first man had to trample one of the floor beds. When they were both in they turned. Crail hung between them like a rope bridge. Though sallow and feverish, he still managed a scowl. The guardsmen began to lower him towards the floor.

  'Not there,' said Carnelian. 'Put him on the bunk.'

  'But, Carnie, you can't sleep on the floor,' said Tain. The faces round him were aghast.

  'Look at the bunk,' Carnelian said. 'Go on, look at it! Now look at me. I'm sure you can all see there's a difference in our lengths. I haven't slept comfortably since coming aboard this accursed scow. Now, if none of you object,' he gave them all a bow, 'I'd like to sleep stretched out on the floor.'

  Some of them blushed. It made Carnelian queasy to look at their swaying. He turned away. When he looked back, Crail had already been put in the bunk. The old man's face puckered into a grimace that folded his chameleon tattoo into the wrinkles. 'I knew I shouldn't have come,' he grated. 'I told the Master I didn't want to be a burden.'

  Tain's eyes rolled up to the ceiling. The other men slipped out. Carnelian and Tain arranged the beds that now took up almost all the floor. They settled down with groans of relief. The old man was still grumbling. Carnelian offered them each a morsel of poppied honey. Crail turned his face away. Carnelian forced it on him. Take it. If it's good enough for a Master it's good enough for you.' The old man gave in but put it into his mouth as if he were being poisoned.

  Tell me, Crail, of the time you saw the dragon,' said Tain and winked at Carnelian.

  The old man looked over, still scowling, suspecting mockery, but when he saw their expectant faces his own began uncreasing. He chewed absentmindedly on the honey. 'Yes, it was a wonder, and I saw it sure enough.' The grooves in his skin bunched as he spoke. 'By the God in his Mountain and his four horns, I saw it sure enough.'

  Carnelian and Tain had heard it many times before. They settled back into the comfort of his drone. '… a tower on its back that touched the sky.' The old hands struggled to make a pyramid of fingers. 'Its hide was bronze. It was larger than a hill.' His arms trembled out a volume in the air. 'Its horns were four men long.' He spotted the corner of Carnelian's smile. 'I swear it, boy, by all the hidden names of the God in his Mountain: four men long and curving like the moon.' And four of his thick knob-knuckled fingers were hooked out around the head he'd made by pressing his calloused thumbs together.