The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  A procession of pillars held back the shadow from an avenue that led off to a vague archway. He stopped to listen. Only birdsong embroidered the silence. He stepped into the hall, spreading his foot down over cool stone. He walked towards the grey courtyard.

  When he reached its edge he looked across its fish-scale cobbles to the distant gates. The raised portico running round it was still in darkness. A flight of steps that led down to the cobbles was flanked by tripod urns of mossy bronze. He noticed a figure hunched on the end of one of the steps and padded towards it. When he was near he stretched out and touched it lightly on the shoulder.

  The figure jumped to its feet and whisked round.

  'Master…' it gulped. It was Fey, eyes wide, her hand pressed over her chest.

  'Forgive me, I didn't mean to startle you,' said Carnelian.

  Fey shook her head, panting, made uncomfortable by the apology and the glare of so much white skin. 'Master, I was waiting for you. I've taken the liberty of having some breakfast prepared.' She indicated a low table set between two columns, overlooking the courtyard. 'I've also sent for servants of all the different kinds so that the Master might choose a household for himself.'

  'My own people will form my household.'

  She darted a look of hope at him. 'Did you bring them all back with you, Master?'

  Carnelian remembered his people blanketing the quay as he sailed away. The memory seemed from someone else's childhood. As he shook his head free of it, he noticed Fey looking at him anxiously. He smoothed his frown and even found a smile. 'We were forced to leave most of them behind. Ships will already have been sent to fetch them.'

  'Ships…?' Fey stared off as if she could see their sails tiny in the distance.

  Carnelian frowned. 'Are you telling me that you didn't know where we were?'

  Fey pulled her eyes back into focus. There were rumours, Master.'

  Carnelian pondered this.

  Those you did bring with you, Master, will take more than thirty days to come through the quarantine. Until they come through…'

  Carnelian thought of Tain, frightened and alone, arid of Keal and the others somewhere coming up the long, long road from the sea.

  Fey gave an uncertain smile as she again indicated the breakfast table. 'I'm getting old and foolish, Master. I should've brought servants, garments…' She looked confused. 'I don't really know what I'm doing.' Her eyes dropped to her feet.

  'Did you want to talk to me, Fey?' When the woman looked up at him he could see her need for news. He walked round her towards the table. 'It was thoughtful of you to arrange this. I'd very much like to break my fast while the air's still cool.'

  He stood in front of the table. The dishes and bowls seemed to inlay the table like jewels. He thought of his people on the island, abandoned to famine. Fey moved a stool and he sank cross-legged onto it, putting his mask down carefully on the floor. Fey knelt beside him and began to serve the food. Carnelian put a hand on her arm to stop her. This is beneath you… aunt.'

  She ducked her head to hide a blush. 'You're the son of… of the Ruling Lord,' she said through her hair. 'Nothing that I can do for you is beneath me.'

  Then you'll eat with me.'

  Fey looked up with her mouth hanging open.

  There's no point in looking like that,' said Carnelian, trying to make her smile. 'It'll give me no pleasure to eat while you fuss around me. I'm not used to it.'

  Fey looked at him as if she could not understand what he was saying.

  'Sit there,' Carnelian said gently. 'I'd like your company.' He looked away when the woman awkwardly sat down, trying to save her more embarrassment. Carnelian picked up a box, opened it and offered it to her. Fey took one of the thin discs of bread as if she were being offered poison.

  'Where will my father be now, Fey?'

  'But, Master, you told me yourself that he was with the Wise.'

  'Yes, but where would they have taken him?' To the Isle.'

  The God Emperor… he's gone to see the God Emperor.'

  Fey made the sign of the horns and ducked an obeisance. The Gods are in the Sky.' She gazed up between the columns.

  Carnelian frowned, not sure what to make of the awe on her face. 'In the Sky?'

  Fey came back to earth as she looked at him. The Master'll have climbed the Pillar… the Gods've gone up there to the Halls of Thunder, as your brethren, the other Masters of this House, have gone up to the Eyries.'

  'You have my father's eyes,' said Carnelian.

  Fey turned away as if trying to hide them from him. The better half of me is sister to the Master.'

  'He told me to trust you.'. The words put tears in Fey's eyes. She dabbed at them. 'Please, Master, where's Brin?'

  'Your sister had to be left behind.'

  Fey's mouth twitched. 'Crail? He must be an old man by now?'

  Carnelian looked down at his food, trying to find the words. He lifted his head. 'He's dead.'

  Fey's face crumpled. She snatched a glimpse at his eyes. 'Grane?'

  'We had to leave most of them…'

  Carnelian could see by her face that she saw something of the conditions in which they had been left. She nodded slowly. 'Ebeny too?'

  'She wouldn't come,' said Carnelian, biting his lip, hearing his voice betraying pain.

  'Her boys, Master?'

  'Keal's on the road, coming here. Tain's in the quarantine.' 'With others?'

  Carnelian shook his head. Fey lifted a bowl of filigreed turquoise and offered Carnelian its peaches. Carnelian took a fruit, bit into it. He was vaguely aware of its sweetness.

  'Our orchards are famous,' said Fey.

  Carnelian looked at her and then the fruit. 'Yes… it is delicious.' He put it down. Fey lifted a ewer and poured water over his hands to clean them. Carnelian watched her put it down on its three legs. Each had a human form. Carnelian ran his finger over one of them.

  'A Quyan piece, Master, and very rare,' said Fey.

  'I promised my people that I'd make this place ready to welcome them,' said Carnelian. There won't be any problems, will there?'

  She stretched a smile over her lips.

  The other lineages resent my return?'

  Fey looked at her hands.

  'I see that they do.'

  She looked up. Her face in anger was so like his father's that Carnelian started. 'It's not their place to resent you, Master. If you demand the Seal, they'll have to give it to you.'

  She clapped her hand over her mouth. Carnelian could see her eyes expecting punishment. He gently peeled her hand off and squeezed it. 'You've not spoken out of turn.'

  She frowned and regarded him as if he were a creature come alive out of a story.

  'Please, tell me about the Seal,' he said.

  Her eyebrows showed a flicker of surprise. 'Whoever holds it rules this coomb.'

  'But my father…' Carnelian thought about it. 'It controls all our wealth?'

  Fey gave a slow nod.

  Carnelian suddenly understood something of the poverty of the Hold. 'But why did he leave it behind?' 'Without it here the coomb wouldn't work.'

  'And you're trying to tell me that my father left all this power in the hands of the second lineage?'

  Fey compressed her lips, shook her head erratically. 'Fey…?'

  The Master left it with the Mistress.'

  'You mean my grandmother?'

  The Lady Urquentha,' said Fey, using the Quya.

  Carnelian frowned. 'I have a letter from her.' He watched Fey go yellow as she dug her chin into her chest. 'What's the matter, Fey?'

  Fey would not look up at him. She jerked back from the table, slapped her hands down on the floor and cracked her forehead down between them. Her abject prostration spiked Carnelian with anger.

  'Get up, woman.'

  Fey looked up with blood smearing above her eyes.

  Carnelian winced. 'Look what you've done to yourself.' He reached up but she pulled away. He dug the letter out of his mask
and held it up. This isn't for me, Fey, but for my father.'

  The Mistress must've received garbled news, Master… the forbidden house… it's closed against the world… she's not allowed to see anyone…'

  Carnelian examined her eyes as she rambled. 'Fey, what's the matter? Why are you so frightened?'

  She hid her face again. He was trying to think what he could do when a deep clanging made them both look across the courtyard to its gate.

  'By your leave, Master.'

  He jerked a nod.

  Fey rose and fled down the steps. Carnelian watched her recede. The sun was painting colour into the porticoes on his left. Friezes carved into the lintels animated their crowds of marble in the morning sun. A pyramid rose behind from which faces stared out. Beyond it was the striped green sky of the Sacred Wall.

  Fey was labouring back towards him looking flushed and distressed. The Masters come.'

  The second lineage? Down here?'

  She gulped. 'Yes, Master.'

  Carnelian's heart sank. 'Here?' He looked at the courtyard with its dead trees and then down at his body wrapped only in the blanket of feathers.

  Fey shook her head. The Masters'll want to meet you on neutral territory… probably the Great Hall of Columns.'

  Carnelian spread his arms and grinned. 'Shall I go dressed like this?'

  She managed a smile. 'By the time we're finished, Master, you'll look like an angel.'

  In a chrysalis chamber he stood naked while they painted him with camphor. Its evaporation was like drizzling quicksilver. Fey supervised the shaving of his head and then the polishing of unguents into his skin. In their shimmering perfume, Carnelian outshone the glowing circuit of the alabaster wall.

  Inner robes swam through the air as lazily as jellyfish to engulf him. Layer after layer the robes grew heavier, the threads of their weaving more discernible, although the cloth was still so delicate that it would not hold folds but only, and temporarily, flakes of light.

  'Do we really need more robes?' he said at last.

  Fey looked horrified. The Master must put on an outer robe.' She clapped her hand to have them paraded. Each was carried by two servants like an elaborate piece of furniture. Some were panelled brilliantly with feathers. Others were sculpted into ridges of brocade up whose slopes climbed ladders of ivory and spinelled jewels. In honour of his father, he chose a sombre one of raven plumage flecked with bird-eye opals. His father's ring burned against his chest where he had hung it on a chain.

  Fey had them bring Carnelian masks so fine that it seemed as if he held nothing but sunlight in his hands. He chose one whose face might have been stolen from a boy gazing out over a summer sea. Fey nodded her approval as they bound it on.

  She surveyed her work proudly. 'All that is needed now is a crown.'

  'A crown?' Carnelian's exasperation vibrated the gold skin of his new mask. 'I broil and the woman wants me to wear a crown.'

  'You must wear a crown, Master, when you meet them.'

  His head drooped. He had almost managed to forget the meeting with the Masters. He brooded as crowns were shown to him, many-tiered, like houses or ships, inlaid with precious leathers, haloed, startling with iridescing feather fans. He would have none of them. He overruled Fey and settled for a simple diadem of black jade. She herself climbed on a stool to put it on his head.

  'Beware the father,' she whispered in Quya and then stepped down.

  Carnelian thought to ask her what she meant but he saw the servants all around them. Thank you,' he rumbled and they all fell flat upon the floor.

  Fey ordered a door to be opened in the alabaster wall. Beyond Carnelian could see only gloom. His skin felt as if it were being pricked with needles. He lurched into movement. The robes were heavier than armour. He had to breathe slow and hard to lift them with his chest. After a few steps he steeled himself but the tug of the cloaks never came. He turned his head as far as he could and glimpsed some of the children carrying his train. He looked back to the lamp-striped corridor and putting one foot before the other began to journey along it.

  At first Carnelian thought they were a guard of diamond men, but as he drew closer he saw they were ice blocks. It seemed strange that such vestiges of winter should be found in this land where it was always summer. He passed through their cordon into cooler air, then through another of lamps and saw the two towers of sculptured silk awaiting him. Slabs of samite stiff with jewels joined by barrelling brocade. High in these structures, surrounded by coronas of quetzal plumes, was the gold of their disdainful faces.

  As he stopped, he felt the mass of his robes settling round him. The green coronas inclined. He returned the bow. Sweat was soaking into his robes.

  Facets flashed as one of the creatures began to move. A long white hand gleamed into being. Shall we be alone?

  Carnelian lifted his arm against the weight of his sleeves and made a gesture of affirmation.

  The other's fingers shaped a sign of dismissal. There was an impression of movement in the shadows. Carnelian felt something pull at his shoulders, looked round and saw the children arranging his train in folds over the floor.

  'We have come to see if you are indeed who you claim to be, my Lord,' said one of the Masters. The voice was so deep it seemed to come rumbling down the avenues of columns.

  'I am Suth Carnelian.'

  'So you say,' said a different voice.

  Carnelian was stung to anger but calmed himself. It was natural that they should seek proof. It occurred to him that he might show them his father's ring, but that was as lost beneath the layers of his robe as if it had been cast into the sea.

  'My blood-ring,' he said.

  He steepled his hands together and took it off. As he moved forward his cloak's drag made him feel as if he were yoked to a cart. If that inconvenience had been the Masters' intention in sending away the children, Carnelian was not going to allow them the satisfaction of acknowledging it. When he was close enough, he held out the ring. One of the Masters took it and held it up to the light. His gold face regarded it for a while, then gave it back. The Master reached down the slopes of his robe. His hands took hold of some brocade and pulled on it like handles. The robes billowed up like a wave. Behind this his jewelled torso began sinking. The silk subsided sighing as Carnelian realized the Master was kneeling.

  'House Suth rejoices in your return, my Lord,' the deep voice said.

  The other Master looked down at his companion, his hands fidgeting over his robe, but then he too knelt. When they removed their masks, their faces were snow reflecting a winter dawn. Carnelian unmasked as they were rising. Their beauty was much alike and bore no resemblance to his father's.

  'I am Suth Spinel,' said the elder of the two in his deep voice. Carnelian recalled Fey's warning as Spinel's hand arced elegantly towards the other Master. This is my son, Opalid.'

  Carnelian bowed.

  'And what of the Ruling Lord, cousin?' asked Spinel. 'He has gone to the Halls of Thunder.' 'As He-who-goes-before?' said Opalid. Carnelian answered with his hand.

  Opalid shook the green dazzle of his head. 'We never believed he would-'

  His father slashed him silent with his hand. 'When is the Ruling Lord intending to return to the embrace of his family?'

  'You are likely to know that better than I, my Lord.' 'Cousin, I become confused.' 'Surely you know why we have returned?' Spinel regarded him with cold eyes. To take back what is yours.'

  Carnelian was surprised. That is far from being our prime concern. We have returned because of the election.'

  'So, the Lord Aurum has yet again outmanoeuvred his enemies.' Spinel's tone was conversational but his eyes were sharp.

  That remains to be seen,' said Carnelian, 'although my Lord might recall that my father has always been of independent mind.'

  Opalid flickered a frown.

  Spinel fixed Carnelian with his eyes. 'This delay in his return, though regrettable, does give us time to make all the required preparations.'


  'You will quit those first lineage halls that you now occupy?'

  Spinel's face became a cake of salt. 'Yes, my Lord, though you will appreciate this is something that cannot be effected in a moment.'

  Carnelian nodded.

  'In the meantime, perhaps, my Lord would condescend…'

  Carnelian gave the Master an expectant look. '… to occupy the halls of the third lineage in the Eyries?'

  'For the moment.'

  'In less than a month we shall make the journey to the Halls of Thunder to vote in the election.'

  'Am I to understand that my grandmother is up in the Eyries?'

  Spinel gave him an enquiring look and a slow nod. 'I intend to meet her today.'

  Spinel shaped a barrier gesture with his hands. The Lady is old now and frail and receives no visitors… the shock of this sudden appearance… not to mention-'

  'My grandmother already knows that I am here.'

  Spinel frowned. 'How could you know this, my Lord?'

  'I have a letter from her.'

  'A letter? I see.' Spinel put on a jovial smile. 'It seems then there is no problem whatsoever.'

  Climbing into the palanquin, Carnelian felt like a jewelled doll being put into an oven. His train was fed in after him, the door slid closed and then he was hoisted into the air. The swell of the carrying poles damped away to stillness, then, with a sway, they were off. He breathed his hot, humid perfume slowly and tried to loosen some of his robes. He found a grille that he could open to let in some air. Walls and gilded pillars, glimpses of courts, manicured trees, all slid past in bewildering procession. He slumped back and fidgeted with his blood-ring, watching the play of light the grille freckled over the satin wall. He tried to ignore the heat, to think about his grandmother. His guts churned. What was he going to tell her about her son?

  At some point the palanquin angled up and the pressure of its wall slid up to his back. He could hear a watery tumble and hiss. A mossy smell greened the air. He drowsed during the long climb up the Sacred Wall, as he was cooled and heated in alternating rhythms.