The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  They're… doing their job, Master.'

  Carnelian was afraid that if he pushed for more the man might vomit. 'I see,' he said, and tried to stand perfectly still as the pad crossed the distance between them. It settled on his skin like a butterfly. Carnelian fought a grimace as the pad tickled lightly over his skin. Though he tried to suppress it, at last the laughter came like a gale.

  The man stepped back gaping.

  Carnelian struck himself repeatedly in the chest to quell the laughter. He pointed at the man. 'Gods' fiery blood, man, what… are

  … you doing?' The man's knees struck the ground with a crack that made Carnelian wince, and then he hunched forward in a clumsy prostration. Carnelian stared, shaking his head. 'Get out. Come on, leave me. I'll clean myself.'

  The man began to shuffle backwards.

  'Stand up, and get out,' said Carnelian, not managing to keep the anger from his voice.

  He watched the man leave, the door close, then sat heavily on the bed still staring at the door, shaking his head. He felt like crying or smashing furniture. They would all have to change. 'I couldn't bear it if they didn't,' he muttered. He imagined himself in Coomb Suth surrounded by fawning slaves. The chameleons on their faces seemed counterfeit. He nodded. His own people would bring change. He felt himself lighting up as he thought of them. Ebeny, Keal, Brin. 'Even Grane,' he sighed. At that moment he would have given anything for one of his scoldings. Tain.

  Tain would soon be through the quarantine. The light dimmed. The first image of his brother that had come into his mind was of a vague face with blood running down it like lank hair.

  'No,' he cried, stood up and walked about. There was no point in thinking about that yet. Time would come soon enough to count the cost. For now, he would allow himself to believe that his people would bring something of the warmth of the Hold back into his life.

  The arrival of the Quenthas was announced to give him time to put his mask on. The syblings walked into the chamber and knelt. He strode over to them, pulled them up, easily managing to span both their shoulders. 'I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you.' He stood back to look at them. Left-Quentha had her head bowed but Right-Quentha was grinning at him all bright-eyed. He gave them both a bow. 'What brings my Ladies to this humble prison?'

  Left-Quentha raised her stone eyes. 'Prison, Seraph?'

  The Regent has sent us to amuse you,' her sister said.

  'He did?' Carnelian frowned.

  Right-Quentha shook her head. 'Oh, not like that, Seraph.' Then she smiled coyly. Though…?'

  Her sister turned to her, frowning, then back to him. 'We have some skill with instruments, we sing and play a fair game of Three.'

  Carnelian noticed the sword hilts appearing above their shoulders. He pointed at them. 'And can protect me?'

  That also, Seraph,' they said together. 'I will allow you to stay on one condition.' Left-Quentha angled her head back, a little anxious.

  'And what is that, Seraph?' That you call me Carnelian.'

  For several days the sybling sisters strove to amuse him. They produced an instrument that had many strings, and frets and a gilded gourd at either end, and squatted with it on the floor. Their outer legs would have been called crossed if they had not been so far apart. Their middle leg folded under them. The instrument sat across their thighs. Two arms were under the neck, two over the strings. Their long fingers plucked and strummed all at once, coaxing cascades of sound, arpeggios, complex percussion. Sometimes they interwove their voices into the melodies, singing harmoniously, one voice sometimes chasing, sometimes shadowing the other. They could also play reed flutes made from hollowed saurian bones. As one blew a continuous drone, the other would waft over it rich, heart-rending melodies.

  Carnelian became addicted to the strange game they called Three. It was played on a circular board with a black centre within two concentric bands of red and green. The three sets of pieces each took one of the colours. The sisters always chose the jade and the obsidian sets, smiling conspiratorially, saying the colours of the House of the Masks were naturally theirs. He acquiesced. After all, the red pieces were made of his name stone. He assumed they would ally against him, but instead he was ignored as they fought each other to destruction. He became tired of winning. Losing his temper, he insisted that they fight the game fairly and try to defeat him. They shrugged, grinned, and in the games that followed overwhelmed him. He rejected their offer that they should begin the game with fewer pieces. Slowly, he began to learn strategy from his defeats. The games became tortuous, subtle, merciless wars in which his red pieces began more and more to triumph.

  Often, as they played, he would try to talk to the Quenthas about the election, the candidates, their factions. They met his questions with elegant deflections. They grew positively sullen if he ever strayed close to mentioning Ykoriana.

  'No more music,' said Carnelian, adding quickly, 'though you play like the rain.'

  Left-Quentha reached for the Three board.

  'Not that either.' He stood up, stretched, groaned. 'My body aches from inactivity.' He frowned, locked his hands together and tried to tug them apart. 'I know,' he said brightly, looking at the syblings. Right-Quentha was wearing her green copper mask. At his insistence, she and Carnelian took turns at being masked. 'You girls can give me a tour of these Halls of Thunder.'

  They both made evasive gestures with their hands. 'We would have to put you in your court robe, Carnelian,' said Left-Quentha. She glanced at it, an intruder gleaming in the comer.

  'You might well come across other Seraphs,' said Right-Quentha.

  'And then again, it might not be wise that we three should be seen together,' said her sister.

  'It certainly would look strange,' said Right-Quentha.

  'Strange,' echoed her sister.

  Carnelian sank cross-legged to the floor. He propped his face up with his arm. 'You confirm what I have suspected. My father has sent you to keep me imprisoned here, in the Sunhold.'

  The sybling sisters looked blindly at each other. There is nothing to stop us giving you a tour of the Sunhold.'

  Carnelian brightened, leapt up, grabbed his mask. 'Come on then.'

  They sallied out into the passage where they gathered up an escort of his tyadra. In the chamber set around with doors, the Quenthas pointed out the portcullises that they told him led off down long passageways to various gates giving into the Encampment. Between these were other doors which they said led into barracks. At his insistence they opened one and lighting a lantern they all went in.

  'Soon this warren will be filled with a cohort of Red Ichorians,' said Left-Quentha and both sisters frowned.

  'Apart from the side on which they are tattooed, how do they differ from the Sinistrals?' he asked them.

  'In every way, Carnelian,' Right-Quentha replied indignantly. They belong to the Great and we to the House of the Masks. We live in different worlds.'

  'Worlds…?'

  Left-Quentha caught him in her stony gaze. 'We can no more be in the same world than my sister and I can be on the same side of the mirror as our reflection.'

  Right-Quentha chuckled. 'Ours is a dark, looking-glass world.' She made them both dance a little.

  The Halls of Thunder and the Labyrinth,' added her sister, forcing their three feet firmly to the floor.

  Theirs is the world of the sun, across the Skymere.'

  'And yet, on occasion, you permit them to come here into your world?' Carnelian said.

  They both looked at him. 'It is a concession the House of the Masks makes to the Great,' Left-Quentha began.

  'And only during such dark days as these,' her sister continued.

  'And even then they have to lock themselves in here, within this fortress, from fear of us,' said the other, fiercely.

  Carnelian smiled indulgently. They had taken on a poise that he could see was making an impression on the nervous faces of his guardsmen.

  With a grin, Right-Quentha became a girl a
gain. 'And would our dear like to see the chambers that will be his father's?'

  Carnelian nodded and they led him back into the chamber of doors and across it to a golden mirror that showed the sybling sisters to themselves. This was a door that brought them into an atrium where the sisters said the tyadra of He-who-goes-before could defend their Lord. The guardsmen peered into the quarters leading off it that their fellows would occupy. Another gold mirror door was opened and Carnelian's eyes widened as he looked in. He followed the syblings into the chamber. The thick gold of the walls was moulded into wheels, rayed eyes and huge ruby-seeded pomegranates. The floor was fossilled stone-wood ribbed and lozenged with carnelian. Gorgeous apartments opened off on either side, every wall and door and ceiling a piece of jewellery.

  When Carnelian had marvelled at everything, the Quenthas announced that it was time to see the Hall of the Sun in Splendour. They returned to the chamber of doors whose marbles seemed to Carnelian suddenly drab. A double portcullis was opened allowing them to walk down a tunnel into a vast columned hall. This too was panelled entirely with gold. Carnelian saw they had entered it through a side door. At the hall's far end, with their sun-eye, were the huge bolted doors that opened into the nave. Opposite them, behind a dais at the other end, the wall held a glowing mosaic of rosy gems that Right-Quentha called the Window of the Dawn.

  'On that dais, your father will kneel to give audience to the Seraphim.'

  Across from where they stood, down the long side of the hall, ran a series of tall and narrow amber windows. Carnelian walked towards one. He touched its mosaic of molten gold. The window formed the image of an angel like a man in flames; only the eyes of watery grey diamond suggested this might be a representation of a Master. Carnelian walked along the line of windows. In the terrible burning beauty of their faces, their eyes were such cruel winter.

  Carnelian's foot stubbed against something on the floor. He turned to look down at it. 'A trapdoor?'

  'It is nothing, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.

  ‘Surely it must lead somewhere?'

  'A fright of steps down to ancient halls.' Right-Quentha made a gesture to take in their surroundings. 'Precursors to these. Ruined now a thousand years.'

  Carnelian imagined these ancient dusty wonders. 'Could we not go and see them?'

  They are decayed, Seraph,' said Left-Quentha.

  'Lightless,' her sister added.

  'Filthy.'

  Carnelian made a smiling sign with his hand. 'Just a peek?'

  Right-Quentha could not help a smile.

  'We must not,' her sister whispered to her.

  'Just a peek,' said Right-Quentha. 'Where would the harm be in that?'

  Left-Quentha turned away, blinking her stone eyes, pursing her tattooed lips. Her sister forced her to bend when she herself bent down to lift a handle in the trapdoor. Left-Quentha gave in. They crouched, took the handle with all four hands and pulled. The cover stone grated open, spilling light down the steps.

  The Seraph should send his guardsmen ahead,' said Left-Quentha.

  Carnelian turned to his men and saw with what terror they were peering down into the depths.

  'What's the matter with you lot?' asked Carnelian in Vulgate.

  They began to kneel. He focused on one and grabbed his shoulder to stop him. 'Well?'

  'Master… it's said this whole mountain's hollow.' The man stared, slack-eyed.

  'And so?'

  The Gods and the Masters walk the higher levels but in the lower they keep… you keep…' The man's voice tailed off, then he whispered,'… monsters.'

  Carnelian threw his head back and laughed. He turned to the syblings. 'It seems they are afraid.'

  Left-Quentha regarded them imperiously with her stone eyes. 'Slaves are always afraid. Soon enough we will have them trotting down those steps.' The syblings rose, both stone eyes and living fixed menacingly on the guardsmen.

  Carnelian lifted his hands. There is no point in forcing them. I do not want to be deafened by the chattering of their teeth. We will go alone.'

  The syblings frowned. 'As the Seraph commands.' They walked round Carnelian, scattering his guardsmen. Each sister demanded a sword.

  'I will go first,' said Carnelian.

  'We will go first, Seraph,' they said together, showing the swords the guardsmen had given them.

  Carnelian could see that they would brook no argument and stepped aside to let them lead the descent into the darkness.

  Left-Quentha carried the lantern and Carnelian followed behind, peering between their shoulders at the steps revealed by its jiggling beam. Although the steps were smoothly cut, the walls were roughly hewn. The stair wound from side to side, and several times passed places where a porthole fed in a ray of daylight.

  At last they reached the bottom and the Quenthas moved out into black echoing space. They lifted the lantern and spread its light across the floor to find the further wall.

  'Behold the first Hall of the Sun in Splendour. No He-who-goes-before has stood here for a thousand years,' they whispered together.

  Carnelian turned. The stair was a ragged rupture in the corner. 'Where is the gold?' he whispered.

  It grew brighter as the Quenthas came up to him. Left-Quentha slid her hand over the wall and found something. Her sister caught Carnelian's hand and drew it to replace Left-Quentha's. He could feel a hole deep enough to stick his finger in.

  The plates that were attached here were carried up there.' Left-Quentha pointed at the ceiling.

  They wandered off across the chamber. The floor was mouldy with dust. The Quenthas showed him the dais and the blocked-up hole where the ancient jewelled Window of the Dawn had been. Carnelian walked down between the grim pillars to the door. Through its gaping maw was utter darkness. He called the syblings to his side. All three of them hung together in the door mouth casting the light out into a nave. Although this was on a smaller scale than the one above, it still ran off further than their light could reach.

  Carnelian looked round him. 'Was this then the original sun-eyed door?'

  In answer the Quenthas stood on tiptoe and reached up to touch half a hinge of twisted dull bronze.

  'Please, let us go a little further,' Carnelian whispered.

  The sisters turned to each other as if they were having a silent conference. Brandishing their swords, they took some steps into the nave. Carved columns ran off on either side. All together, they walked on, and however far they went their lantern found more columns.

  At last their light showed a narrowing end to the nave, another doorway, its gates long ago torn from its jaws. Beyond more darkness spread without apparent limit. They crept into this.

  'The ancient Chamber of the Three Lands,' whispered Left-Quentha.

  'See,' her sister hissed as she tapped the floor with her foot.

  Carnelian leant over but could see nothing but an age-pitted floor. He shook his head.

  'Walk with us, Carnelian,' said Left-Quentha.

  However lightly they put down their feet, their footsteps produced echoes. The syblings were feeling their way with the lantern beam as if it were a stick.

  There,' muttered Right-Quentha and they rushed forward, keeping the beam anchored to a spot on the floor. They crouched and he joined them. He could see that the floor had two different zones divided by a black line. 'You see?' Right-Quentha tapped the nearest zone, 'Green,' and then the further zone, 'Red.'

  Carnelian stood up, whistling his breath out. They cast the light round for him to see the curve. 'A wheelmap,' he hissed. They both nodded. They took him to the centre of the design where there was a third zone, a black disc like a hole into which was inscribed a turtle. They stood at the centre of the Commonwealth, in Osrakum. The syblings slipped the lantern shutter round to produce a narrower, brighter beam. They played it about to show him the faraway curve of the chamber's outer wall, and stopped at a gap. The House of the Masks' door.' Round to another. The Gods' door.' Round one more time. The beam sparked
on an oblong of ice. Carnelian narrowed his eyes. Not ice, silver. As he made to walk towards it, they touched his arm.

  He looked at their stiff spider-like silhouette. 'I only want to see it close up.' He could feel their anger but he went anyway and they followed, afraid to lose him in the darkness.

  As he approached he saw it was a door of silver in the centre of which stared a huge crying eye. 'A moon-eyed door,' he muttered and remembered the other he had seen on the Approach.

  'It is here as it has always been. The entrance to the labyrinthine chambers of the Wise,' the syblings whispered.

  'Can we just take a look?'

  They became like statues. 'It is forbidden, Seraph.'

  He considered wheedling but decided he had pushed them far enough already. The other doorways?'

  'Lead to the forbidden house.' They had gone cold on him.

  'Shall we go back?' he said gently.

  That would be advisable, Seraph.'

  As they walked away, Carnelian snatched a regretful look back at the moon-eyed door, already a fading glimmer in the night.

  When they returned to his chamber, they played a game of Three, but Carnelian's attention wandered. After two disastrous games, he told the syblings that he was tired and wished to retire early to bed.

  He lay in the darkness, his mind's eye bewitched by a ghostly image of the moon-eyed door. It haunted his dreams so that when he awoke he was still tired. For breakfast, the Quenthas brought him peaches, fluffy hri bread and an aromatic paste made from honey and the tongues of hummingbirds. They played their flutes, they sang. He brooded.

  It was afternoon when one of his tyadra came knocking at the door. The Quenthas answered it. There was muttering and then the syblings both turned to him and said, The Red Ichorians are come.'

  They dressed him and together they went out to meet the new arrivals in the chamber of doors beyond the double portcullis that protected the access to his chambers.

  A number of Ichorians were there waiting for him. As they removed their scarlet-feathered helmets and tucked them under their arms, Carnelian could see by the number of rank rings on their gold collars that they were all officers. One of them came forward, and as he knelt before Carnelian the others knelt behind him. The Ichorian touched the two zero rings and three bars on his collar.