The Chosen sdotc-1

by Ricardo Pinto

  'Nale?' asked Carnelian.

  The dragonfly Master's boy.'

  'Jaspar… Fell, you say?'

  Tain glanced at him. 'He threw himself into the chasm.'

  Carnelian shuddered, remembering the punishments Jaspar had promised the boy.

  'Stone doors took us onto a path.'

  Carnelian was being numbed by Tain's lack of feeling.

  The chasm widened letting in more sky. The air was dank. We came to a place of chains and deafening waterfalls. More gates, some tunnels… then we came out into…' Tain was staring at nothing.

  'Heaven?' suggested Carnelian.

  Tain gazed on as if he had not heard. Carnelian felt that if he were only to look close enough he would see a vision of the crater reflected on the boy's eyes. 'I felt that wonder too.'

  Tain's face turned to him the eye holes in his skull. 'I was sure I had died.'

  Carnelian felt the cold seeping up from the stone upon which he sat.

  The beating soon taught me otherwise. They took us up a stair to a cave floored with water. They demanded the names of our Masters. They put me on a boat, under its deck, where one-eyed monsters rowed. We arrived at Coomb Suth. They fished me out and put me on the quay. They rang a bell. I had the feeling I was in a story. The blue lake was not real. The island with its mountain. The vast, vast fencing wall. And there, at its foot, the coomb. So beautiful with its stepped gardens and gleaming palaces. Crail told me about it but I hadn't believed.'

  For a moment Carnelian thought Tain might smile. He waited for it like the dawn after a night of despair.

  'A man came down for me. The chameleon on his face fooled me at first. He wasn't one of our people. He was a stranger and spoke to me as a stranger. As I followed him he rattled off my duties, warned me that I should forget the ways I was used to. The coomb was ruled by the Master's mother and she wasn't a Mistress to be trifled with. Then I saw the hanging woman.'

  Carnelian felt a twinge of nausea. 'Hanging…?'

  ‘Sagging off a frame… arms wire cut… above the path to one side… stinking.'

  'A crucifixion,' said Carnelian.

  The wall behind her was stained with blood and shit. Her knees were like sea-logged wood. What was left of her arms looked barely in their shoulders. Her belly was red and swollen-'

  'Enough!' said Carnelian. He felt he was on the verge of remembering something. He was panting. Water was oozing in his mouth. 'Did…' He swallowed. 'Did he tell you her name?'

  'Her name was Fey.'

  The sound of her name punched the vomit from Carnelian's stomach all over the floor.

  Carnelian helped Tain clean up. He felt the need to give him an explanation. 'She was Brin's sister.'

  Tain seemed to age a little more. Carnelian ducked his head, cursing, scrubbing the floor so hard he made his fingers raw. When they were finished he looked at Tain. 'I must know…' Tain's face was a blank. 'What else did you see happening in the coomb?'

  'I left shortly after arriving to come here.'

  'Were there any other signs of slaughter?'

  'I didn't see any more… crucifixions.'

  Carnelian bit his hand, looking at his brother.

  There was an atmosphere of fear.'

  Carnelian's eyes went out of focus. 'It seems to be the way the Masters celebrate their assumption of power.'

  Tain gazed at him.

  Carnelian still felt queasy. 'I must go and make Father aware of what I have done.'

  Carnelian quickly found that Tain was unable to dress him in his court robe and so he had to summon servants. When he was ready he went immediately to see his father. The Ichorians guarding the entrance to the Sun in Splendour would not let him pass. Towering over them he used all his powers of coercion but this only served to reduce them to quivering. One of the cohort commanders came to see what was happening.

  Carnelian swung round to look down at the man. They refuse to let me pass.'

  'He-who-goes-before himself barred this gate, Master.'

  'I've urgent need to speak to him.'

  'Our father's in conclave with the Jade Master Nephron.'

  Carnelian calmed his anger. 'Please tell him as soon as you can that I must talk to him.'

  He began the journey back to his chamber. The storm he had unleashed upon Coomb Suth, only his father could abate. No doubt he would conclave well into the night and then return to his chambers exhausted. Even if the commander managed to get his message through, there was no assurance that his father would pay it any attention.

  A plan occurred to him. Carnelian turned slowly on his ranga and returned to the door of his father's chambers. After some discussion, the Ichorians there allowed him to enter. The Suth guardsmen in the atrium greeted him with surprise. He ignored the questions in their eyes and passed through into the chamber beyond where he had them remove him from his court robe and ranga. When they were finished, he sent them away. For a moment, he stood gazing at the walls with their wheels and eyes and pomegranates, but then he crossed the stone-wood floor to a couch on which he settled down to wait.

  A movement of air woke him. Carnelian opened his eyes and was transfixed. An angel was coming across the floor in an aura of gold. Two mortals walked beside it. It seemed miraculous that its furnace robe did not consume them with its fire. The angel lifted a hand and the men fled towards the door and were soon gone.

  The angel slid towards the wall. It wavered a white hand out to touch the gold. Its whole shimmering bulk leaned forward, its fiery head clinking against the ruby seeds of a graven pomegranate.

  Thus propped up, the angel raised both hands to its face. The fingers disappeared trembling into the fiery crowns. The gold mask detached like a lid to reveal a pallid face beneath. His father. The next moment

  Carnelian was jarred as the pale fingers lost hold of the mask and it fell flashing, like a skystone, clattering, then screeching along the floor.

  Carnelian's gaze had been pulled after it but when it stopped making sound or movement he looked back in time to see his father raising an object to his face. He watched him sink his nose into the square spoon. Two sharp snorts, a groan and then breath hissing out through his mouth's gape, the spoon dangling from his fingers. Even as Carnelian watched, it was as if his father was a withered tree drawing young sap up from its roots. He slowly straightened, his shoulders broadened, his face grew brighter. His eyes opened and he saw Carnelian.

  'My Lord,' he said, appalled. His face jumped into fury. 'You spy on me?'

  Anger disappeared as his father's face sagged. Carnelian stood up, stooped to pick up the fallen mask, went to him. He could see the mucus running down from his father's nostrils and the head hanging with shame.

  'You knew… the Wise… their drugs sustain me.'

  'You mean, they keep you alive,' Carnelian snapped. His father was a man trapped in a slab of gold. Carnelian could not be angry with him. 'Please, Father, let me remove some of this…' His hand pointed up at the sunburst crown, the stiff slopes of the court robe.

  His father frowned and Carnelian could see the protest forming on his lips, so he reached up, fitting his fingers up into the elaborate metallic folds. 'Not there,' his father sighed. 'Round the back…'

  Carnelian skirted him and stood on his toes to reach, felt around, found the catches, pressed and was thrown back as the sunburst fell into his arms. He walked with it and leaned its disc against the wall. He returned to lift down the upper crown, the lower, the sunstone circlet with its jewelled beadcords, the ear flanges, until the long dome of his father's head was revealed. His father moved it from side to side, grimacing, releasing the tension in his neck.

  'Aaah! That does feel better… thank you, my son.'

  'Let me remove the robe.' Before his father could forbid him Carnelian had unhitched the shoulder pole with its cloaks. He unhooked the robe from the floor up. As its carapace came apart it released an odour of myrrhed sweat. Carnelian prised the suit open like two doors. His father's lon
g narrow body was revealed in its underclothes, kneeling high upon enormous ranga that were attached to heavy belts. Carnelian squeezed into the robe, stooped and began to undo the shoes. As he worked he was bothered by a fetid, familiar smell. As he helped his father climb down he saw a raised area blushing red through the silk. When Carnelian leaned closer he could smell the rot of old blood. He groaned. 'It has not healed.'

  The drug gives me strength but at a price. The wound remains open but it hardly bleeds at all.'

  'And pain?'

  His father shrugged. 'A little.' He smiled. 'From long companionship, it has become a friend.'

  Carnelian felt a trembling of anger. 'The Wise… they are embalming you alive.'

  'It was my choice. Without their drugs I would have become an invalid long ago.'

  The wound will heal, then?'

  His father rolled his hand. 'When I have time.' His face grew immeasurably sad. 'After the election.'

  Carnelian tried not to see how much his father was resembling Crad. 'Something has happened.'

  His father's yellowed eyes fell on him. 'I suppose the news will soon be widely known.'

  Carnelian watched him, urging him to speak. 'Jaspar has betrayed us.' 'Jaspar…?'

  'He has gone over to Ykoriana.' 'With his faction?'

  'It is too early to tell… some will follow him.' He affected cheerfulness. 'I did not ask why you came here, my son.'

  Carnelian looked up, saw his father's bleary look. It was the fear of continuing massacre in the coomb that made him speak. Tain is here.'

  'Good, good. Has he come through the ordeals of the road and quarantine unscathed?'

  'We are none of us unscathed, Father.'

  'No, I suppose not.'

  Tain brought with him terrible news.'

  His father's eyebrows squeezed wrinkles into the top of his nose.

  'Fey is dead.'

  His father blinked at him, not understanding. 'Dead?'

  'Your mother had her crucified.' Carnelian watched his father's face crumpling. He saw the tears oozing out. 'Father, don't,' he stuttered in Vulgate, horrified. He rushed to catch him in his arms and held him, feeling the racking in his body. 'Don't, don't cry,' he mumbled, touching with his lips the dry skin of his father's neck. 'I

  … was… a fool.'

  Carnelian could feel the words begin to rattle up from his father's chest. He squeezed harder but the words still escaped. 'We should never have returned. I have lost. I have lost it all.'

  Carnelian pushed him away so that he could see his face. He forced himself to look on all the evidence of its ruin. 'It was my fault,' he said. 'My fault.'

  His father looked at him with flickering red eyes. Carnelian stared back. His father's trembling had stopped. He seemed suddenly of stone. 'Your fault?' His voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else in the chamber.

  'I killed her. I gave the Lady Urquentha the Seal.'

  His father became flesh again. The Seal?' He looked as if it was the first time he had ever heard the word.

  The coomb was not as you left it. Spinel had taken the Seal and forced the Lady Urquentha into the forbidden house.'

  His father gave a slow nod and narrowed his eyes.

  'She was trapped there like an animal.'

  'And so you gave her the Seal to set her free?'

  Carnelian grimaced. 'It was done as much from a dislike of Spinel.'

  His father opened his hand. 'And so? It was your right, you are higher than he.'

  'But Fey was crucified.'

  His father looked down, his eyes unfocused. 'Why did my mother do this?'

  'She believed that Fey had conspired against her with the second lineage.'

  'And had she?'

  'In a manner of speaking.'

  Then my mother did what she had to.'

  Carnelian gaped. 'Had to?'

  'What Fey did was unforgivable.'

  'But she did it for you, for us.'

  'Nevertheless.'

  'You mean she was only a slave.' His father's eyes flashed. 'She was my favourite sister. I trusted her… I loved her, even.' Carnelian slumped. Then why…?'

  His father put his hand on Carnelian's shoulder. 'My son, when I chose exile, I knew that I was choosing suffering for many others apart from myself. I could not take all the household with me. Fey asked to be left behind. Even if her actions were carried out from love of me, she betrayed my mother. No servant, however loved, can be allowed to live after betraying one of the Chosen.'

  'She knew,' said Carnelian, holding back tears. 'She knew and yet she said nothing. I made her put the Seal in the Lady's hands.'

  'She was always brave.'

  Carnelian felt a tear dribble down his face. 'She asked me to tell you that she had always loved you. I had forgotten.'

  They stood for a long while sharing their misery. It occurred to Carnelian that it was not the news of Fey's death that had made his father cry. What then? The election. 'You believe the election lost,' he said at last.

  His father rubbed his forehead. 'Yes.'

  'Jaspar has taken with him many votes?'

  His father's flapping hands were like the last leaves on a winter twig. 'If it were only that. Such a breach in our wall of votes we could hope to repair, but he also took with him much knowledge of how that wall was built. We are defenceless.'

  'Surely you can do something.'

  'Aurum has thrown his last daughter in to plug the breach, but the whole wall is fatally compromised.'

  Carnelian turned to ice, remembering the threat Molochite had made to his father. He gritted his teeth. 'Rebuild it then.'

  His father glared at him. 'Just like that. We have two days to build a second wall when it took almost a month of weary labour to build the first.'

  'Surely fear of Ykoriana can be exploited. Will the Great not fear Jaspar triumphant more than you and Aurum? They have before their eyes evidence of how little he can be trusted.'

  His father frowned.

  ‘I assume that the last wall was built carefully, with an attempt to minimize the concessions to the Great?' His father nodded.

  'What will iron or high-blood brides matter to Nephron if his brother wins the Masks? Let him spend all the wealth of the House of the Masks if needs be to throw up another wall.'

  Carnelian closed his mouth and saw that his father was thinking. He began shaking his head. 'It could not be done only with audiences. I would have to also go into the nave. I cannot be in two places at once.'

  ‘Send Aurum out into the nave while you remain in the Sun in Splendour.'

  His father shook his head. 'Aurum has to be at my side to witness the agreements.'

  'Could no other Lord do that?'

  There is none that we could trust. Whoever we chose would be unable to resist the incentives that Ykoriana could throw at him. We would suffer another betrayal.'

  'Could I do it?'

  His father narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak. He shook his head once. They might not accept a witness from my own House.'

  'Do you put your own seal on the agreements?'

  'I use Nephron's.'

  'With the mark of my blood-ring beside it, the two would not be of the same House.' His father was still frowning. 'What would we have to lose?'

  Suth paced away. He stopped and ran his fingers round a pomegranate graven into the wall. He turned, grimly smiling. 'Go and rest, Carnelian. Come with the dawn to attend me in the Sun in Splendour.'

  A knocking woke Carnelian. Before he was fully awake, Tain had gone to the door. The door opened, there was a mutter of talk, the door closed. Tain came up to him.

  'One of the half-black men. He says someone's come to see you and it's very urgent.'

  Tain helped him dress and bound on his mask. Carnelian opened the door and looked out.

  One of the cohort commanders was there. 'Master, I waited to disturb you till the time you asked me to wake you.'

  'What is it?' asked Carnelian.
>
  'A Master from your House needing to see you urgently.' 'Who is he?'

  The commander shrugged. 'He came alone.'

  'Please bring him to me.' Carnelian closed the door. He asked Tain to help him put on his court robe. Standing on the ranga he watched his brother struggle with the straps and screws. Every time Carnelian tried for intimacy, Tain responded like a slave. Carnelian was kneeling inside his court robe when there was another knocking on the door. It opened when he gave leave and a massive shape slid in. Its gold face looked down at Tain.

  Though he does not wear our cypher, my Lord, he is one of ours.'

  The Master spent some moments gazing down disdainfully at Tain before he reached up two white hands to remove his mask.

  'My Lord Opalid, what a pleasure it is to see you. You have come without your father?' 'I have come alone, my Lord.'

  Carnelian raised his eyebrows as the Master fell into silence. 'Well?'

  Opalid frowned. 'I was waiting for your minion to finish here so that we might talk alone.'

  'My "minion" is more kin to me than you, my Lord, so please tell me what you came to say.'

  Opalid looked horrified and stared at Tain as if he were trying to blast him with his eyes. Tain seemed oblivious as he stood on a stool to do up Carnelian's robe.

  'Very well,' Opalid said. 'I come, my Lord, on a delicate matter.'

  'Indeed?'

  'I come to offer your lineage my fealty.'

  'It is welcome, my Lord, but this hardly seems to me to constitute an urgent matter.'

  Opalid produced some pantomime gestures of distress. 'I came to tell you that my father has betrayed you.'

  'Go on.'

  'He has pledged his vote to Molochite.'

  'Publicly?' Carnelian said, rising, lifting the robe. There was a cry behind him. He had forgotten his brother. He sank down again, saying over his shoulder, 'Sorry, Tain.'

  Opalid did not hide his distaste too well. 'How many of your lineage have defected?' Opalid made a shrugging gesture with his hand. 'And you will, I suppose, know nothing about the intentions of the third lineage?' 'Nothing, my Lord.'