The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01 (76 page)

The voice came from somewhere behind him. For a moment he thought it might be an assassin sent by Ykoriana, and he was glad. 'Come round in front of me,' he said wearily.

A small figure moved into his vision and fell on its knees. There was too
little
light to see it clearly.

'Look at me.'

A small dark face gazed up.

Tain!' sobbed Carnelian. Tain, Tain, Tain.' He opened his knees, lifted the burden of his robe and lumbered forward. He slowed, fearing he might topple onto his brother like a tree. He fumbled with his mask; it cut into his jaw as he wrenched it off and flung
it away. Tain, stand up, let me hug you.'

Tain rose unsteadily. He took one step forward and then another. When he was close enough, Carnelian reached down. He had to stretch just to touch Tain's head. Tain looked up at him as if from a deep hole.

BROKEN MIRROR DAYS

Apotheosis transforms the candidate into a mirror that in trapping a reflection of the Twins, fixes aspects of Their Duality at the heart of the Three Lands. From this centre emanates with decreasing strength the mandate of the Chosen and the power of their Commonwealth. When the vessel of grace, our Lords the God Emperor, dies, this mirror breaks, cutting the umbilical link between Earth and Sky, the Chosen lose their mandate, the Commonwealth its power. Disharmony and chaos are endemic to these Broken Mirror Days.

(from a theological codicil compiled in beadcord by the Wise of the Domain of Law)

To escape the p
ain of silence, Carnelian told T
ain it was time to sleep. Saying nothing, his brother found the darkest edge of floor and huddled down. Carnelian was unhappy with this but said nothing. He laid himself out on his bed and waited, listening to the rasp of Tain's breathing. When its rhythm had slowed he rose and crept over to him. He crouched and peeled his brother carefully from the cold stone. Tain twitched a
little
but did not wake. Carnelian stood up and winced, for his brother weighed nothing at all. It was like holding a plucked, air-dried bird. He carried the skin and bones over to his bed
and arranged them on it carefully. As he put a blanket over Tain, he had the feeling he was covering a corpse.

He chose to lie upon the floor, telling himself it
was because he did not want to li
e beside his brother and risk disturbing him. The floor was cold and hard and would not let him sleep. He lay awake remembering the promise he had made to Ebeny that he would look after her sons.

Carnelian woke and lit a lamp. In its light the face in the bed was as gaunt as an old man's. He watched a bead of sweat run down the cheek then slip into the spiral of the ear. Tain had the sky sickness. Carnelian realized that the signs had been there the night before, although he had seen only the sallow ingrained fear.

He did not call for servants but dressed himself so as not to wake Tain. He closed the door quietly behind him as he left. He instructed his guardsmen to make no noise and to let no-one enter. He refused an escort and left them.

In the chamber of doors, Ichorians stood before the entrance to his father's chambers. They looked at him warily as Carnelian walked close enough to see the spirals in their tattoos.

'I wish to see my father.'

They bowed and one said, 'He-who-goes-before is being made ready to give audience.'

'You must be in error. He was too weak
...'

'Every night our father's weak but morning always finds his strength returned, Master. Surely that's as it should be.'

'Should be?'

'He is the Sun who goes before.' Carnelian took some steps away and turned his back on them. However long it took he would wait to see his father miraculously risen from his sickbed. The grand-cohort commander appeared from a tunnel. He gave Carnelian a bow before going to speak to the guards, then he too stood waiting.

Both turned when they heard the doors opening. The commander and his men fell to their knees. Golden light flooded out and it seemed indeed to be the sun that was moving out between the prostrate Ichorians. Carnelian narrowed his eyes against the coruscating glare of the figure's sunburst crown. He peered, trying to see if this tower of gold was really his father.

'You are recovered, my Lord?'

The figure lifted a white hand,
Quite recovered.

Carnelian still feared that this was an impostor. 'But you seemed beyond such quick resurgence, my Lord.'

'All that was needed was sleep, my son.'

Carnelian relaxed. It was his father's voice. 'Still, it might be convenient for my Lord to have me beside him during the business of the day.'

His father's headshake cast rays among the Ichorians. 'It would be tedious for you, Carnelian.' His father seemed to notice the commander for the first time. 'What news?'

The Lords of your House, Great Sun, are at one of our postern gates craving audience with you.'

Suth's hands made a gesture of irritation. 'Not again. I've no time to deal with domestic matters.' He turned to Carnelian. 'Perhaps you, my Lord, might convey my apologies.'

As
Carnelian
hesitated, his father was already moving away. 'As my Lord commands,' he called after him. Hearing the doors begin to close, Carnelian looked through them into his father's chambers. There among the prostrate Suth tyadra stood two Sapients of the Domain Immortality looking like charred posts.

Carnelian allowed the commander to guide him down the tunnel. He was only vaguely aware of the flecks of light moving over him as he passed the loopholes cut into the walls.

The commander stopped. His hands made embarrassed gestures in Carnelian's direction.

Carnelian looked down at himself and understood. 'I am not suitably dressed to be seen by the outer world.'

The commander smiled gratef
ully and then walked off. Carneli
an waited concealed from the postern gate by the curving of the passage. A clatter of many ranga preceded a golden glowing that was coming along the wall. Nine Masters appeared bright and gleaming, towering over the commander and an escort of Ichorians.

'At last. Is that you, cousin?'

Carnelian saw the Masters each had chameleon heraldry dancing up their court robes. Ivory plaques in their crowns bore the glyphs of their names. He looked to Spinel and gave a nod.

'Good, my Lord, you have gained us access. These Ichorians have been impertinently attempting to keep us from our Ruling Lord.'

'At our Ruling Lord's express command.'

'Surely you do not mean to say, cousin, that this command is intended to include his kin?'

'We are in now,' said Opalid.

Carnelian saw the commander's unhappy face. This far you have come, my Lords, but no further. My father is too busy with the election to meet you.'

'It is on a matter pertaining to the election that we are come.'

'My father's commands are not made to be broken,' Carnelian said severely. He watched their vast heads turning, snagging light as they looked in at their centre where Spinel stood very still.

'We came, my Lord, to proffer fealty to our Lord,' said one whose crown glyph read,
Topaz.

'I have not been introduced to my kin, Spinel.'

The Master's mass flowed with light as he slowly turned. 'You know my son, cousin.' He extended a pale hand upon which two Great-Rings were the only marks and began to point at the various Lords. These are Emeral and Tapaz also of my lineage.'

Fire ran up then down their crowns as they bowed.

'Berillus, Onyxor, Koril, Veridian and Amethus: the third lineage of our House.'

Carnelian returned their bows. 'Be assured, my Lords, that I will let my father know of this visit. Your loyalty is gratifying to us both.'

For a while they simply stood there looking down at him. Spinel was the first to bow. He turned. The others inclined their heads and then followed him glittering away.

Carnelian returned slowly to his gloomy chamber. Tain was still sleeping. Carnelian tried to distract himself with a book. He paced. He made sure that Tain was well covered. The day dragged on into evening. Outside, the Great were determining the fate of the Three Lands while he was locked away like a woman in a forbidden house. As he lay down on the floor to sleep, he imagined his father imprisoned in his court robe, weighed down by his crowns, sustained by unnatural strength. Carnelian remembered the Sapients he had seen in his father's chambers and had a suspicion whence such strength came. He tried to dislodge his unease with memories of home, but it was like trying to light a fire with sodden kindling. Unbidden, it was a vision of the Yden that flared bright before his mind's eye. Dreamily, Carnelian relived his freedom among the shimmering lagoons. He saw Osidian beautiful in the dusk and burned with the delirious fever of their loving. He quashed a dark fear that threatened to quench the flames: the fear that he would never see Osidian again.

An indistinct horror hung in Carnelian's dream. He lurched awake as he had been doing all night. He sat up, groaning a little as he pushed his stiff body up from the floor. A small black figure was obscuring the morning-bright crack between the shutters. It was Tain. Carnelian could feel his gaze.

'You shouldn't have given me the bed.'

'You shouldn't be up.'

'I feel fine.'

Carnelian grinned. 'You look as thin as a stick.' He regretted the words the moment they were said.

'I didn't eat well in the quarantine.'

Carnelian stood up and walked round Tain, pretending he was finding something to wear, trying to find an angle from where to see his face. When he found it he stared, trying to recognize it. 'Do you want to tell me about it?'

Wearing a flickering frown, Tain looked
down at his hands as they wrestl
ed each other. He looked so small, so damaged, that Carnelian instinctively reached out to embrace him. Tain jerked away as if scalded. His eyes warned Carnelian not to touch him.

Carnelian retreated.

'You watched them strip me?'

Carnelian freed his head enough from the tension to give a nod.

They took us down into a maze of halls filled with half-black soldiers. In a courtyard they threw buckets of water at us. The blood washed off. They put us in among a crowd of naked men. We boys stuck together. Creatures came in silver masks—' 'Ammonites.'

'Yes, ammonites. They ran their hands over me. Everywhere over and into me. They took the
Little
Mother
...
smashed her to pieces on the ground.' His mouth twitched. 'They took us to a chasm. Any comment, any step out of line and we were cudgelled with sticks. A stair led down into the chasm. We descended to a shelf. We crossed to a bigger shelf. They swung the bridge away. Some ammonites were there with us. It was crowded. On one side was the chasm wall, on all others, a drop to darkness. The biggest men took the space near the wall. We had to make do with the edge. I looked over
...'
He stared as if he were there again. He shook his head, narrowed his eyes. 'Sometimes a
little
dimple of paleness showed the water far, far below. Hardly any light came down to us. Our blankets of sacking were torn from us. We huddled together for warmth. Cold and fear of rolling over the edge kept us always awake. In the morning, the ammonites checked us again then herded us over a bridge to the next shelf.'

Carnelian saw Tain's lips moving but no sound came out. 'Was this new shelf the same as the last?'

Tain nodded slowly. 'One shelf after another, after another
...
for more than twelve days.'

Tain's eyes made Carnelian's mouth almost too dry to speak. 'Were you
...
did they hurt you?'

Those who weren't protected by others of their House were victimized. We found protection where we could.' Tain's face became very bony. Those who didn't want to starve paid for their protection.'

'Maybe we should forget this?' Carnelian thought his voice sounded very loud.

Tain's eyes defied him. 'Every day the chasm deepened. There were whispers that it went down as far as the Underworld. One day we came round a corner in the chasm to see a brown tower rising in the distance. Each day brought it one shelf closer. Each day it grew redder as if it were a bone freshly hacked from a body. The chasm forked around its bloody roots. The last shelf was down the left fork. In the shadow under a bridge high above, stone doors led to new shelves. Thirteen of them. Colder. Darker. Under a skyful of shadow, Death's Gate, Nale fell.'

'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.