The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (18 page)

'He guides me. He leads me. He fills me with dark purpose.'

They were smoke drifting among the pillars. Head and stomach aching, Carnelian wondered if he had died or had become ensnared in a dream from which he could not wake. Osidian was the white flame they followed; the only beacon in the darkness. Constantly, he drew strange portents from the gloom and, alone, was possessed of clarity when all about him were prey to murky terror. His voice became the core and centre of their being. The darkness rang with his Quya. The Plainsmen, who could not understand his words, believed he was intoning purest incantation: Carnelian, who could, feared for his soul.

THE
EARTHSKY

For our Father so loved his children that he plucked out his eyes and hung them in the sky to light the world.

(Plainsmen hymn)

Carnelian became gradually aware, blind in the sun. A hot breeze was blowing a strange perfume in his face. Drinking in the pure air, he found himself wondering where he was. When his sight returned, he saw stretching away beneath a vast and cobalt sky a sea of swaying jade-green ferns.

The Plainsmen bounded through the fresh ferns as if through water. In their midst strode Osidian, as sombre as a thundercloud. At his side, Carnelian smiled, enraptured by the clear sunlight and the infinite blue sky.

'Are you forgetting your skin?' asked Osidian.

Carnelian struggled to focus, but Osidian was lost among the vibrant greens. Suddenly he appeared in Carnelian's vision as a flash. A hard grip pulled Carnelian into the shade of some trees. He sighed, leaning his back against the bark watching the youths chasing each other, smiling, luxuriating in the shade.

'It's rather beautiful this Earthsky of theirs, don't you think?'

Getting no answer, Carnelian turned and saw Osidian was looking off across the plain. Following his gaze, at first he could make nothing out but the fernland fading away to blue, but then he was arrested by a bright band gleaming along the horizon. For a moment he wondered if it might be the sea and that thought caused him to drift into a dream of his island home. Sadness made him pull back. The tree shadows stretching away from him were pointing towards the bright horizon which, he realized, being in the north, could be nothing other than the cliff of the Guarded Land.

Trailing Krow, Ravan came bounding towards them grinning. 'You said you'd get us here, Master. I believed you and it's come true.' Wrinkling up his nose he displayed the mouldy, stinking bale of djada he had been carrying for days. He looked up into Osidian's face. 'We're thinking we could get fresh meat. Would you like that, Master?'

Osidian continued to scan the far horizons as if he had not heard the youth. The sight of the oozing djada made Carnelian retch. He was feeling dizzy. The faces of the youths were swimming in his vision. Had the rotten meat been poisoning them?

Krow screwed his face up in concentration, licked his lips. Though we're on foot that doesn't mean we can't hunt at all. Would you like us to, Master?'

Osidian suspended his survey and, frowning, looked down at the youths as if they were not what he expected to see. When he gave a nod, Ravan and Krow unhitched their bales and, making faces, flung them away into the ferns. They wiped their hands down their thighs, Ravan gave Osidian a grin, then he and Krow ran off through the ferns, whooping.

Carnelian watched Osidian's gaze return to the horizon, but refused to allow his eyes to follow. Sadness found him nevertheless. His heart ached for his father and his people in faraway Osrakum. He ground his teeth. 'We
cannot
return.'

Osidian's eyes were a fathomless green. 'You are already so sure?'

The menace in Osidian's voice froze Carnelian's response. He turned away, looking back the way they had come. In that direction the greens of the plain were muted by the encroaching forest. Carnelian's head began to ache again as he was drawn back into the nightmare they had endured under the trees.

Carnelian was glad when he saw Fern approaching. 'Aren't you going with the others?' he called out.

'I'd better stay here. This land is strange to you and dangerous.'

'We can look after ourselves, barbarian,' said Osidian, coldly.

Fern could not withstand the pressure of the Master's gaze. His eyes fell. Suddenly his face grew fearful. 'Sit. Sit quickly.'

'What?' said Carnelian.

'Your feet
...'
said Fern.

Carnelian looked down and saw his feet and legs caked in dust to the knees.

'Please, Masters,' Fern pleaded, 'remove your feet from the earth.'

Carnelian remembered the ranga shoes the Law had demanded a Master wear so as not to touch any earth outside Osrakum.

'You believe the earth will taint us?'

Fern looked up wide-eyed, confused. The Mother, taint you? How could
...
? Not that
...'

Osidian's eyebrows raised and he smiled. 'Surely you don't believe our feet will taint the earth?'

The Mother only suffers women to walk unshod upon her. Please. You do yourselves great harm and you endanger all of us besides.'

Carnelian turned to Osidian. 'We should do as he asks,' he said, adding, in Quya: 'Whatever he believes, we would be taking the same precaution the Wise themselves recommend.'

The smile froze on Osidian's face. 'Do you imagine, Carnelian, we have come this far in our captivity unsullied?'

Carnelian could not answer him but searched Osidian's eyes to see if accusation lay in them.

Oblivious to his probing, Osidian turned to Fern who had been looking from one to the other with pained impatience. 'Are we then to walk across this land upon our hands, barbarian?'

'I shall make you shoes, just please, please sit down.'

Osidian looked suddenly weary. 'Oh very well, we shall indulge your superstition.' He sank to the ground and laid his back against the tree and Carnelian sat down beside him. With furious speed, Fern cut some ferns upon which to put their feet. Then, after seeming to pray before a nearby tree, he peeled from it a sheet of bark from which he cut the soles of four shoes and, pleating rope from fern stalks, he bound them to the feet of the Standing Dead.

It was nearing dusk when the hunters returned to lay their catches at Osidian's feet: two saurians, the size of children but more slender; long of tail and neck, with narrow hands and bird-claw feet. Carnelian's gaze lingered on these for a moment but he was more interested in the faces of the hunters.

'Did you rub charcoal on your faces as a sign of mourning?'

Their eyes seemed very bright as they stared at him.

'In a manner of speaking, Master,' said Ravan. 'By wearing the Skyfather's colour we declare ourselves his children so that our saurian brothers might give themselves to us.' He indicated the dead creatures.

Osidian sat as impassive as an idol. Ravan and Krow regarded him as if they might at any time kneel in adoration.

'Night is fast approaching,' said Loskai, sending a ripple of unease through the youths. Carnelian saw that several of them were scouring the fernland with narrowed eyes. He rose to his feet.

'What is it they fear?' Osidian asked Carnelian in Quya.

The darkness, apparently,' replied Carnelian. Osidian gave him an unpleasant smile. 'And so they should.'

Ravan's black face was regarding them with a frown of incomprehension.

'Are we in some danger?' Carnelian asked, reverting to Vulgate.

'It is often at the beginning and the end of each day that the great raveners stir themselves to hunt.'

Carnelian's heart jumped inside him as he remembered the monster's attack. For a moment he and Fern locked eyes, mutually understanding each other's fear, then the Plainsman turned to his brother.

'Ravan, take some of the others. Go, find some dry dung. Gather enough to make a fire that'll burn all night and make sure you keep your eyes sharp.'

As Ravan reluctantly obeyed him, Fern crouched and scooped one of the saurians into his arms tenderly, as if he feared he might wake it. He rose cradling the creature whose head hung wilted over his arm.

'Where are you taking it?' Carnelian asked Fern.

To prepare her for eating.'

'Can I help?'

'If you want.'

Carnelian lifted the other saurian. Unnervingly, it was like holding a baby.

As they walked off side by side, Carnelian glanced over at Osidian who was sitting with his eyes closed, his back against a tree.

'How is he?' asked Fern.

'As worn out as the rest of us.'

Carnelian was relieved when Fern accepted that. His friend was peering into the gathering night. He shook his head. 'I prayed we'd left the madness behind in the forest, but now the sun is going down, I feel the dread creeping back.'

Carnelian shuddered, feeling the same growing despair. 'Do you think we've been affected by the rotten djada?'

Fern's eyebrows raised. 'Perhaps.'

'At least you're home,' Carnelian said, affecting cheerfulness.

Fern
stared at him.

This
...
is the Earthsky, isn't it
...
?'

'A part of it, but far away from any we know.' Worry welled in his eyes. 'And we are flightless without our aquar.'

Carnelian decided not to push for more. Carefully, Fern laid his burden on the ground and Carnelian put his down beside it. Fern brought out a flint from his ragged robe, then began to cut the newest growth from the fern croziers round about. Carnelian offered to hold the cuttings. The green smell rising from the tight spirals seemed a kind of hope. When Carnelian's arms could hold no more, Fern indicated a spot beside the saurians and Carnelian crouched there and spilled the spirals out onto the ground. Fern knelt beside him and began sorting them.

'What're they for?' asked Carnelian.

Fern looked up and grinned. 'You'll see.'

Carnelian watched as Fern used the desire the cuttings had to curl to skilfully, weave them into a mat. He rolled the saurians on to it, then began to sing a lament. Carnelian could not understand more than one word in twenty. His friend's eyes were focused devoutly on the saurians. Puzzled, Carnelian waited until he had finished.

'Why...?'

Fern looked at him. 'Why do I sing?' Carnelian nodded.

'Don't you sing farewell to your dead?'

Carnelian looked down at the saurians, trying to imagine them as kindred creatures. Fern stroked his hand up the neck of one and, when he reached its throat, carefully straightened its head. He picked up a clawed hand using only finger and thumb and slowly flexed the tiny wrist. He looked up.

'Aren't they as much the children of this sky and this earth as we?'

'But you killed them nevertheless?'

'We have to eat, but we give our little sisters here thanks for sustaining our lives through their sacrifice.'

Carnelian considered this as he watched with what tenderness his friend sliced the bellies of the saurians open. He scraped out their entrails and, articulating each limb in turn, began to joint them. The head, hands and feet he put into a hole he dug in the ground and then covered them up.

'Returning them to the Mother,' Fern murmured. He took hold of the mat by two corners and lifted it carefully so the blood that had pooled around the jointed saurians poured out over the ground. 'Having no women here it's up to us to make sure the Mother gets her due,' he said as the redness soaked into the earth.

Ravan, Krow and the others were returning at a trot, their arms bulging with soft boulders which Carnelian realized must be dung. Dumping their burdens, they turned to look back the way they had come, searching. Fern distracted them by making demands. One of the youths gave him some herbs. Carnelian watched them dig a pit, line it with fern fronds, lay the saurian joints over these, sprinkle the herbs on top, and cover it all with more leaves and a thin scattering of earth. It was on top of this that they arranged the dung and some kindling. Fingers clumsy with anxiety spun the fire-drill. At last, a teasing of smoke rose from the kindling which, when it was fed with crumbled dung, was soon followed by tongues of flame.

Chattering with relief, the Plainsmen squatted around the fire. Without trying to understand what they said, Carnelian enjoyed the murmur of their talk as he too drew comfort from the flames.

'It'll be ready soon,' said Fern to Ravan. 'Go and ask the Master if he wishes to eat with us.'

A while later, Ravan appeared with Osidian. Seeing him standing deathly white at the edge of the fire, Carnelian realized he had been deliberately putting him out of his mind. Carnelian tried a smile but it felt dishonest. As Osidian sat down beside him, Carnelian noticed the Plainsmen fell silent.

The night grew pitchy black. A bellow swelling from the far distance chilled Carnelian to the marrow. After that, only the fire spoke, its crackling enlivened by pops that shot sparks up into the air. Following these pinpricks of gold up in the smoke, Carnelian became lost in the Plainsman sky. It seemed to him a bleak god who lay behind such chill white stars. With a shudder, he pulled his gaze back down to earth and the comfort of their fire.