The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (28 page)

Galewing glanced at Carnelian. 'But that they should understand our tongue when even many unkith Plainsmen cannot...' He shook his head. 'Are we being fools? Perhaps Fern is right, perhaps they are a gift to us from the Skyfather.' He regarded the Assembly. 'Imagine what secrets they could teach us.'

As protests rose against Galewing, Akaisha approached Carnelian. When she was close she looked up and he saw a yearning in her eyes.

'How is it you come to speak Ochre?' she asked, quietly.

Harth grabbed her arm. 'What are you doing?'

Akaisha tore herself free. Many voices among the Elders cried out that she should be allowed to ask whatever she wanted. Akaisha gave them a nod of thanks and turned her eyes up again to look into Carnelian's.

He was moved by her need.

'Mother.' He stopped, seeing Ebeny there in her face. 'My servants ... were taken ... from the Earthsky tithe.'

Akaisha shook her head. The tongues of the Plainsmen are many, yet, when you speak, your words are Ochre.'

'A woman...' Carnelian knuckled his head trying to find the words. 'A servant woman ... she was ... not my mother .. . but she
was
my mother.'

Akaisha's eyes were very bright. 'Her name?'

'Ebeny.'

The Plainswoman shook her head, deeply disappointed. 'No. Not that.'

Carnelian looked around trying to find something. He reached out to catch Akaisha's blanket between finger and thumb. He tugged it. 'She made blankets like this.'

Hope relit Akaisha's eyes. The same pattern?'

Carnelian looked at it carefully. 'It seems very much like I remember.'

Akaisha grabbed hold of his arm. 'Did she tell you anything about us?'

Carnelian saw the tears in the woman's eyes and desperately wanted to give her what she desired, but was too emotional to think clearly. Other women had crept up and were whispering to her. She let go of him.

'You have to leave now,' she said gently. 'Leave with this other one of your kind. Please wait outside.'

He nodded, then moved to Osidian's side and gingerly put a hand on his arm. Carnelian expected anger but Osidian seemed content to be led out. They had reached the curtain before Carnelian realized Fern was not following him. He turned and saw his friend looking very alone encircled by the Elders.

With his eyes, Carnelian asked Fern why he was not leaving with him, but the only answer Fern could give him was an angry shake of the head.

Pushing out past the curtain, Osidian let in a flood of light in which Carnelian could see nothing but Fern's back. He was reluctant to leave him with the Assembly and his accuser, Loskai, but knew he could do nothing to help him.

As Carnelian stepped out from the house of bones, the glaring brilliance of the plain forced his eyes shut. His heart was racing, his mind dazzled by the certainty the Ochre really were Ebeny's people.

THE HEARTH

Fire is the heart of living.

(Plainsman prorerb )

'Where are you going?' asked Carnelian as he saw Osidian begin to move towards the steps that led down from the Ancestor House.

Osidian half turned. 'Away from this filthy hovel.'

'Fern's mother asked us to wait here.'

Osidian's face distorted with rage. 'Since when do the Chosen obey savages?'

Carnelian saw a guard coming up the steps, looking at them uncertainly, a spear ready in his hands. When Osidian swung round, the man flinched. The spear lowered to point at Osidian's chest in reaction to him advancing on the guard. Carnelian could see the man's narrow-eyed fear and the way he was adjusting and readjusting his grip on the spear.

'Let me pass,' Osidian growled in Vulgate.

'I must stop you descending,' the man said, in Ochre, and threw a nervous glance down to where one of his companions was mounting the steps to his aid.

Osidian looked back at Carnelian. 'What did the creature say?'

'He has been commanded to bar our descent.'

'Has he indeed,' Osidian said, turning the menace of his face on the guards, both of whose spears were now questing for his throat.

'Osidian!' cried Carnelian.

Behind him the muttering of the Assembly faltered. Osidian seemed intent on throwing himself upon the guards. Carnelian saw their flint blades and how narrow were the steps, how high the fall. He lunged forward and took hold of Osidian's upper arms and pulled him back.

'Release me,' Osidian hissed as he struggled.

Carnelian held on, cursing.

'Let me go,' bellowed Osidian.

Voices were speaking behind him but Carnelian ignored them. Osidian pulled and almost broke free. For a moment Carnelian believed Osidian was going to be dashed upon the ground below.

'Do you want to die?'

Osidian sagged back into Carnelian, who embraced him. Osidian turned within the circle of his arms and looked at him with infinite sadness.

'What is there left to live for?'

Carnelian looked deep into his eyes. 'You still have me.'

He became aware of the dark faces staring and felt naked under their gaze. He did not know what tongue he and Osidian had been speaking but was certain the two guards could see the way it was between them. Osidian looked as vulnerable as a child. Carnelian became aware Galewing was regarding them from the doorway of the Ancestor House.

'He's still weak ... illness ... I'll look after him,' he said, in the Ochre tongue.

The Elder ducked back behind the leather curtain. His hand still clasping Osidian's arm, Carnelian's attention returned to the guards. The smile he gave them caused them even more confusion. His gaze scaled to the heights.

He looked for and found steps climbing from the porch to the summit of the Crag.

'Can we go up there?' Carnelian asked the guards in Ochre.

They looked startled, uncertain, so Carnelian made the decision for them. He coaxed Os
idian towards the steps and gentl
y urged him to climb. Careless of his own safety, he shadowed Osidian with his hands all the way up, terrified he might miss a step.

The summit was windblown and scorching in the sun. Even with the uba covering most of his face, Carnelian had to squint. The place was more extensive than he had expected: an uneven floor of blocks and cracks and shadows. Three men were sitting on a promontory. One of them rose, staring at him. Soon all were staring.

'Lookouts,' said Carnelian indicating them with a jutting of his chin. 'See the beacon ready to be lit.'

Osidian was gazing out over the plain, turning slowly as if searching for something. Carnelian allowed his sight to soar. A vast sky fell into a single encircling, melting horizon. Trees danced in the heat. He saw the mirrors of lagoons, the ragged drifts of herds. The curves of the two outer ditches were betrayed by their borders of magnolias. At his feet, smoke was rising through chinks in the cedar canopy.

Carnelian turned to Osidian. They are better organized than one might have expected of barbarians,' he said, hoping to encourage a more optimistic outlook on their situation.

They merely ape the Chosen,' said Osidian. 'How so?'

'Can you not see this place is marked out in the form of a wheelmap or a legionary camp?'

Carnelian looked again and saw the three concentric ditches: the outer two each containing a swathe of land divided by the crooked spokes of smaller ditches into ferngardens; the third the grove of cedars on the koppie hill. If the first were the Outer Lands and the second the Guarded Land, then the hill and stone upon which he stood would represent Osrakum. The sight of these fortifications forced through his hope the bleak awareness that he and Osidian were Masters powerless among people who had every reason to hate them. His eyes fell on the ivory roof of the Ancestor House, in which their fate was being decided by the Elders. What would they do to Fern? Surely his mother, Akaisha, would be able to protect him. Carnelian recalled the look of need in her eyes. Tiny figures were moving through the inner ferngardens. Faint voices drifted up from the cedar grove; bright laughter and the smells of cooking. Had this really been Ebeny's childhood home? Even the possibility warmed his heart a little.

He turned to Osidian. 'You know, Ebeny, my nurse? It seems certain to me she came from this tribe. Of all the koppies, that we should end up here ...' Carnelian shook his head in wonder.

Osidian was looking at him as if he were listening to an echo.

Carnelian smiled remembering her. 'In my heart, she is my mother.'

Osidian's lips curved into a sneer. 'When will you realize, Carnelian, these sensibilities are an affectation? You are Chosen. Your persistent desire to hide from what you are is a delusion I find increasingly repulsive.'

Fear that Osidian might be right only made Carnelian despise his cold Master's face. 'Do you know, Imago Jaspar once said something very similar to me.'

At the sound of that name, Osidian's face became as rigid as a mask, but Carnelian did not care. He delved inside himself for the truth of what he felt and was sure his love for Ebeny was real.

'Besides,' he said, burning up in her defence, 'it is perhaps those very sensibilities that might secure sanctuary for us here.'

Osidian's face sagged. 'Here? How can you expect me to live
here?’

Seeing the distress bleeding out of him, Carnelian could not sustain his anger. He remembered who Osidian had been. He remembered the pressure he had put on Osidian to go with him to the Yden one last time before the Wise made him God Emperor. Despair soaked through his confidence. He tried to rally.

'Even if we care nothing for ourselves, there are others we cannot abandon.'

'Your precious half-caste, for example?'

Carnelian was stunned. 'You mean Fern? That half-caste saved your life not once, but many times.'

'Do you hope to blind me by throwing that in my face? Do not play me for a fool, Carnelian, I have seen the way you two look at each other.'

Osidian's bitter words struck Carnelian like blows. 'I don't...' He shook his head. 'I really don't know what you are talking about.'

Osidian shrugged, then went seeking a shadow in which he might find refuge from the sun.

Carnelian was dozing in the shade when he heard a scuffle of feet approaching. Sitting up, he saw it was Fern with Akaisha, Harth and some other woman Elders. Carnelian nudged Osidian awake and rose to face them. He tried to read Fern's face. As their eyes meshed, Carnelian could not help considering what Osidian had said. Fern gave him a brave smile that was hiding some pain.

Harth stepped forward. 'You understand my words?' Concerned for Fern, Carnelian gave her a nod even as he realized Osidian had not bothered to get up.

'We have decided to postpone our decision as to what we are going to do with you. In the meantime, Mother Akaisha has offered to keep you in her hearth. You will be under her authority. The first time you disobey her you will both be put to death. What do you say?'

Carnelian glanced at Fern, then at Akaisha, who was searching his face as if she were looking for a sign.

From the sour look on Harth's face, Carnelian deduced it was Akaisha who had bought them a reprieve. 'Will the Tribe accept this arrangement?'

Harth raised an eyebrow. The Elders have accepted it. We are the Tribe.'

Halfway round the Crag, Akaisha took a rootstair down into the mottled shade of the cedar grove. Fern was giving her news of Ravan.

'He should have appeared at the hearth before you went to the Assembly.'

A shake of his mother's head made him scowl. She reached out to take his arm. 'Most likely he fears my grief.'

She half turned her head. 'We're nearly there.'

Carnelian nodded, but his attention was on a group of people under a nearby tree who had stopped everything to watch them pass.

'It is considered impolite to stare into another's hearth,' said Akaisha and looked surprised when he apologized.

Some children began following them, daring each other to run in close to the white giants. Osidian frowned, studiously ignoring their dash and screaming flight, until Akaisha turned on them. Her scolding sent them scuttling for cover. The gurgles of their furtive laughter made Carnelian smile and remember his own childhood.

'We're here,' said Fern gloomily, stepping from the stair onto the hillside.

A cedar spread its branches above them. Its trunk was the centre of the arc they walked, crossing the radiating ridges of its roots. Carnelian heard squeals of delight and saw some children chasing each other in and out of the shade. Ahead, Akaisha seemed to catch fire as she reached a space unroofed by the tree. Carnelian approached, narrowing his eyes against the dazzle. He stumbled over a root that ran across his path. He could smell the smoke but it was too bright to see the flames. As Carnelian's eyes adjusted, he saw a woman standing with two boys at the edge of the long, oval clearing.

'Whin, these Standing Dead are to be our guests for a while,' Akaisha said.

She turned to Carnelian. This is Whin, a daughter of my hearth who, next to me, is the nearest to the roots of our mother tree.'