The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (62 page)

'My faithful brother,' growled Fern.

Carnelian knew his friend was unaware of how much Ravan was in Osidian's power. 'Don't be too unforgiving; the Master has possessed him.'

Today, I saw altogether too much in my brother of the boy my father spoilt.'

It was sensing Fern's intention forming to go and have it out with Ravan that made Carnelian speak. 'We'll find out soon enough what he's come to say when your mother returns from the diggings.'

Without another word, Fern made off towards the sleeping hollows. Left gazing at Ravan, Carnelian was remembering the cruel way Jaspar had used his half-brother Tain to blackmail him, reliving all the atrocities he had witnessed the Masters commit on their own households. Poppy was destined to enter one of these and he must do what he could to prepare her for it. His fingers were still in her grip. He pulled her after him saying softly: 'I want to tell you a story, Poppy.'

Sitting in their hollow, Carnelian began to tell Poppy about Ebeny. At first she was sullen but she perked up when he told her that she had come from Mother Akaisha's hearth.

'Did she miss the Tribe?'

Carnelian told her she did but that she grew happy in her new life. As he did so thoughts of Jaspar haunted him. His talk had put the first smile he had seen on Poppy's face since the arrival of the childgatherer, but he realized he was misleading her. For all he knew the kindness of his father's household was unique. It was true House Suth preferred to choose Plainsmen from the flesh tithe, but there were many Plainsman tribes, so most of their children would end up in the households of other Masters.

He sought balance by telling Poppy of Ebeny's harrowing experiences in the Plain of Thrones, taking care to explain that though the Masters might seem like angels, they were men; that the dragons, though fearsome, were only giant earthers with houses on their backs.

He stopped, seeing how frightened she looked.

'Are the Standing Dead then very cruel?' she asked in a little voice.

How could he answer that? He tried to hide the truth behind visions of the wonders she would see, but he had lost her, made it worse.

She looked at him from under her lashes. 'I had hoped...'

'What?' he asked her, dreading to know.

That you might save me,' she said almost in a whisper. She saw the answer in his face.

'Will you take me to the Mountain?'

Carnelian was shocked when he realized that he could. He could return with her, perhaps take her into Osrakum with him to his father's house. He crushed the hope. Most likely he would be dead by then. He had not thought this out, and had been avoiding facing the terrible blow his death would be for the girl.

Poppy reached into her robe and brought out her seed. 'We must bury her.'

'Do you mean plant her?'

She looked at the seed lying across her palm. 'No. I wouldn't want her to wake to find none of her daughters to look after her.'

Carnelian tried to argue, but only managed to make Poppy cry. Morose, he gave in, and they dug a hole at the foot of their hollow deep enough to kill the seed, placed it in the hole and buried it.

When Carnelian heard the women coming back, he and Poppy walked round to the hearth to meet them.

The women looked stooped from their earthworking. Poppy nudged
Carnelian
.

'Mother Akaisha won't blame me for going with you, will she, Carnie?'

Carnelian
made reassuring noises, though his mind was entirely focused on finding out what Osidian had sent Ravan to say. Akaisha's seat in the root fork was empty and, when he looked for her, he saw she was a little way apart talking conspiratorially with Ravan. Fern was watching them with unconcealed impatience. Others kept glancing, curious to find out what was happening.

Akaisha terminated the discussion suddenly with some comment that left Ravan red-faced. As she moved to her place, everyone could see how angry she was. Whin raised her eyebrows enquiringly but received nothing but a curt shake of the head.

As he came up to sit beside Carnelian, Ravan drew some disapproving looks. Everyone could see how troubled Akaisha was. When she glanced up at Carnelian he knew he must be deeply involved.

They had not finished their meal when a voice came carrying from the edge of their hearth.

'May we step onto your rootearth, Akaisha?'

'You may,' the matriarch answered and five shapes approached which the firelight revealed to be Elder women, Ginkga among them.

The men have returned.'

Akaisha gave her bowl to Whin, pulled a blanket up over her head and made her way round the fire to join the visitors. When Akaisha glanced back at Carnelian, the other Elders did so too and then, they moved into the darkness.

Unable to sleep, Carnelian whispered her name in Poppy's ear. Certain she was asleep, he crept from his hollow round to the hearth. Fumbling around, he found a stick lying in Akaisha's root fork and used it to stir some light from the embers. In the soft glow he huddled on the men's bench, slowly edging round to get nearer the heat until he found the warmest place was in the fork itself. He sat there listening to the susurration of the cedars, drawing what contentment he could from knowing the Tribe were sleeping peacefully all around him. He fell asleep waiting for Akaisha to return.

Shaken awake, Carnelian let out a cry that was snuffed out by a hand closing over his mouth.

'Hush,' a voice hissed, in his ear. 'Do you want to wake the whole Tribe?'

Carnelian knew it was Akaisha by her scent. 'Move round from there,' she whispered, giving him a nudge in the ribs. Still only half awake, he slid round onto the men's bench. She groaned as she fell to her knees facing the elbow of the fork. He heard the mutter of some prayer she was addressing to the mother tree, then she sat herself in her usual place.

'Only on his wedding day is a man permitted to sit here.'

'I'm sorry, my mother, I didn't know.'

'Nevertheless, you should be punished.'

They sat side by side for a while until her breathing slowed enough to weave into the sighing of the mother tree.

At last Carnelian could bear to be silent no longer. 'My mother —'

'What did you tell the Master?' Tell?'

Akaisha peered at his face as if searching for something. 'He sent us word that, should we attempt to harm either of you in any way, he'd reveal your presence among us to the Bluedancing.'

That Osidian was fighting for his life, even that he might have done this for his sake, did not leave Carnelian feeling anything but shame. like any other Master, Osidian had resorted to extortion. Akaisha was still watching him, waiting for his answer. Had she not confided in him that this was what the Elders most feared? He spoke not in his own defence, but to reassure her.

'I told him nothing.'

'How then did he guess?'

The Master was once intimate with those who sent the Gatherer.'

She frowned. 'Who else but the Standing Dead sent the Gatherer?'

Carnelian realized that even if he should manage to make her believe in the existence of the Wise, he would find it impossible to explain Osidian's access to their world without revealing who he had been. 'Did the Master not guess the Gatherer had come searching for us?'

'You told us that much.'

'My mother, did I not tell you this before it was confirmed by the Gatherer himself?' She nodded.

'Is it then too hard to believe the Master guessed the rest?'

'Would he really betray us to the Bluedancing?'

'It is not difficult to deduce that, given the immediate danger we pose to the Tribe, the Elders would wish to have us killed.'

'If the Master had wanted you to be found, he could have revealed himself to the Gatherer. His threat is empty.'

Carnelian grimaced. 'Don't underestimate the appetite the Standing Dead have for vengeance.'

Akaisha bowed her head in thought.

Carnelian could see no way out of the dilemma that would allow the Tribe to escape harm. The whole, long, weary journey from his northern isle to Osrakum had been slaked in the blood of massacres. The wounding of his father, the intrigues of the election, the escape from slavery and his decision to go with Fern, all had led finally to this moment. He could see no other way.

'You must kill us both.'

Akaisha lifted her head. 'How might we do that safely? Earlier, you told me he had influence among the young.

I'd go further: since he slew the ravener, there're many in the Tribe who idolize him.'

She peered into the night. 'Even now he has them with him out there somewhere. We daren't risk making the attempt.'

Carnelian's heart raced. He could see the path of hope she was showing him. 'I could go out and convince him we are in no danger.'

'I might let you go, but the other Elders wouldn't. By threatening you they hope to bring him in.'

Hopelessness returned. 'He'll not come.'

She nodded. 'He will have to when the Withering forces us to go to the mountains. Until then, as long as we have you, he'll not put us in the hands of the Bluedancing.'

'How can you be so sure of that, my mother?'

'I've seen the way he looks at you.'

'And will the Tribe be able to live with this?'

'If they found out about the Master's threat, there are those who might act and so bring disaster.' She fixed him with a glare. 'You understand?'

Carnelian nodded, not blaming them.

'Harth demanded that you should be bound but I argued that might give the Master enough of a pretext to betray us. I told the Assembly you could be bound by an oath. Promise me you'll make no attempt to join him.'

'Is my word guarantee enough?'

She took his hand and placed it firmly down on the root he was sitting on. 'Swear on my mother tree who is a part of the Mother.'

'I swear on her and also on my blood that I'll remain within the Koppie as your hostage.'

She gave his hand a squeeze. 'Well then, it seems that, for the moment at least, we have ourselves a deadlock.'

'You'll send Ravan to tell him this?'

'My treacherous son,' she said, bitterly. 'Yes, we'll send him back to his master in the morning.' She kissed him upon the cheek. 'At this moment, Carnie, you seem more Ochre to me than does my own son.'

'Don't blame him too much.' Carnelian remembered how, when he had thought his father dead from his wound, he had become involved in the intrigues of House Suth and so brought about the crucifixion of Fey, one of his father's marumaga half-sisters. Grief could blind those it struck.

He smiled at Akaisha. 'For the moment your son is in the Master's thrall, but I believe, in time, he will see what the Master is and then he'll return to his people.'

THE WITHERING

Death is the mother of life.

(a precept of the Plainsmen)

The next morning at breakfast, people asked where Ravan was and Akaisha informed them he had returned to join the Master. They looked at each other, knowing that Ravan and the others were meant to be warding with Father Crowrane.

'Why do you tolerate this affront to our ways?' asked Fern.

'It is every man's right to choose with whom he hunts,' retorted Akaisha, and no one dared to ask her anything more.

Carnelian listened to Sil and others whispering to each other the story going around about how the Master, with only a handful of their men, had not only managed to bring their earther home but had, besides, protected it all night from ravener attacks.

A few days later when they did not return to take their place in the ditches, their hearths began to worry. Father Crowrane and the few older men who were all that remained of his hunt worked as best they could, but when three days later they were supposed to go and fetch water, there
was not enough of them and the
rotas had to be readjusted, which caused a general anger.

During the day, Carnelian could suppress his fretting in his toil under the Bloodwood Tree, but in the evenings, by the hearth, he could not avoid seeing Akaisha's thinning face.

When Ravan appeared at the Horngate with Krow and others, the women at their butchery dropped everything and rushed to meet them. Carnelian and Fern lifted their heads and saw the hunters, their aquar hitched to a construction upon which lay an earther so immense that for a moment it seemed they would not be able to get it across the earthbridge. With a glance at each other they hurried after the women.

As the aquar came towards them through the fern-garden dragging the earther, children ran out from the drying racks to swarm the hunters and their catch. Carnelian watched one tiny pair clamber up onto its head, run along it, then scale the slope of its crest to reach the hill of its back. Carnelian did not like the childish shrieks of excitement nor the swagger of the hunters. Osidian did not seem to be among them.

Carnelian slowed to a walk as he overtook the women. As the procession drew nearer he grimaced, recognizing one of the children sitting astride the monster's back as Poppy. Ginkga, the Elder in charge, gave him a glare, warning him not to try to escape. The youths were boasting of the hunt, running their hands up the great sweep of the bull's horns, pointing out the hawser tendons beneath his smooth young hide, while all the time, the children frolicked, or drank in the glory of the hunt, wide-eyed.