The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01 Read online

  The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01

  Book Jacket

  Series: Stone Dance of the Chameleon [1]

  Tags: Fantasy

  SUMMARY:

  Young Carnelian has spent his entire life alone with his father, who years ago rejected the savage cruelty of the Masters of Osrakum and was sent into exile. But now a ship has come flying through the winter gales to shatter his quiet world. Three Masters disembark, and as they remove their masks of gold, Carnelian is awed by the light that seems to radiate from their skin. In formal conclave they beg Carnelian's father to return with them to Osrakum to oversee the election of a new God Emperor.And so Carnelian begins to fulfill his destiny. Along his perilous journey to the Osrakum, he is forced to learn bitter lessons in bloodshed, power, intrigue, love, and treachery--and sets in motion the concluding events in a story four thousand years old.

  The CHOSEN

  BOOK ONE of THE STONE DANCE OF THE CHAMELEON Trilogy

  RICARDO PINTO

  BANTAM BOOKS

  LONDON · NEW YORK · TORONTO · SYDNEY · AUCKLAND

  THE CHOSEN A BANTAM BOOK : 0 553 50581 5

  Originally published in Great Britain by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers

  printing history Bantam Press edition published 1999 Bantam Books edition published 1999

  3579 10 864

  Copyright © Ricardo Pinto 1999

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The right of Ricardo Pinto to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Condition of Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Set in 12pt Bodoni by Falcon Oast Graphic Art

  Bantam Books are published by Transworld Publishers, 61-63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA, a division of The Random House Group Ltd, in Australia by Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd, 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney, NSW 2061, Australia, in New Zealand by Random House New Zealand Ltd, 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand and in South Africa by Random House (Pty) Ltd, Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire.

  Papers used by Transworld Publishers are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  Praise for The Chosen:

  'If fantasy is to thrive, it needs fresh, original voices- Ricardo Pinto's first novel is...a fantasy novel without prophecies, spells or evil enchanters. There are no battles, no thick forests, no magical rings or swords. This is no nostalgic vision of pre-industrial Europe; instead we have a highly structured and cruel society which appears to have its roots in Chinese, Indian and Polynesian cultures, but cannot be seen as a simple reflection of any real historical period...Pinto is particularly good at describing his imaginary world, a world of unusual complexity ...This is a boldly conceived and intelligently written fantasy which lingers in the memory like a strange and disturbing dream' Interzone

  'Ricardo Pinto is the Alan Hollinghurst of fantasy fiction. The Chosen is the outstanding debut of a new kind of writing within a well-established genre. Pinto is blazing a trail where others, no doubt, will follow' Amanda Foreman

  'Pinto writes with an almost Donaldsonian/Feistian grip on language, content and description. There is no question that he will find a dedicated readership' Anne McCaffrey

  'An incredibly well-written book, literary fantasy of the highest order. The characters, locations and situations he describes are amongst the most vividly realised that I have come across... Pinto manages to combine Michael Moorcock's eldritch surrealism with Gene Wolfs arcane mysticism in a tale of great atmospheric elegance and charm...With such depth of detail, history and narrative, this is a series that will surely develop into one of the finest flowerings of the genre. In an age in which fantasy is derided by many for its 'yet another Tolkien' image, it's really good to find a novel, and a writer, that's not afraid to smash through the genre's literary boundaries in true style'

  Waterstone's

  'Ricardo Pinto's The Chosen strikes the reader with great force. His extraordinarily salient story has the quality of a lucid dream. I am impressed by the archetypal strength of his writing - the continual tension of opposites, the keen eye for naturalistic detail... It is a pleasure to watch Pinto celebrate the evanescence of life and the enduring truth of love with such elan. I envy the visceral power of this book that dares to speculate so inventively, so colourfully, so humanely about our mortal limits' AA Attanasio

  Towering, moving with all the grace and elegance of the Chosen themselves, Ricardo Pinto's splendid tale draws us into a fantasy world rich in detail and passion and drama; it is a remarkable feast which I avidly consumed' Dennis L McKiernan

  'Ricardo Pinto takes his hero on a vast journey through a brilliantly imagined land...Part of Pinto's appeal lies in the meticulous research he puts in - virtually to the point of obsession - to create a believable world' The list

  For my mother and father

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A number of experts have provided me with invaluable support in the writing of The Chosen. In many meetings, Ben Harte helped reshape the geology of Osrakum and the Three Lands. David Adger helped me invent the language Quya and it is his translations that appear in the book and that have allowed me to form grammatically correct glyphs. Dominic Prior checked my maths and produced much of his own. He was instrumental in devising the watch-tower heliographs and gave me the equations to calculate the lengths and directions of shadows. Frank Neuman helped me devise a plausible monsoon. Nina Mandel delved in Hebrew scriptures to find, among other things, the orders of the angelic host. Billy, a tattoo artist in Leith, Edinburgh bemusedly answered a question or two. Jane of the Edinburgh Zoo found out for me the colour of a flamingo's tongue. Any errors are my own.

  All my friends and family are to be pitied the years that they have put up with me working on this book. However, it is my partner Robbie who has most patiently overseen this monstrous labour. He kept me from starving and has had besides to read the thing too many times. My brother David justly found early versions complete rubbish and told me so. A few friends read drafts and gave me valuable criticism and support: Jo Bateson, Bridget and Peter McCalister, Rosie and Tom Hall. For years, my Tai Chi buddies Bob Gillies, Ian Thompson and Graham

  Gibson have had to endure ranting in the pub about this book. Exchanging madnesses with James "Moonie" Worrall helped keep me sane. Liz and Stanley Rosenthal brought me to the attention of my agents. Others, Fred White, Philip and Simon Bolton, Mike Forrester, Steve Rizza, James Hutchby, Ali Pickard, Sue Macarthy and John Scofield, Richard Jordan, Grace Cheetham, Anoop Pareikh and Apple computers have all made significant contributions.

  I wish to thank Broo Doherty for her incisive editing and unflagging support, Claire Ward and the other people at Transworld for all their enthusiasm and hard work, Jim Burns for his cover and Neil Gower for his interpretation of my glyphs and maps, as well as Nancy Webber and Antonia Reeve. Finally there is my agent Victoria Hobbs (masterfully abetted by Alexandra Pringle) for whose belief in me, encouragement, patience and indefatigable champ
ioning of my cause I am deeply grateful.

  Flesh, knit bone to bone

  Your withered earth

  Ancient Mother

  Scorched tearless You await

  The Sky Lord come to thunder

  Rumbling His stormy belly

  Withholding His urgent seed

  Till He shall pierce You with His shafts

  Quench the burning air

  Rill and pool Your dusts

  Fill Your wounds with spiralling jades

  Till Your flesh swells up

  In the midst of breaking waters

  Clenching for release

  Thrust forth the Green Child

  Ten thousand times reborn

  Squeeze Him into the air

  Enjewelled by the morning

  To take sweet nurture

  At Your breasts That

  He might dance again

  And once more blow

  His scents Beneath the skies.

  Part of the 'Song to the Earth' from the Book of the Sorcerers translated into English.

  VISITORS

  Ice winds strike a flint-edged sea

  Splintering (lakes that scatter like birds.

  There, trees turn to gold then die

  As does all that is born of the sun.

  (origin unknown)

  All that day the wind had rattled the shutters and slanted the sky with snow, but in the warm heart of the Hold Carnelian sat with some of his people around a fire, listening to their talk. They were telling stories, the stories that those who could still remember told of their lives before the child-gatherers came for them. The words bleached his mind with the light of summers far away. He settled back into the chair dreaming, his eyes narrowed against the leaping dazzle of the flames. The tale rumbled on amid the whisper of women weaving, the remote clink and clatter of the kitchens, someone humming a song. Behind all this was the keening wind which made him shiver, then sink deeper into the comfort of the chair.

  A child's voice cried out, muffled, outside somewhere. The spell broke. Reddened faces turned from the fire. They looked down the hall, between the pillars. The great door opened and a girl slipped in. A gust of snow-spotted air lifted some of the tapestries. Carnelian rose with the others and drew his blanket round him.

  The girl ran towards them, all eyes, breathless. 'A boat.' Her lips shaped the word with exaggerated care. She made sure she saw the disbelief on every face. She grinned, delighted to be the centre of all their staring.

  Carnelian frowned. 'A ship?'

  The girl looked up at him and gave a hard nod. 'A ship, Carnie, I swear, a ship. It's there, on the sea. I saw it.'

  Carnelian gave his blanket to someone, strode away to pick up his cloak, threw it on, came back to the girl and offered his hand. 'Come, show me.'

  The girl reached up for it, sinking her chin into her chest, blushing. Her own fingers were very small and dark in Carnelian's milk-white hand. Together, they led a procession out from the hall. The cold hit them. Carnelian sent the old people back into the warmth. There's no need for you to come. I'll send word back if it's true.'

  Then he was letting the girl pull him off across the slushy courtyard. Some youngsters followed. They all huddled together against the wind but it slipped between them, ballooning up their blankets, ruffling the feathers on Carnelian's cloak.

  They had to cross two courtyards to reach the halls that looked east across the sea. Pavilions, slender-columned, in summer cooled with tiles and water. Now they were abandoned to the frost, but then they caught the breezes and were filled with sun and laughter.

  Their ear tips were burning when they reached the door to the tower. A stairway lay beyond down which the wind came screaming. They fought their way against it up the steps treacherous with ice. Slits let in spear-thrusts from the storm. They reached the top, girded themselves and staggered out into a raging roar.

  Turmoiled greys and blacks. Flurrying snow spitting at them, furring their eyes. Faces began aching. Carnelian went with the pull of the girl's hand, leaning into the gale. They reached the parapet and clung to it with numbing fingers. The girl gripped Carnelian for support. They both squinted. The sea was rolling its glass towards them all scratched with white. They felt the thunder as each wave detonated on the shore. Carnelian had to wipe his eyes. The girl was grimacing up at him shouting something. Her hand shook, pointing. Carnelian shielded his face with a cross of his arms and stared out. The disappointment was crushing. There was only the mounding terror of the sea. He was about to turn away, but then his heart quickened. He saw it, a sliver, a ship with sails stretched open like fingered wings, a ship flying towards them on the wrath of the storm.

  Leaving the others to make their way back to the Great Hall at their own speed, he leapt down the steps, almost soaring on the wind. He slipped a few times and fell once, scraping his elbow against stone. Then he was up again and running. He splattered his way back along the trail they had made. He reached the hall door, paused a moment breathing like a dragon, indecisive, heard the chatter and turned aside. Too many questions lay in that direction. Let the others spread the news.

  He used another smaller door, wound through some storerooms, passed along a corridor flickering with doorways. He could smell the spiced stew. Through clouds of steam he glimpsed people working in the kitchens. Nobody saw him. He reached the covered alleyway that snaked off northwards towards the Holdgate. A vague brightening down there showed where the alleyway opened into the Long Court. He went the other way, jogging along the ridged floor. He came to some steps and took them two at a time. The guardsmen of the tyadra were up there muffled in blankets, playing dice around a brazier. Their faces came up, each identically marked with his House tattoo: the chameleon, its goggle-eyes at the centre of their foreheads, its back swelling down their noses, the tail curling on their chins. A leg splayed out over each brow, each cheek. Glad to see him, they smiled, making the chameleons dance on their faces. They began to make a space for him, thinking he had come to share their watch.

  'It's not you lot I've come to see. Naith, there's news for the Master. Please announce me.'

  The man grinned crookedly. The Master said—'

  'I know, Naith. I'll take the responsibility.'

  Naith shrugged. He walked off to the end of the passage where a pair of sea-ivory doors caught his shadow. Standing before them the man seemed as small as a child. He hid his eyes in the crook of his arm and thumped the sea-ivory three times with the palm of his hand. His shadow shifted as it opened a crack. A mutter of voices. The door closed. Naith came back stiff-faced. 'I hope you know what you're doing.'

  Carnelian squeezed the man's arm, jerked a nod, then walked past him. The door jambs were painted with the warding eye: a warning to all that none must enter save at the express invitation of the Master. The paint had faded many times and as many times had been repainted. Waiting before the door, Carnelian ran his finger around the lip of a face that grimaced out of the sea-ivory. Only a year back he had been unable to reach so high. He felt the surface move away as the door opened. Through the gap he could see the fire that was the centre of the hall and off, beyond, in the half-light, loomed the shape of the Master of the Hold, the Ruling Lord Suth, his father.

  His father's beautiful face hung above Carnelian like the moon. 'Why do you disturb my meditations?'

  'I have seen a ship coming here,' said Carnelian in the same tongue, court Quya.

  His father's eyes narrowed. 'A dream?'

  'No, Father, I have come here straight from the East Tower. From its brow I saw the ship.'

  Suth noticed the water that beaded the feathers of his son's cloak. 'A ship, you say?' He did not allow himself to smile, not wanting to hurt the boy's feelings.

  'It looked black and was in size and shape like my finger and had many sails spread to catch the gale.'

  His father frowned. 'A long black ship, with sails set, in this storm?'

  'Upon my blood, Lord.'

  'A
baran,' his father muttered.

  The word was unknown to Carnelian and he did not like the pale expression that washed across his father's face as he spoke it.

  His father turned away. Opals woven into his robe blinked like the eyes of birds. He turned back looking severe. 'If your eyes have seen true, then we must make preparations to receive our visitors with proper state. Please go you to your chamber and make ready. You will not leave it until I send you summons and then only to come directly here. There shall be no deviation from that path.'

  His father's hand clamped his shoulder but it was more the grey eyes that held Carnelian fast. 'You do understand me?'

  'I do, my Lord,' said Carnelian and wondered at his father's manner.

  Then go, and do as you are bid.'

  Carnelian set off back to the sea-ivory doors. He was halfway round the fire when his father spoke again.

  'It is Naith who commands without, is it not?'

  'It is so, my Lord.'

  'Please send him in.'

  Carnelian strode down the alleyway with the memory of his father's face nagging him. He dismissed it by turning his thoughts to the visitors. What kind of people would be brave enough or, he corrected himself, foolhardy enough to be upon the sea in winter?

  He reached the arcade bordering the Long Court. Through its wooden colonnade he could see the air thickly feathered with snow. It drifted down into the rectangle of the court, dulling all familiar detail. In the wall opposite, orange light chinked out through closed doors and shutters. He squinted up to the eaves. The sky had an angry look. Night was nearing.

  He went to the back of the arcade and fumbled for the ring that opened another door into the Great Hall. He slipped into the warmth with its smell of spice and bodies and burning wood. Between the pillars people huddled gossiping.

  'Camie,' cried many voices as people rushed up, ‘what news? Can it really be true? A ship?'

  'I have seen it with my own eyes.' They clamoured round him. He rifted his hands and they quietened. 'Look, I've no time to talk. The Master'll be sending his commands to you soon enough. We must make ready for the visitors.' He pulled up the edge of his cloak. 'Even I'm to be made ready.'