The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01 Read online

  Suth had become a tower of wrath but Carnelian squared up to him. 'Your blood I cannot give back to you, but this ...' He pulled off the blood-ring. This trinket you can take back to Osrakum or hurl in the sea for all I care, for I see that in the receiving of it I have acquired nothing.' He stopped. In the vibrating silence his father seemed to have narrowed to a blade.

  'You will put that ring back on.' The tone was level, dangerous. Suth lifted up his hand. Upon it were several rings, but above his blood-ring was another, the Ruling Ring of House Suth. Its black adamant was forced into the centre of Carnelian's vision. 'While I still wear this,' the level voice continued, 'I will be obeyed within the borders of my House. Tomorrow you will leave with me, my Lord. The only choice you have is whether you shall walk down to the baran or be carried. Reconcile yourself, my Lord, for you will cross the sea with me.'

  The BLACK SHIP

  They'll sew the black sail

  Then we'll leave our dear land

  For we've heard the voice of the sea.

  (sea-shanty: amber trade route)

  Frosty cobbles sparked with moonlight. Carnelian stood where the arcade had once been. Ghostly edges defined the column stumps in the blackness of the Great Hall. He turned round to survey the Long Court where the cauldrons lay abandoned. One had rolled over and spilt its lumps and liquids as an inky puddle. The walls behind were pocked with the dead eyes of window holes. Such were the ruins of his home.

  Breath-clouds blossoming on either side of him made him remember his escort. It was bitterly cold.

  Lamps stood in opposite corners of the room. Tain was hunched over a chest. Carnelian watched him for a while. His brother was sorting through his robes. He held one up and turned it into the light. He grunted, rolled it up and threw it onto a pile.

  'Packing?' asked Carnelian, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

  Tain whisked round. 'By the horns! Are you trying to kill me creeping up on me like that?' But then he saw Carnelian standing there like a tree, with his cold gold face. He bit his lip.

  Swiftly, Carnelian reached up, unfastened his mask and dropped it into his hand. He did it before Tain had a chance to 'Master' him. He lurched forward. 'Here, let me help.' He tried to bend down but the robe's tightness resisted him.

  Tain stood up. 'Come on. Let's get you out of that thing. Is it as uncomfortable as it looks?'

  'Worse,' said Carnelian, and grinned.

  Tain quickly undid the hooks and released him from the ritual robe. Naked, shivering, Carnelian threw on some of his old clothes. He sighed with pleasure. They were so comfortable, so familiar. 'I feel more like myself.'

  'And you look more like yourself.'

  'About earlier. I didn't mean to—'

  'Don't worry, Carnie, I understand.'

  'I wanted to stay too, but the Master has forbidden it. You'll come with me though, won't you?'

  'Do I have any choice?'

  Carnelian gave him a ragged smile.

  'I see. I'm going whether I want to or not. If it makes you feel better, I'd go with you anyway.'

  Carnelian reached out and pulled him into a hug.

  Tain looked sheepish. 'My mother'd never forgive me if I didn't. Someone has to look after you.' He turned away. 'Come on, let's get this packing done. Or were those just words?'

  They weren't,' said Carnelian cheerily.

  They talked well into the night about the long summers of their childhoods, of the autumns when the trees turned gold, flamed red then were left black and naked. They recounted often-told anecdotes about the people they loved and found them freshly funny. Each gave the other reassurances: that the food would last, that it would really not be all that long before the household was together again in the Mountain. Wherever their talk went it always came back to the Mountain, Osrakum. Her dark alluring wonder lay heavy in the centre of their thoughts. Thus, journeying far away on imagination's wings, they found that they could leave their grief behind. Off into their dreams they soared, like gulls tumbling from a cliff into the wind. For Tain it was dragons. All his life he had longed to see dragons. Some people in the Hold swore they had seen them, had felt them shake the earth. His mother Ebeny had stood beneath one but was reluctant to talk about it. For Carnelian it was the home his father had spoken of, that lay in the crater of Osrakum beside the waters of the Skymere. As he spoke in a kind of rapture, he became aware that Tain no longer answered him. He sat up and saw that his brother lay with the faintest of smiles on his sleeping mouth.

  Carnelian was alone. As he lay back, the vision darkened, contracting down to the black ship outside with her distending belly. Most of what brought warmth and comfort to his people she had consumed. Tomorrow he and his father would go down too and she would have eaten everything. He ached for his old life. He begged for sleep, but the night was merciless.

  They were woken by the rapping on the door. A voice cried something on the other side. Carnelian sat up, confused. The voice cried out again.

  'It's time to leave,' said Tain from somewhere nearby. He sounded surprised. He coaxed a light into being.

  Carnelian squinted through his fingers at him bustling round the room. 'Yesterday, the Master sent this and that for this morning.' His brother was holding a jar and pointing at a bundle on the floor.

  Carnelian rose and braved the cold. Tain pulled something on then came back and started cleaning him. 'It'll not be long now,' he said as he felt Carnelian's body shudder. He broke open the wax seal on the new jar and stirred the stuff inside. 'It's thicker than the usual paint and apparently proof against the sea air.' He began to apply it in wet strokes of chalky white.

  'It smells disgusting.' Carnelian was still only half awake.

  After he was finished, Tain produced some old clothes.

  'I'm really to wear these?' said Carnelian.

  Tain shrugged. The Master sent nothing other than the jar and the cloak.'

  They finished dressing him. Tain shook out the cloak like a billow of tar smoke. He threw it over Carnelian, then did up its belts, managing to hoist it up so that only a little of it would drag upon the ground. He nodded sagely. 'You could be wearing anything under it and nobody'd be any the wiser.'

  'At least it's warm,' said Carnelian, and pulled the hood over his head. Tain's clothing was flimsy by comparison. Carnelian went into a corner and came back with his gull-feather cloak. 'Wear this, Tain, it'll be better than that rag.' His brother put it on, protested that it was far too big but was clearly delighted.

  There was another rap at the door. Tain went to see who it was. He came back. 'Well, this is it, Carnie.' He looked very young, very grave. They've come for our things and I'm to go with them .. . onto the ship.'

  'We'll go together.' Carnelian put on his mask and stood by the wall, out of the light, as Tain let in the bearers. When he saw they were his people he came out of the shadows.

  'Master,' they cried and fell flat on the floor.

  'Oh, for the Gods' sake, get up.' Carnelian took his mask off and scowled at them. They gave him watery smiles and then started picking up the bundles.

  Carnelian and Tain followed them out. Every door they passed was closed. There were no sounds other than the scuffling of their feet. Carnelian was glad. He was feeling numb enough already and could not bear any tearful farewells. 'Better to just get it over with,' he muttered. The face Tain turned to him was wooden.

  They came down into the alleyway. Carts lay angled among a scatter of debris in the Sword Court. Brown snow was carved by wheel-ruts, littered with straw. The place already looked as if it had been a hundred years abandoned.

  The bearers were staggering down the alleyway to the Holdgate. They came into the court before the gate towers. The sky beyond them was paling grey. The wall all around the court was black. Carnelian could see the gate was open. When he and Tain reached it they stopped. The cobbled road curving down to the quay was lined with a long line of their tyadra. Each man held a torch aloft. Behind them were all their peo
ple. The ship was down at the end amongst a dense fluttering of torches.

  They've been gathered to see us off,' said Tain, his voice breaking.

  Carnelian reached out to steady him, then together they lurched forward towards the wall of grey faces. At first the people bowed, but soon they just nodded so that they could follow the two of them with their eyes. Carnelian's mask felt to him like cowardice. He took it off so that they could see his face. It cost him dear. Their eyes were like wounds. He forced himself to look from face to tattooed face. He counted them like beads. Swollen-eyed, stressed tight, lips just holding the narrowest of smiles, all but the youngest having the winding tattoo, the mark of the chameleon, his mark, his servants, his people.

  He moved down that avenue of faces sideways, a step at a time. He nodded at each face. He knew most of them. Children stared from between the guardsmen. They could feel the tension but did not really understand it. He smiled at them, and some smiled back but others had already begun to cry. Pain ran up and down the line and was wafting on the morning air. At first he thought a wind had come up from the far distance. But then it swelled into human keening. The women's mouths were holes in their faces. The guardsmen looked back over their shoulders, embarrassed, telling them to hush. But the noise was catching the throats of the men in the crowd and soon they were adding their feelings to the dirge. The guardsmen could not resist for long. Their torches wavered as they too began to groan.

  The wailing cut Carnelian to the bone. His tears distorted the hands they held out to him. He could not deny their grief and went to touch them. Their moaning enfolded him. He stretched into the crowd as far as he could reach. The guardsmen who had not kissed him since he was a child did so and were left white-lipped by his paint.

  He noticed that their cries were fading all around him. Everybody was drawing away until he was left behind like a rock by the tide. A clink of armour made him shove his mask up before his face. The people were falling down into the prostration. The act of abasement ran down the road and out along the quay. Carnelian turned and saw with consternation the Masters sweeping down from the Holdgate like narrow black flames. He felt Tain brush against his leg as the boy knelt. A glance showed that he was pressing himself down against the cobbles.

  The Masters were upon him. Chinks in their hoods showed slivers of gold. Carnelian knew his hand must look obvious against the rim of his mask. He expected reproach but they ignored him.

  '... so many aged,' he heard Aurum say.

  'And where does my Lord think I could obtain replacements?' Suth replied with a tightness in his voice.

  'Famine will winnow the aged from the young,' said Vennel's woman-voice.

  Jaspar had thrown back his hood to reveal the long, painted volume of his head. He was looking out into the bay where the clouds hung like smoke above the mounding sea. 'It seems we shall indeed depart today.' His mask lent him an air of divine indifference.

  The Masters avoided Tain's body as if he might soil their feet. Carnelian saw Grane and Brin walking behind them with more of the tyadra. Brin's eyes were red. They paused to gaze at him. His free hand rose, hesitating between several gestures of farewell. Brin clamped her hand over her nose and mouth. Carnelian's hand gave up, fell to indicate Tain. He waited for Grane's nod, then reached behind his head to tie his mask, and followed after the other Masters.

  In the spluttering torchlight the ship's wall of tarred wood slid up and down. She was huge. Carnelian had not imagined how large she was. He looked down her curving flank. Hawsers strained to hold her and with each gentle lunge she pulled the stone rings up and, after, let them fall with a clatter. The sea gargled in the murky squeeze between her and the quay.

  Grane and Brin were kneeling before his father receiving some last instructions. Beyond, his people formed a mat of flesh that clothed half the quay. Carnelian followed its swathe up to the Holdgate. So many people. He looked at the Hold to stop seeing them. He surveyed those dear grey walls. He knew which of the tiny holes was his own window, which Ebeny's. There, on the southern promontory, was the finer masonry of his father's hall. Only a single scratch of smoke slanted up. There had once been so many.

  'We must embark,' a voice said near him. It was Jaspar. His mask turned to look up at the Hold. 'My Lord surveys his old dominions?'

  Carnelian wondered if mockery was intended. 'It has been the only home I have known.'

  'My Lord should not worry himself with that. The glory of Osrakum will soon dim all this deprivation into grey memory.'

  'And what of my people, Lord Jaspar, shall they also be dimmed into grey memory?' Carnelian said bitterly.

  Jaspar's gold face inclined to one side. Its aloof expression made the gesture seem almost comical. 'Your people, my Lord? This is no cause for great concern. Your palaces in Osrakum will have many and better slaves. Perhaps my Lord is unaware of how much those here have been degenerated by the ... climate.'

  'And has my Lord detected perhaps such degeneration in myself?'

  ‘Tut, cousin, the Chosen are made of finer clay.'

  Carnelian thought that if he spoke any longer to the Lord Jaspar he would say something he might regret. He turned towards the ship. 'I think my Lord was suggesting that we should embark.'

  Through seeing her so close, Carnelian had almost forgotten how much he hated her. Jaspar showed him where staples of bone made a ladder up her side. The Master leant out to one and jumped across. He rose and fell with her as he climbed. Carnelian wondered how his people could possibly have reached over to the staples. He looked down. He watched the water rush up and then suck down again. There was no point in thinking about it. He waited until the ship moved towards him, snatched at a staple and pulled himself across. He hit the hull with a thud. His foot struck something and he managed to stand on it. He adjusted his mask. The ship's black hide was before his face, reeking of tar. The hull lifted him as if he were a wasp on a bobbing apple. He looked up and grasped the next staple. Its bone had weathered yellow and showed its grain. He went up one at a time. Before he reached the deck, the hull cut away to show a wide deep space under it, with supporting uprights like the trunks in a thicket, shapes under tarpaulins, more solid massings of shadow sprinkled with faces. The whole space was roofed with the grating of the deck. There, even his people would have to bend double.

  He climbed higher, was looking down to place his foot when hands took hold of him and he was pulled up to be greeted by Keal's grave face. 'Welcome aboard, Master,' he said and tried a wink. Other guardsmen knelt around Carnelian. He looked over their heads and saw the whole length of the ship stretching off to the rise of her prow. Here and there were capstans, openings in the deck and peculiar bronze engines clustered in threes on platforms extending beyond her bows. Before him, from a collar of brass and a ring of posts topped with pulleys, a mast rose higher than a tree and was taut with rigging to which tiny figures clung. The deck shifted under his feet like something alive. He saw his men's faces still turned up to him and gave them the sign to rise. Before he left them he asked that they ensure Tain made it safely aboard.

  The Masters stood a short way off by the prow, wrapped in the flutterings of their cloaks and speaking with their hands. Carnelian was glad they had not invited him to join them. He walked towards one of the engines. It had a huge bow, a greased track, release hooks, and beside it a stock of barbed harpoons each as long as he was tall. One was ready, threaded like a needle with a coil of oily rope. He leant against the bow rail and gazed down forlornly at his people who stood there looking back.

  A rasping caused him to peer over the edge and see the mushroom-headed poles pushing out towards the quay. One after the other they clunked against its stone. The ship's rocking lessened as she was pushed away. Sailors on the quay untied the hawsers and, in twos and threes, they strained against them. The poles continued to push. The ship moved further from the quay and dragged the hawsers and their sailors closer to its edge. Carnelian watched with disbelief as they plunged in
to the sea like stones. On board more of their fellows drew the hawsers in. The heads of the sailors bobbed up and soon they were being dragged out of the water. Their feet had barely touched the deck when there was a sudden rattling on either side, rude cries, a scraping. The ship sprouted wings of wood as oars were pushed out from the hull into the water. Under his feet a heart began beating. Driven by its rhythm the oars ploughed the sea. The banks rose and fell churning the slate sea white. The ship began edging backwards into the bay.

  The quay was receding. His people stood in uneven ranks. They neither waved nor cried out. Their swarthy faces grew more indistinct with each thump of the drum. When they had become a single grey mass he turned away. His face was stiff with pain under his mask.

  The shuddering of the deck changed its rhythm. The sea was threshed to spume as the ship's prow was brought about. He watched the cliff and the Hold slip off slowly to the left, until, past the prow stem, he saw the hills of the sea sliding towards them. The drumming changed again, quickening with his heart. They moved forward. He looked with horror as a smooth glassy slope came rushing on. The world lifted until it seemed the ship was going to fall back upon herself. Then the deck lunged forward and down taking his stomach with it. Up, up, up, then rushing down so that the next wave rose high enough to wash away the sky.

  There was a snapping and a rustling above his head like giant birds taking to the air. He looked up to see the fan-sails stretching open their hands. He watched them punch forward as they caught the wind. They seemed as fragile as autumn leaves but they held. He looked up the deck again as his grip tightened on the rail. The prow was knifing into another wall of water. It cut a widening white gash that sent a wind of foam hissing back. He felt the cold splatter on his robe and smelt the salty terror of the open sea.

  Alternately he was climbing and then descending the deck. He bent his knees to keep his balance. Every so often spume would lash his back. There was a constant roaring; everything clattered and shook around him.