Ricardo Pinto - The Standing Dead

He rose, trying to rub his hands clean down his robe, staggering as he turned, seeing men hanging everywhere. Morunasa loomed close.

'Why do you hang up the dead?' Carnelian gasped.

The Maruli seemed amused. 'What makes you think they are dead? Our Lord prefers to sup on living flesh.'

Morunasa's head fell back and he closed his eyes, in ecstasy and pain. 'Even now he feeds.'

Carnelian would not allow himself to understand.

Morunasa lowered his chin and gazed at Carnelian. 'Where do you imagine these flies come from?'

The Maruli's lips curled with disgust. 'Does your pathetic weakness stop you feeling the glory here? The majesty?' He pointed up at one of the men. 'From death comes life. It is the deepest sacrament.'

Carnelian felt the bile rise again. His eyes welled tears and as fast as he could brush the flies away, they settled onto his sweaty skin, itching his mouth and eyes, trying to find a crevice to lay their eggs.

'Is he here?' he hissed through his teeth.

'Very close, Master. Very close.' Morunasa pulled Carnelian upright and forced him to take several steps, before, enraged, Carnelian threw him off.

'Move, Maruli, take me to the heart of this filthy place.'

Morunasa smiled again. 'You'll find the Master does not share your sacrilegious opinion of our sacred tree.'

'Move on.'

Morunasa began to move away. Carnelian followed, desperately trying to inure himself against the assaults of touch and smell. However much he squinted, he was aware of the hanging men twitching as maggots feasted on their flesh.

The density of flies deepened the murk. Each step mulched the figs up to his ankles. The trunks grew in girth, their roots narrowing the way with their arches. At last they reached a trunk so immense it might have been the night sky. As Carnelian followed Morunasa round this, he saw that it rose from the swamp of figs upon innumerable roots. Along these lay Oracles, their nakedness revealing the swirling mandalas of their tattoos; their chins jerked back as if they were in the process of being impaled.

A white body came in sight around which Oracles were kneeling.

'He has the pallor of the maggots and like them even bears upon his forehead the seal of our Lord,' whispered Morunasa.

Carnelian crept over the bole of a root to reach Osidian. He came close enough to see the rise and fall of his chest. Wounds cut into the pale, clammy flesh mimicked his mouth, which gaped in a silent scream. Trembling, Carnelian reached over one of the kneeling Oracles to touch an unblemished portion of skin. His hand recoiled as Osidian came awake with a madman's stare. The red eyes found him, but showed no recognition.

This is the Isle of the Dead, of which the Labyrinth is only an imitation. I have fed myself to the God alive and now he speaks to me.'

Carnelian's eyes were drawn to the inflamed, weeping lips of Osidian's wounds. Osidian's gaze wandered as he twitched a frown. He released a sigh of words; 'Can you not hear him?'

Carnelian listened with dread. He could hear nothing but the buzzing of flies and, as if from some subterranean world, the deep pulsating thunder of the falls.

Osidian chuckled showing yellowed teeth. 'I feel him in me. He does not give without taking.'

Carnelian leaned close, horrified. 'You have allowed them to put maggots into you?'

Osidian caught Carnelian's hand in a gouging grip. The pain is not unbearable.' The veined orbs of his eyes swivelled to take in the other dreamers. They bear it. They carry him always in their bodies so that they can hear the Lord when he speaks.'

As Carnelian tore free, Osidian settled back closing his eyes, his lips pulled into a pale, rictus grin. 'His voice is so… beautiful…'

There was furtive movement beneath Osidian's skin. He seemed so much a corpse, it was a shock to see sight in the dulled green eyes.

'Why are you here?' Osidian said.

Carnelian stared, nauseous, desperate to flee. He was in a world of death far from the living. He shrank away from Osidian's fingers.

'Why?'

Carnelian remembered why he had come. The Ochre are in revolt.'

Osidian smiled. 'So soon.'

That smile made Carnelian terrified for Fern, Poppy and the Tribe. He drew strength from his love for them. 'It is part of your design?'

'I am merely the instrument of the Lord's will.'

'Don't hide behind that!' he said using anger as a shield. 'It is your lust for vengeance that drives you.'

Osidian was still smiling. 'How could you hope to understand?'

Carnelian felt his face twisting in disgust. 'What understanding have you gained by giving in to this obscenity?'

'Even now, I can hear the Lord speaking more easily than I can hear you.' He frowned. 'Perhaps you could try-'

'No!'

As Carnelian lurched forward murderously, the kneeling Oracles rose as a fence around Osidian. Flaccid expressions of pleasure alternated with pain on their faces as they sank back.

'I shall not let them do it to you against your will,' said Osidian.

'Not let them? What power is it you believe you have in this filthy place?'

'I am become an Oracle of the Darkness-under-the-Trees. More, he has spoken secrets to me which prove I am his Son. He has whispered to me proofs which the Oracles cannot deny.'

Carnelian brought his hands up to cover his mouth and nose. 'Morunasa accepts these proofs?'

Osidian smiled and closed his eyes.

'What do you intend to do?'

'I shall walk the black road my father has made for me,' Osidian said without opening his eyes. 'And the Ochre?'

They have laid their eyes and hands upon me.'

Carnelian's head was pounding. His vision swimming. 'I will not allow you to harm them.'

The eyes Osidian opened to look at him, welled concern. Those who stand in my way the Lord will crush.'

'So be it,' Carnelian said, backing away. Morunasa was watching him with a knowing smile. Carnelian could feel his wrist pulsing where it had been bitten.*Show me the way we came.'

The Maruli shook his head slowly and his black face opened into a ravener grin. Carnelian became convinced those teeth had poisoned him. He shoved Morunasa from his path. He staggered past more roots bearing Oracles, infested, dreaming. Peering, he searched for even a glimpse of the living world, but everywhere he looked his vision was blocked by root weavings hung with victims. He cast around but every way seemed the same. Choosing one, he fled. Through the caverns of the banyan he lurched, seeking a chink of daylight he might use as a beacon to guide him out He was desperate to breathe air free of flies. The fig mulch was sucking at his feet.

He broke into a run, dazed, refusing to yield to madness.

Carnelian awoke in the gloom. Flickers of indigo sky showing through the canopy above signalled that it was late. He could not remember falling asleep. The ache from his wrist reached up into his chest. His skin itched. He sprang to his feet gasping in horror, swatting at the flies clothing him. He ran his hands over his body, searching for wounds that might have allowed maggots into his flesh. He was as sticky as if he had been lying in blood. Praying, he peered for a way out, but only shadow showed in any direction. It was a blessing it was so cool the flies were not misting the air, though the ground was alive with them. He wondered with a shudder if he was doomed to perish there, his body food for maggots. The banyan's red figs lay all about him but he would rather have eaten poison. Their smell was on his skin. He had slept in their ooze. Thoughts of the Tribe pierced his desolation. If not for himself, he must live for them. In the distance he could hear the percussive thunder of the falls. 'Of course,' he breathed.

Grimacing, he began striding, with each step sinking into the mouldering, noisome floor, guided by the voice of the falling water.