Ricardo Pinto - The Standing Dead

Suddenly, light flooded from above. A breeze coated his scalp with chill sweat. Jerking breaths, Carnelian worked his head free from between his knees, then hinged it back against the cramp in his neck, slitting his eyes against the dazzle. He was slow to realize someone was looking down at him. When he did, it was hard to focus. A grey bearded face, one half blacked by tattoos. 'Ichorian,' he breathed.

The man's halved face had the roundest eyes and gape, the most ashen pallor. That it was the right hand side that was tattooed proclaimed him to be one of the Red Ichorians that guarded the canyon entry into Osrakum. Carnelian let out a sigh of relief that he had been rescued, only remotely aware that his face was naked to the man's stare. The effort of holding his head up became too great, so that he had to drop it back into the cradle of his knees.

'Please,' he mumbled, 'help me… out of this… thing.' Silence made him find the strength to lift his head again. 'Release me.'

Still staring, the man shook his head.

'Now!' barked Carnelian, the eruption disrupting his breathing into a gulping cough.

The Ichorian's clammy hands trembled towards him. 'Master… can I…? What can I…?' The man made several attempts to touch him, but each time pulled back as if Carnelian were simmering plague.

Carnelian could see the tear trail bright on the man's tattooed cheek. 'But you… are sworn… to our service,' he hacked out between breaths.

The man's unmarked hand strayed to his throat where the collar he had worn had left its ghost. The hand fell and splayed itself before Carnelian's eyes so that he was able to read the tattoos of the man's service record: the number thirty-nine; a pomegranate and a curved diagonal cross above a zero ring beneath two bars.

'You see, Master, I achieved the rank of Righthand in a tower of the pomegranate dragons.' The old soldier looked worn out, used up.

Carnelian was confused. Each snatch of breath squeezed a tear stinging from his bruised eye. 'Please…'

'How did…? Who has dared put you in this urn, Master?'

The man glanced away, focusing on something else nearby. Guilt stabbed Carnelian in the guts. Osidian. He had forgotten his beloved. 'Another urn… is there another urn?'

The Ichorian looked down, startled, dipped a nod before gazing away again. '… Another Master?' he whispered.

'Open it…' Carnelian hissed. 'He might be smothering.'

The Ichorian's head moving away revealed rafters sagging under yellow, mouldering plaster. Where were they? Desperation to see Osidian convulsed Carnelian. He became an animal in a trap and would have gnawed away half his body to break free.

Shadow fell across him. 'Calm yourself… Master. He's dead.'

Despair clamped Carnelian's body still, making his urn shudder audibly. His breathing stopped and it was a fight to regain its rhythm. Ringing in his ears. 'Drugged…' he said, as forcefully as he could.

'Drugged? Oh, I see…' The Ichorian disappeared again.

To keep the panic at bay, the grief, Carnelian forced himself to count his breaths. Eleven had passed before the Ichorian spoke again.

'You're right, Master, it's deep sleep, not death.'

Relief flooded through Carnelian.

The light dimmed again. 'You were to be buried alive then?'

'Alive…?'

The Masters send me their servants dead in urns. I bury them.' The man's eyes opaqued. They don't know I open them.'

Under its tattoos, his face greyed. 'I'm dead.'

'Release me,' hissed Carnelian, 'and I'll protect you.'

The man's eyes came back into focus. 'But I've seen your face.'

'I'll… deny it.' Carnelian drew hope from the Ichorian's confused expression.

'Master, who dared strike you; dared put you in these urns?'

Carnelian was loath to name the Dowager Empress lest the Ichorian become terrorized. 'My enemies.'

'Masters, no doubt and more powerful than you or else you wouldn't be here.'

They trapped us.'

'And me with you, Master.' With a fixed grimace the Ichorian looked round as if he were searching for somewhere to hide. His head shook.

'Even not knowing I've seen you, they're bound to have me killed.'

Trust me… I'm the son of… He-who-goes-before.'

The Ichorian gave him an idiot stare. He licked his half-black lips. 'If that's true, Master, that only makes it worse for me.' His eyes were twitching. 'I must run… find a hole to hide in.'

'Where could… you go? Your face betrays you.'

The Ichorian's face went blank. True… true… I must go far

… bury myself away from prying eyes… maybe in a house in one of the more remote Ringwall cities… never go out… keep a servant to do for me… perhaps a blind slave… might need more than one… wealth… much wealth to buy this new life. Much, much wealth. A chest overflowing with bronze coins wouldn't be enough.' The Ichorian's greedy eyes made Carnelian flinch. 'Yes, a vast sum is needed… vast.'

'Sum?'

The Ichorian smiled uncertainly, but when he spoke, his voice had calmed. There's a man, in the south, in the city of Makar. I sell him relics.'

Carnelian went cold.

'Why else do you think I'd force open a funerary urn?'

Carnelian did not want to hear any more.

'In the cities of the Guarded Land, there are rich merchants to whom nothing's more precious than things that have belonged to a Master. By such charms they keep at bay their fear of you. Before today, all I've had to sell were flays of pale skin, some sky-coloured eyes; all from marumaga, naturally, but from those choice marumaga in the Mountain close to you whose whiteness the barbarians have no way of knowing is mere amber to your snow. Don't flinch. Now that I have you, I'd be a fool to cut, to deface a living Master… such a trophy must be worth at least a wagonload of bronze. If only I can find a way to take you south…'

As the Ichorian walked away, Carnelian concentrated on his breathing.

'Here, drink… I might be gone some time.'

Carnelian turned his face up as the Ichorian tipped water. Most of it found his mouth, though some trickled into the hot crevices of his flesh. It was Carnelian's choking that made the Ichorian stop and look down with fear.

'You mustn't die.'

'The other…' Carnelian managed to say.

'Why wake him from his drugged sleep?' He leaned closer, scrunched up his nose. 'You're only awake because you threw up.'

'Please… bind us… with ropes if you have to… free from these…'

The Ichorian frowned then shook his head. 'I prefer to keep my angels safe in their bottles.'

'But…' blurted Carnelian, choking on his anger, but the Ichorian was already eclipsing the light with the lid. Its weight squeezed Carnelian's head back between his knees.

In the outer world he heard the Ichorian say: 'Bide your time, Master, I'll be back as soon as I can.'

His thighs compressing his lungs denied Carnelian a roar of rage. A part of him knew that he must calm himself, lest he should shut off the narrow passage of his breathing, but panic made him lose control. Pressure roared in his ears; his muscles strained against the earthenware wall. Even through his convulsions, he felt the urn rock. Suffocating, he clutched at this tiny power over his world and he made his prison tip. The urn, lifting a little off the ground, punched his whole body as it settled back. He tried this repeatedly. At last, the toppling continued, seemingly forever. He tensed hungry for the smash of freedom, but there was only an earthquake then blackness.

He came to in darkness. His aching flesh was still packed into the urn but the pressure its wall exerted was now greater down his left side. Air cooled his shaved scalp. He unhooked his neck. That freedom told him that the lid must have been knocked out. Craning, he saw faint cracks of light; a vague uneven floor. Remotely, he was sure he could hear a murmuring of crowds. It came as a shock to realize he must be in the City at the Gates and so out of Osrakum. He listened to the city, remembering his journey through it. A yearning to be among its people made his heart pound. He hinged his head back against the rough earthenware lip as if that might pull his windpipe out of the urn and after it his lungs. He craved just one, deep chestful of air. It was no good. He calmed himself, concentrating on the quick throbbing of his blood. It occurred to him rescuers might be within earshot. He lifted his thighs with his expanding chest, then collapsing, let out a long, ragged wailing. With short, fast snatches of breath, he raced to another cry, then subsided, exhausted, hungry for some response. None came.