Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

What? Carnelian chopped back.

'If my Lord pleases, his shoes…'

Grumbling, Carnelian stooped and took them off.

Osidian urged him off the chair. The light receded as he walked away, backwards, still hooking his finger at Carnelian to follow.

Carnelian did so, grinding his teeth, wanting to hit him.

And?

Carnelian opened his hands, not understanding.

Your feet. Do you feel nothing under your feet?

Carnelian became aware the floor was textured. He looked down, crouched. Bring the light closer, he signed. As the floor brightened, he saw it was carved. He touched the embossed surfaces. Osidian's white hand strayed across some patterns.

'All of these are paths,' he whispered. 'You follow them with your feet. North Door, South Door.' He stroked one pattern after another. 'East Door, West.' Still crouching, he rocked himself a little way off and pointed down. Carnelian followed his finger, touched the eye carved into the floor.

The path to the moon-eyed door.'

'Exactly.' Osidian stood up. 'Will my Lord care to try for himself, this seeing in the dark?'

Carnelian straightened, smiling even as the light went out. He found the eye with his toe. He took a step and after sliding his foot around a bit found another eye. He took another step.

'Like stepping stones,' he muttered, finding the measure of the stride that took him smoothly from one eye to the next.

He followed the path, at first certain that he was about to walk into a bench or a wall. After a while he grew more confident and soon was moving comfortably through the darkness.

He seemed to have been walking for ever when suddenly he stepped forward and there was no eye under his foot. He stopped and Osidian walked into him. Carnelian clutched him to avoid falling. The body under his fingers was like wood. He could smell Osidian's skin. 'My Lord, forgive me.' He stepped back.

'Hide your eyes,' Osidian said.

Light flared. Carnelian squinted till his eyes were able to see again. Looking round, he saw they were standing near the silver door. He began putting on his shoes.

'Will you come again?' Osidian asked.

Carnelian looked up at him, nodded.

As he walked back, Carnelian caught a scent coming off his shoulder that he recognized was Osidian's.

Carnelian smiled when he saw Osidian waiting for him.

'Will we be able to go together in darkness?' he asked.

Osidian shook his head. He pointed at the floor. 'Which path would you follow?'

Carnelian looked. The stone was as marked with trails as mud at a market.

There are paths here leading to various points in the library but none going to the chamber I want to go to.'

Carnelian deflated. Then one must know where the chamber lies in the library maze?'

Osidian lifted his hand in the affirmative. 'A labyrinth can be a better defence than the strongest gate. Still, we can go through the darkness like children.' He offered Carnelian his hand.

Carnelian looked at it, embarrassed, shook his head. 'It would be easier to use the lantern.'

Osidian took back his hand and frowned. 'As you will.' He strode off stiff-shouldered.

Cursing himself, Carnelian followed.

All that day Carnelian read the annals of God Emperors whose column sepulchres, Osidian told him, were some of the first put up in the Labyrinth. Carnelian came to realize that once the Labyrinth had been only a processional way. He was reading faster and hardly had to ask Osidian to help him.

Later, when he had grown weary of the interminable descriptions of conquest, he told the darkness that he wanted to leave. He found Osidian's hands as they fumbled with the lantern and gripped them. There is no need for light, no need for you to come. I will make my way back to the door myself.'

'And tomorrow?' said the darkness.

Carnelian felt as if he were in a dream haunted by the voice in the beads.

'We could try something different tomorrow, if you want.'

'Like what?'

'Well, there are chambers filled with the reels of the Law and its commentaries, with the "Ilkaya" and other mystical works. There are technical treatises on just about any topic you could imagine. The records of the flesh tithe, tribute, taxation of the cities, censuses of the barbarian tribes. The Books of Blood-'

'Where the blood-taints of the Chosen are kept?'

'Every Chosen who has ever lived.'

The Books of Blood then,' whispered Carnelian, and, taking the unlit lantern, he strode off along the path of eyes.

The following day, Osidian was waiting for him. The walk through the library seemed longer than usual. They reached a chamber that smelled of freshly spilled blood. Uneasy, Carnelian lifted his lantern. It was a chamber larger than the others with many benches. All the bead-cord he could see was dull and black. The reels were only as thick as his wrist. He took the lantern close to one, ran his fingers over its beads, then smelled them. It was as he had suspected. 'Iron.'

These are the Books of Blood,' said Osidian.

Carnelian looked round, trying to calculate the value of such treasure.

'Look here,' said Osidian, touching the tip of a spindle.

Carnelian came to look. Carved into its top was the cypher of a Chosen House.

'Your reels will be over there somewhere, with the rest of the Great,' Osidian whispered near his ear.

Carnelian walked away in the direction indicated. Spindle by spindle they searched for the chameleon, moving from one bench to the next.

'Here,' hissed Osidian.

Carnelian joined him and saw the chameleon carved dancing into the spindle's tip above the six stacked reels. How many people of my House? he signed.

Osidian shrugged. 'Your House is as ancient as the Commonwealth.' The beads clinked like armour as he ran his fingers down the stack. The reels are fat. The blood-taint of maybe,' he shrugged again, 'eight twenties of generations.'

Carnelian took hold of the topmost reel. He could feel the beads shifting under his hands. He lifted the reel carefully off the chameleoned spindle. It was as heavy as a stone. Osidian pointed out a chair. Carnelian carried the reel against his chest and impaled it on the chair spike. He was glad when Osidian closed the lantern's shutter. For some reason, the reel's rusty blacks were reminding him of massacres.

The beads soon absorbed him. They were simple to learn. Most of the beadcord was made up of the numbers one to nineteen, with a bead like a berry for zero. It was strange to feel the first name he came to was his own. He ran the cold, rough beads through his fingers again and heard them say his name, Carnelian. The beads after that were his blood-taint: zero, zero, one, nineteen, zero, nine, fourteen, sixteen, nine, thirteen, fifteen. The next name along the beadcord was his mother's, Azurea, followed by the first few beads of her blood-taint: zero, zero, zero. He ran the beads through his fingers again. Three zeros. Blood-rank three. Such purity. It made him proud. He read the next numbers almost trying to feel something of his mother in them. Two, one, three, nineteen, nine, sixteen, seventeen, ten. There was nothing there but cold iron. Beyond the separator bead was Suth Sardian, his father, and the numbers: two zeros matching his and then a three, fifteen, nineteen, fifteen again, ten, three, two, ten.

He read on, finding Spinel's blood-taint and the others of his House's second lineage. Next came the third lineage. Then he found his grandfather's name, his grandmother Urquentha's, the parents of Spinel and so on, further and further back in time. His father's father's father. Numbers and strange names rolled through his head as he wound them up from the ancient past.

He released the beadcord, sat back bewildered, awed by the tale of years, feeling he was like the Pillar of Heaven holding up a skyful of ancestors.