Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

Osidian appeared to be looking for somewhere to hide. 'We have come too far round. Come on.'

He took them down a stair and another and so they descended the terraces, running for pleasure through the perfumed air. At last they reached the last terrace, which ended at a high glistening wall. They turned to look back.

The garden was a colossal staircase rising up to where the Pillar stood like the Black God Himself, hefting the blue of the sky upon His shoulders.

They explored along the wall until they found a bronze trellised gate through which they could see a shadowy world under the trees. Carnelian was surprised when Osidian produced a key. He thrust it into the centre of the gate, turned it, and then using the weight of his body he swung it open and beckoned Carnelian to go through.

Trunks were spaced like the pillars of a ruined hypostyle hall. Here and there the canopied roof had collapsed into a clearing. They wandered into it as if they were afraid of waking the trees. Scented air encouraged slumber. Soft mulch muffled their steps. Birds flitted across the corners of their vision. Several times they saw saurians, two-legged, as small and curious as children, that when approached slipped away like memories.

This shadowy world was terraced too. Every so often they would descend a shallow stair, then behind them they would see a wall of rough-hewn stones. In some places this had burst allowing the red earth to spill down, revealing the black layers beneath.

They did not talk. Something about the forest encouraged silence. A resinous breeze wafted constantly in their faces. It grew even hotter. Peering ahead, Carnelian had the impression a fire was burning towards them. The tops of the trees around them burst into flame. Light shot over their shoulders from above, growing ever brighter, and suddenly it was stabbing all around them. He turned and saw the shadow of the Pillar of Heaven ebbing away from them as the sun melted up out of its black brow. He was struck by how much it looked like a Master in a court robe.

They walked in the hazing air. It grew torrid, humid, thick with an odour of mouldering. They were by this time following a trickle of water running in the bottom of a crumbling channel. The brightness showed them that the trees were filled with fruit, and it seemed to Carnelian that they walked in an orchard long ago abandoned. Then he noticed the spaces between the trees were all aglitter and he saw, against the band of the Sacred Wall, the blinding sheets of the lagoons stretching to the Skymere.

Osidian clasped his shoulder. 'Behold, the mirrors of the Yden.'

Carnelian watched Osidian sleep in the stultifying heat. Even hiding in the deepest shade they had found no coolness. Through the trees he could see the alluring shimmer of the lagoons. Their glaring silver was animated by the scratches of flamingos wading. There was a lazy buzzing of flies. Everything seemed to be pulsing in time to his slow heart. Osidian had told him that they must wait out the heat of the day. Even with their paint the sun, in the last month of the year, was a danger to their skin.

Carnelian licked his lips, remembering the delicious melting sweetness of the forbidden fruit. He looked up into the branches that were their parasol. The apples there were as brown and wizened as the stony fruits that they had cleared to give them space to lie down. He wanted something filled with juice. He rose, his tunic sticking to his skin. Osidian swatted a fly from his face.

Carnelian pulled one of the purple cloaks from a pack and draped it over his head. Creeping from shadow to shadow, he searched the glowing dappled world for fresh fruit. His skin prickled. He felt the need to scratch himself everywhere. He made sure to look back every so often so as to know where he had left Osidian.

It was the red that drew him to the grove. A low wall ringed it. In many places its stones had tumbled into the weeds and were almost lost from view. Some of the trees had red flowers. He recognized the pomegranates nestling among the waxy green. He jumped the wall and, reaching up, felt the pregnant tautness of the fruit. He plucked one and then another and two more. Their skin was hard but it gave a little when he squeezed.

He returned with his treasures and woke Osidian'. He cut one open and offered half of it to him.

Osidian frowned. 'Where did you get these?'

Carnelian gestured vaguely.

The fruit here are bitter, poisonous.'

Carnelian looked at the pomegranate's womb, melting with juicy rubies. He sniffed it. 'Are you sure?'

'It is forbidden to eat from the trees outside the garden wall.'

'As it was forbidden to eat the golden fruit?' Osidian had to smile.

Carnelian looked into the moist jewelled fruit. He could not resist it. He scooped up some seeds, licked them off his fingers, sucked them free of pulp and spat them out. 'Sweet nectar,' he sighed.

Again, he offered Osidian the pomegranate half. 'I sinned for you.'

Osidian's eyes smouldered like emeralds hidden from the light. He took the pomegranate and slowly bit into its juicy heart.

Osidian awoke him when the shadow of the Sacred Wall had washed over them. He grinned. 'Come on.'

The sky was a cooler blue. Carnelian walked into a clearing and looked back. The Pillar of Heaven was spouting its fiery wall into the sky. He turned to follow Osidian off through the trees.

The ground began to grow soft. He could feel the delicious moisture squeezing out under his feet. He saw a circle of plate-leafed water lily. At its centre a column thrust up from the water flaring into a pink trumpet. More lilies spread their carpet off into the lagoon. Between the shore and the first pad lay a narrow strip of dark water. He saw Osidian hesitating, then in one swift movement leap across. The ridged leaf buckled a little but held. Osidian turned to grin at him. They still bear my weight. I was not sure, but they do.' He leant over to grasp the flowering column and, holding on to this, walked round from pad to pad. He stepped onto another plant further into the lagoon. It was larger and held him more steadily.

Carnelian jumped across. His feet bent a leaf rib like a bow. He followed Osidian, stepping from one pad to the next, the flower stalks waving above his head with each step. Slowly they moved away from the shore. The air cooled delightfully. Up ahead he saw that Osidian had stopped. As he drew closer he saw that the boy was at the edge of the lily pad floor. Beyond, clear unrippled water mirrored the sky. Carnelian reached a pad next to Osidian, who was looking off to the distant Sacred Wall. Its upper edge was still glowing with the sun but its rays were too weak to taint even unpainted skin. Osidian turned to Carnelian.

'You know, I have never even seen the world beyond that wall?'

Carnelian nodded.

Osidian's eyes searched the Sacred Wall as if he were counting its coombs. 'Even those, I can see but never visit.' His jade eyes fell again on Carnelian. 'Is it not paradoxical that the Skymere should be more difficult to cross than your sea?'

Carnelian could think of no answer. Osidian's melancholy left him and he grinned. 'I will teach you to swim.' 'I already know how.'

Osidian looked puzzled, then smiled. 'In the sea?' 'Since I was a child.'

'Last one in is a mud worm,' cried Osidian.

Carnelian watched him as he began to tear off his clothes. For a moment, the flashes of Osidian's cool white skin froze him, but then he yanked off his tunic. When he looked up, Osidian was standing on the pad edge, as naked as a bone spear. Laughing, he cast himself into the water and disappeared. Carnelian was left rocking on his leaf. He watched the ripples fade away and the smashed reflection re-form.

'Osidian,' he cried in alarm, then grinned as the edge of his leaf began folding into the water under the grip of ten white fingers. He tried to keep his balance, but he toppled, crying out, and the water slapped him cool in the face and he felt it envelop his body. He kicked around, found the surface, pushed up through it to gulp at air.