Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

When none of them spoke up, he jabbed one of them with his toe. 'Get up, man. Tell me.'

The guardsman looked up, his face twitching. 'Craving your pardon, Master, but… we had to tell him… he is the Master.' 'And…?'

'He demanded to know where you were, Master. We told him we didn't rightly know… we had to tell how long you'd been away… that you'd gone away before.' The man cowered.

'And he was very angry?' Carnelian asked.

The man looked up, tearful. 'He's going to crucify us all.'

Carnelian felt the blood draining from his face.

The man must have seen this because his eyes darted out of sight like a snail's.

Carnelian squatted down. Touched their heads, saying gently, 'Now look at me.' He waited until he had their eyes. 'I won't allow even one of you to be put upon a cross.' He nodded into each face. 'Not one of you.' He stood up. 'Now get me some people. I need to be dressed, and quickly.'

They stood up, and one of them ran off.

'Master?'

He looked at the man expectantly.

'Master, the other Masters of our House…?'

Carnelian frowned. The other lineages?'

The man nodded. They've sent word that they're here and want to meet you, my Master.'

'I've no time for them,' said Carnelian as he moved towards his chamber. Once inside, he let the ammonite cloak slip off his shoulders and hung his head. Now his father.

The Master wishes to be formally attired?'

Carnelian whisked round to see a servant, head bowed, others kneeling behind him. He was sure that they were not part of the household he had left behind.

'You've just come from the coomb?'

That's so, my Master.'

'Why?'

'We were sent to bring the Master a court robe.' The servant indicated the golden suit standing against a wall. Carnelian walked over to it. It was similar to the suit he had worn before but it had different heraldry in the panel running down its front. He touched the chameleons writhing on a field of jades, emeralds and other green stones. Under his fingers their skins were a mottle of pearls. Their black opal eyes blinked. They looked more alive than geckos on a wall. It occurred to him that Fey had talked about sending him such a suit with the first household. He wondered why it had been so long in coming.

'If the Master'll allow, I'll co-ordinate his dressing?'

Carnelian turned to the new servant. 'As fast as you can.' He lifted his arms from his sides and they ran in to disrobe him. 'What news, co-ordinator’

The return of the Master and his son is longed for,' said the man without the slightest movement of his chameleon tattoo.

'Has the servant Tain arrived from the gates?' 'An unchameleoned boy, Master?' Carnelian grabbed the man's shoulders. 'You've seen him?'

The co-ordinator went waxy soft in his hands, melting away as Carnelian released him. 'Y-yes, Master. He was there yesterday, being prepared to come here.'

Carnelian smiled, longing to see his brother's face. He hardly noticed the cleaning, the putting on of the belt of hooks. He climbed onto the ranga and then they locked the court robe round him. They masked him. They built a crown upon his head. When they knotted a scarlet sash around his left wrist he remembered that all the Chosen were in mourning for the God Emperor. He allowed a few more adjustments then, feeling as large as a house, he strode from his chamber to face his father.

The grand-cohort commander was standing with other Ichorians at the entrance to the Sun in Splendour. He looked at the heraldry on Carnelian's court robe and let him pass. The hall was smouldering gold, its walls and pillars catching their light from somewhere round the dais. The pillars did not allow Carnelian to see the dais itself. He stopped, closed his eyes to find composure, then opened them and left the shelter of the columns. He moved in to the centre of the hall and turned to face the dais. On it and beside it were two Masters; three more faced them like frozen flames. These three rose slowly, pivoting round, the skirts of their robes slightly rising. Each face seemed transfused by a beam of light. They could have been angels caught in the act of forming from fire.

Carnelian walked towards them, timing the placing of each ranga to the robe's heavy swing. He could feel their eyes watching him and was aware of the shining ovals of their faces, but his eyes were focused on the enthroned being rising behind them, haloed by a corona of flickering flames. The halo's hub was a Chosen face, his father's, alarmingly gaunt. The eyes were as sunk under the brows as if they were the heads of nails hammered deep into the skull. A hand, drifting up, lifted a sleeve that was a slab of mosaiced gold. Is that you?

The question brought Carnelian to a halt. He watched the hand fall. His father glanced at the other Lords. Carnelian saw it was Aurum beside him and that Imago Jaspar was one of the three, standing with two Masters Carnelian did not know. Each nodded to him and he responded vaguely, his eyes already returning to his father's wary hope.

'I am come, my Lord, at your summons,' his own voice said and almost choked on the words when he saw the bright relief fill his father's face.

'Your father is glad to see you, my Lord son.'

Carnelian remembered to unmask, and when the metal face was off they exchanged tiny smiles.

Please wait for me there, his father's hand signed and pointed to a place near Aurum. Carnelian paced to the spot, turned to face the dais and sank to his knees as he saw the other Masters doing.

'Excuse the disturbance, my Lords. Shall we continue?' his father said.

The Masters all bowed and began to speak with hands. Carnelian made a point of ignoring Aurum. Jaspar's fixed, cold-eyed smile forced a twitch of recognition from Carnelian before he focused on his father's face. The hollow cheeks and recessed eyes appalled him. His father had become an aged man. His hands, when they were not signing, tended to stray to the staves that were planted on either side of him for support. Carnelian watched his father's bone fingers trace the carved lids of the staves' sun-rayed eyes that stared through the Masters down the hall, left hand and sun-eye both smeared with the bloody light that filtered down through the emberous pomegranate finial. Carnelian noticed some ammonites squatting on the floor. Three more were in the shadows before the dais, Aurum and himself. He watched them but they sat hunched, doing nothing.

Once or twice his father glanced at him. Anticipation of the coming conflict was grinding in Carnelian's stomach. He tried to distract himself by following the Masters' talk but it was all of blood transactions, bride-prices and iron eyes. Carnelian gave up and let their talk flow over him while he lost himself in dreams of the Yden.

Dapples of gold flickering round him made it seem he was among breeze-ruffled trees. Carnelian lifted his head and saw the crusted masses of the Masters grow taller and then turn towards the distant doors, like sails into a wind. One of them remained. The Ruling Lord Aurum. He raised his hand. There is now no need for you to go and see her?

Carnelian looked at his father's eyes that seemed unaware of Aurum's signs.

If you go, I want to go with you.

Suth's hand stirred into motion. If I go, I will go alone.

Aurum's face became stiff with anger. He stabbed Carnelian with his eyes before glimmering away.

Carnelian felt the opening of the doors as a change of pressure in his ears. They let in a perfume wind and the roar of the throng. Carnelian watched his father. The doors came ponderously together and, with a clunk,