Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

Carnelian saw Tain's lips moving but no sound came out. 'Was this new shelf the same as the last?'

Tain nodded slowly. 'One shelf after another, after another… for more than twelve days.'

Tain's eyes made Carnelian's mouth almost too dry to speak. 'Were you… did they hurt you?'

Those who weren't protected by others of their House were victimized. We found protection where we could.' Tain's face became very bony. Those who didn't want to starve paid for their protection.'

'Maybe we should forget this?' Carnelian thought his voice sounded very loud.

Tain's eyes defied him. 'Every day the chasm deepened. There were whispers that it went down as far as the Underworld. One day we came round a corner in the chasm to see a brown tower rising in the distance. Each day brought it one shelf closer. Each day it grew redder as if it were a bone freshly hacked from a body. The chasm forked around its bloody roots. The last shelf was down the left fork. In the shadow under a bridge high above, stone doors led to new shelves. Thirteen of them. Colder. Darker. Under a skyful of shadow, Death's Gate, Nale fell.'

'Nale?' asked Carnelian.

The dragonfly Master's boy.'

'Jaspar… Fell, you say?'

Tain glanced at him. 'He threw himself into the chasm.'

Carnelian shuddered, remembering the punishments Jaspar had promised the boy.

'Stone doors took us onto a path.'

Carnelian was being numbed by Tain's lack of feeling.

The chasm widened letting in more sky. The air was dank. We came to a place of chains and deafening waterfalls. More gates, some tunnels… then we came out into…' Tain was staring at nothing.

'Heaven?' suggested Carnelian.

Tain gazed on as if he had not heard. Carnelian felt that if he were only to look close enough he would see a vision of the crater reflected on the boy's eyes. 'I felt that wonder too.'

Tain's face turned to him the eye holes in his skull. 'I was sure I had died.'

Carnelian felt the cold seeping up from the stone upon which he sat.

The beating soon taught me otherwise. They took us up a stair to a cave floored with water. They demanded the names of our Masters. They put me on a boat, under its deck, where one-eyed monsters rowed. We arrived at Coomb Suth. They fished me out and put me on the quay. They rang a bell. I had the feeling I was in a story. The blue lake was not real. The island with its mountain. The vast, vast fencing wall. And there, at its foot, the coomb. So beautiful with its stepped gardens and gleaming palaces. Crail told me about it but I hadn't believed.'

For a moment Carnelian thought Tain might smile. He waited for it like the dawn after a night of despair.

'A man came down for me. The chameleon on his face fooled me at first. He wasn't one of our people. He was a stranger and spoke to me as a stranger. As I followed him he rattled off my duties, warned me that I should forget the ways I was used to. The coomb was ruled by the Master's mother and she wasn't a Mistress to be trifled with. Then I saw the hanging woman.'

Carnelian felt a twinge of nausea. 'Hanging…?'

‘Sagging off a frame… arms wire cut… above the path to one side… stinking.'

'A crucifixion,' said Carnelian.

The wall behind her was stained with blood and shit. Her knees were like sea-logged wood. What was left of her arms looked barely in their shoulders. Her belly was red and swollen-'

'Enough!' said Carnelian. He felt he was on the verge of remembering something. He was panting. Water was oozing in his mouth. 'Did…' He swallowed. 'Did he tell you her name?'

'Her name was Fey.'

The sound of her name punched the vomit from Carnelian's stomach all over the floor.

Carnelian helped Tain clean up. He felt the need to give him an explanation. 'She was Brin's sister.'

Tain seemed to age a little more. Carnelian ducked his head, cursing, scrubbing the floor so hard he made his fingers raw. When they were finished he looked at Tain. 'I must know…' Tain's face was a blank. 'What else did you see happening in the coomb?'

'I left shortly after arriving to come here.'

'Were there any other signs of slaughter?'

'I didn't see any more… crucifixions.'

Carnelian bit his hand, looking at his brother.

There was an atmosphere of fear.'

Carnelian's eyes went out of focus. 'It seems to be the way the Masters celebrate their assumption of power.'

Tain gazed at him.

Carnelian still felt queasy. 'I must go and make Father aware of what I have done.'

Carnelian quickly found that Tain was unable to dress him in his court robe and so he had to summon servants. When he was ready he went immediately to see his father. The Ichorians guarding the entrance to the Sun in Splendour would not let him pass. Towering over them he used all his powers of coercion but this only served to reduce them to quivering. One of the cohort commanders came to see what was happening.

Carnelian swung round to look down at the man. They refuse to let me pass.'

'He-who-goes-before himself barred this gate, Master.'

'I've urgent need to speak to him.'

'Our father's in conclave with the Jade Master Nephron.'

Carnelian calmed his anger. 'Please tell him as soon as you can that I must talk to him.'

He began the journey back to his chamber. The storm he had unleashed upon Coomb Suth, only his father could abate. No doubt he would conclave well into the night and then return to his chambers exhausted. Even if the commander managed to get his message through, there was no assurance that his father would pay it any attention.

A plan occurred to him. Carnelian turned slowly on his ranga and returned to the door of his father's chambers. After some discussion, the Ichorians there allowed him to enter. The Suth guardsmen in the atrium greeted him with surprise. He ignored the questions in their eyes and passed through into the chamber beyond where he had them remove him from his court robe and ranga. When they were finished, he sent them away. For a moment, he stood gazing at the walls with their wheels and eyes and pomegranates, but then he crossed the stone-wood floor to a couch on which he settled down to wait.

A movement of air woke him. Carnelian opened his eyes and was transfixed. An angel was coming across the floor in an aura of gold. Two mortals walked beside it. It seemed miraculous that its furnace robe did not consume them with its fire. The angel lifted a hand and the men fled towards the door and were soon gone.

The angel slid towards the wall. It wavered a white hand out to touch the gold. Its whole shimmering bulk leaned forward, its fiery head clinking against the ruby seeds of a graven pomegranate.

Thus propped up, the angel raised both hands to its face. The fingers disappeared trembling into the fiery crowns. The gold mask detached like a lid to reveal a pallid face beneath. His father. The next moment

Carnelian was jarred as the pale fingers lost hold of the mask and it fell flashing, like a skystone, clattering, then screeching along the floor.

Carnelian's gaze had been pulled after it but when it stopped making sound or movement he looked back in time to see his father raising an object to his face. He watched him sink his nose into the square spoon. Two sharp snorts, a groan and then breath hissing out through his mouth's gape, the spoon dangling from his fingers. Even as Carnelian watched, it was as if his father was a withered tree drawing young sap up from its roots. He slowly straightened, his shoulders broadened, his face grew brighter. His eyes opened and he saw Carnelian.

'My Lord,' he said, appalled. His face jumped into fury. 'You spy on me?'

Anger disappeared as his father's face sagged. Carnelian stood up, stooped to pick up the fallen mask, went to him. He could see the mucus running down from his father's nostrils and the head hanging with shame.