Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

Carnelian was glad that the wrath that appeared in his father's face was not turned on him. That Lord will one day give me account for that. How he votes is his business, but I am still his Ruling Lord.' The wrath passed from his face like the shadow of a cloud. 'Come here, my son.'

Carnelian took the steps towards him, feeling his nakedness.

Although his father knelt on his ranga, Carnelian's head only reached his chest. His father took it in his hands. Carnelian looked up into his eyes. He did not see their yellow bloodiness but only the fierce love.

'You know, you are my heart.'

Carnelian's tears distorted his father's face. With a groan of effort, his father managed to bend down to kiss Carnelian's forehead. He let go and rose so that Carnelian's eyes were level with his waist. He took some steps back and hid his face with his sun-eyed mask.

Today all our fates shall be decided.' Carnelian could hear the sorrow in his father's voice. 'Perhaps, even now, we shall be victorious.'

'Aurum said-'

His father cut his reassurances from his mouth with a scissoring motion of his hand and left.

When Tain returned he came with others and Carnelian was forced to hide his distress behind a stony face. He could not rid himself of the harrowing conviction that his father had come to say goodbye.

As they put him into his court robe he bit his tongue to stop himself from spraying them with bitter words. He could not bear to look at Tain's remote expression. When they were finished he almost snatched his Great-Rings from their hands and, ordering the door open, he strode through it so fast he almost toppled over.

The Ichorians lifted the portcullises for him. Carnelian walked through into the nave and was suddenly among giants.

'Cousin Carnelian,' said a voice he recognized as Spinel's. Carnelian saw him there with the others, the nine Lords of House Suth with their chameleon-cyphered court robes. Carnelian looked past them to the gleaming Great. Beyond, the nave ran empty to the closed door of the Chamber of the Three Lands.

Carnelian bowed his head. 'My Lords. My father told me you would be here.'

Then you have spoken to him today, cousin?' asked one of the Lords.

'I have…' Carnelian read the name glyph on his crowns, 'Cousin Veridian.'

The Lord bowed. 'At the service of your lineage, cousin.'

'I am heartened to receive it,' Carnelian said.

'Does our Ruling Lord anticipate victory for his party?'

Carnelian shrugged his hands. 'It hangs in the balance and why should it not when even those of his own House betray him?' He looked at Spinel.

The Lord lifted his right hand to show his blood-ring. This is no mere bauble, my Lord. I will cast its votes as I will. That is my right.'

'And you feel no duty whatever to your Ruling Lord?'

Spinel opened his arms to take in the gleaming concourse. 'Only when we vote does the tyranny of our Ruling Lords lift enough to let us for a moment into the light. Like many others here, I will not be persuaded to walk back into the shadows merely by some rhetoric about family loyalty. Are you making me an offer for my votes, cousin?'

Carnelian controlled his anger, tried to think of something. 'My father is a fair man.' He turned to the other Suth Lords. 'He will treat you as you treat him.'

'I see,' said Spinel. 'So on the basis that your father is a "fair man" you would have me declare myself apostate before all the gathered Great and make the new Gods and Their mother my foes.' He shook his crowned head. 'I think not. I shall honour the agreement I have made with Molochite and we shall see what transpires.'

A Ruling Lord appeared towering at the edge of their group. Carnelian saw the House Imago dragonflies on his robe.

'Internecine conflict within the House Suth, tsk, tsk,' said Jaspar. 'Not that one can own to much surprise, to judge from the lack of care with which its Ruling Lord is wont to treat its interests.'

'My father's interests are his own, Jaspar.'

Looking at Jaspar, Spinel pointed at Carnelian. 'Lord Imago, my kinsman here was attempting to detach me from my agreements.'

'Indeed. That would be foolish, Suth Spinel. One should not lightly abandon one's commitments.'

'Spare us your threats, my Lord,' said Carnelian. 'My kinsman is already determined in his act of treachery. He had better only hope that when this election is over, Ykoriana will be able to protect him from my father's wrath.'

'Carnelian, you should not concern yourself overmuch with that. Once Molochite wears the Masks he will reward his friends and, no doubt, become an inconvenience to those whose lack of foresight led them to become his enemies.'

'We are not afraid-'

Carnelian was interrupted by a chime that shook the air all the way from the Chamber of the Three Lands.

'Aaah, cousin dear, we must discuss your fears some other time. You are summoned into the chamber.'

Another chime rang out. Carnelian waited for its reverberations to dull. 'In spite of all your treacheries, Jaspar, the victory will be ours.'

Jaspar laughed at him through his mask and walked off, dragging a train like a sunset sky.

Carnelian stood rigid, feeling set about with enemies as the bell's pealing shuddered over him. He felt a pulling at his sleeve. He looked up to see his own mask reflected in that of one of the third lineage Lords.

'Come, cousin, we must obey the call of the Turtle's Voice.'

Leading the Suth Lords, Carnelian made his way along the nave as the pealing gusted like a gale. The nave was filling with the processions of the Great like an armada of sails. The bronze trees of the chamber wall rose menacingly ahead. The moat caught their sinister reflection. The Great did not sail across the bridge, for the north-eastern gate was shut. They tacked round towards the south-east, making the gloomy journey to where Carnelian eventually could see the eastern doors were opening like sluice gates, releasing a flickering flood of light. The jewelled oblongs of the Great began bunching as they crossed the bridge accompanied by a shadowy reflected host moving in the moat's black depths. As they passed into the doorway they smouldered and then caught fire.

Carnelian slowed with the others, feeling the dazzle falling on him. A chime hit him with its wave. He began crossing the bridge and saw before him the interior of the chamber filled with a ring of the Lesser Chosen like a lake from which there rose an island fenced about with lantern posts. A wall feathered with fire hedged the Lesser Chosen in. Its whole flickering circuit was breached only where he saw a door open in the north and by the eastern door through which he was entering. Naphtha dragon odour wafted in the swell of the pealing bell.

He looked for the source of all that sound. A mound rose on the low island lying in the midst of the Lesser Chosen. Above this something floated like a summer moon. As he walked towards it down the avenue between the throng, he saw a hammer wielded by syblings hit this moon. It gave out a ripple of sound as if at that moment it had fallen from the sky into the sea. As the vibration rolled over him he faltered and, re-establishing the rhythm of his steps, he became aware of the void above his head. The chamber was open to the night sky. Looking upwards, his eyes could find nothing to see. Fathomless darkness, a dead sky unpricked with stars. He felt its emptiness pouring into his mind through the holes of his eyes and, dropping his gaze, he reminded himself how deep inside the Pillar's rock he was.

He was glad to reach the island's blood-red stone. He had disliked seeing himself twisted in the metal faces of the Lesser Chosen. Steps climbed between the lantern posts, which were tall and slender and grew six branches, each holding aloft a light. He saw the resemblance they bore to the watch-towers he had seen on the road and as he climbed past them he had a notion. The island he had come up onto was a perfect red circle inlaid with a network of silver lines. This was the Guarded Land with its roads. The lantern posts were set around its edge in the positions of the Ringwall cities. The floor of jade and malachite the Lesser Chosen were thronging represented with its greens the encircling lands of the barbarians. The platform that rose at the centre of the chamber seemingly of black glass was fenced by posts carrying the horned-ring of divinity. That was surely Osrakum with its Sacred Wall. The carved stone bell that hung above it in the black air was the Turtle's Voice, and, like the Pillar of Heaven, a connection between earth and sky. The chamber was a wheelmap made stone, the Commonwealth become geometry, the Three Lands captured within a ring of fire.