Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

'I know it wasn't you, Carnie.' The words vibrated into his neck. 'It wasn't your fault.'

Carnelian hugged his brother and they rocked each other until they were all cried out.

The knocking woke them. Carnelian had told Tain that he could not bear to see him spend another night on the cold floor and so they had shared the bed.

Tain leapt up, lit a lamp and went to see who it was. He opened a chink in the door, nodded and looked back at Carnelian, making a face. 'It's the Master,' he mouthed. They both looked at the chamber, shards scattered over the floor, boxes everywhere, Carnelian's court robe toppled broken against a wall.

Together they furiously cleared what they could of the mess and then they found him something to wear. This'll have to do,' said Carnelian at last. ‘Show him in.'

'If you're sure,' Tain said and grinned, then went to open the door.

Suth entered. 'What, are you still abed, my Lord?' He stopped. His mask surveyed the chamber. 'A storm?' He saw Tain. 'Open the shutters, Tain, let in some light, some air.'

'As you command, Master,' said Tain.

'It is such a beautiful morning.' Light flooded progressively around the chamber as Tain folded back one shutter after another. 'You should both have been up. You have missed the blushings of the sky.'

'Neither of us slept well, my Lord.'

His father was wearing a simple robe, the colour of lapis against which his hands and feet were flakes of ice. The excitement, no doubt.'

'No doubt,' said Carnelian.

Suth dismissed Tain. When they were alone he removed his mask. 'Aaah, but it was a wondrous victory… not that one should savour it too much,' he said, throwing Carnelian a glance. 'Still, it has quite put the fire back into my blood.'

'It does me good to see my Lord so happy,' said Carnelian, smiling. Though still haggard, his father looked a little more like himself.

Tomorrow, we shall descend the Rainbow Stair together to the Labyrinth. You have participated in an election but you have still to witness an Apotheosis.' His father's eyes gleamed. 'In four, maybe five days Nephron shall be made into the Gods.'

Carnelian flinched at the name. The chamber seemed to have gone dark again. There is still time for Ykoriana to do something.'

His father raised his brows. 'I think not.' He smiled. 'Nephron has assumed the powers of the Regent and the Great are deserting her like an ebbing tide. Her wings are broken and she has already been put back in her cage.' Carnelian saw his father's face become infinitely sad. 'She chose this for herself and yet I find myself pitying her.'

'So Aurum has won?' His father nodded heavily.

'He is then already become the core of power among the Great?'

'He is welcome to it.' Suth made a face. 'I am sick of its taste.' He made an elegant gesture in which something solid became smoke and then clear air. 'But let us not worry ourselves with that. The Rains are near and soon the lands and the Commonwealth shall be simultaneously renewed. And you and I shall be able to return to our coomb and begin our new life. Soon we will have restored the palaces; perhaps we might build some new halls to celebrate our return. We shall organize such masques as will dazzle even the Great.' His eyes lit up as he gazed at his son. 'You will see, my son, I shall show you such wonders.'

'What about Spinel and the others, Father?' Suth frowned deeply. They will reap what they have sown.'

Carnelian was alarmed by his father's dark looks. 'Perhaps the best way to celebrate our return would be to usher in an era of mercy and co-existence.'

Suth smiled at him. 'Yes, perhaps.' He flapped his hands as if he were washing the air clean. 'First, we must attend Apotheosis and receive the tribute and the flesh tithe.'

Carnelian wondered how he would cope with watching Osidian become the Gods.

His father came to stand near him, and crouched down so that Carnelian could look into his grey eyes, still tinged with red. 'What ails you, Carnelian?'

Looking into his father's eyes Carnelian almost confessed, but then he saw the winter sky, the Hold and his people empty-eyed and grey upon the quay. It was time he bore some pain by himself. He cracked a smile. 'It is lack of sleep, Father, just lack of sleep.'

His father leaned forward and kissed his forehead. 'I know how hard it has been for you,' he said in a low voice. 'We will establish a greater Hold here in Osrakum. You will see, Carnelian. Soon you will call Coomb Suth home.

And there, with all our people, we both shall begin a healing.'

He stood up. 'Get your household ready. With the next rising of the sun we will return to the earth below.' His father started walking to the door. He came back. He smiled. 'I almost forgot to give you this.' He gave Carnelian something small and hard. Carnelian looked in his hand. It was his blood-ring. He clutched it as he watched his father leave, tighter and tighter until he could feel it cutting through his skin.

Carnelian put the ring on when Tain returned. He could see his brother had something in his hand. 'What's that?' 'A letter.' Tain gave him it.

It had been sealed with a blood-ring. He saw the two-face House cypher, the name glyph 'Nephron', the blood-taint with all its zeros. He stared at it.

'What's the matter, Carnie?'

Carnelian looked up, thinking to send him away. His brother's face was filled with concern. Carnelian would do nothing to damage their delicate re-emerging intimacy. 'Let me read it and then I'll tell you.'

He broke the seal. The paper bore only three glyphs: 'I must see you.' Carnelian read them over and over again.

'Perhaps you'd rather be by yourself,' said Tain warily.

Carnelian put out his hand to take his wrist. 'No, stay with me. It would help me to talk about it.'

Carnelian told Tain of his meeting with the strange boy in the Library of the Wise, their expedition to the Yden. Tain could see the brightness of the lagoons in his eyes as Carnelian told him everything. The tale brought Carnelian and Osidian back to the Halls of Thunder and the long days of separation.

'And you hoped to see him at the election?' asked Tain.

Carnelian nodded. 'Did you?'

Carnelian's glower made Tain flinch. 'Oh yes, he was there.'

Tain waited for the words to come. 'He is the one we chose to become the Gods.' Tain gaped. The actual, the very Gods?' Carnelian shook the letter. 'And now, he writes that he must see me.'

'Are you going to?'

'No,' cried Carnelian. 'I won't be his plaything again.'

'Carnie, are you sure that's what it was?'

Carnelian glared at him. 'What else?'

Tain lowered his eyes and played at interweaving his fingers. He kept snatching glimpses at Carnelian's face until he could see that he had sunk back into sad introspection. There's one thing you should think about, though, Carnie.'

Carnelian impaled him with his jade-green eyes.

'Once he becomes the Gods, you'll never see his face again.'

Carnelian's eyes went out of focus; his head shook. 'So be it. I can't see him. I'll never see him again.'

Something was tickling his hps and Carnelian brushed it away. The tickling returned. He opened his eyes, irritated, and looked straight into familiar green eyes. He lashed out, punching bone, pushing himself away up the bed.

Osidian was there as tall as the sky and as beautiful, even as he grimaced holding his face. 'You hit me.'

'What did you expect?'

'Anger, I suppose.'

It welled up so strongly in Carnelian that all he could do was glare.

Osidian took a step back, his palms in front of him in a sign of appeasement. He looked so funny that Carnelian had to frown really hard to stop himself from smiling. Osidian's hands dropped slowly. For some reason, that made him the enemy again.