Ricardo Pinto - The Chosen

All that day the wind had rattled the shutters and slanted the sky with snow, but in the warm heart of the Hold Carnelian sat with some of his people around a fire, listening to their talk. They were telling stories, the stories that those who could still remember told of their lives before the child-gatherers came for them. The words bleached his mind with the light of summers far away. He settled back into the chair dreaming, his eyes narrowed against the leaping dazzle of the flames. The tale rumbled on amid the whisper of women weaving, the remote clink and clatter of the kitchens, someone humming a song. Behind all this was the keening wind which made him shiver, then sink deeper into the comfort of the chair.

A child's voice cried out, muffled, outside somewhere. The spell broke. Reddened faces turned from the fire. They looked down the hall, between the pillars. The great door opened and a girl slipped in. A gust of snow-spotted air lifted some of the tapestries. Carnelian rose with the others and drew his blanket round him.

The girl ran towards them, all eyes, breathless. 'A boat.' Her lips shaped the word with exaggerated care. She made sure she saw the disbelief on every face. She grinned, delighted to be the centre of all their staring.

Carnelian frowned. 'A ship?'

The girl looked up at him and gave a hard nod. 'A ship, Carnie, I swear, a ship. It's there, on the sea. I saw it.'

Carnelian gave his blanket to someone, strode away to pick up his cloak, threw it on, came back to the girl and offered his hand. 'Come, show me.'

The girl reached up for it, sinking her chin into her chest, blushing. Her own fingers were very small and dark in Carnelian's milk-white hand. Together, they led a procession out from the hall. The cold hit them. Carnelian sent the old people back into the warmth. There's no need for you to come. I'll send word back if it's true.'

Then he was letting the girl pull him off across the slushy courtyard. Some youngsters followed. They all huddled together against the wind but it slipped between them, ballooning up their blankets, ruffling the feathers on Carnelian's cloak.

They had to cross two courtyards to reach the halls that looked east across the sea. Pavilions, slender-columned, in summer cooled with tiles and water. Now they were abandoned to the frost, but then they caught the breezes and were filled with sun and laughter.

Their ear tips were burning when they reached the door to the tower. A stairway lay beyond down which the wind came screaming. They fought their way against it up the steps treacherous with ice. Slits let in spear-thrusts from the storm. They reached the top, girded themselves and staggered out into a raging roar.

Turmoiled greys and blacks. Flurrying snow spitting at them, furring their eyes. Faces began aching. Carnelian went with the pull of the girl's hand, leaning into the gale. They reached the parapet and clung to it with numbing fingers. The girl gripped Carnelian for support. They both squinted. The sea was rolling its glass towards them all scratched with white. They felt the thunder as each wave detonated on the shore. Carnelian had to wipe his eyes. The girl was grimacing up at him shouting something. Her hand shook, pointing. Carnelian shielded his face with a cross of his arms and stared out. The disappointment was crushing. There was only the mounding terror of the sea. He was about to turn away, but then his heart quickened. He saw it, a sliver, a ship with sails stretched open like fingered wings, a ship flying towards them on the wrath of the storm.

Leaving the others to make their way back to the Great Hall at their own speed, he leapt down the steps, almost soaring on the wind. He slipped a few times and fell once, scraping his elbow against stone. Then he was up again and running. He splattered his way back along the trail they had made. He reached the hall door, paused a moment breathing like a dragon, indecisive, heard the chatter and turned aside. Too many questions lay in that direction. Let the others spread the news.

He used another smaller door, wound through some storerooms, passed along a corridor flickering with doorways. He could smell the spiced stew. Through clouds of steam he glimpsed people working in the kitchens. Nobody saw him. He reached the covered alleyway that snaked off northwards towards the Holdgate. A vague brightening down there showed where the alleyway opened into the Long Court. He went the other way, jogging along the ridged floor. He came to some steps and took them two at a time. The guardsmen of the tyadra were up there muffled in blankets, playing dice around a brazier. Their faces came up, each identically marked with his House tattoo: the chameleon, its goggle-eyes at the centre of their foreheads, its back swelling down their noses, the tail curling on their chins. A leg splayed out over each brow, each cheek. Glad to see him, they smiled, making the chameleons dance on their faces. They began to make a space for him, thinking he had come to share their watch.

'It's not you lot I've come to see. Naith, there's news for the Master. Please announce me.'

The man grinned crookedly. The Master said-'

'I know, Naith. I'll take the responsibility.'

Naith shrugged. He walked off to the end of the passage where a pair of sea-ivory doors caught his shadow. Standing before them the man seemed as small as a child. He hid his eyes in the crook of his arm and thumped the sea-ivory three times with the palm of his hand. His shadow shifted as it opened a crack. A mutter of voices. The door closed. Naith came back stiff-faced. 'I hope you know what you're doing.'

Carnelian squeezed the man's arm, jerked a nod, then walked past him. The door jambs were painted with the warding eye: a warning to all that none must enter save at the express invitation of the Master. The paint had faded many times and as many times had been repainted. Waiting before the door, Carnelian ran his finger around the lip of a face that grimaced out of the sea-ivory. Only a year back he had been unable to reach so high. He felt the surface move away as the door opened. Through the gap he could see the fire that was the centre of the hall and off, beyond, in the half-light, loomed the shape of the Master of the Hold, the Ruling Lord Suth, his father.

His father's beautiful face hung above Carnelian like the moon. 'Why do you disturb my meditations?'

'I have seen a ship coming here,' said Carnelian in the same tongue, court Quya.

His father's eyes narrowed. 'A dream?'

'No, Father, I have come here straight from the East Tower. From its brow I saw the ship.'

Suth noticed the water that beaded the feathers of his son's cloak. 'A ship, you say?' He did not allow himself to smile, not wanting to hurt the boy's feelings.