The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (114 page)

As Carnelian tore free, Osidian settled back closing his eyes, his lips pulled into a pale, rictus grin. 'His voice is
so ... beautiful...'

There was furtive movement beneath Osidian's skin. He seemed so much a corpse, it was a shock to see sight in the dulled green eyes.

'Why are you here?' Osidian said.

Carnelian stared, nauseous, desperate to flee. He was in a world of death far from the living. He shrank away from Osidian's fingers.

'Why?'

Carnelian remembered why he had come. The Ochre are in revolt.'

Osidian smiled. 'So soon.'

That smile made Carnelian terrified for Fern, Poppy and the Tribe. He drew streng
th from his love for them. 'It
is part of your design?'

'I am merely the instrument of the Lord's will.'

'Don't hide behind that!' he said using anger as a shield. 'It is your lust for vengeance that drives you.'

Osidian was still smiling. 'How could you hope to understand?'

Carnelian felt his face twisting in disgust. 'What understanding have you gained by giving in to this obscenity?'

'Even now, I can hear the Lord speaking more easily than I can hear you.' He frowned. 'Perhaps you could try-'

'No!'

As Carnelian lurched forward murderously, the kneeling Oracles rose as a fence around Osidian. Flaccid expressions of pleasure alternated with pain on their faces as they sank back.

'I shall not let them do it to you against your will,' said Osidian.

'Not let them? What power is it you believe you have in this filthy place?'

'I am become an Oracle of the Darkness-under-the-Trees. More, he has spoken secrets to me which prove I am his Son. He has whispered to me proofs which the Oracles cannot deny.'

Carnelian brought his hands up to cover his mouth and nose. 'Morunasa accepts these proofs?'

Osidian smiled and closed his eyes.

'What do you intend to do?'

'I shall walk the black road my father has made for me,' Osidian said without opening his eyes. 'And the Ochre?'

They have laid their eyes and hands upon me.'

Carnelian's head was pounding. His vision swimming. 'I will not allow you to harm them.'

The eyes Osidian opened to look at him, welled concern. Those who stand in my way the Lord will crush.'

'So be it,' Carnelian said, backing away. Morunasa was watching him with a knowing smile. Carnelian could feel his wrist pulsing where it had been bitten. *Show me the way we came.'

The Maruli shook his head slowly and his black face opened into a ravener grin.
Carnelian
became convinced those teeth had poisoned him. He shoved Morunasa from his path. He staggered past more roots bearing Oracles, infested, dreaming. Peering, he searched for even a glimpse of the living world, but everywhere he looked his vision was blocked by root weavings hung with victims. He cast around but every way seemed the same. Choosing one, he fled. Through the caverns of the banyan he lurched, seeking a chink of daylight he might use as a beacon to guide him out He was desperate to breathe air free of flies. The fig mulch was sucking at his feet.

He broke into a run, dazed, refusing to yield to madness.

Carnelian awoke in the gloom. Flickers of indigo sky showing through the canopy above signalled that it was late. He could not remember falling asleep. The ache from his wrist reached up into his chest. His skin itched. He sprang to his feet gasping in horror, swatting at the flies clothing him. He ran his hands over his body, searching for wounds that might have allowed maggots into his flesh. He was as sticky as if he had been lying in blood. Praying, he peered for a way out, but only shadow showed in any direction. It was a blessing it was so cool the flies were not misting the air, though the ground was alive with them. He wondered with a shudder if he was doomed to perish there, his body food for maggots. The banyan's red figs lay all about him but he would rather have eaten poison. Their smell was on his skin. He had slept in their ooze. Thoughts of the Tribe pierced his desolation. If not for himself, he must live for them. In the distance he could hear the percussive thunder of the falls. 'Of course,' he breathed.

Grimacing, he began striding, with each step sinking into the mouldering, noisome floor, guided by the voice of the falling water.

At last he saw daylight peering in at the edge of the grove. He broke into a jog. Soon he could feel the percussion of the falls through his feet. Coming out onto a cliff edge, he fell to his knees, sucking in air shimmering with the diamond veils the falls were throwing off. The sun was a glorious mass of light made vague by the mist. The Blackwater was all the rest of the world slipping by. With a jolt, he realized the sun was in the east. It was morning. Fighting panic, he rose and ran round the cliff, reaching the prow the island thrust out over the chasm. From there, he gazed over the drop to where the knoll stood crowned with tiny trees amidst the clearing red as a wound. The anchor baobabs seemed flimsy. The Ladder fell as a mere skein into the depths. He searched for signs of life, but saw none. Dread spurred him on. He followed the path he and Morunasa had used the previous day. As he ran past the margins of the banyan he refused to look into its glooms. He pushed on through soaking clouds then alongside the river until, at last, hidden among the roots, he found a boat. Trusting it had been left there ready for a crossing, he pushed it into the rush and vaulted aboard. The violence of the river swept him along and it took him a while to catch the steering oar. Then he leaned against it, feeling the power of the river come shuddering up through the wood so that he lessened the thrust from fear the oar might snap. Gritting his teeth, he gazed out past the prow as the boat veered slowly across the river.

Where the boat struck the bank was not much further than perhaps ten lengths from the maelstrom. Carnelian flung himself out onto the bank and clung to a rock as he saw the boat swing out and begin spinning in the torrent. Shivering with cold, he watched it fold into the white water and disappear.

He hauled himself up onto the riverpath, then stumbled along it, past the impaled man and through the baobabs towards the knoll. As he ran he looked for people. He found a way through the wooden wall and sprinted up the slope. In his bones he knew the place would be deserted. He reached the camp panting. The Manila, the Plainsmen had all disappeared. There was only one place they could have gone.

Carnelian slumped morose near a hearth which was still warm. It had not taken long to determine that all the aquar had been taken too. On foot, he could not hope to reach the Koppie in time. If his bleak self-disgust had allowed it, he would have wept.

A faraway voice crying out his name made him jump to his feet. It called again. 'Carnie.' It was unmistakably Poppy's voice. He strode over the ditch and, seeing her stumbling up towards him, leapt shouting down the slope to meet her. When they met, he snatched her up into his arms.

The Mother be praised,' he cried.

Poppy buried her head against his neck. '
Fern
said you were dead, but I just knew you weren't.'

He crouched to put her down. Her grubby face was all smeared with tears.

'
Fern
?' he asked.

She half-turned in his arms.

Carnelian's fierce delight released tears. 'He's here?'

'He hid me when the Master came last night.'

He stared at her. 'He came himself?'

She nodded.

'Where's
Fern
?'

Tying up our aquar. Come on.'

Carnelian
put her down, then allowed her to tug him down the slope.
Fern
appeared around a trunk. His relief at seeing
Carnelian
made him halt staring.
Carnelian
picked Poppy up again so that they would get to him more quickly.
Fern
rushed to meet them.

'I thought you dead,' he said.

'I know,' said
Carnelian
. 'How many aquar do we have?'
Fern
grimaced. 'I only managed to hide one.'
Carnelian
clasped his shoulder. 'You did better than I deserve.'

'When the Master appeared unexpectedly in the camp -'

'Morunasa and the other Oracles?' They came carrying him on a litter.' 'He took everyone with him,' said Poppy.
Fern
stared distraught. 'He's gone to the Koppie, hasn't he?'

Carnelian's bleak look was answer enough.

'Can we stop him?' Fern's voice, his face, his body even, were all a plea.

Carnelian felt empty, exhausted, weighed down. He hoped Poppy did not guess the holocaust that was threatening. 'We must.'

For a moment, his fierceness gave Fern hope and vigour, but then he drooped. 'We've only one aquar.'

'Will she carry three?'

Fern bit his lip. 'Not the whole way.'

'Well, then, we two will have to take turns running alongside.'

Fern thought about it then nodded grimly. 'We'll need food and water.'

'Have they left any?'

'I'm sure I can find something.'

'Good,' said Carnelian. 'Keep Poppy with you.'

'Where are you going?' Fern asked.

To release the sartlar.'

Carnelian summoned Kor in the usual way. When she appeared over the edge of the chasm, he was there waiting for her. He crouched to look her in the face. She regarded him as if he had her in a cage. He had grown accustomed to her fearful ugliness.

'Little mother,' he said. 'I'm going away.'

'Everyone is going away, Master.'

'Can you count up to ten?'

Kor showed him her gnarled fingers.

'If I don't return or send a message within ten days' — he flared his hands and her eyes flickered as if she were being blinded — 'then you must cut down the ladder trees.'

Her face crumpled in a frown. She pointed carefully at first one and then the other of the baobabs anchoring the Ladder.

Those two, but also that one.' He pointed at the salt-caves tree.

She revealed her peg teeth in what might have been a grin or a grimace. The Master wishes to leave the sartlar starving in the caves below?'

Recoiling from the foulness of her breath, he waved his hand in front of him. 'No. No. You must take all your people and flee.'

'Flee where, Master?'

Carnelian visualized the Three Lands laid out before him. The Leper Valleys.'

Her face collapsed into sad impassivity. 'You know where those lie?' 'Far away, Master.'

He had to agree with her. 'I'm sorry, I know of no other place.'

Her chin dug deeper into her chest so that her hair fell to hide her face. 'As the Master commands, so shall it be done.'

Carnelian rose and looked down at the poor creature. She seemed more like an outcrop of the red stone upon which she stood than a living thing. He could think of nothing more to say. Feeling sad, he walked away.

Midday found Carnelian, Fern and Poppy moving through a dry shadowless land thralled by immense baobabs. Fern was riding the aquar with Poppy on his lap, swaddled against the merciless sun. Carnelian jogged along beside them, trying to match the saurian's easy stride; his robe, his uba, plastered to his skin.

When it was his turn to ride and Fern's to run, Carnelian had to stop the aquar often to wait for him. For all his height, Fern did not have a Master's stride.

The baobabs ended abruptly, as if they were defending a border, and they moved into a region which might have been a becalmed sea. It was Poppy who pointed out the thread of smoke wavering in the east. They stopped to squint at it.

‘I
t's definitely a koppie beacon,' said Fern.

As they rode further they saw more beacons rising in the west and several more even as the sun was dropping to earth. Carnelian had asked what it was that could alarm all these tribes together, but Fern could only shake his head.

'Perhaps all have joined the Ochre in revolt,' said Carnelian.

'If so, to what purpose would they send out such signals of alarm? The Master couldn't possibly be attacking them all at once.'

Filled with foreboding, they pushed on. They made better progress as the sun lost its fire and would have continued on except Fern pointed out that it was getting late. Over Poppy's head, he mouthed the word 'ravener' and, nodding, Carnelian agreed they should camp for the night.

Hastily they gathered enough fernwood to make a fire and were thankful they managed to light it before the sun had vanished from the world. Ravener cries seemed to carry further in the blackness. The stars seemed painfully bright. They ate djada and had several licks of Fern's saltstone. When Poppy asked Carnelian about what he had seen on the Isle of Flies he would only shake his head. They settled down and slept sharing the warmth of their bodies.

When Carnelian awoke he realized he had only dreamed escaping the Isle of Flies. In the darkness he could feel them spitting through the air. Squinting up confused, he saw the stars obscured as if by drifts of smoke. He moaned, desolate. Something clutched him and, crying out, he threw it off.