The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (24 page)

'Follow me,' he said addressing the Standing Dead, then moved into the crowd. As Carnelian made to follow him, he became aware Osidian was stone still.

Fern turned back. 'Didn't you hear?'

Osidian looked at him as if the barbarian were far away.

'My Lord,' Carnelian said in Quya, 'we should do as he asks.'

Fern glanced anxiously at the people surrounding him. 'Come on,' he cried hooking his arm violently to beckon them. 'If you want to live, follow me.'

For some moments, Osidian regarded him before, impassive, he strode through the crowd towards the Plainsman. Sighing his relief, Carnelian followed him.

He kept his eyes fixed on Osidian's back. The glowering faces of the Ochre formed an avenue on either side. Carnelian could feel the heat of their hatred. He hardly breathed until he walked free and, even then, his neck was too stiff to allow him to turn his head to see their escort.

Fern maintained a furious pace that forced the other, smaller Ochre to jog to keep up. Carnelian saw how careful they were to keep their distance from him. Saddled aquar were ambling after them. Fern was leading them alongside another tree-lined ditch, inside whose curve there lay another swathe of ferns which washed its green to the edge of the darker massing of cedars upon their hill.

He leaned towards Fern. 'What's going on?'

Fern came to a sudden halt and turned on him. 'Couldn't you tell?'

Carnelian saw the blood in Fern's nostrils, the blue bruising round his eye. His friend was looking past him, back towards the crowd. Carnelian turned. Even at that distance he could hear the commotion.

Feeling Fern move off, Carnelian said nothing more, but followed him until they came to where the ditch forked. They walked along the edge of the left fork until they came to a crumbling earthbridge. As Fern took them across, Carnelian saw that here and there the walls of the ditch had collapsed, exposing cages of tree roots. Below, pools glinted among lush scrolling ferns. He saw their escort had remained on the other side of the bridge and were regarding him with unconcealed hatred. Fern opened another gate and Carnelian and Osidian filed through to find themselves at the corner of another expanse of fernland, all edged about with magnolias.

'Stay here until I return,' said Fern.

Carnelian felt an initial stab of panic at being abandoned, but fear for Fern quickly replaced this.

'What are they going to do to you?'

Fern was clearly taken aback by the question. 'Do to me?' He read Carnelian's eyes and then smiled grimly. 'Soon the Elders will sit in judgement over me, but now I'm returning at my mother's command to talk to her.'

His voice was still tight but he seemed more like the Fern Carnelian knew.

Fern indicated the gate they had come through. The men back there have been told to stop you crossing that bridge.'

'Weakened as I am, do you think they have the power to do that, barbarian?' said Osidian with a feral smile.

Fern sagged. 'Look, I've brought you here for your own protection. Didn't you see what almost happened to you back there? If my mother hadn't calmed the Tribe ...'

'Your mother?' said Osidian growing pensive.

Fern glared at him. 'We've all lost loved ones to your child
-
gatherer. Don't expect anything but hate.'

Carnelian wanted to thank his friend for having saved them from the mob, but to his annoyance, Osidian was speaking again.

Then why did you bring us?'

'I'm not sure any more.' He glared at Osidian. 'If you escape from here, where do you think there is to go? The nearest koppie is at least two days' walk from here. Even if you knew the direction you'd be sure to miss it.'

'I'd find it.'

Fern scowled. 'Perhaps you would, but do you really expect another koppie would give you a warmer welcome?'

Osidian turned his back on Fern and gazed out over the ferngarden.

'It's your choice,' said Fern, using his chin to indicate the curve of magnolias marching along the outmost ditch.

There's another bridge over there at the opposite corner of this ferngarden. It leads out onto the plain. If the raveners don't get you, I'm sure another tribe will. Meanwhile, I'm off to do what I can for all of us. I hope for your sake and mine you'll still be here when I return.'

All the time the Plainsman had been speaking, Carnelian had been watching Osidian from the corner of his eye. There was something in his stance that belied his seeming passivity. Carnelian reached out and clasped Fern's shoulder, squeezed it and gave him a smile. 'Don't worry. We won't be going anywhere.'

Fern gave him a grim nod and had soon disappeared through the gate.

Carnelian and Osidian wandered deep into the ferns, here and there disturbing dragonflies into whirring flight. Carnelian searched Osidian's face for any clue as to what he might be feeling. The gulf between them seemed unbridgeable.

'You should have been kinder to Fern: his intercession saved our lives.'

Osidian grew stony. Those savages would not have dared to spill our blood.' 'Can you be so sure?'

'It would overturn the nature of things. We are Chosen; they are our vassals.'

'Did you not see how much they hated us?'

'All I saw was their animal fear.'

Carnelian stopped his hand going up to his throat to feel the scar the rope had left there. The Ichorian feared us and the slavers too.'

Osidian's imperiousness collapsed as he looked at Carnelian's scar.

'Could you not live here?' asked Carnelian gently.

Misery and horror passed across Osidian's face as he looked around him almost fearfully. This world is wholly alien to me.'

Seeing Osidian vulnerable, Carnelian felt his heart breaking. Guilt gnawed at him.

'It is all my fault.'

Osidian stared at him in surprise.

'I forced you down to the Yden and, then, it was my choice that brought us here from the Guarded Land.'

Carnelian was embarrassed by the intensity of love with which Osidian regarded him.

'You gave me a chance at life at the cost of your own return to Osrakum. All the rest was as much my choice as yours.'

Carnelian watched Osidian's eyes growing opaque as he was drawn away into some dark place.

'I was so sure,' he whispered. 'I felt Him around me in the shadows, I heard Him speak to me.'

The timbre of Osidian's voice took Carnelian back to the swamp and the gloomy forest. He pulled himself up before he became lost. He clung to the sight of Osidian suffering from dark memory and doubt. Carnelian took some comfort that at least they had slipped from Quya into Vulgate, the language of their intimacy that was free of the stark clarity of the Masters.

He reached out to touch him. 'We were none of us ourselves. Weak from fever, you had to bear more even than the rest of us.'

Osidian turned to him eyes over which cloud shadow seemed to be passing. 'I saw so clearly. I saw why this had all happened to us, why it all
had
to happen.' He looked skywards, mouth hanging open, breathing erratically.

Carnelian saw the boy he had loved in the Yden standing before him. How broken he had become; how bruised his once perfect confidence. The scar of the slave rope was around his throat. Suffering had stolen the divine gleam from his beauty. The unhealthy colours of long illness still lingered in his skin. Still, with time and love he could be healed. Joy at having regained him began to suffuse through Carnelian's pain.

A voice crying out arrested his mood in the midst of its transformation. 'Master.'

It was Ravan wading towards them through the ferns, coming from the direction in which Carnelian could see the Koppie hill rising like a pyramid above the trees. A glance showed him Osidian closing up, protecting himself.

Ravan nodded a bow to each of them as he came closer. 'I've come to wait with you.'

'You shouldn't be here,' said Carnelian sharply, causing the youth's nervous smile to fade.

Desperate to get rid of him before Osidian closed up completely, Carnelian was merciless. 'Does your mother know you're here?'

The youth blushed and made a face. 'Not exactly.'

'Have you even seen her yet?'

Touching Ravan's head, Osidian took away the youth's look of indecision. 'Leave him be.'

Carnelian's heart sank as he saw Osidian's hurt once more behind an impregnable facade of impassivity.

'But we need to talk,' Carnelian said, in Quya, hoping to prise him open again, even a little.

There has been enough talking for now.'

Osidian looked down at Ravan, who had been looking from one to the other as they spoke in Quya.

'Is there any water nearby we could use to wash?'

Ravan, grinning, nodded vigorously and pointed in the direction from which he had come. Osidian strode off, the youth jogging at his side.

'Were you not frightened at all, Master?' Carnelian heard him say.

'Of what?' said Osidian as if he were looking down at the youth from the clouds.

Ravan continued his chatter. Following on behind, angry, despairing, Carnelian could only watch as the youth's expressions of admiration worked Osidian into an ever-increasing hauteur.

Ravan led them to a spot where the ferngarden crumbled into a ditch. A path wound down to a green pool that glimmered through the leaves. As they descended, Carnelian saw it was set about with ledges and ropes dangling from branches.

The children come down here to play at this time of year, before the water all dries up.'

Ravan's comment lifted Carnelian a little from his sombre mood. The youth talked as if he himself had long been too adult for such pleasures, while all the time he eyed the ropes clearly itching to swing on them. It made Carnelian remember how young Ravan was, how much he had lost. It made it easier to let go of his anger.

This water is likely to be as clean as any we will find here,' said Osidian in Quya.

Carnelian regarded the brackish pool with some distaste, but he could feel how thickly his arms and legs were caked with grime. He became aware Osidian was gazing at him with longing, his eyes catching the sinuous play of light on the pool. Carnelian recalled their bathing in the lagoons of the Yden.

'You mustn't do that, Master.'

They both turned to Ravan, having forgotten him.

'Mustn't do what?'

Wide-eyed, Ravan pointed. Touch your bare foot to the earth.'

Carnelian saw Osidian had been in the middle of taking off one of the crude shoes Fern had made for him.

'Ah, yes,' said Osidian with wry amusement, 'the barbarian superstition.' Suddenly his face turned to grim stone. 'I choose to disregard your beliefs, Ravan.'

Osidian stooped and quickly took off both shoes. His clothes fell to the ground and he strode into the water followed by Ravan's horrified stare.

Carnelian hesitated for a moment. If the Law-that-must-be-obeyed was truth, to touch the earth was to invite pollution, but then had he not run barefoot for days upon the Guarded Land itself? If the Plainsmen's belief were truth, then Osidian had already given insult to the earth and Carnelian would not have him suffer alone whatever punishment he might have incurred. He removed his shoes, closing his eyes as his naked foot touched the cool earth. He took a few steps towards the pool, enjoying digging his toes into the mud. Osidian came up out of the water gleaming and scattered sparks of water everywhere. At first Carnelian thought the smile Osidian wore was for him, but he soon realized it was being directed over his shoulder. Turning, he was puzzled by Ravan's look of shame. Moments passed before he noticed the youth was standing barefoot.

Fern materialized out of the night and approached the fire Ravan had lit for the Standing Dead among the ferns. Carnelian saw his friend standing for a moment watching them, the firelight animating the shadows in his face.

'So you've returned,' said Osidian, making both Carnelian and Ravan jump.

As Fern came closer, he scowled at his brother. 'I might have guessed this is where you've been hiding.'

Ravan scowled. 'I'm not hiding.'

'Do you even care how much mother's worried about you?'

'How did she take ... ?' Ravan's voice tailed away as he frowned back tears.

Fern sunk his head, swung a leather sack down from his shoulder then, kneeling, opened it and thrust a hand inside. He pulled out a mat and spread it on the ground and began to lay over it the rest of the contents of the sack. There were cubes of meat wrapped in leaves, some floury cakes, bundles of delicate fresh fiddleheads. He produced some skewers.

'Well?' Ravan demanded.

'How do you think she took it?' said Fern, with the fire burning the tears in his eyes. Ravan lost his defiance and slumped down, his arms clasped about his body. Carnelian turned away, desiring to comfort the brothers but fearing to intrude upon their grief.

Fern speared the meat onto the skewers and propped them in the fire. He watched it dribble blood that hissed to steam. When it began charring he spoke.