As youth has vigour age has wisdom so, is it not natural the aged should rule the young?
Loskai strode back and forth before the crowd shouting repeatedly: 'Why do you fear these Standing Dead? They are two, we are many.'
Carnelian could feel their mood already turning to anger, when Loskai stabbed a finger at Osidian.
That one murdered Ranegale. Because of them we lost Stormrane, Thunderskai, Talan, Thunderwing, Windcrow, Fether, Crowskai.'
The Plainsman kept jabbing his finger all the time as he spat out every accusation he could imagine to transform fear into murderous anger. Carnelian glanced at Osidian standing amidst the tumult as unconcerned as if he were alone on a seashore. Carnelian looked around desperately for some escape. Noting where the aquar were, he saw how he and Osidian might pull two riders down and take their place. He glanced back to the outer ditch, imagining riding out onto the plain. But then where? Could they eke out an existence in the wilderness?
A woman cried out, another. Men were roaring. The mob's voice was swelling to a pounding clamour. The veins beating at Carnelian's temples seemed to be making his head shudder with each pulse. He let his gaze range over them. Hatred reddened their faces. Mouths were slavering for blood. Their rabid stares fell on him like blows. He could feel how close their fury was to bursting free.
'You lie,' a familiar voice cried out, thin in the uproar. Fern was advancing on Loskai.
'You lie. You know they're blameless.'
Loskai retreated a few steps. 'Is the blame then yours?'
Fern turned on the baying crowd, his face distorted by rage as he bellowed. They're as much victims of the Standing Dead as are we.'
Loskai pulled on Fern's shoulder. 'You were never truly of the Tribe.'
Fern threw himself at Loskai and they crashed together to the ground. Soon they were rolling among the ferns, crushing them as they pounded each other.
Fern's mother strode forward barking commands. As if to listen, the crowd quietened until Carnelian could hear her voice carrying clearly over their storm.
'Stop this now!'
She thrust her hands between the brawlers. They separated, glaring at each other. Carnelian saw that her hands and arms were filthy as if she had just come from digging in the earth.
'Get up,' she cried.
Fern and Loskai staggered to their feet, heads bowed, sneaking glares at each other, growling challenges. Other women came forward to draw them apart. Fern's mother took her son from them, scolding him in a low voice. Trying to listen, the crowd fell silent. Fern was nodding, agreeing with what he was being told. Glancing across the distance, he locked eyes with Carnelian, who could see that his friend was still listening to his mother. He gave one more nod and limped towards Carnelian, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his wrist.
'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.
'You may as well know that my mother told me the Elders will, most likely, want to have you killed.'
'Does she also wish our deaths?' said Carnelian.
Fern turned to look at Carnelian. 'I told her what I believe; what I know about you. She might even try to save you, but I can't see how
… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here.' Squinting deep into the fire, he shook his head. 'I don't know what possessed me to let you come.'
They're burning,' said Ravan. Fern plucked the skewers out from the fire. When he distributed the food, Osidian refused any.
The Elders won't kill us.'
Ravan looked at him sharply. 'How can you be so certain, Master?'
Osidian ignored the youth's question and looked instead at Fern. They want to see us before they make their decision, don't they?'
The Plainsman narrowed his eyes and then dipped a nod.
Carnelian watched Osidian, who seemed to be looking through Fern, seeing something beyond him in the night. Carnelian worked out arguments that suggested it would be perilous for the Plainsmen to kill a Master, but nothing he could come up with was anything more than an argument.
'When?' Osidian asked at last.
'In the morning,' said Fern.
Carnelian disliked seeing the way in which his friend was obviously awed by Osidian's manner.
Carnelian was shaken awake by Fern. Fronds hung over" him, black against a starry sky. He sat up. Ravan was rolling up the blankets he had slept in.
'It's still dark,' Carnelian said, in a low voice.
Crouched over the embers of their fire, carefully dabbing them out, Fern spoke without turning. The Elders wish to avoid us causing more unrest in the Tribe.'
Carnelian nodded and rolled his bedding. Soon the four of them were walking towards the corner of the fern-garden. They opened the gate and crossed the crumbling earthbridge. Their guards were lying on the ground asleep and grumbled as Fern roused them.
As they waited, Carnelian approached Osidian.
'Have you an idea what we shall do?' he whispered.
Osidian turned a shadow head. They are barbarians,' he said in Quya. They will not dare to raise their hands against us.'
Fern led them back along the path they had taken the day before. They reached the place where the crowd had stood and found a wider, more solid earthbridge which they crossed to a gate. Once through this, they were looking across a starlit meadow towards the mass of the koppie hill.
The path took them straight across the meadow. A faint blue was appearing in the east as they came under the first branches of the cedars. Carnelian peered into the blackness that hid their trunks. Looking up he saw stars winking through the canopy. Fern led them into the night the trees were still nursing and soon the bodies of two cedars emerged standing sentinel upon a high wicker gate. Carnelian breathed their resin perfume and felt more than saw the heavy rafters of their branches hanging above him. The gate rose on the other side of another earthbridge and was set into a rampart. A ditch curving away on either side moated the hill with darkness.
Fern was the first to cross. He approached the gate and Carnelian heard the murmur of his voice, which was quickly followed by the creaking of the gate opening. As he passed through, Carnelian saw the shapes of the gate wardens and, though he could not see their eyes, he could feel them watching him.
In the near darkness, Carnelian could just make out the hill rising before him pillared with the black trunks of trees. Fern made sure they were still following him and led them up an irregular stair that Carnelian discovered with much stumbling to be formed by tree roots clinging to the slope. The Plainsmen, who even in the twilight seemed to know each step, slowed to let the Standing Dead feel their way up with their feet.
At last they reached a narrow clearing which terminated at a pitchy rising mass of rock. Looking up
Carnelian saw the head of the Crag glowering in the sky's starless indigo and discovered an ivory house nestling halfway up.
Hearing Fern and Ravan arguing in whispers, Carnelian drew closer.
'I want to stay,' Ravan was pleading.
'I said, go to the hearth and see mother before she comes up here,' said Fern.
The youth seemed to be waiting for some intervention from Osidian, but the Master seemed unaware of him and so he trudged off along a path that hugged the Crag. There were stirrings among the cedars on either side. Carnelian could hear a clink of earthenware, some voices, a lazy drawn-out yawn.
Fern urged them forward. The night still lingering at the foot of the Crag engulfed them. Carnelian felt the presence of others. A light came to life and showed them three Ochre standing guard at the bottom of steps cut into the rock.
'Are we to go straight up?' Fern asked.
Their eyes wholly on the Standing Dead, the guards nodded. Fern beckoned Carnelian to follow him. The steps were steep and uneven. Taking care not to lose his footing, Carnelian managed to catch glimpses, past Fern, of the pale house they were approaching. He followed him onto a porch on which guards stood to either side of a doorway. Peering, Carnelian realized with a shudder that the guards were huskmen. Fern was staring at the doorway, gathering his resolve. He pushed its leather curtain aside and led the Standing Dead into the blackness within.
Falling back into place, the curtain shut out the light so that Carnelian had to put a hand up to feel his way. His fingers found Fern motionless. Carnelian moved round to stand to his left. The floor felt strangely uneven under his makeshift shoes. The dullness of the scuffing echoes made him aware of how small the room was. His head brushed the ceiling. Reaching up, he touched cold, smooth ridging interlocking in some complex pattern. He let his fingers slide along one ridge and felt it swell into a double knob. His hand recoiled. 'Bones.'
This is our Ancestor House,' said Fern's voice in a reverential tone.
Carnelian became convinced he could detect a faint mustiness of death. 'Your people?' he breathed.
'Under our feet, what remains of the Tribe's mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters after the tree roots have eaten their flesh, drunk their blood. Between us and the sky, the ceiling is formed from what the ravens have left behind of our fathers and grandfathers, our uncles, our brothers.'
'A tomb, then,' Osidian said, contemptuously.
'Not so,' said Fern, outraged. 'Our ancestors inhabit the earth and sky. These are nothing more than the bone cages that once held their souls.'
'A house of death,' whispered Carnelian.
'Rather, one where we, the living, commune with our dead. Their discarded bones make this place familiar to the souls of those who have gone before. They seep in here like the scent of the magnolias so that the Elders might breathe in their wisdom.'
'Wisdom, you say?' said Osidian. Then -'
'Hush, bow your heads, they're here.'
The curtain lifting let in enough light to spill the three men's shadows across the floor. Carnelian registered the tracery of the design before resolving one into the roundel of a woman's pelvis. Up through the opening the skull of a baby was squeezing, its bony face upturned, its eye-sockets welling red earth. More oozed everywhere into the cracks of the mosaic so that it seemed to Carnelian he stood upon a raft afloat on blood. The floor swept up into a wainscot of ribs. Bony buttresses reinforced a wall that was an undulating gleaming mass of femurs jointed into each other. Halfway up, more tiny skulls patterned a band with their eye and nose holes. From this band a dense leg-bone arabesque rose to a ceiling of shoulder-blades and arm-bones knitted together in a swirling spiral. Carnelian imagined this must be what it would be like to be in the hold of one of the kharon bone boats that ferried the Masters across the lake in Osrakum. Darkness suddenly returned and he was left blinking a fading, ghostly impression of the scene.
Thin morning light entered again while, at the same time, something was shuffling past so close Carnelian could feel its clothing brush against his leg. He became aware of the shape's odour of sweat and ferns; of the smell of hair. The light pulsed with each lift and drop of the curtain. The women rustling past were bent forward, swathed in blankets so that he could not glimpse even a sliver of their faces. Among them, uncovered, men revealed their matted hair all pebbled with salt and tangled with feathers. A clinking drew Carnelian's eyes down. Above their brown and calloused feet, the ankles of the women were swollen white by carcanets of salt.
Carnelian realized he was staring. Looking sideways he could make out that Fern had his head bowed. Carnelian turned enough the other way so that, the next time the room lit up, he was able to see Osidian, his chin up, striving to put imperiousness in his eyes. Seeing that struggle to deny humiliation, Carnelian chose from love to emulate Osidian's powerless defiance and, lifting his head, stared out fiercely.
More and more Elders were crowding in. Women were helping each other to sink to the floor. Their wrists were knobbed, their gnarled fingers ringed with more salt.
In the niches sunk between the wall buttresses of bone, the men were seating themselves cross-legged on platforms and removing their shoes.
A nudge from Fern urged Carnelian to shuffle to the left. He reached his hand up to Osidian's arm and gently urged him to move. Leaning forward, Carnelian looked past Fern and saw Loskai had joined the end of their line.
The curtain behind them fell closed and did not lift again. Cradling fire, flickering-faced girls stepped carefully among the sitting women touching to life lamps that hung around the walls. When the girls flitted away, Carnelian was faced with the aged, perhaps thirty of them, the lamplight trembling shadows in the folds of their robes and skin, glinting their wealth of adorning salt, pricking points of light into their eyes. He itched under their silent scrutiny. Without releasing him, their heads drew together setting off a rustling of talk. Many pointed and there was much shaking of heads that set the salt discs in their ears tinkling.
Carnelian could feel the rage swelling up in Osidian and sought to release its pressure by turning to Fern for help.
'Please give us…' he began whispering to his friend. The room fell silent.
'… their words,' said Carnelian, excruciatingly aware everyone was listening.
An old woman directed a mutter at Loskai, to which he replied before turning to Carnelian, barely concealing a smile. The Elders forbid you to speak to Fern for he stands before them accused.'
'I've no doubt who did the accusing,' said Carnelian, and was pleased to see the man's face sour.
A woman rattled out angry words Carnelian struggled to understand. Something about keeping silent.
Loskai gave a nod and looked first to one then the other of the Standing Dead. 'Here you'll speak only if you're spoken to.'
Carnelian tried to keep from his face any sign he had understood anything of what the woman had said. A glance reassured him Osidian was managing to contain his anger.
A woman Carnelian recognized as Harth fixed Fern with bird-bright eyes. 'Why have you endangered the Tribe by bringing us these Standing Dead?'
She spoke slowly, with emphasis, so that Carnelian found her words easier to decipher.
'Have you nothing to say, child? Have you no explanation for why you have betrayed us?'
Fern curved as if the woman were piling stones on his back.
'Why?' she barked, jerking her chin up when he hesitated.
Fern answered her in a low voice. 'I'm no longer sure, my mother.'
Carnelian knew that last word well enough for, as a child, it was what he had called Ebeny.
'You're no longer sure?' said Harth, mimicking his tone. She looked round at a woman, Fern's mother, head bowed, hands clasped in her lap. 'Do you hear, Akaisha? Your son's not sure why he's brought the Tribe to the brink of disaster.'
Harth pointed here and there among the Elders. 'Ginkga and Mossie, Galewing and Kyte all waited for you in Makar until they could wait no longer. You realize they were forced to come through the Leper Valleys without protection?'
As many of the Elders pursed their lips with disapproval, Fern and Loskai hung their heads.
Ginkga spoke up. Tell us what happened, children, so that we might not judge you unfairly.' Her fierce eyes belied her gentle words.
The Elders cocked their heads to listen as, hesitantly, Fern and Loskai took it in turns, sometimes interrupting each other, to tell their tale of robbery all the way down the road from the City at the Gates.
'We were moving along the high road,' said Fern, sliding his hand through the air as if it were in a groove. 'We'd no reason to suppose there was any special danger.'
Loskai stabbed a finger at him. 'It was his brother, Ravan, who saw the Bloodguard and Fern himself who found the Standing Dead among the sartlar.'
Many of the Elders recoiled at those last few words.
'All the bloodshed stemmed from that,' said Loskai, looking eagerly into their faces.
'Among the sartlar, you say?' a woman asked, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Fern joined his nod to Loskai's. Carnelian could see as well as they that the Elders did not believe them.
Fern leaned close to hold a finger up to Carnelian's neck, asking him permission with his eyes.
Carnelian gave the slightest nod and bit his lip when he felt Fern's touch upon his scar. As his friend described how he had found them among the slaves bent by ropes and smeared with bitumen, the Elders shook their heads and began arguing among themselves. A couple of the old men, one of whom was the man Harth had said was named Galewing, fumbled on shoes and came to see for themselves. Osidian impaled them with a glare so that they did not dare approach him. One remained transfixed looking sidelong at Osidian but the other, Galewing, came to peer up at Carnelian's neck. Carnelian could smell the man and see the light catching the carving in the salt beads threaded on his hair. They clinked as he turned to the Assembly and confirmed Fern's claim to general amazement.
Harth rose and took a few steps towards the Standing Dead, her face moving in and out of shadow. Her bird eyes fixing on Osidian and, then, Carnelian.
She turned to Loskai. 'Ask the Standing Dead why they were among slaves.'
'My mother wants to know why you were hiding among slaves,' said Loskai.
His mother, Carnelian thought. He could tell by the way Loskai kept his eyes on Harth, how much he was in awe of her.
'We weren't hiding. We were being taken to be sold as trophies.'
Startled, Loskai translated this and as his mother understood, her mouth fell open.
'How could this happen?' Loskai asked for her.
Carnelian grimaced, fearing that at any time Osidian's apparent passivity might crack. 'It's complicated… politics… the Masters
…'
Harth interrupted him. 'Ask them if it was others of the Standing Dead who did this to them?'
Loskai asked, Carnelian gave a nod and the Assembly burst into a fevered discussion which took a while to abate. Harth leaned close enough for Carnelian to see his own reflection in her eyes.
'We never imagined the Standing Dead might fight amongst themselves.'
Carnelian saw she was fascinated by his scar and so he leaned his head to stretch his neck for her. Her eyes narrowed as she reached up. He felt her dry touch. She pulled away frowning.
As she returned to her place, an old man encouraged Fern to continue. Resigned, he began describing what had happened on the road. He persevered through all Loskai's interruptions. Carnelian watched the effect Fern's report was having on the Elders. At the end of each statement they would give a nod and when Fern made a gesture like a spear thrust, they flinched. They lived the skirmish through his words.
Whenever Loskai took over, Fern's anxious glances kept finding his mother, so that Carnelian began to wonder what his friend was expecting from her.
Loskai was describing how, after they had fled, they had found Fern's brother and uncle dead in their saddle-chairs.
'Sacrilege,' cried several of the Elders.
The old men clasped their hands over their heads in horror; the women traced circles over their bellies, their heads bowed.
Fern's mother, Akaisha, looked up. Tell me something, Loskai. When you were riding away were you yourself aware that my eldest son and my husband's brother were actually dead, not merely wounded?'
Loskai tried to find an answer that would deny her what she sought, but he could find none and scowled. Akaisha cut through her son's look of gratitude by urging him to continue his story. It took Fern some moments to regain his composure, but then he began to talk about the council the raiders had held.
An old man interrupted. 'So it was my son who took over the leadership?' He did not bother to hide his pride as he looked around at his peers.
'Yes, Father Crowrane, Ranegale took over,' said Fern, bitterly. Though only because my uncle and brother had died and my father had taken a mortal wound.'
'Cloud Twostone seems to have deferred to our son, child, even though he was an Elder,' grated Harth with a nod to her husband.
Fern shrugged and only resumed his story when voices cried out demanding he continue. He proceeded to describe the long trek with the drag-cradles and, as he spoke, Carnelian relived each weary day.
Suddenly, Fern was pointing at him. 'It was this one here who chose to give up his drag-cradle for my father.'
They looked at each other.
'You mean he'd recovered his strength?' Akaisha asked.
'No, my mother, he was still weak and in so much pain he could barely walk.'
Some of the Elders discussed this, others stared at Carnelian, but it was Akaisha's gaze that made him most uncomfortable. He was glad Fern drew all their eyes away, as he began relating the days that followed until he came to the night when they had seen dragonfire reflecting in the sky. A look of fierce attention leapt into the faces of those of the men whose missing ears or four-fingered hands proclaimed legionary veterans. They swelled up as they fired one question after another, wanting to know in excessive detail everything they could about the dragon line and its dispositions. Fern obliged them as best he could. With one hand he traced a wall into the air and pierced it with the other to show them Ranegale's plan. Crowrane looked around him, his pride returned.
Loskai drew angry looks when he said loudly, 'Let him tell you how once more the dead rode in saddle-chairs. This time he can't say he didn't know. They stank.'
Fern raised a fist. 'I knew well enough but believed the Mother would forgive me so that I might save their souls for her husband, the sky.'
There were gasps of outrage and more genuflections, but Carnelian was relieved to see some of the women looking with sympathy at Akaisha. For her part, if she was suffering, she hid it well.
'Did you do this by yourself, my son?' she asked.
Fern looked at Carnelian. 'Again, my mother, this one helped me. I couldn't have done it without him.'
Harth surged to her feet glaring first at the mother and then the son. Her face turned into shadow as she gazed over the Assembly. 'Whatever the mitigating circumstances, dare we allow sacrilege to go unpunished?'
Rising, Akaisha moved to her son's side and then set herself before him as a shield. She raked the Assembly with her eyes. 'Punish him? Don't you think he's been punished enough already? He's lost his brother, not to mention his father and his uncle, both of whom sat here among you.' Tears softened her glare.
Scowling, Harth sat down as women came to comfort Akaisha. As they mumbled kindnesses, her fierceness deserted her altogether and she let herself be guided back to her place. Harth, meanwhile, had become the heart of an angry conference. The men looked on, uncertain.
'Come, Fern,' said one of the veterans. 'You might as well show us how you escaped the dragons.'
Tearing his gaze from his mother, Fern shakily redrew in the air the dragon line and the raider's trajectory. As he showed the veterans what had happened, they nodded sagely and argued among themselves whether some better stratagem could not have been devised.
'And after that?' asked Galewing.
Fern described the struggle through the rugged land beyond the Ringwall.
'We decided then…' said Loskai.
'You and Ranegale decided,' interjected Fern and they scowled at each other.
Loskai fumbled in his robe and brought out a length of cord which he lifted up for all to see. Carnelian recognized it by its knots.
'My brother argued rightly we'd not make the meeting in time,' said Loskai triumphantly.
'He wasn't necessarily right,' said Galewing. 'We ourselves were delayed on the road and were late for the meeting by three days. It was because we thought you must've gone on without us that we hurried down to the Leper Valleys hoping to overtake you.'
Loskai lowered the cord, crestfallen.
'So what did you and Ranegale decide?' asked Galewing.
Loskai's hands hesitated on the verge of making some shape in the air.
To take us down into the swamp,' said Fern.
This produced consternation. Questions were thrown at Loskai which he did his best to answer. Clearly, he was enjoying this less than he had expected. When Fern came to Loskai's rescue with answers of his own, the Plainsman regarded him with surprise.
It was Fern who described the descent to the edge of the abyss. He made his hands into the shape of the cave they had sheltered in for the night.
He stopped and looked at Loskai. 'Do you mind?'
The man's slow head shake allowed Fern to proceed. There was an audible sucking in of breath as he began describing the slaughter of the aquar. Many faces went pale, but Fern talked on and, when he faltered, Loskai began to add his own comments, until, whenever one was uncertain, he would look to the other for support.
Fern addressed his mother as his hands showed how they had hoisted the dead up onto the rock face. His mother nodded at him through her tears and much of the Assembly murmured their approval.
Then began the story of the descent into the abyss. Halfway down, Fern addressed himself to one of the women. His hands showed the fall of the youths and the woman asked him the details with a shaky voice.
The story continued and Loskai had to admit it had been his brother's decision that they should descend from the foothills into the swamp. Many of the Elders shook their heads, horrified. Carnelian watched them huddle together as they were told of the darkest part of the journey. Soon he was lost in it himself. Once more he felt the terror creeping round in the night. Some of the Elders were looking sidelong into the murky corners of the room.
Carnelian brought his attention back to Fern's voice. He had to prepare himself for the full horror lying just a few sentences away. When it came, he saw many of the Elders, man and woman, hide behind their hands. Osidian, not understanding Fern's Ochre, was examining the Elders one at a time as if looking for a weakness in a city wall.
'My grandson torn…?' wailed a woman, shattering the spell so that people blinked as if coming awake.
Bravely, Fern described to them the aftermath.
'How did my son die?' asked one old woman.
Fern left out the full horror of Cloud's fate, but told her he had died protecting the youths of both tribes.
She looked around her tearfully. 'Always he thought more of others than of himself.' Some of the women took her hands and stroked them as they agreed with her. 'His heart was large. His adopted tribe would've joined with us in mourning him.'
'And this ravener took no one?' asked one of the veterans, incredulous.
'He was driven away before he could,' said Fern.
His words put a frown on every face.
'Driven away?' a voice asked for all of them. 'You told us you had no fire.'
Fern looked at Osidian and, as he described how they had found him painted with gore, holding Stormrane's broken spear, Carnelian saw with what renewed awe the Elders regarded this example of the Standing Dead.
Fern's voice wove on for a while and then he drew every eye once more to Osidian as he told of the fight in which Ranegale had been killed.
'Was it fair?' Harth barked, hungry for revenge.
'It was,' Fern answered.
'How can you say that,' cried Loskai. He stabbed a finger at Osidian. 'Look how massive he is.'
Fern glowered at Loskai. 'You know full well how wasted he was from the fever; from his struggle with the ravener.'
Loskai spluttered incoherently.
Fern gave a snort of disgust. 'You were happy enough with the fight when you thought your brother would win.'
'Was it as Fern says, son?' Crowrane pleaded. When Loskai looked at the floor, his father sank back scowling.
Akaisha gave Harth and Crowrane a glance of sympathy. 'Go on, my son.'
Fern spoke in a melancholy tone of their journey into the heart of darkness. Gloom settled over his listeners like the sudden night of an eclipse and, as Fern followed the Master through the nightmare, eyes strayed to Osidian who had been their beacon in that primeval dark. When Fern's story brought them out into the bright Earthsky there was a general relief. People lost their rigid postures and sat back. A gentler twilight settled on the Assembly as Fern and Loskai together described how Osidian had found a way for them across the uncharted vastness of the Earthsky. Carnelian could feel tension returning when the story began to draw them closer to the Twostone koppie. He could see everyone knew what was coming. It was now Ginkga who told the story.
'We found them hiding in a ditch, children mostly, a few women.'
'We tried to sprinkle at least a handful of earth over their dead mothers and to drive the wingless scavengers from their fathers, but you saw how vast the slaughter was, how hopeless a task it was to keep the raveners from their feasting.'
Silence fell as everyone, blind for the moment, contemplated the immensity of such loss.
'And the survivors?' asked Fern at last.
'We brought them home with us,' said Galewing.
'We've distributed them among the hearths,' said Kyte.
'But their wounds will take a long time healing,' a woman said and there were many slow nods.
'And it will be hard on the girls without a connection to -' said one man.
'Some wounds can never heal,' Ginkga said over him as if she was unaware he had been speaking. Carnelian noticed many of the women had hardened their faces.
'We brought a Twostone lad home with us,' Fern said.
'A hearth will be found for him,' his mother said, which pleased Carnelian.
'What of the salt you carried?' a voice demanded and, round the margins of the room, the men looked at Fern and Loskai with narrowed eyes.
'None was lost,' said Fern, and he stepped forward folding back the cloth from a bundle in his hand to reveal a long yellow cake. He placed it carefully at Harth's feet. She picked the salt up and it was passed back, through the women, to the man who had spoken. He examined it minutely, before, satisfied, he reverently rewrapped it.
A grumbling rose up, mainly from the men.
Galewing pointed a four-fingered hand. The lepers extracted from us more than twice the usual tolls. You're responsible for that loss.'
Fern flushed while Loskai began protesting his innocence.
'Not one, but both of you will bear the responsibility for this,' snapped Galewing. 'Unless you wish to blame the dead?'
Loskai seemed to consider it, but he saw, as quickly as Carnelian did, that the Elders would not stand for this.
A woman spoke out. 'Are you more concerned about salt than the safe return of our children?'
This isn't a case of one or the other, it is -'
'I think you'll find, Galewing,' said Akaisha, 'the Tribe has lost no salt.'
The leper tolls -'
'Perhaps the only advantage of not returning through the Valleys was that my son and his companions paid nothing to the lepers.'
'But… but their long detour caused more salt to be consumed,' blustered the Elder.
'We've seen with our own eyes the unbroken loaf they've brought back and there's a little more salt besides as well as twenty and eighteen bronze, double-headed coins.'
She looked at Loskai. 'Isn't that so, child?'
Loskai was forced to give a nod.
Akaisha turned back to Galewing. 'I recall you brought back two loaves and fifteen coins. If I'm not in error, this means that, of the twenty loaves this Assembly gave into your keeping, more have been returned than would've been expected from an uneventful journey to the Mountain.'
The veteran frowned, then ducked her an apology but still looked unhappy as he fingered one of the salt beads in his hair.
People were looking at Galewing, their raised eyebrows registering surprise. Akaisha twitched a smile at her son.
'What I still can't understand is how the Manila could come so early to the Twostone koppie,' said Kyte, looking haunted.
The Elders looked uneasy.
'We debated that enough when you returned,' said Harth. 'It's a mystery without solution. Now we must concentrate on the issue for which this Assembly was called.'
She moved out and turned to face the Elders. 'You've seen them and know why they came here. Think hard, my mothers and fathers, for the Tribe has never been in greater danger. What are we to do with these Standing Dead?'
'Could we not send them back to the Mountain?' said one man.
Harth turned to her son, her white eyebrows raised. 'Well?'
Loskai looked at Osidian with a cold smile broadening on his lips. Still smiling, he shook his head. 'I don't think so, my mother. If this one could find his way across the Earthsky to the Twostone, I'm sure he could as easily bring the dragons here.'
They told me they wouldn't,' Fern blurted out.
Harth turned on him gaping. They knew where the Koppie lies?'
Fern grimaced. He glanced at Carnelian apologetically. They know who we are.'
Harth's eyes ignited. 'You actually told them?'
They saw it in the pictures on my father's hand.'
Carnelian saw the veterans regard their palms as if they had suddenly snagged them on thorns.
'He looked at the pictures and spoke the name of the Tribe,' said Fern.
Akaisha rose and surveyed the Assembly. 'You see? If the bodies of our dead had been left behind they would've led the vengeance of the Mountain here.'
Ignoring her, Harth drew closer to Fern. 'Is that why you brought them, child?'
Fern looked at the ground, shook his head. 'No, my mother. I brought them because they asked me to.'
Voices rang out in anger.
Harth waited until the hubbub had subsided. They asked you to?' she said, quietly.
They helped me save the souls of my nearest kin.'
They led you into sacrilege,' said Harth, severely.
They asked for sanctuary.' He opened his arms to the Assembly. 'My mothers, my fathers, you can all see how badly they've suffered at the hands of their own kind.'
They are of the Standing Dead,' she shouted into his face.
Harth turned her fury on Carnelian, who flinched seeing the hatred in her eyes.
They take our children. Fern…'
'Yes, my mother?'
'Give this one my words.'
'But, my mother, one of them -'
'Just do as you're told,' a man growled from off to one side.
Fern lowered his eyes, then looked round at Carnelian. 'Mother Harth wants me to translate for her,' he said, in Vulgate.
Carnelian gave a nod.
Harth was already speaking.
Fern translated. 'Do you know how much we hate you?'
With a glance to Osidian, Carnelian answered. 'I know you've every reason.'
When Fern translated the Master's words for her, Harth laughed without humour. She said something in a sarcastic tone.
'Every reason?' As Fern was translating, Harth was already saying more.
'You take our children,' said Fern keeping her in the corner of his eye.
A man spoke.
'The best of us.'
A woman.
'I lost a daughter and a son,' translated Fern, his face gleaming with sweat. Others, mostly women, were calling things out and Fern was trying to relay as much as he could.
'Since I was born, my hearth's lost ten children.' 'Mine, twelve.'
'My grand-daughter just last year.'
Ginkga pushed past Harth and came to glare up into Carnelian's face. He could see the tears catching in her wrinkles. He could feel the drizzle of her spittle as she accused him. Fern's voice came from behind her.
'I've just returned from the Mountain where I had to give up my grand-daughter.'
Her face crunched tighter with her sorrow and Carnelian found he could no longer bear it and dropped his gaze in shame. He cringed as the woman went on, her words so violent Carnelian expected to feel her clawing at him. The tirade shifted to Fern.
Carnelian looked up and saw the Plainsman flinching.
'She was saying… her daughter's sorrow… the pain.' Fern was crying.
'We can hardly let them go if they know who we are,' she shouted at him.
'And where to find us,' someone else cried out.
'Do any of the other tribes know they're here?' Harth demanded.
'I can't see how… I can't see how they could,' said Fern.
Carnelian felt her eyes on him again, measuring him up.
Their bodies must never be found. We must bury them so deep in the Mother that even a thousand Rains will not dig them out.'
Carnelian stared at the woman and saw Fern was sharing his horror.
They came to us painted in the colours of the Skyfather,' he cried. He pointed at Osidian. That one bears a mark as if the Skyfather himself kissed his brow.'
The Assembly ignited into uproar. Several men pushed through the women to see for themselves. Withstanding Osidian's stare, they squinted up into his face and then fell to arguing.
Harth's voice carried above the din. 'How can we possibly let them live?'
She had the attention of the room.
'Just because the Gatherer's not due until the year after next doesn't mean the Mountain will not find out about these two.'
'Carnelian, do you understand all this hysteria?' Osidian's clear and ringing Quya chilled the room to silence.
The Elders stared at Osidian, who continued to focus on Carnelian as if they were alone. 'Well, do you, my Lord?'
Carnelian turned to Osidian. Just the sound of his voice seemed to have turned the Elders into the servants that were always present at the edges of a Master's vision.
They were discussing by what means they shall dispose of our bodies.'
Osidian smiled and flipped a hand to point lazily at the Assembly. These filthy savages are actually discussing killing us?'
He inclined his head and masked his face with a pale long-fingered hand and while he stood thus, the Plainsmen gaped at him as if his gaze had turned them to stone.
Osidian revealed his exquisite face, his emerald eyes. 'Barbarians,' he said in Vulgate. Those of you who can understand this coarse tongue convey my words to the others.' Without pausing for their assent, he continued, regarding them from on high as if they were errant children.
'You presume to sit in judgement on we who are the Masters of Earth and Sky? You who live only because we allow it; whose children we have taken to be our slaves since the Creation?'
Carnelian saw his words being passed by those who understood to those who did not.
Osidian took a step forward and the Elders rose in alarm. He seemed to grow larger, brighter. 'Barbarians, you should take care.' His voice rang clear around the room of bones and a terrible fire seemed to spring from his eyes and teeth.
The Masters have cast us out of Paradise and for that they have earned my hatred. They will forget us. But you – you can never forget them. And it seems you have already forgotten we too are Masters. If you kill us, our blood will be upon your hands. Do you think the servants of the God in the Mountain will not see its stain?'
As he scanned the Elders, Carnelian saw their staring terror of him.
'Do you think when the childgatherer comes he will fail to see the red reflection of our blood in your children's eyes? And what then?'
He paused looking for an answer. Where his gaze swept the Elders looked away.
'What do you think will happen then? Do you imagine for one moment, whatever enmity may lie between us, do you really imagine they would let such as you slay even the least of the Masters with impunity?
There are those here who have taken the Gods' salt,' he said, stabbing his finger here and there at the Assembly. 'Others have knelt to kiss the dust in the Mountain. Of these I ask: are the Masters merciful? How many of you hide that mercy's stripes across your backs? I can see the mutilations of lost fingers and shorn ears. How many of you have wept in the night for your lost children? Do not delude yourselves. The Masters know less of mercy than you do of power. They will bring the dragons here.' He stamped his foot on the floor of their mothers' bones. They will exterminate you man and woman, young and old, until your tribe shall be nothing more than a whisper lost in the wind.'
Kyte stood bravely forth. 'What's to stop us… giving… giving you up to the Gatherer?'
Osidian smiled chillingly. 'Do you not recall, auxiliary, the penalty for having looked upon our faces?'
The Plainsman went pale, caught in the green ice of the Master's eyes.
With relief, Carnelian watched Osidian relapse back into a languid state. Long after the echoes of his voice had vibrated away the Elders continued to gape, transfixed. Though Osidian was no longer as white as he had been, still in that dark place, in contrast to Loskai dwarfed beside him, with his green eyes and the bright beauty of his face, Osidian seemed undeniably an angel.
'What did he say?' Harth asked Fern urgently in a half-whisper.
Desperate to undo whatever harm Osidian had done, Carnelian spoke before Fern had a chance to answer her. 'He threatens…' said Carnelian, crudely in their language, 'your destruction… if you touch us… or give us up to the Gatherer… but… Fern spoke tmthfully. I promised… we wish no hurt on you.'
Harth joined her peers in turning her gape on him.
Galewing shambled towards Carnelian, stopping at a distance. 'You
… you understand our speech?'
'Much of it,' Carnelian said, in Vulgate.
As Galewing relayed the answer to the Assembly, their unease turned to near hysteria.
Harth turned on Fern. 'You knew this?'
Fern made a grimace then nodded.
His mother rose. 'What of it? We've always known the Standing Dead have sorcery. Is a broken knowledge of our tongue so great a mystery?'
Galewing glanced at Carnelian. 'But that they should understand our tongue when even many unkith Plainsmen cannot…' He shook his head. 'Are we being fools? Perhaps Fern is right, perhaps they are a gift to us from the Skyfather.' He regarded the Assembly. 'Imagine what secrets they could teach us.'
As protests rose against Galewing, Akaisha approached Carnelian. When she was close she looked up and he saw a yearning in her eyes.
'How is it you come to speak Ochre?' she asked, quietly.
Harth grabbed her arm. 'What are you doing?'
Akaisha tore herself free. Many voices among the Elders cried out that she should be allowed to ask whatever she wanted. Akaisha gave them a nod of thanks and turned her eyes up again to look into Carnelian's.
He was moved by her need.
'Mother.' He stopped, seeing Ebeny there in her face. 'My servants
… were taken… from the Earthsky tithe.'
Akaisha shook her head. The tongues of the Plainsmen are many, yet, when you speak, your words are Ochre.'
'A woman…' Carnelian knuckled his head trying to find the words. 'A servant woman… she was… not my mother… but she was my mother.'
Akaisha's eyes were very bright. 'Her name?'
'Ebeny.'
The Plainswoman shook her head, deeply disappointed. 'No. Not that.'
Carnelian looked around trying to find something. He reached out to catch Akaisha's blanket between finger and thumb. He tugged it. 'She made blankets like this.'
Hope relit Akaisha's eyes. The same pattern?'
Carnelian looked at it carefully. 'It seems very much like I remember.'
Akaisha grabbed hold of his arm. 'Did she tell you anything about us?'
Carnelian saw the tears in the woman's eyes and desperately wanted to give her what she desired, but was too emotional to think clearly. Other women had crept up and were whispering to her. She let go of him.
'You have to leave now,' she said gently. 'Leave with this other one of your kind. Please wait outside.'
He nodded, then moved to Osidian's side and gingerly put a hand on his arm. Carnelian expected anger but Osidian seemed content to be led out. They had reached the curtain before Carnelian realized Fern was not following him. He turned and saw his friend looking very alone encircled by the Elders.
With his eyes, Carnelian asked Fern why he was not leaving with him, but the only answer Fern could give him was an angry shake of the head.
Pushing out past the curtain, Osidian let in a flood of light in which Carnelian could see nothing but Fern's back. He was reluctant to leave him with the Assembly and his accuser, Loskai, but knew he could do nothing to help him.
As Carnelian stepped out from the house of bones, the glaring brilliance of the plain forced his eyes shut. His heart was racing, his mind dazzled by the certainty the Ochre really were Ebeny's people.