The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (12 page)

Fern nodded. 'Women wear the earth's hues: men, the colour of the angry sky.'

'Still, I will wear it. It reminds me of my
...
Plainsman mother.'

'Why have you been pretending not to understand our tongue?'

'It is a weapon I might have need of.' They stood for some moments regarding each other. It was Carnelian who spoke first. 'Will you tell the others?'

Fern chewed his lip. 'I don't know yet.'

Carnelian could see he would just have to trust him. 'If you'll help me, we can move my brother away from the others. I'll stay with him and not bother you.'

Fern shook his head. 'I want you to sit with us. The decisions we'll be making will concern you.' He must have sensed Carnelian's reluctance. 'If Cloud and R
anegale decide you are to die, I’
ll stand with you against them.'

Carrielian stared in disbelief, but the fierce determination in the Plainsman's face did not invite discussion and so he nodded his assent.

* * *

They carried Osidian between them. Carnelian was certain he had been much heavier. Ranegale and Loskai made angry protests as Fern urged the youths away from the rock to allow Osidian to be laid out in what shelter the overhang provided. Ignoring the stares, Carnelian took a sodden blanket, crouched and smoothed it over him. He looked for life in the discoloured face but it might as well have been wax. Sick at heart, he rose and turned to face the Plainsmen. Though only the men looked directly at him, he could feel the general resentment Carnelian could not imagine what had possessed him. Even if Osidian were to live, would he thank him for having brought them into the wilderness among barbarians?

Fern
indicated a place beside him. Carnelian hesitated, but then sat beside the Plainsman, hunching to alleviate the ache in his back. A nudge made him lift his head to find Fern offering him what appeared to be a bale of rope and a flint knife. Carnelian took one in each hand. The rope was heavier than he had expected. He brought it closer and curled his nose up at its odour.

'Djada,' Fern whispered into his ear.

Carnelian saw the youth beside him waiting expectantly. He pulled a length of the slimy rope through his fingers and cut off a piece then offered the rope and knife. The youth showed him he had his own blade, but took the rope. Carnelian turned to hand the flint to
Fern
, but the Plainsman was staring at the ground, chewing. Carnelian put the knife down in front of him and, overcoming his disgust, he bit off a chunk from his djada. As he began to chew, he found it was, as he expected, the same dried meat he had been eating for days. It did not taste as bad as it smelled.

Continuing to soften the meat in his mouth, he watched the coil being handed round. Ranegale, his eye fixed balefully on Fern, lifted his finger in accusation but Cloud, looking at Carnelian, spoke first.

This one here read the name of my tribe from my hand.'

Ranegale turned his anger on Cloud. The hands of the corpses could've been cut off.' Fern glowered. They're my kin.' Ranegale flung his head back in exasperation. There was no time to cut anything,' said Cloud. 'But the sacrilege -'

'Whatever harm might come to us from that, perhaps we've suffered it already.' The Elder glanced sadly in the direction where he knew the three corpses lay.

'And the Standing Dead?' asked Ranegale, forming ears with his hands.

'Remember it was this one,' Fern indicated Carnelian with his chin, 'who warned me of the tattoos.'

Ranegale began a protest, but Fern waved him down, speaking quickly. 'Do none of you see any significance in the way they came to us?'

Carnelian shared the general incomprehension.

Fern looked each of the men in the eyes. 'We've never asked how it came about that we should find two of the Standing Dead as slaves among sartlar and painted black.'

'I don't follow you,' said Cloud. 'When are men's bodies made wholly black, my father?'

Cloud shrugged. 'When they are dead.' Fern's eyes caught a reflection of faraway lightning. 'Exactly.'

'But they weren't dead,' said Ravan. 'What are you trying to tell us, Fern?' Cloud asked softly.

Fern ran his hand down over his curls plastered flat by the rain. His eyebrows rose. 'I'm not really sure.'

Ranegale let h
is hands fall and gave a snort ‘I
think he's trying to tell us he believes it was the Skyfather who sent the Standing Dead to us.'

A shiver ran up Carnelian's spine. Though the Masters used red for mourning and green for resurrection, their Black God in his many aspects was lord of the sky, but also, death.

'Is that what you mean?' Cloud asked Fern.

Fern seemed an uncertain child as he looked at Cloud. 'I suppose so, my father.'

'Because of the bitumen on their bodies?'

'And one of them bears a mark.' Fern stood up and walked through the youths to where Osidian was lying. As Cloud and then Ranegale and Loskai followed him, Carnelian resisted the temptation to join them. Instead, he craned round to watch them leaning over Osidian. Ravan had taken a few steps towards them.

'Look at his forehead,' Fern was saying.

Cloud straightened and looked at Fern. The mark is in his skin?'

'However hard I rubbed, it wouldn't come off.' 'It looks like an eye,' said Loskai. 'More like the mark that might have been left by lips,' said Fern.

'So you're claiming he was kissed by a black man?' sneered Ranegale. 'Did you kiss him yourself, Fern?' His voice seemed very thin in Carnelian's ears as they recovered from a thunderclap. He was remembering that Osidian had once told him the Wise believed his birthmark a sign put there by the Black God.

Fern's stiff posture betrayed his anger. 'If I had kissed him, do you think it likely my lips would've left a permanent mark?'

Cloud spoke gazing down at Osidian. 'You think he's been chosen by the Skyfather?'

'Chosen for what?' exploded Ranegale. 'Has the rain soaked into everyone's head? Can't you tell this is his grief talking? He's desperate to find a reason why his kin's all dead and so he fixes on this business: this possessed notion that the Skyfather descended from on high to plant a kiss on the forehead of this one.'

'What about the bitumen?' offered Loskai.

Ranegale turned on him. 'High Father, not you too!'

Loskai retreated behind a blank expression.

Carnelian noticed how the youths huddled together; how they trembled with each thunderclap. Ravan returned, deep in thought. Carnelian gave him a smile and was pleased when it was returned. He looked down at the knife. Was the Black God behind the disaster that had befallen them both? It seemed inconceivable the God should have delivered Osidian into the hands of barbarians and yet, there were the signs. It gave Carnelian hope he had made the right decision in seeking refuge among the Ochre but he could not rid himself of foreboding. The Black God was also the Lord of Strife and War.

As the men filed back, lightning flashed the valley into jagged relief. Ranegale, as he sat down, looked round him gauging the general mood.

'A great blessing this gift from the Skyfather's been so far.'

'I believe the decision whether or not to kill them should be left to the Elders,' said Fern.

Ranegale looked at Cloud. 'Even though you're no longer Ochre, you are an Elder, my father. If you chose to make the decision now we could rid ourselves of the burden of these Standing Dead.'

Ravan, Krow and many of the others were clearly anxious to see what Cloud would decide.

The Elder shook his head apologetically. 'I won't make this decision on behalf of your tribe. Besides, should we be considering anything that might turn the Skyfather even more against us?'

The sky rumbled as if in agreement and Carnelian saw everyone but Ranegale nodding. He gave a snort. 'Well, everyone here will stand witness to my counsel. Let's hope, Father Cloud, we don't have cause to regret your inability to make a decision.'

Lightning flared revealing stark shadows in the raiders' faces. The thunder that followed shook the very rocks upon which they sat and the rain redoubled its downpour.

'How are we going to get home?' Ravan asked over the hiss.

Only the storm answered him, but in the next flash, all could clearly see Ranegale was peering in the direction where the ravine cut down out of sight.

'Down there?' cried Ravan.

The swamps?' said Loskai, aghast.

Carnelian listened to the stream gurgling into the throat of the ravine.

'If we go down there,' said Ravan, 'we might as well give up any hope of seeing our hearths again.'

The fear in his voice spread to Carnelian, who sensed a general unease.

'How do we know there's even a way down?' asked Loskai.

The gate in the Ringwall proves there must be,' said Ranegale. 'Besides, the gradient of the ravine and the distance we seem to be from the land edge makes me certain it'll take us all the way down.'

'If you're right we've got to wonder what kind of people use it,' said Cloud.

'Manila?' Ravan asked, his shadow head turning as he tried to make out faces.

Carnelian felt Fern readjusting his position. Peering at his face, Carnelian saw the resemblance he had not placed before. Though paler than they, though not as tall, Carnelian saw Fern bore a decided resemblance to the black men who had escorted him and his father on the road to Osrakum. He should have seen it at once in his tightly curling hair.

Their lands lie somewhere south of the Earthsky,' said Cloud.

The swamp's a haunt of nightmares,' moaned Ravan. 'Demons,' muttered Krow.

'Hush,' said Fern. Those are just stories used to scare children.'

There must be another way, Ranegale,' said Loskai.

'Makar will be hard to
enter unseen. I've been worry
ing about that all day. Even if that weren't so ' He

made a sound of disgust. 'We're burdened with the corpses and, thanks to Father Cloud, the Standing Dead. Besides there's no way we're going to make the meeting and that's the only reason we're heading for the city.'

'Except to spend our bronze,' said Loskai.

'However thick the swamp is below, we'll make better progress through it than we will up here. We can skirt its edge on higher ground until we reach the Leper Valleys. Who knows, we might even get there in time to meet up with our people.'

Night was robbing them of sight. They scattered to find what shelter they could but there was no escaping fear. Bent almost double, Carnelian fumbled his way to Osidian's side. He waited until lightning lit his face. When it did, Carnelian's heart faltered, certain he had glimpsed Osidian awake. He reached out. His fingers almost recoiled when they found Osidian's face smoother than marble but just as cold. His touch found the corner of a lidded eye. Turning, he settled back against Osidian's shivering body to give him what warmth he could.

The movements of the Plainsmen woke him. Blearily, through the rain, Carnelian watched them getting ready. No one spoke nor looked each other in the eye. He noticed Ravan steal a look down into the ravine. The gleam of Osidian's body caught in the corner of Carnelian's vision. His head, his back, his neck ached as he turned round. It was as if he had grown aged overnight. He burrowed under Osidian's blankets to reach the damp, cold flesh and pressed his lips against it until he could feel the tremor of a heartbeat.

'So slow,' he muttered. He covered him up. Looking at him, Carnelian reviewed again the decision he had made for them both. In the daylight, it was harder to believe the Black God was guiding him.

Sensing someone approaching, he looked up and saw it was Fern.

'Today we leave the Land of the Standing Dead,' Fern said, using Ochre in a low voice and trying a smile. 'Why do you call us that?'

Fern crouched down beside him. 'My mother told me it was because of the giants who stand around the place in the Mountain where we give our children to you.'

Carnelian knew he spoke of the colossi of the Plain of Thrones who stood astride the entrances to the tombs in which the Masters were laid to await their resurrection. He recalled how he had felt when he had walked beneath their gaze. It was not an unfitting name.

'We must move my kin,' said Fern, rising.

Carnelian looked to where the corpses lay grey in the morning light. After they had taken only a few steps towards them, the stench of their decay caught at his throat; beside them, it was overpowering. Fern crouched and dug his arms under one. Carnelian could see the creases in the Plainsman's forehead; the horror blanking his face. He waited for him to hoist the saggy mess that had been his father and then watched him stagger away with it to the aquar Ravan was holding ready. Averting his face, Carnelian squatted and worked his hand under the back of another corpse. He took the strain and lifted. The corpse's weight forced him to carry it clasped to his chest.

Carnelian was taking care with each step. They had tried riding, but the foaming water and scree made the ground treacherous. He paced beside Blur in whose chair Osidian lay. The creature's huge taloned feet gouged a grip on the slope, but sometimes he would watch with horror as one slipped. All startled plumes, the aquar would flail and scrabble to maintain her footing while Carnelian danced around her trying to be in a position to catch Osidian should he be flung out. Several times he jumped back sure Blur was about to topple over onto him like a hammer. He would tense up, anticipating her body punching the ground, smashing the saddle-chair, breaking Osidian across the boulders. Each time Blur righted herself and, panting, he would rush in to stroke her neck, or her clutching hands, clucking to reassure her and when her plume fans had closed, urge her a little further down the slope.