The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (60 page)

They asked for thirty-eight, which takes into account the marked children who died before they were taken to the Mountain.' She paused. Her posture spoke of defeat. 'We've managed to reduce their demand by three.'

It was a small victory but Carnelian could see how much hope it gave the Tribe.

'Begin,' said the Gatherer.

Everyone craned to see the children creep forwards towards the ammonites. Those who could not yet walk were carried by those who could. Carnelian watched the first few being clasped in the hands of the ammonites, shrinking from their instruments and the reflections of themselves they could see distorted in their masks.

In ones and twos, the rejected were forced to plunge their hands into jars of black paint and then were released, coming tottering back into the arms of their families. Others, however, were driven up the steps to the Gatherer. One at a time they were given to him. He took their heads and squeezed, felt their bones, his fingers controlling their squirming as if they were nothing more than fish. He forced their mouths to gape by putting pressure on the hinges of their jaws and peered inside. He prised their eyelids open. Watching this, the faces of those waiting in line creased with terror. One
little
boy looked out across the Tribe screaming for his mother. Breaking, a woman's voice answered him. At the sound the children on the platform began whimpering. More women shrilled names, encouragements. The Tribe began to lose their sullen composure as their agony began bleeding out of them in a wailing. Carnelian felt himself being unmanned by the sound. He lived again the day he was forced to abandon his people on the island to famine. It was only the hard faces of some of the men that helped him retain control. He chewed his tongue like them and ground his teeth and clenched his fists against the lust for violence.

And so it continued as the sun rose high and scorched them and then began sinking. Carnelian's legs ached from standing too long, but he would not even allow himself to seek the relief of crouching when he saw how the Tribe were bearing their pain.

The Gatherer examined one child after another, sending some down to the tattooists with their needles, releasing the rest to have their hands blackened. The mothers of these rejected children would push through the press and grab them, shrieking with joy. The other mothers looked on these scenes with a kind of hatred, before resuming their bleak vigil.

Carnelian could not see the selected children among the tattooists, but could hear their moaning, their cries for their fathers and mothers as the glyphs were pricked into their palms. These too would find release at last into their mother's arms. Many stumbled as they ran, dropping the small pieces of cloth they had been given to staunch the bleeding. The bloody palms would be stared at in the vain attempt to read there how much time they had before they must be sent away.

Wearied by the heartache, nevertheless, Carnelian kept searching the snivelling line of children being fed up the steps for examination. At last he saw what he had feared to see. Poppy, her tiny face looking for him. He willed her to see him though he knew that if she did, so might others and that would bring disaster down upon the Tribe. As she drew closer and closer to the silver chair, he wrung his hands until they hurt. The moment came that Carnelian had been dreading: Poppy was pushed into the Gatherer's hands. He forgot to breathe as her little shaved head was turned this way and that. The Gatherer pressed it with his fingers as if he were determining the ripeness of a melon. Carnelian gulped air again when the Gatherer seemed to have detected some fault. He clamped the girl as his face of silver leant close to one of the scribes. The mask flashed as he nodded and then Carnelian fought nausea as he watched Poppy being shoved off to be tattooed. She was crying as she looked back, hopeless, distraught at not seeing him among the crowd. As he imagined his little girl gritting her teeth against the needle's pain, Carnelian cursed himself bitterly he had not thought to disfigure her.

DEADLOCK

The deadlock common to all two player games is rarely found in Three.

(from The Three Coloured Game' by the Ruling Lord, Kirinya Prase)

Under Akaisha's cedar, Carnelian was pacing back and forth, every so often looking towards the rootstair for any sign of the Tribe returning. Unable to be among the crowd as a comfort to Poppy, fearing he might witness Fern's punishment, Carnelian had fled in misery. All his life, he had known about the childgatherer. Once, when he had pushed Ebeny until her reticence broke, she had described the miserable day she had been selected for the Mountain. He had had nightmares for a long time afterwards. Now he had seen it for himself, he was soaked through with such heartache and shame that he wanted to creep away and hide. He glanced back up the slope, desperate to see Poppy. An irrational fear possessed him that the childgatherer might have already taken her away. Then he became filled with dread at the thought of seeing her and, for a moment, seriously considered fleeing the Koppie. He allowed his gaze to be burned by the incandescence of the plain. Out there was an unwelcoming world and Osidian; a Master who would have nothing but shrivelling contempt for such feelings.

The sound of footfalls was coming from the direction of the Crag. He resisted the temptation to hide, though he backed towards the comfort of the mother tree. As the first people appeared upon the stair, Carnelian held on to her bark as if it were a hand. It was not long before they noticed him. Their descent faltered as they stared with red eyes that seemed to have sunk into their faces. Their scrutiny soon forced him to lower his gaze. A woman's voice urged them on. More and more of the Tribe were coming into sight. Carnelian stood where he was, enduring their terrible, silent hatred. He would gladly have set aside his height, his white skin, his burning blood to become one of them. As it was he would not allow himself to deny it was his kind who had just raped them.

When he sensed someone approaching, he lifted his gaze, holding his arms stiffly by his sides ready to take whatever was said, whatever pain inflicted, even death, but when he saw it was Fern, his knees threatened to buckle. His friend simply stared and Carnelian fought panic.
Fern
's face was unreadable, though his red eyes showed he had been crying.

Carnelian searched his friend's body for any sign of mutilation. 'You are unhurt?'

Fern looked as if he did not know the answer to that. After a while, he said: They did not call for me.'

Then you are saved,' Carnelian said, clutching at the hope there was in that; some joy on such a joyless day. Instinct urged Carnelian to keep his pain to himself, but he was weak enough to want to share it.

'I should have disfigured her. That's what I've been thinking.'

Fern looked at Carnelian as if he were seeing him for the first time. 'What?'

'I should have disfigured Poppy. The Gatherer wouldn't have chosen an imperfect child for the Standing Dead.'

Carnelian recoiled from the rage that sprang into Fern's face.

'You were there? You knew the danger to the Tribe and, still, you were there?'

Carnelian wanted to back away but the mother tree was a wall against his back.

'I promised Poppy ...'

Fern gaped at him. Even to Carnelian's ears, his words sounded absurd.

Fern grew suddenly tired and his curly head fell against the cedar.

'Disfigure her. Don't you think we might have thought of that? She'd grow up carrying on her face the proof that another child had been sent to the Mountain in her place.' His voice was unsteady. 'All the hearths who had lost a child would hate her.'

Fern lifted his head and Carnelian saw he was crying.

'Perhaps it's the best thing for her. What kind of life would she have had here.' Fern became distraught. 'He's taken my baby.'

Carnelian stared dumbfounded. At the examination he had been so focused on Poppy he had not even remembered to look for Leaf. He saw his friend's anguish and could think of nothing to say.

As they approached, hearthmates gazed at Carnelian as if he were a ghost of the children the Tribe had lost. Sil's eyes accused him, her mother's were trying not to. Whin was pulling Poppy by the hand. The
little
girl was looking at her feet, the fist of her left hand wedged into her armpit. Carnelian forgot everyone else, praying that when she would look up at him it would not be with hatred. Whin brought her up close.

'Look at Carnie, child. You mustn't blame him.'

Carnelian gave Whin a smile of gratitude, muttered something of his regret about her own loss, then squatted down and reached out for Poppy's face. He almost pulled away when he felt the skin wet with tears.
Gently
he lifted the little face, waiting for her eyes to see him. He stopped breathing when he felt her stare, then gave out a sigh of relief when he did not see hatred in her eyes but only pain and fear. He folded her into his arms, put his lips to her neck, lifted her from the ground. He rocked her, humming, feeling her sobbing, her fist a stone against his heart.

'Carnie.' It was Fern's voice.

Carnelian turned with Poppy still wrapped in his embrace and looked round. Fern was tearful, looking at him, leaning close to Sil, their baby nesded between them. Carnelian saw the tears in Sil's eyes, everyone's eyes and almost let out a wail. He wanted to make it better, to take away their pain.

Fern released his daughter's tiny hand from her swaddling, peeled the pad from her palm and let it fall red to the ground.

'I can't wait until the Gatherer gives the Elders a picture of the tithe. Tell us how long we'll have her.'

Carnelian feared Sil's eyes, but felt that beyond Fern's need to know, he was trying to make things right between the three of them. Carnelian drew close enough to see. He adjusted Poppy and, gingerly, took the baby's bloody hand and peered at it.

The green patterns of the date tattoo were smeared red and swollen in the tiny palm but he could still read the number eight and the hated name of Osidian's brother, Molochite.

He looked up at Fern and Sil, waiting in dreadful suspense. 'Not counting this year, seven more.' They would have her for the longest possible time allowed a marked child.

When Fern thanked him, Sil held Carnelian's eyes, searching them. She must have found there what she sought, for she reached out and took his hand. 'We have all lost today.'

Relief brought more tears. He lifted her hand in his and kissed it.

Carnelian became aware of Poppy's stony fist wedged between them. A part of him did not want to read what was written there. He realized he had not seen Akaisha. He searched for her.

'She's with the other Elders talking to the child-gatherer,' said Sil.

'Does that always happen?'

Sil grew pale as she glanced at Fern and then looked back up the slope the way they had come. Carnelian realized with a jolt his friend was still in danger.

Poppy shifted against him and when Carnelian looked down it was directly into her eyes. He took his leave of Sil and Fern and carried Poppy to their hollow. He laid her down upon a blanket. They sat looking at each other while she clutched her left fist in her other hand. She released it and opened it for him. He stared at the cloth blushing blood. It was obvious what she wanted. He took her hand in his and carefully peeled off the cloth. He used it to wipe away the blood. He saw the two tattooed spots and his heart stopped.

She saw the colour leave his face and drew back terrified. 'This year?'

'No,' he cried, shaking his head.

The next then?'

It was unnecessary for him to nod; she saw her fate in his eyes.

Akaisha's face was gaunt when she appeared beside Carnelian's hollow. He disengaged from Poppy who had been sleeping in his arms and rose to face Akaisha.

'I don't know what to say, my mother, about your loss.'

She glanced at Poppy. 'All have suffered loss.'.

Carnelian was withered by shame. 'Come with me,' she said.

He followed her. When they reached the deepest shade of the mother tree, she fixed wild eyes on him. 'Where is the Master?'

'On the plain.'

'But where?'

He half shook his head. 'Perhaps returned to the earther we were bringing here when we saw the signal.'

She frowned, looking at the ground, her eyes moving in thought, her hand
gently
stroking the bark. She looked up.

The Master was right. The Gatherers are looking for you.'

Carnelian
swallowed hard. They asked about us specifically?'

The Gatherer claimed to be seeking two white marumaga renegades. He told us that any tribe handing them over or giving information resulting in their successful live capture will have their tithe rescinded for a full eight years.'

Carnelian
could see the desire for such a prize was a passion in her which she was having difficulty suppressing. It promised the salvation of her granddaughter.

They're trying to trick you,' he said.

Akaisha's eyes flamed. 'Do you believe, Master, that we are fools?'

His contrition calmed her. The Tribe's survival depends on you not being found. We're sure we didn't give anything away. Our terror is of the Master out there ...' She glanced away towards the plain. 'If he should be seen by another tribe...'