The Chosen

'As high as yours,' snapped Carnelian, feeling he was twisting in a trap.

Up in the palace somewhere, a shapeless voice swelled a moaning song then faded away.

'I see,' said the Master. He inclined his head and his mask rushed with reflections. Tell me what it is you have come to say and I will make sure my brother hears your words.'

'Your brother? Then we are cousins.' Jaspar's brother's head straightened and he gave a humourless laugh. 'You are Suth Carnelian?' 'I am.'

'My brother has told me all about you.' The Master's mask sneered at him but Carnelian stood his ground.

'Very well, my Lord, I shall accede to your request though I cannot imagine what you want here.' He turned and began to climb the stair. He stopped, turned, chuckled. 'Be warned. My brother is grown dangerous with grief.'

Carnelian followed Jaspar's brother through a multitude of sombre halls, his footsteps echoing among the scuffling of their escort. Several times the inhuman wailing broke out far away. Each time shivers ran up Carnelian's back.

At last they came to where a door opened into a chamber walled and floored with shifting rainbows. As Jaspar's brother passed through, yellow filaments moved across him edged with orange and turquoise. The chamber was cool and damp. From somewhere there came a continuous hissing. Carnelian located the sound, a waterfall windowing the chamber, made brilliant diamond by the risen sun.

'He is there, my Lord, if you have the courage to approach him,' Jaspar's brother said beside him.

Turning, Carnelian saw an immense and shadowy stair climbing with many landings up to remote heights. Each landing was flanked by a pair of idols around whose feet puddled light. On the first landing stood a being like a column of blood.

Carnelian began to ascend the steps. Sensing he was alone, he looked round to see Jaspar's brother below him. 'You will not come with me, my Lord?'

The Master's mask smeared colour as he shook it.

Carnelian resumed his climb, keeping the blood-red giant in the centre of his sight. The figure shifted and Carnelian saw Jaspar's face, a shell cameo imbedded in the welter of mourning red. He was holding to his nose a pale mottled orchid. Carnelian saw a frown begin to crease the perfect face.

'It is Carnelian, cousin,' he called up to Jaspar, giving him a little bow. Although the air was laced with incense, Carnelian's nostrils caught an incongruous whiff of foulness.

Jaspar moved back to give him space to come up onto the landing. The orchid's trumpet drooped away from his nose. 'Has the smell of holy blood drawn you, dear cousin? One little expected that you would be the first of my father's scavengers.'

'I came in sympathy.'

'Another of your curiously barbaric emotions?' 'I know what it is to fear one's father dead.' 'Suth has recovered, then?'

'Well, yes… at least, I have a letter from him in which he claims recovery.'

'So. Your sympathy then does not seem well grounded. Your father is not dead; nor, if one recalls correctly, was he struck down by one of his own filthy slaves, neh?'

Carnelian looked round and saw the fragile look of the attendants, the queasy guardsmen leaning on their blade-winged dragonfly halberds, some painted boys huddling together and a woman playing the lute, its neck against her chest where a breast had been cut off.

'Was it really one of your own people that slew your father?' asked Carnelian.

'I will not rest until I have bled this murderous conspiracy out of them.'

Carnelian followed Jaspar's eyes. In front of a horned altar stood a cross in the form of a youth with legs and arms outstretched. A living man of flesh was spread-eagled on its bronze, his dragonfly tattoo creasing into the agony of a face that seemed frozen in hysterical laughter. Carnelian looked along one arm and saw its yellowing extremity. Wire creasing into the elbow was hung with weights shaped like apples. The end of his other arm was also being slowly pruned. Nausea almost buckled Carnelian's knees.

Jaspar clapped his hand on Carnelian's shoulder. 'Come, cousin, one must show you the craftsmanship in these frames.'

Carnelian yielded to the pressure from Jaspar's arm. The Master lifted up an icy hand and ran it down the green-brown thigh of the metal youth. These are exquisite pieces. Can you see, it is a single casting?' He reached above the crucified man's agony to the metal face hovering over him. 'Have you ever seen such a beatific expression? Scandalously, the whole set has not been used for years.' Jaspar ran his finger along under the man's bloodless forearm. He held his finger up to show Carnelian its red. 'See, the channel carries the blood away so that there is no spillage…' He pointed to where a bowl was set into the bronze youth's foot. '… and collects it there. From whence it may be fed to the avatar.'

Jaspar pointed to the altar on which Carnelian could see many such bowls. Carnelian turned his back on it all but was unable to free himself from the odours of blood and excrement and sweaty fear that the incense could not mask. He saw the people kneeling, staring at the crucifixion, the cross of their dragonfly tattoos a sinister reflection of its shape, their eyes like wounds dribbling tears, the noses of the children painting mucus down to their quivering lips.

'Why do they watch this?' Carnelian said, horrified.

Jaspar sniffed his orchid. 'Because if they do not, they themselves shall end up on the frame.'

'How could all these poor creatures be responsible?'

Malice cooled Jaspar's eyes to ice. They are all responsible. How can my House make claim to leadership among the Great when it cannot control its own slaves? Before any of their filthy hands should be raised against me, I would nip all their arms off at the shoulder.'

Carnelian took a deep breath. 'My father too was struck with a knife, Jaspar, but was it really the barbarian's hand wielding it?'

Jaspar turned to stone. 'What you suggest… is inconceivable.'

That is what you said on the road, and yet my father bled.'

'But here… within the Sacred Wall… it is simply inconceivable.'

'My Lord seems to have forgotten to whom he attributed the death of the Lady Flama Ykoria, who died not only within the wall, but in the Labyrinth itself.'

Jaspar crushed the orchid and let it drop from his hand like a broken butterfly.

'How many of your people have you crucified?'

'Many,' Jaspar waved his hand, 'notwithstanding the cost.'

'And have you found even a whisper of a conspiracy or of rebellion?'

Jaspar regarded him. 'Under excruciation they confess to all the fanciful plots their animal minds can conceive, but none have rung true… so far.'

'What will you believe once you are left only with limbless slaves, my Lord?'

'Is this all you came to tell me, my Lord?' Jaspar's voice sounded flat, emotionless.

'I had hoped that you might intend to take your father's pre-eminent place among the Great.'

And if I did? signed Jaspar.

Then you would be going to the Labyrinth?

All the other Ruling Lords are there.

Could you take me with you?

To join your father?' asked Jaspar.

Carnelian nodded.

'You ask me to break the Law, my Lord.'

'It is not so great a sin, cousin. You could pass me off as one of your kin.'

'An outrageous request, Carnelian, although one is heartened that at last your machinations are acquiring a Chosen hue.' Jaspar looked away, thinking. Carnelian could hear the blood dripping into the bowls. 'Perhaps I will accede to your request, although one can hardly see why you felt the need to manufacture these elaborate notions of conspiracy.'

'But I believe-' Carnelian began, but was distracted by a clamour of bells and moaning that came wafting down the stair. Jaspar looked up towards it.