The Standing Dead

Unaccountably, Fern smiled.

'You knew?'

'I'm not a fool.'

'You must know that I did it to -' Fern stopped him by putting his fingers to Carnelian's lips. 'I know.'

Carnelian bit his tongue against the further questions he wanted to ask.

'My mother will stand by you, but even she might not be able to save you.'

'I'll not allow her to stand alone against the Elders. She's done enough for us already.'

Fern's eyes flashed. 'You will accept every scrap of help offered you.'

Carnelian's heart was stilled by Fern's intensity.

Fern glanced round and Carnelian saw Akaisha and the others were already ascending the rootstair towards the Crag. Fern turned back.

'In the last hope, you must cling to our mother tree and beg for sanctuary. None then may touch you unless my mother allows it.'

Carnelian grew exasperated. 'Forget me, what about you?'

Fern took hold of Carnelian's arm and held it hard enough that it hurt. 'Did you hear what I told you?'

Angrily, Carnelian twisted his arm free. T heard, but today, I'm more concerned about you.'

Fern grew paler. 'Don't be, I'm already dead.'

'Run. What's to stop you taking an aquar, riding far away from here?'

Fern managed to find some laughter which, for a moment, made him seem carefree.

'I'd go with you,' Carnelian said, surprising himself.

Fern frowned and shook his head, looking at Carnelian hungrily. 'You're a strange man, Carnie. You know I can't go. If I did, they'd punish the Tribe instead of me.'

'We could ride out after you, after the Gatherer has taken you away from here. We could take you from him.'

Fern scowled. 'You're being stupid now. You must know that only when the Gatherer reaches his next koppie in safety will he give the Tribe the warrant which we'd need to protect us from the Standing Dead should anything happen to him.'

His brow smoothed. 'Stop fighting this, Carnie. I'm a dead man. I've been one since I deserted the legions. I've lived with this doom for more than a year until it's like a stench in my nostrils.'

His eyebrows raised. 'You know, it's almost a relief.' He grew sombre again. 'I'm only glad you at least won't have to witness what they'll do to me today. Let's say goodbye now.'

The terror Fern was repressing was squeezing tears out of the corners of his eyes however much he clenched his teeth to stop them. Carnelian took a step forward and enveloped Fern in his arms. He felt Fern's arms slipping round him. Carnelian squeezed the solid body, digging his chin into the shoulder. He felt Fern's lips against his neck; felt his warm tears and turned into them; found Fern's neck and kissed it. They clung together thus and

Carnelian felt an intensity of desire which made him cling all the harder, not knowing how to express it.

It was the metal screeching of trumpets that broke their embrace. It gave a voice to their pain. They could not look at each other. *Stay here…' growled Fern. 'For my sake.' He turned away and Carnelian watched him move to the rootstair, then climb it until he had disappeared behind the traceries of the branches of the mother tree.

As Carnelian sat morose with his back against the mother tree, the trumpets sounded again. Their sinister screams forced on him thoughts and feelings about the Masters, about Osrakum. Even after the fanfare had fallen silent, the memory of the sound lingered like a smell, making the shadows under the mother tree strange and menacing.

He could not help thinking about the way he and Osidian had parted. A conviction was rising within him that their destinies had separated. He had chosen the Tribe over Osidian. A time would come when he would have to pay for making that choice. He feared that others might also have to pay.

He clamped his head between his fists and made himself remember why he had defied Osidian. 'Fern and Poppy,' he said through clenched teeth and saw again that last look she had given him. Why had he made her that promise?

He rose, and stumbled among the many bowls still standing with their water to find the one he had used to wash Poppy. Her hair formed a sad pattern around the bowl. He hesitated, then spilled some of its water on a clear patch of earth and rubbed it in with his palms. The mud he made looked like blood. He cursed. It seemed an omen of death. He gouged some of the red stuff onto his fingers and smeared it over his face, round his neck, his lower legs and feet, the backs of his hands. He searched around for the largest blanket he could find and wrapped it round him.

Another fanfare made his heart jump up into his throat How much would he be endangering the Tribe? Though he told himself he was doing this for Poppy, perhaps he was only desiring to satisfy his curiosity to see the childgatherer that had haunted his childhood. Was it a craving for one last glimpse of the exquisite wonders of Osrakum? He felt a surge of self-loathing. He was a Master. He held his hands up. Nothing could hide the brightness that lay beneath the brown. Nothing could change that he was a Master. Osidian was right; his kind had all been right. What were his sensibilities but a thin garment he wore to conceal his true nature from others; from himself. A sickening fear oozed into him that his revulsion of what was happening to the Tribe down at the Poisoned Field might be nothing more than an attempt at denying the appetite in his blood at this rare chance to fully experience, to soak in the misery of the Plainsmen; to savour the torture of these barbarians he chose to fool himself he loved.

Wild with the torment of these thoughts, he ran to clutch the mother tree. He laid his cheek upon her soft bark. He could feel the power in her coming up from the good earth. She cleansed him. She gave him the courage to believe it was not wholly a Master's heart that beat within him. Salvation came from the love he bore Poppy, Fern, Akaisha and the Tribe. A love he had to believe in or else be lost, not knowing who nor what he was.

Tentatively, he released the tree and folded his arms over his chest, trying to catch any vestige of the warmth Poppy had left when her body had trembled against his. He could not abandon her. Whatever Fern had said, or Akaisha, his place today of all days was with these people who had given him love in spite of what he was. He must share their suffering. He began to mutter to himself, listing arguments why he would not really be putting the Tribe in danger.

'No one could see me. No one would expect to. Least of all the childgatherer. How would he guess that one of the Seraphim would choose to conceal himself painted in mud among barbarians.'

He shook himself free of this mood. He had to do this now or not at all. Before self-hatred could weaken his resolve any further, he made off in the direction he had seen Fern go; a direction which he knew led over the hill and eventually down to the Poisoned Field.

The air was deathly still as Carnelian crept around the Crag. He could hear nothing but the sound his feet made on the path. Peering down the slope into the Grove, he saw the branches of the mother trees were mute. It was as if they were listening out for their lost children. In that frozen world, he alone seemed to be capable of movement.

The clearing that lay below the Ancestor House was filled with amber heat. He groaned at the shock of passing into it from the shadows. He ran down the clearing to its further end, panting relief as he regained the cool, concealing shade.

On the edge of the rootstair he could see meandering down between the cedars, he paused to peer in the direction where he knew the Poisoned Field lay, but could see nothing through the meshing canopy. He descended the stair until he reached a fork. The right hand one led to the Northgate; the left one, to the childgatherer. Today, he could feel in his stomach why the Tribe called it the Sorrowing. He forced himself down it lest his doubts should make a coward of him.

The Sorrowing brought him within sight of the Childsgate. Wary of the light pouring through onto the stair, Carnelian left it, slipping under the cedars, aware he was trespassing on the rootearth of another hearth. Picking his way over roots, he made his way down the slope, approaching the Homeditch with stealth.