The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 (115 page)

'Carnie. What's the matter?' Fern shouted over the hissing in the air.

'I told you not to come here,' said Carnelian. Poppy was crying with fear.

Carnelian curled up, not understanding, wanting to scream. The flies,' he said, shakily. The devouring flies.'

Strong hands grabbed hold of him. He was drawn towards a body and could feel a mouth speaking in his ear.

'Sporewind, Carnie. It's just the sporewind. Now lie down and I'll cover you and Poppy. Then I'll go and see to the aquar.'

Carnelian felt around for Poppy and drew her close, and Fern threw a blanket over them.

'It's not flies then, Carnie?' Poppy asked through her tears.

He stroked her hair. The sporewind striking the blanket was like someone throwing sand. 'Not flies,' he muttered. 'Not flies.'

Next morning, the dawn twilight never brightened to day. Wrapped up in blankets, they harnessed the aquar by touch.

'Will she be able to go on?' Carnelian cried.

'We'll go slowly and all ride her,' said Fern.

Being the heaviest, Carnelian sat in the saddle-chair. Fern rigged some ropes between the front and back crossbeams and lay across them on one side, after they had placed Poppy along the other. To make sure she did not slip out, but also to help counter Fern's weight, Carnelian leaned over to hold Poppy in place. When he asked the aquar to rise, she did so. The distribution of weight made her rock a
little
but with some adjustments, they managed to make it possible for her to walk.

They set off. The air swirled black all
around them. It hissed and rattl
ed c
onstantly as it struck them. Mostl
y it drove like sleet from the east, in which the sun showed the dark ridge of the Backbone. Carnelian guided them towards it and, for the rest of the day, in its lee, they made what headway they could through the sporestorm.

Three more days they struggled on while the sporewind blew relentlessly. It was at night they suffered most. Their backs and limbs ached. Poppy's tears had run dry. Carnelian was plagued by nightmares of the Isle of Flies.

On the morning of the fourth day, the storm began to abate. The sun rose hazy but distinct Some of the sky's blue shone through and gave them hope. It became possible again for one of them to run while the other rode. It eased their ache of worry to pick up the pace.

As the day wore on, it became possible again to see into the far distance. Four separate columns of smoke were eddying in the breeze.

'I know where we are,' Fern said grimly. That smoke is rising from the Tallgreen, the Darkcloud, the Smallochre and the Woading.'

'Not from the Koppie?' asked Poppy.

Fern's eyes when they locked to Carnelian's, were like wounds. 'No, not from the Koppie.'

They crossed the Backbone a little to the south so as to avoid having to pass anywhere near the Darkcloud. Fern's route brought them within sight of the koppie of the Bluedancing. Even from a distance, they could all see the damage Osidian's fire had wrought there. They veered away from that desolate sight, northwards, towards the glistening run of lagoons beyond which lay their home.

Riding while Carnelian ran, Fern guided them through the gap between two lagoons. Bellowers roosted on islands. Earthers were strewn like boulders across the land. When they stopped to make a changeover, Carnelian searched for heaveners but could find none.

Once he was settled with Poppy into the saddle-chair, they pushed on.

Carnelian's heart jumped up into his throat and Poppy let out a squeal of delight when they saw the beloved shape of the Koppie rising up out of the plain. Both he and Fern allowed her chatter to pour over them as they scrutinized their home, nervously.

Carnelian pulled the aquar up. 'Shouldn't they have seen us by now?'

Grimacing, hands on knees as he leaned over panting, Fern nodded, never once taking his eyes off the silhouette.

Carnelian made the aquar kneel and dismounted. 'We might as well both walk.'

They marched on. Sensing their anxiety, Poppy asked: 'What's the matter?'

Carnelian glanced up at her. 'Nothing.'

When they came close enough to see the individual mother trees, Fern steered them towards the Horngate. As they drew nearer they began to smell the rot of blood. The ruins of vast creatures still partially walled with flesh spoke of a recent hunt. It seemed to Carnelian an evil omen.

'Couldn't we use another gate?'

Fern shook his head slowly, unable to free his gaze from the sight.

The fernland before the Newditch was scorched and black. They stopped when they reached the earthbridge and looked over it to the Killing Field. The carcasses were verminous with ravens and sky-saurians. Carnelian looked across at the Eastgarden and saw the drying racks like an abandoned military camp.

'Come on,' said Fern. Carnelian hoisted Poppy up with one arm and followed him.

Even though they pushed their ubas hard against their

mouths and noses they coul
d not shut out the overwhelming
fetor of the Killing Field. Flies shimmered and rippled in mats over walls of brown mucused flesh that sagged rotting from the struts of bones. The ground was a churn of blood and mud and lumps of fat. They wound their way through towards the fallen Bloodwood Tree lying like a corpse amongst the carnage, its roots hung with entrails.

They found the bridge and won their way over to the Blooding, where they rubbed the filth off their shoes and opened their ubas to suck in the perfume of the easterly breeze. Ahead, the Grove looked as it always did and yet, it lacked something intangible. They could feel something was wrong as they marched up the Blooding.

Over the bridge, the gate had been torn down. They stopped to gaze through under the arching cedars, desperate to see a friendly Ochre face.

'Maybe everyone's gathered below the Ancestor House,' whispered Poppy.

'Maybe,' said Carnelian, exchanging a look of despair with Fern.

Carnelian put Poppy down. 'Will you stay here, Poppy?'

The girl shook her head slowly. Anger welled up in Carnelian but he controlled it. He offered Poppy his hand and, when she took it, he led her across the bridge.

Beneath the canopy of the mother trees rather than the usual sensuous coolness, the air felt cold. Even before Carnelian's eyes had adapted enough for him to see in the gloom, he recognized the smell and snatched Poppy up, crushing her against his chest, forcing her head back over his shoulder. As his sight returned, the branches of the mother trees were revealed hung with horrifying fruit.

Keening, Fern careered, stumbling, up the rootstair, leaving Carnelian panting, gaping, staring round, nauseous as he saw how many people were hanging from the trees. 'Carnie, you're hurting me,' Poppy whined in a tearful panic, but Carnelian could not release his hold on her and could only stare transfixed with horror. Osidian had done this. Carnelian could sense his presence as if he smelled him on the fetid air.

Carnelian became aware of Poppy shrieking, frantic in his arms. He slid her down his body and crushed her face to his chest, then fled back over the bridge into the fern-garden, into the bright clean day. When he had run far enough for the sun to burn the blackness from his eyes, he crouched to let Poppy go. She flew at him, screaming, beating him with her little fists and he gave himself over to her fury, which was nothing compared to the utter dread and desolation that now filled him.

He hardly noticed the blizzard of her blows cease, but he did see the terrified look she gave him and tried to find his voice, tried to comfort her.

'Is it the Master?' she asked, tears and mucus glistening on her cheeks and upper lip.

Carnelian could find no words, nor even thought.

'Where's Fern?' she screamed at him.

Carnelian's mind coalesced around that name. He glanced back at the gape of the gate across the bridge. He coughed his voice back into being. 'Stay, stay.'

Poppy licked her lips and stared at him, unblinking.

'Stay here. Please, stay here,' he begged.

She was shaking her head. 'No. I'm not leaving you.'

Carnelian kneaded his forehead, seeing her twisting in his tears. He rose and glared down at her and his anguish poured out into his voice.

'You'll not move from here until I return.'

His wrath flattened her to the ground among the fresh green ferns. He stooped to lift her.

'Please stay here, Poppy, for me?'

She gave him a tiny nod and he leaned close to kiss her. Soon he was loping back to the earthbridge. He glanced back once to make sure she had not moved and then, hesitating at the gate, he re-entered the darkness beneath the mother trees.

Carnelian crawled up the rootstair towards Akaisha's hearth, his eyes fixed on his feet, clawing at the roots, desperate not to look to either side, too aware of the shapes hanging everywhere, so close to the ground they appeared to be standing.

He moved away from the stair towards Akaisha's hearth. His fingers touched the beloved roots of her mother tree. The stench was too thick to breathe. He felt them round him but dared not look; instead he crept searching with narrowed eyes for Fern. He felt the movement and was drawn to it. Glancing up he saw too much. Faces he knew, melting in death, and Fern moving among them with an expression of wonder as he gazed from one to another. Carnelian saw Akaisha strung up by her uba, her toes brushing the earth. Nausea and grief convulsed him into a spasm of vomiting. He wiped his mouth and scrambled to Fern's side. He took hold of him and was thrown off with a snarl. Fern fixed him with a look of such pure hatred Carnelian was turned to stone. The Plainsman resumed his wandering among the dead. When Carnelian glimpsed Sil's distorted face he fled, mindless.

The scream pouring from his mouth felt as if it was emptying him of flesh. His lungs drank air. He heard the delicate rasping of flies. Three Manila were standing by the Crag. Their fear of him made him ravenous for their blood. They fled and he pursued them. Round the Crag he hunted them and came to where a number of them had gathered their oily, sweating flesh. He advanced and they drew away, chattering their fear. Something pale hung above them like the moon. He discerned its symmetries of bone. A waft of carnage air reminded him of death, of the Isle of Death, of Osidian maggot-pale among the roots of the black banyan. He looked up and saw the Ancestor House: a casket of the slain, its walls as pale as Osidian's face.

Hatred threatened to overwhelm Carnelian. His gaze fell upon one of the Manila, paler than the others in his Oracle's ash, and saw it was Morunasa offering him a spear. Carnelian took it. A way opened to the steps. They seemed steeped in blood. The whole world was red with murder. He was climbing the steps. He reached the porch and moved to stand before the leather curtain. He drew it back with the spear and looked in.

Osidian's pale body made the bone floor upon which it lay look yellow. Carnelian entered, hefting the spear. It bucked in his fist as the curtain slid off it and then the room went black.

'I have come to kill you, Osidian.'

'You cannot,' said Osidian in a sepulchral voice.

Carnelian could see him laid out as if he were a corpse. 'I am going to kill you for this atrocity'

The barbarians were executed because they sinned against the Law-that-must-be-obeyed not once but countless times.'

That is a filthy lie! You murdered them because of your pride and for that I
will
kill you.' 'You will not.'

The certainty in Osidian's voice cheated Carnelian of strength. He fell to his knees but managed to keep the spearhead questing for Osidian's throat.

'I
must
kill you,' he whispered.

'If you do, the whole Earthsky will die with me.'

'You have already destroyed the best of it,' said Carnelian, desperate to thrust the spear into the heart of that voice.

'Did you not see the columns of smoke?' Osidian said.

Carnelian groaned, the spear tangling in the words.

They rise from every koppie from here to the very edge of the Guarded Land.'

Sweat ran into Carnelian's eyes, slicking his face so that he could taste salt on his lips but, still, he held the spearpoint to Osidian's throat.

It moved again. 'I saw them as I came north and did not know what they might mean. The old told me, before I hung them from their trees.'

Carnelian clenched and reclenched the spear, fighting cramp in his arm.

It is a signal a thousand years old. It warns the Plainsmen that the Masters have come down from the upper land with dragons. They are coming here burning everything in their path. I alone can stop them.'

'I shall give them your body and they will leave.'

That would not save the Earthsky.'

'You yourself told me it would,' cried Carnelian.

'I told you how you might appease the Wise. It is not they but one of the Great who comes.'

Carnelian laughed mirthlessly. 'Your foul God no doubt has told you this.'