and they saw, lit from below, something twitching being hoisted up. Then one by one the torches snuffed out, leaving the animal noises to carry from the thing they had lifted aloft.
Men around Carnelian were crying. 'Make it stop,' someone prayed. 'Dear Father, make it stop.'
Carnelian snatched a spear and ran down the knoll towards the sounds. As he drew nearer, his legs weakened so that he had to slow to a walk. He felt each shriek like a cut. Coming nearer he fought for the courage to raise his eyes. Against the stars he saw a man impaled, his transfixed body shaking, his head beating against the tip of the idol's tongue erupting from his shoulder.
Quickly, Carnelian blinked his eyes clear, trembled the spear blade over the thin and quivering chest and, praying it should find the man's heart, he thrust. The blade caught and, snarling, he twisted it hard through the ribs. The impaled man let out a hacking sigh and then, silence.
Carnelian fell, adding his vomit into the filth. Blind and deaf, he was barely conscious when the Plainsmen came to carry him back up to their camp.
A black man with pits for eyes having his throat cut. The blade in Aurum's hand slowly slicing round. The Master's white face had the same bored expression it had had when he had burned the ant nest in the Naralan. Carnelian hated those misty blue eyes. A licking at his toes made him look down, then jump back in horror from the spreading blood. He reached out to touch Aurum, pleading that he stop the cutting lest they drown. The eyes that turned to look at him were the old Master's but they were peering from Kor's branded face.
Carnelian wrenched awake. Sweat congealed on his skin. A face swam into his vision. Fern. Carnelian grabbed him into an embrace and would not let him go. On the journey to Osrakum, he had tried to save a Maruli who had looked upon his face only to have the man make an attempt upon his life. Which was when Aurum had slit his throat.
Carnelian released Fern. His friend stared as Carnelian grasped his own throat and felt the scar of the rope. Was the dream a warning that he must not conceal Ravan's mutiny from Osidian?
'It's over now,' whispered Fern.
Carnelian could not understand.
Thank you,' said Fern.
'For what?'
'For ending that poor bastard's suffering and ours.' Carnelian remembered killing the impaled pygmy.
Dawn was creeping from the east, its birth finding silver in the streams that fell around the island. The morning was still too thin to dispel the horror.
'Leave with me,' pleaded Fern.
Carnelian stared at him.
The sky blushed. The Plainsmen were rising, whispering as they got ready to leave.
Fern's face was filled with concern.
Wan-faced, the Plainsmen crept around as if there were people in the camp they were reluctant to wake. Carnelian saw with what bright hope and yearning they glanced up the escarpment towards the Earthsky.
He rose searching for Ravan and found him harnessing his aquar, fumbling with the girths and straps. The youth became aware of Carnelian and returned his gaze.
'What's the matter?' said Fern.
Carnelian broke the link with Ravan to look at his friend. 'Go without me. Take your brother with you.'
Fern frowned, upset, confused. Carnelian reached for his hand and squeezed it. 'Go now.'
A while later the Plainsmen were all mounted and, with a rush, they were coursing away down the knoll and up the escarpment. Fern gave Carnelian one last look and then his aquar ran to join the others who were fading into a great rising of red dust.
Carnelian stood watching until the cloud thinned enough for him to see they had gone. The nightmare lingered like an ache, bringing doubt. He dismissed it. He had made his decision.
WOUNDED EARTH
One year sown, six years fallow lest the earth should lose her fertility.
Two Manila came to summon Carnelian. His heart sank when he saw where they were taking him. Still, he followed them. Krow came running to join him. Carnelian had forgotten Osidian had given the youth permission to remain behind. Neither was in the mood for conversation. Carnelian found distraction in counting the beads of bone and wood making up the corselet of the Maruli leading the way.
Carnelian's nose told him they were nearing the idol. It was impossible not to smell the rot rising from the blood-soaked earth upon which Osidian and Morunasa were standing waiting.
'Morunasa wishes to ask you something, my Lord,' Osidian said.
'Do we have to speak breathing this miasma?'
Manila showed Carnelian a spear.
'It's a spear,' Carnelian said, in Vulgate.
'A Flatlander spear,' Morunasa said, displaying it.
Carnelian was aware of nothing but the corpse of the man he had killed above him weighing the air with its fetor.
'Well?' demanded Morunasa.
'If you've something to say, Maruli, just say it!'
Morunasa regarded Carnelian with slitted eyes. 'We found this here, Master. It has blood on it.'
'Everything here has blood on it.'
Morunasa pointed up to the post where Carnelian did not want to look. 'See there.'
The Maruli pointed emphatically until Carnelian was forced to lift his eyes. At first he saw hanging above him only something like a scavenging bird utterly dark against the sepia sky. It resolved into the remains of the skewered man, his head pushed to one side by the idol's impaling tongue.
There. The wound,' insisted Morunasa.
Carnelian saw the hole torn through the pygmy's chest.
'It was made by this spear,' the Maruli said.
'I know.'
Morunasa turned to Osidian. 'He confirms what I said. One of the Flatlanders took what belonged to our Lord. You, Master, know how important it is such sins should not go unpunished.'
Osidian sighed. 'When the Plainsmen return I shall find whoever it was and give him to you.'
Morunasa fixed Krow with an amber stare. 'Who did this, Flatlander?'
'It was me,' said Carnelian.
Morunasa turned on him, opening greedy jaws. Carnelian remembered how those teeth had been used to tear out throats, but he did not care: all he wanted was to get as far as he could from the impaled man.
Osidian regarded Carnelian with a frown. 'Why did you do this, Carnelian?'
'If you need to ask that, Osidian, then no answer I can give would make it any clearer to you.'
Osidian grew angry. 'You have nothing more to say, my Lord?'
Waves of nausea began surging through Carnelian. He clutched at the air for words. 'I could no longer bear the noise. I was trying to sleep.'
Osidian stared, then laughed.
Morunasa looked at him appalled. 'You must give him to me.'
Osidian turned on the Maruli, incomprehension on his face. 'Give him to you?’
Morunasa shrank away. 'He took what was the Lord's. His blood now belongs to Him.'
Osidian regarded the Maruli as if he were a stupid child. 'If you so much as touch him, I shall burn you and your precious banyan to ashes.'
