The Chosen - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 01 by Ricardo Pinto Page B

down the right of his spine, feeling the bumps and ridges that had been put there by the Wise at his birth, with a scarring comb.
    'Zero, zero ... three, aaah ...' Vennel was reading out his father's blood-taint, 'fifteen, ahhm ... nineteen, another fifteen . . . ten ... two, no, three, now two, a final ten.'
    'Is that what is inscribed on Lord Suth's ring?' asked Aurum.
    'Exactly,' said Jaspar.
    Carnelian felt the fingers lift away. He waited, grimacing. Vermel's hand was there again, to the left of his spine.
    'Zero, zero, zero, two, one ... three ... nineteen, aaah .. . nine, six ... teen, aaah ... seventeen and a final ... ten.'
    The eleven fractions of his mother's taint. 'Confirmed,' said Jaspar. 'You can do the boy up, Vennel.' 'I certainly shall not. Am I now to become a body slave?'
    'I will do it, my Lords,' said Suth.
    Carnelian's shoulder was squeezed and the robe quickly hooked up. He turned and glared at the other Masters. Vennel was rubbing his hands as if he had touched something unclean. Jaspar was smiling. Aurum was as impassive as marble.
    The Rite of Blood,' he said.
    He came towards him until Carnelian was enveloped in his odour of lilies. He held out a vast leaf of a hand. An oval bowl lay along the palm, of jade so thin it might have been water.
    This is the edge of the night,' intoned his father. Carnelian saw that his left hand held a razor of obsidian like a mussel shell. It sliced into the palm of his other hand. The cut beaded blood all along its length. The bowl in Aurum's hand was there to catch each drop.
    Thou art my son, dewed from my flesh, Chosen. The ichor of the Two will burn thy veins; the same that once gushed from the Turtle's rending.' His father dipped his finger in the bowl. 'With this fire I anoint thee. In the names of He-whose-face-is-spiralling-jade.' He daubed a vertical stroke upon Carnelian's forehead. 'In the unspoken names of He-whose-face-is-the-mirror-in-the-night.' Dipping his finger once more, his father applied a second stroke beside the first.
    Then Aurum's hand offered Carnelian the bowl. He stared at it, not knowing what it was he was supposed to do.
    'Drink now thy father's blood that its fire might ignite thine to its own ... fierce ... burning,' said Aurum.
    When Carnelian took the bowl he could not avoid touching the Master's stone skin. He looked up at his face. It seemed fashioned from dead bone with only two points of living light. Carnelian resisted its menace and drained the bowl with a single gulp, grimacing at the metal taste.
    'On this day thou art come of age,' his father said.
    Truly thou art chosen a Lord of the Hidden Land,' the others chanted, then they glimmered away like a tide on a moonless night leaving Carnelian angry, amazed, uneasy that he was now fully one of them.
    'Soon the fire will begin its burning in your veins,' sang Vennel.
    'Some days it will course like naphtha in a flame-pipe,' Aurum growled.
    'It is one of the myriad burdens that we bear,' said Jaspar.
    The price that must be paid for near divinity,' said Aurum.
    .'Nothing is without cost,' said Vennel.
    Suth allowed his hand to brush Carnelian's. 'Yet, for many years, I have felt no burning.'
    'How so?' said Vennel, his eyes frost.
    Suth shrugged. 'Perhaps so far from its source its vigour fades.'
    'Perhaps,' said Aurum. 'Perhaps.'
    Tell me, my Lord Suth ...' said Vennel.
    Suth raised his eyebrows.
    'Why did you have us perform this ritual here and now?'
    'My son was past his time, and we had the ring here ...'
    'Aaah, the ring. My Lord Aurum was so thoughtful to remember to bring the ring. But still, are you sure that the Wise will consider it valid?'
    The ritual had my Lords as witness,' said Suth.
    'Are we qualified?'
    'Our journey will be perilous. The awakening of his blood might afford my son some protection.'
    Vermel nodded sagely. 'I see. And I suppose this coming of age could have nothing to do with the fact that the Lord Carnelian is now entitled to cast his twenty