The Stone Knife

by Anna Stephens

  ENET

  The source, Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  22nd day of the grand absence of the Great Star

  ‘Enet! What have you brought me?’

  Always the same question, the same eager, desperate, begging tone that filled her with contempt, even as his appearance filled her with dread. Courtesans, slaves, and Chorus warriors were the only people who saw Xac, and Xac was no longer pretty.

  One of the blessings of the magic which filled him from the moment he became Singer to the moment he ascended was that he was big, powerful, almost swollen with the song, and that when the magic moved most strongly within him, his skin flushed gold, as if lit from within by his divinity. But these last moons, as together they had explored the depths of his need and depravity, as his power had swelled even more with the use of the stone knife on offering after offering, his body had begun to change even more.

  Lustrous black hair had thinned and fallen out in clumps and his skin had paled from a healthy brown to a sickly, brittle grey. When the power moved within him now, of course all that could be seen was the holy lord, mighty in body and in magic, but the rest of the time …

  The rate of offerings had escalated, fuelled by the Singer’s raging need, by the ever more elaborate threats of violence if Enet did not acquiesce. One of his body slaves had been found dead in the source two days before. She’d … had her throat eaten out. The Chorus had discovered her near the offering pool and the official story was that a holy Setat had done it. Enet had examined that body. She knew those teeth marks; the Singer had left them in her own flesh more than once during their bed-play.

  Every day administrators and overseers requested an audience with her; every day they spoke of concerns. The Singer’s appetites. The Singer’s habits. The Singer’s prowling presence through the source in the middle of the night. And, from the courtesans, the Singer’s lack of desire.

  She put discreet plans in place that prevented anyone leaving the source except the councillors after each meeting. Chorus warriors at the exits, and some of her own slave guards keeping a covert watch on the pyramid from outside. The courtesans had always played with each other when the Singer was otherwise occupied; Enet encouraged them to continue that practice.

  But the city was sour with speculation, and not even the mark of the Chosen on Enet’s throat stopped the whispering that followed her everywhere, through every market and plaza, in every temple and at the latest new moon offering.

  At her request, two courtesans were in the gardens now, visible through the colonnade and vocal enough to provide the Singer with a diversion.

  ‘Answer,’ the Singer demanded, anger suffusing his face. Perhaps two were not enough. Perhaps all of them …

  ‘It is not the chosen day, holy lord,’ Enet said, not having to force the fear into her voice. And it wasn’t, though really there was no chosen day any more. There was nothing but his wants and how long she could delay them. No matter the books she read and the folktales and legends and shamans’ stories she consulted, no matter her divinations with dice and card and star charts. No matter what she did, the Singer’s hunger grew.

  Enet thought back to Pikte’s death – her diamond boy – and how she had thought then that she could control this, that their son’s death would be enough for him, would sate him for months. Her heart spasmed in her chest and the void of her grief ate away a little more of her spirit. Pikte had died for less than nothing; he had died for a lie and a broken dream and a man driven mad. Not all of the offerings had been accepted at the last new moon ritual, something that had never happened in all their long history, and after that the mood of the city moved from suspicious to panicked.

  Pechaqueh and free watched her with open hostility. Only the mark of the Chosen kept them from doing more than stare, she was sure of it.

  ‘The song is hungry,’ the Singer said, the special phrase he’d devised to hide his true meaning. It was Xac who was hungry, Xac who yearned for blood as some people did for the dreams brought on by a certain frog-venom or fungus. This was the creature Enet had created, and now that she had done so, she dared not look away lest it take her distraction for weakness and make her its next meal, Chosen or not.

  ‘Holy lord, today is not the day for that,’ she tried. ‘Why not watch the entertainment in the garden? If you have desires, great Singer, let me satisfy them.’ None of her revulsion showed in voice or face or manner as she slid one palm against his knee. ‘Listen to the men in the garden, holy lord. Are they not pleasing?’

  The Singer’s mouth was partly open in dull incomprehension, but then a glint lit his eyes and Enet’s guts writhed within her. ‘Fetch them in here,’ he said.

  ‘Holy lord, that’s not what—’

  ‘Fetch them in here,’ he repeated and though he did not raise his voice, gold flashed beneath his skin and the song swelled.

  ‘It is not the day,’ she tried one last time, her voice faint. Seven days. Seven since the last. Never had the intervals been so short. One every third month at most, her mind supplied over and over, a litany that had become meaningless through repetition. A mockery.

  The Singer bared his teeth at her and she knew he was quite, quite mad.

  ‘Would the Singer like to practise his archery?’ Chorus Leader Nara asked from behind her and Enet breathed a sigh of relief. Even this was a risk, though: the Singer had shot one of the children who sang for him in the evenings. The girl lived, but still …

  ‘The Singer,’ Xac said in tones more frightening for being so even and without inflection, ‘would like to be obeyed. The Singer has no fucking qualms about finding a new Chorus Leader or a new Great Cunt if it comes to it. Now bring them in here – or take their place.’

  He wasn’t even pretending to speak in riddles any more, and Nara moved to the gardens and summoned the lovers inside, as incapable of resistance as she was. They arrived quickly, flushed with their need and honoured to serve the holy lord, as they had not done for so long. He was radiant with magic and the strength of the song in the source was such that they saw only his majesty.

  The Singer’s desire was rising steadily and it thrummed like fingertips across Enet’s nerve endings, speeding her heart despite her disgust and her worry. The tonic she’d drunk thrummed with it too, a little stronger each day, a little more perfect, gracing her with everything she would eventually need. Strength. Will. Rightness.

  Eventually? It should have already happened, she thought as she watched the courtesans begin their work on the Singer. They had no idea what was coming for them.

  The holy lord lunged forward and slapped Enet, hard. Her head snapped to the side and she tasted blood. For a moment of utter, adrenaline-filled terror, she thought he had read her designs through the song. ‘You offer me two.’

  She chanced a glance at the courtesans, who were shocked and still, hands on each other, hands on him. Nara shifted his weight but didn’t speak. Offered him two? I haven’t offered him any. I tried to stop him.

  ‘Holy lord?’ she said carefully.

  ‘Where are the rest?’

  ‘L-lord?’ What rest? Two was the limit. He’d never had more than two.

  ‘The rest,’ he roared.

  The courtesans yelped and then giggled, shocked, at the Great Octave’s humiliation. They thought they’d have a story to tell the others in the morning. They thought they’d still be alive.

  ‘More,’ Xac bellowed as he put a hand around each man’s neck and dragged them to him as if to suckle. ‘Bring me more. More, you fucking bitch, more!’

  Enet fell to her face in worship to let his ire wash over her, but he ripped off her headdress and hauled her upright by her hair. ‘As the great Singer commands,’ she gasped, clinging to his arm for balance. The courtesans weren’t giggling any more; the courtesans were afraid.

  He tossed her down as if she were a corn doll and pulled one of the youths into his lap. His hand disappeared around his back for the stone knife hidden in h
is belt. Enet centred herself and returned to kneeling, ignoring her ruined hair, the stinging in her scalp. She put her hands in her lap and waited to be summoned into blood and death and orgasm.

  ‘I. Said. More,’ the Singer growled and she finally understood. He wanted more and he wanted them now. Seven days, and more than two. The Singer’s bloodlust was a starving jaguar and it had claws and teeth firmly fixed in his spirit.

  The song pulsed and raged and the courtesan in the Singer’s lap was chasing the gold sparkles in his skin with his lips and tongue, moaning artfully. The Singer brought hand and knife from behind his back and met Enet’s eyes. He pointed the blade at her. ‘More.’

  Enet bowed and rose, because there was no other choice, and walked from the source with her mind whirling. Despite everything, she looked back with concern. The first man would die, surprised, too late to struggle, but the other … The second one was always the most dangerous for the Singer, half-sated with death as he was. Enet herself had been forced to step in a time or two to stop a slave with nothing to lose from attempting to kill his lord. Nara met her eyes and hefted his club; despite everything, he would do his duty.

  Enet turned into the corridor that would take her to the courtesans’ rooms and found herself face to face with Councillor Yana. The old eagle stood straight and proud and very, very cold. Shame flushed her and she forced it away. ‘Councillor,’ she murmured, ‘watch over him while I am gone.’

  Yana caught her around the throat and slammed her into the wall. ‘I always watch over him. It is I who deals with all of this when you have had your way, when you have poisoned him and the song and the whole world with your sickness. You should leave, yes, but don’t come back. Don’t bring any more poor souls to be torn apart in there. Don’t ruin him any more than you have already. Take your fortune and go and I will personally ensure that you live out your days unknown and in luxury.’

  ‘The Singer—’ she wheezed.

  Yana squeezed harder and the edges of Enet’s vision began to bleed blackness. ‘I will look after the Singer. I will wean him off this sickness and restore him to health. Whatever your plan was, Enet, it has failed. The Singer will be confined for his own good until this heresy has burnt from him. I will ensure he is happy and content and that the Empire is stable and prosperous under his hand. You will not be here.’ He let her go and took a step back.

  Enet leant against the wall and coughed, rubbing her throat and trying to think. ‘How dare you speak to a Chosen so,’ she began, and then squeaked as Yana drew back his fist. She slid along the wall.

  ‘I will go,’ she croaked, ‘because my Singer has ordered me to. I will do as he commands and return with more offerings. Wait! Listen to me, Yana. Can you not see how strong we are? We are winning in the north. The blood feeds the song and the song blares across the sky and all who hear it are commanded by it. I have made him stronger.’

  ‘You are killing him,’ Yana said and took a threatening pace forward. ‘And I will kill you if I see you in here again. Chosen or not, I no longer care. Get out.’

  This was no youthful bravado or empty words, for Yana was neither young nor given to boasts. Enet knew without doubt he would put a blade into her if she returned to the source. And if she did not? If she left all this behind instead? Could she, after having come so far? After giving Pikte to the song?

  The world spirit’s time approaches. Its awakening is near and he cannot manage it. He could not even before the blooding that was supposed to strengthen him.

  This was a mistake, but I did it for him and I did it in good faith. For the world spirit and the holy Setatmeh. For us all.

  Always Enet had been here to do what was needful. Always she had put herself last, had sacrificed everything for the good of the Empire and the good of all the world. She would not stop now, and if Yana thought to halt her, she would have to do what was needful there, too.

  She inclined her head to the old councillor and walked away. Behind her, the source rang with sudden screams.

  It was almost dusk when Enet returned. She would have gone back sooner, after seizing a couple of beggars from the street and scrubbing them down in the nearest bath house, because by then the Singer wouldn’t have known any different. But she hadn’t gone back, because the song had changed, had risen and risen in disharmonious clangour, wave upon wave of hideous dissonance until it … broke, shattered into discrete, clanging shards that grated and roared against each other in a cacophony that spurred fear and madness in those who heard it. And everyone fucking heard it.

  Across the Singing City, Pechaqueh, free, and slaves had stopped, hands over their ears, and turned to face the great pyramid rising at the centre of the city. Fear had grown wings and spread street to street, suffocating. She’d seen people packing up and slaves struggling under laden baskets and chests. Many of those fleeing were Pechaqueh.

  Enet retreated to her own estate as the day lengthened and the song wailed and pulsed and wept. Smoke lingered on the breeze and beneath the song’s madness rang screams and shouts and destruction. It was broken, the Singer was broken, both perhaps irreparably. And despite herself, she had to know why. She had to know if her time had come, even though it was too early. The tonic hadn’t had long enough to work its magic in her flesh and her other preparations were still not complete.

  Yet she would do what she must. For the Empire and the world. As ever.

  Enet picked two of her nearest pleasure slaves and set out again for the source, moving against the flow of traffic with her guards forcing a path until she came to the plazas surrounding the great pyramid and found them empty.

  The pyramid itself was unnaturally silent and very still. She saw no one as she traversed the winding corridors flanked by her guards, trailed by her slaves. It seemed empty, no slaves or courtesans or administrators, not even Chorus.

  They were still three corridors from the source when they found the first corpse. A slave boy, small and delicate as her Pikte had once been. A long trail of blood down the corridor. ‘Hurry,’ she snapped. ‘The Singer may be in danger.’

  Enet allowed two of her guards to move ahead of her and they followed the blood trail back to the source. Two more bodies, Chorus warriors – one dying, and one very dead – and then they arrived at the vast oval chamber.

  Enet halted so fast that the slaves and warriors behind bumped into her. She ignored them, ignored everything but the crimson splashes and pools, the destroyed furniture and artwork, and the bodies. All the bodies.

  Draped across the low tables, piled in heaps among the pillows, scattered across the mats, tumbled in the shattered, torn gardens, and even floating in the offering pool, lay the dead. Courtesans, slaves, stewards, and Chorus. Even the councillors, piled and draped and tumbled like kindling, like wet washing. Like massacre. Everyone. Every. One.

  In its midst the Singer, red from head to heels. He sat against a wall, arms limp at his sides, legs splayed before him. Expression empty. As she watched, he lifted a hand and licked blood from his fingertips.

  He’d killed the pair of courtesans and craved more. He hadn’t waited for Enet’s return, it seemed. He must have sent runners for the council and then summoned his courtesans and then the stewards and administrators and slaves, and here in the source, where the song was at its most irresistible, he’d held them in its grip and slaughtered them all. Slaughtered them as they begged, slaughtered them as they fucked, as the song drove them and rode them and broke upon them. And then drowned in their blood.

  But not Enet. He hadn’t sent for Enet.

  The Great Octave’s legs gave way; she knelt with a thump and little grace. ‘Holy lord?’ she ventured. The Singer’s head moved with ponderous slowness at her words.

  The slaves and guards she’d brought with her were on their faces in obeisance. She could hear a steady, low stream of curses from one, sobbing from another. Fear had them all in its scarlet claw.

  The Singer held out a red hand and beckoned. Enet summoned ev
ery shred of nerve and rose to her feet; she crossed the space between them without flinching, blood oozing around her toes out of the saturated mats. She knelt before him, hands on her thighs, eyes downcast.

  ‘I needed more,’ he whispered, his tone slurred and yet almost childlike. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course, holy lord,’ she murmured. ‘You are the Singer; you are divine. Nothing you do is wrong.’

  He gestured and she flinched, then followed his pointing finger to one of the courtesans, young and beautiful – before. He was naked and his ribs had been shattered and ripped from his chest, exposing the smashed remains of his heart and lungs. ‘Is that wrong?’

  The finger moved to others, dead as they took their song-driven pleasure from each other. ‘Was that?’

  Enet licked her lips. ‘It was not wrong, holy lord. But it was, perhaps, a little hasty. It may be you will feel better if you rest now, while I … tidy up. And … perhaps such levels of indulgence should not be repeated.’

  ‘But I needed it. I only had the two and you were gone. You left me.’ Bewilderment leached through the haze in his face. ‘Don’t ever leave me again. I command it.’

  ‘I will never do so, my love. Never again.’

  ‘You are my Chosen,’ he said. ‘Enet, Great Octave, Spear of the City, and Chosen of Xac. Never leave me.’

  ‘I promise, holy lord,’ Enet murmured, packing the screams down inside, into the void left by her dead child. Her murdered child, who had died so that his mother might create … this.

  ‘I will arrange for a new council to be assembled in the coming days. When you have rested.’ She put her hand on Xac’s knee. ‘You have done mighty work here today, holy lord, and now it is time to rest, to absorb the power that you loosed and weave it into a song that none of us will ever forget. Come, my love. Let me bathe you.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ he begged as she stood and Enet bit her lip to stop it curling. Disgust mingled with a heady fear. She walked the edge of a precipice. She helped him to his feet and planted a kiss on his gore-streaked forehead.