The Stone Knife

by Anna Stephens

  A shiver ran through Pilos and he heard Calan’s voice come strangled as the young Feather’s emotions got the better of her.

  People came to see them then, oh yes: scores and then hundreds and then thousands cramming into the buildings and along the narrow paths, climbing onto roofs and leaning out of windows on upper floors. Pilos felt a vague unease that the chant might be seen as a challenge to the Singer’s authority, and it sharpened into panic when there was movement in the mouth of the entrance halfway up the pyramid’s side, as the council and Chorus made their way out in response to the driving noise.

  Not the council he was familiar with. Not the councillors he knew and had sparred with over points of law and order for the last three sun-years. Strangers, all. Enet’s toys.

  Pilos nearly swallowed his tongue when the Chorus began marching down the pyramid’s steps to either side of the councillors: one of them was Ilandeh! Or was it? The woman had a cut across her face that made it hard to identify her, but there was something familiar about that loping gait.

  ‘High Feather?’ Calan asked under cover of the chant and he knew she’d seen her, too. So it was Ilandeh.

  ‘I see her,’ he muttered. ‘A bold move, but a good one.’ Detta scowled at that but held his tongue. Calan just shook her head. He put Ilandeh out of his mind, glad that a Whisper’s identity was rarely even revealed within the Melody.

  Pilos rose and raised both arms; the chant came to a halt and the plaza seemed to ring bright and clean with echoes. The song was cleaner too, as though it had responded to their voices and stabilised a little. Adjusting the cloak of feathers around his shoulders, Pilos stepped forward and inclined his head, touching belly and throat. ‘Honoured council to the great Singer, devout children of the holy Setatmeh, you give the Melody great status in receiving us here. We return in victory, councillors, and with great spoils. Farmland. Slaves. Songstone. All Ixachipan is now part of the Empire of Songs and rich in its glory.’

  He snapped his fingers and eight eagles advanced, a long line of captives bound between them. ‘And, as the great Singer himself ordered, I bring him ejab – the warriors dedicated to the slaughter of the holy Setatmeh themselves. There are more; these are but a sample. And I have brought this man, in addition, for the Great Octave’s amusement.’

  There was a murmur among the council and one stepped forward. ‘Ejab, you say? The Great Octave and the Singer would like to meet these creatures. You are not needed.’

  ‘I would be uncomfortable at the thought of such abominations being in the Singer’s presence without adequate restraint,’ Pilos cut in. ‘Even with the exceptional Chorus guarding him, I fear for our holy lord. They are talented and vicious warriors.’ Aside from Ilandeh, this Chorus wasn’t exceptional, and every warrior staring up at them could see it. Pilos crushed that thought to dust.

  The councillor was outmanoeuvred and knew it. He turned with an angry click of his tongue and stalked back up the steps. Pilos didn’t look at Ilandeh as he and Feather Detta followed. He didn’t dare.

  They shuffled their way into the source, the respect they offered lessened by the scuffle of eagles forcing the captives to show humility. He let the councillors pull ahead of him, knowing they’d do more to announce his presence than he could and, as expected, every eye was fixed on him when he came into the council chamber. The elaborate hanging hiding the Singer was in place, though his bulk was visible as a dark smudge behind it. Next to him, and in full view, sat Enet. The long line of her neck was turned to the chamber and, although he had expected it, still the dark feather tattooed from her clavicle up the side of her throat made his arse clench.

  But only one feather. She has not received the other that would mark her his successor. So far she is destined to ascend rather than be Singer. So far.

  It was a relief, but not much of one.

  Pilos pushed all such thoughts aside and indicated his eagles should bring the prisoners forward. ‘Great Singer, holy lord, councillors.’ A tiny pause. ‘Great Octave. The Melody returns in triumph. The Yaloh and the Tokob have surrendered and now join us in the Empire. Pyramids advance across the jungle and the glory of the song will soon be ascendant. There is songstone in the hill called Malel, holy lord, great lodes and veins of it. As much songstone as we could possibly need.’ He didn’t look at Enet as he said this.

  There were murmurs of appreciation, a scattering of applause.

  ‘And you have brought slaves here, into the source?’ Enet asked.

  The hypocrisy curdled Pilos’s stomach but he replied with serenity. ‘I have brought ejab as the Singer commanded.’

  ‘That one is no eja,’ Enet said and pointed.

  ‘No, Great Octave. I had thought the shaman might amuse you. He is my gift to you to celebrate being Chosen of the Singer.’

  The peace-weaver Tayan had gone pale at the pronouncement, but Enet laughed. ‘So generous, High Feather. I do hope you have the paperwork for him. For now, tell us more about these ejab.’

  Pilos didn’t need to fake his disgust or his rage. ‘This is their elder, Rix. When it comes time to slaughter the holy Setatmeh, Tokob shamans like that one give them a mix of herbs and frog secretions that make them hear things that they believe to be spirits. These sounds cover the holy Setatmeh song. Over the years this spirit-magic, as they call it, affects them. They become … unreliable, skittish. Moon-mad, some might say.’

  Enet startled and glanced at the Singer. ‘How interesting. We will need to know what this mixture of herbs is, of course. But an elder, you say? One of the leaders of his people and yet now, here, in ropes. How tragic.’

  Rix had been composed all the way here, and Pilos admired and respected him for it. He did not think Enet would be the one to break this man’s dignity with a few weak jibes.

  ‘The woman at the end is deaf, so has no need for frog-licking. All ejab, in fact all Tokob, from what I can tell, have a type of hand-speech that they use to communicate without voice. That is how she talks.’

  Enet’s face twisted. ‘Deaf? A pity she will never hear the glory of the song. It would be kinder to kill her.’ Her eyes bored into his, daring him to contradict her on the song’s beauty.

  ‘Indeed.’

  Enet leant behind the hanging and whispered. ‘The Singer in his wisdom finds her amusing and wishes to see this hand-speech. The elder can be her translator.’

  ‘As the holy lord commands.’ Pilos gestured and his eagles unbound their wrists and then pressed knives against their spines. He wondered whether this signed conversation would end in violence as the last one had and he checked to make sure the rest were securely bound.

  ‘Eja Xessa, tell the Singer and the council why you slaughter the holy Setatmeh.’

  ‘You said she was deaf,’ Enet snapped. ‘Why bother talking to her?’

  ‘Because she can read your lips,’ Rix answered before Pilos could. Xessa’s hands moved. ‘And your hostility would be clear even if I could not. I am not a trained monkey; I am a person and I am a killer.’ The corner of Rix’s mouth twitched in appreciation.

  Pilos grabbed Xessa’s arm, not as amused as Rix. ‘Don’t antagonise your betters, slave,’ he growled. ‘Your good behaviour, and yours, elder, are all that stand between some of your people and death. You should know this by now.’

  Xessa wrenched her arm free; then she hawked and spat phlegm onto the mats. Pilos slapped her face and she leapt for him, but Feather Detta wrestled her backwards and others restrained Rix as the council erupted with outrage and frightened squeaks. A few councillors scrambled away towards the gardens.

  ‘She’s an animal,’ Enet said dismissively. ‘Clearly all ejab are. The High Feather is wasting our time. Offer them all to the Setatmeh; it is only fitting that the gods take their lives.’

  Rix waved, gaining Xessa’s attention, and then translated Enet’s words – or Pilos assumed he did. They could be saying anything.

  ‘Watch her,’ he murmured to Detta.

  Xessa sh
owed no emotion, but Pilos heard a faint snort of derision. She locked gazes with the Great Octave, her own flat and dead, and began to sign.

  ‘Ejab kill the Drowned because they are killers who take our people, because they are unnatural creatures who kill for entertainment and not just food. They kill for fun, take our children and elderly and rip them apart, leave them scattered across the riverbank. The Drowned are the animals here, not Tokob.’ Rix paused and sucked in a breath, signed a question and received an answer, and then continued, slower than before.

  ‘You keep slaves and pride yourselves on being civilised; you think you are better than the rest of us. You are not. You are the slaves, slaves to these monsters you keep glutted with human flesh in the hope they won’t lure you in next. You tell yourselves you are too good to be eaten by your gods, but the truth is your gods are too gorged and lazy to hunt you. Your lives are lived in terror masquerading as worship. While you cower and give them defenceless people to be consumed, we are true warriors who take the fight to the Drowned. We will not stop until every last one is dead. Every last Drowned and every last Pecha. Only then will there be peace.’

  The silence was profound and Pilos knew Rix understood he was a dead man breathing. That they all were. Perhaps it had been their plan from the start, a way to avoid slavery and maybe take some of the council – even the Singer – with them. Pilos had an intense urge to offer them his respect, even as he acknowledged the utter waste of life that was to come.

  ‘Words with as little thought behind them as the imitations of a parrot,’ Enet scoffed, surprising him. ‘Animals jerking against the ropes that bind them. Savages who bark of honour but gave up their homes, their gods, and their offspring to save their own skins. They can tell us nothing, teach us less. Have them killed and be done with it.’

  ‘Is this the will of the Singer?’ Pilos asked.

  Enet’s gaze was undiluted malice. ‘Of course it is.’ Pilos waited her out until, with a tiny huff of irritation, she leant behind the hanging and whispered a question.

  It was Xessa who moved first, as soon as Enet looked away, Pilos was sure of it, but it was Rix who took the punishment on himself. The woman’s foot lifted, her face twisting with rage, and Rix shoved her hard into Pilos and they both went down in a sprawl. The eja elder screamed a war cry and went for Enet, leaping through the kneeling councillors who shrieked and scattered, hampering the Chorus and Detta. Rix was within a stride of the Great Octave when Ilandeh leapt at him from where she’d been concealed from any Toko who might recognise her. The elder tore down the hanging as he was borne to the ground.

  Pilos fought his way clear of Xessa and planted his sandal between her shoulder blades, forcing her into the mats where she thrashed, roaring. The other Tokob, still roped, were struggling with the Chorus and the eagles and the source descended into chaos.

  Pilos paid it no attention. He stared at Enet and the Singer. He stared at the monster crouched at the heart of all he held dear. ‘Sweet Setatmeh, what have you done?’ he murmured.

  Hulking and huge, the Singer was bloated and puffy in the face and belly, but not, he thought, with food or beer. His limbs had grown thin and Pilos had never seen skin so pale. Hair that had once been lustrous and waist-length had thinned until it hung in tufts from his scalp. He was no longer a man. His eyes were black and empty and his mouth worked constantly, chewing on air.

  If not for the movement of his jaw, Pilos might have thought he was already dead and had been propped up in order to deceive the council. Instead of prostrating himself as he should, he stood and stared, grinding the eja into the mats, pressing down with the force of his rage and the weight of his disgust. His spirit quailed within him.

  Rix had recoiled when he first saw the Singer, but now he struggled again in Ilandeh’s grip, thrashing. Detta lent his strength to the Whisper’s and they wrestled him backwards. ‘We are the first children,’ Rix was screaming, ‘born from Malel’s womb at the very heart of creation. What you see as surrender we know is patience. You’ll fall, all of you, and that fucking monster there, too. We—’

  Ilandeh put him in a lock, choking him, and Xessa made a noise of recognition and began to thrash harder. A broken whistle shuddered from her lungs as she tried to attract attention and Pilos dropped his knee into her back. If anyone else recognised Ilandeh, if they denounced her as the spy in the Sky City, Enet would have all the justification she needed to kill her, him, and probably the whole of the Melody’s high command.

  Detta clubbed Rix in the face and, as the man sagged, took control of him from Ilandeh. With a brief nod, she stepped back and then vanished into the garden.

  ‘Great Singer? Shall I take the ejab to the offering pool?’ Pilos asked, trying to keep any tension other than concern for the Singer from his voice. He considered letting Xessa get up, letting her tear Enet apart for him, but he couldn’t risk it – she was more likely to go for the Singer, and, no matter what had happened, what he had become, Pilos could not allow that to happen.

  ‘Great Singer?’ Pilos asked again as he wrenched Xessa’s arms behind her back. He kept his face averted from his lord. Lord of the Underworld, a small, hysterical voice supplied. He quashed it with savage speed.

  ‘No,’ the Singer rumbled. ‘Leave them all with me and get out.’

  Pilos went cold, both at the proclamation and the Singer’s voice. Where were those rich harmonics that fluttered through his words, that bent the song to his will? Why did he sound so weary and yet so, so hungry?

  ‘Holy lord?’ he managed. ‘The danger—’

  ‘I will deal with this.’ And now there were harmonics and more. The song reeled and blared out of control, rising to a pitch that set Pilos’s teeth on edge and could not be denied. All the stability the Melody’s chant had provided it was gone in a heartbeat. Everyone standing, slave or eagle, fell to their knees.

  ‘All of you out, now,’ Enet said. ‘The holy lord will see the Tokob are punished according to their crimes and the Chorus will ensure his safety here in the source.’

  ‘You cannot mean this, Great Octave,’ Pilos tried, desperate. ‘Enet, please.’

  Enet’s face was blank, as though she was staring at an insect. ‘You have brought violence into the holy lord’s presence and allowed unrestrained god-killers within steps of his person and the holy Setatmeh who swim in the offering pool. You have placed his life in danger with your reckless actions. You are hereby stripped of your status as High Feather and as Spear of the Singer. You are ejected from this council and the Singer’s presence. Yet the holy lord is merciful, and so you may keep the deaf god-killer to punish yourself. Now leave.’

  Pilos gaped for less than a heartbeat, and then he hauled Xessa to her feet and threw her into the arms of one of his eagles. ‘Shut her up. Get her out of here.’

  ‘High Feather Pilos, Great Octave,’ the Toko peace-weaver began. ‘Please, my people are—’ An eagle uncoiled a short whip and lashed him across the shoulders. He fell, howling, and Pilos saw how the Singer twitched – not at the sound, but at the line of blood on Tayan’s back.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘No violence in the source.’ The eagle flushed and stepped quickly away. Pilos stared from Enet to the yelling Rix, Detta handing him off to another Chorus warrior now, then to the Singer himself. No one contradicted Enet’s proclamation – not even Xac.

  Pilos took a deep breath and commended his spirit to the song. ‘My fate is irrelevant, but the holy lord must not sully his hands with blood. It is our sacred, eternal law. Great Singer, please do not do this. Allow us to execute them on your behalf, or offer them to the holy Setatmeh. Please.’

  ‘You have no voice in this council, eagle warrior,’ Enet said with a lift of her chin. ‘And be grateful you are still that. The Singer is divine; he knows more than you will ever comprehend and everything he does is sacred. Now get out.’

  ‘Holy lord, you must not blood the song,’ Pilos tried in a final, desperate attempt. ‘Not again. It is kill
ing you!’

  ‘I said out, or join the Tokob in their punishment.’

  Pilos matched wills with Enet for a moment that lasted an eternity and roasted the air between them. Then more Chorus warriors appeared and began advancing on the former High Feather and his eagles. The song soared higher into a roaring imperative that battered at him, rejecting him and his proposals. That screamed with bloodlust and madness. The council were already scattering, almost running from the source after only the briefest of obeisances. The peace-weaver was kneeling on the mats, staring in utter horror at the Singer. Pilos thought he might be crying.

  ‘Under the song,’ Pilos said, marvelling at the steadiness of his voice. ‘Chorus, see that the Singer is protected at all times. From all threats.’ He bowed and left, Detta and his eagles forming up behind him. Protecting his back.

  You have taken everything from me, Enet, but it is as nothing compared with what you have done to him. You have made him little more than your drooling puppet.

  And I am going to kill you for it.

  TAYAN

  The source, Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  72nd day of the grand absence of the Great Star

  The Empire of Songs was ruled by a monster. It was all Tayan could think as he knelt amid the swirl of men and women fighting and screaming. The rope they were all tied to jerked him this way and that as they struggled, but he stayed on his knees, the fiery bite from the lash set deep in the muscles of his back.

  He stared at the thing that had been revealed when Rix tore down the curtain and tried to convince himself it was a person. Next to it sat Enet, watching the Chorus quell the prisoners with a curl to her lip that was part disgust and part … concern, though she hadn’t seemed particularly worried when she’d sent Pilos and his warriors away. With Xessa.