Balroath paused, his eyes searching. Kett stood firm. Chuffing warm, billowing breaths into the chill air, the Jinaal looked at each of his fellows. Nods followed from the others.
“You have your bargain.”
Kett let out a held breath, steaming the air around his face so that he didn’t at first see Balroath’s movement.
When the air cleared, his heart slammed painfully in his chest.
Balroath had taken three commanding strides toward Saleema, and turned her to face him. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, the look nearly tender, nearly intimate. Then he inclined toward her as if to steal a kiss. But he stopped just short of her lips, and drew a slow breath through his nose, filling his lungs. Thin vapors streamed from Saleema’s nose and mouth into him. She began to slump. Her shoulders rolled forward; her knees and hips flexed, threatening to drop her down. Balroath put a hand around her waist to hold her up.
He’s drawing in her spirit.
“Please, stop!” Kett cried.
Balroath turned a hard eye on him. When he spun Saleema around to face him, she was gone. The part that made her Saleema was gone. The shell that remained looked back at Kett with vacant eyes.
Balroath lifted his knife from an iron-studded belt. In one easy motion he grabbed her head by the hair and drew his blade across her throat. It happened so fast she didn’t have time to fight or scream. She hardly tried.
But shock rose on her face, distant eyes imploring. She dropped to her knees, clutching at her throat to stop the bleeding, as if momentarily herself again. She pitched forward, turning to look up at Kett, reaching out to him.
“You understand the consequences of betraying our trust.” Balroath started to lead Kett’s small ones away.
A last wretched cry shot from Kett’s throat as he cursed the Quiet and the god that made them. The sound mounted the crags and raced heavenward.
* * *
Morning was a good time to lay the dead to rest.
Kett emerged from the mouth of a narrow canyon, pulling a handcart laden with the body of his companion. The wheels creaked in the morning stillness, echoing out over a long, narrow lake at the bottom of a deep valley. He paused there, at the end of a three-day journey to reach Mourning Vale, where Inveterae had, for ages, brought their dead to say good-bye.
Anymore, few Inveterae observed the traditions of their ancestors, many having forgotten the Vale existed at all. Most Inveterae simply focused on harvesting thin wheat and dredge roots for the Quiet, or they worked the camps, shepherding prisoners from both sides of the Veil.
And they’d all but given up the idea of escaping the Bourne. Even the old stories of the Mor peoples—Inveterae races said to have a powerful song, a song that had helped them tear through the Veil and cross into the Eastlands—even those stories were fading.
Kett walked to the water’s edge, and watched as littoral mists eddied languidly across the glassy surface, touching the shore and the tips of his feet. He saw his own pale reflection, and thought, as he had so often before, that his kind had a touch of the grotesque.
At a fair distance, it would be hard to discern the difference between his own Gotun race and a Bar’dyn. Nearer, one would see deeper-set eyes, thinner lips, and smoother skin.
But the real difference was their intentions. Gotun—silent hell, all Inveterae races—held no real malice toward men, as Quietgiven did. They owed that to a different set of Framer hands: the Quiet’s first and only father was Maldea, the dissenting god; Inveterae were the get of the absent gods.
He looked out over the lake, surveying its eerie calm. No fish broke the water’s plane, no insect buzzed, no bird let out its cries. A few trees clung to life, their leaves and needles grey-green under the cloudy sky; most were dead, and appeared like bony hands reaching heavenward with their bare white limbs—perfect companions to the bones that lay beneath them.
The Inveterae didn’t bury their dead. Instead they were laid faceup to wait on the grace of the Fathers who might reunite them with the already departed. Like cordwood, the bones of generations lie stacked at the shoreline around the lake, weapons and armor and raiment of their funeral rites hanging from their skeletal remains. Up the sides of the hills around the lake, Inveterae had been laid as far as the eye could see—dark waters framed by endless white mounds of bone.
Kett returned to the handcart, gently picked up Saleema’s body, and walked her to the shore. He cupped his hands and drew water from the lake, gently anointing Saleema’s face and neck.
He touched the gouge in his cheek that he’d received during his interrogation. He liked the reminder its scar would become once the scab was gone. He would remember Saleema, and he would not give up.
Then he was ready, and began to recite the old words:
Remember us as we remember you
Give to us as we give to you
Follow us as we follow you
Despair for us only that your escape comes too soon
And leaves us here to bide as best we can
Until all is done that we may do
Or else abandonment is ended and we with you
Are reunited on a happier shore
He said it again. And when he’d finished, he remained silent for several moments, saying a more personal, silent good-bye. Then he raised his chin toward the far end of the lake and wailed. The tormented cry raced across the water’s dark surface, across the bones of countless forebears, and seemed to fill all the space of Mourning Vale.
His cry was joined by voices from the lip of the canyon behind him, sending awful harmonies into the grey light of morning.
He jumped up and whirled toward the intrusion. As his howl still echoed down the lake, several large shapes ended their own cries and stared at him. When silence returned, six Inveterae, each a different race, slowly approached.
They gathered around his wife’s body, looking down with expressions of regret and appreciation. Then each knelt, laid a hand on Saleema, and kept their own private reverence for her. Some time later, they looked up, focusing on Kett.
It was a Raolyn Ela woman who spoke first. The Raolyn had removed themselves from the company of other Inveterae six generations ago. They were easy to spot, with their perfectly white skin and dark, pupil-less eyes.
“You are Kett Valan. I am Sool.” The Raolyn woman spared a look at Saleema. “And this is your companion, Saleema.”
Kett nodded.
“You plan to lead the Inveterae races beyond the Pall.” Sool stared at him with her large black eyes. She gestured at the others kneeling around Saleema, and said simply, “We are with you.”
Kett’s heart thrummed in his chest. For many bitter years he had taken every possible—and secretive—occasion to share his hope of liberation from the Bourne. But for every hundred who would even listen to him, maybe five believed anything could be done, and only one was willing to help.
Still, over the years, a small faction had grown—a movement Balroath had called it when he’d taken the whip to Kett at his tribunal.
But here, now, on the shores of Mourning Vale, leaders of the central houses had pledged themselves to him. It quickened his blood. Gave him a new sense of urgency. He looked into the faces of these representatives of each house—the Thealote, Simsi, Dystontal, Uren, Waelon Sol, and House Raolyn Ela—and thought for the first time that just maybe …
“I am to be initiated by the Jinaal,” Kett explained. “I’ll come into your towns and villages spreading a message of unification and allegiance to the Quiet.” He paused. “They’re expecting a count of separatists.”
“A careful ruse.” Sool smiled. “You will gain insight into their plans. And we will have warning when they come to raid.”
Kett looked at Saleema and thought about sacrifice. “I think it will mean more than that. I’ve heard rumors. The Jinaal believe they’ve found a way to cross the Veil. And not just a few at a time. A way to part it completely. Or at least for as long as is needed to send an a
rmy through.”
Amazed murmurs from his new friends.
“I mean to find out how,” he said. “Use it to our advantage. To get Inveterae out.”
Each of them nodded appreciation and agreement to the plan.
“But I must be seen as part of them.” Already he would be testing their pledge to him. “If there’s no resistance when I come to you, it will seem suspicious. Some of you will need to defy me.…”
The leader of the Uren House put a hand on Kett’s shoulder. The slick feel of his pitch-black skin reassured him. He spoke with a mouth full of teeth. “I am Rorgard. It won’t be hard to find Uren willing to sacrifice themselves.”
“And I am Fedema,” said the Simsi woman. She arched her back and stood to her full sinuous height, two heads taller than Kett. Something like a shiver coursed over her body, lifting arrow-sharp hairs in a wave across her skin before they settled back with a whisper sound. “You have already given much,” she said, looking into Saleema’s peaceful face, “but you may have more sacrifices to make.”
Kett thought of his little ones. For now, they were alive.
Two of the other Inveterae he knew by reputation. Lorin, the Thealote, sat thoughtfully and quiet, his massive shoulders and long arms giving him the option of a four-appendaged gallop when he was in a hurry. Malat, the Waelon Sol, fidgeted a bit, with shoulders as narrow as Lorin’s were thick. The Waelon were the smallest Inveterae race, but by far the quickest. Physical laws seemed to have less hold on them. Neither Lorin or Malat spoke, their expressions showing peaceful agreement with what they’d heard.
The last Inveterae house, Dystontal, had sent a young female in the midst of her speechless cruciation—her mouth had been sewn shut. She wore no clothes, but hardly seemed naked. Her skin below the neck read like text of symbols and images. She nodded. The Dystontal were with him.
Kett gazed down the long length of Mourning Vale, taking in the sight of dark waters and thickets of bone that filled the valley hills right up to the slate-colored sky. The wind stirred the lake, causing ripples that lapped the shore softly in front of him.
He began the last part of the exequy, raising his voice in strident petition of the gods to protect Saleema’s departed spirit. It was the oldest prayer he knew, and his conspirators joined him.
The customs aren’t dead.
Generations had pled for the aid of the gods that sent them into this far Bourne. The requiem asked the First Fathers to receive the Inveterae spirits they’d found unworthy to live alongside men.
Kett offered the elegy, his mourning song racing across the surface of the lake and fields of bone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Death of a Song
Leiholan song has implications for both the listener and the vocalist. So, then, consider the Song of Suffering.
—From a dissertation given at the Second Assembly of Conservatories
Descant Cathedral, for all its music halls and spires reaching skyward, huddled against the night like a forgotten child. Except for a few dim lights behind boarded windows, it might have gone unnoticed in the dark, just one more shadow at the end of a tired street. Once the crown jewel of Recityv, it stood now at the center of the quarter that bore its name, the Cathedral Quarter—Recityv’s slum.
Its patrons came in two stripes. The first were musicians who still studied inside its vaulted halls. The second were derelicts, whose only need of it was a place to urinate against when they’d gotten too deep in their cups. Helaina Storalaith, regent of Recityv, was neither, but sought Descant for the second time in as many weeks. Though, this time she’d been summoned.
Along the quarter streets, fires burned in open pits, around which men and women warmed their hands through gloves more hole than fabric. Jangly music drifted from taverns—after dark hour, stages were taken by those who needed the practice. And prostitutes, loaded on laudanum, turned their paint-caked, half-lidded eyes on men and women alike, braying laughter when passersby tried to scuttle past untroubled.
The streets reeked of feces, men’s and animals’. Helaina tried breathing through her mouth to avoid the smell. With her hood drawn forward, she passed through the slums unhindered and reached the cathedral’s front entrance. She arrived with joints aching from arthritis and feeling more tired than she would have thought.
The lignum wood of the door didn’t catch or reflect the vagrant fires behind her. Dull and massive, it had withstood more than one assault in its many years, and had the nicks to show for it. Up close, she could also see the barest of carvings in its ironlike surface—musical notation of a type she hadn’t seen before.
She knocked and stepped back to wait. Standing at the foot of the once-great sanctuary, she cast her gaze up its stone face. The immense shape of it carved a figure from the starry sky above. Implacable, she thought. The grandeur of Descant had changed, but it was still there to those who looked. Once a feat of architectural achievement and a center of thought, the cathedral still showed its strength, but now more as a testimony of endurance.
Music students came and ushered Helaina inside. They bowed in deference to her office, and led her to her summoner.
All around her, the Song of Suffering seemed to run through the very stone. Sung somewhere at the cathedral’s heart, the Song seeped into the foundation, spreading out and up. Though her people knew Descant’s work and purpose generally, few had any idea about the true nature of her song.
She followed the stately pair of young students—Lyren, they were called. Together they passed Maesteri portraits and braziers of coal that lit and heated the cathedral passageways. They passed music instruction rooms where instruments lay dormant for the evening. They passed great recital halls and atriums set with rows of empty chairs. The entire place gave her the feeling of latent song.
Finally, the Lyren parted at a door, nodding for her to enter. Alone, she followed a short corridor into a great round chamber that rose a hundred strides or more to one of the grand Descant cupolas. She could never have imagined the immensity of the room from outside; a space so big even the silence hummed a soft note.
Five more corridors receded from the hall at equidistant points around its circumference. As she stepped farther inside, the Lyren entered, closed the door behind them, and took position in front of it like gatesmen.
Standing basins of water stood at even intervals along the wall. On either side of each basin, large marble statues rose in the attitude of song. The floor, like the domed ceiling above, had been carefully crafted with variant colors of stone to create a mosaic of the sky. At times it seemed as if she drifted in the great expanse of space, surrounded by nothing but the heavens.
In the center of the room stood a round stone dais, and on it a lone Leiholan … singing. The entire chamber resonated quietly with her song. The smallest sound made from the dais carried perfectly to every surface of the chamber.
As she listened, rapt by the lament, the walls seemed to disappear. It was as if she stood in the place the song described. By turns, the scene shifted, even as the song shifted, in tone and tempo. She witnessed atrocities great and small, some from the annals of their histories, others she’d never heard of or read. After a few moments of the song, the heartache overwhelmed her and she began to feel faint.
She staggered. The Lyren rushed forward, hooking arms with her on each side. Only when the refrain of the melodist lightened did the walls of the chamber return to stone, and she could see Maesteri Belamae rushing toward them.
He smiled warmly and took her arm, nodding to his students, who retired to their posts.
He spoke quietly—so as not to disturb the music. “You looked peaked; would you like some water?” He didn’t wait for a reply, and led her to the closest basin, where he fetched her a small cup.
The coolness on her lips refreshed her a bit. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“And now you look better than ever.” He smiled.
She wished her appointment with Belamae hadn’t come i
n the company of others, so she could let down her façade of strength a little. All hells, her joints ached. And she was sweating now the way she often did at night—though, usually, it was for no damn reason. Tonight, at least, she’d taken a brisk walk.
She pushed her hair back. “You’re a bad liar. I’m old.”
Belamae pinched a tuft of his own hair, as snowy silver as her own. “Leave me with my delusions.”
She gestured to the wide hall. “It’s remarkable, Belamae.”
“And this is only the rehearsal hall.” He looked around with satisfaction.
“For the Song of Suffering?”
He nodded, blinking slowly as one who had not slept.
“Well then, I can’t imagine what it must be like…” She stopped. She’d never been in these inner sanctums, either as Belamae’s friend or Recityv’s regent. The inner workings of Suffering were available only to those who sang its song. This wasn’t a time for banter. “What’s wrong?”
His familiar smile faded, replaced by heavy concern. He didn’t speak, but took her hand again and led her halfway around the chamber to one of the corridors, where two more Lyren crouched over a form lying on a low bench.
The song behind them modulated to a sound of requiem.
As they approached, the two attendants drew back. One looked at Belamae and shook her head. “Even the healing acoustics here haven’t helped,” she said.
Belamae nodded and knelt at the side of a dead Leiholan. He gestured for Helaina to kneel beside him. “This is Soluna. She sang Suffering for eight years. She came to study with us from Masson Dimn at the age of sixteen. And tonight, the Song demanded too much of her.…”
Helaina stared down, astonished … and frightened. “How could it bring her to death?”
He looked up, still holding the young woman’s hand. “It’s an exacting thing to voice Suffering. The words and music are always the same, but the cadence and intonation are unique every time it’s sung.”
Trial of Intentions Page 14
