“Like Suffering,” she said.
“Just so. A musician might create for himself something from whole cloth, for the sake of the sound. It pleases him to do it. And that song may even serve a need.” Belamae began to inspect the finished back piece of the violin. “But more often, a song is asked for because there’s a loss or deficit that needs to be repaid. Or someone needs added strength or understanding. A song will fill the hole inside a man better than anything else ever will. Better than food. Better than prestige. And certainly better than coin. The thing that best stands him up when he’d rather remain down is a song.”
“You sound like a bit like Balatin about it.” She put a hand on his shoulder.
“Oh, Anais. I’m old enough to understand how fanciful and sentimental all this sounds. But I’m also old enough to know it’s true.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen it too often to lie about. You know it, too. First time we met, you were in need of a song to make you well, remember?”
Wendra thought back, feeling like her fever in the cave beneath the High Plains was a lifetime ago. “I remember.”
The smell of freshly shaved maple lingered around them as Belamae worked for a few more moments at the violin. Sitting there, watching him, easy contentment distilled inside her—something she hadn’t known for a very long time. No thought intruded beyond the present—nothing of what she’d done, hadn’t done, or should do. Nothing of the conflicts beyond Descant walls. Aware of this small, rare peace, she remained silent, simply observing, until Belamae spoke.
“But of course there’s more to learn. Always more.” He put the small wood chisel aside, and picked up a length of gut. As he began stringing the violin, he explained, “There are two types of song, Wendra. Or maybe it is more helpful to say there are two ways your song can have effect. Have you discovered these yet?”
She had a sense of them. Her own song had always been aimed at someone. But she’d thought often about the Song of Suffering, which was meant to influence something far away, on the other side of the Eastlands. The Veil.
He wound the gut string on its peg, and started to thread the second. “The first we call audala, audible song. It’s a song that can persuade its listener, move him, even destroy him. But it must be heard.”
“Song sung by Lacunae singers,” Wendra said, matching the song type to the vocalist type.
“Just so,” Belamae replied, smiling. “Leiholan can sing it, too, of course. Its resonance is the sound as it’s interpreted by the one who hears it. That sound can touch deep inside. And yet, this type of song is lost on inanimate things, or those who cannot hear it.”
“Including one who is deaf,” she guessed.
“That’s right. And we’ll talk about shoarden, who sacrifice their hearing to protect Lacunae. But for today, let’s speak about a second type of song, one that doesn’t need to be heard to have effect. We call it ‘absolute sound,’ or ‘absolute song,’ if you’d prefer. This song needs no listener, no interpreter. This is the music that can touch the sound or vibration that exists in all things, even at a great distance. It takes immense skill, but the resonance isn’t bound by place.”
“That’s how Suffering strengthens the Veil, then.”
He nodded and strung the third length of gut. “As a singer, you learn how to manipulate your voice and mouth and body to create harmonics and resonance. But knowing how the one who hears your song will receive it, how to produce resonance in him? This is the path to attunement, and becoming Leiholan.”
“But we saw Telaya stir the crowd at Rafters. And she’s not Leiholan.” Wendra picked up the next length of gut string and handed it to Belamae.
He paused in his stringing of the violin to look at her. “Those weren’t trivial feelings she caused in the tavern crowd, but they weren’t brought about by true knowledge. A Leiholan possesses the capacity to deliberately feel and understand the resonant places inside another. And once she understands these, the song she offers is an intentional resonance. What you did last night, Wendra, was find such a place inside each of those who heard you. It was possible because some things resonate with us all.”
“Like Suffering,” she said again.
Belamae nodded, and went on stringing the violin for a moment. He then abruptly set the violin aside, and reached to his left, where a plate scattered with sand sat on the workbench. He placed it at the edge of the table between them, and promptly produced a violin bow. He began drawing the bow up and down on the side of the plate. It made no musical sound. But the sand atop it jounced and formed itself into distinct patterns.
“Sound vibration can rearrange physical things,” the Maesteri explained. “Like this plate, which has signatures of its own. When touched by external resonances, it causes change. Here we see it in the patterns formed by the sand.” He leveled a professorial gaze at her. “What else does this little demonstration teach us?”
Wendra leaned in conspiratorially. “The bow made no sound, but had effect anyway. So, I’m guessing you have a point about absolute sound.”
Belamae grinned, and tapped her chin with the violin bow. “Just so. And it also suggests an entire course of study on inaudible sound. But that’s another topic that will come much later in your training.”
“I could be here a while,” she said, smiling back.
“I hope so, my girl.” He studied her, as one deciding if he should share something. “Late last night, Ian was silenced in the Chamber of Anthems.”
She’d only met Ian once. He had a wry sense of humor for a Leiholan. “Silenced?”
“Not dead,” Belamae added. “But Suffering echoed back at him in some way I can’t explain. He still breathes, but he stares ahead vacantly as if he would like to stop breathing. He doesn’t hear anyone or anything. His voice is gone. I don’t know if I can restore it.”
“But how?”
“Something is happening. Getting closer.” He shook his head. “So many things are happening and getting closer.”
He put the bow aside, and strung the last line of gut on the violin, tightening and tuning the full set. He hummed several notes, tuning to his own pitches until he had the instrument sounding the way he liked. Then he strummed it. Wendra watched a gratified expression touch his face.
Then, beyond him, lying on the workbench, she noticed another broken instrument. From the look of pieces and splinters, she guessed it had been a mandola. “Is it too broken to fix?”
Belamae didn’t bother to follow her gaze. “With the right touch, anything—or very close to it—can be repaired, Wendra. It’s just that … sometimes it’s better that we choose not to.”
She turned her stare on him. “Do you speak of the instrument or the musician?”
He took an audible breath in the silence of the lutherie. “Why do you think they’re not the same?”
He handed her the violin. “What you did in the performance tavern. It was the sound of spirit striking the air and declaring a person’s whole wish. And the wishes of all those present. A luthier’s touch will mend a broken violin. A musician’s hand will play it. Like both, a Leiholan will mend and play the souls of those she sings to … as you did in a drinking house in Recityv’s slum last night. Never forget that. It’s a finer resonance you sang there, Wendra, than I’ve ever heard you sing.” He gave a slight grin before adding, “Dark as it was.
“And to bring our conversation full circle, this is the power of song I’m training in you. You’re making fine progress, but you’ve still much to learn.” He showed her a patient smile. “If you’d gone to the square today, joined the fight, I don’t think you’d have been able to keep control of your song. Not yet. Not in open conflict. And you might well have harmed those you meant to defend. Your song is yet more Lacunae than Leiholan. Though you’re on the path, my girl.”
She wanted to argue with Belamae, but she knew he was right.
He looked almost frail in that moment. But he put his hand over hers with fatherly warmth. “And here’s the last
of today’s lesson. I’m suffering. Oh yes, my body is failing. I’ll go to my earth soon. But that’s not what I mean.” He tapped the regent’s note, which still lay on the bench before them. “While I respect Helaina’s wishes, I’ve had word … she has fallen…”
The news hit Wendra like a forge hammer in the chest. “What? When?”
Belamae shook his head in a slow, disbelieving motion, his face drawn in grief. “My girl, would you sing something to me? Something inside?”
His gaze was far away, as if he’d left her here, and could add nothing to explain his need. But she understood it well enough. And began to hum something in a sweet, low tone. Something inside.
She sought her own grief over things lost—that hollow feeling left when someone you care for is taken away. She gave that feeling voice, not rushing, adding her every tenderness and empathy. She shared his suffering, gilding it with the assurance of better days that the grieving find hard to see.
She sang a full hour, filling the warm, sunlit lutherie with gentle sound. She stopped only when Belamae’s hand tightened on her own.
“Thank you,” he said, and smiled sadly. “It’s not a lesson I’d planned, but it may be the most important one you’ll learn … for that day when you sing the Song.”
She narrowed her eyes in question.
“The Song of Suffering, my girl, is to a large extent about remembering the pain and injustice of those who were sent into the Bourne.” He took a long breath. “The Song is sung every minute of every day, and those who sing it witness the very real suffering of those who went to that place. Don’t misunderstand me,” he said, raising a finger again. “It’s a vital protection to maintain the Veil. But it doesn’t make watching suffering any easier. The Leiholan draws on her own pains, and resonates with a thousand more. It’s not easy. And it will change you.” His smile brightened a shade. “For the better,” he added.
She returned his smile, her thoughts beginning to pound an urgent rhythm.
My own pains? My lost child. Penit. And a thousand others lost to the godsdamned Bourne—taken there by traders.
And Suffering is changing.
Those who sing it are dying.
What Quiet pain is causing all this?
She could already feel a choice coming. Sometime soon. Belamae had said it would be selfish to consider leaving. He’d said she was needed here, to sing Suffering. She believed that was true. But if she stayed, and if she made the Veil stronger, wasn’t she also making it harder to escape for those who’d been captured and taken into the Bourne? For anyone to try to rescue them? And on the other hand, wasn’t it possible that if she went there, she might be able to use her song to help those same slaves? Get them out?
Maybe in some ways, the darkness in her song was better suited to that.
When she looked again into his eyes, he seemed to know her thoughts. “Wendra, I go to my earth soon. And I’m scared.”
“Belamae—”
“I’m scared that when I leave this world, everything I’ve done here,” he gestured high, to indicate Descant, “will fall apart. Fade. It’s my life’s work, you see. And I don’t know who will replace me. I don’t know who will hold it all together when I’m gone.” He smiled with some regret. “I’d rather hoped it might be you.”
Her heart slammed in her chest, as she realized his hope and her own desires might never meet. He must have seen that, too. His face slackened, and something bright disappeared from his eyes.
Disappointing him hurt. She didn’t want to do that. And after a short moment, her mind latched onto a new idea. She gently took his hand in hers, gathered him in an intent gaze, and started again to sing. She found the wellness in her own heart and lungs and muscle and bone. She let her melody weave until she knew the resonance of her own health, and then she reached out to him. She let the perfect sound of well-being and vigor flow, until she’d identified the last vestiges of real health inside him, and then she let go.
With the love she felt for Belamae, she sang with all the strength she possessed. There was deep sickness in him. It had laid hold of his organs, not just his breathing. It was like a long-moored ship rife with barnacles. She felt its every surface and edge. But to the tissue and functions of his body she lent a song of restoration like nothing she’d ever sung or heard before. It wove gentle sweeps with the strongest dysphonic progressions she’d ever sung.
At times the song drew down to something low and slow. But more often it ascended and filled up all the space in the lutherie. She fought it. She fought his sickness with her song. She’d never resonated so intensely. There was a euphoric feeling in it. She embraced that feeling. That sound. And she sang the heart of him.
Then, sometime later … she simply stopped.
His eyes were wide and bright. In the warm sun of his lutherie, Belamae looked a different man.
“My dear girl … My. Dear. Girl!” He laughed deep in his chest and his belly, as if testing this thing she’d done. He was the same silver-haired elder Maesteri, but by gods, he had the heart and lungs of a man twenty years his junior. She could see it in him.
He took great deep breaths like a man suddenly freed from prison. And after the shock of it was gone, they laughed together. Loud and long they laughed, testing this new breath inside him. And when the laughter died to smiles, she could see in his eyes that he still hoped she’d stay. But there was relief, too, as if to say he could now manage if she did not.
There was still a decision to be made. And questions, besides. But she let those slip away. For now, she relaxed into the easy comfort of Belamae’s company and the warmth of his lutherie, and tried to ignore a new feeling. The deep kind. The kind that whispered something had changed in her, as it always did when she resonated with someone.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
A Succession Team
This inquiry is an embarassment to the Grove. If the argument for Continuity were defensible, then it wouldn’t matter if a member of the Succession team was sharing her team’s approach in advance of the discourse theaters.
—Statement taken during the probe that followed the failure of Nanjesho Alanes’s argument for Continuity and her subsequent death
Thousands of dead speckle-backed sparrows, as well as several field hawks and starlings, littered the fields for as far as Tahn could see.
“What happened here?” he heard himself ask, surveying the strange sight in the failing light of day.
Polaema’s brows went up. “We were hoping you might tell us.” She paused. “It doesn’t feel coincidental that it happens at the same time you return to the Grove.”
“Hail? High winds?”
Rithy shook her head and squatted, taking a closer look at the nearest sparrow. “Hard to say how long they’ve been here,” she said.
“We’ve had no storms for nearly the cycle of the first moon,” Polaema added. “This is not the work of weather.”
“Could it be the work of the Quiet?” Tahn asked, speaking softly and mostly to himself.
“To what end?” Polaema questioned. “The destruction of flocks of birds seems a poor use of their talents. Even as a warning. No, I don’t think that’s our answer.”
Tahn hadn’t meant to suggest the Quiet as a direct cause. But he couldn’t help the feeling that what he saw here bore some relation to his larger worries.
“It’s not a native bird to this region,” he said, beginning to reason it out. “So, they were migrating.”
“Exhaustion then,” Rithy said.
“Except there are field hawks and starlings,” Polaema pointed out.
Rithy stood up, her eyes seeming to calculate the sheer number of fallen birds. “Could they have been fighting? Or perhaps there was an eruption of dry lightning?”
Polaema’s eyes narrowed in concentrated thought.
But Tahn dismissed these explanations quickly. He could see no blood. And the stretch of land covered with the fallen birds appeared too broad for a lightning strike to ha
ve brought down such a flock.
The shadows of dusk lengthened until darkness took all. And gradually, Tahn’s attention turned east, then to the northern sky. Far against the horizon a faint luminous red glow could be seen. He studied it a moment, curious. Then a flash of anxiety and insight tore through him. Lunar eclipse! He sprinted away, heading back toward the Grove. He scarcely heard the voices calling after him.
* * *
By the time Tahn reached the College of Astronomy, Rithy had caught up to him. Shouts of protest followed them as they swept past sentries who sat at registry tables beside two sets of doors. Far behind they heard Savant Polaema silencing these evening clerks as she followed Tahn and Rithy into the annals halls. In the main room, they found a young physicist, a somewhat older philosophy student, and a cosmologist who looked young and old, depending on how the light caught her. They all seemed to have just arrived.
They were easily identified by the insignias embroidered on their overcloaks. Black thread on black cloth showed the symbol for the colleges, in the traditional subtlety. For physics, a gear wheel with eight outer teeth. Sometimes, Tahn knew, the emblem took on the vague form of the sun—a nod to celestial mechanics.
The philosophy sigil was a perfect circle with a single line vertically bisecting it and running a finger’s width above and below the circumference. Some said it signified the intersection of the finite with the infinite, of recurrence with endless possibility. Some saw the rotating world and horizon, with night on one side and day on the other. And linguists were fond of a letter conflation: I for istola from the Divadian root tongue, meaning “simplicity” or “indivisible”; and O for odanes from the sister tongue, Itolous, a dead language, the word meaning “at last” or “found in the end.”
Cosmology had, perhaps, the oldest insignia of them all—a swooping line that wove in and around itself to make what appeared vaguely like a three-petal flower. It was the cipher in it that made it uniquely cosmological. Most often, the symbol was rendered dimensionally, showing how the delicately curving line or tube wound itself into a loose knot. It could be hypnotizing to look at.
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