And she wept as she sang it. Wept because she understood the song’s meaning. Understood that many of those sent into the Bourne chose to end their life rather than be bound there. Failing to win their war meant more than failing to earn the right to live with men in the east. For many it would have a final meaning.
Then a sound interrupted her song. Or rather joined it. Much as the young man had joined the first Leiholan’s song, another voice now picked up Wendra’s melody in perfect unison. She turned to see another man, this one considerably older, step gently toward her. He put a hand on her shoulder as together they offered a lament over those who would take their own lives. Or who had taken their own lives, since Suffering described events from the Craven Season.
Except this was real. This happened today. Just now.
Then, this Leiholan man nudged her in the direction where she’d find the door, though she seemed still in a different, real place. Wendra nodded and began to move away, continuing to sing. She finally let Suffering go as her outstretched hands found a wall she couldn’t see, and she pushed out into the corridor.
As she went, the Song tugged at her to return. Not today.
Across the hall, Wendra saw the young Leiholan woman who’d fallen. She sat wrapped in a large blanket on a cushioned bench. She shivered there as one long in the cold. The Leiholan who’d helped her leave the chamber knelt before her, briskly rubbing her hands and arms.
The woman said nothing, her lips trembling. Her wet hair hung down in front of her face, and quivered with the shudders of her body. Something wasn’t right. The girl then raised her eyes, aware of herself, it seemed, for the first time in several minutes. “Thank you,” she managed.
Wendra studied her face. “The Song is changing, isn’t it?”
The young woman stared back, unspeaking. Her silence, Wendra thought, wasn’t because she was reluctant to tell the truth, but because she couldn’t put it into words. Finally, she just nodded.
“The words, the melodies, they’re the same.” The young Leiholan slumped further forward. “But the way they must be sung is different. To combat the visions, to make them real. And the images that are returned from Suffering are more … insistent. Even the historical sections. It’s as if the events of the past want to be rewritten … are being rewritten.”
Wendra listened intently, phrases of Suffering still playing in her mind. Heavier now. They tugged at her again to return and sing. “How do you know how to adapt the song?”
The girl rubbed warmth into herself, and slowly stopped shivering. “You’re the new Leiholan.”
Wendra nodded.
The girl offered a weak smile. “There’s a lesson. Comes much, much later. Inola, it’s called. Closest way to explain it is intuition. Has to do with attunement. And it’s something…”
“Yes?” Wendra gently urged.
“… you don’t always get it right.” She offered Wendra an apologetic smile. “I heard what you did. I’ve never heard Suffering sung that way. Today, you got it right. Though I have no idea how you managed it. Unless it was inola.”
Today, you got it right. It felt like the kind of thing that once you’d learned it, you were somehow accountable for it, too. Like when a child finally has the courage to talk about what happens when a father comes into the room late at night with bitter on his breath.
In the hall outside the Chamber of Anthems, the young woman offered a terrible insight.
“This kind of singing”—she nodded as though to affirm her own words—“it’s more than just resonance.” Her voice became distant-sounding. “Some songs can’t be unsung.”
A chill raced across Wendra’s skin. What about the songs she’d sung since learning of her gift? What resonances had she taken into herself, what echoes had she begun? A new burden settled over her as she thought about the next time she’d have to sing.
The sound of Suffering grew inside her. The weight of the Song got into her flesh. She now burned with fever.
Moments later, footfalls came in a running rhythm. Soon Belamae and two attendants rushed into view, bearing handlamps.
Belamae’s two companions helped the two Leiholan up, and escorted them away, gently supporting the young woman on each side. The glow of their lamps receded, leaving him staring at Wendra over the top of his own lamp. His face took a warm cast from the small flame. She had the sense that he knew her education had just been enlarged in a way he could never have taught.
“What you did tonight, Wendra…” His eyes were distant, as though seeing possibilities he’d rather not consider. “Thank you. We might have lost another Leiholan, as we lost Soluna…”
He cleared his throat, emotionally resetting himself.
She told him then about the bloodred moon she’d seen on the Soliel. And she told him she thought Soluna’s death had corresponded to that moon, and to the Quiet breaching the Veil and attacking Naltus. His eyes showed understanding.
“We have an eclipse tonight,” she finished. “But with Ardua.”
“Telaya has been researching these things for us.” He pulled at his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “We’re starting to see patterns for when and why Leiholan fall ill.” He paused. Shook his head. “A lunar eclipse of both moons. Our good fortune. Damn.”
With her fingers, Wendra brushed back her wet hair. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Chamber of Anthems, and how it had changed. “Tell me again how the Song affects the Veil from so far away?”
He offered a gentle smile. “It’s absolute sound, Wendra.”
She nodded, struggling to concentrate. Her body felt like cast iron slowly being heated on forge coals, but it was the heat in her mind that worried her. She had the sensation that at any moment, her mind would tear free of her flesh and she’d be nothing more than an echo of song.
It changed me. I changed when I sang it.
“Sound carries on indefinitely?” This idea worried her deeply.
“Vibrations carry on indefinitely,” he clarified. “Or touch things infinitely. I’m no scientist, but somehow the vibrations of our song touch the Veil.”
Or reach backward to the Placing itself.
“And there,” Belamae continued, “they are enough to strengthen the Veil, modifying its composition in the smallest of ways. But that’s not so hard to understand, is it? In small ways, many things are made strong.”
She suddenly recalled something Telaya had said: There was a time, Wendra, when thought and sound were taught as the same thing.
“And when we begin to view song this way, we see the power of absolute sound, don’t we? Some songs needn’t be heard to have effect.” He smiled as though delighted at the opportunity to begin tying their discussions together. “You also learned that every song has a place. A time. And that every song is different with every rendering. That’s important knowledge to have.”
“Suffering is changing,” she said, looking at the door, beyond which the Song was still being sung.
“Of course it’s changing,” Belamae agreed.
“No, not as each rendering of a song is different.” She struggled with the right words to make it clear, her head now filled with a pounding rhythm and melody—a Suffering kind. “This isn’t the color of a vowel or the brightness of a pitch. Or even inola.”
His brows went up in surprise that she’d heard of this concept. Yes, a mere minute ago.
She shook her head. “The way it needs to be sung is changing, Belamae.” She looked back at him, expecting to see disbelief, needing him to understand.
The elder Maesteri was nodding. “I know, my girl. And we’re learning how to do so. You taught us quite a lot about that tonight. But,” he raised a finger, “despite your success, I won’t send you back into Anthems to sing Suffering again until your training is complete. I’m grateful. But what you did was damn risky. Much as I wish you were, you’re just not ready to sustain it.”
Wendra thought about the Quiet races that had descended on her, and knew she’d
come very close to dying.
“Damn risky for you,” Belamae added, “… and for the Song, too.”
She collapsed to her knees, feeling sick inside. The pain of her bones striking Descant stone was a faraway sensation. It seemed everything lay muted beneath the Song filling her mind. And in the cacophony of echoes and choruses that only she seemed to hear, she began to forget who she was. She felt a moment of gratitude for the forgetting, until she could no longer remember why she was grateful.
The weight of Song grew inside her. Sweat flowed freely from her skin. Her vision swam as she fell over, her head bouncing once on the stone.
There was blackness. But no end to the Song.
It was that way a long time.
Then a new sound came to her. A low, droning note. It silenced all other notes. It demanded complete attention. She listened. Followed. And light returned to her eyes. Color. She could hear again with her ears, not just her mind.
She had a sudden errant thought about absolute sound. It’s the signature of a thing that can be touched at any distance … with a song.
A few moments later, the low, droning voice became soft words. “Each of us is a song. A changing song. But one worth singing, no matter how old or broken.”
Wendra lay a long time, staring up at Belamae. She heard only her breathing as it slowed. She sighed deeply. “Thank you.”
Belamae put a hand on her forehead, smiled, and nodded. “You’ll be fine. But you won’t be singing Suffering again anytime soon.”
She heard more in his words than their simple meaning. “What are you saying?”
“You and I are ill-fated to never finish anything we begin, aren’t we?” he answered.
Wendra looked back at Belamae, more confused.
The Maesteri let out a breath. “As much as I wish we had time to talk about what just happened, or even just continue your training, an envoy is leaving tonight, headed for Y’Tilat Mor. It’s an old land. One which mostly keeps to itself. Has for centuries.”
“Then why is someone going there now?” A dull dread began to spread inside her.
“The Mor nations have a distinctive culture, one you’ll appreciate more than most: They create with song. And much of it is dysphonic song.”
She remembered then Belamae’s refashioning of Suffering, which he took into his homeland, the Mor nations, as a younger man, for war.
His expression turned serious. “You already know the Quiet are pushing at their bonds. You felt it this very hour.” Belamae pointed at the door to the Chamber of Anthems. “We’ll need help against them if the Veil falls. And the Mor nations have a set of refrains—songs imbued with a kind of power. They create an aural storm—” The Maesteri cut himself short.
“Why are you telling me this?” She could guess the reason, and was preparing to argue the point.
Belamae offered his paternal smile. “Because, my child, you must go with the envoy to the Mor nations.”
She looked back, her feeling of dread answered, but with a seed of understanding. “Because of my own song.”
The Maesteri nodded. “That’s right. I can’t afford to send any of the fully trained Leiholan. They’re needed to sing Suffering.”
“Send another student,” Wendra suggested. “One with more training. Telaya—”
He shook his head. “No, you’re the right one to go. You’ve only had a few lessons, but your understanding and ability are that of a three-year student.” His smile deepened in the lines of his cheeks. “Despite your having brayed your dark song at me, I consider you my abaretteli, my labraetates.”
Wendra shook her head in confusion and shrugged.
“My protégé. But that’s rather a weak way to say it. It’s a designation that will, by itself, mean something to the Mors.”
She shrugged again. “How will my songs help?”
Belamae’s smile faltered, his gaze instantly looking past her toward some image he must have held in his mind. His next words came slowly, carefully. “The Mor Nation Refrains are very old songs. They arise from a place of pure and extreme brutality, though some are likewise as simple and beautiful as a flower opening itself to morning sun. Both airs,” Belamae explained, his eyes again focusing on her, “are … exacting. They’re not unlike the harsh songs you’ve found on your own. Except that by comparison, Wendra, their severity is the difference between light … and the absence of light.”
Worse than my own song?
“The refrains will be needed if Suffering fails and the Veil falls.” Belamae looked again at the door to the Chamber of Anthems. “And in you they’ll sense a kindred ability. The amplitude of your gift will convince them that song hasn’t gone out of man. There’s hope in that. But you need to remember control. You’ve learned a great deal, but you’re at a delicate place in your training … control the darker songs if they come.”
I have learned some control.
Belamae’s eyes showed some impatience then, something Wendra had rarely seen in the man. “There isn’t much time. You must gather your things and get to Solath Mahnus within the hour. Recityv needs to be far behind you when the sun rises.”
Staring back at him, Wendra considered the request. She admitted part of her liked the idea of a place where her songs would be accepted. Most of all, she wanted to learn anything that could help her against those who had taken Penit, taken her own child … against those who sold men and women and children into the Bourne. Those were songs she wanted to hear, to sing. They might help her if she meant to go to the Bourne, to free as many captives taken there as she could. Maybe she’d put an end to the stock trade altogether.
Thinking of the Bourne and those traded into Quiet hands, she nodded and stood, ready to go. Belamae rose himself, taking hold of her hands. “Be careful, my child.”
Then he hugged her close. She felt the warmth of the man, smelled the mild musk of his robes. She couldn’t help but feel like she was hugging her own father, and understood it was the love and concern the old man had for her that made the difference.
Then he stepped back and gave her a reassuring nod. Wendra offered a slight smile and rushed to her room. She gathered her things quickly and quietly, wrapped herself in her traveling cloak, and soon found herself striding from the Descant steps into the dark hours of a Recityv evening.
She might well return to Descant, finish her training, and sing Suffering again. She might also go to the Mor nations. But not today. And probably not soon. Before anything else, she would be led by a different need. A feeling that she must do something about all those being taken into the Bourne. People caught and sold by highwaymen like the one who’d taken her. And she now had more musical tools to help her do it.
Once out of sight of the cathedral, she turned left, not in the direction of Solath Mahnus, but in the direction of the river. In the direction, she hoped, of Jastail. And eventually, the Bourne.
She stopped only once, thinking about how her mother had also walked away from Descant and Suffering. She wondered if Vocencia had also been changed by Suffering, as Wendra had. Because despite Belamae’s restorative song, something inside her was not the same.
Singing resonance changes both the singer and the thing resonated with.
Suffering was now inside her. Part of who she was. How she was.
For now, though, she was able to relax as a mild evening wind flowed around her. She let the songs of things wash over her. She eased through the streets, drawn by a powerful, low-pitched song she felt rather than heard. The song of the river. It gave her a kind of companionship that suggested she might never be alone.
Epilogue
The heavens make music. And if you watch the stars close enough, you’ll hear it.
—Spoken to Tahn, age seven, by Mother Polaema, on his first night away from the Scar, hours after another of his friends had chosen to take his own life
Tahn stared up from his chair at the night sky. Around him Polaema, Rithy, his Succession team, Martin, and Shaylas�
��holding her baby—passed out cups for a toast. They were in the rear open-air portion of a quiet mealhouse at the east end of Aubade Grove. Cornhusks, it was called. It was a place that let Martin hold court for his friends, and it served the best hot drinks, besides. Martin liked to play out skits and rhea-fols here. Tahn had seen dozens of them when he’d been here as a boy.
“Here you go, Gnomon,” Martin said, handing him the warm drink with a bit of flair. “With my own hint of concern added.”
Tahn arched a questioning brow.
“It’s chocolate blended into cream milk,” Rithy said factually.
“With some mint leaves and a capful of something to sharpen it up,” Martin added, romancing the drink some.
“Brandy,” Rithy said, adding the last fact.
“Never cared much for mathematicians,” Martin observed. “But this one’s got a sense of humor. I like her.” He took a sip of his chocolate. “Now then, our toast. Polaema?”
Mother Polaema raised her cup. “Gladly. First, I’ll remind you all that we’ve only had one argument so far. And opinions vary on whether it’s the easiest or hardest in Succession to win.” She glanced at Rithy with a good-natured grin on her face. “But it’s worth celebrating. We’re now in the College of Physics ledger as having shown a possible explanation for Continuity.”
“Resonance,” Martin supplied. “My dear dead gods, what a thought. I can’t wait to watch what happens with the College of Mathematics.” He slapped his forehead. “Ho, and after that: the philosophers. I may sell admission to that one, Gnomon!”
Polaema lifted her cup and drank, signaling for them to join her. They all did. Martin had indeed sharpened the chocolate. But only a little. Mostly it tasted of mint and cocoa, and reminded Tahn of so many chill nights taking measurements of stars. He’d almost never done so without one of Martin’s capped mugs of steaming chocolate. He looked back up at the sky, as he’d been doing when they brought him his drink.
“You’re wondering about the chalkboard, aren’t you?” Martin asked.
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