The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son Book 1)

by Nicholas Kotar

  Dar Antomír continued to stare at Voran. Voran returned his gaze, willing himself to be still. He focused on the flame in his heart. It burned strongly. Dar Antomír nodded slightly and seemed to come back to life.

  “Peace, my children.” He raised his hands and the clamor died. “These are serious things Vohin Voran speaks of. Otar Kalún. Is what Voran says possible? This covenant between Adonais and Vasyllia. Is it anything other than an old story? And if it is, under what circumstances can it be broken?”

  “Well,” said the cleric, feeble voice dripping with disdain, “in the more recent redactions of the Old Tales there are several obscure references to the Vasylli being a ‘High People, chosen by Adonais,’ but it would be very difficult to extrapolate any covenant from those few passages. I cannot account for the older collections of tales; they have serious textual inconsistencies. As for the Sayings, there are a few references to a covenant, yes, but the writers of the Sayings seem to assume the reader knows of such a covenant as established fact. They never describe it explicitly.”

  “Then there is reason to believe that the Covenant exists?” asked Mirnían, his face once more an impassive mask.

  “Highness, if I may speak?” said the courtier. He reminded Voran of a snake with his insinuating and effeminate gestures.

  “Speak, Sudar Yadovír,” said the Dar.

  “I have studied the Sayings,” said Yadovír. “If one reads them literally, then yes, the Covenant is an established fact. But if so, then we must take every verse in the Sayings as literally true, must we not? In that case, animals can speak with human tongues and Sirin are still flying around in the deepwoods.” He laughed, and his neck muscles stuck out obscenely.

  Voran had a nagging sense that Yadovír knew more than he should, that he was challenging Voran to make a compromising admission. He had a sensation of panic, like a drowning man with legs cramping in pain. Yadovír continued.

  “It makes a great deal more sense to read the sections concerning the Covenant as a metaphor for the mutual love between Adonais and Vasyllia.”

  “I agree with Yadovír,” said Kalún.

  “Do you really, Otar Kalún?” Rumbled the younger military man, huge and red-faced and red-bearded. Until that moment, Voran hardly noticed him, he was so silent. “I am not a learned man, but I know that if you start subjecting all the old truths to the test of your own fallen mind, everything collapses.”

  He looked at Voran and nodded, though his expression was still guarded.

  “Dumar,” said Voran, heartened by the big warrior’s support. “Tell me, did our scouts give us any indication of this enemy that razed great Nebesta in a single night?”

  No one answered.

  “This is not a normal enemy we face. Surely there have been enough omens, even for your doubts! I have spoken to Lord Farlaav. He is a man known to many of you. He himself told me of the monsters in Nebesta…”

  “You do seem to know a great deal, Vohin Voran,” said Yadovír. “But why must we submit to your superior knowledge in this? You abandoned your own people in the wild. And you say nothing of that.”

  Voran felt backed into a corner. He was still sure, somewhere deep within, that Yadovír wanted him to admit to seeing the Sirin, though why, he could not say. As Voran spoke, his own body tried to stop him from speaking. But it was too late to turn back.

  “Highness, Dumar assembled, I did not abandon them. On the third day after we left, I encountered a Sirin by the road. She sang to me, and our souls are now bound. But it is a perilous thing—to encounter the Higher Beings. I passed into another place. Another time. When I came to myself, I found myself in a completely different part of Vasyllia, more than twenty miles away from the Dar’s road. It was there that I found the refugees. Ask the scouts. They know how far the refugees traveled, and by what woodsmen’s roads. I lost the pilgrims, yes. But not through my own volition.”

  They didn’t believe him, Voran saw it immediately. All he heard was silence, intense as the hum that follows the ring of blade against blade. Mirnían’s expression shifted subtly, and Voran thought there was a glimmer of something behind it, maybe yearning. Sabíana now looked straight at Voran’s eyes, her cheeks barely touched with pink. When he met her gaze, she did not look away. He found he could not hold her gaze for long.

  “Chosen speakers of the Dumar,” said Dar Antomír, his voice touched with finality, as though he were condemning a man to death. “Have you anything further to say before I speak in judgment?”

  No one answered, and the silence echoed.

  “Very well. Vohin Voran, we hereby find you guilty of dereliction of duty. You are exiled from Vasyllia, you and any children you may come to have, until your death, under the pain of public execution.”

  Voran remained in his own home, a prisoner, for three days. Outside, Vasyllia mustered. The great marketplace of the second reach—clearly visible from the high room in Otchigen’s house—was cleared of its ornate booths, and long planks were set on trestles. Women and girls sewed, gathered, and packed provisions on the tables. Men and boys sharpened swords and spears, polished mail, brushed the horsehair tails of the peaked Vasylli helmets. Merchants gathered food in barrels and granaries that were built overnight. Voran sat at the window, his body itching for action.

  On the evening of the third day, they came. A swarm of guards, spear-points catching the half-moon’s light. Three waiting-women in furs surrounded Sabíana, who stood a head taller than all of them. Ahead of all walked the Dar, erect and proud, giving no sign of his many years. Voran’s heart warmed with love at the sight, then frosted over with regret. Would the Dar ever embrace him as a father again?

  Voran put on his finest kaftan—sleeveless, the collar and shoulders tipped with rabbit fir—and tried to brush the dirt off his boots. He left his head uncovered, quickly tied his now shoulder-length hair back into a tail, and rushed to the hearth-hall. The Dar entered alone, his face drawn in anger. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, looking at Voran, waiting for something. Voran bowed his head and dropped to his knees, then fell on his face in a full penitential bow. He remained there.

  Nothing happened. The Dar spoke no word, but Voran did not dare move until the Dar released him.

  Something metal clanged on the floor. Voran looked up in alarm, thinking the Dar had fallen. The first thing his eye glanced on was the ancient crown wrought by the smiths of Dar Cassían’s rein almost five hundred years ago—cloudy silver with white-gold flowers blooming. It was on the ground. The Dar had thrown it down. His eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Highness,” whispered Voran in shock.

  “My son,” the Dar said, voice broken by a sob. “How you remind me of your father. He was so sure of himself, so brazen. Until the time for penitence. Then he was a lamb. How I miss him.”

  Voran stood up and ran forward. He grasped the Dar’s outstretched forearms as he began to go down on his own two knees before Voran.

  “No, Highness, not before me.” Voran’s tears rose at the sight of the bent, careworn Dar.

  “Voran, you break my heart. If the Pilgrim had not so much as commanded me to send you after the Living Water, I would never have allowed it. Do you not see? If even one of the pilgrims is found dead, you will be cursed with your father’s guilt for all time.”

  Voran mused on his first memory of Antomír. Voran was eight years old at the time and had been sick for weeks. Breathing through his nose had been impossible, and so he had not really slept for days. He was blowing his nose with all the vigor of his warrior blood when Otchigen and the Dar walked into the house after a week’s hunt. The Dar, his laughing, dark eyes a better cure than all the horrid-smelling mustard wraps that Mother tried on him, turned to Otchigen.

  “He has a nose like a horn,” Antomír had said. “Next time, bring him to the hunt. He could prove useful with such a horn.” At which point they both laughed until the tears flowed. Voran had loved him intensely from that moment.

  �
��Highness, you must think me touched by madness,” Voran whispered. He led the Dar to the high place and returned to pick up the fallen crown. He placed it on the Dar’s head—it was colder than ice—and stood to his right on both knees. “You must believe me. I have seen the Sirin. I have spoken to her. I have soul-bonded with her.”

  A knot of muscle stood out on Dar Antomír’s jaw. “Tell me everything, Voran.”

  And Voran did, beginning with the echoes of the song. He spoke of the white stag, at which the Dar tutted, smiling. He tried to describe the Lows of Aer, which left the Dar pensive. He spoke of the Pilgrim, the Covenant Tree, the Living Water, and the soul-bond with Lyna.

  “Lyna?” asked the Dar, his eyes wide with surprise. “She is of the eldest Sirin. Older far than the Covenant, older far than the Three Cities.”

  Voran’s heart leaped in his chest. “You do believe me, Highness.”

  Dar Antomír sighed with a rueful smile. “Yes, my son. I have seen the Sirin myself, in the deepwoods, many years ago. Sometimes I think I still hear a song, but I can no longer catch the melody.” He seemed a hundred years older at that moment. “Nonetheless, no one else will understand. I can grant you no more clemency, Voran. The Dumar is on edge as it is. They want you imprisoned. Some want you publicly flogged. It must be exile for you.”

  Voran’s heart plunged to his ankles.

  “Voran, tomorrow Vasyllia’s armies go to seek out the enemy in the open field. You cannot go with them; indeed, I think you might find a knife in your back if you did. But I will give you a chance at restitution. You will follow the trail of the pilgrims you lost. If Adonais wills it, you will find them before any enemy—human or not. Mirnían insists on going with you, though I threatened to have him imprisoned for self-will. I will also give you the young warrior who spoke at the council. The red-bearded one, Dubían. He has uncommon strength, though he is gentle as a maiden in peacetime.”

  “Highness, I do not deserve your…”

  “That is right, you do not,” said the Dar, with a flash of youthful anger. Then he smiled again. “I do not do this for you. For whatever reason, both the Pilgrim and the Sirin have indicated that you must find the Living Water. If you do, and if you see the pilgrims safe to one of the outlying strongholds, I will recall you to Vasyllia. If we live that long.

  “Now,” he said, standing up and wincing in pain. “You have a much less pleasant task before you. Sabíana has the strength of a she-wolf, but you wounded her deeply, Voran. Put it right.”

  Sabíana's eyes were a rare dark brown that warned of deep unhappiness. Voran steeled himself against a conversation he would have given years of his life to avoid. She refused to speak first or even to look at him for longer than a second.

  “Sabíana, I—”

  “Voran, what has possessed you? You have become strange to me. Half-mad with phantasms and omens.”

  Her every word was a hot knife-thrust.

  “This Covenant you seem so intent on,” she continued, now jeering. “How do you imagine it happened? Adonais’s hand descended from the clouds and signed a parchment with letters of fire?”

  “Sabíana, a broken Covenant explains the death of the tree, the omen of the skies, the burning of Nebesta, the invasion…”

  “Voran, these are but the aberrations of history. They happen. It’s our misfortune that they all conspire to happen now, but there’s no need to seek for mystical causes. It is unbecoming of you.”

  “You saw how the Dumar welcomed the refugees, Sabíana. The Covenant commands us to care for the Outer Lands’ people as we would for our own. A camp of refugees denied entry into the richest city in the world? What more confirmation do you need?”

  “The Covenant is a fairy tale! Yes, in the stories it makes sense, but you cannot apply it literally. Even if we have failed in some sacred duty, what sort of a god punishes his own people only for forgetfulness? Is that our gentle, loving Adonais?”

  On some level, Voran agreed with her. But he had already considered the implications of that line of reasoning. If faith in a gentle god had led the Vasylli to neglect the good of others, then perhaps they imagined Adonais to be different than he really was. Perhaps Adonais was a jealous god.

  “Has your father told you?”

  “Of his plan for you? Yes.” She turned away from him and folded herself into her black shawl.

  “I suppose you wish me to release you from our promise?”

  She turned back to him, her eyes blazing. “I would sooner run you through with your own sword!” She seemed shocked at her own vehemence, but only for a moment. “Why can you not give me your heart, my bright Voran? I have tried so hard to dispel the restlessness that keeps driving you away from me, but you have built a wall around your heart. I can comfort you; I can be your joy. But you must let me.”

  “Sabíana, you’re upset, I understand.”

  “You understand very little, for all your new-found importance. Why do you keep shutting yourself from me?”

  Voran found no words. She was right. He felt deflated, more tired than he had in years.

  “What would you have me do?” He asked.

  She slowly released the muscles tensing her body like a bowstring. The beauty seemed to seep back into her relaxing curves, the warrior princess transforming into a sinuous black swan. She took his hand and kissed it, caressing it gently.

  “It is not for me to tell you what to do,” she said.

  His stomach lurched, and warm desire groped him. His head began to swim. His heart raced like a deer through the trees. He enfolded her into his embrace—how small and brittle she seemed! For a moment, everything was foolishness—the Raven, the Living Water, the coming war. It was all even mildly amusing. What else mattered except her embrace?

  A kind of madness was on him, a savage excitement. The brittle thing in his arms was now not Sabíana, but a thing. He could do anything he wished with her. He kissed her violently. She shuddered for a moment, then melted into it. His hands itched to caress her.

  Cutting through the noise of blood rushing in his ears, Voran heard the song of the Sirin, faint, plaintive. In his mind, he saw Lyna as she had met him, wings outstretched in the birches. She shone in a delicate light that sharply framed her feathered outline, but now she wept. The desire faded, and Voran felt a rush of tenderness for Sabíana. He pulled away from her, laughing gently. Sabíana’s face was flushed, rosy. She smelled faintly of tuberose. She rested her head on his chest.

  “I adore you, my Voran. I’ve never had so little control over my own heart. Even in your absence, you fill me. I see you even with my eyes shut. All the memories, brilliant as the sun shining through the rain.”

  For the first time in his life, he felt calm in her presence.

  “I thank Adonais for every moment I’ve shared with you,” she said. “You’ve been carved into my heart, every moment of you. How your eyes soften when you laugh, rare as that is. How your voice sparks when you become inspired with an unexpected idea. How your head droops when you wander in thought. Most of all, I love seeing you forget yourself when faced with a thing of beauty—a wildcat leaping from a boulder or an eagle soaring above the summits. How did I come to be tied to you, Voran?”

  “Sabíana, what do you desire most?”

  The final traces of her pain were expunged, and she shone from within. It only made the reality of their parting twist deeper into him.

  “We are living in such an uncertain time. I hope for safety, permanence, not only for Vasyllia. I feel a need to find a place and root into it. Our future is dark, I know, but I have strength. I can use it if I know your heart is mine, though you are far away from me.”

  “I am with you always,” he said, and thought of Lyna. “When this is all done, I will come back for you, my love.”

  They remained still for a long time, entwined in each other, content.

  A pounding on the door jolted them both.

  “Could they not have allowed us at least this evening?�
�� Voran ground his teeth so hard his jaw flared in pain. “I’ll teach them…”

  Before he reached the door, it flew open. The hallway on the other side bristled with spears. Mirnían stood at the head.

  “Sabíana! You and Voran must come now. The flames on the aspen sapling are going out. Otar Kalún has called for the Summoning of Fire to be performed today.”

  Usually, the many-hued dusk was the most beautiful part of the day. But now the silence of the evening fog oppressed Voran. The orchards were black and white parodies of trees, looking more like sinister old men reaching up with knobby fingers, as though enraged at the gathering gloom. They seemed unnaturally still, almost bewitched into nightmarish sleep. The sight clashed with Sabíana’s gentle warmth next to him.

  Down the road from the central square in the second reach, their company entered through a rounded archway into the oblong Temple Plain—a clearing in a grove of ancient red-bark pines that ended in a sheer drop thousands of feet deep. At the far end of the Temple, a small circle of aspens, glowing in orange-yellow vesture, stood guard over the altar stone.

  A sense of presence inundated Voran, a barely-evident energy, something between sound and light. It was stronger than usual, fed by the tense expectation of the crowd, many of whom were openly weeping. This is like a funeral, he thought, not a supplication.

  Voran and Sabíana took their place at the front, near the quivering aspens. Voran turned back to see two files of longhaired youths robed in black, carrying square banners with embroidered images of Dars, Sirin, and High Beings whose names had long ago faded into legend. Passing through the Temple, they cleared a path to the grove of aspens, then stood in two lines with their backs to the crowd on either side. The clerics followed, robed in deep burgundy, the color of recent sorrow. They chanted an ancient lament.

  The melody haunted Voran; for a moment, it seemed that the mountain itself sang. The voices weaved into the melody and out of it in an increasingly complex pattern. One moment the rich tenors predominated, then the dark-toned basses, and finally the middle voices rang out, lush as stringed instruments. The voices united in harmony, then fought each other in unexpected dissonance, only to resolve in chords that echoed over the tops of the red-barks. Images flashed through Voran’s mind—falling water, shaking branch, and whispering fields of wheat.