The Stone Knife

by Anna Stephens

  ‘Why?’ High Elder Zasso of the Yaloh demanded, her voice a thin croak.

  ‘Many reasons,’ Lilla found himself saying. ‘To put us on edge; to make us fearful to leave our villages or towns; to cut off communication between settlements. Perhaps they want us sending out double-strength Paws when hunting in order to weaken the defences of villages. Perhaps it’s all a distraction so they can continue building pyramids to bring the song ever closer.’

  Behind him, Lilla heard a snort of what might have been laughter from the Axib prisoner. His back prickled.

  Kux leant forward, her eyes fixed on Zasso. ‘Whatever they have planned, however many their numbers roaming Tokoban, they seek to keep us off balance and penned in up here while they consolidate their hold on our homes.’ She flung a hand passionately towards Aez. ‘He admitted it when we captured him. He said Yalotlan belongs to the Empire already. He called us trespassers.’ Her voice was a sibilant whisper on the last word and it lingered in the sudden, disbelieving silence. And then, uproar.

  Lilla sat within it like a leaf on the current, helplessly buffeted this way and that. He ached for Tayan, for his husband’s pragmatism and unquestioning faith in him, but also for his sense of the absurd. The slender shaman had a knack for dispelling tension and they needed it now, needed it desperately before they worked themselves into a frenzy and made a rash decision. Unless …

  ‘Stop. Stop!’ Lilla bellowed and the council chamber rang with echoes. ‘The Empire wants unthinking, angry responses; it wants us to mount a poorly planned invasion; it wants us to leave ourselves exposed. None of us know how much of their Melody they marched back to Pechacan. Did they even go that far? Who’s to say they’re not five sticks into Xentiban, just waiting for us to over-extend ourselves trying to regain lost land?’

  ‘Stolen land,’ Kux grated.

  ‘Stolen land,’ Lilla amended. ‘But we have to give the peace-weavers a chance. We can’t go on the offensive while Tayan and Betsu argue for peace.’

  ‘So we just let them keep on stealing land and lives? Stealing people to make into slaves? No!’ Kux was loud, vibrating with anger.

  ‘They’re building pyramids in southern Yalotlan,’ Lilla said. ‘That we can do something about. It’s not an act of open aggression but one of resistance – and we won’t kill unless we must – but we could prevent their construction. Delay them, smash the stone so they can’t be built while we wait for the peace-weaving to conclude.’

  ‘And you think they’ll let us do that?’ High Elder Zasso scoffed. ‘Of course not. They’ll defend themselves and their cursed pyramids. When the peace-weavers left, it appeared that the Melody had retreated. Now it seems they are advancing again, perhaps only in small numbers, but we cannot allow them to roam Yalotlan and Tokoban unanswered. We simply cannot. You were ambushed, Fang Lilla, and you lost seventeen warriors between the two Paws and that is a tragedy, but the reports from the market administrators say that you also came back with only a third of the meat you’d hoped to hunt, and – dare I say it – that is a greater tragedy. And one that may well be a shadow of things to come. What happens if we can’t hunt at all? What happens when we are trapped between the Melody and the Drowned, when we are starving, because you want us to delay?’

  ‘But the peace-weaving—’ Lilla tried.

  ‘Fuck the peace-weaving,’ Kux yelled. ‘Yours isn’t the land and people stolen.’

  ‘We fight alongside you,’ Lilla said and his voice was no longer quiet, no longer even. ‘We die alongside you. Do not—’

  ‘Enough.’ Vaqix’s voice was implacable. ‘Enough. The peace-weavers must be given the time to work.’ He held up a finger to still them. ‘But I agree that having enemies wandering our land is unacceptable. We will send out combined Paws – a show of strength. They will be large and obvious. They will sweep the game trails and ensure our towns are safe. They will show the Melody that we are aware of their presence and not afraid to engage. But we will not attack. We will defend ourselves if we must, but our forces will deter, not provoke.’

  ‘And what about him?’ Zasso demanded, pointing. She wanted blood; she wanted vengeance and Lilla couldn’t blame her.

  The Axi put his head on one side and even dared a smile, as if among friends.

  ‘The shamanic conclave spoke of the potential for an offering to Malel,’ Vaqix said quietly. Apok was signing for those ejab under the influence of spirit-magic and their heads swivelled between his explanatory hands and the prisoner. ‘We will continue to consult the goddess and the ancestors and spirits. We will continue to show our strength to our enemies. And if Malel demands it, she will have his life.’

  TAYAN

  Approach to the Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  152nd day of the Great Star at morning

  ‘There it is.’ Beyt had halted at the top of a small, flat rise amid muddy fields. The rain out here, without the cover of the canopy, was relentless, and all of them were muddy to the knees, tunics and kilts and hair plastered to their skins. Tayan’s paint had long since washed off and he’d decided not to bother reapplying it until they were dry and able to meet with someone who would respect it.

  He squinted, but the Singing City was too far away for him to make out in any detail. One thing he could see, far too close, was the wide, lazy curl of a river below them. He let out an involuntary yelp and leapt backwards from the lip of the hill, Betsu following. The four warriors who always marched at their backs caught them roughly, pinning their arms.

  ‘We wear the feathers, the peace feathers!’ Tayan shouted.

  Beyt was frowning, but it melted into a delighted laugh. She shook her head, clapping. ‘You poor, misguided fools. Another reason why you’d be better off under the song. Bring them.’ She vanished down the other side of the hill and her warriors wrestled Tayan and Betsu forward. Helpless and sliding in the mud, Tayan strained to pull himself free. If this had all been some elaborate joke, some drawn-out murder, he would make them earn their laughter.

  The river twisted around the base of the hill, a monstrous, sluggish, lethal snake of brown water, straining its banks with runoff from the Wet. Spanning it was a bridge, wooden and as wide as the limestone road. It wasn’t strung high between the trees like at home, only to be used as a last resort. Instead, it sat solid and stable and only an arm’s length above the water.

  Betsu was shouting curses, wrenching at the grips of the men holding her, her muscles bulging. Beyt sent a third warrior back to help and he pulled her into a headlock while the other two dragged her arms up behind her back. She let out a strangled screech of pain. Beyt and the pair of warriors flanking her walked onto the bridge without hesitation.

  ‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of rivers and lakes, of the rain and the crops, revered spirits, we worship at your feet,’ Beyt said. ‘Know that you live within the song with us, that you live in our hearts with the song, and that the song lives within us all. If it be your will, let us pass.’

  Sweat blinded Tayan but he blinked desperately as he was dragged onto the bridge, the planks loud under his scuffling sandals. He squinted right and then left, looking for the mottled skin, the dead black eyes, the reaching hands. He’d only ever seen one up close, and he had the scars from mid-thigh to ankle and a dead eja on his conscience to prove it. His heart was pounding hard enough to burst.

  And then they were over, thumping down into waterlogged soil, the river behind them. They were dragged a little further and then released, and Tayan slumped to his knees, barely resisting the urge to embrace the ground and kiss it.

  When he looked up, Beyt had her hands on her hips. ‘You’re learning many lessons of the Empire’s greatness on this journey, aren’t you?’ she asked, the mocking edge to her voice sharper than obsidian. ‘You see how proper reverence, proper understanding, shows your childish fears for what they are?’

  Humiliation flashed through Tayan, followed by the first unwilling stirrings of awe. The song was right: the Pechaqueh were tr
uly blessed, truly special. They had even tamed the Drowned. But then he saw it, a lucky break in the clouds casting just enough brightness onto the woman’s face. Sweat at her hairline and glistening in the lines on her palm as she wiped casually at her upper lip. She’d been afraid. Terrified. Only bravado was giving strength to her voice now, when in truth crossing that bridge had been as hard for her as it had for them. Tayan deliberately crushed his awe and replaced it with contempt.

  ‘Admitting fear makes a person stronger than pretending they don’t feel it at all,’ he said and forced himself to his feet. ‘The Drowned are an abomination sent by the lords of the Underworld. They—’

  ‘You should stop talking before we take you back and throw you in,’ Beyt said, and the edge in her voice had hardened. She jerked her head and the seven warriors spread out around them again. The woman took the lead, striding along the road towards the city.

  ‘That was well said,’ Betsu murmured as they followed her. The nod of respect was unexpected, but it poured strength and courage into Tayan. He nodded back and set his sights on the Singing City, straining to make out the details and wondering what other tests and horrors lay in wait.

  There were horrors, but they were far more mundane – and so all the worse for it. The peace-weavers had become uneasily used to the presence of slaves. On the occasions they’d stopped in a city or village during the trek, slaves had been everywhere, obvious in their undyed maguey and bare of jewellery, charms and feathers. Many still bore tattoos, but without the honour that would have once accompanied them.

  Here, too, around the scattered dwellings and in the vast fields lining either side of the road, were slaves. And worse. Tayan hadn’t thought there could be anything below the class of slave. He had been wrong. As they walked towards the most opulent, populous city he had ever seen, the shaman had to force himself not to stare. Starving, filthy, naked beggars, calling out in a dozen accents, the tattoos of their tribes barely visible beneath the grime. Men and women, even children, offering their flesh in return for food. Some had made badly woven baskets or crude pots that hadn’t even been fired, their eyes dull with hopelessness.

  ‘Why?’ Tayan asked, but his voice broke and he had to repeat it. ‘Why are they here?’

  Beyt glanced around as if only just noticing them. ‘The Singing City is the centre of the world and the source of the song. It attracts both the highest and the lowest of society. These have probably displeased their owners and been cast out, or didn’t sell in the flesh markets. Ignore them; the Choosers chip away at their number each new moon.’ She paused in thought. ‘And let me know if one of them touches you,’ she added eventually. ‘It is death for them to touch a free, and while I don’t quite understand your status here in the Empire, I won’t be responsible for your honour being fouled by them.’

  ‘There would be no dishonour,’ Tayan said quietly, but Beyt had already turned her back and increased her pace. She was as eager to reach the Singing City as Tayan was suddenly reluctant.

  ‘No wall,’ Betsu murmured. ‘Your Sky City has a wall to protect it from Drowned and to deter cats. This place has no wall. They don’t count either of those as a threat.’

  She was right. More and more buildings began springing up to either side of the road, like mushrooms growing in cool shade. There was no clear entrance into the city; rather, it grew around the road – and grew big. Each building was easily the size of the council house back home, surrounded by high stone walls and tree-filled gardens.

  ‘These have walls,’ Tayan pointed out.

  Betsu snorted. ‘That’s because rich Pechaqueh live here and they don’t want their fine senses ruined by having to see or smell these poor broken creatures.’ She gestured at the beggars. ‘Still, it would make taking this city more difficult. Every single estate becomes its own defensive position, and while that means those inside are isolated, it also means scaling walls and knocking down gates every single time. It would slow down any offensive, break it up into hundreds of individual skirmishes. Each estate would fall, but it would take time, and those surrounding it could launch attacks of their own, with multiple places to retreat to.’ Her footsteps slowed. ‘If they have a network of tunnels running between these estates, they could reinforce when necessary, move non-fighters, replenish supplies …’

  Tayan let her mutter away to herself. Her warrior instincts had changed from dismissive to intrigued. It would be vital information to take back to the tribes, and he didn’t want to interrupt her as she analysed their surroundings. They might not get another chance to see the city from this angle.

  Not that we’re going to need to know the defensive capabilities of the Singing City anyway, he reminded himself, but the words were weak. He shook himself; they were here to negotiate a lasting peace. He brushed at the turkey feathers again, the action instinctive after so many weeks’ travel.

  Beyt and the warriors in front turned off the road and padded along a packed dirt track between two tall stone walls. They stopped in front of a thick gate set into the stone and Beyt knocked the butt of her spear against it.

  ‘Wait, where are we?’ Tayan asked in some alarm. He had expected to stay in the traders’ quarter, if there was such a thing, where rooms could be hired by the night or the week.

  ‘Spear of the City Enet lives here,’ Beyt said impatiently. ‘I’d brush some of the mud off your sandals if I were you.’

  Twelve days they had travelled together, and not once had Beyt alluded to the fact she would bring them directly to someone of power. The idea was so absurd it hadn’t even occurred to them to ask. Tayan exchanged a horrified look with Betsu; they were filthy and he wore no paint. The gate swung open.

  ENET

  Great Octave’s estate, Singing City,

  Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  152nd day of the Great Star at morning

  The holy lord has my complete devotion. The holy Setatmeh have my worship. And the world spirit holds my hope of rebirth.

  Enet centred herself with the prayer, clearing her mind and inhaling the song into the very depths of her body. Only when she was sure that she held the Singer foremost in her thoughts, wrapped with the pure love of devotion, did she return to the old, painted fig-bark book one of the traders in her employ had uncovered. A book of prophecies made by the 142nd Singer forty cycles of the Great Star before. Three hundred and twenty sun-years. An eternity and yet the blink of an eye in the grand round of histories and prophecies, ancestors and futures. The space of a single dream during the world spirit’s slumber.

  Many of the pages were illegible now, the glyphs faded or stained, and the last fourth of the book itself was missing. Still, Singer Tecotl had lived closer to the time of those first Singers who were said to not have ascended upon death – the stories that had been the cause of her humiliation in front of the Singer a month before. Though he appeared to have forgotten it, even confirming her in the position of Great Octave in the intervening days, Enet hadn’t forgotten it. Enet would never forget it.

  But the legends Singer Tecotl knew and had written down in these pages might, to him, have been histories rather than stories. Might have been fact. Enet sat in the small, concealed room within her estate palace. Only two other people knew of the room’s existence. Both were slaves. Both were sworn to her. One still had a tongue and could speak what he knew, but he’d been with her since he was a child. Enet trusted few, but she trusted them.

  The room was cramped with shelves of books and loose pages and artefacts and transcribed tales from every land the Empire had brought under the song. Relics from those lands: sacred objects, charms, idols of false gods. Anything that might bring her closer to the truth that even here, in her most secret heart, she could barely bring herself to contemplate. The truth of the Singers who did not die, but nor did they ascend; the Singers who remained themselves and yet undying, and who still walked, she knew, she knew, somewhere in this world.

  This truth that was Enet’s path to immorta
lity. For the good of the Empire of Songs. For the waking of the world spirit. For peace.

  Her ancestry and wealth guaranteed her a place on the Singer’s council, but it was her mind that had seen her elevated to Spear of the City and then Great Octave. And still there was so much more that she could do for the Empire. This was but a means to achieve stability for Ixachipan and beyond.

  Enet wasn’t like the Singer’s other courtesans. She didn’t just rely on the delights of her body to charm him. Instead, she studied the histories and the prophecies, the old tales and those yet to come. She cast fortunes with dice and bones until she was the most sought-after diviner in the source. She learnt, she thought, she spoke, until Singer Xac was as enamoured of her mind as he was of the warm hollow between her thighs. Enet intended to keep it that way until she had all the pieces and had cast all the possible futures and was ready to act.

  There was a knock at the door. Enet flinched, the book dropping from her hands. No one knocked at this door; no one would dare. Heart lurching, she darted a glance at the massive chunk of rock, flecked with tiny crystal until it almost seemed to glow, that dominated the centre of the room. The other item that made this place both secret and sacred. She stood, brushing off her kilt. ‘What?’ Her voice was harsh.

  ‘High one, there are … there are peace-weavers at the gate,’ her estate slave murmured. ‘From Tokoban and Yalotlan.’

  ‘Peace-weavers?’

  ‘Yes, high one. They say they are here to negotiate a truce and a lasting peace between their peoples and the Empire.’

  A high, disbelieving laugh broke from Enet’s lips. She put the book back on the shelf and then faced the stone and touched her belly and throat in salute, before licking her finger and running it across the section she’d been working on with the chisel. Her fingertip gathered a fine white coating and Enet sucked it clean, relishing the way the dust had the slightest roughness against her gums and tongue. Then she crossed to the door and pulled it open. The slave stood back against the tall painted screen that normally concealed the entrance.