The Stone Knife

by Anna Stephens

  Tayan’s fingers trailed along the claw scars that ran from thigh almost to ankle. The Drowned – the child-sized, less dangerous Drowned – had given him these in the second before they realised the journey-magic did nothing to stop his ears. He’d fallen and lain there, blood pumping from his leg and venom coursing through his body, as Billa was eviscerated in front of him. Her dog had done its duty and dragged Tayan, not her, to safety. And she was dead. Because of him.

  So yes, moon-mad was probably an accurate description. And yet …

  ‘I will stand no more of this. We are leaving. Now. We were weeks on the road here and will be weeks back again, trekking through the Wet. It’s time to leave.’

  ‘And do what? Tell our councils we’ve failed?’

  Betsu blinked, astonished. ‘Yes. That’s exactly what we do. And why? So we can form a fucking defence! So we can plan! We do nothing here but aid our enemies by delaying our return to the people who need to know that we’ll be fighting.’ She jerked her thumb at her own chest. ‘I’ll not die a slave in this place. I’ll not serve these people knowing I didn’t do everything I possibly could to save us all. This was a fool’s errand and so it has proved. Who are we to negotiate with an Empire that has stolen the land, livelihoods, and identities of so many? They may sweep over us eventually, but I’ll not stand by without a weapon in my hand and watch them do it.’

  She grabbed a blanket from the bed pillows and fastened it around her throat as a cloak against the weather. She ignored the shawl Enet had gifted her. ‘We can win, Tayan. I truly believe that. So I’m going to make sure we do. Are you coming?’

  Tayan pressed his lips together and then shook his head. Betsu didn’t even blink. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘I’m no warrior and I don’t have your stamina. I can’t keep up, and I can’t see well enough – you know how I was on the way here, and that was moving at an easy pace.’ He held up his hands. ‘But you should go. I’m going to agree to their terms. I’m going to say that if they return after the Wet, we’ll accept the song. No, listen – it’s just about delaying them now. I’m going to give you as much time as I can. If Malel is watching me, I pray she’ll make me convincing. If I am, they’re going to come to Yalotlan as builders and administrators, not warriors. Kill them all, because it’ll be bloody after that and it’s the best I’ll be able to give you.’

  She did react at that, gave him a slow, approving nod. ‘You’re a good shaman and a good peace-weaver, Tayan,’ she said, surprising him, ‘but you’re no fighter; if they put the brand on you, there’ll be nothing you can do to stop them.’

  ‘Then make sure you come back here and rescue me,’ he said, only half joking. Acid swirled in his stomach and the urge to go with her was growing every second.

  ‘Arm the farmers and shamans and artisans; train everyone,’ he emphasised in a low voice. ‘But don’t move into the stolen land – not yet. No actions that can get back here to put the lie to what I’m going to tell Enet.’

  Betsu sucked her teeth and then growled in frustration. ‘I agree. But make it convincing, or you’ll be the next one thrown to those fucking Drowned.’

  Tayan felt sick, but he pushed it down. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something to get away. In a, a month or so.’ She nodded and tears pricked suddenly at his eyes. ‘And tell Lilla … tell my husband I’m sorry and I love him and I’ll see him soon.’

  ‘Well,’ Betsu murmured. ‘Turns out you’re braver than you look after all. Ancestors guide you.’

  ‘And you. Under the—’ he paused, both of them aware of what he’d been about to say. ‘It really does get into your head, doesn’t it?’ he finished weakly.

  Betsu gave him another of her inscrutable stares and then left. Just went, no more words, no supplies or weapons, just a blanket around her shoulders and through the window into the night.

  Tayan knew the guards wouldn’t see her if she didn’t want to be seen. He sat on the bed, lower lip caught between his teeth. Around him, the song pulsed and arced. More and more, he’d found himself caught up in it, drifting away on its liquid seduction. It lived inside him, a watchful, ever-present thing coiled in his guts that never got any quieter or more distant, or louder or closer. It didn’t react to worries or fears or joys but instead inhabited them, so everything was experienced alongside and through the song. It was just there, heard not with the ears but the whole body, a musical resonance stringing through his soul and connecting it to something bigger, wider.

  He wondered for a second if it was anything like how Xessa experienced the world, how she could turn suddenly and know he was there, even though she couldn’t hear him, as if the wind or the earth had told her of his secret approach. As if her skin tasted him.

  It’s as if there’s a message in the song that I can’t quite understand. The same as with the Drowned. If I can learn their language, I can understand them. I could weave a peace with the Drowned.

  The audacity of the idea, the scale of it, took his breath away. But if he could do it, if he could take this knowledge back home, then once the war was over, everything, everything could change.

  If he could get Enet to tell him the origins of the song and the link between it and the Drowned … She said they were the Singer’s ancestors, he remembered as the memory slid from behind the horror of the slave’s death. She said all the way back to the first Singer in unbroken line …

  Understanding the song was the key to it all. The song and the Drowned, the songstone, the magic. Understand the song; learn the language of the Drowned. This was his purpose. Deceive the Great Octave about the war and then get her to open up about their magic. Easy. Tayan snorted and lay back, listening to the rain drumming on the roof. Scents drifted in from the garden and reminded him of home.

  Grief welled in him, homesick and heartsick and missing Lilla and Xessa. He wondered even now if he could catch up with Betsu and knew he could not. But he would be lying if he pretended there wasn’t a seed of excitement in his belly, too.

  For good or ill, now, he was walking this trail to its end.

  ‘Good morning, Great Octave. I trust you slept well?’

  Enet managed a reasonably sincere smile when he entered, but it faltered when Betsu didn’t follow him in for dawnmeal. ‘The Yalotl is unwell?’

  Tayan knelt at the table and helped himself to fruit, noting with distant indifference that his hand was shaking. ‘We accept your offer. After the Wet, when you return to Yalotlan and then Tokoban, we will lay down our weapons. We will embrace the song.’

  Perhaps she had not expected it. Perhaps she had taken them to see a woman eaten by monsters in the hope of provoking a war that would benefit her in some mysterious way, Tayan didn’t know. What he did know was that the Great Octave, Spear of the City, was speechless.

  Tayan ate the fruit while she studied him, the initial shock quickly hidden behind a neutral, calculating mask. ‘I see. Then allow me to welcome you under the song, Peace-weaver Tayan. And yet you have not answered my question. Where is the Yalotl?’

  ‘Of course. Betsu is returning home. When we agreed that this was the best – the only – way forward to preserve some tiny remnant of our culture and heritage, we agreed that one of us should take the news back as soon as possible. Of the two of us, the warrior is the natural choice.’

  A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. ‘And that necessitated leaving in the night, in the rain?’

  Tayan helped himself to cornbread, though it was too thick and chewy and bile rose in his throat. He made himself swallow. ‘Betsu was distressed by the events at the river, Great Octave. She was angry – you have seen how her temper ignites. Though the agreement sits ill with her, once it was made, she refused to remain here any longer. I am sorry that she did not bid you farewell. I hope you can forgive her haste.’

  Tayan’s skin crawled at the length of the silence that unfurled, at Enet’s serpent-stillness. ‘My slaves did not inform me she had asked to leave.’ She still hadn’t blinked.<
br />
  Tayan’s shrug was elaborate as he chewed more tasteless cornbread. ‘Betsu is a skilled warrior; I doubt they were even aware she had left the estate. But again, I apologise on her behalf.’

  Fury flashed across Enet’s face and just as swiftly vanished. And then she ran her finger down her jaw, her throat, and into the open neck of her tunic. ‘And yet you have stayed with me,’ she purred and Tayan nearly choked on the bread. Enet was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, and if she lived in the Sky City he’d have thrown himself at her feet long before and begged for her favour. But as displays of power went, it was crude and ineffective – mostly.

  ‘I have. We thought that the more I could learn about your society, and particularly the song and the Drown— the holy Setatmeh, the better. As I know you can appreciate, there will be much resistance to the outcome of this peace-weaving. The more I know, the better equipped I will be to answer any questions.’

  They watched each other, like snake and rat. There was no mistaking which one was Tayan. ‘You wish to know even more of our society?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘I wish to know of the song and the holy Setatmeh, Great Octave.’ Tayan spread his hands and looked at her with complete honesty. ‘I want to know all about them.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Enet murmured. She gestured at the table. ‘Eat. I have business in the great pyramid today, but perhaps we shall speak more on my return.’

  ‘Under the song,’ Tayan said, but she had already left.

  PILOS

  High Feather’s estate, Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  162nd day of the Great Star at morning

  Pilos’s eyes opened and he stared into the blackness above his bed. It was hours before dawn, but the guard hadn’t passed his door. At home, at the fortress, on campaign, or while travelling, every six hundred heartbeats a guard would patrol past him, as regular as sunrise. The lack of footsteps woke him as surely as if someone had screeched an alarm.

  Pilos slid out of bed and reached for his salt-cotton, slung it over his head, and then took his club from its place between the bed and the door. He slipped a knife into the waistband of his loincloth and pressed himself to the cool plaster wall. Silence. A long silence. And then the very softest scuff of sandal on stone. Pilos flexed his fingers on the handle of his club and waited.

  The door opened with a slight creak and Pilos let them come in. Three? They should have brought more.

  He was standing behind the door and, when the three figures had entered, he barged it with his shoulder and slammed it in the faces of any others who might still be outside. The assassins jumped and spun to face him, but Pilos’s club had already crushed the skull of the man closest. He pushed the falling corpse into the arms of the second.

  The third leapt sideways, avoiding the scuffle, and then lunged with a short spear. Pilos parried it diagonally downwards with the club and let out a bellowing war cry that would alert any of his household still alive. She pulled the spear back and jabbed again; again Pilos batted it away, but he was a step further from the wall now and the second man scrambled free of the corpse and advanced on his other side. If one of them could get at his back, out of his eyeline, it was over.

  Pilos drew the knife with his free hand; the man hesitated, but then came on. He, too, carried a short spear. Good for them, bad for Pilos.

  The woman thrust high and the man low. Pilos blocked the stab to his head with the club and tried to bat the second away with his knife; not fast enough. The spear tip sank in just above his right knee and then tore out through the side of his leg. Hot blood pumped and the limb trembled. He roared as pulsing, searing pain shuddered in sick waves up into his groin.

  Pilos threw the knife. The blade lodged high in the man’s chest and he let go of his spear to clutch at it. Pilos caught the falling weapon in his free hand and smacked it into the woman’s arm, battered her spear down with the club and then smashed it into her sternum. It was an awkward move, a jab more than anything, but the club’s head was a smooth polished ball of granite and it had all of Pilos’s bodyweight behind it.

  The woman stumbled backwards, fighting for air, giving Pilos the space he needed. He reversed the spear in his off hand and sliced it through the man’s groin and belly.

  The door slammed open and Elaq staggered in, bleeding heavily, three house guards behind him. Pilos fell back against the wall. ‘Take them alive,’ he gasped, the pain beginning to work its way past his barriers. ‘I want to know who ordered this before I peel their skin from their bones.’

  ‘High Feather, are you sure?’ Elaq fretted as dawn bathed their faces with pink and gold. A glare was enough to prevent further protest.

  Pilos rubbed grit from his eyes and hissed between his teeth as the stitches above his knee tugged against the raw flesh. The man had died early from his wounds, but birds had begun to sing the sun’s arrival before the woman finally broke. Pilos had been deeply unsurprised by her revelation.

  ‘It is vital that I attend the council this morning, and not only to say farewell to the Singer. I have finally gathered enough support in the council to be given leave to raise my proposal – which is likely why the attack came last night.’

  ‘But why would she think it a bad idea?’

  Pilos shrugged and then yawned. ‘Who knows what goes on in her head? This way, she’ll be off balance at my appearance – at my survival – and might make her opinion known when the proposal itself is put to council. Now, are you well enough to act as escort?’

  Elaq sucked in an outraged breath and Pilos winked before he could expel it along with a protest. The retired eagle had taken a javelin in the shoulder and a cut across his forearm in the fighting, he and the other guards dispatching half a dozen more assassins who’d fought a holding action to give the trio time to reach Pilos. He made no complaint about either wound.

  ‘And during the council meeting?’ Elaq continued, noting Pilos’s hiss of pain as he flexed his leg again. ‘With everything we now know …’

  ‘If I am not safe in the very presence of the Singer himself, I’m not safe anywhere.’ He ignored the supreme irony of that statement: the Singer could order him killed and the words wouldn’t have time to stop echoing before the deed was carried out. Still, not even the councillors or Xac’s favourites were stupid enough to attempt an assassination in the source itself.

  ‘Then you’ll have a guard of three plus myself on the way to the pyramid.’

  Pilos nodded, knowing that Elaq wouldn’t be swayed from this and secretly glad for it. The eagle closed the curtains to his litter in sombre rebuttal of the morning.

  The doors to the compound creaked open and the sounds of early morning rushed in; turkeys and dogs and children all chasing each other through the streets, the first vendors hawking their wares even though dawn had barely kissed the sky. The stands of palm and bamboo growing on every corner rustled as they passed.

  Pilos set his eye to a gap in the curtains, watching for further attacks, his club in his lap and knives in his belt.

  ‘Spear of the Singer Pilos, High Feather of the Melody, requests entrance to this council.’

  As expected, half a dozen heads whipped around to look, and Pilos took careful note of which ones they were. Not only that, but the translucent hanging hiding the Singer’s cronies visibly rippled and an urgent whispered conversation began behind its screen. The Singer wasn’t here yet, and Pilos could guess who sat in splendour back there and suddenly had so much to say.

  He didn’t so much as blink as he lowered himself to his knees on the cushion at the back of the council, though the fierce pull of his wound brought a surge of nausea to his throat. He pressed his forehead to the ground and then sat back on his heels, breathing slowly.

  ‘Our great Singer will not be in attendance today,’ came a low, melodious voice from behind the hanging. Enet’s head, complete with the Great Octave’s enormous and elaborate headdress perched precariously atop it, appeared around
its edge and deliberately she drew the curtain back, then settled onto her heels again. Her snakelike eyes bored into Pilos’s and he stared back without emotion.

  ‘The holy lord leaves the day’s matters to his council and his … closest advisers.’ There was little doubt she meant herself and the others of the Singer’s favourites clustered behind her. They all wore identical, sanctimonious smiles. Pilos breathed.

  ‘Are you quite well, Spear?’ Enet said suddenly with such fake solicitude that his mouth crimped as though he’d eaten something bitter. Again, all eyes turned to him.

  ‘Quite well, Great Octave,’ Pilos said casually. ‘I had a matter to place before the Singer. I will petition to see him later, in private, if it is his will.’ Enet’s eyes narrowed in calculation and Pilos allowed a small smile to touch his face. ‘I have had … interesting discussions recently. There is something on which I would like the Singer’s wisdom.’

  ‘If the holy lord has left today’s business to his council, then there is no reason why you cannot share this information with us,’ Councillor Yana said, and Pilos inclined his head at the old warrior. Yana could smell danger from a stick away and again he was allying himself with the High Feather, this time openly against Enet. Pilos’s respect for him grew.

  The pain yammered for him to denounce her, to reveal to the entire council what she’d done, the words that had spilt from her assassin’s own mouth to condemn her. Pilos breathed and was silent, and Yana’s face showed his understanding.

  ‘Later perhaps, then. To the first scheduled matter: there has been an outbreak of disease in Quitoban,’ the old warrior said, changing the subject smoothly. ‘Reports of at least two hundred farming Quitob dead, with double that number in the towns struck down so far. Some Pechaqueh have been caught up in it, Setatmeh protect them, and are secluding themselves on their estates. The shamans are working hard but it is spreading.’

  ‘There will be food shortages in the Singing City without their harvest,’ a councillor piped up, sounding panicked. ‘Prices will increase, looting and banditry—’