‘I killed the leader of the frog-lickers and stole the list of … of things they were going to do to the god if they captured it. It will delay the attempt but no more, I fear.’
Pilos was silent, but the space around them pulsed a deep, angry purple again. Just once as he fought to control his emotions.
Ilandeh didn’t know if it was directed at her. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered again.
‘You have done well,’ the High Feather said eventually. ‘Give the Listener a full and detailed report and have them transmit it to Citla. But first, your observations.’
Ilandeh pulsed gold with relief. ‘The city can be defended, but the walls are more to prevent line of sight for cats than any real barrier. We can be over them easily. Arrows and darts from above will be a danger. There is a rope bridge over the river below the city, but there are longer, slower routes past it that bypass the water. Those will be heavily guarded.’
She paused again; still no response. Pilos’s control now was total. ‘The Swift Water – the river – is populated with holy Setatmeh but the Tokob have a way to transport water through pipes uphill to the city. I have learnt the method, and I know too the ingredients and proportions of what they call the spirit-magic, which allows their god-killers to be deaf to the call of the holy Setatmeh. Also journey-magic, which is something their shamans use to commune with their ancestors or their goddess. They’ll be in my written report.’
Still Pilos was silent, but Ilandeh was used to that – had remembered that about him, now. Pilos sat and absorbed the information, and the quieter he was, the more people spoke, drawing out things they might have forgotten and that they now fumbled for to fill the silence.
‘I left them in as much chaos as I could. There are a few hundred Xentib living in the city who fled from us four sun-years ago. I spent time fostering discord with Yaloh refugees, so with luck that will have broken into outright hostility if they connect the deaths with my absence. Which shouldn’t be too difficult. And there is a cave, High Feather, high above the city. Tokob believe it is the womb of their goddess. It is not. It is songstone; the whole thing is veined with songstone. More than I’ve ever seen.’
The space flashed with intense colour then, green interest as bright as new leaves, before Pilos re-established his control. ‘Your work is exemplary, Flight,’ he told her and she knew she flushed pink with pleasure; couldn’t prevent it. ‘Your efforts, and Dakto’s, will be remembered and rewarded. For now, bask in the song so that it might cleanse you and finish your report as I instructed.’
‘As the High Feather commands.’
‘I will inform the Singer of your revelations. I expect we will be ordered to Yalotlan immediately. Wait at the Neck for me and rest. Acting Flight Sarn and some of your Whispers are in Xentiban; the eagles will know exactly where. Take back your command and make sure your authority is unquestioned by the time I arrive. Stay out of any fighting until I’ve spoken to you face to face.’
‘Of course, High Feather.’ Ilandeh hesitated, unsure, and he read it.
‘Speak. Quickly,’ he added, and she became aware of the strain in the Listener. Connecting the two of them through himself and through the song was draining.
‘My face is known among the Tokob, High Feather; when the fighting starts up again, I’ll be a target. We can … use that, probably. Their anger will draw them to me and we can set ambushes. But … as far as Dakto’s concerned, I’m still back in the Sky City. News is going to reach the war party he’s with eventually about what I did. He’s learning all he can of their plans and he intends to slip away with it, but if they find out before he can …’
‘I know, Flight,’ Pilos said, and he was now – deliberately – warmly soft brown with gentleness. ‘And yet you both accepted the risks. You’ve made it out, and you’ve brought far more knowledge than I ever expected, and I know it’s been just the two of you against them all for so long, but if Dakto is taken … well, his sacrifice will be remembered and his glory will be great.’
‘Yes, High Feather,’ Ilandeh said and did her best to keep her tone transparent, though that in itself would tell him much.
‘Rest now,’ he repeated.
‘Under the song,’ she said, but the Listener was already retreating and taking her with him. Ilandeh tried to cling to Pilos’s mind just a little longer, for the comfort, but he was gone and they were swirling back through the song, across the landscape so fast it made her dizzy, until they slipped back into their bodies. The Whisper’s spirit was still billowing in the song even as her consciousness returned to her flesh and she let out a frightened little squeak, but the Listener enveloped her once more and showed her the way.
She was slumped, heavy and full, as if her mind were a big meal weighing her down. The Listener was trying gently to extricate his hands from hers, but it took her several breaths before she could remember how to work her fingers. He was patient, though sweat ran through the lines of exhaustion carved upon his face. ‘Thank you,’ she gasped. ‘Thank you.’
The Listener drank deeply from the pitcher of water at his side and she watched his throat move, reminded of her own thirst, but he needed it far more than she. And then panic filled her; she did not have an offering for him. She had not brought anything – had been so desperate to impart her news that she had forgotten entirely. Except …
‘It is not much,’ she croaked, ‘but it is … I have had it a long time.’ A string of four jade beads, two either side of a small jet pendant fashioned like a tiny jaguar’s head. She pulled it over her head and placed it on the mats between them. It looked shabby there, travel-worn and old. ‘It was my mother’s,’ she added and distaste flickered across the Listener’s face, but he scooped it up and nodded at her. Her Xenti mother.
‘I will write the report for you to transmit to Listener Citla,’ she said, but already he was sinking back into the currents of the song. Ilandeh bowed again and crawled back out of the chamber and stood. Her neck felt bare and empty, but she relished it with a sudden, fierce intensity. She was only a half-blood, but she was loyal. The song was everything to her: it was music and fate and freedom; it was status and honour and respect. She could do nothing about her blood, other than be fiercely proud of her Pechaqueh ancestry and leave the rest behind. The necklace had been the last possession she had owned that was her mother’s and here, back beneath the song after so long, it was right that she gave it up.
I am Pecha in my heart and my spirit and my flesh. I am Pecha in every way that matters.
Not every way, and not in everyone’s eyes, but enough. It was enough. She was enough, and she refused to believe different. A little unsteady, Ilandeh made her way out of the pyramid and into the infrequent sun. The song cradled her, and in the distance she saw some of the Whispers who had been under her command before, coming to meet her.
PILOS
Melody fortress, the dead plains, Tlalotlan, Empire of Songs
184th day of the Great Star at morning
Pilos, High Feather of the Melody and Spear of the Singer, came out of the song and slumped, breathing harshly. The Melody’s Listener, Citla, was kneeling opposite, holding Pilos’s hands in her own, tight and comforting. She hadn’t been in there with him, but someone had noticed him being pulled under and sent for her. Once he was settled back in his body, he let go and gratitude flickered through him. Citla smiled and waited, patient. There would be messages to send in reply, she knew.
Pilos had come out of the song alone many times, but it was harder and far more dangerous. Even those experienced in such communication could be lost, their minds unable to find their bodies and their spirits stretching ever longer between the two until they snapped. Madness and death always followed. Always.
Feather Ekon was kneeling behind the Listener and he bowed as soon as Pilos straightened his spine and nodded. ‘Feather Atu has been sent for,’ he said. ‘Is there anything you need until then?’
There was a cup of water next to Pilos and he
gulped it down. ‘There will be a full report coming from Whisper Ilandeh via a Listener in the Neck,’ he rasped. Citla nodded. ‘The enemy are destroying pyramids, freeing slaves, and killing warriors in Yalotlan. I must inform the Singer.’ Citla nodded again and Ekon swore, very quietly. ‘When Atu arrives, let him know and then get me every Feather in the fortress. And the administrators. We can’t count on either the new slaves or the hawks or the Xentib slave warriors, so I need to know who we can count on.’
Pilos’s mind spun with logistics, racing across the various Talons and where they were based, who he could pull back and replace with Xentib, which parts of the Empire were currently peaceful.
It was too much, coming so soon after that awful moment when the song had jarred out of its natural rhythm so wildly and then taken almost three days to return to normal. Something momentous had happened that had changed the Singer or his grip on his magic. And now Pilos knew instinctively that they would be marching to war – in the Wet – because Ilandeh’s information made that inevitable. At the very time they should be strengthened by the song and the Singer’s magic, the fortress was alive with rumour and whisper and concern.
Pilos’s mouth turned down as he remembered how helpless he’d felt, here in the Melody’s own fortress in Tlalotlan, far from the Singer’s side and unable to aid him. He had tried to contact Enet through the song in the immediate aftermath, but her Listener had simply said there was no danger and that he was not to return to the Singing City. He had sent her frantic letters, asking what had happened, but she hadn’t bothered to reply.
Not for the first time, he wished for a Whisper in the great pyramid, one of his finest assassin-spies secluded among the administrators, Chorus and councillors, but only full-blood Pechaqueh could hold such positions, with a written lineage to prove their right to serve the Singer. Whispers were half-bloods, for no Pecha would risk their honour by undertaking the quiet, bloody work the Whispers were made for. In this, though their loyalty was without question, their credentials were lacking.
‘I’ll have Feather Atu draw up some recommendations for when you have finished with the Singer, High Feather,’ Ekon said, pulling Pilos back to the current crisis.
Yes. Concentrate on the Singer first. He didn’t have all the information, but he couldn’t wait for Ilandeh’s full report; the holy lord needed to know now, and perhaps Pilos might be able to ascertain the holy lord’s health for himself during their communion. Citla looked at him, magic in her eyes and veins and sweat already gathering on her shaven scalp. Pilos took a deep breath, took her hands, and allowed himself to be swept away.
At his request, Citla had bypassed the source’s Listener and attempted to contact the Singer himself. They did not slide into his mind as Ilandeh had into his; instead Citla held open a space in herself and let Pilos and the Singer fill it. The High Feather was dimly conscious of the Listener’s hands closing on his with bruising force when the holy lord entered her mind, his might and power overwhelming. He didn’t understand how Citla could bear it, how she could contain so much without losing herself entirely.
Pilos bobbed helplessly, feeling himself unravel into the Singer until somehow his Listener stopped it, containing him and keeping him separate. The Singer’s unspoken question – Why? – flooded through him and the High Feather poured out the sea of images and information received from Ilandeh. Words were almost impossible to form in the raw, unconfined presence of the Singer and the crackle of his magic, but Citla formed them for him, shaping his impressions and gifting them to Xac one at a time. A lifetime of training had prepared her for this, and Pilos could do nothing but trust her.
There was … a pause? An absence? Something, during which Pilos tried not to lose parts of himself, and then the Singer was gone and Citla was guiding him back into his body and there was new knowledge in his head and no memory of it being put there.
When he opened his eyes this time, the Listener was still kneeling but she was slumped against his chest, their hands still gripping tight. Her breath was a high, thin wheeze and Pilos looked up – Feathers Atu, Detta and Ekon were all with him. He nodded very carefully so that he didn’t fall out of his body again, and Atu moved behind Citla, ready to catch her if Pilos faltered. The High Feather was shaking as he supported her weight and laid her gently on the mats. There was a wet stain on his tunic – drool or tears or sweat – from where her face had pressed.
As soon as she was prone, Atu helped Pilos to stand and they left her alone. Touch and voices could do her more damage in the aftermath of communion with the Singer than solitude. The High Feather’s knees wobbled as he staggered out of his office and into another room, bigger, more comfortable. The Feathers followed and they all waited until he was sitting cross-legged with a stool under one elbow as support.
‘The Singer will consult the stars and the prophecies and inform us when we need to move,’ he croaked. His head was pounding with tiredness and strain and his lower lip was swollen from where he’d bitten it. Strange tingles and twitches plagued the muscles in his forearms and lower legs, but he ignored them. His state was far better than Citla’s. ‘It will be soon. We’re going to throw every experienced Talon at them until they break, so I want options for the security of the Empire with our best in the north. I want to know who we can call back and how long it will take to march them direct to Xentiban.’
His Feathers looked at him, intent and focused.
‘Get to it.’
They’d planned and argued and counter-planned until Pilos couldn’t see straight and he’d dismissed them – or rather dismissed himself to bed, where he’d slept three hours past dawn and woken feeling vaguely alive again.
And despite the frantic hurry – or because of it and what it meant – he’d ordered the Feathers and the Third Talon to assemble and he’d finally elevated eagle Calan to Feather, a leader in her own right with three hundred eagles under her command, all full-blood Pechaqueh of course, all warriors of exquisite skill and renown. They cheered as Atu and Detta braided the war feathers into the command fan at the back of her head. When it was done, the trio faced Pilos.
He pressed his hand to his belly and his throat. ‘Feather Calan, welcome. For the glory of the Empire and the holy Setatmeh, you have been gifted the feathers of command. Use them wisely, learn from your elders and betters, and fill me with pride when next we go to war.’
‘For the Singer!’ Calan shouted, returning the salute and then bowing her head at Pilos, unable to disguise the width of her grin. ‘For the holy Setatmeh, for the Empire, and for High Feather Pilos.’
Pilos permitted himself another small smile; he should probably put a stop to it, but the war in Yalotlan had been bloody, and the Melody had taken to chanting his name when they achieved victory.
As long as mine comes after that of Singer, Empire and Setatmeh, I suppose there’s no real harm.
‘Back about your work, eagles, there’s a lot to be done. Atu, I want the first of the new slaves brought up; they’ve been stewing in their own filth long enough. Let’s see how many are willing to fight and die for their Empire. We may as well make a start on them while we’re still here.’
‘Yes, High Feather,’ Atu said, and dismissed the eagles to their barracks and training. On one side of the huge drill yard, dog warriors trained under the watchful eyes and eager whips of their Coyote commanders, the rain washing the sweat from their bodies.
On the other, the new hawk caste worked their way through basic spear forms. They were slow and awkward, but they were eager, knowing it was their only chance to put their shame behind them and regain honour and status again.
Pilos’s view of the hawks was cut off by the appearance of hundreds of stumbling, squinting, filthy, chained men and women: the Yaloh warriors who had survived the first battles and been captured. Pilos had left them baking in the underground cells for the last five moons, coated in their own filth and scrambling for the rations dropped through the slats from above.
&nb
sp; Only the strongest would have survived that, and the sound of more Yaloh being forced into the neighbouring pits month after month as the war progressed would have hardened them and given them an edge like the finest obsidian. Only those who were proven or suspected warriors were at the fortress. The rest – the old, the children, and the obvious non-combatants – had already been sold. For moons, this batch of slaves had listened to the pitiful cries and bravado-filled curses of their way of life ending, filtered, always, through the glory of the song that showed them what they could be, how great they could be. Now Pilos needed to turn the remains of their hate and rage against a target other than the Pechaqueh who’d defeated them and the Empire that would, given time and good service, raise them up to heights they couldn’t imagine.
Pilos picked up his heavy war club. Swinging the weapon idly in his hand, he wandered up and down the ragged lines.
‘Warriors,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Fighters. Killers. Proud and upright and strong and fierce. No fear and no regret.’ Some Yaloh watched the club as he passed, a few watched his eyes, most watched his feet, and some watched his chest. Each meant something different – those watching the club thought it the biggest threat, those watching his eyes would likely not bend, those watching his feet were broken. Those watching his chest, though, oh, those were the ones he wanted. They were waiting for him to strike, club or foot or hand, ignoring the lies he’d tell with his face and eyes and focusing on his body to give him away. Those ones recognised that more than just the club was dangerous. Those were the warriors who would win the world for the Melody and the song.
The Stone Knife Page 28