The Stone Knife

by Anna Stephens

  And then Xessa was there, alerted by Ossa’s response to the song, and she dragged Tayan backwards by his harness and stepped past him, spear up by her jaw. The shaman scrambled to his feet. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, you don’t understand. It’s not a threat.’

  Xessa didn’t look at his mouth or his hands and when he grabbed her arm she shook him off violently and pointed at the exit.

  ‘No,’ he tried again, desperate now, but she was implacable. He backed to the cave mouth and looked at the holy Setat over her shoulder. ‘I’ll come back,’ he promised it, ‘and we will talk again.’

  LILLA

  Outside Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  211th day of the Great Star at morning.

  He’d expected more than this. The way the dogs and Dakto spoke of Pechacan, calling it the heart of the Empire, he’d expected every home to be a stone palace or for the song to be stronger, purer, finer than before. But nothing was different. Nothing. It was just the same expanses of fields separated by tiny strips of jungle supporting nothing more than a few monkeys and birds.

  The slaves were the same mix of empty-eyed and zealous converts. Their Pechaqueh owners were neither taller nor more impressive than the lowest of the dog warriors escorting them. Perhaps the hundreds of Star cycles they’d lived inside the song had changed them in some hidden, fundamental way, but Lilla thought not.

  He was, being honest, disappointed. Where were the riches and the splendour? Where was the visible proof that this tribe was closer to the gods, or more powerful or beautiful, stronger or more intelligent? How could this be the people who had conquered nearly all Ixachipan?

  But they did have one startling, incomprehensible difference, and the Singing City epitomized it. Pechaqueh built their towns and cities next to water, and in that water swam the Drowned – lots of Drowned, both Greater and Lesser. Captives and slaves alike shied away, but the dog warriors and Dakto made them stand close. Made them watch as one of their number was untied, marched down to the water’s edge and shoved in. She screamed and thrashed and the Drowned tore her apart.

  The sight had quelled the embers of rebellion more effectively than any beating could, and the days had passed in quiet, hopeless silence as they filed past towns and cities dotted among the farmland, ever farmland. As if there could be nothing else in the world but fields in various stages of green, abundant growth.

  ‘I had expected beauty,’ he said to Dakto when the macaw came to walk by his side for the final sticks to the Singing City. It grew on the horizon, sprawling and vast, and there were several other limestone roads winding towards it from all corners of the Empire.

  ‘What you see is wealth.’

  ‘No. Not wealth. Greed. Where is the balance in this, Dakto?’ Lilla jerked his chin at their surroundings. ‘We would never destroy the jungle or kill all the animals around our homes, tipping that balance from plenty into poverty. You have done all this and more, and all for greed. As children with honeycomb, you are likely to give yourselves a bellyache.’

  He had been like this for days now, unable to stop himself poking, poking. Perhaps it was the continuing pain in his skull, the weakness it brought, or the endless high-pitched fucking whine in his head that not even the song could blot out.

  The captured Paws had been absorbed into a much larger caravan made up of slaves from the Empire escorted by armed free. Dakto had remained with them when the dog warriors turned around to head back to the war.

  Dakto, who still found time to talk to Lilla each day as the long lines of bound prisoners weaved through the naked, open farmland. The others must have been enslaved for years, because they weren’t roped. Lilla watched them walk ahead on the road with a mix of horror and incomprehension, wondering why they didn’t run from the tiny number of people leading them. But he knew why. He’d known why ever since he first heard the song.

  The music was in his heart now, a worm twisting inside him, threaded through every limb and muscle and nerve. He knew the Pechaqueh were no better than him, but there was a small part that was grateful to them for bringing him under the song so that he might know its majesty. The song he’d sworn to die before hearing.

  He worried that small part would grow like a cancer and eat away at who he was, so he sang songs under his breath as they walked, focusing on the old tales set to music he’d learnt as a boy. Yet always, within only a few lines of verse, he’d fall into the same rhythm as the song. It was as if it moulded his chants and hymns to itself so that even they became a part of it. So that his worship of Malel and the ancestors became worship of the song – and by extension, he realised with a sickening lurch, of the Singer, the Empire, and the so-called holy Setatmeh. He stopped singing after that.

  ‘Those dog warriors feared you,’ Lilla commented.

  ‘As they should,’ Dakto said, proud and haughty. ‘I could kill any of them in combat without breaking a sweat.’

  ‘What would happen if they disobeyed you?’

  ‘They would die. Disobedience of superiors is not tolerated.’

  ‘What if their disobedience saved your life? In battle, for instance? What if you told them to move away and then your life was in danger and someone came back and saved you? Would you still kill them?’

  ‘Glory is won in the Melody in three ways: by capturing slaves, by acts of bravery, by saving lives. If a dog disobeyed me but saved my life, they would be rewarded. You will learn all this soon enough.’

  ‘And if you were not saved?’ Lilla pressed. Dakto wouldn’t answer and the Toko forced a laugh. ‘I see. So your slave and dog warriors only risk their lives for yours if they receive a direct order or there’s a guarantee of success? Otherwise they watch you die and feel, well, not very much at all, I expect. Relief, perhaps. And yet you still believe they all fight for the same cause? You think they actually believe all this monkey shit about the song and Pechaqueh superiority? No, my friend. They’ve learnt the rules of the game and they’re playing to win. Fight and stay alive until they’re freed, then get away from Pechaqueh control as soon as they can. They may never get their land and traditions back, but they’ve got more freedom than you have.’

  ‘Says the slave to the free man,’ Dakto said, but his smile was tight.

  Lilla shook his head, knowing he was provoking the macaw and yet caring nothing for the consequences. ‘Says the free man to the slave,’ he contradicted. ‘Out of the two of us, I am the one with pure blood; it is yours that is mixed.’

  Lilla didn’t give a single shit about the purity or otherwise of his blood or anyone else’s, and there had been enough inter-tribal marriages over the years for there to be no such thing as a full-blood anyway, probably, but he knew Dakto did care, and so he poked. And Dakto, for so long the garrulous warrior and friend, was tight-lipped. Lilla wondered whether anything the other man had said during the previous year had been true. Whether any of his traits or jokes or responses had been genuine. The cloak of his disguise had been perfect.

  Dakto glared at him and Lilla made himself laugh again, though he could taste the sudden danger in the air. Sweat trickled down his back, itching.

  ‘Once they’re free, as long as they keep their heads down and pay lip service to your barbaric beliefs, they can do what they like. You, as a half-blood, will forever be at the mercy of their expectations. A free Axi fucks up? Well, they’re savages, what do you expect? But if a half-blood fucks up … you betray every Pecha, don’t you? You bring the blood into disrepute. Your shame is all Pechaqueh shame.’ Lilla shook his head in mocking sympathy. ‘Slave,’ he whispered. ‘Until the day you die.’

  Dakto ripped his knife out of his belt and Lilla braced, breathing a swift prayer to Malel that she would find his spirit for rebirth. Instead of killing him, the macaw cut the rope at his neck free of the main line and dragged him away. He punched Lilla to his knees, kept on punching until Lilla was curled on the ground, teeth gritted, eyes squeezed shut and muscles tensed to try and absorb the impact. The pain i
n his head, which had finally begun to settle, roared back with a vengeance when Dakto punched him in the face.

  Nobody came to his aid, not even when Dakto started in with his feet, not even when, heaving for air, he kicked Lilla onto his back and sat on him, ripped open his tunic and sliced into the skin of his chest with the knife.

  Lilla screamed then, barely able to see Dakto through the swelling around his eyes and the pain that ripped through his head and chest. The cutting stopped and he lay there, gasping for breath, until he felt the man climb off him. He tried to roll onto his side but was kicked flat again, and moments later the macaw was back. He rubbed a handful of something into the cuts on Lilla’s chest, making him screech again as it burned and grated in the wounds, as if he’d poured warrior wasps into his lung.

  ‘Get up.’ Dakto’s voice was implacable. ‘Get up and get in line or I’ll cut your balls off.’

  Lilla rolled onto his side and got to his knees, wobbling. He spat a mouthful of blood and half a tooth into the rich black earth at the edge of the limestone road. He held his breath and made himself stand, groaning. He staggered towards the line of prisoners, his balance gone and his hearing muffled in his right ear. The whine in his head was louder.

  The cut ends of the cord were knotted back through the wide collar on Lilla’s neck. He could feel Dakto’s breath and body heat as the other man stood right next to him, far too close for comfort. ‘Walk. If you slow us down I’ll flog the skin from your back and make you eat it.’

  Limping, gasping, and counting up his hurts one at a time so he’d know the exact number to repay, Lilla walked into the Singing City, through estates and gardens and craft quarters, over a flat bridge spanning a river that made his skin crawl with horror, and into a wide space of beaten earth filled with tall bamboo cages. The flesh markets of Pechacan.

  Dakto sought him out one last time, and Lilla braced for another beating. The macaw stood close enough to kiss, so Lilla could see him through the swelling around his eyes. ‘You told me once you would not have me because you were married.’

  ‘I did and I am, even if Tayan is dead. Why? Are you going to buy me for yourself?’ Lilla tried to sneer, but his stomach tightened. What if Dakto did exactly that?

  ‘For what you did, how you made me welcome in your home, I give you this and only this.’ Dakto lowered his voice and leant even closer, making a pretence of fiddling with Lilla’s collar. The Toko fought not to shy away. ‘I didn’t find his body.’

  Lilla rocked and the Whisper had to grab him by one arm to prevent him from collapsing. ‘But even if he lives, you should not be married. It is how they control their slaves. If you defy them, they will kill your family one by one and send you their heads. If you want any sort of freedom despite your bonds, your brand, and the cage they’ll keep you in – do not be married. Don’t claim him. That way at least he lives, even if you do not.’

  And with that he walked away.

  ENET

  Great Octave’s estate, Singing City, Pechacan, Empire of Songs

  213th day of the Great Star at morning

  Enet sat in the hidden room in her palace, the mute old body slave weaving in a corner, her estate slave waiting outside the door. The centre of the room was dominated by the large, roughly hewn block of songstone. Her hammers and chisels were stored on a shelf nearby, but she did not work the stone now.

  Instead, she sat on a cushion at a low table, and all of the books of history and song-magic and legend and prophecy that she owned were scattered around her. She had the calendars in front of her, sun-year and Star cycle both. Twice now they had blooded the song, surely more than enough, and yet it was veering out of harmony again. Again it was hungry. She had read every book, cover to cover, seeking some tiny sliver of information that she might have missed before. All of the books gave slightly differing advice, but all agreed that the blooding should happen no more than four times a year at the very most.

  Enet’s heart spasmed with grief and she swallowed it down, refusing to let the edges of her mind touch that raw and gaping boy-shaped void. She could smell Pikte’s hair. Savagely, Enet pressed the stump of her finger against the table and inhaled the pain, clearing her mind.

  The blooding – Pikte, my child, my heart – had re-secured her position and her influence, as she had hoped. She had retained her titles and her position as chief courtesan. Pikte’s absence from the source was noted and she had let the knowledge of his accidental death spread, along with confirmation the topic was never to be mentioned in her presence or the Singer’s.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned her mind back to the problem. Her books, so rare that she believed she had the only copies in existence, told a far different story to the accepted history of Pechacan. The song must never be blooded. A peaceful song leads to peaceful citizens; a violent song to violent citizens. Those imperatives had been repeated so often as she grew up that they beat in her blood much as the song did. And they were all lies.

  But so are the books.

  The Empire was only as strong as the song that united it, and Xac’s song was powerful indeed. Powerful before the blooding, but even more so afterwards. If only they could find some equilibrium; if only the holy lord himself could exercise restraint and control the song, keep his demands for offerings to the accepted limit.

  Once a month for the holy Setatmeh; once every three months for the holy lord. If he had already had two, then should the next offering be three months from the first one, or from the second? Or should it be six months? The books were worse than useless.

  This morning, the Singer had summoned her and once again told her to bring him something special. She had thus far managed to deflect him by bringing other treats – trinkets, food, jewellery. But he’d been asking for the last three days, and she wondered whether he might take matters into his own hands if she denied him much longer. There were more than enough warriors, courtesans, administrators, councillors, and slaves in the source for him to choose between, and none of them could even conceive of denying him – nor would they be able to withstand the song-magic when it roared and glowed within him. And if that happened, if he realised he no longer needed her to gift him this sensation and this strength, she would fail and all her plans would be dust.

  Three months from the first, she decided, because she had to make a decision. She marked it on the calendar. She would have to ease him through the coming weeks, deflecting him with games and divinations and reports of the war. Pilos would be in Yalotlan within days and he’d station runners to return over the border to report through the song. Surely that would be enough stimulus for him?

  Enet tipped the silver-white powder of her tonic into a cup and stirred it, ignoring the concern in her slave’s eyes as the woman paused her weaving to watch. She drank, ignoring too the grainy texture and the dusty, somehow dry taste. She was used to them both by now. She ran her tongue around her gums, teasing out the fine grains that crackled and grated between her teeth. Her mouth dried and she drank some more, ignoring the faint hurt in her chest and stomach. It was worth it, and what did a little discomfort matter, anyway?

  Pikte hadn’t liked her to be uncomfortable, though. Enet’s mouth pressed tight and she pinched the stump of her missing little finger. The house was quiet without him and her body slave had cried for a week in the aftermath, as if it had anything to do with her. The diamond of Enet’s grief shifted in her chest, threatening to soften and so expand, to grow until it filled all Ixachipan and crushed her beneath its weight. She thrust it away again, back behind her heart, in the prison of her ribs.

  The Great Octave ran her finger around the inside of the cup, drawing up the last of the powder and licking it clean. The tonic was a recipe from the very oldest and most precious of her books, something used by the very, very first shamans who shaped the songstone – and who went on to become Singers. The legend of it had been lost, and so when Enet discovered it in the book, which was otherwise useless, it had felt like more tha
n coincidence. Along with the truth about blooding the song, she had finally begun to see a way forward. A path to greatness, not for her – for the Empire. Everything she did was for the Empire that she loved so much.

  And yet the blooding is out of control. Who’s to say the tonic won’t likewise be a disaster? Who’s to say it won’t kill you?

  Enet pushed away her concerns. When Yalotlan and Tokoban were safe under the song, the time would come to waken the world spirit. And when that happened, Enet needed to be in the strongest possible position, and the tonic would give her that. Strength of body and clarity of mind and a connection to the song deeper than any she’d known before. What did a bellyache matter in return for such gifts?

  ‘High one? The latest report is in. I … think you should read it.’ The estate slave’s voice was neutral as he spoke through the door.

  ‘Not now,’ Enet snapped, staring at the books and the calendars in front of her and rubbing her stomach in soft, circular motions. It was here, the answer she needed to control the blooding. It had to be here somewhere. Why had none of the books discussed even the possibility that—

  ‘It’s from one of the eyes in the Melody, high one. Regarding intentions in Tokoban.’

  Enet stared through the body slave, who had stopped weaving, awaiting orders. She swore and stood and the slave rose too, with a muffled grunt. She scurried ahead and opened the door for Enet, and the estate slave stepped back and bowed. He had the report in his hand, but she swept past him to the room facing her gardens and sat there instead. Her slaves brought water, honey, fruit, and incense, an extra cushion should she want it, and only then did the Great Octave hold out her hand for the report.

  She read quickly, lips pursing as the implications became clear. Someone was watching her and they had gathered information that was not theirs to know. Potentially damaging information. Enet needed to consolidate her claim on the songstone in Tokoban, and she needed the Singer’s approval to do it.