“No,” Darius said, clapping him on the back. “Because you’ll lose to me. I’m the lead panelist for Succession in our college.”
“Is that all, then?” Tahn asked, clapping Darius on the back in return.
Darius trimmed his smile to something more officious. “Well, not really; you see, I’m here in a somewhat formal capacity.”
“Oh?” Rithy rounded on Darius.
“Yes, and not as a philosopher, which should please you, but as a member of the League.” Darius stepped closer to Tahn, his expression becoming serious. He looked at Rithy and Martin. “Did you know Tahn here is a friend to known outlaws and exiles? He, himself, has recently been held in the pits of Solath Mahnus. I’m the ranking leagueman in the Grove, and my charge is to help keep her safe, administer her laws.” He gave a thin smile. “And I will do just that … with every means at my disposal.”
“Threats? In an astronomy shop?” Tahn laughed. “How long have you been waiting to catch me out in public?”
Darius’s face brightened to its former jovial look. “Just so we’re clear, my friend. The politics of the Grove are unique. A complex mix of science and law. Let’s keep you on the right side of things, shall we? You wouldn’t want to jeopardize whatever Succession you plan to bring.”
The threat in Darius’s last words hit Tahn hard.
Darius then bowed to Rithy, saluted Martin, and tapped his temple in farewell to Tahn. Keep your wits, he seemed to be saying.
Darius positively strolled from Perades, whistling as he went. When he was gone, the astronomy shop seemed rather too quiet.
“Well, you were the best, my young friend,” Martin observed, jokingly.
“He’s that good?” Tahn asked.
Rithy answered for them both, “I hate to say it, but yes.” She then turned to him. “When were you planning to tell us about these fascinating friends of yours—outlaws, exiles?”
Tahn pointed after Darius. “He makes it sound quite different from the reality.”
“As he will to Grove savants, if we give him an excuse,” Rithy countered.
“Okay, peace. I’ll give you the lowdown on all my friends, since it’s of such great interest.” He smiled. “But I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Martin put a hand on Tahn’s shoulder. “Just mind that bit about jeopardizing Succession. Darius might be able to do it. Walk on your toes.”
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We haven’t even asked for Succession yet.” Tahn was feeling rather in good spirits.
“Right. And we need to catch you up if you’re going to get back in the game.” Martin showed a competitive grin and ushered Tahn to the chalkboard behind him. “Let’s get right to it, shall we?”
Martin stroked his thin grey beard, a glint of glee and caution in his eyes as he looked around his shop, making sure they were alone. Afterward, he raised a hand and fingered a simple hook latch on one side of the chalkboard. With a slight push, the chalkboard rolled up, revealing a second slate behind it. Another wave of remembrance hit Tahn, who’d seen this hidden board before, long ago.
Martin said nothing, allowing Tahn to read what had been written there in yellow chalk. The observations were coupled with several mathematical equations. Beside him, Tahn heard Rithy make a sound in her throat. Surprise? Concern?
They were computations that might explain the stray course of Pliny Soray—the cause of her departure from her orbit.
He turned to Martin. “Are you the only one who knows this? Why do you keep it hidden?”
His old friend laid a finger aside his nose. “That, my young friend, is a very good question. And one I’ll happily answer. But not here. Not now. You go about your way, and keep remembering what is left unremembered, and if you still want to know, find me after any sundown in any of the usual places.”
Tahn studied the numbers a while more. His math wasn’t as strong as Martin’s, and certainly not as strong as Rithy’s, but what he thought he saw there might tie to the reason the Quiet were able to cross the Pall and attack Naltus. Might tie to Pliny Soray’s stray course.
Martin then held out a small ring dial—a kind of portable version of an armillary sundial. “You’ll let me give you this much, eh?”
Tahn smiled and took the dial, a simple tool to mark the time. The rings folded flat so that it could be carried in the pocket, but that was not why Martin had given it to him. He could see it in the man’s eyes as Tahn stowed the ring inside his shirt. This dial had a movable gnomon to cast its shadow. The advantage of such a tool is that the gnomon didn’t have to be aligned with the celestial poles. The meaning of the gift was clear, and a bit like Martin himself—since he hated to be forced to align with anything.
Tahn’s smile widened. “Itinerant gnomon for an itinerant Gnomon. Clever.”
Rather unceremoniously, Martin pulled down the outer chalkboard, latched it, and returned to his desk, where he placed spectacles on this nose and bent forward to stare into a quadrant map.
Tahn smiled at this, too. Rithy, though … she still had a look of concern, staring at the chalkboard as if she still saw the math on the hidden slate.
Looking with her, Tahn suddenly noticed the scrawl on the top piece of slate. “Martin, is this right?”
His old friend looked up from his map as Tahn pointed. “Ayeah. Somewhat rare, but not nearly as interesting as what I showed you on the inner slate.” His nose returned to his map.
“What?” Rithy said, obviously hearing the concern in his voice. “It shows the date and time of the lunar eclipse.”
“But of the second moon,” Tahn said. “I saw the eclipse of the first moon not long ago. They don’t usually follow one another like this.”
“No,” she agreed. “But like Martin said, it’s not unheard of, either.”
Tahn stared at the slate, probing for connections. The first lunar eclipse had occurred when the Quiet came to Naltus. If these two things were related, then that eclipse had brought thousands of Quiet through the Veil. And the second moon, Ardua, while smaller in the night sky, was denser. Tides flowed farther in and out at her phases. If his budding supposition held any merit, they needed to get to work. And fast. In part because of Ardua, but more so because of the observations scrawled on the secret slate. And they were on a fixed clock until the next eclipse. Until another Quiet army …
“Let’s go,” he said, and got moving. His muscles protested his vigor, but he struggled through the pain. There were inquiries to make, and it felt damn good to be about it.
He’d forgotten the man standing across the street before they’d even left Perades.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Everything’s a Fight
The dysphonic vocal approach is often considered only a battle technique. Not so. Think of it more as “unyielding.” In that light, it has every use you can imagine.
—Advanced Vocal Theory, Descant Cathedral, a rare course of instruction, premised off of Mor stylings
Wendra entered the music room to find Belamae sitting in a lone chair amidst the clutter and wreckage of yesterday’s vocal lesson. Most regrettably, the beautiful old instruments had been destroyed. He waited with a sullen look as though he’d been there a long time, thinking. To one side, Telaya knelt, gathering pieces of a shattered lute—something she did with care.
“That will do, Telaya.” Belamae was nodding. “Leave it be.”
“But Maesteri, the instruments need to be gathered—”
“I’ll see to it,” he told her. “But thank you.”
Telaya nodded deferentially, stood, and started across the room. When she came abreast of Belamae she stopped. “Will you be coming?”
“Soon,” he said. “Have Luela look after Dalyn and make him comfortable until we arrive.” He then wiped his forehead with a kerchief.
Telaya leaned in. “Maesteri, are you all right?”
After a moment he smiled and put a reassuring hand on her arm. “I’ll be fine.”
Telaya
nodded, and before leaving the music room, shot Wendra a look of contempt.
Once the door shut behind her, Wendra sighed with relief. “I’m not making a lot of friends.”
Belamae smiled as he said, “Telaya’s been assigned as your personal music mentor.”
“Oh, wonderful.”
His smile widened some. “Telaya’s only real affection is music. And she works harder than most—maybe harder than anyone—at perfecting the techniques we teach her.” He cocked his head a moment. “Hard to fault her for that, I guess. But she’s Lyren—doesn’t have the Leiholan gift—which is something she simmers about.”
“Seemed more than that,” Wendra observed.
“It’s been a rough morning already.” Belamae shuffled into a new position behind a harpsichord. “One of the Leiholan, Dalyn, fell during Suffering. The Song got the better of him. He had to be replaced.”
Belamae seemed done with the topic, as he poised to run a scale on the harpsichord. She interrupted before he could begin.
“Maesteri, I’m sorry about yesterday. I didn’t—”
“Never mind about it,” Belamae returned dismissively. “I told you, training Leiholan has its risks.”
She wasn’t quite sure how to ask, but she needed to know. “I saw your song. I saw—I heard—how you reshaped Suffering … for war.”
Belamae lowered his hands to his lap, his eyes becoming distant and apologetic.
“We started our resonance with your mother, didn’t we?” He paused, staring at her now with some sympathy. “I will restore your memory, so that you might have more of the parents you’ve lost. But later, after our day’s lesson. Right now, we have music to make.”
She quickly sat beside him, resting a hand over his fingers before he could start to play. “You showed my mother how to use Suffering as a weapon. In case she needed to protect us.”
He reversed their hands, firmly clasping hers between his own. “I loved your mother. As much as her father did, I loved her. I couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen.…” He cleared his throat. “It was a mistake, though. My own mistake. When I was your age, I took Suffering and went back to my own country to answer war’s call. I misused the Song. And when I’d returned and started to train Leiholan … I had a moment of weakness. I shared what I’d learned with Vocencia.” He gave her a steady, unquestioning look. “I won’t make that mistake again.” And that was the end of it.
And yet, she could still hear part of his Suffering song. It wasn’t a sound she could forget. Nor would she want to.
He visibly shook off the heavy effects of their conversation. “You and I, though, we still need to get to attunement. To resonance. Here, let me show you.”
Belamae pointed toward a fiddle a few strides away whose neck and body lay shattered after yesterday’s lesson. He began to sing, and the broken instrument rattled and rose into the air. It held there a few moments. Then he ended his song, and the fiddle fell back to the floor with a soft crunch and atonal bark.
“All I did there was sing the resonance of this room, the air, the wood and gut and bone of the instrument. I influenced what I needed to, to move it, raise it. The material the fiddle was made of responded to these vibrations. Now, observe.”
He began to sing again. This time, the fiddle shuddered, rose, and slowly the fragments of wood began to draw themselves together again. Over the course of a few moments, the fiddle re-formed itself, appearing just as it had been. The strings pulled taut and began to hum. Belamae then softly ended his song, and the instrument fell again into its shattered pieces on the floor.
“Can you tell me the difference?” he asked.
Wendra couldn’t take her eyes off the fiddle, but she knew. “You sang the fiddle’s song,” she said. “You found resonance with more than the fiddle’s materials. You found resonance with the idea of the fiddle. Its own vibrations.”
When she finally returned her gaze to the old man, he was smiling. “Precisely so. The oldest laws, Wendra, are that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed or made new. By finding the vibrations that exist in the combination of wood and strings, all the things that give it”—he smiled—“its fiddle-ness, I restored it to itself, if only briefly.”
Wendra nodded, excited. “But why didn’t you leave it whole?”
“Oh, that’s just me. I enjoy instrument repair the old way. I’ll show you my lutherie sometime.” He waved a hand for them to move on. “Now I want you to remember our goal is Suffering. That song has its name because the Leiholan who sings it must give voice to an awful series of historical events—the entire story of those who were placed inside the Bourne. There’s languor and war in parts. And plenty of real suffering. You’ll need to sing that. Resonate with it. Like I did with that fiddle there.”
It awed her, thrilled her, and gave her a sense of dread she couldn’t explain, just like the first hunting knife given her by her da. She’d been happy and proud and excited, and then realized what that knife was for.
“But here’s what you must know, Wendra.” Belamae held up a finger of warning, his countenance darkening. “Every time you sing in resonance with something, or someone, your own vibration changes, ever so slightly.”
This time, she understood perfectly the lesson, even before he said it.
“It is the nature of song. The nature of Suffering. It’s always changing—”
“Is that why Soluna died?” The words were out before she could think better of them.
He regarded her a long moment. “I don’t think so,” he finally said. “And before you ask, I don’t know why she died. Except that Suffering’s demands grow. They always have.”
“I meant no disrespect.”
He smiled the smile of a patient teacher. “I know. The point is that song is never stagnant. And so the effects of attunement, of resonating with a fiddle or me … or anything, will not only cause the change in what you sing to, but will shape your own life’s song. By degrees, of course. But that’s why I worry for you. Because just as you can do this to restore, you can do it to destroy.”
Wendra thought about the battle on the Soliel. “I’ve already done that.”
“No. You haven’t.” He shook his head once. “Oh, you’re filled with dark vibrations, sure enough. And we’ll work on that. But what you’ve done is more like raising the broken parts of a fiddle. You’ve yet to find the resonance of a thing and truly sing it.”
With some reticence, she asked, “If I sing the resonance of another person, what will happen?”
“That will depend on your intent. We’ll have a whole lesson on intent soon enough.” Then he nodded the way her da used to when he needed to explain something undesirable. “For now, understand this: Once you’re attuned, and can identify the resonant vibration of a thing, it’s possible to sing in tune or out of tune with that vibration. We call the former harmony. We call the latter dissonance. The effect can alter the very nature of the thing you’re singing to or about … can end it entirely.”
The way Belamae used the word “entirely” left a feeling of cold dread in the pit of her stomach. Then his eyebrows went up again as he emphasized his next words.
“And every time you tear down or destroy, your life’s vibrations are altered in a way that make you more dissonant; while each time your song lifts or inspires, the vibration of the song that is you becomes a more powerful melody.”
She nodded understanding, thinking about all the times she’d wrought song to tear down.
Belamae offered her a reassuring smile. “I tell you this so that you see the responsibility you bear with this Leiholan gift.”
“Is it too late to give it back?” She raised her brows with the questioning jest.
Belamae laughed hard from his belly. His laugh was cut short by a pained expression and a series of hard coughs. He took a moment to compose himself. “Just so,” he finally said. “Now, becoming attuned is the great first step. It will make your song stronger. Give you m
ore control.” He paused a long moment. “Even if you decide not to stay with us at Descant. Which is something, my girl, I hope you are no longer considering. We very much need you here.”
She looked back at him. And said nothing. She did want to learn all there was to know about being Leiholan. And she wanted to learn and sing Suffering. But few hours passed when she didn’t think about the people captured and sold into the Bourne. Like she and Penit had nearly been. She couldn’t stop feeling as though she should do something about that. That she could. And maybe more so after some time spent here with Belamae. Perhaps learn more about his song, the one she’d found in him during their moments of resonation.
Belamae then nudged her to stand up. “It’s time for another practical lesson.”
Wendra stood, feeling unsure. “You think I’m ready for this.”
Without another word, he led her from the room and on a long, silent walk through Descant. They passed countless doors behind which music instruction and performance of such vigor and variety was taking place that she wanted to stop, ask a hundred questions. Down stairs, across atriums, through tunnel-like corridors they went. She’d be lost on her own. Eventually, they came to a door, one in a private-quarters area she hadn’t visited before, though she knew this to be where Leiholan lived.
He gave her a single, searching look before ducking into this private chamber and motioning her inside. A man roughly the age of thirty lay in his bed, sleeping fitfully. At his side sat an older woman, cooling his skin with a rag dipped in a water basin on the bed table. On the far side of the room Telaya sat writing in a ledger; she looked up at Belamae and Wendra, open disapproval on her face.
Belamae drew near the bed. “How is he, Luela?”
The older woman kept at her task of cooling his forehead and cheeks with her rag. “He’s in no mortal danger. But I haven’t been able to use the sickness to ferret a cause for what happened in Suffering. He’s got a fever I can’t break with willow or balsa root. He sleeps, and can’t be roused.”
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