The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son Book 1)

by Nicholas Kotar

  “Soon after, Father volunteered for a commission to Karila. There were unfounded rumors of nomad uprisings in far Karila, and it had led to a worsening of tensions between Vasyllia and Karila. He joined the garrison guarding a group of ambassadors who hoped to strengthen Karila’s ties to the throne of Vasyllia. I was against Father’s going from the start, but the Dar insisted. Said it would do him good.”

  Through the haze of memory, Voran saw that he and the Pilgrim walked along a more recognizable path than before, and the aspens interspersed with pines hinted that they were coming nearer home.

  “You never saw him again,” said the Pilgrim.

  Voran nodded. He didn’t have the heart to speak of the murder of the ambassadors to Karila, or of his father’s assumed guilt in their murders.

  “Voran, I thank you for your confidence. You may not understand yet why a Pilgrim would be so interested in your family history. I hope, when the trials begin, that you will find some solace in our shared confidence.”

  Before Voran could answer, he was distracted by a white streak to his left. The stag.

  The path turned sharply and led them to a bald patch in the wooded hills, where they entered open sunlight for the first time since leaving the sleeping-wood. The white stag walked toward them in a straight line. He stopped a foot in front of them, and Voran saw that there was a shimmer in the air between them. Voran touched it, and his hand could not pass through. A transparent wall.

  “Never mind, old friend,” the Pilgrim said to the stag. “We have need of you after all.”

  The deer raised his head and shook it. Snorting, he pawed the ground with a foreleg. The Pilgrim smiled at Voran.

  “He’s annoyed with you. He would much rather remain in Vasyllia. Good country, he says, even if a bit on the forgetful side.”

  Voran was dumbfounded. “Vasyllia is on the other side of that…transparent wall?”

  The stag bowed as he had in the clearing, and the gold light from his antlers burst out. Voran raised an arm to his face, but the stag was already gone.

  The mustiness of Vasyllia’s birches inundated Voran’s senses. He and the Pilgrim stood next to a saddle-shaped branch that Voran often slept on during the hot afternoons.

  “The white stag is a bearer,” the Pilgrim explained, “a sort of…doorway. Between the worlds, you know. But to bear us to Vasyllia, he had to return to the Lows of Aer.”

  Voran felt no more enlightened than before, but the Pilgrim only rumbled hearty laughter and strode uphill toward Vasyllia.

  All of Vasyllia feasted before the gates. Close to the walls, rows of wedge-pavilions marked the families closest to the Dar’s regard, all from the third reach. Farther downslope, canvas tents flapped on sturdy frames. First and second-reacher families gathered around makeshift hearths. Heavy pots boiled over with stew. Carts pushed by pantalooned merchants wended their way among the feasters, regardless of social standing. In the midst of it all, a smaller replica of the market day stage had been built, and a storyteller had all the children in stitches, while their parents feigned seriousness, though most couldn’t hide their abashed smiles at the ribaldry their children didn’t catch.

  On any other day, the spectacle would have cheered Voran. He loved a good pageant, as did any Vasylli. To see the entire city together like this, the reaches mingling, was a rare thing. And yet, something was lacking. Somehow, everything about Vasyllia now seemed half-empty, devoid of meaning.

  The master bell roared in the palace belfry, announcing the return of the unsuccessful hunting party. Copper bells followed in syncopated chorus, beating in rhythm to the bay of the hunting dogs. Silver bells clamored in the rhythm of a thousand blackbirds.

  “Pilgrim,” he said, straining to hear himself over the din of the bells, “Will you do my house the honor of staying with us while you visit Vasyllia?”

  “Of course, Voran. I thank you for the offer.” His voice was more resonant than the bells. For a quick moment, Voran thought that the grey cloak and the stony visage were a kind of mask that the Pilgrim chose to assume for his own purposes, and that his real face was different. But the moment of intuition faded. Voran shook his head, befuddled.

  The mountain city loomed before them, many-tiered and many-terraced. Its houses and streets hugged a sloping peak that curved upward like a saber to a pinnacle high above the mists. Amid the pines and spruces, the city of Vasyllia seemed to have grown from the mountains’ bones many ages ago. Towers were extensions of crags. Alleys, bridges, and archways were natural hollows and caves, gently bent to human will.

  Something deep within the city compelled Voran. Not the Vasyllia built of wood, cobbled with stone, and planted in earth. No, that was little more than a mask, like the mask of the Pilgrim. The real city lay beneath it. For the first time in his life, Voran sensed there was something living, something vital in the heart of Vasyllia, something no one knew about or even suspected. The hidden Vasyllia whispered to him, though he could not parse out the words.

  “You surprise me, young Voran,” said the Pilgrim. “How quickly you pierce to the heart of things. Whatever happens, my falcon, do not forget this. Vasyllia is everything. You must never let Vasyllia fall. She is everything.”

  Vasyllia is the Mother of Cities. Nebesta, our first daughter, will forever be jealous of her second place. Karila, the runt of the three city-states, will seek every opportunity to thrust thorns into the side of her mother. But I charge you, my sons, remember this. A true mother always slaves for her children…

  -From “The Testament of Cassían, Dar of Vasyllia” (The Sayings: Book II, 15:3-5)

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Market

  To Voran’s annoyance, the Pilgrim plunged into the middle of the assembled throng of Vasylli. Voran had hoped that he could have the Pilgrim to himself for a time, before the tide of adoration inevitably took him. But Voran’s worries were unfounded.

  The Pilgrim walked among the people of all reaches, speaking to none and being addressed by none. It was almost as if the people could not quite see him. And yet, everywhere he went, faces brightened and conversations turned boisterous. Even the colors of fabrics seemed brighter after he had passed.

  Walking unnoticed among the people, Voran and the Pilgrim reached the gates of Vasyllia. As they did, Voran’s heart skipped a beat. He had forgotten that they would have to pass through the first reach.

  “Pilgrim, shall we go up another way?” He pointed at one of the smaller gates at a higher elevation. It avoided the first reach entirely.

  The Pilgrim looked at Voran, and it seemed that he looked through him.

  Voran was ashamed of himself and of Vasyllia, ashamed that this splendorous city still hid the poor of the first reach in dim alleyways where dogs and children lay side by side in filth.

  “Lead as you will, Voran,” said the Pilgrim. His eyes seemed to chide Voran, and he felt his face burning. Voran’s heart gently inclined away from his desire. To his own surprise, he found himself leading the Pilgrim into the first reach, not away from it.

  The gates of Vasyllia yawned to accept them. They passed under the arch—two massive beech-trees carved out of marble, leaning toward each other, locked in an embrace of branches and leaves. The refined perfection of the carvings seemed worse than a mockery compared to the squalor of the first reach.

  Voran’s senses were overcome, as though he were experiencing the first reach truly anew. Smells of horse-dung and freshly baked bread mixed together. The chatter of playing children and the barking of old mongrels joined in a strange cacophony. Most of the houses were hardly more than sticks leaning against each other, with a board for a door. They were not built along any ordered streets like the second reach. Instead, they seemed to be thrown about randomly. Foul-smelling dirt roads meandered between the houses and towering dung heaps, some of which smoldered with fire that never went out.

  And yet, behind all that Voran sensed something he never felt in the third reach. Some native vitality be
lied the filth and poverty. Yes, the suffering around him was obvious. Every street corner was littered with beggars. Some of them fought for territory out in the open, pummeling each other with no care for the glances of others. A few children had a glint in their eyes as they assessed the contents of his pocket. But most of the people here seemed more real than in the other reaches. There was something natural and unconstrained in their interactions with each other. It contrasted sharply to the careful conventionality of the merchants, the sour disdain of the nobles, and the constipated piety of some of the priests.

  Voran approached the opulence of the third reach with conflicted emotions. From his newfound perspective, he saw his father’s house as a sprawling monstrosity, inundated by peach and cherry trees like weeds.

  Among them, Lebía danced, arms outspread. The setting sun lit up three singing firebirds on her shoulder and arms.

  “Lebía?”

  She turned, startled, and the birds flew up at once, giving her a red-gold halo. She smiled, and her smile’s warmth was even more astonishing than the firebirds.

  Lebía ran up to him and embraced him, her golden curls pouring all over his shoulders.

  He picked her up and twirled her as she loved. She laughed, as though she had not a care in the world. Years of tension sloughed off his shoulders like old skin.

  “I’m sorry I took so long, swanling.”

  “Oh, Voran,” she said, ignoring his words completely. “I’ve been trying for months to get the firebirds to come down to me. And today, they all came at once, singing. Can you imagine?”

  Voran was astounded. What had happened to his sad Lebía?

  “Lebía, dear, run and tell cook to prepare something to eat, quickly. We are honored with a Pilgrim’s stay tonight.”

  Lebía was suitably impressed as she assessed the Pilgrim towering behind them in the shadows of the cherries.

  “You grace our house, Pilgrim,” she said formally, with a touch of uncertainty.

  “The honor is mine, little swan,” he said with disarming tenderness. “May the blessing of the Heights be forever yours.”

  Lebía smiled a little, stealing a quick glance at Voran that said, “I am not quite sure what to make of him.” Voran inclined his head toward the house. She bowed to the Pilgrim in the formal Vasyllian manner before running into the house, hair streaming behind her like a banner catching the wind.

  Voran sat the Pilgrim at the place of honor, in Otchigen’s own high-backed oak chair, then bowed to one knee before him, a supplicant in the traditional ceremony of welcome.

  “Pilgrim, I greet you for Vasyllia. I greet you in the name of my father Otchigen (may his honor be restored). I greet you on behalf of my sister and myself, the Dar and his family. I beg you to bestow upon us Adonais’s grace, given to all who choose to wander the wilds in search of the beautiful and the terrible.”

  The Pilgrim looked briefly uncomfortable at the mention of Adonais, but he laid two hands on Voran’s head and said, “Sometimes the Heights are moved by our fervent supplication, sometimes they are silent for our hidden good. I wish that Voran will find the strength to choose the right way among all ways, though it be the most painful.”

  A wave of heaviness lifted from Voran’s shoulders. He felt younger than he had in years, worn down as he had been by his family’s situation. His head was clear and bright as after a full night’s sleep. Still, a shadow lurked behind the final words of the Pilgrim’s blessing.

  Voran and Lebía served the Pilgrim with their own hands while the servant girls stood in the doorway, gawking at the sight. The Pilgrim hardly ate anything, though he constantly thanked them for the morsels he did eat. He enjoyed the drink in greater quantities. Only after he put his horn down for the final time did Voran and Lebía sit down on either side to begin their own meal.

  As they ate, the Pilgrim grew more and more somber. By the time Voran and Lebía had finished, he stared at Voran intently with a pained expression. It unnerved Voran, making the space between his shoulder blades itch wildly. He wanted to pelt the Pilgrim with his questions as soon as possible, but convention would not allow it. At table, a Pilgrim spoke first.

  “Voran, tell me about Vasyllia’s Great Tree.”

  Voran’s ears pricked up at his tone. There was no doubt—the Pilgrim was testing him. Something told him that much would depend on his answer. He tried to feign calmness.

  “Well, it’s a bit of a misnomer, isn’t it? It’s hardly even a tree. It’s an aspen sapling. But…well, it’s on fire. Every year, the priests officiate a ceremony that summons fire from the Heights. It keeps the tree’s fire fresh, and the sapling eternally young.”

  The Pilgrim looked annoyed.

  “No, tell me what it is.”

  Something stirred in Voran’s memory, an old story his nanny used to tell him.

  “It used to be called the Covenant Tree.” The details escaped him, no matter how hard he tried. “A seal of Adonais’s promise to Vasyllia.”

  “What promise?” whispered the Pilgrim, his tone urgent.

  “A promise of…protection. Yes, a girdle of protection against…oh, Heights, I don’t remember.”

  The Pilgrim sagged into his chair, a look of open despair in his face.

  “The stag was right. How forgetful Vasyllia is. I had not realized how forgetful.”

  Voran slept badly and lay awake before the sun rose. The morning fog promised to dissipate, though the clouds in his mind threatened to remain the whole day. Something must be done about it.

  Not bothering to dress, Voran slipped on his boots and wrapped his bare chest with his old travel cloak. Lebía didn’t stir, even when he climbed out the window and slid down the carved lintel to the gardens below, to the brook that Otchigen, with the Dar’s blessing, had redirected from one of the city’s canals. Their own private river.

  At least I can thank you for this one good thing, Father, Voran thought.

  Throwing off his boots and cloak, he flung himself into the water, bracing for the icy shock. It was immediate and glorious, the sun inside his head bursting apart his huddled thoughts. As he rose again into the cold, he laughed with pure exhilaration.

  Afterward, he sat by the river, wrapped in his cloak, which did little to stave off the late autumn chill. The momentary euphoria of the swim had faded, leaving behind nagging unease. The song of the Sirin, which would often tease him after his morning wash, had stopped entirely since his encounter with the stag.

  “Early riser, Voran?” The Pilgrim materialized out of nowhere, making Voran’s heart attempt a desperate leap out of his chest. Voran laughed, shaking with more than the cold.

  “Good morning, Pilgrim.” He gestured for the Pilgrim to sit. “I could not sleep. Too many questions.”

  “Have you considered that you may not understand the answers yet, even if I told you everything? In any case, I am eager this morning to take part in the feasting before the walls. Will you come with me?”

  Inwardly, Voran groaned, but he nodded. “It would be my honor.”

  Though it was early, already many people were huddled around their makeshift hearths in the fields, busy with breakfast. There was a joyful tenseness in the air; Vasyllia had not yet tired of waiting for the success of the hunt. Already a bustling marketplace stood ramshackle around the storytelling stage.

  The married women in headscarves with temple rings, the young women with their hair unbound or in the tell-tale single braid—they all regarded Voran and the Pilgrim with smiles that rarely lit their eyes. The men, in tall beaver hats and wide, sweeping coat-sleeves, barely looked at them before passing on to the more important business of the day.

  Pipers and fiddlers danced and spun about among the people, sometimes narrowly missing colliding with them, to general comic effect.

  Again, that nagging sense that something was missing bothered Voran. It was as though Vasyllia were a woman far past her prime, who still painted her face in the fashion of newly-married youth.

&n
bsp; The Pilgrim showed little interest in the usual wares—ceramics, fabrics, trinkets fashioned from wood, some of which sang on their own, some of which moved about in choreographed figures. The chalices of gold did not hold his attention; the woven tapestries may as well have been rags. He walked past the most ornate stalls with hardly a glance, though many of the merchants’ wives, impressed with his mien, tried their loudest to attract his attention.

  Like hens flapping their wings to attract a cockerel, Voran thought.

  The only stall that seemed to interest the Pilgrim was that of an old potter. It was hardly a stall at all, rather a tattered canvas hung over a frame of grey wood. It stood at the farthest edge of the market, surrounded by refuse. The potter, who smelled as bad as his teeth looked, could not even speak from surprise when the Pilgrim approached him.

  All of his wares were plain, unglazed, though Voran sensed that they were made with great skill. The Pilgrim seemed to think so as well. He pointed at an urn of perfect proportion, smooth and undecorated. A hand-written rag sported the price: two copper bits. Voran winced at the price. This potter must have no business at all, if he was willing to sell his handiwork for so little.

  “May I buy this?”

  The potter stuttered something unrecognizable.

  “I’m sorry, my brother,” said the Pilgrim. “I did not hear you.”

  The potter’s eyes changed. Their dull yellow cleared to white, and something in them sparked. To Voran’s surprise, the potter seemed to shed his years before their eyes. He wasn’t old at all. He was hardly more than forty.

  “From a traveler, I ask nothing but blessing,” he said. “Take it with my thanks.”