The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son Book 1)

by Nicholas Kotar

  “That is why he seeks the weeping tree, is it not?” asked Voran, the terror growing. “Living Water is a healer. He thinks it will give him a permanent form.”

  “So the legends say. Permanent and immortal form, yes.”

  Voran jumped up and threw the cup of tea to the earth, shattering it.

  “Then why do you persist in keeping me here? If the Raven finds the Living Water, it is not merely Vasyllia that will fall, it is everything! All the Realms!”

  Tarin remained immobile and calm, though his voice sharpened to a knife’s edge. “Have you not considered, dear boy, that because of your association with the hag, the Raven might be trying to use you to find the Living Water?”

  All of Voran’s bluster evaporated in an instant, as cherished hope after cherished hope collapsed in a heap near the shards of earthenware at his feet.

  “You have declared the kind of war that takes no prisoners,” said Tarin. “And you are not ready to fight it. If you were to be found alone by the enemy, you would not be destroyed, no. You would succumb to the Raven. You would become his creature in a heartbeat. If you do not believe me now, I fear you will soon enough. You need a guide, a master, until the moment when you can so guard your thoughts and inner movements of the heart that not even a stray intention will escape that can aid the enemy.”

  “Is that why you call me Raven Son?” Voran asked, his voice hardly more than a whimper.

  Tarin fell on his knees before the standing Voran and extended his arms outward—the traditional gesture of a supplicant. Amazement gripped Voran at the sight.

  “Voran, my son,” he said, and his voice broke. “Do you not know that when I took you from the hag, I took upon myself your suffering, your pain? I feel everything you do. Every doubt that pains you, every wound that ails you pierces me as though it were my own. I call you Raven Son because that is what you must never become. Raven, the color deeper than black, is a color for the fallen sons, not the sons of light.”

  Voran couldn’t halt his own tears. He leaned down to embrace the old warrior, feeling something he never thought he would feel again—pain and sorrow and joy like fire. He had found another father.

  Tarin tensed like a bowstring at its breaking point.

  “Voran, did you hear that?”

  It was faint, but unmistakable. Something growled outside Tarin’s window.

  Trust in the Heights with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding.

  The wisdom of men is madness with the Heights; the wisdom of the divine is inscrutable to mortals.

  Above all things, guard the ways to your heart and sow its pathways with divine seeds,

  So that the thoughts of your heart sprout the wisdom of faith.

  In the vale of the dark shadows, seek the guiding star of trust in the Most High.

  -From “The Wisdom of Lassar the Blessed” (The Sayings, Book I, 15:4-9)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Funeral

  Sabíana was swathed in furs and warmed somewhat by the braziers in each corner of the stone gazebo. Built near the altar of the Grove of Mysteries, it was almost completely concealed from the view of the people in the Temple. She had been here, trying to contemplate in peace, for the whole night.

  One of the guards hiding behind the redbarks sneezed. Elder Pahomy, standing by her side, sighed in exasperation.

  So much for the secret guard, thought Sabíana with a smile.

  She had been against it, fearing that any public display of protection, however secretive, would only play into the conspirators’ hands. She wanted to show her people that she feared nothing, that there was nothing to fear. But the unexpected treachery of Kalún convinced her to listen to Elder Pahomy’s suggestions. Twenty of the best seminary men, fully armed, hid among the trees.

  “Elder Pahomy,” she said, turning to him. She was sick of trying to concentrate. It was useless. “Tell me. Do you think Yadovír was complicit in Kalún’s treachery?”

  “Yes, I do, Highness.”

  She sighed.

  “You do see what a position I’m in, don’t you?”

  Elder Pahomy spread his arms out in an apologetic gesture. “I do, Highness.”

  She was momentarily annoyed by his prescience.

  “Speak it out for me,” she said curtly.

  “Yadovír claims to have tried to save Kalún from the Gumiren. It’s made him into a bit of a hero with exactly the kind of people who are most sympathetic with the traitors. If you imprison Yadovír…”

  “I could have a full-blown rebellion on my hands.” She sighed again, then felt disgusted with herself for it. “He’s an odd one, that Yadovír. Do you remember how my father invited him to the palace to witness the execution? Well, I caught him staring at me with the strangest look. Adoration, but contempt also. It unnerved me. Caused me to shudder physically. He noticed, and his face changed so quickly into open malice and hatred that I was afraid for my life, for a second.”

  “He wouldn’t have dared to do anything. Not with all the—”

  “Of course not, Elder. That’s not what I mean. But I think him capable of exactly the sort of treachery that got Kalún killed. Only he wouldn’t die. Too good with words.”

  Elder Pahomy said nothing. His expression gave nothing away either. To her own surprise, she was grateful for it. She didn’t need someone to coddle her. She needed to be decisive. On her own.

  “Do you know?” She smiled at him. “I think I need the spectacle of this funeral as much as the people do.”

  Elder Pahomy smiled. It was a gentle, fatherly smile, a rare gift from the old warrior. She felt warm. Now I’m ready, she thought.

  Soon the Temple began to fill with people. They were silent, even sullen, though nearly everyone seemed to find comfort in the serene beauty of the redbarks and the whispering intimacy of the aspens, still orange-clad despite full winter.

  The great bells exploded in cacophony, all of them ringing at once, the kind of peal usually reserved for weddings and the births of new children to the Dar. She hoped it would raise a dormant half-hope in the hearts of those assembled. The very rocks seemed to sing aloud in welcome to the bodies of the last great men of Vasyllia. Clerics robed in purple trimmed with gold—vestments crafted in the likeness of ancient Vasylli armor—entered the Temple in rows and began to sing. The hymn was fierce and olden, in a dialect not spoken any more save in certain Temple ceremonies. The curious martens and foxes amid the trees stopped and harked to the song, laden with the grace of the ages. Behind them came the coffin-bearers—lightning-white against the profusion of dark furs worn by the people. Then, the singing and the ringing ceased in a single thunderous chord that threatened to topple all the assembled to the ground with its force, just as the two bodies were placed on a bier in the midst of the Temple.

  The master bell tolled its velvety call forty times. Sabíana saw the bell in her mind, an ancient relic of old Vasyllia, made in a time when the art of pouring great bells was not lost. It was adorned with reliefs of legendary beasts too old to be named, with deeds of heroes raised to the rank of demigods, some of whom were still remembered in the songs of blind Bayan, Dar Antomír’s ancient verse-weaver who still lived in a high chamber in the palace.

  The final toll rang, then continued to pass through the crowd like a rising tide. Sabíana followed it, surrounded by her guard, many of whose tears streamed down their beards. She took her place by the bier, and the clerics surrounded her and the bier before beginning the lament. Sabíana felt the blood rush to her face as the bass voices among the priests took the drone, deepening the sound of the singing into eternity. She wanted to weep with the men, but forced her face to remain as stone.

  Acolytes lit and scented censers, and the smoke rose to accompany the chant offered on behalf of the fallen Voyevoda of Vasyllia and the greatest Dar of their time. Slowly, with each new hymn sung by the weeping warriors and the priests, the nightmare of Otchigen’s fate, though not fading completely from memo
ry, molded itself into a hopeful longing for his eternal rest. If any man deserved to find lasting peace, it was he, for he had suffered the ultimate ignominy and pain.

  Soon all the people, their voices cracking in the cold, the steam from their speaking merging with the smoke of the censers, joined in the final lament.

  Peace eternal to your servants

  In your halls, O Adonais

  Grant this.

  Sabíana took a torch from one of the warriors and lit the biers herself. She paused, savoring the hunger of the flames, forcing the spectacle to imprint itself on the back of her eyes. This is what will happen to us if we do not prevail, she thought.

  She turned to look at the people. Seeing them made her realize how right she had been to burn these two—inseparable in life, as in death—in the same ceremony. It was as she hoped. There was a calm acceptance of the burden of what it meant to live—to carry on the work that others, so much greater than we, have started, but not finished. I can mold this, she said to herself.

  “My people, go in peace!” Sabíana said in almost a whisper, but her voice carried well. “Rejoice as is meet for the passing of our father Dar Antomír, but be mindful of our constant danger. Sleep not the sleep of the unprepared. Any day the call to battle will sound, and though it be in the dead of night, may your sword-hands be not found empty.”

  As if on cue, the bells accompanied her last word with a thunderous ovation. Many eyes glimmered, ever so slightly, with hope that had been dead only hours before.

  “Highness,” said Rogdai a bit behind her. A loud thump indicated he had fallen on one knee. He was doing that a lot more these days, and every day a more worshipful look came over his face as he watched her. Poor man. She turned and nodded to him, half-smiling the graciousness she didn’t feel in her heart.

  “There is something I believe you would like to see,” he said, his voice slightly tremulous. But it wasn’t fear in his voice, not this time.

  Yadovír saw Sabíana take Rogdai’s arm and walk back to the palace. Even now, there was a fresh pain from the wound she had inflicted on him. A small part of him still wished that he could tell her everything in the hope of seeing her eyes light up with hope. It was only a small part of him, though, and it was drowned out by the hatred that glowed like white metal in his chest. That part of him was disgusted to see how many of the warriors had been moved by the funeral and were now obviously Sabíana’s men. Many of them now worshiped the ground she walked on.

  “Don’t worry, my rat,” a slithery voice sounded in his head. “Let them have their moment. It will not be long now.”

  Rogdai led Sabíana to one of the many open-air cloisters of the upper level of the palace. The snow was eldritch under the nearly full moon. In the center of the cloister, adorned with the remnant of trailing vines and asters still in bloom, stood one of the palace’s many small bell towers. It was built over an enclosed pool of spring water blessed by the Sirin, as the tales told. It was also said, Sabíana remembered, that this particular tower’s bells quietly rang on their own some mornings, beating melodies that no bell ringer knew any more.

  They entered the white chamber of the spring through a low, crumbling doorway. The room was covered in a series of panels, framed in gold. Each panel contained an ancient fresco of a king, a queen, an ascetic, a saint, or a hero. They all wore the flowing robes of Lassar’s time, painted in a flat, abstract style with exaggerated poses and over-large eyes. The colors of the robes were still bright. Sabíana realized they must have been made of crushed precious stones—the most expensive kind of paint, used only on the most sacred icons. Some of the panels were so old that the faces looked intentionally rubbed out. Perhaps they had been, it occurred to her. Nothing was impossible any more.

  Even in winter, the spring was not frozen. She knelt before the pool and dipped her face in the water three times, then took the silver flagon and drank.

  “In here, my lady,” said Rogdai, indicating a blank wall behind the pool.

  “There is nothing there, Rogdai,” she said, confused.

  “That is what I thought as well,” he said.

  She followed. As it turned out, there was a faint outline in the wall—a low doorway hidden by age and cracked mortar. She was sure no one had opened it in generations. Rogdai took a candle from the many stands in the chamber and pushed at the door, which creaked as it lurched open.

  Ahead was a stairway leading down into another chamber, apparently hewn from the mountain itself. Rogdai walked in first and raised the candle, and golden light bounced off the walls. Sabíana had the feeling that she breathed gold. The walls were gilded in more panels containing even brighter and more ornate icons. These were all of hermits, notable for their floor-length beards and hair-shirts. Some of them were completely naked—the ultimate sign of renunciation of decadence. Sabíana remembered from her studies that this kind of chapel was common in the outliers. In Vasyllia, icons of kings and queens were preferred to those of ascetic men and women of the wilds.

  There was a low table at the end of the semi-circular altar, and the back wall was covered in florid text, the gold paint as bright as though the brush were applied only yesterday.

  “This place must be hundreds of years old,” Sabíana whispered.

  Rogdai was on his knees, his head bent. She began to read the text aloud.

  “Thus saith the Most High King, the Unknown Father, the Artist of the High and the Low. I will make my covenant with Lassar of the Vasylli, to be binding on his children, and his children’s children until the final fading. Upon this people I appoint a sacred duty—to protect and ward the Three Cities, with all lands appertaining to them, or to die in their sworn duty.

  “For duty faithfully rendered, great shall be the measure of my recompense. I shall make this race glorious among men, and the grace of my power shall flow through them as a river of Living Water. For failure in duty bound, terrible shall be the wrath of my reckoning. Their seed shall be wiped from the earth, and they shall be cursed to the darkness eternal.

  “Yet if they endure the war that never ends, they shall have peace in a place of sanctuary beyond the endless ages.”

  “O Adonais,” whispered Sabíana, trembling. “How foolish have we been.”

  Around the text, smaller icons of great kings of old were rendered in astonishing detail, barely tarnished with age. It struck her that if the figures came out from the walls and spoke to her, she would not be surprised. For the first time in her life, the Covenant, Adonais, and all of the old stories were no longer fairy tales, but had become painful reality.

  “You feel it too, do you not, Rogdai? The terrible abyss of time in those words, especially when read aloud. We forget so easily…” A thought struck her. “We must read this aloud at my coronation. We must pledge, as a people, to renew our commitment to the Covenant. We must seek for the last help we have left.”

  And then she knew what she must do, and she began to weep.

  The warrior came to the edge of the forest. There, in a clearing, he saw the hut standing on chicken feet. “Hut, hut! Turn with your back to the forest, with your front to me.” It turned. He stepped forward, but stopped in fear. A river of fire appeared between him and the hut. The hag stood at the doorway, leering at him. “I can give you what you want!” she cackled. “But you’ll have to brave the baptism of fire.”

  The warrior jumped in…

  -“The Tale of Alienna the Wise and the Deathless One” (Old Tales, Book II)

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The River of Fire

  The stars were snuffed out like candles. The field was shrouded in black. The other shacks were simply not there. Outside Tarin’s window, it was so dark that it looked as though someone had painted the windows black. The growling continued—regular, insistent, ravenous. Voran’s hands shook.

  “How?” whispered Tarin. “They could not have found this place. It is protected. It is beyond their knowledge.”

  Voran knew how. Tarin
had said it: “You must so guard your thoughts and inner movements of the heart that not even a stray intention will escape that can aid the enemy.” Apparently, even considering the drowned girl’s offer was enough to open a chink in the ancient protection.

  “I did it,” Voran said. “The drowned girl, the Alkonist, she offered me a way out of the Lows.” Tarin’s eyes grew wide. “I did not accept it, but neither did I curse her out of my hearing. I may have even considered the possibility.”

  Tarin breathed out heavily. “Perhaps. But she is an insignificant power, a thing the other Alkonist endure only because they must. She could not have done this…unless…” Something dawned on him, and he seemed even more afraid, if that were possible. “Oh, my dear Voran, I hope not…”

  “What, my lord? Tell me, please.”

  “There are powers of the earth…strange, shadowy powers with ever-shifting allegiances. They have no love for men. They have long remained dormant, but if they have awoken, it could only mean…”

  Tarin took Voran’s forearms in his hands—an ancient gesture of kinship in war—and his eyes were frightening. They were the eyes of a man ready to die.

  “Listen to me, Voran. The only way that the Raven’s horde could have found me is if the boundaries between worlds are tottering. That could only happen if Vasyllia is on the verge of falling to the Raven.” Voran must have looked more confused than usual, because Tarin smiled in spite of his fear. “Yes, my boy, Vasyllia is far more important than you realize. It hides a secret that may determine the fate of all the Realms, not just this one. Promise me, my boy. No matter what happens, you must not let Vasyllia perish. Even if it has already fallen, you must win it back. At whatever cost!”

  His eyes were on fire now, and Voran was truly afraid for the first time in his life. His restlessness, his desire to quest, his wish to make a name in the world—all that vanished. He knew, with the conviction of someone on the doorstep of death, that he was not ready to face the Raven and his darkness.