A Choir of Lies

by Alexandra Rowland

  The problem is, there are people who had bought one or two bulbs early on, like Emile, when prices were relatively cheap, and who, unlike Emile, had made a fortune (and then spent the fortune) selling the futures contract for the flower that now rotted in their garden. As I told Ambassador Kha’ud, we honor every contract that had been made with us directly. We gave back every penny they’d paid. But the vast majority of contracts were ones that hadn’t been made with us—perhaps as many as two-thirds.

  Yet we honor as many of them as we can.

  Days have passed, and the pamphlets trade hands as fast as the futures contracts had, and people come to our offices by the score with their palms outstretched. Not once have we turned anyone away. And we must be making a difference—we must.

  Sterre has dismissed her employees (granting them each a comfortable lump sum and glowing references, sending most of them to her rivals with personal recommendations), sold her properties, and gotten rid of everything she could possibly get rid of, all to fill the palms of the people whose pockets we’ve picked.

  She does it whenever I ask. She pays whoever I tell her to pay.

  The sickness sweeps across the flowers in the city. Every day more and more of them fall to the black-speckling illness.

  People don’t care anymore that it is beautiful. They try to isolate their gardens, to no avail. Inevitably, a flower takes on a tint of yellow, and then folk come to us to demand their money back—that knowledge spreads at the same rate as the disease.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  I’ve stopped dreaming.368 I don’t remember which was the first night I slept straight through, but as we heal the city, my guilt, I suppose, lessens its grip on my sleeping mind.

  I don’t know what to think of it, if anything. Surely it was nothing, but—well. The coincidence, that the dreams would start when they did, and then stop when they did. It’s a little convenient, isn’t it?369

  Yesterday I walked Arenza back to the Rose and Ivy, after handing out the last of the five thousand pamphlets. I’d tried to start several conversations with her, but she didn’t seem terribly interested in talking. She’s always on the edges of things, always watching, always listening. Always paying attention. I think she’ll be a good Chant one day, a better one than me, probably. A different one than me and my Chant, certainly.

  “Thanks for your help, these last few days,” I said.

  “Of course. Thank you for the lessons.”

  “Lessons? I don’t remember saying anything that you wouldn’t have already learned from your mistress.”

  “Sometimes a lesson affirms something you already know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like caution. Like resisting impulsiveness. Like thinking before you speak, and looking before you jump. I’d rather do things slowly and properly.” She seems so cold sometimes when she says things like that. I think she must be very methodical and cerebral about these things, which is strange to me. So much of Chanting for me is feelings.

  When we arrived, Mistress Chant was sitting on the tongue of her wagon in the innyard, tuning a lute, inasmuch as a lute can be tuned. “Evening, Chant,” she said. “Care to sit for a while?”

  I sat, and Arenza drifted away, wordless, as was her wont. Mistress Chant eyed her as she went. “She talk to you at all?” she asked, when Arenza was out of earshot.

  “Not much.”

  “Hm.” She went back to tuning. “Perhaps it’s just teenage melancholy and I have no reason to worry.”

  “She’s unusually . . . serious,” I said, careful and tactful. “She’s, what, sixteen? Gods know I was nothing like that at her age.”

  “What were you like?”

  “Excitable. I loved everybody I clapped eyes on. It was stupid of me. My master always used to say so.”

  Mistress Chant plucked a few notes on the lute and frowned, making some adjustments. “People will tell a lot of secrets to someone who loves them,” she said. Another few notes, and a sigh. “Arenza will make do with whatever path she chooses. If she chooses.”

  “You think she might not stick with Chanting?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe, maybe not. She’s got that bloodless way about her.” Mistress Chant shook her head. “I’d worry, sending her out all on her own. Perhaps I’ll see how she feels about being set up at one of the universities. Thorikou, maybe, or Akang or Khabi or Ahz-Jarea. It might suit her better. She likes facts.”

  “Is there such a thing? Really?”

  Mistress Chant gave me a half-smile, which nearly sent me stumbling with shock. “At Khabi and Ahz-Jarea, I have heard there are people counting the stars.”

  “Stars die from time to time. The number is not constant.” I paused. “She’d need passion to count the stars,” I said. “It would involve a lot of sleepless nights. You don’t do that for something unless you really care about it.”

  She sighed and plucked out a few phrases of a melody. “So how about that story?”

  “Which one?”

  “Yours. The one you promised me.”

  “It’s not over yet. I want to see it play out before I start telling you.”

  “As long as you remember your promise,” she said mildly.

  “I won’t forget. You’ll get the whole thing.”

  “Whole and true.”

  “Yes,” I said impatiently. “I keep promises. Whole, and true, and real.” And . . . that was the moment that I had the idea to give her this, this stack of pages with my heart spilled on them.

  To give you this, Sister-Chant. 370

  Hello. 371

  Sorry.372

  I expect you’re angry.373

  I just wanted to explain, and you did want the true story, and there’s not much that I can do to tell you more truth than things I said alone in the dark when I thought no one would ever hear them but me.374

  I’ll tell you the rest now, tell you the things I forgot to say aloud, or that I kept secret.375

  See, we were sitting there having the first friendly conversation we’d ever had, and something in my head crashed into something else and all of a sudden I asked, “Are you fond of bright colors?” I thought you must be, by the clothes you wear and the colors of your cart.376

  You sort of shrugged and replied, “Personally? I have no feelings either way. But I, at least, feel some obligation to my duties as a Chant.” You eyed my threadbare coat. “You ought to wear the clothes Mevrol de Waeyer gave you. Those were nice. Chantly.”

  Of course I already knew you disapproved—I don’t care as much now as I used to. Sorry, but I don’t. Clothes don’t have anything to do with it, not really. They’re just one tool out of many. Perhaps I worded the question wrong when I asked, “What do your clothes have to do with your duties?” I meant to ask about your clothes specifically. What do they mean to you, Sister-Chant?

  “The ancient Chants,” you said. “Did your master neglect this as well? The ancient ones used to wear bright colors and light fires to attract Shuggwa’s attention, to draw it on themselves, since they were the favored ones, rather than letting his Eye fall onto their village-folk and bring calamity. They used to sing, and dance naked, and swear, and talk loudly.”

  “I know. You’re trying to live as the ancient Chants did?”

  “That’s how my line has taught our apprentices for four thousand years. Discipline. We were always priests.”

  “But Shuggwa faded when the Chants and their people came to the Issili Islands and Kaskinen.”

  “So?”

  This probably seems silly—I know you were here for this whole conversation, and I know you must remember it as clearly as I do, but bear with me. I want it to be fresh in your mind.377

  “So those lands have nearly nothing of his power, just ghosts and memories—”

  “And how does it matter how much power the god has left? The Chants were priests. There are other places in this world that have gods that faded too, or were forgotten, or were never real in the way Shuggwa was real. But
people still pray, don’t they? Whether or not your god can physically take you by the throat and drown you isn’t relevant. That’s not the important part. So why should it matter that Shuggwa faded when Arthwend sank and we floated away from the seat of his power? Why should we abandon him?”

  I shrugged and picked at the hem of my sleeve. “My master never seemed to care. He didn’t think it was important, so I never learned to think it was important either.”

  “You could learn if you wanted to,” you said.

  “How? The only people who know about that are the Chants, and if the rest of them are like you, then I guess I’ll never find out anything for real.”

  You snarled. “Fine. You want information. You don’t have to torture it out of me.”

  “I’m not torturing anything out of you. I was just making conversation.”

  “You worship Shuggwa by drawing his Eye, by performing or seducing his attention. He’s not a difficult god to please, but he is capricious and elusive and, most important, easily bored.”

  I shook my head. “Really, you don’t have to.”

  “The ancient Chants used to experience visitations from time to time. They’d sight him in the marshes, or he might appear on the other side of their fire, always just out of reach, but undeniable and impossible to dismiss. He traps people lost in the swamp.”

  My breath caught in my throat at that. It catches again, writing it down now. You know everything I know by this point. You probably spotted it before I did. You’re more experienced than I am, and you’re looking at it laid out all at once. You’ll have to forgive me for not seeing it before. I was . . . distracted, and I didn’t have all the information:378

  “If a village experienced a lot of misfortune, then it suggested their Chant wasn’t very good—they hadn’t done their job properly, and someone else had caught Shuggwa’s attention. He’s a god of shadow. He plucked out his own eye and placed it in the heavens so he could watch eternally. He wore a long fisherman’s cloak made of rushes, with a wide woven hat to shadow his face, and he sits in a boat that moves without rowing or poling. And he is attended by his servant, the bird Ksadir.”

  My breath had not just caught but ceased entirely. You didn’t seem to notice. “What kind of a bird?”

  “A gold-feathered cormorant.”

  “I see,” I said.

  My Chant must have told me all that. He must have, and I just forgot. Perhaps it was when I first started off on my travels with him; perhaps it was once when I was sick and feverish, or perhaps he told me when I was tired and on the edge of sleep. There’s no other option. There are still tales of Skukua in Kaskinen, the impish trickster that Shuggwa became when he faded. I can believe that people have met him from time to time. Perhaps the ancient Chants’ people, like Ylf and Tofa, had mud on their boots when they came out of Arthwend—earth and water, just enough to bring a whisper of him with them into new lands. But those places, those lingering whispers, are half the world away. If I were in Kaskinen, I might believe that I’d . . .

  But I would never be in Kaskinen.

  It doesn’t matter now anyway, because the dreams have stopped.

  But was it real? Possibly? It can’t be, can it? Can it? How could it? Magic is tied to earth and water, and how much earth and water would you have to bring to Heyrland from Kaskinen to get enough to—

  Oh. Earth and water. Who would bring earth and water from Kaskinen? Who would box it up and ship it across the sea to a brand-new land? And how would they do that, and why? Except . . . When you bring shipments of flowers, with the earth and water clumped to their roots. When you plant them and let them thrive.379

  Shit. And now it’s too late. The dreams—or whatever they were—have stopped.

  I left abruptly after that, and you probably thought it rude of me,380 but I was . . . preoccupied. I walked home to the Sun’s Rest, looking to the north every chance I got, looking at the Eye of Shuggwa hanging low in the sky, mostly blocked by the houses, biting my lip and wondering and wondering.

  If I’d been paying attention. If I’d told you about the dreams, or if I’d taken them more seriously. If I’d given any thought at all to that feeling of missing something just in the corner of my eye.

  I spoke to him in the dreams. I could have spoken to him better if I’d known.

  “Shuggwa,” I whispered, looking at his Eye. “Shuggwa,” I called again.

  I felt nothing, not even a chill. He was out of reach, and my heart ached with regret. It should have been one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, like the dragon-hatching in Xereccio, a wonder and a treasure that a Chant holds most precious in their heart.

  That was something real.

  And I was stupid, and I missed my chance.

  He pulled me out of the swamp. He saved me from drowning. He sat with me in silence. He was there at the auction when I was behaving as an ancient Chant would have, in bright clothes and with the attention of thousands on me and—and, fuck, he was there that morning with my lover, when I was acting unlike myself. Consider—that sensation of the rising-and-ebbing tide I’d felt, the way the story twisted on my tongue, regardless of my intended words, the way I looked to the corner of the room and found myself surprised that it was empty.

  Stupid, stupid Ylfing! I expect you’re saying the same, Mistress Chant, that you’ve been saying so all along. I expect you have all kinds of advice. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.

  I still need to see the end of the story, and then . . . something. Then something.

  * * *

  368. Suspicious coincidence, which means it’s not a coincidence.

  369. Exactly!

  370. Gods damn you, Chant! This was premeditated!

  371. No!

  372. You’d better be, because I’m going to wring your neck if our paths cross again.

  373. Oh, you know, only a little.

  374. Fine. All right. (Coward, Chant. Where is the self-possession you had when you stood up in front of that audience of thousands at Stroekshall?) I’m almost finished here, and I’ve made the best of what you’ve given me. Might as well stick it out for the last bit. It’s nearly dawn, and I’ve been at this all night.

  375. About fucking time.

  376. This is a little creepy, having you addressing me. Like I was looking at a painting or a statue and suddenly it turned to face me. I preferred it the other way.

  377. Okay, yes, this is unsettling as hell. I was just about to scribble something about that. But fine! You have my attention.

  378. Fair points. Too lost among the trees to see the forest. Next time, try to be sharper and quicker. You won’t have me to spell things out for you.

  379. And you—you had a flower in your attic room, right above Orfeo’s.

  380. Eh. Faintly irritating. I’ve gotten used to you haring off in the middle of things.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Sterre has been reduced to bankruptcy, but our work has kept the city breathing. People are upset, but the money is flowing, and no one is starving. The flood of people demanding repayment slowed to a trickle, then a drip. Yesterday we didn’t have any at all.

  And now, I let out a breath that I’ve been holding for three weeks, since I gave the first pamphlet to the first former customer.

  Sterre has no more offices. She has no more table at the Rojkstraat. She has no more frothing lace at her collar and cuffs, no more fine fabrics stylishly draped. Everything has gone to repay the city.

  When I found her today, she was sitting in her empty warehouse with a bottle of extremely cheap brandy. Her clothes were old and shabby, secondhand at best (perhaps third-hand); her hair was mussed, and she once again had several days’ worth of stubble on her cheeks. She’d sold all her jewels but one, the amber ring she always wore. Between every draft from the bottle, she’d look down at it and twist it around her finger.

  “I don’t have any more money,” she said as soon as she saw me. “I don’t have anything but the clothes on my back and—�
�� She raised her hand with the ring. “This. Can’t get rid of this, so don’t ask me to. I won’t do it.”

  “I won’t ask you to.”

  “It’s my dead wife’s wedding ring.”

  “I definitely won’t ask you to, then.”

  “She died in a shipwreck.”

  “I’m very sorry. You should keep it.”

  She drank. She said nothing for a long time.

  “Did it matter?” she grunted. “Did it really make any difference what we did?”

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “It did. I’m glad that you cooperated with me—I know it was a very hard choice to make, but you redeemed yourself these past weeks. You did everything you could, which is not something that most people can say truly.”

  “I don’t know why I fucking did that,” she said. She drank deep from her flask. “I don’t know how I let you and that vrouw convince me. Why not just take the money and leave the city? I could have bought a house on the river in Tash. I could have just walked away. And yet—” She glared at me, pointed at me with one finger from the hand holding the flask. “And yet somehow I listen to you instead. How old are you, twenty?”

  “Thereabouts, yes,” I said.

  “Gods. You’re so young,” she spat. “And so full of fucking idealism. Tell me true: how’d you convince me?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t, really. I think you mostly convinced yourself. There were things that mattered, and those were the things in danger. At the end of the day, you’re a good and honorable person, and you made a mistake.”

  “I should have just walked away with the cash.”

  “Maybe. But you didn’t. You stayed, because you have connections here.”

  She snorted. “Connections! You can buy connections if you’re rich enough. You don’t need them.”

  “Not business connections. You stayed because you cared. Because Heyrland is your home, and the people here are your friends and neighbors. You never wanted to cheat them. You wouldn’t do that. You have a community here, and you knew that walking away would mean hurting people in that community. And you wouldn’t do that. I know you wouldn’t.”