Inali just grunted and went back to work. With deliberate care, he brought the piece of charcoal in his good hand down across the parchment with short, stiff strokes. Birdie lowered herself beside him, but he gave no further acknowledgement of her presence, and now that she was here, she wasn’t sure how to begin what she wanted to say. So for the moment, they sat in silence, while he drew, and she fingered the pommel of Artair’s sword.
In the end, he spoke first.
“What is it like, little Songkeeper, to hear the desperate voices of all around you singing the forgotten notes of a dying song?” He blinked up at her, then directed his attention back to the parchment and the face forming beneath his hand. “To listen to the music of the heart and see into the depths of men’s souls?” His soft voice took on a hypnotic cadence, and Birdie felt herself drawn forward to catch each word. “It is frightening, is it not? Overwhelming. You stand on the brink of the gap between mankind and something so vast and unfathomable, you cannot even begin to imagine. Surely you feel it—feel your own smallness and insignificance before it.”
“It?”
A pair of shadowed eyes stared up from the parchment. As she watched, Inali darkened the corners and edges, but used the tip of his finger to brush a clear strip of white through the center—a reflection of light. “It. The power. It does not care about you. You will discover that.”
He fell silent then, devoting his attention to the work of his hand. This was not the conversation Birdie had anticipated, but he had asked questions and supplied the answers. That in itself told Birdie more than she would ever have gathered the courage to ask on her own.
“You heard them too—the half songs—didn’t you?”
A tightening of his hand on the charcoal was the only sign that she was on the right track. Sweeping lines of dark hair appeared on the parchment, blowing every which way about the face as if caught in the grip of a fierce breeze.
She forged ahead. “Do you still hear them?” Only because she was watching so closely was she able to see the almost imperceptible shake of his head. “What happened?” The words fell from her lips on a breath of fear, spoken half to herself and half to him.
She did not expect a reply.
With thin lines, he shadowed the face, forming the nose, highlighting the cheek bones, and coloring lips that were half opened in an expression that lingered somewhere between horror and wonder. It was some time before he finally relaxed his hand, set the charcoal aside, and lifted the parchment to survey his handiwork.
A chill settled over Birdie. She had caught glimpses of her face before—once in the watering trough in the Sylvan Swan’s stable after she had given it a good scrubbing, another time in the birch-shaded pool beside the road to Hardale. There was no doubt that the face on the parchment resembled her own, but there were slight differences. It was older than the face she remembered, older than she could look now. Stunning in a way one was not likely to forget. But there was something about the eyes that captivated her, caused her to reach out her hand and trace the line of one arching brow.
Such strength there, such confidence.
This was not the face of one with fear caged in her chest.
Inali lowered the parchment. “I was to be a Songkeeper, and then I was not, and the melody was gone. As the eldest son of my father, I was to have become Mahtem of the Sigzal tribe, and then I was not, for my sister was promised to the Matlal and given my birthright for her dowry. Now, I who was to be Mahtem am but Dah Inali, a lesser son.” He sighed and tucked the parchment into his satchel. “Things come and things go. Such is life, is it not, little Songkeeper?”
Such is life.
The unsettled feeling inspired by the thought brought Birdie to her feet, no longer able to sit still with so much stirring inside. Clutching Artair’s sword, she drifted toward the door, but troubled thoughts could not be so easily evaded. Once Inali had been well on his way to being the Songkeeper. Everyone would have heralded him as such, just as they had Birdie, and counted on him to stand against the Takhran. To save them. Just as they hoped in her.
Yet their hope in Inali had failed them.
Who was say that she was not just another Songling? Not just another “look-alike?” That in the end, she would not fail them too and be left to eke out her days in silence, her hopes ended, the melody gone. For as long as she could remember, the music had been there. She had not always understood—still did not completely comprehend it all—but she couldn’t imagine life without hearing the five notes sung by those surrounding her and constantly searching . . . searching . . . searching for another chance to hear the full, glorious melody.
Inali sat now with his eyes closed and his head tipped back, to all appearances asleep. But his tense posture gave him away.
“What of the melody, Inali?” Birdie’s voice sounded soft and scared, mouse-like. She forced herself to speak louder, stronger. “Did you ever hear the full melody?”
Without opening his eyes, he shook his head.
She drifted to the door. With her hand on the latch, it finally struck her. Hard enough that she almost dropped Artair’s sword and it took every ounce of self-control not to wheel around and stare at Inali in shock. The room was silent.
Completely silent.
Inali had no song.
Birdie slumped in one of the rickety chairs in the front room, watching fat dollops of wax roll down the candle stub and plop into a widening pool on the tabletop. The griffin still stood guard by the window, and might as well have been carved from stone for all that he had moved since she had gone to speak to Inali.
She had strained her ears to the utmost and heard nothing. Not a scrap of melody. Not even one of the five notes. Just like the woman she had seen on the way into the city. She cast her mind back, trying to recall if there had ever been anything but silence from Inali, but she had never been alone with him before. There had always been others around, enough other voices singing, or enough impending danger, that she just hadn’t noticed.
The melody was gone …
Inali’s words filled her with a shudder that she couldn’t shake. She ran a pensive hand over the clothbound length of Artair’s sword lying across her knees and longed to unleash it. Longed to relive those short, glorious moments in Brog’s donkey shed, when it had seemed as if she and the blade were one. Longed for action, for simplicity.
Since arriving in Serrin Vroi, Amos insisted that she keep the blade concealed. Regardless of its worth as a weapon prized by the Takhran, the white gold of the hilt could be enough to tempt even an honest man to thievery.
So he claimed, at least.
But Birdie wondered if he wasn’t merely afraid that her song and the blade and the strange connection between the two might somehow reveal itself in a way that would get her captured. Maybe he was right. Even now, she could feel the melody humming deep within the sword, syncing with the Song pulsing through her veins, and amplifying the soft strains of the griffin’s voice across the room. She had found that the more time she spent with someone, the easier it was to mute their song, but the sword seemed to be making that difficult, and in turn, making it difficult to focus on anything else.
It stirred her blood to action. Less than a week in their safe house, and Birdie was already beginning to feel like it was a cage. It was time to meet the Takhran on his own ground and earn the answers and freedom she desired. Time to discover her abilities. Time to prove, once and for all, that she would not wind up like Inali.
She shoved her chair back. “I’m going below, Gundhrold.”
The griffin twisted his neck almost all the way around to look at her, and his huge, golden eyes fell on her with such intensity that it seemed he could read all the fears and doubts and confusion roiling within her. “Be careful, little one.”
Birdie felt his eyes following her until she closed the door and tramped down the groaning staircase i
nto the stable. Musty straw crunched beneath her feet, and she breathed deeply of the crisp scent of fresh snow that had drifted in around the door frame and lay in patches on the ground. She halted in the middle of the room, and after removing the scabbard but leaving the cloth wrappings that bound the blade, took up a neutral guard position.
Humming softly with the blade, she ran through the basic moves, sweeping fluidly from one to the next. The Song welled up and swept over her so completely that she had little thought for anything but the music and the blade and the rhythm they shared. Only once she came to a final stop in a forward lunge, did the other sounds she had heard register: the creak of a loose board, the rustle of stealthy feet in the straw, panting breath …
She spun around.
There was no one there. But she couldn’t shake the unmistakable feeling that she was being watched. Taking deep, steady breaths, she sought to quiet her pounding heart so she could listen. Soft at first, but growing louder, she heard the discordant melody sung in a voice that sounded like cart wheels over gravel.
Behind her …
A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye. On instinct, she sprang to the side and lashed out with the sword. A yelp, and her attacker retreated and dropped into a crouch, panting. One of the Takhran’s hounds. Saliva dripped from its bared teeth, and its milky white eyes made Birdie shudder. There was hunger in its gaze.
With a wordless growl, it lunged at her.
Birdie slashed at its corded chest, felt her sword tip pierce flesh. The hound checked itself and tumbled head over tail. But it was up again and on her, faster than she could recover from her strike. She found herself scrambling backwards, barely able to keep the sword between herself and the snarling beast.
Her heels thudded against the wall.
She opened her mouth to call for Gundhrold, but the dark melody pressed in about her and seemed to drain the life from her lungs. The hound hunkered low, just beyond reach of her blade, muscles coiled to spring. She forced her gaze up, past the beast’s quivering form, spiked collar, and savage grin, and into its eyes.
Those horrible, dead-looking eyes.
It was like peering into a wall of fog—peering and drowning in it. The Song came to her then, in a whisper, and she clutched at it as if at a life line. The white fog shifted, and somehow she could see thoughts like shapes within: utter hopelessness, fear, hatred, and a longing so deep and vast it was like a yawning pit consuming the beast from the inside out.
The sword hummed in her hands, vibrations working their way up her arms, bringing with them a cold that seeped through the wrappings. A flicker of light, visible through the gaps between the strands of cloth, drew her gaze down the blade.
It was glowing.
Gently now, the Song sprang to her tongue, and she gave it voice. At the first tremulous notes, the hound’s eyes met hers. She sensed its fury and the raw hate broiling within. But there was something else too . . . something more like panic …
The hound lunged, and she thrust the blade to meet it, slicing through the spiked collar and piercing his chest. Her elbows bent before the impact. Teeth grazed her shin. She braced against the wall as the beast scrabbled to gain ground. A breath . . . two . . . With a ragged moan, the hound backed away, shaking its head and pawing at its ears, leaving its shorn collar in the straw at her feet.
A glint of red caught her eye. Wrapped in the remains of the mangled collar, lay a single red crystal, just like the one Carhartan had worn. George too. Birdie tightened her grip on the sword. It seemed she would not have to hunt down all of the answers she desired.
At least one had come to her.
The beast’s growl claimed her attention, a low rumbling deep in its throat that gradually took on words. “Who are you, little one?” He had a voice like a rockslide, but even so, there was no mistaking the hint of begrudging respect in his tone.
“I think you know who I am.” Somehow, she kept her voice steady.
“The little Songkeeper.” A snarl curled the hound’s lip. “So the rumors spoke true. I did not believe them.”
“You know me, but I still don’t know you.” She eased forward, trying to back him into the corner. The hound instantly fell into a crouch, fur bristling, muscles quivering. “I won’t hurt you.” She glanced from the tip of her sword poking through its crimson stained covering to the steady stream of blood running down the hound’s right foreleg. “Not if I don’t have to.”
“I could slay you in an instant,” he rasped. “Your neck would snap like a twig in my jaws. Better to kill me now and be done with it. There is no telling what I might do. I belong to the Takhran.”
“Maybe you don’t know who I am. I am not so easy to kill as you might think.” Bold words considering how the fear raged and tore at its bonds within her chest, threatening at any moment to break loose. Careful to keep her sword trained on him, she tilted only her chin in the direction of the crimson jewel. “What is that? The jewel in your collar. I’ve seen it before.”
The hound’s gaze flickered down to the collar, and his breath hitched in surprise. He took a wary step forward, snuffling the ground, shoulders bristling. “It is my talav. My bloodstone.” He fell silent. Some of the savagery eased from his face, and he sank back on his haunches. “You . . . you freed me from—”
He broke off, ears cocked toward the door. Before Birdie could react, he was off in a single bound, racing toward the left wall of the stable and out through a narrow gap where several boards had snapped at the base.
Gone.
The sword slipped from her shaking fingers. For a moment, she could not move, overwhelmed with the horror of what had just happened. She had just been discovered by one of the Takhran’s hounds, admitted to being the Songkeeper, wounded the beast, and then, like a complete ninny-hammered fool, allowed him to escape.
If he had gone to fetch the Khelari …
Boots stamped outside the stable door, jerking Birdie into action. She seized the sword and raced toward the staircase, her only thought to rouse Gundhrold without shouting and alerting their enemies, in case they hadn’t yet been discovered. It was a slim hope. But instead of the furious shouts of Khelari, Amos’s brusque voice and Sym’s low murmur fell on her ears, bringing her to a stop with her foot on the bottom step.
A scuffling sound drew her back to the gap in time to see the hound’s head reappear. “You may call me Renegade. Be wary little Songkeeper. You are in grave danger. We will meet again.” Then with a curl of his lip that might have been a smile—if it had not revealed so many fearsome teeth—he was gone.
Leaving Birdie alone with a bloodstained sword in her hands.
The stable door swung inward, letting Sym and Amos in with a blast of swirling snow and cold air. Puffing steam, the peddler hastened to shut and bar the door, then twisted around and shook the snow from his shoulders.
“Quick, lass. Round up the others. We’ve got trouble.”
24
Trapped in fevered sleep, Meli’s eyelids fluttered, lashes dark against the ashen pallor of her skin. Ky sat on an overturned crate at her side, aching head cradled in his cold numbed hands. In the fireplace, a sputtering fire competed against three windows to heat the drafty barracks hall they had converted into a sick chamber. The rest of the sick lay on straw pallets all around him, but he had eyes only for Meli. She had become such a frail thing, like a leaf that the wind could seize and toss away at will.
It had taken three days of rough traveling, through a country no less formidable and fierce than its inhabitants, to reach the fortress of Siranos. Three days since Chancellor Nisus had sent for the promised remedy. Ky could only hope it would arrive soon …
And that soon would be soon enough.
The clashing of weapons and barked commands drifted in from the courtyard. Never one to let the snow settle beneath his feet, Cade had reinstituted weapons practice a
nd battle drills for all who were well enough to stand. No doubt trying to impress their hosts enough to let the runners join the coming battle.
“Come away, laddy-boyo.” Paddy’s voice came from behind. “You’ve been sittin’ here for hours. A moment’s rest will do no harm.”
Ky shook his head and spared a glance at Paddy hovering over him, freckled face etched with concern. “I can’t leave her.”
“I’ll stay.” Paddy’s hands settled beneath his elbows, guiding him to his feet and across the chamber to the door, and Ky went unresisting. But rest was the farthest thing from his mind. The sounds of battle had set his own hand itching for action.
He emerged into the pale light of day, blinking until his vision cleared enough for him to see the circular courtyard and the stone buildings built in a ring along the outer wall. The fortress of Siranos consisted of two circular keeps built on twin bluffs overlooking a narrow, shallow pass, connected by an arched bridge that ran from wall-top to wall-top. At the base of the bluffs, a low breastwork guarded the entrance to the pass. A company of dwarves manned the north tower and the breastwork, leaving the south tower to the Underground.
Far above, the shrill calls of seabirds served as a reminder of the nearness of the north coast of Leira. Siranos guarded the one entrance from the ocean into the mountains. The rest of the coastline rose from the water in a row of impassable cliffs, or so Commander Jirkar had said, but just beyond sight of the fortress, the pass spread its arms around a slender inlet of the sea.
Grouped in pairs and threes across the snow heaped courtyard, the runners sparred with blunted training weapons that Cade must have “borrowed” from the keep’s armory. As Ky wove his way through dozens of mock battles, he caught a glimpse of Cade instructing Slack on sword and buckler techniques. Her eyes gleamed with a fiendish delight over the rim of her buckler, and her harsh barking laugher rang out after each stroke.
Songkeeper Page 25