Great Octave’s estate, Singing City,
Pechacan, Empire of Songs
159th day of the Great Star at morning
The guard had remained outside their door all night, while a second stood watch by their window. The same young girl slave brought them fruit and steamed buns at dawn, and then they were left alone as the morning brightened and the rains came and then the afternoon began to fade.
It was new moon, the day of offerings, and Tayan thought – hoped, prayed – that Enet might have forgotten them. The estate had been busy all day, slaves rushing through the gardens with their heads down even further than usual, moving with a speed born of terror. Would Enet choose one of them as her so-called offering to the Drowned?
The song was exultant, seeming to build in a crescendo to a climax that never arrived – or perhaps was constant. Tayan found himself tapping his fingers or feet to it as the day wore on. The garden visible through the window was an immaculate profusion of flowers and plants that attracted butterflies, tiny frogs, and many-hued hummingbirds. Not a petal, not a leaf was out of place. So perfect it was a parody of nature, as their tiny, strangled strips of jungle between expanses of farmland were a parody. The balance demanded each creature lived in harmony, not taking more than it needed, not exhausting the soil or the game. The Pechaqueh either didn’t understand that most basic of necessities, or they thought themselves immune to its consequences. Slaves and cleared jungle, monkeys in cages and sacrifices to the Drowned – the Pechaqueh were so far out of balance that only catastrophe could set them right.
When Enet finally came to fetch them, Tayan wondered for one arse-clenching second whether catastrophe had found him. It wasn’t just her own slaves the Great Octave could choose from, after all. ‘Honoured guests,’ she said, smooth as honey as if the previous night’s confrontation had never happened, ‘it is time. Please come with me.’
A child, a boy of perhaps nine, scampered ahead of her. He had the monkey from the cage in the gardens on a thin, supple leash and was pulling it along. It opened its mouth to screech and Tayan saw its canines had been pulled out. He shuddered.
Betsu was silent and obedient, again draping the gifted shawl around her, and Tayan was immediately suspicious, though of course he wore his own as well. They followed Enet and the boy and his monkey out of the house towards the litter. ‘Can I walk, Mother?’ the child asked and Enet smiled.
‘Of course, Pikte. But keep the monkey under control, will you? I won’t have you running off after it again. If it gets free this time, that will be the last you see of it, understand?’
The boy pursed his lips in consideration. ‘That’s all right. I saw the other one you got. I’m going to teach them both to dance!’
‘The other monkey is for your father, that’s why I haven’t put it in your pet’s cage,’ Enet said as she climbed into the litter. The peace-weavers followed her in, ducking so their new crowns of turkey feathers, more lavish than the previous ones, didn’t scuff the roof. Tayan was mortified; of course Enet would show off her son after what Betsu had claimed the previous night. Shame twisted in him and he wished, for what felt like the hundredth time, that the Yaloh had sent anyone else but her.
‘Is the Singer allowed a monkey?’ Pikte asked and Tayan’s neck cracked, he twisted so fast to look at Enet. Pikte was the Singer’s son?
‘I am Great Octave now, Pikte. And I would never do anything against the will of the holy lord or to hurt him. You know that. Now keep hold of that monkey, remember.’
The gates swung open and slave warriors hurried out first, clearing a path through the crowd. The litter followed, Pikte and what had to be the boy’s personal bodyguard to its left, and then more guards around and behind them. Last came a tight knot of slaves with their eyes down and their shoulders hunched. They stank of fear.
The limestone road was heavy with traffic, all heading in the same direction. Dozens and then scores and then hundreds of people, and several litters with groups of slaves behind them. The rain had stopped and the sun was slanting through breaks in the cloud, great bands of light that lay across fields and city like veins of gold in rock.
The rain had washed away the smell of so much humanity and there was a hint of night-blooming flowers from some of the gardens. Egrets flew above them, seeming to follow the slow-moving procession – towards what Enet had called the Blessed Water. If not for their destination, Tayan would have delighted in the festival atmosphere.
They reached that wide expanse of dirt, now churning to mud, and the river at its end. More people now, and on the other side too, pressing close to the water. Pechaqueh and free were relaxed, happy, even excited. Anyone wearing undyed maguey, though, stood in mute and cowering dread.
And we are here to bear witness. The shaman gave Betsu a warning look; the Yalotl licked her lips and fidgeted. The brightness of her skin had dulled, flesh pulled taut over the bones of her face. She was afraid.
Pikte ran ahead to a small group of Pechaqueh children, squealing happily, the monkey clinging to his shoulder. Enet smiled. ‘Youngsters,’ she said with affection. ‘Every new moon the same, treating this sacred event as a game.’
‘Yes, I like to play with my friends when we’ve sacrificed innocents to monsters,’ Betsu said, but the words were toothless. Enet didn’t even acknowledge her.
‘Come, friends. As we are blessed with wealth and status, we repay the holy Setatmeh who have so granted us this rich life. We have an offering to make, and so we will take our places at the water’s edge.’
She exited the litter and beckoned; six slave guards surrounded the three of them, and four more herded along Enet’s own slaves. Tayan recognised some of their faces and wondered whether any of them would be the offering.
‘Will the Singer be here?’ he asked, trotting to catch up with Enet.
‘No. The song-magic is tied to place; the Singer must remain within the source. He has a private offering pool, of course, and will honour the gods if any visit him.’ The Great Octave glanced at Tayan almost fondly. ‘Have you decided what you will do, then?’
He and Betsu had done little other than talk about Enet’s ultimatum and the potential ways they might combat it, or at least soften it into a form their people could live with. He tried to focus on that now, as the scent of the river grew in his nostrils and the ground, already soft from the Wet, grew muddier. ‘We … have not. Perhaps we might talk after this, this ritual’ – Tayan almost choked on the word – ‘is completed?’
But Enet was no longer listening. They had reached the front of the crowd and the river was only a dozen strides away. The shaman stopped abruptly when he saw it, and had to fight down a scream and the urge to run when he saw the Drowned. Five, eight, nine, eleven and then more, Lesser and Greater, their heads breaking the river’s skin one after the other. The crowd fell into rapturous silence.
Tayan, peace-weaver and shaman, called the stargazer, felt his spine turn to liquid and he realised with a bitter incredulity that he’d never believed it. Somehow, despite everything, every indication to the contrary, he hadn’t actually thought they would do it. That they could do it. He hadn’t thought them capable. Cruel and indifferent, yes. Manipulative, definitely. But not actually, really capable of it.
And then Enet stepped forward in all her glory as Great Octave, enormous headdress of feather and jade and precious stones perched atop her head, so large that she had not been able to wear it in the litter. There were blue stripes on her kilt, as if she were a shaman who could commune with the gods. But then, perhaps she could. She believed the monsters in the water were gods, after all. She raised her arms and faced the river and the Drowned glided closer.
One’s head broke the water completely and Tayan saw the bulge of its throat sac inflating. He tensed to run, knowing he wouldn’t make it out of earshot in time but unable to do anything else, but instead of a song, it uttered a trill, almost birdlike, almost inquisitive. Tayan’s breath stopped in his chest. The sound had no power over him; it commanded nothing. Instead, it … asked. It was an enquiry. And he could almost understand it. Fascination warred with revulsion, curiosity confined to this one thing to the exclusion of all else.
The Pechaqueh can talk to them? Is this a skill to be learnt? Is this … Enet’s ultimatum included the prohibition on killing Drowned. That was the condition that no Toko would agree to. But what if I could speak to them? If I could learn their language …
The Drowned trilled again and beckoned, blinking heavy, clear lids over liquid-black eyes. It cocked its head.
Tayan had never seen such behaviour. No eja had ever reported such things. In Tokoban they were monsters who killed without thought or mercy. Predators, pure and simple. But so are dogs if left to roam wild.
His breath stuttered.
They can be tamed.
‘Holy Setatmeh, you wise gods of rivers and lakes, you who command the rain to fall and the crops to grow, we honour you.’ Enet’s voice was loud and carrying and all around her Pechaqueh were advancing, their arms raised in supplication. It dragged Tayan’s mind back to the ritual, breaking his feverish, fascinated reverie. All along the banks of the river, elite members of the city repeated her words.
‘Sacred spirits who guard the world spirit, who have been blessed with the long life of your kind, who have known this world and now the world of song, who hold the world spirit in your hearts and who trace back in unbroken lineage to the first Singer, Tenaca herself, we worship you. We honour you. If you call, we will come. If you yearn, we will respond. If you ask, we will answer.’
Enet paused and a thrum of ecstatic fear lanced through the crowd and drove the air from Tayan’s lungs. She was asking them to sing! She wanted them to. Curiosity was replaced by primal fear once again, the switch in emotions so rapid Tayan nearly staggered. Betsu appeared at his side and gripped his hand in hers, her warrior’s callouses so like Lilla’s that it stole him from the horror of the moment and into a memory – the first time Lilla had taken his hand, gentle and nervous, and the kiss he’d pressed to Tayan’s knuckles. The shaman drew in a shuddering breath, so deep his lungs ached. In, out. Just his breath and the picture of Lilla in his mind. Carved upon his heart.
Get a fucking grip, Tayan. Watch and learn. Think.
Three slaves brushed past him, dragging a fourth who walked with vacant eyes and mind, stumbling as if drunk.
‘You gods of waters and of fields, you children of the world spirit and ancestors of our great Singer, our holy lord, we do you honour and reverence. Accept this offering, and go in peace.’ Enet took the slave by the arm – the clean, unblemished, exquisitely dressed slave who cried silently but made no move to free herself – and walked forward into the river.
‘Fuck,’ Betsu breathed and Tayan’s hand spasmed on hers, clenching hard. What was this? Was the Great Octave sacrificing herself as well? The song seemed to swell in his veins, to caress his heart, whispering its greatness and its glory to his body, not his mind.
The Drowned who had … spoken, glided closer to the pair and made another noise, almost a chirp this time. But Tayan felt this one, in balls and bones. An imperative. Give. It was then and only then that the slave began to struggle. She let out a single high-pitched scream and turned for the shore.
It was too late. The Drowned rose up, as tall as Enet, who flinched despite herself. It wrapped a long-taloned hand around the slave’s screaming face and pulled her against its chest. It did this without looking; it was looking at Enet. It chirped again, the same imperative, and Tayan could have sworn it was amused.
The Great Octave’s chest heaved and she stumbled in the water, half a step towards it, and then stopped. Cords stood out in her neck. ‘Holy god,’ she croaked. ‘Ask and we shall answer.’
The Drowned paused, considering her as the slave continued to struggle, pushing against its slick grey-green skin. Blood was sheeting down her face from the claws in her cheek. Considering whether to take Enet instead. Then it wrenched the slave’s head back and tore out her throat with its teeth, blood spraying high into the evening and splattering into the Great Octave’s face. It arced backwards into the water, taking the dying woman with it, throwing up a great splash of blood and river-water that drenched Enet.
The Great Octave put her hands on her knees, her belly undulating as she sucked in air. Three great breaths, and she straightened again. ‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of rivers and of rain, of crops and of life, we honour you. Go in peace under the song. Until we meet again.’ Her voice was high and girlish, thick with the aftermath of terror.
‘Go in peace under the song. Until we meet again.’ The people surrounding the peace-weavers chanted the words, and Enet walked out of the river slowly. Her face was speckled with blood, her tunic and kilt plastered to her skin with water. Up and down the Blessed Water, Drowned took slaves, one after the other, their screams ringing thin and piteous with distance, with hopelessness. With the betrayal of those who had been promised peace and wealth and stability within the Empire of Songs.
The same peace and wealth and stability Enet had offered Tokob and Yaloh.
Betsu’s grip on Tayan’s hand tightened and he jerked convulsively and faced her, almost dizzy with adrenaline and conflicting emotions. ‘We run,’ she breathed. ‘There is no reasoning with such madness. Tonight, Tayan, when they sleep. We fucking run.’
It was dark and it was still. After the ritual there had been a celebration. As the Drowned feasted, so did their worshippers, though the meat in this case had been turkey, dog, and lizard. Baskets of food, firewood, mats had been brought to the bank of the river, and there, in sight and sound and song of the Drowned, the people of the Singing City had celebrated.
Now, hours later, the house was quiet with the aftermath of death and feast and Tayan and Betsu crouched in each other’s shadow and whispered.
‘What do you mean you’re not coming? Are you moon-mad? Didn’t you see what they did?’
Tayan allowed that it was quite possible he was moon-mad. But as the feast had progressed and they had been completely ignored by their host and everyone else – as they had, in fact, been left more in the company of slaves than free – he hadn’t been able to tear his mind away from what he’d seen.
Tayan had only seen a Drowned up close once before, one of the lesser, smaller variety. Child-sized. As a walker upon the spiral path, he had thought the journey-magic might give him the same immunity as the spirit-magic and that, with its power wrapped around him and a spirit guide at his side, he could observe the Drowned up close. Try and find a weakness. He had drummed for his guide, Old Woman Frog, and then he had walked towards the Swift Water, Eja Billa reluctant at his side. She had been there to protect him, and she had. With her life.
Tayan’s fingers trailed along the claw scars that ran from thigh almost to ankle. The Drowned – the child-sized, less dangerous Drowned – had given him these in the second before they realised the journey-magic did nothing to stop his ears. He’d fallen and lain there, blood pumping from his leg and venom coursing through his body, as Billa was eviscerated in front of him. Her dog had done its duty and dragged Tayan, not her, to safety. And she was dead. Because of him.
So yes, moon-mad was probably an accurate description. And yet …
‘I will stand no more of this. We are leaving. Now. We were weeks on the road here and will be weeks back again, trekking through the Wet. It’s time to leave.’
‘And do what? Tell our councils we’ve failed?’
Betsu blinked, astonished. ‘Yes. That’s exactly what we do. And why? So we can form a fucking defence! So we can plan! We do nothing here but aid our enemies by delaying our return to the people who need to know that we’ll be fighting.’ She jerked her thumb at her own chest. ‘I’ll not die a slave in this place. I’ll not serve these people knowing I didn’t do everything I possibly could to save us all. This was a fool’s errand and so it has proved. Who are we to negotiate with an Empire that has stolen the land, livelihoods, and identities of so many? They may sweep over us eventually, but I’ll not stand by without a weapon in my hand and watch them do it.’
She grabbed a blanket from the bed pillows and fastened it around her throat as a cloak against the weather. She ignored the shawl Enet had gifted her. ‘We can win, Tayan. I truly believe that. So I’m going to make sure we do. Are you coming?’
Tayan pressed his lips together and then shook his head. Betsu didn’t even blink. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘I’m no warrior and I don’t have your stamina. I can’t keep up, and I can’t see well enough – you know how I was on the way here, and that was moving at an easy pace.’ He held up his hands. ‘But you should go. I’m going to agree to their terms. I’m going to say that if they return after the Wet, we’ll accept the song. No, listen – it’s just about delaying them now. I’m going to give you as much time as I can. If Malel is watching me, I pray she’ll make me convincing. If I am, they’re going to come to Yalotlan as builders and administrators, not warriors. Kill them all, because it’ll be bloody after that and it’s the best I’ll be able to give you.’
She did react at that, gave him a slow, approving nod. ‘You’re a good shaman and a good peace-weaver, Tayan,’ she said, surprising him, ‘but you’re no fighter; if they put the brand on you, there’ll be nothing you can do to stop them.’
‘Then make sure you come back here and rescue me,’ he said, only half joking. Acid swirled in his stomach and the urge to go with her was growing every second.
‘Arm the farmers and shamans and artisans; train everyone,’ he emphasised in a low voice. ‘But don’t move into the stolen land – not yet. No actions that can get back here to put the lie to what I’m going to tell Enet.’
Betsu sucked her teeth and then growled in frustration. ‘I agree. But make it convincing, or you’ll be the next one thrown to those fucking Drowned.’
Tayan felt sick, but he pushed it down. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something to get away. In a, a month or so.’ She nodded and tears pricked suddenly at his eyes. ‘And tell Lilla … tell my husband I’m sorry and I love him and I’ll see him soon.’
‘Well,’ Betsu murmured. ‘Turns out you’re braver than you look after all. Ancestors guide you.’
‘And you. Under the—’ he paused, both of them aware of what he’d been about to say. ‘It really does get into your head, doesn’t it?’ he finished weakly.
Betsu gave him another of her inscrutable stares and then left. Just went, no more words, no supplies or weapons, just a blanket around her shoulders and through the window into the night.
Tayan knew the guards wouldn’t see her if she didn’t want to be seen. He sat on the bed, lower lip caught between his teeth. Around him, the song pulsed and arced. More and more, he’d found himself caught up in it, drifting away on its liquid seduction. It lived inside him, a watchful, ever-present thing coiled in his guts that never got any quieter or more distant, or louder or closer. It didn’t react to worries or fears or joys but instead inhabited them, so everything was experienced alongside and through the song. It was just there, heard not with the ears but the whole body, a musical resonance stringing through his soul and connecting it to something bigger, wider.
He wondered for a second if it was anything like how Xessa experienced the world, how she could turn suddenly and know he was there, even though she couldn’t hear him, as if the wind or the earth had told her of his secret approach. As if her skin tasted him.
It’s as if there’s a message in the song that I can’t quite understand. The same as with the Drowned. If I can learn their language, I can understand them. I could weave a peace with the Drowned.
The audacity of the idea, the scale of it, took his breath away. But if he could do it, if he could take this knowledge back home, then once the war was over, everything, everything could change.
If he could get Enet to tell him the origins of the song and the link between it and the Drowned … She said they were the Singer’s ancestors, he remembered as the memory slid from behind the horror of the slave’s death. She said all the way back to the first Singer in unbroken line …
Understanding the song was the key to it all. The song and the Drowned, the songstone, the magic. Understand the song; learn the language of the Drowned. This was his purpose. Deceive the Great Octave about the war and then get her to open up about their magic. Easy. Tayan snorted and lay back, listening to the rain drumming on the roof. Scents drifted in from the garden and reminded him of home.
Grief welled in him, homesick and heartsick and missing Lilla and Xessa. He wondered even now if he could catch up with Betsu and knew he could not. But he would be lying if he pretended there wasn’t a seed of excitement in his belly, too.
For good or ill, now, he was walking this trail to its end.
‘Good morning, Great Octave. I trust you slept well?’
Enet managed a reasonably sincere smile when he entered, but it faltered when Betsu didn’t follow him in for dawnmeal. ‘The Yalotl is unwell?’
Tayan knelt at the table and helped himself to fruit, noting with distant indifference that his hand was shaking. ‘We accept your offer. After the Wet, when you return to Yalotlan and then Tokoban, we will lay down our weapons. We will embrace the song.’
Perhaps she had not expected it. Perhaps she had taken them to see a woman eaten by monsters in the hope of provoking a war that would benefit her in some mysterious way, Tayan didn’t know. What he did know was that the Great Octave, Spear of the City, was speechless.
Tayan ate the fruit while she studied him, the initial shock quickly hidden behind a neutral, calculating mask. ‘I see. Then allow me to welcome you under the song, Peace-weaver Tayan. And yet you have not answered my question. Where is the Yalotl?’
‘Of course. Betsu is returning home. When we agreed that this was the best – the only – way forward to preserve some tiny remnant of our culture and heritage, we agreed that one of us should take the news back as soon as possible. Of the two of us, the warrior is the natural choice.’
A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. ‘And that necessitated leaving in the night, in the rain?’
Tayan helped himself to cornbread, though it was too thick and chewy and bile rose in his throat. He made himself swallow. ‘Betsu was distressed by the events at the river, Great Octave. She was angry – you have seen how her temper ignites. Though the agreement sits ill with her, once it was made, she refused to remain here any longer. I am sorry that she did not bid you farewell. I hope you can forgive her haste.’
Tayan’s skin crawled at the length of the silence that unfurled, at Enet’s serpent-stillness. ‘My slaves did not inform me she had asked to leave.’ She still hadn’t blinked.
Tayan’s shrug was elaborate as he chewed more tasteless cornbread. ‘Betsu is a skilled warrior; I doubt they were even aware she had left the estate. But again, I apologise on her behalf.’
Fury flashed across Enet’s face and just as swiftly vanished. And then she ran her finger down her jaw, her throat, and into the open neck of her tunic. ‘And yet you have stayed with me,’ she purred and Tayan nearly choked on the bread. Enet was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, and if she lived in the Sky City he’d have thrown himself at her feet long before and begged for her favour. But as displays of power went, it was crude and ineffective – mostly.
‘I have. We thought that the more I could learn about your society, and particularly the song and the Drown— the holy Setatmeh, the better. As I know you can appreciate, there will be much resistance to the outcome of this peace-weaving. The more I know, the better equipped I will be to answer any questions.’
They watched each other, like snake and rat. There was no mistaking which one was Tayan. ‘You wish to know even more of our society?’ she asked eventually.
‘I wish to know of the song and the holy Setatmeh, Great Octave.’ Tayan spread his hands and looked at her with complete honesty. ‘I want to know all about them.’
‘Interesting,’ Enet murmured. She gestured at the table. ‘Eat. I have business in the great pyramid today, but perhaps we shall speak more on my return.’
‘Under the song,’ Tayan said, but she had already left.